Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Discussion of each of the 18 parts of Twin Peaks the Return

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

Post by Rhodes »

What if the place going dark is not about "electricity", but about dark conquering light? Cooper asking "what year is it?" shows him being confused and outmanouvred by Judy. Laura's scream shows that trauma's cannot be erased. The past dictates the future.

The rest of the interpretation might be right though :wink:
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SatisfactionJackson »

In the end all electricity goes to the palmer house. So the Mark Frost/DKL Logo is without sound this time. Cooper has chased the evil out of Twin Peaks
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N. Needleman
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

Yeah, no. I don't buy it.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SatisfactionJackson »

Its decoded

Dont post much here cause I am no native english speaker. But I have been studying episode 18 very intensive. This is by far the theory wich makes most sense. And takes care of all aspects in a non simlifying way
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by lotjx2 »

I am not ok with Judy doing anything. If she can move people to other worlds or create timelines. She is a God. I am with the theory that Cooper did the ritual and ended up on our Earth, because that is where the dreamer lives ie Lynch. Laura screaming is her using her abilities to get them back. The house going dark is just a byproduct of that. Maybe Judy can move to other worlds and Laura beats her that way, but honestly if Judy is all powerful and can fuck with the characters at any time then wtf is the point?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by PDCampbell »

SatisfactionJackson wrote:This was on reddit. Sounds like the most plausible solution off the show:

Diane retains the trauma of her tulpa
I don't follow. Diane was the one raped by Mr. C and seemingly hidden away in the Black Lodge for 25 years. Her tulpa only retains the memory of the trauma; the true Diane doesn't need to retain anything.
But Coop reads the clues, beats all of Judy's trials, finds Laura, brings her to the Palmer home where Judy is holed up. The final hurdle for Cooper--beaten, lonely, and exhausted from the very long drive (if he slept, Judy would snatch him too, presumably)--is that Sarah isn't there.
Cooper is almost ready to cave at this point. He's clearly shaken by the defeat. For the first time in this universe, probably in the entire show, he doubts himself, that he's "Special Agent Dale Cooper." Maybe he is Richard after all. Maybe he should just go home and sleep and then slip, like Diane, into his new life.
But instead he remembers the constant question: "Is it future, or is it past?" He, with his impeccable intuition, asks the question, and overcomes Judy again. Maybe it's an answer to a riddle, or maybe it's proof of Cooper's pure and unwavering nature. I tend to believe it's more of the latter, but either way, he doesn't give up and proves he's the hero through and through. This either directly allows or compounds with some sliver of Sarah reaching out to Laura, and Laura suddenly And being Laura, with all she's gone trough, is so horrifying that it causes her to scream in agony. But Judy, regardless, is finally defeated because of her presence.
I've never read Judy as something that can be "defeated". Rather Judy is an elemental force, as unknowable and unconquerable as death. This theory seems similar to Cooper's supposition that he can somehow stop Laura's death/stop Judy- and we all saw how that turned out. Cole may cloak it in ominous language as a "negative" force, but hasn't that always been the way we quantify the unknown?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by firefly2193 »

Most of the interpretations that paint the Finale as Dale's heroic and fantastical journey to defeat Judy feel completely off base. With Lynch, always pay attention to the mood - this is not a happy or heroic ending.

The interpretations that make all the sense (to me) are the ones painting the Finale as a journey showing Dale's flaws and failures, of an inability to save Laura no matter how hard he tries. To be honest, I feel like Judy isn't involved at all. It was pretty strange to me that 'Mother' wasn't involved in the finale at all, and the whole build up of 'you don't ever want to see whats up there' (at Blue Pine mountain) amounted to nothing.

I have many questions about the first half of Part 17, it feels like a complete mess that maybe people could illuminate for me:

It's said the Cooper came up with a plan with Briggs and Cole to defeat Judy. When on earth was this? Was this supposed to be sometime in the original Twin Peaks? Is the suggestion that he entered the Black Lodge to find Judy, not just to save Annie? Why does this not fit with what was actually seen in TP?

The other mess has to do with Freddie. I feel that whole character has to have some other meaning behind it, because him defeating Bob by punching him is so awful and basically offensive to the original Twin Peaks storyline. People have said its a commentary on Superhero films/shows, but the original show never put its parodying aspects at the heart of the story - the soap opera elements were the things surrounding the central mystery, they were fun decoration. Laura's story was always treated with utmost seriousness. It seems weird that Lynch, having called the [back half] of season 2 "stupid" would write this as the final defeating of Bob. Is it just an awful Mark Frost idea that Lynch has for some reason signed off on?
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SatisfactionJackson »

firefly2193 wrote: The interpretations that make all the sense (to me) are the ones painting the Finale as a journey showing Dale's flaws and failures, of an inability to save Laura no matter how hard he tries.
So then you are with the variety interpretation (likely posted before, sorry) Im not into that interpretation but its still one of the better articles about the finale. When I first read this I foud it very interesting

"..the final moment of “Twin Peaks: The Return” suggests with melodramatic hyperbole that all of Cooper’s work has been for nothing. There are great forces at work in the world — and the forces of evil are winning.

Suddenly it’s clear that Cooper is an older shadow of his former self, without the carefree presence of his avatar Dougie Jones or the cartoonish evil of his dark twin. Instead he’s just a broken hero, slightly pathetic, in a world that looks nothing like the one that he left. When Diane (Linda?) has sex with him in the motel, she presses her hands over his face, like she’s trying to unsee it, or change what’s there. Is he even really an FBI agent, as Richard? Did he just shoot a man in a diner and coerce a waitress at gunpoint because he was out of his mind? That this finale utilizes so many shots that could be from Cooper’s point-of-view — and literally superimposes his gaze, as if he is watching on a screen and his own face is reflected back at him over the action, onto much of Part 18."

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/twin-pe ... 202546550/
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firefly2193
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by firefly2193 »

SatisfactionJackson wrote:
firefly2193 wrote: The interpretations that make all the sense (to me) are the ones painting the Finale as a journey showing Dale's flaws and failures, of an inability to save Laura no matter how hard he tries.
So then you are with the variety interpretation (likely posted before, sorry) Im not into that interpretation but its still one of the better articles about the finale. When I first read this I foud it very interesting

"..the final moment of “Twin Peaks: The Return” suggests with melodramatic hyperbole that all of Cooper’s work has been for nothing. There are great forces at work in the world — and the forces of evil are winning.

Suddenly it’s clear that Cooper is an older shadow of his former self, without the carefree presence of his avatar Dougie Jones or the cartoonish evil of his dark twin. Instead he’s just a broken hero, slightly pathetic, in a world that looks nothing like the one that he left. When Diane (Linda?) has sex with him in the motel, she presses her hands over his face, like she’s trying to unsee it, or change what’s there. Is he even really an FBI agent, as Richard? Did he just shoot a man in a diner and coerce a waitress at gunpoint because he was out of his mind? That this finale utilizes so many shots that could be from Cooper’s point-of-view — and literally superimposes his gaze, as if he is watching on a screen and his own face is reflected back at him over the action, onto much of Part 18."

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/twin-pe ... 202546550/
My interpretation tends to ignore things like 'evil forces' and frame it instead as Cooper trying to save a human woman, and failing because of an inability on his part to understand her trauma and what she needs. Cooper, with his Club Scout heroism, has never shown an ability to understand Laura's suffering - epitomised by his forgiving of Leland on his death bed - and thus can't save her. He fails because he says to her that he's going to take her 'home', literally the last place Laura wants to go. Cooper could understand that tragedy in Laura dying, but never that her real suffering was the life she lived before death. I don't think this makes him pathetic, or a shadow of his former self, just a tragic hero who wants to good but is unequipped to do so.
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asmahan
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by asmahan »

Did anyone catch what was written on the Texas waitress' name tag? Looked like Xochitl or something beginning with an X.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by thedarktrees »

Apologies if that has been mentioned already and I missed it in this thread -- but what does everyone think of Carrie Page's clearly disturbed reaction when Coop mentions the name "Sarah" to her? I thought it was SO interesting. The name Leland meant nothing; but Sarah clearly shocked her, leading her to ask what's happening.

Just another small thing that ties this new scenario/timeline/whatever in Odessa to all the things we've already seen happen in Twin Peaks and the murder of Laura Palmer.

I don't know about all this stuff around some Coop vs. Judy showdown. I think reading stories in terms of simple good/evil or hero/enemy binaries sometimes doesn't really tell us much. I think that's especially the case here in the new TP. I think the interpretation that part 18 is about showing yet another dimension of Coop, a flawed, misguided, and troubled one, is really what's most interesting. It's this idea that puts such an interesting period on the end of the entire Season 3. The whole story is about waiting for Coop to come back, and in that wait, building him up in a certain wait. The ending sequence unravels that so interestingly, as many people here are pointing out.

Again: I love Part 18 > Part 17 by quite a bit.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by thedarktrees »

firefly2193 wrote:
The other mess has to do with Freddie. I feel that whole character has to have some other meaning behind it, because him defeating Bob by punching him is so awful and basically offensive to the original Twin Peaks storyline. People have said its a commentary on Superhero films/shows, but the original show never put its parodying aspects at the heart of the story - the soap opera elements were the things surrounding the central mystery, they were fun decoration. Laura's story was always treated with utmost seriousness. It seems weird that Lynch, having called the [back half] of season 2 "stupid" would write this as the final defeating of Bob. Is it just an awful Mark Frost idea that Lynch has for some reason signed off on?
Yeah I still have a bit of a hard time with the whole Freddie scenario. Like it was SO absurd and even stupid, and they clearly knew that. I more or less subscribe to the idea that it really is a tongue-in-cheek jab at viewer expectations, the desire for resolution and hero triumph etc. If they really wanted a more sincere version of this kind of character and narrative element, the Freddie situation could have been done in countless other non-absurdly comedic ways. His power glove could have given him the ability to catch and contain Bob. Or he could have been given a magic box. Or ANYTHING. But that they went the glove and power punch route is pretty telling that this whole thing is an ironic jab.

Even seeing it that way, I still don't think it works. But I do think that's what it is all about.
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N. Needleman
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

SatisfactionJackson wrote:Its decoded

Dont post much here cause I am no native english speaker. But I have been studying episode 18 very intensive. This is by far the theory wich makes most sense. And takes care of all aspects in a non simlifying way
You're entitled to your opinion, I don't agree.
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tresojos
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by tresojos »

is there any link between richard horne (evil coopers seed) and coopers other self being richard? one that is partly bad coop and good coop.
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nonemoreblack
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by nonemoreblack »

If we go with the theory that Cooper is mistaken for thinking he can save Laura, I'm wondering what you guys think of this theory I saw on tumblr:

"With the line about 'the little girl who lived down the lane' I thought that maybe Cooper got the message wrong after his second time in the red room. Leland told him to find Laura, and Cooper thought that’s what he was supposed to do, but what the arm and Mike were telling him was that he couldn’t save Laura from her suffering, but he could save Audrey from the suffering she was in. And the reason he failed saving Laura was because that’s not who he was supposed to be saving, so instead of helping her he just kept hurting her, while the little girl down the lane he was supposed to be saving was Audrey."

I thought it was interesting because Audrey was originally like Laura's foil, and she was the one woman who Cooper was successfully able to help (before The Return anyway). To be clear, the person who came up with this theory isn't a Dale/Audrey shipper, and I also am not thinking of it from a romantic angle. Not trying to say Audrey needs a man to save her either, but I've been trying to figure out what the connection between her and the arm saying the same quote might mean, and I find the idea of Audrey being a blind spot interesting.

For further context, the above quote was a response to another person's post, which could also play into how Cooper could save Audrey from the loop she's stuck in:

"I want to go back and at least watch the episodes Audrey was in before I even think about any kind of definitive theory, but looking back at this post I made, I was thinking about possibilities, and one idea I came up with is that maybe Audrey is in a position incredibly similar to Cooper’s.

Her scenes seem to be caught in some kind of a loop, at least until she gets to the Roadhouse. We hear the electricity when she snaps out of the Roadhouse, an electricity has long been established as a sort of mode of transportation for Lodge entities. And maybe her contact with Evil Cooper created a relationship with the Lodge for her (we know that after he raped Diane he physically took her to the convenience store. With Audrey still in a coma perhaps he couldn’t do that in a literal way and instead did it in a more psychological/metaphysical way).

In her scenes, she clearly has this thing that matters to her, that she feels she needs to do. Find Billy. Save Billy. Maybe, like Cooper, she’s become so driven to do this thing that she keeps trying to succeed, failing (for whatever reason, be it a fracturing psyche as the end of episode 16 seems to suggest, or something more fate-driven, like the way Cooper can never seem to save Laura from her suffering), and starting over again after being snapped back into her starting place, traveling from that world into the white room. Perhaps Billy and his going missing is a more recent situation, or perhaps it’s something else that has morphed over so many years. Perhaps her quest for Billy is what her search for a missing Cooper looks like after 25 years of trying and failing and destroying her mind for it. And maybe the reason she snapped so very much out of it at the end was because Cooper had woken up.

And maybe that’s why that scene at the Roadhouse seemed to shift into its own weird reality (Audrey’s dance) while still seeming to bump up against the more “prime” reality we were seeing (the fight scene that broke her trance resembling the fight between James and Rene’s husband). Because she’s done it so many times, she’s been doing it for so long and she fractured reality so many times that the worlds have become more and more dreamlike and more and more influenced by the Lodge (like the way the names given for the people living in the Palmer house were Tremond and Chalfont)."
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