Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[Twin Peaks Podcast]

The "Little Stabby Man" scene felt more Mulholland Drive than Twin Peaks, to me.

[mlsstwrt]

The "Little Stabby Man" scene felt more Mulholland Drive than Twin Peaks, to me.

Agreed, but so little of this feels like Twin Peaks. Hit man midgets now? Not exactly inspired.

[Putontheglasses]

The "Little Stabby Man" scene felt more Mulholland Drive than Twin Peaks, to me.

Agreed, but so little of this feels like Twin Peaks. Hit man midgets now? Not exactly inspired.

Hey that's a bad word. You need to say "the m word"! :-p


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[billloomis]

Toto, I think we're not in Twin Peaks anymore. Good grief. What on earth did I just watch?! What on earth was going on with the height challenged man with the ice pick? What on earth was with all the random scenes? I literally am finding it hard to find words for how appalling it was. If it was not linked to Twin Peaks in any way, shape or form, I would think it was just an experiment - which it is really. But when you have something as wonderful as the legacy of Twin Peaks in your hands you should take great care of it. If you are the creator you owe it to all the hard work you put in creating it originally. Lynch and Frost owed it to themselves to do that. I won't even be as bold to say they owed it to the fans. No, they owed it to themselves. But they have literally crapped all over it from a great height, imo. Art can be wonderful, it creates different viewpoints and different reactions. If that is what they wanted, they've got it but at what cost? This is Twin Peaks we are talking about. I am dismayed about how they appear to have such little respect for what came before. And yes that is my opinion. Someone said earlier in this thread that Lynch has said that his work is always directly affected by the person he shares his life with or something similar to that. In that case, considering his track record, watch out Emily Stofle. Things are looking bleak.

Last night was just poor TV period. And i am not even on the "Twin-Peaks-The-Return-SUCKS" train. It was just plain bad. My patience was stretched to it's limit. Scenes that would have been boring for 5 minutes stretched 10, 15 and 20 minutes in length. The lack of music at this point is just garbage. The music of this show is 50% of the magic at least!

[billloomis]

I've said it in other threads but I'll say it again here - I think this would play better had it all been uploaded at once. I think all Lynch works are better evaluated in whole. Imagine if "Inland Empire" had been aired in weekly segments? Regardless of other issues with it, it is not doing itself any favours by trying to be a weekly episodic show, when it clearly is a movie cut up into chunks. Even 2 episodes a week might have helped it a bit. The original series was clearly episodic, but this is not. But there are other issues with it too. So whether or not it will all be worth it as it progresses remains to be seen. I have a feeling it will get better, but we'll have to wait and see. (So far, I think there are maybe 3-5 standout scenes scenes per episode I like, a few amusing or interesting ideas, and the rest feels like either filler or nonsense or just doesn't connect with me emotionally or on any level.)

Dead on!

[Gabriel]

People calling S3 sublime or genius or Lynch's Magnum Opus (like you could make that call at this stage)...In this case I call bullshit. Whether self deluded, wishful thinking, or otherwise. Maybe not consciously lying but still equally full of shit.

If you think that kind of bullshittery is uncommon from human beings, then you haven't been alive for very long or been paying attention.

Far be it for me to have a go at people for liking something, but there are now remarks kicking around saying part six reaches a point where the new show surpasses the best of Breaking Bad. That's not so much 'drinking the kool-aid' as buying concentrated kool-aid suppositories and sticking 'em where the sun don't shine!

Sometimes a spoof of bad TV shows is just bad TV. Part six was bad TV; a disjointed mess; a comedy sketch show without the jokes. Last week, I felt it was improving. This week gave me ten to fifteen minutes of good scenes amidst 40 of self-indulgent garbage, capped off with a pointless end scene that belongs in a different episode with terrible acting and a rubbish song. This is a nine-episode TV show dragged out to 18. If anyone other than Lynch put this out, they'd be laughed out of Hollywood! I'm beginning to wonder if the casino beating last week is anticipating what will happen to David Nevins in the CBS head office after part 18!

Can't wait to see what happens next week!

[Agent327]

People calling S3 sublime or genius or Lynch's Magnum Opus (like you could make that call at this stage)...In this case I call bullshit. Whether self deluded, wishful thinking, or otherwise. Maybe not consciously lying but still equally full of shit.

If you think that kind of bullshittery is uncommon from human beings, then you haven't been alive for very long or been paying attention.

The reception of this season is interesting from a psychological standpoint.

The "Lync's Magnus Opus" was constantly thrown around in anticipation for the show. When you combine that with how fundamental 'wishful thinking' is to the human condition, it is not surprising that some fans have been labeling this Lynch's Magnus Opus since the first hours of the 18 hour run were released, and will inevitably continue to do so with each new episode, pretty much regardless of content.

I also sense a different vibe from most of the Twin Peaks podcasts. Even though they claim to absolutely love it, the rhetoric is way less excited, less emotional and giddy than podcast episodes covering the original series, where things like character and creating an appealing world you did not want to leave were huge parts of what made the series.

The funny thing about these current podcasts/reviews is that they will happily talk about how it's not appropriate this time to talk about 'plot' or try to explain things by conventional logic. And explain how people who do that are missing the entire point, and thus would naturally not appreciate this masterpiece. And yet they go on to spend 99 % of the podcast time committing exactly that crime;
Speculating about how things relate to each other plotwise, and trying to understand the characters, all based in a collective, conventional sense of logic firmly rooted in reality.

If you have a problem with the pacing of the new show, you will likely be called impatient, with the added assumption that 'surely you must not like Lynch'.
That is despite having enjoyed the vast majority of his work, where even slower paced stuff was not as extreme as the new TP, and not as constant.
But all of a sudden, the criticism turns binary; You either like slow pacing or you don't, and if you don't like it, you flat out dont appreciate Lynch.
This lacks any kind of relevant nuance.

I found that the best way to watch the new series, is with a friend who is also well versed in the TP universe. That way you can talk a little bit about what you're seeing during extremely slow scenes, everything moves faster and becomes more enjoyable. I don't find that to be the case with the old series, where little or no talking is preferred, with exception of the very worst parts of season 2.

[Gabriel]

In the story, the boy who points out that the emperor has no clothes causes everyone to laugh at the emperor. More likely, he and his parents got hacked to death for insulting their leader. Similar things happen in art circles. I call a spade a spade and I charge $30 for it!

[Putontheglasses]

In the story, the boy who points out that the emperor has no clothes causes everyone to laugh at the emperor. More likely, he and his parents got hacked to death for insulting their leader. Similar things happen in art circles. I call a spade a spade and I charge $30 for it!

Maybe Jacoby and his shovels are symbolic here. He goes on what seems to be a genuine, meaningful heartfelt rant about the world and ends it by hawking a gold color spray painted shovel. He also guarantees it has two coats when it doesn't. He calls it a golden shovel to make it seem more valuable.

It makes me think of the phrase "gold plated turd" which is what S3 is so far. Also, maybe it's an allusion to "calling a spade a spade" which very few people are doing. Har Har.

I think Lynch might be doing this on purpose to create an Emperor has no clothes situation. Well that's more interesting at least than that he's just inept.

I really wonder what the die hard fans will say if Cooper never recovers. Will they stick to their guns?

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[Gabriel]

In the story, the boy who points out that the emperor has no clothes causes everyone to laugh at the emperor. More likely, he and his parents got hacked to death for insulting their leader. Similar things happen in art circles. I call a spade a spade and I charge $30 for it!

Maybe Jacoby and his shovels are symbolic here. He goes on what seems to be a genuine, meaningful heartfelt rant about the world and ends it by hawking a golf spray painted shovel. He also guarantees it has two coats when it doesn't.

It makes me think of the phrase "gold plated turd" which is what S3 is so far. Also, maybe it's an allusion to "calling a spade a spade" which very few people are doing.

I think Lynch might be doing this on purpose to create an Emperor has no clothes situation. Well that's more interesting at least than that he's just inept.

His past work shows he's got great talent. That's why I can't fathom what he's playing at now. I feel very let down.

[Putontheglasses]

In the story, the boy who points out that the emperor has no clothes causes everyone to laugh at the emperor. More likely, he and his parents got hacked to death for insulting their leader. Similar things happen in art circles. I call a spade a spade and I charge $30 for it!

Maybe Jacoby and his shovels are symbolic here. He goes on what seems to be a genuine, meaningful heartfelt rant about the world and ends it by hawking a golf spray painted shovel. He also guarantees it has two coats when it doesn't.

It makes me think of the phrase "gold plated turd" which is what S3 is so far. Also, maybe it's an allusion to "calling a spade a spade" which very few people are doing.

I think Lynch might be doing this on purpose to create an Emperor has no clothes situation. Well that's more interesting at least than that he's just inept.

His past work shows he's got great talent. That's why I can't fathom what he's playing at now. I feel very let down.

This goes beyond bad. The Bobby crying scene, Andy and Lucy, Wally Brando, nobody insisting Cooper/Dougie gets help, the lack of music, Heidi giggling a bit too much, and on and on...it all smacks of something intentional. He's going far out Andy Kaufman in my opinion.


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[counterpaul]

I'm totally fascinated by Dougie (and I'm talking about Dougie here--not Cooper as an infant). I think it's very significant that it's Dougie that Coop replaces, not COOPER. I actually think the line, "Someone manufactured you for a purpose, but I think now that's been fulfilled" can be read quite positively. If his darkest impulses "manufactured" this empty, bitter parody of a "life" for himself, in the form of Dougie (who is an "agent," but the wrong kind; who has a wife and child but daydreams through his life with them; who sleeps around and gets into debt, etc.), then getting to the point where Dougie's purpose (as a place-holder for the life Coop has not been leading) has been fulfilled is immense progress!

It's just the start, of course, but we all know that a path is formed by laying one stone at a time.

Great response! I believe that when the whole story is told, there will be a deep emotional/psychological resonance to Cooper's situation, as there always has been with Twin Peaks' core mysteries in the past. Not at all sure what that is yet of course but a lot of this sounds very much like the right direction.

I completely agree. We're building up to something, as Gordon put it, BIG.

I think this is a story of transcendence. The scene with Carl and the hit and run really cemented this for me. That scene reads as almost a microcosm of the entire project. I'm not at a place where I can quite nail it down in words yet, but I just feel it.

The hit and run scene, plus Janey-E's monologue about the "dark, dark days" these characters are living in, plus Bushnell first dismissing but then seeing the truth in Coop's scribbles, plus Maggie's reminder not to jump to conclusions based on what we see on the surface with regards to Doris. This all adds up to something. Lynch is telling us what he's up to, here.

Do you think not just Dougie but the entire reality he's embedded in is "manufactured"? There's definitely a Mulholland Drive-esque vibe to that whole reality. I guess we'll find out if/when the Great Northern key arrives at its destination.

Well, I guess it depends on how you're reading the word "manufactured." I don't think we're going to end up with some literal parallel dimension or alternate timeline or something. Let me put it this way: I think that key Jade threw in the mailbox is going to end up in Twin Peaks--the same Twin Peaks where/when Hawk is investigating what's missing and how it relates to Coop.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if we're never told how Dougie was manufactured in any concrete sense. It doesn't really matter to me, either way, as long as the poetry of it resonates. Dougie's life is manufactured in the sense that it is a false life for Dale Cooper. It's a result of how desperately lost he's been for 25 years.

It seems to me, though, that it will not just dissolve away. Janey-E and Sonny Jim will feel the effects of whatever is to come as Coop reasserts himself, for better and worse I expect. It seems to me that there will be consequences.

Btw, I wrote a bit about why BOB - and then Cooper's doppelganger - appears in the finale when Windom stabs him. I'm not sure I totally buy this explanation myself (and I think it may contradict some of the other notions I've humored) but I like to play around with it: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2015/11/ ... d-bob.html

I have pondered the "Coop killed Earle in anger" angle before. I can see a basis for it, but it feels too literal to me. I don't think there's a naturalistic corollary to what we see on this show. It isn't symbolism (the surrealists, classically, fucking hated the symbolists--and I know Lynch doesn't think of himself as a surrealist, but I do think it's the best word we have to describe--in broad terms--what he's up to). In a certain way, I really do think what we see is what we get in the world of Twin Peaks.

As Laura said to Harold, BOB is real.

That isn't to say there is no room for interpretation, but the type of interpretation that resonates for me personally is not "this symbolizes this other thing and so here is what is REALLY going on" but, rather, "how does this imagery reveal profound truths about humans and how we work?"

[counterpaul]

This is something that interests me about the pacing of the new series. Pt. 5, to me, really did feel like structured like a late s1 episode (ep. 6 comes most readily to mind). They made room for so many different stories/characters! And yet this week...

...It does seem like Lynch/Dunham/et al made some structural decisions at certain points with the knowledge that they would be dividing this up into hourly "episodic" chunks. For example, the Rancho Rosa nighttime shot, with the hitmen waiting near Dougie's car, should take place in the previous part, before Cooper's pancake breakfast. Yet it feels better in pt. 5 because that "episode" ends with the same box in Argentina.

I remember loving your review of Part 5 but disagreeing about this one point--it feeling more like an "episode" of TV. I actually think the one thing that may have made you feel that way is the structural change you've noted above. It seems to me that once they realized that Part 5 would end on the box in Argentina, they decided that the first scene with the box was close enough to the start of the 5th hour that they could juggle things around a bit and create this sense of symmetry. It's one of only a very small handful of nods to the hourly format, though.

Obviously, Lynch was careful to place the Shelly/James Roadhouse scene at the end of the first two hours, and "I know where she drinks" makes a nice capper for an hour of TV and it probably didn't just land at the end of hour 4 by chance. The structure, for the most part, is loose enough that certain scenes can be reordered a bit if opportunities for nice beats to start/end on arise.

Beyond that, however, I absolutely do think they're working on this as a giant 18 hour movie. I totally believe Lynch is on the level when he's implied that they cut this whole thing together before they even started thinking about breaking it up into parts. Once they did start breaking it up, sure, they made tweaks here and there where it made sense, but I doubt they made any major changes for the sake of constructing "episodes."

Part 6 seems like complete proof if this! It is many things, but it is NOT an episode of television. More than any other part so far, it is clearly just the next hour or so of the 18 hour film, with a musical performance thrown onto the end as a bookmark.

I personally love this approach! But if you're trying to process it as anything close to something that stands on its own, you're likely to be quite...chagrined.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm really curious how this will play as one big 18-hour thing to binge. Will the changes in pace between different sections flow naturally as a "film" or will this feel as jarring in its own way as some of the parts do on a weekly basis?

Have you watched everything together yet? I haven't had time to watch it all with Part 6 yet, but I've watched the first 5 parts together in a single sitting (with the opening credits of Parts 2-5 cut out, since they're all exactly the same and break the flow) two times and, let me tell you, it PLAYS. It 100% feels like a giant single movie that I just don't have the ending of yet. In fact, I think it might play even better with the Roadhouse musical numbers in 3 and 4 (and now 6) cut out as well, so that it all flows together with no acknowledgment that it had ever been broken up for weekly consumption at all, but I'm keeping them in since they're unique. I find the structure exceedingly interesting. It builds itself up slowly, but very steadily, and when you get to the flurry of activity that is Part 3, you feel totally prepared for it--at least rhythmically--and from there, the pacing ebbs and flows very naturally, like a dynamic but beautifully balanced piece of music.

Structurally speaking, this is nothing like a TV show.

[Putontheglasses]

Out of curiosity, does anyone following this thread have any real world metaphysical interest or beliefs about these transdimensional entities Frost is so fascinated with?

I've not followed all of the analysis of the original show over the years but one of the things that has kept Twin Peaks so dear to me is that it seems to be pointing to something very big metaphysically in the real world.

The scene with Carl seeing the departing soul brought that home is S3.


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[mtwentz]

People calling S3 sublime or genius or Lynch's Magnum Opus (like you could make that call at this stage)...In this case I call bullshit. Whether self deluded, wishful thinking, or otherwise. Maybe not consciously lying but still equally full of shit.

If you think that kind of bullshittery is uncommon from human beings, then you haven't been alive for very long or been paying attention.

The reception of this season is interesting from a psychological standpoint.

The "Lync's Magnus Opus" was constantly thrown around in anticipation for the show. When you combine that with how fundamental 'wishful thinking' is to the human condition, it is not surprising that some fans have been labeling this Lynch's Magnus Opus since the first hours of the 18 hour run were released, and will inevitably continue to do so with each new episode, pretty much regardless of content.

I also sense a different vibe from most of the Twin Peaks podcasts. Even though they claim to absolutely love it, the rhetoric is way less excited, less emotional and giddy than podcast episodes covering the original series, where things like character and creating an appealing world you did not want to leave were huge parts of what made the series.

The funny thing about these current podcasts/reviews is that they will happily talk about how it's not appropriate this time to talk about 'plot' or try to explain things by conventional logic. And explain how people who do that are missing the entire point, and thus would naturally not appreciate this masterpiece. And yet they go on to spend 99 % of the podcast time committing exactly that crime;
Speculating about how things relate to each other plotwise, and trying to understand the characters, all based in a collective, conventional sense of logic firmly rooted in reality.

If you have a problem with the pacing of the new show, you will likely be called impatient, with the added assumption that 'surely you must not like Lynch'.
That is despite having enjoyed the vast majority of his work, where even slower paced stuff was not as extreme as the new TP, and not as constant.
But all of a sudden, the criticism turns binary; You either like slow pacing or you don't, and if you don't like it, you flat out dont appreciate Lynch.
This lacks any kind of relevant nuance.

I found that the best way to watch the new series, is with a friend who is also well versed in the TP universe. That way you can talk a little bit about what you're seeing during extremely slow scenes, everything moves faster and becomes more enjoyable. I don't find that to be the case with the old series, where little or no talking is preferred, with exception of the very worst parts of season 2.

Yes we've all been hypnotized by Lynch. We have no minds of our own.

But seriously, you can't argue against another person's opinion. Siskel and Ebert used to do it all the time to each other , but it's a pointless exercise for the most part. Those of us who like the show really truly do like it a lot. Some of us like it better than the original series. It's also possible our opinions could change over time as could yours.