Twin Peaks was a tv show (and then movie) that was done a long time ago. I was just a pup when it was on TV. So now that I'm older I decided to watch the show. I bought the dvd's and partook in its weirdness.
It holds up, it's a weird classic now, good cult value. I wanted to blog about the ending of the show though - because to me I really like it when the good guys lose. In the end of Twin Peaks though - every one loses. The good guys and the bad guys.
Coop and Windham Earl both end up in the waiting room to the black/white lodge. This is a strange place where time doesn't make sense. Coop had been in the waiting room in his dreams a couple of times as an older man.
Windham Earl gets the jump on Coop and had kidnapped his then girlfriend - he demands that Coop give him his soul to let her go. This is a mistake, as Bob consumes Earl saying "He cannot ask you for that" and undoes the moment in time, destroying Windham Earl in the process.
Unfortunately for Coop, we have been given hints about the bizarre and deadly nature of the lodge through the series - such as being true, honest and clear of mind. A saint in other words.. only a saint would truly pass in to the lodge. And as much as we all like Coop and he is a rather enlightened individual, he was not ready to face his doppleganger.
In a particular weird part of the episode, Coop comes up against his opposite self and ... runs. He fails to defeat his doppleganger and therefore loses. He is thrown out of the lodge with his girlfriend but his soul is gone and his body is now inhabited by Bob the killer.
I read some of the TV show politics of the time and I feel that perhaps David Lynch was punishing the world for having his show cut short. Today we see lots of shows cut off before their prime or simply cut off without even an ending. Jericho is the most recent example of that.
In the case of Twin Peaks, the caught the killer of Laura Palmer half way through season 2 and it was as if they weren't sure where to go from there. Certainly the TV execs were breathing down their necks because instead of getting a murder mystery, they got something so weird only a cult following survived in its wake.
And so they axed the show.. but gave the writers until the end of season 2 to finish it. So I look at it this way.. David Lynch wanted Coop to survive the waiting room and enter the lodge, but Coop wasn't ready. He didn't have all the clues and hints needed to complete the ordeal. If he'd had the time of another season to figure it all out, he could have entered the lodge prepared.
Instead, he was thrust in chasing a deranged murderer and brought up against the supernatural without all the facts to fend for himself in the strange backwards world. So what I think David Lynch was saying here is.. the TV executives killed Special Agent Dale Cooper by forcing him in to the lodge at the end of season 2 and not season 3 or later.
Mind you.. there's no way I could have handled another season of Twin Peaks. The constant musical backdrop gets tiresome after a while.