Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne

User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

For some reason, I thought I had done this a while back but I guess not. So the halfway point is a good time to get this thread going. I will use it to organize/update my continuing coverage of the show via a viewing diary. Every Sunday, within a few hours, my first response goes up. I try to avoid reading any coverage or participating in any discussion beforehand (although occasionally I'll post an image or a thought on Twitter while I'm writing, and engage with a few replies) so it can just be my fresh thoughts. These aren't really recaps, they are more like general reflections.

Here are all the parts so far. I'll update week by week, as well as replying with links to the newest entries.

Parts 1 & 2 - "My log has a message for you." & "The stars turn and a time presents itself."
Part 3 - "Call for help."
Part 4 - "...brings back some memories."
Part 5 - "Case files."
Part 6 - "Don't die."
Part 7 - "There's a body all right."
Part 8 - "Gotta light?"
Part 9 - "This is the chair."
Part 10 - "Laura is the one."
Part 11 - "There's fire where you are going."
Part 12 - "Let's rock."
Part 13 - "What story is that, Charlie?"
Part 14 - "We are like the dreamer."
Part 15 - "There's some fear in letting go."
Part 16 - "No knock, no doorbell."
Parts 17 & 18 - "The past dictates the future." & "What is your name?"
Last edited by LostInTheMovies on Mon Sep 04, 2017 1:23 am, edited 7 times in total.
Cipher
RR Diner Member
Posts: 250
Joined: Thu May 04, 2017 7:20 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Cipher »

I am radically on board with the way you give voice to concerns over the way the series seems to be using Lynch visuals to illustrate Frostian concepts at this point (per your episode 9 review), coming at the risk of trading the visceral impact for the cerebral.

That isn't to say there haven't been moments of spectacular beauty in the new season so far -- moments of Dougie-Coop's slow self-discovery, episode eight viewed as a stand-alone study of cosmic forces drawing on the series' iconography more so than its dual role as an origin for the series' mythology -- but I do worry with each passing plot development that the world of the Lodges mag be too tidily explained in the context of a surface-level struggle between good and evil, life and death. In the original series, Lynch's Lodge visuals were so removed from the core plot movements, to a certain extent, that they retained the full sense of the uncanny. And Fire Walk With Me, by repurposing the supernatural elements in the context of Laura's trauma and the series' larger fascinations of love and fear (not good and evil), remains the perfect marriage of their imagery with the plot-level goings on of Twin Peaks.

I do love the Lodge mythos, and the show remains rapturously entertaining, but I'm finding more and more that some of the Frost elements, much as he helps give momentum to a serialized narrative and is essential to Peaks' identity, may prevent the series from being quite the perfectly impactful culmination of Lynch's talents I find, say, Inland Empire to be.

Or it could simply deliver another episode 8, as I hope and suspect it might before the end of its run, and if it isn't too bogged down in the mechanics of its own mythology by then, my fears will be totally assuaged. Laura's name also, as you point out, signals good things for the return of the emotional core to the Lodge plot.

In the same review, I find myself actually liking the idea that we may never get more than glimpses into the new residents of the town. I'm not sure I fully believe that's going to be the case, but there is a certain poignancy to the idea -- one that might offset the more literal movements of the Cooper/Lodge plot, especially if I know to read them that way on rewatches rather than as the initial seeds of serialized mysteries.

Thanks for the excellent write-ups!

EDIT -- Your review of Part 6, my second favorite episode and possibly the most challenging, surpassing even Part 8, was marvelous. The best study of that particular hour, with all its high highs and contradictions, I've seen.

EDIT EDIT -- While the end of your Part 8 review is beautiful, I absolutely cannot get on board with the idea that our 1956 frog-insect is Laura, largely because the idea of her arrival on Earth being heralded by two violent murders and an act visually and viscerally reminiscent of sexual violation simply doesn't track for me with her role in the story. It takes a character who's largely a rejection of violation and makes her complicit in it. Rather, I read the scene with the orb as representing the idea of Laura being sent to Earth as the personal rejection to Bob's form of personal evil (she could be any/all victims, but part of her power in this scene is also that she's a particular victim/rejection to a particular abuser). She doesn't need to gestate as a literal entity in her mother, or anything like that. For Lynch, throughout all his film work, mundane, personal cruelty has always been tied to grandiose, magical, large-scale evil, and I think there's an honesty to that in the way both consume the whole of external lives. It's one of the reasons I'm particularly glad Twin Peaks has made a connection between Bob's small-scale, personal abuses witnessed throughout the series and the large-scale apathy/cruelty of the atomic bomb. It's also one of the reasons I reject the idea that Bob should be any more grandiously supervillainish, even given the Trinity Test origin. I'm looking forward to seeing how a post-FWWM Laura is re-invoked as a foil.

I'll probably respond to future reviews in the form of comments on the actual entries. Just playing catch-up right now!
User avatar
Soolsma
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1426
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2015 12:28 pm
Location: Peru

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Soolsma »

I'm a man of few words myself but I sure love reading up on your blog every now and then!
Carrie Page: "It's a long way... In those days, I was too young to know any better."
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

I added 2 new entries to the list:

Part 10 - "Laura is the one."
Part 11 - "There's fire where you are going."

I think the first was less momentous than expected (though I loved the bit with the door), and the second was way more tense/exciting than almost anything before.
User avatar
Novalis
RR Diner Member
Posts: 431
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 3:18 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Novalis »

Love your recaps, LostInTheMovies. They are informative and descriptive, and one of the best things outside of a rewatch for reliving the experience.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
User avatar
Panapaok
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1025
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2015 9:07 am

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Panapaok »

Great stuff, as always, Joel. Reading your reactions is one of the first things I do after every episode.
This is - excuse me - a damn fine cup of coffee.
User avatar
Jasper
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1138
Joined: Wed May 08, 2013 9:24 am

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Jasper »

Joel, I'm very much looking forward to A Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Return! :D
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Thanks, everyone! Part 12 is up: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/07/ ... -rock.html

Attempting to articulate my thoughts/feelings after each installment is both rewarding and frustrating. I'm really glad I'm doing it as it will be impossible to recall these first impressions when the whole bumpy ride is over...hell, it's sometimes hard for me to recall how I felt at the beginning of an episode when I reach the end.
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Part 13 is up: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/08/ ... ry-is.html

Accepting that the story will not take any sharp turns until it's almost over. I'm convinced that Cooper won't "emerge" from Dougie any time soon. Nor will the sheriff's crew make it to Jack Rabbit's Palace before pt16. Hell, I don't even think Audrey's gonna make it to the Road House in the following episode. However, Becky will get her cherry pie next week.
User avatar
Jasper
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1138
Joined: Wed May 08, 2013 9:24 am

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Jasper »

Hmm. Joel neglected to post his part 14 review in this thread, but he wrote it, so here it is in case anyone missed it.

http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/08/ ... -like.html
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Thanks Jasper, totally forgot somehow! And here's Part 15: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/08/ ... -some.html
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Parts 17 & 18: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/09/ ... -past.html

And then there were none.

(Or were there?)
djerdap
RR Diner Member
Posts: 237
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:42 am

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by djerdap »

Excellent write-up on Parts 17 and 18, Joel. We have similar interpretations about Cooper and what transpired in the end.

I am so tremendously relieved. I was watching Part 17 with total dread, horrified by some of the choices made by Frost and Lynch. I am inclined to say that Part 18 was brilliant, since I cannot stop thinking about it, making a lot of Part 17 better in retrospect. Can't wait to see it again.
https://thirtythreexthree.wordpress.com/ - 33x3: 33 favourite films by 33 directors, 33 favourite books by 33 authors, 33 favourite albums by 33 musicians and 3 favourite TV series
User avatar
Novalis
RR Diner Member
Posts: 431
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 3:18 pm

Re: Lost in the Movies on Twin Peaks: The Return

Post by Novalis »

LostInTheMovies wrote:The conclusion produces so many mysteries that it can't be "spoiled" even by watching. Lynch may view that as the ultimate "spoiler" - not something that is learned ahead of time, but something that is learned concretely at all. As Cooper's own failures tell us, the harder we try to knock at the door, the more certainly we'll be shut out. The house whose windows darken, as if to emphasize that he's forbidden from treading its doorstep, closes The Return off with an emphatic "no." The silent whisper that follows has a taunting feel, traumatic as much for its unreachability as for what Cooper's expression leads us to dread. This is it, this is how the story ends, or rather doesn't end, can never end: with Cooper learning something we can't share, and which perhaps even he doesn't understand.
This is so perfect a characterisation of how I received part 18. Tremendous writing, and a huge inspiration. Thank you for all your work.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
Post Reply