sylvia_north wrote:David Lynch playing Gordon Cole remains a very important piece of all this. It's too bad it had to rub so many of you the wrong way. I love the layers and all it contributes and ties together
Part of what? Subverting audience expectations? To see Cole as an old school ie inappropriate boss? I don’t think this turn is that unexpected. Imagine if Hitch or Stephen King gave themselves such prominent self effacing parts? It’s more potent in small doses. Cole’s esteem fell in my eyes from this overkill.
Regarding budget constraints, i can’t decide if making time for Cole talking would be better than leaving those things which couldn’t be shown abstract? If they can give us a living supernatural map and have Hawk see curtains in the woods apropos of nothing, why not exploding tulpas etc.
I would say that just about any positive critical reading of the show probably loves what Lynch did with Cole, just as I have observed that many negative reactions, at least on this board, center on Lynch as Cole as being a big problem.
On a basic level, I don't understand the hate since the character himself separated from the actor portraying him would of course become a vital part of telling this story. He's one of two surviving members of the Blue Rose Task Force, and he's partly responsible for Cooper's disappearance. That said, separating the actor from the director, Lynch the actor gives a fantastic and fun performance, in my opinion.
But if we take everything wrapped up together, as we must, I think the basic approach is obvious and I won't be telling you anything you don't already know. Lynch is the director of the film, Cole is the director of the FBI, both know more about what's happening on the show and outside of it than they're leading on. Lynch serves as an anchor to one of the major things the show does very well: the blurring and blending of fact and fiction, fantasy and reality, peeling back the layers to arrive at some sort of truth. These ideas run rampant throughout the show as it riffs on the passage of time and aging and the nature of nostalgia and the idea of reboots and revisiting the past, and contains scenes that either address the real world (the 1% and the housing crash) or seemingly the making of the show (Fenn's dialogue) or drift directly into the real world (Monica Bellucci) and culminates, arguably, with a scene set in our reality with the real owners of the Palmer house. There's metatext throughout and doubles abound, and Lynch's Cole is more evidence of both. There's plenty of other aspects I like about Lynch's Cole, including what you reference: the winking portrayal of an old school boss that may or may not be more fact than fiction, which complicates and/or clarifies the show's un-PC lack of hand holding or modern concerns when it comes to gender. Which I love.
As far as whether Lynch/Cole needed to explain certain elements...well, I'm on the fence about that. On the one hand, I like it as another deconstruction of television/film norms (show don't tell) and as it ties in to the meta-aspect of Lynch as all knowing master of ceremonies, but on the other hand it stops the otherwise obscure narrative in its tracks. But I find myself naturally involved with the narrative and themes on an equal intertwining level, both working at the same time, so it all works for me on that higher level on which I believe the show is mostly functioning. And if he's explaining certain things only because of budget cuts, well, that makes it even better from my POV when thought of in terms of Lynch the director revealing that information, deliberately blending behind the scenes with what we're seeing on screen.