From the perspective of the Lodge creatures, the Woodsmen are bottom feeders who feast on leftover garmonbozia while spreading disease and being a general nuisance. They swarm around the Convenience store like flies over fruit but never or rarely seem to actually enter it, implying that they are unwelcome, again, much like pest bugs. The reason the old lady woodsman appears so terrified in Fire Walk With Me is because the Lodge creatures are trying to conduct a pest control operation on the Fat Trout Trailer Park and kill off every Woodsman they see to clean it up.While the Woodsmen do revive BOB/Cooper, this is just another reason they are a pest to the Lodge creatures: they keep an unwanted doppelganger alive longer than needed to feed off of more garmonbozia and obstruct any action The Arm could take against BOB, making them even more of a nuisance. It's possible they are bottom-feeders and pests who have become self-conscious and are trying to avenge themselves on their exterminators.
- The series ends with the Woodsmen popping heads and sickening everyone around the portals in the world
- Jossed. The Return makes it clear she was created, or at least "chosen", by The White Lodge.
BOB's plan in kidnapping Laura and Ronette seems to be to torture Laura into letting him take control of her body, perhaps casting off Leland after. When MIKE throws her the ring, and she puts it on, BOB howls in frustration and murders her. This suggests that the ring can protect the wearer from being possessed by BOB somehow. Its origins and purpose are mysterious—it may be related to the White Lodge—and would likely have been explored had there been any continuation of the series beyond Fire Walk With Me. A rough theory:
- Theresa Banks has possession of the ring before the start of the series. Leland singles her out in Flesh World to sleep with. BOB finding the one person in the world with the artifact that can resist him cannot be a coincidence.
- As The Missing Pieces reveals, Theresa discovered that Leland was Laura's father (she was acquainted with Laura and Ronette, and perhaps carried on a sexual relationship with them), and it's implied that she tries to blackmail him with this knowledge. BOB, enraged, murders her. Theresa loses the ring, perhaps during the murder, and it winds up underneath her trailer...somehow.
- Chet Desmond discovers the ring beneath the trailer. It's implied that the spirits of the Black Lodge kidnap him. The Man From Another Place suggests that they can "descend from pure air" by traveling through electricity; this is also how they kidnapped Phillip Jeffries. The ring, and Chet Desmond, are now at the Black Lodge. David Bowie is aware of the ring's existence, perhaps due to his visit to the Lodge, and mentions it during his ramblings in the FBI office.
- The Man From Another Place and BOB seem to treat the ring with disdain. The former sarcastically offers it to BOB and says "With this ring, I thee wed," and BOB laughs.
- MIKE/Phillip Gerard is the next person to take physical possession of the ring, perhaps while visiting the Lodge. He later throws it to Laura to prevent BOB from possessing her.
- However, in a scene midway through the film, The Man From Another Place and Cooper discuss the ring. The Man From Another Place offers it to Laura, and Dale—realizing some horrible truth—tells her not to take it. Annie appears in Laura's bed during the sequence, and tells her to write about Dale in her diary. Annie is wearing the ring.
- More than likely Cooper warned her not to take the ring to try and prevent her murder, possibly after or during the final events of The Return. BOB planned to possess Laura after assaulting her but was unable to do so because of the ring, and killed her in a rage. Had she not had the ring she would have lived, though possessed by BOB - and Cooper has already learned how to exorcise BOB, with or without the ring to do so.
- However, in a scene midway through the film, The Man From Another Place and Cooper discuss the ring. The Man From Another Place offers it to Laura, and Dale—realizing some horrible truth—tells her not to take it. Annie appears in Laura's bed during the sequence, and tells her to write about Dale in her diary. Annie is wearing the ring.
I think that Laura carried the ring with her into the Black Lodge when she died, and passed it along to Annie to protect her from possession when the latter was in the Lodge. The Black Lodge exists separately from regular linear time; when Coop and The Man From Another Place discuss it, it is simultaneously happening in the past (Laura's dream) and the future (after Annie's escape from the Lodge at the end of season two). She gives it to Annie to protect her from BOB, who may have targeted her after failing to possess Laura and losing Leland. He gains control over Coop, anyway, who's probably a more useful catspaw, so the point is ultimately moot.
- In The Missing Pieces, the same scene between Coop and The Man From Another Place plays out, except this time, the ring is not there. Cooper notices its absence, and is told that it's in someone else's (Annie's) possession. Because of the nature of the Lodge, both versions of the scene happen simultaneously. Cooper tells Laura not to take the ring, because if she had it in the past, she wouldn't be able to give it to Annie in the future, and Annie would be vulnerable to BOB. Cooper realizes the paradox, and believes that Laura will die regardless of whether or not she takes the ring. But, if she does take it, Annie won't have it to protect herself from BOB. So he urges her to leave it where it is, knowing that events will work out anyway.
Cooper and Laura are seen together at the end of the film. Perhaps Cooper's spirit AND Laura both conspire to give the ring to Annie, implying that Cooper's spirit (trapped in the Lodge by BOB) exists separately, and outside space/time, from the Cooper who enters the Lodge in pursuit of Windom Earle.
- As a final note—and as more evidence that the Lodge exists outside of space/time—David Bowie angrily points to Dale and demands to know if Cole knows who he is. Perhaps David Bowie became aware of Cooper, and BOB's doppelganger, while he was in the Lodge. Coop's entrapment and subsequent possession happen AFTER David Bowie reappears in Philadelphia. Because of how disoriented he is, he doesn't realize that he's talking to the real Cooper, or even perhaps that he's traveled through time.
- Which makes the part in The Missing Pieces where he notices it's February 1989 even more interesting. Maybe he thought he'd actually gone further into the future, to a point where Dale was replaced by the doppelganger. But instead, he's delivering a warning too early instead, because none of the events have happened yet.
David Bowie continually refers to a "Judy" in Fire Walk With Me, but we never find out who "Judy" is. He is also aware of the ring, and the spirits of the Black Lodge.
The ring is an artifact from the White Lodge, and Judy was either its creator, or original owner. Judy—or JUDY, in keeping with the capslock motif—is the White Lodge equivalent of MIKE; perhaps MIKE (who repented of his evil) was her shadow-self. She may have a familiar, akin to BOB. That MIKE has the ring before the series' timeframe could illustrate this connection.
JUDY may be the angel who visited Laura and Ronette, or the angel could be her familiar, as BOB once was to MIKE.
- But in The Missing Pieces, Judy is described by Philip Jeffries and the hotel staff in Buenos Aires in terms that seem to indicate she is a real person rather than a Lodge spirit, an informant for Jeffries of some kind, with a place in Seattle where he "found something" which resulted in him going to one of their meetings "above the convenience store".
- Likewise, in the "Above the Convenience Store" scene, we see the "formica table" with a circle cut out of the tabletop as the Little Man From Another Place rubs his hands over it, before he says to BOB, "With this ring, I thee wed" and they both laugh. This indicates to me that the ring has a Black Lodge, not White origin. It does seem to prevent the wearer from being possessed, but it also seems to doom them to death with the resulting garmonbozia (pain and suffering) becoming the property of the Little Man From Another Place (The Arm of MIKE). When Laura puts the ring on, BOB does shout in frustration (with Leland saying "don't make me do this!"), but we see clips of the Little Man laughing hysterically, as if he has won the game.
- Oh, you mean the arm that had "been touched by the devilish one"?
- Seemingly confirmed by The Return; "The Fireman" as he's named appears in what seems to be the White Lodge, and may in fact be responsible for the creation of Laura as a counter to BOB.
Without avatars to project their influence through, things start getting weird. Instead of only a couple of people with ties to the powers of good and evil, now the powers seem to "leak" out into the world. This brings us to Twin Peaks. The black lodge has Killer BOB, the white lodge has (perhaps) the giant. The two lodges try to influence people in the real world using dreams. Windom Earl, a truly evil soul, is being contacted by the black lodge. The hope to use him as their pseudo-avatar. Likewise, agent Cooper is being contacted by the white lodge, who need a truly good soul to defeat evil. The show was cancelled before this could be resolved, and the series ends with Cooper trapped (perhaps forever) in the black lodge.
As David Lynch has confirmed that Lost Highway takes place in the Twin Peaks universe, and since Mulholland Dr. was originally meant to be a spinoff for Audrey, it can be assumed that these two movies play by the same rules. People are influenced by the two lodges, each trying to gain a foothold in reality without the use of a proper Avatar. As Mulholland Drive is revealed to be mostly a dream meant to cover up the main character's murder of her lover, this could be either the white lodge trying to make her face what she's done, or the black lodge trying to make her forget about it and join them. Similarly, many parts of Lost Highway can be explained as visions from the lodges, the Mystery Man being a creature similar to Killer BOB, etc.
It must be remembered that time moves differently in the lodges than on our plane of reality. In the Twin Peaks prequel movie, Laura is warned about events that won't happen until the series proper. With that in mind, let's take a look at events that happened in Middlesex, Virginia. The year is 1988, and Donnie Darko is a troubled teenager who frequently sleepwalks. He also has vivid dreams. One day, a vision of Frank the rabbit tells him to leave his room. Donnie does so, and his bed is then destroyed by a mysterious falling airplane turbine. Donnie is told that he has 28 days to prevent the world from being destroyed. Clearly, the white lodge is using Frank as it's voice to help Donnie save the world. In the director's cut, Donnie is often seen to "download" information, with close-ups of his eye and many numbers and images flashing by. The Word of God on this is that the information is coming from unseen beings from the future. In actual fact, this is the White Lodge giving Donnie info on future events which he needs to prevent. The story of Donnie Darko plays out over the course of about a month, before Donnie travels back in time and saves the world by letting the airplane turbine kill him instead of leaving his bed. The events that took place during most of the movie end up never happening. They were erased from existence. Of course, the two lodges still remember them, as they exist outside of normal time.
The earlier mentioned Lost Highway is likely a similar story to Donnie Darko, with one or more of the lodges creating increasingly disturbing alternate realities to try and aid their pseudo-avatar on earth. It's possible that the events of Mulholland Drive aren't a dream meant to influence Betty into one lodge or the other, but an alternate timeline that she destroys by traveling back and committing suicide. It's very probably that similar events happen very frequently. Perhaps it's one of the lodges itself that creates these alternate realities in a bid to save the world, or maybe it's the trapped agents Cooper and/or Jeffries trying to get someone to rescue them. Either way, these realities can't last too long, or the world eventually ends.
What happens if one of these alternate realities is not destroyed in a fairly timely manner? Southland Tales is what happens. It's not all that obvious in the feature proper, due to half of the story being told in a tie in graphic novel (whatever idiot thought that would work should be shot), but Southland Tales can best be described as the future of Donnie Darko's tangent universe. Since Donnie sacrificed himself and closed the tangent universe, our reality was saved. However, he did not destroy the alt. universe, instead simply closing it off. Since the tangent universe can no longer effect out own, neither lodge is influencing it. This means that the white lodge isn't acting to save this world, nor it the black lodge acting to destroy or rule it.
This universe begins to fall apart, starting with the discovery of the "fluid karma" that the Treer company finds while drilling of the coast of Israel. Fluid Karma is an organic compound the circles around the earth like a serpent. It can be assumed that our primary universe also has fluid karma, but it's only reachable through one of the lodges. It's likely that fluid karma is what flowed through the old avatars' blood streams (hence why their blood was blue). With no lodge to control the Southland Tales alternate universe, fluid karma leaks out into reality. Another side-effect is "Operation Dream Theory." Here's what the Southland Tales faq page on imdb has to say about that:
"'Operation Dream Theory' was an experiment created by Treer. The Treer generators were slowing the rotation of Earth by .0000006 miles per hour, which caused strange effects around the world.One of these was a rift created in the fourth dimension — the fourth dimension being time itself — at Lake Meade, which was discovered when an airplane flew through it and had all its passengers left with amnesia (bar one - Krysta Now, who gained psychic abilities from it).Once it was discovered, they sent monkeys through it, which failed (Boxer claims that only a human soul could survive the trip). After much trial and error with monkies, Baron decided to send Boxer through it - chosen because of his political ties and his celebrity persona.When Boxer (and Roland) traveled through the rift, it created duplicate versions of both — one set of duplicates traveled 69 minutes back in time, while the "originals" stayed in their original time. There are now two versions of each co-existing in the same universe — two Boxer Santaros and two Roland Taverners.Boxer's original self was incinerated in a car bomb triggered by Serpentine, while the duplicate Boxer is still roaming. "
Reality itself is falling apart. It becomes up to the two Roland Taverners to save (or more likely, destroy and rebuild) their crumbling, neglected universe. The tattoos of various religions and beliefs that cover Boxer's body and are "fighting to see who will will" could be seen as meaning what faith the new universe will follow after the destruction of the current one. After all, the predominant force in the "real" reality has always been the two lodges, absent from this universe. The movies ends with the Jesus tattoo bleeding, Christianity is the victor, and the new reality will follow the rules of this faith.
At the end of season two, when Andrew Packard opens the safe deposit box, triggering the bomb placed in it, we see only his glasses flying out of the blast. The reason for this is because the elderly bank clerk is actually another incarnation of the Man from Another Place/The Giant who transported both Pete and Audrey to the Black Lodge (or the place with the red curtains, depending on the fact you believe this is actually the Black Lodge or just a buffer zone between the Black and White lodges) mere seconds before the entire building exploded. With Dale Cooper having switched places with BOB, the third season would have started with all three of them trying to get out of the Black Lodge.
At least to begin with / the pilot. The eccentricities he shows and obsession with minutiae like the names of trees and varieties of squirrels is essentially him being condescending to the locals. Either that, or he thinks that if he keeps sweet-talking the town as much as possible, he'll end up in everyone's favor, which will help his investigation. The explanation that he is whittling because "that's what you do in a town where a yellow light still means slow down instead of speed up" could easily be interpreted as sarcasm. How he feels as things get crazier is up to speculation.
The inhabitants of the Black Lodge are in fact exiled programs. Dale Cooper is an Agent assigned to track down and eliminate BOB, who, in his spare time from serving as the Trainman, terrorizes the inhabitants of Twin Peaks.
I think Pierre, a.k.a. the grandson, a.k.a. the creamed corn kid, is really Phillip Jeffries. It's either an inhabiting spirit thing or Jeffries is reverted to child form in certain incarnations. (I lean towards the latter.) My supporting points:
1. Pierre's got some David Bowie hair going on, and his little black suit is very FBI.
2. The monkey, who might also be Pierre (remember the mask scene in Phillip's story), talks about Judy.
3. Phillip has been to one of their meetings. I didn't see Phillip in the meeting scene, but I did see Pierre...with his black suit and David Bowie hair. "Fell a victim," he says. Could be a self-referential comment.
- Phillip Michael Gerard committed vile acts to allow him access to the Black Lodge, where he was met with his doppelganger: MIKE.
- The "Fire Walk With Me" poem either is or merely describes the summoning incantation of BOB, conjuring him out of the Black Lodge and into the mortal world.
- MIKE possessed Phillip Michael Gerard and conjured up BOB in order to go about having their wicked fun.
- MIKE "saw the face of God" and decided to, erm, sever his ties with BOB and the Black Lodge, thus cutting his arm off, which became The Man From Another Place.
- BOB and The Man From Another Place still harbor the same connection on some level, which is why the latter demands his garmonbozia in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
- After MIKE "saw the face of God", it would seem Phillip Michael Gerard didn't agree with his Dweller On The Threshhold's new lease on life, since he kept MIKE suppressed with anti-psychotic drugs.
- It's also possible that Phillip does agree with his new point of view and is instead hiding MIKE's presence in case others from the Black Lodge come looking for him.
- Mrs. Chalfont/Mrs. Tremond/Grandmother is likewise a dugpa of the Black Lodge, and her "Grandson" is her Familiar, hence why/how he's able to snatch the cream corn(?) away.
- She has a big crush on Cooper and considers him a friend and he disappears for 25 years? I think that could inspire someone to join the FBI to search for answers.
- She made an awfully big show of making sure Andrew and Pete knew where the key to the safety deposit box was. It is possible she took whatever had been put into Thomas Eckhart's deposit box for herself and planted a bomb in it, knowing that Andrew would take the key and check it out himself. She may or may not have anticipated Pete going with him.
- Jossed. The Secret History of Twin Peaks reveals the actual culprit: Josie Packard.
- Cooper's full name is actually Dale Bartholomew Cooper. While David Lynch did this intentionally as an allusion, there could be a possibility that the two men are the same person. Also, D.B. Cooper had parachuted out of the plane he hijacked over the Pacific Northwest, so it can be assumed that maybe he landed near Twin Peaks? The report regarding the hijacking case described a man who fit a description similar to that of Agent Cooper in the series. It is also implied throughout the series that Coop has a darker side than we're shown as an audience, and had the show continued, it probably would have explored that. This is David Lynch, after all, so the possibility of the two being the same person is definitely there.
- She will play the version of Laura who is presumably still in the Black Lodge, since it makes sense that Laura would still appear to be roughly the age she was when she died; Sheryl Lee, meanwhile, will actually play another character altogether, possibly the redheaded cousin of Laura and Maddy who Word of God has stated was to be Lee's character in Season 3.
- She will play a child Laura had in secret and gave up for adoption prior to the events of Fire Walk With Me.
- She will play a new victim murdered in an identical manner to Laura, whose death will spark off the events of the new series, and who will act as a reference to both Laura and Lilly.
- Most likely she will play the new character introduced by Mark Frost, Tamara Preston.
- Jossed, somewhat: She is Shelly's daughter, Becky, who is married to a man who abuses drugs and abuses them herself.
- Jossed as of Season 3, episode 6.
- Alternately, he's one of Cooper's alternate personalities, a la Evil Coop and "Dougie". He'll most likely be allowed to stay as his own separate entity outside of the Black Lodge, because he isn't doing anything evil or illegal, like Coop's other doppelgängers are.
- If anything the end of The Return supports this. Presumably after Coop changed the timeline he said "Fuck it" and moved to Portland, and he doesn't say his name to prevent a time paradox. Maybe Dougie moved to Austin too.
- Though there is the possibility - however slim - that while traveling through the country he sought out Dick, having heard of the weird love triangle that precipitated his own birth (small towns do tend to gossip). Besides which, Lucy is not the deceptive type and would have been happy to tell young Wally about his "Uncle Dick" if asked.
- Confirmed in Richard's case.
- Jossed, as it seems BOB spent a large part of the 25 years inside Mr. C, quietly observing his evil deeds and feeding on the suffering they caused.
- Then in The Return we find the "origin story" of Twin Peaks is both "The Experiment"/BOB and "The Fireman" reacting to the 1945 Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico - arguably the beginning of one of the most heinous atrocities ever committed by human beings against one another - and converging on that point. To fight one another, or to compete for food?
- Furthermore, it's implied that the Fireman and Senorita Dido specifically sent Laura Palmer to Earth. To be the Chosen One? Or to be such a beloved and desired figure that those who knew her couldn't help but suffer at her untimely death?
- Certain readings of the end of The Return interpret it as an endless struggle, "a continuous loop where good will never stop trying to defeat evil." For creatures which feed on suffering, wouldn't this be a guarantee of an infinite supply of sustenance, if Cooper never gives up?
- Episode 8 - and Margaret Lanterman's exchanges with Hawk - cemented Laura as the Chosen One sent by the benign influence of the Fireman and Senorita Dido to counterbalance, or perhaps defeat, the evil influence of BOB. Even in dying, her presence on Earth has a Christ-like effect, influencing the innocent people of Twin Peaks (and spiralling out into the world) to listen to the better angels of their nature.
- In a world where Laura disappeared, her murder cannot have that effect. The scales are tipped in the favour of BOB, Judy and anything else that hungers for garmonbozia (pain and suffering). Throughout "The Return", each time the focus shifts to Twin Peaks itself we find an unsettling current of aggression, cruelty, and unrest. Gunplay, drug abuse and angry episodes are a daily occurrence.
- While many people remember that Laura was murdered and allude to that event, the unsettling nature of the changed reality is also encroaching on them - and it doesn't help that the current sheriff Truman wasn't around when the investigation happened. Notice that when Bobby sees her, although he bursts into tears and her theme plays, he doesn't specifically mention her being killed at all.
- Even "Doctor Amp" is subconsciously aware that something is terribly wrong ("We're all in the shit!"), and recognises that the colour gold is related to salvation ("Dig yourself out with a golden shovel!"). And it appears the people who fall for his grift recognise a grain of truth in it - Nadine is inspired to do the right thing and set Ed free.
- Meanwhile, in the Black Lodge in Part 2, Cooper meets someone who looks like Laura but aludes to the last time we met Laura's double ("I feel like I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back"), someone who is both alive and dead, identified on-set as Carrie Page. After she disappears, Cooper has a couple of encounters, one of which is with Leland - a clear-eyed, non-doppelganger Leland - who pleads with him to "Find Laura". Laura is missing. Cooper's own future self has, unintentionally, caused her to stop existing.
- This is another narrative convenience of the "Dougie Jones" storyline - if a clear-headed Cooper returned to Twin Peaks any time before Part 17, not only would he realise that something was wrong, he might not have gone back in time, thus creating a paradox.
- The events of Part 18 are inspired by Cooper's attempt to put right what he has done wrong and restore Laura to the prime timeline from the alternate world in which Judy attempted to contain her (as symbolised by the diner that Carrie Page works at being called "Judy's" - while a familiar setting, its cleared-away tables makes it look hollow, showing that like the universe, it was created to trap Laura). He's "trying to kill two birds with one stone" by preventing both the world where Laura dies and the one where she disappears.
- Carrie's scream at the end of the story is a scream of realisation as this false reality collapses around them - and possibly as she experiences the sensation of an entirely different life's worth of memories awakening inside her head.
- That love-child is, of course, Park Ranger Carl, who got a job with the government in the vain hope of winning his long-lost father's affections.
Peculiar magick? Check.
Beings who are powerful enough where you do not want to fuck around with them if you know what's good for you? Check.
Realm entrance in a forest? Check - it even has astronomical requirements and is a particular growth in a ring formation.
Malleability of time and space? Check.
Arcane linguistics with obfuscating riddles? ?̵̖̅í̸͓s̸̹̀ ̷̬̓i̴͔͂t̷̫̋ ̷̡̃ẗ̶̗́h̵̛̫e̵̖̓ ̵͔́ö̴͙́n̴͖̕ĕ̵̼ ̶͛ͅa̸̰̚ḇ̶̈́o̷̭͠ṳ̶͝t̷͍̒ ̴̹͝t̵̖̉ḩ̸͌ě̸͎ ̷͍̾l̵̼̂i̴̟͋ṫ̶͍t̸̠͊ḽ̴́é̷͈ ̷̫̈́g̸̰̈́i̴̦̐r̸̨͘l̵̨͆ ̴͚̑d̴̠̂ȍ̸̭w̷̰̾ǹ̷͇ ̶̰̔t̵͍́h̵̡̍è̴͓ ̶̰̒l̷͚̄a̸̖͘ņ̴̚E̵̳̋ ̷͖̓ ̵̲͝
Surreal geography? Weird room layouts - close enough.
Doppelgangers and tulpas? There are your changelings.
Clearly, the denizens of the Black Lodge are fairies.
So...what if the reason that whole conversation is so disjointed is that for Jeffries it's all happening in a different order. Due to him hopping around time, the way he experiences it is A) demanding to know if he's talking to the real Cooper or the Doppelganger B) noticing the date and realizing this must be the real Cooper because the events of the series haven't happened yet, and C) mentioning Judy.
But why? Because he realized he's got a shot to lead the eventual Mr. C into a trap. C's quest for Judy is what winds up with him being defeated. But Mr. C is Cooper, albeit an evil version - they have all the same memories. It's entirely possible that C and BOB wouldn't even know about her...except that Phillip deliberately brought her up in front of Cooper, knowing that Mr. C would inherit the memory. When BOB eventually wound up in the Doppelganger, he was surprised to find a memory about Judy and decided to look into it, ultimately sealing his fate. That whole disjointed conversation was actually a very clever maneuver, possibly orchestrated by the Fireman, who set the other wheels in motion that would lead to BOB's defeat (Laura, Freddie, etc).
It's already demonstrated that the Lodge can influence events in our world to a certain extent, so it seems foregone that Doppelcooper could use that influence to draw his own son to him - and in fact, knew very well that Richard Horne was breaking the rules in the first place. It is not to mention that Richard, because he was born of Doppelcooper, is connected to the Lodge.
With this, it's worth considering that Even Evil Has Standards - hell, even Blue-and-Orange Morality has standards. And Richard is a special kind of evil that flies in the face of said morality. It would be foregone, to this troper, that even BOB and Doppelcooper would consider Richard to be in violation of that morality - and that Richard, if I may coin an old phrase, "needed killing".