Twin Peaks Finale: Did All of Our Questions Get Answered? (Nope!)

That wasn't the finale we were expecting...and it wasn't the finale we wanted, either

By Lauren Piester Sep 04, 2017 3:37 AMTags
Watch: How Did David Lynch Keep Secrets on Set of "Twin Peaks"?

It's all over, once again, and once again we're left going, "what the f--k?!" 

It's possible that tonight's Twin Peaks finale made sense, but it's also very possible that it made no sense at all, and that it was a bad way to end this series for the second time. But then again we could also accept an argument that it was a good ending to the series, even if we don't feel emotionally satisfied, you know? 

Basically, Agent Cooper turned back time and erased the things that started this series in the first place. 

After Cooper returned to Twin Peaks and helped to send Evil Cooper back to the lodge, he ended up in the past. Specifically, he ended up in 1989, when Laura and James were on a sort of date that went wrong in the woods. Laura freaked out, but Cooper took her hand, and suddenly her body disappeared from the beach and life went on as usual back in 1989. 

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Twin Peaks: Then and Now

25 years later (maybe?), Cooper found Laura (or some version of her calling itself Carrie Page, who had just murdered a man) and begged her to come back to Twin Peaks with him to see her mother, Sarah. But when they got to Sarah's house, Sarah didn't live there. It was instead a woman by the name of Tremond, who had never heard of Sarah Palmer, and who had bought her house from a woman by the name of Chalfont. 

Those names are significant because in the original series, there was an old woman named either Mrs. Chalfont (after the Chalfonts who lived in her trailer before her) or Mrs. Tremond who was on Laura's (and later Donna's) Meals on Wheels route and who hated creamed corn. But when Donna and Cooper went back to her apartment later on, a different woman who also called herself Mrs. Tremond and Mrs. Chalfont was living there. We don't know what any of this means, but it's a thing. 

Showtime

Anyway, back out on the street, Cooper suddenly asked "What year is this?" And Laura/Carrie stared for a second, then started to scream while all the lights went out. And then it ended. 

Those are the basics of what happened in that two hour finale, aside from the fact that Cooper and Diane drove for a really long time (430 miles, the number Cooper was supposed to remember) before stopping at a motel and having sex, which was strangely very unsexy despite the people who were having it. Cooper didn't look engaged in it at all, and Diane kept having to cover his face with her hands while she maybe had a good time. 

Then, in the morning, she left a note calling him Richard and signing it Linda (AKA those names Cooper was supposed to remember), saying that what they once had was no longer working. So Cooper continued on and found the diner where Laura was working as a waitress, threatened a few cowboys, and then tracked her down at her house before taking her back to Twin Peaks. 

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25 Facts About Twin Peaks That Might Surprise You

As for everyone else in town, we last saw Lucy, Andy, the sheriff, Gordon, the Mitchum brothers, the lady with no eyes, and the guy with the crazy fist after evil Cooper was sent back to the lodge (with help from Lucy, who shot him, and fist guy, who punched him) and BOB was defeated as a disembodied head. Cooper basically said it was all a dream, and the lady with no eyes went back to the lodge and was replaced by Diane, and then Cooper ended up on some crazy trip to meet with the disembodied voic of Phillip Jeffries. 

Audrey was nowhere to be found, so we got no explanation for the end of the last episode, when she woke up in a white room staring at her own reflection. Shelly, Becky, Norma, Ed, Nadine, Jerry, Ben, etc etc made no appearances. That box in New York is still mostly a mystery. The darkness behind Sarah Palmer's face is still a mystery. Everything, pretty much, is still a mystery. 

 

Showtime

Like the Starks' returns to Winterfell this season of Game of Thrones, Cooper's return to Twin Peaks was wonderful yet brief and without the fanfare it deserved. Same with his Diane hook-up, which was beyond awkward to the point where we would have been better off without it. 

We just want to know what year this is, and we're kind of feeling like we're never going to know. We also kind of feel like we were waiting for a finale that was going to leave us feeling better than the original one did, and that's not exactly what we ended up getting. At least this time, we can rest easy that Cooper's not possessed by BOB and Laura Palmer's still alive. Or she never existed? Who knows? 

The happiest ending came for our least favorite characters (aside from Evil Cooper). A brand new Dougie was made just for Janey-E and Sonny Jim, who were delighted to have their doofus of a husband and father back. And we were weirdly, unexpectedly happy for them. 

Anyway, that's it. It's over. We never have to hear the name Dougie again. We leave you with this, our favorite Twin Peaks closed caption: [faintly ominous whooshing] 

Good night. 

Twin Peaks aired on Showtime.