A Return to Twin Peaks

It has happened again

David Lynch and Mark Frost have given us something wonderful and strange.And I could not be happier.It's everything I hoped it would be and almost nothing what I thought it would be.From the subtle homages to his many previous movies to the new challenges this work presents there is much that I admire.This is a work of art.And like any good work of David Lynch/Mark Frost art, there are questions aplenty.Some questions are sure to be answered by the end of the show. Most are likely to be left open or expanded leaving much to be discussed and dissected over the next 25 years.

And I'm only 4 episodes in.......

We appear to have three storylines driving the show

1) Will the Good Dale escape the trappings of the Lodge?

2) In order for that to happen ,the Bad Dale,who is on his own quest for some information of great importance, will have to return to the Lodge and he has no intention of doing so

3)Multiple murders-could BOB be up to his old tricks?

As I work my way through my second viewing(on episode 3 at the moment) I thought it best to make some notes for future reference.

And so it begins:

Memories,mountains,The Trees

Was that what is left of the Packard Sawmill after Benjamin Horne bought it?

Laura,Main Titles,the Falls(Why do I have tears in my eyes?)

Red curtains flowing like FIRE

The floor..that beautiful floor...the world spins

Out of control

A Monocrome meeting.

Are we in the Giants private quarters?A calm Cooper shares a conversation with the Giant that only he understands and we may come to understand ourselves as the series unfolds.What does the lack of color tell us about where we are in regards to the whole Lodge?

"Agent Cooper, listen to the sounds"

Is that the noise of an insect? Or just the record needle without a record on a spinning turntable? Does this mean ....there is no longer always music in the air? Or is this a direction for Cooper: listen to the sounds, not the words.Sounds and scents can help with memory recall.And as we later discover, Cooper will need all the help in that regard.

One of the things that stands out in the show overall is that Badalamenti's familiar score and themes are absent.Even in one of the many alternate variations Angelo created for the original run.It stands to reason that we will not hear many of the familiar tracks as they were fit to lay under the scenes of the original shows pacing and atmosphere.For the most part, we aren’t even spending a lot of time in the town of Twin Peaks.Yet.

"It is in our house now."

Hard to believe, but something has even tainted their world of doppelgangers and Garmonbozia. The Blacker Lodge? Have we even seen the Lodge , or just been hanging in the waiting room....that goes on forever.Lynch likes to make us wait ,after all.Mike and The Arm are trying to reset the balance in the Lodge but the doppelganger Arm is having none of that.Non-Existent!

"It can not all be said aloud now "

Secrets. Someone(s) are listening and want to stop what is coming?Shhhhhhhhhh. Also, this may be Lynch/Frost telling the viewer.Chill the fuck out, we're just getting started. So that favorite character you want to know about? He/She will be along soon.We are not going to get a recap scene where we see someone like Benjamin Horne waking from his head concussion coma, only to have Jerry Horne fill him in on all the events that have happened over the last 25 years. "just how long was I out?"

Clues?

"Remember 430".

Is this a time?If Cooper supposedly found his exit at 235,is this a number connected to a return? To remember is to return to a thought.Biblical, the number 430 has connections to the word Law- could this be a reference to FBI,Deputy Hawk? who may be able to help Cooper. Remember Cooper saying to Deputy Hawk " Hawk, if I ever get lost I hope you’re the man they send to find me" How fucking spectacular that THIS is actually happening !!! What a great callback to the original series. All thanks to the Log Lady ( the beautiful Catherine Coulson) giving Hawk the Logs message.

"Richard and Linda"......Thompson?

Quickly looking up the names online...Richard has meanings of ""hard" (strong, brave, hardy)strong in rule" Linda:The name-element Linde is possibly derived from the same root as the linden tree, with reference to a shield made of that wood,but may have become associated with Germanic lind meaning "soft, tender", the image of the tree being used to indicate a gentle personality.Other meanings: "beautiful,pretty,cute,and clean" So we have potential references to Trees.Expected in the world of Twin Peaks.Could it refer to the two sides of the same coin-Doppelgangers?

Speaking of which.....

"Two birds with one stone"

Two Coopers?One has to die ( headstone?) The discovered dead body made up of two people? Birds as in British slang?

you are far away ( bad dale, no where near lodge. or the giants way of saying go away now

"

You are far way"

Is this a reference to Coopers other half? or is it simply the Giants way of saying time to leave me alone.Sending Cooper off.

And now it's time for our first visit to the town.And our first townsfolk is Dr Jacoby? Intriguing choice. What part will he play in the play? He clearly has lived in the woods for some time.He Most likely lost his Doctors license.Thought he retired to Hawaii? What brought him back?He indicates that like always he prefers to work alone.He is methodically preparing something.Something so important that he has built his own apparatus to paint them. Were these specially made shovels of certain weight and balance and material?We linger on these moments twice.Once with the delivery of the shovels.Second with their painting of both side.This is certainly how time moved in the original Twin Peaks.No cutting away from these moments even after the viewer is clear on what the action character is doing.Two trees frame the image of the two men.

New York?

Were not in Twin Peaks anymore ,Toto.In fact,we wont be spending much time in TP for awhile it seems.The world wipes its ass with TP.Where we are is in an extra secured room of a building with one sole window looking out on the world.With a lone viewer watching the Glass box in front of the window. Is this Lynch commentary on the Television viewer?Is this some metaphor for people who watching TV is how they look out on the world? This someone is watching a box to see what will happen,even though nothing is happening.Sound familiar?AND recording the box at the same time. The guy(who remains nameless outside of the credits)says that the "guy before him" saw something but couldn't or wouldn't tell him about it(doesn’t this sound like someone who's heard about Twin Peaks but hasn't seen it.You cant talk about Twin Peaks with someone who hasn’t seen it before without running the risk of SPOILERS,you could barely talk about this new series as prior details were scarce)"Tracy" is the spouse of a Peaks fan -- she comes in because she's curious about the box, but quickly becomes bored and looks for a distraction. Of COURSE then something comes out of the box and bites their heads off right when they take their eyes off it.Lynch hates for viewers to watch films in a distracted manner.Its as if he is saying "If you watch TP as background to doing other things, this show is going to eat you alive". This also feels a lot like the start to the Fire Walk With Me movie.Which itself felt like a comment on the TV show transition to film-this is not your TV show !SMASH !

What of the box?

We sat and watched a box on which people sat and watched a box. They didn’t know what it was they were watching for, only that it made them uneasy An elaborate security system has been put into place to protect this mysterious box from prying eyes.A system for recording its every second and retaining that information has been set up.When a cameras memory disc is full,a voice even alerts the caretaker.Various other devices appear to be recording information that the box gives off.For what purpose though? Something must have happened here before.What are they hoping to see happen again?Capture something?There isn’t an armed guard inside the room with the box, so there is not much of an implied threat.They even hire a college student of all people to take care of things.

The visitor, Tracey, appears to be more than just curious of what is on the other side. I am thinking she was placed to work at the coffee shop in effort to meet the caretaker."You’re bad ,Tracey" For hire to obtain entrance and information about this room.Side note:many of the women are only given a first name in the credits.Darya,Buella.And many of them are involved in something criminal.There is a bonsai on the table in the background. Could that be a nod to Windom Earle?Someone is listening

Could someone have deduced that this is an entry point from some other plane of existence?

Was this someone paying to place the secured box at an exit point for if or when Cooper tried to escape? Is it there to prevent Cooper from escaping the Lodge? Always watching, Did they know about the other creature? Could the mysterious billionaire, or whomever put this into motion, have been setting a trap that would have resulted in Cooper being imprisoned in the box only to have the ghostly creature appear and eat his face?

What of the creature?

Credits list the creature as "Experiment model"-no indication whatsoever of its nature -alien,Lodge resident,ghost? Do the heightened emotions and energy of the couple making out draw the visitor? The box goes black and the figure that appears is grey flesh, feminine with a elongated back of head.What looks like at first are deep socketed eyes.But in the twitching looks like just a large mouth on an eyeless head.Not unlike The Evolution of the Arm.Could this be a further step in an evolution? Might this be the mysterious Mother who bangs on the door of the room floating in space?

Bad Dale:

Welcome to the dark woods and the first interesting track on the soundtrack .Welcoming the Bad Dale into the picture. He doesn’t look well kept. Long hair Greasy. Looking not unlike Frank from Blue Velvet Here to do some shady business in the woods. No time for bullshit.Strong, but looks tired. While Dale calls everyone by their first name, they refer to him as Mr C.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Bad Dale knows a lot but he is searching for some specific information.Meanwhile, people are searching for him.Either to kill him or return him to the Lodge.The Half a million hit on him has gotten to the people he is currently working with on something,and te Bad Dale is aware of this fact.Is this the work of the Mysterious Billionaire closing in on Cooper?

Bad Dale may be involved in something with Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie’s character) or P.J.s doppelganger.He is connected in some way to the Hastings and the murder of Ruth Davenport.Who is the John Doe? and who helped get it up into Ruth’s apartment?Hank? The two victims were both killed somewhere else.And where are the other halves of their bodies?

Side Note: What if David Bowie filmed one last scene as Philip Jeffries? But it was all kept hush hush so as not to overshadow the show itself or spoil a surprise? Bowie was still with us when filming had begun.

Bad Dale is being forced back into the Lodge and has a plan to stop it.Going so far to a even create a false Dale.One who lived his own life,married wife .(hey if a possessed Leland can have a child ,why not a fake Dale?).Doppelcooper is so skilled and thinking steps ahead he knew to create this distraction in Dougie Jones.

Bob can come and go from the Lodge as he wishes as we have seen in the past as BOB is not a doppelganger, just a pure evil spirit. The two Coopers can not both be out in the world at once (at least not without the consequences as we have seen-puking creamed corn and scorched engine oil. Its stench in pure form dangerous to humans).It makes more sense that what we have seen is just the Bad Dale and not at all BOB. Since actor Frank Silva has passed we will most likely see BOB in the form of his current host at the time. Why is Cooper fucking with BOB’s play time?

I think Bad Dale is now possibly BOB's familiar,like Mike was to BOB before.But I don't think BOB is inside Dale that much.Probably even less so as the 25 years went on. Maybe BOB used Bad Dale to escape the Lodge and not be threaded to a single host.Maybe when the two eventually separated was around the time that Bad Dale went missing from Twin Peaks. Coopleganger is not BOB, he's a separate entity that originated from the Lodge. Can he be inhabited? Sure. But why would BOB want that permanently? They both want to sow evil and chaos so why wouldn’t BOB want to have a partner in crimes?

What about BOB?

I think BOB is not only playing inside the Principal but also William's wife.Jumping back and forth.Killing the Librarian. Messing with the relationship by making both of them cheat on the other.Playing them against each other and generating double the Garmonbozia as they destroy lives.It appeared that we saw BOB come forward for just a brief moment when William confronted his wife about the affairs.Something is off kilter about the wife, cold: her husband is being arrested and all she can think about is they have guests coming.Or is there a second entity involved?Was that filthy figure that floats away one of the members of the meeting above the convenience store seen in FWWM in the cell next door?

When Cooper showed up(he's connected?!?!) and killed the wife framing the wife;s lover with his gun (creating even more complications) Is this Cooper fucking with Bobs handiwork? And what of that comment Bad Dale makes to the wife : "You did good,” he says. “You follow human nature perfectly" Is he remarking on BOB’s (or the other inhabiting spirits) ability to pull off the possessions? Or is he merely commenting on the wife’s ability to be a high functioning non-possessed sociopath?

Mike

He seems to be trying to help Cooper.

The Arm

......had me fucking laughing. The evolution of the arm is a talking asshole on a stick. Take note folks, don’t piss off Lynch or he will turn you into a work of art and embarrass the fuck out of you at the same time.Supposedly,the actor who performed the LMFAP demanded way too much money to return in this new TP,claiming that there is no Twin Peaks without him. And then was even a more than a bit of a bastard to Lynch after Lynch refused to pay.He indirectly claimed that Lynch had not only raped his own daughter but had threatened to murder his daughter if she ever told.And other awful untrue things.Can't you just hear Lynch?: Money doesn’t grow on trees,but look how much I can save by turning you into one!

Since the arm was an anomaly in the Lodge world(which is saying something),a severed body part that became a living being...it stands to reason it might change along with its doppelganger

The Body

Might that be Major Briggs body with Ruth's head? Briggs was believed to be killed by a fire. But whose to say his whole body was ever found.Could Bad Dale/ BOB have absconded with the corpse for fun later.Remember, we only see Major Briggs head floating in space in the Lodge world , It could explain why the prints on the john doe were classified: military. Major Briggs was involved in some highly classified research.

Good Dale:

Our poor Dale,trapped in a world he never made for 25 years.Cooper isn't Cooper. He's basically split in two. Neither one of them will be whole until the other one dies. They aren't supposed to exist in the same plane of existence.

To prevent his own "death",the Bad Coop set up a duplicate copy,an actual dupe, that could be pulled into the Lodge instead of him. When Good Coop slipped out,the Lodge tried to pull the Doppelganger back in, but it failed and got the dupe,"Dougie"

Dougie was shown wearing a owl cave ring and having a numb arm.When the ring slipped off his finger,its as if the spell that held him together was no more.

What trouble had this Dougie/Dale been causing? Since it was made from the Bad Dales hands was it like a copy of a copy of a ....

Dougie had found himself in some form of trouble, he and his wife owed someone a lot of money.

What of Coopers escape?

Who or what are all these people he encounters?We have a speech impaired eyeless woman who appears to electrocute herself and falls off into space.Did she fall faster and faster?..did she burst into fire?..and the wind rises? ...and all goodness of Cooper is in jeopardy?

We have a lady performed by the actress who played Ronette Pulaski in the original Twin Peaks, but is named American Girl.Might this be a hint at Ronette’s fate.That one day BOB returned and claimed her.Are these individuals souls claimed directly from residents of the Lodge?

Escaped Cooper

Is this the Good side of Dale now in our world, or the actual living Coop? Having gone through whatever that experience was to emerge from the electricity it is sure to mess up ones mind, with amnesia and loss of basic functions. Plus ,Cooper has been existing in the Lodge for 25 years and not in our reality.His mind and body could have forgotten how to live(Bad Dale "you have learned how to live like a human")

Recall how Phillip Jeffries walked in FWWM? Well he was only in the Lodge meeting for a short time.Major Briggs, too, was a bit loopy after his travels. Coopers been on the other side for 25 years. Its going to take a while for him to get back in the groove.

When I saw the brain burnt Cooper with bare feet I was waiting for him to mutter and spit "New Shoes".

As Cooper managed to move through this place and time, I found it interesting that good things seemed to happen repeatedly to him.Almost as if this Good Dale has good vibes emanating off of him and effecting the world around him.He drops something just in time to make him appear as if not in the car when a hit-man is about to take him out.His ride gives him a ride to safety.With a little Lodge help, he hits the jackpot multiple times. Even shares that luck with a woman who has clearly thrown her life away with a gambling problem. When he returns home to his "wife" she remarks that the money he has now will be enough for them to pay off someone they owe. He bumps into people who know him and help him get his "name" and address.

One thing to consider ,until Cooper returns to his senses, there is no one actively trying to get the Bad Dale back to the Lodge.Gordon and Albert may discover that this is not their Cooper and in turn learn some helpful information.Especially the person they think who can know if this Coop is true can actually see. Gordon Cole:" We need one certain person to take a look at Cooper." I hope it is Diane,played by Laura Dern (wouldn't that be an awesome Blue Velvet homage with the two actors across from each other).Diane and Coop were close even though we never seen them together outside of a deleted scene. Coop felt her important enough to dictate and send tapes to her daily during his cases. She took good care of him .(earplugs). In the deleted scene she tests his memory playfully. They clearly had a mutual respect and (I'm guessing platonic )love for each other. She saw him through the first Windom Earle situation and its fallout. Shes been at his side longer than anyone. I could easily see Dale's sudden disappearance breaking her heart,especially if Diane is hearing about the bad things the doppelganger is now doing. This grand fall from grace of someone she so admired,cared for and respected could have possibly driven her to drink.

The people of Twin Peaks-

We get to see Benjamin Horne still running the hotel,now avoiding sleeping with married women.

Jerry is a pot head(anyone surprised?)and making a living infusing his favorite foods with weed while occasionally eating the profits.So not much has changed with these two.

Log Lady-when she says” Goodnight,Hawk” and Hawk says” Goodnight,Margaret” .....ow. Goodnight ,Catherine.

Shelly,who appears quite happy and seems to be much more carefree (the previous Shelly couldn’t be caught dead out with the girls) has a daughter who is in a bad relationship.Her daughter is involved with someone named Steven who everyone loves (hmm, everyone "loved" Laura and look what she was going through). Who is the father of Shelly’s child?Bobby?

Bobby now works for the Sheriffs Department.Is he using his skills as a former drug peddler for good?Or maybe he is the one slipping the drugs over the border and into the students,taking over ol' Leo Johnson's handy-work,unless,maybe, he is still working with Leo. Or did his fathers death by fire cause a real change in Bobby?Maybe he has grown,and is less selfish emotionally. This might explain his reaction to seeing Laura Palmer’s photo on the desk.He probably hasn’t thought of her much at all in the last 25 years.Back in the day, he moved on pretty quickly and never seemed to look back.But seeing her, the memories all came flooding back in a sharp moment.And he had one of his usual melodramatic cries.

James has been in an accident and now full of smiles."still cool" and thankfully not singing in one of the many Roadhouse bands we hear play.

The town however has seen some changes. The Sheriffs station has been upgraded with modern equipment.And kids are now overdosing AT school.

An insurance agent wishes to speak to Sheriff Truman.Which one? One is sick,the other fishing. 

 Harry is sick,but with what and for how long?His brother is now the current Sheriff.

Lucy is still...well, Lucy.Lucy having eaten a chocolate bunny from evidence in the Laura Palmer case (why was this collected in the first place?) is SO a pregnant Lucy moment. But is she suffering from early stages of dementia? She seems even more off than usual.Has a cell phone aversion. Might we learn it started with the birth of hers and Andy’s child, Wally Brando? (seriously, did they name the kid after the Minah bird Waldo? WAL-ly bran-DO?)

Laura

I admit it, I teared up seeing her.At one moment,we see Laura removing her face.Could this be a reference to the doppelganger mask.Remove your mask,remove your doppelganger . Laura’s seems to be showing Cooper that she is still pure light underneath,not possessed by the spirits of the lodge.But they are still trying.And moments later, try they do.

A thought occurred to me when Laura was cast off upward,releasing a painful scream.Has the Lodge been doing this to her all these years?("I am dead,yet I live")Has she been tortured and suffered,still,within the lodge after all these 25 years after her murder.That that moment we see at the end of Fire Walk With Me didn’t occur until 25 years after her death.

Perhaps, after the Good Dale has won his fight with the Bad Dale,and set right whatever balance is needed,He returns to the lodge one last time.Recalling what the sad and lost looking Leland told him to do-"Find Laura"(heart....breaks,poor Leland he will never find peace).

And the end of this series circles back to that final moment in Fire Walk With Me where we see the Good Dale find Laura and free her.

Letting her see her Angel once again.’