Why don't we ever get to see Mike's true face?  We obviously see BOB's true face.  Mike looks exactly like Phillip Gerard when we see him.  Is it because he is broken and needs to combine with the arm (LMFAP) so we can see his real face?  If so, why didn't they show Mike at the end of FWWM?

Just wondering about everyone's theories and thoughts on this pressing matter.

I'm guessing that Mike's "true face" was for ever lost when he saw the face of God, and rejected his evil ways - symbolised by cutting off his arm. The dwarf is perhaps a pale shade of Mike's "true face", considering it is explicately associated with this evil facet of Mike. ("I am the arm.").

I'm guessing that Mike's "true face" was for ever lost when he saw the face of God, and rejected his evil ways - symbolised by cutting off his arm. The dwarf is perhaps a pale shade of Mike's "true face", considering it is explicately associated with this evil facet of Mike. ("I am the arm.").

 Excellent theory!  Mike CAN'T show his true face!  I have never thought about it that way!

When he saw the face of God, does he literally mean God or did he just have some sort of epiphany?

I'm guessing that Mike's "true face" was for ever lost when he saw the face of God, and rejected his evil ways - symbolised by cutting off his arm. The dwarf is perhaps a pale shade of Mike's "true face", considering it is explicately associated with this evil facet of Mike. ("I am the arm.").

 Excellent theory!  Mike CAN'T show his true face!  I have never thought about it that way!

When he saw the face of God, does he literally mean God or did he just have some sort of epiphany?

 I'm of the camp that believes the dwarf IS Mike's true form. In the script for FWWM, it even states so. I tend to look at "I am the arm" as a mocking/sarcastic remark. "Hey, remember that guy with the one arm? That was me." He says it to Cooper, presumably, after Cooper has spent some time in the Lodge.

I also don't believe that there ever was any epiphany. This is something that Mike tells Cooper to manipulate him. He doesn't ever do anything very godly or kind; everything he says or does is only to lead Cooper to catching Bob, and by proxy, allowing Mike to have a good old laugh at his former servant getting his tuchus handed to him by the puny mortals.

 
I'm of the camp that believes the dwarf IS Mike's true form. In the script for FWWM, it even states so.

Yes, but it doesnt exactly say that, however.  The information we get about LMFAP being the arm, literally, is plausible given information we have gotten from the series.  Your reading is certainly possible, but it is by no means definitive.

I have seen people make this same argument before using another fact as proof... that the shooting script uses a speech tag that identifies something we know was spoken by the LMFAP as "Mike."  If memory serves it is the very scene you're talking about ("I am the arm").  There are similar problems with this argument. 

Firstly, this information is not diegetic to the scene, so can't be definitive from the standpoint of cannon since this information is not (cannot be) presented to the viewing audience.  Secondly, it is within the realm of possibility that "Mike" might refer to "Mike Anderson" the actor, and not the supernatural being.  Note:  POSSIBILITY.  I don't necessarily believe this is the case, but it does leave room to doubt.  So to say the script "even says so" is a bit misleading.  Unless of course you're referring to something else I havent addressed?

 
I'm of the camp that believes the dwarf IS Mike's true form. In the script for FWWM, it even states so.

Yes, but it doesnt exactly say that, however.  The information we get about LMFAP being the arm, literally, is plausible given information we have gotten from the series.  Your reading is certainly possible, but it is by no means definitive.

I have seen people make this same argument before using another fact as proof... that the shooting script uses a speech tag that identifies something we know was spoken by the LMFAP as "Mike."  If memory serves it is the very scene you're talking about ("I am the arm").  There are similar problems with this argument. 

Firstly, this information is not diegetic to the scene, so can't be definitive from the standpoint of cannon since this information is not (cannot be) presented to the viewing audience.  Secondly, it is within the realm of possibility that "Mike" might refer to "Mike Anderson" the actor, and not the supernatural being.  Note:  POSSIBILITY.  I don't necessarily believe this is the case, but it does leave room to doubt.  So to say the script "even says so" is a bit misleading.  Unless of course you're referring to something else I havent addressed?

 you bring up very good points, geoffr111. and your arguement can also be addressed to the questionable nature of MIKE and/or LMFAP and where their characters' impetus lies. the scene in which he says he saw the face of god, and took his whole arm off, was shot for the EUROPEAN pilot, which has a closed(closed for lynch that is ) ending due to contractual obligations with ABC, in case TP wasnt picked up, they could use the pilot as a stand alone movie(not to mention the way BOB was cast for TP, basically from a feeling lynch had, not a planned character or plot arc). since TP was picked up, that footage sat for almost a year, until it ended up in a highly edited form in ep.2, during coop's dream sequence. IS THAT CANNON? if it is, does that mean MIKE is telling the truth about his arm? im of the opinion(tho i can see it both ways) that MIKE is not what he is thought of by cooper, a sincere helping spirit. now i know much of the metaphysical aspects of TP were being made up as the series developed, and even in the final episode, in the orginal script, the black lodge did not look like the red room of ep.2 until lynch got his hands on it(tho i may be wrong in that engels or peyton may have had more to do with it). so if it is true that the lodges and their spirits were being incorporated into TP without knowing where the ideas will eventually go, can we take any of those aspects in the series at face value? for me, FWWM was lynch(and engels) defining(again, a relative term) the lodges in their final form. and here it is that we see MIKE in the black lodge, eating Laura's garmonbozia after throwing the owl ring in the train car, thereby stopping BOB from inhabiting her, and forcing him("DONT MAKE ME DO THIS!(leland/BOB)) to kill her instead.
BUT
in MIKE's doing so, by banging on the door, ronette was spared(with the help of her angel of course).
does anyone see this as a good act by MIKE, or did it happen merely by chance because of the MIKE's real intentions, to get BOB to pay for stealing teresa's garmonbozia, as she wore the owl ring too?

Check out MIKE's appearance in ep 13 (at the end).  He says the thing about seeing the face of God there, too.

^bump^

Hope you see this, JFK.

sorry about that. life business and such.
yeah, i guess one of my points is shotdown right there, i dont know how i forgot that scene, i always remembered it because of the "who is BOB?" hype at the time, but yeah, they repeat the poem too(from ep.2 dream sequence in question). i had a few thoughts watching the scene in ep.13, which is the first time MIKE interacts with coop and company. the idea of the familiar, which as i understand it, is a diminutive term, so MIKE truly was/is higher up the ladder as far as the lodge spirits go. also, he said he took the arm off because he saw the face of god. could that be he saw an angel as depicted in FWWM, which would then have possibly have white lodge connections? how then do we explain his actions at the end of FWWM? he does say in ep.13 that he is similar to BOB. and we see in FWWM his asking for and eating(by LMFAP) laura's garmonbozia to make BOB pay back the garmonbozia from theresa(which MIKE says also include the pleasures, not just the fear and sorrow as is usually thought) which was somehow his because she wore the owl ring and BOB, through leland, stole it). i guess im just seeing him in actions that arent congruent with the whole stopping BOB story arc of MIKE in this part of TP. maybe im just looking at it from a different perspective, but that ones of the detail of TP ive never been settled on.