Alright, let's cut the crap. Did Coop ever really stand a chance of "beating" Judy whatsoever...

Alright, let's cut the crap. Did Coop ever really stand a chance of "beating" Judy whatsoever? Or was there just no hope of good ever 9vercoming evil in the show?

Yes but Lynch likes dark endings to make people emotionally affected/keep thinking about it.

He's a hack.

If he didn't have a chance, then why did the Fireman et al give a shit about him

Judy can't be beaten, but neither can Laura with Coop's assistance.

>defeating evil itself
It was always impossible. He did bring a force of good and kindness to people though.

>He did bring a force of good and kindness to people though.
He did, but then he got cocky, too overconfident in his own skills. And now he and Laura are trapped in some hellish reality where Judy has full control. He may have saved his original timeline, but he's effectively doomed both himself *and* Laura in the process.

Fireman had faith in coop but had others, like freddie, as back up. But coop did the big goof and fucked up the whole timeline

The Fireman had hope that Coop would be able to win and deny Judy her victory, but then he tried to go for the Gold as it were, and ended up giving Judy everything it wanted and more. It also doesn't help that the Fireman seems to have certain "rules" he needs to follow that prevent him from directly aiding most of the time.

So what was the Fireman's actual plan? What was Cooper supposed to do?

Most likely? Aid in exposing his Doppelganger, weakening BOB so that he could be destroyed, and ensuring that his Doppel got tossed back into the Lodge. Cooper probably wasn't supposed to try and bring Laura back at all. Judy only got enraged when he tried to bring her back. She seemed fine with BOB being destroyed, and Mr C getting thrown back into the Black Lodge.

The ending was the best part.

Because it was the end of that shitfest.

What exactly would be different in the original timeline anyway? Laura instead of getting killed disappeared, and if BOB was killed across all timelines by Freddy than he was the one that saved the timeline, and Judy is still at large anyway.

>THIS IS THE WATER.
>AND THIS THE WELL.
>DRINK FULL..
>AND DESCEND.
>THE HORSE IS THE WHITE OF THE EYES...
>DARK WITHIN.

>What exactly would be different in the original timeline anyway?
Considering Coop disappeared as well, that might have caused problems later down the road if other Lodge spirits like BOB decided to cause chaos. For instance, the Woodsmen where still at large as well, and would likely continue to cause trouble.

Did anyone else notice the note Diane left Dale called him Richard instead of Dale?

i dont get why people are so quick to assume diane left that note and is linda. they went to the spoopy motel and then woke up as their new timeline selves (dale being richard). but there's no reason to assume him and this version of diane were together.

The Fireman actually warned about the whole "Richard and Linda" thing in advance. Presumably he knew what was going to happen in the end, and was hoping Coop would notice the signs of deception before it was too late.

Diane was there and then she wasn't and the note was something a woman would write to let her boyfriend know she left him while he was sleeping. You're autistic as fuck if you think that wasn't the meaning you were meant to infer. Now it's possible this intentionally laid out appearance was set up just to mislead people from some different series of events that actually happened, but referring to it the way you are like it's somehow not the obvious reasonable interpretation is bullshit.

Laura isn't there to stop Judy, just her spawn on earth

first of all dont be a faggot
second of all, the motel richard wakes up in is not the same motel cooper and diane entered. if you are coming from a place of believing that they are assuming alternate lives, theres is nothing to support the idea that they would be spat out in the same place and also romantically involved with each other. that's a pretty huge coincidence

But then why would he tell Coop about 430?

...

The part where she was there and then she isn't and the note specifically refers to Linda being there and then not being there is what's meant to lead you to believe Dale is Richard and Diane is Linda. If Linda hadn't left at the same time Diane left then you might have a point, but Cooper and Diane went in, Diane disappeared, and a note explained that Linda had left Richard. At a minimum, that's definitely the implication you're supposed to infer, that Diane and Linda are the same person. If that's not the case it was intentionally misleading.

Lynch doesn't care about plot, writing, or anything but cinematography/set design. He's a lolsorandum bullshit artist who people take way too seriously and give far too much credit.

Perhaps the intent was for Coop to travel * without* bringing Laura back? It would certainly make more sense than the Fireman wanting Coop to actually go ahead and fuck up the timeline.

The giant was just trolling cooper

This, Frost tells you in the literature that good and evil in the Twin Peaks universe is just a game. The Lodge entities might seem to get really angry or loving or whatever, but they aren't feeling those emotions the same way humans do. They feel things more whimsically, like malicious elves in folklore, having random mood swings and ruining lives or saving them just because they felt like it at that particular moment. Also speaking of moments they live outside of time and outside of a myriad of potential alternate realities, so that also contributes to making them pretty detached and erratic in how they go about their business.

You can also see how this sort of behavior evolves naturally as a consequence of being in that position outside of time and outside of potential alternate realities by looking at the human characters who moved into that position. Jeffries and Briggs for example are now a teapot and a giant floating head and probably don't hold the same values they used to as humans. And Cooper pulled a gun on a bunch of random diner customers and deliberately ignored a murdered man's body because those concerns are just distractions from his game now.

Despite all this, the Fireman and Dido STILL manage to be the most benevolent entities in the entire series. I mean, the Black Lodge entities were *literally* born from a being that is the very cosmic embodiment of evil itself. Even if the Giant and Dido aren't exactly "good" in the traditional sense, they are still *faaaaaar* better than Judy and her spawn.

Can I get a tl;dr

>evil itself
I think everyone talking about Evil is wrong.

I think it should be just be bad spirits and good spirits.

So lodge entities are like us when we play video games. Sometimes playing the story or solving the puzzle or whatever, sometimes just raising hell and tormenting those poor characters for laffs

They're arguably worse if they're only acting benevolent as part of an elaborate game. At least Judy and BOB don't trick you into thinking they're nice entities (well sometimes they do maybe while in host bodies, but yeah).

Essentially. I personally see them in a light close to the twin courts of Faerie, the Unseelie and the Seelie. The Unseelie who were pretty much completely evil and where about rape, murder, and cannibalistic child-sex orgies, but could still be rather affable when the moment called for it. And the Seelie, who whilst *far* nicer, would stillike turn you and your entire family into screaming masses of hell-flesh if the mood strikes them.

Yeah, and in case you think this is just Frost bullshit and not canon, you can recall how in FWWM the one armed man deliberately laid out events to cause Laura to get murdered and to trap Cooper in the Lodge for 25 years. At that point good Cooper and BOB had the same goal of getting Laura to reject the ring so BOB could possess her, she wouldn't die, and Cooper would never get stuck in the Lodge. Later in the Return, the one armed man is basically Cooper's sidekick, so that's a pretty big example of whimsical allegiance shifting.

>Did Coop ever really stand a chance of "beating" Judy whatsoever?
No. Trauma always wins in his movies. Your head gets messed up once, it stays like that forever.

The girl in Inland Empire turned out OK in the end. Also Kyle's character in Blue Velvet had a good ending.

As I said, they are basically mythological fairies, except far more powerful. I wouldn't be surprised if the White Lodge beings view their actions as more of a "Greater Good" thing. After all, what is a couple million human lives compared to the trillions they could save all throughout Creation with their sacrifice?

I don't know why people suddenly assume that the giant was warning Cooper with all of his cryptic speech at the beginning of the season.

He has flat out told Cooper "no" before (Miss Twin Peaks), so I don't buy that he was saying

"By the way Coop, don't accidentally turn into Richard, don't travel 430 miles to some electrical lines, make sure you do not try to kill two birds with one stone, and FOR THE LOVE OF BOB please don't go in our house now. Listen to my sick phonograph jams, btw."

Quite a few of Lynch's characters have distinctly happy endings I've noticed. It mostly seems to be the Twin Peaks cast that gets the short end of the stick.

as a final addendum, if he wanted Cooper to avoid all of that, he would have just said "chill in Twin Peaks or something, lol." He was trying to fulfill a purpose the moment he got out of being Dougie, and that purpose had little to do with his doppelganger, BOB, or any of the other macguffins.

can someone just hit me with some knowledge on wtf was with audrey the entire time and what was that big reveal of her looking in the mirror in that place? like iirc i think they said she in a coma the whole time and then i guess she woke up at the end? what was even the purpose of her whole story in this season?

To me it's leaving it open for another season.

>tfw S4 ends with Cooper and Laura seemingly winning, only for Judy to pull a full Carmen Sandiego on them.

I think it is supposed to be a miniature version of the entire arc of the third season: being trapped in false realities/conceptions/dreams (whatever you want to call it) and waking up to your true self in the end.

A lot of the characters are shown for much of the itme trapped in stasis, unable to change (most clearly with Sarah palmer's looping boxing match) - like Ed and Norma, Nadine and Jacoby, etc. Audrey shows that by having the same conversation with her husband over and over again, trying but failing to move on. When she finally does, an event happens that snaps her out of her mental delusion, and while it may not be a fairy-tale ending, she at least now can move on and grow as a person instead of being just "the little girl who lived down the lane".

Similarly, Cooper leaves Twin Peaks behind in order to cut off the root cause of the trauma, though it is much more ambiguous about how he grows, or if he grows after that. I personally like to think that he hasn't yet realized that he can't undo evil in the world (symbolized by Laura's death/scream), but because it is in his nature he will always be trying to save Laura Palmer (or the idea of her) throughout time.

this in all sincerity

Cooper didn't fuck up because he did exactly as the Fireman instructed. It at the very least was part of the Fireman's plan, the Fireman wouldn't provide a roadmap of exactly what NOT to do

>"the little girl who lived down the lane"
Why did The Hand say this line to Cooper in the last episode?

If that were even remotely true he wouldn't have told him about the need to cross the timeline. The Fireman knew all that was going to happen, though I doubt it's in his plan for Coop to be stuck in the alt timeline when he lands there.

To thematically give weight to the Audrey story (dreamers in a dream, waking up, becoming your true self). Cooper literally walks into a different story to try and change its ending, but the results are ambiguous. He hasn't "woken up" yet, like Laura has (at the end of FWWM), where she realizes that her suffering had meaning.

On a meta level, "the little girl who lived down the lane" is a movie about a young girl who ultimately outwits and kills a sexual predator who doubles as a trusted confidant/neighbor/love interest.

This seems quite clear to me too. E17 was an ending. 18 was the start of something new. Maybe that something new is intended to be expanded on or not, I don't know. Perhaps that's why I was so let down at first.

>WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Not sure, but I just read the synopsis for the film The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, and it makes you wonder

>about a young girl whose beginning to bud sexually, who lives in a house supposedly with a consistently absent father figure
>is a femme fatale, a number of characters around her eventually wind up dead
>her heart is won by a protective, kind, authority figure who saves her from leering men
>That lover is a "magician"
>The lover becomes tragically, fatally ill, the two are separated as a result

Might be reading into it a lot, but there seems to be a lot of parallel between the protagonist and Audrey. The magician bit is particularly interesting, as that would frame Cooper as a magician, in the same way MIKE implies in the cantation

Through the darkness of future past
The magician longs to see

>Through the darkness of future past
The magician longs to see
One chants out between two worlds...

...

Chance.

Going up and down.
Intercourse between.
The two worlds

So, here's another question to try and kick-start some discussion. Are there any characters within recent media that might stand a chance against the Black Lodge whatsoever? Especially now that we know more about their capabilities?

The Fireman gave him directions to "fuck up the timeline" retard.

I didn't read it either but I'm assuming it's something along the lines of:

Nazi Satanist sex fiends rule the world and Cooper was an agent of God sent to expose the truth and Lynch knew this and wanted the audience to know it too.

It was closer to "Crowley and those like him where trying to invoke Judy, and thankfully didn't succeed", but you are a tad bit close.

No. But it's uplifting that good will never give up.

Wonder Woman

Stop saying this retard.

What exactly could she do? I could see her using her lasso to gain some Intel on the situation, but she *really* wouldn't be prepared for some of the Black Lodge's shit. She could very well underestimate what she's dealing with, and end up getting utterly obliterated for her trouble. She could certainly help the town itself in mind you, even save a few lives from some of the crap that might befall them, but I don't think she'd really cut it.