Still trying to flesh this out, but the whole gold orb = Laura as savior thing never sounded right to me. Now that we have seen it through to the end and know Laura was in no way a savior some things are backing me up.
Watch the order of events in episode 8: Gold orb is created as a reaction to the bomb and apparent creation of BOB. But... The Fireman, and whoever that woman is, create a gold orb as a reaction to what they see, and it is sent back into b&w film. Then, next thing we see is the date go from 1945 to 1956 and the bug crawls out of an egg.
So... was the gold orb sent inside the bug? Sent to create the bug?
If the gold orb IS Laura, why is it sent back to the 50's but Laura would be born in the 70's?
This would have a couple impacts/questions/possibilities down the road...
1) If the gold orb is related to or IS the bug, it means the girl was Sarah Palmer and the bug lived in her as a parasite of some kind, somehow harboring the gold orb. Years later, it produced Laura. One thing we know for a fact is that Laura was in the orb. Then it sent into the film and visually connected to the bug.
2) Who says gold is good? I get the feeling the gold orb and thus Laura was sent as a shiny object to lure BOB (and other men). Think about her story. Every man she ever interacted with fell in live with her. BOB wanted to be her, to own her, inhabit her. He didn't want to destroy her until she fought against him and would not let him have her.
3) If Laura was a lure, it means the Fireman, Mike, the arm, even our dear old Coop are possibly in on the whole thing to use her to trap BOB and bring him back to Mother. We see Mike/the Arm have Leland/BOB in the black lodge after he kills Laura in FWWM. What do they do? They ask for their garmonbozia tax and let Leland/BOB back out into the world for the original series to start. If they wanted to catch him and keep him in the lodge they could have done it right there. It also explains the end with Coop acting like a combo of all the Coop/BadCoop/Dougie personalities as he tries to get a Laura back to the Palmer house. Is he trying to save her? All he says is "I have to bring you back to your mother. It's important." (Or something close to that).
5) I don't get why Sarah has been seen as bad or as having the mother/experiment inside her. If that was the case, she would have done much worse over time. All we have seen her do is kill the trucker who was sexually aggressive to her, basically in self defense after she tried to warn him. Compare that to BOB/Leland, raping and killing for pleasure.
Personally, I think the frog-bug thing crawling into the girl's mouth was symbolic of lost innocence and not connected with any characters.
The idea that the gold orb isn't necessarily good and that Laura may have been created as a lure is pretty intriguing.
I agree Sarah hasn't done much yet with Judy inhabiting her, but I think that possession is a recent development and she's just getting started.
Not 100% on my thoughts about all the versions of Coop but I think it ties into this... Let's be honest. Bad Coop was never all that bad in this entire season. Was he? We know he did things in the past but he was no Leland/BOB.
I'm starting to think Coop was split into parts - halves and eventually thirds with Dougie - all with the goal of trapping the Mother/Judy. In 18, towards the end, we see Coop as a combo of all his personalities - monotone commands in the Judy's diner, friendly FBI agent at the "Palmer" house, and a little of Dougie as he staggers and asks what year it is.
There is more to backing this up, but it aligns with my ideas that Laura was a lure for BOB in order to trap the Mother/Judy - two birds with one stone?
Shamelessly bumping my own post from last night. 🙂
Surprised no one has disputed my crazy ideas!
I have come to a similar conclusion recently!
Laura is BAIT! She was designed by the white lodge fireman in response to the destructive action of humanity (nuclear experiment) which seemingly threatens all levels and dimensions of existence.
Laura was designed to be a shining light - bait for males - to have sex with. To spread the bug/parasite/disease that infected her mother AND probably Laura.
Were the woodsmen also a reaction from some other faction of spirits looking to take out the threat - which is humanity.
Did the woodsmen and fireman team up?
Factions:
1) the fireman: (representing higher level spirit)
2) woodsmen: (representing energy)
3) the experiment: (representing lower level - microscopic - biofilm - reactive/accelerated evolution)
Laura = The Experiment
Does Laura represent the final product - the final evolution for the bug/parasite. The bait for men to contract that parasite and set off the end of humanity??
Black-lodge-Laura and says she feels she knows Laura says "but sometimes my arms bend back.
The experiment's arms are bent around!
Laura being the vessel for the parasite to evolve/spread it's biofilm and also transmit itself
to other humans.
Sarah Palmer was targetted to be infested by the parasite due to her psychic abilities - and was found via radio frequencies of the radio station hijacked by the woodsmen.
As for why Sarah Palmer and her abilities being important for this task - I'm not sure.....
Well, it is interesting but looks too speculative.
I believe we need to come back to personality of Lynch himself to see if he could write a story like this. I believe he could not. He used to say that all his movies are about love in hell.
And also being very surrealistic he based his characters on strong cultural archetypic images. Lora like a Virgin, Fallen Angel, Paramour and Coop like a Knight, Gun-slinger, Odyssey. I think this is the basis, on which we need to build our theories.
If we accept the idea that Lora is a Lure, and everything was planned like a police operation, then the whole story becomes too cynical and very human-like (and Fireman, his fat lady, Bob etc are not human). And moreover then whole story ceases to be romantic at all (which contradicts with a very strong romantic image of suffering Laura - by the way, one of the best female images in world cinema). But Lynch IS a romantic himself)
Fire walk with