Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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N. Needleman
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

vicksvapor77 wrote:
N. Needleman wrote:No, I think he meant what he said - things will change, but he didn't know quite how. He had no idea how far it would go and what it would do to him and Diane, and Laura.

Cooper has proven to not be the most unimpeachable source of unbiased information. He tells Laura not to take the ring in FWWM when the ring is her only hope. I don't know that he actually knew it would be a separate timeline - I think he just knew he'd 'change things', stop Judy, save Laura, badabing, two birds one stone, and hey, some stuff might change, guys, we'll see. I think he was careless and naive and didn't realize what he was planning would branch him off into an entirely different place where he and the people he brought with him would lose their sense of identity and self.
I'm liking this idea more and more (your other post about Janey-E and Sonny Jim included) but it doesn't explain why Sarah/Judy (?) was freaking out and unable to smash Laura's impenetrable homecoming queen photo.
I think she just got pissed at what he was trying to do, tbh. And maybe helped it along and made it worse.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by wxray »

When Dale exits the lodge in the grove with Diane, they drive away in a 1966 Ford Fairlane/Galaxie.

When Richard/Dale wakes up, he drives away in a 2010 Lincoln Continental.

Just sayin'... I'm still trying to digest this, alternately amazed and pissed off.

I think them driving away in the classic 60's car is important. Dale and Diane have done this before (as seen by the fact Diane saw herself at the hotel). I'm now of the opinion that the Frog Girl is Diane. The timing works. Cooper's odyssey started way before 1989. It started in the 60's when he joined the FBI. He's continuously replaying it.

Forget Cooper's age. Good Coop as we initially saw, acts way too much like a Kennedy era Boy Scout. Oh, that would be when DKL was an Eagle Scout. What do you know. Coop started his career in the 60's. Coop is becoming DKL more and more.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by firefly2193 »

Having sat with it for a couple of days, my thoughts on the finale:

The first half of Part 17 I was captured by, but also deeply worried about. The scene of Green Glove Freddie fighting Bob Blob physically hurt my heart. I was terrified that heart of Twin Peaks was somehow completely lost.

The latter half of Part 17 and Part 18 were some of the greatest television I've seen, and Lynch at his absolute peak, along with the final act of Mulholland Drive, the finale of TP S2 and FWWM. It was everything I originally hoped The Return would be - on a gut level, surreal, disorienting and deeply mysterious. On the thematic and story level, it returned Twin Peaks to what it always has truly been about - Laura Palmer, the girl who suffered alone at the hands of man, unable to be saved or even seen by the wholesome town surrounding her, and Dale Cooper, the man with good intentions but who's hero complex and inability to understand the darkness that can live in this world prevents him from saving the girl.

My current interpretation of the finale is this: Cooper is unable to save Laura because he thinks just by taking her away from her suffering he can save her. He thinks that by not letting her die he has saved her - not appreciating that her murder was not the real crime and that her life of abuse beforehand was what she needed saving from. Upon entering Twin Peaks, he was blinded by the quirkyness of its characters, its beautiful nature and delicious food, being unable to see the darkness lurking underneath that held the key to the mystery of Laura Palmer's death. The moment (for me, one of the worst in all of Twin Peaks) where he forgives and excuses Leland in the jail cell upon his death cements Dale's position - unable to grasp the dark reality of the situation, and by forgiving Laura's abuser, unable to ever possibly save her. Indeed, in the finale, Cooper is following Leland's mission: to 'find Laura' - the last person he should be listening to.

With an ending like that, I'm sure there will be new interpretations for years to come. I still have so many questions, primarily:

1) I have no idea what is really going on with Diane. The importance her character develops in the final two parts is crazy. Richard and Linda? How does Naido work?

2) The parts with Coop, Cole and Diane walking through to the humming room. The finale restored the Lynchian editing that had been absent from a lot of The Return, with disconnected parts like this where you feel you've walked in on a scene in the middle of the story. How did we get to this scene from the Sheriff's station, and why?

3) The Jumping Man. He (She?) terrifies me every time.

4) The make-up if Cooper at the end - clearly some combination of 'our' Dale and Mr. C - how did he get this way? Is this the real, complete Coop? Did he combine with his doppleganger in order to try to complete his mission?
I do have one theory about this that may be nonsense. The use of the final line 'what year is this?' maybe implies that this situation is not as I originally thought, that this was the future path that Cooper is doomed to walk along forever. Maybe this was the past, and this was the original Cooper. He then split later into 'our' Dale and Mr. C for some reason, and the Cooper we see entering Twin Peaks in the pilot was actually the good half, already split. Its an idea that intrigues me, though I can see there are a lot of problems with fitting it with everything that's gone before. Are there any signs (modern technology etc) that could suggest its not pre-1989?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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Why is everyone so sure that the Sarah is possessed by Judy? All the clues we have received are that Sarah is possessed by the Jumping Man. The Jumping Man might be a different aspect of the grandson, but there has always been another Chalfont besides the grandson. Especially in light of the last scene, I think we're meant to conclude Mrs. Chalfont is Judy/Mother/Experiment.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by douglasb »

If Diane's tulpa has been living out a life in the 'real world' in Diane's place, how/why did the real D end up in the purple world?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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firefly2193 wrote: My current interpretation of the finale is this: Cooper is unable to save Laura because he thinks just by taking her away from her suffering he can save her. He thinks that by not letting her die he has saved her - not appreciating that her murder was not the real crime and that her life of abuse beforehand was what she needed saving from.
Carrie Paige: "Odessa. I tried to keep a clean house. Keep everything organized. It's a long way."

That corpse was likely abusing her. Think Leo and Shelley.

Laura/Carrie can never escape.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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Drgarage wrote:Why is everyone so sure that the Sarah is possessed by Judy? All the clues we have received are that Sarah is possessed by the Jumping Man. The Jumping Man might be a different aspect of the grandson, but there has always been another Chalfont besides the grandson. Especially in light of the last scene, I think we're meant to conclude Mrs. Chalfont is Judy/Mother/Experiment.
The final episodes reveal one of Cooper's goals is stopping Judy (and that it appears to be one of this "two birds").

Sarah Palmer is in possession of something horrible.

Cooper is insistent on bringing Laura (saving her being his other "bird") back to her mother at the end.

That's the strongest bit for me, but then we also have:

"My mother is coming," the "Experiment" as a seemingly ultimate negative force which spews out Bob, and Judy's invocation as an ultimate negative force, connecting her to the idea of a "mother" in more ways than one.

And then Sarah appears to be able to do some seriously heavy-duty reality-altering magic, stabbing Laura's picture to whisk her away from Cooper's rescue attempt in the past. Cue a new reality where Laura works at "Judy's Diner."

I feel like they came about as close to connecting Sarah to Judy as they could without Cole speaking directly to the audience.

It's also thematically satisfying to saddle Laura with the ultimate bad mom to match the ultimate bad dad (though they're no worse than any real-world abusers and these personal hells are simply writ cosmically large in Twin Peaks), making the Palmer family an icon of abuse, and highlighting Laura's role as an icon of love/self-acceptance despite it.
Last edited by Cipher on Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:11 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by TheGum »

Also, we know Mr. C is after mother/judy, and in his white lodge scene the fireman changes his destination from the Palmer house to the sherif station
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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TheGum wrote:Also, we know Mr. C is after mother/judy, and in his white lodge scene the fireman changes his destination from the Palmer house to the sherif station
Right, thanks! That too. I'd included that one in other discussions and couldn't remember it here.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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Cipher wrote:
Drgarage wrote:Why is everyone so sure that the Sarah is possessed by Judy? All the clues we have received are that Sarah is possessed by the Jumping Man. The Jumping Man might be a different aspect of the grandson, but there has always been another Chalfont besides the grandson. Especially in light of the last scene, I think we're meant to conclude Mrs. Chalfont is Judy/Mother/Experiment.
The final episodes reveal one of Cooper's goals is stopping Judy (and that it appears to be one of this "two birds").

Sarah Palmer is in possession of something horrible.

Cooper is insistent on bringing Laura (saving her being his other "bird") back to her mother at the end.

That's the strongest bit for me, but then we also have:

"My mother is coming," the "Experiment" as a seemingly ultimate negative force which spews out Bob, and Judy's invocation as an ultimate negative force, connecting her to the idea of a "mother" in more ways than one.

And then Sarah appears to be able to do some seriously heavy-duty reality-altering magic, stabbing Laura's picture to whisk her away from Cooper's rescue attempt in the past. Cue a new reality where Laura works at "Judy's Diner."

I feel like they came about as close to connecting Sarah to Judy as they could without Cole speaking directly to the audience.

It's also thematically satisfying to saddle Laura with the ultimate bad mom to match the ultimate bad dad (though they're no worse than any real-world abusers and these personal hells are simply writ cosmically large in Twin Peaks), making the Palmer family an icon of abuse, and highlighting Laura's role as an icon of love/self-acceptance despite it.
I see all of that. But all the imagery directly linked to whatever spirit is in Sarah evokes the Jumping Man. Unless we think the Jumping Man is Judy, that points to someone else.

And who would ultimately twist a mother against her child? A grandmother always accompanied by her grandson, with no child to be seen.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by chalfont »

wxray wrote:
firefly2193 wrote: My current interpretation of the finale is this: Cooper is unable to save Laura because he thinks just by taking her away from her suffering he can save her. He thinks that by not letting her die he has saved her - not appreciating that her murder was not the real crime and that her life of abuse beforehand was what she needed saving from.
Carrie Paige: "Odessa. I tried to keep a clean house. Keep everything organized. It's a long way."

That corpse was likely abusing her. Think Leo and Shelley.

Laura/Carrie can never escape.
I was also getting a Shelly-vibe from Carrie;
waitress
too young to know any better (married Leo - hot guy, flashy car....)
clean house
trucker husband
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Cipher »

I'm more inclined to think the Jumping Man is another visual shade of Judy, if those brief visual connections are to be given weight, than to remove all the other satisfying plot and thematic implications that Sarah is Judy.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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vicksvapor77 wrote:
SpookyDollhouse wrote: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.
Do you mean this on a meta level as someone watching and experiencing it? On some level, it makes me regret going on the journey at all. I can accept a bleak ending for Cooper and Laura if most of what I watched wasn't just eradicated from existence. There's something very unoriginal and mean-spirited, and frankly stupid and uninteresting, about them potentially wiping the entire series out of existence as we know it. That will never sit well with me.
Nothing was wiped from existence. All these realities exist alongside eachother. Remember when Cooper said goodbye to everybody, and wished to see them all again someday? That's because he hoped to get everything in its proper place and be in that reality with Laura alive and Judy gone. The reality where Laura dies and Judy inhabits Sarah still exists. The reality where Laura never existed and Sarah was never inhabited by Judy still exists. It's not linear.

Everything that happened happened for a reason, had meaning, had weight, and was/IS a part of the experience. If "hey, Cooper is still trying to make things go completely his way and in doing so, whoops he's stuck in this loop he has to make right" somehow means "nothing meant anything" because he didn't do it right ONCE because the gravity of the situation is bigger than we thought, then that's on you buddy.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by vicksvapor77 »

SpookyDollhouse wrote:Nothing was wiped from existence. All these realities exist alongside eachother. Remember when Cooper said goodbye to everybody, and wished to see them all again someday? That's because he hoped to get everything in its proper place and be in that reality with Laura alive and Judy gone. The reality where Laura dies and Judy inhabits Sarah still exists. The reality where Laura never existed and Sarah was never inhabited by Judy still exists. It's not linear.

Everything that happened happened for a reason, had meaning, had weight, and was/IS a part of the experience. If "hey, Cooper is still trying to make things go completely his way and in doing so, whoops he's stuck in this loop he has to make right" somehow means "nothing meant anything" because he didn't do it right ONCE because the gravity of the situation is bigger than we thought, then that's on you buddy.
So you're saying Cooper hoped that the reality where we last saw everyone would somehow remain "stable" despite Laura being back from the dead? All their lives and relationships? I get the intention, I just don't get how anyone as smart as Cooper thought it would be that easy. Regardless, you're saying that didn't happen and that universe exists as it did, with Laura still dead and everything is status quo, with the only difference being Cooper and Diane are now out of it indefinitely?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by TheGum »

Cooper is messing with a power he has figured out how to use, but has no understanding of.

For example- if I have a bowl of soup, I've dirtied that bowl. Now if I have no understanding of what it really takes to clean that bowl properly, I can't clean it. I can turn on the water, I can rinse it well, but there is still the grease, the oil, the smell of that soup, and the bowl is not really clean. This is essentially what Cooper tries to do at the end. He can make the bowl look clean, make the world seemingly not have Laura's murder in it, but it's still there. Now imagine the bowl is rinsed and then smashed to pieces. It's a lot harder to tell that there was soup in it at one point, but if you look at one of the pieces hard enough, you'll see the grease and remember the soup, and this is what happens to laura in this alternate reality. Cooper sees these tools, but has no clue how to use them properly or if he even should. It is the ultimate in hubris for someone with such a narrow world view to try and literally change history and assume that it won't somehow affect everything everywhere.

It's an extremely human reaction, and not really that surprising. Did we really know the can of worms we opened when we created the atom bomb? We love Cooper because of his humanity, but that may be his biggest flaw in the end.
Last edited by TheGum on Tue Sep 05, 2017 10:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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