TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN
Go to Twin Peaks Table of Contents for a note on the analysis.
PART SIXTEEN
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LINKS TO SECTIONS OF THE ANALYSIS ON THIS PAGE:
GOODBYE, MY SON
The problem of the three sets of coordinates - Jerry led to the wrong set of coordinates - Richard revealed as Mr. C's son
THE FBI VISITS DOUGIE'S HOUSE
As the crow files
COOPER-DOUGIE IN THE HOSPITAL
Did Richard fizzle out at the wrong set of coordinates when Cooper stuck his fork in the electrical socket? - Finger sandwiches and literalism versus nonliteralism
GORDON PONDERS THE SOUNDS OF HIS FBI EQUIPMENT, THAT MAY REMIND THE AUDIENCE OF COOPER-DOUGIE SURROUNDED BY EQUIPMENT IN THE HOSPITAL MONITORING HIS VITAL SIGNS
What does Gordon hear?
THE FBI LOCATES COOPER-DOUGIE
BYE CHANTAL AND HUTCH
The repeating crow - Hutch ponders whether or not he feels guilty over owing a dead man money and an accountant renders a reckoning
COOPER WAKES UP
Chantal and Hutch having been cleared away by accounting, the ringing tone finds Cooper and he wakes before the Las Vegas FBI can arrive and perhaps detain him - It's confirmed that Cooper created at least one Tulpa
COOPER DRIVES
DIANE, THE TULPA
16:31 or 16:44 or 15:50 - The story of Diane's rape - The two packs of American Spirit, one in her purse and one on the table
DOUGIE BIDS GOODBYE TO JANEY AND SONNY JIM
Cooper and the hollowness of the double
TO THE AIRPORT
AUDREY'S DANCE
AUDREY HORNE
A woman brutalized by her brushing up against Cooper's life
NOTE: The structure of the analysis is simplified as we move into the last few chapters, blending commentary with description of the shots in a looser manner.
GOODBYE MY SON
THE PROBLEM OF THE THREE SETS OF COORDINATES - JERRY LED TO THE "WRONG" SET OF COORDINATES - RICHARD REVEALED AS MR. C'S SON
Night. We see the road as from a vehicle, passing a 35 mph sign showing an upcoming serpentine curve. As the subtitles say, ominous music plays. We are shown Mr. C and Richard riding together, silent, though Mr. C had said they would speak in the truck. The road again. We return to the silence of the cab, a red light flashing on Mr. C. We return to the road but rather than on a paved highway they are now on a dirt road. From afar, we watch them travel around a curve. In the cab, Mr. C appears to check his co-ordinates against their position. He brings the truck to a stop at the base of a hill, cuts on the truck's spotlights and shines them up the hill. They climb out.
RICHARD: Okay. So we're here. What now?
MR. C: Pay attention. You'll find out. I'm looking for a place. Do you understand the place?
RICHARD: Place?
Mr. C queries Richard as if he wonders if Richard might have knowledge of what he's looking for, but Richard doesn't.
MR. C: Three people have given me coordinates to that place. Two of the coordinates match.
What would you do, Richard?
RICHARD: I'd check out the two that match.
MR. C: You're a very bright young man. And we're very close to the two that match. It says it's right up there.
Mr. C points up the hill toward a boulder.
RICHARD: We're going up there?
MR. C: Yeah. We're going up there right now.
They advance up the hill toward the boulder.
And then, out of the dark, across the green, runs Jerry. He stops and stares, says, People? We see that he's on a hill high above Mr. C's truck. He pulls out his binoculars and looks through the wrong end with his right eye. He says, plaintive, Dear God.
Back down to Richard and Mr. C.
RICHARD: Is this it?
MR. C: I'll bet it's right up there on that rock. I'm 25 years your senior. Take this and get on up there. It'll beep when you're close and make a continuous tone when you're on it.
Let me know what you find.
Richard climbs the rest of the way up the hill to the rock, around behind it, and then atop it. Jerry tries looking down through the wrong end of the bionculars again, which only will make the scene seem more distant rather than magnifying it.
RICHARD: I'm there!
Richard's chest explodes in a fury of sparks, to the hum of electricity. He convulses, screaming. From his front, the white electric fire illumines and consumes him, but from the rear of him we only see a black silhouette. Jerry watches from his high vantage point as Richard's body sizzles away, up to his head, a small clump of fiery cinders dropping onto the rock. Shocked, Jerry falls to the ground.
MR. C: Oh. Good-bye, my son.
Mr. C turns and walks back to the truck as Jerry beats his binoculars on the ground exclaiming, Bad, bad binoculars! Bad, bad, bad binoculars!
At the truck, Mr. C types into his phone the text:
: - ) ALL.
We then see that it's 2:05 AM and the text is undelivered. He climbs in the truck.
It seems then that this is to where Jerry has been guided since his car was stolen, since he became lost. He has been headed to this "here", wherever here is. We've no idea, only that Mr. C states two sets of co-ordinates agree as to this being the place. He received co-ordinates from Ray (that he got from Betty), and from Jeffries, and who else? Diane had the co-ordinates she'd seen in the photo of Ruth at the police station and has been texting with him. Did she send Mr. C co-ordinates? But then what of Ruth, who had the co-ordinates written on her arm? Wouldn't Mr. C have gotten these directly off Ruth, taking for granted he had been present when she and Briggs were killed? Though these are the co-ordinates that Diane saw, we've also observed that what the camera recorded on the scene was not the same as what we later saw in Albert's photos. The first few numbers we saw in the field were the same, but the ground upon which Ruth was lying was not, and it even looked like a couple of numbers had been colored over in Photoshop and rewritten, and yet they were the same numbers as what had been observed at the scene of the discovery of Ruth. Which was a very curious thing, the seeming messy doctoring of the co-ordinates in the photo and yet the numbers were the same whereas the place wasn't.
Plus, as stated, there has been the question of how Mr. C had certainly seen Briggs, as attested to by the fake Jeffries in the all after Mr. C had killed Darya, and it seeming logical he was there for the deaths of Briggs and Ruth, and yet he'd not seen the co-ordinates written large on Ruth's arm?
Who might have agreed upon giving Mr. C wrong co-ordinates? Ray and Jeffries? That seems a sensible conclusion to draw. But these are wrong co-ordinates that are meant to not just distract from his goal, but destroy Mr. C.
Richard's car was left back at the site of the disappearing convenience store. One day it will be found and no one will know what happened to him, to where he went.
Though Jerry is aware he's witnessed someone's death, he doesn't know who.
A problem that I'm not sure is a problem at all is that I don't know how to reason out the view of Richard from behind as he burns out. From the front, he is ablaze, standing obviously high atop the rock, and the hill below is lit bright from the sparks. From behind, not only is he a transparent shadow, he seems not to be standing on the boulder but on grass, the hill is not very boldly lit, and we don't see Mr. C below him on the hill, which we should. I don't know if I should take this all for granted as a difference in conceptions that ended up being blended, but Richard as only a dark shadow from behind still is thought provoking, and as that is then the rest follows as curious.
Resolution is had that Richard is indeed Mr. C's son, but the viewer has long suspected as much. Likely no one is going to be sad to see Richard go.
THE FBI VISITS DOUGIE'S HOUSE
AS THE CROW FLIES
The street on which Cooper-Dougie lives. Pull down from a high shot to behind Hutch and Chantal's black van, they having parked opposite Cooper-Dougie's home. They shut the van off and climb in the back to wait, Chantal munching on snacks. In Part Four, the morning Cooper-Dougie first woke in his new old home, and in Part Twelve, in the scene in which we see Cooper-Dougie playing ball with Sonny Jim, the introductory shot of the street was as this one, but in those shots a crow flew overhead. In Part Four we saw the crow, saw its shadow, and heard it cawing. In Part Twelve, we only saw its shadow. This time there is no crow, but Hutch makes mention of a bird, which indirectly highlights the purposefulness of the bird.
In fact, as the shot is exactly the same as the others--the shadows and clouds the same, one is pressed to play with the idea of this life of Cooper-Dougie's that can be represented by this shot that is always identical but for the bird. What we do know is that shot, used in Part Four and Part Twelve, is taken from this one that pulls back to show the black van opposite the home.
HUTCH: You hear that bird this morning?
CHANTAL: Sure as shit did.
Two black cars pull up in front of the house.
HUTCH: Who's this here?
CHANTAL (as 4 FBI men climb out): What the hell are they doing here?
Wilson and Headley approach the door and knock. Wilson checks a window.
WILSON: Well, it looks like nobody's home.
HEADLEY: Oh? And how did you deduce that, Sherlock? Wilson, you son of a bitch, go grab a car and park somewhere over there out of sight and stake out this house. (To two other officers, opening and closing a file as he speaks.)
I'm gonna check out the place of business. Lucky 7 Insurance. Hmmm? (He glances back at Wilson, sees him standing staring on and screams at him.) Wilson! Get going!
All climb back into their cars and drive away. Good riddance, Chantal says.
Comic relief. Headley and Wilson have found their way to the right Dougie Jones but they are inept as ever. Of course, it's impossible to deduce from the door not being answered, and not seeing anyone through one window, that no one is at home, but the audience knows this is likely and that Cooper-Dougie is probably in the hospital. At least now the FBI will find their way to the Lucky 7 insurance company. In the meanwhile, with Wilson left to stake out the Jones home, the scene seems set for something to happen with Chantal and Hutch, who are also staking out the home.
COOPER-DOUGIE IN THE HOSPITAL
DID RICHARD FIZZLE OUT AT THE WRONG SET OF COORDINATES WHEN COOPER STUCK HIS FORK IN THE ELECTRICAL SOCKET? - FINGER SANDWICHES AND LITERALISM VERSUS NONLITERALISM
Cooper-Dougie lies in his hospital bed, hooked up to a respirator and various wires. The camera pulls back and we see Janey and Sonny Jim sitting at his side, Janey stroking his arm. We see his hospital ID band and that it reads JONES / DOUGLAS. Bushnell enters.
BUSHNELL: I just heard what you've been telling me. He's in a coma, but his vital signs are good, strong.
JANEY: Yeah, but when people go into a coma, they can stay there for years.
BUSHNELL: Oh, Dougie's not gonna do that.
SONNY JIM: Mom, does a coma have something to do with electricity?
JANEY: No, honey.
BUSHELL: Well, in this case, it did.
We hear Bradley Mitchum saying, Well, I told you I'd carry it. I just don't know here he is. Here he is.
Bradley and Rodney appear at the door, Bradley carrying a huge bouquet of flowers.
RODNEY: Bushnell, we came as soon as we heard.
BUSHNELL: These are the Mitchum brothers, Janey-E. They're friends of Dougie's.
JANEY (shaking hands): Oh, oh. Sonny Jim, these are the men who, uh who bought your gym set and and the car. Thank you.
SONNY JIM: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
RODNEY: Don't mention it. Every kid should have a gym set, huh?
BRADLEY (playfully checking Sonny Jim's fist strength): Let me see that. Look at that.
As if we hadn't previously gotten the peculiar pun of the "gym" set on Sonny Jim's name, Lynch and Frost visit it again.
Candie, Mandie and Sandie enter, bearing trays of food.
RODNEY We've, we've seen this before. Uh, this sort of thing happens, and you don't feel like cooking.
BRADLEY: You don't want to eat hospital food. But...
JANEY: Oh.
BRADLEY: Jimmy, you've got to eat.
CANDIE: These are what you call finger sandwiches.
BRADLEY: Go ahead. You pick it up with your fingers. Very good.
That's why they call it a finger sandwich.
RODNEY: Girls, go, go, go bring in the, uh the folding trays.
BUSHNELL: Hey, hey, maybe we should eat outside.
RODNEY: No, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna stay. This is all for you.
We just want to be as helpful as possible and, uh and, uh and, uh, pay our respects.
BRADLEY: All things considered, he looks good.
JANEY: Yeah, well, the doctors are very hopeful.
RODNEY: If I can trouble you for a key, Mrs. Jones, we're gonna go stock your house, too.
JANEY: Oh. Wow. Okay (digging a key out of her red bag) um, here you go. Thank you.
BRADLEY: It was like, what? Electricity?
It is Sonny Jim who asks if Cooper-Dougie's coma has something to do with electricity, and we should think back to how the doppel's son, Richard, was consumed as if by an electric fire as he stood upon the boulder.
The finger sandwiches will end up ported into the scene where Chantal and Hutch are killed and eventually make their way all the way up to Twin Peaks, flown in by private jet with Cooper and his Las Vegas friends. My take on this is that the finger sandwiches may be a way of commenting on literalism versus non-literalism. No, these are not literally sandwiches made out of fingers, instead they are meant to be eaten with fingers. And sandwiches aren't made with sand or witches, either. As the story of Twin Peaks is a fantasy puzzle, one wonders at the why of making a point of not taking things too literally, but the point is being made and will be carried around all the way to Twin Peaks and the battle between BOB and Freddie.
GORDON PONDERS THE SOUNDS OF HIS FBI EQUIPMENT, THAT MAY REMIND THE AUDIENCE OF COOPER-DOUGIE SURROUNDED BY EQUIPMENT IN THE HOSPITAL MONITORING HIS VIRTAL SIGNS
WHAT DOES GORDON HEAR?
Exterior shot of O'Donovan's Pub and Restaurant at the hotel where Gordon, Albert and Diane have been staying. Cut to the whirring and beeping of the FBI equipment in the room that has been their station. We then see Gordon standing, staring on at the equipment, studying and reflecting on it. He seems to be attempting to grasp something he can't sort out.
THE FBI LOCATES COOPER-DOUGIE
Return to the hospital room with a close-up of the equipment monitoring Cooper-Dougie's vital signs. A side view shows Cooper-Dougie in bed, Janey and Sonny Jim still sitting vigil. Bushnell leans against a counter opposite and near the door.
SONNY JIM (sipping on a drink through a straw): Mom. I have to go pee.
JANEY: Okay. Let's go find you the little boys' room.
Janey and Sonny Jim having exited, Bushnell answers a call on his cell phone.
BUSHNELL: This is Bushnell.
PHIL (off screen): Uh, Phil Bisby here.
BUSHNELL: Hello, Phil.
PHIL (off screen): The FBI was just here looking for Dougie.
BUSHNELL: What?
PHIL (off screen): The FBI.
BUSHNELL: The FBI?
PHIL (off screen): Yeah, they were looking for Dougie.
BUSHNELL: Looking for Dougie?
PHIL (off screen): Yeah.
BUSHNELL: What's he done now? He's in a coma.
PHIL (off screen): Uh, I-I-I, uh...
BUSHNELL: Did you tell them we're here?
PHIL (off screen): Yeah, I did, and then they left.
BUSHNELL: You did? -
PHIL (off screen): Yeah.
BUSHNELL: When did they leave?
PHIL (off screen): About ten minutes ago, sir.
BUSHNELL: Okay.
Pushing the plot forward, the FBI has made their way to the insurance company, and are on their way to the hospital. And what then? And what about Chantal and Hutch back at the house, where Wilson is, and to where the Mitchums are now heading?
BYE CHANTAL AND HUTCH
THE REPEATING CROW - HUTCH PONDERS WHETHER OR NOT HE FEELS GUILTY OVER OWING A DEAD MAN MONEY AND AN ACCOUNTANT RENDERS A RECKONING
We return to the street scene of the Jones' house and this time it is exactly as in Part Four, the crow flying over and cawing.
Chantal and Hutch are shown in the van, Chantal picking up the last bag of snacks and tearing it open. Wilson's car drives back down the street and parks facing them from a distance of about four or five houses.
HUTCH: Looks like it's gonna be a long day. Remember that guy, Sammy?
CHANTAL: Yeah.
HUTCH: He passed away.
CHANTAL: Oh.
HUTCH: He was a good guy. I owed him money.
CHANTAL: You feel bad about that?
HUTCH: Eh.
The white stretch limo of the Mitchum brothers pulls up and parks in the Jones' driveway, followed by a black van.
HUTCH: What is this now?
The Mitchum brothers climb out of the limo, and the driver steps out of the black van.
HUTCH: Is one of them guys Dougie? Douglas?
CHANTAL (irritated): Do any of them look anything like our boss? No, stupid, none of them is Dougie.
HUTCH: Will you settle down now?
CHANTAL: It's the last bag, Hutch.
It's the last fucking bag.
HUTCH: You on the rag?
CHANTAL: What if I fucking was?
HUTCH: Whoa. Okay.
CHANTAL (as Candie, Sandie and Mandie carrie their platters of food into the house): Looks like a fucking circus parade.
WILSON: Stretch limo, girls in pink.
No Douglas Jones.
The Mitchum Brothers' workers having finished unloading their goods from the van, they drive off. A white car immediately pulls up and parks facing Chantal and Hutch. Chantal wonders, startled, What the fuck?, as a bald man climbs out of the car. We see on the driver's door ZAWASKI accounting, Inc. He wears a red shirt and brown leather jacket.
ACCOUNTANT (approaching Chantal and Hutch's van and knocking on the passenger door): Hello. (To Hutch.) Hello. You're in my driveway.
HUTCH: We're not in your driveway.
CHANTAL: We're not even close to your fucking driveway, asshole.
Go fuck yourself!
ACCOUNTANT: I move car.
The accountant climbs back into his Mercedes and rams it into the front of the van, attempting to move them away from his driveway, which they aren't blocking. Wilson and his partner look on.
CHANTAL (climbs into the driver's seat and pulls out a gun): That fucker!
Chantal fires a shot through the front window of the Mercedes. The accountant climbs out, goes around to the rear of his car and opens the hatch.
HUTCH: What the fuck, Chantal?
CHANTAL: That douchebag is really pissing me off!
The accountant rises from behind his car and shoots at them, Chantal screaming.
CHANTAL (her arm shot): He winged me!
HUTCH (pulling out a gun): This shit is fucking up the whole thing! (He shoots through the other car's windshield again and yells at Chantal.) Get us the fuck out of here!
Chantal, bleeding, backs up the van but then barrels it into the white car, pushing it back. The accountant falls as his car butts him. Chantal backs up the van again and pulls out into the street. As she passes the accountant, he stands and fires his automatic at them. Numerous bullets pierce the black van (license plate South Dakota DSC 636). Rodney and Bradley step out of the Jones' house and crouch on the porch with their guns, watching as the van is riddled with bullets, and Chantal and Hutch within it. The van slowly rolls past the credulous Wilson and his partner, Chantal slumped over the steering wheel.
BRADLEY:
What the fuck kind of neighborhood is this?
RODNEY: People are under a lot of stress, Bradley.
BRADLEY: Yeah.
The van slowly rides up over a sidewalk and thuds to rest against a pole. As the accountant turns to walk away, Wilson and his partner climb out of their Ford Explorer (Nevada plate 274 JID). We see, beyond them, a street sign reading Lee Court.
WILSON (confronting the accountant): FBI! Put the gun down! I said put the gun down! (The accountant puts down his gun in the middle of the street.) Now slowly back away from your gun.
RODNEY (to Bradley): Put down the gun, okay? Get the girls and get out of here, all right?
The engine of Chantal and Hutch's van flames up.
WILSON:
I need backup and an ambulance at Lancelot Court. (Wilson and his partner are shown advancing on the accountant who stands in the center of the street with arms held up high.)
Lancelot Court!
Sirens begin in the distance. We were expecting something something to happen with the conversion of Chantal and Hutch, the Mitchum brothers, and the FBI at Cooper-Dougie's home, but as with most things Lynch/Frost there was no way of anticipating how it would unfold. It never would have occurred to us that a third party, an accountant, would intrude and do in Chantal and Hutch because of a conflict over parking. Again, more comic relief, gangsters complaining about the violent neighborhood, and Chantal and Hutch being blown away by an accountant. At least Chantal and Hutch are out of the way and we don't have to worry about them killing Cooper-Dougie.
I noted, back in the scene when Mr. C gives Hutch and Chantal the job of killing the warden then heading down to Las Vegas for a double header, that Chantal's name derives from "stone", though one might imagine it's associated with chanteuse and thus song.
When we examine this scene we have many elements that connect back to the 119 mother and boy. He has also a shirt that does not have that insignia but has the red number one. His mother shouts 119 as the bomb is being put under Dougie's car, then when Dougie's license is retrieved from her roof that scene is recycled so she is shouting 119 again. Chantal calls attention to the idea of her own name being associated with song (she will make the warden sing for her), but actually it comes from canto which is stony. The 119 boy had been saved from the bomb blowing up Dougie's car by having a stone thrown at him by the gang who chased him away. Finally, we are shown Mr. C's message has the time of 11:09. 119. And we are shown liv of his message before the ely is typed in. This would seem to refer to Dougie's LV (Las Vegas) license plate.
To kill two birds with one stone is to solve two problems with one action, but how will this play out in Lynch/Frost world? Why do we have this nexus of associations concerning the stone and the bird tying together the drugged mother and her boy, the house upon which Dougie's license plate landed, and Chantal?
The double header, which was intended to be Duncan Todd and Cooper-Dougie, was overdrawn, perhaps, when Chantal also carelessly took Roger's life. So fate and Lynch/Frost call in an accountant to balance the books with another double header--Chantal and Hutch.
Two birds with one stone isn't to be found here, but some of the ingredients were stressed with Hutch having earlier called attention to the bird.
Finally, we are emphatically reminded, one last time, that Cooper-Dougie lives on Lancelot Court, which links it with the Twin Peaks' Glastonbury Grove through the Arthurian myth.
COOPER WAKES UP
CHANTAL AND HUTCH HAVING BEEN CLEARED AWAY BY ACCOUNTING, THE RINGING TONE FINDS COOPER AND HE WAKES BEFORE THE LAS VEGAS FBI CAN ARRIVE AND PERHAPS DETAIN HIM - IT'S CONFIRMED THAT COOPER CREATED AT LEAST ONE TULPA
A close-up of Cooper in his hospital bed. We hear a ringing tone like what was heard by Ben Horne at the lodge, the source of which he was unable to track down. Bushnell, hearing the ringing, sets down his cup and looks at the equipment monitoring Cooper. Becoming aware the tone emanates from elsewhere, he steps out into the hall and away, attempting to follow it. Gerard fades into the room before a chair, and Cooper opens his eyes, gasps, and pulls out his ventilator tube. He sits up in the bed and looks down at Gerard, who is backed by the floor of the Red Room.
GERARD: You are awake.
COOPER: One hundred percent.
GERARD: Finally. The other one...he didn't...go back in. He's still out. Take this.
Gerard pulls from his pocket a jade ring. We hear a high pitched ping tone. As Cooper takes the ring, and Gerard begins to fade, Cooper asks...
COOPER: Do you have the seed? Do you have the seed?
Gerard produces a gold ball from his pocket.
COOPER (plucks a hair from his head and hands it to Gerard): I need you to make another one.
GERARD (taking the hair and then disappearing): I understand.
As Janey enters, Cooper closes his hand around the jade ring, then places it down on the mattress under the pillow.
JANEY: Dougie!
SONNY JIM: Dad? (Cooper pats the bed for him to sit beside him and he leaps over and hugs him.)
JANEY: Dougie.
COOPER (hugging Sonny Jim): Hello, Sonny Jim.
JANEY: Oh, my, Dougie.
COOPER: Hello, Janey-E.
BUSHNELL (entering): Dougie's back! I knew it.
COOPER: Janey-E, would you please go find a doctor right now?
JANEY: Yeah.
COOPER: Sonny Jim why don't you go with your mom?
JANEY (exiting with Sonny Jim): Okay.
COOPER: Bushnell, pass me some of those sandwiches. I'm starving.
BUSHNELL (hands him a platter): The office just called. The FBI was there looking for you.
COOPER: Perfect.
BUSHNELL: You sure came through this pretty strong.
DOCTOR (entering as Cooper liberates himself of an IV and wires): Whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing?
COOPER: I no longer need this IV. Doctor, will you confirm that my vitals are A-okay? I'm leaving. Bushnell, my clothes, please. The cabinet behind you.
JANEY: Dougie, are you sure this is a good idea?
COOPER: It's a good idea.
DOCTOR: It looks like it's a pretty good idea. I'll prep your release papers.
COOPER: Janey-E, please bring the car around front. I'll get dressed and meet you downstairs.
JANEY (breathless, stunned): Okay. Come on, Sonny Jim. Daddy thinks we should get the car around.
COOPER: Thank you, Bushnell.
Cut to Janey and Sonny Jim walking down the hall.
SONNY JIM: Dad sure is talking a lot.
JANEY: Yeah, he sure is, Sonny Jim.
Cut back to Cooper, clothed but for his jacket, seated on a chair and tying his shoe.
COOPER: Bushnell, I'm gonna need to borrow the 32 snub nose you wear in the shoulder holster under your left arm.
BUSHNELL (laughs): Sure thing, Dougie. (As Cooper takes the pistol). Is everything all right? Can I help you in any way?
COOPER: You can get the Mitchum brothers on the phone.
BUSHNELL: Sure thing. (Taking out his phone.) They gave me their personal number. I got it on speed dial. Hello? Yeah, is this Brad? Oh, Rod. Listen, uh, hold on. Dougie's got to talk to you.
COOPER (his jacket now on, takes the phone): Rod, I'm bringing my family to the casino in 20 minutes. Meet us in the lobby.
RODNEY (viewed at his home, Bradley at the breakfast counter, Candie, Sandie and Mandie in the kitchen): Whatever you need, Dougie.
COOPER (cut back to Cooper in the hospital room): And then I need a plane to Spokane, Washington.
RODNEY: We're gassing up the jet. (Cut back to his home as Bradley reaches for the phone. We see Rodney is speaking on an old, black, rotary dial phone.) We're gassing it up right now. Bradley, we're headed to Spokane, Washington.
COOPER: Meet you in the lobby in 20 minutes.
RODNEY: You got it.
BRADLEY (on his cell): Yeah.
Gas it up. We're going to Spokane.
RODNEY (standing): Let's go. Meeting Dougie in the lobby.
BRADLEY: Girls, let's go for a plane ride. (Julee Cruise's "Falling" begins to play.) Wonder what Dougie's up to now. Let's go! (He snaps his fingers at the girls.) Hey!
COOPER (cut back to Bushnell and Cooper in the hospital room): I have a feeling a man named Gordon Cole will call here. (He hands Bushnell a slip of paper. )
If he does, read him this message. (As Bushnell glances at the message and pockets it, Cooper extends his hand for Bushnell to shake it.) You're a fine man, Bushnell Mullins.
I will not soon forget your kindness and decency.
BUSHNELL (as Cooper exits): What about the FBI?
COOPER: I am the FBI.
Since Part Three, though many of us have enjoyed the Cooper-Dougie incarnation for what it is, we've been waiting for Cooper to wake up--and both weirdly, and purposefully, when he does wake, the drama is a little neutralized by Chantal and Hutch having been unexpectedly blown to pieces by an accountant just moments before hand.
Though we may have already reasoned that Cooper was responsible for the Dougie tulpa, we now have confirmation of this, and that it was fashioned from a "seed" combined with DNA of the one to be cloned.
Cooper, in the original series, was equal parts confidence, enthusiasm, energy, and thoughtful meditation, what could have come off as, at times, nearly saccharine, tempered with a deep knowledge of pain. He has returned in full force, knowing exactly what he's going to do. That a doctor would take seconds to determine he is fit to be released, after having been in a coma, is absurd, but it happens as it must happen and we accept it because it must be.
The doctor and Bushnell complement each other in that Bushnell, as a boxer, was known as Battling Bud, and the doctor, played by Bellina Martin Logan, also played concierge Louie "Birdsong" Budway in episodes 11 and 12 of the original series.
COOPER DRIVES
Janey has pulled the car up in front of the hospital, top down, Sonny Jim in the back seat.
COOPER (approaching the driver's side of the car): Move over.
I'll drive.
JANEY: But, Dougie...
COOPER: Janey-E, it's okay.
JANEY (she shifts seats as Cooper climbs in): What's going on, Dougie?
COOPER: Fasten your seat belt.
He starts the car and pulls out the of the exit of the hospital drive, the arm of its gate already lifted. As they drive away, the Las Vegas FBI arrives, red and blue lights flashing in their windshields, park, and exit their cars to enter the hospital.
COOPER: Janey-E, how do we get to the Silver Mustang Casino?
JANEY: You're not gonna start gambling again, are you?
COOPER: We're going to see the Mitchum brothers.
SONNY JIM: Dad can drive, really good.
Janey smiles with pleased, proud satisfaction.
DIANE, THE TULPA
16:31 OR 16:44 OR 15:50 - THE STORY OF DIANE'S RAPE - THE TWO PACKS OF AMERICAN SPIRIT, ONE IN HER PURSE AND ONE ON THE TABLE
Diane at the O'Donovan bar, smoking and drinking. She wears a turquoise top that has a 1950s Asian sensibility, red and bamboo yellow bangles on her arm. She notices her cell phone vibrating and checks it. The screen reads from Unknown now.
: - ) ALL.
This was the message sent by Mr. C at 2:05. Diane gasps. She looks at the time. 16:32. She clicks on the message and it reads as sent at 16:31. 14 hours and 26 minutes have passed, and it is now 4:32 where she is. In anguish, she takes a sip of her drink.
DIANE: I remember. Oh, Coop. I remember.
She types into the phone 48551420117163956.
DIANE: I hope this works.
She presses send.
The photo of Ruth's arm appeared to show the coordinates as being: 48 55.142, -117 56.3938. But in the field we only saw 4855142.
In Part 12 we had seen Diane punch coordinates into her phone as she said, "Co...or...din...ates plus two."
The coordinates she punches in this time are quite different from what we'd seen in the photo of Ruth's arm. 48551420117163956.
Note that when Diane sends out the message the time is 16:45, though only moments appear to have passed, the message to which she is replying has changed to having been received 16:44, and that her battery has dropped dramatically from 79%.
We have a view of her purse and a gun inside it resting on top of her American Spirit cigarette pack. She closes her purse. As she stands, resolute, the slow remix of Muddy Magnolias' "American Woman" begins to play, the same song that played when we first saw Mr. C's car approaching Beulah's. She exits the bar and gets into the elevator, pushing the up button. The music continues to play as she exits the elevator and walks through the halls to the FBI's situation room.
I know my worth and who I am.
Mister, if you're hard up I can spare a few grand
Hell will freeze over and I'll be damned
Before I take orders From any ol' man
Do I look like...
The elevator door opens on a brightly lit hall that opens to a darker hall with seating and pictures hung on the wall. Diane exits the elevator, through this brightly lit hall, into the darker one. We see down a hall of rooms, to her rear, a window at the end and that at the end there is a hall that joins and cuts right. We see she advances toward where this hall dead-ends, intersecting with another. She enters and cuts left. We see behind her another long hall of rooms with a window at the end.
She progresses and then takes a right into another hall which we don't see. Cut to Gordon seemingly aware of her presence as he looks toward the door, then a shot from Diane's viewpoint as she approaches the door that is at the end of the hall. Room number 1827. A picture next the door is the same as one earlier observed at the end of the hall off the elevator.
Diane hasn't knocked, she is standing outside the door, and Gordon calls out to her.
GORDON: Come in, Diane.
DIane enters, obviously anxious, and sits.
DIANE: You asked me about the night that Cooper came to visit me.
Well, I'm gonna tell you.
ALBERT: You want a drink?
DIANE: Yeah.
Albert brings her a drink as she opens her purse but guards it. She takes a sip. Already, Gordon is eyeing her purse. Albert having moved away, she takes the pack of American Spirit cigarettes from her bag and puts them on the table.
DIANE: Well it was three, maybe four years after, uh after I stopped hearing from Cooper. I was still working at the Bureau. One night, no knock, no doorbell, he just walked in. I was standing in my living room. Oh, I was so happy to see him. I held him so close. And we, uh, we sat on my sofa. Started talking. I just wanted to hear everything about where he'd been and what he'd been doing. He only wanted to know about, uh, what had been going on at the Bureau. It felt like he was grilling me, but I I told myself he was just he was just excited to hear about Bureau news. And then he leaned in. He leaned in, leaned in to kiss me. It only happened once before. But as soon as...as soon as his lips touched mine something went wrong. And I felt afraid, and he saw the fear in me and he smiled. He smiled. And his face...and that's when it started. He raped me. He raped me! (She is crying now.) Afterward, he took me somewhere. He took me somewhere like an old gas station, an old gas station.
Diane pauses. She looks at the message she'd received on her phone. This time the time reads 15:50 and the message has no period at the end.
DIANE: I'm in the sheriff's station. I'm in the sheriff's station. I-I sent him those coordinates. I'm in the sheriff's station because, because...I'm not me. I-I'm not...I'm not me. I'm-I'm-I'm not. I'm not me!
Diane pulls out her gun to shoot, it would seem, Gordon, but Albert, already wary, shoots her first. Tammy then shoots and Albert fires again. Diane's body convulses in the chair as it is ripped from it and disappears, much as how Laura Palmer was ripped out of the Red Room after having kissed Cooper.
TAMMY: Wow. They're real.That was a real tulpa.
GORDON: Sheriff's station?
Cut to Diane in the chair in the Red Room.
GERARD: Someone manufactured you.
DIANE: I know. Fuck you.
Diane's jaw oddly cracks. Her face splits open and black smoke pours forth as well as a gold ball. Her head disappears as black smoke continues to pour from the neck of her blouse, then she disappears and her clothes tumble down. All that we see left of her is the gold ball in the seat of the chair.
There were individuals in the audience who suspected something might be off with Diane. Gordon believed something was off with Diane and discussed it with Albert after they'd taken her to see Mr. C. When she had hugged him, his hands had not fully accepted her, had not fully embraced her. He had felt something wrong. When Albert informed Gordon that Diane, it seemed, was having communication with Mr. C, Gordon had told him how he had felt. However, it was clear, from the way Diane acted with Mr. C, and from her reluctance to talk about what happened between them both, that she had been raped or sexually assaulted. So, while her rage and reluctance to talk read as correct for Diane, it was difficult to understand why she would be messaging back and forth with the man who had raped her, and who she had seemed so disinclined to meet ever again. That made no sense.
Gordon kept Diane "close" by making her one of the team.
I, personally, would never have expected Diane to be a tulpa. The thought never crossed my mind. But we still have to wonder what exactly was the meaning of the message she received from Mr. C, what she may have been intended to do, and what we were seeing of the "old" Diane. She was intended to remember. But we have to question if she does actually remember everything. We have to wonder what she has been programmed to do. She goes up, immediately, to Gordon, and tells him about the rape--but as she finishes she only realizes then that she is not herself. She let's Gordon know that she sent Mr. C co-ordinates, and that she is at the sheriff's department. Was she programed to shoot Gordon, or is the tulpa instead committing suicide by cop, knowing that she will be shot first?
Because Naido has recently arrived at the sheriff's department, and Andy has insisted she is important, that people want her dead, we can only assume that Naido is somehow Diane.
With the now obviously different time stamps on the message sent to Diane, and even a slightly different message (no period), Lynch and Frost seem to be now openly preparing the audience to accept a multiple timeline, variations on these events having indeed occurred "time and time again". Plus we have the problem of the cigarette pack being clearly shown as being taken out of Diane's purse and placed on the table, and yet it is still in her bag when she removes her gun from it.
Emotionally, this is a tough scene. Any one with experience, who suspected Diane had been raped, had been waiting for her account. Laura Dern delivers it beautifully, and the writing is such that the shocking revelation that "I am not me" could therapeutically apply to any individual who has undergone trauma and suffered PTSD, the "I'm not me" being the responding since then as one ruled, even possessed, by the event, so that it is from then on ever one's mind and guiding one's actions consciously and unconsciously. The gut-wrenching violence expressed by Diane, about her rape, is a "reality" that supersedes and overwhelms the artificiality of plot that guides a story to such critical denouements. Right now, what matters is not that Diane is a tulpa. What matters is that she was raped and that the violence tore her away from herself. She may act hard, but she has been living in a state of terror ever since and doing what she can to treat it in her own way medicinally and emotionally.
DOUGIE BIDS GOODBYE TO JANEY AND SONNY JIM
COOPER AND THE HOLLOWNESS OF THE DOUBLE
The exterior of the Silver Mustang, followed by an interior shot of Rodney and Bradley standing near security. As Cooper, Janey and Sonny Jim enter, Rodney calls out.
RODNEY: Dougie!
BRADLEY: Oh!
RODNEY: You look great.
BRADLEY: Good!
RODNEY: We're all set. The plane's standing by.
JANEY: Where are we going?
COOPER: Fellas, give me a moment. Janey-E, Sonny Jim, come with me.
Cooper leads Janey and Sonny Jim away through gaming machines, past a slot machine titled "Sphinx".
BRADLEY:
You know, Dougie's talking with a lot of assurance.
RODNEY: Maybe something to do with the coma?
BRADLEY (snaps fingers): Side effects.
Cooper stops with Janey and Sonny Jim and explains the situation.
COOPER: I have to go away for a while. But I want to tell you how much I've enjoyed spending time with both of you.
JANEY: What?
COOPER: You've made my heart so full.
JANEY: What what are you saying?
COOPER: We're a family. Dougie, I mean, I will be back.
JANEY: You're not Dougie?
SONNY JIM: What? No. You're my dad. You're my dad.
COOPER: I'm your dad, Sonny Jim. I'm your dad, and I love you. I love you both. (He embraces them both as they cry.) I have to go. You'll see me soon. I'll walk through that red door, and I'll be home for good.
JANEY (grabs him as he walks away): Don't go.
COOPER: I have to.
JANEY (kisses him): Whoever you are, thank you.
We see the machine on the right is the same but the image has changed from a sphinx, a puzzler and slayer of those who don't solve her riddles, to a scarab, symbolizing rebirth.
Never mind how this family came to be, never mind the perilous feel of the fantasy, what it meant, and that they didn't know Dougie was a tulpa in the first place--the fact that he was promising them he would return soon, when we all knew that he wouldn't be, that he would be sending a tulpa in his place, seemed to me like a selfish case of having your cake and eating it too, deceiving individuals who loved him by sending back to them a stand-in while he went on pursuing his dream elsewhere. Because he couldn't make a choice to stay with people he loved and who loved him. He couldn't make that commitment.
TO THE AIRPORT
We're in the limo on the way to the airport with Cooper seated between Bradley and Rodney. Candie hands Cooper a coffee.
RODNEY: Dougie, let me get this straight.
BRADLEY: Wait, wait, wait, I want to hear this, too. Candie, where's my Bloody Mary?
Candie takes the Bloody Mary from one of the other girls and hands it to Bradley. Cut to a street scene of Vegas then back to the car as Bradley drinks.
BRADLEY: Ok.
RODNEY: You don't sell insurance. You're an FBI agent...who's been missing for 25 years, and we need to get you to a town called Twin Peaks, to a sheriff's station.
BRADLEY: Dougie, we love you, but we are not traditionally welcome at such places.
RODNEY: Or by such aforementioned people law enforcement types.
COOPER: I read you 100 percent. Friends, that's about to change. I am witness to the fact that you both have hearts of gold.
CANDIE: They do. They really do.
AUDREY'S DANCE
Exterior of the Bang-Bang roadhouse. Cut to the emcee.
EMCEE: Ladies and gentlemen, the Roadhouse is proud to welcome Edward Louis Severson.
Severson plays "Out of Sand".
Can't climb to heaven on the cross
One liar's promise drained the blood from my heart
Came a message in the dark
Offered the hand of a disembodied man while I still had a chance
But now it's gone
Gone and I am who I am
Who I was I will never be again
Running out of sand
I stare at my reflection to the bone
Blurred eyes look back at me, full of blame and sympathy
So, so close
Right roads not taken, future's forsaken
Dropped like a fossil or stone
Now it's gone, gone
And I am who I am
Who I was that will never come again
Running out of sand, oh
Oh-oh-oh
Audrey and Charlie are observed entering the club and crossing to the bar.
Oh A drunk octopus wants to fight
Fearful of dreams, there'll be no sleep tonight
CHARLIE: Two martinis!
Fine at dinner, dead by dessert
Victim or witness, we're gonna get hurt
Fragile existence with echoes of worth
I can't stop the bleeding
CHARLIE: Two martinis.
Nor the tears from thine eyes
There's another us somewhere, with much better lives
With God as our witness, but He won't testify
Oh, now it's gone, gone
And I am who I am
Who I could have been, I will never have the chance
Running out of sand
Running out of sand
Running out of sand
CHARLIE (to a man who absents his seat so Charlie can sit next to Audrey at the bar): Thank you. (Toasting.)
Here's to us, Audrey.
AUDREY: Here's to Billy. (Audrey drinks. Charlie does not.)
EMCEE: Ladies and gentlemen, Audrey's dance.
The emcee gestures to Audrey. She looks at Charlie in surprise. The floor clears as the band starts and spotlights come up on the floor. Hypnotized by the music, Audrey rises and moves onto the floor. She dances.
There is a commotion as a man yells, Monique! That's my wife, asshole! and crosses the dance floor. He shatters a glass on the man's head. Audrey, who has continually chided Charlie for his failures as a husband, and her love for Billy, runs to Charlie and pleads...
AUDREY: Get me out of here!
Jump to a close-up over Audrey's right shoulder of her startled, seeing her reflection in a mirror in a bright white room.
AUDREY (as if uncomprehending, surprised by her reflection, where she is): What? What? Wh...at?
AUDREY HORNE
A WOMAN BRUTALIZED BY HER BRUSHING UP AGAINST COOPER'S LIFE
Audrey Horne entered the Twin Peaks universe as a well-fitted sweater that was just snug enough, a girlish plaid skirt, and, wealthily descending from a chauffeured sedan, a fun pair of fake saddle shoes that were replaced by bold red heels once she was out of sight of family and family employees. Despite all that money, she wasn't popular. She had no close friends. She was removed from others, presented as even self-centered. As one who wasn't going to be much surprised by the shadow side of life, while everyone else was crying over Laura's death, she looked on askance, suspect of sentimentality and wise that there was more to the story than met the eye. She further cultivated distance with pranks, gleefully abusing innocent employees of her father's hotel, and running off potential clients. We soon accepted her as being this way due her being a largely ignored child of a dysfunctional family. Her father was alienated from them all--from his wife, from Audrey, and a son who was mentally atypical and disruptive. Audrey's mother was largely preoccupied and upset by that son and thus alienated from Audrey. All in all, Audrey was a good girl who expressed her independence, her defiance, and her resentment of her father's removal from the family by pulling impish stunts that affected him directly and indirectly. She was thus also perceived as irresponsible.
Quickly, however, the irresponsible and disruptive Audrey was reformed by the arrival of Agent Cooper, who captivated her sharp intelligence not simply because he was FBI but because he was intelligent and unusual and a person of high moral character. She was already not interested in high school classmates who she would see as immature. Seeking Cooper's approval, her knowledge of the shadow side inclined her to be a natural Nancy Drew, teenage detective, if an emotionally needy one who would one day surprise Cooper by appearing nude in his bed. He recognized what she actually wanted was someone who would listen to her, and offered to be her friend. The set-up was that he might have and could have become sexually involved with her. He was attracted to her, but for him to have become involved with Audrey would also have been a bad faith move of the writers against his fundamental character. Cooper had boundaries, unlike many of the men in the town of Twin Peaks. Cooper wasn't going to transgress the boundaries. One of the problems in Twin Peaks was how all these teenage girls were being used and abused by older men, and Lynch didn't bring Cooper to town to do that. Cooper was in town to investigate Laura's murder. He could be tempted by Audrey, it was even essential that he be tempted, because he had to be the adult who didn't break boundaries, who recognized what Audrey instead needed, and gently let her down while giving her an ear. For the audience, as well, he had to be tempted in order to turn Audrey down and establish or reassert for the viewers what was acceptable sexual behavior between adults and teenagers. Audrey, herself, was only marginally clear on what was acceptable because of her youth and what she knew of the shadow culture of Twin Peaks. The only reason she was in Cooper's bed was because he came in from outside and was the good, intelligent, and highly unusual guy who she already knew wasn't going to abuse her.
Audrey, initially inspired by Cooper, first became a Nancy Drew, but moreover desired to mature and accept responsibility. For her, this meant showing herself as a serious heir to her father's business, and then also becoming a community-minded person interested in conserving the environment, another way of behaving responsibly, even if this meant putting her at odds with her father. Still, she was also Audrey. And activist Audrey appeared at the bank and dramatically handcuffed herself to the vault door because she desired to save Ghostwood Forest and the bank was being used as an avenue for its destruction. By happenstance, she is there when a concealed bomb is triggered and explodes.
There are two critical explosions in Twin Peaks--the one at the bank, and Trinity.
Though events transpired over a matter of weeks in the initial world of Twin Peaks, these were related over the space of two years on television, and real time and real life was permitted to interfere somewhat with the fiction. Audrey changed in a way that was consistent with years rather than weeks. During the second season she was treated more as an older teen, someone not even in high school any longer. The show couldn't change her age, which was 18, and that she had been a senior, but with the action spanning two seasons it began distancing her significantly from Audrey as the high school girl, transforming her into a young adult. Rather than having a relationship with an individual around her own fictitious age, she eventually had a romance with a young adventurer-businessman who was approximately the actress' real life age but by the show's rationale was enough Audrey's elder for it to be problematic if she was still in high school, and the show's timeline had her still in high school. Over the space of two years, actors and audience having aged, the script treated Audrey as older, perhaps even within range of eventually entering a romantic relationship with Cooper, if that was wanted. But was it desirable for the show? As an enticement for viewers during the second season, it was. Was it good for the show as a whole? Would it fit with the characters and their trajectories? No.
When the first two seasons of Twin Peaks ended, as far as concerns Audrey, what the audience was left with was fear for what had happened to her. Had she been killed? Had she survived the blast? One suspected she was likely not dead, but as the blast was a dramatic one there was the chance she was. If she wasn't dead? With Cooper's doppelganger having taken the place of Cooper, there was no reason to speculate on any future events. The shadow had taken the upper hand, which meant anything was possible.
Twenty-five years later, when Twin Peaks: The Return happens, the audience is kept in the dark about Audrey, but her resurrection was hotly anticipated and it was wondered by many whether or not a romantic relationship with Cooper would finally be realized. Never mind Frost's books on Twin Peaks, the "film" should stand on its own. What it initially revealed was that Audrey had survived and been visited by Cooper's doppelganger at the hospital. A new member of the Horne family named Richard was introduced. The audience was left to rightly guess that as a result of this visit she'd had a son, Richard, an extremely troubled and violent individual. Who was his father? What of nature versus nurture? We could only suppose, however, that Audrey was Richard's mother, because after the revelation of Mr. C's visit to her hospital room, despite Richard being the focus of a hot portion of story line, Audrey was never mentioned. The script was conspicuously silent on her and would remain so. All we were eventually allowed to know, revealed in Part 15, was that Richard was her son and that he had seen a photo of Cooper that she had kept. Other than that bit of information, not even Richard would speak of his mother. Audrey's parents didn't speak of her. Ben didn't mention a word about Audrey when Sheriff Truman came to tell him about Richard having run over a child, and neither did Sheriff Truman say anything about Audrey. She was studiously avoided in a way that isn't accounted for with Frost's history of her being alienated from her father and raising Richard on her own while she ran a beauty parlor. She was absent in a way that isn't accounted for by the story that is revealed, in Frost's book, that gives her as, in about 2000, abruptly marrying her accountant, not for love but as part of some financial agreement, and four years before the present having been perhaps hospitalized for emotional problems, but no one is certain if this is so, it's only rumored.
No one remembers the bright, young Audrey, not even as the individual who mothered wrong Richard.
Who is, then, the embittered, hostile Audrey Horne that we are presented with in The Return, who lives in a distant past resembling post WWII America, is married to an unresponsive accountant, and yet also exists in the 2010s and is not only having an affair with a man named Billy but demands that her husband be concerned about the missing Billy and help look for him? The audience, knowing Audrey to be a dynamic, smart person, has expected her to become a "someone"", to have done something special. At the beginning of the new season, some believed she came to realize that Cooper had been imprisoned in the Red Room, and spent her life seeking a way to free him. Before it was revealed that the New York building belonged to DoppelCoop, there was speculation that it might belong to Audrey and that she had dedicated millions in research to bringing Cooper back, such were the expectations of the audience for intrepid Audrey. This is the kind of enterprising Audrey that the first two seasons had given the audience, up to the time of the bomb blast. What had happened since then, since the rape while she was in a coma? Did she believe that Jack, her romantic interest in season two, whom she did indeed love, was Richard's father? Audrey would likely have been told Cooper had been seen in her hospital room, but she had no reason to be aware she had been raped--unless, like Diane, she had been taken to the underworld by Doppelcoop. If Diane was imprisoned by DoppleCoop and replaced by a tulpa, did Audrey suffer the same fate? Which still doesn't explain why no one mentions her other than Richard when he says he'd seen a picture she'd kept of Cooper, and the doctor relating that Cooper had visited her at the hospital before disappearing.
The script teases and scolds Audrey that she is having a college level existential crisis as she begins to question herself and her surroundings, what is going on around her, why does she feel like she's caught in Ghostwood. The book would have us understand this is a woman whose promising life was thrown off track by not only the catastrophe of the bomb, but the difficulties of raising Richard on her own then entering a loveless marriage she resented--but the show reveals she is in an unreal world. Charlie doesn't carry on any sort of typical dialogue with Audrey. He circumvents her. He creates circular situations with her. He complains about how weary he is, that he just can't go out. Audrey is also trapped, unable to get out the door. There is nothing modern about their situation. No modern television, modes of communication, computer, furnishings, clothing. We may feel Audrey is prisoner in a post WWII "No Exit" world. And yet they do appear to exit and enter the present when they finally make their way to the club in search of Billy. However, at the club, Audrey is unexpectedly called up to dance to her song, and the floor clears for her to perform. This is a situation every bit as improbable and unrealistic as her 1940s home life. Immediately hypnotized by the music, she dances. Perhaps she is returned to a few dreamy moments experienced years before in Norma's diner when she was excited by simply knowing that Cooper enjoyed black coffee. Then a fight begins. Audrey has experienced significant trauma in her life. If there's anything she doesn't want to be around, it's violence, the unpredictability of it. She flees to Charlie, though she abhors him, and begs him to get her out of there, at which point she transitions and wakes, surrounded by white light, to gazing at her reflection in a mirror. Though the book leads us to believe she may be hospitalized for emotional issues, this is no real situation either.
Yet...it is more real than the roadhouse. More real than her 1940s home.
I felt, especially at the beginning of The Return that there was a strong thread concerning harsh judgment and infidelity, which would make sense of Senorita Dido's appearance in the Jupiterean realm, if we accept her as representing the version of Dido's myth in which she was an icon of fidelity, true to her husband even after his murder, but then she falls in love with Aeneas and the gods step in and interfere with that love so he may continue with his journey. Dido, yes, is grief-stricken, enraged, but she is also filled then with self-judgment for infidelity to her dead husband. If she had remained true to him, none of this would have happened.
The why of Dido's killing herself, as the gods aid destiny in carrying Aeneas away, changes based on the telling. What seems most significant to me is Dido's representation of fidelity in the case of both her husband, and what happens with Aeneas, for Senorita Dido, even if there is no intention of it, has always struck a chord with me concerning Audrey. As does Rebekah Del Rio singing "No Stars," at the end of Part Ten, dressed in her Red Room zigzag floor dress.
At the beginning of the analysis, I paid a good deal of attention to how individuals (apart from Chantal and Hutch) who came into Mr. C's sphere were treated when they were also unfaithful to a spouse or partner, and a reason I paid attention to this is because of Windom Earle's hatred for Cooper, which was in part due to Cooper having fallen in love with Earle's wife. Earle fostered the love affair, then killed his wife and nearly killed Cooper. Later, he returns and kidnaps Annie, Cooper's girlfriend, into the Red Room, knowing Cooper would follow and hoping to destroy him. Earle was instead consumed by BOB and, as BOB was "with" Mr. C, I reasoned part of that spirit of revenge, for judgment on people unfaithful to partners, was there as well, and that this could be seen in the deaths of Phyllis, of Darya, of Ruth, perhaps even in the deaths of Tracy and Sam, they having betrayed Sam's boss, Mr. C., by Tracy being permitted entry into a forbidden area.
Audrey supposedly has been unfaithful to her accountant husband with a man named Billy. But what does her husband say when she accuses him of not being interested in finding a person who is purportedly missing, never mind the affair? Charlie responds, "I want to find Billy, same as you." If we were Gordon, we might hear, instead of "...Billy, same...", Billy Zane, the actor who played Audrey's love in season two, the first person with whom she'd made love before he flew off to South America.
Audrey may have been first in love with Cooper, and Cooper had been attracted to her, but he didn't act on it as it wasn't appropriate and would have harmed them both. Audrey subsequently fell in love with another, but her initial attraction was to Cooper as not just a love interest but a person who had inspired her and given her a greater vision for life and what she could be. Mr. C's purpose was to destroy what was precious to Cooper, and Audrey was an immediate target, less because of any feeling Cooper had for her than what Audrey's feelings had been for him and his positive influence on her. As the audience had been hoping, despite the disparities in age and power, that Audrey and Cooper would get together, however much harm it would have done to them and the story, Mr. C's rape of her can be looked at as a peculiar kind of wish fulfillment that illustrates just what a bad idea this would have been. So, those are two reasons for Mr. C's rape of a young woman who had shared an emotional attachment with Cooper. But there are possibly two others. As it turns out, the Great Northern will be key, literally, in Cooper's gaining access to the past, and Judy, and who presides over the Great Northern but Audrey's father. i may be extrapolating wildly, but if Mr. C began immediately laying plans for the future, then his rape of Audrey may have been also, and even foremost, a means of getting Audrey out of the way, and having a son by her that perhaps is destroyed on the mount because he bears his DNA. Richard was born to become a test subject. Mr. C even believes Richard might know about the "place".
In respect of the emphasis on infidelity, it's odd that Audrey's storyline in The Return has been one concerned with her conversation occupied with her loving another, a missing man, and hating her husband, but all of that dialogue carried out in an impossible situation, for what this means is that much of the conversation feels inauthentic. There is something wrong with it.
A by-the-numbers accountant shows up when Chantal overdoes her "double header" in Las Vegas and begins treating Hutch shabbily over their not having any more snacks. The accountant accuses them of blocking his driveway, then when Chantal goes overboard and shoots at him he kills both Chantal and Hutch.
Audrey relentlessly harangues her "husband" over her affair, but when confronted with a man assaulting another over an affair with "Monique", unable to be around such violence, she begs her by-the-numbers accountant husband to get her out of there, and next she knows it's as if she's woken up in an alien space, gazing in surprise at her reflection, by which she remains transfixed rather than looking around at her environment.
An accountant had ended the story of Chantal and Hutch. At one point, Charlie says to Audrey, "Now, are you gonna stop playing games or do I have to end your story, too?" This appears to happen. When she begs him to get her out of there, her story is ended with her being zapped into a confrontation with a mirror.
In a sense, Audrey's awakening to herself in the mirror is a circular antithesis to the opening of Twin Peaks when Josie gazes at herself in the mirror as Pete says goodbye to his unfaithful wife, Catherine, goes out to fish, and finds instead Laura Palmer.
And it seems appropriate that, just as Part Sixteen began with Richard expiring in an obliteration of electric sparks, it should end with his mother jumping, as if electrically, from one situation to another, seeing herself if in a mirror as if for the first time in a very long while, the sterile white of her surroundings suggesting that she has returned to a state of innocence, everything has been wiped away, perhaps coincident with Richard's death and Cooper-Dougie sticking a fork in an outlet and shocking himself into a coma that integrates and wakens him.
By innocence, I mean the feeling is that we have been returned to the authentic Audrey. I don't mean the person she was before the trauma she's suffered, but a falseness that moved in afterward, much as with Diane's tulpa and Diane awakening to the idea, "I'm not me". Diane's tulpa, if it wasn't supernatural, if it wasn't conjured by Mr. C, could be read as a fracturing of self, by trauma, to which she eventually awakens and just how profoundly she had been affected so that her trauma manipulated every aspect of her life thereafter.
But what is left for Audrey upon her awakening? What justice? None is possible and no happy ending. She has lived her life not as herself. She was sidelined. Whether it was Jack or Cooper she loved doesn't matter, probably both, and as with Dido the fates intervened in order that these loves would continue on their journeys. I can't rid myself of the feeling that in Senorita Dido we see Audrey briefly holding in her hands, in the golden sphere, the cause of all her problems, the woman who brings Cooper to her, and who steals Cooper away, and that she knows this as she briefly clasps that golden sphere, kisses it, then releases it into the world.
We would do well to remember this from T. S. Eliot's 4 Quarters that was on Audrey's shelf.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
I'll have more to write on the problem of Audrey in Part 18.
Approx 11,300 words or 23 single-spaced pages. A 87 minute read at 130 wpm.
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