Ed has always fascinated me. I'll post up a bunch of screen shots from the Ed scene and ask some questions and see if people want to talk about Ed and his office. If it is even an office. Or just an office at least.

First up, what does Ed do for a living, and why does he have so many keys? Times are tough, so he tells us ...

I never noticed the keys.

Me either until I was looking for something else.

Obviously keys are generally significant within the film, but not sure what to make of it (if anything).

Joe would laught if he read that post and saw your avatar.

dk23 wrote:Joe would laught if he read that post and saw your avatar.

Allow me to rephrase.

Not really quite sure what to make (if anything) of the fact that Ed has a massive bunch of keys hung up there in the back of his office/kitchen/bedroom.

He certainly has a lot of keys! Maybe that's why Jo laughs when Diane asks 'what's it open?' - because that was what Ed was always saying as he fumbled through them?

I also notice that Ed has a coffee mug on his desk, associating him with waking up (espresso guy is a client of Diane thread). He is one of the few people who DIDN'T steal their mugs from Winkie's diner (props in other films thread).

Jo and Ed are a blond and brunette pair: gender-flipped avatars of Diane and Camilla (see Dan Selwyn thread). Jo shooting Ed foreshadows Diane setting the hit on Camilla, a fantasy in which her Jo persona takes the action Diane can only dream (and fantasise) about.

Jo's the one who is doing it/who does it. He's the one who is out back of Winkies, that is, he goes out to the back of Winkies when he drops off the key. Notice that in killing Ed (male Camilla), Jo inadvertantly punctures an eye-level hole through the wall (I can see him through the wall). In this context Jo is a sort of transitional stage between Betty and the bum (another of Diane's personas that exhibits gender cross-over). However I think Diane recognises that the masculine, callous, active, dynamic aspect of herself (represented by Ed) leads inexorably to her degradation as the to the bum, even while she is impotent to activate it (unlike our good friend the lamp lady!).

Ed is further associated with Camilla because he's the only other character who knows about the car accident. Rita forgets, but Ed remembers. Diane sees Camilla as holding the key to her redemption but, while Rita/Camilla holds the true key, Ed/Camilla holds many other false keys - as false as Camilla is shown to be at the party. Rita doesn't know what the key opens, Diane doesn't know what the key open's. Only Ed and Jo know. So Ed is the fallen Camilla - the Camilla of hard times (how does Ed afford his 'digs'? and how does Camilla afford hers?).

Siku wrote:He is one of the few people who DIDN'T steal their mugs from Winkie's diner (props in other films thread).

So that I don't have to watch the whole thing all over again (yet again), can you tell me who else, besides Diane, has stolen mugs from Winkies? I know that they are from the film studio's props department, but who in else in MD has been stealing them?

Marksman

http://www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/cups.htm

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see four culprits caught red handed!

Good point about them being stolen from the film studio though. I'd assumed Diane stole them from Winkies.