What Did the Ending of Twin Peaks Mean?

 

Credit to Twin Peaks Ending Explained: What Year Is This?

Twin Peaks: The Return has one of the most shocking, scary, and confusing mystery endings I have ever seen on television. I think it was a bad idea to watch this finale at night, because once the episode ended, the dread that was left in my soul was one of the most awful feelings I’ve ever felt from a fictional story. 

In the final episode of Twin Peaks, Dale Cooper decides to do the impossible. He goes back in time to save the life of Laura Palmer, the one person who led Dale Cooper to his fate among Twin Peaks, and he was now determined to make sure she would never have to go through her horrific final end on Earth. 

Cooper travels to an alternate reality, where he rescues Laura Palmer. He takes her away from her fate of murder, and now he finds Laura, now known as Carrie Page, living in another small town. He offers to take her to Twin Peaks, back to her old home, when he realizes that Carrie has no memory of being Laura, even though she looks exactly like her. 

While waiting for her, he discovers that she had murdered a random man in her home, and then she leaves with him. 

From this moment, the build up to the haunting ending begins. 

We see Cooper and Carrie are driving to Twin Peaks, but there is mostly silence between them. They stop to fill up on gas, and they barely speak to each other on the drive. Carrie mentions to Cooper that she didn’t like living in her town, hinting that she wasn’t living the best life. He doesn’t answer, continuing to remain silent on the way. 

They arrive in Twin Peaks, but something feels off. 

Everything is quiet, and the Twin Peaks that we know and love doesn’t carry that same feeling of a community anymore. 

Dale and Carrie arrive to her old home, where her mother, Sarah Palmer, lives. The two of them go to the door, and a different woman answers. She tells the two of them that Sarah Palmer never sold them the house, nor was she even familiar with that name. 

Dale thanks the woman for the information, and the two of them walk away, but they stop in the middle of the road, as Dale is trying to figure out what went wrong. Carrie is looking up at the house, and Dale suddenly says:

“What year is it?”

Carrie hears her mother yelling for Laura from the house. Carrie lets out a terrifying scream, the lights in the entire neighborhood go out, and then the episode cuts to black, abruptly ending the final episode. 

I have two theories as to what this ending could mean, and I truly believe that Dale Cooper was one of the few characters in the show that did not get his happy ending. 

Theory 1: Did Cooper travel to the wrong timeline of Twin Peaks?

Credit to Twin Peaks Ending Explained: What Year Is This?

I think Cooper had traveled way too far into the future of Twin Peaks. She screams when she hears her mother calling out for her, because that was the scary moment that she realized she wasn’t supposed to exist, because in this timeline, everyone that Cooper once knew is dead. 

It explains why the town didn’t feel the same when Cooper arrived. The same magic we felt with the original characters wasn’t there anymore, because Cooper traveled to the wrong year. It explains why he looked panicked when he asked Carrie what year it was, because why else would he ask something so significant?

That last line from Cooper’s character is so haunting, because it truly means that Cooper really got the worst ending, like Audrey Horne did among the characters of Twin Peaks. Cooper’s fate means that he is now stuck in the wrong timeline, and who knows what damage was left behind after the electricity completely went out after Carrie screams?

And the lights going out in the neighborhood brings me to my next theory.

Theory 2: Is Cooper trapped in the Red Room?

Credit to Twin Peaks Finale: A Theory of Cooper, Laura, Diane, and Judy — Waggish

During the final season, we see that the Red Room is somehow associated with electricity somehow. The entities that appear in the Red Room use electricity to either travel or even warp reality, so perhaps they did give Cooper his wish, but it came at a price. He wanted to save Laura Palmer, and he got his wish, and they created an alternate reality for him to enter. 

Perhaps he was never supposed to bring Carrie back to her old home. Cooper knew that his wish had been granted, but he still wanted to search for her, to make sure he had saved her. When Carrie screamed, I think her realization broke this alternate reality. The lights going out, and the episode cutting to black was a sign that Cooper had broken the spell that the Red Room had designed for him. 

Who knows what happened to this reality after that?

Perhaps Cooper is officially stuck in the Red Room for good?

Or the alternate reality vanished, along with Cooper and Carrie. 

Whatever his fate was, it was obviously a very bad one. 

Personally, this is my favorite theory. It makes sense why the electricity to the neighborhood suddenly went out. The Red Room had created that alternate reality for Cooper, to have his wish of saving Laura, but he made the choice to bring her to Twin Peaks. 

Whatever happened to Dale Cooper is a mystery, but it wasn’t a good one.