From: jgp@zodmate.Rational.COM (Jim Pellmann)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks,rec.arts.tv
Subject: The Twin Peaks Finale Timeline/Commentary (part 3/5)
Date: 27 Aug 92 21:23:34 GMT
Followup-To: alt.tv.twin-peaks

[Start of File 3 of 5]
<----------------------------------cut here---------------------------------->
==============================================================================
*** Inconsistencies
==============================================================================

Trivial, but interesting: when Coop enters the curtains initially, he's wearing
an overcoat.  When we then cut to the next scene (Coop entering the hallway),
Coop has no overcoat on.  Hmmm....  Did we miss a scene where he checked his
coat?  :-)

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...So there you are, in the Black Lodge, with your trusty FBI-issue
   Smith & Wesson Model 1076 10mm pistol at your side, being pursued by
   your evil doppelganger.  What do you do?
   
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>    ...So there you are, in the Black Lodge, with your trusty FBI-issue
>    Smith & Wesson Model 1076 10mm pistol at your side, being pursued by
>    your evil doppelganger.  What do you do?
>

Send Diane another tape...

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>>    ...So there you are, in the Black Lodge, with your trusty FBI-issue
>>    Smith & Wesson Model 1076 10mm pistol at your side

I must say, I've wondered the same thing myself. Why was Coop so dadgum
spaced-out-looking during the whole BL scene? This guy is a professional
FBI agent, fer crissakes, yet not once did he draw that 10mm, even when
Windom Earle himself popped up in front of him. I half expected Coop to
say, "You are under arrest for murder....you have a right to remain silent,
if you do not choose...."  But noooooooo, he stood there like a house
by the side of the road.

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>   I must say, I've wondered the same thing myself. Why was Coop so dadgum
>   spaced-out-looking during the whole BL scene? This guy is a professional
>   FBI agent, fer crissakes, yet not once did he draw that 10mm, even when
>   Windom Earle himself popped up in front of him. I half expected Coop to
>   say, "You are under arrest for murder....you have a right to remain silent,
>   if you do not choose...."  But noooooooo, he stood there like a house
>   by the side of the road.

Under the laws of which country is Cooper going to arrest Windom Earle
in the Black Lodge?  Will Bob really agree to extradite him?  And why
should Cooper's attempt to use a weapon there be any more successful
than Windom Earle's?  Cooper was at least smart enough to know that
the normal procedures wouldn't apply there, although he didn't seem to
be able to figure out what would work.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who says he even HAD his pistol?  He certainly seemed to lose his
flashlight and overcoat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     All throughout the finale, Cooper was so damn passive.  The side of
good really has done nothing throughout without evil being one step ahead
of them all the way.  Coop ignored the giant's warning; even when he realized
that Windom was waiting on the outcome of the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, all
he did after getting there was watch (and clap =) ).  He was a model of in-
action all the way through.  If anything, Andy was the one who made the most
progress -- the map, the revelation of the bonsai bug, etc.  Coop was even
passive inside the Lodge.  I expected at least something from the man who
was on top of everything not so long ago.  The way things were, he was almost
a bit player... it was Windom who made everything happen; Coop was just
following and watching.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> So there you are, in the Black Lodge, with your trusty FBI-issue
> Smith & Wesson Model 1076 10mm pistol at your side ...

     [and others have wondered why Cooper was so passive in the Red Rooms]

It was Dale Cooper's nature to be an observer rather than a participant.
The autobiography drives this home repeatedly, but it's also evident from
the show.  His love of observation certainly takes him into a lot of
strange and interesting situations, but he is ultimately there as the
passive viewer.  The one motivation that seems to kick him into genuine
action is a head to head confrontation with known evil.  I suppose you
could say that the evil in the Red Rooms should have spurred him to
greater action, but the nature of the evil and all of the experiences
in the Red Rooms (not all of it was evil) was unknown to Dale.  And while
those experiences would have been totally disorienting to most mortals,
Dale lapsed into his observe-it-for-all-it's-worth mode, and probably
dealt with it better than almost anyone else could have.

At least that's my take on Dale's personality and the nature of his
actions (or lack thereof) in the Lodge waiting rooms.

==============================================================================
*** Laura Palmer
==============================================================================

>Laura Palmer's hand symbol looked like a symbol, similar to the
>pose in many Bhuddist paintings. Anyone know what it means?

If my memory serves me correctly it's the classic possition taken by
Shiva while doing his dance that destroys and thus remakes the world
The fullfilment of the death and re-birth cycle. It's also symbolic
of something that is in this world but not of this world.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>  Laura Palmer's hand symbol looked like a symbol, similar to the
>  pose in many Bhuddist paintings. Anyone know what it means?

Well, this may be too prosaic an explanation, but take a look at
Madonna's ``Vogue'' video.  ``Strike a pose'', indeed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Laura Palmer's hand symbol looked like a symbol, similar to the
>pose in many Bhuddist paintings. Anyone know what it means?

I thought it looked like Vanna White, on Wheel of Fortune.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>I thought it looked like Vanna White, on Wheel of Fortune.

I was ready for a bottle of shampoo to materialize in her hands and she 
says "This is the shampoo I use !!" :-)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laura's screaming scenes caused both cats to leave the TV room.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>   Am I the only person who found Laura's screaming decidedly NOT scary?
>   It seemed completely unmotivated by extreme terror or even extreme
>   rage; just a device to have her step forward and try to scare Cooper.
>   Could someone who WAS scared perhaps describe for me what it was that
>   was so frightening for them in that moment.  Perhaps my efforts to try
>   and figure out what was going on detached me from it emotionally to
>   the point where I missed the experience.

Well, what got me going was not the screaming but the fact that she
crawled over the love seat in the same way we'd seen Bob crawl over
the sofa in the Palmer's living room.  On first viewing, I interpreted
the whole scene as ``Laura as Bob'', and the screaming/howling as
Bob's screaming/howling.  It was shocking to see ``Laura'' doing Bob's
moves.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just an observation here-- I noticed that in the scene that begins with
"Doppleganger," while the "evil Laura" is screaming, the faces of Laura
and WE were alternately flashed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laura Palmer - gets the Fay Wray award for 1991.  Aside.
Why was Maddy in the Black Lodge?  She wasn't evil (see above).  And
if we're trotting out the tournament of dead people society, why not
bring in Mr. Solitary Soul too?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Thanks to an exhibit of Tibetan religious art at the Asian Art Museum
in San Francisco, I will try to interpret Laura's hand gestures in the
Waiting Room.

  Her right hand, with fingers pointing upwards, is a symbolic gesture
meaning HAVE NO FEAR (!!!). Laura's horizontally pointing left hand is
a symbol for CONTEMPLATION. 

  I believe that her use of these gestures was an attempt to remind Coop
of his training during the "lost years", as well as being direct 
messages in their own right. The  purpose of the HAVE NO FEAR message is
obvious, I think the CONTEMPLATION message means that Coop should face 
his upcoming ordeal with a calm and reflective mind. Thus, both 
messages also reinforce each other.

  Notice that the doppel-Laura directly attempts to counter these two
messages by her "piercing" screaming - she is trying to pierce Coop's
composure.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was playing with the freeze-frame...
In the scene where Laura screams at Cooper and then runs up to him,
and the strobe lights are going, her face is replaced in a few frames
by the face of WE, lit up in a strange mellow orange light.
I took this to mean that the Laura-doppel was some kind of creation by WE,
designed expressly to induce fear in Cooper.  The lodge magicians
(even WE) can manipulate reality there, making coffee run at the wrong
speed, maybe controlling doppels or creating confusing images.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Was that Laura reflected in the coffee cup in the end titles?

Yes.  Her reflection starts out unfocussed and becomes clearer.  If
you watch closely, you can see her wink.  I had a frightening moment
watching the image come up; while the image of was still sort of
fuzzy, I thought it was Bob reflected in the cup, which would have
really depressed me no end.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grin.  I wonder how many thousands of people ran to their TV during the
credits with their Head upside down.  Yes.  It was Laura.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The final credits:
I've been on the edge of my seat before, but upside down in
front of my TV? Whew! How many of you were with me?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>   So Laura in a coffee cup. What the heck does *that* mean?!

Not just any coffee cup; it's the coffee cup that Cooper set down on
the table in the Waiting Room.  (I suddenly realized that Laura would
be right side up to Cooper.)  And her image fades in slowly.  And she
winks (presumably, at Cooper).

==============================================================================
*** Pathetic theories
==============================================================================

The Black Lodge is the opposite of OZ!

Consider these references:

  1. Garland Briggs asks about JUDY GARLAND, who starred as Dorothy
     in the Wizard of Oz.

  2. When Briggs emerges from the woods, he asks where the castle is.
     (Though this could have been a reference to the castle of the
     king of Romania!)

  3. Near the black and white firepit portal stands Pete's truck,
     which has twelve RAINBOW trout.  Thus the portal could be said to
     be over the rainbow.

  4. The wizard used fire to strike fear into Dorothy and her friends.

  5. Water was used to kill the wicked witch, just as the sprinklers
     removed Bob from Leland.

  6. The colors RED and GREEN are opposites.  The red traffic light
     is akin to the red room, the green light to peacefulness.  The
     emerald city in the land of Oz was, of course, GREEN.

  7. David Lynch used Oz references extensively in 'Wild at Heart'.

  8. The promo for the return of TP to Thursdays on ABC had Coop acting
     as Dorothy in bed, surrounded by his (her) friends.  This promo
     may have been more symbolic than we knew!

Here's the answer to how Coop gets out of the Black Lodge: he clicks
his heels together 3 times and repeats "There's no place like home."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    What is the significance of the fact that the flashing lights on 
Cooper and Truman's police car were the same colors as Dr. Jacoby's
eyeglasses?

    (Aside from this detail, everything seemed pretty straightforward.)
    
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hasn't anyone yet realized that the Lounge Lizard was the Log Lady's husband?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, I know that this is reaching, but what else do we have?

The phrase "How's Annie?" is repeated so much in the end of the
movie Finale that I feel that there may be some meaning hidden
in it.

I loaded up the phrase in my mind, and then played it backwards.
You would never guess what came out..."In A While".

Ok, so it comes out "Ina Wah", but if you say it really fast, it
sounds like "In A While."   Is Lynch trying to tell us to wait a
while, and Peaks will be back?  

Probably not, but it was worth a shot.

==============================================================================
*** Room configuration
==============================================================================

  The general concensus which I am receiving from the group, is  that
Lynch's depiction of the Black Lodge was disappointing.  I can't
disagree more!  I found the maze of red curtains, disorienting,
distressing, and just plain spooky!

  The atmosphere in the waiting room seemed quite oppressive.  It had
an evil/oily ambience which I though was entirely appropriate.  (I had
the same feeling watching Kubrick's "The Shining")  I had no difficulty
believing that this COULD be a vision of Hell.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Red Room spoken in reverse sounds like "murder".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I haven't analyzed it scene by scene to the point others have in terms
of drawing diagrams, etc., my gut feeling when watching Coop move from hallway
to room and again was that there was only one hallway and one room, and that it
was the things in the room and hallway that were changing, not that there were
multiple rooms and hallways.  As I say, this is a gut, emotional response only,
not an analytical one.  It just seemed to me that Coop was trapped in the same
space the entire time, and that the only way he could leave was to win or lose
the "Test of the Black Lodge" (as per Hawk).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also liked the idea presented by one Netter that the corridor was a 
passage from the Black to the White Lodge.  That somehow, the two rooms 
Coop kept (endlessly) passing between represented the Black and White Lodge
  The idea of good/evil being intertwined fits perfectly with the concept 
of yin/yang.  Good and Evil cannot be seperated, without one, the other 
would not exist. There is Good and Evil is everyone (well..in BoB ???)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The white lodge and the black lodge are two faces to the same coin, ie
there's only ONE lodge, but there are obviously two parts.  (The floor
I took as the giveaway:  white and black mixed, spaced)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

there was only _ONE_ room.  At first it looked like two, with the middle
passage in between them.  Then, near the end, when Coop starts wildly running
about, he is going in a circle, with each entrance bringing him to the same
room from different sides.  Look more carefully at those last 15 minutes,
people.  Good and evil the same? or someone thought it would look cool?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      I beg to differ.  After it was all over my boyfriend
brought out the old graph paper and we mapped the whole
thing.  Now I'm sorta fuzzy on it, cause after watching it
for the 20th time I was getting somewhat burned out.  But,
here are his conclusions:

(Any errors are mine, as he has 25 pages of maps and notes
and I'm doing my best to decipher them from memory)

Okay, one of the clues is the statue in the hallway.  It's
there for a while, and then it disappears.  Alos, there is
one room without furniture.  So, we came to the conclusion
there are 3 rooms and 2 hallways, one hallway with a statue,
one without.  Or, looking at this map, maybe there's three
hallways.  That's it!  Okay.  There's the ahllway into the
waiting room, which has a statue in it.  Then, there's
another hallway (also with a statue) that leads to the room
where Coop faced Bob and Shadow-Laura.  Then, there's a
third hallway without a statue that leads to the empty room.
I think.  But this was the basic idea.  I think I'll shut up
till he gets home and let him post and explain all his
breakdowns etc.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>One little anomaly I noticed in the Black (/white?) Lodge scene last night:
>After Cooper has gone from room to room a couple times, the statue which is
>in the hallway dissapears. Any comments?

Yes, a statue of _Venus._  Saturn and Jupiter are not alone in the current
planetary conjuction -- even in the smoggy skies off Manhattan we can see
that Venus is the brightest of the three... I took the Venus de Milo to be
Annie, Coop's Venus, and when the statue disappeared, I feared the worst for
her.  Or was it just that this symbol of love had fled?

Can anyone identify the statue in the waiting room?

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>One little anomaly I noticed in the Black (/white?) Lodge scene last night:
>After Cooper has gone from room to room a couple times, the statue which is
>in the hallway dissapears. Any comments?

Didn't Gordon say that Shelly resembled the Venus de Milo statue
while talking to Coop in the RR Diner?  It seems that there was
alot of emphasis placed on Shelly...Leo tells The Major to "save
Shelly", Gordon falls in love with her, Windom Earle reading
poetry by Shelley...does anyone think that originally Shelly would 
have played a much larger role in the Black Lodge thing, if not for 
the time constraints placed on Lynch et al?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>One little anomaly I noticed in the Black (/white?) Lodge scene last night:
>  After Cooper has gone from room to room a couple times, the statue which is
>in the hallway dissapears. Any comments?
>-- 

On a second watching I kept track of this.  If you take the statue as
indicating WHICH room Cooper is in (no statue by the entrance to the
first -- called the "Waiting Room" by the LMFAP -- and a statue by the
entrance to the second room), then Cooper moves back and forth between
the 1st and 2nd rooms several times.*

Then... Laura reappears with glassy eyes and starts screaming.
Flashes of Windom Earle's face are alternated with hers.  I take this
to mean that WE is now controlling what Cooper sees.

After this scene, we never see the statue again, the logical
conclusion being that either Cooper keeps entering the same room (the 1st)
over and over again, or he is running between the 1st room and a
doppelganger ("the wrong room") 1st room.


*the only divergence from consistent spatial relationships is when
Cooper looks in the 2nd room for the first time.  The furniture is in
the corner closest to him.  Subsequently, it is in the far corner.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   *the only divergence from consistent spatial relationships is when
   Cooper looks in the 2nd room for the first time.  The furniture is in
   the corner closest to him.  Subsequently, it is in the far corner.

It's more than this, though.  The jagged tooth pattern on the floor of
the hallway runs parallel to the ``rear'' wall.  When Cooper first
enters room 2, the pattern in the room is consistent with this.  When
he re-enters it the pattern is running parallel to the hallway, as if
the room had been rotated.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> On a second watching I kept track of this.  If you take the statue as
> indicating WHICH room Cooper is in (no statue by the entrance to the
> first -- called the "Waiting Room" by the LMFAP -- and a statue by the
> entrance to the second room), then Cooper moves back and forth between
> the 1st and 2nd rooms several times.*
> ...

OK, maybe I REALLY need a life.  But I replayed this scene and paid special
attention to the zig-zag floor pattern.  From room 1, looking at the statue,
the central zig, plus both zigs closest to the two curtain walls point TOWARDS
you.  From room 2 (from the statue), obviously, they point away.  Cooper moves
absolutely consistently from room 1 to room 2, despite the fact that the statue
has disappeared in the meanwhile, many times.  However, there is a lapse.  Coop
meets BOB in Room 1, where BOB takes WE's soul.  He leaves room 1 abruptly, just
before anti-Cooper enters from the other side, laughs along with BOB, and then
chases him.  Coop runs up the hall the wrong way (he is now leaving room 2 and
entering room 1 according to the floor, but not according to his previous
whereabouts) and meets Leland in the hall, looks back, sees anti-Coop, etc.  At
that point, Coop runs THROUGH a room, out the other side, and all bets are off.

(There may be a thesis in here somewhere.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------   
   
   >One little anomaly I noticed in the Black (/white?) Lodge scene last night:
   >  After Cooper has gone from room to room a couple times, the statue which is
   >in the hallway dissapears. Any comments?

   I thought, while I was watching it, that there's a statue at *one* end
   of the hallway and not the other.  I assumed it was put there in part
   to serve as a reference point so that we could tell which room was
   which.  At some point, though, it seemed that things got totally
   turned around and inconsistent, sort of like the scene in "Yellow
   Submarine" where Our Heroes run in one hotel room door and then out of
   the door across the corridor.

[In what follows, I'm calling the first of the red curtained rooms
that Cooper enters, ``the waiting room'', just to have some name for
it.]

The first five times Cooper goes through the hallway, there is a
statue at ``the far end'' (i.e. the end away from ``the waiting room''
or its current incarnation, and away from the camera).  Moreover,
Cooper is filmed fairly consistently: when he is moving away from
``the waiting room'' end, he is filmed from behind, moving toward the
statue, away from the camera; when he is moving toward ``the waiting
room'' end, he is filmed from the front, moving away from the statue,
toward the camera.  (This assumes there is only one statue in the
hallway(s) with the statue.)  When Cooper leaves the room where he
starts to bleed from the stomach, which was the room away from ``the
waiting room'' end, he is filmed, as usual, approaching the camera.
But there is no statue behind him.  The point of view then cuts to a
position from behind Cooper and there is no statue in front of him,
either.  I take it that the different camera angle is meant to let us
know that this is a hallway without a statue at either end.

The hallway where Cooper meets Leland is also a hallway without a
statue, since we see the hallway from Cooper and Doppel-Cooper's
viewpoints, and there's no statue at either end.  Also, I believe that
the camera position is different in this scene, and is at what was
formerly ``the far end'' of the hallway.  Since this is where Cooper
starts to run away from his Doppelganger, towards the room where he
entered the XXX Lodge, this is probably a deliberate shift in camera
point of view.  I'm not completely certain of this, however.  Up until
Cooper encounters Caroline for the first time, we see him enter and
exit each room he's in, and it's possible to chart his course.
However, we don't see him leave the room where he meets Caroline;
there is a cross-fade, to a shot of the camera panning up a hallway,
with Cooper saying ``Annie'' over and over.  At this point, it's not
clear where the next room, where he encounters Windom Earle et al, is.
In the climactic race with his Doppelganger, it looks like Cooper
crosses two hallways and goes through a room.  The last room of the
chase seems to be the original ``waiting room''.  If it is, the
Doppelganger catches Cooper at the spot where Cooper entered the XXX
Lodge (which makes sense, since ``Cooper'' then reappearsin
Glastonbury Grove.  Also, if I'm right about the orientation.  The
Doppelganger enters at a point diagonally opposite from where Cooper
entered the XXX Lodge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I get the feeling that if he stepped out of one room for a second
then stepped back in it, it would be totally different.  i.e. I
don't think you can map a place such as the Black Lodge, just as
I doubt there is a map of heaven.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was under the impression that there were, in fact, two rooms that
Coop was walking between, one the White Lodge and the other the Black
Lodge.  It looked like some of the folks Coop encountered only showed
up in one and some only in the other.  A definative list would be
helpful, but it seemed that the dwarf, the giant, the bellhop, and
Laura Palmer appeared only in the first room.  Bob, Maddie, Windham
Earle, and maybe Caroline and Annie, appeared only in the second. 
I've been trying to puzzle out which is the White Lodge and which the
Black Lodge.  I believe that the giant is a White Lodger and Windham
should be a Black Lodger.  What has me stumped is that the screaming
Laura doesn't seem to be a White Lodge sorta character, but Bob
*certainly* is a Black Lodger.  Any ideas?
 
I don't take the dwarf's statement that "This is the Waiting Room."
to mean that it wasn't the lodge itself, as some seem to.  Also, it
sounded like both lodges have the same entrance, with love being the
key to the White Lodge and fear to the Black Lodge.  This contradicts
the story Hawk told of having to pass through the Black Lodge in
order to enter the White Lodge, but the Indian folklore may have
gotten details like this wrong after centuries of retelling.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> And also Major Briggs description of the WL as a "shinning white mansion"..
> of course that could NOT be the WL...or it may be his INTERPRETATION of 
> the WL.

Perhaps the lodges look different to everyone. Coop, having had the dream
of the Red Room, used it as the model for his Lodge-image (much as we
often recycle bits of real places in our dreams). If so, the whole adventure
would have looked very different to Windom Earl and to Annie.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think some of you may have been disappointed by the cheap set approach
to the lodges.  I think many were envisioning some kind of apocalyptic
struggle between the forces of good and evil, sort of a Tolkienesque
wizard/demon thing.  Lynch portrayed the struggle as more of an internal
one (Good Dale, Bad Dale), in which no one is completely white or black
(lodge).  You were expecting Cooper the Barbarian?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob is an a building with many rooms all the same, surrounded by trees.  Sounds
like Mike's description of Bob's location for the past thirty years and of the
black lodge too.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About why it was that after the line "when you see me again, it won't be me",
the next time we saw the LMFAP was when he said "Wrong Way":

How do we know that wasn't the doppleganger?  Did you see his eyes?  It
sounds like that would be the kind of trick the Dark Side would play.  Coop
obviously thought that that little man was the same one -- since he'd only
just left the room and gone back -- so he listened to him.  But this one
led him to the Black Lodge...

==============================================================================
*** What it all means
==============================================================================

    In the summary below I'm projecting a little that we don't
    have much evidence for yet concerning the White Lodge.  It
    could turn out that only the Black Lodge and Twin Peaks are
    involved.

    What we saw at the end was a gateway to a twin universe;
    immediately behind the portal that offers entry is the
    Black Lodge, which is only a waiting room.  Somewhere beyond
    it is ther rest of the Black Universe.

    Somewhere else is a White Universe, enterable through
    the White Lodge.  Each of these has its own laws of physics,
    and some of these laws are opposites in each universe.
    Between these two is our universe, including the town
    of Twin Peaks, where gateways exist between the universes.

    The Black and White Universes may in fact be universes of
    souls.  In any case every person has an identity in each
    universe.  If a person in one universe finds a gateway and
    visits another universe, they can find a being there who
    is a "double" for themselves.  They can also find doubles
    of numerous other people, and sometimes they may actually
    stumble on someone else from their own universe -- someone
    who might have wandered through a gateway, or who was forced
    through it (as in Annie being abducted).

    The "Black physics" and "White physics" of the opposed universes
    make one a home for evil beings, the other a home for good beings.
    Our universe, between the opposites, is a middle ground where
    the opposing laws of physics mix and compete.  The competition
    is particularly strong in Twin Peaks, which has a known gateway
    to the Black Universe and probably also has a gateway to the
    White Universe.

    In the Black laws of physics time probably still runs forwards,
    but the combination of space and time is different.  There are
    probably more than 3 spatial dimensions, and time might behave
    partly as a spatial dimension.  It may be possible to visit an
    earlier time by walking to a different location in this
    multi-dimensional space.  Maybe time is nonlinear -- distortions
    in either space or time could explain why voices sound strange
    to our perception.

    Laws of physics may be further distorted in a place such as
    the Black Lodge, at an interface between universes.  There
    may be yet more mysteries beyon the Black Lodge.

    Apparently we of the Peaks Universe can gain entrance to the
    Black Universe (or at least the Black Lodge) by passing
    through the gateway.  A being (soul?) in the Black Universe
    needs to physically merge with its double from the Peaks universe
    in the Black Lodge before being able to cross the gateway,
    as happened with Coop at the end.

    That leaves a question of identity:  Only BOB visibly inhabits
    a human host while in this universe.  Are the Black doubles
    manifestations of BOB?  Or is BOB the "God" of the Black
    Universe, creator of the Black doubles for his own purposes?
    Or is there more to be revealed?
    
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm beginning to get upset by the use of the word "doppleganger"
for what Bob does.  Bob posseses people, perhaps shifting their 
soul/essense/personality to the black lodge, but he uses (then discards)
the actual body. 

In fact, Bob may simply pre-empt the personality of the user.  Check
Leland's behavior:

He killed the fat frenchman (memory fails).  A brutal act,
but motivated by fatherly revenge, not Bob's kill-lust.  Also,
he killed the dude in a non-Bob like manner.   This would
indicate that Bob's possesion pre-empts the Leland personality,
who has no memory of whats going on.  I kind of see Leland's soul trapped
in the Black Lodge, where Bob can extract information from him, so as
to maintain the Leland act.

However, when Bob leaves Leland's body, Leland claims to remember all
the horrible things Bob did with his body ... perhaps Bob "clued him in"
as a parting shot ...

What goes on in the black lodge has its own set of rules: presumably
the physical reality in the black lodge is a manifestation of the
occupant's mental state (that is, it is a dream world).  Having
two Coopers there is just a way of viewing the internal battle within
Coop as Bob takes possesion ... Bob has split off the evil in Cooper, and
given it sufficient power that it appears a seperate entity.  Alternate:
the evil Cooper is just an image (like the images of Laura, Maddy & etc.)
used to shake Cooper enough to allow Bob to get a mental foothold.

Further more, whatever is going on is not a science:  It defies the
rational/spiritual approach (Cooper) and the manic/magic approach
(Earle).  Bob may be capable of many different approaches.

Of course, in the final scene, it appears that Bob is showing off to
Cooper:  Staying hidden in the back of Cooper's mind until he is alone,
then taking control slowly (slow enough for Coop to try and brain himself)
as Coop realizes what is happening.

Typical Lynch:  not enough puzzle pieces to make any definate statement.
However, I really doubt we'll see two Coops out in the real world.  This
could go anywhere, assuming there IS a followup.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, so much for love being the answer- its not enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was a little disappointed by the ending being as predicted (yes, it does
seem ineveitable, but I was still disappointed) and I was a *lot* disappointed
by the scene in the Black Lodge (my theory is that the White and Black
lodges are actually the same place).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Someone remarked that entrance to the lodges was too easy.  I thought
that this was fairly well explained.  Love and fear are the possible
prices of admission.  WE and Annie got in because of her fear (and he
was inspiring it, perhaps).  Coop because of his love for Annie.  I
agree with previous posters that neither Annie's fear nor Coop's love
were particularly evident in the acting in this episode.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So does the 25-years-in-the-future dream sequence (preview of the future)
indicate that Cooper has defeated Bob with love and entered the White Lodge
(White portion of the White/Black lodge) or that he has been defeated by
fear and is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the Black Lodge with
Bob, Laura, et. al.?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMHO, I don't think the White Lodge appeared at all.  What if all the 
manifestations (Little Man, etc.) were from the Black Lodge?  What if this 
was all part of the grand scheme of the BL to get Coop there.  A chess game
in a chess game?

Here is my theory:  Using LP, the Black Lodge got Coop to TP.  Then using
Renault, they keep Coop there.  Finally, by using WE, they got Coop into
the Black Lodge.  The BL would have a lot to gain by using the dark side of 
Coop, especially since he did not face it.  Did the BL know that Coop would 
run when his dark side appeared?  So now we have the good Coop trapped in
BL and the bad Coop out in the world.

Is the gate open only a specific time or until June?  If it is open until 
June, it would be possible to go back into BL and save Coop.  The best 
candidates: Truman and/or Annie.  Since love could open the gate to the WL, 
they could possibly be the key to helping Coop.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Hmm, I've been reading everyone's comments (well, not everyones YET)
about the lodges and such.  I saw it differently.
  I saw it as that Cooper was in the White Lodge the entire time.  He
made some comment about the concept of time and space and such.  It would
seem to me that Time/Space/Glastenbury all occupy sorta the same time and
place but not quite.  Cooper was in the White Lodge, and was able to enter
because he loved Annie.  WE was in the Black lodgee because he HATED
Cooper.  The two lodges could communicate with each other, albeit with
some distortion (such as voices).  If we saw it from WE's side, Dale's
voice might seem to be distorted.
  Just some thought.
  
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is it just me, or did anyone else notice some really strange sh*t
happening in the "real" world TP while Coop was in the Black Lodge??
It's like *time* was out of sync, like the residents of Twin Peaks had
skipped over the events of the past 3/4 of the season (all the W.
Earle stuff) or had gone back to the time just before it.   Were the
time/events of the TP universe shifting, reversing, or erasing while
Coop was in the BL???

Evidence:

A]  It is night when Coop enters the BL and Truman & Andy are waiting
'outside' for him. The Little Man offers Coop some coffee, S. Drool
Cup appears with the coffee, and repeats 'coffee, coffee, etc'.  When
next we see Truman and Andy it is 10 hours later and they have an
extremely slow and strange conversation.  Andy asks Truman "Do you
want coffee?"    (coincidence????). 

Also, when Coop emerges from the BL, it is night again.  Did Truman
sit on that damned log for 24 hours, or was the 'day' scene with Andy
just time being out of sync while Coop was in the BL, and when he
(Coop) emerged, we are back to the same time frame, just a few minutes later???

B]  Also during the 'day' supposedly 10 hours after Coop went into the
BL, the TP folks are acting like nothing has happened.  I mean, there
has just been massive confusion and terror during the Miss TP
contest, with explosions and screams and a kidnapping (Annie), so why
the hell are Bobby and Shelly and the Major having just a lovely grand
'ol time at the diner as if nothing was out of the ordinary???  

And speaking of Bobby, he looked pretty chipper for a guy that got
*smashed* across the face with a log just 10 hours before!

And speaking of the Major, he too looked pretty good for a guy that
was a babbling, drugged-out veggie just 10 hours before!  (didn't notice
scars or bandages on either of them)

Not to mention the German waitress who shows up out of nowhere...

What really got me about the "Happy Diner" scene was Mrs. Palmer.  Dr.
Jacoby waltzes in with her and she says to the Major "I'm in the Black
Lodge with W. Earle" (or some reference to the BL)   This was the only
ominous thing in the whole scene, and it made me wonder whether the
whole scene wasn't really happening, or was only happening because of
the time shift.  Mrs Palmer's words seemed to be a message to the
Major that this 'day' wasn't real, it was only an illusion (or
alternate reality) brought on by Cooper's exploits in the BL.

OK, so those are my thoughts.  Of course, the only problem is it
DOESN'T explain the last scene of Cooper/Bob.   However, it does offer
a possible explanation as to to why the townsfolk were so oblivious to
the events of the past 6 (?) episodes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is how I thought it should have ended. Coop appears to save
Annie, but makes some slip-up that the viewer is supposed to catch. We see
Coop and Annie in a hotel room, dressing for something.

Cooper is standing by a table, finishing a glass of wine. Annie sits at a
dressing table.

COOPER: Are you almost ready?

ANNIE: Almost. I just have to finish my makeup.

Cooper puts tie around his neck, goes into bathroom to tie it, closes
door. We see Annie putting on her makeup. Same composition as the initial
image of Josie in the pilot. A thud in the bathroom as she finishes her
makeup and smiles. The camera moves around behind her to show Bob's face
grinning in the mirror. The bathroom door opens and Cooper comes out,
dragging himself along the floor, collapsing propped up against the bed.
There is a knock at the door.

ANNIE: That will be the waiter with the room service.

She goes to her purse and pulls out an exacto knife. She walks to the door
and grasps the handle to open it as Cooper watches helplessly. Freeze and
dissolve to the shot of Laura as homecoming queen. Final credits over the
picture in total silence.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that the White Lodge is an illusion, and that evil is at the
heart of the universe.  All striving for the good, through love and
self-sacrifice, serve only to create an illusion which distracts
us from our final fate, which is to be ingested and made one with the
malevolent core of the uniBoBverse.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I like to see Twin Peaks as an extended riff on the conflicts of
love, especially the way love fragments into desire, violence, and
fear.  After all, at the heart of the TP story is a tale of childhood
sexual abuse--a father's seduction and murder of a beloved and
seductive daughter.

Other Twin Peaks romances share the illicit and/or violent elements
of the Leland/Laura relationship--Leo and Shelly's sadomasochistic
marriage; Hank and Norma's similarly twisted marriage; the
"accidental" shooting during Ed and Nadine's honeymoon (they got
married, remember, because Norma cheated on Ed); Shelly's adultery
with Bobby; Ed's adultery with Norma; and of course Cooper's adultery
with Caroline, and Caroline's murder by Windom.

Then there are all those ominous hints about past romances--whatever
horrible events drove Annie to the convent, for example.  And let's
not forget demonic Little Nicky and his parents.  Characters' passion
for Laura, too, leads to violent death--e.g. Maddy, and poor Harold.

I keep expecting someone to start singing "You Always Hurt the One
You Love," or (more cinematically appropriate) "Love Kills" (from
Queen's soundtrack for "Metropolis").

The second season seems to have devoted itself to spreading this
theme around with occult imagery.  What I think we're seeing in these
latest episodes is Lynch's typical heaping up of any gruesome
allusions that seem to fit the theme, like he's building some massive
gothic fugue or Wagnerian opera.  So he hauls out Greek mythology
with all the unseemly romantic and family relationships of its gods
and goddesses (I love the image of the dismembered Venus in the
hallway); and he throws in Arthurian legend (recall Arthur's
illegitimacy, and Sir Launcelot's adulterous affair with Arthur's
wife Guinivere; I picture Windom Earle as an Arthur gone mad, and
Cooper as the well-meaning but tragically flawed Launcelot); and he
throws in Stanley Kubrick movies like "The Shining," where a
murderous father is chasing his wife and son (shouting "Redrum") down
empty hallways, driven by adulterous spectres from the past.

The result is one big vat of symbolic stew, tasty but incoherent.

The lodges thing, IMHO, seems to say that in the real world these
conflicting aspects of love are mixed together, making love both
blissful and hellish, but in the occult world souls divide, sides are
taken, as first the "dark side" (a la Star Wars) of a soul drops out
in the Black Lodge, then the good moves toward the light of the White
Lodge.

The planets symbolize this split; when the two conjoin one can pass
between this world (where life, because of love and passion, is
constantly conjoining opposites) and the otherworld (whatever it is).
So I like the idea proposed that the checkerboard tile indicates that
Black and White Lodges are overlapping.

Or something like that...who the hell knows, anyway?  In the end, I
think the plot and symbolism of TP are incidental; sometimes they
work, sometimes they don't.  If you want plot you're better off with
afternoon soaps.  What you really have to savor in Twin Peaks are the
brilliant characterizations and powerful moods.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe that the Waiting Room was a sort of equivalent to Purgatory, a place
that is neither good nor evil but capable of holding both while the balance of
the soul is sorted out.  Cooper  leaves the purgatory of the waiting room and
enters the hell of the black lodge after he has finished his "coffee".  Doesn't
the LMFAP tell Coop that the next time Coop sees him it won't be him?  I took
this to mean that Coop was now venturing into the Land of Lies.  

I don't think Coop encountered anyone from the White Lodge.  My personal proof
of this is that Coop did encounter Leland.  Leland was escorted into death by
Cooper who guided him "into the light", where Leland met Laura (and presumably,
peace, forgiveness and redemption).  Leland's mortal soul found redemption
(which sounds to me like a good pass into the White Lodge).  

 Perhaps the lines from Shakespeare about "The evil that men do lives on while
the good is oft interred with the bones" applies here.    While Leland's soul
has moved on, his lesser image, his shade or doppleganger still hangs out in
the Black Lodge.   This image speaks of responsibility for casuing death and
evading that responsibility.  The "real" Leland faced up to his part in Laura's
death and went through it.   The  shade of Leland was still reveling in the
death.

My weird thought of the day was that maybe the good Leland, the part that
passed into the light, can come back and return the favor to Coop and free him
from the grip of BoB.  That would seem to be a sort of poetic justice.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The seemingly strange behavior of the residents is accounted for
by the flip flop of time (IMHO).  I think everytime Coop crossed
a hall, time in TP wavered or flipped or reversed or something.
The order the letters were placed under fingernails would seem
to backup the random time theory.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How's this for an analysis of TP, as alluded to by another post --
Suppose the central theme of TP is that when the Universe began, two
separate timelines were created - a positive time line and a negative
time line.  The two threads of time are intertwined and intersect every
20-25 years.  We live in the positive time line and the black and white lodges
exist in the negative time line.  Time is moving forward to the occupants
of the lodges, but in reverse direction to ours.  They therefore know
what's happening in our future at 20-25 year intervals.  This explains
how Laura and the LMFAP can know Dale's future.  THEY have already lived
it - in reverse.  To communicate with us, they have to talk backward,
because if they talked forward (to them), it would SOUND backward to us.

This implies a certain predestiny, for if a backwards time line started
from infinite time and worked backwards, events must have already been
predestined.  Since Lynch is reputed to be very conservative and religious,
belief in predestination may make sense.  Perhaps Bob, et al, are
messing with the machinery every 20 years and causing potential paradoxes.
It is up to the white lodge to keep this from happening.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

there's a lot of evidence in the
final scenes that time *is* going backwards. Notice how Laura deliberately
snapped her fingers backwards, for example. The most outstanding event in this
regard is when Windom Earle "stabs" Coop with that thingie. Coop falls to the
floor, then suddenly we see that *exact* same event in reverse! He "falls"
"up" to the knife (or whatever it is). Does this signify a point when time
made a U-turn of some sort?

I find it very, very difficult to believe that all this is just for "special
visual effect." I'm not sure what is *is* for, though, with regard to the
plot line.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's my theory.

Cooper enters the Black Lodge, to face the test Hawk spoke of and to get
Annie back from Windom Earle.  Unfortunately, his love for Annie blinds
him to the nature of the test he is about to encounter.

He meets the MFAP and LP.  The giant/waiter appears, and offers him
coffee.  He does this in an odd way ("Hallelujah!"  "Coffee. 
Coffee..."), which somehow nullifies the MFAP's power over what is going
on.  Cooper realizes the power of the coffee (if he can drink it it will
help him in his test) and looks to see if the MFAP is watching before he
drinks it.  He is not, the MFAP is rubbing his hands and looking down. 
Coop reaches for the coffee, but Bob has made it solid, so he cannot
drink.  He then plays with Coop, making it coffee again and then
viscous.  Coop cannot drink.  The MFAP notices this, and praises Bob:
"Wow Bob wow.  Fire walk with me.", "Fire walk with me" being a sort of
prayer to Bob or the Black Lodge.  The giant cannot help Coop; he loses
the first round.

Coop next meets Maddie, who warns him about Laura.  The MFAP tells Coop
about Doppelgangers.  Laura's screaming scares Coop, and he is injured,
but returns to the room to face Laura again and recovers.

Coop next faces Windom Earle, in the guise of Catherine and Annie.  WE
succeeds in confusing Coop about his love for the dead Catherine (but
maybe alive in the Black Lodge) versus his love for Annie.  However,
when he finally confronts Coop and challenges him for his soul, Coop
offers it, and wins this round -- this is his great victory in the Black
Lodge.  Windom Earle is destroyed by Bob, who tells Coop to go.

At this point, Coop should have challenged Bob, I think.  Instead, he
leaves, since he has now won what he thought he came for, i.e., Annie. 
He shouldn't have run from the last test, the confrontation with his
Doppelganger.  In fact, things are OK up until the point just after Coop
meets Leland, who tells him he never killed anyone: i.e., that he is the
"good" Leland captured by Bob and imprisoned in the Black Lodge -- he is
warning Coop that the same could happen to him.  Coop sees his
Doppelganger at the other end of the hall, and instead of confronting
him, he runs in fear, to be defeated just as he's about to exit the
Black Lodge.

The result is, the good Coop is in the Black Lodge, the bad Coop is in
the world, and there to remain until defeated by, perhaps, Briggs, the
Log Lady, Annie, and maybe Truman and Hawk.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess we now know that Cooper is damned, not gifted....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>Most seem to believe that the Black Lodge is a 'place', 'universe', 'dimention'
>etc. occupied by evil spirits, dopplegangers and general bad guys. I was 
>puzzled then by the presence of Maddy and more importantly the Giant/Droolcup
>whom had seemed, by his actions, to belong to the White Lodge.

The amiguity of the Black Lodge concept gives it a much wider possible
meaning than a single interpretation, but, for what it's worth, I base
my interpretation on the concept of it being a place where the "Dream
Soul" meets its dark opposite.  My guess is that the Black Lodge
appears different to each person who enters it, and that the beings
that he or she meets there are those who have a special significance
in the person's life and are particularly close to whatever it is that
characterizes the person's "dark side".  Those people may not be in
the Black Lodge at all; it may just be that, upon entering the Lodge,
the nearness to the dark side of oneself causes leftover fears,
regrets, hatreds, etc., to take concrete form as people.

I haven't thought this through in detail, but assuming that Cooper is
about to have to confront his worst fear about himself, what might
that fear be and how would these people be related to it?  I think he
sees his conscious mission in life to protect the innocent people from
the evil that seems to consume so many of them.  He is so invested in
this mission that his worst fears would have to be:

1) He is incapable of stopping evil, either because it is simply too
strong, or because he isn't smart enough or capable enough;

2) The innocent are not really innocent;

3) He is capable of doing these evil things himself;

4) The mission itself is flawed, i.e. truly smart people take the side
of evil, only fools try to be good.

In addition, he is probably afraid that he acts as a sort of jinx to
women that he cares about.  (Some of this analysis comes from reading
his autobiography.)

Maddy and Caroline are strong symbols of his past failure.  Bob is a
symbol of the power of evil, Leland saying he didn't kill anybody
could show some unconscious doubt that Cooper might have that he
identified the wrong killer.  The Laura who screams in his face could
stem from a fear that the innocent are not really innocent.  Windom
Earle shows how very intelligent the side of evil can be.  And the
presence of the Giant and Dwarf could taunt him with the sense that
information is being given to him but he is incapable of figuring out
what it means in time.  In Annie he could see his hope for future
happiness mingled with the dread that by letting himself get close to
her, he will cause her death and bring on the pain of loss once again.
Thus, the doppelganger concept could have one single being, i.e.
Cooper's dark side, or his deep fear, taking all these different
forms.

If I can risk further interpretation along these lines, it seems that
he faces a number of these fears reasonably well (although the willingness
to give up his soul to let Annie live may or may not be the best way
to handle the fear tied up in her) but when the doppelganger takes the form of
himself (which I would take to be his fear that he himself is capable
of committing the evil he is trying to fight), that fear consumes and
overcomes him.  He awakens from his dream possessed by that fear, and
so of course he sees Bob when he looks in the mirror, and it appears
for now anyway that he will be driven to act out that fear. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that the Black Lodge is not an actual
place, or that people can't be seen to disappear into it.  I just am
inclined to believe that its appearance and what goes on there is very
much affected by the psyche of the individual dream soul.  For Cooper,
who is so intensely conscious of hidden evil, it makes sense that the
Black Lodge decor would be curtains the color of blood and fire,
which could be hiding anything at all, since one of the scariest
aspects of the evil he tries to fight is that it can stay hidden for
so long, until it suddenly and unexpectedly strikes.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of the people who have watched twin-peaks have the opinion, that
the Black and the White Lodge are different places. And of course this
fact courses a great lot of confusion.

However the Black and White Lodge are ONE AND THE SAME.

If you doubt this fact, then just watch the floor of the Lodge.

Also,
The LMFAP and Laura Palmer are ONE AND THE SAME.
Remember Dale Coopers dream where the LMFAP says:
"Watch out for my cousin (Maddy)" and
"We look just like each other"
Actually Laura Palmer and Maddy are the same actor.

The Giant and the old senile waiter at the Great Nortehrn
are ONE AND THE SAME.
Remember every time the giant showed himself, it was in some kind of
connection with the old senile waiter.

Annie and Coroline are ONE AND THE SAME.
I think this comes clear, when you see the scene from the Lodge
where those shift around in front of Cooper.

And of course
Dale Cooper and Windom Earle are ONE AND THE SAME.
Earle asks Cooper "Will you give up your soul for her" but
Earle cannot ask for Coopers soul because they are the same.
But then Bob replies
"You cannot ask for his soul, but I will take his" (Earles)
And then the great chase begins, which ends with Cooper/Earle being
caught.

Bob is not an inhibitant of the Lodge, he is just a personification of
evil, and therefore he exists in both our world and the Lodge.

As mentioned the two Lodges are the same.
The Lodge is not a place of badness, but of course a mix of good and
bad, because one of those cannot exist seperately.
The Lodge is the dream of the broken hearted as the LMFAP explains in
Industrial Symphony No. 1.
We do all agree that Dale Cooper was a good and loving person, but
finally love broke his heart, which resulted in the fact, that evil
sides of his person caught him.
The Lodge is indeed the waiting room of a persons change.

==============================================================================
*** Windom Earle
==============================================================================

Windom definitely got to experience his favorite emotion to a much greater
degree than he anticipated!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was WE then simply lured by BOB to be used as bait for Cooper?  The
whole love/fear thing didn't make much sense.  Apparently, WE needed
Annie to pass through the gateway, but then Cooper didn't need a 2nd
person (soul) to pass through.

What happened to all of the power WE was supposed to have after passing
through?  -- I guess WE was just set up by BOB to think he would gain
power.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evil is often represented as a structure with a chain of command.  Perhaps that
is what Lynch & Co. were thinking of when they wrote the scene.  As one
advances through the ranks one gains power to do more and greater evil.  WE was
on a lower rung than BOB and lacked the authority to claim an immortal soul. 
BOB might have had that power.  * (See Sillly Note at bottom)

WE was tricked into believing that he would gain power in the Black Lodge. 
Hardly surprising since the promises were coming from a demonic persona. 
(Isn't Satan sometimes referred to as the Father of Lies?)  Poor ole WE,
demented, duped and disposed of.

*Silly Note  
 When I was writing that paragraph about the structure of evil, I suddenly
thought of direct-sales groups like Amway and Nu-Skin.  BOB might have been the
entity in charge of his little circle of evil souls, and is  trying to go out
and recruit more souls to join the group so that he can get more and more
power.  Maybe he has a structure under him that consists of directors,
sub-directors and entry-level bad guys!  Geez leave it to David Lynch to make
free enterprise resemble hell.
*End Silly Note

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What of WE?  Is he a permanent resident of the BL?  It is interesting
that when WE wants to take Coop's soul, it looks like he is using a knife
but Bob just pulls it out.  And the soul comes out as flames?  Fire, come
walk with me -- Soul, come walk with me?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> What of WE?  Is he a permanent resident of the BL?  It is interesting
>> that when WE wants to take Coop's soul, it looks like he is using a knife
>> but Bob just pulls it out.  And the soul comes out as flames?  Fire, come
>> walk with me -- Soul, come walk with me?
>
> I think it's interesting also that before that happened, Coop already
> was bleeding from a wound.  Was this the wound (that would follow, ie
> a premonition)?  Also, puncturing aorta's seems to be WE's trademark...

1) BOB is a magician.  WE is still just a magician wannabe.

2) The wound was much lower.  It was his gunshot wound, not a heart wound.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that the way BOB/BL defeated Dale was to make him doubt his love
for Annie. The "wound" he had was the lingering memory of his first 
tragic love affair with Mrs. Earle. By confusing the images of Annie and
the late Mrs. Earle in Dale's mind, BOB/BL was able to counter the power
of love that allowed Cooper to enter the BL/WL dimension in the first 
place. 

  Another thing... what (if any) significance is there in the amount of
head wounds in TP? In this last two hour movie alone, there was:
    1. Major Briggs' cut.
    2. Nadine and Mike's noggin hits.
    3. Ben Horne's head wound.
    4. Doppleganger Dale's (DD?) self-infliced head wound.

... also, poor Leland's death wound.

FREE D.B. COOPER!!! FREE D.B. COOPER!!! FREE D.B. COOPER!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Windom was perfect inside the Lodge -- it was obvious how completely
he underestimated what he'd have to deal with.  An excellent characterization
of the madman gleefully calling up the forces of darkness and not realizing
until far too late that they were controlling him instead of vice versa.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of my favorite foreshadows of Coop's fate is his hand-carved
whistle.  His is so much smaller, so much more simple than WE's
are - a powerful image of just how much Coop is out of his league
with WE.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to Coop's Autobiography (and TP), he thought WE had faked insanity
with the help of halperidol to draw attention away from himself as the best
candidate for Caroline's murder. My impression is the WE could have gotten
himself out any time he wanted.  He was waiting for the right moment, namely,
when the Jupiter and Saturn came together as the Major reported.  I'm not
saying that WE knew when that moment would be, but rather that he was waiting
for something and realized that it was 'happening again' and where without
knowing precisely where or when.  That he needed the map and the Major for.

However, an intriguing possibility is that WE has been under BOB's control (or
someone else with BL associations) for a long time as a result of having gotten
a little to close to the BL while he was working on Project Blue Book.  BOB or
who/whatever parked him in the loony bin until the time was right again and
summoned/reactivated him.

It is possible that BOB has similar plans for Coop, but I don't think they are
going to succeed, though the point is probably moot now unless the series, like
Coop, comes back from the dead in some form or another.

==============================================================================
<----------------------------------cut here---------------------------------->
[End of File 3 of 5]
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I lived in my head mostly."                | Jim Pellmann (jgp@rational.com)
"That's not a bad neighborhood."            | RATIONAL
"There were some pretty strange neighbors." | Santa Clara, California