Hi i was just curious if windom earle was always evil or if he was a good guy or if something made him the way he was. And also did he have something against cooper or was cooper someone he chose . I guess i was curious what started the feud between the 2 i know caroline was a large part of why the feud started between the 2 i guess i was just curious what caused the events.

I've had a theory about Windom since 1992 and here it is - We have never seen the real Windom Earle - that was his doppleganger from the Black Lodge we always saw. Windom found the Lodge in 1967 when he was sent there to investigate project bluebook. He got trapped there (like Coop did at the end of the series). His doppleganger was released (with BOB inhabiting him) who then went on to kill Caroline, Earle's wife. And stab Cooper. That's how BOB knew about it when questioned by Coop and Truman in the jail cell. He was then confined to an insane asylum from which he escaped in 1991. The  25 years was almost up at this point, so he had to return to the Black Lodge but he's forgotten where it is. He goes to Twin Peaks - he remembers that much. Then he finally finds it, enters it with Annie and you know the rest. That's why Cooper is the only one there who speaks normally - even Earl has that slurred type of speech (because he's a doppleganger, not the real Windom). Windon Earl was Dale Cooper's partner. Not evil at all. He was nothing like the evil doppleganger we saw in the show. Keep in mind he sopke normally outside the Lodge  because nobody speaks that backwards slurred speech outside the lodge.

If the show had continued, and my theory is right, the REAL Windom Earle was also released from the Black Lodge along with Cooper's doppleganger and Annie at the end of season2..

 Another theory of mine is that we've never really seen Mike - only his "vessel" Philip Gerard. Even in the Lodge !!

That's a great theory LODGE4, I like it a lot.

However, I doubt that's what Lynch and Frost were going for because I think they would have revealed it before the finale. The only other possibility is that they had intended to make more of that angle, and then heard from ABC that there wouldn't be a season 3 and decided that it would just complicate the end of the show.

I'm not sure about all details with time that you mentioned - but in general I think this theory is excellent!

For example, I always wondered why Leland (BOB actually) uttered this "remember what happened to you in Pittsburgh" - okay, BOB could have known that just like that, he is powerful but what did it even have to do with anything?!

However, if we say that it was BOB addressing Cooper who knew him already in person from the Pittsbburgh events - it makes perfect sense.

And Earle's backward speech in the Lodge makes more sense, too.

One thing that perhaps doesn't make sense is BOB's "He can't ask for your soul, I will take his". In the light of your theory, BOB already possessed Earle's soul and didn't have to take it. Yet he could have said so to Cooper without special reason or sense while the easiness with which he overpowered Windom could back up the theory that he had already had him in hand.

More later!

Bobi 1 Kenobi

B. Beware
O. Of
B. BOB 

I always love a new theory, and I've never heard this one before. I think it's excellent, but it does raise a question. If BOB was posessing Windom Earle the entire time, then what about the times when BOB is posessing Leland? Can BOB have more than one host at a time?

It is possible that maybe Lynch and Frost did not intend for the Windom Earle storyline to be over at the end of Season 2. The interviews with Frost on the Gold Box suggest that they still had hope for a third season when the finale was shot, so I'm sure there are a lot of plotlines that they had planned that we'll just never know about.

I like the thing about Mike, too. I've often wondered why he is the only Lodge-dweller who looks the same as his host.

As far as Windom's backwards-speak in the Lodge, I always assumed that the only reason Cooper appears to speak normally is because we're experiencing everything from his point of view. I always figured that Cooper would speak in Lodge-speak from someone else's viewpoint.

"What? Did your life pass before your eyes? Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea..."

Earle had long been fascinated with the prospect of harnessing the Black Lodge powers, but it wasn't until the events in Twin Peaks that Earle became privy to the location of the lodge's gateway.

There is discontinuity in the script or editing of episodes 27 & 28.  The Ep 28 scene where Earle overlays the owl cave glyph on the TP map should have occurred immediately following Earl's interrogation of Major Briggs in episode 27.  Meaning, it is in Ep 27 that Earle discovers the location of the lodge's gateway, and we can imply that he immediately travels to it. 

This falls into sequence with the scene of Bob emerging from the gateway at the end of this very episode.  Here it is actually Windom Earle emerging from the lodge, but in Bob's image.  Notice that Earle warily reaches out from the exit, as he is not yet seasoned in navigating into and out of the gateway.  Upon his successful exit from his first visit, he vociferously proclaims "I'm out".         

Perhaps while he was in the black lodge for this first time, Earle transacted with Bob and agreed to become Bob's host.

When we next see Earle in the following episode, he momentarily takes on the appearance of a Black Lodge dweller (whitened face, blackened mouth), perhaps the image of a Dugpa. 

This all is further substantiated in the final episode; in the dark of night and dragging Annie along, Earle does not seem to have a problem locating the lodge gateway and making an entrance.  His approach and demeanor indicate that it is not his first time being there.

Really great posts here and its hard to argue with anyone. My layman experience is that Windom is obsessive about revealing the black lodge where evil is exponential. He can not disassociate himself from entering the lodge and becomes a fanatic.

Most of my take on Lynch's work is that he always reveals that no one is absolute good or evil, but that everyone has a dark side. We all have secrets, even those who post here. Nature or nurture is sociology's main question. Are people naturally greedy? Is good/evil learned or are you born good/evil? What is good or evil and by whose definition do we all agree on.

So to simply answer your questions: No and maybe.

ive always thought similiarly to everybody here, but i disagree on the doppelganger idea and/or BOB possession. BOB takes human form to feed and gather garmonbozia for the lodge. he isnt doing any of that with earle. i think earle really was discovering the black lodge for the first time, and we see the effects of that(such as the white face and black teeth look), but to ascribe that to BOB is kinda jumping to a conclusion. i do agree that earle had been at this for some time(he timed his escape so that cooper would be close to the lodge entrance for fucks sake), but TV villians do that sort of thing. they dont need a BOB. by that i mean in the context of twin peaks earle is quite capable of the acts he does and is still human, crazy as a loon and evil, but still mostly just a man. the purpose of entering the lodge was to harness its power, take it over i guess.
more important, i think, is what happened when caroline was killed, cooper was stabbed, and earle supposedly went insane or at least faked it and the fact that there really are little details on what led not only to the situation that culminated that night but also to what earle and cooper were doing at the bureau at the time. im tempted to think earle used to work for cole too and that it might have be a blue rose case, which makes caroline was the witness to an act of which we the audience remain ignorant, and it was possibly something earle had done. also strange that they assign her husband to protect a her, a material witness whose partner is in love with said witness and husband probably knows it. WAY TO PUT TOGETHER A JOB, GORDON. 
if you look at FWWM in this way, cooper's lack of involvement and the diane speech by the river about his belief that it will happen again, make chet desmond's character much more necessary. after pittsburgh, maybe coop kept his distances from the blue rose cases, and was working else where. of course this is all conjecture, but i think there's something going on there that is important but passed over.

but in relation to what? only BOB and senor droolcup/the giant, as lodge spirits, take human form. we only see LMFAP dancing on josie's bed right after she's died. im not sure much meaning can be taken from questions like these. each lodger is particular and unique, like they are shaped for their job. i try to approach them as lynch has described them, as abstractions in human form. they work on a different plane of logic(if not existence) than a human character like Ed or whoever.
 

This is what Cooper talks about in 'My Life, My Tapes'. Coop believes Caroline fell out of love with Windom because she'd witnessed something evil he'd done. He never gets the real story because Windom then kills Caroline... but the book was written by Mark Frost's brother, pretty sure Frost had input in the story, so maybe that's what he intended all along.

I've been trying to answer this question myself for so long, and I think Lodge's theory is right-on. It answers a lot of questions for me...

Er, would you like some lemonade? I also have some saltines and some apple butter. Or would you like to wash your hands?

kittyvillain.blogspot.com

 Well, I always thought that they went to great lengths to establish that Philip Gerard is a separate entity from Mike. Mike describes him as his host, and early on when Cooper and Truman are questioning him in the motel room he appears to have no clue what any of this is about or why he is getting all this attention from law enforcement. I always took it for granted that Gerard and Mike were separate entities just as Leland and BOB are separate entities.

As for the Little Man's appearance on Josie's bed, I'm almost tempted to refuse to acknowledge that it happened simply because it's such an awful scene. Putting that aside, however, I would expect that there are a couple of things applicable that make this a different circumstance. For starters, this occurs as one of Cooper's visions. The show very clearly establishes that Cooper has a unique (or nearly unique) ability to see through the "veil" between worlds. He sees BOB, The Giant and the Little Man outside of the Lodge. Not only does he see them, he is able to interact with them (unlike Sarah Palmer, who only has visions). Secondly, I feel the Little Man in particular is a unique case. He is in some ways an incomplete entity. He is the Arm. Mike's arm, in fact. As such, it would be unlikely (to my mind, at least) that he could have a physical existence outside the Lodge of any kind, and therefore he would not have a host of his own. FWWM even seems to suggest that the Little Man is to some extent dependent on his "other half" to perform his function within the Lodge. Notice how he has to place his hand on Mike's shoulder (the place where the Arm should be) in order to demand that BOB relinquish the Garmonbozia.

Finally, I think the crux of my feeling that Gerard is a regular human inhabited by Mike is the fact that the Gerard/Mike situation is the very vehicle that the creators use to explain to the audience how BOB is able to posess Leland. In fact Mike even says "I am similar to BOB." Basically, the show was saying to the audience "See this guy? This is how BOB works, too. Now you know." Hence my longtime wondering why Mike looks exactly the same as Gerard, whereas Leland looks nothing like BOB.

"What? Did your life pass before your eyes? Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea..."

 I've never thought it would be like this, but damn it, it sounds very believable! Great theory!

I've just finished reading Dale Cooper Autobiography (I guess it's nearly the 10th time I've read it) and it all fits so well...

In the book Windom disappeared for a few days(?) and after that he started to act like he's crazy. Soon after that Caroline was kidnapped. She was missing a few months. Caroline said she was sure she knew who her kidnapper was but she somehow wasn't able to tell it to anyone. She acted all weirdly whenever she was around Windom. Cooper was supposed to be protecting Caroline but Windom managed to stab them both. Later Dale came to a conclusion that it was Windom who kidnapped Caroline earlier.

Windom used to visit a strange old man somewhere and said he learned a lot from him. The old man appeared to be really weird and even a bit hostile. He said he couldn't help Cooper as Cooper has death on his face. Soon the old man hanged himself.

If it truly was so that it was Windom's doppelganger who we saw in the series I think the "change" happened when he disappeared for a few days. I cant' tell the exact days as I don't have the book here with me right now.

i just had this thought. if it was doppleganger windom all along, how did BOB take his soul in ep.29 because he was usurping BOB's power? and wouldnt doppleganger windom be in the lodge with the real windom? i admit the fact that he speaks backwards and seemingly has power to manipulate the lodge in order to trap cooper makes a good arguement that he could be a doppleganger, but everyone but cooper speaks backwards, and the windom we see has knowledge of annie and recent happenings, which makes being trapped in there less plausible, so im not very convinced by that line of reasoning. all in all, i think it was the lodge's(BOB, MIKE, LMFAP) way of trapping cooper, using earle as bait.

 If a Doppelganger is in the Lodge, it doesn't mean he couldn't know things happening in "real life."

Robert Engels said that everyone has his/her doppelganger a couple of nanoseconds(?) behind him/her in time. If this is true in Twin Peaks universe, then every doppelganger knows exactly everything the "real" person sees, does and feels. Maybe a Doppelganger being in the Lodge means just that the Doppelganger can't be in full control but he still is walking a couple of nanoseconds behind the real person in real life even if he is in the Lodge at the same time.

I realy have to put thought on the theory that Windom is posessed from the beginning.. That something quite new and fresh in the way of thinking the plot.

Still on first thought, I don't buy the thing that he doesn't remember where the lodge is.

im betting on tibet. just for the irony.

Rami-where is evidence that there are other portals? i thought major briggs said they had monitors aimed at ghostwood forest, and i always thought thats why briggs lived in twin peaks, to work on finding the lodges. and for him specifically, the white lodge was his goal.
 

Anyways, I see the incident with Jeffries as an evidence of different places to access the Lodges. The place in Glastonbury Grove is just one place some people have known for ages and marked it with different things.

"Actually. Now that some time has passed..."

I like to think that Windom is way too movie like villain, seeking evil so that he could harness it, to be under influence of BOB.

...and he's way too much on the ball with his evil plans to distract cooper and gain access to the lodge. Yes he talks like insane person, but he's not time or place disoriented like Leland is. Though in the series he appears to act like schizopheric who has reached so far in his illness that his evil side has taken over his personality entirely. So in some ways he's similar to Leland who didn't make it that far with his disease...

 hmm... come to think a different aspect while writing this post down...

Maybe Windom is an example for us of BOBs finished work... Inhabiting person so long that one turns merely evil and performs evil acts without BOBs need to corrupt that person anymore. BOB can target his intrests to another person and along that he could harness garmobozia from his previous hosts acts which he does on his own.