This video contains spoilers on all things
Twin Peaks.
So viewers please be warned, the spoilers
are about to begin.
The one leading to the many is Laura Palmer.
Now the circle is almost complete.
Laura is the one.
Laura is the one.
Laura is the one - again!
That’s one of the most amazing things about
Season 3.
After more than 25 long years, Lynch and Frost
managed to do something truly incredible.
This is something that I am not sure they
could have pulled off had the series continued
the following year after what was seemingly
the most horrifying cliffhanger ending in
television that I’ve ever experienced.
The original series all started with the mystery
of Laura Palmer’s murder.
Who killed Laura Palmer?
In episode 2, the first episode Lynch directed
following the pilot, we see Cooper’s dream
sequence where Laura whispers the killer’s
name to Dale.
Our favorite Special Agent remembers every
single detail intricate from this dream, except
for the most important detail.
He even remembered that Laura whispered the
killer’s name to him, he just couldn’t
remember who it was!
But David Lynch knew who it was, and he never
really wanted it revealed.
As we all know, the network inexplicably forced
their hand and made Lynch and Frost reveal
the killer.
This was extremely well done, I might add.
To this day I am absolutely flabbergasted
that Maddy’s tragic demise aired on network
television back when it did.
Leland had a powerhouse exit, and then the
show inherently needed a makeover.
The genie was OUT of the bottle!
The mystery of Laura Palmer was settled.
As a result of the incompetent network knuckleheads
who strongarmed Lynch and Frost, the mystery
of Laura Palmer’s death was now, like Laura,
DEAD!
Season 2 was forced to go through a transitional
phase here.
Personally, I think some fans are a little
harsh about some of the episodes during this
stretch, but most fans would surely agree
that later in the Season the ball was rolling
with new momentum.
That momentum culminated in a powerhouse explosion
of vintage Lynch in the Season 2 finale, where
even Laura Palmer herself resurfaced in what
appeared to be a doppelganger capacity.
Meanwhile…
How’s Annie?
How’s Annie?
Personally, and I don’t think I’m alone
here, but when I first heard news of the improbable
triumphant comeback of Twin Peaks - I didn’t
have many real expectations.
But among those I did have, I suspected we’d
get some type of closure on Annie and Cooper.
When all was said and done, we didn’t exactly
get either of those.
Annie was only mentioned once in passing,
and at the end Cooper looked confused, horrified,
and defeated.
Fire Walk with Me had seemed to provide closure
for Laura.
So I had no idea how Laura would figure into
Season 3, mainly because the mystery surrounding
Laura was already over.
Or so I thought.
Early in Season 3 Laura again whispers something
to Cooper, only this time she is afterwards
somehow seemingly swept away.
At the end of Season 3, after Carrie Page
screams, we once again see Laura whispering
to Dale, in a much tighter shot than what
we got in Part 2.
Cooper once again seemed to forget the important
part of what Laura whispered to him.
This is familiar territory!
Once again, Cooper seemingly forgets what
she whispered, but Lynch knows.
Only this time, Lynch wasn’t strongarmed
by some incompetent TV executives.
So as an audience, like Cooper, we don’t
know what she said.
And even if I’m wrong and Cooper is aware
of what she said, we still don’t know shit!
But Lynch does, and I don’t imagine he will
ever be inclined to tell us.
Lynch never really wanted Laura’s mystery
resolved.
And now, when all is said and done, Lynch
and Frost successfully managed to put Laura’s
mystery, the magic genie itself, BACK in the
bottle again.
Is life a puzzle?
I am filled with questions.
What year is this?
So in a very real way, Lynch and Frost masterfully
managed to finish Season 3 by placing Laura
Palmer back at the heart of the mystery.
I believe this would have been inherently
more difficult to accomplish had Season 3
happened all of those years ago immediately
following Season 2.
And the reason I say this is because recently,
really for the first time since Season 3 ended,
I find myself again wondering what Season 3 would
have been like had it happened in 1991-92.
Don’t get me wrong!
I absolutely cherish Season 3!
And I am still now, and will always be itching
for more.
Or more accurately, itching for any new content
from Lynch in a filmmaking capacity, with
fingers crossed that rumors of a new series
come to fruition.
It’s kind of strange though.
For 20 long years I had long fantasized about
what might have been in Twin Peaks Season
3.
After I watched all of Twin Peaks for the
first time many years ago, not a year went
by where these kinds of thoughts wouldn’t
frequently surface and resurface in my mind.
Time and time again.
But that ongoing habit, it all came to a screeching
halt when the improbable triumphant return
of Twin Peaks was underway.
It was happening again!
So all of those thoughts about a hypothetical
third season manifested into reality.
A dream come true.
And then of course, most of my attention went
to enjoying the entire overall experience
the 3rd season provided, while also speculating
about the possibilities of what might theoretically
happen in the 4th season.
And the 5th season.
Exactly 3 years ago today, we were right in
the middle of Twin Peaks Season 3.
Part 12 would have been the recent episode
of 3 years ago.
And strangely enough, on the 3 year anniversary
I finally ventured back intto the old habit
of wondering what Season 3 could have been
like back in the early 90s.
That old habit suddenly crept back into my
mind’s eye.
Had it happened back then, the entire playing
field would have been inherently different.
Everything from the available cast, to the
limitations of network restrictions vs the
creative freedom afforded to Lynch and Frost
by Showtime, to a slew of other related and
semi-related considerations.
But it’s almost irresistible to ponder the
possibilities of Mr C roaming around Twin
Peaks circa 1992.
While Season 3 did adequately fill the gap
of what Mr C had been up to for 25 years,
the idea of seeing Mr C doing his thing to
the characters we know and loved - that alone
had the potential to be something incredibly
special.
But that’s the thing of it.
Had Season 3 happened in 1991-92, it feels
like the story had become centered around
Cooper being stuck in the Black Lodge, and
Mr C on the loose, in a union with Bob, hoodwinking
Twin Peaks residents left, right, and center.
Had Lynch and Frost tried to make Laura Palmer
re-emerge as the center of the mystery back
then - I really believe that would have been
extremely difficult to pull off back then,
just a year after their hands were forced
to reveal the killer.
Season 3 opened with this soul-chilling flashback.
I’ll see you again in 25 years.
Meanwhile.
Then we see the familiar territory with a
similar whispering scene, discovering new
ground with Laura’s inner essence and her
subsequently being torn away.
Then we don’t see Laura for a while, but
yet her essence still exudes an omnipresent
troubling mood that reverberates throughout
the season.
We see her photo at the beginning of every
episode, Bobby breaks down in tears when he sees her
photo; our heroic trio of Lucy, Andy, and
Hawk are investigating her old case files
in search of something missing; Lucy had bad
gas, but it wasn’t about the bunnies; it
was about the missing diary pages.
If there was any closure on Annie, it came
from the fact that she kept the mystery alive
and helped the dream come true, because of
that diary entry.
Of course, we also have the scene of Laura’s
essence - seemingly a creation of The Fireman
and set off onto her path by Senorita Dito.
Now before we get to Cooper’s meddling ways
where he changes the past, let’s take a
step back.
My own personal investigation, I suspect,
will be ongoing for the rest of my life.
The very first scene we see that happens in
Twin Peaks is good ol’ Doctor Jacoby.
He’s having a shitload of shovels delivered.
I’m sure I wasn’t alone wondering how
the hell Jacoby fit in and what the hell he
was up to, because his character’s entire
driving force was originally centered around
Laura’s unsolved murder.
So Jacoby is spray painting all these shovels,
and we ultimately learn that Jacoby is selling
these golden shovels, two coats guaranteed,
so that people can shovel their way out of
the shit.
Jacoby is just one of many characters whose primary
motivations that were altered when the knucklehead
television executives strong armed Lynch and
Frost.
Jacoby ultimately serves as the motivating
inspiration that prompts Nadine to set Ed
free so he could pursue his true love Norma.
Ed and Norma appear to have a happy ending,
together at last, after so many long years
of quasi-forbidden love.
Never wanting to hurt anyone, and never just
taking what they want.
But did Ed and Norma truly have a happy ending?
After all, this is familiar territory, too!
Is this just a play on the cyclical implications
that are found elsewhere in Season 3?
Before we see Laura again, back in the past,
Cooper had seemingly defeated his doppelganger.
While I am not entirely sure that this is
true (much like I’m not entirely sure Ed
and Norma had a happy ending), Part 17 saw
what appeared to be the destruction of Bob
at the hand of Hulk-hand Freddie, Cooper seemingly defeated
his doppelganger.
And Cooper had already gotten out of the Lodge by that point.
And he ultimately regained form.
And that’s when Lynch and Frost brought
Laura back to the center of attention.
Cooper goes back in time, he pressures Laura
into following him, he wants to take her home,
she screams and vanishes in a moment that
has some type of connection with her being
sucked from the Lodge.
So Laura is alive, and Cooper changed the
past.
Cooper essentially denied Laura out of her
defining moment. Her defining moment!
Laura had already made her choice.
Cooper didn’t like that!
And just like so many hardships she had long
suffered, Laura was again thrust into horrifying
circumstances through no choice of her own.
Cooper and Diane cross over, some version
of Diane assumes Linda-form and bolts, Cooper
finds Laura in the form of Carrie Page, we
see the plight of Carrie in plain sight, Cooper
brings her home, the house was owned by Tremonds
and previously owned by Chalfonts!
Something feels awfully wrong about all of this, and
then the big horrifying scream, and the even
more horrifying look of confusion on our beloved
hero, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper.
And the last thing we see - Laura whispering
to Cooper, but tighter and sadder.
It almost exudes a sense of complete hopelessness,
perhaps not unlike what Lynch and Frost themselves
felt when they were strong armed by the incompetent
TV exec knuckleheads all those years ago.
Lynch knows what she whispered, and he is
loving the idea that we don’t!
He’s absolutely loving it!
And damn it!
We’re just itching to know, and he knows
it!
And that’s a rather beautiful thing.
Because he did it!
He expertly maneuvered that slippery genie
right back into that damn fine bottle where
it always belonged.
The greater point I’m trying to make here
is, after re-imagining a Season 3 from 1991-92,
I’ve personally come to the conclusion that the time
gap helped make this mighty artistic undertaking
all the more profound and powerful, across
the entire spectrum.
And the reason it’s more profound and powerful,
is because with all that time that has passed
since Fire Walk with Me - the book was already
long closed on Laura’s story.
Only, it wasn’t.
Revealing Laura’s mystery killed the essence
of the show, and resurrecting her mystery
immortalized it.
Laura is indeed the one.
Damn fine triumphant return!
Where there was once one there are now two.
Or were there always two?
By the way for any Twin Peaks fans interested
in reading a really awesome theory on Waldo!
Yes, that Waldo!
Please check out the link in the description.
Never in a million years would have I thought
of this, but the moment I read this theory
- it’s so convincing that I’m all but
entirely convinced this is exactly what Lynch
and Frost had in mind.
Fun read. So definitely worth giving that a look.
In conclusion, I’m just itching to see more
of Carrie Page.
But I’m itching to see any new Lynch material
in a filmmaking capacity.
Damn fine itch!
Thanks for watching everyone, I hope you enjoyed,
and have a wonderful night!
The good Dale is in the Lodge and he can’t
leave.
Write it in your diary.
Three of the four pages that we saw were torn
out.
Missing.
And there’s still one missing.
Say hello to Gordon if you see him.
He’ll remember the unofficial version.
Don’t take the ring, Laura.
Don’t take the ring.
No! Don’t make me do this!
No!
No place to go BUT HOME!
What year is this?
Laura is the one.
