the year could be 2008....Odessa's population was about 97k back then...the green Odess Sign says pop. 99,409 (approx).

Carrie/Laura's appearance suggests current time (2015-16)...but in which reality, or within who's dream?

Hi all new to the board but after that heart stopping finale I had to join a Twin Peaks Forums to try to wrap my head around what was going on .... I am sure you all remember the one armed man saying ... "Is it past .... or is it future " So sadly we are left to ponder whether it was indeed past or future but then of course we know that Coop and Diane were aware that once they passed "over the line" it was all going to be different but how can this explain that Diane lost her memory to her new identity but Agent Cooper did not .... and what of the poor woman at the bar where a man was shot and she screams only to find herself looking into a mirror at home (I think) ... And in the first episode Laura says she will see Cooper in 25 years ... this is mind numbing television to be sure and needless to say Lynch is a genius and like 25  years ago as I fell asleep to the nightmares of Bob and Cooper laughing hysterically it appears now I will hear  ... "What year is it and then that scream ...

I lean toward the sign being a real sign in Odessa that the city doesn't bother to update but maybe every 10 years.  Because why would they need to?  It's just a sign, not government census results.  

I believe the year is 1945 - when the White Sands experiment took place. The Tremonds and Chalfonts living in that haunted house before the Palmers.

Posted by: Luke Foxtrot Mitchell

I believe the year is 1945 - when the White Sands experiment took place. The Tremonds and Chalfonts living in that haunted house before the Palmers.

Wait, so Coop is driving that late model Lincoln around in the '40s like Doc with the flying DeLorean in Back to the Future? 

"Laura, where we're going, we don't need lost highways."

Posted by: Luke Foxtrot Mitchell

I believe the year is 1945 - when the White Sands experiment took place. The Tremonds and Chalfonts living in that haunted house before the Palmers.

But there were no Valero gas stations in 1945, also the woman who answers the door is not dressed in the style of 1945.

Posted by: Don Barone

Hi all new to the board but after that heart stopping finale I had to join a Twin Peaks Forums to try to wrap my head around what was going on .... I am sure you all remember the one armed man saying ... "Is it past .... or is it future " So sadly we are left to ponder whether it was indeed past or future but then of course we know that Coop and Diane were aware that once they passed "over the line" it was all going to be different but how can this explain that Diane lost her memory to her new identity but Agent Cooper did not .... and what of the poor woman at the bar where a man was shot and she screams only to find herself looking into a mirror at home (I think) ... And in the first episode Laura says she will see Cooper in 25 years ... this is mind numbing television to be sure and needless to say Lynch is a genius and like 25  years ago as I fell asleep to the nightmares of Bob and Cooper laughing hysterically it appears now I will hear  ... "What year is it and then that scream ...

Welcome to the forum! No good answers here, perhaps, but many interesting questions!

He asks the question because he is trying to make sense of what has happened.  Is it future or is it past?  Coop has not yet conceptualized the possibility that it is the right year, but wrong reality.

Definitely not 1945, but everyone is dressed in a way that could be anywhere from about 1960 on...

Oh dear. Showing my ignorance about cars, American gas stations and history of female clothing all at once.

To be fair, I'm a male British non-driver.

Moving swiftly on...

Ahh man 1945 would have tied in nicely. Not how TP/DL works though is it.

I think the reason he asks what year it is because he realizes it's modern day and he's expecting to be the 1960s. Cooper asks Jeffries to take him back to 1989, which he does. Copper attempts to save Laura, fails,. and then returns to the waiting room. He leaves the waiting room for the final time, so far,  and as he does so he makes a funny hand motion. What this hand motion is for I'm not sure. He could be manipulating time but I don't think so. Rather he is manipulating the curtains to allow him to leave via Galstonbury Grove and it is still 1989. Cooper has learned a lot in 25 years staying in the Black Lodge it seems. He meets the Real Diane, Red hair, who somehow knows to be there.  This is the Diane of 1989 not old with white hair.  She asks if it's really him and touches his face because he has aged so much. He asks if it's really her as she may be a tulpa. They don't kiss which is the only time so far they have not upon greeting each other. I don't think Cooper has a romantic interest in  Diane although I think she does in him.

The next scene they are driving in an early 60's Ford and proceeding to do something they have already discussed. So we are missing a scene, the procuring of the car and that discussion. Why an early 60's Ford? I believe Cooper intends to go back to the 60's via the portal 430 miles, exactly, from Twin Peaks and wants an appropriate car. 430 miles putting them near Jackson Hole Wyoming where Jerry Horne showed up after witnessing Richard Horne get fried up by electricity. Did Richard Horne go somewhere and not actually die? I think that is a portal and Copper is using it. Why he wants to go to the 60's and what he intends to do there I don't know.  In any case they kiss, in what I think is the first time they do kiss in their lives, and go through the portal.

They end up in what seems to be a 60's era motel.  Cooper enters the office to book a room and Diane sees herself. Is that her Tulpa and she exchanges places with it not sure of what they are planning to do? Or simply a manifestation of Diane's uncertainty? Is it Linda? I don't know.

In any case they enter the room and proceed with their plan. Part of Cooper's plan is to make love. What this is meant to achieve I don't know. Maybe Cooper intends this as love to open the White Lodge? Maybe he's gone back to the 60's because that is when it was last possible to reach the White Lodge? I don't know. They start making love to My Prayer playing but it stops abruptly and picks up after  a while. Is this when the trip to the present/ CPU (Carrie Page Universe) occurs and they become Richard and Linda, who they are in the CPU. Clearly during the love making Diane/Lynda regrets it. Diane perhaps because this is not really the love she was hoping for. 

Cooper wakes in the morning  to find Lynda's note. Where has Diane/Lynda gone? Is she in the CPU? Cooper  leaves the motel and it's different. Modern era hotel and car. He is becoming Richard. Maybe Richard is who he is in the CPU? Does anybody have the same name in the CPU? He is still Dale, has his memories, but now he's Richard too. Harder. Maybe Richard has led a very different life from Dale. He enters Odessa ( the feminine for Odysseus) , see Judy's, and begins an Odyssey to bring Laura home.  But when they get to what was the Palmer home things are different. At this point Dale remembers he meant to go to the past and asks "What year is this?".  Someone says 'Laura", Carrie screams and lots of flashing and electricity and we know how important electricity is by now right? Did the CPU collapse? Was the CPU just an illusion to  fool Cooper and Laura? Is Season 4 all about escaping the CPU? Hmmmm...

Is there going to be a season 4 *he says bowing on his knees and praying to ... *

Another question is that Grace/Sarah is in the credits despite not appearing in Episode 18. Is credit because that's Sarah calling "Laura"? Does her mother wake her from her Carrie Page state?

I've also been thinking about the significance of Coop's questioning "what year is this?" At first I thought it suggested that he ended up at a different point in time than expected (not future, but past) but now I doubt it.

I believe the question is meant to draw our attention to the idea that Coop has not only traveled into the future, but also into a parallel universe. This seems too obvious to those of us dissecting every detail of the series, but perhaps we are overcomplicating things.

Coop had saved Laura by literally traveling back in time to 1989, then lost her while leading her out of the woods. It is somewhat logical that he would "find" her by time travelling forward in time to the present day. The big reveal is that he has found her not in an altered future (ala the Back to the Future series) but rather in an alternate universe where everything is familiar, but different.

The answer to Coop's question is essentially meaningless, given that he has stepped entirely out of the existing timeline (and as many have noted, perhaps into the television viewer's reality).

This of course speaks to the more literal sci-fi/fantasy interpretation of the series. Note that the extra- textual website The Search for the Zone references parallel universes, splintered timelines and time travel. It links to a site that contemplates how ten dimensional beings might have the power to reach into our universe, grab someone, and deposit them somewhere else.

All of this might explain what we have seen. But is such a literal explanation even satisfying? I think it is Lynch's presentation of the material that gives the show its power, elevating pulpy sci-fi to something more mystical and likely very personal to him.

Remember that the scenes and dialogue we are attempting to decode may have come to Lynch though a dream, during a meditation session, or as he folded his arms on the roof of a hot car.

So asking for a definitive explanation is as futile as Coop asking "what year is this?"