POLL: The Nature of Audrey's Situation

[Ragnell]

I guess we're seeing dream scenarios everywhere since the dream sequence interpretation of Mulholland Drive is so sensible and widely accepted. Thing is, Twin Peaks didn't set up the same lines between dreams and reality we perceive in MD and other films where part of it may be an extended dream sequence. In Twin Peaks the dreamworld is a place you can GO to. Dreams are just as real as reality in the Twin Peaks reality. And those two realities overlap each other.

Audrey could be in a coma, or in a mental institution, and STILL be in the Lodge. She can be dreaming some of the scenes we've seen, and those scenes can STILL be reality. If the Lodge is indeed bleeding into the mortal world as we've seen evidence it is in Twin Peaks, it's possible that people's DREAMS are bleeding into reality. Maybe the entire Billy storyline is Audrey's dreams affecting reality, and that is why at the end of Part 7 there was a scene shift when someone shouted "Where's Billy?" Maybe if Audrey wakes up and learns she was dreaming... those changes stay in effect.

And maybe she's not the only dreamer.

Definitely we seem to be seeing people who are mirroring the emotional states of other characters, the thoughts of characters in other storylines, and who have referenced feeling like they are someone else. Not just Audrey, but Jerry has had a running storyline where he seems to be picking up something, feeling like he lost his car the same ep the cops came to ask Dougie about his car. Candie is clearly on some other wavelength, seeing traffic on the Vegas strip a day we saw was not particularly busy in a previous scene. (But WAS a day with traffic in Twin Peaks.) Maybe they aren't tulpas or anything, but people's dreams are overlapping as the Lodge is slipping into the real world. Maybe some people's dreams are changing Twin Peaks.

[Dreamy Audrey]

I am re-watching Part 1, and the first scene in Buckhorn with the police officers, Marjorie Green and Hank Fillmore reminded me of Audrey's first scene. A lot of name dropping of new characters, which makes the scene very confusing (Ruth Davenport, Darlene, Hank Fillmore, Barney, Barney's brother/Chip, Harvey) (Compare this to Audrey's scene: Charlie, Billy, Chuck, Paul, Tina, Tina's husband). Most of these characters that are mentioned in Marjorie's scene we haven't seen and the others appeared only once or twice. When Hank appears first, he is behind a fence/bars all the time, as if he is imprisoned and cannot leave, then he asks "Am I free to go?" but doesn't get an answer. I thought this was just a nice parallel to Audrey's situation, but when I got to the scene where the police enter Ruth's apartment, I noticed something: the lamp on the table is exactly the same one as in Audrey and Charlie's living-room. In any other series I would say it's just a reuse of the same prop, but since a lot of weird stuff is going on with Audrey, I'm not so sure it is just a coincidence.



A few ideas about a possible connection between these scenes:
- Maybe the Buckhorn scene is not real, either.
- Maybe when Audrey was saying she feels like she is someone else and "I'm not me", she means that she is actually Ruth Davenport? Furthermore, Ruth has an affair with Bill Hastings, and Audrey has an affair with Billy.
- Maybe Audrey has been to Ruth's apartment and imagined the same lamp in her dreams/delusions because she is putting things she has seen in the real world into her imaginary house. Then the question would be, why was Audrey in Ruth's apartment?
- As I wrote in a previous post, Marjorie says about Barney: "He's a funny one, that Barney. He's in the hospital, not the regular hospital", which could be a possible nut house connection to Audrey. Marjorie and Hank seem a bit nuts as well.

[IcedOver]

At this point, I just don't much care what her situation is. I was hoping those scenes would be another absurd diversion, but of course now it looks like something else is going on. I just hope that this situation is hers alone and that the whole town isn't involved in some final season "Lost" bullshit or something akin to "Abre los ojos/Vanilla Sky".

[Wonderful & Strange]

I'm sticking with my DID theory. Audrey either has a number of alternate personalities, or she's in a similar psychotic fugue of some kind, brought on by the multiple traumas of the bank explosion, Mr. C's rape, and giving birth to a child of rape who happens to be a demonic sociopath.

When you think about it in those terms, who wouldn't go a little crazy?

[nonemoreblack]

One of my first theories after Part 12 was that Audrey is trapped in the Lodge, convenience store or a similar place. Now in Part 16, after Audrey looked into the mirror, the music was played backwards, which is usually connected to the Black Lodge. Maybe she really is in the Lodge or she is a tulpa like Diane

That's occurred to me too, mainly from the similarity of certain things each of them said. Didn't we hear Diane go at one point: "I'm ... not me!!!"? Like Audrey in Part 13 " like I'm somewhere else** and somebody else!"
**similar to Diane's stating she's at 'the sheriff's station'~

Yes, Audrey says: "I feel like I'm somewhere else. [...] Like I'm somewhere else and - and like I'm somebody else. [...] I'm not sure who I am, but I'm not me." and Diane said "I'm not me" several times. Diane also said "I'm in the Sheriff's station", which is somewhere else. And Audrey's first scene in Part 12 was immediately followed by a scene of Diane.

I don't believe they'd make Diane and Audrey's experiences exactly the same since it would lessen the impact if the tulpa keeps being used. They definitely have similarities, but Audrey seems more like she's in an Inception type situation. She woke up from one layer, and now she's in another one (which could be Lodge related).

[Whiteout_75]

I think this is my first post here! Anyway, I chose "other" because I feel that Audreys scenes are the key to understanding the whole season. The show is basically Lynchs and Frosts allegorical attempt to contemplate on the mysteries, wonders and nightmares of storytelling and the nature of fiction, immersion and nostalgia. Audrey/Fenn is a character in search of an arc. Her waking up means she has found a way to fit in the narrative now that the real Cooper is back.

[Gabriel]

Mr C manufactured the reality of season three using Audrey's dreams...

[Harry Yallrite]

NAIDO is not Diane - NAIDO is revealed to be AUDREY. I have no way of explaining how she ended up in this situation (especially considering she was clearly in the hospital after the bank explosion and was raped by Mr. C) but doesn't it make perfect sense since she's been trapped in her own world, seemingly in a dream-like psychotic state unable to cross over the "threshold"?

[ThumbsUp]

Hello Audrey fans. I wanted to share my theory from the Part 18 thread to see what you guys thought.

(Part 18 spoilers obviously)

Audrey's situation is never fully explained but we can assume that her situation can help explain the larger rule system and logic that revolves around the Lodge and Convenience Store.

Audrey's situation is the clearest clue, I think, to what is happening or what happened with several other characters, including Diane/Linda, Richard/Coop, and Laura/Carrie, who have all experienced multiple identities, reincarnations, deja vu, parallel universes, etc.

Or as many characters refer to such situations: "stories." The Arm and Audrey repeat "The story of the little girl who lived down the lane? Is it?" Charlie threatens to end Audrey's "story." Sarah tells Hawk "it's a god damn bad story."

Basically, Audrey was taken to the Convenience Store by Evil Coop the same way Diane was. That's why no one mentions her in the show - she's missing.

One way to exit, though? The phone. We know phones are used to exit the Convenience Store because Mr. C does it after speaking to Jeffries. Audrey is "tired of waiting for the phone to ring" and wants to get her coat to leave, but she's stuck. Meanwhile in Odessa in another "story," Carrie's grabbing her coat and is ready to go and in fact leaving, while her phone rings in the background.

(An aside, but I think Judy is attempting to suck Carrie back into the Store via the telephone as a means of interfering with Coop/the Fireman's plans of rescuing Laura to confront the Mother. Carrie even says she feels like she's being pursued and needs to get out of Dodge. Not to mention the 6 pole outside her house, which references the Chalfonts and the Lodge.)

While Audrey and Diane's experiences parallel each other and both ask "who am I?" I don't think Audrey is a tulpa. She's still trapped in the Convenience Store - the nexus/hub world/crossroads of the "stories" of various characters in Twin Peaks and their assorted identities in assorted timelines and scenarios.

[DoppelBocker]

by ThumbsUp:
Basically, Audrey was taken to the Convenience Store by Evil Coop the same way Diane was. That's why no one mentions her in the show - she's missing

The problem with that though is Doc Hayward saw Coop leaving the hospital. I think the reality we see in Season 3 is a slightly altered reality from that we see in S1 and S2 (telephone pole number 6 being main signifier of this). The flash to her in a white room is perhaps another self within another reality? What caused the divergence between reality we know from 90's Twin Peaks and that seen in the Return will provide a good fan explanation to this I think.

[DangerMo]

No time to read all of the posts in this topic, but my take is that Audrey's storyline was actually just there to clue us and get us ready for the finale of the season.

It's becoming clearer, to me at least, that in the end, Dale Cooper is no more, he has crossed into a new reality, a new dream which is actually our reality (with the owner of the Palmer House being the real life owner of the house). Except he's not Kyle Mac Machlan either, he's Richard, a human being we don't really know, but who used to be this fearless FBI agent in another reality/dream. Same goes for Diane being ejected from the Twin Peaks "dream" into a Linda character in our reality. Which leaves us with Laura/Carrie. She had been ejected to our reality prior to Dale/Richard crossing, and Dale/Richard, fresh out from his Twin Peaks "dream" is a man with a mission, reuniting her with her family, unfortunately reuniting her with the memories of her alternate life in this Twin Peaks "dream" : being an abused Laura. The fate of Diane/Linda, and her necessary presence for all that crossing point is, to me, only justified by the sex scene which seems to have been a necessary ritual for that crossing to be possible....

So, anyway, with all that in mind, back to Audrey : she was pulled out of whatever Twin Peaks "dream" she was in before her scene at the RoadHouse, and her story was indeed terminated with her being pulled to our reality / dream... So the last time we see her, we might actually just be seeing Sherilyn Fenn, famous actress, getting ready for her scene, getting some make up in a trailer, possibly (that mirror looks more like one of those used for make up, anyway)....

So, we'll never know what happened really to Audrey Horne, we just know that she's been ejected from the Twin Peals realm altogether this season...

[DamnFineCreamedCorn]

So, anyway, with all that in mind, back to Audrey : she was pulled out of whatever Twin Peaks "dream" she was in before her scene at the RoadHouse, and her story was indeed terminated with her being pulled to our reality / dream... So the last time we see her, we might actually just be seeing Sherilyn Fenn, famous actress, getting ready for her scene, getting some make up in a trailer, possibly (that mirror looks more like one of those used for make up, anyway)....

So, we'll never know what happened really to Audrey Horne, we just know that she's been ejected from the Twin Peals realm altogether this season...

I agree. She didn't awake in a hospital or the lodge. Her story was ended, as Charlie had cautioned her he could do. Audrey is non-exist-ent.

[Cipher]

So, anyway, with all that in mind, back to Audrey : she was pulled out of whatever Twin Peaks "dream" she was in before her scene at the RoadHouse, and her story was indeed terminated with her being pulled to our reality / dream... So the last time we see her, we might actually just be seeing Sherilyn Fenn, famous actress, getting ready for her scene, getting some make up in a trailer, possibly (that mirror looks more like one of those used for make up, anyway)....

So, we'll never know what happened really to Audrey Horne, we just know that she's been ejected from the Twin Peals realm altogether this season...

I agree. She didn't awake in a hospital or the lodge. Her story was ended, as Charlie had cautioned her he could do. Audrey is non-exist-ent.

Both of the above are closest to my take. Within the season, her story is a signpost for the slippery realities and stories of Cooper and Laura, if not the entire town. That doesn't mean there couldn't be something supernatural and plot-related in her background, but ... that's how the show (and all decent magical realism and surrealism) always work -- the impossibilities of the plot are narratively literal, but are included because they function as communicators of real thoughts and feelings.

It's not an ending for the character that I love, but if this was the route they had to go down, it's not unfitting for the only person in the original run who demonstrated an ability to both hear and control the series' non-diegetic soundtrack.

[Novalis]

So, anyway, with all that in mind, back to Audrey : she was pulled out of whatever Twin Peaks "dream" she was in before her scene at the RoadHouse, and her story was indeed terminated with her being pulled to our reality / dream... So the last time we see her, we might actually just be seeing Sherilyn Fenn, famous actress, getting ready for her scene, getting some make up in a trailer, possibly (that mirror looks more like one of those used for make up, anyway)....

So, we'll never know what happened really to Audrey Horne, we just know that she's been ejected from the Twin Peals realm altogether this season...

I agree. She didn't awake in a hospital or the lodge. Her story was ended, as Charlie had cautioned her he could do. Audrey is non-exist-ent.

Both of the above are closest to my take. Within the season, her story is a signpost for the slippery realities and stories of Cooper and Laura, if not the entire town. That doesn't mean there couldn't be something supernatural and plot-related in her background, but ... that's how the show (and all decent magical realism and surrealism) always work -- the impossibilities of the plot are narratively literal, but are included because they function as communicators of real thoughts and feelings.

It's not an ending for the character that I love, but if this was the route they had to go down, it's not unfitting for the only person in the original run who demonstrated an ability to both hear and control the series' non-diegetic soundtrack.

This has been my destination too, after a lot of wavering. Being able to be aware (in whatever state doesn't really matter, ironically enough) of one of the official soundtrack's titles, and to hear it literally announced by the Roadhouse compère, placed Audrey as a character on the utmost outer limit or threshold of diegetic consistency. Her request to 'get me out' and the sudden awakening in a blank, unfurnished environment can comfortably be read as signalling her transition to an extra-diegetic situation (or at least, to a diegetic representation of the extra-diegetic).

I get the feeling this hadn't been her intended arc from the beginning, and was maybe affected by the late signing on of Fenn, but for me it works as a kind of epilogue: a way of suggesting that Audrey maybe died sometime before the events of this season. I like to think that Audrey's spirit was strong enough to survive her death for a while on its own, create its own story where it could enjoy some kind of minimal level of narrative subsistence, always plagued and nagged by the reality-principle Charlie, before collapsing in the realisation that it didn't exist as a Twin Peaks character any more. It's a bit of a ghost story.

Like you, this is not the way I would have liked Audrey's story to go, but I feel it's the most satisfying and well-supported reading available of the material we've got so far. I'm entirely open to being surprised, of course.

[ThumbsUp]

I agree. She didn't awake in a hospital or the lodge. Her story was ended, as Charlie had cautioned her he could do. Audrey is non-exist-ent.

Both of the above are closest to my take. Within the season, her story is a signpost for the slippery realities and stories of Cooper and Laura, if not the entire town. That doesn't mean there couldn't be something supernatural and plot-related in her background, but ... that's how the show (and all decent magical realism and surrealism) always work -- the impossibilities of the plot are narratively literal, but are included because they function as communicators of real thoughts and feelings.

It's not an ending for the character that I love, but if this was the route they had to go down, it's not unfitting for the only person in the original run who demonstrated an ability to both hear and control the series' non-diegetic soundtrack.

This has been my destination too, after a lot of wavering. Being able to be aware (in whatever state doesn't really matter, ironically enough) of one of the official soundtrack's titles, and to hear it literally announced by the Roadhouse compère, placed Audrey as a character on the utmost outer limit or threshold of diegetic consistency. Her request to 'get me out' and the sudden awakening in a blank, unfurnished environment can comfortably be read as signalling her transition to an extra-diegetic situation (or at least, to a diegetic representation of the extra-diegetic).

I get the feeling this hadn't been her intended arc from the beginning, and was maybe affected by the late signing on of Fenn, but for me it works as a kind of epilogue: a way of suggesting that Audrey maybe died sometime before the events of this season. I like to think that Audrey's spirit was strong enough to survive her death for a while on its own, create its own story where it could enjoy some kind of minimal level of narrative subsistence, always plagued and nagged by the reality-principle Charlie, before collapsing in the realisation that it didn't exist as a Twin Peaks character any more. It's a bit of a ghost story.

Like you, this is not the way I would have liked Audrey's story to go, but I feel it's the most satisfying and well-supported reading available of the material we've got so far. I'm entirely open to being surprised, of course.

Hmm, I don't think Audrey is dead or in a mental hospital or Fenn in a movie trailer (though the latter is interesting when you consider the fourth wall-breaking and metafictional elements of part 18). Of course I think they intended Audrey's story to be abstract (and I do think Fenn's late arrival influenced this), but I think her story is more relevant and urgent and constrained to the Twin Peaks universe and Cooper's reality-skimming journey.

Again, I have to assume that the electricity sounds and backwards-playing band are extremely explicit indicators that Audrey's fate and situation is Lodge-related, plus the fact that she and The Arm say literally the exact same line about the girl on the lane.

I think the function of Audrey's thread is to to give us another example of another character trapped in a Buddhist-like cycle of resets and alternate realities of pain and sorrow. Throw in the Audrey-Carrie similarities (coats, phones, male sidekicks - maybe Audrey wanted to put a bullet through Charlie's head?) and it suggests to me that Audrey is another case study within the show of parallel universes, different timelines, etc., and she was probably put in that situation by Mr. C taking her to the Convenience Store. Why else would they go to the trouble of drawing parallels between Audrey and Diane?