World of Blue

It’s interesting, Diane doesn’t appear to be acting when she meets the Doppelganger in prison and asks who he is. But here, we learn that she’s working for him and they exchange texts. I wonder if her tulpa programming blocks her from remembering certain things at certain times. Or if her loyalty to the Doppel is in some way activated by the coded text and had been latent before that (although she does appear to be actively awaiting the text).

The “double header” in Vegas is Todd and Cooper, right? The doppel just got off the phone with Todd when he says this, but he doesn’t seem to have much faith that Todd will complete the job!

I love all the business with the Fuscos and the tail light.

For those tracking characters’ brand preferences, Ike the Spike has switched from Bulleit Bourbon to Evan Williams (the favorite of “Drugged-out Mother,” and quite possibly the same prop bottle). Bit of a step down. Ella (Sky Ferreira) infamously drinks a can of Washington local beer Rainier (see also FWWM, Part 2, etc.) which is very clearly empty.

Lucy and Andy material doesn’t always work for me, but I really adore the “chair” scene. I’m not sure I ever made the connection before, but they’re presumably ordering this set for the study they’re setting up in Wally’s childhood bedroom.

Charlotte Stewart is really great here. She just takes charge of that scene (I love how she holds up her hand to silence Frank, like Cooper sometimes did to Harry on the original show). Between her performance and Dana’s as well as Angelo’s beautiful music, those scenes really feel like such a beautiful tribute to both Garland and the great Don Davis. That whole storyline gives me such a warm feeling.

It’s a tiny moment, but I love the little “hello”/salute exchange between Knox and Constance. Both those performers and characters are really wonderful, and they do so much with relatively little.

I love the almost religious regard that Lynch’s expression conveys for that cigarette. What a beautiful joyful scene. Not that anyone should smoke!

This is the one where my timeline really started to break down. I think I still have some PTSD watching it.

I love in the Comic Con panel when Lillard says he’s been asked by many fans what the date is he writes but he can’t read his own handwriting and doesn’t know. It sounds to me like he says “nine twenty nine” as he writes it, but the second “nine” might just be a gasp/sob. (The subtitles are no help: they just say, “[sobs, muttering indistinctly]” for the entire line.) I can never fully convince myself, but given other dates on the series 9/29 makes way more sense than 9/20 (even if it is still problematic in light of other dates, like the 9/22 date on Mr. C’s arrest report).

I know the “profoundly disappointed” have complained that we don’t see enough of the original series cast and that the mood is different from the old show. But there really is a beautiful twisted logic in the way almost every single scene flows from the original series in some way, whether it’s the vast criminal network the doppelganger has built, or Garland Briggs’s supernatural excursions. I love that all of these intriguing new characters and locations have been brought into the TP universe, but we can still trace everything back to something familiar from that one month we spent in town back in February-March 1989.

DoppelCoop’s Diet:
— Chantal gives him a snack-sized Crunchy Cheetos bag for the road

DougieCoop’s Diet:
— He has a coffee at the Las Vegas police department; Detective D. Fusco brings him a fresh cup (both in red Las Vegas PD mugs)

Mr. Reindeer wrote:It’s interesting, Diane doesn’t appear to be acting when she meets the Doppelganger in prison and asks who he is. But here, we learn that she’s working for him and they exchange texts. I wonder if her tulpa programming blocks her from remembering certain things at certain times. Or if her loyalty to the Doppel is in some way activated by the coded text and had been latent before that (although she does appear to be actively awaiting the text).

I have a totally different reading. I vividly recall feeling something was off the night of the Part re the Diane in the cell scene. It felt artificial. Not to say I thought it was bad acting, but something felt strange. It was such an odd validation for Gordon to later have his own reactions to Diane, also sensing that something was missing.

On a recent rewatch, I've come to an even further removed reading. And it leads me to believe Diane is more or less aware and in control, up until her death. I think there's some dramatic irony going on in thatt cell. She and he are vaguely referring to an event, and I always thought that event was the night they met in her apartment. She says she'll tell Gordon about it, and later when she begins going into it, the setting is her apartment. However, the eventual ending point in her retelling is the Convenience Store. One can easily extend her lines in the cell into referring actually to a situation only they know about at this point, and one that would make more sense for her to recall and have emotional resonence for her, that being the night of her creation. I imagine during that scene that when they say their lines, they're actually thinking about the Convenience Store and whatever occured therein. So that Diane is interrogating him for the sake of what we think is going on in the scene, but maybe she's interrogating him in a veiled way that only she's privvy to, a bit of personal code.

Which is to say, the psychological motivaitons for Diane leaves so much room for imagination.


As for the cans; I know empty cans/cups is a common filmmaking gripe, but I never got the seemingly widespread issue with the Ferreira scene in particular. In fact I always read it as fitting (not that that was the intent), because she seems frazzled and like she would forget that she already took the last sip. Perhaps I'm just reading into her prolonged mood of disappointment, in that she's also disappointed about the sip already being gone. I know I've attempted to drink from empty cans irl.

And the Lucy & Andy scene might be one of my favorites of all time. There's something so unnatural, and yet simultaneously so natural, to the point that it even feels like it says something capital T true about the psychology of domesticity. Or maybe I just have some Andy and Lucy in me.

AXX°N N. wrote:

Mr. Reindeer wrote:It’s interesting, Diane doesn’t appear to be acting when she meets the Doppelganger in prison and asks who he is. But here, we learn that she’s working for him and they exchange texts. I wonder if her tulpa programming blocks her from remembering certain things at certain times. Or if her loyalty to the Doppel is in some way activated by the coded text and had been latent before that (although she does appear to be actively awaiting the text).

I have a totally different reading. I vividly recall feeling something was off the night of the Part re the Diane in the cell scene. It felt artificial. Not to say I thought it was bad acting, but something felt strange. It was such an odd validation for Gordon to later have his own reactions to Diane, also sensing that something was missing.

On a recent rewatch, I've come to an even further removed reading. And it leads me to believe Diane is more or less aware and in control, up until her death. I think there's some dramatic irony going on in thatt cell. She and he are vaguely referring to an event, and I always thought that event was the night they met in her apartment. She says she'll tell Gordon about it, and later when she begins going into it, the setting is her apartment. However, the eventual ending point in her retelling is the Convenience Store. One can easily extend her lines in the cell into referring actually to a situation only they know about at this point, and one that would make more sense for her to recall and have emotional resonence for her, that being the night of her creation. I imagine during that scene that when they say their lines, they're actually thinking about the Convenience Store and whatever occured therein. So that Diane is interrogating him for the sake of what we think is going on in the scene, but maybe she's interrogating him in a veiled way that only she's privvy to, a bit of personal code.

Which is to say, the psychological motivaitons for Diane leaves so much room for imagination.

Interesting. Dern plays the trauma so well, particularly when she asks, “Who are you?” that I’ve always taken it at face value. I’ll have to give it another look with your reading (which would certainly fit with the subsequent material more logically). For me, though, the moment of her rape and the moment of the tulpa’s creation are essentially one and the same, as I view the split as an externalization/physical manifestation of the psychic break a rape victim might suffer, just as all the Bob/Leland stuff works on both a literal but also psychological/metaphorical level.

The empty beer can doesn’t bother me at all (and I have the same rationalization as you; she’s clearly a twitchy mess). I find it funny that it bothers so many people though, and so I actually really like it now as a little mini-phenomenon in the fandom.

she keeps drinking her empty can cos she can't afford anymore and when you're in a bar, you have to drink

as simple as that

Mr. Reindeer wrote:

AXX°N N. wrote:

Mr. Reindeer wrote:It’s interesting, Diane doesn’t appear to be acting when she meets the Doppelganger in prison and asks who he is. But here, we learn that she’s working for him and they exchange texts. I wonder if her tulpa programming blocks her from remembering certain things at certain times. Or if her loyalty to the Doppel is in some way activated by the coded text and had been latent before that (although she does appear to be actively awaiting the text).

I have a totally different reading. I vividly recall feeling something was off the night of the Part re the Diane in the cell scene. It felt artificial. Not to say I thought it was bad acting, but something felt strange. It was such an odd validation for Gordon to later have his own reactions to Diane, also sensing that something was missing.

On a recent rewatch, I've come to an even further removed reading. And it leads me to believe Diane is more or less aware and in control, up until her death. I think there's some dramatic irony going on in thatt cell. She and he are vaguely referring to an event, and I always thought that event was the night they met in her apartment. She says she'll tell Gordon about it, and later when she begins going into it, the setting is her apartment. However, the eventual ending point in her retelling is the Convenience Store. One can easily extend her lines in the cell into referring actually to a situation only they know about at this point, and one that would make more sense for her to recall and have emotional resonence for her, that being the night of her creation. I imagine during that scene that when they say their lines, they're actually thinking about the Convenience Store and whatever occured therein. So that Diane is interrogating him for the sake of what we think is going on in the scene, but maybe she's interrogating him in a veiled way that only she's privvy to, a bit of personal code.

Which is to say, the psychological motivaitons for Diane leaves so much room for imagination.

Interesting. Dern plays the trauma so well, particularly when she asks, “Who are you?” that I’ve always taken it at face value. I’ll have to give it another look with your reading (which would certainly fit with the subsequent material more logically). For me, though, the moment of her rape and the moment of the tulpa’s creation are essentially one and the same, as I view the split as an externalization/physical manifestation of the psychic break a rape victim might suffer, just as all the Bob/Leland stuff works on both a literal but also psychological/metaphorical level.

The empty beer can doesn’t bother me at all (and I have the same rationalization as you; she’s clearly a twitchy mess). I find it funny that it bothers so many people though, and so I actually really like it now as a little mini-phenomenon in the fandom.

She may very well be sincerely asking who he is. That doesn't negate Axxon's interpretation, imo. It could be that she is both already aware of her situation as well as still very emotional and confused about it.

ETA: Similarly, the fact that she's waiting for a text doesn't necessarily negate the idea that said text eventually triggers her. She may have some but not all knowledge of what she is supposed to do.

Further along Axxon's path, in a decade of great Dern performances, she plays this one, with all of her stern fuck you's, a bit flat and loud from the very first time we fully engage with her in Part 7. The performance is obviously nuanced overall and mysterious and unreadable in certain moments, but I wonder if the general one-noteness of it up until Part 16's reveal is in any way intended as a sign that she's not right, not wholly human.

Re: the empty can in Part 9, I fully agree that it fits with the twitchy character, as well as the fact that I've many times forgetfully reached for and fake-drank out of an empty can. But what's always made me curious about the scene ties into what I brought up in response to Reindeer's Part 2 post, that of intentionality vs serendipitous mistakes that were noticed and then left in anyway vs those that were not noticed at all. My question relating to this scene is whether Lynch and other editors paying such close attention to sound would have missed that detail. As small as it is, it just doesnt seem likely to me that it would have been something that they missed. In which case, what might it mean, if anything, beyond the character's nervous energy and lack of funds?

Oh, I think the sound design on the can is 100% intentional. If there’s one area where Lynch is exceptionally particular, even for him, it’s with sound, and he did all the sound for the show himself. I think he saw that when she picks up the can it clearly doesn’t have any heft to it and reads as an empty prop, and he tailored the sounds accordingly.

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Oh, I think the sound design on the can is 100% intentional. If there’s one area where Lynch is exceptionally particular, even for him, it’s with sound, and he did all the sound for the show himself. I think he saw that when she picks up the can it clearly doesn’t have any heft to it and reads as an empty prop, and he tailored the sounds accordingly.

Ok, good! Cuz I was always baffled as to how so many seemed to gloss over Lynch's attention to sound, especially with such an obvious and easy-to-alter case.

I know it is stock footage, but the plane taking FBI out of South Dakota is not the same one, on the outside, that they flew into Dakota with. On the inside it seems to have been the same plane. I suppose it is a continuity error, I am not sure if we should be reading more into it. And the Roadhouse song should have been on the soundtrack in place of no-show of ZZ Top.

boske wrote:I know it is stock footage, but the plane taking FBI out of South Dakota is not the same one, on the outside, that they flew into Dakota with. On the inside it seems to have been the same plane. I suppose it is a continuity error, I am not sure if we should be reading more into it. And the Roadhouse song should have been on the soundtrack in place of no-show of ZZ Top.

Yeah, I definitely would like to have that song on the soundtrack. That's too bad.

LateReg wrote:

boske wrote:I know it is stock footage, but the plane taking FBI out of South Dakota is not the same one, on the outside, that they flew into Dakota with. On the inside it seems to have been the same plane. I suppose it is a continuity error, I am not sure if we should be reading more into it. And the Roadhouse song should have been on the soundtrack in place of no-show of ZZ Top.

Yeah, I definitely would like to have that song on the soundtrack. That's too bad.

That one, and the fast-tempo version of Heartbreaking for sure. Then there is Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny, and probably more material for a full CD release.