Around the dinner table, the conversation was lively. Thank you but for now, the forum has been archived.
Same here. No proof that Judy is destroyed, though also no proof she wasn't. I tend to think she wasn't because Judy may be a metaphor for an eternal force that cannot be made non-existent, which exists as a counterbalance to good.
I wonder whether this question, posed to (Good) Cooper by The (evolution of the) Arm, might provide some sort of key to the events of Episode 18, and Cooper's (apparent) failure?
Might it indicate that Cooper, in his efforts to save Laura Palmer from death at the hands of Leland/Bob, has lost sight of the bigger picture? I.e., that the "story" isn't about saving/sparing "little girl down the lane" Laura Palmer, but about a much broader concern? And thus that Cooper's effort to save Laura as such, is the wrong priority, and in fact leads to futility and failure?
In the book/movie of The Little Girl That Lives Down the Lane, the little girl ultimately "saves" herself.
Which Carrie Page/Laura does by remembering and screaming and destroying Judy at the end.
If that is indeed what actually happens.
I didn't get anything out of it that Judy was destroyed.
My view is that Carrie started screaming because the place brought back memories of her life in the other timeline/dimension as Laura. I don't think she fully remembers, just enough to know that something is wrong and that she died / something terrible happened. Or will happen again.
I wonder whether this question, posed to (Good) Cooper by The (evolution of the) Arm, might provide some sort of key to the events of Episode 18, and Cooper's (apparent) failure?
Might it indicate that Cooper, in his efforts to save Laura Palmer from death at the hands of Leland/Bob, has lost sight of the bigger picture? I.e., that the "story" isn't about saving/sparing "little girl down the lane" Laura Palmer, but about a much broader concern? And thus that Cooper's effort to save Laura as such, is the wrong priority, and in fact leads to futility and failure?
In the book/movie of The Little Girl That Lives Down the Lane, the little girl ultimately "saves" herself.
Maybe that's the underlying lesson. They all need to save themselves.
Maybe the new Dougie is Cooper's nirvana: Home.
Maybe he'll try and try again to help Laura find Home (not the Black Lodge house) and then he can rest.
I wonder whether this question, posed to (Good) Cooper by The (evolution of the) Arm, might provide some sort of key to the events of Episode 18, and Cooper's (apparent) failure?
Might it indicate that Cooper, in his efforts to save Laura Palmer from death at the hands of Leland/Bob, has lost sight of the bigger picture? I.e., that the "story" isn't about saving/sparing "little girl down the lane" Laura Palmer, but about a much broader concern? And thus that Cooper's effort to save Laura as such, is the wrong priority, and in fact leads to futility and failure?
What the arm is telling Cooper is what Sarah Palmer knew and why she began to smash Laura's 'dream picture' as homecoming queen after Cooper's solution in episode 17: Cooper did not save Laura in episode 17, but condemned her to 'Odessa life', where she is resigned to accept the world that destroyed her dreams, the 'world of truck drivers'. Episode 18 is then not about 'recognizing the futility of saving Laura', but about realizing that this had not been accomplished yet and cannot be accomplished without confronting what happened and is still happening in the 'world of truck drivers', why Twin Peaks is still 'sleepwalking', etc. This requires more investigation, mystery, etc...Rather than showing the futility of 'saving Laura', it shows the inescapablity of the problem that Laura's death exposed and the continued necessity to do something about it; it shows the futility of trying to put the matter to rest once and for all, as if that pain could be erased that easily, thus condemning Laura. Episode 17 was an attempt to make Twin Peaks and the Laura tragedy futile, over once and for all, while episode 18 brings back Twin Peaks, which negatively tears this world of 17 apart, showing the futility of trying to make 'saving Laura', or Twin Peaks mystery, futile by putting it to rest once and for all in a happy ending, since the world itself is still running on the same 'black fire'. Saving Laura from that death just landed her in Odessa, another place where the problems she confronted in Twin Peaks were ruling the day, the work had not even begun and it was being treated as finished. In other words, the Cooper in 17 was too much like Dougie, the cool 'party animal' who just 'goes with the flow' and 'lets everything slide', and needed to be more like Mr. C who had a negative aspect which treated the world as 'not right'(although he went to criminal extremes because he did not properly 'get' Judy, which is impossible, thus Mr. C had to be caged, but as caged he leads to a 'factor' full of 'electricity bells' as the fireman and Briggs head watch over it all in the white lodge). Thus Cooper had to recognize that his son was Richard, who was much like Cooper himself, the Mr. C aspect he tried to hide from, this is where he 'found Judy', integrated the negative into himself...........Agent Cooper proper(the same one driving into Twin Peaks in 89/90 to investigate Laura's murder) has the same problem as Richard with the world, 'one and the same'.....no way to hide from this.....in other words, Agent Cooper is Mr. C and Dougie, there is not separate 'good' or 'bad' Cooper, realizing this allows proper Cooper to return with his capabilities, return to the mystery etc., instead of trying to deny either Dougie aspect or Mr. C aspect, which just reinforced both of their independent wild outbursts and extremes...
Laura could not meet with the fireman, there is still something about what happened to her and something in her which resists this, that has not been properly dealt with....no justice in the world, or even acceptable life for her, no one ever listened to her 'cries for help' and after this she got bitter to the point that even if someone tried to save her, she would have 'laughed at them anyway'(as Bobby said at her funeral). This is the territory that Cooper goes back to at the end of 18: going back to why Laura could not meet with the fireman, what was on that final missing page of Laura's diary that she could never forget in Odessa(Carrie Paige, etc.), what was she whispering to Cooper in the red room, etc. Rather than 18 showing futility, it is going right back into the core of it all; and just because this requires a negative stance on Cooper's part, that the 'world of truck drivers' is not something worth just letting 'smooth over everything', that he is stuck in the same problems that drove him mad back in 89/90(community of Twin Peaks, justice, etc., woman and dreams, etc.) is his negative stance....not futility here, but inescapability of the negative antagonism here, and since we are not dealing with nice things here, they should not make a 'feel good' ending, so that positivity here is showing the futility, the giving up, just letting everything rot in 'Odessa life', while negativity is the passion and the return to the problem, the idea that 'things are not alright in the world', etc....and this feeling is reflected in the way 18 is shown 'artistically'....its a good sign that Cooper became negative, appropriated Judy/negativity into himself, rather than making an allegiance with everything he was trying to combat when he first entered Twin Peaks back in 89/90, and failed.....and this is what he knows when he tells Laura 'this is very important', before taking her back to Twin Peaks to remember what happened, remember her dreams as well, 'the story of the little girl down the lane' that was shown in that 'homecoming picture', thus the arm says after 17, 'this is not the right story', etc., youve got to fix it...neither Cooper nor Laura are getting any kind of resolution or justice like this, nor dreams, Laura still cannot get to fireman, etc, in a way Odessa is a hell worse than death, accepting existence without any proper place in which to live, then trying to ignore or hide from negative intervention which would address this, that is hell, Cooper fixed it in 18, culminating in the scream.....
I think Cooper saved Audrey and Laura. Two Birds with one stone. The Brits say birds referring to woman.
I agree with you, Murat.
Coop functions quite perfectly in the Odessa dimension--he'd be so out of place as the peppy guy. I rewatched tonight, and realized how much I love episode 18. I love the whole gunslinger scene in Judy's Diner. Cooper is perfect, fantastic, in that scene. Those guys are vermin and he disposes of them surgically--a little reminiscent of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction--but you notice he lets them live. It's obviously the "wild west" mentally in Odessa, but he does not do any gratuitous harm. This is the top shelf FBI agent--not joking, not mooning over a nun-turned-waitress, not shooting random bottles--we all loved those scenes, but they would be inappropriate here.
It's also a kind of answer, or call out, to Judy--or to Sarah Palmer rather--because in that scene, he actually DID save someone, that minor character, the other waitress. We forget that because she's a minor character, but he SAVED her from becoming a major character! With this Coop around, the waitress has no need for Judy to devour the faces of these truck drivers....THE ONLY WAITRESS HE WAS ABLE TO ACTUALLY SAVE, or at least buy her time so she could save herself.
I wonder whether this question, posed to (Good) Cooper by The (evolution of the) Arm, might provide some sort of key to the events of Episode 18, and Cooper's (apparent) failure?
Might it indicate that Cooper, in his efforts to save Laura Palmer from death at the hands of Leland/Bob, has lost sight of the bigger picture? I.e., that the "story" isn't about saving/sparing "little girl down the lane" Laura Palmer, but about a much broader concern? And thus that Cooper's effort to save Laura as such, is the wrong priority, and in fact leads to futility and failure?
What the arm is telling Cooper is what Sarah Palmer knew and why she began to smash Laura's 'dream picture' as homecoming queen after Cooper's solution in episode 17: Cooper did not save Laura in episode 17, but condemned her to 'Odessa life', where she is resigned to accept the world that destroyed her dreams, the 'world of truck drivers'. Episode 18 is then not about 'recognizing the futility of saving Laura', but about realizing that this had not been accomplished yet and cannot be accomplished without confronting what happened and is still happening in the 'world of truck drivers', why Twin Peaks is still 'sleepwalking', etc. This requires more investigation, mystery, etc...Rather than showing the futility of 'saving Laura', it shows the inescapablity of the problem that Laura's death exposed and the continued necessity to do something about it; it shows the futility of trying to put the matter to rest once and for all, as if that pain could be erased that easily, thus condemning Laura. Episode 17 was an attempt to make Twin Peaks and the Laura tragedy futile, over once and for all, while episode 18 brings back Twin Peaks, which negatively tears this world of 17 apart, showing the futility of trying to make 'saving Laura', or Twin Peaks mystery, futile by putting it to rest once and for all in a happy ending, since the world itself is still running on the same 'black fire'. Saving Laura from that death just landed her in Odessa, another place where the problems she confronted in Twin Peaks were ruling the day, the work had not even begun and it was being treated as finished. In other words, the Cooper in 17 was too much like Dougie, the cool 'party animal' who just 'goes with the flow' and 'lets everything slide', and needed to be more like Mr. C who had a negative aspect which treated the world as 'not right'(although he went to criminal extremes because he did not properly 'get' Judy, which is impossible, thus Mr. C had to be caged, but as caged he leads to a 'factor' full of 'electricity bells' as the fireman and Briggs head watch over it all in the white lodge). Thus Cooper had to recognize that his son was Richard, who was much like Cooper himself, the Mr. C aspect he tried to hide from, this is where he 'found Judy', integrated the negative into himself...........Agent Cooper proper(the same one driving into Twin Peaks in 89/90 to investigate Laura's murder) has the same problem as Richard with the world, 'one and the same'.....no way to hide from this.....in other words, Agent Cooper is Mr. C and Dougie, there is not separate 'good' or 'bad' Cooper, realizing this allows proper Cooper to return with his capabilities, return to the mystery etc., instead of trying to deny either Dougie aspect or Mr. C aspect, which just reinforced both of their independent wild outbursts and extremes...
Laura could not meet with the fireman, there is still something about what happened to her and something in her which resists this, that has not been properly dealt with....no justice in the world, or even acceptable life for her, no one ever listened to her 'cries for help' and after this she got bitter to the point that even if someone tried to save her, she would have 'laughed at them anyway'(as Bobby said at her funeral). This is the territory that Cooper goes back to at the end of 18: going back to why Laura could not meet with the fireman, what was on that final missing page of Laura's diary that she could never forget in Odessa(Carrie Paige, etc.), what was she whispering to Cooper in the red room, etc. Rather than 18 showing futility, it is going right back into the core of it all; and just because this requires a negative stance on Cooper's part, that the 'world of truck drivers' is not something worth just letting 'smooth over everything', that he is stuck in the same problems that drove him mad back in 89/90(community of Twin Peaks, justice, etc., woman and dreams, etc.) is his negative stance....not futility here, but inescapability of the negative antagonism here, and since we are not dealing with nice things here, they should not make a 'feel good' ending, so that positivity here is showing the futility, the giving up, just letting everything rot in 'Odessa life', while negativity is the passion and the return to the problem, the idea that 'things are not alright in the world', etc....and this feeling is reflected in the way 18 is shown 'artistically'....its a good sign that Cooper became negative, appropriated Judy/negativity into himself, rather than making an allegiance with everything he was trying to combat when he first entered Twin Peaks back in 89/90, and failed.....and this is what he knows when he tells Laura 'this is very important', before taking her back to Twin Peaks to remember what happened, remember her dreams as well, 'the story of the little girl down the lane' that was shown in that 'homecoming picture', thus the arm says after 17, 'this is not the right story', etc., youve got to fix it...neither Cooper nor Laura are getting any kind of resolution or justice like this, nor dreams, Laura still cannot get to fireman, etc, in a way Odessa is a hell worse than death, accepting existence without any proper place in which to live, then trying to ignore or hide from negative intervention which would address this, that is hell, Cooper fixed it in 18, culminating in the scream.....
I have been thinking about why Coop would act like a combination of Mr. C and himself in 18 and this idea of yours is a very good one. Could you elaborate. But how does the lights going out at the end fit into your theory. I believe this is Coop the moment where Coop’s “courage” is the most imperfect, and he is returned to the Red Room to start another cycle (8) of trying to reach spiritual enlightenment aka freedom from the Lodge. Secondly, I also could interpret this as the ending point in a trap the Fireman set the get rid of Coop, Laura, and the Lodge entities which he lured into that space (using Laura as bait for both the troublesome Coop, and entities.) Then, he simply cut the electricity, which sealed the world off. (That’s a looser theory.)
I would actually say that Cooper was being too much like Cooper by trying to “save” Laura in that he was taking his sense of duty to such an extreme that he was almost changing the past in an act of hubris. Coop to me, doesn’t seem to be “going with my the flow like Dougie” in acting on this. Dougie seemed to always exist in the moment, the present. Coop never exists in the present moment. He famously says “the PAST dictates the FUTURE,” and is so lost anywhere BUT the present that once his mission derails, he doesn’t even know what year it is. He had no idea what moment in time he exists in!
I don’t believe Laura was meant to have justice because I believe she was meant to stay dead. For whatever reason, she served her purpose, and Cooper was interfering in with he grand plan of things by changing the fabric of existence by altering time. If you ask me, The Fireman plucked Laura up and hid her away in the alternate universe (doppleverse) after giving Coop many warnings which he misinterpreted as instructions (the very first scene of the show) in order for Coop to follow so The Fireman could black them out, or put them back in the Red Room, or start the cycle again.
Fully agree. I believe people in this thread complicating the things. The main idea of episodes 17 and 18 (imho) is that Coop really wanted to hit 2 birds with one stone: he wanted to save Laura and bring her back to mother (sarah or fireman's lady?). We can speculate here about symbolism (Coming Home = end of her walking evil roades, or = Heaven, or = White Lodge etc).
But it does not work like that. When Liland was going to rape her in the wagon, something very terrible was going to happen with her soul, so she chose to made him kill her sacrificing herself, but saving her soul. But for Coop both options are unacceptable. It is impossible to hit two birds with one stone - he can save her, but he can not get her to her mother. And this is his personal tragedy
Here we need to stop and think. In episode 17 he did his job, he saved her, so he could come out from Black Lodge, and Diane (his true love) was waiting for him. He could continue his life. But he chose to find Laura. And he knew he may lose everything that he had: his love, his friends, his world and even his identity and he knew that there is no garantee this shall work. That is why Diane asked him if he still wants to do this. He came to a new world (it looks like in this world there are no doppelgangers, so he is complete, or it is just the same coop with lost identity but still a Knight having his mission - even not remembering why), and he brought Laura to her mother (maybe making tragical mistake). Of course the hous is full of evil (tremonds, chalfonts etc). Alice was directly lying to Coop - it was clear. But Sarah (possessed by demon?) moaning Laura's name, then Laura screams as she remembers everything now and realizes that NOTHING is over. She is again surrounded by evil. The fact that all the lights are gone in a second gives us hope that she is no longer a helpless victim. And Coop is finally with her and for the first time in her life she is not alone,
According to the production notes on The Arm, courtesy of the Twin Peaks wiki, there are two trees: The Good tree and The Bad tree. I remember thinking there were two Arms when I originally watched The Return. Which one is the original and which is the Doppelganger is unknown, but I'd be willing to bet that the one who tells Coop about "the little girl who lived down the lane" is the original. Like the Giant/Fireman and Mike, that Arm is trying to help Coop, while the other one is much more active, possibly with their own agenda. This is the Arm seen just as Coop leaves the Red Room and enters the portal to New York. The same one that encourages him to cause considerable pain to the would-be assassin in front of Dougie's office. Notice the fear on Ike's face when he realizes he's in over his head. Garmonbozia anyone?
Totally agree about Ike, he initially seems so secure and in control, and the absolute panic on his face when the jig is up makes me think he was being used all along.
Fire walk with 
