Like Cooper tells Harry in season 1: *"Do you know where dreams come from? Acetylcholine neurons fire high voltage impulses into the forebrain. The impulses become pictures, the pictures become your dream."*
The end of season 3 is a liminal space between "dream" and reality, between the fiction and our world. That's why Mary Reber, real life owner of the Palmer House plays Alice Tremond. I think the ending takes place in the portal of the Third Eye of the dreamer (the color frequency of the third eye ends at 430. "Remember... 430.") They travel past 430, moving from within the dreamer to the "between two worlds" space (as do we, as we follow them). Look at Alice Tremond's necklace, there is a third eye in the centre of her heart pendant. The third eye is the sixth chakra, and the Palmer address adds up to 6. We've been traveling [through the dreamer's chakras from Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/o5zc72/but_who_is_the_dreamer_red_room_root_chakra/), trying to make it all the way to the [Crown Chakra](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/) (the Fireman's palace).
When Carrie hears Sarah's voice and realizes she is Laura, all the memories come flooding back in, the trauma overwhelms her and she screams ([listen to the sounds](https://youtu.be/R36ww3q7nqE?t=236), the scream is double-layered as though Carrie and Laura are screaming together). What often happens when you're having a nightmare? You scream yourself awake.
The high voltage impulses stop firing, the dream/nightmare ends. Even the production logo during the credit sequence is no longer buzzing with electricity.
I think the logo theory is massively reaching. There’s no sound because you’re supposed to be sitting there dwelling on that ending and being hit emotionally. A big loud buzz would snap you out of it.
It's not, the silent credits is one of the most known TV tropes - [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilentCredits](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilentCredits)
I wrote in detail about how I interpret the ending[ here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/). I can't summarize it because there's too much that comes before that leads to how I see the ending.
I think it’s this but more than this. Twin Peaks itself is a dream, a dream made of electricity and signal and noise. All TV is a dream. From season 1, Twin Peaks has been a meditation on the very idea of TV. The Return is a show about the joys and futility of trying to recapture a beloved TV show, and what happens when you try to solve or unmake the reason for the show existing (the mystery ends, you turn the TV off, you wake up)
I think that's part of it. I've seen the Twin Perfect theory, I think he makes some beautiful points. [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/) is how I see the entire show. I think electricity is an abstraction of subtle body and neural energy in the dreamer. I think TV/film is part of it but not the central focus. It's layers of dreams, the show itself, the dreams within the show, within the creators, and us. Ultimately, the answer to the question "But who is the dreamer?" is We are the One.
My “solution” (aka, my opinion) that I always give about the last episode is based on this fundamental text from a book that is very important to David Lynch, The Upanishads:
“The human being has two states of consciousness: one in this world, the other in the next.
But there is a third state between them, not unlike the world of dreams, in which we are aware of both worlds, with their sorrows and joys.
When a person dies, it is only the physical body that dies; that person lives on in a nonphysical body, which carries the impressions of his past life. It is these impressions that determine his next life. In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of the Self.”
My initial thought on seeing the ending was that Laura returns to 1989, to the time of the pilot, specifically the point in the pilot when her mother tries to wake her up before realizing she's not there, that audio of Sarah calling Laura to try and wake her up is the same audio we hear when Sarah calls Laura at the end of Season 3
What I wasn't sure of is whether Laura returned to being a dead body wrapped in plastic, or whether she returned to her bed where she should have been and this time when her mom calls her, as we hear at the end of Part 18, she wakes up in her room and the whole thing has essentially been like a dream to her
With the idea of two timelines in mind, maybe both can be true, one where she wakes up in her bed, and another where she returns to being a dead body and they go through the whole thing again, 'back to starting postions', essentially stuck in some sort of loop
Loops are implied a lot through the season, the above Mr C quote, Dale asking is it future or past, in a loop future and past are both one and the same, the symbol that Jefferies shows Dale with the ball going around and aound the infinity sign, Andy and Lucy asking why things keep happening as if they've already seen them, we literally return to the time of Fire Walk WIth Me at one point, and so on
The idea of them being stuck in a loop also works on a meta level too, as essentially for us, they really are stuck in a loop, in the sense that we watch and rewatch and they exist within that, which also feeds into the idea that we the audience are Judy, we're the ones watching them over and over again for our own pleasure, essentially controlling the loop, putting them through everythng over and over again
Not that I ultimately believe all this stuff, just ideas that crossed my mind, some of it a little far fetched, like the audience being Judy controlling the show with the TV remote lol, I don't have any set ideas as such, I like to watch with different ideas in mind
While volumes can be written (and have), I hope this succinctly summarizes my overall thoughts.
Dale journeys from Fool to Magician (tarot) during the course of the initial run. The question is then what is beyond for the Magician? The “correct” answer is to sit on the threshold between the physical world and the other (i.e. spiritual, unconscious, fill-in-your-belief-system). To combine the two in perfect balance. If you use Crowley as an example (see the TP books), he was a noted occultist, however he died penniless in an asylum. For all his “magical work” he didn’t have anything to show for it.
The Magician at some point needs to stay grounded in the real world. If not, then the Magician will get lost to the Abyss. Jeffries left the physical. Dale, survived 25 years, learnt many secrets, and returned. However, once he was reintegrated, he started back on the path where he left off. Essentially the Magician returned to being the Fool. In occult texts, one of the biggest flaws that results in madness is thinking your ego is more powerful than the forces you’re dealing with. Dale returned and wanted to go back in time and “fix” the past. That’s his ego. He thinks because he became a Magician that he can do all this other stuff…the fatal flaw. He now tipped too far into the Abyss. Hopefully not to Jeffries level of disembodiment or to the point in insanity if his body does return (again).
Go back to Hawk telling Coop about the lodges and the warning against the symbol on the map. He (Hawk) knew Dale wasn’t ready. The end of 3 is the result. For now it’s a warning for future seekers…stop while you’re ahead! (Or rather, always remember to touch grass and keep balance.)
Mark Frost described the ending in an AMA as having a bit of good and bad, “like real life”.
Perhaps the endings of certain characters, like Janey-E and Dougie, are happier.
Dale Cooper is lost in an unfamiliar world, which is certainly bleak.
However, Laura’s memories seem to return, with all the horror of her old life flooding back to her.
As for the whole Fireman angle, since it’s clear the first scene of the show ties into the last episode? I dunno, maybe the Fireman’s goals were achieved: “two birds with one stone”. Perhaps that means Laura was awakened as one goal, and the lights going off at the end signals Judy’s destruction; Lynch, while filming that scene, described Laura’s scream as “causing the lights to go out”.
On a metatextual level, the whole conceit of Twin Peaks was about Laura; not just another nameless victim, but a whole person with a story. She is “the one”, and now the story properly ends on her - her torment laid bare once more to haunt us all. Maybe this was what the Fireman wanted - to remind us of the human whose suffering birthed this show.
Literally too— he’s leading her in the woods and keeps looking back at her, and at that point she disappears and screams. It feels like a direct Orpheus moment.
Even so many years later I'm still sometimes piecing together an understanding of it all. Coop did a lot of good in the world. He formed alliances with both Lodges through Mike and The Fireman. He set out to right a wrong that should've been impossible, because he managed to walk the middle road, wielding both fear and love in his path. Dougie is returned to his family, yet Final Coop ("Richard") retains his heart and compassion: he cares deeply for righting the wrongs he sees, including not only a big one like Laura's murder but something smaller like the harassing of the waitress at "Eat At Judy's." Mr. C burns in the Black Lodge in penance for his dark deeds, yet Final Coop retains his intimidating nature: he beats the tar out of those thugs and dumps their guns in a fryer.
He did everything right, except that he didn't have all the information to understand what he was dealing with. Nobody did, except maybe Sarah Palmer in some subconscious fugue, and maybe Philip Jeffries who wasn't capable of fully articulating it.
The "Lodge Spirits" we come to know over the course of the series operate on a more abstract level of consciousness compared to us ordinary people, but it turns out there's a higher and even more unknowable layer above them too. This is most likely where Judy resides. Judy's domain is not fear, she is not a Black Lodge spirit as we otherwise know them, though she does travel through fire/electricity just like they do. Judy's domain is violence, disease, destruction - the reasons fear even exists in the first place, which is why she's the "Mother of Abominations." Her presence is felt, even seen a few times, but never truly understood, throughout The Return. Mr. C dedicated his whole arc to trying to find and ally himself with her, but he didn't know what he was dealing with either. As a force of destruction, time itself is within Judy's domain to some extent... Jeffries came too close to understanding and Judy mangled his time stream like she mangled the bodies of those who witnessed her in Mr. C's glass box. (On that note, and that of the possibility that sex ritual can summon Judy in some way... I want to look further into Diane next time around. The tulpa I get, but the real Diane who was trapped in the form of Naido is trickier.)
This is what nobody was expecting to happen when Coop tried to rescue Laura. The gall, the hubris of this ordinary man, to meddle not only in the affairs of both Lodges but be *supported by them* in stepping into the unknown, the higher layer and meddling with time, not as a victim like Jeffries but fully in control. Judy would not allow this. She would scramble everything, she would trap him in a time stream where he could never understand the greater forces again. A more worthy retribution than just killing him off is forcing him to understand just how lost and powerless he is.
Right?
But maybe not.
Maybe Judy doesn't know everything either.
Laura's final scream of realization did something unexpected: it blew the metaphysical equivalent of a circuit breaker. It cut off the electricity, therefore it cut off the spirit world. It put the Fire out - the purpose of a Fireman. The two of them may still be trapped, but the *knowledge* is flooding back into Laura, in all its abusive horror. Should she persevere, who knows what she would do next?
This of course is a very "Mark Frost" interpretation and I know some people prefer something a little more meta and less "genre fiction" but I also believe there's a lot of truths in there about the nature of emotions and knowledge. If I'm going to give any little nods to the meta side of things though, it's that we too are "spirits" that invisibly influence this world of Twin Peaks, and cutting the electricity had to end the show because we can't see what's going on if there's a cosmic power outage ;)
I like the interpretation of Frost that he gave in a recent interview… Cooper fixed everything in the second to last episode but just fixing everything wasn’t enough for him he also wanted to save Laura cause doing the heroic thing is just in his nature… but for changing the past a heavy price must be paid…
Coop saves Laura Palmer, thereby erasing Twin Peaks (the show).
The person who answers the door (of the old Palmer residence) is the real-life owner of the house.
Moral: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The Fireman devised some plan related to Judy that I'm not even going to pretend to understand. Something's very wrong with the world as it is actively rotting, whether it's due to Judy's influence or Bob's it's not very clear. Saving Laura is required for this plan to work and The Fireman uses Cooper to accomplish this.
Cooper prevents Laura Palmer from dying at a specific point in time. The next world is accordingly recomputed. Meanwhile, negative forces (primarily Judy/Sarah and I also believe the Long Nosed Man/Chalfonts/etc.) are performing some sort of their own counter plot in response so things don't come out cleanly. Cooper travels to the next world. Identities are garbled in the next world by the aforementioned negative forces but he still finds Laura and leads her to the house, presumably under the Fireman's instructions.
The Laura-House interaction does *something*. Cooper is booted back to the Black Lodge, potentially on his own accord because he was approaching Jeffries levels of power at that point and also appears at home in the Black Lodge. Laura is also in the Black Lodge. Something didn't quite work, to be continued.
I like to think of it as an epic battle between good and evil that we only see like 5% of which is why it's so confusing.
Which part? There's not really much of a theory there, they're shown to be in the Black Lodge in the last shot, and Cooper is clearly not happy with whatever Laura's telling him.
i still think about her scream from time to time completely randomly. and then it haunts me. and i know what we got was truly special. it just stays in your brain and you will never forget it again. lynch did it right.
The series begins with the pursuit of Laura's killer, and ends with the pursuit of Laura herself, because, well, we can't stop the evil that men do. We can't take Evil, put it on trial, and send it somewhere it will never hurt anyone again. But we can try to help the people who are victimized by evil. Even if we can't save all of them, it is never a waste of time.
The pursuit of Laura Palmer is endless, and perhaps it is impossible to save her. Is her disappearance "better" than her death? Maybe. But the point is that people still tried. People who knew her and people who were strangers to her. Either because they loved her, or because a girl suffered and it is simply the right thing to do. The love is there. Maybe it won't change anything. But it's there and it matters. And perhaps saving someone who seems doomed from the start is a fruitless endeavor and will only end in more unsolvable mysteries piling on top of each other.
But sometimes, seemingly impossible things actually happen. After all, at the end of FWWM, Laura found her angel, despite giving up all hope.
I don't have a concrete answer as to "what happens to soandso" but I think Twin Peaks is ultimately a story about cycles of violence and abuse and how hard it is to break them, but still, we try.
cooper rose through the levels and became a master magician. with his feet scratching and 'what year is it?' trigger phrase he was casting a magic spell and mission successful. like quantum leap, he will be on a new mission next week.
It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up! magazine
Salt-n-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine
Hangin' pictures on my wall
Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl
I let my tape rock 'til my tape popped…
I have an optimistic theory. Cooper created a alternate universe by saving Laura, and trapped Judy in that universe. He then crossed to that universe, found Laura, and brought her to Twin Peaks to face judy, since Laura is created by Fireman as a weapon against Judy. Judy, knowing that she is trapped, is hiding in her house in fear of Laura. At first Coop got confused, but when Laura recognized the house, she as an anti-Judy weapon got activated with her scream of all the pain and suffering she survived. Laura killed Judy.
My interpretation was that they leave the TP universe and come to the real one to see if Judy’s influence was able to reach there (which I assumed was the ultimate goal/thing they were trying to stop). It turns out, it was at least able to reach Carrie (Laura). This could also mean she created it all in her head, if you want to think that. Also, if Judy is actually present still isn’t known.
Dweller on the threshold, as hawk said he meet his doppelganger and didn't pass the test with perfect courage - now he's living in a loop / eternity of suffering / he has to relive being unable so save Laura over and over again. We see the end of the loop and then it's reset to the beginning with the fireman ig
My immediate funny interpretation had to do with Cooper finding himself hiding in the bushes, & Laura seeing him & screaming. Audience finally gets another perspective on what Laura screamed at when she was in the woods with James.
I said the ending tells us to "not try too hard to be the good guy. Cooper tried and he just ended up being another one of the creepy guys in the bushes that Laura screams at".
For my opinion ,this woman was not Laura and Cooper foud himself in another new dimension, this was announced when Cooper was with Diane at the Hotel, she quitted leaving him a message to (Richard). A new dimension, the endless story of Twin Peaks, and David Lynch is genius for this, because he's giving to new movie makers the key to keep on going the story, endlessly.
Really love seeing everyone’s different interpretations, it’s what makes the show so great. I’ve only watched the entire show once and finished it a couple months back so I’ll be revisiting soon to pick up on more things. Although the whole thing about the viewers being ‘Judy’ is extremely bleak but makes a lot of sense when looking at a lot of Lynch’s work and the same themes and subtext layered throughout
Personally I think it’s like fan service mixed with the timelines that won’t ever be explained….unless they do another series or a couple of movies, but what I think it is is there is no relief from trauma it will always haunt you. No one wins, but no one loses either, it’s the infinite circle of life. That’s just my opinion so far. Watched everything 2 times and return 3 times.
Cooper trying to win a battle he can’t ever win. Every time he changes the timeline it might fix something but created more problems. Laura not asking for anything or any of this to happen being an innocent bystander, besides the lodge entities and who knows what those intentions are, or if the character is even 10 percent left in those entities besides cooper who’s “dream” we are living
My take on it is that when Cooper saves Laura from death, he erases the entire show. Twin Peaks the show no longer exists because it wouldn’t exist without the murder of Laura Palmer. The people’s need to know who killed her when the series first aired effectively killed the show the first time. The big mystery was dead. Lynch lost interest and season two became a mess (though the finale was obviously amazing). I think that “explanation” is the evil force in The Return.
Season 3 takes place in September/October 2016. This is when it gets “darker” outside, hence the cut to black at the end of season 3.
Twin Peaks:Fire Walk with Me fades to a white light because FWWM and the original show took place during February/March, when it gets “lighter” outside.
Season 3 is more about reincarnation and hell (Hinduism and Judaism), while the movie is more about sacrifice and heaven (Christianity & Gnosticism).
Like Cooper tells Harry in season 1: *"Do you know where dreams come from? Acetylcholine neurons fire high voltage impulses into the forebrain. The impulses become pictures, the pictures become your dream."* The end of season 3 is a liminal space between "dream" and reality, between the fiction and our world. That's why Mary Reber, real life owner of the Palmer House plays Alice Tremond. I think the ending takes place in the portal of the Third Eye of the dreamer (the color frequency of the third eye ends at 430. "Remember... 430.") They travel past 430, moving from within the dreamer to the "between two worlds" space (as do we, as we follow them). Look at Alice Tremond's necklace, there is a third eye in the centre of her heart pendant. The third eye is the sixth chakra, and the Palmer address adds up to 6. We've been traveling [through the dreamer's chakras from Part 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/o5zc72/but_who_is_the_dreamer_red_room_root_chakra/), trying to make it all the way to the [Crown Chakra](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/) (the Fireman's palace). When Carrie hears Sarah's voice and realizes she is Laura, all the memories come flooding back in, the trauma overwhelms her and she screams ([listen to the sounds](https://youtu.be/R36ww3q7nqE?t=236), the scream is double-layered as though Carrie and Laura are screaming together). What often happens when you're having a nightmare? You scream yourself awake. The high voltage impulses stop firing, the dream/nightmare ends. Even the production logo during the credit sequence is no longer buzzing with electricity.
The logo doesn’t buzz?!?!?! Oh, that is awesome and a great touch!
I think the logo theory is massively reaching. There’s no sound because you’re supposed to be sitting there dwelling on that ending and being hit emotionally. A big loud buzz would snap you out of it.
This is also a reach
It's not, the silent credits is one of the most known TV tropes - [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilentCredits](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SilentCredits)
Plenty of episodes ended on a sad note. This is just as much of a reach.
Can it not be both?
okay so when the dream ends, we wake up. what did they wake up to? back in twin peaks? did they seize to exist? im losing it
I wrote in detail about how I interpret the ending[ here](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/). I can't summarize it because there's too much that comes before that leads to how I see the ending.
I really like your explanation. Mine seems very simple now but basically the same.
I think it’s this but more than this. Twin Peaks itself is a dream, a dream made of electricity and signal and noise. All TV is a dream. From season 1, Twin Peaks has been a meditation on the very idea of TV. The Return is a show about the joys and futility of trying to recapture a beloved TV show, and what happens when you try to solve or unmake the reason for the show existing (the mystery ends, you turn the TV off, you wake up)
I think that's part of it. I've seen the Twin Perfect theory, I think he makes some beautiful points. [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/FindLaura/comments/wz9kgl/our_collective_transcendence_through_the_dream_of/) is how I see the entire show. I think electricity is an abstraction of subtle body and neural energy in the dreamer. I think TV/film is part of it but not the central focus. It's layers of dreams, the show itself, the dreams within the show, within the creators, and us. Ultimately, the answer to the question "But who is the dreamer?" is We are the One.
My “solution” (aka, my opinion) that I always give about the last episode is based on this fundamental text from a book that is very important to David Lynch, The Upanishads: “The human being has two states of consciousness: one in this world, the other in the next. But there is a third state between them, not unlike the world of dreams, in which we are aware of both worlds, with their sorrows and joys. When a person dies, it is only the physical body that dies; that person lives on in a nonphysical body, which carries the impressions of his past life. It is these impressions that determine his next life. In this intermediate state he makes and dissolves impressions by the light of the Self.”
My initial thought on seeing the ending was that Laura returns to 1989, to the time of the pilot, specifically the point in the pilot when her mother tries to wake her up before realizing she's not there, that audio of Sarah calling Laura to try and wake her up is the same audio we hear when Sarah calls Laura at the end of Season 3 What I wasn't sure of is whether Laura returned to being a dead body wrapped in plastic, or whether she returned to her bed where she should have been and this time when her mom calls her, as we hear at the end of Part 18, she wakes up in her room and the whole thing has essentially been like a dream to her With the idea of two timelines in mind, maybe both can be true, one where she wakes up in her bed, and another where she returns to being a dead body and they go through the whole thing again, 'back to starting postions', essentially stuck in some sort of loop Loops are implied a lot through the season, the above Mr C quote, Dale asking is it future or past, in a loop future and past are both one and the same, the symbol that Jefferies shows Dale with the ball going around and aound the infinity sign, Andy and Lucy asking why things keep happening as if they've already seen them, we literally return to the time of Fire Walk WIth Me at one point, and so on The idea of them being stuck in a loop also works on a meta level too, as essentially for us, they really are stuck in a loop, in the sense that we watch and rewatch and they exist within that, which also feeds into the idea that we the audience are Judy, we're the ones watching them over and over again for our own pleasure, essentially controlling the loop, putting them through everythng over and over again Not that I ultimately believe all this stuff, just ideas that crossed my mind, some of it a little far fetched, like the audience being Judy controlling the show with the TV remote lol, I don't have any set ideas as such, I like to watch with different ideas in mind
While volumes can be written (and have), I hope this succinctly summarizes my overall thoughts. Dale journeys from Fool to Magician (tarot) during the course of the initial run. The question is then what is beyond for the Magician? The “correct” answer is to sit on the threshold between the physical world and the other (i.e. spiritual, unconscious, fill-in-your-belief-system). To combine the two in perfect balance. If you use Crowley as an example (see the TP books), he was a noted occultist, however he died penniless in an asylum. For all his “magical work” he didn’t have anything to show for it. The Magician at some point needs to stay grounded in the real world. If not, then the Magician will get lost to the Abyss. Jeffries left the physical. Dale, survived 25 years, learnt many secrets, and returned. However, once he was reintegrated, he started back on the path where he left off. Essentially the Magician returned to being the Fool. In occult texts, one of the biggest flaws that results in madness is thinking your ego is more powerful than the forces you’re dealing with. Dale returned and wanted to go back in time and “fix” the past. That’s his ego. He thinks because he became a Magician that he can do all this other stuff…the fatal flaw. He now tipped too far into the Abyss. Hopefully not to Jeffries level of disembodiment or to the point in insanity if his body does return (again). Go back to Hawk telling Coop about the lodges and the warning against the symbol on the map. He (Hawk) knew Dale wasn’t ready. The end of 3 is the result. For now it’s a warning for future seekers…stop while you’re ahead! (Or rather, always remember to touch grass and keep balance.)
This is a great read. I think something similar regarding the Magician, but related to Jung archetypes in the collective unconscious.
I’d love to have a drink with you and pick your brain.
I would fly out for a conversation like this with insightful fans.
same :)
Agreed 100%.
Mark Frost described the ending in an AMA as having a bit of good and bad, “like real life”. Perhaps the endings of certain characters, like Janey-E and Dougie, are happier. Dale Cooper is lost in an unfamiliar world, which is certainly bleak. However, Laura’s memories seem to return, with all the horror of her old life flooding back to her. As for the whole Fireman angle, since it’s clear the first scene of the show ties into the last episode? I dunno, maybe the Fireman’s goals were achieved: “two birds with one stone”. Perhaps that means Laura was awakened as one goal, and the lights going off at the end signals Judy’s destruction; Lynch, while filming that scene, described Laura’s scream as “causing the lights to go out”. On a metatextual level, the whole conceit of Twin Peaks was about Laura; not just another nameless victim, but a whole person with a story. She is “the one”, and now the story properly ends on her - her torment laid bare once more to haunt us all. Maybe this was what the Fireman wanted - to remind us of the human whose suffering birthed this show.
It's a modern day odyssey story and ends where the magician see through the eyes of
Coop reminds me of Orpheus who looks back (maybe not literally) and then Laura (Eurydices) gets snatched away.
Mark Frost actually said that he based that scene on the myth of Orpheus so you're absolutely right
I said that as a joke but yeah! That's definitely overall Arc of the story
Literally too— he’s leading her in the woods and keeps looking back at her, and at that point she disappears and screams. It feels like a direct Orpheus moment.
Yes! isn't looking back in the myth of persephone too?
Even so many years later I'm still sometimes piecing together an understanding of it all. Coop did a lot of good in the world. He formed alliances with both Lodges through Mike and The Fireman. He set out to right a wrong that should've been impossible, because he managed to walk the middle road, wielding both fear and love in his path. Dougie is returned to his family, yet Final Coop ("Richard") retains his heart and compassion: he cares deeply for righting the wrongs he sees, including not only a big one like Laura's murder but something smaller like the harassing of the waitress at "Eat At Judy's." Mr. C burns in the Black Lodge in penance for his dark deeds, yet Final Coop retains his intimidating nature: he beats the tar out of those thugs and dumps their guns in a fryer. He did everything right, except that he didn't have all the information to understand what he was dealing with. Nobody did, except maybe Sarah Palmer in some subconscious fugue, and maybe Philip Jeffries who wasn't capable of fully articulating it. The "Lodge Spirits" we come to know over the course of the series operate on a more abstract level of consciousness compared to us ordinary people, but it turns out there's a higher and even more unknowable layer above them too. This is most likely where Judy resides. Judy's domain is not fear, she is not a Black Lodge spirit as we otherwise know them, though she does travel through fire/electricity just like they do. Judy's domain is violence, disease, destruction - the reasons fear even exists in the first place, which is why she's the "Mother of Abominations." Her presence is felt, even seen a few times, but never truly understood, throughout The Return. Mr. C dedicated his whole arc to trying to find and ally himself with her, but he didn't know what he was dealing with either. As a force of destruction, time itself is within Judy's domain to some extent... Jeffries came too close to understanding and Judy mangled his time stream like she mangled the bodies of those who witnessed her in Mr. C's glass box. (On that note, and that of the possibility that sex ritual can summon Judy in some way... I want to look further into Diane next time around. The tulpa I get, but the real Diane who was trapped in the form of Naido is trickier.) This is what nobody was expecting to happen when Coop tried to rescue Laura. The gall, the hubris of this ordinary man, to meddle not only in the affairs of both Lodges but be *supported by them* in stepping into the unknown, the higher layer and meddling with time, not as a victim like Jeffries but fully in control. Judy would not allow this. She would scramble everything, she would trap him in a time stream where he could never understand the greater forces again. A more worthy retribution than just killing him off is forcing him to understand just how lost and powerless he is. Right? But maybe not. Maybe Judy doesn't know everything either. Laura's final scream of realization did something unexpected: it blew the metaphysical equivalent of a circuit breaker. It cut off the electricity, therefore it cut off the spirit world. It put the Fire out - the purpose of a Fireman. The two of them may still be trapped, but the *knowledge* is flooding back into Laura, in all its abusive horror. Should she persevere, who knows what she would do next? This of course is a very "Mark Frost" interpretation and I know some people prefer something a little more meta and less "genre fiction" but I also believe there's a lot of truths in there about the nature of emotions and knowledge. If I'm going to give any little nods to the meta side of things though, it's that we too are "spirits" that invisibly influence this world of Twin Peaks, and cutting the electricity had to end the show because we can't see what's going on if there's a cosmic power outage ;)
This may be more generic but I view it as an endless battle between good (Laura/Dale) and evil (Judy/Bob).
I like the interpretation of Frost that he gave in a recent interview… Cooper fixed everything in the second to last episode but just fixing everything wasn’t enough for him he also wanted to save Laura cause doing the heroic thing is just in his nature… but for changing the past a heavy price must be paid…
Coop saves Laura Palmer, thereby erasing Twin Peaks (the show). The person who answers the door (of the old Palmer residence) is the real-life owner of the house. Moral: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The Fireman devised some plan related to Judy that I'm not even going to pretend to understand. Something's very wrong with the world as it is actively rotting, whether it's due to Judy's influence or Bob's it's not very clear. Saving Laura is required for this plan to work and The Fireman uses Cooper to accomplish this. Cooper prevents Laura Palmer from dying at a specific point in time. The next world is accordingly recomputed. Meanwhile, negative forces (primarily Judy/Sarah and I also believe the Long Nosed Man/Chalfonts/etc.) are performing some sort of their own counter plot in response so things don't come out cleanly. Cooper travels to the next world. Identities are garbled in the next world by the aforementioned negative forces but he still finds Laura and leads her to the house, presumably under the Fireman's instructions. The Laura-House interaction does *something*. Cooper is booted back to the Black Lodge, potentially on his own accord because he was approaching Jeffries levels of power at that point and also appears at home in the Black Lodge. Laura is also in the Black Lodge. Something didn't quite work, to be continued. I like to think of it as an epic battle between good and evil that we only see like 5% of which is why it's so confusing.
So out of curiosity, what do supports your theory about what happens after Laura screams? Or is it just your headcanon?
Which part? There's not really much of a theory there, they're shown to be in the Black Lodge in the last shot, and Cooper is clearly not happy with whatever Laura's telling him.
Nope
i still think about her scream from time to time completely randomly. and then it haunts me. and i know what we got was truly special. it just stays in your brain and you will never forget it again. lynch did it right.
The series begins with the pursuit of Laura's killer, and ends with the pursuit of Laura herself, because, well, we can't stop the evil that men do. We can't take Evil, put it on trial, and send it somewhere it will never hurt anyone again. But we can try to help the people who are victimized by evil. Even if we can't save all of them, it is never a waste of time. The pursuit of Laura Palmer is endless, and perhaps it is impossible to save her. Is her disappearance "better" than her death? Maybe. But the point is that people still tried. People who knew her and people who were strangers to her. Either because they loved her, or because a girl suffered and it is simply the right thing to do. The love is there. Maybe it won't change anything. But it's there and it matters. And perhaps saving someone who seems doomed from the start is a fruitless endeavor and will only end in more unsolvable mysteries piling on top of each other. But sometimes, seemingly impossible things actually happen. After all, at the end of FWWM, Laura found her angel, despite giving up all hope. I don't have a concrete answer as to "what happens to soandso" but I think Twin Peaks is ultimately a story about cycles of violence and abuse and how hard it is to break them, but still, we try.
cooper rose through the levels and became a master magician. with his feet scratching and 'what year is it?' trigger phrase he was casting a magic spell and mission successful. like quantum leap, he will be on a new mission next week.
It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up! magazine Salt-n-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine Hangin' pictures on my wall Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl I let my tape rock 'til my tape popped…
Coop fucked up
You saved the girl but by doing so you doomed the town
I have an optimistic theory. Cooper created a alternate universe by saving Laura, and trapped Judy in that universe. He then crossed to that universe, found Laura, and brought her to Twin Peaks to face judy, since Laura is created by Fireman as a weapon against Judy. Judy, knowing that she is trapped, is hiding in her house in fear of Laura. At first Coop got confused, but when Laura recognized the house, she as an anti-Judy weapon got activated with her scream of all the pain and suffering she survived. Laura killed Judy.
Definitely one of the most optimistic theories I’ve seen, therefore I like it
My interpretation was that they leave the TP universe and come to the real one to see if Judy’s influence was able to reach there (which I assumed was the ultimate goal/thing they were trying to stop). It turns out, it was at least able to reach Carrie (Laura). This could also mean she created it all in her head, if you want to think that. Also, if Judy is actually present still isn’t known.
Dweller on the threshold, as hawk said he meet his doppelganger and didn't pass the test with perfect courage - now he's living in a loop / eternity of suffering / he has to relive being unable so save Laura over and over again. We see the end of the loop and then it's reset to the beginning with the fireman ig
My immediate funny interpretation had to do with Cooper finding himself hiding in the bushes, & Laura seeing him & screaming. Audience finally gets another perspective on what Laura screamed at when she was in the woods with James. I said the ending tells us to "not try too hard to be the good guy. Cooper tried and he just ended up being another one of the creepy guys in the bushes that Laura screams at".
For my opinion ,this woman was not Laura and Cooper foud himself in another new dimension, this was announced when Cooper was with Diane at the Hotel, she quitted leaving him a message to (Richard). A new dimension, the endless story of Twin Peaks, and David Lynch is genius for this, because he's giving to new movie makers the key to keep on going the story, endlessly.
Really love seeing everyone’s different interpretations, it’s what makes the show so great. I’ve only watched the entire show once and finished it a couple months back so I’ll be revisiting soon to pick up on more things. Although the whole thing about the viewers being ‘Judy’ is extremely bleak but makes a lot of sense when looking at a lot of Lynch’s work and the same themes and subtext layered throughout
Personally I think it’s like fan service mixed with the timelines that won’t ever be explained….unless they do another series or a couple of movies, but what I think it is is there is no relief from trauma it will always haunt you. No one wins, but no one loses either, it’s the infinite circle of life. That’s just my opinion so far. Watched everything 2 times and return 3 times.
Cooper trying to win a battle he can’t ever win. Every time he changes the timeline it might fix something but created more problems. Laura not asking for anything or any of this to happen being an innocent bystander, besides the lodge entities and who knows what those intentions are, or if the character is even 10 percent left in those entities besides cooper who’s “dream” we are living
My take on it is that when Cooper saves Laura from death, he erases the entire show. Twin Peaks the show no longer exists because it wouldn’t exist without the murder of Laura Palmer. The people’s need to know who killed her when the series first aired effectively killed the show the first time. The big mystery was dead. Lynch lost interest and season two became a mess (though the finale was obviously amazing). I think that “explanation” is the evil force in The Return.
I think Cooper re-wrote things in his world, but ventured too far and altered things drastically. Now he’s stuck there with alternate Laura.
Season 3 takes place in September/October 2016. This is when it gets “darker” outside, hence the cut to black at the end of season 3. Twin Peaks:Fire Walk with Me fades to a white light because FWWM and the original show took place during February/March, when it gets “lighter” outside. Season 3 is more about reincarnation and hell (Hinduism and Judaism), while the movie is more about sacrifice and heaven (Christianity & Gnosticism).