Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

It remains unclear whether the White and Black Lodges are disparate realms. One could interpret the White Lodge and Black Lodge as one and the same place—a possibility perhaps hinted at by the mirrored black and white tiling throughout the lodge. Indeed, neither black nor white stand out conspicuously in the Lodge; the dominant colour is the blood-red drapes in the background. This notion that the two Lodges are "one and the same" is consistent with the presence of other dualistic phenomena which seem to characterise the Lodge, such as the existence of one's doppelganger in apparently the same place and time.

Another conception of the Black Lodge is that it is a realm of total evil which has usurped or absorbed its White counterpart. During the second season, Windom Earle relates a past-tense story about the White Lodge which is replete with Edenic imagery, possibly suggesting that the White Lodge belonged to a time now lost or forgotten. Earle then describes the Black Lodge in the present tense, perhaps indicating that it has replaced the White Lodge

it gave the viewer more room to interpret "Bob" as a persona imagined by Laura to shield her from the psychological damage of her daddy abusing her, instead of the evil spirit

They showed the final episode on Finnish TV yesterday, and I think it's been 15 years since I last saw the episode, so I remembered little of it. I was kinda disappointed how the whole thing ended; from what I've gathered, the makers of the series knew that it'd be cancelled when the final episode was filmed, so maybe they should've tried a bit more to create some sort of a closure.

The whole story about the White Lodge and the Black Lodge was getting kinda corny, sounding like some cheap horror or fantasy story, so I'm glad Lynch dealt with the scene in the Black Lodge in his patented surreal way rather than making it some grandiose battle between forces of good and evil. However, the actual scene is way too long; it recycles previously seen characters and themes without bringing in much new, and a lot of it doesn't really seem to serve any purpose except weirdness for weirdness's sake. I think it's pretty obvious that Lynch was just making up most of it as it went along; from what I've read he discarded a lot of the original script written by Frost, Peyton & Engels. I sorta like the idea about a struggle between "good" and "evil" Cooper, but I found the final resolution to be lacking, mainly because how the character of Cooper is handled.

The whole second season seems to be dealing with the idea of good vs. and the struggle of this forces inside people. The Black vs. White Lodge was the most obvious reference here, but I thought it was more interesting how, during the second season, characters originally coded as "evil" show a gentler side, and vice versa. Ben Horne really seems to want become a better man, Leo tries to fight against Windom Earle and wanted to save Shelly, Bobby is showing genuine love towards Shelly, etc. On the other hand, Sheriff Truman is blinded by his love for Jocelyn, Pete seems to let Catherine use him, James cheats on Donna, Doc Hayward goes mad and kills/wounds Ben, etc.

But little character growth happens with Cooper. From the very beginning until before the last few scenes he was this sort of a superhero, an epitome of goodness (which, to be honest, makes him a rather boring character). So him succumbing to evil in the Black Lodge comes mostly out of the blue. Okay, his supposed flaw is that he once fell in love with Windom Earle's wife, which eventually caused her death, and judging from the scene in the Black Lodge, this was what Bob uses against him. But since this episode is long in the past, and Cooper seems to have become a better man after that, it has carries little emotional resonance for the viewer, so him losing the test put upon him in the Black Lodge doesn't feel right. It seems more like the ending was just made up for the shock value of seeing Cooper possessed by Bob.

An alternative reading of the ending is that Cooper doesn't succumb to evil, that he actually sells his soul to Windom Earle - and, therefore, to Bob - in exchange of saving Annie from the Lodge, which allows Bob to occupy his body. I guess this interpretation is more in line with Cooper's character, but it still seems like a pretty cliched and flat way of ending such an interesting series.

Here's some other questions that came to my mind while watching the last few episodes:

* In the final episode, why are Norma and Shelly and everyone else acting as if nothing has happened, even though Annie was kidnapped the night before in front of their own eyes?

* Similarly, when Audrey comes to the bank, why isn't she at all disturbed from the fact that her father was wounded/killed the night before?

* What the hell happened to Josie? Did Bob kill her, and if so, why? Is she now haunting Great Northern?

* What was the Log Lady's and her husband's role in all of this? Apparently they knew about the Black Lodge, since she provides Cooper with the jar of oil.

* What's with the twitching of hands exhibited by Coop and Pete in the third to last episode?

Also:

* Whatever happened to Mike, the one-armed man? He seemed bent on catching Bob, yet after Leland was captured he was never seen again. He knew what Bob was, so surely he also knew Bob wasn't confined to Leland's body?

* What's the deal with the Arthurian imagery in the final episode: Glastonbury Grove, the twelve trouts... And for some reason Windom Earle seemed to have needed a "queen" (Miss Twin Peaks) to enter the black lodge, even though Cooper didn't.

One of Lynch's hallmark concerns is the construction and destruction of familiarity.

Okay, his supposed flaw is that he once fell in love with Windom Earle's wife,

no its that he fell in love with Annie/didn't learn from his previous mistake.

What was wrong in felling love with Annie? It's not like she was anyone's wife or anything. Anyway, my point is that because throughout the show Cooper is shown as this thoroughly good and decent superman, his supposed fall from grace doesn't feel convincing. Cooper and Sheriff Truman are the least interesting among the main characters, because they're given less humanity than the other, morally less sound Twin Peaks residents.

From what I've gathered Lynch had pretty much abandoned Twin Peaks by the end of the second series, and only came back to direct the final episode. Also, I read a comment from one of the writers that during the second season they were often just making things up as they went along, which would explain the incoherence and loose ends in many of the later episodes. What made the first season and the beginning of the second one intriguing was the idea that there was a big, mysterious backstory to everything that was happening, and we only caught glimpses of it through dreams and visions. But when, during the second season, they started explaining it with all that Black and White Lodge mumbo jumbo, that's when I thought it got kinda stale. So maybe they should've just left supernatural stuff on the level of mystery and occasional vision, and focused more on the quirky soap opera, which I thought was the most enjoyable part of the second season.

What was wrong in felling love with Annie?

it distracted him/made him let his guard down, its a sign of "weakness", exposing vulnerabilities

is the music from season 2 available anywhere? i don't think it ever got an official release, aside from "sycamore trees" on the FIRE WALK WITH ME sndtrk.

I don't think so - I have the season 1 sdtk on CD. Unfortunately it does not include James' classic rendition of "You and I" complete with living room slapback-reverb.

So maybe they should've just left supernatural stuff on the level of mystery and occasional vision

if this were the case, then what purpose would it serve? i mean, you seem to be complaining about the supernatural stuff being too resistant to interpretation (or at least the moral universe interpretation you'd like to apply), yet your solution seems to be simply to make it more mysterious and irrelevant.

one of the many things i love about the finale is the totally black, hopeless, things-fall-apart nature of it. it's also gotta be the weirdest hour ever on american network tv.