Subject: Final Epsiode (spoilers)
From: sho@gibbs.physics.purdue.edu (Sho Kuwamoto)
Date: 1991-06-11, 05:11
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

Contains spoilers from the final episode...

Well, I loved it.  I haven't been reading this group recently, and I
usually don't go this much into detail about television shows, but
this was the best damned two hours of entertainment this person's had
in a long while, and dammit, I'll make a fool of myself on USENET if I
feel like it.

At first, I didn't like the ending at all.  "After all this, BOB gets
Coop?!"  This quote puts it better than I can.

From: amanda@wam.umd.edu (Amanda Lynn Babcock)
> >Death.  Pain.  Desolation.  Dreams broken, souls defiled, all worthwhile 
> >achievements brought to nothing.  Tragedy lacking nobility, meaningless and
> >without redemption. 

It didn't make sense.  David Lynch has always struck me as very apple
pie at heart, with a human ear in his pocket.  I didn't expect the
moral to be "love is not enough."

We've been learning -- bit by bit -- about the black lodge, the white
lodge, and what it takes to go through unscathed.  Coop faces this
challenge in the key scene from the next-to-last sequence, in which
Windom and Coop had their "showdown."  Windom asks Coop to give up his
soul for Annie.  By accepting, (sorry if this sounds hackneyed) he has
chosen love over fear.  From what we have been led to expect, Coop has
passed the test.

Then, BOB takes windom (checkmate), and frees Cooper.  Or at least
that's how I saw it until the final final scene.  In the last five
minutes of film, we find the Coop is possessed by BOB.  No fair!  I
didn't mind Coop getting shot at the end of season 1, since that was
just a senseless act.  The story is telling me that Coop did not have
what it takes to make it through the black/white lodge.  How does the
plot continue from here?

Then, this idea, stolen from another person's article.  It made some
sense to me, but it may seem to you as if I'm grasping at straws to
make the ending fit my expectations.

From: tvanhorn@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Thomas F Van Horne)
> >Interesting. Dopplegangors. She'll see him in 25 years. 
> >I see some hope for Dale in that. In his 25 year hence dream state
> >he didn't seem possessed by Bob. Is this finally the evil twin motif? Is
> >Cooper's better self still in the waiting room?

Evil twin stories sound silly, but bear with me.  I see it like this:
Cooper is stuck in the black lodge, evil Cooper is out in the real
world.  Cooper chases Windom/Bob around, evil Cooper gets hunted by
Truman, et. al.  Cooper has another soul-searching scene, which I
don't know what it is, and then a bunch of white lodge stuff.
Meanwhile, Truman's narrowed in on evil Coop.  As Coop finds
redemption, he takes the place of evil Coop, Truman doesn't shoot him,
something else happens, and then a cherry on top.

What this future storyline does for me is the following:
    Affirms our belief that love is enough.
    Allows Coop to get to the white lodge.
    Gives us a reason for the dopplegangers.
    Has a cherry on top.
    Keeps around the Windom Earle character.
    Lets us see Log Lady's hubby at the white lodge.
    Never places two Coopers on the physical world at the same time.
    Shows Dale Cooper (possesed by Bob) ravaging the town of Twin Peaks,
        while at the same time assuring us that it's not Dale's doing.

One big minus is that this future storyline would either have evil
Coop kill people which would hold Coop accountable, or it would have
evil Coop kill no one, which is a bit boring.  

If a movie version (or another season) ever pans out, we will see what
the writers come up with.  I hope to god it's better than my version.
I also hope to god it's better than the civil war and "little nicky"
storylines they had...  However, the point is this.  I found that by
thinking of how the ending could be continued, I could see the ending in
a different light.  I suppose this is what people meant by, "think of
this as a season finale, not a finale finale."  

Before, it just seemed like, "Ok.  We're not being renewed.  Let's
paste on that one-minute toothbrush-Bob-mirror thing and get the hell
out of here."  Now, I don't know what to think, which is normal for
this show, I suppose.

-Sho
-- sho@physics.purdue.edu <<-- and then Glinda the good witch said, "ok, Laura, hand over them pine nuts." after which Maddy hooted like an owl, and then two scarecrows, one bearing the sign of the lion, the other the sign of the wolf, had a pie eating contest, and then I wrote a run-on sentence, and then....