Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[Eva Marie]

"i dislike the very common tendency for people to get on high horses and claim their opinion is the right one while the stupid plebs that like said work are fawning syncophats without the intelligence to see that they are praising the emperor's new clothes. it's a cop out..."

Not in the case of TR. So called 'haters' of this season have been substantiating their opinion of the work with near academic analysis and solid experience with arthouse/indie in general. The fans, on the other hand, have mostly oohed and aahed uncritically, and accused the critics of being uncultured and 'not getting Lynch". Very very few have pointed the flaws at all - and that's what truly suspicious and reeks of a naked Emperor. I have personally never seen a work of art I could not see any downsides in (no matter how much I loved it).

[N. Needleman]

Not in the case of TR. So called 'haters' of this season have been substantiating their opinion of the work with near academic analysis and solid experience with arthouse/indie in general

Let's bypass the need to deconstruct this particular passage with citations and simply agree to disagree, shall we?

[LurkerAtTheThreshold]

Wow. I remember being in this thread during the days when it was blasphemy to speak ill of the the return.

Now it's over 300 pages, and as many in this thread predicted, after the suspense was lifted and it was all laid out, Season 3 is in an easier beast to judge for exactly what it is, and all sorts of critics are coming out of the woodwork.

Not trying to be snooty and superior. I think everyone's reaction to this polarising series are valid. Whilst they're have been psychotic defenders on both side of the debate as to the worth of this thing--Frankly I'm beyond sides, but it's good to have a place to lay out my own feelings after the fact.

All being said, this was a fascinating experiment of a series, the fact that it was such a non comforist piece of television remains a favourable aspect. For me, it seems clear that the concept of reviving Twin Peaks with the iconic Agent Cooper as a mere shadow-- was a paramount mistake of narrative choice. It was as bad a decision as we all felt at the start, and remained so until the end. What we got was an emptional and profound piece of art, which expressed accurately the despair and longing of the return of a 25 year old murder mystery, and the age of the creators-- existential ennui and trauma---from a series which had long devolved into an extra dimensional x files story.

There were many intense and interesting moments in this series, enough to make it fascinating. As a story in its own right, it was beyond terrible. In fact, if the series didn't have the original icon to lean on, what we got would be purely unwatchable.
This series was full of conceptual bungles, terrible devices, poorly formed plots, bad fiction that lead to dead ends. Some of the special effects and dialogues bordered on the most hilariously terribly works of art-- from Ed Wood to Neil Breen to Tommy Wiseau which will no doubt grant it cult status for years to come.

In a final analysis, the difference between what the creators wanted to depict and what came out on screen-- told more, I think, than the creators were probably willing to confess.

If one were to pick out the positives of this lengthy and at times arduous, even tedious 18 hours-- they might sight; some fascinating new characters, the Mitchum brothers stellar performance, Naomi Watts and Kyle Machlachlan fulfilling their left of field roles with wilderness cunning. A solid core police procedural, reuniting cult characters Gordon Cole, Albert Rosenfield, and new faces Tammy and Diane-- in a narrative which may have been interesting had it not strayed to far into its own insular, deatached world-- add meanwhile an enlivened core at twin Peaks Sherrif department with highlighted Bobby Briggs, Frank Truman and Hawk-- who unfortunately never found satisfying resolution in the half arsed deus ex machina show down in part 17.

As a self homage to David Lynch, we saw some visual treats-- from the haunting episode 8 channeling Kubrick and eraserhead-- to the Mullholland drive finale.

What failed was everything else along the way. Unfortunately strong acting from prolific actors such as Mathew Lillard and the detectives Fusco was not enough to forgive the poor trail of red herrings and failed leads which suffered from pointless abandon. From Jade, to the assassins working for Loraine, to Duncan Todd and many other byline characters on the way-- the plot never managed to convince the audience that there was any purpose to the building 'suspense'. This caused nauseous and dispiriting groans, from the revelation of Jacobys shovels, to the pointless 119 lady, to the random scabs in the roadhouse, Jerry Horne, Audrey, Richard, Becky, Red, the fireman, number based clues like 4:30 and coordinates of Mr C--- none of the developments of this series felt worthwhile.

It wasn't merely that the payoff was dismal, there was a missed directive-- dare I say -- incompetence -- in the story telling.
Any first grade film maker or screenwriter will be taught that any introduction in a narrative should meet a pay off. This story not only failed to do so, it took a strong world, already built that was hard to fuck up -- and mutilated it so pathetically, like a child kicking over their own sandcastle they had built. It doesn't take a kettle born Phillip Jeffries to realise there is something slippery going on inside this project.

I hate to put sole blame on one individual-- however, just as many slammed Mark Frosts secret history book for displaying his conspiratorial tendencies-- the faults of the return seem to lay primarily on poor choices by the returns director David Lynch.

Yes, Lynch is a seventy year old geriatric who hasn't made anything for twenty years. Perhaps we can forgive him some for his inability to make a coherent narrative. I might be more willing to do so, were it not for the so obvious points of narcissism which detracted from this show.

The Gordon Cole story, wasn't what I invested myself in. Yes, Gordon Cole can still get an erection. Great. Good, he hangs out with French girls and likes looking at Chrysta Bella arse. I might forgive this if he was not so distracted being on screen he was capable of still doing his job as director. Evidently, he wasn't.

Jai Do-- represents everything an ageing David Lynch though he could get away with, and couldn't. Unfortunately, this old dog has no new tricks. Everything we've seen in this series was a tried and overplayed device of Lynch's hay day.

The most dissapointing aspect of the finale, was that Lynch couldn't stop at merely ruining the return, he had to turn both Fire Walk with me and the original series into a pointless dream sequence with no context or meaning.

I remember in year four when my grade school teacher scolded my creative writing and said 'No matter what you do... never finish a story with the banal conclusion 'it was all a dream.'

Apparently whilst Lynch was studying painting he never graduated from creative fiction class.'

But sorry if watching Kyle Machhlachlans face superimposed over the climax of an 18 hour series wasn't enough to make me praise this work as Lynch's swan song.

He may stilll be able to get it up, but Lynch is clearly beyond the day's of being able to weave a marginally coherent narrative.

"Albert, I'm sorry, but I don't understand this situation at all"

Thanks for a great post, you make some great points, many of which views i share. I still like the show a lot and it was full of brilliant scenes, imo, but the lack of payoff, the retcons, etc is truly baffling. I just rewatched pts. 1 to 4 and theres so many interesting storylines set in motion that the way it developed is quite insane.

However i dont see how these problems are laid solely at Lynchs door when, to me, the problems i have with the show is mostly related to the script. And what you mention mostly relates to that as well.

I suppose fault can never rest solely on one persons shoulders, but like others have said here, it feels that Lynch has deviated strongly from whatever script he and Mark devised.

We couldn't know for sure until seeing the production script. I'd certainly love to get my hands on the script.

I just find it hard to imagine that, for example, all those random scenes in the roadhouse were something that were written dialogue in a script. There are so many things which just don't flow enough to have been drafted in pre production. Special effects too, I doubt that Mark Frost had written 'Mr C is in a cage as giant head of Major Briggs watches over' etc etc

I'd be interested to see how much license Lynch did take. I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 60 percent deviating from the written material, it certainly couldn't be less than 30 percent as libbed in my opinion.

[Agent Earle]

Oh, there are certain citations to be found on both sides, to be sure.

[powerleftist]

Each writer doing his own thing would explain why the show seems so disjointed. "OK, MARK, YOU WRITE THAT STUFF ABOUT BLUE ROSE CASES AND I'LL WRITE THE SEQUENCES WITH AUDREY HORNE". It seems like the show is switching between two moods: the sci-fi X-Files exposition dump (Mark Frost's) and the dreamy and vague meta games (David Lynch's).

I don't see Mark Frost writing anything about Audrey Horne, and I don't see David Lynch writing anything about MIKE using hair to create tulpas or Hastings creating a webpage about The Zone.

[LurkerAtTheThreshold]

Each writer doing his own thing would explain why the show seems so disjointed. "OK, MARK, YOU WRITE THAT STUFF ABOUT BLUE ROSE CASES AND I'LL WRITE THE SEQUENCES WITH AUDREY HORNE". It seems like the show is switching between two mods: the sci-fi X-Files exposition dump (Mark Frost's) and the dreamy and vague meta games (David Lynch's).

I don't see Mark Frost writing anything about Audrey Horne, and I don't see David Lynch writing anything about MIKE using hair to create tulpas or Hastings creating a webpage about The Zone.

True this. Zone stuff definitely reeks of Frost. But I wonder how different Frosts payoffs were. The ending was definitely 'pure heroin Lynch' . I wonder if the scripts ending was different

[Eva Marie]

"Oh, there are certain citations to be found on both sides, to be sure."

But there is 1 crucial difference: the level of reverence for the Lynch brand. If TR was made by some unknown and looked exactly the same - how many fans would it have? Would it still get a standing ovation at Cannes? Would critics be bending over backwards to avoid phrasing analysis negatively? If Dune got released today, would it still get mercilessly panned like it did when DL was the new kid on the block? Do people that love TR also like anything else similar by another filmmaker?

If YES sounded plausible to all these - then there would be no accusations of Emperor's New Clothes (which is what sounds like "everyone who likes this is an idiot"). It's simply a reasonable doubt over to what degree that like is genuine and not based on the Lynch personality cult.

[Cipher]

Do people that love TR also like anything else similar by another filmmaker?

Speaking only for myself -- yes, resoundingly so. I'd imagine that's true for many critiques, actually. Lynch is unique, but he's hardly the only one who's brought a level of craft and confidence to effectively bucking expectations.

Besides, it moved me, genuinely, at points. I wish people would stop trying to take that away by assuming the only pleasures here were posturing and intellectual. That's just way off the mark.

And I don't think Lynch is perfect. Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet are celebrated movies, and good ones, but both leave me a bit cold. (On the other hand, Eraserhead, Fire Walk With Me and Inland Empire are show-stoppers.) The Return itself winds up being an affecting work that nevertheless suffers from thoughtless sexism that's maybe at best half-justified, in comparison to how deftly gender is handled in several of his previous works. His worlds are composed of nearly entirely white characters, and he doesn't seem to be interested in invoking physical imperfection except to present the uncanny, which is a bit of an outdated and dishonest cheat. But--no artist presenting such personal work is going to come free of ticks and blind spots. It sucks, but there's still something worth viewing so long as those holes are discussed.

But, like, god damn, we really need to get off this binary Lynch-adherent vs. objective viewer train. It's dishonest as fuck. It also assumes the world of celebrated fiction is drastically smaller than it is.

[N. Needleman]

I think it would make a few people much more comfortable to assume Mark Frost's work was hijacked by Lynch, because that validates a view of the show that venerates the plot architecture vs. Lynch, y'know, fucking it up or something, as though he was some glorified hired gun and the writers all did the heavy lifting, that it was more their show than his.

I see no evidence the show was hijacked. Frost was in fact on location throughout the production, including early on - around the time when the final scene was being filmed in Everett. And even in FWWM, which was pure Lynch, so much of that came from him with Bob Engels, one of the show's key writers. You cannot extricate Lynch or Frost from the final product here. All directions lead back to both of them or the other writers in simpatico with their original visions. If you want to condemn one you have to condemn both.

But, like, god damn, we really need to get off this binary Lynch-adherent vs. objective viewer train. It's dishonest as fuck. It also assumes the world of celebrated fiction is drastically smaller than it is.

It's powered this discourse for months, so I doubt it's going anywhere. Look how long FWWM took to stop being reviled. At least back then the press validated the rage in the fandom. Without that people are only going to get angrier.

[douglasb]

The end is clearly an integral part of the project. It's not a studio-bound piece where Lynch could work on the fly. Lynch would not have pulled Sheryl in for this role without Frost being part of that conversation.

[claaa7]

"Oh, there are certain citations to be found on both sides, to be sure."

But there is 1 crucial difference: the level of reverence for the Lynch brand. If TR was made by some unknown and looked exactly the same - how many fans would it have? Would it still get a standing ovation at Cannes? Would critics be bending over backwards to avoid phrasing analysis negatively? If Dune got released today, would it still get mercilessly panned like it did when DL was the new kid on the block? Do people that love TR also like anything else similar by another filmmaker?

If YES sounded plausible to all these - then there would be no accusations of Emperor's New Clothes (which is what sounds like "everyone who likes this is an idiot"). It's simply a reasonable doubt over to what degree that like is genuine and not based on the Lynch personality cult.

here we go again :/ David Lynch was more of a name and at the top of his game by 1992 when FWWM was mercilessly slammed by critics and the Cannes crowd. it's unfathomable to you and some others that people can actually like this so they must be wrapped in a dilusion. as i said before, that's a fucking cop out..

there were parts of The Return that had my heart sinking to my feet - everything about the Green Glove Fuck, some of the weak VFX, some of the plot strands left unresolved, the lack of investment in geographical TP stories, etc. but in contrast there's loads of scenes that i'm in love with. the entire 15 minutes set in the "Mauve Room" (the first part of ep. 3) gave me almost the exact same feeling of surrealist wonder as the dream sequence in episode 2 of the original run. the entirety of episode 8 was super well crafted from all aspects of filmmaking in my humble opinion. to me that entire hour is one of the finest things Lynch has ever directed, which is saying a lot since he is one of my favorites. almost all of episode 15 had me feeling the same way while almost all of episode 14 had me cursing the Television in disgust of what the fuck Lynch was doing with TP.

so you tell me, if i have both of these reactions, as does many others as evidenced by the discussions of the VolleyBOB battle - how does that mesh with your theory about the "Emperor's new clothes"? i'm sure there's a few people on here that are willing swallowing anything by their favorite director, but i hardly think it's the majority.

it should also be noted that MARK FROST is an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER and WRITER of the entire series. he didn't say bye bye after writing was done. and from all accounts of actor interviews i've heard it seems like the script was followed very closely.

also - what is up with the influx of new users with 10 posts who only registered to hate on the series.. if these are in fact the same few users using multiple accounts to flood the board with their hate then that's utterly pathetic.

[Castledoque]

also - what is up with the influx of new users with 10 posts who only registered to hate on the series.. if these are in fact the same few users using multiple accounts to flood the board with their hate then that's utterly pathetic.

Comments like that are unnecessarily offensive and this is the second time I see a similar comment. I let the first one slide, but twice is too much. There have been unpleasant comments on both sides, but as a new member I am particularly unhappy about vitriol of this kind.

I thought the idea was to have an interesting discussion, not throw jabs at one another.

[Quarry70Viet]

Looking at credits on idmb for the original TV show, I'm thinking Producer like Fienberg ( worked on shows like Deadwood, Carnivale), Harbert, D.Simon are deserving a lot of credit.
Would like to know what Carr Kneel was also in charge of as he worked on a show like Boston Legal.

I think the reasons I liked the original was due to these guys and other unknowns staff, as the mood, work on charachters were so bad when not around anymore.

[Castledoque]

Looking at credits on idmb for the original TV show, I'm thinking Producer like Fienberg ( worked on shows like Deadwood, Carnivale), Harbert, D.Simon are deserving a lot of credit.
Would like to know what Carr Kneel was also in charge of as he worked on a show like Boston Legal.

I think the reasons I liked the original was due to these guys and other unknowns staff, as the mood, work on charachters were so bad when not around anymore.

This is not quite fair on Lynch and Frost. Old and new Twin Peaks are both their babies. Being unhappy with the new series, does not mean that the original series (especially the pilot) was not 100% their baby too. Remember David Lynch at the time was fresh out of Blue Velvet and going into Wild at Heart, his aesthetics and artistic priorities at the time were quite different compared to now.

[Quarry70Viet]

Looking at credits on idmb for the original TV show, I'm thinking Producer like Fienberg ( worked on shows like Deadwood, Carnivale), Harbert, D.Simon are deserving a lot of credit.
Would like to know what Carr Kneel was also in charge of as he worked on a show like Boston Legal.

I think the reasons I liked the original was due to these guys and other unknowns staff, as the mood, work on charachters were so bad when not around anymore.

This is not quite fair on Lynch and Frost. Old and new Twin Peaks are both their babies. Being unhappy with the new series, does not mean that the original series (especially the pilot) was not 100% their baby too. Remember David Lynch at the time was fresh out of Blue Velvet and going into Wild at Heart, his aesthetics and artistic priorities at the time were quite different compared to now.

Dunham, Montgomery who worked on Wild at Heart also worked on the pilot.

If Frost was the culprit for Leland, Bob, lodges and other similar ideas, he's the main culprit for what killed what I enjoyed in Twin Peaks.
Fwwm was a disappointment to me as I didn't care, as metaphysic theory always bored me.
I prefer Allegory.