Apologies if this notion has popped up in another one of these long threads. I read through a number of them, and some definitely touched on aspects of it (and really it's still forming in my own mind) but none seemed to fully connect the ideas of:
- Carrie "waking up" into Laura upon hearing her mother call her name
- Sarah being "The Girl Who Lived Down the Lane" and/or the frog-moth girl and/or the bearer of the Laura/savior golden bubble
- Sarah/the Palmer house being "our house" that "It" is in now
- "It," the Experiment, Judy, and "Mother"being "one and the same"
- "It" (through Sarah) unsuccessfully trying to "kill" Laura again in multiple dimensions/times/"dreams" (after her murder is prevented by Coop) by stabbing her photo without it tearing, and instead pulling her into another dimension/time/"dream"
- "It" being represented in some way by Tremonds/Chalfonts, which are now in the Palmer house
- "Two birds, one stone" meaning saving/finding Laura and vanquishing "It"
- The flash of electricity and the lights going out in the Palmer house being caused by Laura's scream
Was Cooper actually successful in carrying out the mission he was given by the Fireman? They say it's darkest before the dawn, and the protagonist in most hero myths (including the Christ story) experience some kind of profound doubt and confusion before ultimately prevailing. Is this what we saw with Coop right before Laura was awakened from her dream/parallel dimension the Experiment tried banishing her to? Did her scream then vanquish the Experiment with that flash of electricity and the house going dark?
Following Laura's murder, a void in Sarah seemed to form, making room for what appears to be some manifestation of "It"/the Experiment/Judy/"Mother." But she also seemed to be trying to fight this horrible evil/darkness inside of her by hiding away and self medicating with alcohol and pills as she went through this "goddamn bad story." Presuming that "Carrie" and the Palmer house she and Coop/"Richard" arrived at were in some kind of dream/parallel dimension/time ("what year is it?") that Coop was trying to navigate (and had received clues about from the Fireman) in which the Tremonds/Chalfonts represented "It" being "in our house now," did Sarah (the part of her that was fighting "It," which I think she was also doing at the grocery store by trying to warn the young employees before "It" told her to leave and "get the goddamn car key!") call out her daughter's name "between two worlds" in order to wake her up so she could fulfill the destiny that the Fireman and Señorita Dido had created for her?
God I loved this show. So many ways to experience it.
I agree that so far it's a basically successful mission, even though Cooper paid the price of having his personality changed, probably for the worse, not to mention maybe being stuck in a different reality forever.
Even if the story doesn't go on from here, I like to think they are realizing Judy is in the house and somehow the white lodge, which is pretty damn powerful, will be able to help.
I tend to side with this outlook. Obviously, there is a lot of latitude in interpreting things, which leaves a lot of possibility. By removing Laura from the old timeline, Coop saved "the one". Everything after that feels like fractured fallout, which would explain the radical changes (Coop and Diane arriving at one hotel in one car and leaving from completely different ones) and the more nuanced shifts (the apparent amalgamated Coop we saw being both lawful and savage in the diner). I view this as the "good ending".
On the other side, it would be no shock to me at all if none of this series, or the other two, are real. This could all be the invention of a child being violated be her parent, a mixture of the desire to die and end it all and the hope for a savior who can end the pain. In the original series, Coop says to Harry after Leland's death "Harry is it easier to believe a man would rape and murder his own daughter? Any more comforting?" It would be very easy to for me to see that a child, desperate to assign an outside agency to what was being done to her by her own father, would invent everything we see. Who wouldn't? And that would carry through to the very end, where "Carrie" has to reckon with what really went on. Could her claim to try to "keep her house clean" be a reference to trying to block out what really happened? Was Carrie an alternate Laura that was never murdered but was still molested? She had killed a man, and victims often repeat patterns on others. The closing moments where she screams and the lights go out could very well be the "death" of the illusion. Definitely what I would term the "bad ending".
The best thing about this series is that there is no real answer. You can see what you want, and it's valid.
Yes, it seems so!
We know that electricity is heard when characters move from one realm to another (Coop leaving the Black Lodge, Andy going into the White Lodge).
So it's reasonable to assume that the electricity at the end is Laura 'waking up' or crossing over to another realm, or back to reality.
Where she goes is unclear; is it back to the past when she supposed to die, or the present, 25 years on? The fact that Jeffries says he was living "inside a dream" for two years in FWWM suggests that time can progress in these dream worlds.
Wherever she goes, it doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending . It could be that the battle for her soul begins anew, eg. the loop.
So what happens with Coop, does he lose sense of himself and get stuck in this realm/dream?
There's speculation that the Fireman's speech in episode one (eg. remember 430/Richard and Linda/Two Birds one Stone/"You are far away") actually happens much later in the timeline. It could be the Fireman speaking to Coop at the end reminding him that he's in a dream/alternate reality. "You are far away," makes sense in this context. Coop then says, "I understand" and, crackle of electricity, he returns to reality. Maybe.
Also, the Fireman says, "It is in our house, now" Could that refer to Judy; that Coop did indeed kill two birds with one stone (eg. save Laura, capture Judy)? That would be a happy ending i guess.
"Happy" wouldn't be the word I'd use.
"Potentially hopeful amidst a lot of darkness," I'm down with.
Still very much puzzling out all the details (though I feel like I got a little closer in an interpretation I posted earlier). But one thing the show hints at strongly is that time is on some kind of loop (infinity symbol, mobius strip, etc.).
So it occurs to me that whatever was shown to us as "the end" was an arbitrary point. There is no end to a mobius strip. Basically you could say that just to be evil, Lynch/Frost chose to conclude at (possibly) the darkest place on the whole loop (meaning it would get happier after that).
Plausibly it could be a happy ending on your explanation. But you have to go with your gut and it does not feel happy really, does it? The scream. The memory of Sarah shouting "Laura..?" (to me the sequence of her running up the stairs with the fan and Bob at the foot of the bed is hands down the most unnerving thing in the whole of TP). And the final sequence with the whispering in the ear. Coop looks so deeply saddened.
I'm always in favor of a happy ending, but I'm not seeing it that way. Things seem out of balance and the story is incomplete. I will be disappointed if there isn't something more.
Also, the Fireman says, "It is in our house, now" Could that refer to Judy; that Coop did indeed kill two birds with one stone (eg. save Laura, capture Judy)? That would be a happy ending i guess.
Yes, this is more or less what I was trying to suggest.
Plausibly it could be a happy ending on your explanation. But you have to go with your gut and it does not feel happy really, does it? The scream. The memory of Sarah shouting "Laura..?" (to me the sequence of her running up the stairs with the fan and Bob at the foot of the bed is hands down the most unnerving thing in the whole of TP). And the final sequence with the whispering in the ear. Coop looks so deeply saddened.
Yeah, there is a deeply dark tone there that can't be ignored. But at the same time I could see Lynch subverting some of those widely recognized visual and aural cues to muddy (or rather deepen?) the waters. Coop's expression could also be more one of confusion or surprise than sadness, which could very well fit into the framework of what I'm suggesting. I'm definitely not digging my heels in here, but it's an idea that seems worth exploring some more...
Plausibly it could be a happy ending on your explanation. But you have to go with your gut and it does not feel happy really, does it? The scream. The memory of Sarah shouting "Laura..?" (to me the sequence of her running up the stairs with the fan and Bob at the foot of the bed is hands down the most unnerving thing in the whole of TP). And the final sequence with the whispering in the ear. Coop looks so deeply saddened.
Holy cow, I could not agree more. Cooper's expression is utterly foreign to his persona (any of them). That bodes terrible.
Fire walk with