S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

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Which subplot left you most frustrated, wanting more?

Poll ended at Tue Sep 12, 2017 7:33 am

Audrey
49
42%
Sarah Palmer
32
28%
Red/Shelly/Bobby
17
15%
Becky/Steven/Gersten
2
2%
Ben/Beverly
2
2%
Other (please specify)
14
12%
 
Total votes: 116
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mtwentz
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S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by mtwentz »

What was your biggest disappointment about subplots that were left wide open?
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Novalis
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Novalis »

Each disappointed me somewhat, but I have to go with Sarah Palmer.

The really interesting build-up of tension around her character was something I felt had real promise. It would have been fulfilling to have seen some continuation or fall-out from the attack in the bar, and possibly to have spent some more time with her in the dark interiors of the Palmer residence. I genuinely felt she would have some part to play in the final two hours over and above the distressing moaning and the wild scene with Laura's portrait photo. At least she did have this (highly disturbing) moment though, and I like to believe that there was enough resonance between her breath-takingly unnerving home scenes we've already seen, and the dark street scenes in the finale where Laura/Carrie screams and the Chalfont's lights blow that she was, as part of the wider thematic surrounding the creepy old Dutch Colonial house, there in spirit.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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N. Needleman
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by N. Needleman »

I've said this before, but to me the meager sliver of 'closure' on Sarah/Judy is the insidious twist when the clueless Cooper walks into her lair in Odessa thinking he's got it all under control. I think she's already got him in pocket, waiting to be undone when he meets Carrie and then goes to Twin Peaks.

I vote Audrey - I want an answer there and I believe material was cut, possibly for future plans. Everything else is not really important to me; sure, I'd like to know how things shook out with Bobby and Shelly or Ben and Beverly, but that was mostly just snapshots of local color. I think Steven is done and Becky is okay.
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Soolsma
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Soolsma »

I suppose I'm in the vast minority when I express how much I love how the Audrey subplot ended. I feel like delving further in to it would damage what it means or can possibly mean to me.
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Novalis
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Novalis »

Soolsma wrote:I suppose I'm in the vast minority when I express how much I love how the Audrey subplot ended. I feel like delving further in to it would damage what it means or can possibly mean to me.
Let me double this minority then. I'd be just as happy not knowing any more about Audrey's fate. Her blank surroundings say it all as far as I am concerned: her story is ended, this is the last, unfurnished, page.

Which is not to say I can't be persuaded that there could be more. It would have to have a compelling raison d'être though: Audrey is probably not the most interesting part of Twin Peaks, IMO.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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The Gazebo
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by The Gazebo »

It's not one single subplot, but more the complete abandonment of everybody apart from Cooper in the last two hours. I didn't necessarily crave closure, but more understanding of what came in ep 1-16. Instead, it was like Windom Earle just flattening the pieces on the chess board.
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Panapaok
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Panapaok »

Probably Sarah and then Audrey and Shelly/Bobby/Becky. I wish they'd resolve those three and then proceed with the ending with Coop and Carrie.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Dreamy Audrey »

I really wanted a resolution for Sarah/Experiment/Glass box, Audrey/Mr. C/Richard and Shelly/Bobby/Becky/Red. But I am mostly disappointed that none of the plots were resolved and were completely irrelevant. Re-watching parts 1-16 seems pointless now except for a few scenes.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by asmahan »

I voted for Red/Shelly/Bobby, mostly for Red and Shelly, seemed like we were about to head somewhere but never really got close. Really wanted to see more of Balthazar Getty and his magic powers.
Looking back on Audrey, however, there was an arc there. No, we don't know exactly what happened, and Audrey is denied any final cathartic moment, but there's a story there and not a wholly unsatisfying one either.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by The Gazebo »

Dreamy Audrey wrote:Re-watching parts 1-16 seems pointless now except for a few scenes.
Good to see I'm not alone. Even the scenes I love will most likely lose their significance. Gabriel's words early on about a sketch show was pretty spot on. It's not just that dropping all the subplots is disappointing in itself, but I'm really, really struggling to see the motivation behind such an approach.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Snailhead »

Yeah, I was expecting a Mulholland Drive style ending, where our perception of everything would change - what I wasn't expecting was for so much of what we'd been watching to be inconsequential to the conclusion. Like if the actors who played Shelly, Becky, Ben, Beverly, etc showed up in part 18 as different people, even that would have been enough for me. But nope, nothing! Ep 29 was wonderful because it brought everything together again, this was a dismantling. I may grow to love it over time but right now I'm underwhelmed. Not angry or entitled to more, just a little second hand embarasment for the creators cause it feels sloppy.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by counterpaul »

I would argue that there's nothing sloppy about any of this. Lynch and Frost were obviously not interested in conventional "set up" and "pay off" style storytelling, but I think TPTR is all the better (and more coherent!) for it.

It's all about thematic resonance. The Return was Cooper's story. He was there throughout. It all WAS Cooper. It was the story of his endless attempts at reckoning with the past as he let the present pass right by him. People go on and on about how Coop was missing for most of the run but, in my mind, to say that we didn't get to see Cooper except for the brief run from Part 16 through the first half of Part 17 is to profoundly misunderstand who he is as a character and how time has worked on him. In a way, that brief period (less than an hour out of almost 17) was a cartoon--it was the fantasy of how Coop imagines himself, saving the day in an absurd cosmic battle with bad guys and good guys. But he can't hold on to that fantasy for long, and neither can Lynch. That image of his clearly aged, weary face superimposed over the would-be-denouement says so much about what has transpired and what it's really about.

Because cosmic battles aren't the point, and they never were. All the Really Important stuff being investigated by cops and Feds and military folks, all the codes to crack, and powerful mystic forces are the way in to the real stuff: the traumas that define us.

And that's where Audrey and Diane and especially Laura come in. Audrey's story parallels Coop's. She's stuck in her own endless loop, trying to make sense of the past. But it's interesting to note that Audrey's combatting her stasis in a way that Coop isn't. She's tired of it. She wants out. She acknowledges that there's another side to get to. She arguably makes more progress than Coop does.

Diane is changed by Coop, but her relationship to her past trauma is different. She runs from the pain until it catches up with her. But she recognizes it when she sees it and finally she's able to move on. To a point, of course. I doubt she's all better, but she's maybe at least less stuck than Coop and Audrey.

Then there's Laura. Coop keeps coming back to Laura. She suffered profound trauma, and Coop wants to save her from it. He believes that "fixing" things for her will save everyone. But the truth is that she already succeeded where he failed. She transcended. By trying to "save" her, Coop is only dragging her back down. He should be looking to her to save him, but he can't see it.

If you look back at the various storylines in the town of Twin Peaks, you see the theme of the past dictating the present again and again, from Shelly and Becky repeating cycles of abusive relationships, to Bobby half becoming the next generation's Big Ed, to Ben still trying to wrest control over his baser impulses but falling back into his old patterns when his family challenges him to be present in any complex way (falling back into nostalgia as a defense mechanism when things get really tough).

And then there's Jacoby and Nadine. In some ways, they're the real heroes of the piece! Sure, they remain deeply dysfunctional as to how they go about it, but they do--Nadine especially--recognize and break some long-seated patterns. Ed and Norma benefit from Nadine's breakthrough (and certainly Norma has a breakthrough of her own), but it's really Nadine showing the way, at good ol' Dr. Amp's urging to dig her way out of the shit! I don't think it's a coincidence that the first scene we see in the town is Jacoby receiving that shovel delivery.

I don't think Parts 17-18 invalidate the preceding 16 at all! They inform each other complexly, and their relationship is not in any way that clean, every-minute-"matters," rational cause-and-effect style storytelling that I guess most people define as "good writing," but no part of The Return would mean what it does--would resonate as it does--without all the other parts. It's all about thematically informing on Coop's story, and that's just how it should be.

Each storyline beautifully informs and complicates the others and together (S1-S2 and FWWM very much included) they form a wonderfully complex, deeply human story of how trauma works on the collective and individual psyche.
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Mallard
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by Mallard »

Dreamy Audrey wrote:I really wanted a resolution for Sarah/Experiment/Glass box, Audrey/Mr. C/Richard and Shelly/Bobby/Becky/Red. But I am mostly disappointed that none of the plots were resolved and were completely irrelevant. Re-watching parts 1-16 seems pointless now except for a few scenes.
Concur.
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by BOB1 »

Counterpaul, I have no idea how you came up with all of this but well, beautifully written. I don't see any of it in what I've just finished watching but like I said elsewhere, I clearly don't understand what it is all about and I'm not inclined to think about it too much, either. Anyway, when I'm reading your post, it all sounds so good.
Yet why did it feel so bad?
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Re: S3: Biggest Disappointment About Unresolved Subplots?

Post by dud »

honestly, only one thing: who was bad cooper speaking to on the phone in episode 2? why were they trying to kill him? why did this person want to 'be with bob again'? would love to hear some theories on this
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