Part 5 - Case files (SPOILERS)

[douglasb]

:waves:

[Ragnell]

Jacoby's rants aren't disconnected from our story, however. Currently they're expanding thematically the key problem -- this is a world gone to ****.

There's intentional irony here too: Jacoby and others sense something's corrupt in the world, but they blame it on material-political causes when Lynch-Frost suggest it is fundamentally a spiritual problem, but the metaphysics are so strange your average Joe and Jane could never even begin to guess the truth.

What interests me here is Jacoby in the old series was eccentric, he was also unethical with his relationship with Laura, but... he did genuinely help people during the series. He was a gentle, kind person who helped Johnny Horne get into the mindset where he could attend the funeral. He helped Bobby Briggs get through his guilt in his relationship with Laura, paving the way for Bobby to reform his life and salvage his relationship with his parents. And even though I know most people hate the second season, Jacoby's plots there were about bettering people's lives. He did help Ed deal with the immensely hard problem of Nadine's amnesia, which ended awkwardly but could have been painful and even tragic if Ed had challenged the delusion before she was ready to give it up. He did get Ben Horne out of his breakdown and into another storyline. And he was last seen shepherding Sara Palmer through an apparent possession.

Now? He's spreading conspiracy theories, convincing the most emotionally vulnerable citizens in town that everyone is out to get them and taking them for 29.99 plus shipping and handling for cheap crap. Jacoby went from being a guy who was a positive influence on people's lives, a piece of charming eccentricity in a charmingly eccentric town, to a negative influence on the very people he used to heal and help. It's definitely a symptom of how very wrong things have gone in the last 25 years, that one of only two professional healers in town has turned into someone who harms, in the very area he used to heal, for a quick buck.

It's also worth noting: Gold. To me, the light DougieCoop/RealCoop saw during the meeting was yellow, and I think it was meant to be a gold rather than green light. Because wherever I've noticed gold this show, it's a lie or an illusion. Dougie (the original manufactured Dougie, not DougieCoop) was introduced wearing a gold blazer, and when he goes to the Red Room he's reduced to a gold pellet, b/c he's a copy of the real Cooper, part of BadCoop's deception to avoid returning to the Lodge. The Gold shovels are a fake solution offered up in place of real therapeutic work by a disgraced and disillusioned therapist. "Infuse the machine with gold" sounds like they're gumming up the works with lies, which is definitely what Bad Coop is doing.

[N. Needleman]

Jacoby is also presented in the deleted material from FWWM (The Missing Pieces) as an old pervert asking a disgusted Laura to send him kisses over the phone.

Jacoby is a lot of contradictory things - some spiritual, some self-loathing, some benevolent - but in the end he was a middle-aged man lusting after an underage patient and incest victim. So I don't find his characterization here unusual. I think if he was presented as simply heroic or kind that would be unusual.

[Wonderful & Strange]

@Ragnell

That's a really strong post. I agree with pretty much all of it except I think we may not know yet what exactly gold signifies.

Did the gold pearl signify artificiality or did it signify identity/self? Did it imply that Cooper's identity, the golden pearl, had been taken from him and placed into Dougie?

[OrsonWelles]

Anyone any idea about who Amy Shiels could be playing? Undercover FBI-agent?

[Mr. Reindeer]

Jacoby's a fascinatingly complex dude. Remember his monologue to Coop in the cemetery about his ambivalence toward his patients. And his first appearance was fingering the hula girl on his tie while giggling about a patient of his who had just died hours earlier. He became blander in season 2, but so did a lot of characters.

I felt Mark kinda whitewashed him in TSHoTP, as much as I enjoyed some of his diatribes in the book (and Tamblyn's goofy clearly-first-take readings on the audiobook). Retconning Laura's age to 18 and having him be this shaman/spiritualist shining a flashlight on society's issues. I love where the character has gone in the new show, and hope we coninue to see edgier versions of the old characters, closer to the more eccentric/uncomfortable performances in the Pilot.

Given Tamblyn's heart problems a few years ago, an irrational part of me was terrified -- even knowing it was a completed take shot over a year ago -- that he was going to have a heart attack in the middle of the scene. He really gave that rant his all. Incredible work IMO.

[BigEd]

we're not going to talk about Denise Richards, we're not going to talk about Denise Richards at all, we're going to leave her out of it..

LOL. I had a similar reaction when I read that post.

[Ragnell]

Jacoby is also presented in the deleted material from FWWM (The Missing Pieces) as an old pervert asking a disgusted Laura to send him kisses over the phone.

Jacoby is a lot of contradictory things - some spiritual, some self-loathing, some benevolent - but in the end he was a middle-aged man lusting after an underage patient and incest victim. So I don't find his characterization here unusual. I think if he was presented as simply heroic or kind that would be unusual.

I did say his relationship with Laura was unprofessional. Like Emma Frost going after Scott Summers while in therapy, completely unethical and kind of creepy. I didn't say it was UNBELIEVABLE. I said it was a sign of how badly things went that this is where THIS particular character ended up. Consider that every character has their highest and noblest aspirations, their Level 10 Top Score Win the Game goal, and their lowest and basest aspirations. Eveyrone has these, particularly in Twin Peaks. Now, they vary with the flavor and baseline criminality of the character, but they can start off low and end up high or start off high and end up low.

So, think of it like a game where you get points for actions. For example, Cooper's highest aspiration was the bring law and justice to the town, Jacoby's was to improve the mental health of others. Everytime they further this goal, they get paragon points like in Mass Effect, leading to a good possible ending. (Like say, going to the Lodge and NOT being annihilated but being able to return even after being beaten by the Dweller on the Threshold. Or being a respected Psychologist despite losing a patient.) Now both Cooper and Jacoby had attraction to a High School Girl, Cooper got the Paragon points for letting her down easy, Jacoby got the creep points. But Jacoby did do enough good to take him off the creep path. Ben Horne and Bobby Briggs have both managed to get off the creep path, after all. Jacoby, however, has been completely corrupted in the poast 25 years, to the point he does the exact opposite of his highest aspiration.

Most of the charcters are gonna be somewhere between highest and lowest. Hawk, Lucy, Andy, Norma, James are all leading similar lives to their season one lives. Bobby Briggs has a considerably better life. Ben Horne seems to have a better life. Gordon Cole and Albert, about the same , Denise better. We've seen new characters on various sides. We've seen enough new villains to show that the world has gotten a lot darker. BadCoop is the main example of a previously good or neutral character showing up as corrupt, and we all know exactly how that happened. Jacoby, though, is the first character we see who did not go to the lodge, who previously existed and interacted at length with Cooper, who became the exact opposite of his highest aspiration. This is the first Twin Peaks regular who is morally worse off than before.

And yeah I feel sad its Jacoby who got the bad path. (Not that its not a good dramatic turn.) It's in character, it contributes to the story but its a shame because Twin Peaks has a lot of people who could use a psychologist and now they have the opposite. Jacoby being worse means some of the characters we haven't been fully reacquainted with yet (Nadine, who looks happy but I don't think that's a great indicator of her mental state) will be worse off.

[Ragnell]

@Ragnell

That's a really strong post. I agree with pretty much all of it except I think we may not know yet what exactly gold signifies.

Did the gold pearl signify artificiality or did it signify identity/self? Did it imply that Cooper's identity, the golden pearl, had been taken from him and placed into Dougie?

Not enough data to go off of, I guess. I'll be watching for gold now to see if it holds up, though.

[Ragnell]

Jacoby's a fascinatingly complex dude. Remember his monologue to Coop in the cemetery about his ambivalence toward his patients. And his first appearance was fingering the hula girl on his tie while giggling about a patient of his who had just died hours earlier. He became blander in season 2, but so did a lot of characters.

I felt Mark kinda whitewashed him in TSHoTP, as much as I enjoyed some of his diatribes in the book (and Tamblyn's goofy clearly-first-take readings on the audiobook). Retconning Laura's age to 18 and having him be this shaman/spiritualist shining a flashlight on society's issues. I love where the character has gone in the new show, and hope we coninue to see edgier versions of the old characters, closer to the more eccentric/uncomfortable performances in the Pilot.

Given Tamblyn's heart problems a few years ago, an irrational part of me was terrified -- even knowing it was a completed take shot over a year ago -- that he was going to have a heart attack in the middle of the scene. He really gave that rant his all. Incredible work IMO.

It is amazing. Though I have a terrible feeling there isn't a replacement mental health professional in town.

[Xavi]

I truly hope that Jacoby's gold spades will be needed for Hawk's mission.

[mtwentz]

Personally, psychiatrists, psychologists and counselors I have met and/or heard of in my life have ended up being some of the biggest basket cases, so no, Jacoby being a psychiatrist and ending up as a paranoid con man is not out of character at all.

Jacoby always struck me as wacky, and remember it was Coop that stated, 'That guy's a psychiatrist?'

The above being said, remember in his final scene in the original series, Jacoby potentially gains some knowledge of the Black Lodge when he brings Sarah Palmer to see Major Briggs. It's possible, just possible, there is something more going on in these scenes that could be influenced by the Lodge.

[BMS242]

He helped Bobby Briggs get through his guilt in his relationship with Laura, paving the way for Bobby to reform his life and salvage his relationship with his parents.

Interesting. I was always creeped out by that scene as it felt like Jacoby was getting off on 1) breaking down Bobby's rough exterior and 2) hearing yet another example of how well Laura could control and manipulate those around her.

He seemed to do a lot of good for some people, but there were certainly indications that he was a creep as well. He pretty much admits as such to Cooper at Laura's grave.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[BigEd]

Now? He's spreading conspiracy theories, convincing the most emotionally vulnerable citizens in town that everyone is out to get them and taking them for 29.99 plus shipping and handling for cheap crap. Jacoby went from being a guy who was a positive influence on people's lives, a piece of charming eccentricity in a charmingly eccentric town, to a negative influence on the very people he used to heal and help. It's definitely a symptom of how very wrong things have gone in the last 25 years, that one of only two professional healers in town has turned into someone who harms, in the very area he used to heal, for a quick buck.

In my experience, sometimes a bit of menial, hard work (i.e. "shoveling sh*t") can do more for a person's physical and psychological well being than the best, highest priced professional counseling. Of course, YMMV.

[Wonderful & Strange]

This discussion on Jacoby just proves what an amazing job Lynch and Frost have done on him.

The creep with a good heart is now a conspiracy nut with (probably) a good heart.

If there's one critique I could make about Twin Peaks, is that it would spend less time on plot and more time focusing on the character arcs of these uniquely complex characters Lynch and Frost create.

Having said that, I love the way Lynch and Frost approach plot too.