Cappy wrote:Maybe I am in the minority, but I really enjoy the DougieCoop/DroolCoop stuff. I think Lynch/Frost have effectively stripped away all of what we though was Coop, and left behind nothing but his most primal, childlike essence. [...]
I wholeheartedly agree with this post and the other DougieCoop/Mr Jackpots appreciation. Some additional observations/thoughts on this storyline:
DougieCoop/Mr Jackpots is not a waste of time for me. I love everything from the Jacques Tati esque comedy to the prismatic perspective, i.e. one fragment of the platonic Cooper (of which Good Coop, Dougie Jones, DoppelCoop/COOP/BobCoop/BadCoop, maybe Sonny Jim, and possibly even Chet and Sam also constitute). Within this prism, we see, as you mentioned, a primal pure innocent Cooper stripped down to the most basic morpheme of his essence. In particular, his intuitive/right-brain side.
I've also mentioned earlier that it displays Cooper's positive its and blessings unfiltered: good things come to those (deserving) who encounter DougieCoop.
Further, this is really the emotional heart of the story so far. It is for Cooper what FWWM was for Laura. Laura's fragmentation/prism was done in ways different and sometimes similar.
The emotional core of it all for me is in seeing the strong intuitive emotions that DougieCoop emanates and experiences but is unable to verbally articulate. From euphoric joys to profound empathy, from unconditional love to melancholy lamentation. It's all there in Episodes 3-5 (especially Part 5).
DougieCooper can be read multiple ways and each way is valid without being necessarily exclusive of others , as Lynch and Frost want. The reading can be equally of a man who has experienced a traumatic, abusive experience and is now recovering from that (a more psychological/sociological reading); a man who has literally endured 25 years in a +4-Dimensional space where laws of man and laws of nature i.e. Physics, chemistry, biology, logic on the human scale no longer behave as one would expect (but are consistent with the experiences of electrons or mathematical numbers etc.) and has now finally been liberated--this is a man who has no doubt experienced decade long cycles of sensory-deprivation + sensory-saturation + higher dimensional excited states... then thrust back into a 3-Dimensional, "rational" world and form (body). He is still "hot" and malleable, and his cooling down/return is taking time (more of a scientific/science fiction reading). Spiritually, his soul/body has experienced a rebirth and as such he is in an infancy/id/base lower state.
But emotionally? This is a man who has lost 25 years of his life that cannot be replaced. While it's portrayed in scant garde terms, the emotional core of it is that Cooper was robbed of life experiences. Important events and milestones, personal goals or dreams, these have all been lost to the cruel passage of time. It taps into the universal truth and fear of our mortality and the finite/finality of our existences. Even I, a 24 year old who just graduated university 2 weeks ago, have felt this sort of fear already and other similar regrets of what I'm doing with my time/life. I can't imagine the heartbreak I would feel if I were trapped in an extradimension for 25 years, only to return and realize I had not experienced marriage/my wedding day, the birth of my child, seeing my family grow, experiencing the aging (living) process with loved ones. Friends and family died that I couldn't say goodbye to (Major Briggs) or other friends sick (Harry), etc. Cooper's tears when looking at sonny Jim and when looking at the statue are heartbreaking poignant moments of a man filled with regret and deep sadness.