Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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

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

Post by mtwentz »

Johnsusername wrote:Finally watched the last two episodes. I delayed my TP viewing as I was away etc.

Anyway....bloody amazing! The whole thing (expect for maybe a little dip in the middle) was dazzling television.

As for the last act - I'm not going to say I understood it, or that I would have liked more resolution, but the final scene with Cooper and Laura was unreal. It was probably the most unsettling TV I've ever watched. The last hour was (to use a cliche) totally Lynch. It was so like FWWM, MD, LH, BV I had goosebumps.

Lynch and Frost have turned Twin Peaks upside down and inside out - for good and bad, but mostly good. And it'll never be the same again.

What a ride 2017 has been.

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Agreed!
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Re: RE: Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by zeronumber »

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
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uploadfromtaptalk1506798998018.jpg (15.29 KiB) Viewed 14408 times
..the long lost Phillip Jeffries...

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

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Most of the theorizing on Carrie Page's name has focused on the surname and possible significance re: the missing diary page. However, it just occurred to me that the first name is very interesting in light of L/F's playful habit of using character names to allude to famous film works (including Laura's original name). Carrie is of course a very famous film and novel, which just happens to deal with a psychologically abused high school girl getting revenge on her enemies via supernatural abilities. Is this a hint at what Laura might be capable of? (Not saying I want to see the story go this way, but the allusion seems too perfect not to be intentional.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by mtwentz »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Most of the theorizing on Carrie Page's name has focused on the surname and possible significance re: the missing diary page. However, it just occurred to me that the first name is very interesting in light of L/F's playful habit of using character names to allude to famous film works (including Laura's original name). Carrie is of course a very famous film and novel, which just happens to deal with a psychologically abused high school girl getting revenge on her enemies via supernatural abilities. Is this a hint at what Laura might be capable of? (Not saying I want to see the story go this way, but the allusion seems too perfect not to be intentional.
That was my thought especially since her scream seems to have blown out the lights in the Tremond/Palmer house. BTW, a lot of people on the Internet thought the first Woodsman in the jail next to Hastings looked similar to the creepy Jesus statue from 'Carrie'.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Hester Prynne »

Listened to another great podcast from Entertainment Weekly. One of the critics posed the idea of the Palmer house in fact being the black lodge - the idea that some of the greatest evils take place sadly in the home behind closed doors. "It is in our house now." - Some nice commentary on this and other aspects of the show.

I've been going back and forth with the finale and the end result of what Cooper and Laura have actually done. After the initial watch, I had a darker interpretation - that something went wrong in "the return" of Laura to her home - that Cooper had faltered similar to when he showed imperfect courage at the end of Season 2, and Judy's influence had altered reality and prevented the return of both Dale and Laura to Twin Peaks, or at least the Twin Peaks as they knew it. However, in reading and listening to different things online, there is another interpretation - that this was a plan set in motion by the Fireman to trap Judy, and when Carrie/Laura lets out that blood curdling scream that knocks the lights out in the Palmer house, she has vanquished Judy, and Cooper's journey was ultimately successful.

Where is everyone on this right now? We know that something is off about Cooper in the last episode, and there is some criticism of Cooper's character for returning Carrie to a place of immeasurable pain and sorrow that she had long forgotten as part of this plan, unless he thought his only goal was to return Laura home, and the Fireman kept the rest from him. Was his mission ultimately successful, or has he found himself trapped again as he was 25 years ago?

Also, some people have floated the idea that elements of Mr. C are present in Dale/Richard, that somehow their identities have merged. Any thoughts on his name being the name of his offspring, Richard, and are there any similarities in that last episode? Yes, Richard was Mr. C's son, but Mr. C was a version/tulpa of Cooper. It's ironic that his name in this reality is that of a homicidal son he never knew - probably nothing to that, but just thought it was another interesting layer.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Rhodes »

I just now saw 'The Grandmother' (1970) for the first time. What an incredible film for such a young filmmaker working with such a tight budget! The atmosphere, the sound design, the special effects, everything is there! I like it better than Eraserhead.

I thought there were many influences on Twin Peaks and The Return. If Lynch had wanted to do another ''stand alone' episode (like part 8 ), I think 'The Mother' (if it had not been previously released) would have blended in perfectly in The Return! E.g. as an intermezzo about the Chalfonts.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by bowisneski »

I'm not sure if there's anything here, but I found something in a re-read of the FWwM script that I found intriguing and had completely forgotten about.
238. BLACK LODGE/RED ROOM

Laura is sitting in a chair. As the end credits begin...

We move back to see that Laura is sitting in Cooper's lap in the
same chair.

FADE OUT.


THE END
As scripted, the movie didn't end with the angels or resolution and catharsis for Laura, it is much closer to the ending we got here mixed with that of the European pilot. Just a Laura and Dale trapped in the Lodge.

Does anyone know how, when, or why the angels were added?

As much as I currently think and want to believe the "Laura" Coop interacted with in the Lodge this season, who was ripped from it, is Carrie Page/a tulpa and Laura still got her FWwM ending, this makes me consider that that really is Laura and the ambiguous ending of her being trapped is something that has been with Lynch much longer than the crafting of Season 3.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

If we count Carrie as a separate character from Laura and EotA as a different character/entity from MfAP (for argument’s sake), then Cooper and Mike are the only characters from the original series to appear in new footage in Part 18 (Laura and Leland appear in old footage from earlier in S3, and Sarah appears in reused audio from the old show). Imagine watching the Pilot and being told that the series finale will only feature Dale and the one-armed dude from the elevator!

It’s so great to see the doppel with milky eyes! So, once he’s “killed” in our reality, what happens to him? Unlike the tulpas, we never see him fully destroyed in the Red Room. To me, if he is Cooper’s shadow-self/dweller on the threshold, he should exist as long as Cooper does. However, based on what we see in Part 18, the doppel potentially becomes integrated into the “real” Dale, so perhaps he loses his physical body and they merge? If so, why? Is it because the doppel got shot? Because Dale entered the door in the boiler room? Because he tried and failed to alter the past?

The editing also oddly seems to imply a connection between the possible destruction of the doppel and the creation of Dougie 2.0. We see Mr. C burning, then abruptly cut to the same chair with the seed and Coop’s hair. It’s a strange transition, but I don’t believe the doppel’s demise has anything to do with the creation of a new tulpa from the “good” Dale’s DNA.

Dougie saying “Home” is one of the most beautiful moments of S3...Kyle sells the pure joy perfectly. It’s funny, one thing that seems to have come from DKL revisiting TMP while writing S3 is that MfAP’s “Nowhere to go but home” became in many ways THE dominant theme of the season. That deleted line really seems to have sparked something in L/F. I’m still not sure how the themes of home/return exactly play out in the final two hours. The series of course ends with Laura/Carrie being brought home in a literal sense, discovering that home doesn’t exist as it should/did, and eventually reaching a remembering/realization with potentially traumatizing results..perhaps indicating that going home is impossible and perhaps not always a great idea, in any case. For Cooper, home is a much more metaphorical idea (MLMT even has a long passage where he revisits his childhood neighborhood in Philadelphia and realizes it has changed so much that he never wants to go there again). Prior to S3, we had mostly seen him in TP, and that felt so much like home that he contemplated moving there...but realistically, he only spent one month of his life there. Where is home for him? The White Lodge (which is the “home” where I suspect he was planning to take 1989-Laura)? Something more metaphorical? Is it just a feeling/sense? Is home wherever you are? Is it an ideal Cooper is incapable of attaining (except vicariously through a tulpa) because he is too devoted to solving mysteries, adventuring, traveling and saving damsels?

Has Dale become “the magician”? His ability to control the Red Room at least a little (the hand wave), as well as Mike reading the poem right before Dale asks Jeffries to send him back in time (“through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see...”) makes me think so on some level. I’m not particularly sure that this is a good thing.

It’s tough to tell when exactly Dale transitions into the colder “Richard” persona, but he seems to already have changed/merged when he emerges from Glastonbury Grove. Watch his expressions in the scene with Diane: his face is “closed” in a way we don’t expect from our Cooper. It’s great work from Kyle, similar to the Mad Men scenes where Jon Hamm would open his face up in incredibly subtle ways to show a younger/more hopeful Don Draper in flashbacks.

There’s something chilling about his line, “It’s really me, Diane.” Was the Dale we knew during the original show not really him, missing some component, some inner darkness that seems to be present in this version of the character?

So many questions in this one. How does Diane know to meet Dale at that time at Glastonbury Grove? Was this always a backup plan the two had, should the plan to save Laura on 2/23/89 fail? Or did Dale expect to end up emerging at this time AFTER saving Laura? How many times does Dale “cross” into alternate realities? When he exits the Red Room into Glastonbury Grove, this may or may not be “our” reality...no way to tell. Then, when they “cross” while driving over the 430 mark, they move from day into night. The car doesn’t change...do they simply move through time, or is this a new universe? The one time he concretely seems to move between realities is of course signaled by the sex scene — the interior of the hotel room is the same, but everything else is different.

It’s still tough to wrap my head around the sex scene on an intellectual/literal level, but it sure is a deeply unsettling piece of filmmaking. Are they having intercourse as an act of Crowley-esque sex magick, as some seem to believe (I’m skeptical, but it does seem to move them between realities)? Or does Dale just want to do it? Has his former sensitivity (as seen by the way he put Annie and Audrey’s feelings above his own desires) been outweighed by his need for sexual gratification now that the doppel seems to have become a more pronounced part of him, to the point that he takes command and doesn’t even bother to ask, “Hey, is this weird for you since, you know, some version of me raped you?” If the finale is (as I and others have speculated) on some level an exploration of machismo stereotypes, and the Francesca Eastwood scene plays like the Man with No Name, Coop’s actions leading up to sex feel very James Bond. (Perhaps significantly — probably not — DKL puts himself onscreen with two recent Bond women over the course of S3.)

The very use of the name “Richard” is a reminder of the physical evidence of a different one of Mr. C’s sex crimes against someone Dale cared about. (Note that, although we have taken to using the name “Richard” to refer to this version of Coop, he himself rejects it and continues using his “real” name when he talks to Alice Tremond.)

If that was the “real” Diane, I wonder what happens to her now. Is she doomed to wander this parallel universe for the rest of her life believing she’s Linda? Dale doesn’t seem too concerned about her.

If there was any doubt that Cooper isn’t his old self, watch his dispassionate expression when he sips his coffee. His ability to enjoy life seems to have completely disappeared.

If that IS Ronnie Gene Blevins on Carrie’s couch, it’s sure weird that he wasn’t credited. People were credited for much smaller roles on this series (Nafessa Williams for appearing only in a photo in Part 6, Sheryl Lee in every Part for appearing in an old stock photo in the main titles, Mary Stofle for playing Ruth Davenport’s headless corpse in Part 11!). I guess he wasn’t credited because DKL wanted people to discover the reveal for themselves, whatever its significance is? (BTW, have people noticed the assault rifle on the floor of Carrie’s living room?! It’s only visible in one shot I think. I’d missed it til now.)

And the Pale Horse. Who’d have thought that motif would take on such complexity and prominence this season (oddly appropriate given Sarah’s significance). In the Episode 14 intro, the Log Lady links the horse to the cycle of abuse: “Pain for the victim. Pain for the inflicter of pain. A circle of pain. A circle of suffering. Woe to the ones who behold the pale horse.” Part 8 links it to the Woodsman (“The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within”; it is heard neighing as the Woodsman walks off after crushing skulls). Of course, Laura is already linked to the horse through Sarah.

I love Carrie’s “In those days I was too young to know any better.” It’s a hauntingly weird perspective on aging to look at Carrie as a might-have-been future for Laura. (Incidentally, Carrie reminds me a lot of Sue Blue in IE. Maybe it’s the accent.)

I speculated in another thread that the Fireman in Part 8 is actually sending Carrie to (some version of) Earth to act as a sleeper agent/weapon against Judy, and that we see Coop activate her in (some version of) 1989 (her age would be more or less consistent with a 1946 birth). I’m not so sure about this now...the TV in the hotel room looks a little later than a 1989 model (closer to mid-‘90s?). IMCDB says the car Dale drives at the end of the Part is the same 2003 Lincoln Town Car driven by the FBI crew and by Mr. C early in the series, so I guess so much for that theory.

The Red Room comes across as a place curiously lacking in power this season — same for Mike. I can see the perspective of those who feel the Red Room scenes and Mike’s characterization in S3 cheapen conceits from the original show, although for me, those elements in the original series still maintain their creepiness and menace. The fact that the mythology has moved beyond Mike and the Red Room seems to fit with the themes of aging, time passing and constant change. The Red Room denizens now seem doomed to wander aimlessly, repeating the same dialogue, reenacting the same scenes over and over. See you at the curtain call.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Forgot to mentions the Tremonds and Chalfonts! There’s so much in Part 18, despite it being almost dialogue-free for long stretches. Like so much of this one, Alice Tremond makes perfect sense in a dream-logic sense, but it’s harder to put into focus from a straight plot/mythology standpoint. I would chalk it up to Cooper having entered a Lodge-controlled world, but Reber plays the scene completely straightforward. Alice Tremond seems totally on the level, not sinister at all, just an everyday homeowner. It doesn’t seem like she’s screwing with Dale. So what gives? Is the consensus that she’s a younger version of Frances Bay’s character, or a “relative” (hey, she had a grandson!), or an unrelated woman with the same last name?

Also interesting that the mention of Sarah’s name jogs Carrie’s memory, not Leland’s (more unique) name...and that it’s Sarah’s (distorted) voice Carrie hears that seems to lead to her traumatic awakening. Wonder if there was more going in between Sarah and Laura than we saw on the original show, in light of S3...
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Xavi »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:“Nowhere to go but home” became in many ways THE dominant theme of the season.
This was written before, wasn't it? Anyway, what to think of the conversation between Bad Coop and Gordon during the interrogation in the prison?
[Gordon] And rest assured that we are working to bring you back home for our talk.
[Cooper] I've never really left home, Gordon.
[Gordon] See you soon, old friend.
The quintessential question becomes, where is "home," or put in a more accurate way, where or what is Cooper's home? My gut feeling tells me that it has something to do with el-ec-tri-ci-ty, but that's just my gut feeling, for my brain can not yet precisely articulate it in words.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Jackpots »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
It’s still tough to wrap my head around the sex scene on an intellectual/literal level, but it sure is a deeply unsettling piece of filmmaking. Are they having intercourse as an act of Crowley-esque sex magick, as some seem to believe (I’m skeptical, but it does seem to move them between realities)? Or does Dale just want to do it? Has his former sensitivity (as seen by the way he put Annie and Audrey’s feelings above his own desires) been outweighed by his need for sexual gratification now that the doppel seems to have become a more pronounced part of him, to the point that he takes command and doesn’t even bother to ask, “Hey, is this weird for you since, you know, some version of me raped you?” If the finale is (as I and others have speculated) on some level an exploration of machismo stereotypes, and the Francesca Eastwood scene plays like the Man with No Name, Coop’s actions leading up to sex feel very James Bond. (Perhaps significantly — probably not — DKL puts himself onscreen with two recent Bond women over the course of S3.).
This scene is certainly a head scratcher. Unsettling is the right word.

Some of my thoughts.

Mr. C raped and imprisoned Diane. Fracturing Her? Turned her into an eyeless asian woman Naido? And replaced her on earth with a replica/Tulpa?

I use so many question marks because I hold a somewhat different theory on the identities of Naido/Diane. And this show is full of uncertainties (secrets).

When Dale and Diane reach the motel they have changed or are on the cusp of changing into Richard and Linda.

I believe by the time they are doing the deed. Good Dale Bad Dale and Whatever Other Dale have recombined into the identity Richard.

Diane is now in a sense sleeping with Mr. C again. Her assailant. She covers his face. She doesn't want to see his face. Not unlike the face of Bob that Laura sees because she doesn't want to see her father's face Leland. Also reminiscent of the lines "Don't you f ***ing look at Me! " from Blue Velvet. Lines delivered during a sex/rape scene.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

Mr. Jackpots wrote:
This scene is certainly a head scratcher. Unsettling is the right word.

Some of my thoughts.

Mr. C raped and imprisoned Diane. Fracturing Her? Turned her into an eyeless asian woman Naido? And replaced her on earth with a replica/Tulpa?

I use so many question marks because I hold a somewhat different theory on the identities of Naido/Diane. And this show is full of uncertainties (secrets).

When Dale and Diane reach the motel they have changed or are on the cusp of changing into Richard and Linda.

I believe by the time they are doing the deed. Good Dale Bad Dale and Whatever Other Dale have recombined into the identity Richard.

Diane is now in a sense sleeping with Mr. C again. Her assailant. She covers his face. She doesn't want to see his face. Not unlike the face of Bob that Laura sees because she doesn't want to see her father's face Leland. Also reminiscent of the lines "Don't you f ***ing look at Me! " from Blue Velvet. Lines delivered during a sex/rape scene.
I think you are overlooking that she is covering his face exactly in the way "Naido" had her identity blocked. Otherwise I agree with most of what you write, although Dale clearly does not accept the nonsense about "RIchard". He was primed by the fireman to be vary of that.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by firefly2193 »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Most of the theorizing on Carrie Page's name has focused on the surname and possible significance re: the missing diary page. However, it just occurred to me that the first name is very interesting in light of L/F's playful habit of using character names to allude to famous film works (including Laura's original name). Carrie is of course a very famous film and novel, which just happens to deal with a psychologically abused high school girl getting revenge on her enemies via supernatural abilities. Is this a hint at what Laura might be capable of? (Not saying I want to see the story go this way, but the allusion seems too perfect not to be intentional.
Carrie, importantly, was terrorised by her own mother. Given the series' focus on Sarah Palmer as a terrorising force, even through her passivity and lack of protection given to her daughter, this would seem to me to be the best connection between the two.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

From "The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome". Marjorie Cameron magically lights a fire in the hand of this demon creature. Then she pulls out a cigarette. I am thinking this might be the genesis of the whole "Gotta Light!" thing.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Hester Prynne »

pinballmars wrote:
THE TWIST: For the finale here, David Lynch decided to remake Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO. Seriously, this episode is VERTIGO. If you've never seen it or haven't seen it in a long time, check it out and have David Lynch and TWIN PEAKS on your mind. You can't miss its influence on all of this (the name of Laura's cousin in the original series, Madeline Ferguson, is a blatant VERTIGO reference). Like VERTIGO, it features a damaged detective who feels that he screwed up on the job. Both detectives are haunted by a dead woman. Both detectives rope into their redemption a suspiciously close lookalike. Both detectives have an uneasy relationship with her; she doesn't quite trust him and he doesn't quite trust her.
It's been a while since I've watched this and after recently rewatching Vertigo, all I have to say to this is YES!!! And are we going to talk about JUDY?! The hotel scene with Diane and Coop's lack of emotion, the long driving scene with Carrie to the Palmer house reminiscent of Scottie driving Judy to the Mission, Coop's perception of Carrie as Laura, someone who she isn't, the attempt of going back in the past to save Laura and taking Carrie to the Palmer house to set things straight being reminiscent of Scottie forcing Judy up the bell tower to reenact the past and conquer his fear, Coop's "what year is this?" reminiscent of the tree circles in Vertigo and Scottie's "what year were you born?", Coop's personality change mirroring Scottie's by the end of the movie - wow, so much there.
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