Rabbits

*For a full transcript of* Rabbits*, see Rabbits (Transcript).*

Jack (Scott Coffey), Suzie (Naomi Watts) and Jane (Laura Harring) are three anthropomorphic rabbits who live together. They seem to have supernatural abilities and the power to manifest in human form, while also existing on a plane of reality that resembles a TV sitcom, complete with a laugh track and canned applause. They communicate in seeming non sequiturs, frequently referencing a secret that Jack is keeping, time, and phone calls.

## Characteristics

* Jack wears a suit. He is the only one of the Rabbits who seems able to leave their home.
* Suzie wears a bathrobe. She spends most of her time ironing, but also periodically carries two lit candles high above her head in a strange ceremony.
* Jane wears a pink dress. She sits on the far left side of the couch, and never moves.

## Things That Happened

The Rabbits first appear when the Lost Girl watches them on TV. Jack enters to applause. He has a secret, and Jane says that she is going to find out one day. There have been no calls. Jack hears a light tapping outside, and exits.

Jack then enters a dark mansion room. As the lights come up, he fades. Janek manifests and speaks to the Phantom. Janek disappears while the Phantom is still speaking. The room goes dark again, and Jack exits.

Later, Jane is seen sitting alone on the couch. The room suddenly turns red, and an ominous noise is heard. A flaming match manifests. Suzie enters from the back room, carrying two candles held high over her head. The room briefly goes back to its normal color (although the flaming match remains), and Suzie fades away while Jack manifests, from the waist up, hellishly highlighted in red. Jack then disappears; Suzie reappears, and the room goes red again.

Jack then is seen entering Mr. K's office and sitting down at the desk. Seconds later, Nikki/Sue is sitting where Jack had been.

Later, the Rabbits are all home when the phone rings. It is Sue, who was trying to reach Billy. They all look at the phone for a long time. Finally, Jack answers, but says nothing. The studio audience laughs at Sue's repeated cries of "Billy!"

After the Polish men hold a séance to summon the Lost Girl and give Smithy the Phantom-killing gun, they reposition themselves and turn into the Rabbits, back at home. Marek turns into Jane, Darek turns into Jack, and Franciszek turns into Suzie. (Both Franciszek and Suzie say, "It was red.") Jane says, "This isn't the way it was." The room turns red, and the Rabbits begin speaking in warped, prerecorded sounding voices. Jack says, "It was the man in the green coat." Jane says, "It had something to do with the telling of time."

Nikki kills the Phantom outside of a door leading to the Rabbits' house. It is numbered 47. After the Phantom's death, the Rabbits' door opens and bright light floods in. They all turn to look. Nikki then stumbles inside the Rabbits' house, and finds it empty.

After Nikki frees the Lost Girl, she again manifests in the Rabbits' empty house. A dancing ballerina is superimposed over her. She sees the blue light; it is a projector in a cinema, perhaps projecting her image.

## More Things That Happened (Deleted Scenes)

Jack, on the phone at the Rabbits' home, appears to listen in on Nikki's conversation with Devon, as the Phantom torments her. Jack says, "There is something here," and Nikki repeats it.

After Nikki's friend tells the story about not recognizing the hotel, Jack is seen in the hotel hallway from *Axxon N.* (now in color). He walks down a stairway in slow motion, and exits.

## *Rabbits* (original web series)

The Rabbits originated as a series on David Lynch's website, with the first installment released June 7, 2002. *(Source:* Room to Dream*, David Lynch and Kristine McKenna, 2018, Random House, p. 413.)* The series was summarized on Lynch's site with the following sentence: "In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain... three rabbits live with a fearful mystery." Most of the series is available on the Mystery Disc in *The Lime Green Set*. The DVD presents the episodes as they were originally shot, whereas the original website release chopped the series up into shorter episodes. This article uses the episode numbering from the DVD. The series consists of two longer episodes, which were edited into five episodes for the website, and three individual "spotlights" where one of the Rabbits is alone in the set delivering a monologue. Jane's spotlight is absent from the DVD. The series is shot entirely from one angle, a front view of the Rabbits' apartment, with the exception of a single close-up on the phone in Episode 2. The two longer episodes are each one long continuous take, except that Episode 1 has an abrupt cut to black midway, and Episode 2 has the cut to the phone.

As in *INLAND EMPIRE*, Jack seems to be the only one who can exit the Rabbits' home (Suzie says, "He goes to work each morning, and then he comes back home each night"), and Jane seems unable or unwilling to move from the couch (the only time she stands is during her monologue episode, when she is notably played not by Laura Harring but by Rebekah del Rio; the only times she is absent from the couch are during the other two Rabbits' monologues).

Often, the Rabbits seem to respond to earlier lines or questions several lines later, hinting at some form of time displacement. Their references to what time it is further indicate that time is not moving in a linear fashion around them. As in the film, Jack seems to be keeping a secret from the other two, and Jane says she is going to find out. There are also hints that the Rabbits are dead humans in a sort of purgatory, and that they are waiting for reincarnation (Jane asks Suzie if she was blond; Jane ends the series by wondering who she will be). The audience tends to laugh the most at references to time or phone calls.

Twice in the series, Suzie performs her candle ritual, which looks somewhat different from the version in *INLAND EMPIRE*. In the series, Suzie seems to summon a strange disembodied face, which speaks in an odd, incoherent voice. In the film, this was replaced with the burning match, which appeared in the series during the monologue episodes.

They seem to be waiting for some inevitable event which apparently has happened before, possibly related to Jack's secret. Jack says, "When it happens, you will know." Jane indicates knowledge of the event, and has the most lines that seem to relate to it: "It did not happen that way," "I was near the harbor when it happened. It was raining," "I have known since I was seven," "I saw it, too," "No one can know about this," "It happened to me only once," "It happened like that earlier." At the end of Episode 2 (the conclusion of the series proper), the event seems to occur: the door flies open, there is a scream from outside, the room goes dark, and a bright light flashes from outside. Then, it is over; Suzie gets up and closes the door and says, "And then, there it was." Jack responds, "No. Nothing." Jane says, "Well, then. It must be very dark." The Rabbits then huddle together on the couch in fear. Jack says, "It was the man in the green coat" (earlier, in Episode 1, he said, "It was a man in a green suit"). Jane then says, "I wonder who I will be."

Most of the Rabbits' lines in *INLAND EMPIRE* are taken from the series, albeit in a rearranged order. Only two lines are original to *INLAND EMPIRE*, both spoken by Jane: "This isn't the way it was," and "It had something to do with the telling of time." Jack's line "There is something here!" from *More Things That Happened* was spoken by Suzie in the series.

### References to Time

Episode 1:

"What time is it?"

"Do not forget that today is Friday."

"It must be after 7 pm."

"All day."

"It may be even later."

"It is 11:15 pm. It is dark outside."

Episode 2:

"When did you say that?"

"It is 8:35 pm."

"Is it that late?"

"I went earlier, when it was just light."

"It's past midnight."

"All day."

## Trivia

* Freddie says he used to raise rabbits.
* Although Janek appears to be a manifestation of Jack in the Mansion scene, Janek later appears in the same room as Marek, who is also a manifestation of Jack.
* The Rabbits are associated with several parties who propel Nikki toward her destiny of killing the Phantom and freeing the Lost Girl.
* Lynch speaks about the shooting of the *Rabbits* series on the *Stories* feature. His builder, Alfredo Ponce, built the set as an outdoor amphitheater on a hill on Lynch's property, and he shot it at night to have control over the lighting. The actors had to be careful because there were "drop-off" places where they could fall. The first shoot was in August, on "the most beautiful night in summer." Lynch had a "crow's nest" in a building with three monitors, lighting and cameras on the roof, and a microphone and speakers to talk to the actors. They got into trouble when they shot late into the night, and the sound from the speakers traveled through the canyon, annoying Lynch's neighbors. Lynch concludes, "It was over as quickly as it begun."
* For the initial shoots, the actors who play the Rabbits not only provide the voices, but were also physically inside the rabbit suits. Watts and Harring (who is claustrophobic) discuss the experience in *Room to Dream*. *(Source:* Room to Dream*, David Lynch and Kristine McKenna, 2018, Random House, p. 414.)* This may not have been the case by the time of the shoots of new material for *INLAND EMPIRE*, since the film only credits the actors for voice performances.
* The *Rabbits* series was screened as part of a psychological test on the effects of Tylenol on anxiety and depression. One group were shown upbeat fare (*The Simpsons*), while a second group were shown *Rabbits*, intended to produce depression and uneasy feelings.
* All four of the actors who play the Rabbits appeared in David Lynch's prior film, *Mulholland Drive*. Watts starred as Diane Selwyn/Betty Elms, Harring starred as Camilla Rhodes/Rita, Coffey played the minor role of Wilkins, and del Rio appeared as herself. Additionally, Coffey (the son of Lynch’s personal assistant Gaye Pope, who passed away during production of *INLAND EMPIRE*, on April 20, 2003) acted in *Wild at Heart* (as Billy, only in a deleted scene) and *Lost Highway* (as Teddy). Watts also appeared in the Lynch-directed music video for the song “Thank You, Judge,” from Lynch and John Neff’s 2001 album BlueBob. Watts, Coffey and del Rio all subsequently appeared in 2017's *Twin Peaks: The Return*: Watts appeared regularly as Janey-E Jones; Coffey played Trick in Part 12; and del Rio performed at the Roadhouse in Part 10.
* An abandoned project by Lynch, *Dream of the Bovine*, has roughly the opposite premise of *Rabbits*: three men who were formerly cows live in Van Nuys and continue to acts like cows.