Twin Peaks Season 3 Episode 14 ‘We Are Like The Dreamer’ Recap
In many ways, Episode 14 – “We Are Like The Dreamer” – signified a champion long-distance runner bursting into a sprint on their final stretch. Episode 14 was chock full of so many teasing revelations, fresh enigmas, and a plethora of the peculiar that we have a lot to get through this week.
So, without further ado, let’s get to down to business.
I am Like the Blue Rose
We opened with Director Cole returning Frank Truman’s call via an amusingly brief conversation with Lucy. Frank informs Cole about the discovered diary pages and the Major’s message which contained “two Coopers”. We soon find out, however, that Cole shouldn’t have been too surprised by this news.
Next, we are privy to Tammy receiving a briefing from Albert about the origins of the Blue Rose task force. It all stems from a case involving a Lois Duffy who was found murdered by a young Gordon Cole and Philip Jeffries. As her body disappeared in front of them, they noticed the perpetrator was none other than Lois Duffy, who said: “I am like the Blue Rose”. Albert asks Tammy what this means and she replies that a blue rose does not occur in nature and referred to Lois’s double as a “tulpa”.
Now, after a quick look on Wikipedia, a “tulpa” is taken from Buddhist mythology and it is an independent being who is created by thought alone. It is highly likely that Dougie was created with this method, and he may not be the only one.
Speaking of Dougie, we also found out that his wife, Janey, is none other than Diane’s estranged half-sister (presumably the “E.” stands for Evans then) and this adds considerable intrigue to her brief Vegas SMS conversation in Episode 12. Whatever Diane’s level of involvement is with the happenings of Mr. C., she is definitely holding out the Feds.
After learning this, Cole phones the FBI in Vegas to ask them to start searching for a Mr. & Mrs. Douglas Jones. Helpfully, the FBI director completely fails to mention Janey, prompting Special Agent Headley to hilariously scream “… THIS IS WHAT WE DO IN THE FBI!” at Agent Wilson’s exasperation at having to investigate 23 different Douglas Joneses.
The most significant development within the opening scene, though, is when Cole recounts “another” of his Monica Bellucci dreams.
Dream Girl
After Cole is caused genuine discomfort by an agitated window cleaner’s squeegee (there was definitely an element of the Jumping Man to the silhouette’s movements), he begins to tell the others of his dream featuring the Italian actress. In Cole’s dream, he and Monica meet at a cafe in Paris (interesting fact: the location of this cafe in real life is on the same street as a Parisian gallery that featured Lynch’s “Small Stories” exhibition) and Cole also sees Cooper there, but he cannot see the agent’s face.
Monica then says the ancient phrase “We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream” and follows it with the question “But, who is the dreamer?”. Cole then looks over his shoulder and sees himself as a younger man sitting at his desk back in Philadelphia. Of course, this is a flashback to the infamous scene in Fire Walk With Me when Philip Jeffries suddenly reappeared.
Strangely, this was actually a different take to the one used in the prequel and Bowie’s accent isn’t quite as heavy here. Fundamentally, though, the scene plays out the same with Jeffries pointing to Cooper and asks “Do you know who that is there?” after ranting about Judy.
In a scene from The Missing Pieces, this sequence is considerably extended and Jeffries claims “We live inside a dream” and that he found something at Judy’s before he went to a “meeting” above a convenience store. It would be a stretch to suggest that Bellucci is supposed to represent Judy since in the same scene Jeffries says she was in Seattle. It is far more likely that Lynch was using his conversation with Monica to symbolise Jeffries’s theory instead.
Whatever the meaning of all this is though, the hunt is now on to find out how literal the dream is and who the dreamer could be.
If You Go Down to the Woods Today
The time has finally come in the town of Twin Peaks for the Sheriff’s department to make good on the notes left to them by Major Briggs. Before they head off to Jack Rabbit’s Palace, though, they finally place Chad under arrest for his likely countless misdemeanors, or maybe just because he’s such an odious prick who eats his lunch in the conference room.
The gang – consisting of Bobby, Andy, Hawk, and Frank – arrive at the place where the Major used to take Bobby as a child. At the giant tree stump, that has more than a passing resemblance to the Mauve Castle from Episodes 3 & 8, the four of them fill their pockets with soil and head 253 yards east to discover some eerie smoke, strobe lighting, a pool of tangerine liquid, and a naked woman.
The woman is Naido – the eyeless girl from Episode 3 who assisted Cooper with the electric portal – but before they can attend to her, a vortex opens above them. The policemen freeze and Andy disappears from view, leaving Hawk – Twin Peaks’s resident expert on all things Lodge – feeling pretty pissed one would imagine.
Lodging Request
Deputy Brennan finds himself in a chair in the Mauve Castle and is greeted by the Giant, who introduces himself as The Fireman. A bizarre object appears in Andy’s hands and, in a puff of smoke, he is treated to a quick recap of Episode 8 interspersed with a shot of Cooper and Mr. C. phasing between themselves and the iconic picture of Laura accompanied by the angels from FWWM’s final scenes. The sequence finishes with a shot of the “6” on the telegraph pole in the Fat Trout Trailer Park, which cuts three times, presumably suggesting “666”.
There is also a shot of Andy showing Lucy something that leaves her visibly perturbed and another of a phone on a desk with a flashing light on line 2. These are most probably a sequence of instructions to Andy of what has been and what will be. We then cut back to the tree stump as Hawk, Frank and Bobby phase back into place with no memory of what just occurred as Andy re-appears carrying Naido claiming that she is alright physically and she’s very important so she must be kept safe.
Andy’s decides the place to achieve this is to place Naido in a cell in the Sheriff’s department, right next to a fuming Chad and a bloodied drunk. This is what you get when you give such a delicate task to the guy who once smacked himself in the face with a plank.
As Chad goads Andy, the drunk repeats what Chad says verbatim and Andy and Lucy seem to be unaware of his presence. There’s something distinctly Dougie-like about the drunk’s repetition, who then starts mimicking Naido’s chirping in what appears to be a reference to when Bobby and Mike brayed at James in Season 1’s pilot. Whatever the drunk is, we find out later that he may just be a significant person of interest.
Now We’re Playing With Portals
It seems at this stage that we are supposed to believe that the Mauve Castle is the White Lodge and given that it was accessed by a near identical portal to one Cole saw with the Woodsmen waiting on the other side, what are we to make of these destinations? This particular vortex had a white centre while the previous one had a black one instead. This being the case, are we also to presume that where the Woodsmen stood is actually the Black Lodge?
This would fit in nicely with what fans have always suspected that the Red Room is indeed a waiting room between these two realms and not the actual Black Lodge, despite Sarah Palmer calling it that in Season 2’s climax. The ramifications of this are potentially huge since where the Woodsmen were stood looked to be identical to the decaying building we saw several shots of in FWWM, including the picture Laura was given by Mrs. Tremond.
And it seems these “portals” are an international phenomenon too…
A Day in the Life
Next, we get to meet the colourful cockney lad, Freddie, who is a friend and Great Northern security colleague of James Hurley. The most distinctive aspect of Freddie, apart from his wideboy accent, is that he wears a green gardening glove permanently on his right hand. The glove gives him super human strength in that hand, so get ready for the arm wrestling event of the century when Mr. C. rolls into town. As it is James’s birthday, Freddie (played charmingly by newcomer, Jake Wardle) tells him a peculiar tale from his time back in London, England.
After getting drunk one night, Freddie was taken through a vortex where he met The Fireman who gave him some (uncharacteristically) specific instructions to seek out a green gardening glove at his local hardware store and then to head to Twin Peaks, Washington. Freddie also explains to James (and American audiences) what a “jobsworth” is and throws in some lyrics from The Beatles’s “A Day in the Life”.
Although Freddie only mentions a snippet of Sgt. Pepper’s closing song, it won’t be lost on fans of Liverpool’s most famous musical export that the middle section Freddie references ends with the line “Somebody spoke and I went into a dream”.
Soon after, James goes to check on the boiler in the Great Northern basement and hears that hum again before he glances ominously towards a closed door. The basement used in this scene is the same one that David Lynch used in the extended ending to the Twin Peaks that was released as a stand alone film on VHS in Europe. In that superfluous scene, Cooper and Harry discovered BoB hiding down there and he confesses to murdering Laura. This could be significant, but it probably isn’t since that scene is not considered to be canonical in any shape or form.
She’s a Man Eater
So, it turns out there’s more than one drinking establishment in Twin Peaks. Who Knew? Well, obviously local lush Sarah Palmer does as she headed to Elk’s Point #9 Bar to enjoy a quiet bloody mary. A redneck trucker disturbs Sarah’s solace with some abhorrent language and abuse before Sarah turns to him and says “I’ll eat you”.
Suddenly, Sarah pulls her face away in the same manner as Laura in the Red Room and reveals a maelstrom of dark shapes and symbols. First, two darts shoot out of the darkness into the redneck before a left hand appears with a blackened ring finger (the spiritual mound) and a familiar smile looms out of the darkness. The smile appears to be Laura’s from her homecoming photo, but the overall impression of what lies behind the mask is more reminiscent of The Experiment.
Also, the sound of Sarah removing her face is the same as when the frog moth hatched in Episode 8. The connotations of this are myriad and murky currently but the idea that Sarah was possessed by a frog moth isn’t that hard to, er, swallow, even though she probably isn’t the young girl from New Mexico in 1956.
Sarah then replaces her face and rips out the redneck’s throat at lightning speed before feigning terror with a scream. The bar tender tells her that the cops will be coming as Sarah tells him nonchalantly that what just happened is a mystery. Looks like Sarah might be sharing a cell with Naido real soon and it’s likely that this is part of The Fireman’s plans.
The Roadhouse Round-up
While many of The Roadhouse scenes have been considered to be nonsequiturs this season; this week’s had a spine-tingling connection to events from the last two episodes. Two previously unseen girls – Sophie and Megan – start discussing a “nut place”, which apparently is best avoided, before Megan asks Sophie about Billy.
Of course, Billy is who Audrey hasn’t been able to shut up about in her two previous scenes and the penny finally drops when it is revealed that Sophie’s mother’s name is none other than Tina (presumably the same Tina that Charlie called on the phone in Episode 12). According to Sophie, who was the last person to see Billy, she last saw him in her yard with blood streaming from his nose and mouth, just like a certain drunken jailbird we saw earlier. She also seems confused as to whether her uncle was there, which could be a connection to the road rage women from Episode 11 who was taking the very sick girl to see her uncle.
The take away from this slightly clunky scene is that Audrey could well be in some kind of mental health institution (“that nut place”) but it seems that are now too many real world connections with her story for her to be living out a comatose dream. Unless, of course, she is “like the dreamer”…
Lissie plays us out this week in an episode which is fittingly dedicated to the memory of David Bowie.
So, was Episode 14 everything you ever hoped Season 3 would be and more?
Did the Fireman make a wise choice by picking Andy?
And why the f*ck did they have to put soil in their pockets anyway?
Let us know in the comments below and be sure to check back next week for our take on the forthcoming Episode 15 – “There’s Some Fear in Letting Go”
