I’m always wondering, who/what are the two birds? Judy is presumably one. Is the other saving Laura? But at that point in the second season, when he allegedly said this, Cooper is also preoccupied with defeating Earle and saving Annie. Having just rewatched the original series, almost all the other retcons surprisingly check out for me, but it feels a tiny bit off for this to have been the last thing Cooper said to Gordon before entering the Red Room in Episode 29.
And what is the stone? Is Laura the stone (per the Fireman seeming to weaponize her as a force to use against Judy in Part 8 )? If so, is Cooper taking her to the White Lodge/Fireman’s to prepare to wage war on Judy? If so, I then wonder who the other bird is....I could go in circles for hours.
It’s fun to try to track who knows what when. Gordon really seems to play it close to the vest, even with his extreme inner circle. When Gordon confesses the Judy plot to Albert, he makes it sound like a joint venture between him, Briggs and Cooper. But later, Cooper makes it sound distinctly like Gordon and Garland took the lead. This is consistent with Cooper and Albert clearly having no idea who Judy is in FWWM/TMP, even though Gordon had apparently debriefed Jeffries in some fashion before his disappearance. My assumption is that Briggs starts regaining memories offscreen during Episode 28 and Cooper calls Gordon, and Briggs and Cole then compare notes on Judy and hatch the plan. In this sense, Cooper may be a bit of a willing pawn.
Albert understands why Gordon couldn’t tell him about Judy...but I don’t! Blue Rose was a two-person task force for 25 years, and Gordon never told Albert about this huge piece of vital information?! What the hell, Gordon? Maybe this is another instance of Gordon’s character basically morphing into a portrayal of Lynch on TR, the withholding of secrets being a grand Lynch tradition.
Ray as paid informant is one of those things I’m still trying to wrap my head around. TFD paints it like Jeffries was Ray’s FBI handler, but it doesn’t seem like Jeffries has had contact with Gordon since FWWM (although it’s never exactly clear). It seems much more likely that that fucker Ray was playing all sides. He’s presumably an underworld no-goodnik who gets caught by the FBI on something relatively small-potatoes and flipped. During the course of his underworld dealings, he comes across the doppel, and in turn what he learns working for the doppel brings Ray into contact with Jeffries, who turns Ray into HIS cat’s-paw. It’s not clear if he’s supposed to be investigating the supernatural in his capacity as an informant, or if he just stumbles onto it, but he seemingly withholds information about the doppel (since Gordon seems genuinely surprised by his existence), but eventually tells the FBI about the doppel at some point before he dies (probably after the Part 8 shootout, perhaps desperately seeking protection when Jeffries doesn’t respond).
I love Albert’s line, “That’s strange even for Cooper.” A lot of times when characters talk about Cooper in TR, Albert doesn’t have much of a reaction, which is a little odd given that they had a pretty good rapport on the original show, although Albert is pretty deadpan/droll. It’s nice to see an acknowledgement of their past here, even in a lovingly wry remark.
I sort of wish we’d gotten a shot of the doppel driving past the “Welcome to Twin Peaks” sign at night as a dark mirror of the Pilot.
The white sycamore at the portal site looks so much like the EotA, it can’t be a coincidence, especially that slow pan up with electric lights flashing on it. Interesting that this seems to be a White Lodge portal, whereas MfAP typically seems like a Black Lodge dweller.
So the doppel is presumably following the coordinates Diane sent him at this point, as part of the plan she remembered in Part 16. I wonder when Cooper roped her into all this. A tape he sent her, again offscreen during Episode 28? Or I suppose he could have even conveyed or implanted the plan during a dream sometime after his disappearance.
Briggs’s presence in the Fireman’s seems to indicate that things are still going according to the original plan at this point, and Cooper also seems to know to go to the sheriff’s station the moment he awakens in Part 16. Assuming that Dale is not speaking hyperbolically in the sheriff’s station later on when he says Briggs was well aware of all of this, did Briggs actually foresee the doppel and all the coordinates shenanigans 25 years earlier? Maybe the Fireman implanted all these memories in him when he was abducted during the original series? How literally did he articulate these events to Coop and Gordon? Gordon seems fairly blindsided by the existence of the doppel at first in TR.
Why do people think the Fireman displays that shot of the Palmer house? Is he hinting at the “real” location of Judy? Or for some reason giving a preview of the final scene. I can’t think of any relationship between the doppel and the Palmer house. And then there’s a shot of window blinds, I think? Presumably at the Palmer house?
I’m also still not quite sure why the doppel WANTS to find Judy, especially since he’s not even sure who Judy is. Who/what does he think he’s looking for, and what does he hope to accomplish when he finds it? It’s left pretty vague—I don’t even recall TFD trying to clear it up much—and at the end of the day, it seems like the doppel and Judy both have the same goal, to meet (in Judy’s case, so she can be with Bob again).
Perhaps Judy’s original hope was for the doppel to just go back in to the Black Lodge at 2:53 like he was supposed to, which would have been the easiest outcome. But failing that, perhaps she preemptively baited him into being obsessed with some vague notion of her (the playing card, etc.) as a backup plan to draw him to her. This makes sense to me (for the moment): he is unwittingly acting out Judy’s plan for him as her puppet the whole time. While the Fireman and Briggs (and surprise hero tulpa Diane) bait him into the honey-trap that leads to his death and Bob’s destruction, countering Judy.
It’s so satisfyingly unsatisfying that we see our Cooper entering the sheriff’s station, but it’s in a rushed moment of desperation where neither character nor viewer can revel in the momentum of the occasion. In a way those two shots of Cooper running in are the embodiment of TP:TR.
Disembodied heads play a real role in this one: the superimposed Cooper, Briggs, the Bob orb, and there’s even a shot during the green glove battle where a giant Freddie head overlaps Freddie, as an echo/preview of the upcoming Cooper sequence.
Cooper says Briggs told him Sheriff Truman would have the room key. Again, when did he tell him this? I’m assuming at some point during their quarter century in the Lodge, not in Episode 28! That is a very specific piece of plot to have predicted 25 years earlier.
There’s a wonderful wide shot of everyone in that eclectic scene right after Cooper says, “I hope I see all of you again. Every one of you.” It’s a poignant line as to many of the characters (particularly the old associates he didn’t get to talk to, like Albert and Hawk). But it’s also kind of funny with the new characters he’s barely met—particularly Tammy, with whom he has zero interaction ever!
Cooper’s lapel pin returns after he’s transported to the Great Northern basement.
The words of that “Fire Walk with Me” poem apply in very literal fashion to what is about to happen. It’s been speculated that Cooper becomes the “magician” here, and I do believe that is at least Frost’s intention, given his conflation of the supernatural and Crowley-type magick in TSHoTP.
It’s tough to know what Mike is playing at in all of this. Hell, it’s tough to even know WHAT Mike is. The guy that we see, played by Al Strobel, was initially the mortal form of Phillip Gerard, who is inhabited by a spirit named Mike who we never see. He also cuts off his arm, which morphs into its own separate Lodge spirit (then becomes a brain-tree, but that’s neither here nor there). Mike even refers to Phillip Gerard’s form as a “vessel” he has remained close to. So is the guy we see in the Red Room Mike having taken on Phillip Gerard’s form permanently? Or a deceased Phillip Gerard inhabited by Mike? Or Phillip Gerard NOT inhabited by Mike, just our beloved shoe salesman having passed over and entered a state of spiritual insight (possibly aided by his earlier entanglements with the spirit world and association with Mike)? The credits consistently call him “Phillip Gerard,” and I suspect the answer might be the second option I posit above (deceased Gerard inhabited by Mike). Is he ever even referred to as Mike (or as anything) in the dialogue of TR?
In any event, on this rewatch, I’ve been toying with the idea that Mike is an agent of Judy and his goal along with the Woodsmen has been to pull the doppel in with Bob inside, so Judy can be with him. I’m having my doubts now though. This mission, if mission it be, seemingly fails, with the wildcard of Freddie solving the Fireman’s Catch-22 decision (to let Bob go to Judy or else let Bob go free) by seeing Bob released from the doppel and then destroyed (at least temporarily, seemingly). So why does Mike/Gerard keep helping Cooper after his apparent mission failure? Maybe this is the human Gerard after all, and he is benevolent (unlike his inhabiting spirit). Or, perhaps he and Jeffries are setting Cooper up for failure? It is strange that Mike (if Mike he be) would be working with Cooper on the same scheme as the Fireman. They’ve always seems to be on opposite sides, and one would think Cooper would be highly suspicious of this. But then again, if Mike/Gerard is setting him up, why would Mike keep his promise and manufacture the new tulpa, a seemingly innocuous act that benefits no one but Janey-E and Sonny Jim?
It’s interesting that Jeffries seems to have become more powerful than Mike/Gerard. He can send people through time, and Gerard seems to observe him almost with awe, again perhaps supporting the notion that this is the mortal Gerard and not the spirit Mike at all.
How do people take the phrase “the unofficial version”? I generally assume it to mean Gordon remembers what “really” happened (i.e., in the intelligence community an agency might cover up what really happened and release a sanitized “official version” for the public). In this sense, Gordon regaining his lost memories of the scene in Part 14 would be him remembering the unofficial (true) version. However, on an intuitive level that I can’t quite articulate, I can also see the opposite interpretation: logically, the truth could be considered official, and a manufactured version would be unofficial (since it didn’t really happen). I lean toward the former interpretation.
I’ve also noted that the scene in question does actually have two released versions (FWWM and TMP), and depending which one you watch, the year of the scene changes! Gordon remembers TMP version in Part 14 (IMO the fake reality, because it contradicts the timeline of the movie), and I noodled with the idea that the doppel remembering the scene taking place in 1989 might have been a tell to Jeffries that this isn’t the real Cooper because he remembers this version. However, this is the same version Gordon remembers in Part 14, which Jeffries says is the “unofficial version”...unless Jeffries means Gordon later comes to remember the FWWM version offscreen sometime after Part 14.
I’m reading way too much into it because that line in Part 15 seemingly canonizing the 1989 date seriously messed with my timeline, and I’m still bitter.
“This is where you’ll find Judy.” I wonder what Jeffries is referring to here? The date Cooper is traveling to? Or more generally, to the course of events/travels he’s about to embark upon? The full context is: “Say hello to Gordon if you see him. He’ll remember the unofficial version. This is where you’ll find Judy. There may be someone. Did you ask me this?” Then the owl cave symbol floats up.
Just before he sends him in, Jeffries says, “Cooper, remember.” There are a lot of ambiguous references to characters remembering! Does this relate to the Fireman’s, “Remember 430. Richard and Linda”?
Interesting that Lynch begins the FWWM clip one scene BEFORE Cooper flashes in, showing Laura and James riding off from the Palmer house, with Leland covertly watching them. I’ve written here and there over the years about the connections TR draws between Leland and Cooper, both of whom have been inhabited (in some form) by Bob. It’s interesting that Lynch goes out of his way to show Leland spying on the two, just as Cooper is about to do.
It’s fun to think back on James telling Cooper way back in the Pilot about the last night he saw Laura, then we as audience members got to see it in FWWM, and now here’s Cooper actually getting to witness it first-hand. Again, all this time-travel material plays like Cooper taking the role of detective to its most absurdly logical extreme, actually observing the evidence in person, and then preventing the crime from ever happening.
Cooper also serves as a stand-in for Lynch, unable to let go of Laura, constantly circling back and revisiting the events that immediately precede the series proper.
I’ve written a bit on this rewatch about the idea of slightly-different alternate realities briefly intersecting (for instance, Ed seeing the reflection). This is my explanation for why Laura screams in FWWM even though Cooper clearly doesn’t rescue her in that reality/timeline. She catches a brief glimpse of him as the realities move through each other. I do also firmly believe that Cooper doesn’t actually create a stable timeline where Laura disappears instead of turning up as a corpse, but rather creates a repeating record-skip where reality is constantly shifting back and forth between the two possibilities, as Cooper and Laura live out the loop over and over.
I really love the image of Leo, Ronette and Jacques waiting for a Laura who is never to come. It feels weirdly sad, even though it shouldn’t, because that cabin orgy is gross. There’s just a sense of wrongness to things not playing out the way they’re supposed to.
I still find the “young Laura” effects a bit dodgy compared to what other shows like Westworld have done in this area, but Sheryl absolutely kills it. As on her audiobook of TSDoLP, she sounds EXACTLY like her younger self. It’s uncanny.
The use of the “Laura Palmer Theme” over that sequence is so beautifully timed out with the beats of the scene. It hits the crescendo just as Laura says, “I’ve seen you in a dream,” but becomes ominous again as Laura takes Cooper’s hand...then starts getting hopeful again as the “wrapped in plastic” Laura is erased from the shore, and again reaches climax when Cooper says they’re going home. That whole sequence is also such a wonderful marriage of FWWM, TR, and Pilot footage. So many different styles that somehow add up to a beautiful whole, the TP experiment in a nutshell.
...and then suddenly, out of nowhere at all, we are thrust into that SUPREMELY fucked up Sarah scene. And that juxtaposition is TR in a nutshell. That Sarah scene disturbed me much more than I expected it to on this rewatch. To see a mother doing that to her dead daughter’s image...it was almost more horrific than the “neck-biting” scene. It’s sad, it’s chilling, it’s so intensely personal that I feel skeevy watching it.
I’m still on the fence about what Laura’s disappearance means and who is responsible. I get the sense from interviews that Mark’s intention was that Cooper’s “white knight” complex goes too far in trying to change the past, and he single-handedly dooms Laura to the Odessaverse, and whatever happens at the end of Part 18. I really don’t know that this Sarah scene was part of the initial L/F plan. It feels like something added by Lynch during shooting/editing, and it seemingly inserts the idea of Laura as prisoner of Judy, undermining Cooper’s culpability to some extent. The push and pull between Lynch and Frost on the original series is one of the most fascinating behind-the-scenes dynamics in show business history, IMO, and I really hope we get some insight into how TR changed from the original script someday.
I think this is super obvious, but Laura’s scream when she gets taken away is the exact same scream and sound mix from when she gets pulled up from the Red Room in Part 2/18, right down to the same wind sound effect.
The use of “The World Spins” echoes Cooper’s last failure, failing to find the killer in time to prevent Maddie’s death, in Episode 14.
Today’s Dale’s Diet: A Study in Contrasts
— Andy: “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Doppel: “No thanks. I’m alright.”
— Cooper to Frank: “We’re just entering Twin Peaks city limits. Is the coffee on?”