Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[BOB1]

Except that a lot of us (including myself) are finding this show very compelling.

Well, yes This is a counterargument one cannot deny just like that. Therefore let me just assure everyone that what I am writing is my point of view, only I don't ;ike to overuse phrases like 'to me', 'in my opinion' etc.

I certainly agree with you about the terrible character development, but I think the Audrey/husband stuff is actually happening only in Audrey's head. This last episode added weight to the idea that Audrey's mind is fighting with itself. Her inability to leave the house suggests that there is more than just the obvious. Audrey is the irrational, emotional part and the husband is the rational, logical part. As much as Audrey wants to wake up, she is afraid of it and can't do it without the "husband" half. Up to now, she can't find a way past the fear to integrate the parts, so they never leave the house together. If it is that, it's kind of a nice parallel to Coop's split personality.

I like this idea a lot and who knows, it might be something close to the actual development in the last episodes. Still, I don't think even a very good concept can fully make up for all other flaws of this plot. Someone mentioned poor writing, poor acting and other poor things. but I'd like to point out something else - that it's very poorly integrated with the rest of the story. It's in fact NOT integrated whatsoever. And I don't mean integrated by means of 'having something to do with other storylines'. Rather what I mean is some kind of setting the Audrey scenes in a dramatic context which would go well with other scenes. Why was she introduced in Pt 12? Why not? Her scene with Charlie discussing Bily and Tina might have occured as well in Pt 5 or 9 or 14. It wouldn't matter. And that's a basic problem because it SHOULD matter. Placing scenes randomly in whatever place of the whole indicates that there is no proper dramatic structure. Which is exactly the fact for most of Return's plotlines, not only Audrey.

I'm prepared for Audrey to be stuck inside a coma or something but I still don't understand how the 18 year old victim of the explosion at the bank would know what she would look like 25 years later.

Why not the same way as how the 30+ year sleeping old FBI agent would know what he would look like 25 years later?...


Now another thing discussed in recent days over this thread was Becky, her drugs scene and others, and also Steven. Now I believe there was a lot of good material there. For instance the introduction of Steven in his job interview (welcome Mike Nelson) and shortly after (in the same episode, who would believe! ) showing that this prick is no other than Shelly's daughter's man (after 25 years we find out it runs with the family). It was all very good and on top of that Becky's drug scene, which I found graphically stunning and it is not something I can often say about The Return. And all of that in one single episode! There was more good material in later parts, too, I definitely enjoyed the RR scene when Shelly so stupidly runs out with Red, and earlier when Becky takes mum's car. However, the further we go with this plot, the more random it gets. Focus is lost and week after week I started forgetting what it was all about --> I stopped caring, the scene in the woods in Pt 15 being the worst instalment of all.



p.s.

Hell, I enjoy flawed but good episodes like 15

Doh! Ep. 15 is not flawed in any single place. It's totally great!
And while being great, it's still not among the very best episodes.. I've lately listed my top 5 with the Pilot being at 6, and this is probably the Premiere League for me. And then comes the very strong next group, including most of Season 1 and for sure Eps 13 and 15.

Looks like Pt 15 of The Return I will be placing similarly - not among the very best but certainly a strong point.

Now come to compare the Mairzy Doats Ep.15 of Twin Peaks with this Jeffries in the teapot Part 15 of The Return... Well I'm not saying it's a world of difference for me. I liked the last part. but it certainly is a biiig gap. And the more I think about how wonderfully structured Ep.15 was, everything between Leland's golfballs and the tension-packed Cooper/Audrey scene broken by the discovery of Maddy's body... with all Leland's mind-blowing scenes in the middle... and the great prison scenes of Ben and Jerry with my favourite Louise Dombrowski scene like a bridge in a song... no, c'mon... it is a world of difference after all

p.p.s.

So I guess I'm an irredeemable fanboy of the original run. To the point where even the flaws don't bother me, and I never skip scenes or episodes on rewatches.
(...) or Lynch's directors credit coming in over the moodily scored opening scene just as Hawk enters

Oh yay! I never skip anything! And this Ep.29 moment with director's credits - oh what a magnificent moment this is!

[boske]

So I guess I'm an irredeemable fanboy of the original run. To the point where even the flaws don't bother me, and I never skip scenes or episodes on rewatches. The whole package is just so much more impressive than TR, even down to something like the opening credits - in particular, those aerial drone shots of water flowing and waterfalls etc in TR credits strike me as oddly prosaic, like extracted from a nature doc; in the original credits every shot was gorgeous and stylized. The new ones feel a bit lazy. I even miss the way the old show continued those distinctive oddly-colored credits into the episode proper, with some openings being quite striking even (like Ep 29's screen-covering "Written by Mark Frost & Harley Peyton & Robert Engels" or Lynch's directors credit coming in over the moodily scored opening scene just as Hawk enters).

Man, you've pretty much summed up my own view. Some of the disappointed crowd have felt that The Return is somehow marring the original. I don't. I can still pop in any disc from The Entire Mystery and just enjoy the episodes. And like you, I never skip scenes. Great point about the opening credits.

I definitely see how some people could feel that the original may have been tainted if not marred. I do think TR in the part 14 has effectively buried the original. However, the whole situation now feels as if some punk has vandalized a piece of art by drawing some graffiti over it, leaving some obscenities and a vulgar signature. Then you try to clean it up, and you do so, and you simply leave it all behind as a bad dream. That works IMO.

[BOB1]

That's something I don't see at all. Guess I'm lucky.

[mlsstwrt]

"Illustrious founder!" Reindeer - the nicest thing anyone has said or will say about me. My main contribution to Dugpa is a massively negative thread, lol.

I'll admit something - I knew The Return was going to be bad from the very first scene. Maybe from the opening credits even. I had been really excited about The Return. Had spent the years since it had been announced just praying that I would live to see it and not meet with an untimely death. So I don't think I had prejudged it or wanted it to be bad. But I knew immediately. Which is why I created this thread so early, arguably prematurely. You can say I never really gave The Return a chance and maybe I didn't but I had this very strong feeling right from the beginning.

Conversely with the Original I was a 13 year old, already rebellious and contrary and I had read the hype about Twin Peaks in the days prior to its airing (I was in the UK and back then we didn't have simulcasts so I believe it had aired in the US some weeks/months earlier). I made an active decision not to watch this over-hyped nonsense. But somehow I couldn't find anything worth watching on any of the other available three channels so I switched to BBC2 and it was the scene with James and Donna in the woods. That show owned me hook, line and sinker within about 5 minutes. I didn't realise it was a serial, I thought it was a one off production so when the end credits rolled I was almost shouting at the TV screen, 'Who killed Laura Palmer!'

So, very different approaches and reactions to the original v The Return. The Return isn't for me, it's as simple as that and I doubt it ever will be. I fear it may have tainted the original but I hope that when the dust settles I'll watch the original again and nothing will have changed. I'll miss the old Dugpa because this place can never be the same. I have wistful memories of hanging around this place years before The Return was announced. Twin Peaks was dead as the dodo but still people would post about a show that had aired over 20 years earlier. There was something lovely about that.

[MysteryMan14]

So I guess I'm an irredeemable fanboy of the original run. To the point where even the flaws don't bother me, and I never skip scenes or episodes on rewatches. The whole package is just so much more impressive than TR, even down to something like the opening credits - in particular, those aerial drone shots of water flowing and waterfalls etc in TR credits strike me as oddly prosaic, like extracted from a nature doc; in the original credits every shot was gorgeous and stylized. The new ones feel a bit lazy. I even miss the way the old show continued those distinctive oddly-colored credits into the episode proper, with some openings being quite striking even (like Ep 29's screen-covering "Written by Mark Frost & Harley Peyton & Robert Engels" or Lynch's directors credit coming in over the moodily scored opening scene just as Hawk enters).

Man, you've pretty much summed up my own view. Some of the disappointed crowd have felt that The Return is somehow marring the original. I don't. I can still pop in any disc from The Entire Mystery and just enjoy the episodes. And like you, I never skip scenes. Great point about the opening credits.

I definitely see how some people could feel that the original may have been tainted if not marred. I do think TR in the part 14 has effectively buried the original. However, the whole situation now feels as if some punk has vandalized a piece of art by drawing some graffiti over it, leaving some obscenities and a vulgar signature. Then you try to clean it up, and you do so, and you simply leave it all behind as a bad dream. That works IMO.

Those punks have the right to do that because 28 years ago they created the whole thing so take It or leave it.

[boske]

Man, you've pretty much summed up my own view. Some of the disappointed crowd have felt that The Return is somehow marring the original. I don't. I can still pop in any disc from The Entire Mystery and just enjoy the episodes. And like you, I never skip scenes. Great point about the opening credits.

I definitely see how some people could feel that the original may have been tainted if not marred. I do think TR in the part 14 has effectively buried the original. However, the whole situation now feels as if some punk has vandalized a piece of art by drawing some graffiti over it, leaving some obscenities and a vulgar signature. Then you try to clean it up, and you do so, and you simply leave it all behind as a bad dream. That works IMO.

Those punks have the right to do that because 28 years ago they created the whole thing so take It or leave it.

Ouch, did I strike a nerve? More than two people were involved back then, they may not have been punks at the time, and it is not yet clear who the actual punk is now. Listen, if I see a middle finger pointed at me I reserve the right to call it what it is. Better? And yes, I am leaving it, bear with us in this insignificant little thread for a few more weeks.

[Novalis]

Man, you've pretty much summed up my own view. Some of the disappointed crowd have felt that The Return is somehow marring the original. I don't. I can still pop in any disc from The Entire Mystery and just enjoy the episodes. And like you, I never skip scenes. Great point about the opening credits.

I definitely see how some people could feel that the original may have been tainted if not marred. I do think TR in the part 14 has effectively buried the original. However, the whole situation now feels as if some punk has vandalized a piece of art by drawing some graffiti over it, leaving some obscenities and a vulgar signature. Then you try to clean it up, and you do so, and you simply leave it all behind as a bad dream. That works IMO.

Those punks have the right to do that because 28 years ago they created the whole thing so take It or leave it.

It's not really very 'punk' to vandalise or show disdain for your own artwork though. This is just something most artists do when they go through phases, they reject their earlier work. There's nothing radical in that. Maybe this is the best that today's alt-right punks can come up with - crapping on their own doorsteps as it were -- but the original punk movement, inspired deeply by Situationism and equipped with a marxist understanding of class struggle, was interested only to crap on conservative strictures and artwork, not on its own previous victories*.


*Sadly, of course, it all got recuperated. We're not going to talk about Vivienne Westwood; we're not going to talk about Vivienne Westwood at all.

[Aqwell]

I think it's unfair to say that people who are obsessed with the new series and like it are unable to see any flaws because of their obsession.

Unfair really?

Those punks have the right to do that because 28 years ago they created the whole thing so take It or leave it.

See?

[LateReg]

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
And what is missing almost entirely to date is a psychological/allegorical element to the mythology.

interesting point. But can counter that with: ep 8 sets up this very explicit ' yin yang' aspect to the mythology. The whole doppelganger theme also does this. The wish fulfilment theme keeps getting repeated. The ' who is dreaming who?' is fairly deep-seated as a theme ( for instance dougie at the doctor's / janey- e sees him as dreamboat , loads of other scenes filmed from only one characters POV of events.) The explicit psycho-drama of the audrey situation, deliberately left ambiguous as to whether it is real or not. Even crappy meta aspects like the ' monica belluci dream ' lean heavily on the whole thing being a psycho-drama as much as it is a record of real events.

There is a word in german 'vorgeschoben' which i like very much and has no equivalent in English. It means when you have something on your mind very important but you talk about something else, and misdirect, to detract attention from the thing you don't want people to talk about. The audrey story is an object lesson in this. But then some of the more overt things, like the green glove, or the ' frostian' mythology exposition, also come over like this. What do people do when confronted with something irrational? They try and rationalise it. Rationalisation - as a sort of defence mechanism to deal with stuff we don't understand or instinctively are very wary of being dragged into - can be an example of ' vorgeschoben'. So whenever the FBI / Albert go into this ABCDE neat narrative rationalised easy-to-swallow package, to explain ''the absurd mystery of the strange forces of existence'' there is a point where I think you are INTENDED to think that this is a load of tinfoil garbage, or at least, a suggestion that the flat foot authorities are as much in the dark as we are. Rationality is reasonable and cautious defence mechanism. But what if a defence mechanism isn't the answer? What if the idea of a defence mechanism is as stupid as a green glove? What if the answer is ' letting go' and going with the flow? I think Lynch is up to something like this. He is after all an ageing hippy, albeit an unusual one.

If i am wrong about this, and you are supposed to genuinely believe that the FBI are all seeing and all knowing, then the psychological angle is, as you say, absent. Me, I think the so-called FBI are deliberately / constantly put in inverted commas, and made to look one step behind us ( all this explaining of stuff we already get). If there is a sense that the FBI represent a ( sorry ) sarcastic right brain distancing rationalisation and that other more emotional or sincere or in-yer-face attempts to figure out what is going on ( andy - empathy / dougie - intuition / nadine/ naido / stephen+gersten etc etc ) have an equal weight , then we are back to this central theme of duality again. Which provides what you call a 'psychological/allegorical element to the mythology'.

To put it in a nutshell, you could see the whole series as a working ( but inefficient) model of how the brain works. We get ( quoting lynch) 'one piece of the puzzle thrown over the wall at a time, in a random order' and we never get to see the whole puzzle until we have all the pieces...which we can never have, and never get. There are always more. That is the nature of a '' continuing story'' and why he is suspicious of the closure that formats impose. Because it is pyschologically wrong.

just a suggestion...

Great post. I agree that the mythology elements are sometimes neatly explained, but A. They are so clearly neatly explained in such an explanatory/expositional way that you have no choice but to think about why Lynch/Frost chose to present them that way and B. Every time we get an explanation it is pretty much something we all have already thought of (such as in the two instances of explaining Blue Rose), and any minor new details (the story of the first Blue Rose case and Tulpas) open up our minds to new elements of what we already knew. As I've posted elsewhere, the lack of info in some moments followed by a dump of info in others is also an assurance we never get comfortable with the rhythm of this thing or where it's going. We're actually not really being explained much at all.

[Gabriel]

I'll admit something - I knew The Return was going to be bad from the very first scene. Maybe from the opening credits even. I had been really excited about The Return. Had spent the years since it had been announced just praying that I would live to see it and not meet with an untimely death. So I don't think I had prejudged it or wanted it to be bad. But I knew immediately. Which is why I created this thread so early, arguably prematurely. You can say I never really gave The Return a chance and maybe I didn't but I had this very strong feeling right from the beginning.

Reminds me of my 'Oh shit! He's doing another Inland Empire' reaction when I saw the very opening of the first episode. The whole thing looked like it was shot on cheap video with an amateurish feel from the outset. Lynch seems to love the flat video look, where I would have liked to see the kind of textured filmic look that one expects from high-end dramas.

Conversely with the Original I was a 13 year old, already rebellious and contrary and I had read the hype about Twin Peaks in the days prior to its airing (I was in the UK and back then we didn't have simulcasts so I believe it had aired in the US some weeks/months earlier). I made an active decision not to watch this over-hyped nonsense. But somehow I couldn't find anything worth watching on any of the other available three channels so I switched to BBC2 and it was the scene with James and Donna in the woods. That show owned me hook, line and sinker within about 5 minutes. I didn't realise it was a serial, I thought it was a one off production so when the end credits rolled I was almost shouting at the TV screen, 'Who killed Laura Palmer!'

Given it was being talked about as the new Dallas and Dynasty, via Peyton Place, I'm surprised I bothered to watch it either. I was a messed up 15-year-old at the time it first aired, I'd heard of David Lynch in the context of being the 'wrong' man to make Dune – a film I knew was a box office flop, but looked utterly bizarre – and, watching it for want of anything better to do at my grandparents' new house, its anarchic streak appealed to my late-blooming teenage rebellious side.

So, very different approaches and reactions to the original v The Return. The Return isn't for me, it's as simple as that and I doubt it ever will be.

Yeah, the person I am now looks at the gushing praise thrown out about this show and I'm reminded of a favourite novel of mine in which a poet favoured by the villain has a collection published to rave reviews – an example of the poet's 'genius' is: 'Toothbrush in the jaw toothbrush brush brush tooth jaw foam dome in the foam Roman dome come home home in the jaw Rome dome tooth toothbrush toothpick pickpocket socket rocket...' – even though the critics basically know it's crap too. I'm pretty sure 15-year-old me would have disliked The Return too, to be honest. I suspect most present day critics would have fawned over The Return even if it have been 18 hours of David Lynch sat in the middle of a football field defecating into a cowboy hat!

I fear it may have tainted the original but I hope that when the dust settles I'll watch the original again and nothing will have changed. I'll miss the old Dugpa because this place can never be the same. I have wistful memories of hanging around this place years before The Return was announced. Twin Peaks was dead as the dodo but still people would post about a show that had aired over 20 years earlier. There was something lovely about that.

Yeah, I know what you mean. There's a schism now between hard core Lynch fans and a number of fans of the original Twin Peaks who aren't full-blown Lynch fans. I can still love the original show, untainted. The Return is so different and so belated that I don't relate it to the network show or FWWM. The same goes for stuff like Blade Runner 2049: it can exist, but I don't feel any need to think about it again if it's crap. TPTR has further tainted Lynch's legacy for me though. I've not enjoyed anything he's made since The Straight Story and I find myself wishing he'd called it a day and retired after that film. I didn't care for Eraserhead or his short films either, so I guess I like his film and work from The Elephant Man through to The Straight Story and that's it. I'd always wanted Twin Peaks to come back, but, for me, the show that's going out now has little to do with the original or FWWM beyond actors and character names.

What you personally have done though, Misstwrt, is create the best, most interesting thread on the entire discussion forum. The fact that so Lynch talifans come to this thread to troll people who don't worship a false idol, proves it's had an impact. The fact that reasoned people who aren't disappointed come here to hone their arguments proves it's had an impact. Thumbs up!

[mlsstwrt]

Thanks Gabriel, that's very kind. I've really enjoyed the thread and there have been amazing posts from both camps (not least your own). A lot of the 'pro' posters in this thread - like Reindeer - are so eminently fair that they restore my faith in humanity (and the internet) a bit. It inspires me to try to be more fair when making posts in this or any other thread.

Am a big Blade Runner fan too. It's never been as dear to me as Twin Peaks so I'm not too worried about the new film marring the old but, yeah, going to be interesting to watch. The last few Harrison Ford performances I've seen had a flat quality to them. Age just naturally mellows people out I guess, so it becomes impossible to create the intensity of youth. TPTR is baffling in this respect because it's definitely not consistent with the gentle slip into mediocrity that comes with age and decades of success, but it certainly does have an extremely flat quality to it, as do the performances. Anyway, back to Blade Runner, I guess they're relying on Gosling to bring the heat and hopefully he won't disappoint.

I still honestly believe that Lynch is massively trolling us. If he has, the amount of effort he has put into it is legendary and I have to respect it. Would be hilarious if he just kicked back at night with a massive box of popcorn, reading Dugpa and laughing his ass off.

[Gabriel]

I still honestly believe that Lynch is massively trolling us. If he has, the amount of effort he has put into it is legendary and I have to respect it. Would be hilarious if he just kicked back at night with a massive box of popcorn, reading Dugpa and laughing his ass off.

I don't know...

I think he's kind of gone off on his own tangent. One might wonder what would happen if Leonardo Da Vinci was transported through time, shown Jackson Pollock's works and told he could call that art. Would Leo have decided that it would be easier to throw a load of paint at some canvas that gormless wealthy New York liberals would buy for obscene amounts of money, even though they're crap?

Lynch can now pretty much do whatever he wants and be told it's genius. He no longer has to try hard or to fight against critics. When Twin Peaks came out, Lynch was still a controversial enfant terrible. Now he's establishment.

[mlsstwrt]

I still honestly believe that Lynch is massively trolling us. If he has, the amount of effort he has put into it is legendary and I have to respect it. Would be hilarious if he just kicked back at night with a massive box of popcorn, reading Dugpa and laughing his ass off.

I don't know...

I think he's kind of gone off on his own tangent. One might wonder what would happen if Leonardo Da Vinci was transported through time, shown Jackson Pollock's works and told he could call that art. Would Leo have decided that it would be easier to throw a load of paint at some canvas that gormless wealthy New York liberals would buy for obscene amounts of money, even though they're crap?

Lynch can now pretty much do whatever he wants and be told it's genius. He no longer has to try hard or to fight against critics. When Twin Peaks came out, Lynch was still a controversial enfant terrible. Now he's establishment.

You may well be right. If there's a problem I have with so many 'pro' people being in this thread is that we've never really been able to have a discussion entirely predicated on The Return being awful. And that is more interesting to me than a debate about whether The Return is awful or not. I'd rather just start with the assumption that The Return is terrible and then have a conversation about what the hell went wrong. Unfortunately it's hard to build up any momentum in this thread because as we're getting into the discussion someone will turn around and say, 'But, but The Return is brilliant!' Then we get kind of sidetracked.

Ultimately I feel like at his peak Lynch had these outlandish ideas that somehow connected with something in the audience, even though there's no reason why it should have. I think it's easy to come up with bizarre ideas but takes genius to come up with bizarre ideas that resonate so deeply. He still has as many ideas as he once did but they just don't have any visceral impact anymore.

[Dreamy Audrey]

I think it's unfair to say that people who are obsessed with the new series and like it are unable to see any flaws because of their obsession.

Unfair really?

Yes, because it seemed to me you thought their opinion of the show was less valid than ours because of their word choice (would you have criticized their word choice if they hated the show?). And as I explained before, I don't think obsession means you can't see any flaws in something. There are people who are obsessed with The Return and see flaws in it, and there are people who are not obsessed with it and don't see any flaws.

[yaxomoxay]

Lynch was still a controversial enfant terrible. Now he's establishment.

Well, have you watched Woody Allen's Bananas ?