Ever since my first viewing of the series, I'm always disappointed there was never a proper interaction and exchange between these two nemesis in the real world of Twin Peaks. (Not counting the surreal events of the last episode). Earle's first tape to Cooper, "It's your move." still gives me the chills on repeated viewing, and it's just a shame it never built to a proper face-to-face conversation between the two before they entered the Lodge considering how much Cooper talked of his former friendship with Earle, Earle observered\mainipulated events from the shadows, and that this was the chief plot of the last number of episodes. It's hard not to feel oddly cheated as a viewer...

I agree. Yet i suppose in a way it adds to it...sort of making Earle into a fear...a sort of 'fear of the dark', that since he is not directly confronted, seems to Cooper to be more malevolent. Earle, in a way that BOB is, is a manifestation of the darkness that lurks out there, somewhere in Twin Peaks...the difference being that we actually see what Earle is up to.

Seems to me that that was the point. They built up Earle as an equal to Cooper, and anti-Cooper if you will. And old teacher, who Cooper could have just barely beaten. Then BOB tore Earle apart with ease, and possessed Cooper, thus getting established as much more powerful than Cooper, yet it was to be Cooper's task to defeat him. So, Earle was used as a jobber to BOB, which worked, since just Cooper vs. Earle all the way to the finish would have been a very typical story.

--
Vesa 'wtw' Ahola  [email protected]
"Tourists are terrorists with cameras; terrorists are tourists with guns."
- Andrei Codresque

Ever since my first viewing of the series, I'm always disappointed there was never a proper interaction and exchange between these two nemesis in the real world of Twin Peaks. (Not counting the surreal events of the last episode). Earle's first tape to Cooper, "It's your move." still gives me the chills on repeated viewing, and it's just a shame it never built to a proper face-to-face conversation between the two before they entered the Lodge considering how much Cooper talked of his former friendship with Earle, Earle observered\mainipulated events from the shadows, and that this was the chief plot of the last number of episodes. It's hard not to feel oddly cheated as a viewer...

I agree that It is very strange that there never was an face-to-face encounter or "normal" conclusion to the conflict between cooper and earle. In most TV series you have that final scene where the good guy wins over the bad guy or opposite.  It is the standard climax in a story where you have a hero and a villain.  But that is not how it works in Twin Peaks, things are a little bit different there.

 You get the encounter between cooper and earle, but in the Red room. Its like the story has been taken to a whole other level, and the more traditional story where Cooper and Earle should have meet and one or the other should have won over the other, that story becomes disrupted when these characters enter the red room. Its like you have this traditional plot with the good guy versus the evil guy heading for an confrontation and a conclusion and in the middle of the story the story or the plot dissolves or takes a completely different turn.  

I didn't feel cheated about the confrontation. I think it is a really original confrontation.  It's hard to explain - it's something about the plot being transcended. Something about a bigger fish in the sea swallowing both Earle and Cooper.
 

I feel that one of the biggest mistakes in the series was how Windom Earle was handled. We saw too much of him; and what we saw wasn't always pretty. I maintain that the story arc could've been phenomenal had we never seen Earle until much later in the season-- perhaps only the last two episodes. When I first heard Earle's first recording to Cooper, the image I had in my head of who Windom Earle was-- how he looked, walked, his expressions, his demeanor-- was built up in a way that, quite frankly, Kenneth Welsh did not live up to. Mr. Welsh's voice was so much more chilling filtered through a casette tape than "in person," and his overall demeanor simply did not match up, IMO. He sounded so exquisitely evil, cunning, and all-powerful that, when we got to the point of this disheveled little man cackling like the Wicked Witch and shock collaring Leo, I found myself tremendously disappointed. Earle should have been a believable successor to Bob as the villain of the series. His dancing and singing while possessing Leland aside, we also got to see Bob doing his freakout thing in Ronette's flashback, as well as myriad other creepy stuff. With Windom Earle, what we saw was some supremely goofy shenanigans on par with Ben Horne's Civil War.

 Now, had we only [i]heard[/i] Earle for most of the duration of the second season, only seen his murderous work after it had been completed, only had him literally taunting Cooper from the shadows, the psychological as well as storytelling impact could have been awesome. Granted, the risk would have been run that the audience would be disappointed come the big reveal-- I imagine that, after so much build up, Earle would have become so mammoth in the minds of the viewers that it would've taken a miraculous feat of casting to have him appear as intimidating as he sounded--but I think that the creators could've pulled it off if they'd chosen to go down that route.

Agreed Grey, I could never reconcile what I read of Earl in the Cooper autobiography, My Life, My Tapes, with the figure seen in season two, watching Kenneth Welsh ham it up..., pretty sad.

I completely agree. This might be my biggest gripe (out of many big ones) with season 2. There's simply too much of him. Kenneth Welsh was a good choice, but it's the over the top Joker dialogue that's at fault - and it's not even good Joker dialogue. The ending of episode 20 is one of the best endings of the entire series, and even with some heavyhanded touches from Diane Keaton the ending of episode 22 is almost its equal. But from there it all goes downhill when Earle talks about fear and love, kills roadies, walks around dressed like a horse, laughs maniacally, etc. But not only is he not scary, he's most often redundant. I wouldn't be surprised if you could fan-edit out almost every scene he's in and not lose the plot.

In the just-for-fun fan rewriting the poster called Audrey Horne and I are doing over at the Dugpa board, Earle is only heard through tapes but he's also posing as an innocuous character with a pseudonym and meets other people in town, but we don't see him or know it's him until the last three episodes. He's more like Toad until he's revealed. I think this could have worked. In that scenario he also takes Audrey to the Lodge, of course. Heh.

I like windom earle. But i agree that the autobiography of cooper paints a completely different picture of him, in comparison to the character in the series. But i think he is one of the highlights of season 2. He is very cartoonish, that is the first thing that comes to my mind. Like his very essence is made up of different donuts and other pastries and coffee, or something like that. He's a very evil genius but you can't really take the evil very serious..... But all this changes in episode 29.... then all the games and the cartoon - stuff ends, all the illusions wither away - the cartoonish battle between Cooper and Earle dissolves and the seriousness of reality enters - swallowing both Cooper and Earle....

That is my interpretation!  

I always thought I was alone in thinking that the Windom Earle character was terribly miscast.  For starters, I can't imagine him as Cooper's ex-partner.  The skits with the horse costume, the shock collar, and the paper mache pawn are bad.  In Episode 30, he probably would have tied Audrey to the train tracks until Dudley Do-Right came along.

I always thought I was alone in thinking that the Windom Earle character was terribly miscast.  For starters, I can't imagine him as Cooper's ex-partner.  The skits with the horse costume, the shock collar, and the paper mache pawn are bad.  In Episode 30, he probably would have tied Audrey to the train tracks until Dudley Do-Right came along.

 I totally agree. In comparison to BOB, they are both quite over-the-top, but BOB is absolutely terrifying and Earle is, well, really not.

"Windom Earle? I clearly said winsome girl. Stupid typists."

It could have been a pretty interesting arc in a season three after coop has been saved from the lodge if a BOB-controlled Earle came after him.  Hmmm... would that really have been interesting?  I dunno.  But it's something, for sure!

I have to admit, I really enjoyed Welsh's Windom Earle character. I agree that I wish we had seen more of the "before" guy as opposed to the cackling, flute-playing guy in his long underwear, but in my opinion you could tell the genius and power beneath all of the ridiculousness.  Maybe it's because I've worked in psychiatric care, or find it fascinating (to the point of examining myself as well, of course), but there is such a fine, fine line between genius and madness sometimes and I think Windom Earle was a fine exemplar.

I think it's more attributed to the fact that Welsh is a fine actor.  On the written page, Earle was a mess. And it didn't help that they changed strides with his arc -from the chess plot to cutting pictures into playing cards. There was just no confidence with the character -watch the pilot and follow it with one of the last episode -like Windom in a cow outfit or somehow carrying a giant chess piece to a gazebo. Aside from the opening credits, these are two completely different shows, and not a show that has evolved.  The stumble with Earle and a lot of other characters is that he is bad, he is a bad guy.  Twin Peaks was/IS about duality and especially duality within. Internal personal struggles.  Well, at least from my point of view. I've watched Twin Peaks hundreds of times since it premiered, and my heart always dies a little when it gets to the later episodes.