Blue Roses, Green Gloves, and Who Is The Dreamer?:

Part 14 of Showtime’s Limited Event Series titled “We are like the dreamer” aired on August 13, 2017. Part of fans’ fun watching the series live that summer was in speculating on the meaning of the Parts’ titles as they were released early on Showtime’s schedule. If Part 12, “Let’s rock,” had seemed to fans like the slowest-paced Part in the series—and it continues to be in my opinion, regardless of the title’s insinuation of a call to action or its undeniable value to the whole—Part 13 titled “What story is that, Charlie?” served as a transitional set-up for what I consider to be the most Return-colored Part before the two-act finale of Parts 17 and 18.

The series’ scattered and mysterious elements, which staged the dark finale from Part 1, began to coalesce with Gordon Cole’s phone call to the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department. It is a call received by Lucy Brennan, and no matter one’s feeling of celebration or betrayal regarding the tone of Season 3 to those of Seasons 1 & 2, the heart jumps at Gordon Cole’s first exchange with the iconic Twin Peaks citizen. Like an old friend greeting another after many years, Cole asks Brennan if she has been there all of this time, which she replies to only too literally as we might expect. She explains that she has taken time to go home at night and that she and Andy did get a vacation to Bora Bora. There is an awkward pause, which fans realized rather quickly might have been due to Cole’s mishearing her to say her time there had been “boring, boring.” There is a slight set-up when she transfers Cole to Truman on line one, a blinking button we will see again in this very Part. In this conversation, Cole learns that Harry Truman is sick and under doctors’ care at a hospital. Frank, Harry’s brother, is filling in. Because of Mark Frost’s gift to fans in The Secret History of Twin Peaks, we knew even then Frank’s history, that he was Harry’s older brother who had taken on the mantel of Sheriff after their father and assigned the nickname “Tommy Hawk” to Deputy Hill. He had in fact been on a football team with Harry, Big Ed, Hawk, Hank Jennings, Toad, and Jerry Horne. Truman informs Cole about Laura’s newly found missing pages to her diary and that they indicated two Coopers. We can note a woodcut in this scene behind Truman’s shoulder that somewhat resembles the corn stalks from Hawk’s map. Make of this what we will, the F.B.I.’s Briggs investigation is now firmly turned to the town of Twin Peaks. It is noticeable that Cole doesn’t bring up Briggs’s involvement to Truman, though it is understood that that information is classified as it involves an ongoing F.B.I. investigation. It still bothers me that while Truman brings up the Palmer case, it doesn’t occur to him to impart the strange message from Briggs regarding Jack Rabbit’s Palace and 2:53, which also included the double Cooper message.

We transition to the hotel room in Buckhorn, South Dakota, where Albert is briefing Tammy Preston on pertinent Blue Rose Task Force intelligence. They are discussing a case from 1975 that occurred in Olympia, WA. It’s worth noting yet another instance in the Pacific Northwest. Just to note it, there are three instances of the date 1975 in Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks; one is in a footnote explaining that Richard Sharp Shaver died in 1975. He penned the serial Shaver Mysteries regarding tales of the Lemurians in Ray Palmer’s Amazing Stories. According to information collected by The Archivist, Shaver claimed that “Even more dangerous than the weapons…was the creatures’ telepathic ability to influence the minds of humans without their knowing it, forcing them to take actions against their will. […] Hailing from somewhere in the distant constellation of the Pleiades, these ‘teros’ individuals were allegedly human-like enough in appearance to live unnoticed among the human race.”[1] The second is that UFO conspirator Fred Crisman died in 1975. The third is that Big Ed Hurley returned to the town of Twin Peaks in 1975, after the fall of Saigon. Unrelated? Maybe, but noted nonetheless.

Albert explains the case where two young field agents, Gordon Cole and Phillip Jeffries, break into a room where one woman is on the floor, suffering from a gunshot wound while the other stands over her with the gun. The gunshot victim is the subject of their investigation, one Lois Duffy, who smiles up at them exclaiming “I am like The Blue Rose” before disappearing before them. The woman standing above her is also Lois Duffy. She would be found hung to death a week later. This, of course, is our first origin story for Gordon Cole’s famous Blue Rose Cases, which we were first introduced to in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me through agent Chester Desmond alongside Agent Sam Stanley. Tammy notes the instance as one regarding Tulpas. The delivery is not flawless. As a matter of fact, it is so left-field and pointed as to reveal the screen-written intentions of the directional, meaning it was just kind of blunt. Through the entire series, fans were at the ready to engage with the doppelganger phenomenon, really any note of duality beyond Mr. C, but this moment introduced a new and unexpected element no matter the delivery. Further, it was not a small one. It functioned then and continues to function like a hall of mirrors or a Russian nesting doll that could potentially change our understanding of any suspicious character and will keep us speculating for years to come. As we eyed the community of Twin Peaks with a careful, sometimes mistrusting eye in Seasons 1 & 2, the concept of Tulpas renewed our motivation to carefully watch each character.

As we’re working with a fictional Lynch/Frost mythos, I’m willing to use a fictional mythos wiki for a potential reference point. According to The Slender Man Wiki, “A Tulpa is a thought form, or being created from the collective thoughts of separate individuals. The concept of Tulpas is theoretical in nature and originates from Tibetan mythology, where Tulpas are described as extra bodies that were created from one person’s mind in order to travel to spiritual realms.”[2] We automatically noted that the idea has Tibetan origins, not unlike the concept of Windom Earle’s Dugpas in Season 2. You can learn more about those origins in David Bushman and Arthur Smith’s Twin Peaks: FAQ.

Enter Gordon Cole, returning from his call to Frank Truman happy to announce coffee time. As Gordon Cole enters the room with Tammy Preston and Albert Rosenfeld, a window washer appears outside, hurting Cole’s ears with quick (Woodsman-like?) squeegeeing. Cole adjusts his ear buds. Diane joins them just shortly after this harsh squeegeeing. It is at this point that Gordon Cole point-blanks Diane about her last night with Cooper, which she still doesn’t want to speak about. Still, Cole wants to know if Major Briggs was discussed that particular night. Diane concedes that he was, whereupon Albert presents the evidence of the ring found in Major Briggs’s stomach. The inscription from Janey-E to Dougie is included. We’ve all explored much of this before, but for the sake of the re-watch, let’s re-tread the episode. Let’s note that Dougie was wearing the jade Owl Cave ring, possibly indicating that either Briggs or Mr. C was responsible for its switch. Diane notes that Janey-E is her half-sister. Diane’s last name is Evans, which is possibly the reason for the nickname Janey-E. Gordon calls the Vegas branch of the F.B.I., turning them onto Dougie Jones but somehow neglecting Janey-E altogether. Diane is promptly excused for Cole to inform Rosenfeld and Preston of his call to Truman.

This leads us to Gordon Cole’s Monica Bellucci dream. My own construction is that I wanted to imagine Isabella Rossellini in this role. Still, in the dream, Monica calls Cole to meet her at a café. They are in Paris. I’ll move into my impressions at this point to save the direct recap. In my notes here from after the live viewing, I apparently had hoped Linda would turn out to be Isabella as well. Joel Bocko of Lost in the Movies did catch here, at that time, a passage Lynch often highlighted while promoting INLAND EMPIRE from the Upanishads. Make sure to see his take on it. Of course, the basic gist is that we are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream. This leads Cole back to our Phillip Jeffries scene from Fire Walk With Me, indicating this as a direct sequel to that prequel/sequel. Upon the retelling, Albert begins to remember. Their minds have been fogged. I noted that I suspected they would remember that scene clearer and clearer until they remembered Judy. Instead, we see this effect in Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. Knowing what we know now, the idea is that with Laura’s adjusted fated, a fog might be coming over the entire town of Twin Peaks, and we still cannot discount that. In The Final Dossier, Tammy Preston comes dangerously close to experiencing the fog that Cole and Rosenfeld have here.

Chief, I’m glad I’ve written all this down rapidly, because my own thoughts about every one of these events are growing fuzzier and more indistinct the longer I stay here, creeping into my mind like a mist. I can feel a kind of mental lassitude physically advancing on me. Something’s wrong; whether it’s with me or this place, … I’m on the plane now, in the air, forty minutes east of Spokane. The uncanny penumbra I reported hasn’t left me—I barely slept—but it’s fading as I travel farther east.[3]

The finale’s set-up continues with Chad’s arrest, but the Jack Rabbit’s Palace visit leads us to the 253 shuffle. A group of four—Bobby, Frank, Hawk, and Andy—trek into the woods of Twin Peaks with Bobby leading them to his father’s instructed locale in Jack Rabbit’s Palace, a tree naturally shaped into a jutting tower one could say emulates The Fireman’s Mansion or as a nod to Quentin Tarantino in acknowledging Pulp Fiction. I tend to stick to the former. Andy reminds them to place dirt from the location into their pockets, which we learn works as an anchor against the workings of the Lodges. They are to walk 253 yards due east from that location and be there at 2:53 p.m. Let’s not forget that 2:53 was the time that Agent Cooper traveled through the wall’s electrical socket and that DoppelCoop was almost pulled back into the Black Lodge in Part 3. A portal will open for them at 2:53. In Part 17, Cooper explains to us that 2:53 adds up to 10, the number of completion. The scene the Sheriff’s crew comes upon includes smoke rising from an area that has a pit filled with golden liquid instead of the Black Lodge’s scorched engine oil. Naido is stranded naked on the ground. It is Andy who is invited into The Fireman’s Mansion and given visions I’ll include below from my notes last year. I’ll add a funny note that I have here first: “Is Naido Judy? Will we see the Fire Walk With Me monkey again?” Hey, they were genuine questions at the time. Below is my outline of Andy’s visions with some of the notes I kept.

Vision Outline

• The Experiment
• The BOB seed.
• Convenience store following the Trinity Test.
• The Woodsman, “Got a light?”
• Electrical wires.
• Girl running away from news of Laura’s death at Twin Peaks High School in 1989.
• Red Curtains.
• Laura’s Homecoming picture surrounded by the FWWM angels.
• Naido stranded and naked.
• 2 Coopers–Good & Evil
• Line #1, blinking on Sheriff Frank Truman’s phone. [Note: is this the line one from Gordon Cole’s call earlier, or Cooper’s call in Part 17? Either would work just fine.]
• Andy guiding Lucy in Sheriff Station hallway, as if leading to a surprise.
• Naido w/ Andy in woods.
• #6 Electric Pole from Fire Walk With Me [Note: This elicits an uncomfortable reaction from Andy.]
• The smoke is returned to the bellow. [Note: Andy has another map in his head, much like his figuring out the Owl Cave map in S2.]
• Andy is sent back.
• Deputies and Sheriff are anchored back to Jackrabbit’s Palace.
• Andy walks back with Naido in arms, says she is very important, in danger from those who wish to kill her, and will need to be protected in lock up at Sheriff’s Station–tell no one.

Of course, Naido is taken back to the jailhouse as stated and given a robe from Lucy. There is a parroting character in a jail cell, next to Chad and Naido. He could very well be Billy, but I’ll come back to that at the end in my Billy Breakdown.

Admittedly, there is magic in re-watching the loading dock scene. It isn’t Freddie Sykes’s drawn-out monologue. Rather, it’s coming back to it with some knowledge from David Lynch’s biography Room to Dream. What I’m speaking about comes from the chapter “My Log is Turning Gold.” In this, Lynch explains that he had the idea for a green glove for a long time and that it would have originally been worn by Jack Nance. It isn’t specific as to whether or not that would have been in a Twin Peaks project or otherwise. Having that knowledge, back in May, I did write a rather off the wall proposal for the glove and its possible, though tenuous, connection to Wild At Heart. Once I proposed it, I just couldn’t get it out of my head.  

Surprisingly, Wild At Heart isn’t a terrible connection to bring in at this point in the Part as we transition to the Elk’s Point #9 Bar. In my notes, I remind myself to remember the Fire Walk With Me #6 electric pole and its inversion: 6/9. Mark Frost directs us to these numbers often in The Secret History of Twin Peaks as common numbers in alien craft alignments. Sarah Palmer sits down to order a Bloody Mary, but what’s in a name, right? Following her order, a trucker takes notice of her, and I tend to want to accredit the statements on truckers to Mark Frost, but I could be wrong—Part 1 and Beulah: “It’s a world full of truckers.“ Also, at first glance, I did think of Leo Johnson, who was also a pony-tailed trucker. Anyhow, Sarah asks him to leave her alone. After being threatened, she stands up and removes her face, like Laura Palmer in the Red Room. Instead of light, visions akin to The Experiment float within. There is white electricity spitting out of the darkness inside, which is reminiscent of the Woodsman’s electrified vocals in New Mexico. Then, we see a hand floating over the surface of the darkness, like the witch’s hand over the crystal ball in Wild at Heart. Charlie, Part 12: “Audrey, you know I don’t have a crystal ball.” The ring finger of the hand is charred and black; remember the spirit finger in Gordon Cole’s explanation to Tammy Preston back around Part 5 or 6. Then, the hand removes a second face to reveal a white smile in pure darkness, asking “Do you really want to fuck with this?” As Sarah menacingly states to the bartender after she’s taken a gory bite out of the trucker’s throat, “It sure is a mystery.” Following this, I was convinced that Sarah Palmer waned to go to jail, a trending trope we saw played out in films like The Avengers and Skyfall. I was glad to see that it did not. The idea was that it was how whatever was in her might get to Naido.

Having finally reached our conclusion in a dense and action-packed episode, we come back to the Roadhouse, where two women gossip in the fan-dubbed “Frank Booth” of The Roadhouse. Tina’s daughter is wearing Paula’s sweater. She says that she saw Billy bleeding from his nose and mouth with her mother. He scrambled over a 6-foot fence in their backyard and burst into their kitchen to bleed into their sink. She cannot remember if her unidentified uncle was there…she knew that her mother, Tina, and Billy had a thing.

So, it’s time for our Billy Breakdown:

Billy Breakdown

• Billy is missing for 2 days.
• Audrey threatens Charlie with Paul in Part 12.
• Tina can’t talk if husband is at home.
• Chuck stole Billy’s truck.
• Billy told Sheriff & got it back that day.
• So, did we meet Billy or Chuck?

Below is how I followed it:

I think Chuck stole Billy’s truck for Richard. Andy then finds the truck and questions Chuck. Chuck dumps the truck back at Billy’s, and Billy flips out over at Tina’s? Now, is Chuck Tina’s uncle?

I can know nothing for sure, but I can lastly and confidently say this episode’s dedication is to none other than David Bowie.

[1] Frost, Mark. The Secret History of Twin Peaks. New York: Flatiron Books, 2016, loc. 892.

[2] “The Tulpa Effect.” The Slenderman Wiki. September 2012. Retrieved on 08/07/2018 from http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tulpa_Effect

[3] Frost, Mark. Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier, (New York: Flatiron Books, 2017), 137-143.