that Richard is the dreamer. Not Richard Horne. The Richard that Dale "became" in episode 18. (After whom Richard Horne might have been subconsciously named in the dream.)

The entire series was Richard's dream and travelling 430 miles and passing through a portal meant that he and Diane would (gradually) wake up as Richard and Linda. Was Linda sharing the dream? I don't think so. How does Audrey fit into this? I don't know.

But after everything changed, Dale/Richard was acting as an amalgam of the good Dale and the evil Dale. He still wanted to defend the powerless (the waitress), but he did so by immediately overpowering his adversaries (the cowboys), shooting one in the foot, and threatening everyone with an explosion. He wanted to find Laura and set everything right, and he started on that path by threatening someone at gunpoint for coordinates.

Good Dale defeating evil Dale was Richard's dream of his good qualities defeating his poor qualities.

Perhaps Richard regularly ate at Judy's diner. Perhaps he had thoughts and dreams about Carrie, the waitress he expected to see that day, that he was not happy with himself about. He associated Judy (the place) with those temptations that scared him. He was still having trouble separating the dream from the reality (it's happened to me for a few minutes after I wake from a really intense dream), and he thought Carrie might really be Laura, and that he could really take her home.

Another point, definitely intentional and possibly related to this interpretation though I think it would tie into any interpretation: Diane/Linda has hair the color of the walls of the Red Room, and fingernails alternating white and black like its floor.

Anyway, the "Richard's dream" interpretation, as I've understood it, doesn't explain how the home was owned by Mrs. Chalfont/Tremond, very ominous names that we'd seen in the "dream" space. It also doesn't explain why Carrie/Laura finally screamed at the end. Dale/Richard asking what year it was could just be more of his disorientation, but Laura/Carrie (who, if you listen closely, heard a ghostly sound of her mother going to wake her up on the morning she first went missing) screaming ... means what? Dale/Richard's imagination? Is that also why Carrie/Laura acted like it wasn't totally out of the ordinary to have a dead man sitting on her couch? If Frost and Lynch were trying to set us up for this interpretation of episode 18, perhaps the ending was meant to subvert even that bit of narrative closure.

For the record, I don't believe there IS a correct interpretation of the ending. Frost and Lynch intentionally set this up to be mysterious, impenetrable, something that could be interpreted in many ways. But I think the interpretation of the dream as being a dream of personal struggle with the meaning of heroism, is one interpretation that they were trying to point us toward.

I'm sure after three more viewings I'll be on to some other interpretation...