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armsholdair"The Owls Are Not What They Seem" A Twin Peaks Rewatch with the Theory in Mind: Episode 28 "Miss Twin Peaks"
The theory: Twin Peaks is the dream of William "Billy" Hastings, a serial killer. The result of his mother's abuse, at the hands of her father, Billy was abused by her in turn, keeping the cycle going. Playing with fire, as abused/neglected/antisocial children are prone to, he accidentally burned down the motel where he lived with his mother and grandfather/father, killing them. He was sent to live with his grandmother/great-grandmother, until she died too. Billy then went to live with his strict, born again uncle. In high school, Billy became obsessed with a schoolmate, the American Girl. He murdered her, the first in a string of victims, all similar in the way that they reminded him of his mother. To deal with his past and what he'd become, he constructed the world of Twin Peaks, allowing him to also "protect" and honor his mother, the woman he both loved and feared. Inside of the dream, Billy's family was represented by both the Hornes and the Lodge Spirits, while Billy's main avatar was our hero Dale Cooper. Inside of his dream, Billy sought to project his tragedy and sins onto his victim's family instead, which worked for a while. However, if the OG is a representation of how Billy got away with murder, the Return is how he was eventually discovered by the mother of his first victim, an act precipitated by his involvement with Betty, his final victim.
A longer essay on the theory: https://armsholdair.dreamwidth.org/7192.html
WARNING: A knowledge of the whole Twin Peaks series is needed for this, fittingly from A to Z and Z back to A.
- For the penultimate episode of the Original series, the Log Lady discusses trees, her Log, her husband as well as fire.
"A log is a portion of a tree. At the end of a crosscut log -- many of you know this -- there are rings."
Rings being mentioned is significant, since circles and rings repeat within the show.
"Each ring represents one year in the life of the tree. How long it takes to a grow a tree."
She is talking about the age of a tree here and how long it takes to grow one. If we can possibly connect that to the previous episode, which we believed hinted at the conception and birth of Billy, and the talk of trees as representing people, we can get a sense that she's referring to the age of Billy, perhaps, and also of his mother.
She points out that the fireplace is boarded up, and that there will never be a fire there. Could be a reference to BOB/Ben or of the abuse likened to it or even the connection to Billy, whom played with fire and how it burned down his home and family.
She also points out that her husband's ashes are in a jar on her mantle. Now why would she even keep them there? Still contemplating if her husband worked for the "fire" as in he was a woodsman, one of Ben's helpers. She also mentions, soon after, that her log has stopped growing, but it is aware. Is the log her husband?
Interesting how Margaret state,"My log hears things I cannot hear. But my log tells me about the sounds, about the new words." What does she mean? Are the sounds the same as the ones the Fireman showed to Dale in The Return. What are the new words anyway?
- Alone with Major Briggs, Leo manages to reach a key. The key doesn't fit his own lock, so Leo let's a disoriented Briggs go with the instruction to "Save Shelly".
Did Earle purposely leave that particular key there, assuming that, even if he reached it, Leo wouldn't let the father of the man having an affair with his wife go? Is that how incapable of understanding love Windom is, and how appreciative of it Leo has become? Leo stares at Shelly's photo.
- Earle returns and expresses disappointment in Leo's actions. He intends to play a game with Leo instead of punishing him, but that is just as bad.
- What's really interesting is how Windom's face, during this scene, is how Laura and Leland's momentarily look in FWWM, when Laura tells Harold "Fire Walk With Me" after talking about BOB and when BOB uses his host's fear to open the door at Glastonbury Grove to enter the Red Room. Now those two were more stylized, with Lynch's special touch, but we think they were meant to be the same, with one major difference. Their faces were greyish/white, like the sycamores/ring around the oil pool, black lips like oil and very red mouth inside, like the curtains. This could have indicated that they were both opened, like the Lodge, and that BOB wanted to enter them. Now Windom's face is white/light grey, but his mouth is all black. Does that indicate that BOB had no desire to use him?
And how could that pertain to this specific theory? Well, we reckon that Billy had a purpose for Laura (he was in possessive love with American Girl and wanted to be with her) and Leland (he needed to impose a lie on someone to help make everyone not realize he was the real killer) but Windom...there was no real use for him. Remember too, he might truly be an earlier template for BOB, a representation of Billy's dad, and there was no use for that anymore.
He also doesn't really care for another father figure, just as he didn't care for the real one either. When going through One-Eyed Jack's, searching for Audrey, going down the corridor with Titian's painting of Danae, Coop declared it a dead end. The photo represented Danae being impregnated by Zeus, with a son destined to kill her father. In Billy's case, we reason Zeus and the father were one and the same...and neither mattered to him. Albert even specifically referred to Windom as Zeus. We also will later equate Albert's induction into the Blue Rose task force as having been directly linked to Billy's dad. Besides Gordon, whom accompanied Phillip Jeffries on the first Blue Rose case, Albert is the only FBI Agent whom didn't disappear. We believe the Agents each correspond to a traumatic/life changing death for Billy. Except Albert...well he got Billy's father, a death that barely affected Billy. Plus he might have started to see his dad as BOB a little at that stage, and considered him alive. So, in any case, Windom isn't useful to Billy. So there is little use in going inside him.
- Norma is back and making pies for the Miss Twin Peaks pageant.
She tells Annie and Shelly, "This is the biggest day of the year for us. And we have to have somebody up there who really deserves this title. Especially this year."
Annie asks, "You mean Laura Palmer?"
And Norma replies, "It would be a good day for healing."
Shelly responds, "I think we need more than a day."
For us, Laura being mentioned here is extremely relevant. They are saying that the Miss Twin Peaks contest should heal the town, and yet we believe this is one of the strongest catalysts for spreading the pain and sorrow Laura's death meant. For it will help lead to her killer, whom wasn't truly punished or caught, trapping the last vestiges of morality inside of his darkness, allowing him to become not just the murderer of one young girl but many.
And it is ironic that Annie, mentions Laura, because she is essentially next in line and going to symbolize his becoming a serial killer. Frankly, she's even dating the guy who killed Laura. Sure, he might seem all nice and wonderful, as Dale Cooper, but that's what many people often say about monsters...they seemed so nice. This fact, makes a bloody Annie appearing in Laura's bed, warning that the good Dale is stuck in the Lodge, make all the more sense. There lies the first woman he intentionally killed, and there will be the one after her.
- Shelly and Annie want to know who Norma is voting for and joke about her splitting her vote. Seeing as though Cooper splits in the finale, we wonder if this is a sly little wink to that.
- The next sequence finds Audrey Horne, sitting by the fire, in her father's office, and wearing a red dress, which instantly reminded us of the Red Room and our theorizing during the last episode that the curtains were symbolic for the birth of her son. Now she's sitting, staring at the fire and she's also barefoot, the initial shot of the scene infact. The first few scenes of Audrey in the Pilot centered on her shoes, which we compared to the colors of the Red Room itself. And now, for some reason, she's barefoot. Does this have any connection to Laura/Carrie's whisper about spotting Cooper's dark suit off? Is seeing Audrey by the fire a big clue?
Coincidentally, or not, the first time we saw Ben, he was spitting into a fire in this same fireplace.
- Ben comes in, his hands loaded with books. Audrey was seen in a library a few episodes back. The Hornes have been surrounded by books lately, and given the fact that we believe Billy, the child of Audrey and Ben, lives through/loves stories, this seems very fitting indeed.
- Ohhhh....important line here. Ben sees his daughter sitting by the fire in her red (curtain) dress and exclaims, "Audrey. The most intelligent face that I've seen all day.
You make the rest of us look like primates."
Now in FWWM, we see the grandson (Billy to us) adorn his mask of the frogmoth. When he lifts it once, we see a monkey hiding beneath it. Later, after Laura has been killed, and before we actually see a shot of Will Hayward unwrapping the plastic to reveal her peaceful blue face, we also see a monkey shaded the same color blue, whom whispers "Judy", as if introducing Laura's corpse. Now, in The Return, Naido/Betty also makes sounds like a monkey. We believe this supposedly inconsequential line from Ben Horne, is what is at the heart of this monkey business.
In this way, Billy and his father are in agreement: Audrey makes everyone else look like a monkey, the girls that remind him of her and even Billy himself.
- Audrey asks Ben about the books and he explains they are all of the world's enlightening literature. He states, "Somewhere in here are the answers that I seek. And I intend to read them
from cover to cover, until I find..." Unfortunately, he says it like a man who probably doesn't even know what he's looking for. He's trying to be good, but like he confessed to Jack, he doesn't know how. It isn't natural for him and Billy is merely imposing it on him even now.
- Ben sits directly in front of the fire, Audrey off to its side.
- Ben notices Audrey is distracted (was she looking out the window like Cooper?) and that she is missing Jack. He says, Jack is a man of his word, so he will be back, and yet we know he won't. Like Windom, Billy had no further use for him, and besides, he probably always hoped that the father he heard about would come back someday too...until he found out that his father had never really left and he had been calling him grandpa the whole time.
- Audrey relays what she found out during her trip to Seattle. Supposedly the Packards are using Twin Peaks Savings and Loans to funnel cash into Ghostwood Development, but the bank is keeping a low profile because they don't want bad publicity.
So this, in fact, leads up to Audrey chaining herself to the vault door, which leads to a myriad of similarities to the flashbacks shown in Part 8 involving BOB and the Experiment, plus the New Mexico Girl and the frogmoth. Plus we have it being in a Bank, as in Teresa Banks. Audrey locked away in a Bank(s).
- Ben brings up the subject of Miss Twin Peaks again and how Audrey should enter. She obviously doesn't want to do it, and yet Ben keeps pressuring her, saying it's to stop Ghostwood's destruction, and obviously, at some point she concedes...which goes along with our hypothesis that the incest that haunts the series truly happened between them. Unfortunately, Ben Horne, we believe, forced Audrey to do far worse things than enter a beauty pageant.
- At one point, Audrey has her hands placed together in front of her and resembles the stance of Ronette and Laura's Angels. This also goes hand in hand with Windom calling the 3 original targets angels and our belief that Audrey was still supposed to be the chosen one before Coop/Billy invented a decoy.
- Have to comment on how the direction often frames the shot so we are watching Ben and Audrey through the open office door. What is that precisely getting at? That in Billy's fantasy they leave the door open when they are together, when in reality it was most likely shut for privacy and so nobody knew what Ben was doing to her?
- Andy is continually staring at the petroglyph. Meanwhile, the station is on the lookout for the missing Briggs, and Cooper just sort of carelessly let's it drop to Harry that he saw BOB when Josie died and he believes it was fear that killed her, and her fear attracted BOB, allowing him to slip in and feed from her.
Dale specifically says Josie was trembling like an animal, recalling the shaking hands. It also recalls a missing piece where the Lodge spirits say "animal life". We once again also have the statement that BOB feeds on fear. So does he also feed on pain and sorrow? Is that included? Or was that something different from his usual sustenance? How was it stolen then?
- When Harry guesses a connection between BOB and the Black Lodge, Cooper tells him, "I think that the Black Lodge is what you have referred to in the past as 'the evil in these woods.'"
Last episode, we theorized that this was an allegory for Billy himself. Ghostwood is a representation of his mother, Audrey, and him being her child, he was literally in the woods for 9 months. He was the evil in the woods. As the imaginer of BOB, he is also BOB, making that assessment true too. We also reason that both Lodges represent his feelings for his mother/life divided into positive and negative, and this makes the Black Lodge a permanent residence for his fear and hatred, it forever residing in the woods and in connection with his mother. Add to that the Red Room, we believe, is partly a gateway to Billy's own psyche and all of this is actually very valid, just not the literal way Cooper and Harry are guessing.
- What's upsetting is how Cooper states that they need to get to the Black Lodge before Windom. "There's a source of great power there, Harry," he states. "Far beyond our ability to comprehend."
He doesn't say anything about the destructive capability of the Lodge and how horrible it is, but seems more curious. Now this is all about Billy's descent into pure evil we theorize. That is the power that is really being referenced. And that is probably beyond Harry and Cooper's ability to comprehend, seeing as though they are characters inside of his mind, and Dale, his main avatar, doesn't want to face his true self.
- Listening in, Windom is excited to learn that fear, his favorite emotional state, is the dark forces' bread and butter.
So this still raises the question over why creamed corn is pain and sorrow. Can it be all negative emotions? But then why make it seem exclusively two things at the end of FWWM, when the series often told us BOB lived on fear and pleasure?
- Windom references his excitement when he severed Caroline's aorta, revealing that he did kill her.
- Windom expresses his regret to Leo that he's leaving, because he grew fond of him. He refers to him at the end like a dog, something we already linked to Coop/Billy and Ben.
- He's rigged a contraption so that Leo has to hold a string in his teeth so a cage full of poisonous spiders won't descend on him. This illustrates that Windom was speaking the truth about his own penchant for creating fear.
- At the Roadhouse, a leering Mr. Pinkle (remember his name can mean penis/sausage in German, and sometimes rectum too) is instructing the contestants on how to perform their choreography, which seems lewd more than classy.
Now Pinkle gives these instructions, "Now, turn around and bend forward like a sapling. A sapling in the wind."
This is disturbing when viewed through this theory and brings more credence to the belief that Billy was also abused by the father/grandfather. Afterall, we've been saying the the woods represent Audrey, and the trees by extension. Now we have a sapling, a young tree mentioned, and how it is told to bend in the wind, the wind and fans strong motifs in the series. This could go for the young Audrey with Ben and her son Richard/Cooper/Billy too, their being trees in the same forest (think Gersten/Steven).
Even one girl asks: "What exactly are we celebrating with us all bending over like this?"
Pinkle then snaps, " Don't ever question the vision of your choreographer! You are but a petal on my rose."
There is the rose motif as well. Billy was a petal on the rose of his mother.
We should mention that this all pertains to a dance, also, one being taught/performed at the Roadhouse, the same place where Audrey will be instructed to perform her own dance for the audience.
- Audrey is missing from the dance rehearsal but we just read the script and, actually, not only was she supposed to be there, it was to HER that Pinkle said that bit about the rose, after she had been the one to ask what was with all the bending. Pinkle was actually supposed to take her aside and seem like he was singling her out from the rest and making a move on her. That she isn't there now at all seems weird. She won't even be doing it during the actual performance...she's separate which only brings more attention to her and seems like she's excluded for a reason. Now Fenn probably just didn't want to do it, but it fits in perfectly with the theory and that Billy is partly sheltering her, just as he he will do in the form of the father-like Charlie.
- Dwayne, Norma and Richard are standing watching the rehearsal, trying to figure out what they should be considering when choosing Miss Twin Peaks. Very interesting how Richard, whom shares a name with Audrey's future son, remarks that breeding should be placed highly.
- Okay, so, to go along with the earlier choreography routine, and the uncomfortable implications, now, as a Richard is standing there, we have a man moving a buck decoration to the stage, where a doe one is already placed. The issue here, though, is that he honestly appears to look like he is sodomizing it. Seriously. There's no real reason to carry it that way...unless it's supposed to look dubious. And this is all as he passes by Richard Tremayne, whom was also a part of the whole kiss the weasel thing, and spit and swallow thing too, both hosted at the Great Northern.
In The Return, Richard Horne will invade his grandmother's home and hurl insults at her and his uncle, all while threatening to "cornhole" Johnny, a reference about sodomy and one which involves corn (related to garmonbozia?). Why does he do this? What's the source of his rage and this particular threat when we saw him accosting a young woman earlier. Later on, his grandfather, Ben will field Frank Truman's reports about Richard's other actions, in a "that boy was never right" fashion, and we buy it, knowing he is the son of a doppleganger. And yet Ben also indicates his grandson's actions repeatedly progressed, which implies he wasn't wholly evil at one point.
We suggest that what lies hidden beneath this is the subtly hinted at possiblity that Ben Horne is partly responsible for his grandson's behavior, something he doesn't wish to admit to. Consider too, this whole conversation leads to his telling Beverly about his father buying him that second hand CYCLE. Ben also tried to reason away Richard's horrific acts by being that he didn't have a father but...if Ben was truly a changed man, wouldn't he have been a good influence and father figure for the boy? Not if he is the source of the corruption and disease to begin with, we argue.
- Lana seduces Richard in a storage room that looks more like a closet. A closet in the basement of the Great Northern indicated that the Horne family held it's own dark secrets and that Dale Cooper, whom would become a Richard, the same name as Ben Horne's grandson, was one of them.
- Dale dictates to Diane about his meditation instead of sleep. Does this connect to his dopple stating, after freshly leaving the Lodge, that he wasn't sleeping? He talks a bit about the petroglyph, Earle and the Lodges before gushing to her about Annie, how she's like a child (similar to him in ways, and how we argue Billy is stuck partially in a juvenile state, as represented by the grandson). Now, why, if Dale is involved with Diane, would he be telling her all about this other woman he was involved with? That would border on Narcissistic behavior, although seeing as though we believe he's involved with himself (Annie) that may infact be true. But, we reason more it's because Billy hasn't fully formed his idea of Diane yet, why she is left unseen and just presents as a recorder. It is only later, after having met and become involved with his own assistant, Betty, that Billy Hastings can form some substitute/representation of her inside of his dream.
- A knock at the door, proves to be Annie herself. She's paid him a visit because she's worried about her speech, which she informs him must center around saving local forests. She makes a reference about campfires, which links to the theme of fire in the woods, as well as the secret Smokey the Bear ashtray Audrey had hidden away in her locker at school, along with her red heels.
Cooper theorizes, "If the Ghostwood development cost thousands of lives, do you think it would have a chance of going forward?
Annie counters, "Well, trees aren't the same
as people. But they are alive."
Okay so clearly here the forests/trees are being equated to people, strengthening the viewpoint that Ghostwood could mean Audrey, and that the displayed destruction of nature we see throughout the series directly displays abuse of a certain kind ie: Ben's father passing the shovel to him at the Great Northern groundbreaking.
More analogy follows:
Cooper: Your forest is beautiful and peaceful.
Billy sees his mother's as being a haunted place "Ghostwood". It is his as well, and he is ignoring that Annie has shown signs of similar torment, because he denies it in himself.
Annie: Part of it's been damaged. I've tried to replant, but nothing's taken root. Every forest has its shadow.
Direct shadow mention here, which can easily be foreshadowing Cooper's doppleganger.
- Annie's next line also adds more to the theory that she is just an extension of Dale Cooper and the dreamer, more than being her own person, "I can see half my life's history in your face, and I'm not sure that I want to."
- They end up making love in Cooper's hotel bed, but we equate this more to an act of masturbation than anything else, the signs all shown that Annie is essentially Dale Cooper on a deeper level. Must mention that this occurs with Cooper on top, which doesn't seem his natural position, The Return having shown him twice on the bottom. Mr. C was the one whom appeared to like the dominant position, but that was when he killed Darya, in another motel. When he was with Chantal, he was sitting.
- Nadine shows Ed, Nadine, Jacoby and Mike her slides regarding winning, including all of her trophies. She talks about how happy she is, and everything, and yet, when Ed says he's marrying Norma, she squeezes Mike's hand in anger and seems generally to be hiding how she really feels.
Another good indication that, despite his cheery air, Cooper might be hiding, supressing/repressing his true feelings, just as Billy does regarding his own horrific past and his feelings for his mother.
- Hawk finds Briggs stumbling around the woods and still out to lunch. Briggs asks, "Which way to the castle?" which could refer to the business at hands, regarding Kings and Queens and the Black Lodge or even be about Jack Rabbit's Palace, a place in the woods where he played and made up stories with Bobby. Or maybe they are all the same, given that specific naming for the Palace, and how we argue the Black Lodge is connected to the Great Northern and the troubling undercurrent and theme that the horrifying fact about Billy's true paternity is what is partly influencing all of this.
- Garland is brought back to the station where Cooper is told he has been shot through with haloperidol, the same drug Phillip Gerard used to keep MIKE at bay.
- Now, Earle used the drug to help Briggs be more honest with him, so we're paying strict attention to what he is mumbling.
When questioned about his name, he calls it an odd name and references Judy Garland. Was Billy influenced by Garland when naming him, and her connection to the Wizard of Oz, a huge influence on Lynch too?
When asked if Earle did this to him, Garland replies, "It was God, I suppose." Technically, that ain't too far off. Billy plays writer inside of his dream, so he's in a way saying that Billy did this to him.
He says he was taken to the woods, which is truthful. He also adds that they were lovely and dark and that the King of Romania was unable to attend. Those are all technically true too. We saw no King of Romania there.
- Cooper tells Harry they don't have much time because the entrance to the Black Lodge won't be there for long.
This goes for Billy most likely too. He was created at a specific point in time and would not exist if things hadn't been just the way that lead to it. We might even be able to apply that to Laura Palmer herself and why things drastically change if she doesn't die. If Billy hadn't killed American Girl, there would be no Laura Palmer, at least not the one we knew her, and his dream would have altered to suit that.
- Andy asks if it has anything to do with the 4H club. On the surface it doesn't, but if Laura's love of horses was something taken from American Girl, she could have been involved in it. Billy might have been too, or should have been and actually paid attention, since the club tries to shape youths into helpful parts of the community.
- Pete and Andrew, meanwhile, try to deal with their own puzzle, albeit this one in a cheating fashion. They have Eckhardt's box in a vice and are trying to squeeze it open.
This could still imply that Billy was lazy and didn't want to do the shadow work to understand himself and become a better person.
- This take becomes even more relevant when Catherine remarks, "I can't take any more of this. Boxes inside boxes." The glass box in NYC, the one that Sam keeps a careful watch over, we argue is Billy Hastings' psyche. When Cooper exits the Lodge and falls into it, it soon after becomes a box upon box upon box that he further falls into, leading up to his visit to the mansion room. We theorize that, when things get tough, Billy doesn't face them, or wake up, but simply falls into another dream: boxes inside boxes.
- Interesting how the box is resistant to the vice when Peter names it "Cram Jack all-duty vise." There's "Jack" a name and we wonder if it holds any connection to Billy's imagining/perception of his father, and whom he had once hoped he might be.
- Andrew has had enough and shoots the box, displaying Billy's choice of violence over work even more fully.
- The box is now opened and a safety deposit key is inside, one we all know will lead to the bank that Audrey was earlier talking about. This also still is a precursor to the box and key in Mulholland Drive.
- Andrew and Catherine, despite being brother and sister, don't trust each other, just like Billy and his mother, and so the key is placed in the cake saver.
Now why they still think this can be anything good is beyond us.
- Donna comes down the stairs in her Miss Twin Peaks fashion and her parents are waiting. They compliment her, but Donna is more looking for the truth. When she presses them, Eileen warns, "Donna, I understand your feeling. But there are some things you just have to trust. You're young and you don't know all the limitations."
Why are the Haywards being so secretive with Donna? She's already suspecting something with Ben and she's angry at them, why not say what happened and go forward? Unless, this is still Billy making his own story, which involves the rape of a daughter by her own father, and so that is secretly informing things and making it all seem darker and more ominous. Afterall, this does involve a Will. Infact, after watching most of the whole OG series again, he's the only derivative of a Billy that we've seen throughout it.
- This episode contains a strong emphasis on fathers, which holds special significance since it is occurring after the previous episode, which we theorized danced around the subject of Billy's conception.
- Cooper deduces that what Andy mistook for the 4h club is in fact a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. He explains, "Well, historically, Harry, when Jupiter and Saturn are conjunct, there are enormous shifts in power and fortune. Jupiter being expansive in its influence, Saturn, contractive. Conjunction suggests a state of intensification, concentration. What this indicates to me is the potential for explosive change, good and bad.
Incredibly important when viewing this under the light that Dale's repressed urges are going to be set free, while his lighter ones are caged, the opposite of what he has been doing. This, of course, is equal to how his true self, Billy, is going to let his own darker impulses overshadow the light, and decide to further what he started by killing American Girl, repeating the act over and over again, in an effort to further not deal in a healthy fashion with what happened to him.
- They soon discover the conjunction is set to occur from January to June, all around when Laura was murdered and Coop came to town.
- Briggs soon pipes up with, "Protect the Queen" and "Fear and love open the doors."
He's probably just referring to Miss Twin Peaks, but we'd also wonder if he still is referring to Audrey too, Billy's goal partly being to keep his mother safe.
- Cooper reasons that two Lodges, two doors, fear opens one, the Black, and love the other, the White. When Harry asks what that means, Cooper replies, "I don't know exactly. It just came to me."
It came to him because he masks the dreamer and so he subconsciously realizes that this has to do with Billy's conflicting feelings, particularly in regards to his mother/home.
- Briggs comments "How does the Queen..." which is from Hamlet.
The character we saw most quoting Shakespeare was Ben Horne. Meanwhile, Hamlet involves the potentially Oedipal feelings a son possesses for his mother. We've also got the relationship between that mother and the uncle, which the son is jealous of, and creates a note of interest when we realize that FWWM involves a ring given by an uncle figure (MIKE) to those Billy sees as being similar to his mother. It all started with Teresa whom we outright suggest is a substitute for Audrey/Billy's mom. Does that indicate anything occurring between the uncle and niece, even in a protective way?
Furthermore, this is Briggs saying it, whom created Jack Rabbit's Palace with his son. We've theorized Jack as being linked with his father in Billy's mind. So a palace would indicate that he was the King. That would make Billy's mother the Queen. Audrey is still the true Queen. That Annie becomes her instead just reinforces the belief that Billy forces other women to become his mother.
- Coop and Harry realize that whomever wins Miss Twin Peaks is in trouble.
- They knock over the Bonsai and finally discover it isn't from Josie but Windom, realizing they have been helping him all the time.
- Andy is trying to tell them all something, but nobody is listening.
- We cut to the contest, and see the women all performing the dance routine. All except Audrey. But what is so goosebump inducing to this theory, once again, is how this sequence, though seemingly unimportant, now becomes something to blow the mind. The women parade around the stage with plastic umbrellas, as they wear similarly plastic coats...that's too reminiscent of Laura Palmer.
Norma said they should be doing this all to help heal the community, and yet they are prancing around the stage invoking in the most morbid way the memory of the victim?
Why?
Because this is the dream of the man who killed her and it is celebrating how he's about to make a HABIT out of it, and whom better to do it with next than the ex nun.
Meanwhile, his mother, the true queen, is kept safely out of it, just like the true Judy that she is. Audrey doesn't have the umbrella. Audrey does not wear the plastic. Billy has protected his Queen and she shall not be harmed.
Probably partly because he already burned her in a fire, not the water, and he cannot accept that.
And this is the true horrific meaning behind Miss Twin Peaks, how it all involves a group of dead women. One of the reasons why the whole thing changes when the first one doesn't die.
And whom better to host our little Miss Twin Peaks than WILLIAM Hayward, bearer of the same first name and initials as WILLIAM "Billy" Hastings, our dreamer and the evil bastard of a serial killer himself.
- Mr. Pinkle makes a pass at the Log Lady.
- Bobby approaches Windom, dressed up as the Log Lady, and Windom introduces him to the fake log personally. Guess what's mainly interesting about this is how Bobby asks "So, what, did you bring your whole family?" before the act. With Billy's family being what it was, that is a sore spot.
- Harry and Coop make it to the Pageant, Cooper stating the winner should have 24 hour guard and house security. At this stage he still doesn't seem concerned that Annie might be the one to win.
- Earlier, in the scene in Ben's office, Horne implored Audrey to, "Make the speech. Stop Ghostwood. And take us to a better day."
Now Audrey is doing just that, even though she was excluded from the dance and we never see her talent.
"There is only one way to save a forest, an idea, or anything of value," she says. "And that is by refusing to stand by and watch it die. There is a law of nature, which is more fundamental to life than the laws of man. And when something you care about
is in danger, you must fight to save it or lose it forever."
Her words take on deeper meaning if what we have theorized is true, that she was Ghostwood and this is all about her: Billy's tormented relationship with his mother and how he yearns to both protect and destroy her.
It also takes on greater significance and becomes more profound when we see Cooper stop and stare at her as she makes her speech. He is Billy, he loves her, and yet he has separated himself from her to keep her safe. That is how he is fighting to save her...to protect her even from finding out what he is. Just like we see Charlie not sharing the news he heard about Billy with her.
- Donna watches as Audrey and Ben share a sweet moment after Audrey has given her speech. Donna then confronts Benjamin about what went on between him and her mother. He wants for them to all sit down and talk about it. Eventually Donna deduces the obvious: he is her father. She runs away in disgust.
Billy has placed this on Donna here, potentially because of her coming into contact with the grandson, his childhood self. And yet she gets off pretty lucky. She's getting a sanitized Ben Horne. The real deal was even worse, believe it or not, and the truth about his illegitimate child truly devastating: Ben fathered his own grandson, the one Donna herself met.
- Cooper looks on as Annie gives her speech, all happy and seemingly having forgotten that whoever wins this thing is in BIG trouble.
Her speech mentions the dead living on in the earth basically (it's kind of condescending actually), but is very complimentary to this theory for that fact and the statement, "For the Indians love the earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat."
We have been saying that Billy equates his mother to Ghostwood, and this imagery of a child loving their mother's heartbeat fits it wonderfully.
She also adds, "Maybe saving a forest starts with preserving some of the feelings
that die inside us every day. Those parts of ourselves that we deny. For if we cannot respect that interior land, then neither can we respect the land we walk."
Boom. Another bit of dialogue backing what we've been claiming: That Billy has essentially compromised his strength and goodness by denying certain aspects and feelings he has inside of himself. This we have witnessed through Dale Cooper, especially in how he became too good following Leland's death and the supposed "solution" of Laura's murder. It is all leading up to his meeting the parts of himself that he has denied and he has created the proverbial monster.
- Here's the other storyline revolving around a baby's father: Lucy has made her decision and she wants Andy to be her baby's daddy. Richard seems barely upset, and we might be able to link that to how Billy, himself, shows no interest in being a daddy either.
However, this clearly keeps that thread going, the question of paternity, and that directly is at the heart of the tragedy of the Horne family.
- Annie wins and finally Cooper looks concerned, but, at this stage, it might be too obvious if he didn't.
- While mostly everyone seems happy, Dwayne gives the most funny, truthful observation about the whole thing: "This is an outrage. She's been living in this town
about 15 minutes."
- Windom Earle strikes, as the lights go out and seem to strobe, ala BOB. All heck breaks loose, Will leads Annie backstage and then almost seems to abandon her, which allows Earle to grab her.
- Nadine gets beaned with a sandbag, which, considering this is all a dream, may fit oddly in with Mr. Sandman somehow. That's pathetic but we're going anywhere this theory will lead us. It also helps to "wake" her up.
- Windom claims he will help Annie and here's the odd thing, given that we think Dale is really a serial killer purposely wanting her destruction, it doesn't really matter who she goes with at this point.
- Cooper finally is freaking out about Annie, Harry is trying to console him that they will find her and Andy is finally able to tell them both what he figured out: the petroglyph is a map.
You bet it is, Andy. It's a map leading to Cooper/Billy's birth/rebirth. Infact, just like Donna had been looking at last episode, that petroglyph might partially be William Hastings birth certificate.
The theory: Twin Peaks is the dream of William "Billy" Hastings, a serial killer. The result of his mother's abuse, at the hands of her father, Billy was abused by her in turn, keeping the cycle going. Playing with fire, as abused/neglected/antisocial children are prone to, he accidentally burned down the motel where he lived with his mother and grandfather/father, killing them. He was sent to live with his grandmother/great-grandmother, until she died too. Billy then went to live with his strict, born again uncle. In high school, Billy became obsessed with a schoolmate, the American Girl. He murdered her, the first in a string of victims, all similar in the way that they reminded him of his mother. To deal with his past and what he'd become, he constructed the world of Twin Peaks, allowing him to also "protect" and honor his mother, the woman he both loved and feared. Inside of the dream, Billy's family was represented by both the Hornes and the Lodge Spirits, while Billy's main avatar was our hero Dale Cooper. Inside of his dream, Billy sought to project his tragedy and sins onto his victim's family instead, which worked for a while. However, if the OG is a representation of how Billy got away with murder, the Return is how he was eventually discovered by the mother of his first victim, an act precipitated by his involvement with Betty, his final victim.
A longer essay on the theory: https://armsholdair.dreamwidth.org/7192.html
WARNING: A knowledge of the whole Twin Peaks series is needed for this, fittingly from A to Z and Z back to A.
- For the penultimate episode of the Original series, the Log Lady discusses trees, her Log, her husband as well as fire.
"A log is a portion of a tree. At the end of a crosscut log -- many of you know this -- there are rings."
Rings being mentioned is significant, since circles and rings repeat within the show.
"Each ring represents one year in the life of the tree. How long it takes to a grow a tree."
She is talking about the age of a tree here and how long it takes to grow one. If we can possibly connect that to the previous episode, which we believed hinted at the conception and birth of Billy, and the talk of trees as representing people, we can get a sense that she's referring to the age of Billy, perhaps, and also of his mother.
She points out that the fireplace is boarded up, and that there will never be a fire there. Could be a reference to BOB/Ben or of the abuse likened to it or even the connection to Billy, whom played with fire and how it burned down his home and family.
She also points out that her husband's ashes are in a jar on her mantle. Now why would she even keep them there? Still contemplating if her husband worked for the "fire" as in he was a woodsman, one of Ben's helpers. She also mentions, soon after, that her log has stopped growing, but it is aware. Is the log her husband?
Interesting how Margaret state,"My log hears things I cannot hear. But my log tells me about the sounds, about the new words." What does she mean? Are the sounds the same as the ones the Fireman showed to Dale in The Return. What are the new words anyway?
- Alone with Major Briggs, Leo manages to reach a key. The key doesn't fit his own lock, so Leo let's a disoriented Briggs go with the instruction to "Save Shelly".
Did Earle purposely leave that particular key there, assuming that, even if he reached it, Leo wouldn't let the father of the man having an affair with his wife go? Is that how incapable of understanding love Windom is, and how appreciative of it Leo has become? Leo stares at Shelly's photo.
- Earle returns and expresses disappointment in Leo's actions. He intends to play a game with Leo instead of punishing him, but that is just as bad.
- What's really interesting is how Windom's face, during this scene, is how Laura and Leland's momentarily look in FWWM, when Laura tells Harold "Fire Walk With Me" after talking about BOB and when BOB uses his host's fear to open the door at Glastonbury Grove to enter the Red Room. Now those two were more stylized, with Lynch's special touch, but we think they were meant to be the same, with one major difference. Their faces were greyish/white, like the sycamores/ring around the oil pool, black lips like oil and very red mouth inside, like the curtains. This could have indicated that they were both opened, like the Lodge, and that BOB wanted to enter them. Now Windom's face is white/light grey, but his mouth is all black. Does that indicate that BOB had no desire to use him?
And how could that pertain to this specific theory? Well, we reckon that Billy had a purpose for Laura (he was in possessive love with American Girl and wanted to be with her) and Leland (he needed to impose a lie on someone to help make everyone not realize he was the real killer) but Windom...there was no real use for him. Remember too, he might truly be an earlier template for BOB, a representation of Billy's dad, and there was no use for that anymore.
He also doesn't really care for another father figure, just as he didn't care for the real one either. When going through One-Eyed Jack's, searching for Audrey, going down the corridor with Titian's painting of Danae, Coop declared it a dead end. The photo represented Danae being impregnated by Zeus, with a son destined to kill her father. In Billy's case, we reason Zeus and the father were one and the same...and neither mattered to him. Albert even specifically referred to Windom as Zeus. We also will later equate Albert's induction into the Blue Rose task force as having been directly linked to Billy's dad. Besides Gordon, whom accompanied Phillip Jeffries on the first Blue Rose case, Albert is the only FBI Agent whom didn't disappear. We believe the Agents each correspond to a traumatic/life changing death for Billy. Except Albert...well he got Billy's father, a death that barely affected Billy. Plus he might have started to see his dad as BOB a little at that stage, and considered him alive. So, in any case, Windom isn't useful to Billy. So there is little use in going inside him.
- Norma is back and making pies for the Miss Twin Peaks pageant.
She tells Annie and Shelly, "This is the biggest day of the year for us. And we have to have somebody up there who really deserves this title. Especially this year."
Annie asks, "You mean Laura Palmer?"
And Norma replies, "It would be a good day for healing."
Shelly responds, "I think we need more than a day."
For us, Laura being mentioned here is extremely relevant. They are saying that the Miss Twin Peaks contest should heal the town, and yet we believe this is one of the strongest catalysts for spreading the pain and sorrow Laura's death meant. For it will help lead to her killer, whom wasn't truly punished or caught, trapping the last vestiges of morality inside of his darkness, allowing him to become not just the murderer of one young girl but many.
And it is ironic that Annie, mentions Laura, because she is essentially next in line and going to symbolize his becoming a serial killer. Frankly, she's even dating the guy who killed Laura. Sure, he might seem all nice and wonderful, as Dale Cooper, but that's what many people often say about monsters...they seemed so nice. This fact, makes a bloody Annie appearing in Laura's bed, warning that the good Dale is stuck in the Lodge, make all the more sense. There lies the first woman he intentionally killed, and there will be the one after her.
- Shelly and Annie want to know who Norma is voting for and joke about her splitting her vote. Seeing as though Cooper splits in the finale, we wonder if this is a sly little wink to that.
- The next sequence finds Audrey Horne, sitting by the fire, in her father's office, and wearing a red dress, which instantly reminded us of the Red Room and our theorizing during the last episode that the curtains were symbolic for the birth of her son. Now she's sitting, staring at the fire and she's also barefoot, the initial shot of the scene infact. The first few scenes of Audrey in the Pilot centered on her shoes, which we compared to the colors of the Red Room itself. And now, for some reason, she's barefoot. Does this have any connection to Laura/Carrie's whisper about spotting Cooper's dark suit off? Is seeing Audrey by the fire a big clue?
Coincidentally, or not, the first time we saw Ben, he was spitting into a fire in this same fireplace.
- Ben comes in, his hands loaded with books. Audrey was seen in a library a few episodes back. The Hornes have been surrounded by books lately, and given the fact that we believe Billy, the child of Audrey and Ben, lives through/loves stories, this seems very fitting indeed.
- Ohhhh....important line here. Ben sees his daughter sitting by the fire in her red (curtain) dress and exclaims, "Audrey. The most intelligent face that I've seen all day.
You make the rest of us look like primates."
Now in FWWM, we see the grandson (Billy to us) adorn his mask of the frogmoth. When he lifts it once, we see a monkey hiding beneath it. Later, after Laura has been killed, and before we actually see a shot of Will Hayward unwrapping the plastic to reveal her peaceful blue face, we also see a monkey shaded the same color blue, whom whispers "Judy", as if introducing Laura's corpse. Now, in The Return, Naido/Betty also makes sounds like a monkey. We believe this supposedly inconsequential line from Ben Horne, is what is at the heart of this monkey business.
In this way, Billy and his father are in agreement: Audrey makes everyone else look like a monkey, the girls that remind him of her and even Billy himself.
- Audrey asks Ben about the books and he explains they are all of the world's enlightening literature. He states, "Somewhere in here are the answers that I seek. And I intend to read them
from cover to cover, until I find..." Unfortunately, he says it like a man who probably doesn't even know what he's looking for. He's trying to be good, but like he confessed to Jack, he doesn't know how. It isn't natural for him and Billy is merely imposing it on him even now.
- Ben sits directly in front of the fire, Audrey off to its side.
- Ben notices Audrey is distracted (was she looking out the window like Cooper?) and that she is missing Jack. He says, Jack is a man of his word, so he will be back, and yet we know he won't. Like Windom, Billy had no further use for him, and besides, he probably always hoped that the father he heard about would come back someday too...until he found out that his father had never really left and he had been calling him grandpa the whole time.
- Audrey relays what she found out during her trip to Seattle. Supposedly the Packards are using Twin Peaks Savings and Loans to funnel cash into Ghostwood Development, but the bank is keeping a low profile because they don't want bad publicity.
So this, in fact, leads up to Audrey chaining herself to the vault door, which leads to a myriad of similarities to the flashbacks shown in Part 8 involving BOB and the Experiment, plus the New Mexico Girl and the frogmoth. Plus we have it being in a Bank, as in Teresa Banks. Audrey locked away in a Bank(s).
- Ben brings up the subject of Miss Twin Peaks again and how Audrey should enter. She obviously doesn't want to do it, and yet Ben keeps pressuring her, saying it's to stop Ghostwood's destruction, and obviously, at some point she concedes...which goes along with our hypothesis that the incest that haunts the series truly happened between them. Unfortunately, Ben Horne, we believe, forced Audrey to do far worse things than enter a beauty pageant.
- At one point, Audrey has her hands placed together in front of her and resembles the stance of Ronette and Laura's Angels. This also goes hand in hand with Windom calling the 3 original targets angels and our belief that Audrey was still supposed to be the chosen one before Coop/Billy invented a decoy.
- Have to comment on how the direction often frames the shot so we are watching Ben and Audrey through the open office door. What is that precisely getting at? That in Billy's fantasy they leave the door open when they are together, when in reality it was most likely shut for privacy and so nobody knew what Ben was doing to her?
- Andy is continually staring at the petroglyph. Meanwhile, the station is on the lookout for the missing Briggs, and Cooper just sort of carelessly let's it drop to Harry that he saw BOB when Josie died and he believes it was fear that killed her, and her fear attracted BOB, allowing him to slip in and feed from her.
Dale specifically says Josie was trembling like an animal, recalling the shaking hands. It also recalls a missing piece where the Lodge spirits say "animal life". We once again also have the statement that BOB feeds on fear. So does he also feed on pain and sorrow? Is that included? Or was that something different from his usual sustenance? How was it stolen then?
- When Harry guesses a connection between BOB and the Black Lodge, Cooper tells him, "I think that the Black Lodge is what you have referred to in the past as 'the evil in these woods.'"
Last episode, we theorized that this was an allegory for Billy himself. Ghostwood is a representation of his mother, Audrey, and him being her child, he was literally in the woods for 9 months. He was the evil in the woods. As the imaginer of BOB, he is also BOB, making that assessment true too. We also reason that both Lodges represent his feelings for his mother/life divided into positive and negative, and this makes the Black Lodge a permanent residence for his fear and hatred, it forever residing in the woods and in connection with his mother. Add to that the Red Room, we believe, is partly a gateway to Billy's own psyche and all of this is actually very valid, just not the literal way Cooper and Harry are guessing.
- What's upsetting is how Cooper states that they need to get to the Black Lodge before Windom. "There's a source of great power there, Harry," he states. "Far beyond our ability to comprehend."
He doesn't say anything about the destructive capability of the Lodge and how horrible it is, but seems more curious. Now this is all about Billy's descent into pure evil we theorize. That is the power that is really being referenced. And that is probably beyond Harry and Cooper's ability to comprehend, seeing as though they are characters inside of his mind, and Dale, his main avatar, doesn't want to face his true self.
- Listening in, Windom is excited to learn that fear, his favorite emotional state, is the dark forces' bread and butter.
So this still raises the question over why creamed corn is pain and sorrow. Can it be all negative emotions? But then why make it seem exclusively two things at the end of FWWM, when the series often told us BOB lived on fear and pleasure?
- Windom references his excitement when he severed Caroline's aorta, revealing that he did kill her.
- Windom expresses his regret to Leo that he's leaving, because he grew fond of him. He refers to him at the end like a dog, something we already linked to Coop/Billy and Ben.
- He's rigged a contraption so that Leo has to hold a string in his teeth so a cage full of poisonous spiders won't descend on him. This illustrates that Windom was speaking the truth about his own penchant for creating fear.
- At the Roadhouse, a leering Mr. Pinkle (remember his name can mean penis/sausage in German, and sometimes rectum too) is instructing the contestants on how to perform their choreography, which seems lewd more than classy.
Now Pinkle gives these instructions, "Now, turn around and bend forward like a sapling. A sapling in the wind."
This is disturbing when viewed through this theory and brings more credence to the belief that Billy was also abused by the father/grandfather. Afterall, we've been saying the the woods represent Audrey, and the trees by extension. Now we have a sapling, a young tree mentioned, and how it is told to bend in the wind, the wind and fans strong motifs in the series. This could go for the young Audrey with Ben and her son Richard/Cooper/Billy too, their being trees in the same forest (think Gersten/Steven).
Even one girl asks: "What exactly are we celebrating with us all bending over like this?"
Pinkle then snaps, " Don't ever question the vision of your choreographer! You are but a petal on my rose."
There is the rose motif as well. Billy was a petal on the rose of his mother.
We should mention that this all pertains to a dance, also, one being taught/performed at the Roadhouse, the same place where Audrey will be instructed to perform her own dance for the audience.
- Audrey is missing from the dance rehearsal but we just read the script and, actually, not only was she supposed to be there, it was to HER that Pinkle said that bit about the rose, after she had been the one to ask what was with all the bending. Pinkle was actually supposed to take her aside and seem like he was singling her out from the rest and making a move on her. That she isn't there now at all seems weird. She won't even be doing it during the actual performance...she's separate which only brings more attention to her and seems like she's excluded for a reason. Now Fenn probably just didn't want to do it, but it fits in perfectly with the theory and that Billy is partly sheltering her, just as he he will do in the form of the father-like Charlie.
- Dwayne, Norma and Richard are standing watching the rehearsal, trying to figure out what they should be considering when choosing Miss Twin Peaks. Very interesting how Richard, whom shares a name with Audrey's future son, remarks that breeding should be placed highly.
- Okay, so, to go along with the earlier choreography routine, and the uncomfortable implications, now, as a Richard is standing there, we have a man moving a buck decoration to the stage, where a doe one is already placed. The issue here, though, is that he honestly appears to look like he is sodomizing it. Seriously. There's no real reason to carry it that way...unless it's supposed to look dubious. And this is all as he passes by Richard Tremayne, whom was also a part of the whole kiss the weasel thing, and spit and swallow thing too, both hosted at the Great Northern.
In The Return, Richard Horne will invade his grandmother's home and hurl insults at her and his uncle, all while threatening to "cornhole" Johnny, a reference about sodomy and one which involves corn (related to garmonbozia?). Why does he do this? What's the source of his rage and this particular threat when we saw him accosting a young woman earlier. Later on, his grandfather, Ben will field Frank Truman's reports about Richard's other actions, in a "that boy was never right" fashion, and we buy it, knowing he is the son of a doppleganger. And yet Ben also indicates his grandson's actions repeatedly progressed, which implies he wasn't wholly evil at one point.
We suggest that what lies hidden beneath this is the subtly hinted at possiblity that Ben Horne is partly responsible for his grandson's behavior, something he doesn't wish to admit to. Consider too, this whole conversation leads to his telling Beverly about his father buying him that second hand CYCLE. Ben also tried to reason away Richard's horrific acts by being that he didn't have a father but...if Ben was truly a changed man, wouldn't he have been a good influence and father figure for the boy? Not if he is the source of the corruption and disease to begin with, we argue.
- Lana seduces Richard in a storage room that looks more like a closet. A closet in the basement of the Great Northern indicated that the Horne family held it's own dark secrets and that Dale Cooper, whom would become a Richard, the same name as Ben Horne's grandson, was one of them.
- Dale dictates to Diane about his meditation instead of sleep. Does this connect to his dopple stating, after freshly leaving the Lodge, that he wasn't sleeping? He talks a bit about the petroglyph, Earle and the Lodges before gushing to her about Annie, how she's like a child (similar to him in ways, and how we argue Billy is stuck partially in a juvenile state, as represented by the grandson). Now, why, if Dale is involved with Diane, would he be telling her all about this other woman he was involved with? That would border on Narcissistic behavior, although seeing as though we believe he's involved with himself (Annie) that may infact be true. But, we reason more it's because Billy hasn't fully formed his idea of Diane yet, why she is left unseen and just presents as a recorder. It is only later, after having met and become involved with his own assistant, Betty, that Billy Hastings can form some substitute/representation of her inside of his dream.
- A knock at the door, proves to be Annie herself. She's paid him a visit because she's worried about her speech, which she informs him must center around saving local forests. She makes a reference about campfires, which links to the theme of fire in the woods, as well as the secret Smokey the Bear ashtray Audrey had hidden away in her locker at school, along with her red heels.
Cooper theorizes, "If the Ghostwood development cost thousands of lives, do you think it would have a chance of going forward?
Annie counters, "Well, trees aren't the same
as people. But they are alive."
Okay so clearly here the forests/trees are being equated to people, strengthening the viewpoint that Ghostwood could mean Audrey, and that the displayed destruction of nature we see throughout the series directly displays abuse of a certain kind ie: Ben's father passing the shovel to him at the Great Northern groundbreaking.
More analogy follows:
Cooper: Your forest is beautiful and peaceful.
Billy sees his mother's as being a haunted place "Ghostwood". It is his as well, and he is ignoring that Annie has shown signs of similar torment, because he denies it in himself.
Annie: Part of it's been damaged. I've tried to replant, but nothing's taken root. Every forest has its shadow.
Direct shadow mention here, which can easily be foreshadowing Cooper's doppleganger.
- Annie's next line also adds more to the theory that she is just an extension of Dale Cooper and the dreamer, more than being her own person, "I can see half my life's history in your face, and I'm not sure that I want to."
- They end up making love in Cooper's hotel bed, but we equate this more to an act of masturbation than anything else, the signs all shown that Annie is essentially Dale Cooper on a deeper level. Must mention that this occurs with Cooper on top, which doesn't seem his natural position, The Return having shown him twice on the bottom. Mr. C was the one whom appeared to like the dominant position, but that was when he killed Darya, in another motel. When he was with Chantal, he was sitting.
- Nadine shows Ed, Nadine, Jacoby and Mike her slides regarding winning, including all of her trophies. She talks about how happy she is, and everything, and yet, when Ed says he's marrying Norma, she squeezes Mike's hand in anger and seems generally to be hiding how she really feels.
Another good indication that, despite his cheery air, Cooper might be hiding, supressing/repressing his true feelings, just as Billy does regarding his own horrific past and his feelings for his mother.
- Hawk finds Briggs stumbling around the woods and still out to lunch. Briggs asks, "Which way to the castle?" which could refer to the business at hands, regarding Kings and Queens and the Black Lodge or even be about Jack Rabbit's Palace, a place in the woods where he played and made up stories with Bobby. Or maybe they are all the same, given that specific naming for the Palace, and how we argue the Black Lodge is connected to the Great Northern and the troubling undercurrent and theme that the horrifying fact about Billy's true paternity is what is partly influencing all of this.
- Garland is brought back to the station where Cooper is told he has been shot through with haloperidol, the same drug Phillip Gerard used to keep MIKE at bay.
- Now, Earle used the drug to help Briggs be more honest with him, so we're paying strict attention to what he is mumbling.
When questioned about his name, he calls it an odd name and references Judy Garland. Was Billy influenced by Garland when naming him, and her connection to the Wizard of Oz, a huge influence on Lynch too?
When asked if Earle did this to him, Garland replies, "It was God, I suppose." Technically, that ain't too far off. Billy plays writer inside of his dream, so he's in a way saying that Billy did this to him.
He says he was taken to the woods, which is truthful. He also adds that they were lovely and dark and that the King of Romania was unable to attend. Those are all technically true too. We saw no King of Romania there.
- Cooper tells Harry they don't have much time because the entrance to the Black Lodge won't be there for long.
This goes for Billy most likely too. He was created at a specific point in time and would not exist if things hadn't been just the way that lead to it. We might even be able to apply that to Laura Palmer herself and why things drastically change if she doesn't die. If Billy hadn't killed American Girl, there would be no Laura Palmer, at least not the one we knew her, and his dream would have altered to suit that.
- Andy asks if it has anything to do with the 4H club. On the surface it doesn't, but if Laura's love of horses was something taken from American Girl, she could have been involved in it. Billy might have been too, or should have been and actually paid attention, since the club tries to shape youths into helpful parts of the community.
- Pete and Andrew, meanwhile, try to deal with their own puzzle, albeit this one in a cheating fashion. They have Eckhardt's box in a vice and are trying to squeeze it open.
This could still imply that Billy was lazy and didn't want to do the shadow work to understand himself and become a better person.
- This take becomes even more relevant when Catherine remarks, "I can't take any more of this. Boxes inside boxes." The glass box in NYC, the one that Sam keeps a careful watch over, we argue is Billy Hastings' psyche. When Cooper exits the Lodge and falls into it, it soon after becomes a box upon box upon box that he further falls into, leading up to his visit to the mansion room. We theorize that, when things get tough, Billy doesn't face them, or wake up, but simply falls into another dream: boxes inside boxes.
- Interesting how the box is resistant to the vice when Peter names it "Cram Jack all-duty vise." There's "Jack" a name and we wonder if it holds any connection to Billy's imagining/perception of his father, and whom he had once hoped he might be.
- Andrew has had enough and shoots the box, displaying Billy's choice of violence over work even more fully.
- The box is now opened and a safety deposit key is inside, one we all know will lead to the bank that Audrey was earlier talking about. This also still is a precursor to the box and key in Mulholland Drive.
- Andrew and Catherine, despite being brother and sister, don't trust each other, just like Billy and his mother, and so the key is placed in the cake saver.
Now why they still think this can be anything good is beyond us.
- Donna comes down the stairs in her Miss Twin Peaks fashion and her parents are waiting. They compliment her, but Donna is more looking for the truth. When she presses them, Eileen warns, "Donna, I understand your feeling. But there are some things you just have to trust. You're young and you don't know all the limitations."
Why are the Haywards being so secretive with Donna? She's already suspecting something with Ben and she's angry at them, why not say what happened and go forward? Unless, this is still Billy making his own story, which involves the rape of a daughter by her own father, and so that is secretly informing things and making it all seem darker and more ominous. Afterall, this does involve a Will. Infact, after watching most of the whole OG series again, he's the only derivative of a Billy that we've seen throughout it.
- This episode contains a strong emphasis on fathers, which holds special significance since it is occurring after the previous episode, which we theorized danced around the subject of Billy's conception.
- Cooper deduces that what Andy mistook for the 4h club is in fact a conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn. He explains, "Well, historically, Harry, when Jupiter and Saturn are conjunct, there are enormous shifts in power and fortune. Jupiter being expansive in its influence, Saturn, contractive. Conjunction suggests a state of intensification, concentration. What this indicates to me is the potential for explosive change, good and bad.
Incredibly important when viewing this under the light that Dale's repressed urges are going to be set free, while his lighter ones are caged, the opposite of what he has been doing. This, of course, is equal to how his true self, Billy, is going to let his own darker impulses overshadow the light, and decide to further what he started by killing American Girl, repeating the act over and over again, in an effort to further not deal in a healthy fashion with what happened to him.
- They soon discover the conjunction is set to occur from January to June, all around when Laura was murdered and Coop came to town.
- Briggs soon pipes up with, "Protect the Queen" and "Fear and love open the doors."
He's probably just referring to Miss Twin Peaks, but we'd also wonder if he still is referring to Audrey too, Billy's goal partly being to keep his mother safe.
- Cooper reasons that two Lodges, two doors, fear opens one, the Black, and love the other, the White. When Harry asks what that means, Cooper replies, "I don't know exactly. It just came to me."
It came to him because he masks the dreamer and so he subconsciously realizes that this has to do with Billy's conflicting feelings, particularly in regards to his mother/home.
- Briggs comments "How does the Queen..." which is from Hamlet.
The character we saw most quoting Shakespeare was Ben Horne. Meanwhile, Hamlet involves the potentially Oedipal feelings a son possesses for his mother. We've also got the relationship between that mother and the uncle, which the son is jealous of, and creates a note of interest when we realize that FWWM involves a ring given by an uncle figure (MIKE) to those Billy sees as being similar to his mother. It all started with Teresa whom we outright suggest is a substitute for Audrey/Billy's mom. Does that indicate anything occurring between the uncle and niece, even in a protective way?
Furthermore, this is Briggs saying it, whom created Jack Rabbit's Palace with his son. We've theorized Jack as being linked with his father in Billy's mind. So a palace would indicate that he was the King. That would make Billy's mother the Queen. Audrey is still the true Queen. That Annie becomes her instead just reinforces the belief that Billy forces other women to become his mother.
- Coop and Harry realize that whomever wins Miss Twin Peaks is in trouble.
- They knock over the Bonsai and finally discover it isn't from Josie but Windom, realizing they have been helping him all the time.
- Andy is trying to tell them all something, but nobody is listening.
- We cut to the contest, and see the women all performing the dance routine. All except Audrey. But what is so goosebump inducing to this theory, once again, is how this sequence, though seemingly unimportant, now becomes something to blow the mind. The women parade around the stage with plastic umbrellas, as they wear similarly plastic coats...that's too reminiscent of Laura Palmer.
Norma said they should be doing this all to help heal the community, and yet they are prancing around the stage invoking in the most morbid way the memory of the victim?
Why?
Because this is the dream of the man who killed her and it is celebrating how he's about to make a HABIT out of it, and whom better to do it with next than the ex nun.
Meanwhile, his mother, the true queen, is kept safely out of it, just like the true Judy that she is. Audrey doesn't have the umbrella. Audrey does not wear the plastic. Billy has protected his Queen and she shall not be harmed.
Probably partly because he already burned her in a fire, not the water, and he cannot accept that.
And this is the true horrific meaning behind Miss Twin Peaks, how it all involves a group of dead women. One of the reasons why the whole thing changes when the first one doesn't die.
And whom better to host our little Miss Twin Peaks than WILLIAM Hayward, bearer of the same first name and initials as WILLIAM "Billy" Hastings, our dreamer and the evil bastard of a serial killer himself.
- Mr. Pinkle makes a pass at the Log Lady.
- Bobby approaches Windom, dressed up as the Log Lady, and Windom introduces him to the fake log personally. Guess what's mainly interesting about this is how Bobby asks "So, what, did you bring your whole family?" before the act. With Billy's family being what it was, that is a sore spot.
- Harry and Coop make it to the Pageant, Cooper stating the winner should have 24 hour guard and house security. At this stage he still doesn't seem concerned that Annie might be the one to win.
- Earlier, in the scene in Ben's office, Horne implored Audrey to, "Make the speech. Stop Ghostwood. And take us to a better day."
Now Audrey is doing just that, even though she was excluded from the dance and we never see her talent.
"There is only one way to save a forest, an idea, or anything of value," she says. "And that is by refusing to stand by and watch it die. There is a law of nature, which is more fundamental to life than the laws of man. And when something you care about
is in danger, you must fight to save it or lose it forever."
Her words take on deeper meaning if what we have theorized is true, that she was Ghostwood and this is all about her: Billy's tormented relationship with his mother and how he yearns to both protect and destroy her.
It also takes on greater significance and becomes more profound when we see Cooper stop and stare at her as she makes her speech. He is Billy, he loves her, and yet he has separated himself from her to keep her safe. That is how he is fighting to save her...to protect her even from finding out what he is. Just like we see Charlie not sharing the news he heard about Billy with her.
- Donna watches as Audrey and Ben share a sweet moment after Audrey has given her speech. Donna then confronts Benjamin about what went on between him and her mother. He wants for them to all sit down and talk about it. Eventually Donna deduces the obvious: he is her father. She runs away in disgust.
Billy has placed this on Donna here, potentially because of her coming into contact with the grandson, his childhood self. And yet she gets off pretty lucky. She's getting a sanitized Ben Horne. The real deal was even worse, believe it or not, and the truth about his illegitimate child truly devastating: Ben fathered his own grandson, the one Donna herself met.
- Cooper looks on as Annie gives her speech, all happy and seemingly having forgotten that whoever wins this thing is in BIG trouble.
Her speech mentions the dead living on in the earth basically (it's kind of condescending actually), but is very complimentary to this theory for that fact and the statement, "For the Indians love the earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat."
We have been saying that Billy equates his mother to Ghostwood, and this imagery of a child loving their mother's heartbeat fits it wonderfully.
She also adds, "Maybe saving a forest starts with preserving some of the feelings
that die inside us every day. Those parts of ourselves that we deny. For if we cannot respect that interior land, then neither can we respect the land we walk."
Boom. Another bit of dialogue backing what we've been claiming: That Billy has essentially compromised his strength and goodness by denying certain aspects and feelings he has inside of himself. This we have witnessed through Dale Cooper, especially in how he became too good following Leland's death and the supposed "solution" of Laura's murder. It is all leading up to his meeting the parts of himself that he has denied and he has created the proverbial monster.
- Here's the other storyline revolving around a baby's father: Lucy has made her decision and she wants Andy to be her baby's daddy. Richard seems barely upset, and we might be able to link that to how Billy, himself, shows no interest in being a daddy either.
However, this clearly keeps that thread going, the question of paternity, and that directly is at the heart of the tragedy of the Horne family.
- Annie wins and finally Cooper looks concerned, but, at this stage, it might be too obvious if he didn't.
- While mostly everyone seems happy, Dwayne gives the most funny, truthful observation about the whole thing: "This is an outrage. She's been living in this town
about 15 minutes."
- Windom Earle strikes, as the lights go out and seem to strobe, ala BOB. All heck breaks loose, Will leads Annie backstage and then almost seems to abandon her, which allows Earle to grab her.
- Nadine gets beaned with a sandbag, which, considering this is all a dream, may fit oddly in with Mr. Sandman somehow. That's pathetic but we're going anywhere this theory will lead us. It also helps to "wake" her up.
- Windom claims he will help Annie and here's the odd thing, given that we think Dale is really a serial killer purposely wanting her destruction, it doesn't really matter who she goes with at this point.
- Cooper finally is freaking out about Annie, Harry is trying to console him that they will find her and Andy is finally able to tell them both what he figured out: the petroglyph is a map.
You bet it is, Andy. It's a map leading to Cooper/Billy's birth/rebirth. Infact, just like Donna had been looking at last episode, that petroglyph might partially be William Hastings birth certificate.
