Lynch gives a clue what he is up to with the camera giving major attention to the telephone booth outside of Winkie’s and the coin return lever stuck in the down position. Think about it, telephone coin return levers are never in a down position without you holding them that way and even then the lever is hard to keep down. Lynch does this as a clue that the phone booth is not a phone booth at all but a sex booth with the lever indicating that the girl on the other side of the booth is not there. That’s why the long look at the phone. That’s why he moves on rather than picking up the phone – the girl is not there.

Winkie’s is a Sex Emporium where guys pop tokens into a machine that lowers a blind leaving only the glass separating them. Dan and Herb are both seen at the counter purchasing tokens to have ‘one-on-one’ sessions with their favorite girls. The many poster-clad windows of Winkie’s represents the blind between the girl and the guy with the posters (with food and prices on them) representing the blinds that move out of the way when tokens (money) are ‘fed’ into the machine. Both Diane and Rita work at Winkie’s and they are best friends.

Later, we see Naomi Watts on the phone from her side of the glass, telling lies to the guy on the other side of the glass while winking about it (Winkie’s) to her friend working next to her. Betty, Diane, Rita … all fake names as nobody uses their real name at Winkie’s Sex Emporium. Why is the phone by the window? The glass separates the clients from The Girl with the phone the way the girl talks to the john. This allows The Girl to do things on the other side of the glass that would be illegal if the glass wasn’t there as well as protecting the girl from any unwanted advances.

Behind Winkie’s, Dan and Herb encounter a smiling crack whore looking for a john. She is so out of it from the crack so much so that even a chemical fire that scorched her hair and blackened her face doesn’t phase her or stop her from trying to find a trick. That’s why her hair is that way, her hair was scorched and face blackened when fire scorched her.

The Mafia runs Winkie’s and one of their girls is missing. Not so much an issue in itself as girls come and girls go but in this case The Girl stole major cash from Winkie’s. She must be found and made an example of. Why is she called The Girl? As mentioned, the girls all use fake names so who bothers to know the girl’s name? They all become generically, The Girl. Rita is the girl.

Adam is a director but he is not casting a role during the sound stage scene. He is merely watching good-looking women dance and grind in his window into the peep booth. It’s just a stylized fantasy of Lynch’s making. This is Betty’s dream in that she thought that Adam was devoted to her and finding her roles and this dream shows her that he is not so she runs away upset. Then, in reality, she also finds out that he is not devoted to her. All scenes with Adam are fantasy with most having an element of embarrassing Adam for his betrayal of Betty’s love.

So what’s up with Sierra Bonita Apartments? Rita is The Girl who stole the money from Winkie’s. Scared for her life, she has avoided her apartment like the plague. The blue key exists in two forms (more on this later). The blue key is a spare key to Rita’s apartment that she entrusted to Diane. What we are not told is that Rita has a sister that looks a lot like her. We will call her Lita. Lita tried to contact Rita to tell her that she was coming into town but Rita does not have an answering machine hooked up to leave a message. Lita came to Winkie’s when Rita wasn’t at her apartment. Diane gave her the spare apartment key so that she could crash there while waiting for her sister to show up. Sadly, Diane did not know that Rita stole money from Winkie’s on the prior work shift, so giving Lita the key to Rita’s apartment set her up for death. The Cowboy (working for the mob) finds Lita asleep in Rita’s apartment and thinking it is The Girl, murders her. Only upon going through her purse does he realize his mistake, thus his dismay upon leaving the apartment.

Rita has been hiding out at the Havenhurst apartment – laying low while trying to hide from the mob. She is befriended by Betty, a blonde that looks remarkably similar to her friend Diane. She picks up the name Rita from a film poster – thus doing what she does best, lying and adopting phony names. It’s because of the mob that Rita is so reluctant to leave the apartment or play ‘detective’ as Betty wants to do. Rita knows the truth of her situation and this ‘I can’t remember’ is just a complete sham. She doesn’t want to hit the streets because she is scared for her life. We think that it’s Betty who finally convinces Rita to leave the apartment but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s the phone call to her own phone that gets her to leave. What really gets her into action is the voice on the phone answering machine. It is her sister’s voice, it’s Lita’s voice! That’s why the ‘that’s not me … but I know her’ response appears to be so cryptic from Rita. The un-shown back-story is that Lita arrives to an apartment with Rita’s belonging still in boxes and an answering machine not hooked up. Lita sets up the answering machine (knowing that her sister is too lazy to do it herself) so that she will be able to leave her sister messages in the future. That’s why her sister’s voice is on the message. So, concern about her sister’s well-being prompts Rita to leave the apartment not playing detective.

This culminates in the shock of Rita’s life when she arrives back at her apartment days after her sister arrived to find Lita’s rotting corpse. So, what’s up with Lamp Lady (a.k.a. the woman in apartment 12)? She knows that Rita has been avoiding her apartment like the plague. So, when Betty asks her these idiot questions about D. Selwyn when the REAL D. Selwyn is standing right next to her, she plays along – while at the same time showing her annoyance by her disapproving looks to Rita.

So, what’s up with the scene with Diane and the Lamp Lady with the Lamp Lady dressed the same as before? This is simply Betty’s dream/fantasy triggered by the mystery and the traumatic events with Apt. 17.

So what is Club Silencio? Club Silencio is nothing more than a Sex Theatre where Betty works to make a few bucks and work on her acting chops (everyone in Hollywood wants to be an actor). The shows are usually a weird mix of paid-performer kinky stuff meets amateur hour. Betty is not the goody-goody girl straight from Canada that she makes out to be. Betty does paid kinky stuff with a friend at Club Silencio and then does performance art stuff of her own for free. So the audience is an odd mix brought there for different reasons if only to support their amateur friend’s performances.

The order of things is as presented. Too traumatized to be alone after her sister’s murder, Rita agrees to go with Betty to Club Silencio. Thus, Betty gives Rita a blonde makeover as Rita is scared to death that someone will recognize her. Then Betty appears on-stage with Rita at Club Silencio for a girl-girl sex scene. Rita’s whispers of “Silencio” reveal where she really is – at Club Silencio doing sex acts before a silent audience. Between shows, Diane and the blonde Rita take seats in the audience to watch the amateur talent portion of the bill. We get a wacky amateur magician and then Rebekah Del Rio, a woman doing a well-performed lip sync to music until stage fright sets in and she faints. The tears between Betty and Rita are genuine brought on by the song “Crying” with the lyrics about “crying over you” hitting them in the gut after Rita loses her sister. Unable to continue, they leave for home.

Adam’s party is just a fantasy of Diane’s until the falling porcelain snaps her out of it back at Winkie’s. What she wants more than anything else is to leave L.A. after Adam dumped her and Joe agrees to sell her a motorcycle (hence the leather motorcycle jacket, that’s his business). It has nothing to do with killing Rita. Joe just has a bit of a crush on Diane’s girlfriend and is a bit embarrassed when she puts Rita’s photo face up on the table so that other people might be able to see what he’s getting. It’s just a photo with yet another stage name for Rita – that being Camilla. Diane spots her regular (Dan) back at the register at Winkie’s purchasing some more tokens. This signals her coffee break is over and it’s time to go back to work.

Thus, Betty, Diane, Lita (corpse) and Rita all exist in reality with Rita also known as Camilla.

The end shows Diane taking her own life. Depression brought on by a failed love affair with Adam, drug use and self-loathing is the trifecta of things that are triggered by the guilt associated with her role in the death of Lita. Seeing the blue motorcycle key on the table makes her think about the blue apartment key that she gave to Rita’s sister that unfortunately set her up to be murdered. The connection is too much for her, the demons take over and she commits suicide.

The down-side of this theory is that it is based on whim, truths/partial truths used for my convenience and other forms of malarkey.

Bravo.

sounds like it has some promising leads, but then i watched the movie. and a lot of things just didn't work. you left out "gene" of gene clean. aka Billy Ray Cyrus. you also left out the Cowboy.

what is the gene clean mean anyway?

Just so there's no misunderstanding of context here, this thread was ctyankee's attempt to demonstrate that you can spin a theory around the most random of details if you selectively ignore other (significant) elements of the film.