Mr. Reindeer wrote:As someone who has found the overt exposition and de-mystification of stuff like the Blue Rose a tad off-putting, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the bit of backstory about Cole and Jeffries on the Lois Duffy case. It's fun (and sort of hilarious) to imagine 30-year-old Lynch and Bowie as fresh-faced FBI agents, and cool to get a teeny glimpse into their early career. I do, however, wonder how well this "Blue Rose" backstory will track when we rewatch the old show. Mostly, TP:TR has avoided the continuity pitfalls of TSHoTP by simply not making specific references to the old show, but in the case of the Blue Rose stuff, I do think it will be a tad difficult to rectify some of Cooper's actions/dialogue (particularly regarding Blue Book) with the fact that he was a member of a five-person task force directly descended from Blue Book, and with knowledge of at least some elements of the Lodge world. For instance, Coop and Cole's Episode 25 conversation about Earle's past with Blue Book doesn't quite gel. One could argue that Coop was simply feigning surprise for Harry, but this rings false to me: especially given how much top secret info they were exposing Harry to, I doubt Coop would lie about his own level of knowledge...more likely, he would say, "Harry, I have to level with you..." and confess that he knew about Earle's past but couldn't say anything in the interest of security.
I have a feeling this is one of those instances where fans will give things a lot more thought than L/F did, but my working hypothesis is this: Cole knew about Earle's Blue Book past, and also knew that Earle was too unstable for Blue Rose. However, Earle's knowledge of classified info about Blue Book's research (not to mention his own private research outside his official duties) was valuable, so Cole kept him close...and paired him with a pre-Blue Rose Coop as sort of a test, correctly guessing that Earle would view Coop (a strongly intuitive and spiritual agent) as a mentee/confidante and possibly reveal some stuff -- and how Coop processed/used whatever info Earle fed him would inform whether Dale could be trusted with Blue Rose clearance. Cole never felt the need to tell Coop about Earle's history, especially after things went south, until it became necessary after Windom's escape. Cole in Episode 25 is pretty cagey in his delivery, never EXPLICITLY saying that this is new info to him, but happy to let Coop infer that.
It is interesting that TSH led many of us to anticipate a slightly more sinister puppetmaster Gordon who withheld info from his agents, but TP:TR so far has kept him as a kooky but benevolent grandfatherly Lynch caricature.
Now this is some super interesting stuff here. I think you're onto something with these ideas. I think Albert and Diane have both been shown to know more about things than they're letting on. But I really wonder if Cole still has the jump on them and is holding onto some info. He seems fine with stringing Diane along ("keep her close" I think he says), and doesn't seem threatened by the info she's leaking.
And indeed this might line up with Cole's portrayal in TSHOTP. If i recall, there's even a surprise comment from Tammy at one point (in her notes) about how she discovers some of Cole's schemes and worries about getting fired....
I'm also curious about what insights Cole has on Jeffries, being the only agent in the story who knows anything about him personally.
All this said, I'll be surprised if Earle gets a single mention in Season 3. Honestly, I don't think the story needs any reference to him.
