Friday, June 2, 2017

Some Early Theories on Twin Peaks: The Return


The following is some quick ideas I developed during a recent re-watch of the new Twin Peaks (Parts 1, 2 and some of 3). I am well aware that all of what I've written here could be proven wrong in just a matter of days, but I wanted to put my thoughts down and maybe get a few reactions.


In Part 2 of the new Twin Peaks, The Arm says to Cooper: “253” and “time and time again.” Can we assume 253 is a time, as in 2:53? Quite possibly. In Part 3, Cooper encounters American Girl in the otherworldly room of the “socket portal.” There, when her watch turns exactly to 2:53, a lamp illuminates on a table next to Cooper, indicating, it would seem, that Cooper’s portal is now accessible.  And, indeed, he does travel through the portal and exchange places with Dougie.

But what does “time and time again” mean?

Earlier in Part 2, Cooper encounters the One Armed Man who says, “It is future or is it past?” Cooper then sees Laura and experiences some visions. Then he abruptly finds himself back with the One Armed Man who again asks, “Is it future or is it past?”

Is Cooper caught in a time loop? Does he attempt to leave the Red Room over and over again, only to be shunted off to the “socket room” where he experiences 2:53 “time and time again?” This repetitive experience might be illustrated by what happens to Cooper when he appears in the glass box in New York. He seems to undergo a shuffling of sorts, his image shrinking and growing along a vanishing point within the box. Are these shuffled appearances of Cooper “echoes” of earlier visits to the box? Has he already been there many times before, always to end up in the socket room?


Could it also be that the evil Cooper, or another force, is continually re-routing Cooper to alternate—manufactured—realities (like Dougie’s) to prevent him from exchanging places with the evil Cooper? (After all, hitmen are poised to take out Dougie just after Cooper arrives.)

These are just idle speculations, ideas that seem to fit with what little information we have in the first four hours of the new Twin Peaks. Still, it’s an intriguing scenario: that Cooper has been many times tricked into a manufactured world. (Note that he is referred to as a “dream weaver” by Janey-E (Naomi Watts)). If he is killed there, the Evil Cooper remains at large.

But time-loops within the Red Room continually allow Cooper the opportunity to get it right: To exchange places with his doppelganger either by jumping through the curtains just as the Evil Cooper drives by, or by refusing to exit through the electric portal when urged by the American Girl. What if Cooper’s proper exit from the socket room is through the barred metal door? What if the banging he hears on the other side is not a threat but a warning—an attempt to stop Cooper from leaving via the socket?


It’s all hard to say, of course. The Dougie scenario so far seems to promise much more for Cooper than a simple parallel existence. And right now, after Part 4, Cooper might be slowly “awakening.” There is evidence that implies he remembers being shot or stabbed (note how he looks at his stomach when the boy, Sonny Jim, appears in the hallway).

So who knows? I’ve always liked parsing Twin Peaks and I’m happy to be doing so again.  The new show is rich with possibility and it allows for many curious ways to connect the narrative dots we’ve been given so far. 

9 comments:

  1. Love hearing your theories. Makes the Twin Peaks experience even better. I cannot wait for part 5 tomorrow. I'm hoping that the woman that Gordon and Albert talk to is either Diane or Audrey. Twin Peaks is off to an amazing start and we shall see where Lynch takes us #MrJackpots 👍

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  2. Interesting thoughts, but I think it overlooks the significance of the "I'll see you again in 25 years" element. We see Laura say that and now, 25 years later (ostensibly) we see her tell Coop, "You can go out now", implying that he had to wait the 25 years. These are part of the Lodge "rules" that are becoming more clear to us in this new series (i.e. "He must come back in before you go out) IMO.

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  3. I agree that we my theories don't account for all that we've seen so far in the series. But I'm suspicious of how time passes in the Red Room. It is elastic and possible even "all times at once." The comments "Is it future or is it past?" and "time and time again" lead me to believe something non-linear is going on. Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it, and I'm sure we will have more data to digest soon!

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    1. Re: Time in the Red Room. Yes, I think that time dilates and contracts there e.g. I always interpreted the scene where Cooper's coffee changes viscosity as being a way of depicting the freezing and dilation of time.

      I suppose there would be other more conventional way of achieving this effect e.g. slow motion, but I figure that Lynch may have found it a bit pedestrian to use that technique to that effect.

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    2. Well, it does not even dilate and expand. It overlaps and coexists. In FWWM Laura writes a warning from Annie at the end of the original series run into her diary before she was killed. Cooper spends 25 years there without being aware of it. He sees himself as the old man. It is a realm out of time, where all time coincides.

      Which makes the 25 years even more odd... Is it the repetition interval of the constellation (a supposed alignment of stars mentioned in the series) that allowed Coop to enter in the first place?

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  4. Time - and time again...that we are in a universe of multiple timelines. So Cooper has re-entered our world at 2.53 but it could be in any year. Past, present and futures all interconnect via the rooms.

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  5. Can someone clear something up for me? When Hawk finds the diary pages in the bathroom, I am very confused as to what pages he found. The way I remember it is that Laura had her diary at home and then Leland finds it. Then she had a second diary that Harold Smith talked her into and he kept. So which diary are these pages from? Thanks for your help.

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    1. These must be from her home diary. We see her writing the message in the FWWM movie. And the backstory of their reappearance is that Leland must have had them on his person and hid them while having a toilet outing because he thought he might be searched. So, these pages never passed on to Harold.

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  6. Will you be writing any more on The Return now that the season has finished? Would love to hear your thoughts on it. I am a first time Twin Peaks fan and am utterly bewildered by the whole thing. :)

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