The Random Season 3 Thread

[Agent Sam Stanley]

No one has a trailer due to the shoestring budget—just a minivan with the heat on, which they duck into between takes.

Yep, according to what I hear when it comes to low budget films that's how I thought things worked most of the time. Shooting is usually pretty tough for everyone involved but they know the type of film they're in so everyone copes and tries to make the best they can.

[Agent Sam Stanley]

Better than giving her a blanket and a tent I suppose.

I'm not in the movie business, don't know how these things work, but I thought only the stars of the film got their own trailers. Seems like a luxury for a low budget film to give someone who has two lines a private trailer.

She filmed more than two lines. Those trailers are common on location and not a luxury.

And why was she complaining about lack of heat? I thought they shot that film in the middle of summer.

I'm assuming she was complaining because she was genuinely cold.

Hopefully she recovered from that hellish experience.

[bosguy1981]

Sherilyn Fenn did a Q&A at Sinister Creature Con (assume this was recently?). It was uploaded today to YouTube.

I haven't watched all of it yet but she discusses Twin Peaks at the beginning. She's candid, as always, and says she "got much better scenes" than the other returning TP actors because she rejected the original material written for her. Says she feels like they wrote something original and then just randomly plopped the returning TP characters in because they had to be there. She seems to feel Audrey turned out a lot better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLqAmMspoPg

[Rainwater]

I wonder what her original role was, exactly.
Was she supposed to have Sylvia's scenes, or is that just a rumor? I'm not sure if I agree with her at all that what she got in the end was better.

[bosguy1981]

At the end, she's asked by an audience member if she's satisfied with how season 3 ended.

Her response: "Look, I wish they went back to regular Twin Peaks. I don't know what happened, I don't know who these people were, I don't know what was going on. Mind you, who am I? It's David's thing. He gets to do what he gets to do. I think it's really good for David to have had ABC [try to have him put the original Twin Peaks in a box]. I think that's good for him not to be able to go woooowwwww, where everybody's (confused). On the one hand, you don't want everybody to (understand) everything at the same time, it's bad filmmaking. But on the other hand, when you're just like What the Fuck? Like, I'm not getting anything. I'd like to get something. I mean, my mom... she hated it. "This is the stupidest show!" ... but the last thing I'll say about David is, don't try to understand it because there is no understanding. This is the beauty.... understanding is overrated. It's what YOU get from it. And what YOU get from it says something about YOU."

[bosguy1981]

I wonder what her original role was, exactly.
Was she supposed to have Sylvia's scenes, or is that just a rumor? I'm not sure if I agree with her at all that what she got in the end was better.

All that's known is that, yes, she would have been attacked by Richard Horne in the first draft of the scene with Sylvia. And she owned a beauty salon in Twin Peaks. Nothing else has been confirmed, really.

[bosguy1981]

Finally, she says her favorite scene she did in all of Twin Peaks was smoking with Donna in the girls bathroom and discussing the murder investigation together.

[Jerry Horne]

I wonder what her original role was, exactly.
Was she supposed to have Sylvia's scenes, or is that just a rumor? I'm not sure if I agree with her at all that what she got in the end was better.

She was to own a hair salon and yes she was supposed to have that scene with Richard and Johnny. Her frequent mantra of 'trusting Lynch' apparently stopped when she didn't like her role.

[Rainwater]

Thanks for the info.
Well, her behavior is disappointing to say the least, but at least she didn't pull an MJA. That being said, if I could choose, I think I'd rather have had MJA in the show, in the apparently sizeable role he was supposed to have. I guess we'll never know what that would've been like.

[Audrey Horne]

Ha, still love her.

And trying to be as objective (as possible) but I think she’s right. Especially about the constraints.

[Mr. Strawberry]

This is petty and superficial but did anyone else find it distracting to see a virtually unchanged Cooper visiting with an almost unrecognizable Laura? Why did they give her such heavy eyeliner and a new hairstyle? Did the One Armed Man get into cosmetology over the past 25 years?

[N. Needleman]

I see both sides. I think Sherilyn means well and is also a complicated person who at times has had an over-inflated sense of her role in the show or what it should be. But I also think yeah, Audrey's character did get screwed and unfairly marginalized way back when. And I also think the love between Sherilyn and Lynch is very clear in the BTS documentary on-set; I think people who think he hates her and is getting back at her have just never seen that. And I think ending it on that truncated cliffhanger in S3 is both good and bad.

Am I thrilled we don't know WTF is going on with Audrey and have no closure there with what may well be the final glimpse of Twin Peaks? No. But I also think Season 3, in its use of Audrey and placement of her role in story, with Cooper/Mr. C, with Richard, even in her absence and especially in terms of her cryptic dreamworld, made Audrey much more integral to the larger foundations and overall mystery of Twin Peaks than she had become by the end of Season 2, when she'd been relegated to a supporting character.

Today, everybody's questions are: What happened to Cooper and Carrie/Laura, and WTF happened to Audrey? Those questions may never go away. Audrey bore the evil Cooper's child, both consummating and perverting the longstanding will they/won't they of the Cooper/Audrey relationship. The violation of Audrey (and Diane) was a major plot point that has ties back to the deeper themes of violence against women which permeate Lynch's work, especially TP and FWWM - Audrey is now anchored to characters like Laura. And Audrey is at the center of a new and enduring, if frustrating mystery.

Audrey has not been this centralized to the overall questions or thoughts surrounding TP since the midpoint of Season 2, at the very least. So that makes me very happy, even if I still want much more for her. If that makes sense.

[Audrey Horne]

Well, I will say back in the day when the show was actually on television, it was primarily the Kyle, Sherilyn, Lara Flynn show. I mean that’s why Audrey had all those insipid JJW scenes, to give something to one of the fan favorites. And aside from Cooper, Lynch and co. did draft the season finale to make Audrey (and Pete) in the most peril to make viewers want to tune in. I mean sure she wants a job, but I don’t think she’s inflating the importance of the character. Personally, I think besides the constant cypher of Laura’s ghost, you can’t have Peaks without the anchors of Cooper and Audrey. Ha, her face was practically the actual words. Arched eye brow, arched eye brow, beauty mark. Peak. Peak. Period. I mean, that was pretty synchronicity in 1990.

I do think she’s right in her hunch that they had a story and then figured out where they could plug original characters in if they were available. And that’s perfectly fine. I’ve watched The Return a few times again, and I can’t believe not how mad or in love with it I am, but just indifferent. I love everyone involved with it, and think there are stellar moments, but overall can’t believe how just indifferent I am to it.

[Mr. Reindeer]

While I don’t love her methods sometimes (publicly accusing L/F of sexism and ageism at one point), I think Fenn genuinely is being protective of the character (as she was when she rightly refused to participate in the Miss Twin Peaks pageant in E28). And while I think as a rule, actors should be respectful of the material written by professional writers and directors, it’s pretty undeniable that we ended up with a much stronger Audrey storyline due to her complaining and holding out.

I am intrigued to know (perhaps Jerry can tell?) if Charlie (or a Charlie-type character) figured into Audrey’s initial storyline. Frost’s book implies that he was an accountant she married. Was that the initial plan on the show, and did Lynch just repurpose the character into a more mythical/ambiguous purpose?

[N. Needleman]

I mean, I watched back then, I remember! They were huge and that certainly included Sherilyn and Audrey. But I also think it's undeniable that Audrey was marginalized - the Wheeler story was there, but the character and actor became decentralized, in favor of LFB and other things. And certainly, once FWWM was in place that had a big impact. I'm not saying it was right, because IMO it was wrong how she was handled in the latter half of Season 2. There were a lot of mistakes. It shouldn't have happened. At the same time, a massive part of what Twin Peaks means to me overall comes from the first half of Season 2 and especially FWWM.

I think hearing from fans that it should have become or remained the Cooper and Audrey show for years on the fan circuit created a false expectation for Sherilyn, and I think that influenced some of her behavior during production, not all of which I agree with. People don't have to agree with me there. But I am glad the story was changed, and I think the new material is far more compelling. I don't bear her any ill will; I think she takes too much stick from fans online, especially in recent years. She's a sweet person. I don't think Lynch hates her or she hates Lynch. I never believed the new show would be as good without Audrey, and I hope if there is more we get much more. I think it was a mistake for her to not remain as integral as a Laura or a Cooper (at least, I don't feel she did). I think Season 3, in a roundabout or imperfect way, went a fair bit of the way towards that. She is now an immortal part of a much deeper foundation and mystery than just the echoes of 1990, pre-Episode 14, pre-FWWM, LH, MD, etc.

I do think they had a large, strange story in mind for Season 3, and it was not all about Twin Peaks proper. But that was fine with me. I don't think they just slotted the characters in wherever they could haphazardly, though. I think the approach to the overall town and character landscape was much more episodic and vignette-like, much more similar to the structure of MD or the Missing Pieces than the original show. I get why that doesn't work for some people, but it did for me, for the most part. It bears little resemblance to the classical TV structure of the original series, yes. But that's okay for me too.

I know Sherilyn isn't alone in having mixed feelings on Season 3; I know Ray Wise has some. I'd have loved to see more of both of them. But as I've said recently, this is not new - a lot of the cast had issues with FWWM. They're entitled to that. And I think there's something to be said for a possible Season 4 being a bold attempt at 'classicism' - maybe going back to a more conventional episodic TV format of A, B and C-plots a la the '90s than the rambling wormhole of Season 3's structure. But the truth is I wouldn't mind more of the same either.

Put it this way: The difference between Season 3 and something like, say, Stranger Things 3 is elemental. I love Stranger Things, I really enjoyed its third season. But it's apples and oranges. ST3 gives me everything I want and expect from its characters and structure while expanding its narrative world, but it never expands it so far that my expectations of what it does or can be are truly ruptured or changed. And that's fine - it's not looking to change TV as we know it. It is a blockbuster movie in an eight-hour experience, it has specific notes and touchstones, that's great. I had a blast, I love the show, it does what it does very well.

By contrast, Season 3 of Twin Peaks did not give me everything I wanted and hoped for over lo however many years. It loved to turn left on my expectations or perceived wants or needs. It did not function or behave, as a program, the way a conventional narrative show does. Yet it gave me all I needed and more. It changed the show, and it changed me. Did I love every second? No. But I loved it just the same. I was fascinated and spellbound every week, I was constantly surprised. It has not left my mind since; there's always some trace there. Could I watch it every day: No. And it's imperfect. But it always was. And it just thrills me that this show still has that power.