Dale Cooper

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FBI Special Agent Dale B. Cooper is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He is the lead protagonist of the series and also briefly appears in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) is an FBI agent who arrives in Twin Peaks to investigate the brutal murder of the popular high-school student, Laura Palmer, and falls in love with Twin Peaks and gains a great deal of acceptance within a tight knit community. He displays an array of quirky mannerisms such as giving a 'thumbs up' when satisfied, sage-like sayings, distinct sense of humor, along with his love for a good cherry pie and a "damn fine cup of coffee". One of his most popular habits is recording spoken-word tapes to a mysterious woman called 'Diane' into his dictaphone that he always carries with him, that often contain everyday observations and thoughts on his current case.

Cooper is a graduate of Haverford College. He is also revealed to be something of an introverted personality, due to his profound interest in the mystical, particularly in Tibet and Native American mythology. Much of his work is based on intuition and even dreams; this is in contrast to other fictional detectives who use logic to solve their cases. Like many television detectives, however, he sometimes bends the rules or goes outside the law.

Cooper remains one of the most popular characters from a dramatic television series, and is cited as a favorite of television writer Joss Whedon ^[1] and filmmaker Kevin Smith ^[2] .

[edit] History

[edit] History within the show and feature film

[edit] Prior to arrival in Twin Peaks

On joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Dale Cooper was based at the Bureau offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was here Cooper was partnered with the older Windom Earle, a veteran of the Bureau who taught the young Cooper everything he knew about the FBI. (Cooper later refers to his former partner as having a "brilliant" mind). At some point, Cooper would be based under the authority of FBI Bureau Chief Gordon Cole, who dealt with the mysterious 'Blue Rose' cases.

Some time after Cooper joined the Bureau, Earle's wife, Caroline was a witness to a federal crime. Earle and Cooper were assigned to protect her, and it was around this time that Cooper began an affair with Caroline, unbeknownst to his partner. However, one night, whilst in Pittsburgh, Cooper let his guard down - and Caroline was murdered by her husband by way of a knife wound to the aorta. Cooper's former partner and mentor had "lost his mind" (and may have indeed been the perpetrator of the federal crime Caroline witnessed), and was subsequently sent to a mental institution. Cooper was absolutely devastated by the loss of the woman he would later refer to as "the love of my life", and swore to never again get involved with someone who was a part of a case he was assigned to.

Three years before his arrival to Twin Peaks, Cooper has a dream involving the plight of the Tibetan people, and revealed to him the deductive technique of the Tibetan method. Deeply moved by what he saw in this dream, it is indicated it was this event that formed the basis of his unconventional methods of investigation.

In February 1988, Dale Cooper reveals to his boss, FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole of the portents of a strange dream - whilst at the same time Agent Chester Desmond is investigating the bizarre murder of Theresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow, north-east Washington. While conducting an experiment involving security camera monitors in the corridor outside his office, Cooper is shocked by the sudden bizarre appearance of Agent Phillip Jeffries in Cole's office - having vanished in the field two years before.

Hurrying towards Cole, and in front of Cooper and his colleague, Agent Albert Rosenfield, Jeffries starts raving in a loud and disturbed manner, referring at one stage to Cooper and yelling “Who do you think this is, there?”. Jeffries refers to names and incidents that are unfamiliar to those listening, before suddenly disappearing into thin air. Suddenly, the three receive a phone call telling of Agent Desmond's sudden disappearance in Deer Meadow.

Following up on this, and sensing a connection, Cooper retraces Desmond's steps through Deer Meadow - but is unable to discover the fate of his colleague or Theresa Banks' murderer. In a recording to Diane, Cooper refers to his deep conviction that the killer will strike again, "but as the old saying goes, who knows where or when?"

Roughly a year later, in 1989, Cooper tells Rosenfield in the Philadelphia offices of how he senses Banks' killer will strike again soon, and that his victim will be a young woman, who has blonde hair, is sexually active, using drugs, and is crying out for help. (And that Rosenfield will help him solve the case). Rosenfield is quick to dismiss Cooper's notion, however, reminding Cooper he is "talking about half the high school girls in America!"

[edit] On arrival in Twin Peaks

On February 24, 1989, Cooper is called into to investigate the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer in the town of Twin Peaks, in northeast Washington. The FBIs involvement was triggered due to the emergence of a potential second victim, Ronette Pulaski, who was discovered across the state line. Cooper's initial examination of Laura's body reveals a tiny typed letter 'R' inserted under her fingernail. He recognizes this as the "calling card" of the killer who took the life of Teresa Banks in Deer Meadow.

Alongside Sheriff Harry S. Truman and his deputies, Cooper quickly establishes that Laura's character and relationships are not as they first appear, and that she's far from the wholesome homecoming queen that those closest to her believed her to be. It is revealed that Laura was two-timing her boyfriend Bobby Briggs with sullen biker James Hurley, a fact known to Laura's best friend Donna Hayward. Cooper also finds traces of cocaine in Laura's diary, indicating a drug habit she shared with Bobby.

During his investigation, Cooper stays at the Great Northern Hotel owned by the Horne family. The Hornes' sultry daughter Audrey develops a crush on Cooper that initially appears to be mutual. However, Cooper later rebuffs her advances, on the grounds that she is a high schooler and she is involved in the case he is working on. With Audrey's help, Cooper traces Laura's cocaine usage to One-Eyed Jack's, a brothel across the Canadian border. It is revealed that Laura had also been working as a prostitute there. Without his knowing, Audrey infiltrates the brothel and later has to be rescued by Cooper and Truman in an extralegal operation.

Cooper also experiences a bizarre dream, in which he sees a one-armed man called Mike, who chants a strange poem: "Through the darkness of future past / The magician longs to see / One chants out between two worlds / Fire walk with me." Mike tells Cooper about another man called Bob, and how they went "killing together." Bob also appears as a man with long grey hair, dressed in denim, who swears to Cooper, "I will kill again." As the dream continues, Cooper finds himself twenty-five years older, sitting in a mysterious red-curtained room. It is here he meets the diminutive Man From Another Place who intones clues to Cooper in the form of strange phrases and then proceeds to dance to a jazzy beat. Also present is the spirit of Laura Palmer, who kisses Cooper and then whispers into his ear the name of her killer. When he awakes, Cooper is unable to recall the killer's name.

Cooper and the local police force are then able to track down the one-armed man, whose full name is Phillip Michael Gerard. Gerard appears to be nothing more than a shoe salesman and claims to know nothing of the Bob that Cooper describes. However, it eventually becomes clear that Gerard is possessed by the "inhabiting spirit Mike" who reveals to Cooper and his colleages the true nature of Bob - Bob is a fellow inhabiting spirit who has possessed someone in Twin Peaks "for over forty years."

Cooper is also visited by an apparition of a mysterious Giant who provides him with further clues in the murder investigation. All this information that Cooper has gained from psychic and empirical means, including the mysterious utterances of an eccentric local woman known as The Log Lady, leads him to a number of suspects; but when he discovers the existence of Laura's second, secret diary, he realizes that therein lies the key to solving the mystery. Harold Smith, a local man who was one of Laura's confidants, holds this diary. The secret diary reveals that from a very early age Laura was abused by a figure called 'Bob', and that her use of drugs and sex are the means she has used to numb herself and escape from him.

On the night before she is to leave town, Laura's lookalike cousin, Maddy Ferguson is brutally murdered by Laura's father, Leland, who is revealed as the man who is possessed by 'Bob'. Cooper and Truman apprehend him, and as they interrogate the crazed Leland, it becomes clear that Leland has little to no memory of his grotesque actions while under Bob's influence. After confessing the two murders, Bob forces Leland to smash his own head against the wall of his cell. As Cooper and Truman rush to his side, Leland's memories of what he has done return to him, and in his dying moment, Leland claims to see Laura. However, as Cooper and the others note, if Bob has truly left Leland's body, it means his spirit is now loose in the woods of Twin Peaks.

With the murder investigation concluded, Cooper is then all set to leave Twin Peaks when he is framed for drug trafficking by the Franco-Canadian criminal Jean Renault, who blames Cooper for the death of his brothers Jacques and Bernard, who both had been killed since Cooper's arrival. Cooper is temporarily suspended from the FBI.

After Renault is killed in a shoot-out with police and Cooper is cleared of the charges, his former FBI partner and mentor Windom Earle, who has escaped and come to Twin Peaks to play a deadly game of chess with Cooper, in which each piece of Cooper's that he takes means someone dies. Earle hides out in the woods so he may go about plotting his revenge scheme. Cooper explains to Truman his connection with Earle (see above).

As this is going on, Cooper continues to try to track down the origins and whereabouts of Bob, and learns more about the mysteries of the dark woods surrounding Twin Peaks. It is here he learns of the existence of the White Lodge and the Black Lodge, two mystical extradimensional realms whose gateways reside somewhere in the woods and which are occupied by spirits that appear in Cooper's dreams and visions (metaphorically referred to as owls - "The owls are not what they seem"). Cooper also falls in love with a new girl in town, Annie Blackburn.

When Annie wins the Miss Twin Peaks contest, Windom Earle kidnaps her and takes her to the Black Lodge, which Cooper realizes has been Earle's goal all along. The Black Lodge then is revealed to be the place where Bob, the Man From Another Place and the Giant come from, and where the red-curtained room of Cooper's dream is located. Cooper follows Earle into the Lodge and has a set of bizarre encounters with doppelgangers of dead characters, including Caroline Earle and Leland Palmer. During Cooper's journey, Windom Earle is 'killed' by an enraged Bob, but Annie's fate is unclear. Cooper then tries to escape, but cannot find the exit in the nonlinear path of the Black Lodge. He is also chased by his own smiling doppelganger as he tries to find a way out. The doppelganger catches him, and both Cooper and Annie return to the woods, unconscious. He awakens in his room at the Great Northern Hotel and says "I wasn't sleeping", in an ominous tone of voice. In the final shot of the television series, Cooper slams his forehead into the bathroom mirror, and his reflection is that of 'Bob'.

His fate has been debated ever since but a third series was intended and given Cooper's status as the lead character it is believed that he would have escaped the Black Lodge in the next series. Although some of the deleted scenes in the prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me took place after the end of the series. In the original script the end of the movie featured a confrontation between Cooper and The Man From Another Place who explains that Laura Palmer's ring is gone indicating that he is trapped in the lodge and his doppelganger is the one who was transfered back to Twin Peaks. Fans of the show are currently campaining to have this and the other deleted scenes included in the upcoming re-release of the movie in order to finally shed light on the unsolved mysteries surrounding Twin Peaks

[edit] Post-series finale

The feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me subtly expands on the events of Cooper's fate in the series finale, while at the same time functioning as a prequel that details the last week of Laura Palmer's life.

At one point while experiencing a strange dream involving the Black Lodge and its residents, in the non-linear realm Laura encounters Cooper at a point after he has become trapped there. Cooper implores her not to take "the ring", a mysterious object that gives its wearer a sort of connection to the Black Lodge. Shortly thereafter, Laura also has a vision of a bloody Annie Blackburn beside her in her bed, who tells her: "My name is Annie. I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary." It is unknown if Laura did in fact transcribe this to the diary in her possession at the time. (Though, it has been said had the series continued in some fashion, this plot would have followed up on).

At the film's conclusion, Laura's spirit sits in the Red Room, and is looking up at Cooper whose hand is resting on her shoulder, and is smiling at her. Shortly thereafter, Laura's angel appears before them both and the film ends. The meaning behind Cooper's presence alongside Laura, and indeed, his ultimate fate - if he ever escaped the Black Lodge - is unknown.

[edit] As featured in spin-offs

In 1990, Simon & Schuster Audio released a cassette entitled Diane ... The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper which compiled many of the recorded diary entries of Cooper that had been featured in the first season and the beginning of the second, along with specially-recorded entries including several taking place prior to the pilot episode. The tape goes up to the aftermath of Cooper's shooting at the start of the second season.[1]

Published by Pocket Books in 1991, the official tie-in book The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes by Scott Frost (writer) (the brother of Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost) features a collection of transcripts from Cooper's audio tapes, from his early childhood to the day he is assigned to Laura Palmer's murder. It reveals that Cooper was born on April 19, 1954, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and details his first stumbles with love, obsession with the FBI and the relationships between himself, his parents, Windom Earle and Earle's wife, Caroline. Many of these tape transcripts are dictated to "Diane", though a later tape states that Cooper enjoys the thought of Diane listening to his tapes so much that he will address all tapes to her, whether she will ever listen to them or not. It also reveals how Cooper investigated the murder of Teresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow - a fact that could not be reconciled following the release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me a year later.

Like all Twin Peaks spin-off media, the canonicity of these two products in relation to the television series is unclear, although the Diane... cassette did incorporate canonical elements of the television series.

[edit] Relationships

Much like how he relates to the town itself, Cooper gains an instant rapport with much of the townspeople on arrival to Twin Peaks - most particularly Sheriff Harry S. Truman and his deputies, Deputy Tommy "Hawk" Hill and Deputy Andy Brennan. While Truman is initially skeptical of Cooper's unconventional investigation methods and other-worldly ideas, he is most often willing to accept Cooper's judgment. (Even referring to Cooper as "the finest lawman I have ever known" to agents investigating Cooper's alleged drug-running to Canada). Overtime there emerges a strong bond between the two, and a fierce loyalty to one another, most notably when Truman assists Cooper in rescuing Audrey Horne from One-Eyed Jacks, Cooper becoming a deputy following his suspension from the Bureau, and then Truman waiting patiently for two days at Glastonberry Grove for Cooper to emerge from the Black Lodge in the series finale.

Cooper's strongest relationship outside of the townspeople is that of his friendship with his colleague, Agent Albert Rosenfield. Though he has strong respect and admiration for Rosenfield's medical skills, and is seemingly unintimidated by Rosenfield's sarcastic manner, he has little tolerance or patience for Rosenfield's treatment of the town's citizens - most particularly his animosity towards Sheriff Truman. (Which notably thaws over time).

[edit] Love Life

Prior to Twin Peaks, Cooper's strongest romantic relationship was his affair with Caroline Earle, the wife of his former partner, Windom Earle. Caroline had been under Cooper and Earle's protection for witnessing a federal crime Earle committed when he lost his mind, but on one night when Cooper's guard was down, Caroline was murdered by Windom. Caroline's death and his failure to protect her continues to haunt Cooper on his arrival to Twin Peaks, referring to a "broken heart" when discussing women with Truman and his deputies. He also relates a version of the story of Caroline to the teenage Audrey Horne.

On arrival to Twin Peaks, Cooper becomes quickly aware that 18 year-old Audrey Horne, the daughter of local businessman Benjamin Horne, harbors a crush on him. The attraction appears mutual, as Cooper is clearly drawn to Audrey - but he is quick to rebuff her advances when Audrey turns up in his hotel bed. Cooper explains she is too young, but he does genuinely want to be her friend. However, following her disappearance - orchestrated by Jean Renault, brother of Jacques Renault, Blackie, the madame at One-Eyed Jacks and Emory Baddis, a manager from Horne's Department Store ), Cooper privately confesses to Diane that in Audrey's absence all he can think of is her smile. Following her rescue, there remains a deeply affectionate - almost close - friendship with the two, most notably when Audrey arrives to his hotel room for comfort following her father's arrest and her farewell when she believes Cooper is leaving Twin Peaks for good. They slow-dance at the Milford wedding.

However, during the production of the series' second season, Kyle MacLachlan (as he notes during an interview on the 2007 Gold Edition Twin Peaks DVD set) vetoed the possibility of a romantic relationship, as he felt his character should not sleep with a high school girl.^{[citation needed]} Following the series' cancellation, it is often said by the writers that the Cooper-Audrey relationship was to be the main plot following the resolution of the Laura Palmer murder mystery - forcing them to focus more on the supporting characters.^{[citation needed]}

Following his reinstatement to the FBI, Cooper meets Annie Blackburn, the sister of Norma Jennings, whom he instantly falls in love with. Annie is established as being a kindred spirit, experiencing the world with curiosity and wonder. Much like Cooper's pain over Caroline Earle, Annie also nurses a broken heart from someone in her past. (Which is implied may have resulted in suicide attempts, and affected her decision to later attend a monastery). Cooper helps her to prepare for participation in the Miss Twin Peaks contest. However, during the contest she is kidnapped by Windom Earle and taken to the Black Lodge to use her 'fear' to open the gateway.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Special Agent Dale Cooper grew up in Philadelphia (according to Season 2, Episode 18, as well as a book, The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes, written by Scott Frost, the brother of the series' producer Mark Frost, providing background information about Cooper). On arriving in Twin Peaks, Cooper quotes W.C. Fields, saying 'I'd rather be here than Philadelphia'. This is no coincidence, since this is where David Lynch lived in the Eraserhead era. Lynch has claimed many times that Philadelphia has had a strong influence on his worldview.
• The name of Dale Cooper might have been inspired by the mysterious "D.B. Cooper" who, in 1971, hijacked an airliner leaving Seattle and jumped from the plane with $200,000 dollars strapped to his chest, never to be seen again.

[edit] As depicted in popular culture

• In a Sesame Street "Monsterpiece Theater" skit, the Cookie Monster played a Dale Cooper-esque character investigating how the town of Twin Beaks got its name, unable to connect this to the fact that all the town's inhabitants (including "David Finch") are birds with two beaks.
• In The Simpsons episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two" (2F20, 17 September 1995), Chief Wiggum has a dream that resembles Dale Cooper's dream in which Lisa talks backwards to reveal clues. The chief awakens from his dream with his hair mussed like Cooper's bed hair after his awakening. In the episode "Lisa's Sax" (3G02, 19 October 1997), a flashback to 1990 shows Homer watching the show as Dale Cooper remarks, "That's some damn fine coffee you got here in Twin Peaks... and damn good cherry pie." The Giant is then shown waltzing with a horse, under a tree with a traffic light hanging from a branch. Homer's opinion of the show is "Brilliant!... I have absolutely no idea what's going on."
• Havoc Unit has a sample from Cooper in their song "Viremia".

[edit] See also

• Fox Mulder

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Photo and brief bio as a Castmember & Character in Twin Peaks
• Agent Cooper Twin Peaks card