Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[Snailhead]

Sure, there’s humor of a sort, but it’s this cold, absurdist slapstick, where a man-child in the form of Kyle MacLachlan, the previous heart of the show, stumbles around like a stroke victim and everyone around him acts like it’s normal, even a doctor.

Yes, I have now reached the point of loathing this character. Never thought I would say that. Someone throw a Nadine sandbag at him. It worked for her. Patience is a virtue yes, and maybe we are being lectured into having some through this, but for entertainment purposes there are limits.

I'm sad to say that I agree. Feels like Audrey Horne - who is also stuck in an undefined limbo - has had more character development in her 2 scenes than all of the Coop scenes combined.

[boske]

When I had heard back then that we were getting 18 hours of Twin Peaks, I mistakenly assumed that we would be getting 18 hours of the pilot and the final, with parts of FWWM thrown interspersed. I bet I was not the only one. So that was a wrong expectation.

The show could still end up strong, I think there is enough time. I enjoyed the first three parts, also part 8, and one can argue that part 8 could have been another introductory piece, sort of like part 0.

So if I assume that the ending is much stronger than these middle parts, it would point to a situation where L&F had a pretty good idea on how to open and close the Return, but had these vague ideas about the middle part and lost themselves along the way.

Furthemore, I had assumed that doubling the time to 18 hours from 9 would have linearly affected the script. But maybe it is only the middle part that was stretched too thin from say roughly 3 hours to 12. And this may be where the problem is.

[yaxomoxay]

I don’t know if there’s been another show that changed as much during its run as Twin Peaks.

I don't know if there's a show that changed ME much as twin peaks, original or TR.

There’s just the right amount of Lynchian weirdness and unpredictability, with plenty of leisurely scenes that focus on developing the characters, but it never lost momentum.

Sadly that type of weirdness and unpredictability has become too cliched. Since the XFiles weird in a Tv series is the normal.

The stakes are clear, every character is vivid, almost every line is crisp and memorable, and despite the fact that we’re watching the investigation of a brutal murder, there’s this almost omnipresent warmth: Cooper’s enthusiasm and fascination, Audrey’s infatuation, the goofy-good-heartedness of the entire sheriff’s department and the romances – James and Donna, Bobby and Shelley, Ed and Norma.

I don't understand (truly). Do you want the same thing? Honestly you expect people 25 years later to be as warm as back then? In today's world where kids see murders and beheadings on LiveLeak, during a national opioids crisis, right after an economical fall?

That warmth is the element most glaringly missing from The Return; I don’t know what’s happened with Lynch and Frost to make them portray their once-beloved town and characters so darkly, but it’s stark and off-putting.

Just look around and you will get the answer to the why.
As for warmth in general, yes it's missing. Personally I think it's a good thing. We already had warmth, and other shows replicated the very same warmth and related quirkiness in a beautiful, more mature way. Also, warmth wasn't enough to keep the series alive in the 1990's, it actually made more damages than good.
Also, we're 27 years older and we also notice and complain about more crap in general.

Your post is beautiful even if I disagree with it. You are clearly in love with Twin Peaks, and I guess you're like me that would give anything to live a day in the town of Twin Peaks with Agent Cooper and friends. I just disagree on the path ahead of S2. You talk - correctly - about growth. Would have TP grown if the series had the same or similar feeling 25 years later ? The very definition of growth (and innovation) is that what once was, is no more. What was small has grown. The more the different, the more things have changed. And in TP everything is different for many reasons. Some characters are stuck in the past (Big Ed I am looking at you!) and pay the dire consequences.

It's not that you have to like the path ahead of course, but I think that at there might be some unfairness in using as a metrics something that failed and was over 25 years ago.
For me, this season is beautiful. And I do love Dougie. I truly do; has he changed me? For now yes. I try to see things in a much more simplified way, looking for more innocent behavior in a world full of crappy things (that unfortunately I observe every day due to my line of work).




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[AhmedKhalifa]

God, I finally found a group that doesn't think Lynch is a demi-god and THE RETURN can do no wrong. I'm loving some of the discussions in here. Keep it up

Welcome!

I think we still all love Lynch but we don't necessarily think that anything made by David Lynch is by definition genius. Not saying all of those who love The Return do think that way, far from it. But there are a few (just as there are probably a few of us who may have been disappointed no matter what).

I think that, decaying ability aside, Lynch has a very different outlook and is in a very different mood to when he made the original. That's natural, 25 years have passed! I just preferred the old Lynch.

It's funny, a few people have said we don't like The Return because it's too dark. I don't find it that dark at all, just intermittently glib/pantomime funny, spiteful, bleak and ugly. FWWM was way darker than this.

Bear with me, because this is kind of a long post, but it sums up what I think are the reasons, at least for me, THE RETURN isn't delivering on all fronts:

- From all the interviews I read with people who worked on the original series (especially in the excellent book REFLECTIONS by Brad Dukes), S3 of TP was always designed to be about rescuing Cooper from the Black Lodge, with Major Briggs leading the search/investigation. And this is what we got in The Return, albeit in a roundabout, occasionally frustrating manner. But considering the death of actor Don S. Davis, and the passage of time, this is the way Lynch and Frost came up with to pursue that storyline.

- Cooper was always the heart of TP, its driving force, and to turn him into a mentally-challenged man-child with no motivation or intellect, is to yank out the heart of the show. I'm sure Lynch/Frost were aware of that effect and wanted it, but damn if I understand why they made that particular choice, a jarring, frustrating, illogical one that completely alters the tone of the show.

- The original TP was made by Frost and Lynch at a time when both were at a crossroads and facing difficulties getting other projects (feature films) financed. They made TP with no expectations whatsoever, and Lynch basically made the pilot as a labor of love and a feature film (which was how it was released on video in Europe). When it became a series, Lynch, who was now busy making WILD AT HEART, knew he had to delegate the majority of the heavy lifting to Frost and a group of hired hands, which resulted in the special brew of the first season of TP. Lynch was more involved in the beginning of the second season (up until the death of Maddy), and that's why, arguably, the first few episodes of S2 is TP at it's absolute finest, because it was the perfect mix of Lynch's sensibilities, Frost's mastery of the TV medium, and the involvement of other writers and directors who also contributed and helped shape some of the later characters.

- Lynch never wanted Laura Palmer's murder to be solved that quickly, and that's why his involvement lessened in the remainder of the second season (he only became heavily involved again near the end of the season). Considering this, and that the main mystery of S3 is the disappearance of Cooper, it is safe to say that he's doing what he always wanted to do with the Laura mystery, which is keep it in the background while pursuing other stories/mysteries, till the very end, which is what we are getting, for better or for worse, this season.

- Undeniably, Lynch has immensely changed as an artist, becoming less and less interested in linear storytelling and narrative. Gone is the perfectionist filmmaker who made the tightly plotted BLUE VELVET, the terrific pilot of TWIN PEAKS and a handful of episodes in the first two seasons, FWWM, among other projects. He is now much more interested in video art, impenetrable abstractions, making music, serpentine storytelling (like INLAND EMPIRE) with no clear resolutions, and being an ambassador for transcendental meditation. And this is the David Lynch who made S3, a different man and artist, and a much more self-indulgent one than the artist who made the original series.

- No matter the flaws of this new season, I for one am grateful that it got made, even if we end up with something that is different, flawed, and less effective than the original series.

[rugerblackhawk357]

God, I finally found a group that doesn't think Lynch is a demi-god and THE RETURN can do no wrong. I'm loving some of the discussions in here. Keep it up

Welcome!

I think we still all love Lynch but we don't necessarily think that anything made by David Lynch is by definition genius. Not saying all of those who love The Return do think that way, far from it. But there are a few (just as there are probably a few of us who may have been disappointed no matter what).

I think that, decaying ability aside, Lynch has a very different outlook and is in a very different mood to when he made the original. That's natural, 25 years have passed! I just preferred the old Lynch.

It's funny, a few people have said we don't like The Return because it's too dark. I don't find it that dark at all, just intermittently glib/pantomime funny, spiteful, bleak and ugly. FWWM was way darker than this.

Bear with me, because this is kind of a long post, but it sums up what I think are the reasons, at least for me, THE RETURN isn't delivering on all fronts:

- From all the interviews I read with people who worked on the original series (especially in the excellent book REFLECTIONS by Brad Dukes), S3 of TP was always designed to be about rescuing Cooper from the Black Lodge, with Major Briggs leading the search/investigation. And this is what we got in The Return, albeit in a roundabout, occasionally frustrating manner. But considering the death of actor Don S. Davis, and the passage of time, this is the way Lynch and Frost came up with to pursue that storyline.

- Cooper was always the heart of TP, its driving force, and to turn him into a mentally-challenged man-child with no motivation or intellect, is to yank out the heart of the show. I'm sure Lynch/Frost were aware of that effect and wanted it, but damn if I understand why they made that particular choice, a jarring, frustrating, illogical one that completely alters the tone of the show.

- The original TP was made by Frost and Lynch at a time when both were at a crossroads and facing difficulties getting other projects (feature films) financed. They made TP with no expectations whatsoever, and Lynch basically made the pilot as a labor of love and a feature film (which was how it was released on video in Europe). When it became a series, Lynch, who was now busy making WILD AT HEART, knew he had to delegate the majority of the heavy lifting to Frost and a group of hired hands, which resulted in the special brew of the first season of TP. Lynch was more involved in the beginning of the second season (up until the death of Maddy), and that's why, arguably, the first few episodes of S2 is TP at it's absolute finest, because it was the perfect mix of Lynch's sensibilities, Frost's mastery of the TV medium, and the involvement of other writers and directors who also contributed and helped shape some of the later characters.

- Lynch never wanted Laura Palmer's murder to be solved that quickly, and that's why his involvement lessened in the remainder of the second season (he only became heavily involved again near the end of the season). Considering this, and that the main mystery of S3 is the disappearance of Cooper, it is safe to say that he's doing what he always wanted to do with the Laura mystery, which is keep it in the background while pursuing other stories/mysteries, till the very end, which is what we are getting, for better or for worse, this season.

- Undeniably, Lynch has immensely changed as an artist, becoming less and less interested in linear storytelling and narrative. Gone is the perfectionist filmmaker who made the tightly plotted BLUE VELVET, the terrific pilot of TWIN PEAKS and a handful of episodes in the first two seasons, FWWM, among other projects. He is now much more interested in video art, impenetrable abstractions, making music, serpentine storytelling (like INLAND EMPIRE) with no clear resolutions, and being an ambassador for transcendental meditation. And this is the David Lynch who made S3, a different man and artist, and a much more self-indulgent one than the artist who made the original series.

- No matter the flaws of this new season, I for one am grateful that it got made, even if we end up with something that is different, flawed, and less effective than the original series.

at the end of season two, we had a clear cliffhanger. coop entered the lodge. coop wasn't brave enough. coop was possessed by bob. after FWWM, there was a major campaign to get all unreleased footage released. which resulted in "Twin Peaks. The Entire Mystery". this made showtime willing to give lynch/frost the budget for season 3, which was an opportunity to resolve and expand the TP cliffhanger and mythology. sadly, this did not happen. no season extends to 18 episodes. TP the Return actually had that opportunity. we could have had 18 episodes of Dale Cooper escaping from the lodge(backwards driving powder blue truck helmed by truman and hawk), hunting down his shadow self, and bringing balance to the universe. but no. we have, Janey-E, Diane's estranged relative. Doug-E, Dale Cooper's body, but not soul or mind, and the NYC Box, which could have been Phillip Jeffries anchor point, but was not. I wish Twin Peaks, The Return was Twin Peaks Season 3.

[yaxomoxay]

. we could have had 18 episodes of Dale Cooper escaping from the lodge

How many times have we seen an escape of this kind? Countless of episodes from Doctor Who follow a similar pattern.
And chasing and fighting the darker self is so cliched it's not even funny.
This is not, and was never intended to be, an escape. The escape lasted 25 years, until Laura told Cooper that he was free to go.
This season is a process, and for the good of me I can't see how anyone could've thought that this was going to be a run to the gates.
We are watching a quarantine.
Even astronauts have to be quarantined and Cooper has been in a place much more challenging than space.


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[Venus]

the NYC Box, which could have been Phillip Jeffries anchor point, but was not. .

Wow that would have been great. Can you imagine seeing a Phillip Jeffries/fading in and out David Bowie silently in distress in the NYC box, eventually fading out completely. Lost opportunity.

Also, who knew that dandruff could save your life. Next time you go shopping, think about the fact you might save someone's life before you reach for the anti-dandruff shampoo.

[Aqwell]

Also, who knew that dandruff could save your life. Next time you go shopping, think about the fact you might save someone's life before you reach for the anti-dandruff shampoo.

Let's fight evil with kindness and a little massage, it makes bad guys crying and confess everytime.

[BOB1]

There's been loads of great posts here lately, thanks for all that! - I might like to relate to many of them but first a brief impression after watching this and that last night.

This season is a process, and for the good of me I can't see how anyone could've thought that this was going to be a run to the gates.
We are watching a quarantine.
Even astronauts have to be quarantined and Cooper has been in a place much more challenging than space.

This is someting I acknowledge and appreciate. And probably one of the reasons why I - unlike many (most?) of The Disappointed - find the Dougie plot the best what The Return has to offer. I care for Dougie, he touches me, he amuses me, I can identify with his character on many levels because I, too, so often remain mute and blank when I look around (or into myself, for that matter, even more). I find McLachlan excellent in this role and I the characters around Dougie's storyline - Mitchum Brothers & the Candies, Janey-E, Battling Bud - are also among those who I rather enjoy.

My disappointment grows elsewhere and Part 13 showed it very well. The episode as a whole was... mediocre? Alright but without anything really catchy, altogether probably one of the worst. But I liked Dougie, the Mr C part was also alright. What really let me down, not for the first time, was Twin Peaks itself. In my opinion the old characters are uninteresting, the old actors aren't doing very well, their 'new' storylines are meaningless. The scenes yesterday:
* Norma et al. at RR was dull; mediocre like I said as it wasn't ainful to watch or anything - no, I could watch it again today, why not? But again, what for?
* Shelly and Becky might be good but didn't even happen - we had a phone conversation which was perhaps promising but turned out pointless.
* Bobby made a mention of one of the few interesting things that had happened in the Twin Peaks location (the discovery of the Mjr Briggs message) only to remind me how long ago it was and why is nothing happening about it anymore?
* I was happy to see that Nadine for the first time went on to do something different than watching Dr Amp and sipping her drink but all in all her scene with Jacoby I found plain bad. If it was to bring back any old sentiments, it certainly didn't work for me. That was the kind of scene which makes me think, as someone once wrote here, that I'd rather the old characters got erased altogether instead of being turned into selfparody.
* The new Audrey scene, hmm... I'm beginning to strongly think that there's something very weird behind it and perhaps Audrey really is still in a coma (I need to explore to thread dedicated to this topic, so far I only had a quick look at it) and all of this isn't really happening... that could perhaps become interesting, yet the scene itself wasn't good at all. Oh well, Audrey did move, hooray!
* As usual the Sarah scene was good but.. ok, it was good and let's stick to it.
* Ed's appearance... I don't understand such attitude to storytelling. You let everyone know an old and dearly missed friend is going to reappear; you make everyone wait a long time till it happens; and then you put him in a meaningless scene (I mean at the bar) where he has nothing to do or say; what's the point?

And the only things which really worked for me, regarding Twin Peaks the town, was the ending and the post-ending. Of course the "Roadhouse proudly presents James Hurley" moment was funny, perhaps too easily funny but I liked it, I admit it. One thing is, I do like the Roadhouse endings' mood, I look forward to them. Second, I like James, and he, for one, doesn't seem a self parody. He's always been cool. Third, the girl watching him provided some emotional meaning to this scene so it was actually a scene, not just a guy singing.
And what I called the post-ending, the solitary Ed sitting so sadly at his gas station, now that was a very moving moment, painful (but not to watch!), meaningful. Best moment of the episode.

to be continued...

[BOB1]

Now, because I had a feeling that the girl from Roadhouse might have been one of Shelly's friends from Part 2, I rewatched parts of Part 2 again. And dear, how bad this was. I remembered I didn't like it at first, then I tried to rewatch it soon after and it was no better... in fact the good thing about it was that I would always fall asleep at some point and - heh, until yesterday - I have never actually seen the infamous "nice and wet" scene.

Probably the worst thing for me in Part 2 is... oh what a crappy thing to say ... The Lodge scenes. To begin with, something about the way it looks, makes a very bad impression on me. That wouldn't matter, though, if the scenes convinced me. They didn't. Al Strobel, one of Twin Peaks's and Fire's strongest actors, and a powerful character, seems here like a retired bum who gets a job as security at a dodgy parking lot. Do you remember your doppleganger, yeah let's explain it all, so that there is no mystery left behnd. Then I made myself rewatch the potato tree and I cringed. It is the single worst thing Lynch has ever commited. Laura taking off her face, c'mon, what the hell?! And the Red Room floor moving apart like a piano keyboard, what a terrible thing and how very very useless.
Not to say that scenes from this world were much better. Nice and wet, huh? But also one of the reasons I dislike the first two Parts was the Hastings business. Again the same word: useless. I didn't see then, and I still don't see, what this is all for. Ruth Davenport, headless body, Mr Hastings and his wife (who was she and what do I care?) and their lawyer (same question), an ominous figure in the cell next to Hastings (same question), booooring.

After all that, how great the Shelly/ James/ Chromatics scene feels! By the way, have you noticed that Parts 2 and 13 end in a very similar way? Grace Zabriskie watching TV at home and James at the Roadhouse!

[boske]

Early on in this thread, we went over the plastic look of the new lodge (Super Mario video-game like look and movements). At that time, I was wondering if the evolution of the tree would evolve a bit more by the end of the show, we'll see in a few weeks, and then again, maybe we won't.

[Aqwell]

The floor of the Blacklodge is all CGI, I noticed several glitches in episode 2, in the lodge hallway just before the evolution of the arm scene.
There is a distortion of the floor pattern between Mike's legs, then between the two characters while entering the arm's room.

Spoiler:

There's other glitches (like the door knob and Tammy Preston at the hotel) which are said to have meaning, but I'm not convinced yet.

[Redlodge]

The more I think about all this I think Lynch wants to be talked about whether it's negative or positive and here we are going just that. He is getting these varied reactions to Dougie, Vegas etc... Either that or he is just ignoring the entire thing and has already moved on to something else.
I'm going to watch episode 14 and hope that things start getting better. I am so sick of Dougie it's just sad at this point. I don't know why they did this and I don't know how they are goi g to end this thing but I really hope we get out pal Dale back.

[RedRum]

Hi People,

I guess I should start at the beginning...

I'm a 43 year old professional father of three. I consider myself to be both mature mentally and emotionally and yet I find myself constantly feeling like I've lost something. I feel utterly disappointed that Twin Peaks Season three was turned into an art project rather than a continuation of the series that has stayed with me touching all elements of my life.

I have watched the original series more times than I can count and I know it so intimately and even though there are scenes that make me cringe (Dale and Annie making love / Catherine Martell as Mr. Tojamura) the series was so deep and full of wonder it was impossible to not be lost in the world.

The original series had elements of style that were both cutting edge and retro at the same time that still I aspire too... I think the Original series worked because it was basically a story of the struggle of light vs dark, but there was always more light than dark and hope than despair.

The darkness in the original series dare not show itself in naked form, and if it ever did it was because it was able to get away with it, such as in the act... the darkness was demure and mysterious and dangerous and that made it far more enticing and seductive.

Season one and two were a classy, thoughtful, stylish, thought provoking, mind expanding, wonderful perfection of a series. It had both a sense of realism and hyper fantasy that was strange enough that it was believable, that what was happening was indeed happening.

The story had extra dimensional elements (and we are not talking black or white lodge...) an example is the 'Damn this pie is good' and the hand shakes... The truth behind that was left to speculation but it turns out that there were a couple of things... firstly Hank was running drugs and putting coke in the pie.... when hank went down people were going through withdrawal.

and this brings me to why I am so disappointed with Season three....

You see the depth of thought of the watcher, seems to have overshadowed that of the man who created the series... Season one and two left so many unanswered questions a whole lore has sprung up and often widely accepted among the fan base that season three looks pale in comparison... but this is by no means the main reason I feel utterly gutted about season three.

Season Three has been nothing more than a collage of ideas, a video art style and art project. It does have a coherent story, but that aspect of Season three could be contained within three episodes, the rest of it is an incoherent mess.

The darkness in season three is naked outward and vulgars, to see it in such a way diminishes its potency in the watchers mind. There is very little in the way of goodness... its totally corrupted...

We don't stay long enough with any single character to form any level of attachment to them, the original cast have been pushed the outside fringes of the series as cameos and best loved characters (Good Coop / Sheriff Truman) totally missing from the series. Characters such as Audrey are absolutely not where they should be so everything and everyone is out of place in this series.

Talking about place.... Twin Peaks... we seem to spend next to no time there at all.. and if we do its a scene here or there... there is no real coherent concept of place anymore... If a new viewer were to come into the series they would think the Fat Trout Trailer Park was in Twin Peaks...

Just as the characters and the scenes the locations are all over the place... a total mess....

Its impossible to really connect with the season because of these reasons.

Given this was OUR chance to have that slice of special place the world hasn't touched back.... I feel Lynch has utterly not realised what made Twin Peaks Special... Even Rabbits is more coherent than Season Three of Twin Peaks.

So I wonder how long I will feel low and down hearted for? I am a stable individual as I stated... but I just feel like I could Cry....

Yours,

Tim,

[mlsstwrt]

Welcome Tim and thanks! You pretty much summed up my feelings. Didn't know about Hank putting coke in the pies though, lol. Not sure that would do much. Cocaine isn't particularly orally active and wouldn't cause those physical withdrawals. I read it somewhere, I swear.