Considering we're 11 episodes in and 7 to go... how important is the return of Agent Cooper the character we know and love? Its taken most of this series to adjust to Cooper as Dougie and suspend disbelief, I can't imagine us readjusting if Dougie flipped and suddenly became the old Coop.
Agreed! If Twin Peaks thematizes the effect of a tragedy on a tightly-knit community... The Return seems to generalize this theme to a global/metaphysical/eschatalogical scale:
1) Death is final/absolute for those who survive to mourn the dead.
2) Nobody is getting out of this world alive. Entropy is human (or, human beings are organic matter)
3) The earth will survive humanity (stated otherwise: there are forces in the world greater than human activity, including those set in motion by human activity)
When Alzheimers, dementia, cancer and addiction claim those we love, we can't have them back-- a miraculous return of Dale Cooper would suggest otherwise, undoing the most poignant implication of the presence of the late Warren Frost, Catherine Coulson, Miguel Ferrer, Marv Rosand, Don S. Davis and-- if only in Phillip Jeffries's name-- David Bowie.
It's in the show title. I suspect it's important.
It's in the show title. I suspect it's important.
I understood "The Return" to mean the audience's return to TP, not Dale Cooper's as we remember him from the original series. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if Dougie/Dale returns to Twin Peaks without his original persona returning to us.
It's in the show title. I suspect it's important.
I understood "The Return" to mean the audience's return to TP, not Dale Cooper's as we remember him from the original series. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if Dougie/Dale returns to Twin Peaks without his original persona returning to us.
Or, rather, the return of Twin Peaks to its audience.
I think it's important that there's been all these episodes without Cooper as we knew him - because it has changed our expectations of what will be coming back if he does.
If he'd just popped back after a couple of episodes, we'd be comparing him to the Coop of S1 & 2. Now we've realised that doesn't make any sense - and we may not all agree to a certain point when /if he IS back.
Does that make any sense?
It's been stated as the core of the show, Cooper's return to Twin Peaks. I think it's pretty important.
I think it's important that there's been all these episodes without Cooper as we knew him - because it has changed our expectations of what will be coming back if he does.
If he'd just popped back after a couple of episodes, we'd be comparing him to the Coop of S1 & 2. Now we've realised that doesn't make any sense - and we may not all agree to a certain point when /if he IS back.
Does that make any sense?
Yes, perfect sense. Well stated.
It's been stated as the core of the show, Cooper's return to Twin Peaks. I think it's pretty important.
Agreed. Just to make sure we're not talking past each other, I don't deny it is important. I just can't emphasize enough that Cooper might return to Twin Peaks without the persona of "Special Agent Dale Cooper" returning to us. As both OP and Lynn Watson have suggested, those holding out hope for gravity boots and cheerful tape recordings might yet have to grieve the loss of kyle machlachlan's character circa 1991. We'll see!
I think it's important that there's been all these episodes without Cooper as we knew him - because it has changed our expectations of what will be coming back if he does.
If he'd just popped back after a couple of episodes, we'd be comparing him to the Coop of S1 & 2. Now we've realised that doesn't make any sense - and we may not all agree to a certain point when /if he IS back.
Does that make any sense?
Your last hypothesis here is intriguing! Cooper's recovery, like a stroke victim's recovery from aphasia, might well happen slowly, imperceptibly, or not at all. Or it might be a matter of individual viewer's interpretation. I prefer this sort of open-ended Lynchian narrative, as per the "Wtf?!" ending of Season Two.
We'll see. If Cooper returns, marries Audrey, adopts the troubled gun-toting tot and retires to a quiet life of whittling small wooden birdcall whistles... ...I, for one, will be disappointed.
I think he will return as a fully aware Special Agent Dale Cooper but...
a whole lot less Boy Scout and a whole lot more serious badass FBI guy.
I still think there's a scenario for him to play happy families with Janey-E and Sonny Jim, too, but with Lynch at the helm, it could go either way.
Just what would he be going back there for? For what purpose? Will he wonder what became of Annie? What did time seem like, for Agent Cooper in the Red Room? He recognized a much older Laura Palmer, but I don't think there is any sense of time there. Prior to becoming Dougie, he must have known that everything was different. The Giant speaks as though there is some kind of mission relating to Richard and Linda. But he also says that Cooper is far away. Maybe he will go back and kill Richard and end the cycle.
But I don't think there will be any old home week in TO, or that any of the women will wake him up.
I think he needs to go there to finish the case, primarily. Truman and the guys need him on the case, the Lodge gang need him to be fully functional for their purposes, whatever they may turn out to be.
The whole show revolves around Cooper somehow returning to Twin Peaks, so the place and the person are important. Getting the two together is the drama.
That's not to say Lynch and Frost are above the old Bait and Switch from time to time but still, it keeps us watching.
I think he will return as a fully aware Special Agent Dale Cooper but...
a whole lot less Boy Scout and a whole lot more serious badass FBI guy.
...I have a pet theory that Dale has been back for several days and is pretending to be an idiot to gather intel and assess his situation...he even managed to con a pair of gangsters who are now in his debt....doesn't get more badass than that!
Had another think about this whole thing and the answers I got weren't too good...
"Dougie" is functioning reasonably well, in that stuff is getting done, his boss is happy, the Mitchum Brothers are now on his side, or at least, off his case, he's getting fed, watered and laid...
He's getting a little extra help along the way from Mike and the Lodge gang, and coincidence or wilful blindness is helping him out at other times.
So, does the world need a fully functional Special Agent Dale Cooper? Quite possibly not, given that with everything so far, he's managed to stumble through stuff that would see the rest of us deader than Disco.
Oh very dear.
Fire walk with