It seems like a reach to connect the movie/book Leaving Las Vegas to Cooper dying, although I contend it could be possible. Also is ‘going home’ really idiomatic for dying?

Not saying your wrong, but the Bushnell scene is imo most likely Cooper remembering Mr. C killing Jack considering Coop and Mr. C are connected or even two halves of the same coin.

It could also be that Cooper realizes/suspects that the Mitchum brothers are planning to kill him considering Cooper seems aware of Dougie’s part in the insurance scam which denied the brothers their rightful 30 million and he has to ride out to meet them.

Cooper might be dead at the end though considering a prevalent theory is that he sacrifices Laura and himself to trap and kill Judy in an alternate dimension.

When he goes to Odessa he doesn’t seem his usual self anymore which could be due to him being on a dire mission to stop Judy or perhaps because he’s becoming his ‘true self’ and that the Cooper in the OR and S3 up until this point was a dreamt up false ideal version of himself which I agree could be a form of death for the ideally good natured Cooper.

Some people in the Return refer to Cooper as a dreamer or dream weaver and his face is superimposed over the screen in episode 17 which seem to support this idea of it being his dream.

I even read a theory that Cooper’s ‘Return’ is in fact him returning to reality after disassociating from himself because HE raped and killed Laura. It’s seemed far out, but not impossible to me.