I was like, wow I did not expect a NIN concert video in the middle of this episode, that's weird! Oh how naive I was.
^ My thoughts exactly!
It's a sort of relief to learn there's no new episode next week. It'll give me some more time to rewatch and process this a bit more.
Lynch grew up in the post-atomic era, and as such his childhood was colored by the conflicting aspects of 20th century Americana: apple pies and A-bombs. So when we first got that shot of the mushroom cloud, I had a huge smile on my face. And then... Well...
He's always been preoccupied by this dichotomy of light and dark, good and evil, and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what this origin story says. Is it that the world was a lot simpler or a lot more complex before humankind split the atom and wielded such power, and wrought such destruction? I don't know. Part of me feels like we're witnessing Lynch's self-portrait of his own creation. There's definitely some similarities to the opening "fertilization" of Eraserhead, and although the timing doesn't quite work, it could be seen as lining up to baby Lynch in utero. This masterpiece is tied to his own life story and creativity. It also negates my original question of whether the blast caused a more harmonious (and thus complex) existence of good and evil or cast the two of them as more or less parallel opposites. It's both. It's neither. Because before Lynch was born, there was no world. The blast was the beginning of everything.
Let's talk about the orbs containing Bob and Laura Palmer. One and the same, or opposite sides of the same coin? We've already seen Laura in the Black Lodge can be terrifying. We've seen her remove her face mask and expose the bright white radiation within. Maybe the Woodsman is Bob, the embodiment of darkness, eternally searching, hopelessly, for some light. But he repulses and scares everyone, so that he can only hope to get close to what he wants by leaning into the darkness and violently going after it.
Laura, we know, is the embodiment of conflicting natures - purity and sinful - and where else have we seen that before? Very recently? And before, repeatedly. In her mother, Sarah Palmer. Watching violent nature documentaries, and simultaneously being repulsed and aroused by them. The actress that plays her is Grace Zabriskie. She would have been 15 years old in 1956, which seems a fit for the Girl we see in the 1956 sequence of this episode. I believe that the "bug" we saw crawl into the Girl's mouth was born of the Laura orb, and the Girl is young Sarah Palmer. The Laura orb is taking a different path, but essentially wants the same thing as Bob. Lightness in a world of darkness. But even "Laura" cannot pursuit that path without Bob's help - hypnotizing an entire town in order to find sanctuary in this chaste young woman. The pursuit of goodness requires the aid of evil. And vice verse. They are one and the same.
Maybe that's what this is all about - the unyielding human pursuit of contentment, a quest for transcendental enlightenment. But there is always darkness and evil in the world. Even Laura could not avoid it. No-one in Twin Peaks can. But there are those who seem a lot closer to "enlightenment" than others. People who have experienced trying times, but by embracing normality, doing their best to be good neighbors, live positive lives, living fairly mundane and unspectacular existences. We've seen several of them already in this revival. Perhaps Bobby, Andy, and Lucy, most notably. People who, despite the horrors they encountered in the show's original run, have found normality and continued with their own lives, finding something fairly close to happiness, but all too aware that darkness still lurks all around them.
