cipher

Gabriel could have come across as a mere cipher in this environment, a faceless spook navigating smoke and mirrors.

“Election Day” isn’t a space, say, with complex cipher codes to untangle.

Some maintain that Orange County is still basically a cultural cipher--and some who adhere to this notion are home-grown.

That conversation comes up in “Twin Peaks: The Return” as Lynch flat-out confirms Laura Palmer to be a cipher for unyielding good, intended to restore universal balance after humankind developed a new capacity for evil.

The rest of them in the film are ciphers whose motives, dreams, suffering and rage remain unknown to us.