Annie and Dale

[Ross]

I honestly think tulpa'ing Annie would be the best possible retcon, given everything we've now seen up to and including 18. I remember similar theories about her back in the day. I also think it'd add a bit of fascinating connective tissue from the end of S2 to The Return. And if Annie's tortured backstory did come from somewhere, where? Or perhaps it's engineered from Dale's own youthful traumas with women?

How does Norma then remember her life with Annie as her sister?

(shrug) Lodge magic?

Ugh...

[N. Needleman]

Sorry, Ross!

[Agent Earle]

How does Norma then remember her life with Annie as her sister?

(shrug) Lodge magic?

Ugh...

Double UGH. Never mind, I'm sure Frost can cobble something up in his approaching book, or he doesn't really have to: going from what is currently the franchise's gospel (ie. The Secret History and the new series), Norma actually didn't have a sister.

[powerleftist]

Was I the only one expecting the waitress at Judy's to be Annie? They obscured the actress for so long that I thought for SURE it was going to be Heather Graham.

That would have been exciting. Exciting things were forbidden this time.

[Castledoque]

More tulpas? The concept is starting to feel tired and much like a cop-out.

I have always hated Annie with a passion, but she deserves better than to be ignored/sidelined/written out as tulpa/non-existent or whatever.

[Agent Earle]

"A girl who went into that place with Cooper" ... How about "Norma's sister", at the very least? Is that too much to ask?

[gavriloP]

Before this new show I always thought that the reason Coop asks Laura to not take the ring was that he wanted to change past, in other words save Laura from getting killed, even though that would've meant she'd be possessed by BOB. And the ultimate reason to this was to save Annie. Now in this show he actually saves Annie because timeline is changed and Laura is not murdered so Cooper don't ever come to Twin Peaks and neither does Windom Earle. Annie doesn't go to the Lodge and never meets Coop. But then again something went wrong and we're left with the seaming pile of, well, I don't even know what. WHAT? It was all a dream, moebius loop, Lost Highway, shattered identity, madness, sadness, arrgh. What year is it? The bigger question to me is did I even like it in the end? World spins.

Oh, and if we are indeed in a loop (as the 8/eternity symbol would suggest) the whole "is it future or is it past" is moot because in a loop they are one and the same.

[Coopergänger]

Yeah, sorta... "Annie Blackburn, a girl who went into that place with Cooper, Norma Jennings's -you know, owner of the RR restaurant here in the town- sister, miss Twin Peaks on those times, ex-nun, had an affair with Dale, kidnapped by Windom Earle, ommited by Mark Frost on his book and incredibly lookalike with Heather Graham. You know".

A normal conversation.

[Mr. Reindeer]

I've noted this before, but it bears epeating, particularly for Annie fans: the original scripts consistently spell Annie's name as "Blackburne." I guess the commonly accepted spelling (dropping the "e") is due to the FWWM credits (which notably also misspell Albert's last name)?

[4815162342]

Yeah, at the very least I would think working on the missing pieces would have reminded Lynch that Annie exists, and at the very least we could've had a comment indicating Mr. C killed her, or whatever.

[Gabriel]

It's frequently indicated that people have forgotten things in TPTR, for example David Bowie's appearance in FWWM is suddenly recalled by Gordon and Albert, but appears to be a memory they'd lost. Maybe all significant memory of Annie has been expunged. After all, Norma didn't seem concerned about her at all in Episode 29...

[4815162342]

Seems like a cop out to me. They remembered the things you mentioned eventually. No reason they couldn't have suddenly "remembered" Annie...Hawk mentions her explicitly! As for Ep 29, seems like all parties involved behind the scenes forgot, though it is possible that Norma didn't realize that Annie had been kidnapped.

[Ragnell]

To be honest, I never bought the Annie romance as a substantial love for Dale. It struck me more as he finally allowed himself a rebound from Caroline, and was smitten with Annie but not truly in love with her. It was only a few days, after all. And Annie, having spent some years in a convent, was clearly out of school long enough and a more ethical partner than Audrey.

When he got to the Lodge, he did offer his soul to save her. But this is Dale Cooper. This is the guy who knelt down by Leland Palmer, knowing full well what had been done by him to three women, and tried to guide him gently through dying. This guy would offer his soul up for another person's well-being whether he was in love or not. And while he was in there, he got her mixed up with Caroline in a way I don't think Windom was capable of setting up unless Dale was transferring feelings about Caroline onto Annie to begin with.

So, taking that into FWWM. We have Annie and Dale show up in that movie. Annie tells Laura about Dale. Dale, however... he appears twice in the Red Room to Laura. Both times he is ENTIRELY focused on Laura. He is warning her against taking the ring, and then after her death he is there, smiling and comforting her. Not acting like someone who has been forcefully separated from the one true love of his life, or who is anxious about not knowing where she is. The implication to me is that Dale knows Annie's out of the Lodge and none of the spirits there have designs on her, but he's not discouraged that he won't spend his life with her.

So.. we get our 25 years, and we have the Return. When we meet Coop, he's in the Red Room and he seems like he's been through some serious trials. And the look on his face when he sees Laura is so emotional. When he leaves the Lodge, he loses his identity and is drawn to things that kickstart his memory. He remembers Laura. He remembers coffee. He remembers badges, and a lawman holding a gun. He remembers the American flag, and basic fighting moves. He's drawn to the color red (and red shoes... which were worn by Audrey, Diane, and Janey-E but I don't believe Annie was the type). He receives affectionate kisses from a blonde woman, and they cause him to look upwards and to the left, implying he's remembering Laura. He actually has sex, and does not seem to think of anyone but Janey-E during that.

At no point during 12 episodes of Dougie-Coop do we see him think of Annie, despite experiencing love, affection and sex. Instead he remembers Laura, and focuses on Janey-E. He might remember Audrey or Diane but even that seems like reaching.

Taken as a whole, it looks like my reading of Annie as just a fling rather than a deep connection was right, and FlyingSquirrel's thought that Dale already knows how Annie is is right as well. (He's up to date on everything else, except Frank being sheriff instead of Harry.)

In that case, we don't need Annie to have been tulpa-ized. We just need an idea of what happened to her from the next Frost book.

That said, I did not read the interaction between Diane and Dale as "Dale is in love with Diane." They greet each other with kissing because its how Diane knows its the real Coop. I think the motel scene was a ritual they needed to do to cross worlds. Compare that to Dougie-Coop and Janey-E's sex scene, after all. We know that Lynch can do a love scene where the participants are enjoying themselves, and this one seems to explicitly depict the opposite. I think when Dale exited that curtain, he knew whoever was on the other side would be his partner in this ritual and was relieved it was someone he knew. They tried to kiss a little and access their old feelings, but couldn't. The doppelganger had done too much damage.

[Jerry Horne]

Well...there you go!

[Agent Earle]

I'll bet it's the worst way - for reminding him of his retconning.