Freddie, or Why the Wind was Sucked Out of the Sails

[LonelySoul]

I thought Freddie was kind of a neat character. I don't know why, as important as he became, he didn't get more development time. We see him in Part 2 for a second, then we see him dump his whole backstory exposition style (ugh) and then suddenly he is the guy who destroys BOB.

So about Freddie and BOB - I think this was a huge mistake. In the original series, it was Dale Cooper chasing down who or what BOB was. And then he meets BOB in the Black Lodge. BOB rides out into the world inside Dale's doppelganger and causes all kinds of mayhem. You would think that the best way to deal with the evil that is BOB is to have the good Dale himself confront him.

Instead, we get Lucy shooting Mr. C (which was an admittedly unexpected twist) and Freddie punching BOB into nonexistence while all the other characters just stood around and watched, including Dale. I would have thought that Dale would have taken out Mr C. and then subsequently dealt with BOB. That's what this was building up to, right? Right?!

I wanted to see Dale duke it out with his doppelganger, not have Lucy save the day. I wanted to see Dale duke it out with BOB, not have some random new character we don't have much history with have a terrible CGI fist fight. Dale Cooper basically did nothing this entire series whilst stuck in Dougie's life, then he comes to and continues to be completely inactive in his own story as he watches other people do his dirty work for him. It's just really sad.

As in the other thread I posted about Dale and Annie, I should point out that I don't think Lynch/Frost owe us anything. But come on, this is downright annoying.

[N. Needleman]

I adored Freddie. We all have our roles in the cosmic scheme. Even happy-go-lucky Cockneys. I loved that whole thing, it was insane.

I don't think a Cooperbowl showdown was ever going to happen that way in The Return. The finale of 17 plus the whole of 18 prove that out, IMO - Cooper has never quite learned to reconcile his two sides, and his worst ego impulses overtake him even with the doppelganger subdued. In the end it is the 'good' Cooper who makes the choice to do the foolish thing, because he still has to be the hero. He can't just take on Judy, he has to try to save the girl. Once he chooses to cross over, his two sides are out of sync and vying for control within him - and eventually drive both Diane and "Linda" away. Cooper could not defeat the Bad Dale because Cooper did not fully understand that the Bad Dale is a part of him, and that the Good Dale can be just as dangerous.

[Cipher]

Freddie was perfect. His role in the story was to push all the increasingly demystified focus on the series' supernatural elements up to 11. A literal war between good and bad spirits; magic gloves; a fight to destroy the personal trauma represented by Bob.

It all made sense within the increasingly pulpy world of Tulpas and Blue Rose cases set up (to my increasing worry) in The Return, to resplendently absurd (and genuinely joyful; you're invited to take pleasure in it) degrees, as setup for an ever-more-affecting reminder of what the quirky mythology has always masked, and always spiderwebbed out from.

The final 90 minutes shift radically from that tease of what the series might have been to what it is -- the trauma and struggle for self-acceptance of one girl, and now her would-be-savior, writ large onto the cosmology of a world, given the shape of a mystery. Everything is thoroughly mystified from there. No green gloves, no floating antenna-headed-figures above mountains, no magic maps, no plans to take over this/that/the other Lodge -- just doppelgangers as representations of resistance to accept a whole self (appetites and failure and all, finally forced onto Cooper when he passes over), just angry parents with enough momentum to cause supernatural ripples, just the ideas of acceptance and either trying naively to battle or wisely to accept the emotional currents of individual lives.

Dale was never going to duke it out with that doppelganger, and to the extent that he might have, it could only, really, have ever been as pat and cartoonish as it was. Jeffries told him two episodes prior he was Cooper.

[N. Needleman]

I should say: I don't think Lynch intended Freddie or any of the other mythos wholly as a piss-take. I think he genuinely believes in and loves almost all of the purely joyful or absurd elements in The Return, and the entire long story of Freddie and his wonderful, ludicrous backstory screamed Lynch to me moreso than Frost. I do think it may have also been a gentle mocking of the superhero movie genre, but mostly I think he genuinely bought into the epic showdown in the Sheriff's station and the roles of people like Freddie and especially Andy and Lucy.

That said, their roles are predestined and they don't attempt to go beyond the border. Cooper does on his own initiative, insisting on trying to save Laura Palmer - to do more than he should. Cooper's story ends (stops?) badly because of Cooper's uniquely human choices. The people of Twin Peaks end hopefully, largely happily because they know their destinies and fulfill them - nothing more or less. Where Cooper's choice takes him is beyond them, into pure Lynch and the fatal duality of man, and that is also part of the core of Twin Peaks.

[Cipher]

I should say: I don't think Lynch intended Freddie or any of the other mythos wholly as a piss-take. I think he genuinely believes in and loves almost all of the purely joyful or absurd elements in The Return, and the entire long story of Freddie and his wonderful, ludicrous backstory screamed Lynch to me moreso than Frost. I do think it may have also been a gentle mocking of the superhero movie genre, but mostly I think he genuinely bought into the epic showdown in the Sheriff's station and the roles of people like Freddie and especially Andy and Lucy.

That said, their roles are predestined and they don't attempt to go beyond the border. Cooper does on his own initiative, insisting on trying to save Laura Palmer - to do more than he should. Cooper's story ends (stops?) badly because of Cooper's uniquely human choices. The people of Twin Peaks end hopefully, largely happily because they know their destinies and fulfill them - nothing more or less. Where Cooper's choice takes him is beyond them, into pure Lynch and the fatal duality of man, and that is also part of the core of Twin Peaks.

Yeah, I don't think it's a full-on "piss-take" either, which is why I'm trying to be careful to comment that there's a very sincere invitation to join in on the catharsis and revelry.

But I do think they're positioned to feel a little dishonest set between Fire Walk With Me and The Return's end. So much of Twin Peaks is about the folly of distancing, of externalizing, and you can't get much more distanced or externalized than cementing its abstractions as a fantastic battle of good and evil beyond the self to be won. 17 and 18 are very intentional counterpoints, in that way.

While all still working, for exactly the reasons you point out here, on a completely literal level -- providing a tidy happy ending from which Cooper walks away.

[richsmith]

The idea of Good Cooper fighting it out with Bad Cooper or, worse, BOB, was one of the things I was most dreading. Thankfully Lynch and co avoided it.

Now, the question of whether using Freddie as the vehicle was any better is a valid one. Despite adoring The Return in general, I have to admit that the Freddie/BOB battle was undoubtedly one of its silliest moments, both in theory and execution. The idea that something as terrifying as BOB could be defeated in such a lame and random way was a disappointment. However, I do think it fits in with the obvious intention of general meta-ness that underlines this whole project, both in its winking dismissal of Season 1/2's most famous ghoul, and as a wry commentary on how superhero origin stories have come to dominate Lynch's preferred art form.

[N. Needleman]

Yeah, I don't think it's a full-on "piss-take" either, which is why I'm trying to be careful to comment that there's a very sincere invitation to join in on the catharsis and revelry.

But I do think they're positioned to feel a little dishonest set between Fire Walk With Me and The Return's end. So much of Twin Peaks is about the folly of distancing, of externalizing, and you can't get much more distanced or externalized than cementing its abstractions as a fantastic battle of good and evil beyond the self to be won. 17 and 18 are very intentional counterpoints, in that way.

I actually think it's honest because it's positioned between those two poles. If the story had simply ended on a bravura CGI finale with BOB Bowl '17 there, that I think would've been a bit too pat and conventional and yes, dishonest. But it was always going to go back to Cooper and Laura somehow and something more internal, and it did. I do think the parts are definitely distinct counterpoints. But I think that goes back to Cooper. Everyone fulfills their roles, until Cooper's mania makes him decide to go for two birds with one stone.

There had to be other ways to utilize the spirit of Laura to battle Judy, if need be. I do not believe what Cooper did was what Margaret alluded to when she said "Laura is the one". I do not believe it was what the Fireman intended. I think Cooper made his own flawed hero's mistake there just as he did while trapped in the Lodge in FWWM - pleading with Laura not to take the ring simply because he didn't want her to die, even though dying was the only way to save her soul. I believed he was wrong about that for 20 years and AFAIC Part 18 proved me right. It was about what he wanted for her (and as an extension of his mission/male agency), not what the universe needed.

Anyway, topic: The Freddie/BOB Battle is an all-time TP moment for me. Glorious.

[Cipher]

I think we actually agree more than anything, especially about Cooper. And the silly pulpiness of 17's climax definitely is an honest representation of his worldview at the time -- incidentally the same one that ensures he'd have to attempt to go even further than its happy ending.

Anyway, agreed that Freddie vs. Bob is stupid, but glorious, and it feels right that the story dispatched Bob. Of course he winds up just being yesteryear's demon.

[Mr. Reindeer]

As much as I disliked the "orb fight," I'm glad we didn't get a predictable Star Trek-esque "Mirror Mirror" doppelbattle between Coops. And, as much as I disliked the scene, I'd kill to see a video of L/F coming up with the idea. I can just imagine the boyish joy and enthusiasm.

[IcedOver]

Freddie feels more like a Frost creation given he also co-wrote the first two Fox Fantastic Four movies, and he probably wrote his Great Northern scene. I definitely liked that scene and the character, but yes, the character suffered the same way as so many others (including Mr. Cooper), from a complete resistance to offering any sort of development. Freddie I'd say got more than Mr. Cooper, Diane, Frank, or Tammy, though, because at least he talks about feeling that he's wasting his life. You could almost say that he's the hero that Cooper wants to be, able to punch out evil with his simple green glove, while Cooper is left traveling through other dimensions and identities, ultimately unable to triumph over anything or find "answers."

[FlyingSquirrel]

I tend to think of these sorts of scenes as a sort of abstraction or representation of what's "really" happening, kind of like in "Flatland" where the two-dimensional people can only perceive two dimensions of the three-dimensional being, and thus they don't bother me too much. I think Freddie's glove and the BOB-ball were our (and the characters') three-dimensional perceptions of the who-knows-how-many actual dimensions of the supernatural realm. And Cooper asking if his name was Freddie (indicating that he knew of the White Lodge's communication with Freddie, or perhaps even initiated it himself) partly redeemed it for me by helping paint the picture of Cooper's involvement with the Lodge forces, as opposed to it just being a case of a random guy from England being given a magical glove for some reason.