I think OP's original point was that web forum discourse has ossified an orthodox intepretation ("Experiment" = "Mother") that shouldn't be assumed to be natural or self evident... I'm weary of/resistant to the perpetual search for systematic explanations of The Return (and, more generally, of the expectation that analytical percepts will yield formal truths about a given artwork).
But we can, of course, agree to disagree.
Yes, the original point was that and I think it's pretty obvious it was wrong. The ossification has occurred due to the plethora of evidence which supports that theory and has been pointed out. Whatever you think about Sarah Palmer's scenes in Season 3, and as you point out you can think a lot of things, it's pretty obvious she's isn't just depressed.
As far as your weariness with speculations about the evidence of the show I have to wonder what you expected to find on a forum dedicated to to discussing the show?
Yes, we can agree to disagree, if that isn't being too presumptuous that is. 🙂
I think OP's original point was that web forum discourse has ossified an orthodox intepretation ("Experiment" = "Mother") that shouldn't be assumed to be natural or self evident... I'm weary of/resistant to the perpetual search for systematic explanations of The Return (and, more generally, of the expectation that analytical percepts will yield formal truths about a given artwork).
But we can, of course, agree to disagree.
Yes, the original point was that and I think it's pretty obvious it was wrong. The ossification has occurred due to the plethora of evidence which supports that theory and has been pointed out. Whatever you think about Sarah Palmer's scenes in Season 3, and as you point out you can think a lot of things, it's pretty obvious she's isn't just depressed.
As far as your weariness with speculations about the evidence of the show I have to wonder what you expected to find on a forum dedicated to to discussing the show?
Yes, we can agree to disagree, if that isn't being too presumptuous that is. 🙂
Nah, I'm keen to discuss why it's interesting and why it matters, above and beyond hearing folks assert what they believe to be true and insist upon it after legitimate scrutiny.
We do not, nor will not, know with any measure of certainty if Sarah = Mother = Experiment. But we can ask why Lynch doesn't tell us.... and that, for me, makes for an interesting discussion. It's where the conversation could go once we agree to disagree! : )
Thank you OP. I too am tired and bored with the whole experiment mother hybrid. The mother was created by viewers and had no place in the show whatsoever. I hope we don't continue seeing finger pointing about who the mother is because it's irrelevant.
I don't agree that Sarah is Judy. If JUDY had been in the Palmer house with Leland then Bob & Judy have a long history. So why then would Mr.C who's been with Bob for 25 years not know who Judy is and want to find her.
I think the trucker attacked by Sarah is more evil than Sarah, he just doesn't have super power. That indicated to me Sarah COULD be the frog moth recipient. Sarah did nothing to indicate being the ultimate evil. She wouldn't have waited to attack him and asked him nicely if she were Judy.
The something in her kitchen to me is a big clue here. What's in the kitchen?
When the Tremonds were living next to Harold it didn't indicate anything about the nature of good/evil in the true homeowners, or in Harold. I don't think them answering the door meant that Sarah is Judy.
Sarah definitely didn't come out of that box in New York either.
I think Sarah is possessed by Judy/the experiment, but i'm not convinced it has anything to do with the bug in episode 8 (the bug, i think, is Bob possessing his first victim - aided by the woodsmen, who also aid him later on). The possession could have happened more recently (Judy escapes through the glass box into the real world, in episode 1, and is possibly attracted to Sarah because of her connection to Bob, Laura and her pain and sorrow).
There are two things here:
1. As stated above; she's possessed by something that attacks the trucker in the same manner the experiment does in episode 1.
2. We know that Mr C is searching for Judy, but doesn't know who or where she is. At 4.00 in this video, the guy explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0vm_Yyygl4
Mr C is given coordinates by Jeffries that lead him to the portal in the woods. And the portal will lead him to Judy. But he is trapped in the white lodge. There is a picture of Sarah's house (that is the destination he has been looking for, eg. Judy), but the Fireman shifts the picture to the Sheriff's Station and he's transported there instead.
Perhaps Sarah was not always Judy, but became possessed by Judy.
As I understand it, originally, Judy was supposed to be Josie Packard's sister. Given Josie loses so much weight in death, Jeffries' line from TMP: "Her sister’s there, too. At least part of her.” is pretty interesting.
Other folks have suspicions that Josie Packard was Judy. One of the things I think confirms this is the mirrors. In the pilot episode, among the first things we see are Josie looking in a mirror and Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic.
Towards the end of the 3rd season we see (as Marty mentioned) the mirrors in the Palmer house not in synch with their reflections. We also see throughout the series mirrors being important like when someone is possessed by BOB they tend to smash their face into them.
What caught my interest was OP's mentioning that Sarah does not act like a crazy evil spirit.
Certainly BOB does. But BOB was just a "familiar" while Judy is the big bad. And in stories the big bad causes much more evil to a greater depth and complexity.
So consider Josie: she acts nothing like an evil being. Quite the opposite. Yet she's pretty clearly completely evil in her background, especially in TSH. She even shoots Cooper.
Yes her character arc is the most "soap opera" ish. But wouldn't that exactly be what the big bad would want? The pain and suffering and drama to go on and on and on. When she dies, well, that's pretty weird. I have no explanation for that, except that perhaps it was Josie, the "good" or at least "not completely diabolically evil like Jody" who was trapped in the wood knob, like the Log Lady's husband, while Jody escaped.
So then we look at Sarah. I completely agreed with the OP that Sarah "just sat around and drank" or just acted otherwise humdrum after ripping the truckers throat out. Not like a crazy evil spirit.
But I thought about it a few days, and watched the scene again. She acts AGGRESSIVELY hum drum. In fact, her first appeal was to a pretense of helplessness and the mundane. She's not armed. She's just an old lady. Something like a tiger took the truckers throat out, how could it have been her? She even screamed after it happened.
The bartender gets upset and confused but he kind of knows what he saw, she did "something" so - and this is what's chilling - she sticks the fact that she's some kind of supernatural entity in his face and basically says "what do you think you can do about it?"
She says "yeah, sure is a mystery, huh." And just stares him down. Hard. Brrr. That creeped me out more than the supernatural toothy face. (Grace Zabriskie is an incredible actor)
And I think she was hunting ("I'll eat you" she even says). Her body language when she walks into the bar. The whole "wounded gazelle" act. She sits near a guy who is an over the top macho idiot. Next to him are deer heads and antlers. She, and others, have expressed contempt for truckers. He's wearing a "truck you" t-shirt. She buries the "politeness" after a challenging opening "Mind your own business .... please."
"Sarah" might genuinely want to be let alone, but whatever is inside her noticed the shot and a beer guy all by himself in a corner and put some whammy on his head. He was looking straight ahead lost in his own thoughts until she looked at him. As he's walking over she looks very sly rubbing her thumb on her chin. It's almost a parody of the old west gunslinger coming in for just a drink and the bad guy(s) messing with him.
That's what makes me think she's Jody. I don't know when she became Jody, but in that scene she was. It's exactly that she's the opposite of a crazy killer. That she murders someone in cold blood and then just goes back to just someone who wanted a quiet drink.
And the fact that it's not just murder - the fact that anyone watching that would have a sort of visceral "he had it coming" feeling.
That it elicits audience sympathy for her is, to me, what makes it all the more terrifying.
You KNOW she gets away with it in every aspect.
Because, after all, not only would people - and the police - think the bartender's nuts for saying she took off her face and giant teeth came out and ripped out the truckers throat, but she's also Sarah Palmer.
She's a victim. Everyone in Twin Peaks know's who she is. The police especially. If she just stabbed the trucker in a completely mundane way she would get away with it.
Anyone who overheard "I'll rip your tits off" and the c-word, all the aggression the trucker had, would say it was self-defense.
She had all her bases covered and killed the guy in plain sight in a public place with some weird and gruesome supernatural power and no one can do anything to her.
Maybe Judy, maybe not. But that's EVIL with a capital E baby.
And again, reminds me of Josie "oh, gee, I just had to shoot Agent Cooper in cold blood and seduce the sheriff, please forgive me" Packard.
If you will notice in the scene where The Experiment materializes in the glass box, she has a Lodge seed in her hand. I think she makes a tulpa of Sarah Palmer and goes to Twin Peaks.I believe this because if you’ll remember the scene where Hawk goes to Sarah Palmer’s house after the incident at the store, he hears something in the house with Sarah.I think what he hears is the real Sarah Palmer making noise to try and get help. Maybe The Experiment is Judy and she is hiding at Sarah Palmer’s house either waiting for bad Coop or maybe someone or something else.
Theres also the question of who was on the other end of the line when Bad Coop made the phone call after he killed Daria. It was someone who had been with Bob before so it had to have been Judy, Leland Palmer or someone else who Bob possessed years before.
I think some of the plot is open to our own interpretation.
"Mother" was from Ronette Pulaski saying it in the Purple zone.
There are also several references to "Mother" or Mom in the original Twin Peaks seasons. One of them being when Philip Gerard starts crying after being questioned about what the tattoo on his arm said ("Mom!!!!!!!!").
Fire walk with