Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

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

Post by DeepBlueSeed »

Yps wrote:Yeah. I took that upsidedown horseshoe to represent the mathematical (set theory) symbol for an intersection between two different sets. i.e., the overlapping part of a Venn diagram. So Carrie and Laura are the intersection between these two different realities.

Jasper wrote:
HaroldSmith wrote:For some reason Carrie/Laura's horseshoe necklace made me think of the casino. I can't draw a solid connection but I don't think it's a coincidence either.
Judy's diner was filled with rodeo pictures. Inside Carrie/Laura's house there was a white horse in front of a blue plate (and this caught Cooper's attention just after he'd been looking at the dead man in the chair).

It's interesting that the pendant was upside down from the way that a lucky horseshoe would be displayed. When they're like the one around Carrie/Laura's neck, the luck is said to be running out. When they're the other way around, it's like a glass which holds luck. Just do an image search for "horseshoe pendant" and you'll see that they're overwhelmingly rotated 180 degrees from Carrie's/Laura's pendant.


horseshoe.jpg

Carrie.jpg
Also reminds me of the Omega symbol (as did the name Odessa), which would be fitting given that this might be the end (also if all the white horses symbolise death)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by silvo »

Omega has the meaning of ending normally. You say its Alpha and Omega, meaning the start and the end or the whole essence of it. I don't find any connection with the letter and the horseshoe

Strange the forum can't support Greek characters
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Nighthawk »

silvo wrote:
sewhite2000 wrote: I feel like Diane did travel with Cooper into the alternate timeline, or at least partway into it. They found the spot that was ripe with electricity, drove into it, and suddenly it was night, an indication that they had both gone "elsewhere". Then Diane saw an alternate version of herself. Further evidence they were "somewhere else" was that it messed with Diane's memory or identity. She now thought of herself as "Linda". Interestingly, though, things change even more after Diane leaves Cooper. Different motel, different car, now Cooper's in a town or small city instead of an isolated motel in the middle of nowhere. As if it took some time for the reality to fully change or for Cooper to proceed further into it.
My thoughts here is that Cooper and Diane firstly enter a part of the lodge, a place where a doppelganger of Diane exist! They have to do the ritual sex to enter the other timeline where it would lead them to be Richard and Linda. If that is the case then Diane might be trapped in the Lodge again! Or maybe she has to serve another duty and leaves Coop in the bed with the paper. The lodge is the reason I think why Coop takes Diane and no one else
There is simply no information given to speculate much about Diane. All we see is that Cooper wakes up in the morning in a different motel with a different car parked outside. His name is also different. He has spent the night with someone named Linda, but there is never any indication that it was Diane and not another random woman from this alternate reality.
silvo wrote: There could be also a probability that DoopelDiane change with Diane and the ritual sex fails and Coop is going to an alternate of the other timeline.
There is a possibility, but it's very remote.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by CuriousWoman »

I didn't read the whole thread yet due to the backlash I was sure to see after such an ending.

And I thought that the first parts were not ambiguous enough... I have been naive

I liked it but I really don't want the "it was all a dream ending". I am interested in the interpretations that will be discussed on this forum, but I will try ignore this one: that would undo the work and intentions of many on sets (and I guess that's part of the reason Fenn was unhappy with her role at some point) and anyway the final sequence seems to show that there is more than that (Audrey waking up, Sarah calling Laura and Carrie screaming...).

This makes me glad that Mulholland Drive was a movie and not a series. I would have hated to get attached to characters that would never have existed.

I must also say that I am not conmfortable with retconning the end of FWWM given how powerful the final sequence of Laura and Cooper in the Red Room.

This post makes me seem more unhappy than I am: I am not but I don't like what it could be interpreted as. I think the upcoming book of Frost will explain Briggs' plan.

My interpretation at the moment (based mostly on the Pilot, FWWM and TMP and season 3 since I believe them to be what Lynch was the most familiar with when he wrote the revival):

At the moment, I believe that the dreamer is Judy (aka the Mother aka Experiment aka Jumping Man, inhabiting Sarah), some sort of lovecraftian horror like Azatoth, the whole universe being its dream, we all inhabit and it began to fall appart when Cooper exited the Lodge. Jeffries tried to use the powers of the Lodge to defeat Judy once he discovered what it was at the meeting but failed.

The Fireman converted MIKE to his cause, but the arm's doppelganger was still on BOB's side and tried to stop Cooper in Part 3.

BOB tried to be Laura and become the nuclei of this world but by puting on MIKE's ring she prevented it.

Cooper used the powers of the Lodge to save Laura from her fate, she vanished from existence and entered another world (kinda like the explanation linked by the search for the zone website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5hLj8E4rTE) and was reincarnated as Carrie Page. It destroyed what was schemed by Judy, Laura being a creation of the Fireman (cf Part 8) made for this purpose ("Laura is the one"). Judy wanted its creations to gorge themselves on those living in the world that opened to her with the Nuclear bomb.

Diane waited for Cooper at the curtain call when he exited the red room and followed the giant's indications, he entered the new Laura's dimension where they became Richard and Linda. Diane stayed in the previous world and was replaced by her tulpa who interpreted it as being another Cooper who raped her and the real one became Naido who is central for Cooper to use his powers (the superimposed face of Cooper appeared when she became Diane back).

The world manufactured by saving Laura was supposed to be free of Judy's monsters but, as showed by Sarah calling Laura, it can not be completely vanquished.

I also believe that Cooper and his doppelgager both had a similar goal but not for the same reasons (if the doppelganger/shadow self won, he would have fused with Laura's essence after using the power near Jack Rabbit's palace,. To use it one of the 2 Coopers must die and absorb the other). Jeffries actually did work with both.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by musicaddict »

TP:TR = one giant tulpa
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by aldiboronti »

Hester Prynne wrote:
BigEd wrote:So, the BigEd reflection, the RR restaurant change and Miriam's name change. Maybe reality was starting to flicker in Twin Peaks.
Yes - and to add to that list - all the crazy/changing Billy references, Sarah's scene in the store questioning the turkey jerky, Audrey's scenes - especially the dance, the Road House dialogues, and there was quite a bit of "un"reality - Freddie's green hand, the sick girl in the car, Sarah's bar scene. Don't really know what to make of it all.
That one is quite straightforward. Some characters and situations were for atmosphere alone. In fact it would be interesting to draw up a list of characters essential to the plot and those who were there to show the Lodge effects rippling outward from Twin Peaks.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Cooperscoffeecup »

I am not sure if anyone has asked this. Are we getting our spoiler thread back now? :lol:
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Ragnell »

thedarktrees wrote: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?
The only way this makes sense... is if Briggs went into the Black Lodge and spoke to the real Cooper. Which absolutely could have happened.

The scene with Sara in Episode 29. And then the station was destroyed by a FIRE. And Briggs met the Doppelganger and was freaked out by him. He had every reason to go into the Lodge.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by hopesfall »

Bit of an "out there" theory, but is it possible that Coop could've just popped into my local and shamefully mixed three pints of Stella Artois and a couple of the Old Rosie scrumpies? As far fetched as it sounds, I too was asking what year it was when I woke up, and I had a lady next to me screaming. Although re-watching the ending, I can't see any evidence of Coop having vomited, and shit himself.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Ragnell »

1. Diane. I think it had to be Diane. Because she has some traits Audrey, Annie and Janey-E do not have. She's his coworker. She is representative of his life's work. Not only that, her name is the first word Cooper speaks in the pilot. She's the only connection that predates coming to Twin Peaks. She was his contact before Gordon was even. All through the series, and in Cooper's backstory, he's a special agent who goes alone in strange communities, eating in diners and living out of a suitcase. He can get lost in people's lives, and Diane is the link to home base. By reporting to her, he keeps his mind on track. Diane grounds him. Annie and Audrey and Janey-E are all comforts he would abandon his work for. Diane is part of his work. Diane specifically, is Janey-E's sister and they both represent two different values for Cooper: Work and Family. (Audrey and Annie could represent Romance and Spirituality when you really break it out.) When Cooper sent the Tulpa to Janey-E, he gave up on family. He is now working for the lodge, and going where they send him with no other life. So they sent him with Diane. And the kissing signifies he's trying to make the most of this and create a family out of work.

I still believe the sex was ritual, but whether it was motivated by that or Diane and Coop deciding to consummate their relationship and try to make this a work/marriage/life together, it ends with the same result. The opposite of what sex with Janey-E and sex with Annie did. It drove them further apart. It severed the bond. I don't believe this could have happened with Audrey or Annie.

And it would not have been as worldshaking for Cooper had it happened with Audrey, Annie or Janey-E. Without Diane, Cooper has lost his grounding. As Diane is the romantic partner from the FBI, she connects him to DUTY and PURPOSE. Suppose he knew he'd find a sexual partner beyond that curtain. Finding Diane there strengthened his resolve, told him that he was on the job, he had a duty, it was his purpose to cross worlds and find Laura. Losing Diane takes that away, and leaves him unmoored.

This is why Cooper was "off" during this sequence. He is uncomfortable mixing personal and professional, but he's trying to embrace the mixture. Because he's given up having a separate family life. The sex is probably ritual, probably part of the job. Something he's always considered a personal thing. Something with a lot of baggage behind it, a lot of unresolved issues, and a lot of trauma from the rape. Something that Cooper must be aware of, as he's now got the Doppelganger and his shadow self under control, but something they have not talked through or worked through. Something they still don't. So in the end, it completely destroys the relationship and leaves them both with... nothing. Cooper's got a job to do, but its hard to concentrate on that when he's sacrificed so much already, and feels like he has no backup, or grounding.

2. Dougie. We saw the new tulpa. That was the happiest Tulpa we've seen. He's also an improvement on the Dougie Cooper was, able to express himself in complete sentences, ask questions, and HUG back.

We know the tulpas are connected psychically to their original from Diane. What if they aren't just copies? What if they require an investment of certain traits? In that case, Cooper would have invested a great deal of his warmth, love, and gentleness into this custom-ordered husband and father. He may be feeling some loss and psychic strain from that.

3. Optimistic ending. I have to say after a second view, it does seem more optimistic than on first view. We can call Cooper on hubris all we want, but this doesn't change that pretty much every ally was backing him on this. The time change worked, but ultimately failed because Judy intervened. So he went back to the Lodge, worked with Gerard, the Arm, and the Fireman on something else. We don't how many times this has been tried, but it looks like Cooper is in it until he can find a way to at least counter Judy.

And here's the thing. Whether this reality was a trap or not, it's clearly a HARD thing to do. He is now ungrounded, in unfamiliar territory, without the love and support he had as Dougie. In Vegas he lost his identity in the crossing, but that allowed him to just go with the flow and find everything he needed attached to the new identity. But here, he remembers the old identity but can't match his current circumstances to it. So this is going to be a horrible nightmare world. He's scared that he's losing his sanity, especially when he finds Laura and she remembers nothing.

But in the end, Laura screams. It was the right Laura. He seems to have miscalculated SOMETHING ("what year is this?") but he did find the right person. And when you think on it, he did not pick her up from a peaceful existence in Odessa to retraumatize her, he picked her up from a house with a dead body that she was so anxious to leave she went off with him. He interrupted the timeline, but that was an action all powers were sanctioning, not Cooper's own crazy idea he was being advised against.

So if he's culpable here, he's not solely culpable. If anything, the hubris that hit him may have been sending that tulpa to Janey-E, which seems to have cost him part of himself that he needs.

So, if we get no Season 4, what's the optimism? Well, it's his job now. Cooper's not an agent of the FBI, he's an agent of the White Lodge. He's designated to go into strange, dangerous places, experience the identity mixing that happens from it, and try to solve it the best he can. He is the Magician from the poem. So if what we're left with is Dale and Laura's Adventures Across Reality, I have a certain amount of faith that the two of them together can work out something. If we're getting another chapter, I am totally in. I don't hate Dale, I don't think this is entirely his fault but I think he's spread himself a bit thin again and its showing.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by pinballmars »

Episode 18 is brilliant.

It's the new Episode 29 of the original run. There was no social media or internet message boards in June 1991, but if there had been, I think the reception to this finale and its predecessor would have been identical. Both episodes are set in alternate dimensions. Both episodes take their time while doing very little to resolve danging plot threads. Both episodes feel like weird islands apart from the rest of the series. Both episodes render the hero confused and seemingly making wrong decisions.

THE TWIST: For the finale here, David Lynch decided to remake Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO. Seriously, this episode is VERTIGO. If you've never seen it or haven't seen it in a long time, check it out and have David Lynch and TWIN PEAKS on your mind. You can't miss its influence on all of this (the name of Laura's cousin in the original series, Madeline Ferguson, is a blatant VERTIGO reference). Like VERTIGO, it features a damaged detective who feels that he screwed up on the job. Both detectives are haunted by a dead woman. Both detectives rope into their redemption a suspiciously close lookalike. Both detectives have an uneasy relationship with her; she doesn't quite trust him and he doesn't quite trust her. Also, as in VERTIGO, both delusions are (HITCHCOCK SPOILER)...
Spoiler:
A SET-UP.
I think that The Fireman and the One-Armed Man aren't looking out for Cooper. I think they're using him as a pawn to achieve whatever is that they're after.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SamGGD »

garethw wrote:Not sure if mentioned elsewhere yet - Alice Tremond was playef by the actual current ownrr of the house.
Ugh. That gives more substance to my thought that Cooper may have entered OUR world. Everything seemed more raw, real and gritty after becoming Richard or whatever. As if he woke up from dreamy Twin Peaks, back into the real world. Our world.

Fuck knows y'all
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by SamGGD »

SamGGD wrote:
garethw wrote:Not sure if mentioned elsewhere yet - Alice Tremond was playef by the actual current ownrr of the house.
Ugh. That gives more substance to my thought that Cooper may have entered OUR world. Everything seemed more raw, real and gritty after becoming Richard or whatever. As if he woke up from dreamy Twin Peaks, back into the real world. Our world.

Fuck knows y'all
edit: When RickyCoop confronted the guys in Judy's I actually thought he was gonna get his ass kicked. I thought it was the real word at this point and RickyCoop was just a normal guy confused with reality. I was pleasantly surprised when he took them down like a badass
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

thedarktrees wrote: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?
This is a great point. I do think there is a certain occasional laziness in L/F's writing that they both fuel because they like each other and their mutual product so much. I'm not sure there's a good answer to this.
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Re: Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

Post by Cipher »

nonemoreblack wrote:IndieWire had a similar optimistic outlook: http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/twin-p ... 201872863/

"Evil triumphs good in the alternate dimension when Carrie Page reawakens as a horrified Laura Palmer. But good will keep trying nonetheless; that’s the optimism of David Lynch. Part 8 turned the scope of 'Twin Peaks' into a grand fight between evil (Judy appears to be the monster figure that gave birth to BOB) and good (the Fireman gives birth to Laura Palmer, the only being that can defeat the evil created by the atomic bomb). Part 18 ended the series by saying that fight never ends. It’s destined to keep repeating itself; but as long as we have Dale Cooper’s in the world, good will always have a shot. Lynch’s finale ultimately makes this grand statement understandable and unavoidable; it’s what 'Twin Peaks' is all about. Here’s hoping we get to see Cooper have another shot at evil in the future."

My only issue with this is that it doesn't go into how Cooper's desire to save Laura robs her of her transcendence, and how no matter what he does, it doesn't change the trauma she went through. Maybe his final question is meant to be a signal that he'll get there eventually, so they can both be at peace. I have a theory that while Judy needs to be controlled, good and evil must always exist together, and therefore she can never be 'beaten' like Cooper assumes. What happened to Laura was terrible, but by preventing her death Cooper took away both the bad AND the good which came from it, such as Laura's freedom from Bob and all of the people Cooper loved in Twin Peaks. Evil will always exist in some form, and Cooper needs to learn to fight it in a different way. It makes me think of what Dougie was able to do in Las Vegas compared to the rot which was setting in throughout Twin Peaks. Instead of trying to change the past, Cooper could do far more good for the residents of Twin Peaks in the present. He doesn't realise this yet, so he passes them by. It's late and I'm slightly delirious, so apologies if this doesn't make sense. haha
While I can absolutely read a sense of hope in the ending, bleak as it is in the moment (a perfectly honest and fitting mix), I can't vibe with any interpretation that places its faith in good outcomes on Cooper rather than Laura.

Cooper's done, or at least has a lot of spiritual growing left to do. He's the detective. Laura is the victim. Her role is always to know more than he does. She's the totem of Twin Peak's good, the one we've seen in forms of transcendence, because she's the one whose come closest to this world's ultimate forms of love/good in her self-acceptance, despite growing up in a cosmic cradle of abuse (literally, with Bob and Judy for parents; every personal trauma is writ large onto the cosmology of Twin Peaks).

Cooper can't even face the possibility of his own appetites (Mr. C.) or failures (Dougie) until they're forced into him at the end. The opposite of love and acceptance in Twin Peaks is fear. There's a lot of fear there yet, even if he's on the right track. First step is meeting the whole.

But -- we have Laura in the living world again. And it is Laura. We have a Coop who may yet grow through suffering (thanks, TheGum) and acceptance. They can certainly make something of whatever the Fireman and their own actions have set up yet.

But the one to take charge in the story we'll likely never see? It's going to have to be Laura this time. Just as it was Laura who got the triumphant moment over Coop during the original run. He's done something horribly wrong in the moment, but something might come from it yet, many worlds and flirtations with impossible strangeness to come.
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