![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"The Owls Are Not What They Seem" A Twin Peaks Rewatch with the Theory in Mind: Episode 22 "Slaves and Masters"
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.
- The Log Lady discusses death masks, as Caroline's will appear at the episode's end. Margaret makes it a point to mention how they don't truly capture what the living person looked like without the animated spark. Any connection drawn to the white mask the grandson wears or the one Audrey wore of the cat? That sounds ridiculous, but it's already pointed out that a death mask doesn't look much like the person it's of anyway. Are the masks representative of some form of death? Since Audrey is wearing hers, as her father tries to have sex with her, does it indicate a part of her died when he actually succeeded? Does the grandson (Billy) wearing one represent his own spiritual death when his mother began her abuse of him? Is this symbolized by Lois Duffy having committed murder? Does it also echo in the young boy Richard Horne kills, a boy whom had been playing a game with his mother.
Margaret references a train whistle, which recalls the train car where Laura died, but that one was abandoned. Did a train have anything to do with Billy's childhood, or his teenage years?
- The episode begins with the camera weaving through chess pieces.
We're still looking at this last part of the original series as not being about Cooper's battle with Windom, but his even larger one against himself: Billy.
- What exactly was Malcolm and Evelyn's plot regarding James'? It seems like they didn't work on a good motive. Are they claiming James was a bad mechanic whom didn't fix the Jaguar right?
- James isn't acting like himself. He's playing oddly with a drink umbrella, kind of like the ones Donna and he found at Jacoby's.
- James seems fixated on Evelyn now, even with Donna by his side. With all of his mommy issues this is interesting. Perhaps, like Billy, what he really needs to fix is the wound of his mother, not anything or anyone else.
- Bobby and Shelly are talking with Harry and Cooper and it just sort of finally comes out that Hank shot Leo, just when you think it hardly matters anymore. Bobby keeps playing with his lighter.
- Harry's always seemed fixated on Shelly and we're not sure why. He couldn't stop suggesting her as a suspect in the 2nd season opener, and then he was all excited to tell her Leo was coming home and now he's sending security to her house. Maddie's probably wondering why she never got any after she'd seen BOB and was doomed.
- Albert comes in and is all friendly. This episode honestly feels weird. Something's off. Billy must have eaten pickles before dreaming.
- Earle has spelled out a giant C on the map by mailing packages to police departments and major law agencies (Springfield, Kansas City, Lawton, Dallas, Jackson) which look like bombs but contain items dealing with Caroline's wedding attire (a white veil, a garter, a pair of white slippers, a pearl necklace, a wedding dress).
The C must be to spell Caroline, but the letter/communication must be to Dale Cooper.
This can outright go alongside our belief that the letters "ROBERT" being placed under the nails of murdered girls is also a message. We still believe this was a message to Billy or from Billy, basically to himself or the world. The letters represent his father's name and the murdered girls represent his mother, possibly JUDY. And the act and message are about Billy's conception, that he is the result of this specific coupling, which was a father violating his own daughter. Billy equates that as having destroyed his mother's life, HE destroyed his mother too, both father and son.
Is there any reason for the placement of the C though? It includes Kansas and Texas, and is circling Arkansas, but does that mean anything? Why wouldn't it be Pennsylvania, to emphasize Pittsburgh? It's like the chessboard not being the same game he was playing against Dale, or how William Hastings' information was mixed up with Mr. C/Dale's arrest report. Did Billy's family actually live in Arkansas?
Hmm...Some looking into and we learned that Arkansas means South Wind, recalling Ben's name also meaning son of the South. It also contains the city Little Rock (Let's Rock!), which Caroline is a township of.
What proved to be incredibly interesting about Arkansas was that in the Lonoke County, there is also a Gum (that gum you like) Woods, and both a Williams and Pulaski townships. We're speculating here that Billy (a vast majority of William's found running around The Return) actually killed American Girl, whom looked like Ronette Pulaski, not Laura Palmer. Maybe AG's real name was Pulaski afterall.
Also Lonoke, a sort of suburban area of Little Rock, has connections to both the fire, the Civil War, Railroads and a tree. We just saw last episode, Ben enacting his Civil War fantasy with a train/railroad and a fire burning behind him, which also haunts Twin Peaks. Why does Ben choose the Civil War, afterall? He's not Southern? What's that all about on a deeper level?
Anyway, Lonoke was formed after the town of Brownsville was burned to the ground. The leaders decided a new town should be built by the railroad. The city took it's name from a misspelling of the lone red oak that railroad surveyor George P. C. Rumbough used while surveying.
Is that why the Log Lady mentioned the train whistle? It's interesting to contemplate anyway, because we're still trying to understand Windom's decision to send the parcels here.
Arkansas also has a Batesville...Norman Bates.
One more interesting fact about Arkansas and Earle's C on the map. The state beneath Arkansas is Louisiana, Phillip Jeffries home state. When we reach FWWM we will propose that Billy created an FBI man for every traumatic "death/murder" that happened to or by him. Jeffries, with Cole, was the first of these...What if, Billy coming from Arkansas was influenced by the state below when creating him?
Actually, forget Caroline, what if the C is actually for Cooper? Arkansas is where "Cooper" comes from.
- Albert to Dale: "But my guess is, he won't dance with anyone but you, Coop."
The dance remains after Leland Palmer has left the dance floor.
- Albert says that Windom played Zeus at the power station, where he left the map.
We have another Greek mythology reference, and this one connected to lightning. We've already drawn a comparison to Windom Earle and Ben Horne, and suggested Windom existed as a fantasy representation of Billy's father that bridged the real deal and the most horrific BOB. To have this all connected to electricity, which plays such an integral role is...electrifying.
We can also draw another specific web, that probably isn't intended but is very intriguing. In Part 16, Mr. C brought Richard to the rock to check out two sets of the coordinates he had obtained. Richard was electrocuted and this was the event Jerry witnessed the wrong way through his binoculars. This was also where Mr. C confirmed that Richard was his son. That this, and the incident with Windom here, involved a rock (can we connect that to the C on the map circling a Little Rock?) and a possible father (Zeus) and electricity (the power station) is interesting, at least.
- Hmm...it gets even more interesting when Albert approaches Dale, whom has begun to look out the window and Rosenfield comments: "Replacing the quiet elegance of the dark suit and tie with the casual indifference of these muted earth tones is a form of fashion suicide, but, uh, call me crazy. On you, it works."
That's interesting because, before the rock incident with Mr. C, when Richard first approached Mr. C, they shared a conversation that swirled around Cooper's suit.
Richard: You're FBI.
Mr. C: How do you figure that?
Richard: 'Cause I seen your picture in your fancy FBI suit.
Mr. C:..Where'd you see that picture?
Richard: My mom had it.
Mr. C: Who's your mom?
Richard: Audrey Horne. And your name's Cooper.
Hmm...what the chance of this conversation following the whole discussion about Windom, the map and the power station?
The talk about Dale and his suit being specifically tied to his role as a lawful FBI agent also leads directly back to Laura/Carrie's whisper to Cooper in the Red Room: "Don't assume (that) nobody can spot your dark suit off but me." Her insinuation/threat still seemed to be that she knew what/who he really was, and others did too. The others we speculate are Betty/Naido and American Girl's Mom/Sarah.
Speaking of that last one...Ronette's mother is called Suburbis Pulaski...kind of leads us back to Lonoke/Little Rock and Arkansas.
- With all the talk about Coop's fashion and FBI suit, it another fascinating fact that the next sequence shows Windom out of his own "dark suit" and roaming around the cabin in his underwear/long John's.
This also can recall Laura/Carrie's whisper, and certainly not in a good way. It shows Windom being one sick and twisted bastard without his own dark suit. Of course, he's the same in it too, so *shrugs*.
Earle also admits to being partial to domestic violence.
- Windom threatens Leo with his flute, strokes it kind of uncomfortably, as he also tends and cares for him, forcing him to eat after placing an electrocuting collar on him. He also refers to him as a lion and then proceeds to make cat noises. With the help of the Log Lady's intro, this conjures up memories of Audrey Horne's cat mask, while also keeping the thread of appetite/food.
- Norma and Ed discuss their wasted years apart where an interesting statement is given:
"I bought you a present last Christmas. It was a turquoise and onyx bolo tie. I walked over to your house to give it to you, but I couldn't go in. I just waited. I could see you through the window. I don't know why I couldn't go in. I'm sorry I didn't."
We've repeatedly theorized that Billy climbed in through American Girl's window and now someone whom was lovesick is mentioning to their own object of attention having watched them through one too.
In Part 12, as we see the Palmer household from the outside, the camera lingers on Laura's bedroom window, as seen from outside. It's the viewpoint one might have had, say if they were walking by the house and looking up. We believe Billy often did that, obsessing over American Girl. You can even see the fan through the open doorway. Perhaps Billy was the girl's biggest fan, bringing a different meaning to its symbolism, and why the sound of it plays as Cooper is transported back in time to save Laura in Part 17.
By the end of his freedom/life (Part 18?) we believe that Billy was sorry he had gone in.
Very very curious too, how in Part 15, the same episode where Mr. C and Richard officially meet and the FBI suit is mentioned, Steven Burnett will ramble to Gersten Hayward, before taking his own life: "Or will I be completely, uh, like... like... Turquoise?" Turquoise represents emotional balance and self acceptance, qualities Billy needed and lacked.
- Nadine comes in and talks about her being disqualified at Knife River, which is a weird name for a place, especially to be mentioned now.
- Nadine mentions her and Mike, continuing with the theory they echo Billy and his mom.
- Harry and Coop question Josie about Jonathan's death and Josie's hands and long red fingernails are focused on, recalling the letters BOB placed beneath them and Diane's own colored nails in The Return. There is a beetle on the wood table too, drawing our thoughts to the frogmoth and the scratching sounds Cooper was meant to listen to/for perhaps being insect related.
- It's quite distressing seeing Josie unraveling. She held some power before, but now she is falling apart and desperate. She takes Harry's hand for comfort warmth.
- As Coop leaves Harry and Josie alone, he comes across Pete, whom is bringing in Josie's dry cleaning. We're keeping the fashion theme going in this episode.
The dry cleaners doesn't speak English, leading Pete to remark: "We just stood there and looked at each other like we were made of wood." This is another moment when people are compared to tree/wood, supporting the belief that the Ghostwood development meant Ben Horne's abuse of his daughter inside of Billy's dream, more than an actual real estate deal.
- Cooper helps Pete out, but also takes advantage of the moment when he steals a fiber of Josie's coat to compare with that of the person whom shot him.
- Josie receives a phone call from Thomas Eckhardt and she is terrified of him and his insinuations of them getting together. Through this situation, Billy is perfectly displaying his mother's reaction/feelings about being with/around her father, and how she must have felt needing to stay with her abuser to help protect/keep/raise her child.
- Catherine interrupts the call and an owl painting is seen behind her.
- Thomas meanwhile voices his disappointment to his secretary that Josie ran back to Catherine.
- Dr. Jacoby has let Ben be around the public again, which basically only includes a deserted lobby of the Great Northern, except for some staff holding war drums, and the rest of his family, including Johnny in headdress, and Bobby in Bugle Boy outfit.
- When Ben makes a dirty joke, Johnny laughs. Now we partly theorize this is Billy too, so it indicates his own sexual leanings, despite his stunted emotional maturity. It also involves a whorehouse, as Billy might have viewed his own home, a motel, in that way, his mother playing prostitute, as was indicated by Cooper rescuing Audrey from her father's brothel.
- Audrey is shocked when Jerry suggests leaving Ben the way he is. Jerry reasons they have the opportunity to do a few business things now, they couldn't explore previously.
This seems awful reminiscent of MIKE and BOB's own competitive, manipulative relationship and the power struggle between them.
- Audrey threatens her uncle saying if Ben is incapacitated she gets everything and Jerry will end up selling baseboard heaters at the local Cash N Carry. Interesting that Audrey alludes to Jerry selling electrical heat. On this train of thought, MIKE seemed more connected to electricity (modern fire) while BOB was connected to the more raw/primitive fire. MIKE was more spiritually enlightened than BOB too, something we see Jerry leaning towards in The Return, while Ben's enlightenment seems to be proven weak or for show, his having sold Ghostwood and his asking Beverly out despite protesting that he wouldn't.
- Audrey tells Jacoby she wants him to bring her father back.
This whole dream could be viewed, in effect, to how Billy is trying to give her [his mother] back her father as a man whom was not interested in her sexually. He's certainly working hard at repairing their relationship through everything, only unfortunately it can not hold.
- Donna talks to Evelyn at Wallies and the woman is obviously regretting her whole life and existence, something Billy's mother often did.
- Albert found the fibers Dale collected to have come from the same coat as whomever shot him. Josie's gloves are being analyzed for gun powder too. Fashion is still a strong thread in this episode. Albert suspects the bullets they collect from Jonathan will match those used on Cooper. Dale is zeroing in on Josie as his attempted killer, but there is really no clear cut answer yet for why she did it. She held no connection to the Palmer/Pulaski case that Dale was working on, afterall.
We suspect it still has to do with the fact that Audrey and Ben were in a threatening sexual situation at Jack's together, which struck too close to "home". This might be able to be tied to Josie's relationship with Eckhardt somehow...a close similarity being formed between both "couples".
- Harry tells Dale that the name of the murdered transient was Erik Powell and Dale reveals that was Caroline's maiden name. We have names and murder again, recalling BOB spelling his own name. We also have a maiden name, an unmarried woman, which likely Billy's mother was.
- Cooper reasons that whenever a piece is lost from the chessboard, Earle will take a life. He's afraid because he has never beat him. Harry suggests he get the help of their finest chess player: Pete Martell.
It's very sad that while Harry and Pete are going to help Cooper against Windom, he is secretly going around trying to prove the woman both men love, Josie, is a murderer.
- Shelly asks Norma for her old job back and we realize, in the face of this almost mother/daughter relationship, very few couples/characters from this age bracket have children in Twin Peaks. It's as if they aren't allowed to. Pets are also mysteriously absent. We suspect it is Billy's aversion to it all, his not liking children because he also hates himself because of his origin and his hatred of animals, like most serial killers have.
- Behind a window of a door at the Double R, we witness Harry and Norma talk about Hank's soon to be incarceration.
- There is an incredibly painful dinner shown between Eckhardt and Catherine, painful because Josie is forced to act as maid/waitress during it. We come back to food and appetites again, especially the sexual sort. Eckhardt admits he had Andrew killed not for art or money but for love. They talk about Josie like she is neither human nor present.
Once again, it was probably how Billy's mother felt while forced to live with, serve and feed her father's appetites.
- Eventually the discussion turns to Josie's hands, which are commented on being incredible and the fingers things of beauty. Eckhardt kisses Josie's hand. Shades of BOB here with the fingernails again. The feeling is that Eckhardt is thinking of her hands/fingers primarily as sexual tools too. It's a stark contrast from the way that Harry and Josie held hands earlier.
- A cat or dog is mentioned during their talk, how Josie could be replaced by one. We've linked cats to Audrey and dogs to Dale/Billy.
- Josie serves the main course, as requested and it is a pig's head. Knowing what she is about to do to Thomas soon, that could be fitting.
During the scene in FWWM, where BOB crawls through her window and Laura finally sees him as Leland, a shot of a pig's head was supposed to also be seen, but one couldn't be located, much to Sheryl Lee's relief.
- Evelyn lies on the couch in her study, blowing smoke rings.
- James comes in and confronts her, books are shown on the shelves behind them, carrying through Billy's love and escape into stories.
- James wants to know why she did this to him (destroy his life). Evelyn replies she did it because she wanted to, even though that isn't the answer she knows he wants to hear. She's not honest nor good like him. However that doesn't mean that she didn't want him there, at times, just for herself, because of the good and honest way that he tasted. James replies that he liked the way she tasted too.
Billy probably has the same question he wants to ask his mother. Why did she hurt him, why did she even bring him into the world? There's also still the very large likelihood that Billy associates his life with the material comfort it provided his mother through their father. Audrey is still very much tied into money and wealth, while Billy connects himself with a "buck". This equates nicely to Evelyn using James as a way to achieve money. In Billy's mind, his mother can't offer up a reason and so, to him, she did it because she simply wanted to and because she isn't very good. She ended up wanting him though and there is a disconcerting connection being drawn once again to taste, humans being viewed as food. Through Evelyn and James, it is betrayed that both mother and son developed a "taste" for each other, just as the Lodge spirits feed on others around them. This could have easily turned into Billy acquiring a taste for both his mother's pleasure and fear, which transformed horribly into BOB's own personal hunger with the mother substitutes.
Can a link be formed to the old proverb then that a dog returns to its own folly, or a fool to their folly? We've connected Billy to dogs, and witnessed Mr. C/Dougie vomiting up creamed corn. Can this represent Billy's cycle of searching for women whom are like his mother and eating of his own sickness?
- As James and Evelyn make out, Malcolm comes and knocks James out, much to Evelyn's dismay, setting it up so that they can kill James and claim self defense.
The father of Billy and his mother's jealousy could be displayed here, along with the belief Billy still holds that his death would have meant his mother's life.
- Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the Great Northern, Jacoby is enacting a recreation where Ben will be General Lee whom will be victorious over General Grant (Jacoby), and win the Civil War.
This begins with him meeting Audrey, whom introduces herself as a Scarlet Mclean, no relation to him. Ben kisses her gloved hand, which actually can be viewed, under the light of this theory, as mirroring Eckhardt's attention to Josie's hand, both of them being the right.
- Audrey welcomes him to their "humble horse" first before changing it to home. Now that was probably a flub-ad-lib but with this theory we consider even those happy accidents, just as Lynch did. The Hornes are being brought back to a horse and we can recall the horse Ben bought for Laura and the death horse that haunts the series.
- Jerry is playing Audrey's father here. He probably would have been a better one.
- Bobby keeps hitting on Audrey or comments something negative, for which Audrey slaps him.
- The South now having "won", Ben collapses and leaves his delusion, the playacting having brought him back to "reality".
For Billy it isn't so simple, as Cooper discovers in Part 18. He can't have Laura not die, because, frankly, she only existed as a dead girl that helped him deal with his real murder of American Girl. If she doesn't die, everything changes, and also leaves it vulnerable to the only option left for "Laura Palmer": that she becomes BOB. There is, of course, the even greater problem with Billy's scenario of saving Laura...it won't erase the fact that he still killed American Girl and all of the women he killed after. Ben, living inside of Billy's dream, can have his little roleplaying work to help "heal" him, as Billy wanted. But the very real Billy, can't escape from the truth, even inside of his fantasy.
- The Horne family (minus Johnny?) including Bobby and Jacoby, gather round as Ben states that he just had the strangest dream and then points out they were all there. This is all very Wizard of Oz like, when Dorothy awakens from the dream of Oz. Clear parallel to his son's own dream (which could explain Johnny's absence). Cooper appeared in an ad for Twin Peaks, returning to its former timeslot (home), which was also directly parodying Wizard of Oz. When Coop/Dougie was also in the hospital in Part 15, the placement of him, with his family and friends strongly echoed Dorothy waking up. In all instances these are men, Ben and Dale, and we theorize strongly that the "dreaming/escape" runs strongly in their family, not the Palmers.
- Everyone laughs, after Ben comments on their clothing, and the family seems healed through the dream...just as Billy is trying to do.
- Ben holds Audrey's hand, which is sweet but at the same time appears in an episode where Eckhardt's lust for Josie has been conveyed through her hand. Infact, Ben outright, kisses Audrey's hand for a second time, though still gloved, this time the palm.
- We go to another scene involving a hand and a father figure and their child: Windom is forcing Leo to write something for him, and repeatedly punishes/electrocutes him for it, until he stands behind him and guides his hand to write what he wants.
Obviously Billy's dad was abusive.
Clear illustration can be gleaned from this also in how Billy sees his father guiding his own actions, which is BOB living inside of him.
- Despite the abuse, Leland seems to warm to Windom after being praised, grateful for any kindness he does show and Windom even uncomfortably kisses his cheek, the fake moustache he'd been applying in disguise partly falling off.
We can see how Billy developed feelings of true fondness for his mother and father, despite the abuse, the further formation of the White Lodge to go alongside the Black. We can also wonder still if grandfather/father abused his grandson/son sexually too.
- Leo becomes less pleased when he discovers that Windom is having him write something that he tears up and intends to send to 3 women, one of whom will be his queen: Donna, Shelly and Audrey. "No, no, no," Leo protests. This could represent the part of Billy (a childlike aspect) that doesn't want to hurt women, which once again, is showing up, not through Dale Cooper, but through a "bad" character.
- The picture of the 3 women falls to the floor.
- Malcolm wants Evelyn to shoot James, or hold the gun to get her prints on it, Donna comes in begging for Evelyn not to hurt James, Evelyn finally stands up to Malcolm and shoots him, repeating the same instructions he'd given her to use against James.
Billy's mother trying to protect her son from their father?
- Infront of the Great Northern elevator, Cooper states at a photo of Caroline he keeps in his wallet. Funny now that Windom suddenly has photographic evidence of his existence, so does this Caroline. She's his damsel-in-distress type, long light hair, his attraction shown as being decidedly different from someone like Audrey...or so we are led to believe.
- Windom walks out of the elevator, passing behind Dale's back. Now he's just been in Dale's room and he's going to the front desk to leave his little letter for Audrey. He spots a postcard rack with nothing but the same owl postcard, exclaims happily, "Owls?" takes one and leaves. In this way, Cooper, his room at the hotel, Audrey and owls have all been linked, and this eventually to the white death mask of the woman Cooper loved, lying in his bed. The same bed Audrey had crept into... A hidden web can be formed again, all revolving around the Hornes and Dale Cooper.
- Cooper enters his room and lovingly looks at his previously mentioned "dark suit" throwing this into the mix of everything already mentioned with the Hornes, loss and him.
This is the dark suit Cooper figuratively adorns so people don't know what he truly is.
- Lying in Dale's bed, the same one we mentioned previously Audrey also lay in without his expecting it, is a death mask of Caroline. The eyes appear to be lit up.
When Dale lifts it up, the eyeholes of the mask darken. Cooper's eyes peering into the mask's, Windom's recording plays about how beautiful Caroline was and how much he still loves her, even after Pittsburgh, and we're still left wondering why Windom was circling Arkansas and not Pennsylvania...hmmm...
Windom states that he knows Cooper still loves her too and to listen carefully because it's now his move.
Okay, we can view this all very easily within this theory. Both Billy and his father/grandfather loved Billy's mom. Now Billy, having lost both of his parents, feels that his father still lives inside of him, "possessing" him, leading him to find and kill the women whom remind him of the woman they both loved. It might be Dale's move, but regardless for him, or for Billy, someone will always die as long as he's trapped playing the game with his "father" which is only a game against himself and a trauma he has not truly faced and healed from.
Case in point, Dale is studying a mask of Caroline, but the Log Lady said a death mask usually doesn't fully represent the person. Masks also hide identity. We see Dale facing the mask, peering through the empty eyes, but who really was Caroline? Is she someone he really doesn't want to face, like Annie becoming her and then her becoming a screaming Laura? We believe he really isn't ready to accept the truth, because, with all the masks pulled away, including the faces of his victims, she was just Audrey Horne again, his mother, the person he alternately longs to save and destroy.
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.
- The Log Lady discusses death masks, as Caroline's will appear at the episode's end. Margaret makes it a point to mention how they don't truly capture what the living person looked like without the animated spark. Any connection drawn to the white mask the grandson wears or the one Audrey wore of the cat? That sounds ridiculous, but it's already pointed out that a death mask doesn't look much like the person it's of anyway. Are the masks representative of some form of death? Since Audrey is wearing hers, as her father tries to have sex with her, does it indicate a part of her died when he actually succeeded? Does the grandson (Billy) wearing one represent his own spiritual death when his mother began her abuse of him? Is this symbolized by Lois Duffy having committed murder? Does it also echo in the young boy Richard Horne kills, a boy whom had been playing a game with his mother.
Margaret references a train whistle, which recalls the train car where Laura died, but that one was abandoned. Did a train have anything to do with Billy's childhood, or his teenage years?
- The episode begins with the camera weaving through chess pieces.
We're still looking at this last part of the original series as not being about Cooper's battle with Windom, but his even larger one against himself: Billy.
- What exactly was Malcolm and Evelyn's plot regarding James'? It seems like they didn't work on a good motive. Are they claiming James was a bad mechanic whom didn't fix the Jaguar right?
- James isn't acting like himself. He's playing oddly with a drink umbrella, kind of like the ones Donna and he found at Jacoby's.
- James seems fixated on Evelyn now, even with Donna by his side. With all of his mommy issues this is interesting. Perhaps, like Billy, what he really needs to fix is the wound of his mother, not anything or anyone else.
- Bobby and Shelly are talking with Harry and Cooper and it just sort of finally comes out that Hank shot Leo, just when you think it hardly matters anymore. Bobby keeps playing with his lighter.
- Harry's always seemed fixated on Shelly and we're not sure why. He couldn't stop suggesting her as a suspect in the 2nd season opener, and then he was all excited to tell her Leo was coming home and now he's sending security to her house. Maddie's probably wondering why she never got any after she'd seen BOB and was doomed.
- Albert comes in and is all friendly. This episode honestly feels weird. Something's off. Billy must have eaten pickles before dreaming.
- Earle has spelled out a giant C on the map by mailing packages to police departments and major law agencies (Springfield, Kansas City, Lawton, Dallas, Jackson) which look like bombs but contain items dealing with Caroline's wedding attire (a white veil, a garter, a pair of white slippers, a pearl necklace, a wedding dress).
The C must be to spell Caroline, but the letter/communication must be to Dale Cooper.
This can outright go alongside our belief that the letters "ROBERT" being placed under the nails of murdered girls is also a message. We still believe this was a message to Billy or from Billy, basically to himself or the world. The letters represent his father's name and the murdered girls represent his mother, possibly JUDY. And the act and message are about Billy's conception, that he is the result of this specific coupling, which was a father violating his own daughter. Billy equates that as having destroyed his mother's life, HE destroyed his mother too, both father and son.
Is there any reason for the placement of the C though? It includes Kansas and Texas, and is circling Arkansas, but does that mean anything? Why wouldn't it be Pennsylvania, to emphasize Pittsburgh? It's like the chessboard not being the same game he was playing against Dale, or how William Hastings' information was mixed up with Mr. C/Dale's arrest report. Did Billy's family actually live in Arkansas?
Hmm...Some looking into and we learned that Arkansas means South Wind, recalling Ben's name also meaning son of the South. It also contains the city Little Rock (Let's Rock!), which Caroline is a township of.
What proved to be incredibly interesting about Arkansas was that in the Lonoke County, there is also a Gum (that gum you like) Woods, and both a Williams and Pulaski townships. We're speculating here that Billy (a vast majority of William's found running around The Return) actually killed American Girl, whom looked like Ronette Pulaski, not Laura Palmer. Maybe AG's real name was Pulaski afterall.
Also Lonoke, a sort of suburban area of Little Rock, has connections to both the fire, the Civil War, Railroads and a tree. We just saw last episode, Ben enacting his Civil War fantasy with a train/railroad and a fire burning behind him, which also haunts Twin Peaks. Why does Ben choose the Civil War, afterall? He's not Southern? What's that all about on a deeper level?
Anyway, Lonoke was formed after the town of Brownsville was burned to the ground. The leaders decided a new town should be built by the railroad. The city took it's name from a misspelling of the lone red oak that railroad surveyor George P. C. Rumbough used while surveying.
Is that why the Log Lady mentioned the train whistle? It's interesting to contemplate anyway, because we're still trying to understand Windom's decision to send the parcels here.
Arkansas also has a Batesville...Norman Bates.
One more interesting fact about Arkansas and Earle's C on the map. The state beneath Arkansas is Louisiana, Phillip Jeffries home state. When we reach FWWM we will propose that Billy created an FBI man for every traumatic "death/murder" that happened to or by him. Jeffries, with Cole, was the first of these...What if, Billy coming from Arkansas was influenced by the state below when creating him?
Actually, forget Caroline, what if the C is actually for Cooper? Arkansas is where "Cooper" comes from.
- Albert to Dale: "But my guess is, he won't dance with anyone but you, Coop."
The dance remains after Leland Palmer has left the dance floor.
- Albert says that Windom played Zeus at the power station, where he left the map.
We have another Greek mythology reference, and this one connected to lightning. We've already drawn a comparison to Windom Earle and Ben Horne, and suggested Windom existed as a fantasy representation of Billy's father that bridged the real deal and the most horrific BOB. To have this all connected to electricity, which plays such an integral role is...electrifying.
We can also draw another specific web, that probably isn't intended but is very intriguing. In Part 16, Mr. C brought Richard to the rock to check out two sets of the coordinates he had obtained. Richard was electrocuted and this was the event Jerry witnessed the wrong way through his binoculars. This was also where Mr. C confirmed that Richard was his son. That this, and the incident with Windom here, involved a rock (can we connect that to the C on the map circling a Little Rock?) and a possible father (Zeus) and electricity (the power station) is interesting, at least.
- Hmm...it gets even more interesting when Albert approaches Dale, whom has begun to look out the window and Rosenfield comments: "Replacing the quiet elegance of the dark suit and tie with the casual indifference of these muted earth tones is a form of fashion suicide, but, uh, call me crazy. On you, it works."
That's interesting because, before the rock incident with Mr. C, when Richard first approached Mr. C, they shared a conversation that swirled around Cooper's suit.
Richard: You're FBI.
Mr. C: How do you figure that?
Richard: 'Cause I seen your picture in your fancy FBI suit.
Mr. C:..Where'd you see that picture?
Richard: My mom had it.
Mr. C: Who's your mom?
Richard: Audrey Horne. And your name's Cooper.
Hmm...what the chance of this conversation following the whole discussion about Windom, the map and the power station?
The talk about Dale and his suit being specifically tied to his role as a lawful FBI agent also leads directly back to Laura/Carrie's whisper to Cooper in the Red Room: "Don't assume (that) nobody can spot your dark suit off but me." Her insinuation/threat still seemed to be that she knew what/who he really was, and others did too. The others we speculate are Betty/Naido and American Girl's Mom/Sarah.
Speaking of that last one...Ronette's mother is called Suburbis Pulaski...kind of leads us back to Lonoke/Little Rock and Arkansas.
- With all the talk about Coop's fashion and FBI suit, it another fascinating fact that the next sequence shows Windom out of his own "dark suit" and roaming around the cabin in his underwear/long John's.
This also can recall Laura/Carrie's whisper, and certainly not in a good way. It shows Windom being one sick and twisted bastard without his own dark suit. Of course, he's the same in it too, so *shrugs*.
Earle also admits to being partial to domestic violence.
- Windom threatens Leo with his flute, strokes it kind of uncomfortably, as he also tends and cares for him, forcing him to eat after placing an electrocuting collar on him. He also refers to him as a lion and then proceeds to make cat noises. With the help of the Log Lady's intro, this conjures up memories of Audrey Horne's cat mask, while also keeping the thread of appetite/food.
- Norma and Ed discuss their wasted years apart where an interesting statement is given:
"I bought you a present last Christmas. It was a turquoise and onyx bolo tie. I walked over to your house to give it to you, but I couldn't go in. I just waited. I could see you through the window. I don't know why I couldn't go in. I'm sorry I didn't."
We've repeatedly theorized that Billy climbed in through American Girl's window and now someone whom was lovesick is mentioning to their own object of attention having watched them through one too.
In Part 12, as we see the Palmer household from the outside, the camera lingers on Laura's bedroom window, as seen from outside. It's the viewpoint one might have had, say if they were walking by the house and looking up. We believe Billy often did that, obsessing over American Girl. You can even see the fan through the open doorway. Perhaps Billy was the girl's biggest fan, bringing a different meaning to its symbolism, and why the sound of it plays as Cooper is transported back in time to save Laura in Part 17.
By the end of his freedom/life (Part 18?) we believe that Billy was sorry he had gone in.
Very very curious too, how in Part 15, the same episode where Mr. C and Richard officially meet and the FBI suit is mentioned, Steven Burnett will ramble to Gersten Hayward, before taking his own life: "Or will I be completely, uh, like... like... Turquoise?" Turquoise represents emotional balance and self acceptance, qualities Billy needed and lacked.
- Nadine comes in and talks about her being disqualified at Knife River, which is a weird name for a place, especially to be mentioned now.
- Nadine mentions her and Mike, continuing with the theory they echo Billy and his mom.
- Harry and Coop question Josie about Jonathan's death and Josie's hands and long red fingernails are focused on, recalling the letters BOB placed beneath them and Diane's own colored nails in The Return. There is a beetle on the wood table too, drawing our thoughts to the frogmoth and the scratching sounds Cooper was meant to listen to/for perhaps being insect related.
- It's quite distressing seeing Josie unraveling. She held some power before, but now she is falling apart and desperate. She takes Harry's hand for comfort warmth.
- As Coop leaves Harry and Josie alone, he comes across Pete, whom is bringing in Josie's dry cleaning. We're keeping the fashion theme going in this episode.
The dry cleaners doesn't speak English, leading Pete to remark: "We just stood there and looked at each other like we were made of wood." This is another moment when people are compared to tree/wood, supporting the belief that the Ghostwood development meant Ben Horne's abuse of his daughter inside of Billy's dream, more than an actual real estate deal.
- Cooper helps Pete out, but also takes advantage of the moment when he steals a fiber of Josie's coat to compare with that of the person whom shot him.
- Josie receives a phone call from Thomas Eckhardt and she is terrified of him and his insinuations of them getting together. Through this situation, Billy is perfectly displaying his mother's reaction/feelings about being with/around her father, and how she must have felt needing to stay with her abuser to help protect/keep/raise her child.
- Catherine interrupts the call and an owl painting is seen behind her.
- Thomas meanwhile voices his disappointment to his secretary that Josie ran back to Catherine.
- Dr. Jacoby has let Ben be around the public again, which basically only includes a deserted lobby of the Great Northern, except for some staff holding war drums, and the rest of his family, including Johnny in headdress, and Bobby in Bugle Boy outfit.
- When Ben makes a dirty joke, Johnny laughs. Now we partly theorize this is Billy too, so it indicates his own sexual leanings, despite his stunted emotional maturity. It also involves a whorehouse, as Billy might have viewed his own home, a motel, in that way, his mother playing prostitute, as was indicated by Cooper rescuing Audrey from her father's brothel.
- Audrey is shocked when Jerry suggests leaving Ben the way he is. Jerry reasons they have the opportunity to do a few business things now, they couldn't explore previously.
This seems awful reminiscent of MIKE and BOB's own competitive, manipulative relationship and the power struggle between them.
- Audrey threatens her uncle saying if Ben is incapacitated she gets everything and Jerry will end up selling baseboard heaters at the local Cash N Carry. Interesting that Audrey alludes to Jerry selling electrical heat. On this train of thought, MIKE seemed more connected to electricity (modern fire) while BOB was connected to the more raw/primitive fire. MIKE was more spiritually enlightened than BOB too, something we see Jerry leaning towards in The Return, while Ben's enlightenment seems to be proven weak or for show, his having sold Ghostwood and his asking Beverly out despite protesting that he wouldn't.
- Audrey tells Jacoby she wants him to bring her father back.
This whole dream could be viewed, in effect, to how Billy is trying to give her [his mother] back her father as a man whom was not interested in her sexually. He's certainly working hard at repairing their relationship through everything, only unfortunately it can not hold.
- Donna talks to Evelyn at Wallies and the woman is obviously regretting her whole life and existence, something Billy's mother often did.
- Albert found the fibers Dale collected to have come from the same coat as whomever shot him. Josie's gloves are being analyzed for gun powder too. Fashion is still a strong thread in this episode. Albert suspects the bullets they collect from Jonathan will match those used on Cooper. Dale is zeroing in on Josie as his attempted killer, but there is really no clear cut answer yet for why she did it. She held no connection to the Palmer/Pulaski case that Dale was working on, afterall.
We suspect it still has to do with the fact that Audrey and Ben were in a threatening sexual situation at Jack's together, which struck too close to "home". This might be able to be tied to Josie's relationship with Eckhardt somehow...a close similarity being formed between both "couples".
- Harry tells Dale that the name of the murdered transient was Erik Powell and Dale reveals that was Caroline's maiden name. We have names and murder again, recalling BOB spelling his own name. We also have a maiden name, an unmarried woman, which likely Billy's mother was.
- Cooper reasons that whenever a piece is lost from the chessboard, Earle will take a life. He's afraid because he has never beat him. Harry suggests he get the help of their finest chess player: Pete Martell.
It's very sad that while Harry and Pete are going to help Cooper against Windom, he is secretly going around trying to prove the woman both men love, Josie, is a murderer.
- Shelly asks Norma for her old job back and we realize, in the face of this almost mother/daughter relationship, very few couples/characters from this age bracket have children in Twin Peaks. It's as if they aren't allowed to. Pets are also mysteriously absent. We suspect it is Billy's aversion to it all, his not liking children because he also hates himself because of his origin and his hatred of animals, like most serial killers have.
- Behind a window of a door at the Double R, we witness Harry and Norma talk about Hank's soon to be incarceration.
- There is an incredibly painful dinner shown between Eckhardt and Catherine, painful because Josie is forced to act as maid/waitress during it. We come back to food and appetites again, especially the sexual sort. Eckhardt admits he had Andrew killed not for art or money but for love. They talk about Josie like she is neither human nor present.
Once again, it was probably how Billy's mother felt while forced to live with, serve and feed her father's appetites.
- Eventually the discussion turns to Josie's hands, which are commented on being incredible and the fingers things of beauty. Eckhardt kisses Josie's hand. Shades of BOB here with the fingernails again. The feeling is that Eckhardt is thinking of her hands/fingers primarily as sexual tools too. It's a stark contrast from the way that Harry and Josie held hands earlier.
- A cat or dog is mentioned during their talk, how Josie could be replaced by one. We've linked cats to Audrey and dogs to Dale/Billy.
- Josie serves the main course, as requested and it is a pig's head. Knowing what she is about to do to Thomas soon, that could be fitting.
During the scene in FWWM, where BOB crawls through her window and Laura finally sees him as Leland, a shot of a pig's head was supposed to also be seen, but one couldn't be located, much to Sheryl Lee's relief.
- Evelyn lies on the couch in her study, blowing smoke rings.
- James comes in and confronts her, books are shown on the shelves behind them, carrying through Billy's love and escape into stories.
- James wants to know why she did this to him (destroy his life). Evelyn replies she did it because she wanted to, even though that isn't the answer she knows he wants to hear. She's not honest nor good like him. However that doesn't mean that she didn't want him there, at times, just for herself, because of the good and honest way that he tasted. James replies that he liked the way she tasted too.
Billy probably has the same question he wants to ask his mother. Why did she hurt him, why did she even bring him into the world? There's also still the very large likelihood that Billy associates his life with the material comfort it provided his mother through their father. Audrey is still very much tied into money and wealth, while Billy connects himself with a "buck". This equates nicely to Evelyn using James as a way to achieve money. In Billy's mind, his mother can't offer up a reason and so, to him, she did it because she simply wanted to and because she isn't very good. She ended up wanting him though and there is a disconcerting connection being drawn once again to taste, humans being viewed as food. Through Evelyn and James, it is betrayed that both mother and son developed a "taste" for each other, just as the Lodge spirits feed on others around them. This could have easily turned into Billy acquiring a taste for both his mother's pleasure and fear, which transformed horribly into BOB's own personal hunger with the mother substitutes.
Can a link be formed to the old proverb then that a dog returns to its own folly, or a fool to their folly? We've connected Billy to dogs, and witnessed Mr. C/Dougie vomiting up creamed corn. Can this represent Billy's cycle of searching for women whom are like his mother and eating of his own sickness?
- As James and Evelyn make out, Malcolm comes and knocks James out, much to Evelyn's dismay, setting it up so that they can kill James and claim self defense.
The father of Billy and his mother's jealousy could be displayed here, along with the belief Billy still holds that his death would have meant his mother's life.
- Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or rather the Great Northern, Jacoby is enacting a recreation where Ben will be General Lee whom will be victorious over General Grant (Jacoby), and win the Civil War.
This begins with him meeting Audrey, whom introduces herself as a Scarlet Mclean, no relation to him. Ben kisses her gloved hand, which actually can be viewed, under the light of this theory, as mirroring Eckhardt's attention to Josie's hand, both of them being the right.
- Audrey welcomes him to their "humble horse" first before changing it to home. Now that was probably a flub-ad-lib but with this theory we consider even those happy accidents, just as Lynch did. The Hornes are being brought back to a horse and we can recall the horse Ben bought for Laura and the death horse that haunts the series.
- Jerry is playing Audrey's father here. He probably would have been a better one.
- Bobby keeps hitting on Audrey or comments something negative, for which Audrey slaps him.
- The South now having "won", Ben collapses and leaves his delusion, the playacting having brought him back to "reality".
For Billy it isn't so simple, as Cooper discovers in Part 18. He can't have Laura not die, because, frankly, she only existed as a dead girl that helped him deal with his real murder of American Girl. If she doesn't die, everything changes, and also leaves it vulnerable to the only option left for "Laura Palmer": that she becomes BOB. There is, of course, the even greater problem with Billy's scenario of saving Laura...it won't erase the fact that he still killed American Girl and all of the women he killed after. Ben, living inside of Billy's dream, can have his little roleplaying work to help "heal" him, as Billy wanted. But the very real Billy, can't escape from the truth, even inside of his fantasy.
- The Horne family (minus Johnny?) including Bobby and Jacoby, gather round as Ben states that he just had the strangest dream and then points out they were all there. This is all very Wizard of Oz like, when Dorothy awakens from the dream of Oz. Clear parallel to his son's own dream (which could explain Johnny's absence). Cooper appeared in an ad for Twin Peaks, returning to its former timeslot (home), which was also directly parodying Wizard of Oz. When Coop/Dougie was also in the hospital in Part 15, the placement of him, with his family and friends strongly echoed Dorothy waking up. In all instances these are men, Ben and Dale, and we theorize strongly that the "dreaming/escape" runs strongly in their family, not the Palmers.
- Everyone laughs, after Ben comments on their clothing, and the family seems healed through the dream...just as Billy is trying to do.
- Ben holds Audrey's hand, which is sweet but at the same time appears in an episode where Eckhardt's lust for Josie has been conveyed through her hand. Infact, Ben outright, kisses Audrey's hand for a second time, though still gloved, this time the palm.
- We go to another scene involving a hand and a father figure and their child: Windom is forcing Leo to write something for him, and repeatedly punishes/electrocutes him for it, until he stands behind him and guides his hand to write what he wants.
Obviously Billy's dad was abusive.
Clear illustration can be gleaned from this also in how Billy sees his father guiding his own actions, which is BOB living inside of him.
- Despite the abuse, Leland seems to warm to Windom after being praised, grateful for any kindness he does show and Windom even uncomfortably kisses his cheek, the fake moustache he'd been applying in disguise partly falling off.
We can see how Billy developed feelings of true fondness for his mother and father, despite the abuse, the further formation of the White Lodge to go alongside the Black. We can also wonder still if grandfather/father abused his grandson/son sexually too.
- Leo becomes less pleased when he discovers that Windom is having him write something that he tears up and intends to send to 3 women, one of whom will be his queen: Donna, Shelly and Audrey. "No, no, no," Leo protests. This could represent the part of Billy (a childlike aspect) that doesn't want to hurt women, which once again, is showing up, not through Dale Cooper, but through a "bad" character.
- The picture of the 3 women falls to the floor.
- Malcolm wants Evelyn to shoot James, or hold the gun to get her prints on it, Donna comes in begging for Evelyn not to hurt James, Evelyn finally stands up to Malcolm and shoots him, repeating the same instructions he'd given her to use against James.
Billy's mother trying to protect her son from their father?
- Infront of the Great Northern elevator, Cooper states at a photo of Caroline he keeps in his wallet. Funny now that Windom suddenly has photographic evidence of his existence, so does this Caroline. She's his damsel-in-distress type, long light hair, his attraction shown as being decidedly different from someone like Audrey...or so we are led to believe.
- Windom walks out of the elevator, passing behind Dale's back. Now he's just been in Dale's room and he's going to the front desk to leave his little letter for Audrey. He spots a postcard rack with nothing but the same owl postcard, exclaims happily, "Owls?" takes one and leaves. In this way, Cooper, his room at the hotel, Audrey and owls have all been linked, and this eventually to the white death mask of the woman Cooper loved, lying in his bed. The same bed Audrey had crept into... A hidden web can be formed again, all revolving around the Hornes and Dale Cooper.
- Cooper enters his room and lovingly looks at his previously mentioned "dark suit" throwing this into the mix of everything already mentioned with the Hornes, loss and him.
This is the dark suit Cooper figuratively adorns so people don't know what he truly is.
- Lying in Dale's bed, the same one we mentioned previously Audrey also lay in without his expecting it, is a death mask of Caroline. The eyes appear to be lit up.
When Dale lifts it up, the eyeholes of the mask darken. Cooper's eyes peering into the mask's, Windom's recording plays about how beautiful Caroline was and how much he still loves her, even after Pittsburgh, and we're still left wondering why Windom was circling Arkansas and not Pennsylvania...hmmm...
Windom states that he knows Cooper still loves her too and to listen carefully because it's now his move.
Okay, we can view this all very easily within this theory. Both Billy and his father/grandfather loved Billy's mom. Now Billy, having lost both of his parents, feels that his father still lives inside of him, "possessing" him, leading him to find and kill the women whom remind him of the woman they both loved. It might be Dale's move, but regardless for him, or for Billy, someone will always die as long as he's trapped playing the game with his "father" which is only a game against himself and a trauma he has not truly faced and healed from.
Case in point, Dale is studying a mask of Caroline, but the Log Lady said a death mask usually doesn't fully represent the person. Masks also hide identity. We see Dale facing the mask, peering through the empty eyes, but who really was Caroline? Is she someone he really doesn't want to face, like Annie becoming her and then her becoming a screaming Laura? We believe he really isn't ready to accept the truth, because, with all the masks pulled away, including the faces of his victims, she was just Audrey Horne again, his mother, the person he alternately longs to save and destroy.
