Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Discussion of each of the 18 parts of Twin Peaks the Return

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MysteryMan14
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by MysteryMan14 »

Deep Thought wrote:
John Justice Wheeler wrote:A couple of other excellent readings/theories that may or may not have already been posted here.
Your second link is right on. I just watched 17 and 18 in sync, and it is almost certainly intended to be watched this way. The quiet atmospheric music and the "Lynch/Frost" end-logo shown without sound at the end of episode 18 seemed clearly edited to allow Julie Cruz to wrap up The Return properly in the slightly longer episode 17. Goose bumps. The silenced end-logo is the sign of intent here, no question.

As a whole there are interesting parallels that match perfectly, like Mr. C going to the white lodge while Copper determines that he and Diane are at the correct location to cross over, and both transitioning between worlds at the same time. A quickie shot of evil black Bob orb aligned with the long take centered on the white orb street lamp at Cooper's motel is interesting. But the last sequence(s) including the FWWM footage, the Tremond/Palmer house and what follows will change your perspective, and the last 15 minutes are like nothing I've ever seen or could have imagined. Hopefully there will be some version online soon.
So if we have to watch ep. 17 and 18 in sync. It means that Judy was destroyed so the whole story of TP is over with the happy ending. If It is true I'm so in depressed mood caused propably we are not going to see a season 4.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

on the topic of synchronicity - one of the founding members of The Platters, who's song "My Prayer" of course plays an important role in the finale, was named David Lynch.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

so Major Briggs left a note for Truman, Hawk and Bobby to find.. the note tells them to go 253 yards east of Jack Rabbit's Palace and place some dirt of the ground in their pockets when they reach the destination. the note also gives two dates October 1 and October 2, respectively. the events in episode 14 transpired on the former date, so what was then the second date? did it perhaps relate to when Cooper and Diane (which the events on the first date led them to) are supposed to either cross over (430) or perhaps when Cooper was supposed to go back to get Laura?

i'm sure there's more important info to be learned from Hawk's map in episode 11 as it relates to the finale.. will keep an eye open during what will most likely be my last rewatch before a Blu-Ray release (finnished episode 10 last night). this part is also interesting in light of the finale:

"Electricity is humming- You hear it in the mountains and rivers. You see it dance among the seas and stars and glowing around the moon. But in these days, the glow is dying. What will be in the darkness that remains? The Truman brothers are both ‘true men.’ They are your brothers, and the others, the good ones who have been with you, now the circle is almost complete. Watch and listen to the dream of time and space. It all comes out now, flowing like a river. That which is and is not. Hawk, Laura is the one.”

the line about what will be in the darkness that remains have me thinking about all the electricity going out and the black void that fills the screen at the very end of episode 18.. like with the finale to The Sopranos the fact that it cuts to black for a significant amount of time before going to the credits was of the highest importance to understanding what actually happened at the end. i think there's truth to that here as well.

"Watch and listen to the dream of time and space" is also an interesting line in keeping with the focus on dreams, dreamers and the collective consciousness.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by wxray »

MysteryMan14 wrote: So if we have to watch ep. 17 and 18 in sync. It means that Judy was destroyed so the whole story of TP is over with the happy ending. If It is true I'm so in depressed mood caused propably we are not going to see a season 4.
But Cooper and Laura are back in the lodge in the last sequence. Things continue. Forever. They can cook up a Season 4 if you really want it. I don't really care.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by baxter »

Just rewatched 18 (with some trepidation). On a second viewing, it was enjoyable (i.e. less depressing) than I was expecting, and it reinforced my relatively simple and literal view of what occurred.

Also, Cooper is clearly harder than normal, but didn't seem as far from "good/normal" Cooper in the old series, who also had to do some bad ass stuff occasionally (e.g. in One Eyed Jacks, which now seems almost impossibly quaint). I find his manner in the alternate reality to be a mix of bewildered and knowing, and to me he seems to be enacting a plan whilst scanning for danger at all turns. The very awkward sex scene put me in mind of the sex scene in the first episode and what happened there, and I wondered if he was simply paying very close attention in case something suddenly came at him (that wasn't Laura Dern!).

Of course, at the end it seems that the plan has gone wrong. I also now think that that first scene with the giant was indeed the giant grounding Cooper by telling him what to focus on when he was shifting between realities and the lodge. e.g. listen to the sounds = when you hear that noise, Laura has been taken and you come back to the lodge. Remember Richard and Linda = you know what to expect in this particular reality, but you are not Richard. Throughout this last sequence, he knows who he is, he knows he has gone somewhere and he knows what he is supposed to be doing, it just doesn't work.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by baxter »

So: I still want more Twin Peaks! These articles popping up all over the place saying that there is nowhere for the story to go are baffling and annoying to me. No-one could predict where the story went for 18 hours, so why does it now seem impossible to continue it? :-D
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Novalis »

I note with both interest and sometimes amusement the lengths people out there are going to in order to make this episode (and the series in general) fit their narrative expectations. So far we've had the suggestion to fold the series in half (so that, for example, 80 mins in aligns with 80 mins before the end). Then we've had the suggestion to superimpose episode 17 and 18.

I guess the permutations are, if not endless, then very numerous. While reading these theories and watching some of the accompanying remixes, I've been more impressed by the creativity and ingenuity of some fans out there than at the resonances and coincidences that they are discovering by 'jamming' with the material. I wonder if these attempts to somehow reverse-engineer the architecture of the series are nothing more than the discovery of new ways to enjoy it. Nothing wrong with that; good on people!

Slap on the colour key filters to find hidden details, listen to the soundtrack through water, watch three different playback speeds of the show simultaneously, upside down, with every 3rd and 15th frame dropped through an anamorphic lens and all references to tulpas swapped out with footage of the woman shot through the eye in the 'Odessa steps' scene of Battleship Potemkin. Juice, dice and slice whatever meanings can be squeezed out of the thing. Post your findings in a blog. I'll read anything once. :lol:

To be serious for a second, I do find some of these theories reaching -- I find the 'puzzle-box' analogy that is sometimes used to describe Lynch's more recent creations a bit too literal for my tastes. I love that people would go to these lengths though. People. I love people.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

this was a good observation from the 17/18 sync analysis though:

Image

^ Diane + Marjorie Cameron (later Parson) as we read about in Frost's Secret History
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by wxray »

baxter wrote:So: I still want more Twin Peaks! These articles popping up all over the place saying that there is nowhere for the story to go are baffling and annoying to me. No-one could predict where the story went for 18 hours, so why does it now seem impossible to continue it? :-D
There are plenty of places for it to go. It didn't end with non-ex-ist-ance. It ended with Coop and Laura.

Just be careful what you ask for.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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Novalis wrote:I note with both interest and sometimes amusement the lengths people out there are going to in order to make this episode (and the series in general) fit their narrative expectations. So far we've had the suggestion to fold the series in half (so that, for example, 80 mins in aligns with 80 mins before the end). Then we've had the suggestion to superimpose episode 17 and 18.
I watched the last two episodes folded on top of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and the synchronicity was astounding!

:)

You can go like this forever.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Ragnell »

claaa7 wrote:this was a good observation from the 17/18 sync analysis though:

Image

^ Diane + Marjorie Cameron (later Parson) as we read about in Frost's Secret History
Yeah, I don't know if I buy the 17 and 18 need to be watched in synch but I love that they dug up the picture of Majorie Cameron. That right there explains why it was Diane in Part 18, it wasn't because she's the ideal romantic partner, it's because she's the one for the ritual. And the idea that he's MEANT to lose her if the ritual worked is heartening. Maybe Diane went back to the "real" world while Cooper entered the trap.

My main problem with the synch theory and really, any theory that says the old timeline was reset and Cooper wrote Laura out of existence or his visit to Twin Peaks out is the Dougie scene. Sorry, if there was a timeline reset when Cooper led Laura away, that scene wouldn't be where it was. Instead, it's at the beginning of 18, then we get a rewind. The scene is there when the Doppelganger's enveloped in flame, and shows this bright, loving part of Cooper go back to his family. It gives the impression to me that when he re-integrated the Doppelganger he lost a certain amount of innocence... but then again, he didn't entirely lose it. He left a part of it in Vegas with his wife and son. There's also something significant about Diane being Janey-E's sister. Like it has some bearing on the ritual they did, that this was his oldest, closest friend, his sister-in-law, and a woman his Doppelganger victimized.

Either way, it seems significant that he invests a piece of himself in a Dougie-tulpa, particularly given how sober and unenthusiastic he is after this, and it seems significant that he leaves that piece of himself with that family, before he goes on. Not significant to the ritual, but significant to Dale's character. Maybe it's the psychic link you have with tulpas. A foot in the original timeline helps Cooper keep from sinking into Judy's World.

wxray wrote:
baxter wrote:So: I still want more Twin Peaks! These articles popping up all over the place saying that there is nowhere for the story to go are baffling and annoying to me. No-one could predict where the story went for 18 hours, so why does it now seem impossible to continue it? :-D
There are plenty of places for it to go. It didn't end with non-ex-ist-ance. It ended with Coop and Laura.

Just be careful what you ask for.
Despite the look on Dale's face, this may be what makes me the most optimistic. Laura and Dale were together in the uplifting end to FWWM. Ending the show on their image together shows that no matter what happened in the material world, in spirit these two are together, sitting in the Lodge, the investigator and the mystery woman. From her POV, he's there with a comforting hand on her shoulder. From his POV, she's telling him difficult but necessary truths.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Hester Prynne »

ThumbsUp wrote:
chromereflectsimage wrote:Have the parallels between Audrey and Carrie Paige been mentioned?

- Carrie asks if you 'found him.' Carrie is looking for someone like Audrey was looking for Billy
- Audrey choking Charlie and then the dead guy in Carrie's apartment
- Carrie wants to grab her coat before she leaves. Audrey kept saying this to Charlie.
Yes, I did! Also, phones. Audrey is sick of waiting for hers to ring but Carrie's is ringing off the hook as they leave the house.
Just starting to catch up on the thread after being away for a few days because of Hurricane Irma. Thankfully where I live just avoided a near catastrophe. Prayers to TP fans and everyone in Florida right now.

I've been thinking about the similarities between what's going on with Audrey and Laura/Carrie, too. If Judy is responsible for Laura and Diane's altered realities, are we to assume she/it is also responsible for Audrey's? And where does that place Charlie? I was under the impression that maybe Charlie had some influence on this with his talk about ending her story. Why was it important for Judy to alter Audrey's reality if that is in fact what happened to her? And what is Audrey/Charlie's connection to the red room and the Arm's question about the girl that lived down by the lane?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by ThumbsUp »

Hester Prynne wrote:
ThumbsUp wrote:
chromereflectsimage wrote:Have the parallels between Audrey and Carrie Paige been mentioned?

- Carrie asks if you 'found him.' Carrie is looking for someone like Audrey was looking for Billy
- Audrey choking Charlie and then the dead guy in Carrie's apartment
- Carrie wants to grab her coat before she leaves. Audrey kept saying this to Charlie.
Yes, I did! Also, phones. Audrey is sick of waiting for hers to ring but Carrie's is ringing off the hook as they leave the house.
Just starting to catch up on the thread after being away for a few days because of Hurricane Irma. Thankfully where I live just avoided a near catastrophe. Prayers to TP fans and everyone in Florida right now.

I've been thinking about the similarities between what's going on with Audrey and Laura/Carrie, too. If Judy is responsible for Laura and Diane's altered realities, are we to assume she/it is also responsible for Audrey's? And where does that place Charlie? I was under the impression that maybe Charlie had some influence on this with his talk about ending her story. Why was it important for Judy to alter Audrey's reality if that is in fact what happened to her? And what is Audrey/Charlie's connection to the red room and the Arm's question about the girl that lived down by the lane?
Good to hear you're safe Hester... I have family in Florida and my parents are still reeling from Harvey in Houston. Stay safe all.

I've posited that the Conveniencr Store acts as a hub world or nexus or stop-over (it is convenient after all) that Coop, Evil Coop, Diane, Audrey and Laura have all passed through at some point.

People use phones to travel in and out. We know this because it's what Mr. C does. Audrey wants hers to ring because she's been trapped there since Mr C. took her and Diane there years ago. That's why no one in town mentions Audrey; she's missing. And she's been waiting for the phone to ring because she wants to leave. And we know she's not in as mental hospital because of the electrical sounds and backwards band. Also, the doors Charlie is blocking are the same ones Mrs. Chalfont beckons Laura through in FWWM.

Meanwhile, Carrie is in our "real world" and was placed there after Coop saved Laura as part of the plan to defeat Judy. Judy senses that and that's why Carrie's phone is ringing - Judy wants to suck her back into the Store or Lodge.

(FWIW, I think Carrie senses the threat subconsciously which is why she wants to get the hell out of Dodge.)

No idea about Charlie, but I think he is an agent of evil. He wants Audrey to stay put because he knows, like Diane, if she were to escape she'd help Coop in his mission.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Strawberry »

This was a redeeming conclusion to the story that started to go astray during Season 2. (Yeah I know, that's blasphemy!) But it really brought it all home for me.

Two consecutive utterances in the sheriff's station were heavily loaded:

01) "Cooper... Cooper..."

He isn't just taking it all in, but thinking about the paper in the Garland Briggs capsule, and wondering if this is the Good Dale or not.


02) "In the flesh."

Yes, this is Cooper's flesh (and nothing more), and I'm in it.


Well I've got plenty to share regarding my impressions of the finale but for now, I'd like to respond to some of what's been posted.

N. Needleman wrote:I get how she feels, but I don't think she can fault the performance in the finale for being cut down. Cruise has always been a little bonkers.
I'm not gonna deny it. Declining to feature the entire song seems strange considering that every other band was given that. She's the "original Roadhouse singer" and is strongly associated with the show, so to showcase several unexciting new acts and let them have the stage, then feature her as a brief excerpt behind the credits, is puzzling.

mtwentz wrote:What does everyone think of Coop's Great Northern key opening the boiler room door down below? That to me is another indication that everything is a dream. His Great Northern key should not open that door in the 'real world'.
But, we've become so invested in everything that happened. Could this really be the case? I'm still grappling with the ending...

rugerblackhawk357 wrote:twin peaks is stupid
Twin Peaks is smart.

nonemoreblack wrote:That's why I have trouble completely blaming Cooper. It seemed like he was following what the Lodge spirits wanted him to do, so it wasn't only a case of him taking a giant risk because of his obsession with Laura.
A "giant risk", you say?

bastia wrote:You know what kept me thinking in this night of ours?

In FWWM Judy's is in Seattle. In episode 18 it is in Odessa.
It could be taken to imply that, much like the convenience store, it gets around. But it's probably just a chain restaurant.

Hercousin wrote:I'm feeling depressed because although the mysterious end leaves me satisfied that none of the core mystery was changed or even explained, everything that came before is a harsh fluorescent light over my face in a mirror. Did you really think you could just go back, wrap yourself in a fair isle cardigan and everything would be ok again? That you'd be a kid again when that gum you like came back in style?
Dammit... This had me covered in goose bumps. So on point.


Further reflection not directly related to Part 18:
During my recent rewatch of the first two seasons -- which began to overlap The Return -- I found the Windom Earle character and storyline to be sort of embarrassingly bad. It felt so banal and immature compared with everything that had come before it.

Similarly, the Annie storyline was a bit difficult. I found it heartwarming way back when I originally watched the show and beyond, but during this rewatch, the lack of depth really jumped out at me. They seem to fall in love in the space of a few days. Maybe I'm just jealous, but it seemed rushed, and inauthentic.

Not to mention, Annie didn't seem like the kind of girl that Cooper would fall for when you consider his reasons for rejecting Audrey. She seemed inexperienced and a bit childlike even, and regardless of her backstory, she lacked a certain dynamism that was written all over Audrey. Mystery, I suppose, didn't seem to be there. Audrey seemed like the kind of woman that would always challenge and stimulate, always be there for an adventure. Annie struck me as an undeveloped character, portrayed as nowhere near as "emotionally intelligent" as Audrey.

These are just a few things that highlight how strong The Return is, and how it put the Peaks back into a story that had lost its way.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Deep Thought »

Novalis wrote:Slap on the colour key filters to find hidden details, listen to the soundtrack through water, watch three different playback speeds of the show simultaneously, upside down, with every 3rd and 15th frame dropped through an anamorphic lens and all references to tulpas swapped out with footage of the woman shot through the eye in the 'Odessa steps' scene of Battleship Potemkin. Juice, dice and slice whatever meanings can be squeezed out of the thing. Post your findings in a blog. I'll read anything once. :lol:
I would love to hear this criticism from someone who has actually watched the last 15 minutes synched up, including the end credits. The Lynch/Frost logo was presented at the end of episode 18 without sound because it was the last episode and so therefore it should have no sound? OK, that seems like an empty gesture. The lights went out after all, not the sound.

In a show already proven to have synced scenes in play, and accepted as being non-linear, why this is so hard to believe?

Again, if someone who has watched the synced episodes cares to comment, it would mean more than nothing.
There's your roast beef and cheese.
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