Part 11 - There's fire where you are going (SPOILERS)

[NonStopKnits]

Yeah, no. They're fucking.

Thank you, Needleman. I find it odd that people don't want to think the two scraggly looking, sneaky-snake acting people are actually being bad and think Becky is just a nut job.

Falling in love with and marrying someone only to later find out they are abusive/druggies/cheaters/ can fuck with your head big time. Also, if Steven got Becky into drugs and is the stash holder, she might be dealing with withdrawls as well, which will make you crazy.

It's not about wanting or not wanting these two characters to be bad. I don't know enough about these characters to care. It's just that most people always jump to conclusions even though we don't know the context of scenes, and they often see them as a given without any room for different theories, like some of these:
- "Frank Truman never does anything, he doesn't solve the drug crimes, so he must be such a bad Sheriff. Harry arrested so many people in the same time." - In my opinion, this is a weird assumption because a) we haven't seen much of Frank, he could have done a lot of good police work in the past and b) Frank might momentarily be more concerned with his brother's health than police work, that doesn't make him a bad Sheriff and c) the new series is much slower paced, so things are progressing slower
- "EvilCooper sent a text to Diane. That confirms she is working with him!" - Though at the moment it really does seem that she's working with him, at the time she was sent the text she hadn't done anything wrong. As far as we know she didn't ask for that text to be sent to her and we don't even understand the content of the message, it could also be a threat or a set up.
- "EvilCooper visited Audrey in intensive care so he must have raped her when she was in a coma." - it seems just weird to me that many people assume that this was the only possible interaction between these characters when we don't even know how long Audrey was in a coma. She could have woken up after a few days. He could have raped her at a later time or she might have consented, thinking he was the real Cooper. Maybe they never even had sex and someone else is Richard's father. Doc Hayward's mentioning of Audrey could have been used to mislead the audience to hide EvilCooper's real purpose for visiting intensive care. He could have been there to get the ring from Annie (wasn't she also in intensive care?). We just don't know anything about what happened in Twin Peaks 25 years ago, everything is possible.
- "Steven met with another woman so he must have slept with her because he is such a bad guy." - Really, there are a hundred reasons why people meet and from what we've seen of Becky this episode, she isn't a completely good person either. She might be this way because of Steven's influence but it's also possible that she was that way before she met him or that she was actually a bad influence on him. Personally, I think it would be more interesting if we found out that the most likely reason for the meeting, them sleeping together, is wrong and that they were doing something else. That doesn't have to mean they have to be good characters, they could have done worse things than sleeping together, like planning a crime.

I'm not saying that any of these assumption are wrong, just that we don't know enough to be so fixated on one possibility.

I see your point and fundamentally agree with you. I may be coloring this scene with my own view and experiences, in fact, most likely I am. However, some of the theories that have popped up surrounding this odd 'love/hate' triangle just seem far fetched to me.

But, this is David Lynch and Mark Frost. Maybe Gersten is his aunt who looks super young and is teaching him piano, to Beckys' crazy white girl rage.

ETA: also, this is a theory and topic I have more confidence/experience with, so I'm more eager to discuss.

[Dreamy Audrey]

I have to admit that the "they are sleeping together" theory is the most likely one, I just noticed on second viewing that the only reason we think they are sleeping together is that Becky thinks they are. We don't know what exactly the phone call Becky receives is about and we never see Gersten and Steven doing anything wrong, they just stand in a corridor together. This made me think that the scene could be deliberate misdirection. And though some of the alternative theories are far-fetched, I think we have seen weirder things in Twin Peaks

[Esselgee]

So did Steven know that his job interview was with his lover's sister's ex-boyfriend? Maybe that's why Mike treated him like that. Did Mike know what Steven was up to with Donna's sister? Geez, that scene seems like it happened ages ago.

[wAtChLaR]

TOAD TURN OFF THE LIGHTS
Norma is new world terrorism ready

[Cooperscoffeecup]

TOAD TURN OFF THE LIGHTS
Norma is new world terrorism ready

Hilarious Watchlar. "New world terrorism ready". Paperwork isn't the only thing she has mastered.

I have no doubt S and G are sleeping together. It is after all, Twin Peaks. I couldn't keep up with who was sleeping with who when the first season originally aired.

[Kilmoore]

It's not about wanting or not wanting these two characters to be bad. I don't know enough about these characters to care.

This is the key to the way I see it. We've seen only a couple of minutes of them. They're background hum, they're just some folks in the town. The way they treat each other reflects the state of the town, but other than that, there's no way they're relevant with the amount of screen time they've been given.

[Voided]

How did DougieCoop buy pie when he doesn't even have a wallet? (Unless maybe he just handed over his whole wallet) And how could he even grasp the concept of buying a pie when he apparently doesn't even understand how to walk from one room to another unless someone is leading him with the promise of coffee? This scene was not shown only partially because of building up the suspense of what was in the box. It was a scene that had to be skipped over, because it would have required showing DougieCoop handling a transaction that appear to be beyond his capabilities.

Obviously Busnell Mullins (or whatever his name was) would have helped Dougie make the transaction. Dougie would only have to point.

[Nighthawk]

There’s been a fair amount of concern over not having enough time left to thoroughly explore or resolve everything that’s being introduced, but I can’t get behind any of that because we still have what amounts to three feature films worth of running time left. Ever seen a movie where it seems like years are going by and countless, complex events are transpiring? Multiply that by three, and that’s how much space we still have to work within. The sky’s the limit, basically.

It's possible to pack a lot of events into a short amount of time and make it seem like it's not rushed, but that is done by cutting out most, or all, of non-essentials. That means few lingering scenes, irrelevant dialogue, tangential events. The focus is mostly on plot progression. It also depends on how many characters are involved. It's either exploring events featuring only a few characters and going in-depth or having a lot of characters, but focusing only on key exposition scenes to place them in context and give them personalities. It's very hard to do both. Also, the above applies mostly to movies. Television series' are often deliberately slower paced because they are intended to stretch for many seasons. TPTR is supposed to be a very long feature film, but it's moving at a pace of an endless soap opera.

Considering how many characters, themes, mythologies, mysterious forces, and plain random events are going on in TPTR, the current pace implies that we will not get to revisit a lot of them and just brush on the surface of others. Part 11 had maybe five plot moving events and the rest was just a build up to them. Dougie befriending the Mitchum brothers took half of the episode alone and it feels like that could have been handled in 8-10 minutes. We've already seen that Lynch can turn up the pace, like he did with part 7, which of course was followed (intentionally I assume) with the bizarre, extremely slow, but artistically ingenious part 8.

[Nighthawk]

Pay attention to Diane's nails. She has different colors in that.. And one particular color for the spiritual finger

Also, I am quite sure that the scene with diane and badcoop is not really what it seems.

Those nail colours are strange. One for each finger.

I do think looking at that scene with Diane, Albert and Gordon, at the station, while they were waiting for coffee, Dianne senses that they both know something is up with her. What she is actually doing though is beyond me. And why she would say the woodsman was coming out of the car, that has me puzzled.

I think Diane is working for Phillip Jeffries, who is actually working against bad Coop. Just a theory.

I think Jeffries was largely removed from the show out of necessity. Bowie didn't get a chance to film his scenes so it's likely that he is mentioned to give a nod to the man, but he is no longer a part of the plot per se.

[Wally Brando]

Don't think anyone's mentioned it already, so I guess the answer is no, but...
Did the shot with the camera moving along the corridor and down the stairs from Gersten's apartment (after Becky ventilates the door) remind anyone else of the 'Bob POV*' shots that were used occasionally in the original series, e.g. In the Palmer house or in the woods after Bob has left Leland?

*Can't think of a better name for it.

[DeepBlueSeed]

..as I mentioned earlier..seeing them in broad daylight definitely takes away any air of menace from them (compare to the shooting of Bad Coop or the radio station attack)

I still find them menacing. If anything, in the daylight, it's clear that they're black and shadowy, starkly contrasted against the lighter backdrop. Not that they're not menacing at night, of course, but you could mistake them for just being in the shadows, or fading in and out of the surrounding darkness. In daylight they clearly ARE darkness.

[DeepBlueSeed]

Yeah, no. They're fucking.

Thank you, Needleman. I find it odd that people don't want to think the two scraggly looking, sneaky-snake acting people are actually being bad and think Becky is just a nut job.

I don't know if it's that people don't want to think they're having sex (certainly, he's not the first man to sleep with an older woman). I think it's just that they don't think there's enough evidence to commit one way or another. I personally don't think she's a 'mentor', and would find it worrying if she's his mother because there's only about a 15 year age gap.

A man and a woman sneaking around, of course, shouts that he's having an affair. But Lynch and Frost have left it vague enough that they can completely subvert that cliche, if they want.

[Nighthawk]

After rewatching the episode, I think that they aren't lovers. The only reason most people assume they are lovers is because Becky thinks so and because they fled, but Becky could be mistaken.

Of course there are other possible explanations, but it's more than just Becky's rage and Steven/Gersten fleeing the apartment. From what we have seen of Steven, he is highly unreliable. He does not have a job, he takes drugs, he's verbally, and possibly physically, abusive towards his wife. This is the first time we see Becky fly into a rage, but it seems consistent with the fact that she is blind to Steven's many vices due to being in love with him. She can overlook his aimlessness, drug use or menacing behavior, but she cannot tolerate a (likely) affair with another woman.

This is the problem with undeveloped characters though. Viewers can only make assumptions about characters' motivations because they were not given enough screen time and exposition.

[Wonderful & Strange]

The body language of Stephen and Gersten is pretty obvious, IMO, and the call that Becky received is obviously about him cheating (why else was she enraged?). If they weren't cheating, then why did they hide from Becky? And if it wasn't cheating, then why didn't Lynch and Frost raise that possibility when Becky has the family meeting?

There really should be no confusion here except that people are supposing that nothing in Twin Peaks is ever what it seems just because the supernatural aspects have a sublime quality. But we know this isn't true. Quite often, especially in affairs of the heart, Twin Peaks is very straightforward.

In fact, I can't remember a single affair in the show that wasn't an affair.

[believemeifollowed]

Watching this part, I had a thought about the Woodsmen, which I think was not talked about here ( I may be wrong).

They reminded me of the Curious Woman that scares Carl Rodd in Teresa's trailer in FWWM ?
She also had her face covered with that black stuff ( I kinda linked it with Blackfire since part 11).
Do you think there's a connection?