I would guess here that Mullins would only plan to reveal to the federal/state financial authorities Anthony's extortion, since he was convincing Anthony to basically confess and implicate Duncan and the police, while conveniently forgetting Dougie, using one 'bad guy' to blame for the entire situation, when the entire town and the logic of the business' profit motive itself is driving everyone involved into the same behavior.  Something similar in the last financial crash of 2008, when all the speculative investments of bankers on fake futures of debts came crashing down in a mess.   Then, only one 'bad guy' Bernard Madooff was blamed and treated like the 'son of satan', while all the other guys doing the same as Madoff were given huge awards of money from the government to cover their losses, faced nothing criminal, and making more money than ever, while entire communities are abandoned to drugs, lawlessness, dont even have clean drinking water anymore, etc.  Something like this is happening here imo, with Mullins, Mitchums, and authorities making big winners out of Mullins, Dougie, Mitchums, while blaming the 'antichrist' Anthony, then the game goes on as before, starts again as if nothing ever happened, more rancho rosa created in 'Sin City', alongside spectacular concentrations of wealth into smaller cliques.

   The problem here is the 'profit motive' as a principle to running the world, the religious capitalist principle, etc....which organizes the world, so that personal guilt is a little irrelevant, when in order to succeed you have to demand ever increasing profits, unlimited, since this is what 'the market' demands always, regardless of the impossibility and the irrationality or harm unleashed on the world when it hits its violent crises.  So everyone is caught up in worshiping unlimited profit, these are the rules, then when things go wrong, one person is blamed for personal guilt, as if they could have done something different, etc., rest are then freed up to worship Capital again, same cycle repeats on slow decay, moving towards more irrationality and destruction of the world for the 'wild quest' of profit...'let the world be damned'....

thus law, state, freedom are seen as less and less relevant at the same time, since even the idea of freedom itself is beginning to be antagonistic with the necessities of the current economic 'framework', which relies more and more on people's ideas, like facebook and the new digital economy, 'owning' conversations, etc., thinking and freedom, brains, existence taken as property; rather than manual labor, which is becoming automated.  Brains, freedom, law, sacrificed to the harsher demands of Capital as it comes to its end, is no longer rational or needed; existence itself moves to slavery, where thinking, all conversations, etc. become property, freedom of thought, speak, possess your own brain and body etc. is now enemy of profit motive.  Even in the early 2000's there was major financial 'de regulation' to meet those demands, and we have had government officials announcing publicly torture is alright whenever they want, they can kill citizens without due process, controlling the digital network without rules or regulations.  And there are entire networks of illegal groups, if one still adheres to the constitutional law of freedom, set up around the country in partnership with military/google,etc, documented already; around 3 million people working for these contractors with military clearance to implement this sort of 'extra legal' world(controlling information networks, like a nation wide 'glass box' from Twin Peaks which seeks to control what comes back from red room, etc.) we see emerging, without regard to the consequence for public freedom and law, which is their job, because of the massive economic changes underway that they will not be able to solve sufficiently in politics/economy as we now know it.....Still plenty of institutions out there, but this is where they are turning their gaze for the future....

The parallel with Mullins, Mitchum et al in the Twin Peaks world is a stretch too far for me and I don't think Lynch explicitly expresses things in this way. Other than that, I completely agree. 

Posted by: KLynched

The parallel with Mullins, Mitchum et al in the Twin Peaks world is a stretch too far for me and I don't think Lynch explicitly expresses things in this way. Other than that, I completely agree. 

Maybe your right, but easily could have seen the same type of motivations and behavior in many normal everyday situations, just by thinking about it, looking at whats going on etc....when making a show that has to somehow relate 1989 to the present day.....how those people would be today, etc.....  For example, what would a 'Ben Horne' be today?  Today Ben Horne is not as powerful as he was, he needs a 'jet setting' rich New York group just to keep his spa open,  relying on a specialized group of wealthy, etc.....the Great Northern is much more empty, etc., and its income is supplemented(maybe even propped up) by Jerry Horne's now legal drug business, and as a result Ben Horne seems to be less emboldened as a big 'money man', since his role was around making money off of the community through saw mill, hotel, etc., things now out of business or on the verge of it because of declining community standards and wealth(Steven, drugs everywhere, poverty, no education, etc.), in 'these economically depressed times', as Walter put it.  Ben Horne today is more reflective about why the hotel is more empty, why things went wrong with Richard, etc., but still driven by his social role as money man, just less emboldened by it, here we have criminal groups more emboldened(Red, Mitchums, Jerry's 'now legal' drug business, etc.), who even get to play hero in the absence of functioning legal institutions, education, or standards of behavior declining with lawlessness and lack of dignity with drugs, etc....., where as in 1989 we had Ben Horne as the evil, conspiring, businessman who harms the community and had to hide his activities while keeping a public face, now the public face is criminal directly and Ben Horne is sidelined,  since still trying to patronize the community....