Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne

IcedOver
RR Diner Member
Posts: 464
Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:31 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by IcedOver »

LateReg wrote:Yes, people are still calling this a masterpiece, or if not currently using that exact word, alluding to its status as a great and important work.
This is what I think we all hoped it would be. I was hoping to be able to say that it was at least one of the best shows of the past decade plus. I can't lie, though. What we've gotten so far hasn't been at that level. It could come close . . . but it will TOTALLY depend on these final two hours. The show is coalescing around some interesting themes, and of course the absurdities have been memorable, but if they fucked it up with lazy storytelling in this finale, it'll undo anything good that came before.
I DON'T FEEL GOOD!!!!!
User avatar
AhmedKhalifa
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 87
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2017 6:28 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by AhmedKhalifa »

From the new CNN article about TPTR: "Twin Peaks" will conclude with a two-part finale on September 3, wrapping up a season that can be viewed as a disappointment on multiple levels... a series that has teased out about six hours worth of story into something three times that long... Much of that surely has to do with director David Lynch's filmmaking style, which has reinforced his reputation as an auteur but risked slipping into self-indulgence at best, and self-parody at worst." http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/29/enter ... index.html
"That's what I need, a clean place, reasonably priced."
Skip Bittman
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 93
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 8:30 am

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Skip Bittman »

And if there's one thing CNN is known for, it's for it's TV and film reviews.
User avatar
yaxomoxay
Great Northern Member
Posts: 767
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by yaxomoxay »

AhmedKhalifa wrote:From the new CNN article about TPTR: "Twin Peaks" will conclude with a two-part finale on September 3, wrapping up a season that can be viewed as a disappointment on multiple levels... a series that has teased out about six hours worth of story into something three times that long... Much of that surely has to do with director David Lynch's filmmaking style, which has reinforced his reputation as an auteur but risked slipping into self-indulgence at best, and self-parody at worst." http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/29/enter ... index.html
Can I tweet about CNN a-la Trump??? :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
yaxomoxay
Great Northern Member
Posts: 767
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by yaxomoxay »

Rialto wrote:
yaxomoxay wrote:
Venus wrote:
Or 'Twin Peaks: No Point in the Return'
AHAHAHAHAHHA! I spit my coffee ahahhahahaha :) Ok I disagree as much as I can with this but my God this was funny as shit. Ahhahahahahahhahaha thank you for the good laugh.

(I still owe you an expensive beer and a steak dinner.)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Yaxomoxay, I disagree with you about everything to do with TPTR, but you've played a big part in keeping this thread sane and happy :D
I would not use "sane" but the feeling is mutual :) And this blasphemous thread is great. I came in prepared, while everyone was reading TSHoTP I studied this
Image




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
yaxomoxay
Great Northern Member
Posts: 767
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by yaxomoxay »

The Gazebo wrote:
Rialto wrote:
yaxomoxay wrote:AHAHAHAHAHHA! I spit my coffee ahahhahahaha :) Ok I disagree as much as I can with this but my God this was funny as shit. Ahhahahahahahhahaha thank you for the good laugh.

(I still owe you an expensive beer and a steak dinner.)
Yaxomoxay, I disagree with you about everything to do with TPTR, but you've played a big part in keeping this thread sane and happy :D
Seconded. There are numerous times when shots have been fired, and I've been waiting for yaxo to unveil the Uzi, only for a lighthearted reply to appear. Where I've resorted to sarcasm and general unpleasantness, yaxomoxay has stayed friendly and affable throughout. Well done!
Just wait until we meet at a bar in real life... doesn't matter that I am a man but you will see the Sara Palmer on Bloody Mary side in me !!! :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
David Locke
RR Diner Member
Posts: 306
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:24 pm

Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by David Locke »

I just started a full rewatch of the first 16 Parts, hopefully in time for Sunday night. I will try to update later or when I'm finished so as to relate how the experience compares to watching an episode at a time as they air.

Anybody who's read my posts here knows I am quite mixed on TR. To get "meta" for a moment, my opinion on it is approximately a few miles south of Mr R's eloquent (yet measured) appreciation, but still rather far from ABR's "complete failure" level - I think it's neither a masterwork/unqualified piece of Greatness nor a failure. It fails in some respects and indeed soars in others - sometimes in the same scene! And this odd range of quality, this weird oscillation from brilliance to nonsense, is one of TR's more puzzling aspects.

But my point is that I really do suspect the show will play better seen in long stretches and with knowledge of what happens already (I doubt a single 18 hour sitting is very feasible no matter how strong one's bladder is - more realistic would be, at most, watching across three 6-hour blocks). Indeed I already experienced this when the first four parts came out at once - I feel I appreciated them all much more because I was able to see four hours at a time.

Watching week by week has been fun, and I have rewatched nearly every Part once (exceptions being, for whatever reason, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 13 - odd seeing as 7, 9 and 11 are right up there with 8, 16, and maybe the first few parts as my favorite ones). But the thing is so oddly structured, in a way that is to its detriment when viewed piece by piece weekly but may be an advantage when viewed closer to the stereotypical "one big film" type experience where you can view several hours in one sitting and have Parts meld into each other.

Also, Expectations being gone does help a lot so knowing how things unfold is bound to help appreciate certain things more. I think that watching a highly anticipated or great series as it airs week to week is honestly both thrilling yet frustrating and in many ways not optimal, whether the show be TR or The Sopranos or Mad Men, et al.

For example, I caught onto Breaking Bad midway through S1 way back in 2008, and watched every subsequent episode live. I actually found this to hinder the show - I was so focused on wanting some Big or Exciting thing to happen that I didn't appreciate slower or more ruminative character based episodes like 4 Days Out, much of the first half of Season 4, or even Phoenix (I think that's a great ep now but oddly in 2009 it seemed a less engaging letdown after the pulse pounding suspense of Mandala the week before).

Anyway, it depends of course but I'm just saying that I do think most great shows get at least slightly better when you can just sit down and watch as much as you want, knowing the plot already and thus looking forward to simply absorbing new things and taking it for what it is.

Hopefully this rewatch will improve my opinion. On Part 1 at the moment and I do agree with those who, paradoxically, find the weird non Peaks vignettes that start TR to be in some ways stronger than the long anticipated first scenes we get in TP itself. It's like getting a whole new Lynch film, the initial Box stuff and Buckhorn plot... but then again, whether getting a semi related Lynch film in the guise of TP is a good thing or not is a whole other discussion.

But I will say this: I'm almost inclined to say that it's the Dougie or general Vegas stuff that feels the most tangential or "unnecessary," so to speak. Perhaps I find the Vegas plot most questionable at times because it involves Coop, the most pivotal element of TP, and yet doesn't really have Coop per se... and so that whole tight-wire teasing act of when-will-he-wake-up? definitely got tiring by midway through the season. I'm glad it's over but I'm not sure any number of rewatches will convince me that it needed to happen as it did and for as long as it did, no matter how many good moments or scenes it yielded. But more than Dougie, I find the Duncan/Ike/Lucky 7 Vegas happenings generally not very interesting. The Mitchum brothers brought some much needed life to the Vegas plot around Part 10 and 11, but perhaps they could have been more central all along and all the dull characters in the dizzying chain of hitmen given less time or scrapped entirely.

Now that I've digressed this much, I wanna add that I'm really disappointed in retrospect with what they did to Jacoby's character. When you first see him getting the delivery of shovels in that first TP scene of TR, he seems far more human and interesting than he ever is afterwards when he's only used as a one trick pony jab at Alex Jones-type populist conspiracy figures. I mean that turn for his character is fine and makes sense but I'd rather we got a scene of Jacoby out of character, so to speak, outside of his show, instead of those unnecessary two or three rants with the same fawning Nadine closeup, etc. Hell, Jacoby could be a more sympathetic and interesting character if they just painted him as someone who slided down the tubes since we last saw him - if he still was living in a trailer without a medical license but wasn't depicted as such a caricature. His one scene with Nadine outside her store was more like that, and it was ok, but if that's where we leave him then I have to ask - was it really even worth visiting him in the first place?

I'm not so sure, and this same problem applies to unfortunately several other original TP characters. Nadine, Ed, Norma, Ben, Jerry, etc all have storylines that feel either oddly rushed or oddly truncated or both. Ben has gotten the best treatment perhaps and yet the whole thing with Beverly turned from great and promising into... nothing. I hope she gets another scene because I just don't see the point if she doesn't - what is the point of showing us her stressful home life and sick and emotionally jealous/suspicious husband, if we not only end her story mid sentence so to speak, but don't even see Ben and her have that dinner or whatever. It's just odd to bring in these big scenes that seem to start to flesh out a character and then discard that character so that those scenes just seem unnecessary in retrospect.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
David Locke
RR Diner Member
Posts: 306
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:24 pm

Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by David Locke »

BTW, holy shit - Julee Cruise's most recent Instagram post really is a Big Fat Spoiler! I mean, Jesus... maybe it could be fake but I doubt it. I wouldn't recommend anyone look at it unless they really have no qualms about a potentially MASSIVE spoiler.

Like, WKLP level massive, if it is true. Wow.

You have to request to follow Julee on IG because her profiles private but she has a ton of followers of course and just accepted my request. If anyone is truly interested in the pic but doesn't want to use IG/request her on IG and all that, I can PM it. But don't say I didn't warn you!! Jesus... unbelievable, Lynch must be pissed at her!

EDIT - actually looking at the comments on it I'm not sure if it is real...? Which is weird. Julee said some vague stuff but it sounds like it's some photoshopped picture someone else made and that she just shared. Maybe anyway. Not worth risking the spoiler if you don't want to... it really would be a monumental one if true.

EDIT 2 - OK it looks more likely that it is just a fake pic. But not 100% sure. Weird.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
yaxomoxay
Great Northern Member
Posts: 767
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 4:50 pm

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by yaxomoxay »

David Locke wrote:BTW, holy shit - Julee Cruise's most recent Instagram post really is a Big Fat Spoiler! I mean, Jesus... maybe it could be fake but I doubt it. I wouldn't recommend anyone look at it unless they really have no qualms about a potentially MASSIVE spoiler.

Like, WKLP level massive, if it is true. Wow.

You have to request to follow Julee on IG because her profiles private but she has a ton of followers of course and just accepted my request. If anyone is truly interested in the pic but doesn't want to use IG/request her on IG and all that, I can PM it. But don't say I didn't warn you!! Jesus... unbelievable, Lynch must be pissed at her!

EDIT - actually looking at the comments on it I'm not sure if it is real...? Which is weird. Julee said some vague stuff but it sounds like it's some photoshopped picture someone else made and that she just shared. Maybe anyway. Not worth risking the spoiler if you don't want to... it really would be a monumental one if true.

EDIT 2 - OK it looks more likely that it is just a fake pic. But not 100% sure. Weird.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Yeah it's fake. I asked her on social media and she confirmed it's a joke. Still a bad joke.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
Aqwell
RR Diner Member
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2017 9:03 am
Location: Far from here

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Aqwell »

yaxomoxay wrote:Yeah it's fake. I asked her on social media and she confirmed it's a joke. Still a bad joke.
Lynch answered me the same thing when I asked him about the show (yeah we are pals). So the Julee Cruise photo might be totally legit.
User avatar
David Locke
RR Diner Member
Posts: 306
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:24 pm

Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by David Locke »

Ah makes sense, yax. The more comments I read on it the more it sounds like she did post it as a joke and it's fake. Convincing though...

Lol Aqwell. Do you have Jacoby flipping the bird as your avatar because that's roughly the same attitude Lynch and Frost have shown to their fans via TR? ;)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
User avatar
Aqwell
RR Diner Member
Posts: 101
Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2017 9:03 am
Location: Far from here

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Aqwell »

Sorry, I've just changed it for a Laura Dern beauty shot one...
She did the same in Blue Velvet, once you've seen It, you can't unsee It.
User avatar
David Locke
RR Diner Member
Posts: 306
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:24 pm

Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by David Locke »

Aqwell wrote:Sorry, I've just changed it for a Laura Dern beauty shot one...
She did the same in Blue Velvet, once you've seen It, you can't unsee It.
Hah! Weird, I didn't even notice or think about that during the scene, but she did indeed have the archetypal Dern crying face. Blue Velvet made much use of that, and Wild at Heart sort of did as well.

I guess that, although Diane as a whole is a disappointing character, I was too moved by her monologue to notice. It was a pretty strong scene for her, acting wise, and it felt very real as Lynch scenes dealing with sexual abuse so often do.

But then of course she disappeared into the Red Room because she's like, duh, a tulpa. Not sure I mind that concept too much as much as I do the characters always using that word so unsubtly.

I wish Dern got a better character... I liked her at first and I knew exactly what happened "that night" with DoppelCoop, but when she turned Bad I saw it as kind of throwing all that goodwill for this nuanced troubled character out the window in favor of another tired femme fatale trope. Thankfully it isn't quite that, I do think the tulpa thing as allegory for trauma is quite potent, but still... the whole thing was a bit ridiculous. Have to say I didn't care for her "fuck you!"s much either, and her final one to the OAM felt weird - a much more prosaic kind of scene than we usually see in the Red Room... kind of took me out of it for a second. I'm just surprised we didn't get a reaction shot/line from an angered OAM: "No, lady, fuck YOU! Do you know how much work I put in here to assist Tulpas like yourself in their transition between worlds?! And are you even grateful for my services? Hell no! It's a thankless job I have, Christ almoighty.... and by the way, I'm gonna tell Mr. Tree what you said!" (OAM then storms off in a huff, face pouted).

It'd be like if, in Episode 29, Coop complained to the waiter/giant about his coffee not working properly and then ask for another cup along with a big jelly donut. It's another topic but I guess the overuse of and banalification (to make up a word) of the Red Room in TR is one problem I have. Not only do we dip in there too much to make it have the same power (plus it's lacking the eerie backlit curtains of the original), but then when they do the fuzzy overlay of OAM and the RR floor pattern appearing anywhere (hospital chair, fireplace, home, work...) it looks even sillier.

Or, put another way, the Red Room as presented in the original series and FWWM felt like a deeply mysterious, uncanny place located out of space and time and full of beings and doppelgangers that would puzzle any rational mind; everything in the place is precisely opposite to what one sees in banal day to day experience. It was depicted as a truly powerful place, that one should not think of trivially. It was almost like an extraterrestrial planet, hostile or foreign territory where everything is backwards, literally and figuratively - you couldn't ever anticipate what might happen there because it operates by logic that is totally alien to most people. Nor could you anticipate how LMFAP or any of its denizens might act, as they may as well be aliens for the amount of difference from humans in the way they operate.

On the other hand, in TR the Red Room has turned into a kind of second-rate interdimensional motel - or perhaps an eccentric halfway house for those who can't quite yet function in their dimension of origin - where a grumpy, lonely groundskeeper (OAM) tends to occupants like Coop and all his needs. He even explains all the latest developments to Coop, quite conveniently for us viewers, I might add - like some principal showing a new student around the boarding school. ("The evolution of the arm!" was such a cringeworthy and transparently expository line).

Additionally, denizens like Coop can even see or access this trusty old one-armed geezer-helper from any old space in the normal world (that is, given the OAM's not too busy walking haltingly in a circle, arm quivering skyward and eyes closed, to answer the transdimensional call, natch). Needless to say, this all makes the Red Room about as mysterious as a shopping mall or as rarified and difficult to gain entry to as a Starbucks. And if Coop needs OAM to fetch him a seed? No problem! The Red Room lives to serve. Mike will fetch that seed like a couch potato grabbing a bag of crisps outta a vending machine. It's The Newer, Easier, Faster Red Room: Now With Unlimited Transdimensional Wi-Fi!

The absence of LMFAP is very much felt as he almost defined the vibe of the RR in the original run, as if he owned the place or something. He was a devious or even evil character, too, and all the doppelgängers and BOB etc were scary as hell. But in TR we're missing those characters and thus missing that truly scary feeling. OAM is a tired seeming but friendly helper, an ally basically, and the tree may be a bit devious but it never projects much danger. Coop getting kicked out of the RR by the tree's little floor earthquake was an interesting idea but hardly very creepy, plus the effects were a little too digital or fake looking.

Likewise, the whole place has a digital look now and it's just not quite the same without the bright red curtain backlit inexplicably... when the curtain is thick and impossible to see through, as now, it makes for less mystery or simply a less compelling visual idea. It simply no longer feels very dangerous and unpredictable, like something incomprehensibly horrific could occur any moment. It's been neutered.

And so the Red Room in TR is now more like some incompetently-run and severely short-staffed home for old and/or dead folks (Philip Gerard's Home For Elderly and Disabled Tulpas, Doppelgangers, and Sentient Trees?); a place where assorted limbo-dwellers slowly pass the time, perhaps by playing a rousing game of Lodge Bingo with that tree thing calling the numbers. Fun.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Last edited by David Locke on Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Rialto
RR Diner Member
Posts: 110
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 8:56 am

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Rialto »

yaxomoxay wrote:
Rialto wrote:
yaxomoxay wrote:
AHAHAHAHAHHA! I spit my coffee ahahhahahaha :) Ok I disagree as much as I can with this but my God this was funny as shit. Ahhahahahahahhahaha thank you for the good laugh.

(I still owe you an expensive beer and a steak dinner.)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Yaxomoxay, I disagree with you about everything to do with TPTR, but you've played a big part in keeping this thread sane and happy :D
I would not use "sane" but the feeling is mutual :) And this blasphemous thread is great. I came in prepared, while everyone was reading TSHoTP I studied this
Image
Ha ha haaaa! You're one of the heretics now! :lol:
User avatar
boske
Great Northern Member
Posts: 593
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 4:15 am

Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by boske »

David Locke wrote:Or, put another way, the Red Room as presented in the original series and FWWM felt like a deeply mysterious, uncanny place located out of space and time and full of beings and doppelgangers that would puzzle any rational mind; everything in the place is precisely opposite to what one sees in banal day to day experience. It was depicted as a truly powerful place, that one should not think of trivially. It was almost like an extraterrestrial planet, hostile or foreign territory where everything is backwards, literally and figuratively - you couldn't ever anticipate what might happen there because it operates by logic that is totally alien to most people. Nor could you anticipate how LMFAP or any of its denizens might act, as they may as well be aliens for the amount of difference from humans in the way they operate.

On the other hand, in TR the Red Room has turned into a kind of second-rate interdimensional motel - or perhaps an eccentric halfway house for those who can't quite yet function in their dimension of origin - where a grumpy, lonely groundskeeper (OAM) tends to occupants like Coop and all his needs. He even explains all the latest developments to Coop, quite conveniently for us viewers, I might add - like some principal showing a new student around the boarding school. ("The evolution of the arm!" was such a cringeworthy and transparently expository line).

Additionally, denizens like Coop can even see or access this trusty old one-armed geezer-helper from any old space in the normal world (that is, given the OAM's not too busy walking haltingly in a circle, arm quivering skyward and eyes closed, to answer the transdimensional call, natch). Needless to say, this all makes the Red Room about as mysterious as a shopping mall or as rarified and difficult to gain entry to as a Starbucks. And if Coop needs OAM to fetch him a seed? No problem! The Red Room lives to serve. Mike will fetch that seed like a couch potato grabbing a bag of crisps outta a vending machine. It's The Newer, Easier, Faster Red Room: Now With Unlimited Transdimensional Wi-Fi!

The absence of LMFAP is very much felt as he almost defined the vibe of the RR in the original run, as if he owned the place or something. He was a devious or even evil character, too, and all the doppelgängers and BOB etc were scary as hell. But in TR we're missing those characters and thus missing that truly scary feeling. OAM is a tired seeming but friendly helper, an ally basically, and the tree may be a bit devious but it never projects much danger. Coop getting kicked out of the RR by the tree's little floor earthquake was an interesting idea but hardly very creepy, plus the effects were a little too digital or fake looking.

Likewise, the whole place has a digital look now and it's just not quite the same without the bright red curtain backlit inexplicably... when the curtain is thick and impossible to see through, as now, it makes for less mystery or simply a less compelling visual idea. It simply no longer feels very dangerous and unpredictable, like something incomprehensibly horrific could occur any moment. It's been neutered.

And so the Red Room in TR is now more like some incompetently-run and severely short-staffed home for old and/or dead folks (Philip Gerard's Home For Elderly and Disabled Tulpas, Doppelgangers, and Sentient Trees?); a place where assorted limbo-dwellers slowly pass the time, perhaps by playing a rousing game of Lodge Bingo with that tree thing calling the numbers. Fun.
Red Room was the pinnacle of the original show, its most iconic representation. What do people do when they want to draw something out of of the world of TP? They draw the curtains and the chevron-patterned floor. Venus statues. Saturn lamps, armchairs. And now it's turned into a farcical representation of its old self. As you said it a few days ago, it is really kitsch now, isn't it? They take something most iconic about the old show and turn it into a cheap plastic imitation, a clear mockery of its old self. Very early on I observed that Coop and Phillip reminded me of Mario and Luigi the way they moved around the lodge.

As I also said earlier, I very much miss the back-lit, semi-transparent curtains, with them we were able to se:
  • Owl/Planer circling in the original dream scene;
  • Maddy approaching;
  • DoppleCoop scrambling madly to enter the room;
None of them could be repeated anymore, none.

And yes, Leland said "Find Laura" this time around, remember that? Now that we have these coordinates having spent 15-16 parts on finding them, finding Laura cannot be that behind. :roll: Now do they find Laura first, or Linda? Now that's what TR is about...
Post Reply