Cole, Briggs and Cooper have a plan that they hope will lead them to Jaio De - that is the mission - not returning the doppelganger or BOB. Cooper’s message is “I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone” - but Cole does not know if the plan is unfolding properly. Jeffries says “this is where you’ll find Judy” before showing a point on a mobius strip. This is the pattern of the Cole, Cooper investigation. They go round time and time again but it’s different.
We then see Cooper find and try to save Laura Palmer but the sound takes her away. Not only that but something has changed. We see again the sequence in the Red Room from episode 1 which leads to Cooper being thrust into the ultraviolet realm and then the glass box etc. However, now things have changed. The curtain that was closed is open to him. We’re going round the mobs strip again but it’s different. He does not end up in Dougie, he emerges into Glastonbury Grove where Diane is waiting for him. Is the plan unfolding now? Cooper’s relationship with Diane is different because who knows who he has not met - probably he’s never met Annie or Audrey. Cooper and Diane on the hunt for Jaio De but she is capable of bending the rules of time, space and reality to protect herself. They both know it. They suspect things might change (just like Cooper suspects back in the sheriff's office before he re-enters room 315 (buried in the basement of the psyche). Things do change. While having sex Diane realises she does not recognise Dale anymore. In the morning she leaves a note saying so. Dale does not recognise himself either. His name is different and so is he (his personality) and so is the hotel and so is the car and so is Diane’s name - she’s calling herself Linda. Dale has not met The Fireman at this stage because he does not understand. When The Fireman talks to Dale, they are not clues, they are things from the past to make him remember.
Everything is different but deep down, Dale is still trying to find and save Laura who he knows is in danger from Judy. Judy is a cafe (why not!) Laura is Carrie. Maybe Dale did save her life… but what life has she ended up living? She has been saved but at what cost? She’s lived out her days in a degenerate, maybe equally abusive life. This is deep cover. The deepest that cover can get. So undercover you’re not even you anymore. Maybe that’s the only way to escape Judy’s plan.
I like this, because it corrects people thinking that saving Laura was just Cooper's crazy initiative gone awry. He (and presumably Diane) was sent by the Giant to try to save Laura by going into the alternate timeline. And I kind of like the idea of them as partners, both romantically and professionally, in trying to take down Mother.
Couple of things. First, it seems that Dale as "Richard" is still FBI enough to disarm the three goons in Judy's Diner, and to represent himself as an FBI agent to Carrie. If he does lose his sense of himself as Dale, it is not enough to deter him from his main mission. Second, I think Laura's existence as Carrie was clearly something she was thrust into by an evil force - she's at Judy's Diner, she lives under the 6, the white horse is on the mantel, etc. What I can't figure out, then, are why a) Dale would bring her back to Twin Peaks, and b) why the Black Lodge people have been there, and c) why her being confronted by Black Lodge people would cause her to scream and things to end. Still waiting to figure out those.
I firmly don't believe that what we saw in Part 18 was an 'alternate timeline' in the way some people are talking about it. If history had been changed as per our 'Mandela effect' forum member, it wouldn't have required a portal for Dale and Diane to enter...reality would just be different and no one would remember it differently.
Instead, Dale and Diane entered a place where dream logic was CLEARLY at work. Shifting identities can be addressed various ways, but going to sleep one night and waking up to your building and car being different is harder to explain other than reality being in a state of flux.
How does Dale find one woman in the city of Odessa? Drives around, sees a sign with Judy on it and figures that's the place. To paraphrase something said earlier in the evening, that's weird even for Twin Peaks.
Maybe the dream is actually Laura's, brought on by the Mother/Experiment. Then her scream becomes her awakening, or at least perhaps some lucidity within the dream.
Cole, Briggs and Cooper have a plan that they hope will lead them to Jaio De - that is the mission - not returning the doppelganger or BOB. Cooper’s message is “I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone” - but Cole does not know if the plan is unfolding properly. Jeffries says “this is where you’ll find Judy” before showing a point on a mobius strip. This is the pattern of the Cole, Cooper investigation. They go round time and time again but it’s different.
We then see Cooper find and try to save Laura Palmer but the sound takes her away. Not only that but something has changed. We see again the sequence in the Red Room from episode 1 which leads to Cooper being thrust into the ultraviolet realm and then the glass box etc. However, now things have changed. The curtain that was closed is open to him. We’re going round the mobs strip again but it’s different. He does not end up in Dougie, he emerges into Glastonbury Grove where Diane is waiting for him. Is the plan unfolding now? Cooper’s relationship with Diane is different because who knows who he has not met - probably he’s never met Annie or Audrey. Cooper and Diane on the hunt for Jaio De but she is capable of bending the rules of time, space and reality to protect herself. They both know it. They suspect things might change (just like Cooper suspects back in the sheriff's office before he re-enters room 315 (buried in the basement of the psyche). Things do change. While having sex Diane realises she does not recognise Dale anymore. In the morning she leaves a note saying so. Dale does not recognise himself either. His name is different and so is he (his personality) and so is the hotel and so is the car and so is Diane’s name - she’s calling herself Linda. Dale has not met The Fireman at this stage because he does not understand. When The Fireman talks to Dale, they are not clues, they are things from the past to make him remember.
Everything is different but deep down, Dale is still trying to find and save Laura who he knows is in danger from Judy. Judy is a cafe (why not!) Laura is Carrie. Maybe Dale did save her life… but what life has she ended up living? She has been saved but at what cost? She’s lived out her days in a degenerate, maybe equally abusive life. This is deep cover. The deepest that cover can get. So undercover you’re not even you anymore. Maybe that’s the only way to escape Judy’s plan.
Favorite explanation yet. I think what we saw was Dale almost get it right, and he found Laura in a place Mother has put her, but the Twin Peaks they ended up in was being controlled or a kind of smokescreen created by Judy/Mother. But then Dale motions and he and Laura become aware again.
Cole, Briggs and Cooper have a plan that they hope will lead them to Jaio De - that is the mission - not returning the doppelganger or BOB. Cooper’s message is “I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone” - but Cole does not know if the plan is unfolding properly. Jeffries says “this is where you’ll find Judy” before showing a point on a mobius strip. This is the pattern of the Cole, Cooper investigation. They go round time and time again but it’s different.
We then see Cooper find and try to save Laura Palmer but the sound takes her away. Not only that but something has changed. We see again the sequence in the Red Room from episode 1 which leads to Cooper being thrust into the ultraviolet realm and then the glass box etc. However, now things have changed. The curtain that was closed is open to him. We’re going round the mobs strip again but it’s different. He does not end up in Dougie, he emerges into Glastonbury Grove where Diane is waiting for him. Is the plan unfolding now? Cooper’s relationship with Diane is different because who knows who he has not met - probably he’s never met Annie or Audrey. Cooper and Diane on the hunt for Jaio De but she is capable of bending the rules of time, space and reality to protect herself. They both know it. They suspect things might change (just like Cooper suspects back in the sheriff's office before he re-enters room 315 (buried in the basement of the psyche). Things do change. While having sex Diane realises she does not recognise Dale anymore. In the morning she leaves a note saying so. Dale does not recognise himself either. His name is different and so is he (his personality) and so is the hotel and so is the car and so is Diane’s name - she’s calling herself Linda. Dale has not met The Fireman at this stage because he does not understand. When The Fireman talks to Dale, they are not clues, they are things from the past to make him remember.
Everything is different but deep down, Dale is still trying to find and save Laura who he knows is in danger from Judy. Judy is a cafe (why not!) Laura is Carrie. Maybe Dale did save her life… but what life has she ended up living? She has been saved but at what cost? She’s lived out her days in a degenerate, maybe equally abusive life. This is deep cover. The deepest that cover can get. So undercover you’re not even you anymore. Maybe that’s the only way to escape Judy’s plan.
Really nice.
Cole, Briggs and Cooper have a plan that they hope will lead them to Jaio De - that is the mission - not returning the doppelganger or BOB. Cooper’s message is “I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone” - but Cole does not know if the plan is unfolding properly. Jeffries says “this is where you’ll find Judy” before showing a point on a mobius strip. This is the pattern of the Cole, Cooper investigation. They go round time and time again but it’s different.
We then see Cooper find and try to save Laura Palmer but the sound takes her away. Not only that but something has changed. We see again the sequence in the Red Room from episode 1 which leads to Cooper being thrust into the ultraviolet realm and then the glass box etc. However, now things have changed. The curtain that was closed is open to him. We’re going round the mobs strip again but it’s different. He does not end up in Dougie, he emerges into Glastonbury Grove where Diane is waiting for him. Is the plan unfolding now? Cooper’s relationship with Diane is different because who knows who he has not met - probably he’s never met Annie or Audrey. Cooper and Diane on the hunt for Jaio De but she is capable of bending the rules of time, space and reality to protect herself. They both know it. They suspect things might change (just like Cooper suspects back in the sheriff's office before he re-enters room 315 (buried in the basement of the psyche). Things do change. While having sex Diane realises she does not recognise Dale anymore. In the morning she leaves a note saying so. Dale does not recognise himself either. His name is different and so is he (his personality) and so is the hotel and so is the car and so is Diane’s name - she’s calling herself Linda. Dale has not met The Fireman at this stage because he does not understand. When The Fireman talks to Dale, they are not clues, they are things from the past to make him remember.
Everything is different but deep down, Dale is still trying to find and save Laura who he knows is in danger from Judy. Judy is a cafe (why not!) Laura is Carrie. Maybe Dale did save her life… but what life has she ended up living? She has been saved but at what cost? She’s lived out her days in a degenerate, maybe equally abusive life. This is deep cover. The deepest that cover can get. So undercover you’re not even you anymore. Maybe that’s the only way to escape Judy’s plan.
Best analysis that I've read so far. This is gorgeous.
I like this, because it corrects people thinking that saving Laura was just Cooper's crazy initiative gone awry. He (and presumably Diane) was sent by the Giant to try to save Laura by going into the alternate timeline. And I kind of like the idea of them as partners, both romantically and professionally, in trying to take down Mother.
Couple of things. First, it seems that Dale as "Richard" is still FBI enough to disarm the three goons in Judy's Diner, and to represent himself as an FBI agent to Carrie. If he does lose his sense of himself as Dale, it is not enough to deter him from his main mission. Second, I think Laura's existence as Carrie was clearly something she was thrust into by an evil force - she's at Judy's Diner, she lives under the 6, the white horse is on the mantel, etc. What I can't figure out, then, are why a) Dale would bring her back to Twin Peaks, and b) why the Black Lodge people have been there, and c) why her being confronted by Black Lodge people would cause her to scream and things to end. Still waiting to figure out those.
My question is what would have happened IF Sarah had been behind the door? I doubt it would have been hugs and kisses. Why does Cooper feel indebted to Sarah? Why would Laura ever feel safe in the house, again? Why the necessity? To return the lost child to the mother/Mother? Why was Leland in the Lodge if Laura's death had been averted? I'd love to read your thoughts.
It's a good explanation. I still think ep 18 was garbage, but you sussed it well.
Maybe next Cooper Richard will eat at Judy's and merge with his fork and live for eternity between rinse cycle and people's diner mouths.
Fire walk with