The finale to Twin Peaks: The Return offers wild resolutions and brain melting mysteries that will endure until the end of time. It’s a genius ending to a true masterpiece by David Lynch and Mark Frost.

By Stewart Gardiner // Two roads diverged in the woods around Twin Peaks: The Return. David Lynch and Mark Frost invited the faithful to travel both over the course of the two part finale. It was an experience unlike any other. The old Peaks phrase “wonderful and strange” doesn’t even begin to do it justice.

I Am Dead Yet I Live

Part 17 wraps up major storylines and provides as much closure as one could reasonably expect from Lynch and Frost. Yet the episode also introduces fresh elements of mystery. I loved the shift in pace, focus, and tone of the final hour, which is neverthess intimately linked to the rest of The Return. Part 18 concerns Cooper’s mission. But the premiere laid out the foundations of his mission. Not only Cooper’s interaction with the Fireman in the White Lodge, but his scenes within the Red Room, particularly with Laura Palmer.

“You can… go out… now,” Laura Palmer told him back then. Cooper questions whether it is really her because, as he says, Laura is dead. “I … am dead… yet I live,” she replies, before removing her face. Cooper asks another question of her:

“When can I go?”

Laura leans in to kiss him and smiles that smile. Then she whispers something in his ear; something he can hardly comprehend.

The Red Room pulls Laura away screaming into nothingness. A wind blows the drapes away and a white horse appears. Cooper is then back sitting with Mike. When is this taking place? From an audience point of view it is only safe to say that it occurs during the premiere.

Over Time It’s Become Judy

Is it future or is it past? Agent Cooper expresses his belief that the past dictates the future, which it of course does. Yet the implication is that if the past can be changed then the future will be altered. The past should remain history, and be learned from, but humankind only has agency over the present. Lodge logic does not make space for the present; there is no in between simply to be lived. Cooper might truly be considered a Lodge denizen now.

The finale begins with a secret history lesson from Gordon Cole. It’s a secret he has kept even from Albert for 25 years. Bluer than Blue Rose then. Before Major Briggs disappeared, he shared “his discovery of an entity” with Gordon and Cooper:

“An extreme negative force called in olden times Jow Dae. Over time it’s become Judy. Major Briggs, Cooper, and I put together a plan that could lead us to Judy.”

A plan was conceived, but then “something happened” to Major Briggs and Cooper. Phillip Jeffries, who Gordon knows doesn’t exist in “the normal sense” anymore, told him “a long time ago he was on to this entity. And he disappeared.” So Gordon had heard about Judy from Jeffries and then Briggs presumably uncovered further information that he shared with Gordon.

But Like the Song Goes

I could not help but consider the entity credited as Experiment when I first heard about Judy in this context. She appeared in the glass box in the premiere and was seen apparently giving birth to Bob in part 8. Could the glass box be another attempt to find Judy? It would appear not to be linked to the Blue Rose task force. I think Gordon would have brought that up, at least at this point.

Cooper told Gordon that if he disappeared “like the others do everything you can to find me. I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone.” It’s difficult to piece together a chronology for this. The others that disappeared before Cooper were Phillip Jeffries and Agent Chet Desmond. Gordon does not mention Desmond here. Cooper went into the Lodge before Major Briggs disappeared and it was Mr C that was left in his place. Gordon doesn’t yet know the true meaning of “this thing of two Coopers,” but he intuited that Mr C was not the real Cooper and in fact says that they “should have heard by now from our dear Dale Cooper.” Therefore, a new assumption could be made: that Cooper communicated with Gordon after Briggs disappeared. “But like the song goes, ‘who knows where, or when?’”

Plan Unfolding

Cooper’s actions at the midway point of the finale, that is at the end of part 17, may well have already disrupted the timeline. This would also explain the various timeline discrepancies throughout The Return. Furthermore, the Red Room scenes from the premiere and those from the finale do differ, but are also interchangeable. Extradimensional time within the Lodge runs differently than time in the so-called real world. Neither is there anything concrete to indicate that the scenes in the premiere precede those in the finale, except the episodic order presented to the audience. Even if they do occur in the order shown, the nature of future past within that space renders the distinction immaterial.

Later in the finale, Cooper’s relationship with Diane, and the fact that she also knows the plan, calls the established timeline into question once more. Kurt Vonnegut famously used the notion of an individual coming ‘unstuck in time’ in his classic novel Slaughterhouse 5. Twin Peaks shows that time has become unstuck for multiple individuals huddled around the nexus point of Judy.

Gordon doesn’t “know at all if this plan is unfolding properly.” But he does learn that Dougie Jones is in fact Cooper. Bushnell reads him Cooper’s note over the phone:

“I am headed for Sheriff Truman. It is 2:53 in Las Vegas and that adds up to a 10, the number of completion.”

History lesson over. Gordon, Albert, and Tammy are going to the town of Twin Peaks.

His Binoculars Killed Somebody

The Horne family gets a single scene in the finale and it isn’t with Audrey. Ben gets a call from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jerry has been found. I suggested last week that the ersatz co-ordinates fed to Mr C must have been close to Twin Peaks. Well, obviously not that close! Ben was more surprised than I was. He was less surprised to learn that Jerry was found sans clothes, raving about the homicidal actions of his binoculars.

That potentially game changing scene with Audrey looking in a mirror in a white room at the end of part 16 isn’t even mentioned. That’s an incredibly audacious move on the part of Lynch and Frost. It’s going to be up there with the prologue of Fire Walk With Me as a source of theorizing, discussion, and consternation for years and years and years. Audrey in the white room is an evocative mystery that also seems to relate to disruptions throughout The Return. Clues have been scattered throughout. What a viewer subsequently does with those clues is up to them.

David Lynch sure knows how to keep mystery alive.

At a Theater Near You in Extradimensional Space

Mr C uses the real co-ordinates and reaches the spot in the woods near Jack Rabbit’s Palace. However, it is notable that Major Briggs left Bobby and the others instructions regarding time as well as place. Which is why they discovered Naido and Mr C finds nothing except the sycamore tree, golden pool, and electrically charged smoke. The vortex once again opens and Mr C is snapped away.

Cut to the White Lodge theater. Major Briggs’s giant head floats serenely on one side with Mr C’s caged face on the other. The theater screen shows the Palmer house until the Fireman gestures and it changes to outside of the Twin Peaks sheriff’s station. Mr C has been looking for these co-ordinates, which were linked to the bulbous, corrupted owl symbol that looked like Experiment’s head. It would be reasonable enough to assume that Mr C’s end goal is to find Experiment. Or indeed Judy.

Intended Destination

I don’t necessarily think that Experiment and Judy are one and the same, yet they are surely linked. Does the screen in the White Lodge visually express an individual’s purpose? If Mr C wants to find Judy then would he find her at the Palmer house? Is the purpose of the co-ordinates to locate a doorway to the White Lodge, where knowledge of Judy’s whereabouts may be learned?

He is however the wrong Cooper. The real Agent Cooper has to go to the Palmer house or, rather, he will go to the Palmer house. The White Lodge scene at the beginning of the premiere sets out his mission in cryptic terms after all.

Perhaps it is not quite time for Cooper (in any form) to see his intended destination. This part of him must first be returned to the whole.

Mr C is sent back to the earthly realm. He finds himself standing out side the sheriff’s station. “What is this?” he asks out loud.

Very Important, Very Important

The finale goes into high tension mode with Andy meeting Mr C in the parking lot. Andy is, on the surface, delighted that the long lost Agent Cooper has returned. Yet he smiles too much, in that beautifully creepy David Lynch way (think of the old couple in Mulholland Drive; don’t if you want to get to sleep any time soon). Andy’s demeanor hides a White Lodge purpose, which he carries out to the letter. His vision is coming into play, although the scenes with Lucy are not exactly as they were.

Mr C sits down in Sheriff Truman’s office and refuses a cup of coffee (that’s a serious tell-tale sign right there). Frank’s stoic nature is a perfect match for Mr C’s detached evil. “Cooper. Cooper,” says Frank. Which is of course two Coopers. Doubling abounds with Andy telling Lucy: “Very important. Very important.”

Mr C and Truman exchange the minimal of words; it is nevertheless a psychological battlefield. Two people sitting in an office has rarely, if ever, been this tense. Then the real Agent Cooper calls and even Frank can’t keep something from showing on his face. Guns are drawn and – boom! – Lucy shoots Mr C. Go Lucy!

And relax. Who am I kidding, right?

The Bad Man in the Planet

“I think this one’s dead,” Truman tells Cooper on the phone. Cooper warns him to stay away from the body. Andy brings the group from the cells into the office (except Chad, who escaped, then got smacked down by Freddie and his mighty green glove). Hawk walks in and everyone is there. Almost.

The room goes dark. Woodsmen appear, accompanied by the slowed down Beethoven. They get to work on Mr C. Cooper runs in, followed by the Mitchums and girls in pink. A black orb like a planet rises out of Mr C’s body. Is there a man in the planet, like in Eraserhead? Of course there is. Bob’s face manifests inside. The Bob orb attacks Cooper, knocking him to the ground. Freddie steps forward. “Are you Freddie?” asks Cooper. He definitely has some insider info.

Bob attacks Freddie, brutalizing his face. The effect is similar, if considerably less powerful, to Experiment attacking Sam and Tracey (remember them?). Even without a host, Bob is however powerful enough and it’s looking bad for Freddie. Except he then fights back, punching the Bob orb through the floor. Fire bursts forth, but then the orb rises out once more. It appears as lava rock now and darts at Freddie, viciously attacking him. Freddie punches back, one last time, and breaks the orb into shards. Ding dong, Bob is gone. Which old Bob? The bad old Bob.

Cooper puts the Owl Cave ring on Mr C, who then disappears. The ring falls on the Red Room floor. Mr C is gone.

Resolution, resolution, re- Wait, just hold fire there.

Superimposed

Cooper asks Frank for the key to room 315 of the Great Northern. How does he even know about it? “Major Briggs told me Sheriff Truman would have it.” Okay. Cooper sees Naido and recognizes her from the Purple Room. He looks at her. Really looks at her and his face in close-up is superimposed over all. It fades slightly but then stabilizes and remains there, a ghost parasite on the scene. The convenience store notably acted as parasite upon Phillips Jeffries’s return in Fire Walk With Me, destabilizing Jeffries’s narrative while also representing his narrative.

In that Fire Walk With Me sequence Cooper is doubled on camera. An image of himself remains on screen as he walks back into Gordon Cole’s office. He was worried about a dream he had had, pertaining to this doubling effect one may assume.

Back with the finale, Bobby turns up and is obviously rather perplexed. Cooper tells him that his “father was well aware of what’s going on here today.” Cooper continues, explaining that Major Briggs brought information to him and Gordon Cole many years ago. As if on cue, Gordon arrives. Their exchange of “Gordon” and “Coop” is a beautiful thing.

Cooper addresses the room:

“And that’s what’s brought us to where we are today. Now, there are some things that will change.”

He looks at Hawk. Hawk nods in that subtle way of his. Cooper continues.

“The past dictates the future.”

Do You Remember Everything?

Cooper watches as Naido’s face opens like Sarah and Laura, although she doesn’t lift it away and inside is the Red Room. It then peels open like a rotten flesh egg that proceeds to float above the floor of the Red Room. Diane’s face appears within, hair as red as the Room. And just like that, Diane stands before Cooper in the office.

Diane and Cooper kiss.

“Cooper,” she says. “The one and only.” “Diane.”

Interesting to note that here they accept each other to be who they are in a non-questioning manner. Later in the finale, after Cooper leaves the Lodge via Glastonbury Grove, they are not so trusting. Seems strange that those questions don’t occur here. Or, to put it another way, it’s stranger that after establishing they were the good versions of themselves at the sheriff’s office, why would they be unsure later?

Unless, the other them they refer to are Richard and Linda. What if Cooper exiting the Lodge via Glastonbury Grove occurs after the final scene of the finale? That hurts my head even trying to think about it.

“Do you remember everything?” asks Cooper. “Yes,” says Diane.

What does she remember? The plan or everything that happened when they carried out the plan?

Diane looks at the clock. It is not quite 2:53. Looks like it will continue to be not quite 2:53, as the minute hand keeps jerking back and forth in Sisyphus-like fashion.

Curtain Call

“We live inside a dream,” says the still superimposed Cooper face in slowed down words. Words that Phillip Jeffries uttered back in Philadelphia.

The other Cooper (the one that is more than just a giant face) speaks clearly and openly to the friends around him:

“I hope I see all of you again. Every one of you.”

The room starts to go dark. “Gordon!” says Cooper, distressed. “Coop!” Here the finale again recalls that Fire Walk With Me sequence, in particular when Cooper first enters Gordon’s office; it’s in that simple exchange and how it is delivered. It’s a feeling.

All goes to black. The Cooper face is more clearly defined, then Cooper, Diane, and Gordon walk through the face and into the boiler room of the Great Northern. How did they travel there? I wonder whether back at the sheriff’s office it will be as if Cooper was never there, again recalling Phillip Jeffries and the Philly office.

Cooper uses the key on a door in the boiler room. He tells Diane and Gordon not to follow him, and hugs Diane. The sound that has been haunting the Great Northern is loudest here and is much louder behind the door.

“See you at the curtain call,” says Cooper, then steps through the door, into the black.

A curtain call at a theater show takes place after the fiction has ended, where the performers return to take a last bow. Later in the finale Cooper steps out of the Red Room, the drapes (or curtains) behind him. Diane is waiting for him. Perhaps this is where each of them has been able to step outside of the dream. Maybe, just maybe, that right there is the ending and it could therefore be considered a happy one.

The Bulbous Machine Man Behind the Curtain

Cooper walks out of the pitch black, as does Mike the One-Armed Man. Mike recites the talismanic poem that lies at the heart of darkness of Twin Peaks. He does not however talk in reverse speech.

“Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see. One chance out between two worlds, fire walk with me.”

Crackles of electricity light them up as they walk through the space that is both interior and woods. Out and up the stairs. A charge of electricity as what lies beyond the door is selected. The Jumping Man comes down the stairs, going in the opposite direction from them.

Cooper and Mike are back in the motel courtyard, but they gain access to Phillip Jeffries’s room by going round the back of things. This recalls Inland Empire and the blurring of behind the scenes set with multiple realities.

The Unofficial Version

Jeffries knows why they are there and gets straight to the point, albeit it in suitably cryptic fashion:

“Please be specific,” says Jeffries. “The date: February 23rd, 1989.”

The night Laura Palmer died.

“I’ll find it for you. It’s slippery in here. It’s good to see you again, Cooper. Say hello to Gordon if you see him. He’ll remember the unofficial version. This is where you’ll find Judy. There may be someone. Did you ask me this?”

Mike shakes his head, no. It was Cooper then.

Unpacking those words could take years. Even the order of them is suspect. Jeffries says that it is slippery in there. Cooper is about to try and alter the past, which will create another version. However, Jeffries’s mission has always been about Judy, even when he refused to talk about her. “There may be someone,” feels like a fragment of a sentence, expressed oddly. His mission concerns Judy, Cooper’s mission is primarily focused upon Laura Palmer. Is Laura another someone who Jeffries feels should not be part of these space-time-reality calculations? It is as if Cooper has imprinted his mission upon Jeffries’s.

The “unofficial version” may refer to the timeline being changed by dealing with Judy, so need not be in the wrong order. One does wonder what the official version is.

Jeffries maps out where and when they are going by means of the Owl Cave symbol, which he transforms into an infinity symbol. “There it is,” he says, “you can go in now.” Mike fires up the transportation by speaking the word “electricity.” But before Cooper leaves, Jeffries gives him advice by way of a demand:

“Cooper, remember.”

Remember what happened before? Remember who he is?

We’re Going Home

The finale goes into the past, with scenes from Fire Walk With Me rendered in black and white. Does the first shot in the past indicate Jeffries’s intended co-ordinates? Namely, the Palmer house, as Leland watches Laura leave with James? Cooper is not here. He materializes later, in the woods near Sparkwood and 21 where Laura and James are. Laura thinks she sees something in the woods and screams. Cooper gets further out of sight.

Laura goes into the woods after leaving James and instead of reaching Leo, Ronette, and Jacques, she finds the figure of Agent Cooper standing before her. Like some Lodge denizen.

“Who are you?” asks Laura. “Do I know you? Wait. I’ve seen you in a dream. In a dream.”

Again, the doubling.

Cooper reaches out his hand and Laura takes it. Lynch cuts to Laura wrapped in plastic, washed ashore. This iconic image is scrubbed out of existence before the audience’s eyes.

Back to Cooper and Laura. The black and white falls away to color.

“Where are we going?” asks Laura. “We’re going home,” says Cooper.

He leads her through the woods, towards the portal to the White Lodge. Cooper is not only stating the White Lodge as Laura’s home in this moment, but as his too it would seem.

Cut to Josie looking into the mirror from the very beginning of the Twin Peaks pilot. It’s a shot mirrored by Audrey in the white room at the end of part 16. Pete’s going fishing. This time he gets to go fishing.

Cooper has saved Laura Palmer! All is right and good with the world. Then Lynch cuts to the Palmer house; everything is wrong.

Disruption of Local Time

Does this take place in the present? The living room is empty. Anguished, animal-like cries are heard from out of frame. Sarah Palmer finally walks in, grabs Laura’s homecoming queen photo from the table. She gets down on the floor with it and smashes at it repeatedly. Moaning and smashing, smashing and moaning. The scene starts to loop, as it did with the boxing match Sarah had on previously, but more haphazardly. Sarah Palmer affects time in the local vicinity, but here she is more actively disrupting it. Cut to black.

Cooper is still leading Laura through the woods. He looks round at her, then back. Almost there. All goes quiet as the camera pushes in on Cooper. There’s that noise like an insect that the Fireman played for Cooper (listen to the sounds) in the White Lodge scene at the opening of The Return. Cooper looks round, hand outstretched. But Laura is gone. There’s that terrible flapping sound and Laura’s horrifying SCREAM.

The empty woods become red drapes and then Julee Cruise singing “The World Spins” in the Roadhouse. End of part 17. That’s the halfway point of the finale.

The Story of the Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane

Part 18 opens with two distinct points of narrative closure. The Red Room burns Mr C’s body. Mike creates a new Dougie Tulpa, who goes home to Janey-E and Sonny Jim. “Home,” says Dougie and Lynch chooses this life affirming moment to return to Cooper leading Laura through the woods.

Laura is once again snatched away from him. Here’s another instance of doubling in the finale. Is Lynch reinforcing the importance of what happened or is it literally happening again? This time at the end of the scene, Cooper turns around and he is back sitting in the Red Room. Across from Mike, as per the premiere. “Is it… future… or… is it… past?” asks Mike. Good question.

Mike once again takes Cooper to see the Evolution of the Arm, but the Lodge entity formerly known as the Little Man From Another Place tells him something different. This again suggests a multiplicity of versions of events taking place.

“Is… it… the story… of the… little… girl… who lived… down the lane?”

Lynch cuts to a close-up on Cooper’s face.

“Is it?” asks the Evolution of the Arm in an even more sinister manner than usual.

Audrey previously spoke these same words to Charlie. It was difficult to make sense of them then. In the finale they seem to speak of Laura Palmer. Cooper does indeed believe this to be her story and he needs to save her. Whereas other beings seem to be indicating that the main priority is Judy.

Is It Really You?

Laura once again whispers in Cooper’s ear. Unseen forces remove her in terrifying fashion. Leland again asks Cooper to find Laura. Cooper can concentrate on his mission now that Mr C is no more.

Cooper walks through the Red Room corridor with purpose, although the way he walks recalls Dougie to some extent. He raises his right arm and moves it in a way that causes the drapes to ripple in a certain spot. He goes through the drapes and is out at Glastonbury Grove. Diane is there waiting for him.

“Is it you? Is it really you?” she asks. “Yes. It’s really me, Diane.”

Diane laughs gently.

“Is it really you?” asks Cooper. “Yeah.”

Cooper smiles. The drapes behind him fade and disappear. It’s the curtain call. They’ve been Richard and Linda. Now they’re just Dale and Diane. Let’s stop there for the happy ever after ending.

But what about Laura? Maybe Cooper already found her and what follows is only the beginning of that long and arduous quest. Perhaps Laura cannot be found, as she died that night in February 1989 and although the past dictates the future, the past cannot be changed. By trying to save Laura, pulling her temporarily out of her own timeline, did Cooper inadvertently birth another world? A world into which he and Diane must go to fix his mistake? And if so what would fixing it even mean?

Just Think About It

Jump cut to Cooper driving a mid-century era car along a desert highway. Diane is in the passenger seat. It is day. Some time and distance has passed. “Sure you want to do this?” asks Diane. Cooper turns to her, says nothing, watches the road again. “You don’t know what it’s going to be like once we…” continues Diane.

“I know that. We’re at that point now. I can feel it. Look, almost exactly 430 miles.”

Cooper pulls over.

“Exactly 430 miles.”

“Remember… 430,” the Fireman told Cooper during the White Lodge opening of The Return. The finale brings 430 into play. Curious use of language by the Fireman. He tells Cooper to remember, as if it is something that he had already learned about. Or had he already experienced it?

Diane warns Cooper again. She knows the risks involved and needs to make sure that Cooper does too. That time he rushed into the Lodge didn’t do him any favors. “Just think about it, Cooper.”

Electricity 430

They are underneath monolithic electricity pylons. Could these pylons from the finale be the same pylons seen in the black and white transitions? Copper walks away from the car to investigate. He peers up at the pylon, hears the almost primal crackle of electricity; he can almost feel it. “This is the place all right,” he tells Diane upon returning to the car. “Kiss me. Once we cross it could all be different.” They kiss. “Let’s go,” says Diane, a simple variation on “Let’s rock!”

Cooper and Diane drive into it. Electricity flashes and crackles. Lynch cuts static shots between straight on and the sides. The effect is less forward momentum than the accumulation of parallel moments pressed together to form a path. Then it’s over and they’re driving down a night road, pushing into the night.

Motel Room

They pull up at a mid-century modern one storey motel. Diane stays in the car as Cooper goes to organize a room. She looks out of the window and sees herself standing near the office where Cooper is. Doubling abounds in the finale. Diane watches herself watch herself. The other her is gone when Cooper comes back.

They get a room together. Diane switches on the light, but Cooper tells her to turn it off.

“What do we do now?” asks Diane. “You come over here to me.”

She does.

“Diane,” he says.

They kiss, but it is mechanical, unlike earlier in the finale. Cooper isn’t himself, but although there is a coldness to him, he isn’t quite channeling Mr C. Mr C has presumably been reintegrated into Cooper though.

“When the twilight is gone and no song birds are singing,” goes The Platters song, which was playing at the radio station in 1956 when the Woodsmen attacked. Drones pierce the melodies, getting underneath the song’s skin. This concoction of sonic sweet and sour soundtracks the weirdly impersonal sex that Diane and Cooper have. It is utterly passionless and Cooper indeed looks more like Mr C during the act.

Diane roughly puts her hands over Cooper’s face, covering it up. She looks up instead of at him and starts to cry.

Both lack emotion. It is very much as if they are playing roles. They need to embody characters and act in particular ways to get to the next stage. Crossing over wasn’t enough. Some other things need to change and this appears to be the way to generate that change.

Dear Richard

The morning after. Cooper wakes up alone. Diane isn’t anywhere to be found. He finds a note instead:

“’Dear Richard,’” he reads. “Richard? ‘When you read this I’ll be gone. Please don’t try to find me. I don’t recognize you anymore. Whatever it was we had together is over. Linda.’ Richard? Linda?”

Once again the finale pulls back around to the premiere. The Fireman’s words are becoming actions. Or else the actions that preceded the words are being revealed.

“Remember… 430. Richard and… Linda. Two birds… with one stone.”

The Fireman asked Cooper to remember and Cooper replied that he understood. He doesn’t seem to understand at this particular point.

Cooper steps out the room and it is a different motel that he leaves. This one is a two storey. (Two stories occurring simultaneously through the finale?) His car is different too. It is a modern vehicle rather than mid-century model. I initially thought that they drove into the past, but when they walked into the motel I could see the side of the television. The motel room did not in fact change. The room stayed the same, but where it was altered.

Cooper drives off. A sign indicates that he is in Odessa, Texas. Now, my American geography may not be up to much, but I know Odessa is a lot more than 430 miles from Twin Peaks. It would appear that Cooper and Diane were not in Odessa the previous night, yet Cooper has woken up in Odessa.

Eat at Judy’s

Cooper drives past a diner and the sign catches his eye. It reads: “EAT AT JUDY’S.” Ever the intuitive detective, he parks and goes in.

Cooper sits in a booth and a waitress offers him coffee. He doesn’t say no, but neither does he do his excitable Dale Cooper damn fine coffee thing. “Is there another waitress that works here?” he asks her in a tone closer to Mr C. “Yeah. It’s her day off. Actually it’s her third day off.”

The gallant Cooper returns to the finale when the waitress is sexually harassed by cowboys. “Leave her alone,” he warns. Cooper’s sense of injustice is still intact. However, it seems he is still reintegrating elements of himself. The cowboys try to mess with him, but he efficiently takes them out, shooting one in the foot. He disposes of the cowboys’ guns in the fryer while getting the waitress to write down the address of the other waitress. It recalls Mr C asking for the co-ordinates. Mr C had Cooper’s memories before they were split. Does Cooper now have two sets of memories (two roads taken at the same time)? Regardless, Cooper is all about the mission.

“What the fuck just happened?” asks one of the cowboys after Cooper walks out the door. Indeed.

The Wrong House

Agent Cooper gains his co-ordinates in the finale. The number of the house is 1516. He pulls up outside. The electricity pole with the number 6 is right there and Cooper takes note. First seen at the Fat Trout Trailer Park outside Deer Meadow in Fire Walk With Me, it later showed up at the New Fat Trout Trailer Park in Twin Peaks. Andy’s White Lodge vision showed three separate shots of the electricity pole and I couldn’t work out where the third one was. Well, here it is. Cooper can hear the electricity. This is indeed the place.

He knocks on the door and an older Laura Palmer answers. Except she has a Southern accent and doesn’t know who Laura Palmer is. Cooper is more Cooper-like when he’s speaking to her.

“You got the wrong house, mister.” “You’re saying you’re not Laura Palmer?” “Laura who? No, I’m not her. Now…” “What’s your name?” “Carrie Page.” “Carrie Page?” “That’s right. Now I got to go, so…” “Wait. So the name Laura Palmer means nothing to you?” “Look, I don’t know what you want, but I’m not her.” “Your father’s name was Leland.” “Okay?” “Your mother’s name is Sarah.” “Sa- Sarah?” “Yes. Sarah.” “What’s going on?” “It’s difficult to explain. As strange as it sounds, I think you’re a girl named Laura Palmer. I want to take you to your mother’s home. Your home, at one time. This is very important.”

Cooper has found Laura Palmer but it is not Laura Palmer. She doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about and doesn’t react to anything he tells her, with the notable exception of the name Sarah Palmer. Things in the finale would seem to point back to Sarah.

The Horse is the White of the Eyes

Was this other place created by Cooper when he tried to save Laura? Did it always exist? Regardless, Cooper’s immediate plan is no longer to bring Laura home to the White Lodge. He is going to take her back to the Palmer house.

There is a dead man on Carrie Page’s couch, brains against the wall behind him, left arm still raised slightly. It’s reminiscent of the standing corpse in Blue Velvet. That explains why Carrie wants to get out of dodge. Even more important is the white horse ornament on her mantelpiece. Sarah Palmer regularly had visions of a white horse. The words of the Woodsman spoke of a white horse in 1956 and one was heard in the desert after he left. A white horse appeared in the premiere after Laura was taken from the Red Room.

Carrie thinks that riding with the FBI might just solve her problems. That she may have a cosmic awakening causing her unimaginable pain and suffering probably isn’t what she’s expecting. Enlightenment is far away. “It’s a ways away,” says Cooper of their impending journey to Twin Peaks.

They Drive By Night

The night drive at this point in the finale is drawn out and perfectly captures the mood. It’s a journey into mystery. I could get lost on those highways forever. Lynch understands the power of such extended cinematic moments that leave room to dream. The finale thus makes me think of Hitchcock’s Vertigo where Jimmy Stewart follows Kim Novak around San Francisco in his car; it creates a mood that never loses its sense of mystery.

Carrie wonders whether they are being followed. Headlights float in the rear window. Turns out they aren’t being followed, but it still feels like the entire forces of good and evil are following them to the end of the finale. That two spots of light can bring such tension is a marvel. There’s also an incredible shot when they stop at a gas station and the camera stays far back. It’s an oasis of light in the darkness.

Cooper drives over the bridge that Ronette crossed back at the start of Twin Peaks and passes the Double R. Twin Peaks is still there in this world, although the late night lifelessness suggests a place abandoned except by electricity.

“You recognize anything?” Cooper asks Carrie as they near the Palmer house. “No,” she replies. Nothing. He stops across the street from the Palmer house. The lights are all on. It’s bright up there. Cooper tries again. “You recognize that house.” “No.”

A Mrs Chalfont

Cooper takes Carrie by the hand and leads her up to the house. He knocks and a woman answers. It is not Sarah Palmer. Cooper asks if Sarah Palmer is there.

“Who?” “Sarah Palmer.” “No. There is no one here by that name.” “Do you know Sarah Palmer?” “No.” “Is this your house? Do you own this house or do you rent this house?” “Yes, we own this house.” “Who did you buy it from?”

The woman leans behind the door and consults with someone. She leans back in with an answer.

“Chalfont. A Mrs Chalfont.” “Do you happen to know who she bought it from?” “No, I don’t, but…”

She asks the person behind the door again.

“No.” “What is your name?” “Alice. Alice Tremond.” “Okay. Sorry to bother you so late at night.” “That’s okay.”

Already one of the greatest scenes ever as far as I’m concerned. It’s everything I want from a mystery and the way it links back to the prologue of Fire Walk With Me is mesmerizing.

Two Chalfonts

Agent Chet Desmond disappeared when he reached for the Owl Cave ring underneath an unidentified trailer. The lights inside the trailer feel otherwordly; there could be entire worlds in there. Cooper investigates Desmond’s disappearance and discovers an empty lot. He asks Carl Rodd about it:

“What was here, Mr Rodd?”

“A trailer was here, what the hell do you think?”

“Can you tell me whose trailer it was, and who stayed in it?”

“Uh, an old woman, and her grandson.”

“Can you tell me what their names were?”

“Chalfont. As a matter of fact, Chalfont was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?”

The old woman called Mrs Chalfont identifies herself to Donna in the series as Mrs Tremond. It is this Mrs Tremond or Mrs Chalfont that gives Laura the picture to hang on her wall. The picture shows a room with a door and roses on the walls. The Return revealed that the room can be accessed from the steps at the side of the convenience store. This is a gateway that functions like an extradimensional railway switch.

He Was Never Here

Back to the finale and Cooper and Carrie walk down the path from the house and across the road. Cooper turns towards the house. He looks lost; utterly lost. He was on a mission that has not only failed, but looks like it was never possible in the first place. He paces into the middle of the road, discombobulated, stooped over, thinking hard. Cooper manages a final question, trying to make any sense at all of his situation:

“What year is this?”

Carrie looks up at the house. She still doesn’t recognize it. But then – and I am getting chills running through my very core even writing about it – a voice is heard coming from the house. It is the voice of Sarah Palmer shouting for Laura. Just like in the pilot.

That shout of Sarah Palmer flicks a switch within Carrie Page and activates all the memories of Laura Palmer. All the pain and suffering.

Laura SCREAMS that scream of hers and it shuts down the lights in the Palmer House. There is a spark of primal electricity within then a smash to black, Laura’s scream dying out in the dark.

Lynch fades into Laura whispering in Cooper’s ear for the credits. That’s it folks.

Something at Judy’s in Seattle

Laura‘s scream may plunge the Palmer house into darkness, but it isn’t an act of shutting down, but rather of firing up. The Chalfont residence functions similarly to the convenience store. Sarah Palmer/Judy and the Chalfonts have reactivated Laura Palmer’s pain and suffering.

The Return has hinted at multidimensionality throughout, via various glitches and disruptions. Cooper and Diane crossed over into another dimension and Cooper did find Laura Palmer, although she was instead Carrie Page. I wonder if Chet Desmond crossed over to another place when he reached for the ring under the Chalfonts’ trailer.

It does at least seem that Cooper is following a similar trajectory to Phillip Jeffries; lost in time, space, and reality. Whether Cooper can escape the downward spiral of realities is a matter for another day. I do believe that Jeffries found himself in another such world (or worlds) as Cooper. Jeffries found something at Judy’s in Seattle rather than Odessa. A Miss Judy left a message for him in Buenos Aires. Miss Judy is a young woman, although she goes unseen, even in The Missing Pieces. Could she be the young woman from 1956 maybe? Was she out of time or was Jeffries? It’s slippery in there.

Our House Now

Two birds with one stone would seem to refer to Judy and Laura. The ‘to kill’ part of the expression is simply that: an expression. Cooper believed (believes?) that he could save Laura Palmer and deal with Judy. Which besides being noble isn’t an unreasonable idea. But perhaps Laura doesn’t need saving. Her strength of will alone was enough to gain her a victory over the Lodge denizens.

The problem with saving Laura is that that takes away her victory against Bob. If Judy indeed inhabits Sarah Palmer, then whatever the outcome, she could feed off the pain and suffering of Sarah. How does one defeat that? If Judy is Sarah Palmer, then what of Experiment? Perhaps Experiment was merely a vessel for Judy to birth herself into this world.

Questions upon questions. Who needs Garmonbozia when there are mysteries to be consumed forever? Not me.

“It is in our house now,” said the Fireman. Home is the White Lodge no more in the finale. Home is where it always was; it is a house of horrors. A house at the heart of a town called Twin Peaks. Judy lives there still.