This will be my last entry into the Black Lodge Encyclopedia for the time being. This one is dedicated to the main character of Twin Peaks: Agent Dale Cooper.

Agent Dale Cooper

In the final episode (Beyond Life and Death), Agent Cooper follows Windom Earle into the "Black Lodge" at Glastonbury Grove. Inside, he finds the Red Room from his dream/vision in episode 1.03 and meets the Man from Another Place. The MFAP informs Cooper that he is in the “waiting room” and introduces several of Cooper’s "friends", among which we find Laura Palmer and the Giant/Elderly Waiter. The MFAP then proceeds to demonstrate his control over the flow of time by successively freezing, accelerating and slowing down Cooper’s coffee. At the intonation of the words “Fire Walk with Me”, fire appears and the Red Room turns dark. At this point it is assumed Cooper begins his test inside the Black Lodge.

As Hawk states in episode 2.17:
“My people believe the White Lodge is the place where the spirits that rule men and nature here reside. There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge, the shadow-self of the White Lodge. The legend says that every soul must pass through there on the way to perfection. There you will meet your own shadow-self. My people call it The Dweller on the Threshold… but it is said if you face the Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.”

What Cooper experiences inside the Red Room seems to be the Black Lodge test which Hawk refers to. Inside the Black Lodge, one is apparently confronted with their worst fears. Several characters from Cooper's past, such as Annie, Caroline, Windom and Laura appear.

An important question is whether Cooper actually fails the Black Lodge test or not. In other words, did he face the Black Lodge with imperfect courage? The fact that he is ultimately possessed by BOB would suggest that he did. Because Windom Earle interferes, however, this is not an ordinary Black Lodge test. In fact, right before BOB calls Windom Earle back to order, Cooper offers his soul in exchange for the life of Annie without hesitation. That he was willing to do this would suggest that he did face the Lodge with perfect courage. It seems to be the encounter with his shadow-self where he ultimately fails.

Note that some people talk about there being a good and bad Cooper but I believe there is only one "Cooper", who is good. It is not Cooper himself who is trapped in the Lodge but rather his soul. Only his body has left the Lodge, now with the soul of BOB inside (more on the soul connection below). In principle, you could say that the possessed Cooper is the bad version, of course, and the trapped Cooper the good one.

Returning to the subject of Windom Earle, we might wonder why the Lodge spirits show so little regard for him in the first place. Although he did overstep his boundaries during the Black Lodge test, one would think that the amoral Windom is a much more attractive host than the virtuous Agent Cooper. It seems therefore that BOB's evil is really about corrupting the good. Recall that BOB possessed Leland at a very young age, when he was still a (more or less) innocent child. By the time events of FWWM unfold, BOB has corrupted Leland to the point of wanting to reject him in favour of Laura Palmer.

This is likely what the Log Lady means when she states that "the tender boughs of innocence burn first, and then all goodness is in jeopardy". In short, once possessed by BOB, there is almost no turning back.

First Lodge visit: dream or vision?

A vision I had in my sleep last night. As distinguished
from a dream, which is a mere sorting and cataloguing
of the day's events by the subconscious; a vision, fresh
and clear as a mountain stream, the mind revealing itself
to itself.

Which sounds great but makes you wonder why he's saying it in the first place. I think this bit of monologue is Lynch's way of retconning the fact that Cooper's "dream" in episode 1.3 isn't meant to be a dream but a vision. It's also a first indication that the black lodge might actually be a real place, rather than just another quirky part of Cooper's imagination.

It's obvious that a lot of Twin Peaks was basically invented as they went along, especially the black lodge mythology, which didn't even reach its full complexity until FWWM. Most of it came to fruition by the start of season 2 though, hence the sudden explosion of weird characters: the waiter, the giant, the Tremonds, etc... Season 1 doesn't really contain much in the way of the supernatural so I don't think Lynch originally intended to go that way.

In any case, this bit of text now clearly delineates what is dream and what is vision. Lynch even covers himself by adding the key part "in my sleep last night", completely paving the way for compatibility with Cooper's experience in episode 1.3.

But I also think that Lynch might have felt uncomfortable with the whole "dream sequence" on a more theoretical level. He knows that Cooper's "dream" is not how people dream in real life. Real dreams are not so explicitly surreal. They're mostly rather mundane and only seem weird at the edges. To the dreamer they make sense on a scene-to-scene basis. This is basically how most of the plot in Mulholland Drive unfolds, but also the (controversial) first half of FWWM. In fact, I think this is the only part in Twin Peaks where Cooper is actually dreaming.

Gifted or Damned?

According to Mike, only few can see the true face of BOB: the gifted and the damned. Among the damned we can count Leland Palmer, Maddy Ferguson and Windom Earle. Sarah Palmer appears to be among the gifted. The question is what to make of Laura Palmer and Agent Cooper. For both, a case could be made for either interpretation. Leaving Laura aside for now, it’s clear that Cooper displays some "extrasensory" talents. To solve crime, he draws upon regular policing methods as well as dreams, intuition and Tibetan stone throwing. He has contact with apparently supernatural beings such as the Giant. In FWWM, he senses the murder of Laura Palmer from beforehand.

On the other hand, most of the aforementioned "skills" could be attributed to Cooper's Lodge connection. Remember that time does not exist inside the Lodge. If you're there you've always been there. That explains why he "connects" with Laura and even meets her and various Lodge characters before he physically enters the Red Room.

The fact that Cooper is ultimately possessed by BOB argues a strong case that he is among the damned, though in truth, I believe the answer is that Cooper is both gifted and damned. Note that when Mike speaks of "the gifted", he turns his toward Cooper in a meaningful sort of way. I've previously argued that it is BOB's interest to corrupt to good. In that sense, the gifted Cooper is a particularly attractive victim.

Fate?

So what happens with Cooper after the Season 2 finale? Does FWWM even address this question? Personally, I do not think Cooper ever makes it out of the Lodge. First of all, both Cooper’s first "dream" and Laura’s comment in the waiting room make it clear that Cooper will be trapped inside the Lodge for at least 25 years (whatever that means in "Lodge time"). Second, the ending of FWWM implies that both Cooper and Laura pass on to the White Lodge.

Third, Cooper’s soul is trapped in the Lodge, not Cooper "in his entirety". His body is now occupied by BOB, which means that for Cooper to be able to return to the real world, BOB would also have to leave his body first. Judging from the available evidence, however, exorcising an evil spirit is difficult if not impossible to accomplish. Remember that Gerard had to cut off his own arm to get rid of Mike, and even that was not completely successful. The forced suicide of Leland Palmer suggests that killing the host is one way to exorcise the spirit from the body but this is bad news for Agent Cooper's situation. The alternative would be that a spirit somehow voluntarily leaves its host, but if we go by the train car scene from FWWM, this requires a complicated and time consuming ritual which, as far as we know, only works to "transfer" a spirit from one host to another.

Suppose Lynch had made a third season, how would they have solved this situation? Suppose Harry (with the help of Major Briggs, or even the Log Lady) quickly realised that Cooper was being inhabited by BOB, what could they possibly do to get the normal Cooper back? Cut off his arm? Force him back into the Lodge at Glastonbury Grove? Would BOB have Cooper commit suicide like he did Leland if he learned his identity had been exposed?

I think the ending of FWWM clearly suggests that Cooper never leaves the Red Room. Perhaps he dies after 25 years and passes on to the White Lodge. There’s an interesting exchange between the MFAP and Cooper that was cut from final version of FWWM:

Cooper: "Where am I? How can I leave?"
MFAP: "You are here and there is no place to go… but home!"

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

That's what I thought too, that it's the doppleganger Dale that was released, and the good Dale is trapped in the lodge, as confirmed by Annie in FWWM. 

As to the "bad" Dale smashing his head in the mirror, I always thought the doppleganger was a like someone seeing new things for the first time and not knowing how to act...sorta out of control.
 

Regarding Coopers Courage;

I have often wondered  if Cooper failed the courage test when it came to Annie.  He possessed perfect courage regarding himself and the danger he faced but it failed when he was confronted with a threat to his newly discovered lover.

rb

"It's not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind." - D. Cooper

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." - P. Atreides

"Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe" - L. tzu

I wrote the last posting just after composing a longer and more considered argument , then losing to the ether(net) at 1.30am on a worknight so it probably reads a bit more assertive than I attended.  I was hugely impressed with some of the well-evidenced arguments on this board - special respect to Sourdust - but after recently rewatching the Gold Edition box set of the series I was struck forcefully in the forehead with a new and, I believe, logical way of interpreting the ending, which for years I'd accepted as a bummer/cliffhanger par excellence.  However...the world gets richer and more intricate the more we enter it.   

Windom Earle believes he is pulling the strings in the Lodge so as to best his opponent, Cooper, but it is suggested that he was BOB's pawn all along.  To run with the chess analogy, the real "players" are BOB and Cooper, and at the very least their game ends in stalemate, with neither managing to capture the king.  The vision at the end of the series is a fusion of the drama's "twin peaks".  I would even say there is a case for Cooper having the upper hand - he's clearly alerted his allies in the hotel room to "his" mental fragility with the broken mirror and at the very least is likely to be locked up like Earle was.  Traditionally, BOB has not drawn attention to his whereabouts, but perhaps he is too busy gloating over his "victory" to consider this.  Cooper may have been weakened by his ill-advised infatuation with Annie, but the film shows him to be a powerful figure inside the Lodge who can influence events in the outside world.  So much in the final episode has a double meaning, as discussed here.  To add another example, Maddy exhorts Cooper to "Watch out for my cousin."  Is this a warning, or is she asking Cooper to act as Laura's mentor and guide? -  a role he powerfully fills in the Red Room scenes from the movie.  A third series, handled correctly, could have been fascinating, a tussle for supremacy with Briggs (RIP) and Mike and all the rest helping and hindering.

A question that still vexes me is this: was Eckhardt one of the Robertson clan?  The first time we see him there is fire reflected in his glasses and, more importantly, BOB appears when he dies, taunting Cooper.  This would explain his huge, largely unseen, power and influence.  Or was Josie the vessel?

"There is no need for medicine. I am not in pain."

The left arm theory mentioned elsewhere I think is relevant to the end scene. If I remember right, before Cooper smashes his head, he is seen trying to brush his teeth, but his left arm seems to be acting independently of him, in a seemingly experimental display of power, and squeezes out all of his toothpaste into the sink. This I think is Bob acting through the arm - Theresa's left arm went numb, and of course Mike's host cut his left arm off - though I'm not sure about the mirror. It could be either side trying to take control.

Obviously then the "good dale" being trapped in the lodge is not the literal truth. He's still in there with Bob, and in the Lodge also - this seems to be the case with Leland too, Bob would "enter him and leave" so I imagine Cooper will be the same. Though I do not deny he must too be trapped in the lodge in some form also.

The idea that Cooper manages to have himself committed through the mirror smashing is a definite possibility, but I'd prefer it to turn out the opposite way, and have the whole third season's theme being Coop out to catch a killer that is himself. All the clues lead back to him, but even with his recent irrational behaviour, the trust he had gained with the people of twin peaks allows him to remain unsuspected. I would have hated it had they resolved that whole plotline with only a few episodes - the series needed a shakeup, so it's probably better it ended on the cliffhanger - "everyone is doomed" It's enough for me to know that Bob is running riot as Coop, I really liked the ending - probably my favourite Lynch work is that final episode.

 Laura wasn't killed through blows to the head. In Episode 1 Doc Hayward says:

"What killed her was loss of blood. Numerous shallow wounds, no single one serious enough to have caused death."