Pale Horse and Fat Trout

Twin Peaks

I just had my first dream about Twin Peaks…which is odd, because I was around for the original run, so I am surprised it had taken this long.

Warning, spoilers afoot.

Anyway, it was a short and sweet vignette. I was talking to David Lynch about my dream theory that four main men in this universe represented the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, hence the symbolism of the white horse. He asked me which ones, and I said Cooper, Jacoby, Carl, and either Leland or Gordon himself.

He grinned at me, clapped his hand on my shoulder, and answered me at full volume, in true Gordon Cole fashion, “SWEETHEART, I LIKE THE CUT OF YOUR JIB.”

And I woke up.

Verily, I am amused.

So, my waking mind would arrange this fun puzzle my dreaming mind created as follows:

In John's Revelation the first horseman rides a white horse, carries a bow, and is given a crown as a figure of conquest,^[2][3] perhaps invoking pestilence, or the Antichrist. The second carries a sword and rides a red horse as the creator of (civil) war, conflict, and strife.^[4] The third, a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famineand carries the scales.^[5] The fourth and final horse is pale, upon it rides Death, accompanied by Hades.^[6]

The Biblical sources are Revelation, Ezekiel, and Zechariah.

So.

Leland Palmer, Laura’s father, rides the white horse (or is ridden), for he brings the pestilence of BOB, and BOB’s conquest over him and his household. He represents the Black Lodge’s hold over the town—there is something sick in the very soil.

Dr. Lawrence Jacoby would be the second rider, as a therapist who does not maintain confidentiality, or boundaries with his clients, and who lusts after/pines for Laura instead of helping her. He is strife and chaos, a human whirlwind where he should be sowing calm. He encourages her double life by asking her to make audio diaries for him that he savors.

The symbolism of the third rider being a food merchant makes me want to relate it to the Double R Diner somehow, but that’s much too pat. Rather, I see this rider as Carl Rodd, the benevolent but conflicted and exhausted (and famished) manager of first the Fat Trout Trailer Park, then the New Fat Trout Trailer Park. He makes just enough to get by, who sees and wrangles some of the worst of Twin Peaks, and makes sure they eat, even if that means no rent payments for him, and who travels into town every day for no other reason than to witness. He does indeed carry the scales, though they weigh heavy upon him.

The pale horse is ridden by Death and is accompanied by Hades. I say this is Dale Cooper, the black-suited outsider who rides into town seemingly to solve the evil, but acting almost as a catalyst and magnet for it. Cooper is the last puzzle piece for all that is to occur. And Hades? That would be Dark Cooper, the shadow he unknowingly carries with him, his doppelgänger.

The white horse/pale horse (referred to as both) shows up several times, both overtly and in the background throughout the series and in the movie, including on the night Laura died.

I highly recommend the two books written by co-creator Mark Frost, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. They fill in the background of these and other characters, and they flesh out the true strangeness of the Twin Peaks area, weaving American and global historical events into the story. There is something indeed wrong in the very soil. The owls are not what they seem.

And now I am wondering, as I still feel that firm hand clasp on my shoulder, what David Lynch dreamed last night. He says the truth is in dreams, after all.