Agent Dale Cooper finally returned to the real world in Twin Peaks, but he’s behaving like an alien that just arrived on Earth.
When Twin Peaks came back to television, it was only natural that there’d be a ton of questions through the first four episodes. The biggest one is what’s in that glass box, but that won’t get answered until further down the road and they’ve given us almost no clues to solve it.
Another question that’s gotten fans buzzing is why Agent Dale Cooper is acting so strange. After Dougie Jones got sent through to the Black Lodge in place of Cooper’s doppelganger, the FBI Agent took his place. He’s acted very strangely, and the only thing he ever says is a repetition of other peoples’ last words. Despite this, others haven’t realized that he isn’t Dougie, and they don’t know that something’s wrong with him — or if they do, they’re not helping out.
There are a lot of theories as to what’s going on with Cooper on the Twin Peaks subreddit, but this one might be the most comprehensive. To sum it up, Cooper’s doppelganger is actually the real Cooper possessed by Bob. However, his soul has been trapped in the Black Lodge, and after a long sequence where he traveled through multiple dimensions, it is inhabiting Dougie Jones’ body which was itself created by the Owl Cave Ring.
When Cooper’s soul tried to evict Bob out of his body, he had Dougie go through instead, where his soul has morphed into a tiny ball. As a result, Cooper’s soul is inhabiting a body that doesn’t retain any of his memories or mannerisms, which is why he’s been acting like a newborn. However, he’s still had a few triggers, including Jade/Laura Palmer telling him “you can go out now”, visions of the Lodge at the casino and Dougie’s son giving him the thumbs up.
It’s a very complicated theory, but this is a complicated show. However, the explanation could be as simple as Cooper has spent the last 25 years in the Black Lodge, and it’s going to take time for him to re-adjust. Curiously enough, everyone in Twin Peaks doesn’t know about Cooper’s doppelganger and instead think he’s been missing for 25 years.
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That being said, Cooper still saw the one-armed man tell him one of you must die. As such, he’s slowly re-purposing himself to the point where he can implement all of Dale’s attributes in Dougie’s body. Once he’s back in shape, he will try to kill his original self.
It’s a theory that seemingly covers all the bases, but it could still be totally off. After all, how many people who watched the original Twin Peaks initially thought Leo or Dr. Jacoby killed Laura Palmer? This show is notorious for throwing us curveballs, and it’s going to be very interesting to see which way David Lynch will misguide his viewers this time.