sylvia_north wrote:There's heart in TR: Albert and Gordon, Hawk and the Log Lady, DougieCoop and family "you've made my heart so full." Catharsis and comfort are totally the ends of MD and FWWM in a way that's almost quaint, ditto episode 16.
Ah, cool. I might have misread the tone of your post above. Sounds like we totally agree.
I also think it's telling there were some fans -- on both the disappointed and enraptured side -- who read the presentation of scenes like Ed and Norma's reunion as being so grandiose it was cynical. I think that says more about the audience than about the work. To me that scene is one of absolute, unbridled pleasure -- a suit Lynch's works slip on as easily as they do atmospheric horror. It's raw sentiment, and it reverberates off the footage's landscapes just as comfortably as the more usual sense of unease.
Other moments?
Dido kissing Laura's orb just after the soundtrack swells with its creation: absolute love after twenty minutes of unpalacable dread.
The Log Lady's death, as you mentioned, as well as Cole's "sometimes I really worry about you" to Albert.
The aftermath of the hit-and-run? There's a level of artifice in the bystander reactions I still grapple with, but Carl and the mother's moment is given room to breathe and absolutely be what it is.
Laura reaching out to Cooper's hand in the forest? Fuck.
Even ones with a less distinctly identifiable emotions I think come across with utmost sincerity:
Little moments like Dougie-Cooper focusing on his scribbles as the soundtrack fades in? Still one of my favorites -- just a quiet joy in the power of human expression.
Ben and Beverly's romantically tinged scenes searching around the office for the hum? A completely sincere series of intimate moments between two people in a room. I love all of those.
There are absolutely colder moments throughout
The Return, and ones that play above their characters' heads. I'm still not sure I love those or even feel the right balance was struck, but all the moments above are powerful on their own, and there are others still. (More powerful by contrast? I'm not sure yet; ask me again in a year.)
Both horror and joy in Lynch's works are usually exactly what they are.