a very common theme in David Lynch movies is the main character with a good heart that is bogged down by a troubled existance, ignorance and a suffocating clown suit of negativity, who through a journey reaches enlightenment (which from my reading is exactly what happens in Audrey's storyline - try watching all of her scenes in order but on their own and you'll notice how she is all the time coming slightly closer to enlightenment and realization. Her dance is the representation of total enlightenment and after that her suffocating clown suit of negativity - Charlie - has no longer any hold of her and she is free).
Cooper in the "Dougie suit" is pretty similiar to this concept as well.. just like so many of us he goes through life just existing, he's neither happy nor sad, he eats, he have sex, he works, he sleeps. He just is... when he finally defeats this mental state he sheds that skin and finds himself again as someone that truly LIVES, who not only does the little things in life but enjoys the little things in life and can find the wonders and miracles that a life holds. of course the whole thing might be a dream sequence (i have a feeling that most of what we see between ep. 1 and early ep. 18 might be a disassciative state that Cooper experiences in the lodge. when he wakes up from the coma in ep. 16 he says to Gordon that he has reached number 10 - the number of completion and that means that it is now time to head to Twin Peaks and face his doppelganger and the demon that inhabits him once and for all.
once both The Doppelganger and BOB is dead he places the ring on its finger (fulfilling the plan that Philip Jeffries had for it). but Mister C was not only some funhouse mirror Cooper, he was always a part of Cooper - Coop without any of his good side to balance the darkness we all carry within, the shadow self of Cooper as Jung described it (see here). Perhaps then the disassociated/somewhat transpartent Cooper head is the REAL Cooper that should hold both of his Yin & Yang selfs to be complete (doppelganger and regular Coop) which will take some time before it will merge back to normal. But suddenly the lights go out in the Sherrif's station and you can hear Gordon and Coop yelling to each other as they, together with Diane, are transported to the furnace in The Great Northern (the subconscious of the floating Coop head i take it). Now the floating Coop head disappears as the two halves have merged due to the fact that he succesfully overcame his darkest impulses and have reached total enlightenment (the number of completion).
but then now we get to the final part where he ask Philip Jeffries to transport him back in time to save Laura from being murdered, which in itself is very odd and at first glance doesn't jive with neither what we know of Cooper or of Laura's final faith in FWWM. It's especially heartbreaking how we see Cooper's "saving" action violently tear Laura away from the place where she met her angels. Still, we know that The Fireman and Major Briggs has been guiding him throughout the season and to this point, and we also know that The Fireman was instrumental in creating Laura and sending her to earth (from ep.
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i mean we all die and Laura was mortal so of course she would have been dead anyway eventually but perhaps the really HUGE mistake was putting on that ring especially. we are still fuzzy on exactly how the ring works... this would make Cooper's remarks about "DON'T TAKE THE RING LAURA, DON'T TAKE THE RING" much more poignant and work beautifully within the context of the entire series.
sorry for the rambling post, and there's more to write but hopefully we can get some discussion going here.