Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

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sylvia_north
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by sylvia_north »

I liked how Cooper leaves a different motel than the one he enters, if that's the same Cooper that left the lodge, if that's the same Cooper that entered the lodge.

Stylistic flairs on TR like that, the RR customer changing, Ed's reflection, everything Sarah- I could have taken more of that. And having more to work with to make the in-depth analyses worth it.

One positive thing I will say, this show made me give another chance to Chrysta Bell's music. I enjoyed Dean Hurley's album, too, and discovered a few new bands.

I might revisit Return in a year or so and see if my mind is changed but it never did with Inland empire. Overall, 5/10. Failing to deliver in the finale, I might have to knock off a point.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by Snailhead »

sylvia_north wrote:I liked how Cooper leaves a different motel than the one he enters, if that's the same Cooper that left the lodge, if that's the same Cooper that entered the lodge.

Stylistic flairs on TR like that, the RR customer changing, Ed's reflection, everything Sarah- I could have taken more of that. And having more to work with to make the in-depth analyses worth it.

One positive thing I will say, this show made me give another chance to Chrysta Bell's music. I enjoyed Dean Hurley's album, too, and discovered a few new bands.

I might revisit Return in a year or so and see if my mind is changed but it never did with Inland empire. Overall, 5/10. Failing to deliver in the finale, I might have to knock off a point.
What are your thoughts on Inland Empire?
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by IcedOver »

sylvia_north wrote:Stylistic flairs on TR like that, the RR customer changing, Ed's reflection,
To what are you referring?
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by sylvia_north »

IcedOver wrote:To what are you referring?
To the things I mentioned that you quoted? I don't understand the question
Snailhead wrote:What are your thoughts on Inland Empire?
Doesn't do it for me.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by Snailhead »

I think the aspect that I'm perhaps the most mixed on is Sarah Palmer. Her scenes were, without a doubt, some of if not the most compelling of the whole Return. But the implication that she's evil or harboring evil makes me feel very strange about the character overall - I always felt she was one of the most tragic and sympathetic in the original series and film. I'd like to think that it was the pain she experienced after Laura's death that made her a vessel for evil, an evil that preyed on her despair, rather than something that was always there. I really wish she'd had more scenes for us to contemplate.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by IcedOver »

sylvia_north wrote:To what are you referring?
To the things I mentioned that you quoted? I don't understand the question[/quote]

What are you referring to with the RR customer changing and Ed's reflection? What episode and scene?
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by sylvia_north »

IcedOver wrote:
What are you referring to with the RR customer changing and Ed's reflection? What episode and scene?
7 and 13 respectively
Snailhead wrote:I think the aspect that I'm perhaps the most mixed on is Sarah Palmer. Her scenes were, without a doubt, some of if not the most compelling of the whole Return. But the implication that she's evil or harboring evil makes me feel very strange about the character overall - I always felt she was one of the most tragic and sympathetic in the original series and film. I'd like to think that it was the pain she experienced after Laura's death that made her a vessel for evil, an evil that preyed on her despair, rather than something that was always there. I really wish she'd had more scenes for us to contemplate.


Re: Sarah, I guess we'll never know. :|
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by twin-b »

Snailhead wrote:I think the aspect that I'm perhaps the most mixed on is Sarah Palmer. Her scenes were, without a doubt, some of if not the most compelling of the whole Return. But the implication that she's evil or harboring evil makes me feel very strange about the character overall - I always felt she was one of the most tragic and sympathetic in the original series and film. I'd like to think that it was the pain she experienced after Laura's death that made her a vessel for evil, an evil that preyed on her despair, rather than something that was always there. I really wish she'd had more scenes for us to contemplate.
Well said. I loved her dark, menacing, mysterious scenes and then she removed her face and they lost me.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by Snailhead »

I was thrilled by the scene when she took off her face, because it was wacky and unexpected and seemed to suggest she was gonna have a lot of screen time yet to come.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by TimeFlashes »

I have a huge problem with Parts 17 and 18 from the moment we know Cooper is trying to save Laura. Not only was it predictable he was going to fuck up (we've had too many movies and shows with this theme), but it also doesn't make much sense that he is trying to save specifically her. Is it because Laura is somewhat special (Part 8)? And that brings me to my biggest complain: Was it necessary to make Laura supernatural? We had human Laura which had an amazing character arc as a victim of abuse, including an incredibly powerful ending in FWWM with her not avoiding death but finding peace with herself. I firmly believe almost everything in Twin Peaks had a strong relation to Laura as the main story we are told is about her, but this makes me wish Laura wasn't a huge part of Season 3.

All of this is of course based on the general interpretation most people have on the ending of Season 3, here's hoping there is something we are totally missing.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by Taperecorder »

I am so glad to see this thread. Count me in. I enjoyed much of TP:TR and loved running home every Sunday night with my best gal to watch it. We would stream it Sunday night and then rewatch it Monday evening. It seemed to be coming together in Part 16 but then, for me, it just kind of fizzled.

There were so many great moments and so many interesting stories that began and then, now that it is over, seemed to go nowhere. In hindsight my favourite story was probably the Dougie/Janey-E/Sonny Jim/Bushnell/Mitchum Brothers. That was so much fun. There were little pieces from here and there that were great. But, I dunno. Was it worth it all in the end? I am not so sure.

I tweeted some things after my Monday rewatch:

1. That ham-fisted out of the blue explanation from Gordon Cole about meeting Major Briggs & Dale Cooper was utter horse-shit. #TwinPeaks

2. Why not use the living Chris Isaak as Chet Desmond instead of a metal teapot filling in for David Bowie as Phillip Jeffries? #TwinPeaks

3. Why have the chemistry-less Cooper & Diane get together instead of bringing back Heather Graham as Annie? #TwinPeaks

4. Frank Silva's Bob was terrifying. Nintendo Boss Bob was hokey and lame. What a disservice to a once formidable character. #TwinPeaks

5. Why makes us sit thru The Chromatics & Au Revoir Simone twice and give us 30 seconds of Julee Cruise with the credits over her? #TwinPeaks

I was hoping that I would end up going back and looking at those tweets and feel bad/dumb about posting them. But I still feel the same. I feel like all that time spent (in secret) writing another chapter for Twin Peaks and we still ended up with some pretty bad writing. That whole volleyball green glove kid battle was right up there with that cringeworthy Andy swinging the pick-axe into the Owl Cave painting scene.

I guess I had a damn fine time until the end. Now I just can't help but feel so bummed out about it all.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by TimeFlashes »

I think they probably didn't include Annie because they don't want to reveal how she is. That fits into the whole Judy thing of not wanting to explicitly reveal mysteries.

The BOB orb scene felt to me as a way of making fun of people who were expecting a conventional ending.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by FlyingSquirrel »

Now that it's all over, I think the biggest disappointment for me was that all the Las Vegas material really amounted to very little. While I did develop a certain affection for Dougie, Janey-E, and Sonny Jim, I'm not sure that all the time spent on them was worth the trade-off in terms of how little screentime some of the original series characters received. I could live with it if it was somehow necessitated by something we saw in the original series or FWWM, but it really isn't, IMO. Why, after all, does Dougie (and with him all the Vegas characters and subplots) exist? Well, because DoppelCooper created him as a decoy to get pulled into the Black Lodge in his place.

But there was zero indication until now that the process of doppelganger creation involved this sort of 25-year limit. It's just something Lynch and Frost made up for the new series, and while it's certainly their right to do that, it turns out to be a storyline mostly about its own contrivances. Why is Duncan Todd trying to orchestrate assassinations? Because DoppelCooper has some unspecified leverage over him that never gets explained. How does Dougie avoid being fired by his boss or executed by the Mitchum brothers? Because the One-Armed Man intervenes with more Lodge magic to get him out of trouble. How does Cooper eventually wake up? Because hearing the name "Gordon Cole" seems to prompt him to stick the fork in the electrical socket. I guess if the Jones' TV had been set to a different channel, Cooper would still be wandering around borderline-catatonic and DoppelCooper would be doing who knows what back in Twin Peaks.

Character-wise, there isn't really much going on in Vegas either. Janey-E became less interesting for me once she became somewhat pacified by Dougie's superficially "alpha male" moments, Dougie himself is less a character than a concept, and Sonny Jim wins some inherent sympathy as a kid caught up in a bizarre situation, but that's about all. The cop brothers and the hot-tempered FBI supervisor are mostly comic relief. Duncan Todd and Ike the Spike are just cookie-cutter bad guys whose only distinguishing characteristics are some fairly inconsequential Lynchian flourishes (the red square in the message to Todd, Ike's unusual weaponry). Bushnell Mullins, the Tom Sizemore character, and the Mitchums are OK enough, but I can't say I felt invested in knowing what happens to them. Mostly, these characters are pieces on a game board where only MIKE, The Arm, and DoppelCooper know the rules.

The only part that really felt like it was part of Twin Peaks as opposed to a diversion from it were the occasional moments when Dougie would react to something in a way that indicated a resonance with Cooper's memories and experiences. But I think Lynch and Frost would have done better to just take a different approach to the issue of Cooper's escape from the Lodge and spend more time on the recurring characters from the original series and FWWM. I think I'd have much preferred more exploration of Sarah's situation, or Bobby and Shelly trying to help Becky, or how James ended up working at the Great Northern, or what exactly has happened to the Hayward family, or even the cops investigating Red's drug ring. Bobby's characterization was one of the highlights, but even that got left hanging since we don't find out what happened to Becky or if Shelly ever catches on to Red's role in the drug trade.

Perhaps some of this will be covered in Frost's second book, but I don't really like the idea of a TV series that can only be seen as doing justice to its characters if you buy a tie-in novel.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by Cipher »

IMO "What did this contribute to the plot?" is the wrong way to look at the Las Vegas scenes. They're in there because they contain moments of staggering beauty via Dougie's glimpses of self-assertion and lucidity, and they don't really need any more reason to exist than that. I'm unlikely to watch another five-minute sequence of someone clumsily doodling on a piece of paper that will hit me that hard again before I die. They do a lot of work emotionally for the story Lynch and Frost seemed to be interested in telling.

It's been oft-repeated, but the Dougie scenes weren't a distraction from the story -- they were the story. Or at least a large part of it.

For as simple and sterile as Janey-E and Sonny Jim's world is, there's also a lot of joy and sentimentality in it, and I think that contradiction is also part of the goal. It's one of the only domestic spaces in Lynch-land that becomes a pleasure rather than a hell.
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Re: Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

Post by FlyingSquirrel »

Cipher wrote:IMO "What did this contribute to the plot?" is the wrong way to look at the Las Vegas scenes. They're in there because they contain moments of staggering beauty via Dougie's glimpses of self-assertion and lucidity, and they don't really need any more reason to exist than that. I'm unlikely to watch another five-minute sequence of someone clumsily doodling on a piece of paper that will hit me that hard again before I die. They do a lot of work emotionally for the story Lynch and Frost seemed to be interested in telling.

It's been oft-repeated, but the Dougie scenes weren't a distraction from the story -- they were the story. Or at least a large part of it.

For as simple and sterile as Janey-E and Sonny Jim's world is, there's also a lot of joy and sentimentality in it, and I think that contradiction is also part of the goal. It's one of the only domestic spaces in Lynch-land that becomes a pleasure rather than a hell.
It's not so much lack of contribution to the plot as that, IMO, most of the characters weren't as interesting as the Twin Peaks residents or the FBI crowd. If you think back to the original series and FWWM, there were plenty of memorable characters beyond the primary protagonists (Cooper, Laura, Harry) and antagonists (Leland/BOB, Windom Earle). Sure, there were occasional misfires like Little Nicky or James's cheesy film noir plot with Evelyn, but just take as a sample the surviving younger characters - Bobby, Shelly, Audrey, James, Donna, and Mike. All memorable personalities, and with the possible exception of Mike, they were all characters I was at least curious to see again and find out how the intervening years had treated them.

If Season 4 ever does materialize, who will we be as eager to see again? I'll want to see how Dougie is doing and if he, Janey-E, and Sonny Jim understand what happened and are doing better as a family. But past that...Ike the Spike? The Mitchums? Bushnell? The 1-1-9 woman? Jade? The goofy cops and the short-tempered FBI supervisor? None of these people ever emerged for me as more than brief asides and/or plot devices to get Dougie repeatedly into and out of trouble.
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