Part 18: something's bugging me...

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Harry Yallrite
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Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Harry Yallrite »

While everyone's takes/interpretation of the finale range from somewhat similar to worlds apart, there seems to be an almost universal agreement & acceptance of two things having happened in part 18 (myself included):

1. The motel Cooper exited the following morning was not the same, neither was his car.

2. Dale Cooper "became" Richard at some point after he & Diane drove past the 430-mile mark

Something hit me today that makes me think both of these assumptions are incorrect.

The motel Cooper exited the following morning was not the same, neither was his car:

While this is correct in a sense - yes, both the car & the hotel we see him leaving are NOT the same as the car & hotel he and Diane went into.
But why are we assuming this was the very next morning? Couldn't the morning he sees the note from "Linda to Richard" been days, weeks or months later? Did Lynch purposefully edit the scene like that to trap us into assuming it must be the very next morning after he spent the night with Diane?

I'm beginning to think so, and I'm beginning to think it may have been a very long time between his night with Diane and the morning he woke up to find the "Richard" note - left by a different woman at a different hotel while far, far away from Twin Peaks on his quest to find Laura. "YOU ARE FAR AWAY"

Dale Cooper "became" Richard at some point after he & Diane drove past the 430-mile mark

OK, so he found a note to Richard from Linda... and?

That note could have been missed by a chamber maid who's not very good at her job, written days earlier and meant for someone else. And even if it was meant for cooper:

1. He's clearly confused about the names Richard and Linda

2. We sort of overlook the fact that he introduced himself to the owner of 708 33rd Street as "FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper"
So he still knows WHO he is - and he's not Richard.

I haven't figured it all out yet, but now that my thoughts are going in this direction it throws a serious monkey wrench into things!
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dud
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by dud »

Harry Yallrite wrote:Dale Cooper "became" Richard at some point after he & Diane drove past the 430-mile mark

1. He's clearly confused about the names Richard and Linda

2. We sort of overlook the fact that he introduced himself to the owner of 708 33rd Street as "FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper"
So he still knows WHO he is - and he's not Richard.
THANK you. it's frustrating reading posts (not necessarily on dugpa) where people say variations of 'so twin peaks/cooper was all a dream in the head of some guy named richard?? what a waste of time! lynch retconned the whole series!'

i can understand people not liking this season for many different legitimate reasons, but i feel like a lot of the people who disliked the ending disliked it because to their own reductive, counter-intuitive interpretation of the finale, not what actually went down. for the record i really loved it, but i can see people not liking it because it can be seen as a downer-ending, too ambiguous, leaving lots of the loose ends etc. but the 'it was all a dream' type stuff is hard to read. why would lynch retcon FWWM, a movie that he has said he loves and is super proud of??

i do however believe that theories about episodes all of season three taking place in the red room (or at least up until cooper exits and sees diane) and not being 'real' in the strictest sense of the word could have some substance
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Mystery Roach
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Mystery Roach »

Good point about Cooper's identity. The only hint that it could be starting to slip is the last line, but knowing the year isn't necessarily tied to the notion of identity either.

As for the motel, the way he looked at the motel and the car when he left felt to me like he recognized that they had changed. And this is a random observation, but I noticed the first time I was watching the episode that the room itself was not the one they walked into from outside, because the window was on the opposite side of the door.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by baxter »

Yes!

On my rewatch last night (devoid of the "fucking hell there is only 30 minutes left" panic mode) it's actually really obvious (and reassuring) that Cooper knows exactly who he is and that he has gone somewhere to do something. He looks wary, he looks like he is concentrating very hard to work out his new surroundings, and he looks like he is expecting danger, but he is Dale Cooper doing Dale Cooper things that he knew about in advance. We even see him discussing crossing over into something before he does it. This seems like a very straightforward plot development to me.

The puzzle is that something has gone wrong and things aren't what he expected, but that's where drama comes from!

Everything else is pure speculation/extrapolation. That doesn't make it invalid (and it is fun) but it isn't concrete.

I've been applying an Occam's Razor approach to interpreting the show so far. The simplest explanation is the one for me (though of course it isn't any more correct than wilder theories).
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Mystery Roach
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Mystery Roach »

One thing though; Cooper never seems to lose himself in the role of Richard, but are moments where he does seem to slip closer to Mr. C and even Dougie a little bit at times. It could be that Richard is simply an identity that encompasses all three personality-wise. Although he always more or less knows who he really is and what he's doing, he's clearly undergoing some sort of shift in identity.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by douglasb »

He might think he's Cooper, but clearly Linda thinks he's Richard - hence the note.

Side note - where is he going when he happens across Judy's? That's accidental / fateful but he was heading somewhere.
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DoppelBocker
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by DoppelBocker »

I've been applying an Occam's Razor approach to interpreting the show so far. The simplest explanation is the one for me (though of course it isn't any more correct than wilder theories).
1) Unlike common assumption of things being different, I think it was the same location when he woke up not a different one.
The motel Coop and Diane arrive at is the same one we see earlier attached to the Convenience Store.

We know both the convenience store as well as this particular motel must have once been an actual physical location that people would go to either to buy goods or at the motel rest for the night. For some reason, both these locations became desolate abandoned locales that for some reason become connected to one another, metaphysical in nature, and blip in/out of reality hence the name "Dutchman".

Coop and Diane arrive at the motel at a point in time where it was still functional it seems (Coop must've known where he'd be driving when they "crossed over" as arrives right at the motel we know becomes later entangled with convenience store so can't think it a coincidence). However, while they are sleeping my theory is that this motel blips out sort of like the convenience store does in an earlier episode but instead of just being in open lot with trees in background we're now in the same location as the hotel we see Coop wake up in. He seems to be expecting to find someone in Odessa, TX so I'm guessing him and Diane weren't teleported in sleep.



2) Changeover to Richard and Linda only implied supposed to happen by Giant not mean actually did
Possibility 1) I'm guessing switchover was supposed to happen to Coop (Giant seems remind him what name is after 430 mark) but for some reason doesn't when he wakes up next morning still Coop. Only thing I can come up with is, Tulpa Coop made for himself in another reality to be with Janey-E somehow anchors him to that other reality while removing aspects from himself (reason Coop acting like Mr. C does).

Possibility 2) If above explanation incorrect, only other explanation I can think of is that neither Diane nor Coop changed over to Richard nor Linda. Perhaps Diane was taken by someone before they went into hotel room getting it on? (Her double presumably) Reason I don't think she taken by someone while they asleep cause acting awfully strange during sex scene (I suppose could say so was Coop but perhaps attributed to Tulpa drainage of certain qualities making act like Mr. C if possibility 1 above equates more to his strange behavior as opposed to why wasn't switched).

Edit (I think this is the key here): This world Coop and Diane enter at the end of episode 18 got me thinking of Lost Highway a bit. Lost Highway sort of an elaborate purgatory of characters working their way out of the shit as Dr. Jacoby would say. Richard and Linda perhaps ARE Coop and Diane just entering into this purgatory world in which false memories are layered into one's mind to sort of work things out before one's soul journeys onward as it seems to be a sort of pause point before either reincarnation or instead a lower or higher path a soul can travel? Laura presumably was telling Coop of such a place.
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powerleftist
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by powerleftist »

Some people have suggested that he is a man named Richard who thinks he is Special Agent Dale Cooper because he is having a psychogenic fugue (Lost Highway) / he dreamt all of Twin Peaks (Mulholland Dr.) / he is a fan of the series (meta game).

According to this theory, Carrie Page would be just Carrie Page and not Laura Palmer.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Cipher »

powerleftist wrote:Some people have suggested that he is a man named Richard who thinks he is Special Agent Dale Cooper because he is having a psychogenic fugue (Lost Highway) / he dreamt all of Twin Peaks (Mulholland Dr.) / he is a fan of the series (meta game).

According to this theory, Carrie Page would be just Carrie Page and not Laura Palmer.
Far be it from me to shut anyone's reading down, but I don't know how that theory deals with the fact that Carrie Paige apparently is Laura, complete with a shift to her perspective at the end.

It's much easier to accept a psychogenic fugue/dream reading (if ultimately a little unsatisfying) in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive because they remain close to a single protagonist throughout -- or at least don't shift into any other intimate perspectives after their revelations take place. Twin Peaks' ending shifts its perspective even after the "dream" state has ended.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Novalis »

Cipher wrote:
powerleftist wrote:Some people have suggested that he is a man named Richard who thinks he is Special Agent Dale Cooper because he is having a psychogenic fugue (Lost Highway) / he dreamt all of Twin Peaks (Mulholland Dr.) / he is a fan of the series (meta game).

According to this theory, Carrie Page would be just Carrie Page and not Laura Palmer.
Far be it from me to shut anyone's reading down, but I don't know how that theory deals with the fact that Carrie Paige apparently is Laura, complete with a shift to her perspective at the end.

It's much easier to accept a psychogenic fugue/dream reading (if ultimately a little unsatisfying) in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive because they remain close to a single protagonist throughout -- or at least don't shift into any other intimate perspectives after their revelations take place. Twin Peaks' ending shifts its perspective even after the "dream" state has ended.
Perhaps this is just a minor/bolstering point I'm adding, but Carrie never really answers Cooper's questions in Odessa over her parent's names or early life. When he mentions Sarah to her she doesn't really deny anything with any finality but appears to turn inward somewhat, as if struggling to remember. It's as if the mention of Sarah's name is not something she consciously recalls but stirs just enough of a dim feeling of familiarity in her for it to be significant. All things considered (needing to 'get out of dodge', wanting to leave this life behind, etc.) Cooper's probing questions about another life, which is a hypothesis she apparently can't seem to disprove to her own satisfaction, are significant enough to her to act like some kind of clincher in making up her mind to go with him. She gets in a car with a stranger claiming to be FBI without first asking to see his badge (she only asks for this later). What I'm arguing here is that the shift of perspective from Carrie -> Laura is already being signposted from the onset. From the moment we meet Carrie on the doorstep in Odessa, this character is already shown as being in tension with Laura.

Like Cipher I'm not interested in closing down anyone's reading, I'm just suggesting that the way this sequence in Carrie's home in Odessa plays is, on an affective level, ambiguous enough to support the idea that Carrie is not a fully-formed and autonomous character but also riddled with incompleteness. In her unforthcoming silence around the matter of her parentage, and in her inward-looking behaviour, it is almost as if she is struggling to remember and you can read subtle signals that she is not fully consistent as a character in some way or on some level. Signs pointing to Laura are also present in abundance. Visual elements like the white horse ornament and the number six pole outside the apartment establish a continuity (or parallel if you prefer) of identity. So, long before we get back to Twin Peaks and the screaming scene, the idea that Carrie is not just Carrie is already being fairly well supported by the material.
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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gavriloP
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by gavriloP »

Just couple of things: the motel room is one and the same all the time, it doesn't change. The motel exterior where they arrive isn't that mount si motel where they filmed the Jeffries scenes.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by sylvia_north »

dud wrote:
THANK you. it's frustrating reading posts (not necessarily on dugpa) where people say variations of 'so twin peaks/cooper was all a dream in the head of some guy named richard?? what a waste of time! lynch retconned the whole series!'

i can understand people not liking this season for many different legitimate reasons, but i feel like a lot of the people who disliked the ending disliked it because to their own reductive, counter-intuitive interpretation of the finale, not what actually went down. (..)
gavriloP wrote:Just couple of things: the motel room is one and the same all the time, it doesn't change. The motel exterior where they arrive isn't that mount si motel where they filmed the Jeffries scenes.
Nope, different motel.

Martha Nochimson (David Lynch Swerves) uses entanglement and superposistion to talk about Betty and Diane, and Fred and Pete, and the two Coopers in 2x29. She runs it by Lynch, not a quantum physicist, and they are on the same page about it. You can be one, but also more than one. It's dry, academic reading, but it makes more sense to apply weird physics than try to cram it into a who's who/who's dreaming who box. Reality as we know it is not stable, like a dream.
Too Old to Die Young > TP S03
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Harry Yallrite
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Harry Yallrite »

You always have to assume the possibility of dream states with Lynch, but whether this ending is a "dream" in the classic sense or an alternate timeline/reality I think the morning Coop wakes up and finds the note is not the very next morning after the Diane sexual encounter.

Another reason I'm thinking this may be the case (which I forgot to include in my original post) is that Coop seems to be very sure that the waitress he's looking for (Laura) is in that Judy diner; unless this is a complete leap of faith on his part, I'm thinking it may be simply because a lot of time and tracking we weren't shown has taken place on his part that led him to this diner - which would also explain why he emerged from a different motel with a different car. It wasn't an instantaneous change that switched overnight - it's a future point in this new reality.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by Ragnell »

Harry Yallrite wrote:You always have to assume the possibility of dream states with Lynch, but whether this ending is a "dream" in the classic sense or an alternate timeline/reality I think the morning Coop wakes up and finds the note is not the very next morning after the Diane sexual encounter.

Another reason I'm thinking this may be the case (which I forgot to include in my original post) is that Coop seems to be very sure that the waitress he's looking for (Laura) is in that Judy diner; unless this is a complete leap of faith on his part, I'm thinking it may be simply because a lot of time and tracking we weren't shown has taken place on his part that led him to this diner - which would also explain why he emerged from a different motel with a different car. It wasn't an instantaneous change that switched overnight - it's a future point in this new reality.

To be fair, a complete leap of faith is not out of character for Coop. Also, the way its filmed looks like he was about to drive past but only stopped because it was named Judy's. And then when he finds the house, he's SURPRISED that Laura is at the door.

I'm not saying you're wrong that there may have been some missed time, but everything suggests he was using his intuitive powers. He went into the diner, and when the waitress came to his table he got the feeling it wasn't the waitress he wanted. So he has her write down the other girl's address, goes to the house and is startled to see it's Laura.

It's entirely possible that the only clues Coop had were the ones the Fireman gave him in the first scene of the season.

The thing that throws your theory is it looks like those hotel rooms are identical on the inside. On the outside, they're different, but the hotel room he sleeps with Diane in and the hotel he wakes up in in Odessa seem to be the same room. He also seems a bit thrown when he leaves and sees he has a different car, and he looks back at the hotel with a little confusion.

I'm with you on #2, though. I don't see ANYTHING to say he "became Richard." I think it's weird people are referring to him as Richard during that sequence, since it's pretty clear he's holding onto his identity the whole time. I get the impression that the events of the Return, the whole Dougie storyline and the finding of his doppelganger, served to train Coop to retain his identity from now on even when the world is trying to shove him into a different one. So he still has his badge, pin, and real name.
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Re: Part 18: something's bugging me...

Post by djsunyc »

correct me if i'm wrong...but in the first episode, we see laura telling coop in the red room that she'll see him again in 25 years.

then she says meanwhile...and presents with her hands...and we have the return.

is the return the "meanwhile" before we hit the 25 year mark?
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