Naido/Diane - Theories Thread

Jordan Cole

White Lodge
Sep 22, 2022
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Throughout season 3 it is very difficult to sort out what is being intentionally withholding, as some sort of artistic, perhaps anti-nostalgia statement (you want Cooper going to get some coffee and pie at the RR well TOUGH SHIT, you want Cooper and Audrey to share a scene together well NOT GONNA HAPPEN), and what just...sort of happened, perhaps without much concern for continuity or what the fans want, and Annie seems a part of that.

Frost has said something like there just wasn't time for Annie in season 3...We all know this is frankly ridiculous when you have 5 minutes to spare to watch somebody sweeping a floor, or multiple subplots full of new characters that at the end of the day, never even arrived at anything (I'm not complaining: I love how bizarre the plotting is in season 3, but I wonder things like why wasn't the green glove given to someone we already know? Why does James just sort of a passive observer here? Etc, etc.) It's not like any of us can't imagine Annie being an active presence in the season (especially as the show expanded well past the town limits of Twin Peaks), perhaps being part of one of the teams trying to find Cooper, perhaps in her own state of post-Lodge madness (would have loved to see Heather Graham perform that), perhaps just off to the sidelines doing some weird subplot or another like so many others (Jerry, Ben, Nadine, Audrey, etc.) As a friend of mine said, "How's Annie?", more like "Who's Annie?"

I wonder if they genuinely just had no interest, or if it actually didn't occur to them. To be a fly on the wall on those scriptwriting sessions.
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
Throughout season 3 it is very difficult to sort out what is being intentionally withholding, as some sort of artistic, perhaps anti-nostalgia statement (you want Cooper going to get some coffee and pie at the RR well TOUGH SHIT, you want Cooper and Audrey to share a scene together well NOT GONNA HAPPEN), and what just...sort of happened, perhaps without much concern for continuity or what the fans want, and Annie seems a part of that.

Frost has said something like there just wasn't time for Annie in season 3...We all know this is frankly ridiculous when you have 5 minutes to spare to watch somebody sweeping a floor, or multiple subplots full of new characters that at the end of the day, never even arrived at anything (I'm not complaining: I love how bizarre the plotting is in season 3, but I wonder things like why wasn't the green glove given to someone we already know? Why does James just sort of a passive observer here? Etc, etc.) It's not like any of us can't imagine Annie being an active presence in the season (especially as the show expanded well past the town limits of Twin Peaks), perhaps being part of one of the teams trying to find Cooper, perhaps in her own state of post-Lodge madness (would have loved to see Heather Graham perform that), perhaps just off to the sidelines doing some weird subplot or another like so many others (Jerry, Ben, Nadine, Audrey, etc.) As a friend of mine said, "How's Annie?", more like "Who's Annie?"

I wonder if they genuinely just had no interest, or if it actually didn't occur to them. To be a fly on the wall on those scriptwriting sessions.
Given the disappearance of Cooper right after the events in the Black Lodge, Annie would have been the obvious person to question and keep an eye on. For that matter, how did Annie get out of the Black Lodge? Cooper didn't rescue her and his doppelgänger was the one who got out. Did Annie got out or another doppelgänger? Three people entered the Lodge. Two people left, one of whom was a definitely an evil lookalike of the original and the other seriously enough injured that her fate is ambiguous. 'How's Annie?' were the final words spoken in the original series. The choice to dismiss Annie and her fate out of hand is a very odd one. For that matter, at the beginning of season three, Hawk goes to Glastonbury Grove and sees the curtains, yet apparently does nothing about it. Harry's absence - unintentional because of Michael Ontkean's unavailablity - gives the impression that the man who waited outside the Lodge all that time has also been kept out of the way of events. What might Harry remember that would be relevant? Given Diane had been replaced by a tulpa and Naido was actually Diane, could Annie and others have also been replaced?
 

Jordan Cole

White Lodge
Sep 22, 2022
725
1,132
A follow-up with Harry would have been wonderful, as his mind seems to have been broken by the experience of watching Cooper go into those curtains. One of my favorite haunting things in the season 2 finale is Harry sitting there in the dark in shock.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
737
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Frost has said something like there just wasn't time for Annie in season 3...
He gave a ton of interviews at that time, but the first two I came across with a quick google both have him saying basically that he and Lynch just didn’t talk about Annie.

“She just kinda didn't come up in a lot of the conversations about where we needed to get to.” (The last word on "Twin Peaks" by David Lynch's co-creator Mark Frost)

“You know we never got around to talking about it much when we were plotting and writing The Return. So I decided at that point that it would be something that I leave for the second book.” (My Interview with Mark Frost)

Based on comments Lynch made around the time The Return came out, I think he just wasn’t really interested in spending time on stuff from the latter half of season 2, which he had little involvement in and didn’t particularly like. He did a Calvin Klein commercial starring Graham (and Benicio Del Toro!) in 1988, and I’m betting he was a big part of her landing the Twin Peaks gig (apparently the one aspect he always stayed heavily involved in was casting), and he went out of his way to bring her back in FWWM, so I’m sure he likes her as an actor and a person. But relitigating the events of late season 2 just wasn’t of interest to him (and given how much time had passed, wasn’t something he felt obligated to do). I’ve honestly always felt the importance people place on Annie in the narrative is overblown.

What I do find odd is Hawk and Frank’s brief exchange about her. Hawk describes her merely as “a girl that went into that place.” He wouldn’t mention that she’s Norma’s sister? That’s actually a problem that goes back to the original show even…the writers and Lynch seemingly just forgetting that Annie is Norma’s sister. In Episode 29, Norma seems completely unbothered that her sister has just been abducted, and is smiling and giggling girlishly with Big Ed.
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
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667
I’ve honestly always felt the importance people place on Annie in the narrative is overblown.
My issue is that the only reason Coop went into the Red Room was because Annie was in there. Without Earle and Annie, there's really no context as to why Dale is in the Lodge.

What I do find odd is Hawk and Frank’s brief exchange about her. Hawk describes her merely as “a girl that went into that place.” He wouldn’t mention that she’s Norma’s sister? That’s actually a problem that goes back to the original show even…the writers and Lynch seemingly just forgetting that Annie is Norma’s sister. In Episode 29, Norma seems completely unbothered that her sister has just been abducted, and is smiling and giggling girlishly with Big Ed.
That's the thing: it's like there's a funny amnesia taking over everyone. Things just don't seem right in the town in that final episode. Something has shifted and it doesn't feel like the same place. We even get Heidi turn up and have the same dialogue exchange between her, Shelly and Norma about 'jump startin' the old man!' There's the same feeling in Episode 29 that you get with time stopping and the Giant saying 'It is happening again!' And Sarah's bit where the voice tells Briggs it's in the Lodge with Cooper. The town and the characters seem different in the Episode 29. It's like a slightly alternate universe Twin Peaks.

The casual dismissal of Annie just will never sit right with me. The more she and Earle are ignored, the more I end up feeling - rightly or wrongly (probably wrongly! ;)) - that they're a key to events in season three. I mean, Lynch directed and heavily reworked Episode 29 from a teleplay by Mark Frost and the two key creatives on the series. It's a Lynch show through and through that has a lot in common with season three. It's arguably kind of the first episode of season three.
 

Mr. Reindeer

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Apr 13, 2022
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My issue is that the only reason Coop went into the Red Room was because Annie was in there. Without Earle and Annie, there's really no context as to why Dale is in the Lodge.
That’s all well and good, but…we don’t need that context, because we already got it! We saw season 2. There’s no real reason to look backwards, especially with Earle who has had his arc and is dead. What more is there to say? Plus, although Lynch has never publicly commented on Earle one way or the other, I get the sense that he did not like the character or feel that he fit into the world that had been created in the Pilot. Lynch is always talking about how the Pilot is the true Twin Peaks for him (hence the resets in Episode 29 like the Heidi dialogue repeating verbatim).

What is admittedly weird is how Cooper’s reason for entering the Lodge in 1989 was (according to The Return) “two birds, one stone”…and 25 years later, they’re still discussing the same “two birds.” So, impliedly, Earle was not one of the “birds”! This does feel rather odd, since Earle in Episode 29 was clearly a major impetus for Cooper’s actions, even if perhaps not the only one. But part of what L/F are doing in The Return IS retconning the reasons why Cooper entered into the Lodge, and I think this plays into the ways that The Return is parodying the mystery-box shows that TP inspired, in the same way the original show parodies soap operas. Shows like Lost which, as much as I love it, clearly retrofitted story points onto the existing canon. All of Gordon’s exposition is a big part of this, Lynch inserting himself as an ironic narrative engine who’s delivering overwhelmingly Frostian / non-Lynchian dialogue. This was basically the duality of Gordon’s character in the original show too, but in season 2, Gordon was the primary instrument for introducing the Windom Earle stuff (a storyline he probably didn’t even like), whereas here he’s conversely the primary instrument for providing exposition that erases the Earle storyline’s significance! Wild stuff.

But yeah, I love the “amnesia” theories you guys are throwing out there, and I think there’s something to it. Even going back to Episode 17, the way the town instantly just RECOVERS from all the tragedy, doesn’t even acknowledge whose wake they’re at or act REMOTELY appropriately (Donna has no problem with her family hosting a wake for the guy who RAPED AND MURDERED HER BEST FRIEND?). Even going one episode further back, to Episode 16, Leland wanting to be Ben’s lawyer in the murder of his own daughter, a laughable premise from both a legal and a human perspective, and NO ONE bats an eye? I honestly think this is just bad writing…or, in the case of Episode 29 and The Return, Lynch stubbornly shifting the tone back to HIS vision of Twin Peaks and ignoring everything else as much as possible. But the “amnesia” thing is interesting, as an in-world explanation, and fits with some of what Frost is doing in the books, in terms of sort of portraying dementia or trauma-induced amnesia on an almost global scale.

As to the significance of Annie in The Return…this is something I pointed out during my 2020 rewatch on dugpa, but I know some people weren’t around then. There are at least two points in season 2 where Cooper talks about how Annie experiences the world like a child, and he wishes he could experience the world that way. This is of course what he ends up doing in The Return, as Dougie. So in a way, perhaps Annie did become a part of him, by osmosis or something during their time in the Lodge. Or it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for,” or something. But she is present in a bizarre way in The Return due to Cooper’s inadvertent wish-fulfillment being carried out in an overly literal way.
 

AXX°N N.

Waiting Room
Apr 14, 2022
270
619
As to the significance of Annie in The Return…this is something I pointed out during my 2020 rewatch on dugpa, but I know some people weren’t around then. There are at least two points in season 2 where Cooper talks about how Annie experiences the world like a child, and he wishes he could experience the world that way. This is of course what he ends up doing in The Return, as Dougie. So in a way, perhaps Annie did become a part of him, by osmosis or something during their time in the Lodge. Or it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for,” or something. But she is present in a bizarre way in The Return due to Cooper’s inadvertent wish-fulfillment being carried out in an overly literal way.
I actually somehow haven't rewatched the old material since S3 aired. I think in my mind I want to see S3 as many times as I have the original before going back.

This strikes me as why we rewatch anything--even if unintended, that's a lovely connection.

I think it's funny we're all discussing this from a scriptwriting standpoint ... when in-universe, there's actually oodles of explanation when you look at it from a "guy entering a transcendent realm" standpoint. I think Frost was hinting at that in his reddit AMA when someone asked him about Annie, to paraphrase: "When Cooper wakes up, he has more pressing concerns on his mind and is all mission."

The black lodge and what it does to one's consciousness should logically (or, I guess illogically?) make it so any change in the psyche can be accounted for by vaguely gesturing to the epiphanic goings-ons inherent.

I don't like to think that Annie, once one attains godhood, becomes such small potatoes she's relegated to the most footnote of footnotes, because it casts a bad lot for all us mere mortals ... but S3 isn't shy of this concept played out elsewhere. The Fireman (among others) are presented as an inscrutable higher power in that way.
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
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That’s all well and good, but…we don’t need that context, because we already got it! We saw season 2. There’s no real reason to look backwards, especially with Earle who has had his arc and is dead. What more is there to say? Plus, although Lynch has never publicly commented on Earle one way or the other, I get the sense that he did not like the character or feel that he fit into the world that had been created in the Pilot. Lynch is always talking about how the Pilot is the true Twin Peaks for him (hence the resets in Episode 29 like the Heidi dialogue repeating verbatim).
Although wasn't Lynch's Gordon Cole the first person to mention Windom Earle? (EDIT: You mention that further down!) I've seen it said before and I think it myself, that Kenneth Welsh, fine actor that he was, was completely miscast and wrongly written as Earle. We needed that doppelgänger aspect to Earle in season two. Earle needed to be more 'Coop' than Coop with an actor who resembled Kyle. I still think Earle wasn't killed as such. As soon as Earle 'dies' we meet Cooper's doppelgänger, so I can't help but feel that Earle is part of Mr C. From my perspective the reason Cooper is in the Lodge is essential. He went in there to save Annie. Somehow Annie left the Lodge. Everything in Lynch's universe has some reason to it, even if it's deeply obscure. Hawk could have said Annie was some girl who had been in that place and died years ago, so Annie's fate remains little more than something living in a deuterocanonical book. Of course, if we go by the book, why would Mr C know where Windom Earle's hideout was and kill Leo unless Mr C was in part Windom Earle?

What is admittedly weird is how Cooper’s reason for entering the Lodge in 1989 was (according to The Return) “two birds, one stone”…and 25 years later, they’re still discussing the same “two birds.” So, impliedly, Earle was not one of the “birds”! This does feel rather odd, since Earle in Episode 29 was clearly a major impetus for Cooper’s actions, even if perhaps not the only one.
That's the thing, I guess: The Return shows retcons happening. Laura was retconned into disappearing rather than being murdered. So would Coop even have gone to Twin Peaks if Laura had only vanished? In the revised timeline where Pete went fishing, is Ben Horne still bad? Did Audrey get blown up and have a son? Is Blackie still running One-Eyed Jacks? Where's Annie? ;)

But part of what L/F are doing in The Return IS retconning the reasons why Cooper entered into the Lodge, and I think this plays into the ways that The Return is parodying the mystery-box shows that TP inspired, in the same way the original show parodies soap operas. Shows like Lost which, as much as I love it, clearly retrofitted story points onto the existing canon.
Yes, I'm cautious with meta stuff as you know, although any show that has Piper Laurie playing a character with the same surname as the character she played in The Hustler is obviously going for meta. Lost was great and I didn't even mind the ending - lots of ancient texts have characters journeying into the Underworld - but I don't think I'd put myself through it again. I treat The Return as an experimental video series. It is Twin Peaks, just not that Twin Peaks, if you catch my drift! :)

All of Gordon’s exposition is a big part of this, Lynch inserting himself as an ironic narrative engine who’s delivering overwhelmingly Frostian / non-Lynchian dialogue. This was basically the duality of Gordon’s character in the original show too, but in season 2, Gordon was the primary instrument for introducing the Windom Earle stuff (a storyline he probably didn’t even like), whereas here he’s conversely the primary instrument for providing exposition that erases the Earle storyline’s significance! Wild stuff.
Yeah, I've often felt that Gordon becomes literally and figuratively David Lynch having conversations with his own characters and playing with reality as a consequence of those conversations.

But yeah, I love the “amnesia” theories you guys are throwing out there, and I think there’s something to it. Even going back to Episode 17, the way the town instantly just RECOVERS from all the tragedy, doesn’t even acknowledge whose wake they’re at or act REMOTELY appropriately (Donna has no problem with her family hosting a wake for the guy who RAPED AND MURDERED HER BEST FRIEND?). Even going one episode further back, to Episode 16, Leland wanting to be Ben’s lawyer in the murder of his own daughter, a laughable premise from both a legal and a human perspective, and NO ONE bats an eye?
It's ridiculous in the series. Leland/BOB was literally about to murder Donna when he got interrupted. I'm sure it was bad writing back in the 1990s, but the retcons in The Return go some way to explaining that the town isn't operating in the same kind of reality as the 'real world.' I mean, the series is set in a fantasy North America in a 1980s where the 1950s never ended and, like dreams (and soap opera) time compression takes place. The series appears to take place over roughly a month and yet Cooper was supposedly there for months.

There's something odd about Donna's family generally though, as we see in the 15th Missing Piece. Obviously they have their own buried secrets such as Donna's paternity, but their reaction when Laura leaves after Leland calls for Laura on the phone speaks volumes. They know! They know Leland's abusing her and therefore they probably suspected Leland killed Laura, yet they still continue to hang out with the Palmer family. And Donna's sisters keep on vanishing, the same as Sylvia Horne does. You would think that Donna was an only child most of the time.

I honestly think this is just bad writing…or, in the case of Episode 29 and The Return, Lynch stubbornly shifting the tone back to HIS vision of Twin Peaks and ignoring everything else as much as possible. But the “amnesia” thing is interesting, as an in-world explanation, and fits with some of what Frost is doing in the books, in terms of sort of portraying dementia or trauma-induced amnesia on an almost global scale.
I think Episode 29 changes the town. I think something happened the moment Coop went through the curtains. I suspect it was something as seismic as when Coop intercepted Laura in the woods in Part 17 of season three. For a start, what else did the entity speaking through Sarah to Major Briggs say? Was Annie deleted from everyone's memory? In my mind, the studio set version of Twin Peaks seen since Episode One disappears and reverts to the Snoqualmie location version seen in the pilot, in FWWM and season three. The pilot felt more raw and had a different feel from the rest of the series. Akin to the motel changing overnight in Part 18 of season three, I wonder if that's when we revert from 'Hollywood Peaks' to 'Snoqualmie Peaks!'

As to the significance of Annie in The Return…this is something I pointed out during my 2020 rewatch on dugpa, but I know some people weren’t around then. There are at least two points in season 2 where Cooper talks about how Annie experiences the world like a child, and he wishes he could experience the world that way. This is of course what he ends up doing in The Return, as Dougie. So in a way, perhaps Annie did become a part of him, by osmosis or something during their time in the Lodge. Or it’s a case of “be careful what you wish for,” or something. But she is present in a bizarre way in The Return due to Cooper’s inadvertent wish-fulfillment being carried out in an overly literal way.
Yeah, although the series is sufficiently obscure on some points that we can generously read a lot into it. I tend to look on the whole thing as a sort of in-universe retcon where the series changes itself. I mean, when you look at it, Philip Jeffries' adventures take place in the past and he's time travelling, so Jeffries can still alter history in his past. Philip had been missing for two years when he popped up in FWWM. However, we saw Jeffries reappear in Buenos Aires after his trip to Seattle in his future, which effectively negates that timeline. And that's the thing with time travel being involved: the rewriting of the timeline will have a huge knock-on effect.

And other things are open to question. The Diane tulpa claims she was 'raped' by the evil Cooper. The forcible creation of the tulpa could interpreted as a rape of sorts, perhaps. However, the real Diane/Naido helps the real Dale. Then there's the sex-magic ritual in the motel near the end which doesn't entirely seem to work...

Hmm... as the saying goes 'There's a lot to unpack there!' :D
 

Jordan Cole

White Lodge
Sep 22, 2022
725
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For a start, what else did the entity speaking through Sarah to Major Briggs say?

I'm sure you're well aware, but I believe the idea is that it is Windom Earle speaking through Sarah, however, it need not be, and one could retrofit that to be Judy or whoever else if you please. It's for more interesting, and Lynchian, to have it be some new character we have yet to meet or may never meet.

As for the amnesia thing: I feel this sort of thing was basically confirmed in season 3 when Cole and others say "I'm starting to remember something!" when discussing the Jeffries visitation.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
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As soon as Earle 'dies' we meet Cooper's doppelgänger, so I can't help but feel that Earle is part of Mr C.
Hmm I can't really get behind this, as I feel the doppelgänger is part of the "shadow self" concept Hawk describes. It's just so much more resonant for me if the doppel is actually a part of Cooper, the spiritual manifestation of his darker impulses. If it's just a corruption of him by some outside force, especially such an inherently campy figure as Earle, the whole conceit loses so much of its impact for me, and I just can't imagine that was Lynch's intention, or Frost's for that matter from the many interviews I've heard/read. Plus, the doppel is already part Bob. Exactly how many people are in there?!

Everything in Lynch's universe has some reason to it, even if it's deeply obscure.
I'd agree with this, although I think you're coming at it from a more purely literalist "plot" perspective than I am (or than I believe Lynch is).

Of course, if we go by the book, why would Mr C know where Windom Earle's hideout was and kill Leo unless Mr C was in part Windom Earle?
You've lost me here. In the book, Albert says he believes Earle shot Leo. Of course, we know that can't be the case due to what we know of the timeline. But why do you believe it was Mr. C? I mean, it's not a bad guess I suppose (although I struggle to grasp at his motive), but nothing in the book explicitly says this.

I mean, when you look at it, Philip Jeffries' adventures take place in the past and he's time travelling, so Jeffries can still alter history in his past. Philip had been missing for two years when he popped up in FWWM. However, we saw Jeffries reappear in Buenos Aires after his trip to Seattle in his future, which effectively negates that timeline.
Also, the Jeffries scene in FWWM takes place in February 1988, whereas in The Missing Pieces and The Return, Jeffries's manifestation now takes place in February 1989.
And other things are open to question. The Diane tulpa claims she was 'raped' by the evil Cooper. The forcible creation of the tulpa could interpreted as a rape of sorts, perhaps. However, the real Diane/Naido helps the real Dale. Then there's the sex-magic ritual in the motel near the end which doesn't entirely seem to work...

Hmm... as the saying goes 'There's a lot to unpack there!' :D
Well, again, I view the doppel as a true part of our Dale. A separate physical entity obviously, on a literal story level, but indelibly linked to his attractions to Audrey and Diane, and essentially acting on the impulses that Cooper Prime keeps in check. For me, the two are "one and the same." The fact that Diane helps the "real" Dale doesn't mean she isn't bearing trauma or very conflicted feelings (IMO she very clearly is), but as with all relationships, especially those involving sex and love and power dynamics, this stuff is emotionally complicated. She does her damndest to put her trauma aside and help the "good" Dale that she wants to see execute his plan, but her trauma clearly manifests during that sex-magick ritual (which Cooper rather insensitively and coldly puts her through), and she subsequently abandons him and apparently returns to a dissociative state (becoming "Linda").
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
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I actually somehow haven't rewatched the old material since S3 aired. I think in my mind I want to see S3 as many times as I have the original before going back.
I relate so much to this. It’s a weird type of OCD (or something) that I have with many favorite TV series, film series, and book series, where I rewatch/reread between new entries, but then feel like there’s this weird discrepancy because I’ve engaged with the older material more heavily and am way more familiar with it, and I need to even things out. At this point, I’ve probably rewatched The Return and the original series about the same amount of times, so I can rest easily just watching the whole thing together. Until we get Season 4, and then I’ll be thrown into a panic all over again at having new material. ;)
 

Dougie Cooper

RR Diner
Apr 12, 2022
27
33
"You've lost me here. In the book, Albert says he believes Earle shot Leo. Of course, we know that can't be the case due to what we know of the timeline. But why do you believe it was Mr. C? I mean, it's not a bad guess I suppose (although I struggle to grasp at his motive), but nothing in the book explicitly says this."

It's interesting, because Mr. C is shown with Earle's briefcase, so it might suggest that Mr. C went back to the cabin, retrieved Earle's briefcase, then killed Leo while there.

Except . . . the last we're shown of Earle in the cabin he says goodbye to Leo while taking his briefcase as he leaves. So how did Mr. C end up with the briefcase? Unless it wasn't the same briefcase after all. There is also a bonsai tree shown in the same room for where Mr. C had his box set up as a portal for Judy. Sure seems like Earle reverberations in Mr. C, at least to an extent.

"As soon as Earle 'dies' we meet Cooper's doppelgänger, so I can't help but feel that Earle is part of Mr C."

Well we know that BOB inhabits Mr. C, at least from time-to-time. As for Earle being a part of Mr. C I don't know that I agree with that, exactly. BOB swallowed up Earle's soul and perhaps in that way gained Earle's knowledge, so perhaps by a weird communicative process whenever BOB was with Mr. C there was Earle's knowledge imparted to Mr. C in those moments. But that's as far as I would go and in fact, I suppose what I've assumed without thinking about it.

Well, I wasn't thinking about it until I read this thread . . . thanks for getting me to think and for the headache! Ha!
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
It's interesting, because Mr. C is shown with Earle's briefcase, so it might suggest that Mr. C went back to the cabin, retrieved Earle's briefcase, then killed Leo while there.
Well, he certainly could have killed Leo. I don't see what other person related to the FBI could have done. You get the impression Coop's doppelgänger didn't wait around to wreak havoc - he started mopping up immediately he got out of the Lodge. Within a couple of days, Leo was dead, Audrey impregnated and Major Briggs had fled.

Except . . . the last we're shown of Earle in the cabin he says goodbye to Leo while taking his briefcase as he leaves. So how did Mr. C end up with the briefcase?
Maybe Mr C knew where it was and picked it up after leaving the Great Northern.

Unless it wasn't the same briefcase after all. There is also a bonsai tree shown in the same room for where Mr. C had his box set up as a portal for Judy. Sure seems like Earle reverberations in Mr. C, at least to an extent.
Say you demolish an old building, grind up all the rubble then build new bricks out of it to raise a new building. That's the relationship I see between Mr C and Earle. Mr C's body is built out of Earle and carries echoes of his predecessor. Remember there was originally a scene in the teleplay for Episode 29 where Coop's body is left at the entrance while Coop's spirit proceeds into the Lodge. We saw something similar at the end of FWWM with Leland and BOB. If the doppelgänger took Coop's body, where did 'our' Coop get a body from 25 years later? Just bearing in mind laws of conservation of energy and so on if the Lodges aren't in our universe...

So, to my mind, Earle was destroyed, but Mr C was constructed from Earle's remains. Mr C laughs madly and his movements aren't so far removed from those of Earle at the start. It could also be that Earle's history was effectively erased from the timeline when BOB destroyed him.

Well we know that BOB inhabits Mr. C, at least from time-to-time. As for Earle being a part of Mr. C I don't know that I agree with that, exactly. BOB swallowed up Earle's soul and perhaps in that way gained Earle's knowledge, so perhaps by a weird communicative process whenever BOB was with Mr. C there was Earle's knowledge imparted to Mr. C in those moments. But that's as far as I would go and in fact, I suppose what I've assumed without thinking about it.
I feel that Windom Earle, had they cast him right and written him right, should have been the 'doppelgänger' in season two. When I read My Life, My Tapes immediately after publication, I had Robert Vaughan in my head (lots of reviews in the UK remarked on Kyle's resemblance to Vaughan and I even noticed that when I watched the first episode) and imagined Earle as being like an older Cooper. I also thought that Earle might have entered the Red Room and been replaced by a doppelgänger at some stage, based on the book. In Mr C's case, I think his relationship with BOB was different. Leland - and perhaps others down the years - were often controlled by BOB. Mr C seems to have 'enslaved' BOB within him, trapped him, using him as an energy source.

Well, I wasn't thinking about it until I read this thread . . . thanks for getting me to think and for the headache! Ha!
As a migraine sufferer, I apologise! :D
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
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Hmm I can't really get behind this, as I feel the doppelgänger is part of the "shadow self" concept Hawk describes. It's just so much more resonant for me if the doppel is actually a part of Cooper, the spiritual manifestation of his darker impulses. If it's just a corruption of him by some outside force, especially such an inherently campy figure as Earle, the whole conceit loses so much of its impact for me, and I just can't imagine that was Lynch's intention, or Frost's for that matter from the many interviews I've heard/read. Plus, the doppel is already part Bob. Exactly how many people are in there?!
The shadow self needed a body. I can't see it isn't a coincidence that Mr C appears immediately Earle is vanquished and Mr C's body language is very campy at first. Watch him with BOB, then in the final Missing Piece when he decides to lie on the floor. It's like we see him grow from campy Earle behaviour into the Mr C of Season Three during that scene. I'm not saying Earle is Mr C or anything, merely that Mr C is built out of the 'rubble' of Windom Earle.

I'd agree with this, although I think you're coming at it from a more purely literalist "plot" perspective than I am (or than I believe Lynch is).
Yes, I can't help that unfortunately! It's a limitation I'm aware of, but I always approach things literally first, metaphorically second. :D

You've lost me here. In the book, Albert says he believes Earle shot Leo. Of course, we know that can't be the case due to what we know of the timeline. But why do you believe it was Mr. C? I mean, it's not a bad guess I suppose (although I struggle to grasp at his motive), but nothing in the book explicitly says this.
The speculation is that the gunshot was an FBI weapon. Who else FBI-related would know where to find Leo? I get the impression Mr C went on a kind of 'rampage' after season two. He impregnated Audrey, killed Leo and said something to Major Briggs that scared Briggs enough that he abandoned his beloved family. Major Briggs was shown to be a devout Christian and serious, old-fashioned family man right out of an old 1950s TV show. Whatever Mr C said to him must have really alarmed him. I think Mr C perhaps has all of Windom Earle's knowledge and memories in there. He's not Earle though.

Also, the Jeffries scene in FWWM takes place in February 1988, whereas in The Missing Pieces and The Return, Jeffries's manifestation now takes place in February 1989.
Yes, so I think you can even reconcile Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley investigating the Teresa Banks murder with Cooper investigating the murder in My Life, My Tapes. We don't really know how any of that will play out anymore.

Well, again, I view the doppel as a true part of our Dale. A separate physical entity obviously, on a literal story level, but indelibly linked to his attractions to Audrey and Diane, and essentially acting on the impulses that Cooper Prime keeps in check. For me, the two are "one and the same."
I'm not saying they aren't. I'm saying the shadow self's manifestation outside the Lodge was 'constructed' using Windom Earle. Consequently, the shadow self had all of Earle's knowledge and ruthlessness in his 'DNA'. Mr C essentially 'mopped up' Earle's operation after season two. The fact that Mr C has the same bag and a Bonzai tree is perhaps a 'genetic trait' carried on. For example, I have this thing about washing up while I'm cooking dinner, so there are almost no dishes to wash up after dinner. My Dad commented a while ago that his Dad (who died when I was six - my Dad was a late child) always used to do exactly the same thing. So the Mr C/Earle thing is subtle, but I think it's in there. I feel season three's doppelgänger is season two's Earle/Cooper relationship done correctly. Mr C is what Earle should have been.

The fact that Diane helps the "real" Dale doesn't mean she isn't bearing trauma or very conflicted feelings (IMO she very clearly is), but as with all relationships, especially those involving sex and love and power dynamics, this stuff is emotionally complicated.
As I say, the tulpa says she was raped. Was Diane raped? When did Mr C create the tulpa? My guess is that Diane/Naido might have been out of the game for as long as Coop was.

She does her damndest to put her trauma aside and help the "good" Dale that she wants to see execute his plan, but her trauma clearly manifests during that sex-magick ritual (which Cooper rather insensitively and coldly puts her through), and she subsequently abandons him and apparently returns to a dissociative state (becoming "Linda").
Yes, the characters Kyle Maclachlan and Laura Dern are playing once they drive through the portal seem to be different people. I immediately thought of the old British TV series Sapphire and Steel, where two entities played by David McCallum and Joanna Lumley would appear out of thin air and investigate anomalies often related to time leaking into the real world and distorting reality. I'd go so far as to say that I wonder whether the characters in the later minutes of season three are the 'real' people and that Dale Cooper and Diane Evans were simply identities with manufactured pasts created to operate in the reality of the Twin Peaks TV show.
 
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