This won't sound new and groundbreaking to you, but I feel like at this point there is a certain amount of people like me around here who are not quite sure what to make out of Twin Peaks: The Return overall. For months I've been lurking around The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group thread (let's say that its darker tone and overarching negativity towards Twin Peaks: The Return makes it the equivalent of the Black Lodge in the realm of Dugpa forums) thinking of making a post, then, hours before the finale premiere I actually prepared a post but stumbled upon the fact that the registrations were closed, so I scrapped it, then almost reluctantly I started to watch the finale and then… Electricity buzzed and a mysterious thing started to happen: my frustration, anger, annoyance and disappointment started to change to contemplation, acceptance and peace. As if I was suddenly waking up at home after experiencing the longest nightmare of my life.
I'd like to offer a slightly different take on this endless stream of theories, interpretations, dismissals and regrets that could perhaps help those who are disappointed at a much bigger scale and were absolutely crushed by the final two episodes. Or maybe give those who think that something is yrev, very wrong about the series outcome another perspective. You can be sure that I feel for you - not that I absolutely hate Dougie, but I honestly consider that choosing him as the main "plot device" for more than a dozen of episodes was a failure on Lynch/Frost part. I'm actually amazed how Novalis in his wonderful post from The Profoundly Satisfied Support Group thread (aka Disappointed's White Lodge doppelganger):
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- how he has managed to find so much meaning in Dougie's storyline. In a way this makes me question reasons for my own negative impressions and the basis for my conclusions that seem to be stuck in a loop without any means for a satisfying resolution.
My relationship with cinema has always been deeply personal. I tend reflect on anything that I enjoy watching a lot. Sooner or later I always figure out the reasons for my own connection to the characters - be it from my humorously meticulous attempts to analyze things thoroughly, or rather from imagining myself being on the place of one of those characters and trying to see their world through their eyes. I guess many can say something like that. I'm sure many more of you can say that Twin Peaks always held a special place in their hearts and what had just happened on the screen during this 18-hour craziness is not what they were prepared for and now they are puzzled and completely unsure what to think of it, or maybe even question their identity as a fan.
Coming into the premiere of The Return I wanted to be entertained like many of you. I did not expect anything specific, but was familiar with the characters, excited about so many of the key cast figures reprising their roles and those announcements that were made in advance, including the "major presence of the character of Audrey Horne" and of course the return of Angelo Badalamenti. I've been a fan of David Lynch work for many years (absolutely love Lost Highway and FWWM) and I was curious what has changed about the way one of my favorite film directors views the world after more than a decade since Inland Empire.
My impression of episodes 1-16(/17.5?) mirrors what has been said so many times in the Profoundly Disappointed Support group. (Big thanks for many of those who participated with their incredible, intelligent posts throughout the discussion.) The more it went, the more devastated I felt. That's not the point I want to make here though. To me, the way the series were presented just felt wrong for some reason and I couldn't quite put it to words at first... Then I realized that it only felt real at my own expense, meaning that without your deep emotional investment, your imagination and hopes it seems quite shallow and desolate. Let me explain myself.
I'm still fascinated by how many people here, on Reddit and other social media outlets are praising the show and talk about its beautiful writing and consider the journey amazing. I do not share those views. To me Dougie was fun for a very short period of time, then it became the most boring part of "the evolution of Twin Peaks". I recently read somewhere that the character of Dougie can be seen as a parody of a Twin Peaks fan and this started to make sense. Completely shutdown and numb, in his own world, barely alive only when chasing coffee cups and cherry pie. I didn't recognize this notion at first but it looked to be the clue to what is in my opinion wrong with The Return.
The whole story felt cold and almost lifeless even before the episodes 17 & 18. I'm looking back at the way it was handled and I like some parts of it, but I don't like it as a whole. I don't like the way how I didn't notice when I got so involved, how my attachments to old characters and expectations of them having compelling storylines were tricked and then turned upside down and torn to pieces. Like many "Disappointed lodge" inhabitants have said before me, I didn't want it to reproduce the original run, I did not want it to be 100% nostalgia trip, but I did not expect the dream to go right through the meat grinder.
I don't think that having 200+ characters is brilliant when almost all of those characters have so little screen time. I've got big imagination, sure, but it is certainly not a sign of genius when the author barely scratches a few lines on the canvas, and I have not only to draw a shape but also figure out what kind of shape is it going to be. Is it really a creative masterstroke or is it something incomplete and flawed? Does it really tell a story, or is the story gets imbued with the knowledge and the specifics of perception of the one it is being told to?
I totally get the criticism of many threads being largely unresolved and leading to nowhere. To me it just felt too calculated - perhaps all those clues scattered around lead up to something substancial, but I finished Twin Peaks: The Return with no desire to ever come to this world again. And yet I'm here typing this…
It's not just how the show is structured. I look at The Return as if it is an "interactive" experience, because of the way they tease you with all the familiar things and make you sure they are aware of what you are longing for. They make you part of the dream. But then they don't give you anything aside from a crumble of gold here and there and some scenes really look borderline insulting, like they are deliberately trying to make you feel like you're not yourself. At least that was my impression from Audrey's final scene, right before the white room "reveal". I'd get it if it was at the end of something compelling, not just 10-15 minutes that we got to spend with her and Charlie, but when after 16 hours when I almost haven't heard any good music that I kept hoping for to appear "next time" at the end of each episode, and they announce "Audrey's Dance"… it felt like they're consciously mocking you.
I learned something new about David Lynch. I'm not sure, maybe it's his specific sense of humor that after all these years I still naively couldn't quite capture, but he definitely became much more cynical and pessimistic than he was before. Not that Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive were the perfect examples of storytelling with resolution and hope, but this time he and Mark Frost created something truly beautifully ugly, in my opinion. I don't mean it as an offence, the "ugliness" has been in each of his films in one form or another, but I think that this leads us to why the disappointed voices are not rare on these forums and beyond in despite the majority enjoying the hell out of Twin Peaks: The Return.
I couldn't understand that up until the finale. I kept looking at the number of new threads on Reddit's Twin Peaks subreddit after each episode in total disbelief. I stopped bothering checking episode threads here altogether some time after I realized that Dougie is going to stay the same for a while. I was curious about things at first, but each episode methodically and mercilessly made me care less and less and turned me more and more detached from the characters I knew and loved, did not offer me anything in return and made me almost indifferent and anemic by the time the finale premiere day came.
I wondered, what is wrong with me if almost everyone likes it? The Profoundly Disappointed were in the minority up until the very end it seemed like. Then the last two episodes were shown.
I can't say that I understood the ending completely and thoroughly. But I feel like I recognized it quite well. It seemed right and correct and at the heart of the emptiness that those 16 hours created in me I felt something familiar.
After the final credits have rolled and the TV was turned off I returned to mundane things at the same time trying to process the information I was given. I couldn't let go. I was surprised that such a long road came back to where it began, but it fascinated me that all those negative emotions I felt throughout the journey turned out to be parts of the story for me. It started to make sense, but not in the way I'd ever expect it to be on my own return to Twin Peaks.
I'm sure that like me each and every one of you tried to look for connections between the clues at some point, to a different extent, even with your growing frustration with the way story has been told or perhaps with your growing excitement of the construction being built in front of your eyes. Some dismiss the new series completely expressing their anger and regrets, while lots of people now list things that did not come to any resolution in the final two episodes, and many more are still coming up with theories, trying to find the meaning behind Twin Peaks: The Return. Some of those are travelling between alternate realities, find Laura, save Laura, fight with Judy and the woodsmen and trying to decipher Philip Jeffries or find out what Mr. C. was ultimately looking for. (Aside from the questions like what was going on with numerous scenes with "less important characters".) I get why it is both hated and so fascinating at the same time now. I couldn't understand why those things seemed so polarizing, but in the light what I've seen in Episodes 17 & 18… Ask yourself: doesn't it all look almost exactly the same thing that Richard ultimately does?
Now, I'm sure many of you came to this possibility on an intuitive level, and perhaps I'm about to state the obvious, but as I was watching Laura disappearing again and again I realized that Richard is continuously rejecting the actual reality. Have you seen his facial expression at the very end when he finds himself back in the chair with Laura again whispering him the clue to the case? That frozen look of disbelief and a complete lack of understanding? I've seen a theory today on reddit, trying hard to present that in a positive light, that it all means that he is still fighting with the evil of this world, but looking back at other films by David Lynch, where does this evil come from? Who invites it in? I think it is shown pretty straightforward that Richard has failed again. He did not fail the case of Laura Palmer's murder. He has failed the case of himself.
It's natural to suppose that at its core The Return explores the identity crisis almost in the same way as Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive do. Only this time it is disappointingly profound, and consciously made the way so that you can feel the suffering of the main character whose name we didn't even know up until "What is your name?". Looking at those transitions happening on the screen I was strangely calm in accepting that new reality. It did not feel good, let me tell you.
Does it feel good to know that there is no Twin Peaks? No Laura Palmer? Nothing except the man named Richard we know almost nothing about. And the woman named Linda who left him and whom we also don't know nothing about except for that she looked like Diane from the world of Twin Peaks. Those who say that this show is about nothing in the first place are right. Twin Peaks is nothing because it doesn't exist the way fans thought it does. I mean, look at it this way: didn't the "fight" with Bob look a bit caricature-like? Like pure cheese level so that it's not even funny? And also completely staged, with the audience consisting of mostly good-old familiar characters with Dale having a plan and knowing exactly how to save the day? Even if you were excited about all the Dougie stuff and a slow stretched-out build-up to his "awakening", didn't it feel plain silly to you too at times?
To me many scenes didn't look serious at all. That was the source of my growing unhappiness with the show. I was unsure what to make of them. They were completely ambivalent, like that Audrey scene I mentioned. They were so scarce and short I couldn't relate to the majority of them. Is it real, or are they laughing at me behind the curtains? To me it's just another proof on how far the joke goes on the viewer in The Return.
In a way, Lynch & Frost are offering you to shovel your way out of this shit from the very beginning, but since you can't even see the terms of the contract you're about to sign up with Showtime, you can't see that they reserve the right to put you in the center of this whole story, and make you feel the pain. How they will be deconstructing Twin Peaks stripping it off everything you love and putting things in different context that may or may not end up being relevant. It feels very heavyweight and strangling, but for all the wrong reasons. It's like Lost Highway but on a higher scope - you are now a part of the dream, you, like Richard, are trying to fix the broken puzzle by putting that last missing piece of the puzzle in the place that your mind thinks it belongs to. You think you just have to do something like that because you think that this is what has gone wrong, but you can't, repeatedly. You wait for things to go the way that you remember being familiar and you just can't because things have changed. Is it past that dictates the future? Or are you trying to carry that same (Carrie) Page that contains the final clue that you needed from one dream into another always leading up to what you can't change, to what you refuse to accept? That you cannot change the past. You cannot turn back time and undo the wrongdoings. You cannot split yourself into the always-positive Good You and the sinister-looking Bad You and make the latter responsible for everything that is wrong with you. You have to accept reality first, accept that you as a human being is flawed, that you are both good and bad inside of you, and that you make mistakes and things go wrong sometimes. Richard never seems to be able to even get there. He can't remember why is he named Richard. He is unsure why Diane has left him and why is she named Linda in the note. Did he imagine Diane as well? Why is she the first person he sees after exiting the Red Room once again? Why is she the one he turns to for help?
Who is Laura anyway? Is she a real person? Or a construct of his imagination, an innocent victim that is gradually revealed to be more and more involved in her own downfall and corruption? Is she accepting reality? Is she blaming anyone for the evil things that are happening with her? Why did she die, while Ronette was saved?
Is Carrie Page a real person? Is that a dream outside of the dream of Twin Peaks or does the white horse mean anything? Since we know that it is "the white of the eyes and dark within." What did Sarah Palmer feel when she saw it a couple of times? Does Carrie really "remember" that she is Laura, or did that scream come from another dream the dreamer saw dissolving before? Or is after? Is it future or is it past? What year is it?
I can go on about how lost Richard is in the Red Room, trying to remember what Laura whispers to him. Essentially a clue to the mystery of the Blue Rose case. But the whole case, what is it about in the reality? Who was killed? What is that dead man doing inside the Carrie Page's apartment? Will we ever find the answer? Will the dreamer ever wake up?
The actual clues are scattered (again, very deliberately) everywhere. I like to think that Dougie's sudden tearful reaction on seeing Sonny-Jim sitting in the car is one of them. We really don't know anything about Richard. Is he really an FBI agent? Did he lost his child in a car accident? Was he dreaming of having a child with the woman he loved? Was he trying to paint himself innocent like a child with Dale Cooper? Only for his own "bad seed" to violently kill all the innocence that he had in him? "Your Laura has disappeared," - she once said. Has Richard disappeared inside of himself when Linda left him because she couldn't recognize him anymore? Did he try to capture the memory of her, someone he could talk to through those tapes, knowing that no matter how far she is, he will hear back from her? Is Diane a real person or rather someone to Richard like Charlie is to Audrey?
It is a horrifying vision. I know that it may seem like too much, and maybe it speaks more about me than it is about Twin Peaks. I can't really offer more than the part of the dream that I have seen.
But I am looking on those trying to make sense out of the whole thing, I'm looking at those who are disappointed, I'm looking at myself… Are you still dreaming, I ask myself? Do those innocent dreams really get pulled into and interweaved with this vast dreamscape the way Audrey's did? (I enjoy believing that she is literally the only one who actually snapped out of it, if her name is even Audrey. It's better than thinking that made the joke out of her too.) Or is there something behind this?
What I know is just that I don't like it anymore. For years I thought I'm in love with that dream of a mysterious town with such humanly conflicted characters, coffee, cherry pie, douglas firs and the mystery in the woods. I don't like disappointment. I'm still having a hard time dealing with it in real life from time to time, but this season literally fed it to me from the spoon and at the end I felt like it's actually been garmonbozia. That was the way this convoluted, imperfect story spoke to me. Not like the Margaret's log, mind you! But, haven't you heard that voice too? The same voice that Agent Cooper "heard" in the violet-colored room?
Right now I feel like if I'll ever find as much as 18 hours of free time on my hands I'd rather use them on something else. Surprisingly, I started looking back to try to identify if I could really relate to someone at all. And I remembered Nadine watching Dr. Amp's webcast and smiling to herself. I remembered her watching and watching and that scene made as much sense as everything from episodes 1-16 that I considered nonsense before. Nadine always had anger issues. I have mine too. I told you that my relationship with cinema has always been very personal. Sometimes I'm having a hard time dealing with this anger. With this kind of fire. But Nadine found something for herself in Dr. Amp's words. She kept listening to him and then it came to her. "True love is giving the others what makes them happy." She's changed. I feel like she's probably the only one who's changed, others are mostly reflecting that endless loop of suffering and confusion that Richard is stuck in.
Now, there's a catch to that. Did David Lynch (and Mark Frost) show his true love to Twin Peaks? Did he make the fans of the show happy? I'm not sure I can answer this without following Julee Cruise steps and investing some time in getting to learn Transcendental Meditation. To deal with those anger issues a little bit better, you know? Yeah, he didn't have to. He doesn't owe us anything and it's silly even to draw such parallels. It's silly to expect things to be the same after such a huge amount of time. He's a 71-year old man who used to make wonderful movies. Some say that he still hasn't gone soft where it counts. But why does it feel wrong when you realize that he first made you fall in love with that dream (S1~2 + FWWM) and then let you watch that same dream falling apart and turn into a nightmare (S3)?
In this light (or should I say, darkness?) the ending makes perfect sense to me. I still don't like many things about Twin Peaks: The Return… I can't escape the feeling that it's flawed and it should've been handled differently. That it was killed right before my eyes and I was just looking at the fleeting memory of it before it disappeared completely. But in a sense it is still alive - while people are still dreaming of it and are looking for answers. And if you accept that it was just a dream, it is so much easier to look within yourself and try to find why this particular dream fascinated you and haunted for all these years. If you want to, of course.
But now it's a dream. There are no stars. It's just that some are still dreaming of them. On a starry night.
I'd like to finish this extra-long debut exercise in pure self-expression with a special thanks to counterpaul for his posts somewhere earlier in the Profoundly Disappointed Support Group thread (couldn't find them, but I remember him resonating with words what I felt during the initial roll out of the season, which in turn helped me to make some sense out of my increasing confusion), and most recently in the Profoundly Satisfied Support Group thread, even though I don't think I'm ready to move to the latter "lodge" after all that I've just said. I'm somewhere in between. In a certain room with the zig-zag floor and red curtains. Is it the waiting room for the ambivalently-awaken?
I'm certainly not happy with everything, but I'm more content than bitter in comparison to how I was up until the finale. Will I ever get over it? Will I change my opinion of Twin Peaks: The Return in the future? I can't say for sure either. I have so much stuff to do. And shovel my way out of the place I'm currently stuck in, with all this disappointment and negativity, frustration and anger. And I guess I have the right tool in my hands now, where I thought only the golden ring with an owl symbol could appear before.I know that this might be a tough pill to swallow for some. Feel free to ignore/reject my senselessly long write-up completely, congratulate me on moving on or laugh at me, or even smash this interpretation with you fist in a green gardening glove! It's okay, it's just a TV show after all, even if we all love it so much. I still love it, and accept it the way it is - a huge part of my life, but I'm also… much more calmer about it now than I was not so long ago. I hope that those of you who will choose to accept the nature of what Laura is whispering to Richard - I hope that you will be rewarded with finding your own brand new golden shovel when you wake up next morning. Or at least try to give a call to Dr. Amp, the number should be on the note near the phone, perhaps he will be able to give you a life-changing advice?
Whatever the case may be, I guess I'll see you around, fellow dreamers
Thus The Return ended in a "heroin happy Lynch" / "heroin Lynch happy" way, meaning that a lot of garmonbozia has been consumed from the suffering of the viewers and love was completely shattered and turned to dust and we were basically watching Mark Frost sweeping that dust from the Roadhouse floor for 18 hours straight over the summer until he suddenly disappeared from the screen avoiding all the questions 
Oh, and by the way, I always took those (translating from Lynchean I guess) "devastating" endings as cautions - seeing it as rather "what should never be", but with The Return I'm afraid I got sucked in and deeply affected, but not in a good way. Maybe to warn the viewer was his ultimate goal after all? (Someone already put in into words in one of the threads saying that it is a cautionary tale on escapism.) Not that I enjoyed it so much, but oh well... By the way, what elements of Mulholland Drive make you think that there is hope?
