This one by John Leoard from May 7, 1990, New York Magazine, interestingly refers to or anticipates several things from season 2, including “the man in a smiling bag,” though ironically rules out the Palmers themselves as suspects. But at the peak (ha) of the show’s popularity, Leonard realized then what I finally just did:

Lynch, who seems to have an unlimited and unedited access to his own unconscious, lets us think we recognize ourselves; we’re seeing our favorite movies, reading our favorite books, standing in front of our favorite paintings. […]

Wittgenstein had a philosophy, and Pynchon has some politics. Lynch is merely moody, more of a Warhol. Though beautiful to look at, there isn’t much of anything inside his soft labyrinth except an unimportant secret. Unlike, say, The Prisoner, with Patrick McGoohan, or The Edge of Darkness, the brilliant British eco­thriller that Channel 13 refuses to run, or The Singing Detective, which Lynch says he’s never seen, Twin Peaks has nothing at all in its pretty little head except the desire to please. In this, and only in this, it resembles almost everything else on television. But beautiful is better. Must we, like the Deconstructionists, moisten everything with meaning?

If the point is to tell a story, as the original series does, the quest for “meaning” must be grounded in the story, if at all.

Leonard also suggests way back then that maybe the whole thing is just a dream.

If what we’re seeing is a bunch of disjointed vignettes and characters with no clear motivation, as in season 3/The Return, then we have to find “meaning,” and that brings me to two columnists from Slate before the premiere in May who seem to have inadvertently “solved” Season 3 before it aired.

In the first, Laura Miller discusses the original series’ allusions to other movies and their significance, and how even noir, which was supposed to be a metaphor for the darkness underlying the American dream, involves its own facade.

In the other, Forrest Wicker discusses the show as a commentary on television itself.

All three of these articles explain the complex pastiche of cinematic, television and literary allusions that somehow make Twin Peaks something new and different while not really having much depth beyond all the allusions, but I have yet to see a commentary which mentions the significance of “Gordon Cole” other than as a “minor character” in Sunset Boulevard.

Every character whose name is an allusion means something. Philip Gerard, the One Armed Man, is both in his real name and his nickname an allusion to The Fugitive. And while he initially appears as a red herring suspect, we eventually find out that he is in his own way pursuing BOB, and of course Philip Gerard is the name of the Inspector Javert-based detective in the earlier series. Madeleine, Laura Palmer’s lookalike cousin, is named for a blond murder victim in Vertigo, and interestingly her brunette lookalike in that movie is named Judy (though Twin Peaks’ mysterious Judy, so far as we know did not turn out to be a Laura Palmer lookalike, as many suspected).

Miller also points out that Walter Neff, the life insurance salesman in Season 1, episode 7, is named after the life insurance salesman in Double Indemnity: and he’s presenting Catherine Martell with a new policy, with her sister in law Josie as the beneficiary, which Josie and Benjamin Horne have actually purchased because they plan to have her die in the upcoming mill fire.

So what is the significance of Gordon Cole? At first, it seems like a throwaway reference. The reference gains some forced significance in The Return when the movie is the catalyst for Cooper to “wake up.” But let’s look at Gordon as we know him on the original series.

In season 1, he’s a voice on a speaker phone. He shouts in part because he’s on a speaker phone. This carries over into Season 2 in Gordon being hard-of-hearing. He seems like a generally clueless figure. He seems more insightful in The Return, and supposedly he and Cooper had a master plan all along, even though there’s no suggestion of it in the ABC series. We find he uses his hearing loss strategically but generally hears better than he lets on.

The Cole in Sunset Boulevard is a “minor character” but a very significant minor character–he’s the production assistant who sees Max drive Norma Desmond’s car onto the lot to deliver her script to Cecil B. DeMille, and starts calling to speak to her, hoping to rent her car. So the character is truly clueless about what’s really going on, and his cluelessness unwittingly leads to worse problems. Though in some ways, Agent Cole on TP seems less clueless in The Return than his original portrayal, and though he gives us some amazingly straightforward (or is it?) exposition, he still spends most of the season spinning his wheels. If he knows as much as he supposedly knows, why does he wait so long to say it or act like he’s surprised by some discoveries?
Why does he so callously use Diane to get at “Mr. C”?

Originally written by John in September 2017

And with the early dawn moving right along
Couldn’t buy an eyeful of sleep
And in the aching night under satellites
I was not received
Built with stolen parts, a telephone in my heart
Someone get me a priest
To put my mind to bed, this ringing in my head
Is this a cure or is this a disease?
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
And in the afterbirth on the quiet earth
Let the stains remind you
You thought you made a man, you better think again
Before my role defines you
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
And in your waiting hands, I will land
And roll out of my skin
And in your final hours, I will stand
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Ready to begin
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Nail in my head from my creator
You gave me life, now show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live
Show me how to live

Now, the Trump Era has muddied the waters a bit, and it’s important to note that racism is not conservative–the

A Good Friday with Mr. Eliot

I went to Confession and Mass again, praise God, as the accuser has been strong. Today’s the Feast of All Carmelite Saints as well. This was the Gospel. As I said last year, I was struck by the fact that Jesus was A. Going to Jerusalem (Heaven). B. Told them to go show themselves to the priests to be healed. C. They were healed “as they were going” to the priests. Only one of them immediately realized AND then acknowledged aloud in a spirit of humility and repentance that he had been healed both physically and spiritually by God, by Jesus, the High Priest, and thus, in his act of faith, he had been both saved from the leprosy and saved from his sins. (No one can see the Face of God and live.) The former leper had received an apocalypse, an unveiling, a revelation of Jesus as both God and Man. But, so did the other 9! He was the only one who chose to acknowledge Him aloud. Therefore, he falls to his feet, thanking him and glorifying Him. It had never dawned on me until yesterday that the Priest He had enabled them to acknowledge was Him. Whenever He heals, He heals not only the physical sickness (that came with the original sin and the Fall), but He also heals the sight, restoring the eyes of faith if we do not harden our hearts and gives us recognition of His Divinity and Omnipotence, the unveiling, the Apocalypse, so we can choose to repent and worship Him.

Right before this, in part 119, he mentions it is the duty of the rich to be generously charitable to families (“private resources”). 

As he concludes part 120, the Pope admits it is  understandable that the neglected poor would become “emboldened to hope for chance advantage from the upheaval of the state and of established order.” Aka rioting, revolution, crossing borders illegally, etc.  He *is* saying for the State to provide for the poor, in particular the working poor, so as to avoid such rioting and revolution, when individual and private resources are insufficient.  He admits how much more difficult it can be for the poor to follow God’s commands.  (I never understand condemning a just wage and then complaining about the government “handouts”…if in the proper order a just wage was had, then we wouldn’t have to get to private or public resources, in theory.)

I would add that the Pope repeatedly indicates that this “public duty” should be designed around the family as a *unit,* with a preferential option to support families, not as we do primarily today with giving  help as individuals instead of viewing situations as familial and adapting the aid to the overall diverse needs of that family.   Children get Medicaid but not their parents, in many cases, for example, particularly the working poor. Three siblings may not be “disabled enough” as individuals for SSI, but together they are and so should qualify for modified help as family members.  A poor wife who just gave birth can get Medicaid for a year but not the husband.  But if they are unmarried, many times they can get Medicaid and more government help, when their marriage and work should be supported. Or if they’re unmarried, better promotions since they don’t have to ask for time off as much.    (Something the pope also notes, that single mothers and their children get more help than married couples and their children, and that was back in 1930. )

If you rightly recognize stable marriages as the bedrock of society, then you need to support a firmer safety net to let families join and bounce back *together.*  Pope Pius XI rightly recognized securing the individual *family* (not just each person individually) secures civil order.

Casti Connubii:

120. If, however, for this purpose, private resources do not suffice, it is the duty of the public authority to supply for the insufficient forces of individual effort, particularly in a matter which is of such importance to the common weal, touching as it does the maintenance of the family and married people. If families, particularly those in which there are many children, have not suitable dwellings; if the husband cannot find employment and means of livelihood; if the necessities of life cannot be purchased except at exorbitant prices; if even the mother of the family to the great harm of the home, is compelled to go forth and seek a living by her own labor; if she, too, in the ordinary or even extraordinary labors of childbirth, is deprived of proper food, medicine, and the assistance of a skilled physician, it is patent to all to what an extent married people may lose heart, and how home life and the observance of God’s commands are rendered difficult for them; indeed it is obvious how great a peril can arise to the public security and to the welfare and very life of civil society itself when such men are reduced to that condition of desperation that, having nothing which they fear to lose, they are emboldened to hope for chance advantage from the upheaval of the state and of established order.

Pius XI, “Casti Connubii”