# Twin Peaks Episode 16 (Open Spoilers)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 28, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900 "2017-08-28T00:35:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/41 "2017-08-31T00:32:07Z")
> [@DrCube](#):
>
> _Is_ there a real Diane? I’m not so sure. Evil Coop manufactured Dougie, and he probably manufactured Diane. It’s possible “Diane” was just Good Cooper’s name for his tape recorder after all. I wonder if Janey-E even really has a sister.
Before Diane pulled the gun out of her purse, she said that Coop had raped her and then taken her to a “gas station,” which could be the convenience store already associated with the woodsmen. Maybe Evil Cooper killed Diane at the convenience store and replaced her with the tulpa.
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### Author:  [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/42 "2017-08-31T01:02:32Z")
With that weird episode 8, I had thought Laura Palmer was actually a BOB-like lodge spirit, but for Good instead of Evil.
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/43 "2017-08-31T09:44:29Z")
This guy has a theory about what’s coming that I hadn’t thought of. He thinks that evil-Cooper may try to pass as the real Cooper and confuse everyone.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MlFtb-DVCw)
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2017, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/44 "2017-09-02T01:28:07Z")
I had an interesting conversation about Lynch and how he seems to often throw in things and events that seem like they must be relevant to the plot but then go nowhere.
For example, a lot of people, including myself, thought that the hotel key would lead Gordon et. al. to Cooper in Las Vegas. It had a good amount of screen time and there was even a scene that served no purpose other than showing us that it was being mailed. But it now appears to be superfluous.
Some people think that he’s being sloppy or lazy, but I think that Lynch may be intentionally flouting " Chekov’s gun" in order to keep the audience guessing as to where the plot is going.
> **[Chekhov's gun](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun)**
>
> Chekhov's gun (Chekhov's rifle; Russian: Чеховское ружьё) is a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired sometime later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story. Some authors, such as Hemingway, do not agree with this principle.
> The principle is recorded in letters by ...
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/45 "2017-09-02T22:48:53Z")
> [@davidm](#):
>
> … Some people think that he’s being sloppy or lazy, but I think that Lynch may be intentionally flouting " Chekov’s gun" in order to keep the audience guessing as to where the plot is going.
Yes, I think this is correct. Lynch is never content to simply follow the conventions.
As we come near the last episode(s), I find myself thinking about my own personal paradox of generally disliking stories impelled by the supernatural, yet loving _Twin Peaks: the Return_.
The first season of _Twin Peaks_ hit the culture like a freight train, of course. But for me one of the most attractive things about it was that it was quite possible to enjoy the show on the level of believing the plot to have no supernatural elements.
By that reading, Dale Cooper was seeing the Lodge in dreams, and Bob was merely a metaphor for the psychological demons that could lead a man to rape and murder his own daughter. The Log Lady may have believed that her dead husband was talking to her, but that wasn’t the case, and what she said turned out to relate to reality only by a combination of coincidence and insight. (By the second season the ‘no supernatural elements’ claim got a bit muddied, what with creamed corn teleporting around and such. But it was still possible to read the show as being rooted in naturalistic, if symbolism-filled, psychological drama.)
However, unless Lynch is going to go for an ‘_everything we’ve seen happened only in Audrey’s comatose mind_’ resolution–and surely he won’t!–then TPTR is undeniably a story of the supernatural. Or a story of extra-terrestrial interaction with humans, which comes to the same thing.
I’ve loved practically every minute of it. I doubt that I’ve become converted; I won’t suddenly prefer plots dependent on the involvement of paranormal entities.
But I will surely miss this amazing 18-hour experience, once it’s over.
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2017, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/46 "2017-09-03T07:33:20Z")
The name of this band can’t be a coincidence.
[https://goldenshovels.bandcamp.com/](https://goldenshovels.bandcamp.com/)
> [@](#):
>
> CONFUSED by Dr. Amp & The Golden Shovels
> …
> Buy your Golden Shovel now, and dig your way out of The Shit!
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### Author:  [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/47 "2017-09-03T19:03:23Z")
Thanks for making these threads, I was behind and enjoyed reading them as I caught up without having to worry about spoilers.
I was convinced that Richard was going to end up being Donna’s son, since it seemed like Ben and his ex wife were almost making a point of never mentioning Audrey’s name when the bad stuff with Richard was going down.
So Sarah Palmer is a denizen of one of the lodges. Was that always true? Or did we see the “real” Sarah Palmer at some point?
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2017, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/48 "2017-09-03T19:53:26Z")
> [@Clawdio](#):
>
> Thanks for making these threads, I was behind and enjoyed reading them as I caught up without having to worry about spoilers.
>
> I was convinced that Richard was going to end up being Donna’s son, since it seemed like Ben and his ex wife were almost making a point of never mentioning Audrey’s name when the bad stuff with Richard was going down.
>
> So Sarah Palmer is a denizen of one of the lodges. Was that always true? Or did we see the “real” Sarah Palmer at some point?
Interesting question about Sarah. I’m guessing that there is, or was, a real human Sarah Palmer, but that what we’re seeing now may be another tulpa.
She seems like she may be confused about her identity - recall her in the store talking to herself and saying things like “stop doing this Sarah. Leave the store now.” This is, to me, reminiscent of the whole “I’m not me” thing.
Regarding Richard, I pretty much assumed that he was Audrey’s son as the result of a rape by evil-Cooper. But something is nagging at me now.
Since last week I’ve been binging the old episodes and saw the scene again where the sheriff was telling Ben about what Richard had done. At the end of that scene Ben says that Richard never had a father.
Presumably, if Richard was born to a comatose Audrey with no father present then he would have been raised by Ben and his wife. In that case he technically didn’t have a father present, but he had a father figure, so why say he didn’t have a father?
Maybe it simply means that Ben and Silvia were already divorced or at least separated at that point and that Richard was raised by his grandmother, but I found it interesting.
As I was typing this, the two seemingly disparate subjects of tulpas and Audrey made me think of something. During one of the Audrey and Charlie scenes Audrey said that she doesn’t feel like she’s herself!
So I’m now not as certain as I was about Audrey simply being in a coma for years.
Come to think of it, Jerry stumbling around in the woods with body image problems (“I’m not your foot”) could mean that he’s some sort of (possibly defective) tulpa.
And then there’s Chad. He was involved with Richard, and he showed a subhuman level of cruelty in the way he mocked Sheriff Truman’s son’s suicide. Is he a tulpa?
Who and what is or isn’t real? We may have many surprises tonight.
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### Author:  [@Clawdio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clawdio)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/twin-peaks-episode-16-open-spoilers/794900/49 "2017-09-03T23:33:45Z")
> [@davidm](#):
>
> As I was typing this, the two seemingly disparate subjects of tulpas and Audrey made me think of something. During one of the Audrey and Charlie scenes Audrey said that she doesn’t feel like she’s herself!
I’m starting to think everyone has a double/doppleganger/tulpa… My official prediction before episode 17 starts:
You know how evil Coop is in the real world and doesn’t wanna go back to the lodge? I think Audrey is the reverse. Both Audreys are stuck where they don’t wanna be, but for some reason can’t switch places. And i’m thinking even Ben might be the same: remember how pre-civil war episode he was a horndog, and would screw anyone over to make a buck? Then after the civil war thing he was always going on about wanting to be good… i thought it was a ruse because he was also talking about running for public office… but maybe good Ben & evil Ben switched places.
TL;DR: every has a double in the white or black lodge, but which one is in the real world: good or evil???
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