Part 18 - What is your name? (SPOILERS)

[BGate]

He literally just said it was dull. That was the extent of his detailed analysis.

Lol.

Jonah, I know you said much more than that, and so do many other people. Don't sweat it.

In fairness, Jonah didn't claim to be providing a detailed analysis, I was responding to your assessment of his post.

I mean, feel free to tell me how I'm wrong. He literally used the word dull four times (before he mixed it up with "tedious" and "boring"). I didn't even say I disagree, I just think it's funny that someone could describe that as really spelling things out.

[garethw]

I think part 17 was the ending. Part 18 is something else.

that sounds right to me.

I bet in years to come, "Stop after part 17" will become the new "Stop after episode 16".

[GoodMorningAmerica]

This was the story of a flawed man's failure to save a woman in trouble. It is a story I know all too well. I say WELL DONE DAVID LYNCH.

[SpookyDollhouse]

I feel like that final episode was almost a meta-commentary on the entirety of The Return. I think the whole idea is that some things are meant to stay dead, trapped in amber, and that bringing them back can change them irrevocably. By bringing Laura back, they destroyed the reality of Twin Peaks - by bringing the show back, we may have destroyed Twin Peaks. Dale, Laura and the audience are all trapped in a purgatory together at the end of the series. It's one of the most nightmarish things I can imagine.

I hadn't thought of this yet. I bet you anything this is part of it.

[Deep Thought]

I love all these comments. “That was excruciating.” “ That was the worst episode of TV ever. “ There is no question in my mind that that was one of the most riveting hours of TV I have seen., and I’ve seen plenty. The only thing that would have disappointed me would have been “plot development” and “what happened to XXX storyline”? I was giddy during the driving scenes, and I was having flashbacks to the moment in time when I was watching season 2 episode 29 live on ABC. My family kept telling me to be quiet because I had no idea I was emoting like the drunk in the TP jail. Ah ah ah !

[Rudagger]

Just going to copy-paste my quick thoughts from my reddit post;


My reading on it was slightly different than other peoples.

I took when Cooper saw Naido (and the permanent overlay of his face over the rest of the scene) to be his own realization of the false reality he had been experiencing. Him coming out at Glastonbury is him walking out 25 years later, as originally intended (whatever happens in those 25 years doesn't really matter). While in there he tried the timeline shenanigans in FWWM and in The Return, and on his pursuit to fix things, ends up once again trapped between two worlds (in this case, seemingly in a different time and a reality where Laura is alive .. but isn't .. ala Philip Jeffries "What year is it?").
Even the framing in Part 17, where you see essentially every major side character lined up like a roll call, it feels very unreal.

I do hope we get more. But, this is a similar downer of an ending to me that Season 2 has, though, quite not intense (more .. "Dale Cooper is sort of a failure"). This one at least can play like a depressing ending moreso than Season 2's straight laced cliffhanger.
It does make you wonder the wisdom in dragging out so much of the stuff in the first 17 parts when the table is going to get flipped in part 18 anyway (and leave a ton of loose ends in .. that world of Twin Peaks, such as Audrey).

I suppose on the plus side, if they do more they might not have to work around some actor's deaths as much, given that the world of story is very different. But, then again, wouldn't they have potentially written themselves into a very similar box as this season (you have a potentially decades long gap and have no idea on the status quo on major side characters)?

A ton to unpack in this episode.

I'm also a little bummed at just how perfunctory Dale Cooper's return to Twin Peaks was. I'm fine with not over indulging in nostalgia, but, it felt a little bit like Lynch really didn't care about Coop's return to Peaks itself, as it was kind of a formality.

Also, the potentially "The Return was mostly a dream" makes some sense to me, as I think BOB, the apparent pain and suffering of all mankind, being punched by a kid with a rubber glove feels like the kind of overtly optimistic dream logic one can have.

[TwinsPeak]

I think part 17 was the ending. Part 18 is something else.

that sounds right to me.

I bet in years to come, "Stop after part 17" will become the new "Stop after episode 16".

I still enjoyed Part 18....but its the start of a new story...where as part 17 was the ending.

[crash_and_burn]

Lol.

Jonah, I know you said much more than that, and so do many other people. Don't sweat it.

In fairness, Jonah didn't claim to be providing a detailed analysis, I was responding to your assessment of his post.

I mean, feel free to tell me how I'm wrong. He literally used the word dull four times (before he mixed it up with "tedious" and "boring"). I didn't even say I disagree, I just think it's funny that someone could describe that as really spelling things out.

I don't know if you noticed, but I feel free to talk as much shit as I want about how completely incomplete and totally piecemeal this ending was, thus far. Yet, I'm not in the business of telling people on the internet they are wrong.

[Calderon]

The mystery continues. This is the way it should be.

1000% agree. I'm happy not knowing. Once we unpacked all the pieces, it started to make less and less sense coming together as a big picture. From the beginning, this show has been a murder mystery. I'm oddly satisfied not getting the answers.

Just this. That's why I always disliked episode 9 of season 2. Way to much clumsy over-explanation of everything. Lynch did just the right thing. To shroud it again into mysteries. Amazing.

[AgentEcho]

I think part 17 was the ending. Part 18 is something else.

Yeah I definitely think there's something to this.

It's almost like Part 17 put the Twin Peaks universe in a kind of time capsule and Part 18 happened when Cooper stepped outside of it.

[Soolsma]

So fucking intense.

[BigEd]

As this sinks in, I'm getting a strong MD feel. The "dream" has a happy ending (Bob is shattered, Mr. C is sent back to the lodge, Janey-E and Sonny Jim get the husband/dad they want, plenty of sandwiches for everybody, Laura is saved, etc.). Then we see an ugly real world. Idiots with guns harassing a hard working waitress (at "Judy's diner" no less), reborn Laura in serious trouble and perhaps some of the darkness we've seen in TP like Steven/Becky, zombie girl, etc. I think Laura screamed for all of us at the end.

[Hockey Mask]

THAT WAS AWESOME!

[Cappy]

I'm totally confused by the timeline after Cooper left the Sheriff station. Was everything at the end of Part 17 and 18 linear from Cooper's POV or were we seeing everything out of order? I honestly don't understand Part 18 at all.

I'm confused by this too, but just before Naido is revealed as Diane they start superimposing Cooper's face over the screen... I think when that starts it becomes a sort of subjective experience where Cooper and his doppelganger become one, and maybe ep. 18 is the disparate parts of Cooper's soul trying to resolve itself. Maybe?

[Jasper]

The thing about the sex scene is that it was intentionally made to make you feel uncomfortable, the music was a juxtipositon of MD/IE-esque drone intermittently mixed with '50's love ballads.

There was nothing normal about that sex scene.

The song was "My Prayer", which was the song playing in 1956 at the end of part 8.