I like many others have been grappling with the enigma that is part 18 for a couple of weeks now. I knew straight away that I loved it. As an experience, an exercise in mood, a piece of filmmaking and a fittingly mysterious endpoint to all that has come before. But in terms of deciding what was transpiring, how I felt about it and what it all meant – that has taken a little longer.

Some widely discussed questions, such as where and when Cooper (or Richard) and Diane (or Linda) had crossed into, I managed to answer for myself fairly quickly. This had been an alternate dimension, in which Laura had been hidden once she’d eluded Cooper in the woods.

How did she end up here? My bet is either via the Fireman (Laura disappears after Coop hears the same ‘sound’ the Fireman plays to him in part 1) or perhaps Judy herself.

If Carrie had been Laura at one point, why didn’t she remember? That could be a result of her being taken through to the other side. Dreams and interdimensional experiences have already been shown to have an impact on memory in season 3, and being taken into another dimension and placed out of time is perhaps the biggest experience of all.

But none of that matters to me as much as another question that had lingered with me long after the credits rolled. What exactly was Cooper and Laura’s journey here? What had they been through and what did it mean? Not necessarily for the world of Twin Peaks, but for themselves. They are the two main characters in Twin Peaks, the two people this story is about more than anyone else, and so it was right that it should end with them. But how did it end for Cooper and Laura?

As I sat at home one night last week, it hit me square in the face like a green rubber gloved fist. My mind wandered to one of my absolute favourite films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. “That’s it!”

I have seen Vertigo more times than most films, save for maybe Blade Runner, Ugetsu Monogatari and Mulholland Drive. It’s a piece of filmmaking that provokes the same kind of obsession it depicts, full of contradictions and mysteries that thrill even to this day. In many ways it is Hitchcock’s most experimental film, dabbling as it does with dream sequences, inventive use of colours, animation and a thematic complexity that outstrips even the best of his other work.

Its dreamlike quality is developed through the main character’s descent into obsession, the aforementioned dream sequences and hallucinations, extensive use of fog filters and a range of experimental angles and camera techniques. This, of course, makes Vertigo a good touch point for a Twin Peaks reading. It also comes as no surprise that, along with Rear Window, it is cited by Lynch as one of his favourite films.

Now, time to go down into the rabbit hole. For me, much of part 18 bears a striking thematic resemblance to the journey of Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) in the final third of Vertigo, once he has witnessed the death of the woman he’s fallen for, Madeleine (Kim Novak) in an apparent suicide.

Once Scottie comes out of his traumatic trance (which I guess you could equate to Cooper’s years in the Black Lodge, or even his time as Dougie if we are to push this), he recognises a woman on the street. It’s a woman who looks just like Madeleine, only different. Her hair, clothes and voice have changed. He knows she’s dead, but he can’t let go. He knocks on her door.

Meanwhile, in Twin Peaks, Cooper knocks on the door of a woman he recognises as Laura. Only now, her hair, clothes and voice have changed. He knows she’s dead, but he has a plan and he’s here to ‘take her home.’

Aside from the obvious similarities here, there’s also an obvious difference. Scottie’s obsession is more overt, and it includes romantic desires. On the surface, Cooper’s doesn’t. Although If you wanted to psychoanalyse Cooper’s character, especially the many facets explored in S3, one could perhaps argue that his ‘saving’ Laura is the equivalent to Scottie’s ‘having’ Madeleine in Vertigo. Either way, the similarities are striking – and that’s without even mentioning the use of the names Judy and Madeleine in both worlds.

The descent into ‘obsession’ for both men – Scottie to have Judy become Madeleine, Cooper to have Carrie ‘remember’ she is Laura – is represented by endless driving scenes.

In Vertigo, these happen throughout Scottie’s entire arch, the steep roads of San Francisco seeming to reflect his steady descent into unhinged obsessiveness.

Cooper too seems to drive wordlessly for a large portion of the finale, his change not depicted as a descent but as a man driving further and further into the darkness of a lost highway. Both men seem to lose a grip on what they previously considered ‘reality’, with Cooper seeming less like Dale and more like Richard as time goes by.

Scottie and Cooper take their dead women on one final drive, speaking only fleetingly as they do, their expressions telling the whole story. Both Scottie and Cooper/Richard are stone faced as they approach their ultimate destination. The detectives take their passengers to the scene of their previous trauma, forcing them to relive it. There are vast plot differences in what these traumas are, but the actions of the two protagonists mirror one another.

Scottie wants Judy to be Madeleine, even calling her by that name as they ascend the bell tower one last time, despite the fact that he knows she was never real – not his Madeleine.

For Cooper, he so desperately wants Carrie to be Laura, so that he can save her and take her home. Mission accomplished.

Both Judy and Carrie are asked if they ‘remember’ what they see, urged on by their respective partners to be the people they desire for their own ends. As it happens, reliving trauma from the past is both inevitable and destructive.

Judy admits the truth of her deception, that Scottie’s Madeleine was merely an act, leading to her death as she falls from the top of the bell tower – for real this time. Vertigo ends with a scream, and our detective stumbles forwards, lost. He has failed and lost himself in the process.

In Twin Peaks, Cooper’s insistence on taking Carrie back to the place in which Laura was horribly abused beyond comprehension is futile, because you can’t go back. When you do, everything has changed. When Judy pleads with Scottie that they can still be together, he says, “it’s too late. It’s too late, there’s no bringing her back”, which puts it better than I ever could.

As Carrie hears the familiar cries of Sarah Palmer emanating from the house, the trauma of Laura’s past is laid bare. That’s what it does – it sticks around and bleeds through time, and no amount of fixing can change that. It may even make matters worse. Twin Peaks ends with a scream, as our detective stumbles forward, lost. He has failed and lost himself in the process.

As Scottie gazes down from atop the bell tower, his weakness (fear of heights) seems to have been defeated. However, several other flaws have manifested in the process.

Cooper finds himself in a similar position – maybe. His fatal flaw in the S2 finale was supposedly having “imperfect courage.” If we assume that he has rectified this, with the time that has passed and the plan he is undertaking, we are also struck by other blemished facets of Cooper’s character revealed throughout the season.

Whilst it is never confirmed, one gets the sense that Cooper may be stuck in a loop, in which he attempts to save Laura and take her back over and over again. If that is the case, then each time he fails, as it is ultimately a doomed task.

Vertigo, similarly, is often said to be an exploration of Freud’s notion of repetition compulsion – in which a person repeats the event of their trauma time and time again. Interestingly when looking at Vertigo and Twin Peaks, the repetition is often said to incorporate dreams, hallucinations and the reaquaintance with memories or the feelings they provoke.

Let me be clear – I am well aware that Cooper’s exploits don’t seem to be as manic or severe as those of Scottie in Vertigo, on the surface at least. Plus, Vertigo is speaking to a perversion that is altogether more psychosexual than that of Twin Peaks or Cooper. But in terms of the journey both characters take, their actions towards the women they so desperately want to be another person long dead, their insistence that this is the case and their ultimate mistake of returning them to the scene of the crime – a similar story is being told. Both men are looking for what Scottie refers to as his “second chance”, as Cooper looks to accomplish what he couldn’t back in Fire Walk With Me.

Vertigo and Twin Peaks both tackle numerous themes, some similar and others wildly different, but they have one central issue at their respective cores. Both pieces comment on the power of time, the futility of trying to go back and reclaim something that has been lost, or relive past experiences both good and bad. You can never go back, but you are helpless to resist the pull to do just that. The tight, vice-like grasp that the past has on our subconscious is unrelenting.

Once again Scottie puts it best as he drives Judy towards their final showdown, as he says “one final thing I have to do, and then I’ll be free of the past.” Therein lies the ultimate curse. The past is, much like time itself, elusive at best. You can never go back to it, but you’ll never be free of it either. It’s a ghost that haunts all that comes after, like the semi-transparent face of Agent Cooper in the Sheriff’s station, present but untouchable.

We live inside a dream, and that dream is the past. The past dictates the future, and vice versa. In Vertigo and Twin Peaks, time is cyclical like the rings of a sequoia tree or an infinite symbol made of smoke.

“Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice.”

My name is Connor Davey. I am a 24-year-old writer with a passion for the cinema of Lynch, Hitchcock and Murnau – amongst many others. When I’m not talking about the work of David Lynch, the many cuts of Blade Runner or the mythology of Star Wars, I’m supporting my beloved Manchester United. You can connect with me via Twitter at @CJDavey or @LynchianTimes.