Twin Peaks Finale Recap: We're Going Habitation

Twin Peaks

Parts 17 and xviii

Flavour i Episodes 17 and 18

Editor's Rating 5 stars

Twin Peaks

Parts 17 and 18

Season 1 Episodes 17 and 18

Editor'due south Rating v stars

Photo: Suzanne Tenner/Kickoff

It is impossible to expect anything from David Lynch.

It's not just that he then readily defies narrative convention. It's the way he even defies the expectations set up within his own work. Simply I feel like nosotros should understand this dynamic past now: Whether it exist the oblique, real-earth ending of Mulholland Bulldoze or the divergent approach of going back to the first in Fire Walk With Me, the coming together whatsoever kind of set expectations is a false promise. More than important, to remove such expectations allows yous to become through the portals and doors and boxes that lead to lands unknown. Information technology is with this understanding that we embrace two very different Twin Peaks finales, which feature two very different kinds of homecomings. I gives us a narrative conclusion that deceptively folds in on itself, and the other is the offset of a new train of thought. When the two are put together, they reveal something that is not but inconclusive and defective in pure narrative satisfaction, but may just upend the entire narrative of Twin Peaks altogether.

If I tin exist blunt, it as well makes the human activity of recapping something like this … daunting. On i level, I'yard going to have to write a lot more "plot recap" than I usually practise, but that's because there are so many sequences of this finale that have to exist interpreted on the basic logic level to explicate what is happening. But it'south even more daunting because, fifty-fifty when you do, this is Lynch. In that location is no real code to scissure. This finale isn't a left-brain puzzle; it's an abstract painting. And this ultimately clashes with the ability to be conclusive about what we all just witnessed.

To put information technology in context, I watched the finale with a couple of friends. Usually, nosotros'll talk excitedly for hours afterward. This time, we sat there silently, basically unable to speak. Another friend wrote and said he had but been staring at a black wall. We do this because nosotros want to reflect. Now, as we all sit in relative unsureness, we have to brainstorm to explore the bounds of these ii incommunicable episodes. As the old adage goes, "The way out is through."

Part One: Convergence

"The past dictates the future." And then it was told to us and and so nosotros believe. "Part 17" begins with Gordon Cole telling u.s. his dick nevertheless works then sharing one last bit of Blue Rose lore. It seems that Major Briggs and Agent Cooper discovered a powerful negative force, an extreme night entity known as "Jowday" or the aforementioned Judy. Which finer sets up the idea of a bigger bad (i that Bad Cooper was told he'd face up back at the dark motel with Teapot Phillip Jeffries). What is Jowday? Well, we'll go to that after because Cole finally gets the telephone call and screams, "DOUGIE IS COOPER!? HOW THE HELL IS THIS!?" Just they pack it up because they know where he'south going.

Meanwhile, Bad Coop thinks he's going somewhere too. He travels to the last set of coordinates in the woods and he's got his stone to endeavour to protect himself this time, every bit he'due south always trying to find his way out of the trap. Simply no dice, as Bad Coop is sucked up through the vortex and into a caged prison house of our godly Fire fighter world, opposite none other than the ghostly face of Major Briggs! (I will say I love the overtly designed CGI of Lynch's world that has no interest in wasting time trying to exist photorealistic.) With that, Bad Coop'due south craggly spike essence is sent to the one place he really needs to be …

And then, the events of Twin Peaks: The Return finally converge upon the sheriff's function. It leads to a pants-shittingly terrifying sequence, where you stop upwards thinking about all of the things Bad Coop could do to Andy, Lucy, Hawk, and Sheriff Truman. He and Truman sit in those chairs and the telephone call comes. Vanquish. Beat. Trounce. It'due south the kind of impossible tension Lynch understands considering he understands that all drama comes from the natural conflict of the state of affairs and build-upwardly. It require no fancy camera tricks, no propulsive music. All considering the moment already is.

It seems what saves united states is Lucy finally learning how cell phones piece of work! Hot damn! I genuinely adore it when things that seem like throwaway jokes have payoffs, only I never expected something as neat as this. And then anybody rushes together for the fallout: Real Coop, Cole, James, even the Mitchum Brothers. But the hero of the 60 minutes is a human being named Freddie, who followed a vision to meet his destiny. No, he didn't just accept to punch a door off in some jail; he had to win a horrific fight with the demonic orb of BOB himself. After a feint, he does merely that. It'south indescribable and withal the perfect summation of all that we have built up to. The Mitchum brothers put information technology best: "One for the grandkids."

To me, the power of this conclusion comes in the brief reconciliation that follows. At that place are no victory laps, nor whatever time for pie at the R&R. The moment Coop sees the blind woman, his face becomes etched over the entire sequence that follows. Information technology's a brilliant device, letting usa sympathise the finite nature of what is nigh to happen and that nosotros're stuck in something bigger. Coop even tells his friends, "At that place are some things that will modify. The past dictates the future," and "We live inside a dream." But well-nigh of all, "I hope I see you all again. Every ane of you." He does not know if he will, and and then these are the heart-soaring, genuine words of a man who has to explicate the unexplainable, and who has to make your centre feel okay with that dubiousness.

With that, we learn that the blind woman is actually the real Diane (giving their meeting back in the weird time pod of episode three much more than pregnant). They osculation. It seems so necessary, just it's besides a bit confusing. Before in that location is a moment to encompass information technology, nosotros instantly notice ourselves in the furnace basements of the Great Northern. Coop uses the room 315 cardinal and tells us, "See you at the curtain telephone call," and from there, he goes into the realm of the dark cabin. He is greeted by the familiar words of Mike:

"Through the darkness of futures past,
The magician longs to see.
One chants between two worlds
Burn down … walk with me."

We've heard this then many times now, and it e'er seems to create new meaning. And then ofttimes, it is the grand notion of lite and dark worlds, skilful and evil, but in the following sequences, these words will be utterly crucial for Cooper's journey. Even more then is Cooper'south imminent conversation with Teapot Phillip Jeffries, who tells him, "The past dictates the futurity," and and so transforms the Owl Cave Ring symbol into an infinity sign with a ball looping around its track. This is huge. Twin Peaks was largely about defeating BOB, the demon who was always represented past that symbol. Only now we change the focus to the infinity sign and the looping ball, a notion that radically alters the entire focus (and understanding) of the show.

Because from hither, we become back to the events of Burn down Walk With Me. We see James and Laura's fateful meeting all drenched in black and white. But at present, in the famous moment when Laura sees something in the woods, we realize it is a re-materialized Cooper. The past isn't just here to be seen, but changed. And so, with an outstretched manus and a face seen in a dream, Agent Cooper pulls Laura away from the nighttime that ends her life. I'll admit, I don't understand why Mrs. Palmer is cracking the photo of Laura at the end of "Part 17," but I do know that Jack Nance goes on his morning walk and there is no body to exist institute. Holy shit, we think. Is this retcon really happening?

Perchance. As Cooper guides Laura away, we hear sudden crackling and she disappears from his hand, followed past her most terrifying screams. She's gone. Somewhere. Somehow. Alone. As we drift into the credits, the i and just Julee Cruise finally shows up to perform again for the evidence. She does non seem to be in the Roadhouse, but like Laura, somewhere out of time itself. The questions race in our mind: Has Cooper fixed the past? Where did Laura get? Is the unabridged world going to be unlike now? Has the past really dictated the future? As we've learned from Twin Peaks, nothing is as we've expected.

And nothing is quite every bit it seems.

Part Two: Through the Gloaming

The discussion alinea roughly translates to "the beginning of a new train of thought." Information technology's a critical concept to encompass in what I'm sure is already regarded as one of the most fascinating and frustrating Lynchian hours of TV imaginable. We simply become two quick moments of conclusion — that would be Bad Coop on burn, and Dougie being re-seeded and sent habitation to Janey-E and Sonny Jim — and so we quickly come up back to the scene where Laura gets lost in the woods. From in that location, information technology is fourth dimension for the beginning of the new train of thought.

The story hits the reset push as we revisit Cooper'south Black Order experience from the get-go two episodes of this season. Armed with the narrative we now have, it becomes our new "cardinal," so to speak, specifically in what it allows us to re-contextualize and understand going forward. Here are the important concepts.

• Kickoff, Mike says, "Is it future or past?" which now has a new literal meaning to us, given that Cooper has gone dorsum in time. Admittedly, this might be when it actually happens, or information technology'south happening over again, or like well-nigh things in the Blackness Lodge, it's happening at every time.

• Nosotros see the scene with the Arm again and he tells u.s.a., "I sound like this," which now suggests he was the one who perhaps took Laura (because we hear the aforementioned noise when she disappears). The Arm then asks Coop if this is the story of "the little girl who lived down the lane," which is exactly what Charlie said to Audrey that fabricated her so scared. Nice to know it's connected.

• We and then see Laura whisper a surreptitious that we do non hear, nor will nosotros ever hear it. Before she's pulled abroad, she screams that aforementioned intense scream we heard in the woods. It leads us to wonder: Is this somehow happening in the same moment of the woods?

• We see Leland Palmer once more. Nosotros get the control again: Find Laura. If she has indeed been rescued from the time stream where she dies, the nature of the command is articulate. We empathise the mission at hand.

With a moving ridge of his hand, Coop exits the Blackness Lodge and finds none other than Diane waiting for him in the woods. This is our curtain call. But Coop seems different. Sadder. Haunted. They wonder aloud to each other, "Is it actually you?" and and then kiss. Cut to them driving downward a desert route, 1 littered with power lines forth the style. At that place will be no happy return to Twin Peaks waiting for them — they're on the mission, we presume, to find Laura. They become "exactly 430 miles" and and then pause, afraid of what they will find on the other side. And then they kiss again, and so cross through the charged electricity and end upward on the route at night, on however some other lost highway.

From day to dark, we've gone through the gloaming.

In this strange new setting, they drive and drive. They arrive at a seedy motel. Cooper goes to check in. Diane sees a double of herself waiting exterior. Where the hell are we? What is this dark place of doubles and phantoms? Cooper, or at to the lowest degree a man nosotros think is Cooper, emerges from part and they stay the dark. Again, Cooper seems dissimilar. He'south not his jovial happy self. Instead, he's quiet, commanding, and tells Diane to come up closer. Information technology's almost as if he'south exactly halfway between Proficient Coop and Bad Coop. They make love as "My Prayer" by the Platters comes into ear, though information technology plays ironically in their strange and dark session. Diane seems to sense something is wrong, every bit Cooper'south face is all the same, unblinking, and inhuman. She tries to cover his face as they make love and she keeps looking toward the ceiling. Something is wrong.

In the forenoon, Diane is gone and Cooper has received a "Dear Richard" alphabetic character from someone named Linda. The questions race in our mind: Is this the Linda from the Roadhouse chat? Is information technology related to Richard Horne? Or is it like everything in this world, some kind of horrible mirror imaging? Coop moves on like a shark, driving into the town of Odessa where he comes across "Judy'due south Diner." There it is, Judy in plain English. Is this whole land Judy? Coop goes in, roughs upward some locals in an uncharacteristic way that is fitting for his new in-between state. He gets an address and goes straight to it. We run across the six on the telephone pole nosotros commencement saw during Andy's visit to the Fireman's theater kingdom. Hither we are, finally at the finish of our quest.

Inside that house, Cooper finds one Carrie Page, played past none other than Sheryl Lee. He tells it direct to her and the audition: "It'southward hard to explicate … I recall you lot are a girl named Laura Palmer." She doesn't believe him, but something about his words stir in her stomach. She senses something is incorrect too. And since there's a dead guy in her house, she'due south got to become out of Contrivance. She indulges this strange FBI agent and goes with him to Twin Peaks.

As they travel together, nosotros only get brief snippets of who Carrie Page really is. Maybe she's someone quite like whoever Laura would accept turned into. Maybe she is Laura. Peradventure she'due south not. She speaks of regret, telling us she really did endeavor to "keep a clean house, keep everything organized," merely also how she was "likewise young to know any amend." The themes seem similar plenty. Later driving day and night, they finally get in at Laura Palmer's house and knock on the door. But the woman who answers we practise not recognize, nor does she know a Sarah Palmer. When Coop asks who sold them the firm, she says, "Mrs. Chalfont," When he asks about her name, she says, "Alice Tremond." We know these names were used by the creepy creamed-corn neighbor of the original series, who reappeared every bit one of the many spirits of the Guild in Burn Walk With Me. Something is wrong here, simply withal, the names do not prick upwardly Coop's ears.

The two leave, down-hearted, just and so stop in the middle of the street. None of this makes sense to Coop (or whoever the hell this version of Cooper is). Questions have piled on meridian of questions. Feeling like his sense of truthful north has betrayed him, he asks the world, bewildered, "What year is this?" as if this is just a matter of time. Sheryl Lee then looks at the house … something begins to erupt in her … does she recognize information technology? Is this when Laura returns? She screams with the fire of a thousands suns and the lights of the building blow out. We cut apace to black, and then get a deadening prototype of Laura whispering the surreptitious into Coop'due south ear when they were back in the Lodge. And and then ends Twin Peaks: The Return.

It'south been a few hours and my pilus is still standing on end.

Over the grade of this finale, we essentially resolve one core part of the conflict — the fate of BOB — and so open up up the deeper level of what's happening. Nosotros ofttimes talked about the two worlds of light and night, just what are the two worlds, actually? Are there more than two worlds? Who is this version of Coop? Were Good Coop and Bad Coop just components of this ane man'southward personality? Is this a state of dreams? Or information technology this like Mulholland Bulldoze and we're finally seeing the real world? The questions burn down fast and furious, but as my friend Damon put information technology, "David Lynch always closes 12 doors and opens 14."

Which is true. I know some folks kept thinking of this equally the conclusion to Twin Peaks for some reason, but like everything with Lynch, it can only lead to false expectation. The first season ended on nigh eight cliffhangers. The end of season ii left BOB in Agent Cooper, which we didn't get a determination on until last calendar week (and quite frankly, I'm surprised we got as many $.25 of closure in the finale as we did). Yep, we still don't know where Audrey is. Merely as nosotros may have to live with Sheryl Lee'due south terminal haunting scream resounding in our brains for the rest of fourth dimension, along with the words of a whisper nosotros'll never hear. Not knowing is the very nature of Twin Peaks. Information technology is practically what defines it.

But what likewise defines Lynch is that when the time comes, he makes his move and brings the narrative through the gloaming. To fold everything back into itself, undoing time and narrative. To go into another world with even more shades of dreams and dreamers. Looking dorsum, The Return ended up beingness more than reminiscent of Lost Highway than anything else, given Lynch's favorite motif of losing a sense of identity in the midst of a pursuit. There are a million tangents and thoughts of what it all can mean, which is why I wrote every particular out so we could reflect on them together. But in the end, at that place is but one real question I want to consider.

Why is Laura Palmer so important?

Considering at the end of this prove, when a million choices could take been made, Lynch had to get back to her. Merely like he had to go back to her years ago with Burn down Walk With Me. In a way, Twin Peaks has never been about anything Only Laura Palmer. To many, she started as a narrative's "murdered body." A version of a trope nosotros've seen in a yard shows and a thousand movies. But to Lynch, she was never just a simple motive. She wasn't a expressionless daughter'south picture on a wall. She wasn't a fridge to be blimp, just so that some dude could experience all aggrieved and seek revenge. What fix Twin Peaks apart was how much this modest boondocks cared nigh the girl'southward death, and more, how they cared about her life and the way she affected everyone effectually her. The narrative of the prove itself was not a whodunit, but a Rebecca-like investigation of who she really was in the first place. The whodunit was more than virtually what lies at the night center of the American town and the American family unit, unveiling the echoes of corruption across the spectrum, along with the many contorted faces nosotros force young women to article of clothing simply to keep upward the facade. Twin Peaks is a story about what shouldn't have been done, but what was done a thousand times. A girl who experienced so many tragedies before the inevitable one that took her life. It'south a set of tragedies that continues in many forms, even 25 years later.

Equally the new flavour tells usa, "Laura is the one." But righting this wrong isn't as unproblematic as catching a killer, nor somehow finding a mode to render a single girl from the expressionless. I go back to the episode eight "origin" scene where nosotros learn that Laura's low-cal was put into the world as a response to evil. Just what we've seen is not exactly fighting evil, is it? In fact, she ends up being a victim to evil. Was this show maxim that women were put on Earth to be victims of men? Is she more than alike to the female Jesus, dying for our sins? What does it hateful? What is her low-cal? Well, I recall episode eight is telling us to see these forces as part of a larger system. If the story of Twin Peaks is nigh the story of corruption itself, and so stopping abuse would require understanding all of the cycles that go on without finish. It would mean disappearing into the history of time and violence and echoes of generations. Information technology would mean facing the entirety of the truth.

There'due south an image from the finale that'due south burned into my brain. Information technology'due south when Teapot Phillip Jeffries takes the Owl Cave Band sign and turns it into the infinity symbol equally the pocket-size ball curls through it. I already mentioned how it reflects the changing scope of the narrative, simply it also reflects the cycle of getting trapped in abuse. We travel along the infinity symbol, treated to the unending layers and layers of obfuscation, never realizing nosotros are carving the same path over again and once again. To me, this is "Judy," our negative force. Information technology traps united states in the belief that all this will go on and on, advert infinitum, forever and always. It is to look at all of the despair and abuse in the world and run into hell unending. There is no entity more than dark. And then I volition ask again one final fourth dimension: Why is Laura the ane?

Because Laura is the hope that things tin can change.

But we have not gotten to see that promise manifest. Merely like the effect of Laura's final, haunting scream, nosotros don't know what it will mean. Unless we get a new season, we won't get to know. And so we are left to sit on that emotional whopper, and I have 2 distinct feelings churning within of me. Since we effectively had two finales, I will give you two conclusions in turn.

1. Come Dorsum This Way

When Julee Cruise appears at the terminate of episode 17, she sings an original song written by David Lynch called "The Globe Spins." The lyrics get equally such:

"Haley's Comet come and gone,
The things I touch are fabricated of stone,
Falling through tonight solitary,
Love,
Don't go away
Come up back this way,
Come back and stay forever,
And ever."

Information technology is a song for Laura, but really it is a song for us. It is a vocal for the manner we love this show. And it is nearly definitely a song built for an odd, rambling cliffhanger finale. We know that another 25 years would not only exist too difficult, but plainly impossible to achieve, so we desire this moment to stay with united states of america. Nosotros desire to get answers and new returns and new questions. We desire everything good and true and perfect and whole and nonetheless none of those things. This is simply what nosotros want, and thus we must face another feeling at the same time, for they are 2 sides of the aforementioned coin. Which leads to …

2. Ad Infinitum

The infinity symbol also reflects our emotional experience with the narrative. We always thought the driving force of that experience was a question. We asked ourselves, "Who killed Laura Palmer?" So information technology became, "Will we ever find out if BOB was still in Amanuensis Cooper?" With The Return, it was, "How will Practiced Coop go out of Dougie Jones?" At that place's e'er a question driving us, but it is too what traps us. We e'er want to fast-forward through the anguish to the alleviation. Hither and now, it is more pronounced than ever precisely because I practice non know if we will get some other season of Twin Peaks. No one does. Even David Lynch doesn't know. And then, we sit down like a ball on the curved track of infinity, forced to wait in our indicate in fourth dimension. It does non experience so great.

This is the forever state of Twin Peaks. Whether it's waiting a week or 25 years, the cycles of plots and cliffhangers and expectations meet at the nexus of advertizement infinitum, the same style forever, over and over once more. It'due south frustrating considering nosotros may never become "out" of it through resolution or definitive ending. Just like life itself, at that place is just that which may come to exist, and that which is cut down before its time. We are the trapped magicians, longing to see between two worlds, to see through time and what the time to come of a show may bring. We are the ones who risk being burned past the fire itself.

Merely what is the fire metaphor anyhow? It is the chant used to walk betwixt worlds. It is what we say when nosotros let the demons try to go within us and "cantankerous through" with the difficulty of that which may burn us. It is that which may devour united states whole. That'south why we demand to hone the demons of time. We need the fire to effectively "walk with us." Which essentially means we need to open our hearts and make it through such barriers undamaged. This is and then completely necessary considering you cannot break cycles without facing them. Without knowing how they permeate yourself. Without really finding a chapters for change in yourself, which is the hardest thing in in the universe. As Gordon Cole once called it in different terms, information technology is "fixing your heart." And then, nosotros must be like Laura and embody the hope of eradicating the impossible. Of somehow burgeoning through the annals of time itself, having taken in and so much fire and surviving it. Because when we're trapped in the recesses of such despair, the way out is always through.

We must exist at peace with the moment we are in.

Although I promise that the ad infinitum can be stopped, I must only recognize that the story of "the petty girl who lived downward the lane" has not concluded. It may never conclude. And even so, it could all the same. The danger of that unknowing challenges us to dauntless the abiding unknown, which could in plow burn our spirit whole. But luckily, at that place's 1 simple mantra that will see it through.

Fire … walk with usa.

Twin Peaks Finale Epitomize: Nosotros're Going Home