Jess lanai

Individual thinking is something that can be quite hard to do because if you’ll notice it’s very time and focus consuming to not understand something.

So it’s easiest to find the most appealing and already formed opinion or idea that best explains what is not understood.

But if there is enough curiosity it’s worth the effort to puzzle through things before we decide on a conclusion.

There is a lot of value in the individual mind.

Not an individual mind that has deluded itself but an individual mind that has solved its own problems.

Twin peaks is fun little puzzle and exercise in individual thinking. In forming our own ideas or theories where the right answer cannot be looked up and verified in an instant.

Episode two

I found stuff in my notes that I forgot to mention I noticed in episode two.

Towards the end Cooper mentions a Bulgarian convent and later Annie comes from a convent.

Audrey dancing to her mysterious music when her dad walks in. After she confesses to sabotaging his business deal he says, ‘I lost you years ago.’

Briggs speech to Bobby was very odd the first time I saw it.

I was intrigued by Briggs but also put off by him. Because he says very mature things to his son that are respectable but the way he delivers the lines were a tad stiff and emotionally flat. So it has a very odd effect.

I do think this is a clue. Or even more than a clue, I think it’s the primary way twin peaks tells you what’s happening. Through this kind of emotion that raises red flags.

Perhaps I am alone in General Briggs raising a red flag. I did grow to like him later on. But in his speech to Bobby he did strike a few little alarms.

His speech was a bit more striking the second time seeing it. He said things like ‘I respect your rebellious nature. I am obligated to contain that fire of contrariness’

Fire is obviously significant but contrariness is an interesting word to use.

But that could be me reading into things more than necessary.

Lastly was uncle Ed’s gas farm.

There are several references to the ‘farm’ throughout the show.

In the last season Ray Monroe was going to the ‘farm’

Evil version of Cooper mentions a farm several times as do many other characters.

Dr. Amp also refers to farms many times in his rants.

And of course the gas part and its relation to fire.

Episode three

The French are important.

The French are always important but they have a particular importance in twin peaks.

Jerry Horne gets back from Paris marking the first mention of many mentions of France or the use of the French language.

Jerry was another of my favorite characters. Him and Ben are pretty random and funny together and for the most part they’re pretty crooked guys.

The fact that they are brothers and business partners and Ben changes his ways but Jerry doesn’t is another reference to the Mike and Bob dynamic and I do think their story is the answer to some question about Bob and Mike, I just don’t know what the question is yet.

Then there’s the introduction of johnny. Ben’s disabled son that is shown only a few times throughout the entire series but obviously holds some clue to what’s going on.

Throughout the show there are several references to either sons being disabled or killed.

Richard runs over a little boy.

Frank’s son committed suicide.

Dougie cries when looking at his own son for reasons unexplained.

Seeing patterns like this make me start to develop a theory.

So far my idea of twin peaks is that it’s layered. I believe there are at least three layers to the story. The first layer is the answers to the many unfinished stories of the characters. The second layer is the general concept of what is happening. Is it a dream? Is it supernatural? Is it is science fiction? And the third layer is the spiritual aspect. How all of it is just parts of the mind and body.

I think all the layers function separately and all are true and some are more open to interpretation than others.

Those are my general thoughts and ideas so far.

Ed and Nadine. My first thought on Ed the first time I saw him was that he was pretty cute and he should probably dump his insane one eyed wife.

Nadine did slightly grow on me over time. But it took quite some time and I mostly tuned out whenever she was present.

But with rewatching she’s become far more interesting because I’m sure she answers several unresolved stories.

In episode three what struck me was Ed coming inside from working on his ‘gas farm’ with his hands covered in black grease. The grease reminded me of the bearded men and the fact that the bearded men also inhabit a gas station.

He dripped his grease on Nadine’s drape runners, specifically on the cotton balls. She’s furious at first but later it leads to her inventing the first entirely silent drape runners.

The cotton balls reminded me of the little black ball Bob is contained in when he’s pulled out of evil Cooper.

The first time I truly realized I was watching a show that was not going to be like other shows, or other anything, was when Cooper stood out in the forest with his chalk board and started explaining about how he derives most of his investigative techniques from a dream he had about Tibet.

Upon rewatching this part I noticed Cooper specifically said ‘a dream he had three years ago’. Which made me wonder about the time line of twin peaks.

That perhaps a lot of things that happen in the last season are actually a prelude to Cooper being in twin peaks.

The other thing I gathered was Cooper mentioning Tibet. There’s a lot of symbolism in Tibetan Buddhism that should help make a lot of sense of a lot of things.

Particularly the animals.

So I immediately paused the episode to look up the symbolism of owls because that was my biggest question. What’s wrong with owls?

Well in Tibet I guess there are a lot wrong with owls. Owls are assholes in Tibet that symbolize bad luck, misfortune and the harbingers of evil events.

They are also the protectors of dark and wrathful female deities. Which is interesting considering the theme of mothers with dark secrets in twin peaks.

In episode three I also got to meet Albert. Albert is one of my favorite characters because at first he came off as a bureaucratic opposition to Cooper to me.

I was immediately annoyed by him because I thought he would be there to needlessly slow the plot or create unnecessary obstacles.

So the role he ended up talking was shocking, incredibly unique and welcomed. Albert became one of my favorite characters just because he contrasted my original impression of him so well.

That was a genius move by both the writers, director and actor.

But anyway.

Next was something I never paid attention to and never thought to pay any attention to and that was the signs on the businesses. Particularly Big Ed’s gas farm sign. On his sign is the fire symbol.

I also have here in my notes a mention of how frequently the ‘thumbs up’ gesture is used in the show and how it might mean something.

As I’ve said before, Leland’s grief over Laura is exaggerated and the first time seeing it is an odd experience.

Because on the one hand Leland is very annoying. He’s crying all the time very obnoxiously. He’s trying to dance with everyone all the time which is just straight up weird.

He makes things awkward and yet at the same time I felt a lot of pity for him. But this is largely due to the opening of twin peaks where the Sheriff tells Leland his daughter is dead and Leland realizes it before the sheriff even says it.

That scene was rather brutal and it left a lot of lingering emotion. So Leland’s behavior is easily excused simply because of the high empathy he ignited in the first episode. (Which is rather brilliant if the director and writers and actor intended this. Which I do think they did and I have evidence. It’s a very high level of forethought and skill to pull off)

Leland’s rather disturbing behavior gets excused because of the lingering emotion from the first episode.

In the third episode he insists on dancing with Laura’s picture and accidentally breaks it and cuts his hand. Then proceeds to cry over the picture and rub his blood all over Laura’s mouth. While Sarah screams ‘what is going on in this house!’

It reminded me of the bearded men smearing blood all over evil Cooper to bring him back to life.

And now things get weird.

With Cooper’s first dream.

His first dream opens with one armed Mike saying the lines that get repeated throughout the show.

‘Through the darkness of future past the magician longs to see, one chants out between two worlds, fire walk with me.’

But I forget his said this next part.

‘We live among the people, I think you say, convenience store. We lived above it. I mean it like it is, as it sounds, I too have been touched by the devilish one, tattoo on the left shoulder. But when I saw the face of god I was changed. I took the entire arm off. My name is Mike. His name is Bob.’

I still have not one clue what fire walking is.

Even after seeing the whole show and trying to figure it out the whole time, I still have no clue. No theory whatsoever.

But I do have a bit of a theory on the arm thing. A slight theory.

Though my theory is tricky to explain, even to myself, hence the writing about it to figure it out. To put things in there places and assemble a full image.

This will be messy but the more I write about it the more it will become ordered and might make sense.

So. We have the short man and the giant. The short man says. ‘Do you know who I am? I am the arm.’

Then later on the series Cooper is talking to what looks like a brain stem and the brain stem says, ‘I am the arm.’

So when Mike says I took the whole arm off I think he’s more referring to cutting off his brain. Perhaps from his emotions. Or perhaps becoming enlightened. Or perhaps referring to death. I don’t know yet.

But within the brain I also know there is a short arm and long arm that has something to do with receiving signals. I learned this at one point and would have to restudy it because it does seem to track with the giant and the short man if you think of them as parts of the brain.

After Mike, Bob appears in Cooper’s dream. And he says, ‘Mike can you hear me? Catch you with my death bag! You may think I’ve gone insane but I promise I will kill again!’

Not one clue what that meant.

Then in Cooper’s dream he’s in the red curtain room for the first time that is later described as being the ‘black lodge’ the short man is shown for the first time, he has his back turned to Cooper. And initially when I saw this I thought he was masturbating.

And I sort of think they meant to give that impression. But turns out his just dancing in a really weird and unpleasant way.

The dancing was very striking for me personally. The way he was dancing starkly reminded me of a short a horror story I wrote a while back. (That of course I never finished)

In my horror short the dancing was compulsive and it meant something very bad.

Then we see Laura. She taps her nose. Since this felt significant I looked up what tapping the noise can symbolize.

It symbolizes ‘a secret’.

The shadow of a spade is also floating around the room. Spades have a lot of significance. Not only the card, but Dr. Amps golden shovels.

Then the little man dances to his chair, sits down and says ‘she’s my cousin, but doesn’t she look just like Laura.’ (Which makes sense when Laura’s cousin Maddy arrives looking like a twin of Laura.)

Cooper says, ‘but it is Laura’ which made me laugh the first time and made me laugh again because it reminded me of arguing with my own dreams.

After my dad died I had frequent dreams about him. In every dream I told him he died and he would tell me he didn’t die. And then we’d argue about it for quite some time. I remember in one dream he said. ‘I would know if I died.’

Anyway, then Laura says ‘I feel like I know her but sometimes my arms bend back.’

Now this line ends up being a clue for Cooper in solving Laura’s murder. But if you think of the arms as being a part of the brain this line has a different meaning.

The short man then says he is the arm and goes into another little speech. ‘Where we’re from the birds sing a pretty song and there’s always music in the air’

The lights flicker and Laura walks to Cooper and kisses him then whispers in his ear.

As we learn later in the last season the kiss means something very specific. Learning what that specific thing is will likely solve the entire show.