Review of The Missing Pieces

[TwinPeaksFanatic]

Just some thoughts on the Blu-Ray set and extra footage.

http://twinpeaksfanatic.blogspot.com/20 ... ieces.html

[LostInTheMovies]

Agreed that the extended Bobby-Laura scene added a nice (and sad) perspective on their relationship. I really liked the scenes of Laura interacting with the community.

The ring stuff is interesting because Laura getting the ring in the train car was not scripted and, at the very least, shot after all this stuff since the train car scene was shot last (maybe incorporated even later, in post-production by shooting inserts after the fact). So they sort of come from a different conception of its purpose, but Lynch has implied the Missing Pieces are canon so now they have to be reconciled.

One interesting point: both the nurse and Laura first "receive" the ring (Laura when it appears in her hand in a dream(?) and the nurse when she more "realistically" notices & removes it in the picture) immediately after hearing Annie state that the "good Dale is in the Lodge." Nice bit of mirroring though I'm not sure yet of the significance, other than the ring being connected to knowledge of what's going on in/with the Lodge (and, correspondingly, the characters' - variously Leland's, Laura's, Cooper's - psyches).

[Jasper]

Interesting observation about the receiving of the ring.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised to hear about that thieving nurse in Mark Frost's novel. Due to the fast-acting/dooming nature of the ring, I don't think she'll be around in 2016.

One might wonder if the ring has a seducing nature - something like the One Ring. Likely, though Annie was surely the high value target for the lodge/ring, while the nurse's taking of the ring reads best as a serendipitous event for Annie.

Nevertheless, just think of all the damage a nurse could inflict in terms of pain and suffering . . . and death. Unfortunately, its discovered from time to time that a nurse has been responsible for mass murder.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-30732841

[LostInTheMovies]

Interesting observation about the receiving of the ring.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised to hear about that thieving nurse in Mark Frost's novel. Due to the fast-acting/dooming nature of the ring, I don't think she'll be around in 2016.

It will be REALLY interesting to see how Lynch/Frost tackle the ring in 2016 (I assume they will somehow unless despite from Frost's diplomatic talk, they plan to mostly ignore the FWWM mythology; I'll feel better about all this if it's announced Showtime will air the film alongside the show).

Anyway, this sparked a whole bunch of recent thoughts I've had about the ring, but I decided they'd be better housed on the original ring thread:

http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... 381#p33381

I think one reason I keep delaying the video is not wanting to get locked into one interpretation haha. There are so many possibilities...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-30732841

"Investigators said his motive was to improve his own resuscitation skills."

[TwinPeaksFanatic]

Seeing the Missing Pieces only made me more excited for 2016. I think mythology in TV is much more popular now than in 1990. Frost/Lynch may have just had some rough ideas of where they wanted to go, but never got the chance to fully explore it.

A good friend of mine, who is also a Twin Peaks fan, said he read that the ring represents Mike's power over Bob. So when Laura put the ring on in FWWM it stopped Bob from being able to possess her so he killed her instead.

Supposed the log lady's husband is one of the mysterious people in the convenience store scene too! I don't know if that's true, but it's an interesting thought.

[Jasper]

I think the ring may represent a marriage/deal between BOB and MIKE, with MIKE being the stronger of the two. It definitely exerts control over BOB, and naturally it dooms victims to pain & suffering and ultimately death (or at least disappearance from our plane of existence). Their deal guarantees Garmonbozia for the other lodge inhabitants, and MIKE uses the ring to prevent renegade BOB — who's already become too powerful by stealing all of the "corn" for himself — from become even more powerful by inhabiting Laura, and probably getting a lot more Garmonbozia.

I see the ring as definitively negative for mortals, except in Laura's case where she used it to defeat BOB's attempt to possess her, which was essentially a choice to commit suicide because things were so bad (and about to get worse) that it was the preferable option. So the ring is still negative, but in Laura's case it was a choice between the lesser of two horrors. Good Cooper warns Laura not to take the ring because he's realized that it's something bad, though he's disoriented and doesn't really know the details. The ring seems to block the possession of Laura because BOB doing so is not the will of the lodge. So the ring is its own Garmonbozia harvesting scheme, often planted by the Tremonds/Chalfonts, and as it represents a binding contract between BOB and MIKE.

The ring, in addition to being some kind of wedding/contract between MIKE and BOB, also represents a wedding of an intended victim to the lodge inhabitants, guarantees the doom of the victim (except when Annie is serendipitously saved when the nurse steals the ring), and a guarantees that the Garmonbozia produced by the suffering of the victim will go to the lodge. Maybe it even represents a wedding between two worlds.

I don't really buy that stuff about the Log Lady's husband. I feel that those woodsmen above the convenience store are additional lodge entities from another world/dimension/universe, or simply represent aspects of MIKE and/or BOB.

[LostInTheMovies]

I think the ring may represent a marriage/deal between BOB and MIKE, with MIKE being the stronger of the two. It definitely exerts control over BOB, and naturally it dooms victims to pain & suffering and ultimately death (or at least disappearance from our plane of existence). Their deal guarantees Garmonbozia for the other lodge inhabitants, and MIKE uses the ring to prevent renegade BOB — who's already become too powerful by stealing all of the "corn" for himself

Man, it is interesting how the same material can lead to so many different conclusions / interpretations. Makes me a bit nervous for 2016...I wouldn't mind being proven wrong (in most cases) but as I'm about to put forward my views in a video I don't want to end up with egg on my face! Anyway , I enjoy the ambiguity of many of these symbols and events and hope Lynch/Frost don't clear things up TOO much.

The idea of a marriage between Bob and Mike (looks like we're on the same page in interpreting the Arm as Mike...I think) is interesting since after all, Mike does "make the proposal" while sitting across from Bob. I just figured it to mean the ring weds him to whoever accepts it although then, I guess, who is he talking to in that scene? Then again, they all just seem to be making general pronouncements for our benefit above the convenience store. Another question of course is, when does it take place? With no humans present, I'd vote for no time/all time (which also goes with the "general pronouncements" thing) but then again the fact that it's intercut with Jeffries suggests it is his flashback (though it could still be a timeless event that he stumbled across).

Mentioned this in another thread but increasingly, the idea of Bob feeding on pain and sorrow doesn't quite click with me although I accepted it for a long time. The series tells us he feeds on fear and the pleasures, which seems much more his style (although I think Mike might say he fed on this too, which quite complicates FWWM but then, what about the OAM from the show DOESN'T complicate FWWM)? Bob stealing the corn means he is withholding pain and sorrow from Mike, but is that for his own benefit or simply a byproduct of something other purpose?

Also, the blood/garmonbozia that Bob gives Mike is almost certainly Leland's rather than Laura's (according to the script, and it doesn't seem to be treated differently onscreen "Bob heals Leland's wound"). Why does Mike get to feed off Bob's host? I wonder if Bob "stole the corn" by encouraging Leland to kill Teresa. By killing her, Leland is able to avoid exposure or, at the very least, the nagging knowledge that his daughter is a prostitute (because of him). Would the pain and sorrow of those experiences have fed Mike? It does seem, in that final scene, as if Mike is somehow resetting the scales.

[StealThisCorn]

Well LostInTheMovies, I, for one, don't want to have the same questions twenty-five years later (not that I actually watched Twin Peaks twenty-fives years ago but whatever). I want to have new questions.

But while it's possible that you have a point concerning what Bob feeds on, I have to assume that even though in Episode 13, directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, Mike says Bobs feeds on "fear and the pleasures", that for the film David Lynch and Robert Engels harmonize this into the creamed corn stolen by the Grandson/"garmonbozia"/pain and sorrow. So I have to assume they are basically the same thing, with slightly different wording by different people at different times. I mean in the Convenience Store scene, Bob and the Little Man/Arm/Mike? both have large bowls of the corn in front of them like they are preparing to dine and Mike accuses Bob of "stealing the corn" he had "canned above the store" (hence my username). I think this same concept is referenced later in Episode 28, written by Barry Pullman, when Windom Earle says, "These night creatures that hover on the edge of our nightmares are drawn to us when we radiate fear, it's their bread and butter, a perfect symbiosis."

I agree that the blood/garmonbozia Bob gives to the Little Man and Gerard/Mike and the Arm? is from Leland, though I think this includes whatever was created from Laura's lifetime of abuse and, ultimately, murder so hers is in there too. Perhaps the garmonbozia is only "desirable" while it's inside a living host, but then that makes you wonder what Bob stole when Leland murdered Teresa.

And I definitely feel that, because of whatever Bob's transgression with Teresa entailed, Mike joins with the Little Man to compel Bob's submission and reset the scales, which almost makes it seem like Bob lost out all the garmonbozia he had been "canning"? inside Leland and which, as I've said before, may help to explain how Leland is so broken and unstable throughout the first part of the series, perhaps because the deal between Mike and Bob took away all Leland's memory of the pain and suffering both that he bore and which he caused.

[LostInTheMovies]

I agree that the blood/garmonbozia Bob gives to the Little Man and Gerard/Mike and the Arm? is from Leland, though I think this includes whatever was created from Laura's lifetime of abuse and, ultimately, murder so hers is in there too. Perhaps the garmonbozia is only "desirable" while it's inside a living host, but then that makes you wonder what Bob stole when Leland murdered Teresa.

An interesting twist for 2016 - although also a bit of a cheat - would be if garmonbozia didn't JUST mean pain and sorrow but instead represented all human emotion. Thus each bowl could be a different "type" of garmonbozia: pain and sorrow for Mike, fear and the pleasures for Bob...I don't know what the other two would be (there's four, right?). Probably not, but fun to guess.

You may be right that, just as Mike's purpose (and his arm's significance) is changed somewhat in FWWM from the series, the whole fear and the pleasures/pain and sorrow/garmonbozia thing purposefully disregards or "re-sets" some of the show's developments. Somehow, though, I like the idea that "pain and sorrow" is specifically Mike's drug of choice; in a very Lynchian perverse way it makes him as empathetic as he is vampirish and has a nice meta-significance too as it corresponds with the catharsis the film provides. Although a battle between Bob and Mike for "pain and sorrow" could still incorporate this idea somehow.

The thing I like about the ambiguity of the symbols now is that many of these readings COULD be right, and it becomes a matter of applying psychology and aesthetics to determine what FEELS right. I don't mind open questions in that sense: all the information is there, it's just up to us to put it together (withholding crucial information is something else).

Above all, I just really hope they don't go with those ep. 16-style mundane explanations: "hey, the Little Man danced just like Leland." "The waiter talked about gum just like in the dream!" which felt very tacked-on. With Lynch directing, I doubt they will - that certainly isn't his style.

Biggest point of interest to me is that increasingly I think Lynch and Frost have different conceptions of the good-evil struggle; to Frost they are separate, opposing, roughly equal forces, while to Lynch evil is to some extent a deception which can only be overcome by accessing the bigger picture (unified field). Despite overlaps, these are pretty distinct worldviews.