Twin Peaks stands as one of the most mystifying American TV shows ever produced. With the arrival of Twin Peaks: The Return, fans received a more or less conclusive ending after waiting for more than two decades.
I won't simply pay lip service to Twin Peaks without offering something intelligent right away, so I'll say that I view it as the X-Files of an era when the X-Files series had yet to exist. Of course, Twin Peaks transcends that comparison. I intend to demonstrate, to the best of my abilities, the depth of its more earthbound—and therefore more humane—take on the unexplained.
I wrote the core of this essay, the argument section, before examining any interpretations published by others. Initially, it was going to be an article. After writing more than 2000 words, the article structure no longer served the content. For this reason, I decided to adopt an essay format.
I watched seasons one and two from late 2010 and/or 2011, and possibly 2012. I viewed Twin Peaks: The Return very casually, over approximately five months in early to late 2018. Moreover, I never read anything about Twin Peaks before writing this essay—only the occasional brief glimpse (rather than sustained research) into the show's online communities.
When I began writing this essay, I briefly browsed a few books about Twin Peaks. I must have read from five of them, totaling around twenty pages. I didn't use anything from these books to substantiate my assumptions. Similarly, I briefly visited some websites focused on the series.
What I wanted to express wouldn't benefit from the additional canon information in those books and sites. That additional context might radically alter the meaning I derived from watching only the three seasons of the series.
Thesis
At the end of Twin Peaks season two, Cooper travels to the Black Lodge, and Laura Palmer's Black Lodge tulpa kills his material body in one version of the waiting room.
I believe that season three continues the storylines of the first two seasons in a vestigial manner. To me, it presents a profound story about astral planes, soul transplants, and spiritual evolution.
The main astral plane involved in the story is Jowday, a magical realm powerful within a radius of 430 miles from its center.
The Black Lodge and White Lodge operate both inside and outside Jowday's area of power. They exist in the normal waking reality and other realities like the astral planes untainted by Jowday. Furthermore, the members of the lodges can access the psyche of living persons when awake in regular reality and their dreams.
Sometime between 1991 and 2016, Laura Palmer's spirit escaped the Black Lodge and improved her situation by living as an astral person outside the Jowday realm—in an astral version of Odessa, Texas.
The final episode reveals Cooper's new existence as a free astral person. He awakens to free astral life after a quarter-century hibernation in the Black Lodge.
If I had to compare my interpretation to previous works, I'd say that I see the subject as similar to Waking Life (Linklater, 2001), The Fountain (Aronofsky, 2006), and What Dreams May Come (Ward, 1998). It also somewhat resembles The Truman Show (Weir, 1998). I apologize for omitting other similar works that preceded these like This is Not a Movie (Rubio, 2011), about which I'm not entirely certain and therefore can't include in this shortlist.
My Interpretation of Twin Peaks: The Return
The Black Lodge
The Black Lodge exists as both a place and a society in an astral plane called Judy/Jowday—a magical realm created by Native American sorcerers, corrupted medicine men of the past. Season two's final chapters compared the Black Lodgers to Tibetan dugpas.
Those who created it and everyone else who joined or fell under its psycho-spiritual suzerainty possess (or develop) a negative personal nature. They feed on a substance called garmonbozia. A substance that leaks when people experience suffering, and the Black Lodgers harvest it for their sustenance.
The souls in the lodge may or may not be dead or dreaming people, but they most likely are. I understand the Black Lodge as the location where all scenes occur in the red-curtained rooms adjacent to the waiting room. The Black Lodge's place exists inside a larger evil realm: Judy or Jowday.
The Black Lodge functions as a group or society—all the characters appearing in the waiting room scenes and connected rooms, except for the White Lodge's double agents like The Man from Another Place and Mike. Similarly, all other unnamed characters (e.g., the woodsmen) who cross into the physical plane in season three's episodes belong to this group.
An Astral Unraveling of Cooper's Soul?
Cooper entered the Black Lodge through a portal that opened in a specific place during a certain planetary conjunction at the end of season two.
The most significant event during his final Black Lodge visit is the scene with the Laura-like tulpa. For me, the scene following Cooper's meeting with the tulpa reveals what happened to him.
The horrifying realization comes when, after running from the tulpa, Cooper appears bleeding in one of the red rooms. I believe that at that moment, he simply died.
This explains, in my view, his enthrallment in the Black Lodge for a quarter-century. The Black Lodgers killed his physical body in the astral realm where they exist, Judy/Jowday.
I consider this fact evident due to, first, Bad Dale Cooper/BOB using Cooper's body (BOB-as-Cooper/Mr. C.)—and second, the persistence of Cooper's personality remaining aspects. This symbolizes the decomposition of Cooper's being.
The Black Lodge's Laura tulpa stabs him in the dark room. This creates a paradox since he visits an immaterial place in his mortal form, not through astral projection/unfoldment or a dream, but through a portal. Having his physical body mortally wounded while in an astral dimension kills him, but incompletely.
His astral body, mind, and spirit survive, but BOB steals his physical body. BOB escapes the Black Lodge into material reality.
The Inverted Fingertips
Dale Cooper's physical body has fundamentally changed. The inverted fingerprints of BOB-as-Cooper demonstrate this transformation.
What separated from Cooper when he died wasn't merely his mortal coil. From a Hindu metaphysical perspective, Cooper lost both his astral and physical bodies.
BOB's gross, reality-violating, interdimensional manipulations likely relate to the fingertip anomaly. When entities that shouldn't interfere with the fabric of time and space (like BOB) do so, random reality aberrations occur, similar to those described in The Philadelphia Experiment.
The final scene of season two conveyed this meaning to me: When Cooper awakened in bed with Harry Truman and Donna's father present, BOB had stolen his physical body, but Cooper's astral body remained attached to it.
The "How's Annie?" question hints at this. BOB realizes Cooper's astral body still accompanies the physical one because he asks Sheriff Truman about Annie.
I'll apply the Hindu concept of the soul to clarify this. The planes appear in parentheses:
-
Causal Body: To Evolve With: Ideals/Abstract Thoughts (Higher Mental)
Mental Body: To Think With: Ideas/Concrete Thoughts (Lower Mental)
Astral Body (Subtle): To Feel With: Emotions/Desires (Astral)
Physical Body (Gross): To Act With: Sensorial Reactions/Actions (Physical)
Cooper displays feelings by asking about Annie—something accomplished through the astral body. This makes BOB realize that Cooper's astral body remains attached to the physical form. BOB-as-Cooper excuses himself and goes to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, BOB-as-Cooper repeatedly smashes his head against the mirror, mocking the question that Cooper asked Harry through his astral body. Meanwhile, we see Bob in the reflection, subtly informing the audience about what's actually happening.
The Black Lodgers, especially BOB, have mastered the astral realm. I interpreted the head-smashing against the mirror as BOB forcibly expelling Cooper's astral body from Cooper's physical form—pushing it out of the physical plane and back to the Black Lodge, where the rest (mind and spirit) of Cooper's soul resides.
Douglas Jones
Dougie Jones receives what remains of Cooper's soul (his astral, mental, and causal bodies). The White Lodgers, through Mike's agency, transplant the rest of Dougie's being to a golden seed.
What does Mike mean by stating "someone has manufactured you for a purpose"? To me, this indicates that the White and Black Lodge acolytes manipulated the past, present, and future of physical reality.
"Manufactured" suggests that forces monitored and controlled Dougie's life to meet all requirements allowing Cooper to use his body when needed. Dougie functioned as a sort of Truman Burbank of the Twin Peaks universe. Dougie wearing the ring means he was designated to fulfill the purpose of lending his physical body to Cooper temporarily.
The golden seed contains Dougie for most of the series. I believe Dougie was simply a person with a genetic makeup similar enough to appear as Cooper's twin brother. This genetic similarity made him the chosen one who was "manufactured."
For instance, one aspect of his manufactured personality involves patronizing prostitutes. He was designed this way for the moment when the soul swap occurred—ensuring it happened in an inconspicuous location away from prying eyes.
The events of the final three episodes reveal the conclusion and support my interpretation.
I view Cooper acting through Dougie's body as more astral than material. Cooper's disappearance a quarter-century earlier was meant to be permanent. However, one complication remained: BOB's escape from the lodge in Cooper's physical body.
Cooper died in the Black Lodge's Dark Room with no expected return. Nevertheless, BOB's escape into waking reality created significant unfinished business. And this, not taking into account Cooper's several inner personal unfinished business.
When the last episode begins, the story diverges. Dougie's soul returns to him. For me, the events following Mike and Cooper's meeting with Jeffries unfold in the past and in Judy/Jowday's realm—except for the scenes of Sarah stabbing Laura's portrait and Dougie reuniting with his loved ones.
The Physical Twin Peaks of 2016
Everything relating to the Black Lodge exists in the astral realm. Every part of the story connected to it feels to me somehow astral. BOB, likely one of the original Native American sorcerers who created the Black Lodge, possesses qualities of a demon, an astral entity, and a ghost combined. Using Cooper's body, BOB has lived freely in the physical plane for twenty-five years.
When Good Cooper finally regains full consciousness in the last three episodes, he returns to Twin Peaks, acting as an astral resolution to the story—his story.
I believe the people of Twin Peaks, their memories of Cooper, and the uncertainty about his fate draw him back. The Log Lady's early call to Hawk conveniently establishes this setup.
However, the external quest of all other characters contrasts with Cooper's and Laura's internal quests, as I understood them.
Both remained in hibernation within non-linear time in the Judy realm while the world continued. The meeting of these two realities in the Sheriff's Office scene delivers a shocking experience.
After BOB-as-Coop's demise, Cooper resumes his train of thought from twenty-five years earlier. He asks Sheriff Frank Truman for the key to room 315 at the Great Northern Hotel.
The connection becomes unmistakably clear. Major Garland Briggs told Cooper that Sheriff Truman would give him the key. With ties to the White Lodge operating in the Jowday dimension, Garland possessed both a vantage point and basic power to manipulate linear time from outside it.
Garland Briggs escaped the Judy dimension with Bill and Ruth's help. However, the Black Lodgers captured him immediately upon his return and decapitated him. This explains why his body belonged to a forty-year-old Garland, not a seventy-year-old one.
Following Garland's instructions, Cooper and Diane visit a neglected version of the Great Northern and enter room 315. There, Cooper meets Mike, who recites a magical rhyme. They phase elsewhere and meet Phillip Jeffries.
I later realized that Jeffries serves as the doorkeeper to a means (magical? technological?) for dimensional and time travel.
I suspect Jeffries was pulled into the realm where the Black Lodge exists: Judy/Jowday. However, he found a way to house his consciousness using technology in an interstitial space between physical reality and Jowday.
Cooper requests the date February 23, 1989. Jeffries casually mentions working on Judy and asks if Cooper had inquired about it. Neither Cooper nor Mike respond beyond ambiguous head nods from Mike.
Jeffries then instructs Cooper to send greetings to Gordon, adding that Gordon will remember the official version. Jeffries informs Cooper that his time jump is ready.
I interpret Jeffries's comment about the "official version" as referring to the real story—what happened in the physical world during the twenty-five-year gap between Twin Peaks season two and Twin Peaks: The Return. Not the astral version involving Jowday/The Lodge/Dead Cooper/Dead (or captive) Jeffries.
Twin Peaks Outskirts, February 23, 1989
Returning to the night of Laura's murder, Cooper saves her from her fate in the timeline of seasons one and two. This creates a new timeline where Laura Palmer's body was never found—she simply vanished. Cooper completes part of his unfinished business, accomplishing one of his life's most important missions: solving Laura's case by preventing her murder altogether.
To me, this also suggests Cooper coming to terms with his own ghost—the trauma of having tragically lost his girlfriend.
Cooper's spirit used Dougie's body first to travel to the past and save Laura, then to confront BOB-as-Cooper—accomplished with help from another "manufactured" physical reality person, Freddie.
Back in the waiting room, the time comes to return Dougie's body. Afterward, Cooper and Mike meet The Arm, who poses a loaded question. Cooper walks through the red rooms and finds Leland Palmer.
Leland instructs him to find Laura, speaking from the perspective of someone unrelated to the timeline Cooper created by saving her from murder. Leland asks Cooper to help the Laura trapped between worlds—the Laura from the timeline where she was killed. Cooper exits the Black Lodge to the astral counterpart of the spot in Ghostwood National Forest where the entrance sometimes appears.
Outside of Jowday's Jurisdiction
Cooper sits in the waiting room. What appears to be the real Laura arrives. She whispers something to Cooper before flying away. I believe Laura whispered her location to him. After this, Cooper meets Leland Palmer, who tells him to find Laura. Then, with BOB eliminated, we witness Cooper using powers developed during his 25 years of entrapment to simply open the curtains with a magical gesture and exit the Black Lodge to the familiar spot in Ghostwood Forest.
He meets Diane there. The only explanation I have for this occurring in the astral plane is that Diane had also died by 2016. Her karmic connection to Cooper and the Twin Peaks events brought her to the Ghost Forest to welcome him to astral life beyond the Black Lodge.
They drive away from Jowday's sphere of influence. The Fireman instructed Cooper to remember Richard, Linda, and 430. At mile 430, Cooper stops the car. I interpret this point as the transition from the Jowday astral realm to a normal astral plane.
In Hawk's old Indian map, fire (equated with electricity) represents the astral realms. The mixture of black corn signifies a tainted astral realm (Jowday) where evil sorcerers' mind-forms constitute the foundation of reality—a manipulated dream/astral matrix.
Diane asks if he's certain about their next actions. Cooper affirms, and they leave Jowday's realm.
Cooper spends the night with Diane in a motel within the untainted astral realm. Upon waking, he finds a note on the nightstand. Perplexed by its irrelevance, he sees it's addressed to Richard from Linda—names mentioned in the first episode.
These keywords were planted by The Fireman to trigger Cooper's realization that he now exists as a free astral awareness, playing out the final scenes of an astral drama against a negative astral plane manipulated by ancient evil. Ultimately, Cooper needed to understand Laura's decision to abandon her previous identity.
The motel Cooper exits in the morning differs from where they spent the night. The car has also changed—they arrived in a vintage car but Cooper leaves in a contemporary one.
This occurs because the untainted astral realm isn't fixed but rather a fluctuating, thought-created reality. The Fireman needed to trigger Cooper's understanding that he wasn't in the real world but in an astral plane beyond the Black Lodge's control.
The Coffee Shop
Cooper drives through an astral version of Odessa, Texas. He spots a coffee shop named Judy. This location serves as a crucial astral backdrop for Cooper's inner journey. I interpret the coffee shop as a type of astral halfway house, designed for those who escaped the Jowday realm—a place to maintain contact and assist each other in transitioning to Jowday-free astral existence.
Unprompted, he asks the waiter if another waitress works there, receiving confirmation. Cooper protects the waitress from harassment by three cowboys. I believe these cowboys were Jowday agents, similar to the Matrix agents in The Matrix.
Everything seems normal except for Cooper's bizarre handling of the troublemakers' guns after subduing them. For me, this provided another clue about the location's different nature. In this astral plane, different laws apply. Perhaps Cooper's actions made the guns disappear, neutralizing their threat.
Carrie/Laura
Cooper then visits the other waitress's house. She resembles an older Laura Palmer but doesn't conclusively answer Cooper's questions. Eventually, Cooper convinces her to return with him to Twin Peaks. She invites Cooper inside while she prepares to leave.
A corpse with a bullet wound to the head lies in the living room—a reference to a book.
Cooper shows no concern. This symbolizes, to me, the detachment of an evolved soul focused on an inner personal journey. He has understood the cryptic teachings of Mike and The Fireman. Additionally, Carrie's nonchalance in allowing an FBI agent to enter her home containing a murder victim indicates something significant: the laws of waking reality don't apply here.
Consequently, both the logic and behavior of astral persons differ greatly from what we experience in waking/living reality. Both know they exist astrally—in a reality where form serves merely as clay for astral persons to model at will, with no consequence beyond appearance.
The Astral Twin Peaks of 2016
Upon reaching the astral reflection of 2016 Twin Peaks, Carrie shows no signs of remembrance. They arrive at Laura Palmer's house.
They approach the door, and Cooper knocks. Alice Tremond answers. Cooper asks for Sarah Palmer. The woman replies that no one by that name lives there.
Cooper then inquires about the house. He learns that Mrs. Chalfont sold it to them. Cooper asks Alice if they know from whom Mrs. Chalfont purchased it. Alice responds that neither she nor her partner knows.
Carrie and Cooper depart. Upon reaching the road, Cooper stops and turns to observe the house. Carrie watches him. Cooper asks, "What year is this?"
Carrie looks at the house and hears her mother calling her. She screams, causing the lights to extinguish—first the house lights, then complete darkness.
Alice Tremond
I believe Alice represents Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont living in the astral Twin Peaks of 2016. This requires clarification: Mrs. Chalfont/Tremond and her grandson Pierre functioned as White Lodge spirits acting as double agents. They could appear as ordinary people, delivering overt and subtle messages to Twin Peaks season two characters.
Perhaps, because Mrs. Tremond and her grandson significantly helped Laura, the White Lodge rewarded her with the astral reflection of the Palmer house?
None of the original occupants could inhabit the astral version of the house. Leland remained trapped in the Black Lodge. Sarah still lived, and Laura existed as an astral woman outside Jowday's radius of influence, in an astral version of Texas.
Alice Tremond recognized them. Her denial and brusque dismissal indicated she still worked in their interest—signaling they had no reason to return to (astral) Twin Peaks after a quarter-century, to a place still under Jowday's power.
Final Thoughts
Cooper's question about the year suggests to me that not only Laura had moved on, but everyone else had as well—even the astral counterpart of Twin Peaks.
Laura's scream and the voluntary darkening of the house and entire scene represent her disappointment at returning to something she had already resolved within herself.
Laura, in her new Carrie identity, had lived in a free astral plane for years. She had progressed further than Cooper in spiritual evolution, given Cooper's disadvantage: having his physical body stolen by BOB and being deprived of all hope of escape from the Black Lodge and Jowday until BOB was eliminated. Plus his inner challenges, like getting over the trauma of losing Annie.
At some point, Laura must have achieved whatever necessary to escape first the Black Lodge, then Jowday.
But Cooper had only just gained a determined level of freedom in 2016. He needed Laura to resolve the final portion of his Twin Peaks karma.
Something unexplained occurred at the end of season two, leaving the impression that Cooper remained trapped in the lodge.
As I noted in previous sections, I believe—though it's shown very ambiguously—that Cooper died, stabbed by the tulpa.
Shortly after the tulpa scene, when Cooper walks to another room and discovers he's bleeding, we meet BOB-as-Cooper/Mr. C. for the first time. I suspect Mr. C. represents Cooper's material body after losing it.
In the Black Lodge, season two, after Cooper's death, when Bad Dale and BOB laugh evilly together, BOB merely animates the body (like a puppet master) before fully possessing it. BOB-as-Coop, possessing Dale's body, escaped at season two's conclusion. However, the remaining three-quarters of Cooper's self remained trapped in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years, unable to progress.
In the coffee shop, the White Lodge provides Cooper with a means to accept his condition. They direct him to meet another astral person who escaped the Black Lodge—the soul formerly known as Laura Palmer. Carrie contains Laura's soul, continuing her existence as an astral woman who has moved beyond her previous identity. Yet a question arises.
Why did she, despite transitioning to a free astral realm, not move on like Cooper, by a proactive approach to dealing with her karma in the astral plane? After all, despite her connection to BOB, nothing comparable to what BOB did to Cooper happened to her.
I suspect it's because the soul of the Laura Palmer version from the timeline where she was murdered had a destiny disrupted by her death. This thought disturbs me. Many believe those who suffer unnatural deaths become trapped in interstitial astral realms similar to the planes we visit in dreams.The ones in that situation who sometimes rent the veil and manifest in regular reality, we call ghosts.
In astral Odessa, Laura as Carrie purged the karmic residue from her life as Laura, living as a free astral woman for an undetermined period. Probably until the year Laura Palmer would have lived had she not been murdered.
Other Theses about Twin Peaks: The Return
Alex Fulton
An innovative, unexpected approach. In approximately 6000 words, he highlights a hidden synergy between the final two episodes, demonstrating how an integrated meaning emerges from this experience.
Unless Mark Frost and David Lynch intentionally planned this, I find it too far-fetched. Without intentionality, Alex Fulton's interpretation would qualify as matrixing or pareidolic.
This approach seems superficial, like watching The Wizard of Oz silently with The Dark Side of The Moon as soundtrack. As an aside: I once did something similar for fun, watching Hitlerjunge Quex (Steinhoff, 1932) muted with a Utah Saints record playing randomly in the background. Surprisingly, it made perfect sense, and I'm confident my interpretation addressed the Nazis' technology obsession.
However, such approaches have limited value because they invent their own interpretive methods rather than making sense through established schools or systems of thought—selecting random readings from a desperate need for meaning while lacking solid knowledge frameworks to contextualize that meaning.
I chose Hinduism to interpret the series. Others selected a Buddhist approach informed by the bardo stages.
I superficially read interpretations aligning with the Tibetan Book of the Dead's bardo stages. These made considerably more sense than any secular interpretations I selected for my refutations section.
Of the four articles I read to compare others' understandings with mine, Alex Fulton's appears most thoughtfully constructed.
Now I wonder about Netflix viewers. You cannot load Netflix in two browsers on the same computer and watch two movies simultaneously without using proxies, VPNs, or similar workarounds.
Dom Nero
I disagree that Cooper is ever "finally freed"—he escapes his enthrallment to the Black Lodge. Even after mile 430, when he leaves Jowday's zone of influence, he hasn't completely escaped his predicament.
To me, the post-time-jump events appear straightforward. The return of Dougie's body and subsequent events aren't "implausible" to someone with modest knowledge of cosmic architecture like myself.
He entirely misses the point at his think piece's conclusion. The statement that "whoever you are and your past stay with you forever" makes no sense to me.
For astral persons who died violently, realizing their death already proves difficult. Even with this realization, they might spend ages in astral realms creating their own realities.
Dom Nero couldn't identify the Palmer House's location in episode eighteen. His uncertainty about the characters' location (an astral realm tainted by Jowday) doesn't justify leaving it unexplained.
You can allow your interpretation to remain abstractly ambiguous. However, when you perceive a pattern as I did, why not fully explore it without exhausting all ideas? Perhaps someday he'll update his think piece into a more conclusive essay.
Richard Brody
Perhaps this article aimed to interpret Twin Peaks: The Return's ending in an open-ended, speculative manner.
To me, it barely exceeds a padded concealment of his inability to focus on what the title promises. Instead, he delivers a general series review with several tangents I consider irrelevant, like his discourse on violence.
If you persist through the text walls and read the entire article, you'll discover how he weaves his selected story components into a scheme that makes only vague sense. The words he employs constitute gross generalizations lacking concision and objectivity.
"Supernatural transformation," "Evil Twin," "Awakening," "Kind of a walking-trance"—really?
Richard Brody's open-ended article lost me with his interpretation of Laura Palmer's final scream as "a relieving of repressed traumas outside of a therapeutic framework."
Zach Scharf
Zach Scharf's interpretation suffers from personalizing Judy. By not viewing the greater evil behind the Black Lodge as a realm, he creates a void that complicates explaining the story's other-dimensional concepts.
I disagree with his assertion that "Carrie is Laura taken somewhere else by Judy." I believe that after 25 years, Laura had sufficient contact with Black and White Lodgers to learn how to escape the Black Lodge at minimum.
Furthermore, Judy doesn't "eliminate Laura from the timeline." Instead, Cooper saves her, creating a timeline fork where she wasn't killed. Mark Frost recently confirmed this through his shaping of the Twin Peaks canon, hinting at the timeline where Laura Palmer survived.
Conclusion
I've always appreciated the idea of interpreting David Lynch but never imagined sharing my interpretations with others. I viewed it as both a daunting task and a fool's errand. However, The Return's ending overwhelmed me too much to ignore. That ending affected me so profoundly that only after writing 3500 words did I feel I had somewhat translated my thoughts about the ending into words.
I admit I understood little during most of the series. Everything crystallized for me in the final two episodes. I wouldn't impose this interpretation on anyone and wouldn't mind seeing it refuted as I did to others. I simply thought sharing it might prove interesting.
© 2018-2025 Martin Wensley — Argumentative Essay Example: Twin Peaks: The Return