Episode 7

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LostInTheMovies
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Episode 7

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Let's talk the crazy cliffhangers, Mark Frost's direction (the only time a single person both wrote and directed an episode), and whatever else you want to analyze, discuss, or criticize from this episode.
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N. Needleman
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Re: Episode 7

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I wanted to drop in and mention one of my all-time favorite scenes: Catherine and Pete's reconciliation.

IIRC, Season 2 scripts often have Catherine directed to treat Pete with barely-veiled contempt (and then there's that random Ben/Catherine tryst scene during the Civil War subplot, which I can't remember if there was ever an actual motive for). But I never really saw that - not in the scene here, and not later on. Catherine rolls her eyes as she embraces Pete, yes, but she also seems to accept him as hers from hereonin, with her own kind of love, haughty and grudging though it so often is. Even later on, when she's back in full force and at times unamused by his anticry, I don't see her treating him the way she once did.

I don't know whether that's something Piper Laurie or the directors worked against, or whether it's just something they abandoned on-set, or whether it's maybe simply wishful thinking on my part. I chose to believe Catherine and Pete were as happy as they possibly can be from thereon.
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Jasper
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Re: Episode 7

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N. Needleman,

there is footage out there of the Pete/Catherine scene being filmed. Multiple takes. Sounds like you'd enjoy giving it a look, but I have no idea where to find it. Maybe it was on Vimeo. I'm sure someone must have posted it somewhere on this site. Maybe someone else knows where to locate it. It was part of a longer collection of outtakes, maybe 20-30 minutes worth or so.
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Re: Episode 7

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Thanks, I think I've seen those - maybe on the Blu-Ray set.
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Re: Episode 7

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A great episode but one of the most soapish at times, which is no bad thing. (Quite enjoy the scenes with Catherine/Shelly in the mill at the end, even if it feels a bit "Santa Barbara"-esque. And, yes, love the Catherine/Pete scene too!) All those cliffhangers are so in-your-face, though. My memories of watching Peaks as a young kid mainly focus on Season 2 and I can't remember now if I ever saw Season 1 way back then, so I find this episode intriguing in that, apparently at the time, it pissed off a lot of people by not revealing the murderer. And I wonder if the Who Shot Cooper? played well with the audience, to the same extent that Who Shot JR? (which it clearly rips from) played a decade earlier on "Dallas". Was it, beyond a tune-in-next-season cliffhanger, a conscious decision to create another mystery as enduring and as powerful and as big a hook as Who Killed Laura Palmer? I love how the shooter's identity is virtually abandoned for much of Season 2, until the very late Josie reveal which feels a bit tacked on!
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Twin Peaks Out of Order #12: Episode 7

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Re-watching Twin Peaks from my least favorite to favorite episode...

Previously: Episode 3 (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43855#p43855)

What an enjoyable season finale! Yet I struggled a bit with its placement. It's certainly one of the ten most important - and most eventful - episodes of the show. It culminates the most celebrated stretch of Twin Peaks (the first season) and offers us a peek at Mark Frost's total vision. Frost remains - and will remain even after the new series - the only person to write and direct an entire Twin Peaks episode by himself. The first time I watched the show, this was definitely my favorite non-Lynch episode of the season, maybe of the whole series. But on follow-ups, it usually disappointed (tonight might be the most I’ve enjoyed it since that first time). The emphasis is on “non-Lynch” by the way, because all of the touches usually associated with him are absent from episode 7. There isn't the slightest flicker of interest in the supernatural, the pace chugs along at a clip far removed from the pilot's emphatic deliberation, and while there are some offbeat flourishes - the incongruous Hawaiian mural in the opening shot, Jacoby's eyeball dissolving into a roulette wheel, Leland's silent scream, Josie rubbing her lips with her bloody finger - you probably wouldn't never identify Twin Peaks as a surrealist show if this was the only episode you tuned in for. Instead, it appears to be a relatively straightforward police procedural/soap opera with some eccentric characters and a mildly baroque shooting style, set in a vaguely rural backdrop...although come to think of it we never see the woods once (unless you count the palm tree in Jacoby's office). The most distinctive location in the finale is actually quite urban - a huge processing plant where the cops chat about their relationship troubles before busting a drug-dealing pimp; we might as well be watching Hill Street Blues. All of that sounds fairly critical (but I like Hill Street Blues!) and I suppose this partly account for this episode coming in only at #12 despite its importance. Episode 7 leans very heavily on narrative at the expense of atmosphere, true, but this is a very gripping narrative. Plus, Frost carves memorable moments with the characters in every scene, enriching the texture even as he advances the story. It's too bad that Frost hasn't directed anything since Storyville (an underrated political thriller that came out the same weekend as Fire Walk With Me). He has a way with performance and pace that may have been honed in his early days of student theater. The energy and enthusiasm of the direction are contagious, reminding us what Frost really brought to Twin Peaks. He is often credited with keeping Lynch and Twin Peaks grounded, but he was actually the one more likely to lose sight of the show’s foundation and fall back on televisual tropes (just look at Windom Earle - a Batman villain in a show about a spooky small town's grief and intrigue). The flip-side of this flaw is a storyteller's enthusiasm for narrative drive and world-building (the characters are indelibly intertwined as the night's events unfold - the last time in Twin Peaks that this would be the case). If 7 is much closer to a conventional hour of television than others season one gems, it's still a damn good hour of television!

Next: Episode 12 (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43923#p43923)
Last edited by LostInTheMovies on Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Episode 7

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Great review, LostintheMovies. You know, Episode 7 perfectly encapsulates for me the reason why I don't like Season 1 (not including the pilot, which I adore) as much as Season 2 - too much of it feels like standard TV fare. You pointed this out about Episode 1 as well. Apart from some great moments throughout the first season - the Lynch touches, the other quirky bits, the stunning visuals, etc. - it often feels just too much like a standard TV show and all the plotlines revolving around the mill, etc., I just don't find as enjoyable as the surrealism and the supernatural mysteries. For me, even episodes like 8 and 9 (let alone the amazing 14 and 29) are the "REAL" Twin Peaks. While I appreciate the first season as damn fine TV, it still mystifies me a little that the first season is so critically lauded and the second one often dismissed, by critics (and even some fans), etc. Season 1 also plays sometimes too much like a soap opera parody, and while it's definitely an excellent season and was groundbreaking TV, I think the real barrier-breaking stuff started to happen in Season 2. In fact, whenever I rewatch the series, I often am impatient with Season 1 after Episode 2, and excited to get into Season 2. I wonder if anyone else feels like this. But again, I think I need to rewatch the show out-of-order so I can focus more intently on each individual episode, and maybe gain more appreciation for some of the Season 1 ones.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Re: Episode 7

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For me for the most part, the first season was taking mundane TV soap tropes and making them fascinating, the second season was taking fascinating plot elements and executing them half heartedly and mundane.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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Re: Episode 7

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Re: Jonah

I can appreciate that, and I think that was how I felt to a certain extent in my first watch-through (although I also noticed more flaws in season two that time). However, by my third or fourth rewatch I grew much more fond of season one - especially the second half - for whatever reason.

I will get into this soon as 3 of the next 4 episodes I'm going to watch are from that stretch of the series.

The way that I look at it is that there are two poles - or maybe I should say "Peaks" ;) - to the show. One was Twin Peaks as a gripping story told in an enveloping world, more aligned with Frost than Lynch and epitomized by episodes 4-7. This is where I most appreciate Twin Peaks *as a TV show* of the "tune in next week" variety which is probably why it made such good water cooler fodder back in the day and why it's the best-remembered part of the experience today. It is the most consistent part of the show, where every element shines (especially on a first viewing - in retrospect we know the mill plot is unrelated to Laura but I remember initially thinking that all of these plot strands were going to be connected to some larger conspiracy/secrets).

The other pole/peak of Twin Peaks is more art than entertainment, more about a collection of standalone set pieces/visual experiences than narrative-weaving or world-building. This is more Lynch's territory than Frost and it culminates in the finale and Fire Walk With Me. It is also less concentrated than the other peak, and hence these moments are not as evenly dispersed. You get clusters of greatness whenever Lynch directs an episode and a more slack feeling when he doesn't.

Ultimately the latter quality is my favorite part of Twin Peaks, but I find comparing it to the late season one arc to be sort of apples and oranges: both bring something really valuable to Twin Peaks which I enjoy in different ways.
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Re: Episode 7

Post by TwinPeaksFanatic »

I think Ray Wise is masterful in Jacques' death scene. The combination of tears and calculation clearly demonstrates the duality struggle within him. It's definitely one of the best in the series.

http://twinpeaksfanatic.blogspot.com/20 ... ode-7.html

:D
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Re: Episode 7

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Re-watching Season 1 again, I'm really struck by just how weak this episode is, especially compared to all that's come before it! Shockingly, it's the only episode of Season 1 that doesn't really have that specific Twin Peaks atmosphere -- that certain feel that calls to mind adjectives like dreamlike, mystical, sensual, hypnotic, Lynchian... it's just not here. So the hour unfolds with a kind of dryness and straightforwardness, a lack of mystery and enchantment, that disappoints. It's certainly not a bad episode and it beats a lot of Season 2's weakest handily, but considering there's so much going on here, plot-wise, it all feels so almost disposable. Everything just churns along at a quick pace and we get precious little reason to be captivated in it because the direction is so hopelessly hum-drum. It just doesn't stick in the memory like the best Peaks does. And then we have some really bad touches like the totally cheesy, un-Peaks music that plays when Catherine sets fire to the mill.

Overall, it's basically a complete inverse of Lynch's style as seen in e.g. Episode 29... Needless to say, I far prefer Lynch's style to Frost's, but more importantly I just prefer the Twin Peaks episodes that retain its general atmosphere of this dreamy, strange world you want to spend time in. Episode 7 is just far too prosaic to do that. It's the only Season 1 episode I'd liken to "regular TV." Hell, even the Season 2 slump episodes have a distinctly strange or moody quality to them. This episode though, like LITM said, is much more like watching Hill Street Blues or something.

I'm surprised by how disappointed I am by this episode on this watch, but it just doesn't have barely any of what I watch TP for.
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Re: Episode 7

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Enjoying these takes, keep 'em comin'! Ep. 7, like ep. 1 (or 8, for very different reasons), is one I swing back and forth on, depending on my mood. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it this last time.

What do you think of ep. 6? I find it shares many of 7's idiosyncrasies - no woodsy atmosphere, no supernatural, no Lynchian slowness, lots of end-of-the-season/build-the-stakes plotting, and yet for some reason it feels fully Twin Peaks to me, to the point if being my favorite non-Lynch episode.
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Re: Episode 7

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Episode 6 and the whole Maddy-as-Laura caper is one of my earliest, clearest childhood memories of the show - their silently listening to Laura's tape in the living room, then Maddy getting off James' bike and the kids meeting in the night as Laura's theme plays. I saw earlier episodes as well, but it's a big one for me.
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Re: Episode 7

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Episode 6 is definitely one of my favorites. Deschanel's direction is extremely evocative, crisp and economical and there are a ton of classic sequences -- the aforementioned exploits of Donna, James and Maddy (I love the tape of Maddy-as-Laura and just how eerie it is when she puts on that guise), Audrey smoking in the closet while eavesdropping and later impressing at OEJ's, Cooper's sleuthing at OEJ's, all the Waldo stuff... Love it. Deschanel also directed Episode 15 nicely, but unfortunately got saddled with some weak material for his final hour (can't remember which one but it's during the S2 slump).

I think it's instructive to compare Episode 6 with Frost's Episode 7 considering, as you say LITM, how much the two episodes have in common in being more focused on procedure over atmosphere. Of course it's not ALL down to the director of each, but I think even the prosaic cop-show-ish script of Episode 7 could've been turned into something mysterious and interestingly Peaks-ian in the hands of someone like Deschanel.
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Re: Episode 7

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In the first draft script, Audrey tells Blackie the name she wants to use is Laura.
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