Navigating Between Worlds: Understanding Twin Peaks Season 3

I’ve just explained why I conceptually believe in a state of reality that is stuck between the Timeline and Lodgespace. My Twin Peaks theory will now delve into examples that help to explain how this In-Between reality is represented in Season 3.

Characters in between

Frank Truman

When you see Frank, you know you’re seeing scenes set in the In-Between state of reality. I said earlier that Frank Truman signifies the intruding presence of Margaret’s “dream” while also still being attached to the Timeline. Because he only has one foot in the dream. His other foot is in the Timeline.

• In Parts 1 through 3, Frank is not present. I believe these Parts are mostly in tune with the Timeline. Frank also is not present in the second half of Part 17 or any of Part 18. I consider those to be mostly in tune with Lodgespace. Frank Truman only exists between those points in the undecided middle state.
• He neutrally reacts to both Wally Brando (full of positive energy and love for his parents) and Doris Truman (full of negative energy and trauma over their son’s suicide).
• Per Final Dossier, is the acting Sheriff for a set period of two years between Harry’s stepping down and Hawk’s taking of the mantle.
• Does not actively shoot DoppelCooper (though his hat takes a cartoonish hit from the bullet in a dreamlike way).
• Acknowledges in Part 7 that Laura Palmer was killed as he goes through the discovered diary pages with Hawk.
• Works in both the modern section of the sheriff station (where Maggie’s 911 dispatch station is located) and the older one where Andy, Lucy and Hawk go through files and discuss eating evidence.
• He constantly references fish, symbolically referencing Pete Martell fishing because Laura is missing.
  • In Part 1 Lucy says he’s fishing.
  • In Part 7, he and Will Hayward make fishing jokes over Skype.
  • In Part 15, in a dark conference room, he was looking at pictures of fish when Hawk came in to announce that the Log Lady had died.

While the fish references are also signposts of Lodgespace’s “dream” asserting itself into this middle state of reality, I’m going to stick to the state of in-between for a while.

Other Characters

Hawk is between being a deputy and a sheriff.

The Log Lady is at the precipice between life and death.

Andy and Lucy are also stuck in-between in their way. As I explained in detail here, Lucy and Andy were released by Wally Brando from the past when he gave them permission to turn his kept childhood bedroom into a study more suited to their modern needs. Their arc within Season 3 transitions from the past to the present, but is mostly between these states until Lucy understands cell phones.

Gordon Cole, Albert Rosenfield and Tamara “Tammy” Preston patrol the cases that have equal roots in both the material Timeline and non-material Lodgespace.

Bobby Briggs patrols the border between Twin Peaks and Canada.

Every character in this show is on some sort of precipice, which I will return to at a later time, but as for now I think you get the idea.

Locations in between

All of the hotels and motels are places where people go when they need a place to stay when they’re between times of being at home. This includes the Great Northern with the hum in its boiler room.

The Double R and Roadhouses are places where you go to eat and live between the time when you’re at home.

The Dutchman’s is in a literal state between being material and non-material.

The Palmer House is material but its residents appear to be both from the material and non-material.

Stairways (and also ladders, if you include the case files illustrations that make Bushnell Mullins connect LVPD and Lucky 7 people together in corruption) are an actual location themselves, and it appears that the stairway in the Dutchman’s takes you from the material (ground floor) to the non-material (2^nd floor). Not to mention Sarah’s room in New Mexico (per Final Dossier) and Laura’s room in Twin Peaks are on the second floor, connected by stairs.

That purple Zone with Naido and American Girl (themselves possibly in-between states of Laura and Diane while their tulpas exist nearest the time stream, or under some form of Lodge-style witness protection) was between Dale’s time in the Lodge and his time in Vegas.

The Farm, where the arm wrestling occurred, was described by Ray Monroe as something like a halfway house for released prisoners reintegrating into civilian society.

The Frost-described three-year-old ghost towns of Las Vegas are where Cooper entered the world between his time in the non-material and his time in the Jones home as Dougie. The houses themselves are in between being built and having residents.

Trailers like Fat Trout Trailer Park as well as Dr. Jacoby’s trailer on White Tail Mountain are neither moving vehicles or houses, but can be used as either.

The Roadhouse, where we see character behaviors and audio/visual cues associated with worldly scenes and Lodgespace scenes.

Junction Points

All of these in-between locations operate as junction points. Just like the Season 3 Script is a junction point between Lynch and Frost’s interpretations. Just like the Waiting Room and Fireman’s lair are junction points.

David Lynch regularly goes out of his way to say in various way he’s never shown the Lodges on film. In this Rolling Stone interview, Kory Grow asks Lynch what feeling he gets when on the set of the Black Lodge, and Lynch responded with this:

I call it the “Red Room.” And the Red Room is sort of a junction point. It can be a very good feeling and it can be not so good.

Frost, in The Final Dossier, alludes to the Fireman’s lair being a junction point when he says Cooper’s Double is looking for the coordinates so he could locate a grand central station of junction points. You can see this in action in Part 17 when the Fireman captures DoppelCooper, swipes away the image of the Part 12 Palmer House, bringing up the sheriff station instead and then that is where we next see DoppelCooper appear.

You can also say the entirety of Season 3 is a junction point for each character as they choose between positive and negative energy, which I’ve alluded to already and will explore in depth later. Right now, I will say that Season 3 operates as a portal for them, where they can go out into the positive or negative, depending which way they want to walk through the portal (or, if you prefer, threshold). Depending on which way you walk on the stairs declares which floor you end up on. And depending on which way you look into a mirror declares what you see as a reflection on the other side.

What I mean to say is Lynch loves his imagery to explain interior states. We’ve seen it in the original series especially with mirrors: Josie’s face is shown in the mirror first thing, her secrets and darkness reflected to us without us knowing what we’re seeing. Later, we see BOB looking back at both Leland Palmer and Dale Cooper. Used to be, you could see right through to the non-material through a mirror like it were a portal. Now in the stories sprung from the Season 3 Script, it’s as if we’re on the mirror itself, and depending which way your energy is tuned proves which state of reality you look out onto. The mirror is the junction point between image and reflection. And depending which way the mirror looks, you will see the image, or you will see the reflection. One is the Official Version, the other is the Unofficial Version, and the mirror is a portal to both.

We are on the mirror itself

I choose a mirror as the most apt comparison/metaphor for Season 3’s shape because of its historical use (BOB able to be seen in mirrors), as well as all the blatant reversals in modern Twin Peaks material from the original Twin Peaks material. When you put together images within Season 3 along with the number of blatantly reversed events within The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Final Dossier, you’ll see what I mean when I write “look one way and you’re seeing the Timeline, and look the other way and you’ll see Lodgespace.”

In Frost’s Twin Peaks novels we get these exact reversals

In Season 2 we learn Norma cheats on Ed with Hank, and that sends Ed to marry Nadine almost right away. In SHoTP, we learn that Ed went to Vietnam and it was Hank actively intercepting Ed’s letters that caused Hank and Norma to marry first, with Ed marrying Nadine at a later point.

In Season 1 we learn Bobby is cheating on Laura with Shelly Johnson. In Final Dossier we learn Bobby is cheating on Shelly with Laura.

In Season 2, Ben Horne leaves his Civil War delusion by winning the war for the South. In SHoTP Jacoby guides him to let the North win the war to leave his delusion.

In Episode 29, Ben Horne hits his head on the Haywards’ fireplace before the bank explosion. In Final Dossier, the bank explosion happens before Ben’s injury.

Considered opposites in popular culture, Pete Martell plays chess in the Timeline and checkers in the in-between of SHoTP.

In the Access Guide to Twin Peaks, we learn that the Martells arrive first to Twin Peaks, followed by The Packards. In SHoTP, the Packards arrive first followed by the Martells.

Also in the Access Guide, the Twin Peaks High football team (Steeplejacks) has a perfect season thanks to a final play featuring Hawk. In SHoTP the team (Lumberjacks) suffered a defeat in the championship game thanks to Hank Jennings throwing the game on purpose on the final play.

In both of Frost’s books Margaret Lanterman’s last name is changed to Coulson. It is a tribute to Catherine Coulson, but it is also a reflection from the Log Lady’s role in the original series to her altered form in the in-between state (As we only hear Margaret contacting Hawk over a phone, I contest the Margaret Lanterman from Season 3 is calling in to the in-between from the Timeline).

And let’s not forget about the Bookhouse library page in SHoTP. Aaron Mento described how only the I, 8 and II were the same exact image with its original or when reflected in the mirror, and the first words of those books said “Fear the Double.” If this isn’t literally making the case for what I’m trying to explain here, nothing is.

In Season 3 we get these exact reversals:

In Fire Walk With Me, we get Phillip Jeffries saying “Who do you think this is there?” It’s more immediate, feels more like he’d refer to a person that way. In Season 3, there’s alternate footage of the same scene, with the altered dialogue of “Who do you think that is there?” Seems more removed to say that, removing a little humanity as well, as I would think “that” would refer more to a thing than a person. Also, “this” implies something right next to me or even in my hand. “That” implies a bit of a distance. It’s a tonal feeling but it’s there. Either way though, it’s not a precise reproduction, and therefore seems more akin to a reflection rather than an original image.

In Part 13, Ed is eating soup in the final credits, seeming terribly depressed and/or lonely. This is a sure sign that he’s tuning more towards Lodgespace at the time, and the part of him reflected in the window glass that’s slightly out of sync with him is tuned more toward the middle state. (Or it’s his more Lodgespace-tuned reflection and he’s in the middle state. Either way, neither seen parts are closest to the Timeline.)

In Part 2, Shelly says “James has always been cool.”

I also think things like backwards blinking are signs in Season 3 of seeing through to either Timeline or Lodgespace. I’m thinking specifically of Sonny Jim in the backseat, with Cooper nested inside Dougie Jones shedding a tear as to what he could’ve had if he was part of the Timeline. Therefore Sonny Jim, blinking backwards, is at that moment tuned to the Timeline.

Backwards speech and even the 119 Mom are all reversal Lodgespace signs being observed from the In-between.

Gordon Cole, likely while tuned to an Unofficial Version (Lodgespace), regularly says “apologies in advance for Albert” immediately after Albert says something offensive.

The way a Woodsman kills Bill Hastings is remembered backwards by Diane as she and the agents and officers recount events they can only remember after they’ve begun drinking coffee. She says, about a described Woodsman, “I think I saw somebody like that getting out of the police car,” but earlier Diane is only clearly shown watching a Woodsman go IN to the police car.

“Find Laura” can and probably does mean a number of things, but the root issue of Season 3 is choosing between that which is and is not. And I’ve already said Laura’s Timestream “is” and Carrie’s Lodgespace “is not.” As Leland went into the Light in Episode 16 of the Timeline-tied Season 2, Leland is probably making an appearance from another state much, as the Fireman appears in the Waiting Room in Episode 29. Leland is possibly warning Dale to tune to the Timeline rather than the Lodgespace that is throwing everything out of balance.

• The first time Leland is in the Waiting Room telling this to Dale Cooper, Dale is in an in-between state and he’s mostly tuned towards the Timeline, therefore he comes from one side of the screen.
• The second time Leland is in the Waiting Room, Dale is coming from a time when he’s already “saved” Laura from her death and is therefore tuned to the Lodgespace “dream” where Laura did not die (Phillip Gerard saying the “Fire Walk With Me” poem in normal speech rather than backwards-speak could also be evidence that Dale has been tuned closer to Lodgespace). He comes from the opposite side of the screen in an exact reversal of the film from the previous scene. And later Dale finds Carrie.

Moments that stutter (primarily the Part 8 stuttering Woodsmen scenes, the Part 17 clock in the sheriff station, and Frank and the Deputies superimposing in Part 14) seem to be oscillating quickly between Timeline tuning and Lodgespace tuning due to their proximity to portals. The closer you are to a portal, the closer you are to a doorway between those two dimensions and I suspect you’ll be able to see all your options most clearly then; as if all your frequencies are present at once like an orchestra rather than a solo instrument.

But remember, if you can see these other reality states, they can see you too.

Next: how we see the Timeline and Lodgespace influencing the In-Between state of reality