Subject: Re: Renault's speech
From: webb@CS.CMU.EDU (Jon Webb)
Date: 1991-01-24, 07:12
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <5432@husc6.harvard.edu>, burns@sparkle.uucp (John Burns) writes:
|> In article <1991Jan22.152531.15193@cs.cmu.edu> webb@CS.CMU.EDU (Jon
|> Webb) writes:
|> >I consider Jean Renault's speech to Cooper, just before he died, to
|> be
|> >extremely significant.
|> Hogwash.  Many of the things happening in Twin Peaks, especially in
|> the
|> first season, had little to do with Cooper.  Laura's murder was what
|> drew
|> him there in the first place.  Leo killed Bernard Renault over their
|> drug
|> dealings.  Although Cooper was at the Bernard's interrogation by the
|> Bookhouse Boys, they had already caught him before bringing in
|> Cooper.  The
|> whole Shelley/Leo/Ben/Catherine/Hank/Josie fire thing and the
|> Josie/Catherine/Andrew/Eckhart storyline evolved independently as
|> well.

The `conventional' plot threads (Shelley, etc., Josie, etc.) don't need
explaining -- that sort of stuff goes on in soap operas all the time.

The interesting thing to me is how mystical things are getting activated
around Cooper.  Start with BOB.  He had been in Twin Peaks for over
forty years.  He kills Teresa Banks, apparently as part of his normal
pattern, with this key difference: this murder is investigated by
Cooper.  A year later, he kills his host's daughter, and starts leaving
clues everywhere to who he is.  The one-armed man shows up.  Very
rapidly, BOB's stable situation decays and he leaves his host.

Similarly with the Log Lady and the Major.  Both of them were leaving
quiet lives, doing whatever they do, until they had messages for Cooper.
Then their character changed suddenly.  Before the Log Lady had a
message for Cooper, she was just `The Log Lady'; now she's Margaret.

Cooper has also activated the Giant and the Dwarf.  Nobody had heard of
things like that before he showed up.  E.g., consider Truman's surprise
at the way things are going these days.

I think that Cooper is driving the whole show; he is the linchpin (heh)
that pulls the whole thing together.  This is true not just in terms of
the dramatic conflict, but in the inner meaning of the show.  Renaud's
speech made this explicit.

As for Dave Arlington's  dream theory, maybe.  In dreams, people
sometimes know things about your life that they could not have known in
the context of the dream; BOB's reference to Pittsburgh points in this
direction.  I think I would be disappointed if this turned out to be the
case, but then I also thought that I would have been disappointed if
Laura's killer was her father, and I wasn't.

-- J