My theory!
From what I understood from the Finale Cooper is the Dreamer and here is why. The overexposed image of him in S3E17 suggests he is in a dream state. Everybody else in the room gathered around him, the fact that he knew how to manufacture a person and how he was aware of his surroundings and everything from the lodges to the ring to how it operates and even fucking Freddie and his fist etc. Knowledge he had no understanding of in the original series, nor he could've gathered as Dougie.
This is like one of those dreams where you know something is fishy, scenes and places change and interlap without any meaining. If you look at the ending of 17 and through the whole of 18 I don't think anything suggests that anything that goes on in 18 or even 17 is actually happening. Not in a real world, not in another timeline or even another universe - this is simply Cooper in his dream state.
The way he goes from the Cheriffs department to a dreamy like sequence to the Great Northern, then he talks to Jeffries as if he knew him, but he barely knew the guy in real life, he magically escapes the lodge by just waving his hand, even though he supposedly escaped the lodge already?! Diane being shown, then skip to the driveway, him understanding what 430 means and what the starting point is, everything to me suggests that Cooper is still dreaming.
Remember the Mike poem? The one he first hears in a dream in a normal voice? What does he hear after his scene with Bob and his overlapped face? The same poem in a normal voice recited by Mike, telling him - you are still dreaming, my friend.
Now, I don't think I understand the exact point in which he started dreaming - it could easily be when he was shot in S1. So from then on everything is a dream/comma state of his. There are some irregularities with that theory, from the books to the movie etc., but it works most of the time if you look at the events after that - the first time the Giant appeared is after he was shot, the events that unfolded after that and specifically everything in S3 suggests this is just a dream state.
The other theory is that he is really in the lodge after the end of S2 and this is his dreamscapes of a lodge existence. I think this one works best in hindsight, but I like the first one better to be honest (dreaming everything after S1)
Now, the ultimate question. What year is this?
I don't think that it has an answer and again I am referring to his dream state. The year does not matter, it is his realisation of the fact that something is wrong.
Do you remember when something is fishy in your dream and you start understanding that you are dreaming? Maybe you see a person that is dead in real life, or an event or a place is not where it should be. This is what happened at the end, Cooper understood he was still dreaming. The year in itself doesn't matter, but his understanding that he is dreaming- he does not know where he is and what year it is, much like in a dream he is trying to awake from. Much like Audrey.
And another clue is Jeffries -remember his last words from FWWM?Not the original cut, but the missing pieces, the editing Lynch intended originally:
It is not exactly "What year is this?", but very, very close: "February...1989?" RIGHT AFTER THAT HE WAS GONE
It was his realisation that this is not the year he was "living" in, that made him dissapear again. So in much the same fashion, when Cooper realized that the year is off and that he was missing for a long time he got trapped in either
a) his comma/dream again or b) the lodge where Laura whispers again and we are back to Episode 1 and the loop closes (completion)
So yes, Cooper is the dreamer and unfortunately he is still trapped in the lodge/dream state he was in at the beginning of S3
Why doesn't Cooper just look at the receipt from the Valero station?
In FWWM we have the following dialogue:
Albert (to Jeffries) "Who's meeting? Where the hell have you been?"
Gordon "Jeffries you've been gone damn near 2 years!"
Jeffries (looking at Albert answering his question) " It was a dream. We live inside a dream"
Then he describes the meeting. Jeffries is telling Albert where he has been. We are the people in the store.
It seems clear to me Jeffries is describing the meeting and the people in it as something inside a dream and not our world or the people in the FBI office.
Jeffries isn't dreaming there. While it is certainly Jeffries hearing that it is 1989 that makes him disappear he is not dreaming. He is travelling time and space. From 1987 Buenos Aires to 1989 FBI office and back. All the real world. The only dream he describes is the meeting. And in calling it a dream I believe he means to express it is not of this world. Not that it's a figment.
That's my take on it.
That is another way to see it. But I never said Jeffries was dreaming, it was still Cooper who was dreaming at this point. The realisation of the year is just the trigger to change from one place in the dream to another one. It is all really a dream, the only thing I can't figure out is when did Cooper started dreaming all of this.
But this is just in hindsight. There are a lot of loopholes here, but this was just in reference to the same way Jeffries disapears. It is too literal to be misread as something else. Much in the same way the "realisation" that something is wrong at the end of E18 tripped Laura and this dream sequence and resetted back everything from E18 to the beginning of E1 in the red room.
I think this guy here is kind of extending on my theory a bit, but it is basically the same idea I have, it is all Cooper's dream.
He has some really nice thoughts around the 12:50 mark. Why would Cooper not save Laura if he was already there in FWWM. So in this reality (the one we know), Laura dies even though she supposedly sees Cooper at the end of FWWM. The thing is - if Cooper was really there at the end of FWWM, he would've saved her - but he doesn't, because this is all his dream.
That is another way to see it. But I never said Jeffries was dreaming, it was still Cooper who was dreaming at this point. The realisation of the year is just the trigger to change from one place in the dream to another one. It is all really a dream, the only thing I can't figure out is when did Cooper started dreaming all of this.
But this is just in hindsight. There are a lot of loopholes here, but this was just in reference to the same way Jeffries disapears. It is too literal to be misread as something else. Much in the same way the "realisation" that something is wrong at the end of E18 tripped Laura and this dream sequence and resetted back everything from E18 to the beginning of E1 in the red room.
Sorry, I just don't buy Cooper is dreaming, in the sense that it's not actually happening, at any point. It could be his asking "What year is it?" undoes his time travel and so at the same time the new timeline and universe created when he took away young Laura and they just return to the Red Room as the last shot of Part 18 shows. But if that is the case I wonder what the function of Laura's scream at the end is? If it is Cooper's question that prompts the break why do we even see Laura's scream and house flashing?
After further thought maybe Laura just screams whenever she sees she is going to be whisked away . I can understand with how after it happens to the poor girl. 🙂
That is another way to see it. But I never said Jeffries was dreaming, it was still Cooper who was dreaming at this point. The realisation of the year is just the trigger to change from one place in the dream to another one. It is all really a dream, the only thing I can't figure out is when did Cooper started dreaming all of this.
But this is just in hindsight. There are a lot of loopholes here, but this was just in reference to the same way Jeffries disapears. It is too literal to be misread as something else. Much in the same way the "realisation" that something is wrong at the end of E18 tripped Laura and this dream sequence and resetted back everything from E18 to the beginning of E1 in the red room.
Sorry, I just don't buy Cooper is dreaming, in the sense that it's not actually happening, at any point. It could be his asking "What year is it?" undoes his time travel and so at the same time the new timeline and universe created when he took away young Laura and they just return to the Red Room as the last shot of Part 18 shows. But if that is the case I wonder what the function of Laura's scream at the end is? If it is Cooper's question that prompts the break why do we even see Laura's scream and house flashing?
I don't believe it was Cooper's, or anyone's dream either.
I think the living inside a dream refers to how ignorant they are by trying to change things in a determined universe without any consequences. They thought they could've fixed things like a real life investigation. But this is something else entirely.
If it was anyone's dream, it should've been Laura's. Because the universe didn't reset, or collapse when Jeffries understood he was in a dream, and it didn't when Cooper realised that he was in the same situation either. It happened when Laura realised the reality is nothing she knew of about.
I think what they are dealing with is something beyond them, and they are just pawns. The it was all a dream (even if it was a dream of an entity) is just too bad of a plot for Twin Peaks.
It is something so different, that even Major Briggs, who saw a glimpse of the white lodge, end up getting annihilated. He had everything Cooper had, and more. He was a complete beacon of light, and faith, and courage. I thought his story would've ended good, out of everyone else in this Twin Peaks universe. But he's gone.
Fire walk with