Does Anyone Dislike Episode 29?

[Odnetnin]

Is it weird that I almost miss the way that Episode 29 felt before we knew we'd be getting new episodes? Watching for the first time in 2009, or subsequent rewatches in 2011-2013 and such, that ending was SUCH a kick in the face, I mean it hurt but the power and the audacity and bitterness and darkness of it all was so unprecedented in TV finales. So now knowing we're actually getting more kind of changes that sense.

Don't get me wrong, I'm over the moon that there's another season of this show, I'm just kinda saying, on some small level I really perversely enjoyed the fucked-up feeling you got from watching 29 and knowing that it was (in all likelihood) THE END. Just really made a deep impression on me.

Exactly how I felt about the season 2 finale of Hannibal when it was potentially going to be the series finale. Bleak endings are underrated.

[OrsonWelles]

What about Carnivale? The last episode of season 2 was mind-blowing and then the show got cancelled. Felt the same like Twin Peaks, knowing that the series could have delved into weird, wicked and wonderful territory, only to be ended prematurely. Season 3 TP does change that, though it will be a totally different experience compared to a season 3 back in the early nineties. In a way episode 29 will still be THE END (if that makes sense).

[Gabriel]

It's a mixed bag for me. In many ways, it feels like a last-minute Lynchian 'reboot' of the TV show. There's a harder more cynical edge to the Twin Peaks town scenes, many characters seem to revert to something closer to their original personalities, other plotlines (Donna's parentage) and increasingly redundant characters (Andrew, Pete and Audrey) are almost contemptuously blown away. The Heidi scene repeats itself, giving us the feeling that time is looping and everything is starting all over again. Other characters, such as Truman, feel sidelined.

Scenes such as the one in the bank vault are frustratingly drawn out (the old geezer walking back and forth) as if Lynch knew that the audience would be desperate to get back to Cooper and he plays us like kiddies waiting to open their Christmas presents.

Perhaps the biggest thing is that, knowing the series was ending, we were craving some sort of resolution; a way we could take our leave of the show and move on. Instead, we are given a reality-shattering 45 minutes of cliffhanger after cliffhanger, each darker than the last, finishing with the despoiling of the one true, seemingly incorruptible paragon of goodness and optimism in the show.

We bail out of the show shattered, scarred and broken, all hope lost. There's no sense of catharsis and there's no way of us letting go. And that final cliffhanger has lived on with many of us for decades.

The finale also brings back the sense of darkness about the town and its citizens. For a good portion of season two, it had been a show about nice, quirky, folksy types being invaded by bad guys from outside – Josie, Ekhardt, Windom Earle – rather than a picture postcard town rotting under the glossy paintjob.

I don't dislike the episode because it's bad. I think it's amazing that a piece of television as obscure and bleak made it on to a major network back then. It frustrates the hell out of me because it's not the closure and farewell I want. It's very strange to think this is no longer the end, although it is certainly an ending. We're getting a new show, but it will be a different entity from either the network TV show or FWWM. The original show is definitely in the past and this new Twin Peaks will be it's own thing. Looking forward to it though!

[bob_wooler]

It's a mixed bag for me. In many ways, it feels like a last-minute Lynchian 'reboot' of the TV show. There's a harder more cynical edge to the Twin Peaks town scenes, many characters seem to revert to something closer to their original personalities, other plotlines (Donna's parentage) and increasingly redundant characters (Andrew, Pete and Audrey) are almost contemptuously blown away. The Heidi scene repeats itself, giving us the feeling that time is looping and everything is starting all over again. Other characters, such as Truman, feel sidelined.

Scenes such as the one in the bank vault are frustratingly drawn out (the old geezer walking back and forth) as if Lynch knew that the audience would be desperate to get back to Cooper and he plays us like kiddies waiting to open their Christmas presents.

Perhaps the biggest thing is that, knowing the series was ending, we were craving some sort of resolution; a way we could take our leave of the show and move on. Instead, we are given a reality-shattering 45 minutes of cliffhanger after cliffhanger, each darker than the last, finishing with the despoiling of the one true, seemingly incorruptible paragon of goodness and optimism in the show.

We bail out of the show shattered, scarred and broken, all hope lost. There's no sense of catharsis and there's no way of us letting go. And that final cliffhanger has lived on with many of us for decades.

The finale also brings back the sense of darkness about the town and its citizens. For a good portion of season two, it had been a show about nice, quirky, folksy types being invaded by bad guys from outside – Josie, Ekhardt, Windom Earle – rather than a picture postcard town rotting under the glossy paintjob.

I don't dislike the episode because it's bad. I think it's amazing that a piece of television as obscure and bleak made it on to a major network back then. It frustrates the hell out of me because it's not the closure and farewell I want. It's very strange to think this is no longer the end, although it is certainly an ending. We're getting a new show, but it will be a different entity from either the network TV show or FWWM. The original show is definitely in the past and this new Twin Peaks will be it's own thing. Looking forward to it though!

This, besides the red room scene, is the reason why I loved this episode (and still does).

[LostInTheMovies]

The finale also brings back the sense of darkness about the town and its citizens. For a good portion of season two, it had been a show about nice, quirky, folksy types being invaded by bad guys from outside – Josie, Ekhardt, Windom Earle – rather than a picture postcard town rotting under the glossy paintjob.

Yup, perfectly put. This is so key.

[Gabriel]

This, besides the red room scene, is the reason why I loved this episode (and still does).

Yep. It's brilliantly done. Then again, having watched the international pilot, as well as Ep 29, I always believed Lynch, mad genius that he is, would return to the TV show 25 years later, so I never saw Ep 29 and FWWM as the last word on Twin Peaks.

[Gabriel]

Yup, perfectly put. This is so key.

Thanks!

These days, they talk about shows having 'mission statements.'

Twin Peaks is an example of how things fall apart when a mission statement is thrown away. When I first watched the show as a 15-year-old, it was obvious even then to me that the story of Laura's death was to be like the peeling back of an onion, each storyline revealing more layers. In rushing the revelation of Laura's killer, they stopped digging into the corrupt heart of the town. It was frustrating to watch. Even at its worst, Twin Peaks was still better than most of what was on TV at the time, but by then, I'd obviously seen Twin Peaks at its best.

Critics sneered at the movie – I still think it was pure snobbery about Twin Peaks being a TV show and critics deciding they'd been nice to Lynch for too long, so it was time to give him a good kicking, the same way they kicked Michael Mann over Miami Vice – but I loved that the movie brought back the Twin Peaks we were promised in the pilot. It was as if most of the episodes between the death of Leland and episode 29 had never happened.

I'm really hoping for a return to digging into the dark heart of the town. Twin Peaks is an endlessly fascinating place and, arguably, we saw too little of the real town in the show.

[Audrey Horne]

For me, it is impossible to divorce myself from my initial viewing of it back in June 1991. Not to say that it isn't masterfully done. But while context isn't everything, it can still be pretty powerful in the memories it reinforces. Which is probably unfair.

But I always couple it with the Miss Twin Peaks episode. I always associate it with being part of those last two episodes that were pulled and used for filler on ABC's Monday Movie of the Week in graveyard post Sweeps ratings summer. I viewed it with the knowledge of it being nearly impossible to be renewed for the next network season. I viewed it with the knowledge that it was still part of the last six episodes that were pulled in February, and therefore were designed when they thought they still had hope... Therefore anticipating a cliffhanger with no result in the future. I still obsessively watched all my taped episodes in the interim. I still tried to make sense of why Cooper and Audrey had two new love interests and his that would intersect from the earlier setup. I made notes on the dugpas, the Project Bluebook, Cooper's past,etc. But for the most part, deep down I knew, I knew that this would be a dead end.

And kicking off that night, it was like attending a funeral, or a memorial. Miss Twin Peaks was so far removed from the show I loved. Really just watching actors (not the characters) I was so fascinated with the previous fourteen months. But I will say once the second part started, with Lucy and Andy cheek to cheek, I shifted, I started to get captured again... Started leaning into the screen. It was working again!

Is it a masterful episode? Yes. Every scene is captivating, every character revitalized. Just incredible, HOWEVER, and this is unfair to the piece to be judged on its merit alone, it was (again) always impossible for me to let go and enjoy it with the knowledge that this was Ben's, Pete's, Audrey's, Bobby's etc last scene. And the Cooper mirror scene never had any power to me because I was expecting a cliffhanger to rival his shooting from the first season (unfair on my part, I know) ... And that it ended on the word "Annie" repeatedly was almost mocking me over and over (after a year of worshipping the Cooper, Audrey chemistry)!

Like many of the last episodes, it is actually hard for me to watch. Those are more because I can't just casually watch them without getting angry at the plot lines. But this one I imagine I will be watching again and again with not only appreciation, but excitement ...because it now has promise and excitement of What Next?

[Johnsusername]

Yup, perfectly put. This is so key.

Thanks!

These days, they talk about shows having 'mission statements.'

Twin Peaks is an example of how things fall apart when a mission statement is thrown away. When I first watched the show as a 15-year-old, it was obvious even then to me that the story of Laura's death was to be like the peeling back of an onion, each storyline revealing more layers. In rushing the revelation of Laura's killer, they stopped digging into the corrupt heart of the town. It was frustrating to watch. Even at its worst, Twin Peaks was still better than most of what was on TV at the time, but by then, I'd obviously seen Twin Peaks at its best.

Critics sneered at the movie – I still think it was pure snobbery about Twin Peaks being a TV show and critics deciding they'd been nice to Lynch for too long, so it was time to give him a good kicking, the same way they kicked Michael Mann over Miami Vice – but I loved that the movie brought back the Twin Peaks we were promised in the pilot. It was as if most of the episodes between the death of Leland and episode 29 had never happened.

I'm really hoping for a return to digging into the dark heart of the town. Twin Peaks is an endlessly fascinating place and, arguably, we saw too little of the real town in the show.

Great post. Lynch being Lynch, I wouldn't be surprised if the first episode of the new series had nothing to do with the original series - a Lynch curveball.

[mtwentz]

Yup, perfectly put. This is so key.

Thanks!

These days, they talk about shows having 'mission statements.'

Twin Peaks is an example of how things fall apart when a mission statement is thrown away. When I first watched the show as a 15-year-old, it was obvious even then to me that the story of Laura's death was to be like the peeling back of an onion, each storyline revealing more layers. In rushing the revelation of Laura's killer, they stopped digging into the corrupt heart of the town. It was frustrating to watch. Even at its worst, Twin Peaks was still better than most of what was on TV at the time, but by then, I'd obviously seen Twin Peaks at its best.

Critics sneered at the movie – I still think it was pure snobbery about Twin Peaks being a TV show and critics deciding they'd been nice to Lynch for too long, so it was time to give him a good kicking, the same way they kicked Michael Mann over Miami Vice – but I loved that the movie brought back the Twin Peaks we were promised in the pilot. It was as if most of the episodes between the death of Leland and episode 29 had never happened.

I'm really hoping for a return to digging into the dark heart of the town. Twin Peaks is an endlessly fascinating place and, arguably, we saw too little of the real town in the show.

Great post. Lynch being Lynch, I wouldn't be surprised if the first episode of the new series had nothing to do with the original series - a Lynch curveball.

With Lynch, expect the unexpected

[Gabriel]

Great post. Lynch being Lynch, I wouldn't be surprised if the first episode of the new series had nothing to do with the original series - a Lynch curveball.

Knowing Lynch, he'll set the entire first episode in Paris and Las Vegas with completely new characters in a completely unrelated storyline whom he'll kill off two minutes before the end of the episode and the final shot will have the killer driving past the 'Welcome to Twin Peaks' sign!

[LostInTheMovies]

Great post. Lynch being Lynch, I wouldn't be surprised if the first episode of the new series had nothing to do with the original series - a Lynch curveball.

Knowing Lynch, he'll set the entire first episode in Paris and Las Vegas with completely new characters in a completely unrelated storyline whom he'll kill off two minutes before the end of the episode and the final shot will have the killer driving past the 'Welcome to Twin Peaks' sign!

I actually kind of agree, winks aside! Except I don't think the end will let us off quite that easily haha.

In all seriousness, I think there's a good chance that 10 minutes in we'll be asking ourselves, "Wait, did I accidentally turn to the wrong channel? This can't be Twin Peaks..." There are many moments like that in Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr, and Inland Empire and even the more familiar Twin Peaks Lynch episode openings always throw us off-guard somehow.

I'll actually be kind of disappointed if we are in familiar territory in the first episode. I want to earn the nostalgic gestures.

Then again, I also haven't been waiting for 25 years!

[Gabriel]

Then again, I also haven't been waiting for 25 years!

Out of interest, how long have you been waiting? I've had to go the 'full term,' so I'm gagging to get back to the Sheriff's station and the RR Diner. The fallout of Episode 29 has been one of the great 'itches that need scratching' in the back of my mind for longer in my life than I'd lived when I first saw that episode! I wonder what I'd have thought as 15-year-old if I'd have been told that I would get to see what happens next, but I'd be 42 by then! It's mind-boggling and one of the first cases where I really feel the passage of time. Blade Runner and Tron were films I saw on VHS after release, but this is the first time I've seen something I was old enough to see and follow from the point it was originated to a decades-later revival rather than remake!

[LostInTheMovies]

Then again, I also haven't been waiting for 25 years!

Out of interest, how long have you been waiting?

Only about 8 1/2 years. Additionally though I never really felt dissatisfied with the finale; I even remember thinking they may have intended it as a conclusion, not a cliffhanger, because it worked that way for me. So while I'm delighted we're getting more Twin Peaks (and especially more Lynch) I never really felt a *need* for it. Fun as it will be to see the familiar faces and places again, I'm almost more excited to see what new stuff they bring to the table.

[djerdap]

Then again, I also haven't been waiting for 25 years!

Out of interest, how long have you been waiting?

Only about 8 1/2 years. Additionally though I never really felt dissatisfied with the finale; I even remember thinking they may have intended it as a conclusion, not a cliffhanger, because it worked that way for me. So while I'm delighted we're getting more Twin Peaks (and especially more Lynch) I never really felt a *need* for it. Fun as it will be to see the familiar faces and places again, I'm almost more excited to see what new stuff they bring to the table.

I would say exactly this word for word. Even the 8 1/2 year thing is the same for me. What interests me most about this revival is the brand new direction Lynch might take the show in.