General Discussion on Season 3 (All Opinions Welcome)

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

Post by NormoftheAndes »

mtwentz wrote:
sylvia_north wrote:
mtwentz wrote:At the end of the day, don't we expect great art to be divisive? It's like the classic scenario where two friends go to a museum of modern art;; whatever one thinks is a work of genius the other thinks of as a piece of utter pretentious garbage.

Neither of the friends is right or wrong; the art speaks to one persons tastes, but not the other's.

Not a sentiment that hasn’t come up repeatedly. This dedicated critical thread is in general ok/happy others like it, just not sure why they need the reassurance (or concessions to it) being great on the merits OF its divisinesness. From people whose opinions they disagree with. 8) Edit: If the post was not directed at the critical but the rest of the board, I stand corrected.

Crappy art is also divisive. Literally anything anyone does is going to garner varieties of opinions, went entirely without saying
No, I disagree. Not everything is as divisive as when a beloved artist breaks new ground, does something different from what his core audience has come to expect . I was just listening to the audio book of 48 Laws of Power the other day, and apparently Pablo Picasso used to create his own 'Profoundly Disappointed' group of followers on a regular basis.

I'm not saying Lynch is Picasso, but I do consider him an artist that likes to shake things up. One should know going into a Lynch project that you may love it, you may hate it, but if nothing else, some of the images/sounds will likely stick with you for a very long time. I personally did not expect much coherence to the new season given the 'pure heroin Lynch' comment by Nevins and was fairly certain even before it aired that a pure heroin Lynch approach was not going to be universally embraced by all fans, even some of those who, in theory, thought they desired the unfiltered Lynch.
I don't think that season 3 was anywhere near as radical as that though. It wasn't INLAND EMPIRE in 18 hour form. The way it turned out was the result of hasty scripting at the last minute, a perhaps unwise decision to double the length and then a budget which couldn't stretch to the ambition of the script. Combine all of that with Lynch's dogged insistence on doing things his way, I feel that Frost gave David a very long leash and this resulted in a drifting, inconsistent season.
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mtwentz
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by mtwentz »

NormoftheAndes wrote:
mtwentz wrote:
sylvia_north wrote: I don't think that season 3 was anywhere near as radical as that though. It wasn't INLAND EMPIRE in 18 hour form. The way it turned out was the result of hasty scripting at the last minute, a perhaps unwise decision to double the length and then a budget which couldn't stretch to the ambition of the script. Combine all of that with Lynch's dogged insistence on doing things his way, I feel that Frost gave David a very long leash and this resulted in a drifting, inconsistent season.
One can break new ground and do something radical, and have a drifting, inconsistent season (at least to some). IBy itself making an 18 hour movie is a pretty radical step, although some may be flummoxed by the length. But here's the groundbreaking stuff that I saw:
-Pacing: feeding into a growing countertrend around the world called slow TV.

-Purple Room: Speaks for itself

-Opening Scene with the Fireman: Speaks for itself.

-Episode 8: Speaks for itself.

-Cooper Superimposed Face: Speaks for itself.

-All the Red Room Scenes and Evolution of the Arm: Expanding on the Red Room from Ep. 29

-Narrative style Point 1: We are never told we are in an alternate timeline, or a different reality, or if Carrie Page is Laura Palmer or who the girl is in Ep. 8. Much of The Return has to be inferred.

Narrative style Point 2: The Return was the 'anti-soap opera', deliberately withholding conventional satisfying resolutions for most of its characters (and in most cases, withholding any resolution at all).

-Subverting Expectations: More than any show I can remember, The Return built us up for giant confrontations (Cooper-Bad Coop, Sarah-Laura) that never took place. You can love it, or hate it, but hard not to have an opinion on that style of storytelling.

-Screaming Woman/Sick Girls from Ep. 11- Not sure what to call this, but can't get that scene out of my mind. In fact, the whole scene from Bobby, Shelly and Becky's discussion in the diner up to the sick girl throwing up is unlike anything I remember seeing on television and for me at least, worth the price of admission all by itself.

All of the above can either delight you, or piss you off royally. Both reactions are equally valid.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Soolsma »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Soolsma wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:This season was largely about Cooper confronting some hard truths about himself, and whatever happens to him from here on.
That's what I've always figured the Return would be about, beforehand and throughout. However, have we ever had any real confrontations? Yes, Coop saw his doppelgänger on the floor, slid the ring on and all was done, but that was pretty much most of it. Admittedly, the annihilated soul of Cooper is indeed a major drive, but the fragments are spread so widely across the board. What disappoints me a lot here is that in the end it all went down without any dialog or interaction between Coop/Mr c./BOB. I do love the post part 17, half evil, half good Coop. I love how Lynch played his Lynch hand there and the ambiguity of it. However, I don't think it was necessary to keep Cooper so predominantly tight lipped then, and all the way throughout. Maybe modern day Lynch thinks this is best, letting imagery and mystery do most of the work, but I can certainly remember a Cooper who could be very mysterious while still being the verbal, expressive and even poetic person he is/was.

That and lack of music were my biggest disappointments. I'm still waiting for someone to cut the entire thing with old TP music. :lol: I might even do it myself one day, if my pc is powerful enough perhaps. And yes, you could tell me that's barbaric sacrilege. I know it is, but I honestly don't give a fuck.
I think much of the season reflected Cooper’s internal journey, similar to MD in a way, albeit in a more abstract sense, as opposed to the more literal “Cooper confronting his doppelganger” approach many seem to have wanted/expected. DKL at this point in his career just doesn’t work in such straightforward terms.
I agree and I wholeheartedly accept that. however, being a human being and all, it's pretty much impossible to not have any expectations or preconceptions, which is precisely what Lynch plays with. In the end, I guess it is what made part 18 so very powerful. My stomach was twisting and turning when he uttered ''Yes. It's really me Diane". I am never forgetting that feeling.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Robin Davies »

NormoftheAndes wrote:I really think that Frost and Lynch saw s3 as the 'doppleganger' season and that's why we have unsatisfying stories, character situations and a lack of mood. No shot of trees blowing in the wind seductively as such (instead we get speeded-up footage of trees trembling), only mention of damn GOOD coffee, not damn FINE as we know it should be. Something was majorly off all the way through this season.
"Lack of mood"??? I find that incredible. For me S3 delivered the mood of the dark menacing woods much better than the original series which promised this but rarely delivered it. I can understand people criticising characters, plots and some special effects but S3 was stuffed to the gills with eerie, haunting, terrifying MOOD. This is what Lynch does best.
As for "damn fine coffee" I don't think Cooper ever said that exact phrase. He did, however say "Damn good coffee - and hot!".
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by LateReg »

NormoftheAndes wrote: I don't think that season 3 was anywhere near as radical as that though. It wasn't INLAND EMPIRE in 18 hour form. The way it turned out was the result of hasty scripting at the last minute, a perhaps unwise decision to double the length and then a budget which couldn't stretch to the ambition of the script. Combine all of that with Lynch's dogged insistence on doing things his way, I feel that Frost gave David a very long leash and this resulted in a drifting, inconsistent season.
I think it is the most radical work ever aired on TV, and quite radical for a film as well. I've been trying to find time to write a longer response about some things brought up here over the past week (namely that damn Green Glove again), but I saw this and I felt the need to respond. The way the show handles nearly every aspect of its narrative, the way it doesn't distinguish between dreams and reality, the use of duration and the way it approaches time and how that ties in to aging, the way it brings the avant-garde into your living room, etc. Just because not every moment is like Part 3 and Part 8 doesn't make the quieter moments - floor sweeping or a French girl taking her time to leave the room, for example - any less radical. I also think the show's mastery of mood is evident in nearly every frame, its effects work wonderfully, and that every shot in the show is a beauty, and as I am a huge appreciator of slow cinema, I see no moments that are wasted or rushed or drawn out. I mainly wanted to chime in though because I think it is a disservice to the work to continue to think that it is flawed because of the decision to expand from 9 to 18 episodes. It was never supposed to be 9 episodes. It was a script that seemed worth 9 episodes according to typical Hollywood rules, and Lynch doesn't abide by those rules. Lynch has stated that he never knew how long it would be but that he was sure it wasn't going to be only 9. And I'm not sure if we can be sure that "hasty scripting" was a problem, though I'm well-aware that Lynch was writing stuff as they went along, which is simply how he likes to work, in the zone as the mood strikes. I think the magic of the season is in how it doesn't contain the same sort of forward momentum of every other show, how it makes time for so many non-sequiturs that may or may not have to do with the overall narrative puzzle (which is another reason this work is so radical). The stillness can be mesmerizing if you're in the right zone, and I don't see Dougie or anything else feeling stretched out to fill time. If anything, in a work that is actually about time, Lynch may have wanted us to feel the weight of time as it passes.
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NormoftheAndes
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by NormoftheAndes »

Robin Davies wrote:
NormoftheAndes wrote:I really think that Frost and Lynch saw s3 as the 'doppleganger' season and that's why we have unsatisfying stories, character situations and a lack of mood. No shot of trees blowing in the wind seductively as such (instead we get speeded-up footage of trees trembling), only mention of damn GOOD coffee, not damn FINE as we know it should be. Something was majorly off all the way through this season.
"Lack of mood"??? I find that incredible. For me S3 delivered the mood of the dark menacing woods much better than the original series which promised this but rarely delivered it. I can understand people criticising characters, plots and some special effects but S3 was stuffed to the gills with eerie, haunting, terrifying MOOD. This is what Lynch does best.
As for "damn fine coffee" I don't think Cooper ever said that exact phrase. He did, however say "Damn good coffee - and hot!".
You don't think Cooper ever said 'damn fine coffee'? He said it more than he said 'damn good'. Plus it was always 'damn fine' in any publicity back in 1990-2.

I found the mood of the woods, cinematography and the accompanying music considerably more mysterious and atmospheric in the original show and FWWM. Season 3 was going after a more peculiar take on all of that generally in tandem with the odd nature of the 18 episodes as a whole. The only exception for me is the scene where Laura meets Cooper in the woods - entirely deliberately, that evoked the same deep feeling of the original saga. Lynch and co. deliberately made season 3 as a 'tulpa' season I feel.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Trudy Chelgren »

NormoftheAndes wrote:
I found the mood of the woods, cinematography and the accompanying music considerably more mysterious and atmospheric in the original show and FWWM.
That's interesting. I was disappointed initially that The Return hadn't been shot in winter-time like the Pilot, but the scene where Frank, Hawk, Andy and Bobby hiking through what should be pleasant, sunlit woods is so eerie to me. The uncanny drone photography, too. (which is a hard thing to pull-off, it's so jarring in shows like Better Call Saul for me)

The music feels a lot less structured, which could be bad if you're looking for a memorable score. Tracks like The Chair have a vague framework and Badalamenti fudges around it. 'The Fireman' just cripples me, but I can totally see why people would find it aimless.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by NormoftheAndes »

TrudyC - that woods walk scene is a good one but I didn't find it massively eerie. You find it up there with Picnic at Hanging Rock?
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

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Funny you should mention - Picnic at Hanging Rock is actually exactly what it reminded me of at the time. I found those scenes gorgeous and spellbinding - and incredibly satisfying as a longtime fan, because I felt (and feel) certain that where that white-gold portal led, and where Andy was subsequently taken to, was the long-awaited White Lodge. Something I never thought I'd see.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Soolsma »

N. Needleman wrote:Funny you should mention - Picnic at Hanging Rock is actually exactly what it reminded me of at the time. I found those scenes gorgeous and spellbinding - and incredibly satisfying as a longtime fan, because I felt (and feel) certain that where that white-gold portal led, and where Andy was subsequently taken to, was the long-awaited White Lodge. Something I never thought I'd see.
Did you really? Lynch doesn't seem to think so..

https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... _lynch_by/
Did you know right away that the show would end in front of the Palmer House?

Not at the very beginning but before turning, yes.

And not, finally, in the White Lodge...

It's weird. I think it's so much a matter of subjectivity, of interiority, that if you saw that, it would not work. It's different according to each one. It is rather an interior sensation, something suggested in an impressionistic way. I do not know, it's very abstract. Maybe Angelo Badalamenti could get that through, with some music.

You want to convey the idea, but not show it, not illustrate it.

That's it, maybe.
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N. Needleman
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

Yes, I've seen that interview. I still think it was the White Lodge or WL-adjacent for two reasons. Number one, that interview is translated from the French and the translation is actually pretty imperfect in a lot of places. And number two, Lynch's commentary tends to skew away from a definitive answer because that's what he always says and does. He also is not actually commenting directly on the scenes I mentioned, just on the idea of fully showcasing the WL itself.

Many of us have always theorized certain aspects of the Lodges are subjective depending on who sees them - that's not a new idea, it goes back to alt.tv.twin-peaks and Wrapped in Plastic. But other things, I think, are firm, like the Waiting Room/Red Room which many associate with the Black Lodge and which many characters seem to experience the same way. Andy and Cooper also seem to experience/perceive the Fireman's House the same.

I think the Fireman's House by the Sea, as glimpsed in Parts 1, 2 and 8 and later in the series, is part of the White Lodge. I think the portal in the woods is quite clearly to the White Lodge, where Mr. C tries to go ("it is in our house now"), and I think other aspects of the White Lodge - showing it in the most vast parameters - are hidden from us deliberately. But yes, I absolutely feel Season 3 shows us a fair bit of the White Lodge, just as many often feel the Red Room and its appearances in episode 29 or in FWWM show us parts of the Black Lodge.

For all we know Lynch would say the Dutchman/store in Season 3 is not the convenience store - would any of us believe that? I wouldn't, but he's entirely likely to say it because he does not want to define things absolutely. He wants inference and interpretation. This is mine, and I feel it's a pretty solid one.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Soolsma
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

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Ha! Good answer, I can only agree. I do find some irony in you referring to your interpretation as a solid one. :wink:
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

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If you say so, Mr. Owl. 8)
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by krishnanspace »

N. Needleman wrote:Yes, I've seen that interview. I still think it was the White Lodge or WL-adjacent for two reasons. Number one, that interview is translated from the French and the translation is actually pretty imperfect in a lot of places. And number two, Lynch's commentary tends to skew away from a definitive answer because that's what he always says and does. He also is not actually commenting directly on the scenes I mentioned, just on the idea of fully showcasing the WL itself.

Many of us have always theorized certain aspects of the Lodges are subjective depending on who sees them - that's not a new idea, it goes back to alt.tv.twin-peaks and Wrapped in Plastic. But other things, I think, are firm, like the Waiting Room/Red Room which many associate with the Black Lodge and which many characters seem to experience the same way. Andy and Cooper also seem to experience/perceive the Fireman's House the same.

I think the Fireman's House by the Sea, as glimpsed in Parts 1, 2 and 8 and later in the series, is part of the White Lodge. I think the portal in the woods is quite clearly to the White Lodge, where Mr. C tries to go ("it is in our house now"), and I think other aspects of the White Lodge - showing it in the most vast parameters - are hidden from us deliberately. But yes, I absolutely feel Season 3 shows us a fair bit of the White Lodge, just as many often feel the Red Room and its appearances in episode 29 or in FWWM show us parts of the Black Lodge.

For all we know Lynch would say the Dutchman/store in Season 3 is not the convenience store - would any of us believe that? I wouldn't, but he's entirely likely to say it because he does not want to define things absolutely. He wants inference and interpretation. This is mine, and I feel it's a pretty solid one.
But the White Lodge described by Major Briggs not does match with what was show in The Return
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

krishnanspace wrote:But the White Lodge described by Major Briggs not does match with what was show in The Return
The White Lodge described by Major Briggs also doesn't match where Major Briggs was shown to be in his flashback in Season 2, on the jungle throne. And Lynch just said the Lodges' appearances are largely subjective depending on how different people experience them. There are no absolutes. Just like Sabrina Sutherland never actually said Season 3's original script was very different. ;)
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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