Well Agent Cooper is going to be 'with' BOB in a sense soon, since next episode he will be confronting Mr. C/BOB, so definitely he will be relating to BOB again in the very near future, the same BOB that seduced him 25 years ago that he did want, since it was his weakness internal to Agent Cooper himself that led him to be split into Mr. C/BOB and Dougie, attracted to inhabit those lives, so that at one point Cooper did say 'I want to be with BOB', then laughed at Annie, etc., Hows Annie? Hows Annie?, hahahah.....So this is not crazy at all, but is going to happen very soon, in one way or another. But how Agent Cooper will deal with this is another question, will he get some ruthlessness back when Mr. C is eliminated, while eliminating BOB as a controlling force, something like the ruthlessness needed to see justice and dreams in the world without the wild excesses that BOB goes to? Agent Cooper did not take the ring, but abandoned it, so he will not be 'wedded' to BOB again this time, but he still may have some ruthless intent to take revenge on BOB for those 25 years and all the crimes he has committed in his name....
Agent Cooper is back, but the threat that caused him to be trapped for 25 years is still roaming free, all is not said and done yet, he is not in the clear and good forever, he could very well be killed by Mr. C and sent back.....why not?
Basic Jungian psychology in a way. (Well, nothing about Jung is basic.) A man as good as Dale has an enormous shadow side. This isn't made up. I've seen how it works in real life. If he doesn't work it out inside himself, it will come at him and it has and it will.
We've potentially got his shadow (dopple) and his anima (Naido?).
A full-blown Jungian reading of season 3 would be fun to do at some point. There might be a few candidates for anima--Audrey always seemed a likely candidate for that, Diane seemed like it in the original series so maybe Naido is an extension of that. We've also got the Crone (in Sarah) which is another Jungian archetype. Lucy and Andy are Innocents. Candie and the Mitchums are the Orphan, at least, and other stuff.
And the Innocent, the Orphan, the Hero, the Caregiver: all Jungian archetypes. All present and accounted for. More here http://www.soulcraft.co/essays/the_12_common_archetypes.html
I'm sorry that Cooper hasn't lived up to your expectations, but it's much heavy lifting to put him in the same league as Mr. C. for human failure. Mr. C. is: a serial rapist, a murderer in cold blood, an opportunist and a manipulative bastard, totally without love for any person as far as we can tell--he takes a sort of momentary narcissistic pleasure in having fathered a son on his rape victim but that's about it, then he shrugs off his death.
BOB/billionaires? BOB doesn't seem to carry cash. I can easily project my own political repugnance on Mr. C., because there is plenty of narcissism in Washington DC. these days, some would say always.
On the other hand, the show's creators do move in directions that at times seem potentially sexist or racist, and I could find plenty to rip into if I take the time regarding his portrayals of women, for example. People I know will probably do Marxist critiques of his work at some point with its superficial assessment of material culture-I think he probably focuses more on the symbolic characteristics of material. Others will find ways to justify his choices.
So, Murat, regarding Cooper's return and pleasure. It felt like winning a jackpot, which probably was intentional given the casino settings all season, when he woke up. We feel like the lucky lady in the restaurant. This reminds me a bit of some of my feminist colleagues telling us we should curtail our joy over Tina Fey's sheetcake skit last week because it was inappropriate in the face of Fey's white privilege, which made it possible for her to make a joke that evoked Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake." I think I am a sucker for these scenes that flash an FBI badge, sentimental as that might be, in the face of overwhelming destruction and pain. Cooper's always been an Eagle Scout, and sentimentality has always been a part of his character. Cherry pie?
There is a possible way out for Agent Cooper that before I may have underrated: Agent Cooper did seem to be playing along in that limo and gave various skeptical looks during the entire Bradley-obscene bloody mary-Candie upset sequence, as if to indicate, I see the problems here, but not exaggerating it since this would cause a disaster......So there is still room that he is just stuck in a bad situation, thrown there against his will after the purple room scene, and is now trying to work his way out as best he can, which means more modesty and recognizing the limitations the situation is currently stuck at, then trying to produce the best from it, leading the characters to their best possible outcome. Since just accusing everyone right away would land him stuck in Las Vegas and away from the showdown in Twin Peaks with Mr. C, since the FBI agents would lock him up, and that Agent Headly would probably not listen to him for days(seeing as how he treats Wilson) until Cole got there. So now Cooper is just using the situation to his advantage in order to get to Twin Peaks right away for the showdown with Mr. C in the only possible way he can, and at the same time trying to get people on the best possible track for the Twin Peaks showdown....If the world is responsible for the problems, systematically set up that way in its failings and injustices, unable to deal with problems, Agent Cooper alone is not going to fix them straight away, as some kind of savior, but will have to find some way out from within that situation, which I guess we will get at with the finale.....
Where I disagree is not with the enthusiasm that comes with a 'jackpot', but the blinding of the enthusiasm after the initial ecstatic moment, that makes it blind and handicaps it in order just to 'keep feeling good' at the expense of the enthusiasm's rational existence, which will run into problems that do not feel good. The blind, just feel good, approach that makes the background context disappear, and leads to the failed approaches where those who are supposed to be about justice etc., end up blindly acting out against anything and defend the same problems they claim they are against, the same system as Mr. C/billionaires, the same 'crushing of enthusiasm' you are talking about. When you have enthusiasm about an idea that is now existing in the world, it is all too important to make sure it works out correctly in its interaction in the world, since they way it realizes itself becomes what the idea is, if there is a failing in the idea, it will realize itself to show this failure, thus the idea as living, what the idea is changes based on the context of how it realizes itself. If your idea is to fight racism, and you just work by directly 'shutting down' anything that tries to deal with the antagonism creating injustice, anything you can suspect is potentially racist, thus always going back to the slow decay of the default situation, then your idea is to support racism and the slow decay of the situation, no matter what your sentimentality or inner feeling may be. So Agent Cooper coming back, the realization of the enthusiasm we have when he comes back, how he is going to bring justice, be the hero etc., is only 'good' insofar as how it realizes itself in the world. If Cooper ends up justifying the rule of mobsters, betraying his duty towards justice, etc. because he feels good and likes pie, is buddies with people who gave him presents and thus 'lets it slide' even though they are running the world into 'rancho rosa' by default, then he is no better than those people who run on direct blind feeling and acting out to 'shut down' any enthusiasm because they feel threatened. Cooper himself would have immediately killed the genuine enthusiasm to feel self satisfied in eating pie at the cost of endorsing systematic crime and oppression, abandoning the dream, etc for a comfy life in quaint Twin Peaks, as he did before. For instance, Audrey had the right approach, she went back to her 'old dance', just like 'old Agent Cooper' is back, but then saw the problem, how it was realizing itself by causing the brutal fight, etc., and finally she had enough, wanted out, now faced with herself in the mirror, as a changed person she can barely recognize, breaking out of that vicious cycle we saw in the house with Charlie. Its not about killing the real enthusiasm and the sentimentality that comes along with it, like the 'deep black joe' or Audrey's dance, but its about seeing the limitations and problems that come along with enjoyment, that at some point it is meaningless and painful, runs into unsolvable problems, can never be fully satisfied, Audrey has to endure home life with Charlie, etc. rather than doing the dance all the time; enjoyment hits the vortex/void in existence and can then turn into your worst nightmare, 'inexistence'....even the tyranny of BOB......
So, it is not all said and done just because we got Cooper back, in fact this is just the beginning. Cooper is stuck in a nasty situation, with people whose crime and destruction of lives are widespread, even if they make us feel good and they act 'quirky', not to mention the impending confrontation with Mr. C and BOB, whose vicious lifestyle seduced him once before. One weakness of old Agent Cooper was this precisely, his uncritical endorsement of everything because it makes him feel good, etc., blinding him to the dark crimes and underside of everything, then ending up endorsing it, if you are blind to antagonism and dreams and just to exist right there in Twin Peaks, the insufficiency and void in nature will begin to pick at you and maybe send you on BOBs wild quest of destruction because the world is not fit for his dreams, etc., Cooper was just living to exist without the process of justice anymore, denying antagonism, void, etc., relying on an archetype he is claiming to exist from ancient times into eternity and blaming the world for his failure.
Everything here coincides into blind acting out alongside the endorsement of tyranny and the crushing of genuine enthusiasm in order to keep things the way they are, to avoid pain and struggle, not seriously deal with problems, just 'feel good', etc. and wildly act out against anyone who bothers you etc.(both with the people who call every thought a potential threat, accuse it of this or that then begin violent attacks and demands, without seriously dealing with the problem, just accusing people and walking away; and it is the same with the billionaires/Mr. C who profit by default crushing out anyone seriously dealing with the problem, since their irrational system cannot sustain rational examination); both side spin off into violent acting out, tyranny, etc. in order to avoid rationality and keep their wild dream and archetype alive against all thinking. Everything here is a politics of fear, just defending a failing and slowly decaying reality of barbarism and destruction of all justice, going back into natural force of slow decay until death and momentary violent explosions with no rational way to think or comprehend anything, since this is immediately a vital threat, rationality itself is a threat to an irrational and barbarous system with no rational justification, so you have to crush thinking from all sides, no antagonism, no passions etc. allowed. Genuine rationality is attached to genuine passion, finding the dream, the measure that is lacking in the world, doing something that changes reality itself, and this enthusiasm can only sustain itself if it seriously deals with the problems in social reality in a rational way and the idea takes account of the problems it hits and alters itself, etc. when reaching its limits, idea is not over and done with like an archetype, it hits antagonisms, voids, etc. which upsets the entire process, demands that these problems be taken into account and eviscerates the 'archetype' itself, so that there is not materialism or idealism that stand apart from one another.
Those people you are calling Marxist, that shut down enthusiasm, really has nothing to do with what Marx said in Capital. His material analysis of capitalism is that its power is not from its base material, the object for sale, etc. that determines everything, but the metaphysical hold it gets over people in the process of surplus profit production, making something that is not there, putting in 5 dollars and getting 10 by taking some struggle and turning it into money. It is the metaphysical and symbolic aspect of status symbols, etc., what something we buy says about who we are, how we are special etc., Material and passion are intertwined. The wild idea of unlimited profit, that profit must always expand more and more, is the structural metaphysics embedded in the capitalist idea of how to run an economy. They are going to eternity in this wild quest for profit, and the structure of the economy system guarantees this 'religion', worshiping it as a metaphysical God, that tears apart reality, so then the material is giving the answer to the idea, showing it its limitations, that whether it like it or not, it will reach its limits and die in life, just like every living organism or thinking person who must 'fall' into nature, the thought of capitalism is not perfect will hit its limitations so that to impose it onto the world after its time is over would have to be done against all rationality, by tyranny. With the advancements of technology, everything will be automated, no investment and profit necessary for the economy to run, so that it is no longer rational to have profit motive, and the anarchy it produces, to incentive people to produce in the economy, all of production will be a simple, cheap, and streamlined rational process requiring no labor. The only way to keep the wild quest for profit alive is through debts, the fake idea that just increasing debts, impose them on people and pretend that they will somehow be paid in the future to keep the dream of profit alive, then speculate on this and more profit. The only way to do this is to take away the freedom of people, basically own them and force their lives to service the debt, so that capitalism means the death of all freedom, and the beginning of tyranny and slavery, permanent fear, control, etc. So then you have to impose debts on people, in an economy that is already taken care of without the need for the big money men, billionaires, those who happened to accumulate, etc., so the only way to keep this wild quest alive is by forcing all lives into servicing an irrational and useless debt which is only there to keep the wild dreams of irrational and barbaric tyrants alive, like the lord who claims to own the lives of serfs, forcing them to work the land, etc. its no longer rational, thus turns into tyranny, it is proven as the wrong measure/fit for the world, for the free people we all are given as right by birth, the right to control our brains, make our lives, etc, all gone.
So Mr. C/BOB and Billionaires coincide here, in their wild quest to exist even though their system is failing. Billionaires defend their privileged and the metaphysical surplus they gain from oppressing people, making profit and coming out on top, Mr. C/BOB is the same here, he is involved with criminals and tyranny, dealing drugs, had that mansion in Brazil, but is also obsessed with gaining enjoyment(Judy, etc.), alongside profit/cash directly, but their goals coincide since rationality, justice, etc. would threaten both Mr. C and the billionaires, thus Mr. C ends up working with the billionaire to monitor the red room/lodges/coordinates and crush the dreams of people as they did with Diane, since they know this 'non-existing' dreams for justice etc., the demand for the right/justice that is lacking in reality, threatens their existence, so that they can no longer even offer any basic freedom, but just fear and protection mafia style, so thus we have the never ending 'war on terror' and the slow decay into barbarism and the hiding from antagonism and rationality that would upend a dying system in order to see freedom against tyranny. The hiding and permanent terrorizing of the population is necessary, forcing fear and protection as the only expression of thought and existence, because a minimal rational consideration or articulation about what is going on would immediately be a deadly threat to the irrational system.
And this is why I do not agree with Jungian Archetypes here, since this leaves no space for freedom, but just endorsing some kind of stagnant existence with no genuine enthusiasm, a solid existing 'deep' archetype that is guaranteed and exists no matter what, regardless of the irrational consequences...and this is just like the people who claim that others cannot talk or start genuine enthusiasm because they are definitely a threat, a sort of Twitter 'got you' politics that wildly acts out and stops there, only there to prevent thinking and dealing with tough problems. To accuse someone as having a definite 'privilege' you have identified is to deny their freedom and endorse something like their archetype no matter what they are thinking or saying, trying to do or accomplish, they are secretly a racist, a terrorist, a 'zionist marxist' part of the Jewish conspiracy, or whatever, regardless of any rational thinking, you did something in a Tweet, and thats the end of it all. In this hell, everything is a mortal threat and people thrive off of decay and destruction, treating terror attacks, hurricanes, etc. as something like a holiday where everyone gets together in fear and wild violence without any more thinking involved in seriously solving or dealing with the hard issues of the problems(which involves guilt and major changes on all sides), because they have shut out rational enthusiasm and freedom, which would go against the archetypes of how people see themselves in the current capitalist order.....Archetypes go against this idea in Twin Peaks of vortex/void, etc., which tears apart nature and people, cutting them apart from within (like the 'knife in Cole's brain'), a subatomic flux 'under the surface' where physical reality disintegrates, the limits of our knowledge and ideas, our institutions and political economic systems which die and reach their limits as existing in the world, where this reality/archetype breaks down and demands rational relation so that we must struggle again with the process, fail and then try again and improve, rather than shutting out the antagonism altogether or hiding from it in order to persist in failure, leading to real life apocalypse....So what is primary is the impossible void that we cannot fit with, our dreams do not fit with, the void makes us lack something, then drives us to realize this, since we have that freedom from nature; there are not primary archetypes here we can rely on, then just 'shut everyone down', no archetypes that will guarantee that agent cooper, our quirky buddy, will be good, he got caught up and 'went with bob' and it could happen again... Instead of archetypes we have something like the 'centering' of our nonexistent dreams, that we try to realize, but keep a distance from in reality that will never fit perfectly, that will lead to hard times, or boring times, etc. problems will crop up, and will have to be dealt with, we will never directly going to be in 'eden'.., etc., access the ancient primordial archetype, etc.
We will have to see how Agent Cooper deals with things, and what happens with the mobsters, etc., what he is will depend on his social existence, how he realizes his claim to be fighting for justice. what Agent Cooper is, if its dealing with mobsters, taking gifts, endorsing everything that creates injustice and suffering just cause he gets his pie and coffee, expensive gifts, etc., he will be with BOB again....Then again we dont want to shut him out, lets see what he does, he was Dougie after all in a nasty situation and now just came back, so he may just want to try and make things as good as possible, bring out the 'gold in their hearts' without accusing them and ruining the entire situation, being stuck in jail instead of confronting Mr. C in twin peaks....for me it could go either way, I have emphasized the bad side because all of that 'smoothing over' where everyone is so assured is just like the shutting down of all enthusiasm, this 'smoothing over' closes the situation, stops the rational process and the ability to deal with problems, right when they are coming into play, right when the idea begins to exist, etc., right when it is exactly the wrong time to 'shut down'. The self-satisfaction is wrong here, I mean the guy is in league with mobster, taking favors from them, it can really go either way at this point, he could be the hero still, somehow able to show the Mitchums the void and their limitations, changing them forever, etc., he could be just be stuck in a bad situation, but it all depends how things work out, what moves he makes, but the disconnect between his goals for justice etc. and the social reality is striking, but hes got room to move and playing it well....Ill admit it, maybe I went a little bit overboard, maybe the Mitchums will somehow turn around, but I just cannot reconcile their social role with being some kind of secret force for good....what the truth of their internal goodness is, is shown in their social reality....what if Cooper told then no more 30 million dollar payouts, no more crime, racketeering, etc, calling 'hits' on people...they would just say alright? Would their good intentions to buy Sonny Jim a gym set be enough here? Maybe they will see something in Twin Peaks that will shake them to the core and make them 'legitimate', who knows?
Fire walk with