Troubling Abstractions
Episode 7 - S3e7
Version 1.0

“Troubling Abstractions”
Episode 7

I found a few recurring themes in this episode: hands, things that happened several days ago, and tones/hums.

SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS TWIN PEAKS, WA | 0

As of right now we’re not entirely sure what role Jerry Horne is to play, but I’ve always enjoyed the sort of Hermit&Student relationship that he has with Dr. Amp in this season. In this scene, the way he gazed into the woods with panic reminded me of Laura doing the same in the Nighttime Visit Primal Scene. Ben Horne said “Jerry” 4 times when he answered the phone.

SHERIFF’S STATION TWIN PEAKS, WA | 3:34

Hawk’s pointing and saying “this is what I found” may be a ”Mulholland Drive” Reference, an echo of the line “this is the girl.”
“This is the girl” was used twice in “MD.”

• 1. In Diane’s dreamscape, “this” is a photograph of a young actress that the Hollywood Mob shows to Adam. They tell him that “this” is the girl that he will be casting in a film that is “no longer his.”
• 2. In Diane’s waking life, “this” is a photograph of Camille that Diane gives to the hitman in order to have her killed.

And finally here in “The Return,” “this” is the missing diary pages that reveal Laura Palmer’s dream of Annie and Dale.

A numerology note: there were 4 total pages, these 3 crucial pages were just found, but 1 was still missing. “I KNOW IT ISN’T BOB. I KNOW WHO IT IS.” was written at 01:30 → which becomes 4.

Hawk theorized that Leland was the one to hide these important pages, but this was never confirmed if I recall correctly. Either way, the direct lead from “I know who it is” to “I’m sure it was Leland . . .” seemed like a very deliberate choice. Both of these men know the truth about Leland/BOB, and the truth was written on the evidence before them - so it is only fitting that the Arch of Laura Palmer’s bedroom appeared behind them, as it often does in the Sheriff’s Station.

TWIN PEAKS, WA | 8:16

We might want to consider adding a truck theft motif. Other theories have considered the idea that this motif reflects an alternate timeline in which Laura Palmer stole a truck when she ran away from home that night. A fundamental structure of “Find Laura” is that nothing new is added to her dreamscape after her “murder,” but it’s an interesting idea. Now, let’s look at the conversation between the truck driver and Andy:

• “I can’t talk about this here” → “It cannot be said aloud now”
• Andy needs to know who was driving the truck (→ who was *really* piloting the body of Laura Palmer’s abuser?)
• The truck driver is killed off-screen before he can tell Andy → the truck driver is another character who has been silenced for being a threat to The Lie And Secret Of BOB
• The logging road above Sparkwood and 21 → This road junction was the site of the Nighttime Primal Scene between Laura and James
• The motif of mirrors and doubles appears here - Andy mentions a Jones family that lives in Twin Peaks, a reflection of the one we’ve been watching in Las Vegas. Will they make an appearance?
• Andy and the truck driver plan to meet in two hours, at 4:30 (7)

SHERIFF STATION TWIN PEAKS, WA | 9:13

On the shelves behind Sheriff Truman I saw statues of an owl and a proud buck, something like a magnifying glass, and an interesting sculpture that resembles corn with with a fish head hanging off of the stalk. His badge had number 271 on it – becoming 10, the number of completion. The fishing motif appeared here in the conversation between these men. Doc Hayward adds the number 2 by catching two fish.
There was another wordplay joke here too. Even the huckleberries from Laura’s Primal Scene appeared here, as the jam on Doc’s English Muffin. The number 6 appeared when we learned that it took about 60 minutes for Mr. C to enter the intensive care unit and rape an unconscious Audrey.
A small detail: as Sheriff Truman leaned forward to make his Skype call, the camera moved as well, and these completely blocked the owl statue on his shelf. BOB was often linked to owls, especially in the original two seasons. Perhaps Sheriff Truman intends to “block” BOB and keep prying ears out of this conversation between two abstractions on “the sunny side of the river.”

POLICE STATION BUCKHORN, ND | 13

The filing cabinets that appeared here are another reiteration of the Memory Storage Cards in New York. I can see part of the 5 – 3 – 1 sequence here, with the 1 being the mystery of the cadaver, the 3 being [Cindy + (Constance + Detective Mackalay)], but where is the 5?
The body of Major Briggs was given these numerological characteristics: late forties (4), and dead for 4 or 5 days.
The Split appeared here in the conversation between Lt. Knox and Colonel Davis; one thing became two things as soon as she recalled that the head was missing. Major Briggs’ body being the wrong age is presented to us like time-travel or alternate universe shenanigans, but it’s an abstraction of Laura Palmer’s trauma “freezing” her mind at an age that, like Major Briggs’ body, is not congruent with reality or logic. A corpse in the mind of a healthy Laura Palmer would obey the rules of logic and this would have shown us a man in his seventies – this becomes 7, a healing number.

The Woodsman and the hum that follows them appeared behind Cindy as she continued to elaborate that the HEAD was NOT HERE, though she didn’t seem to notice him at all. When I first watched this show, these beings reminded me of pilot fish or scavengers; small creatures that depend on a bigger predator like Mr. C to keep them fed and safe. We will see if we can decode what they mean in the context of “Find Laura.”

GORDON COLE’S OFFICE | 17

So we got from the low, ominous buzz of the Woodsmen to Gordon Cole’s birdlike whistling, and we go from their blackened and diseased appearance to a portrait of golden, healthy corn. I tried to look up what tune Gordon was whistling, but I couldn’t find a definite answer. Some said it was the whistling of Rammstein’s “Engel,” others related it to the little bird in the opening sequence of the first two seasons of “Twin Peaks.”
Larger than this corn’s golden fertility was the looming, ominous portrait of a nuclear explosion in black-and-white; remember that these explosions are an abstraction of Leland’s sexual abuse, and black-and-white is “Laura’s experience of memory.” If Laura Palmer were healthier, we might find these photos reversed, with a massive portrait of bounteous corn and a smaller display of destruction instead of what we see here.

On the bookshelf I noticed an eagle statue that was similar to Sheriff Truman’s proud buck, with three light switches turned off behind it. There was a rather abstract print on the wall as well, with a mysterious, billowing red figure emerging from blue glaciers – or is it descending from the sky?

DIANE’S APARTMENT / ON A PRIVATE PLANE | 18

I’ve been looking forward to examining the character of Diane. We’re not entirely sure what her role is, but let’s consider two possibilities for now:

• The All-Laura?: all things Diane come in wild splashes of black, white, red, and blue. She may be an amalgamation of four Lauras: black “bad Laura,” white “Good Laura,” blue Dead Laura, and Red Room Laura.
• Red Room Laura?: the monochrome shades in Diane may represent only the chevrons on the Red Room Floor, not contrasts between four different Lauras. The two green chairs in front of the audience are an echo of the chairs in the Red Room, and the pounding on the door is an echo of American Girl’s “My Mother Is Coming!”

Either way, Diane knows the horrible truth that the rest of the dreamscape is twisting itself in knots to avoid. Gordon Cole says: “[Visiting Mr. C] is extremely important, and it involves something that you know about.” At this point, however, it still cannot be said aloud, so he adds: “and that’s enough said about that.”
On the plane, two appeared again, as well as this episode’s recurring mention that something strange happened several days ago – they’d seen Mr. C in his cell two days ago. This episode’s particular focus on hands appears here as well, in Gordon Cole’s interaction with Tammy Preston. Also of note:

• *He counts all ten fingers
• “I’m very, very happy to see you again, old friend” – as Mr.C said in a previous episode
• The spiritual mound is defined as the same finger that one places wedding rings. Is this a connection to LMAP’s declaration in the Convenience Store? “With this ring, I thee wed.”

YANKTON FEDERAL PRISON, SD | 23

Ten appeared here – Diane wanted to spend no more than ten minutes in Mr. C’s presence. There’s a big spoonful of David Lynch’s love of golden-era media: the interrogation room (?) with Mr. C resembles a control room for a radio station or classic television, and he reassured her that she had total control of the “curtain and microphones.”

As said above: we are not yet sure of Diane’s role in the dreamscape. Is she an abstraction of all Lauras, Red Room Laura, or can she shift between these roles as needed? For now, she seemed to be acting as Red Room Laura – not just in dress, but in her ability to remember a night of sexual assault from the dreamscape’s Father Figure, with no confusion about his identity. This won’t last, however.
Her desperate “who are you?” was an echo of the Primal Scene between Laura and Leland, and she pleaded with Mr. C to “look at me” 2 times. Warden Murphy’s horizontal step out of his office a moment later was a visual echo of Cooper in the Red Rooms, and people walking around corners in the film “Lost Highway.”

Outside the prison, the dialogue between Diane and Gordon Cole: “that is not the Dale Cooper that I knew” → has this meeting with Mr. C derailed her understanding of the situation? When she arrived, she knew, she remembered that Dale Cooper raped her that night, but now she seems to believe that something has turned him into a different person. Something “isn’t. here.” Is this an echo of Cindy’s saying the HEAD isn’t HERE?

Something “isn’t HERE” inside Dale Cooper, and now Diane believes that her friend and her rapist are two different minds in one body. Major Briggs’ head isn’t HERE. Both missing items are related to the same idea – Laura Palmer “lost her head” and started believing in the very same split consciousness between Leland and BOB.

THE LOGGING ROAD / YANKTON FEDERAL PRISON | 30

As Mr. C was returned to his cell, the brief scene of fog rolling through the mountains of Twin Peaks seemed to be played in reverse. The visual motif of waves appeared here in the winding road that Andy was waiting on. He gave up on waiting for the truck driver at 5:05 (10) or perhaps 5:05:45 (2).

There were two fish hanging in Warden Murphy’s office. The Memory Card Motif was here as well, this time as filing cabinets. The gumball machine on his desk may have been a visual abstraction of The Evolution Of The Arm, or more likely, the idea of Many (gumballs) residing inside the One (sphere, machine.) Mr. C’s demand to be released at 1 AM is notable; based on the diary pages discovered in this episode, this was the approximate time when Leland raped Laura. Will Mr. C’s release from prison be a re-enactment of this event?

LUCKY SEVEN INSURANCE LAS VEGAS, NV | 34

In the last episode, we saw Janey-E take the place of Ignorant Dead Laura as she was allowed to finally learn the truth about her father. This might be reflected in the light switches in Dougie’s office, as two of three are flipped on; Red and Blue Laura know the truth, but they have yet to be reunited into the third Laura.

THE GREAT NORTHERN / BEVERLEY'S HOUSE TWIN PEAKS, WA | 42

Tones seem to be a recurring theme in this episode. The ominous hum of The Woodsmen became the tune whistled by Gordon Cole became the inexplicable but pleasant tone heard by Ben and Beverly. She said the tone started “sometime last week.” All these events that happened several days ago are perhaps connected in some way – the apparent death of Major Briggs, the disappearance of Dougie’s car, Gordon and Albert meeting Mr. C, and now this mysterious ring.

The use of rings in this scene is very curious.
This ringing tone is a positive one. It's pleasant to the ear, and it brings them closer together and sparks a romantic moment between them. They never "find" the ring, let alone find a way to "take the ring" upon themselves. However, Bev has already taken a ring - the one around her neck that hangs like a burden, a symbol of her troubled marriage. If Bev accepts a positive love into her life, will this ring disappear?
The number of her home is 16832, becoming 2. As we’re tracking food: Tom forced himself NOT to eat until his wife came home. A fireplace appeared here too, dark and unlit, with his back turned to it and the room around him a cluttered mess.

THE ROADHOUSE | 49

An unusual daytime scene. I’ve read two popular opinions on this one:

• 1. It’s an excuse to insert a Renault and please the fans
• 2. It’s David Lynch tricking the audience into meditating by intensely focusing on something as simple as a guy sweeping the floor

Can we find something else here?

• Jean-Michel answers a ringing phone. This is the first time we’ve heard a phone ringing in this episode – every other character was already in the middle of a conversation, so the ring was missed
• Two girls were ordered by a John, though he refuses to pay for it
• Both girls were blonde
• ”How old?” is a question that recalls Laura Palmer’s “frozen” inner age or sense of self
• The Roadhouse was owned for 57 years (3) and is now threatened by 2 15-year olds (6, or is it 15 + 15 becomes 3?)
• The girls are underage prostitutes at night and overachieving model students during the day, as Laura was.

I don’t entirely agree with Lou Ming’s exclusion of “Laura Palmer’s Secret Diary.” It may be possible to cross-reference and discover an event that happened to her at 15.

YANKTON FEDERAL PRISON, SD | 53

As written above: is the release of Mr. C a re-enactment of Laura discovering Leland on top of her while being assaulted?
The first few seconds of this scene appears to be a true black-and-white shot, unlike the false monochrome that we saw in the casino’s security footage. According to Lou Ming this is Laura’s Experience of Memory. If black-and-white is “memory,” is color “delusion” or “magical thinking”?

• The scene starts in black and white → Laura was still living in reality
• The guard’s flashlight introduces blue → Laura reaches for BOB’s face, discovers Leland isntead, and becomes “enlightened.” Also, remember that blue is also the color of Dead Delusional Laura and Blue Roses of False Realities
• Mr. C walks out in full color → BOB walks out in full color → Laura Palmer invents a “colorful” story about BOB possesing her father. If she hadn't, we'd see Leland walking out of the cell.
• Ray appears in color and approaches Mr. C, they leave together in the same car → two people leave in one car, in full color → a “colorful” delusion that two consciousnesses can exist in one body

It’s also notable that Mr. C was in Cell #27 (3).
The descension of multiple flights of stairs may be an inversion of Mr. C walking up the stairs to meet with Jeffries in a later episode.

• Mr. C wants to speak with Jeffries, and Jeffries is hidden in the Motel, one of the most secretive and abstrated parts of the reamscape. Mr. C goes up the stairs.
• Here, Mr. C is re-enacting a Primal Scene and the delusions that blossomed from it, so he goes down the stairs like an infection taking root - a terrible thing that was created in these upper, hidden parts of her mind and blown through the rest of her nervous system on an ominous wind.

CLOSING SCENE, THE RR DINER, TWIN PEAKS WA | 55

The previous scene was yet another re-staging of that horrific event in Laura Palmer’s life, and of the delusion that followed. This negativity, now refreshed and strong, is shown to us as a dark and ominous wind that blows through the trees – her neurons, her dendrites.
The patrons in this scene changed position and outfit when the stranger charged in asking for “Billy,” and this reminds us that Laura Palmer’s mind is still quite split in two pieces, two realities.
I Am Dead, Yet I Live.
Other theories have suggested that “Billy” is the grotesque and bleeding drunk in the Twin Peaks jail cell, but we will see if this holds up in “Find Laura.”