I posted the following on Tumblr on September 5th, 2017 after I had finished watching the final episode of Twin Peaks: The Return. I’m posting it again, here, because today David Lynch has died and my heart is broken. I wish I could say something wise, or meaningful, that would show the world how much he meant to me, but I can’t.
Instead, I’m posting this.
I do not like to rank things, least of all works of art, but if I were ever to find myself in a position where some unseemly character has placed a gun to my head and has told me in no uncertain terms that he either pulls the trigger or I delcare aloud “my favorite television show of all time,” I wouldn’t need more than a moment to respond. The answer is TWIN PEAKS and has been since I first watched those wonderfully strange images on my TV screen on April 8th 1990. I was 15 years old at the time and I do believe something changed within me. A deep, irreversable change. My DNA re-written. It is, and I’d also include David Lynch’s other work here, the most significant influence on me as a person and creator. I dove in deep. Immersing myself every week with the show, re-watching episodes on VHS, and consuming the diaries and autobiographies of its fictional characters. To say I was excited about its return is an understatement. Having watched it, and before the thoughts slip away from me, I wanted to record my impressions and theories. For any of you that enjoy discussing the mystery, I have collected my thoughts below.
One of the things that most grabbed me about the Return, was the “sea” we are introduced to in Episode 3. I see this imagery as the place where “ideas” come from. Lynch has used this ocean metaphor before in his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity. Given that, then the “electricity” is the firing of synapses in our brain that bring forth these ideas and form them into Tulpas. Twin Peaks itself is a kind of tulpa. Born to life from the collective minds of Lynch and Frost. Twin Peaks is a story. It is the story of “the little girl who lives down the lane”. Cooper, like Jefferies before him, is in search of Judy – who Gordon Cole tells us is Jiāo Dài. According to this (thanks Dan J!) one meaning of the word is to “explain.” Looking at it in that regard, we have characters in a story looking for meaning. Any character that gets close to finding “Judy” disappears, goes mad, or ceases to exist.
We continue to look for Judy, but we must never find her. Explanation is the death of the mystery.
It’s the death of the story.
In part 17 time stops. The story of Twin Peaks has reached its conclusion, but we are reminded again that all of this is a dream within a dream. Lynch himself (as Gordon Cole) takes Cooper to the edge of the story. The basement door in the Great Northern. When Cooper enters we revisit a scene from Episode 2 where we are asked if this is future or is it past. Like the episode’s title “The Stars Turn and a Time Presents Itself” a shift happens here. Cooper is going to move to a different time and be born as a different person. The first time through he was born as Dougie. This time he’ll become someone else. Another key difference here is Laura. Laura is missing and Cooper is tasked with finding her.
Cooper then meets Diane at the “curtain call”. The time after a performance when the players appear on stage as someone else. The “stars” of the show. At a performance start, when the red curtains open, the stars turn into their characters. When that performance is over, they turn into themselves. Like reincarnated souls, the essence of Cooper and Laura are born again as different people – but their roles remain archetypal: a detective and a girl in trouble. When Cooper tells Laura that she is “dead,” her response is telling.
“I am dead. Yet I live.”
Like the Log Lady says, death is a change not an end. As we move through time, our souls are born and reborn into different characters – over and over again. Our souls are the actor. Our perception of reality at this moment is our role. As the cycle continues, we get closer to enlightenment. As we learn and grow through each iteration, we begin to see behind the red curtain at the very machinations of existence.
I believe that is what is happening to Cooper and Diane – now playing their current role of Richard and Linda. Diane sees herself outside of her body and when she enters the hotel room she realizes the man standing before her isn’t Cooper. It’s Richard. As they make love she covers the face of this stranger and cries, knowing the people they were are long since gone.
The next day, it is flipped. We are somewhere else. It isn’t the same motel. It’s not the same man. It’s not even the same car. This time it is Cooper who must come to terms with this transmigratio
When confronted with this idea that he’s in a new story, that he’s another person, he still clings to the old ideas. He tries to find meaning (Judy’s Diner). He once again falls back to his task: find Laura. And when he does, he insists on revisiting the past despite the new mystery sitting dead on the couch in front of him. Like Audrey who is stuck in some new nightmare, we would rather drag her into the past and make her dance at the Roadhouse than see what lies ahead.
Content only with returning to some other time, to some other story long since gone, Cooper returns her to Twin Peaks. After a long trip we find relief when we pass the Double R. But something isn’t right. This Double R is not on “Main Street”. It’s on “Bendigo Blvd“ Which is where the REAL diner is in our world. And the Palmer house? There’s no Sarah here. Instead the door is answered by a strange woman. A woman who no doubt answered the door many times before for Twin Peaks fans looking for the Palmers. The woman it appears was played by the home’s actual owner.
And while that world may no longer be around, it isn’t dead. The story of Laura Palmer is real. She is forever screaming. The fan forever spinning. We only need to stare into our own boxes and wait for the images to appear.
Do I think that Cooper has left the story of Twin Peaks and entered our world? The real world? Is Audrey’s Billy…Billy Zane, the actor who played her second season love interest? I’m not sure, but I’m not sure it matters either. Because like the dead guy on Laura’s couch, there is a new mystery now and that is a story worth thinking about.