Troubling Abstractions
Part 1 - S3e5
Version 1.0

“Troubling Abstractions”
Part 1

RANCHO ROSA

This episode was introduced with a scrolling view of Las Vegas that faded into the billboard outside of Rancho Rosa. A family of three was depicted: brunette father, blonde mother, and their blonde daughter. This represents Laura’s family as perceived by her; the mother’s blonde hair reflected Laura, not Sarah, and this was a sign of her confusion over her position in the family.
“Am I a daughter, or the matriarch, that is, the lover of the father?”

We were introduced to a man named Gene. This was a reference to “Mulholland Drive” – Gene was the name of the pool cleaner – and another accent on the theme of “family” that we were being shown here. We were also introduced to Lorraine, another “Mulholland Drive” reference: this was the name of Adam Kesher’s cheating wife, who was having an affair with the same pool cleaner. The recurring set of phrases appeared here as well: “is he inside?”
Their “Mulholland Drive” counterparts were Diane’s wish fulfillment fantasies in her own Hollywood Dreamscape. She was angry at Adam Kesher for giving her only bit parts and taking Camilla’s attention away from her, so she fantasized about the idea that he was a cuckold and on the losing end of a nasty divorce. Wish fulfillment! We will keep this idea in the back of our minds to see if these versions of Gene and Lorraine have a similar function in Laura Palmer’s dreamscape.

This dish device was a curious thing. It was located between two rails that look like train tracks, creating a visual link to the blue box car. This connection may become clearer. For now, let’s look over this scene step-by-step:

As a literal object, this dish-device was a monitor to the hidden explosive under Dougie Jones’ car. We will see that after the explosive detonates, this dish-device undergoes a very strange change in form, with no guidance needed from Lorraine.
As a metaphorical object, I think the meaning will become clearer over time. Already, we can see several recurring motifs – silver, the number seven, the number two, and radical change brought by a disaster that’s related to the body of the Father Figure.

BUCKHORN MORGUE

As we’re tracking food as a possible motif – the body of Major Briggs had an empty stomach, aside from the swallowed ring.

MR C’S PRISON CELL

Mr. C’s cell had some resemblance to the train car – a single room with blue walls and bars. Continuing to track food – Mr. C was fed orange juice, gruel, and some cut fruits, though we never see him eat them. We will keep an eye out for evidence of consumption, such as an empty tray being returned.

TWIN PEAKS, MIKE’S OFFICE

This scene may be a Meeting Of The Mind motif.
The walls had two deer on them, but only one had a gun mounted and facing it in a threatening position. This may be suggestive of The Split, with the threatened deer representing Dead Ignorant Laura. The three principle colors appeared here too, with the BLUE computer screen, Steven’s RED tie, and Mike’s GREEN one.

TWIN PEAKS, SHERIFF’S STATION

I noticed a contrast here. On the left was a white lamp styled after a totem pole, and on the right was a more modern-looking black lamp. We’ll see a similar totem pole later on Dr. Amp’s show.
I strongly suspect that Doris Truman was intended to be an abstraction of Laura Palmer herself, based on the following conversation, as well as the possible recurring theme of blonde women acting as a stand-in or abstraction of her. Let’s analyze this scene piece by piece.

If we can get a better idea of the function that Sheriff Truman has in the Dreamscape, this conversation might have more under the surface.

THE JONES’

So here we went from conversations about cars to “Sonny Jim, get in the car.” “The Return” is full of dovetail sequences like this, flowing from one dreamscape to another. 2 appeared here as well; the bush is split into two leafed parts.
Janey discussed hiding the jackpot in a secret place. Remember, jackpots, gold, and cash are abstractions of the truth about BOB/Leland. “Hiding the jackpot” is another expression of hiding the truth inside Red Room Laura and sealing her away.

She told us that the original jackpot bonus was 425,000$ and reduced to 375,000$. These numbers become 2 and 6 respectively. Both of these are negative numbers, with 2 being a symbol of the split, unhealthy, and unhealed Laura Palmer, and 6 being the number of the power pole.

In a very subtle version, The Split itself appeared again here:
As Janey was telling Cooper!Dougie about how she hid the jackpot from him, he turned to stare at Sonny Gym, crying, though both of them seemed to be “checking out” as a musical cue faded in. When the camera cut away from Sonny and back, his eyes were suddenly closed, as if dead.

The conversation between Doris and Truman was somewhat inverted here, with Truman having called someone and Cooper!Dougie being reminded to.

RANCHO ROSA

I’ll need to double back and check on this, but in this scene I believe we are shown Gene’s car for the first time – red, with two split lines. This may be a visual clue that Laura Palmer’s red room and splitting delusions are driven by genes i.e biological family.

LUCKY 7 INSURANCE

Just as a blonde woman strode past Cooper!Dougie, he was asked if he was “off in dreamland” and told that the meeting would begin in 3 minutes. This is a whisper of several ideas: Laura Palmer is the dreamer, and the dream won’t end until all three parts of her "meet."

Business was conducted on the 7 floor.
The shelves full of binders here visually recalled the memory card library in New York. There were 2 coffee carafes, 16 (7) new claims, with 2 already processed.

The processed claims were an arson claim in Littlefield – which Anthony is lying about - and a broken water main belonging to the Beakers.

Anthony’s lie was shown to CooperDougie as a very faint, flashing GREEN light. Frank was first reluctant, but ultimately happy with the substitute of GREEN tea.


2 appeared again when Mr. Mullins told CooperDougie that he missed two days of school.

THE SILVER MUSTANG

Again, the memory card imagery appeared here, this time in the form of the camera banks. Like the memory cards, it’s a field of squares and squares, each representing or capturing a difference instance.
Regarding the camera footage of CooperDougie, Lou Ming wrote that black-and-white sequences are Laura Palmer’s "experience of memory", but this part of the scene isn’t a true black-and-white. If you look closely, some hues of color are present.

The most prominent time stamp read “02:35,” an interesting mix-up of “2:53” that still adds up to 10. It’s also curious that each screen had a different time stamp.
When we are shown Dougie!Cooper, he’s standing on the “particles/stars” side of the carpet, pulling a BigPayDay machine next to a Tropical Treasure machine.

What I find very curious is that we were shown the first two winning 7s, then the camera hard cut to Candy entering the room, and then cut hard to the final 7 and winnings pouring out – as if her presence caused it. This raises some very interesting questions about what or who Candy represents. Perhaps she’s related to Carrie Page.

We were told that Cooper!Dougie won 30 jackpots – this becomes 3 by numerology. I probably don’t need to repeat myself about what these two symbols mean and how they are related.

It is also interesting to me that when the brothers turned the casino manager around to face them, the screen that we were just watching was placed directly behind the manager’s head.
We were then told that he lost the casino 425,000$ (becomes 11, becomes 2) over the course of these 30 (3) jackpots. Rodney Mitchum hit him a total of 9 times. We have yet to find a possible meaning for nine, but it is three multiplied by three.

RANCHO ROSA

There’s a lot to look at here.

The Scene:

CAR MECHANICS SHOP

Tracking the principle colors here: Jade’s outfit had BLUE and RED elements.
Her Jeep was still GOLD.
The mechanics all used BLUE and RED rags.
The hotel room key was GREEN.

THE DOUBLE R DINER

Still tracking food motifs, Becky arrived with a massive bread basket.
I noticed here a bit of emphasis on Norma’s slow, confused blinking. This bit of body language may be a recurring motif, with Carrie Page doing it herself in the finale.
More numerology: Shelley gave her daughter 72 (9) dollars, and this was the 3rd time in 2 weeks.
The Exchange motif appears here, with Becky exchanging a kiss for drugs.
This scene also seems to be a negative re-staging of the Red Room kiss, like tearing a scab to unheal a wound – perhaps this was “triggered” by the Kid’s explorations in the previous scene. There may also be a link here to the end of “FWWM.”
There was another instance of wordplay here, with Steven’s lame joke about needing/kneading bread. His insistence on buying her dinner is another instance of the food motif that we are tracking.

LUCKY SEVEN INSURANCE

We saw in “FWWM” that ascending to the seventh floor is about the truth nearly coming out in the Hayward’s living room, abstracted for us as Philip Jeffries arriving at the F.B.I Headquarters.
It’s logical that descending from the seventh floor is a symbol of the opposite action, of Laura Palmer pushing the truth back down inside of herself and choosing to stay sick.
Here we saw entanglement in action. As Becky chose to take the drugs and check out of reality, Cooper!Dougie was sent down the elevator, just as “gone” and unresponsive as Becky was. Remember: both of these are abstractions of Laura Palmer's mental splits and dissocation. This symbolism was reinforced by the emergence of many people (abstractions and repetitions) from one elevator car (Laura’s broken mind.)

DR. AMP’S SHOW

Dr. Amp is… a confusing character. Hopefully, things can become clearer if we persist. Below: “negative” refers to traits and actions that encourage Laura Palmer to remain delusional, and “Positive” refers to those that encourage her to heal.

NEGATIVE:

POSITIVE: More motifs that occurred here:
Dr. Amp had a lot to say about food and how it’s all contaminated and poisoned.
His disappearing the giant piles of dirt with a little twinkling sound are references to magic/magical thinking. Sometimes things can change, just like that.
The price point of the golden shovels is a curious one. At $29.99, this is commonly understood to be “retail speak” for $30.00 (3). This is a positive number. But if you apply the numerology to the price as-is, you get 2, a negative number.

THE PENTAGON

The first thing I noticed in this scene was “you can go in now.” This is one of the many repeated phrases in “The Return.” “You can go in now, it is in our house now,” etc. This will probably need to be categorized and labeled as a motif at some point.
This woman is named “Cindy.” This may be a play on “cinders” as in “fire.”
More numerology: Briggs’ prints were found 16 times in 25 years. Both of these numbers add up to 7. As Major Briggs is one of the most positive, high-awareness characters in the series, this isn’t surprising.

THE ROADHOUSE

This Roadhouse scene opened with a view of the sign reflected in a puddle. The sign was RED, as were many other things here: red menus, red napkin dispenser, red instruments, red cigarettes. The band here was Trouble, performing the song “Snake Eyes.” There are no lyrics.
As in the scene with Becky, money was exchanged for destructive, negative purposes. The difference here was that we actually got to see the money.
“Can I have a light?” was not quite “got a light?” but it’s worth noticing.
When Richard sexually threatened Charlotte, the lights flashed before the scene ended. Remember this because we’ll come back to it.

THE F.B.I

I don’t know what statue that is, but I might like to find out.

Consider: the scene that follows this one is a re-staging of Laura Palmer at the Hayward’s Living Room. If we apply the same timeline to this scene, then this is a re-staging of Laura Palmer going home and discovering BOB in her room – especially if we recall that Tammy Preston herself is a representation of Laura.
Both scenes are about the identity of the Father Figure, and the confusion it creates. In this abstraction, a terrifying encounter at home is reduced to photographs, fingerprints, and a look of concentration. Perhaps this change an abstraction of Laura Palmer's "real life." During "FWWM" her father was an alive and active threat, but this may be a reflection of an older Laura gazing at photographs of the deceased.

YANKTON FEDERAL PRISON

As written above, this scene is a re-staging of Laura at the Hayward’s in “FWWM.”
(There MIGHT be a connection between Mr. Strawberry and Mrs. Hayward’s huckleberry muffins.)
Remember: these abstractions and Primal Scenes layer on each other and bifurcate in complicated ways.

During this sequence, two of the security feeds were replaced by television stations. One showed a man at a workbench, the other showed three female chefs.

Now, recall the flashing lights that occurred in the Roadhouse when Richard sexually threatened Charlotte, and recall how entanglement works in the Twin Peaks Dream. Mr. C’s phone call and Richard’s assault were happening simultaneously, and they represent the same feelings that Laura Palmer would have experienced when she heard Leland’s voice on the phone: silenced, powerless, terrified, and disoriented.

BUENOS AIRES

This scene opened with a daytime view of Buenos Aires, followed immediately by a night-time view of the dish device. Now that we know where the device is, we will have to keep an eye out for possible connections to Philip Jeffries.
With Dougie Jones’ car having been detonated, the DD flashed red lights and beeped twice before dramatically shrinking and becoming a silver seed.

LUCKY 7 INSURANCE

The episode ended with Cooper!Dougie gently touching the sheriff’s statue and being politely asked to move on by a security guard. Closing track was “Windswept.” As with “Snake Eyes,” there are no lyrics.