Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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cgs027
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by cgs027 »

asmahan wrote:
vicksvapor77 wrote:
Also, what does everyone make of Ray being a 'paid informant' who told Cole (through Jeffries?) that Mr. C was looking for coordinates? How does this line up with anything we've seen? Cole and co. were shocked to find out about Mr. C in South Dakota. And then you add to that the weirdness of Ray receiving the owl cave ring from a guard?
This caught me off guard too. The FBI crew also seemed ignorant Ray and Daria's rather coldblooded murder of Betty the Secretary, at least by part 9.
Ha, exactly. I wouldn't think a paid informant would be involved in blowing up the cars of innocent high school secretarys. Unless we assume he was working "rogue", due to the fact that his contact seemed to be Jefferies, who isn't in any position to tell him how to behave. (But then -- do we really think he was communicating with Jefferies, who was then calling Cole and keeping him up to date with the goings-ons?).
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Esselgee »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Esselgee wrote:So might we get a reason now why Ontkean dropped out? Did he possibly get to read the whole script and changed his mind? He would have had probably just the single scene with Kyle in 17 and thought it just wouldn't be worthwhile?
Ontkean would have had plenty of scenes...L/F wouldn't have asked him to fly up from Hawaii for one scene. All Frank's scenes, and likely several of Hawk's, would have belonged to Harry. The character of Frank was only invented after he dropped out.
What I was saying was that Harry/Frank only had a single scene with Kyle in addition to many other scenes without Kyle. Maybe Ontkean wanted more scenes with the Kyle than just the one...something closer to the original series where they were quite the team. Maybe he just read the ridiculous scene with the bouncing Bob punchout and thought better of doing it.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by sewhite2000 »

I asked a question three pages ago that no one has attempted to answer, so I'll throw it out again: any thoughts on what Jeffries meant when he told Cooper Gordon would "remember the unofficial version"?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

So much to unpack, and a lot of terrific analysis in this thread. Loved TheGum's Buddhism post.

I don't think it's an accident that the final words Cole says to Cooper are "Be thinking of you, Coop." I think this is a clue that DKL definitely hasn't closed the door on future material in this universe. I'm all for ambiguous endings, and would be fine if L/F want to leave the story here (just as I loved the dark humor of the season 2 ending, I think the end of Part 18 is an existential masterpiece). However, DKL's endings tend to always have a firm air of finality (quite often the ultimate finality, the death of the main character). I didn't feel that same type of finality here. Certainly, artists evolve; but to me, this felt like a conscious move to set up a future story that L/F may want to tell, if the mood ever strikes them. I never thought I'd be saying this; I was firmly in the "closed ending" camp up until last night (both in terms of my desires and expectation). But I'm now convinced that they're at least contemplating going back to the well at some point, and after Part 18, I'm excited to see where the story would take them. I'm still skeptical that it will actually happen, but the prospect is tantalizing.

A strange thing about this season. Yes, there were a LOT of storylines set in motion that really didn't have conventional resolutions (the glass box, Red, Becky), which is truly odd since this was scripted and shot as one long "movie." And we can argue whether the lack of payoff on certain storylines is an intentional anti-narrative choice or just sloppiness. But the truly weird thing to me is how aggressively the show tried to give closure to so much stuff from the old series and FWWM. From defining Judy and Blue Rose to painfully literal degrees to giving Ed & Norma a happy ending, there was a real sense of "taking care of all family business" about the way TR dealt with the 25-year-old aspects of the franchise it chose to address, which stands in stark contrast to the way L/F conjured up brand-new prominent plots and characters just to abandon them. Again, this leads me to believe they may have more in store for some of this stuff.

If not, however, I am perfectly happy with the ending we got, which can act either as a Sopranos-style "Schrodinger's cat" type ending, or a MD "Silencio" moment where we can assume that Laura's scream of realization broke the universe and destroyed all of reality, shutting off the electricity that powers all life in the Lynchverse. (I particularly like the latter interpretation -- Sheryl has some powerful lungs after all these years!)

It's interesting how some people prefer to think of Part 17 as the "real" ending. I do think this structure was intentional (and as much as DKL protests that this is one long movie, both these Parts were clearly structured as cohesive "episodes" with their own internal logic and feel, very different from each other and from anything else in TR). It reminds me of the last four episodes of Breaking Bad. Each of those four could conceivably act as finale to the show in many ways, and each of them essentially acts as one of the four potential endings fans had been speculating the show could have (Walt gets arrested, Walt goes into hiding, &c.). This feels very much like a conscious choice on L/F's part to do the same kind of thing: to give us the more conventional story-based ending before plunging us into pure-heroin-Lynchland. Probably not a surprise to anyone who reads my posts here, I liked Part 18 a LOT more than Part 17 (although 17 got way better after Mr. C died, when it essentially shifted gears into "Part 18 mode").

I didn't love the extensive reused footage at the end of Part 17 and beginning of Part 18 (looong scene from FWWM, the "Laura disappearance" scene repeating in Part 18, and then a bunch of barely-altered material from Part 2 reused -- even the recycled Cruise track). I get the purpose of each of these, but it was a lot of reused scenes back-to-back-to-back. Not my favorite editing choice (although I do like the theory that Laura's woods disappearance in Part 18 is a separate occurrence, and that it keeps happening over and over). The "hero hiding in the bushes intercut with footage from a prior film/episode" is such a time travel trope, I didn't think it merited how much time we spent on the James/Laura scene. Now on future rewatches, we're essentially going to be watching this entire scene twice.

I love the theories that Coop's hubris is his downfall. I definitely sensed that he had merged with Mr. C -- when he tells Diane "You come over here to me," it felt like a Don Draper/James Bond bedroom power play moment. Not that there's anything wrong with that kind of thing, but it felt so alien to "our" Coop, who was so tender with Annie and Audrey. (Of course, every coupling has its own language and that might be Coop/Diane's thing, but especially given the rape in their history, that line really skeeved me out). When you think about it, Coop's mission since the beginning of the series is to solve Laura's murder, and the ultimate "solution" is to prevent it from ever happening! Detective-work taken to its illogically logical extreme. All the Arthurian allusions actually have a dark purpose: to shed light on Coop's Achilles' heel, his overreaching chivalry, his paternalistic belief that he needs to fix everything and help everyone, particularly pretty women. (Nice little character moment: Coop walks around to Carrie's side of the car at the Valero station to open the door for her.) At the outset of the season, I had conflicting impulses: I needed DKL to go all the way with the "doppel" idea, to explore Coop's dark underbelly the same way he has for other characters in LH, MD, IE, &c. using doubles, because if he didn't do that, what was the point of the device? However, OTOH I love pure sweet quirky Coop, and it was tough for me to even imagine what his dark side WAS. Throughout most of TR, it seemed like DKL was taking the easy way out: Mr. C was an engaging enough presence, but at his core came across as just another cliche evil clone/double. It was tough to figure out what if any culpability "our" Coop had in Mr. C's evil thoughts and deeds. The Mr. C resolution in Part 17 was pretty unsatisfying for me, but once the character merged back into the "real" Coop, I felt like that was the true payoff of the Mr. C storyline. I'm not sure that it justifies 17 hours of jabbering about coordinates and farms, but having seen Mr. C in action allowed us a shorthand in Dale's body language to let us know when that side of him was taking over, without him having to actually do anything particularly detestable. It was subtle and extremely effective, albeit tough to lose "our" Dale so quickly after getting him back. It leaves me to wonder: was this darker side always latent in him, or was it purely embodied in the doppel before they "merged"?

Sidebar: Has anyone yet mentioned how sleazy it is that Coop has sex with Diane after having screwed her sister repeatedly? Wonder if he ever even bothers to tell her this happened? It doesn't seem like Diane knows about Coop's time as Dougie.

A few of us last week were speculating that the "Phillip" Mr. C spoke to in Part 2 was actually Phillip Gerard. Given that theory, I thought it was hysterical when Coop says "Phillip?" and Jeffries responds, "Be specific" (especially since Gerard/Mike was in the scene!). I don't think this was intentional (he means he wants Coop to be specific about what he asks), but I was amused. Btw, isn't the smoke/steam that pours out of the teakettle just beautiful?

This has been noted a couple of times, but it bears repeating that the "listen to the sounds" record scratch is heard just as Laura disappears from the woods.

I guess most people know that Kristi the diner waitress is played by Clint Eastwood's daughter? She was in the most recent season of Fargo among other things. Nice to see the TP tradition of featuring famous directors' family members (Emily Fincher, Ted Raimi) continued.

I can't be the only one who half-expected Coop & Diane to start driving backwards once they reached 430, like the old "Harry driving backward into the Black Lodge" rumor. Right?

Coop intuitively knowing the third cowboy had a gun hearkens back to him knowing about Bushnell's gun. But I also took it as a Texas joke -- "You don't have a gun? Give me a break. This is Texas, EVERYONE is packing!"

The deep fryer thing was weird. Why not unload the guns before throwing them in? Why does he stand directly next to the fryer after telling the cook it was dangerous?

We've sure moved beyond White Lodge/Black Lodge, huh? We're gonna be unpacking these new mythological developments for YEARS.
Last edited by Mr. Reindeer on Mon Sep 04, 2017 8:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Esselgee wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Esselgee wrote:So might we get a reason now why Ontkean dropped out? Did he possibly get to read the whole script and changed his mind? He would have had probably just the single scene with Kyle in 17 and thought it just wouldn't be worthwhile?
Ontkean would have had plenty of scenes...L/F wouldn't have asked him to fly up from Hawaii for one scene. All Frank's scenes, and likely several of Hawk's, would have belonged to Harry. The character of Frank was only invented after he dropped out.
What I was saying was that Harry/Frank only had a single scene with Kyle in addition to many other scenes without Kyle. Maybe Ontkean wanted more scenes with the Kyle than just the one...something closer to the original series where they were quite the team. Maybe he just read the ridiculous scene with the bouncing Bob punchout and thought better of doing it.
Ahhh, I gotcha. That's possible -- he dropped out very close to shooting, which might line up with when he got the initial sides. But all we can do is speculate. I imagine the truth will come out some day, as so much behind-the-scenes stuff from the original did. Honestly, I just hope Ontkean's health and that of his family is OK. All the talk of Harry's illness made me a little fearful that we would see a Skype call to a debilitated Harry, a la Margaret/Coulson.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by AgentEcho »

After 24 hours I find myself warming to the finale a bit. It was haunting, no doubt. That's a good sign, that it's sticking with me. I find the prospect of more seasons might make me warm to it quite a bit, but it has to function as an end to the franchise and I imagine I will struggle with that a bit longer if not forever. Right now I feel it undoes what FWWM did to serve as a coda to the franchise.

I always appreciate filmmaking that challenges us though, and no doubt this is an example. There's no sense in rushing to judgement with a filmmaker like Lynch (at least for those of us who appreciate him). And even if I continue to struggle with this as the end, I appreciate a great many things about The Return and am grateful it was made. There were more than enough great moments to make it worthwhile.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by ThumbsUp »

Okay, I just rewatched this episode for the first time. In the dark by myself with headphones. Extremely unsettling.

I found in phenomenal on a rewatch. I also have more respect for the Diane-going-with-him thing on a second viewing. They've gone through so much together but even right up to the end there are trust issues and supernatural confusion and existential crises and lost love (not necessarily romantic).

Diane and Coop's conversation in the car before entering the portal mimics Gersten and Stephen's a bit: Gersten and Diane both trying to talk Coop and Stephen out of something self-destructive.

Diane's face during sex is a disturbing and sad contrast to the shot of Becky in the car.

The decor in Judy's resembles Sonny Jim's bedroom.

Does Coop's pin change toward the end? Owl Cave symbol as Richard, FBI as Coop.

Also, I have a theory.

We've established that phones are means of travel from the Convenience Store, as Evil Coop used one in an earlier episode. When Audrey is saying she's tired of waiting for the phone to ring and she wants her coat to leave, it means she wants to get out of the Convenience Store purgatory that Evil Coop has taken her to.

Meanwhile, Carrie's phone is ringing and she has her coat and ready to go. Also, the 6 pole is right outside her house, which we know is connected to the Chalfonts and the Black Lodge.

Carrie mentions being pursued and that she needs to get out of Dodge. I think she senses Judy's attempts to interfere with Coop and the Fireman's plans of saving Laura and she's trying to suck Carrie/Laura back into evil clutches, possibly through the telephone.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by thedarktrees »

I’m just barely catching up on the explosion of comments on the part 18 thread — and catching up with my own reactions to the finale. I think I’m still mixed. There’s a lot I liked about the finale, and a lot I found stunningly captivating. But there’s some stuff I definitely found underwhelming, at least in these still initial impressions.

In general: I thought part 18 was fascinating, and part 17 fell a bit short. I’m fine in general with not having resolved plots, but Lynch/Frost really went to the extreme on this here. Which comes off as weird in this series because it really doesn’t feel like all these subplots (Shelly, Red, Becky, Carl, Norma, Ben/Jerry, etc) do much to deepen the picture, add context, give color, or whatever else they might otherwise have done. In the original series, the web of subplot definitely does that, and paints this complex picture of town and its underbelly of darkness and secrets. In this season it’s much more unmoored, and not just in terms of simple narrative.

I loved the complex abstract & unresolved turns taken in part 18. But I think there are some weird problems that come up in part 17 in terms of plot stuff that we’re actually SUPPOSED to understand. The stuff with Ray Monroe is a good example of that.

But even more than that: this whole grand scheme of Cooper’s, aided by Briggs, and supposedly coordinated at some point (when? before DoppelCoop leaves the lodge?) with Gordon Cole seems really clumsily handled and explained. And it IS a plot piece that was supposed to be explained. For one thing, IF Cole and Cooper and Briggs knew of “Judy”, and moreover knew what Judy was, then why the hell doesn’t DoppelCoop apparently not know anything about Judy? When he grills the Jeffries tea kettle about it, DoppelCoop seems to have no clue who or what Judy is at all. That makes no sense, given that DoppelCoop otherwise knows everything and anything real Coop knows. So what’s with this weird slip? What am I missing here?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Saturn's child »

So what if when Cooper sees Naido/Diane in the sheriff's station, he is facing up to the memory/fact that he raped her? According to this line of thought:

* Coop raped Diane in the past; his conscious mind cannot live up to this fact, so he cloaks Diane in the form of Naido, who is (literally) blind to the wrong that was done to her.

* Coop Returns to his repressed memory & recognises Naido for who she truly is, Diane. This & it's attendant repressed memory are shocking to him & we see his personality become fractured (the superimposed giant Cooper head). It is time (2:53) for him to face up to what he has repressed.

* Coop finally has the Great Northern key, the item needed to unlock a door in his mind. We've already seen him on the third floor in the original season -- his conscious mind -- but now we see it opens into the basement, the furnace. Here are his primal desires & repressions. He opens the door.

* The sex scene is Coop trying to correctly remember Diane's rape. He is 'Mr C' during this time, blankly staring at Diane; he tried to enter the memory as Coop, but he has failed. It's interesting that Diane covers his eyes & she has only recently emerged from a form with covered eyes. The truth isn't being seen.

* Due to his failure he undergoes a sort of psychogenic fugue, becoming 'Richard' (Diane is again removed to a repressed cloak identity, this time 'Linda'). This almost feels like Lost Highway, but we get to see what happens after the credits, when Fred/Coop has entered a new version of reality. He is a hero of sorts again, trying to save the fairytale princess instead of facing up to his dangerous repressed memory.

I don't think this is 'what happened', I just found it interesting to think about.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by dud »

An observation of mine that i have not seen voiced yet: I've seen several people say that cooper seemed careless or unethical and ultimately un-cooper-like with his gun pointing and curtness with the waitress and cook in the judy's coffee shop sequence, but i actually interpreted that as him being very cautious and wary of the entire place and its inhabitants because of its namesake. He really didn't have much of a grasp on the reality of the situation at the time: he was looking for some other waitress and demanded her address and then was surprised when laura/carrie answered the door, he clearly expected something else. I feel like cooper was relying completely on his cooper intuition from the 'richard and linda' note onward, but deep down i think he knew he was lost and his intuition wasn't as dependable and fail-safe as it once was.

Instead of the 'different person'/integration of both good and bad cooper theories, I felt like it was truly our coop and we were just seeing a different side of him for the first time, i think deep down on some level he knew he screwed something up / wasn't in control of the situation and we were seeing his frustration and dejection come through. The whole final sequence he's grasping at straws more and more: beginning with him asking laura if she recognizes anything, escalating to him rattling off weak follow-up question after follow-up question to mrs. tremond when it's already clear that he's not making any headway with this line of questioning, culminating in him asking 'what year is this' and walking forward and grasping for a door handle that isn't there in the hopes that there will be some magical lodge door there to give him some direction, truly grasping at straws. ending with the credits with cooper's face of absolute horror/brokenness as laura is standing over him, inverting the ending of fwwm where laura is sitting there radiating with the joy of spiritual transcendence while cooper is standing over her.

pretty heartbreaking interpretation but yeah lol. so devastating. simply put, i think the ending of the show was that cooper screwed everything up and undid the beautiful ending that laura had at the end of FWWM. yet i don't think his flaw is exactly hubris as others have said: i think he was overcompensating for his regret about screwing up things for carolyn and annie. he trying too hard to be good, so he went overboard trying to help laura and undid her good ending :( her scream of horror at the end was her new ending because she never got the chance to face her demons / abuse at the end of FWWM and transcend them because cooper snatched her up instead
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by thedarktrees »

But just to throw some other general reflections into the pot:

-loved a lot of Part 18. I think most people were expecting the unexpected, and even STILL couldn't have expected what went down. I just found the whole thing strange and compelling. The way they pulled off this feeling of things being off kilter and ajar is incredible.

-and also on the unexpected: who could have possibly guessed that the demise of Bob who have involved him being punched to death by a gardening glove while Jim Belushi stands in the room watching?

-don't get all the consternation about the original story being retconned out of existence... How could that possibly be the case? Everything that happens in Part 18, right up to the last second is fundamentally premised on all the events of the Laura Palmer murder. I mean Coop, even in whatever different existence he's in, is still looking for Sarah and Laura.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by dud »

and one more quick comment: i'm surprised about how little of people's interpretations about the ending involve laura coming to grips with her abuse, since that was the focus of her whole character arc in FWWM imo AND because of how violence against women was such a huge theme in TR. so much talk about retconning and whatnot and not a lot about sarah's distorted 'laura!' -> laura's scream -> lights going out in the house and what that means for her character.

and to the person who is curious about the jefferies 'unofficial version' line about gordon: i am curious as well lol. best guess is 'version' is referring to a reality: 'unofficial' = not the true reality/timeline/whatever you want to call it,

and to whoever made that post in this thread that got buried / no recognition about mrs. tremond and/or her grandson and/or the jumping man being judy because phillip told bad coop aka BOB 'you've already met judy'...bravo. i think you are onto something. judy/mother/tremond/grandson/jumpingman/sarah all seem to be interconnected and it will be fun unravel who is who
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SpookyDollhouse »

thedarktrees wrote: -don't get all the consternation about the original story being retconned out of existence... How could that possibly be the case? Everything that happens in Part 18, right up to the last second is fundamentally premised on all the events of the Laura Palmer murder. I mean Coop, even in whatever different existence he's in, is still looking for Sarah and Laura.
I don't get why ppl are jumping to conclusions and saying that as well. Everything that's happened so far has meant something, and been apart of the experience. ALL of it.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by vicksvapor77 »

thedarktrees wrote:-don't get all the consternation about the original story being retconned out of existence... How could that possibly be the case? Everything that happens in Part 18, right up to the last second is fundamentally premised on all the events of the Laura Palmer murder. I mean Coop, even in whatever different existence he's in, is still looking for Sarah and Laura.
Cooper/Richard thinks that Carrie is Laura, hence her murder would be undone in his eyes. We as viewers are left to wonder if that's the case, is this a strictly alternate reality, and how would her death being undone eradicate the show's existence as we know it.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Saturn's child »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:So much to unpack, and a lot of terrific analysis in this thread.


Nice post Reindeer, always interesting to read your thoughts. Only responding to two things presently:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:I thought it was hysterical when Coop says "Phillip?" and Jeffries responds, "Be specific" (especially since Gerard/Mike was in the scene!). I don't think this was intentional (he means he wants Coop to be specific about what he asks), but I was amused.
Yes, I cracked up at that line, too! I know a few were pondering Al's credit as 'Phillip Gerard', I thought it would be hilarious if the whole reason for that was to add humour to this scene. :lol:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:I can't be the only one who half-expected Coop & Diane to start driving backwards once they reached 430, like the old "Harry driving backward into the Black Lodge" rumor. Right?
You definitely weren't the only one! I almost expected there to be corn fields over the hill & beneath the power lines.
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