Twin Peaks The Return: The Mixed/Moderately Disappointed Thread

[The Gazebo]

I've seen people attacked and torn apart from even suggesting a "fan edit" but The Return really needs one.

If I had editing software and skills, I would have done one myself. They will show up in numbers eventually, no matter how much the naysayers frown upon it.

[BOB1]

It feels like Lynch didn't delete anything this time around. This has felt like an entire season of deleted footage.

Exactly. It is structured a bit like The Missing Pieces - a collection of sequences with hardly any connection with one another. In Missing Pieces it worked because it was never supposed to be a self-contained story. It is totally impressionist by definition and so an impressionist narrative structure was just fine. Not the case here, though, for obvious reasons.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Even though I'm relatively pleased with the series overall, I've had a few problems with it that unfortunately seem to be lingering:

1) The relative lack of music is a surprising choice coming from Lynch - I've always thought one of his talents was in using music to help set the (often uneasy) mood of a scene, and I feel like it would help, especially in some of the more unusual parts such as the Lodge scenes. That "Dark Mood Woods" piece from Episode 29 and the Log Lady intros feels like it would be perfect in this series and I think we've heard it maybe once or twice.

2) The Lodge-related happenings are the "A-story" in most episodes, but a little too much of this boils down to inscrutable supernatural forces doing inscrutable things for inscrutable reasons. Somebody pretending to be Jeffries wants DoppelCooper dead, the real Jeffries has turned into a teapot, MIKE and other forces keep intervening to get Dougie out of trouble, Briggs somehow had information that helps the cops find Naido in the woods 25 years later, Hastings (I guess?) kills Ruth under Black Lodge influence, some guy in London gets a magical glove and orders to go to Twin Peaks, Briggs's decapitated body turns up with the Owl Cave ring in his stomach...you could replace some of these developments with almost anything and it would make an equal amount of sense. The Blue Rose team is probably headed to Vegas, so will they go by plane or will Chet Desmond appear as a giant turnip with teleportation abilities and whisk them there?

3) One prominent theme seems to be portraying Twin Peaks as a community in decline, emotionally and morally, which is a decent enough concept but perhaps suffers a little from the ensemble nature of the cast. Bobby, Shelly, Audrey, Ed, Norma, and James are probably the characters who could carry this idea most effectively, in terms of their current circumstances and the audience's investment in them, but so far we've seen Audrey, Ed, and James only a handful of times and Bobby, Norma, and Shelly in maybe half the episodes.

4) I really can't bring myself to care too much about all the Vegas underworld shenanigans. I do want to see how things turn out for Dougie's family, but the machinations of the two gangster brothers, Ike the Spike, Duncan Todd, and the rest of that crowd just aren't that interesting, and Dougie's family is only an issue because of Lynch and Frost deciding to detour into the Vegas setting in the first place.

5) As someone mentioned earlier, there haven't been as many memorably outstanding scenes as in the original series or FWWM. What I *thought* was the best scene at the time - Diane's conversation with DoppelCooper at the prison - is undercut by the revelation that it was apparently an act on her part. Which is too bad, because that sort of scene - where there's a strange undefinable menace underneath the more literal events taking place - is another sort of thing that Lynch does especially well. But I can't name anything that's on the level of, for example, the end of Episode 14, or even MIKE screaming at Leland and Laura at the intersection in FWWM.

Maybe the underlying issue is that we're getting a pretty high dose of Lynch's more unusual imagery - I'd say the "weirdness quotient" is at least on the level of, say, Lost Highway or the final 45 minutes of Mulholland Drive - in the context of an otherwise more conventional linear narrative (something that LH and MD definitely are not)?

[Snailhead]

I've seen people attacked and torn apart from even suggesting a "fan edit" but The Return really needs one. For me, parts like 15 and 8 are nearly perfect as they are but the rest makes me want to cut them up and shuffle the scenes like a iTunes playlist until I get it right, sorry if that's blasphemous.

I LOVE having a new Lynch every week, its been an exciting 15 or so weeks just for the unpredictability, however on rewatch this is by far Lynch's weakest work since Dune. Inland Empire gets so much hate here but every scene drips with atmosphere and tension and MOOD, the worst scenes in the Return are oddly banal and ordinary (the exposition plot dump scenes especially leave a bad taste in my mouth more than the 10 minute sweeping scene for example). Cutting the whole thing in half and having 9 strong episodes of the best, most potent scenes and this could be a masterpiece. I'm still loving the ride and Part 15 was one of my favourite Twin Peaks episodes ever, the mood of nighttime scenes, the stunning forest shots and the simple, minimal depiction of the lodge instead of the corny CGI vortexes. But its probably the hardest Lynch work to recommend to people because its so tonally inconsistent I wouldn't know where to start.

Yes! The exposition scenes don't work. In the original, there was a lot of exposition but it would usually occur after we were shown something visual that connected to the exposition, or something actually happening that would then be discussed. Here, it's often just talking about things that we have to imagine ourselves and it's usually dull.

[Novalis]

So I guess I belong here, being now among the 'mixed' rather than pure-blood lovers of The Return. I lean towards like, but there are lots of disappointments for me.

Chief among these disappointing aspects of the show is the number of expository scenes involving one character directly narrating backstory to another character. Gosh-darn-it, this is television, the opportunity is there to show things rather than tell them. It's as if there has been a moratorium on the use of flashback after part 8. Of course, on some occasions we briefly get re-used and re-edited footage from FWWM, which I am grateful for, but even on these occasions it has been weirdly and unnecessarily doctored. Lynch/Cole's memory of his Bellucci cafe dream, in which he alone seems not to have got the 'no flashbacks' memo, is also a weird compromise, being noisily voiced-over and narrated when it didn't need to be. Despite all the talk and speculation over alternative timelines and mixed-up chronology, and Lynch's own suggestion that the series could be watched in any order, in actual fact the story-telling has been achingly linear and pedestrian, lacking a lot of imagination. At times I've almost found myself thinking that in among all the absurd and atrocious things MJA said about Twin Peaks, he got one thing right: a lot of the time we are just watching people sat in rooms talking (although, of course, this was something he said about the original run). Too much 'filling one another in' for the benefit of the audience is definitely one of my concerns. On the other hand, dramatic action, when it occurs, is frequently over-the-top ridiculous violence; there's no middle ground.

I feel as though, after an intriguing set up in the first two parts and first segment of the third part, we had a long haul until the eighth part. A high-point was reached halfway through what we've seen so far, and which was so promising, but which has remained unmatched.

I've been observing my own behaviour, and am afraid to admit that fastening onto artistic details for the sake of something to like about the show has proved to me that I'm not really enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

These final three parts really need to do something.

[IcedOver]

I just watched Part 15 and hmm, I don't know . . . that was certainly a downturn. My co-worker said it was one of his favorites, but it was one of my least favorites. Even though the show is not structured as conventional (or conventionally satisfying) episodes, it feels like the show will have one or more good ones, then at least one bad one. Part 12 was perhaps the worst of the series, then you have 13 and 14 which were good, then this which was underwhelming.

The Ed/Norma/Nadine scenes were the moments which felt closest to anything in the original (not that I'm hoping for or expecting anything like that any longer) -- moderately satisfying except for the awful song playing over it. Other scenes were clunkily directed and edited, like so many others in the series, and I feel it's due to it being a rush job plus the inappropriate nature of the digital cinematography. They felt like missed opportunities (Hawk's memorial for Margaret, Mr. Cooper's dialogue with Phillip, the Roadhouse brawl). Then the Steven/Gersten scene was among the very worst scenes in the whole series. I just did a quick watch this morning before work, but I'm going to have to turn on the CC just to make out what Jones was saying. Just awful.

Even though I like Mr. Cooper, we know exactly as much about him and his motivations as we did in Part 1. Nothing has progressed, we don't get any clue-in as to what he wants. I know that he and the Woodsmen and the other supernatural entities represent this sort of invading force which signifies evil/depression and all that good (bad) stuff which Lynch likes to depict in his work, but it would be nice to get a little clue-in on a personal level (the man behind the mask).

[Hercousin]

You know, I started off loving it, suppressing my dislike of Bad Coop's characterization, but now I'm just ready for this ride to be over. Unless Laura appears again, in an awe-inspiring way, I don't think I'll be doing many rewatches. It's been a blast, thinking about the episodes throughout the week, but I can't say I love The Return. Parts of it, for sure. But it is lacking the mood and mystery of the original, maybe because that moment in time is utterly unreproduceable. There was a cloudiness, a dreaminess, an isolated feeling to my late 80s as a kid in a mid-sized American town that is GONE from the world. Maybe it was my childhood, maybe it was the lack of social media, but the loss of having to wait for things has changed everyone. I've noticed, and this is strictly anecdotal, that the majority of fan art here and around the web, relies on imagery from the original or fwwm.

Another thing is, the original felt like more of a group effort of many talented people, and fwwm benefited from being an underdog. The Return was given the 21st century no-holds barred treatment, which I don't think helped it.

I liked the anticipation more than the payoff, but I'm still glad it happened, and I don't want a fourth season. I'm tired. I think I'll stick to the original and fwwm when I want to go back to that place where it all began.

[IcedOver]

These final three parts really need to do something.

Right. It's got to be amazing. We NEED original formula Cooper fully back, and early, in the next part. We've got to have his voice, and I'm not saying that because it'll be like the original, but that we need that emotional core of that character in this series. It needs not to be just a light show with Cooper standing against some curtains.

[Agent Earle]

You know, I started off loving it, suppressing my dislike of Bad Coop's characterization, but now I'm just ready for this ride to be over. Unless Laura appears again, in an awe-inspiring way, I don't think I'll be doing many rewatches. It's been a blast, thinking about the episodes throughout the week, but I can't say I love The Return. Parts of it, for sure. But it is lacking the mood and mystery of the original, maybe because that moment in time is utterly unreproduceable. There was a cloudiness, a dreaminess, an isolated feeling to my late 80s as a kid in a mid-sized American town that is GONE from the world. Maybe it was my childhood, maybe it was the lack of social media, but the loss of having to wait for things has changed everyone. I've noticed, and this is strictly anecdotal, that the majority of fan art here and around the web, relies on imagery from the original or fwwm.

Another thing is, the original felt like more of a group effort of many talented people, and fwwm benefited from being an underdog. The Return was given the 21st century no-holds barred treatment, which I don't think helped it.

I liked the anticipation more than the payoff, but I'm still glad it happened, and I don't want a fourth season. I'm tired. I think I'll stick to the original and fwwm when I want to go back to that place where it all began.

What an excellent post! You bring up a number of very worthy issues, one of them being the ample amount of old imagery usage found on the net well after The Return premiered. It's curious to note even Showtime used it over and over again during the years and months leading up to the premiere - true, a part of it was due to all the secrecy and the whole keep-the-mystery-alive business, but even still, to have practically your whole promo campaign evolve around things such as doughnuts, pie, coffee, Laura Palmer, (the good old) Agent Cooper the Boy Scout etc. when the show you're promoting couldn't care less about that dusty old stuff more than just borders on FALSE ADVERTISING and caused massive amount of misconceptions about just what it is that we're going to get. Really poorly handled, if you ask me.

[IcedOver]

You bring up a number of very worthy issues, one of them being the ample amount of old imagery usage found on the net well after The Return premiered. It's curious to note even Showtime used it over and over again during the years and months leading up to the premiere - true, a part of it was due to all the secrecy and the whole keep-the-mystery-alive business, but even still, to have practically your whole promo campaign evolve around things such as doughnuts, pie, coffee, Laura Palmer, (the good old) Agent Cooper the Boy Scout etc. when the show you're promoting couldn't care less about that dusty old stuff more than just borders on FALSE ADVERTISING and caused massive amount of misconceptions about just what it is that we're going to get. Really poorly handled, if you ask me.

I don't think it was false advertising. It was reminding people of what the show was and educating new viewers. Once they started showing new footage, it turned out to be refreshing that they showed so little, even though at the time it was a little aggravating. They showed the food staples like doughnuts, coffee and pie and all that, but those are indeed flowing through this show (along with cigarettes and Dougie's chocolate cake) like blood.

[Agent Earle]

You bring up a number of very worthy issues, one of them being the ample amount of old imagery usage found on the net well after The Return premiered. It's curious to note even Showtime used it over and over again during the years and months leading up to the premiere - true, a part of it was due to all the secrecy and the whole keep-the-mystery-alive business, but even still, to have practically your whole promo campaign evolve around things such as doughnuts, pie, coffee, Laura Palmer, (the good old) Agent Cooper the Boy Scout etc. when the show you're promoting couldn't care less about that dusty old stuff more than just borders on FALSE ADVERTISING and caused massive amount of misconceptions about just what it is that we're going to get. Really poorly handled, if you ask me.

I don't think it was false advertising. It was reminding people of what the show was and educating new viewers. Once they started showing new footage, it turned out to be refreshing that they showed so little, even though at the time it was a little aggravating. They showed the food staples like doughnuts, coffee and pie and all that, but those are indeed flowing through this show (along with cigarettes and Dougie's chocolate cake) like blood.

Maybe I worded it clumsily, but the general sentiment remains. What I meant was this show bears so little resemblance to the soul and spirit of the original that using that many images from the latter in order to promote the former brings false advertising to mind. I don't think fans needed any refreshment of their memory (again, it just created misconceptions, but here we're right back at the debate of why calling it "Twin Peaks" in the first place ...) and I seriously doubt that imagery prepped new viewers for what they were getting with the new show (I'd be curious to know how many truly new ones have decided to watch the old show for the first time in preparation for the new one based on Showtime's advertising). As for the usual edibles flowing through The Return, that's strictly superficial resemblance (in light of other major differences the creators have decided on, one could almost call it mocking of what was before).

[IcedOver]

Maybe I worded it clumsily, but the general sentiment remains. What I meant was this show bears so little resemblance to the soul and spirit of the original that using that many images from the latter in order to promote the former brings false advertising to mind. I don't think fans needed any refreshment of their memory (again, it just created misconceptions, but here we're right back at the debate of why calling it "Twin Peaks" in the first place ...) and I seriously doubt that imagery prepped new viewers for what they were getting with the new show (I'd be curious to know how many truly new ones have decided to watch the old show for the first time in preparation for the new one based on Showtime's advertising). As for the usual edibles flowing through The Return, that's strictly superficial resemblance (in light of other major differences the creators have decided on, one could almost call it mocking of what was before).

I'll bet quite a lot of younger people or those who skipped it the first time around decided to watch the original in preparation for this, probably some because of Showtime's ads.

When the show started, I was right with you as far as asking why it was even called "Twin Peaks". However, as it's gone on, and despite all its myriad problems (occasional rushed direction, poorly handled main plots, poor digital photography and editing) that still linger, I've felt that it is of a piece with the original . . . 25 years later. Lynch isn't trying to pretend that time hasn't passed and just attempting to replicate the original's rhythms. These are the characters and situations, and his view of that world, 25 (27) years later. Things have changed with the characters, and he's changed as far as the types of stories he wants to tell. Maybe if he had returned to this world many years ago, he would have done something more similar to the original. Today, though, he wants to film a person sweeping, or lecturing his neighbor about not doing labor for free, or staring out at cars passing. It was hard to get down at first, but that's what it is.

As far as the foodstuffs, I feel they've had just as much a place as the original. Characters are constantly eating, drinking, or smoking. Sometimes it may be mocking/commenting on the original (such as the only way Dougie sometimes seems to connect to Cooper's soul is through food), but other aspects of the show are commenting on the original as well.

[douglasb]

But it's those parts - the sweeping, Carl, etc. - that feel like TP, it's the attempted assassination on a bright Las Vegas plaza - that seems bizarrely lifted from a different show entirely.

[alreadygoneplaces]

I feel really out of step with the rest of the forum now, seeing that even the response in the 'profoundly disappointed' thread was largely positive on episode 16. I feel really bummed out I can't share in the excitement over this one. I've watched it again now, and although I was warmer towards it the second time (its reveals can only let you down once), it's still gone down as my least favourite episode.

Quoting myself after episode 7:

- Doc Hayward just said "I thought at the time he might've been there to visit Audrey Horne" - I certainly didn't infer from this that evil coop raped a comatose Audrey conceiving Richard, and don't think for a minute that we as an audience were supposed to. Now that it's mentioned, I wouldn't 100% rule it out given BOB's predilections, but I'd be astonished and disappointed if true; it'd be a terrible, heavy handed plot idea- a clumsy path to a completely unnecessary (and kind of hackneyed) family tie

Well there you go, consider me astonished and disappointed. Looks like I was in denial initially, but gradually became resigned that they'd gone there after Ben's response to Frank's mention of Cooper, and Richard and the doppelganget's paths crossing at the Farm. But still, the way it was confirmed (on the back of an otherwise strong scene)- "Goodbye, my son" was just awful. Like a telegraphed, jarring (in the context of the show) Empire Strikes Back play. When there's not even a great deal of time to explore the consequences and implications of this plotline, what's the point? Of course, we're still largely in the dark regarding the specifics of Audrey's story. If it turns out it wasn't just a case of the doppelgänger waking up and immediately hurrying to impregnate a comatose Audrey before leaving Twin Peaks, it may become more palatable. As it is, it just feels moronic. If it turns out to be more integral to the plot than it seems, it'll be frustrating for it all to be built on such a premise.

Cooper's long-awaited return was (to me, at least) unsatisfying*. Kyle's been fantastic throughout the show, but I don't think he got Cooper right here. I actually spent half the scene worrying that the doppelgänger had somehow transferred himself into that body. These scenes felt overly hurried. If it was a conscious decision on L&F's part to drastically amp up the pace in the final episodes, I don't think it's working. Sure, the Cooper scenes got across a sense of action and urgency, which I assume was the intention here, but it all felt so rushed, and almost flippant (the sadness of Janey-E and Sonny Jim excepted). I'm also surprised the people saying that Cooper snapping immediately back into proactive, one-liner FBI mode would be jarring, seemingly didn't in fact find it jarring. I certainly did, despite being more open to the idea of that happening than others. It does seem though that Cooper has changed- it now looks like we've been 'rewarded' with a classic domineering, alpha-male hero type, which obviously had Janey-E fawning, despite him acting like a bit of a dick. Sure, he wasn't afraid to impose himself or give orders in the original, but I wasn't picking up any of the disarming humility and slight dorkiness that so nicely counterbalanced these aspects of his character. Again, this could be remedied in the next two episodes- I'm really hoping.

*one-armed man's line "you are awake" being delivered in a broad Geordie accent kind of ruined the moment, as hilarious as it was

Audrey at the roadhouse... bleh. I've been pretty disengaged with that whole plotline to be honest, although it all became more interesting on a cerebral level off the back of the Roadhouse conversation about Billy and Tina. Still nothing about them feels in any way well realised to me, other than the obfuscation (i.e. the easy part). I can see though, that they've had others hooked, so I put this down to the nature of Lynch's intuitive approach with an emphasis on affect and perception. Some scenes will hit us hard, without us always being able to pinpoint exactly why. Some posters I usually agree with have been left cold by scenes I love, and vice versa. Some things may resonate with some individuals, but not others. So I can get over that. But still, as of now it feels like later career Lynch-by-numbers, an idea recycled, condensed and watered down, bolted on to the end of a show that doesn't really benefit from it. If Audrey's story, on the other hand, turns out to be the key that unlocks the whole thing, I'd rather it had all been integrated and executed very differently. As for the dance in 16... yeah, it might have been a nice moment (I loved the audience swaying), but the editing bothered me- the incessant cutting really took me out of the scene, which really needed to be more immersive.

I also couldn't stand the use of music in this one. It really felt like one of those fan edit videos where someone had grafted the old music onto the new show. For me, it just does not work. Not one iota. I was praising them on the assumption that they'd resisted these types of decisions, but maybe they were just making us wait for them. Oh well.

To continue the ranting... "That was a real Tulpa!!". Oh, come on. It felt clunky even when brought up just as an analogy. I love that they draw on these kinds of concepts for inspiration and ideas, but why literally point out and name them? The ideas have taken their own path, so why tie them down so specifically? See also the vacuous "But who is the dreamer?" line. Uh, read the quote again, David.

One of the main criticisms in the profoundly disappointed thread is the 'it's a 9 episode story told over 18', but I think the opposite, I think it's a 30 episode (at least) show squashed into 18. The vast majority of plot lines and characters would have been further enriched if there had been more time to do so. Ep 16 reinforces my concerns that after such refreshingly unhurried groundwork, the conclusion is looking like it might be "... and then this, this, and that happened, the end". See also Ed & Norma, beautiful scene though it was.

After all that negativity.... here's a few positives:

- Revealing Diane as a thoughtform created by an act of violence gets us closer towards the solid conceptual ground of the original + FWWM which many had commented had become unstable, if not lost altogether.

-Great final scene for Chantal and Hutch. I'll miss 'em.

- Diane with the one-armed man was just wonderful

- Glad Naomi Watts got another chance to make use of her considerable acting chops after largely having been wasted

- The Mitchums are so fun, but I'm not keen on how much we're seemingly supposed to like them, given the whole Candie/Mandie/Sandie thing, the casino beating, the corruption and murdering. The Horne brothers were also fun characters back in the day, but I wouldn't say I liked them...

[StealThisCorn]

If I had editing software and skills, I would have done one myself. They will show up in numbers eventually, no matter how much the naysayers frown upon it.

It's amazing just how many fan films one could make from the source material of the The Return. You could take all the Dougie Jones and Las Vegas stuff and divorce it from the Cooper and Twin Peaks stuff and make a fun new slice-of-life Lynch film like a weirder version of The Straight Story.

Meanwhile, you could take all the stuff with Bad Dale and make a cool dark supernatural neo-noir crime story that I'd love.

And, of course, you could trim down The Return and make the tightly-focused no-frills conclusion to the Twin Peaks saga without the elements that whatever fan-editor responsible thinks is "meandering".