Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

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Dreamy Audrey
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Dreamy Audrey »

cgs027 wrote:Well, this may have been lost in the ep 16 thread, but here goes (courtesy of vicksvapor77):
"Sabrina got back to me on the Cooper age issue. It definitely seems to be a simple continuity mistake (which I won't be telling her haha), which is further emphasized by the case file picture I posted during the marathon. Just thought you guys would like to see!

2017-09-06_8-46-27.jpg"

If you can't see the pic linked, it is Sabrina Sutherland (the producer) stating:
"Cooper Double says he's 25 years older than Richard, which means Richard is 25 years old. It's not saying how old Cooper Double is."

So... this is a huge continuity error (her statement is obviously mathematically wrong -- as debated at great length, if Richard Horne is 25, Mr.C has to be 50 in this equation, which makes Cooper 25 when he goes into the lodge -- NOPE). Are we still going to argue that these are all intentional, for godsakes? I hate that the ending provides an easy out to explain all of this sloppiness away...
"It's not saying how old Cooper double is" :shock: That kind of logic explains a lot of the sloppiness of this series. Don't they have people to proofread the scripts or are they above that? If anyone else did an embarrassing mistake like that, they'd be criticized for lacking basic mathematic skills.

There were also a couple of discussions about the discrepancies in the text messages that Mr. C. sent and Diane received in Part 16. A lot of people said that it couldn't be a continuity error because Lynch was too brilliant to make such sloppy mistakes. Well, it looks now like they are continuity errors, just like Cooper's age. I'm wondering what the people who denied the possibility of Lynch making mistakes are saying now. Do they still think it's sloppy or is it suddenly okay to make mistakes (as long as your name is Lynch)? Because sometimes it feels like opinions are changing when it's in favour of Lynch and it seems hypocritical. Like early on when some people theorized about different timelines, everything is a dream, Audrey is in a coma/delusional, some characters are doppelgangers or tulpas like Mr. C. and Dougie, and so on, these theories were shot down by others and it was said those people weren't familiar with Lynch because Lynch wouldn't do crap or boring stuff like that. But when it looked more like the series would go that direction, suddenly these theories were more popular and and now the going-back-in-time story in Part 17 is suddenly brilliant. Sorry, but this sudden change of opinions really makes me think that things are only brilliant when it's Lynch, while other directors would be criticized for doing the same things :roll:
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by nick1218 »

Phillyfoggy wrote:TR reminds me a bit of two other late career disappointments: EYES WIDE SHUT and the STAR WARS prequels. The former was sloppily edited, visually flat, uninterested in human emotion, and self consciously arty, but got a pass from some people who added some false depth to it by comparing it to Kubrick's earlier better more human works.

And the Star Wars prequels reminds me of TR because it was made by a director visiting an earlier work who forgot the joys of fun vibrant characters and exciting narrative-- and instead got hung up in the self conscious and self-serious mythology he had created that some fans and critics had latched on to.

Meaning, I don't really give a darn about the black lodge or evil Coop or doppelgangers, I liked the town of twin peaks and it's characters.

That said I didn't hate TR. whenever I was ready to give up something would grab my attention. It's just disappointing when a great artist forgets what makes him/her great.
Totally disagree about EWS. I gave a big darn about the lodges and dopplegangers but wanted it inside the world of the town of twin peaks
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by mlsstwrt »

Thanks Boske and Judasbooth! Your contributions have been excellent and I thank you for them.

I guess this thread will wind down soon but, as with TPTR, I'm going to stick with it until the end, whenever that may come.

In the interests of full and frank disclosure to the 'pro' lobby I have to be honest and say that, like Venus, I found the last two episodes gripping at times. But for me they were simultaneously gripping (at times) and terrible. The scenes with Laura were riveting only because I'm so invested in that character thanks to the original, FWWM and her diary. Of course going back to FWWM and creating an alternative timeline to the night of Laura's death is going to be fascinating, whatever direction they take it in. But the substance of the retcon is just awful, worse than anything I could have imagined.

Probably the biggest problem for me with TPTR is how complex the Twin Peaks universe now is. It's massively over the top and the overall effective is dilutive.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by nick1218 »

Dreamy Audrey wrote:
cgs027 wrote:Well, this may have been lost in the ep 16 thread, but here goes (courtesy of vicksvapor77):
"Sabrina got back to me on the Cooper age issue. It definitely seems to be a simple continuity mistake (which I won't be telling her haha), which is further emphasized by the case file picture I posted during the marathon. Just thought you guys would like to see!

2017-09-06_8-46-27.jpg"

If you can't see the pic linked, it is Sabrina Sutherland (the producer) stating:
"Cooper Double says he's 25 years older than Richard, which means Richard is 25 years old. It's not saying how old Cooper Double is."

So... this is a huge continuity error (her statement is obviously mathematically wrong -- as debated at great length, if Richard Horne is 25, Mr.C has to be 50 in this equation, which makes Cooper 25 when he goes into the lodge -- NOPE). Are we still going to argue that these are all intentional, for godsakes? I hate that the ending provides an easy out to explain all of this sloppiness away...
"It's not saying how old Cooper double is" :shock: That kind of logic explains a lot of the sloppiness of this series. Don't they have people to proofread the scripts or are they above that? If anyone else did an embarrassing mistake like that, they'd be criticized for lacking basic mathematic skills.

There were also a couple of discussions about the discrepancies in the text messages that Mr. C. sent and Diane received in Part 16. A lot of people said that it couldn't be a continuity error because Lynch was too brilliant to make such sloppy mistakes. Well, it looks now like they are continuity errors, just like Cooper's age. I'm wondering what the people who denied the possibility of Lynch making mistakes are saying now. Do they still think it's sloppy or is it suddenly okay to make mistakes (as long as your name is Lynch)? Because sometimes it feels like opinions are changing when it's in favour of Lynch and it seems hypocritical. Like early on when some people theorized about different timelines, everything is a dream, Audrey is in a coma/delusional, some characters are doppelgangers or tulpas like Mr. C. and Dougie, and so on, these theories were shot down by others and it was said those people weren't familiar with Lynch because Lynch wouldn't do crap or boring stuff like that. But when it looked more like the series would go that direction, suddenly these theories were more popular and and now the going-back-in-time story in Part 17 is suddenly brilliant. Sorry, but this sudden change of opinions really makes me think that things are only brilliant when it's Lynch, while other directors would be criticized for doing the same things :roll:
They say a lot of art is appreciated more as time passes. I suspect as time passes and the excitement of the new show becomes a thing of the past and people have more time to reflect they will realize what an utter piece of crap we were handed. I think it is hard to admit for some right now.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by nick1218 »

powerleftist wrote:Sometimes I think all of those disconnected ideas where early drafts for films that Lynch (or Frost... probably Lynch though) had kept in a folder during years. Woody Allen said that he writes down ideas for films on pieces of paper, and when he wants to start a new film, he goes to the drawer where he keeps them and picks one of the notes.

Perhaps Lynch had plans to make a movie about a drug dealer who is also a wizard who is dating a waitress who has a troubling daughter who is marrying a sociopath. So he adapted it a little by making Shelly the waitress and voilà, now he can film his pet project.

Perhaps Lynch wanted to make a short film about an old couple who lives in a tower with retro furnitures in space, monitoring evil on Earth, battling evil hobos and frog-insects. So he changed it to be set in the White Lodge (maybe?) and voilà, now he can film that crazy atomic bomb thing he always dreamed of.

I'm surprised no character turned into a cockroach since he wanted to film Kafka's Metamorphosis some time ago. (Wait a minute... Is Dougie a metaphore for this?)
Absolutely, the show feels so disjointed and inconsistent
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

powerleftist wrote: Exactly. People are trying to solve a mystery which is not there. Who wanted to be with BOB again? Do you think Lynch cares? He couldn't care less! He just throws around things hoping something sticks.

Many of you may know that the first appareance of the Red Room was just an idea that got into Lynch's head, like a vision. So he went to film it. He didn't care about what all of that meant. It was cool, and that was it. Everything that The Arm and Laura say it's just gibberish that was later retconned to make some sense. And in that particular time, the sequence worked masterfully.

People spent days trying to figure out why Sarah Palmer freaked out at the supermarket. There is no reason. It just happens, to send a chill down your spine. It has no meaning. It is not a mystery. It is just a thing that happens.
Mark Frost said in an interview some years ago that David Lynch is primarily a stylist. He's great at creating mood and atmosphere, but increasingly adrift, narratively.

Looking at TPTR, I'm reminded of many compromised movies where the studio has insisted on reshoots. In this case, though, it feels like Lynch had a script, but handled it very loosely, with a massive amount of on set directorial ad libbing (he notoriously doesn't storyboard.) When I look at the finished result, I feel like I'm looking at a fairly straightforward storyline that has been bloated out of all proportion.
Last edited by Gabriel on Thu Sep 07, 2017 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
claaa7
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

nick1218 wrote:
Phillyfoggy wrote:TR reminds me a bit of two other late career disappointments: EYES WIDE SHUT and the STAR WARS prequels. The former was sloppily edited, visually flat, uninterested in human emotion, and self consciously arty, but got a pass from some people who added some false depth to it by comparing it to Kubrick's earlier better more human works.

And the Star Wars prequels reminds me of TR because it was made by a director visiting an earlier work who forgot the joys of fun vibrant characters and exciting narrative-- and instead got hung up in the self conscious and self-serious mythology he had created that some fans and critics had latched on to.

Meaning, I don't really give a darn about the black lodge or evil Coop or doppelgangers, I liked the town of twin peaks and it's characters.

That said I didn't hate TR. whenever I was ready to give up something would grab my attention. It's just disappointing when a great artist forgets what makes him/her great.
Totally disagree about EWS. I gave a big darn about the lodges and dopplegangers but wanted it inside the world of the town of twin peaks
wow.. yeah Eyes Wide Shut is a really good movie, on par with Kubrick's other classics like "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon" imo. how you get visually flat from that movie is beyond me. it could have benefited from another round in the editing room trimming some fat off a few scenes but that's minor.. we are all turned on by different things in film, music and litterature but this common attitude to explain differing opinions as syncophants seeing things that aren't there whenever something doesn't mesh with your experience is total BS. it comes off as "nah i am the supreme authority on what is good filmmaking so obviously these fools are forcing themeselves to see things that are not there", it's quite disgusting.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by LurkerAtTheThreshold »

Wow. I remember being in this thread during the days when it was blasphemy to speak ill of the the return.

Now it's over 300 pages, and as many in this thread predicted, after the suspense was lifted and it was all laid out, Season 3 is in an easier beast to judge for exactly what it is, and all sorts of critics are coming out of the woodwork.

Not trying to be snooty and superior. I think everyone's reaction to this polarising series are valid. Whilst they're have been psychotic defenders on both side of the debate as to the worth of this thing--Frankly I'm beyond sides, but it's good to have a place to lay out my own feelings after the fact.

All being said, this was a fascinating experiment of a series, the fact that it was such a non comforist piece of television remains a favourable aspect. For me, it seems clear that the concept of reviving Twin Peaks with the iconic Agent Cooper as a mere shadow-- was a paramount mistake of narrative choice. It was as bad a decision as we all felt at the start, and remained so until the end. What we got was an emptional and profound piece of art, which expressed accurately the despair and longing of the return of a 25 year old murder mystery, and the age of the creators-- existential ennui and trauma---from a series which had long devolved into an extra dimensional x files story.

There were many intense and interesting moments in this series, enough to make it fascinating. As a story in its own right, it was beyond terrible. In fact, if the series didn't have the original icon to lean on, what we got would be purely unwatchable.
This series was full of conceptual bungles, terrible devices, poorly formed plots, bad fiction that lead to dead ends. Some of the special effects and dialogues bordered on the most hilariously terribly works of art-- from Ed Wood to Neil Breen to Tommy Wiseau which will no doubt grant it cult status for years to come.

In a final analysis, the difference between what the creators wanted to depict and what came out on screen-- told more, I think, than the creators were probably willing to confess.

If one were to pick out the positives of this lengthy and at times arduous, even tedious 18 hours-- they might sight; some fascinating new characters, the Mitchum brothers stellar performance, Naomi Watts and Kyle Machlachlan fulfilling their left of field roles with wilderness cunning. A solid core police procedural, reuniting cult characters Gordon Cole, Albert Rosenfield, and new faces Tammy and Diane-- in a narrative which may have been interesting had it not strayed to far into its own insular, deatached world-- add meanwhile an enlivened core at twin Peaks Sherrif department with highlighted Bobby Briggs, Frank Truman and Hawk-- who unfortunately never found satisfying resolution in the half arsed deus ex machina show down in part 17.

As a self homage to David Lynch, we saw some visual treats-- from the haunting episode 8 channeling Kubrick and eraserhead-- to the Mullholland drive finale.

What failed was everything else along the way. Unfortunately strong acting from prolific actors such as Mathew Lillard and the detectives Fusco was not enough to forgive the poor trail of red herrings and failed leads which suffered from pointless abandon. From Jade, to the assassins working for Loraine, to Duncan Todd and many other byline characters on the way-- the plot never managed to convince the audience that there was any purpose to the building 'suspense'. This caused nauseous and dispiriting groans, from the revelation of Jacobys shovels, to the pointless 119 lady, to the random scabs in the roadhouse, Jerry Horne, Audrey, Richard, Becky, Red, the fireman, number based clues like 4:30 and coordinates of Mr C--- none of the developments of this series felt worthwhile.

It wasn't merely that the payoff was dismal, there was a missed directive-- dare I say -- incompetence -- in the story telling.
Any first grade film maker or screenwriter will be taught that any introduction in a narrative should meet a pay off. This story not only failed to do so, it took a strong world, already built that was hard to fuck up -- and mutilated it so pathetically, like a child kicking over their own sandcastle they had built. It doesn't take a kettle born Phillip Jeffries to realise there is something slippery going on inside this project.

I hate to put sole blame on one individual-- however, just as many slammed Mark Frosts secret history book for displaying his conspiratorial tendencies-- the faults of the return seem to lay primarily on poor choices by the returns director David Lynch.

Yes, Lynch is a seventy year old geriatric who hasn't made anything for twenty years. Perhaps we can forgive him some for his inability to make a coherent narrative. I might be more willing to do so, were it not for the so obvious points of narcissism which detracted from this show.

The Gordon Cole story, wasn't what I invested myself in. Yes, Gordon Cole can still get an erection. Great. Good, he hangs out with French girls and likes looking at Chrysta Bella arse. I might forgive this if he was not so distracted being on screen he was capable of still doing his job as director. Evidently, he wasn't.

Jai Do-- represents everything an ageing David Lynch though he could get away with, and couldn't. Unfortunately, this old dog has no new tricks. Everything we've seen in this series was a tried and overplayed device of Lynch's hay day.

The most dissapointing aspect of the finale, was that Lynch couldn't stop at merely ruining the return, he had to turn both Fire Walk with me and the original series into a pointless dream sequence with no context or meaning.

I remember in year four when my grade school teacher scolded my creative writing and said 'No matter what you do... never finish a story with the banal conclusion 'it was all a dream.'

Apparently whilst Lynch was studying painting he never graduated from creative fiction class.'

But sorry if watching Kyle Machhlachlans face superimposed over the climax of an 18 hour series wasn't enough to make me praise this work as Lynch's swan song.

He may stilll be able to get it up, but Lynch is clearly beyond the day's of being able to weave a marginally coherent narrative.

"Albert, I'm sorry, but I don't understand this situation at all"
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Eva Marie »

I don't buy that DL was ever really walking away from this project. He was just playing dirty Hollywood politics. Wasn't he already contractually bound by that point? He threw a bluff he had a 99% chance of winning because poor suckers like us old TP fans and the actors would twist Showtime's arm. This is exactly what happened. Another poster here was right in saying that by taking the high road Showtime washed its hands off this disaster. No one can blame them and I hope that this taught other cable networks/streaming providers an important lesson about indulgence.

I also agree with another opinion here about not believing in personal genius. I believe in the genius of individual projects. With the original TP the starts aligned to let all kinds of unlikely favourable things happen simultaneously, but sadly that particular lightning only struck once.

As for TV being great these days: I wholeheartedly agree. We live in the best TV age there has ever been. These days tiny brave shows that take real risks can actually survive with a niche audience and get acclaim. The international and Hollywood TV scene has finally learnt to cater to smart viewers with high artistic standards. I've practically abandoned cinema in the last couple of years. I could maybe understand how something like TR could be hailed as experimental and flying in the face of conventional programming and thus forgiven for abysmally poor quality...had it been made BEFORE the TV revolution of the last 2 decades or so. These days it just sounds dishonest. You have the option of watching even something as ' out there' as Swedish detectives dealing with shamans in the Arctic Circle while speaking Sami!!! (Midnight Sun). It's not as if there's Kardashian's butt on channel 1 and TR on channel 2 and that's it. So no excuses!
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Quarry70Viet »

I had low expectations before watching the return, having seen shortly before s1-s2 and fwwm.
But I could not have guessed how low it could fall.
All the things I enjoyed were not there. The many plots and subplots of town and charachter relationships in first two seasons.
Shady deals with the mill, hôtel, even the who killed Laura even if least important.
I would like to know what writers had in mind, as I find unlikely Leland as the murderer was what they had in mind, seeing how clues for another charachter made so much more sensé and without the possessed man thing.
The show nose dived for me as the black, white lodge, red room took more and more the focus of the show.
After that it was difficult to make a fully satisfying show even if it still had some interesting moments.

But I must be one of the not bright people that care about story telling.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Eva Marie »

The Dougie storyline had potential. MacLachlan and Watts were so well matched in it: he's gifted at really minimalist acting and she's great at just the right amount of OTT, so they fit together like ying and yang. If this was a separate film with say, him as a kind-hearted stroke patient and her as his wacky wife - it could work beautifully. As long as it was without all the vortexes and magic and not called Twin Peaks.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Eva Marie »

I had zero expectations personally. I didn't follow all the gossip and drama about the new series for the past 3 years and didn't even start watching the show until part 10. I just wanted some kind of follow up to the giant "How's Annie?" cliffhanger - not too much to ask.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by mlsstwrt »

I think the most damning indictment of The Return is that it has us calling for MORE studio interference. Never would have seen that coming :lol:

I'm not persuaded by the Lynch doesn't care about the money because he was willing to walk away argument. Wasn't his problem with the budget? Well TPTR clearly cost about $50 to make so can only imagine the 'budget' was his pay check.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by powerleftist »

Yrev very insightful comments!
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

LurkerAtTheThreshold wrote:Wow. I remember being in this thread during the days when it was blasphemy to speak ill of the the return.

Now it's over 300 pages, and as many in this thread predicted, after the suspense was lifted and it was all laid out, Season 3 is in an easier beast to judge for exactly what it is, and all sorts of critics are coming out of the woodwork.

Not trying to be snooty and superior. I think everyone's reaction to this polarising series are valid. Whilst they're have been psychotic defenders on both side of the debate as to the worth of this thing--Frankly I'm beyond sides, but it's good to have a place to lay out my own feelings after the fact.

All being said, this was a fascinating experiment of a series, the fact that it was such a non comforist piece of television remains a favourable aspect. For me, it seems clear that the concept of reviving Twin Peaks with the iconic Agent Cooper as a mere shadow-- was a paramount mistake of narrative choice. It was as bad a decision as we all felt at the start, and remained so until the end. What we got was an emptional and profound piece of art, which expressed accurately the despair and longing of the return of a 25 year old murder mystery, and the age of the creators-- existential ennui and trauma---from a series which had long devolved into an extra dimensional x files story.

There were many intense and interesting moments in this series, enough to make it fascinating. As a story in its own right, it was beyond terrible. In fact, if the series didn't have the original icon to lean on, what we got would be purely unwatchable.
This series was full of conceptual bungles, terrible devices, poorly formed plots, bad fiction that lead to dead ends. Some of the special effects and dialogues bordered on the most hilariously terribly works of art-- from Ed Wood to Neil Breen to Tommy Wiseau which will no doubt grant it cult status for years to come.

In a final analysis, the difference between what the creators wanted to depict and what came out on screen-- told more, I think, than the creators were probably willing to confess.

If one were to pick out the positives of this lengthy and at times arduous, even tedious 18 hours-- they might sight; some fascinating new characters, the Mitchum brothers stellar performance, Naomi Watts and Kyle Machlachlan fulfilling their left of field roles with wilderness cunning. A solid core police procedural, reuniting cult characters Gordon Cole, Albert Rosenfield, and new faces Tammy and Diane-- in a narrative which may have been interesting had it not strayed to far into its own insular, deatached world-- add meanwhile an enlivened core at twin Peaks Sherrif department with highlighted Bobby Briggs, Frank Truman and Hawk-- who unfortunately never found satisfying resolution in the half arsed deus ex machina show down in part 17.

As a self homage to David Lynch, we saw some visual treats-- from the haunting episode 8 channeling Kubrick and eraserhead-- to the Mullholland drive finale.

What failed was everything else along the way. Unfortunately strong acting from prolific actors such as Mathew Lillard and the detectives Fusco was not enough to forgive the poor trail of red herrings and failed leads which suffered from pointless abandon. From Jade, to the assassins working for Loraine, to Duncan Todd and many other byline characters on the way-- the plot never managed to convince the audience that there was any purpose to the building 'suspense'. This caused nauseous and dispiriting groans, from the revelation of Jacobys shovels, to the pointless 119 lady, to the random scabs in the roadhouse, Jerry Horne, Audrey, Richard, Becky, Red, the fireman, number based clues like 4:30 and coordinates of Mr C--- none of the developments of this series felt worthwhile.

It wasn't merely that the payoff was dismal, there was a missed directive-- dare I say -- incompetence -- in the story telling.
Any first grade film maker or screenwriter will be taught that any introduction in a narrative should meet a pay off. This story not only failed to do so, it took a strong world, already built that was hard to fuck up -- and mutilated it so pathetically, like a child kicking over their own sandcastle they had built. It doesn't take a kettle born Phillip Jeffries to realise there is something slippery going on inside this project.

I hate to put sole blame on one individual-- however, just as many slammed Mark Frosts secret history book for displaying his conspiratorial tendencies-- the faults of the return seem to lay primarily on poor choices by the returns director David Lynch.

Yes, Lynch is a seventy year old geriatric who hasn't made anything for twenty years. Perhaps we can forgive him some for his inability to make a coherent narrative. I might be more willing to do so, were it not for the so obvious points of narcissism which detracted from this show.

The Gordon Cole story, wasn't what I invested myself in. Yes, Gordon Cole can still get an erection. Great. Good, he hangs out with French girls and likes looking at Chrysta Bella arse. I might forgive this if he was not so distracted being on screen he was capable of still doing his job as director. Evidently, he wasn't.

Jai Do-- represents everything an ageing David Lynch though he could get away with, and couldn't. Unfortunately, this old dog has no new tricks. Everything we've seen in this series was a tried and overplayed device of Lynch's hay day.

The most dissapointing aspect of the finale, was that Lynch couldn't stop at merely ruining the return, he had to turn both Fire Walk with me and the original series into a pointless dream sequence with no context or meaning.

I remember in year four when my grade school teacher scolded my creative writing and said 'No matter what you do... never finish a story with the banal conclusion 'it was all a dream.'

Apparently whilst Lynch was studying painting he never graduated from creative fiction class.'

But sorry if watching Kyle Machhlachlans face superimposed over the climax of an 18 hour series wasn't enough to make me praise this work as Lynch's swan song.

He may stilll be able to get it up, but Lynch is clearly beyond the day's of being able to weave a marginally coherent narrative.

"Albert, I'm sorry, but I don't understand this situation at all"
Thanks for a great post, you make some great points, many of which views i share. I still like the show a lot and it was full of brilliant scenes, imo, but the lack of payoff, the retcons, etc is truly baffling. I just rewatched pts. 1 to 4 and theres so many interesting storylines set in motion that the way it developed is quite insane.

However i dont see how these problems are laid solely at Lynchs door when, to me, the problems i have with the show is mostly related to the script. And what you mention mostly relates to that as well.
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