Episode 16

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LostInTheMovies
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Episode 16

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Surprised there was no thread for this yet.

I was inspired to make one by checking out the script for the first time and discovering, to my surprise, that Ben is STILL scripted as the killer. And yet in the following script, #17, the first scene clearly identifies Leland as Bob's host and Laura's killer. Even though this was still a month before the reveal episode aired. Weird.
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Re: Episode 16

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It is absolutely baffling, isn't it?

I can understand the broken scripts up through this episode, and the actors only receiving parts of it, that all makes sense.

But we have this one shooting in October as well as the wake. So we have lots of subterfuge to keep the secret. But then with the wake STILL shot at least three weeks before the killer reveal, and what is a national television frenzy that production did not want leaked... How was this done? It seems like all their carefully guarded work could come crashing down.

Could the actors still not know what they were filming? Leland is not mentioned during the scene. Ben is not there. Could they still be in the dark, except for Zabriski, Ontkean and MacLachlan? Do they think the mystery is still going on and maybe Leland was killed? Fenn has the scene that Cooper is leaving, and she and Ashbrook know Ben is in his office.

If I can formulate it better, I'll ask Sherilyn ...but her memory and so many others are foggy about this. But I really am fascinated by it.

For the episode, this one is my most hated, even though I know everyone loves it. There are sloppier ones for sure, but this one is the biggest let down for me. I know, I know I'm in the minority.
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Re: Episode 16

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Audrey Horne wrote:Could the actors still not know what they were filming? Leland is not mentioned during the scene. Ben is not there. Could they still be in the dark, except for Zabriski, Ontkean and MacLachlan? Do they think the mystery is still going on and maybe Leland was killed? Fenn has the scene that Cooper is leaving, and she and Ashbrook know Ben is in his office.

If I can formulate it better, I'll ask Sherilyn ...but her memory and so many others are foggy about this. But I really am fascinated by it.
God, I would love to know that. It would explain so much about that crappy wake scene (although under any circumstances they are unusual cheerful for the wake of someone who died suddenly in their 40s). But it sucks that Warren Frost knows (he's the one medicating Sarah in that scene, right? Unless he left for Coop's and her close-ups which seems a bit overzealous considering he is, after all, the co-creator's father). And yet even he is robbed of what could have been his best scene on the show reacting to a) the terrible news about Leland; b) the terrible realization about Laura; c) the fact that his best friend possibly tried to kill - and certainly made a pass at - Donna too? That would have been a hell of a scene for Doc Hayward. But hey, at least he gets the Little Nicky speech to make up for it, right?

Come to think of it, Warren Frost would have made a strong addition to ep. 16, joining them at the station - a good bookend for ep. 11 where he witnesses Leland's confession to killing Jacques. Maybe it would be too much drama on top of what was already happening but I certainly wouldn't mind losing the Andy/Dick/Lucy and MT Wentz scenes to make room for it.

It's interesting to imagine how this episode would have been different if Lynch directed it. I imagine it's too much closure for him to even consider but I'd guess it would be similar to ep. 29 in that he would throw out a lot of stuff. And it isn't clear to me to what extent he was on board with this version of Leland/Bob so I have to wonder how he would have handled that too. I have to conclude that the identification of the Red Room clues would have been the first thing to go though haha..
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Re: Episode 16

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LostInTheMovies: I think 16 may be your favorite episode, it's the one you talk about the most. :wink:
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Re: Episode 16

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I completely forgot about the Leland, Donna scene. I guess Boyle would know the identity long before the on air premiere too.

Who else... Ferrer, Davis, Beymer, Horse. I wonder if Zabriski was on set after her drugged out crawl coverage was shot.
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Re: Episode 16

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p-air wrote:LostInTheMovies: I think 16 may be your favorite episode, it's the one you talk about the most. :wink:
Haha, actually I know what you mean...the more I have gotten into Twin Peaks the more fascinated I am between the borderlines of what works and doesn't work. I think I've said this before but some of the things that keeps me coming back to Twin Peaks more than other Lynch works are its flaws and/or compromises (which aren't necessarily the same thing). It's so interesting, to me anyway, to see a work at war with itself. Of course it helps that I think ultimately Twin Peaks pulls something from his wreckage and even uses it to make itself stronger.

Episode 17 is a better example of the lurid train-wreck aspect of the series (and for a while last year IT was the one that fascinated me the most) but because 16 is actually quite effective at parts, with some strong imagery and intriguing ideas, it embodies that quintessentially Peaksy tension better than almost anything else.

I love that Twin Peaks is forced to live out and confront its contradictions and uncertainties in a way most shows can avoid or disintegrate under the pressure of. Perverse, I know, but the path of Twin Peaks fans is a strange and difficult one.
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Re: Episode 16

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LostInTheMovies I really agree with you about 16 - it’s a key episode but also frustrating and problematic. I think the part I like the most - besides the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” recitation bit which seems to be almost universally liked - is actually probably the Donna/James scene (“this is no good” etc). It’s interesting because throughout a lot of Twin Peaks we’re getting overloaded with soapy Donna/James/other stuff and longing for a glimpse of the “weird” or the Lynchian or the uncanny or whatever we were promised in Episodes 2/8/9 and elsewhere, but Episode 16 almost gets me thinking the other way around. The murder depicted in 14 and the emergence of Leland as the killer, it seems, ought to start triggering some sort of identifiable, relatable emotional responses from the characters and while we ultimately get that almost nowhere else, we do get it there.
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Re: Episode 16

Post by Rami Airola »

I don't remember if LostInTheMovies has already discussed about this in his videos, or somewhere else, but there are two lines in this episode I've always felt very interesting.

Leland looking at the mirror, looking at Bob:
"...we'll work the problem out... together."

Leland says to Donna:
"May we have this dance?"


In the first line, the word "together" is said in such a obvious manner that makes the word "we" be more about Leland and Bob than Leland and Donna.
In the second line, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it supposed to say "May I have this dance", when someone goes and asks someone for a dance?

Perhaps this has always been a simple and obvious thing, but it raises some interesting questions.
If it's just Bob speaking without Leland's knowing, why does he want to specifically say that "we" are doing this with Leland? I mean, usually Bob is talking only about himself ("I will kill again", "I want to taste through your mouth", "I want you" etc.).

Another possibility is that Leland is actually very much aware of Bob. This is actually the way I originally interpreted it. That Leland has a moment when he is very much aware of his "another personality" or something like that. Now, this doesn't really go well with what happens later in the episode when Leland says he never knew he was inside. But perhaps we could think that Leland sometimes had these moments where he could actually see Bob as his reflection, and maybe he always just forgot it later. Maybe Leland really was a schizophrenic and he would be aware of his "other side" when he was having a really bad moment of schizophrenia.

To me, it's much more interesting to think that it was all Leland who wanted to bring out the "we" in those lines.






Also, the moment when Bob screams and the lightning strikes, is very interesting to me. It kinda connects Bob to electricity for the first time ever. We hear his scream and see the lightning, and when it cuts to Donna, the lightning and the scream immediately stops. So this is all something that doesn't really happen in the physical world, but happens and exists in a more abstract plane. I kinda like to think that it means lightning could be the fury of Bob. "I have the fury of my own momentum."

Now, it could just be all about giving Bob's scream an effective, albeit quite clichéd, emphasis. Sure, there are tons of movies that have thunder and lightning appear when a character screams in torment without any sort of metaphysical context, but I like to think that's not all the added lightning is supposed to mean. Maybe when Bob screams a lightning strikes, or when a lightning strikes Bob screams. Do Bob and other "Lodge inhabitants" move through electricity, or are they in fact deep down electricity themselves? It's quite an interesting thing to think about this as the human brain works with electricity.
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Re: Episode 16

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Rami Airola wrote:Also, the moment when Bob screams and the lightning strikes, is very interesting to me. It kinda connects Bob to electricity for the first time ever. We hear his scream and see the lightning, and when it cuts to Donna, the lightning and the scream immediately stops. So this is all something that doesn't really happen in the physical world, but happens and exists in a more abstract plane. I kinda like to think that it means lightning could be the fury of Bob. "I have the fury of my own momentum."

Now, it could just be all about giving Bob's scream an effective, albeit quite clichéd, emphasis. Sure, there are tons of movies that have thunder and lightning appear when a character screams in torment without any sort of metaphysical context, but I like to think that's not all the added lightning is supposed to mean. Maybe when Bob screams a lightning strikes, or when a lightning strikes Bob screams. Do Bob and other "Lodge inhabitants" move through electricity, or are they in fact deep down electricity themselves? It's quite an interesting thing to think about this as the human brain works with electricity.
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Re: Episode 16

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An episode I can't decide on. So much works, so much doesn't. Can't decide if I like the judge and Sid or not. My opinion changes every time I watch it. Mostly liked the sequences here, though, with the waiter and all the other suspects, the return of the Giant, etc., even though at times it did feel a little Scooby Dooish. I'm okay with the reveal of Laura whispering in Coop's ear, though I can see how some might consider it lazy or even a deux ex machina. I also liked the Donna sequence and the page of the diary (I think it's interesting how in episodes 14, 15, and 16, Donna starts to be given some good scenes and focus again, and almost becomes a likeable character like she was in Season 1 - then they dump it all and give her that awful "You're my Daddy!" story).

I really like the final sequence in the woods, though it looks a little too sparse or set-like or LA-like or something. Love Albert's speech. I wish the CGI effect of the owl had been better, and I also wish they had followed up with the Bob-is-out-there-who-will-he-possess-next storyline it seems to hint at. Alas, after this it all went downhill for a while.
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Re: Episode 16

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I still want so much to post a lot in these episodes threads... but it still has to wait for more time on my side (wonder when that comes? retired? in heaven? :roll: ).

However, it struck me again how surprising it is for me that Ep.16 seems to be controversial over here. Ever since I watched Twin Peaks for the first time, it was always among the very top favourites, for me as well as for anyone who watched it around. Nothing had changed over years until I came to this board...

I might have mentioned that we are slowly rewatching all the episodes with a big group of friends. "Slowly" means meeting about twice a month for two episodes. Never more, sometimes less. So it proceeds slowly. Today was the first time I couldn't have come and I missed two eps which, however, I know by heart: 15 and 16. Brief reports from the meeting were no different than WOW! THAT WAS PERHAPS THE BEST SESSION EVER!... My daughter (watching the whole series for the second time) said: when I watched it first time, Ep.14 was the biggest for me. But this time - Ep.16 beats it!

And that was pretty much my dilemma, too, most of the time: Ep.14 or Ep.16?
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Twin Peaks Out of Order #16: Episode 16

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Re-watching Twin Peaks from my least favorite to favorite episode...

Previously: Episode 1 (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43717#p43717)

And then there were answers. Too many? Not enough? The wrong ones? It's appropriate that episode 16 lands in the middle of my ranking because after seven years and at least seven viewings I still cannot easily summarize how I feel about it. Arguably even more than the unmitigated disaster of episode 17, this is where the ball gets truly dropped. After sixteen episodes of build-up and anticipation, the answer just falls into Cooper's lap in a turn of events that never really feels more than a contrivance to me, although I have a better sense of what they were going for now than I did the first time. Many of the concepts are compelling - a resolution coming through instinct rather than pure deduction, Laura herself playing an active role in solving her own mystery through the diary and dream, the missing ring standing in for Cooper's comprehension of what actually happened to Laura (in a way that will be built upon in both his autobiography and the film Fire Walk With Me, different as those works are in most respects). And yet the highly stylized direction, with its showy angles, rich colors, and dramatic lighting, cloaks what is essentially a matter-of-fact delivery of the material. It unfolds as it would have been described on the page with little understanding of the subconscious intention behind it - there is no sense, as there is in every Lynchian episode, of a secret knowledge that can't quite be articulated but is deeply felt in every gesture or observation. I think the first time I watched episode 16, eager to see how the writers would handle this massive repertoire of suggestion and mood and imagery, I came away with the crushingly disappointed feeling that the emperor had no clothes. Something else that bothers me about the episode now, which I may have brushed over at the time (I may have even initially been relieved by its evasions, at least until I was confronted by the film), is that this matter-of-fact here's-what-it-is delivery applies not only to Cooper's revelation but to the Leland/Bob relationship as well. Potential for ambiguity exists in throwaway lines, the other character's responses to the situation, and expressions or gestures that could have been imbued with a sense of awful knowledge. All of which are exploited to the hilt in Fire Walk With Me, leaving us with an unshakable impression of Leland's responsibility despite Bob's real existence. That ambiguity is lost in 16 because Tim Hunter's admittedly gripping direction is unsubtle enough to suggest greater depths and, unfortunately, because Ray Wise's bravura performance - some of the juiciest scenery-chewing in the entire series - was devoted to the idea of Leland as innocent victim of a completely distinct, maniacal demon. "Is it any easier to believe a man would rape and murder his own daughter?" Cooper asks Truman - and us. "Any more comforting?" No and no, but that's precisely why it's needed. Without that knowledge of Leland's guilt, Twin Peaks becomes little more than a spooky ghost story, fun but meaningless. And this does an immense disservice to all the moments of gravity and consequence (Maddy's murder foremost among them) that the show has gathered along its way to this climactic reckoning. I would not feel comfortable relegating 16 to the bottom of the heap any more than I would feel comfortable elevating it to the top. The best description I've encountered comes from Martha Nochimson: "The show was reaching a crescendo at the same time that it was crumbling." Aside from the many good and bad things it is, there’s one thing it isn't: boring. This is absolutely gripping television from start to finish and it can't help but be momentous, even if it doesn't quite know what to do with that momentum. And there are so many indelible images: the giant appearing against the red curtains, palm out; the golden ring bouncing on the floor; the indoor deluge pounding down on the dripping detective as he holds the dying killer in his arms and recites the Tibetan Book of the Dead; Donna's red lips reciting Laura's words across time and space, emerging from the faded memory of a Red Room; Leland's twisted visage in the jail cell as he transforms into something more feral than human; and Donna's nervous discomfort and terrified reaction as Leland dances too close before grabbing her tight with all the power and desire at his command...a gesture all too human. Ultimately, episode 16 is to Twin Peaks as Bob as to Leland: the familiar appearance cloaks an alien entity inside, something “off” about its movement and delivery that can’t exactly be pinpointed, and yet the two belong to one another. Their compromising synchronicity can't simply be dismissed much as we might wish otherwise.

Next: Episode 25 (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=43780#p43780)
Last edited by LostInTheMovies on Fri Oct 30, 2015 8:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Episode 16

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I was just thinking about how the Tremonds thing - showing up at the house and having it inexplicably be a completely different lady - feels very Lynchian. As does, in theory at least, Laura's diary entry, the giant giving the ring, and some other stuff. More than ever I wonder if/how Lynch had anything to do with conceptualizing the episode even though apparently he had nothing to do with executing it. (Tim Hunter says he wasn't even on set for Leland's death scene.)
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Re: Episode 16

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LostInTheMovies wrote:I was just thinking about how the Tremonds thing - showing up at the house and having it inexplicably be a completely different lady - feels very Lynchian. As does, in theory at least, Laura's diary entry, the giant giving the ring, and some other stuff. More than ever I wonder if/how Lynch had anything to do with conceptualizing the episode even though apparently he had nothing to do with executing it. (Tim Hunter says he wasn't even on set for Leland's death scene.)
Somewhere, someone, maybe you, considered the idea that between the pilot and the finale Lynch had altered, in fact advanced his stylistic approach, as was evident in the camera work and other elements. I, too, noted this evolution (in memoriam how will his "periods" be labeled?) With the exception of Cooper's occasionally retarded (slowed) speech patterns and slightly disengaged affect in #8 (I noticed it in stark contrast to the entire S1 Cooper), the startling Tremond reconfiguration seems like a screaming harbinger of change to me. I didn't start to consider that at first; it happened 10 years later as I was first re-watching via VHS. It was a determined non-soap opera scene (and I had gladly drunk the soap opera kool-aid, being a fierce Twin Peaks apologist). This all happened before any internet communities existed, and I wasn't paying any attention to directors at that point. I'd always assumed that Lynch had consulted with directors just as he had the actors--probably, not true. The Tremond substitute practically constitutes another opening to Lodge activity. This scene remains one of the most unexplained of all for me, its ramifications and its derivation. For example, did Tremond II know Laura Palmer?
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Re: Episode 16

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the haystack wrote:
LostInTheMovies wrote:I was just thinking about how the Tremonds thing - showing up at the house and having it inexplicably be a completely different lady - feels very Lynchian. As does, in theory at least, Laura's diary entry, the giant giving the ring, and some other stuff. More than ever I wonder if/how Lynch had anything to do with conceptualizing the episode even though apparently he had nothing to do with executing it. (Tim Hunter says he wasn't even on set for Leland's death scene.)
Somewhere, someone, maybe you, considered the idea that between the pilot and the finale Lynch had altered, in fact advanced his stylistic approach, as was evident in the camera work and other elements. I, too, noted this evolution (in memoriam how will his "periods" be labeled?) With the exception of Cooper's occasionally retarded (slowed) speech patterns and slightly disengaged affect in #8 (I noticed it in stark contrast to the entire S1 Cooper), the startling Tremond reconfiguration seems like a screaming harbinger of change to me. I didn't start to consider that at first; it happened 10 years later as I was first re-watching via VHS. It was a determined non-soap opera scene (and I had gladly drunk the soap opera kool-aid, being a fierce Twin Peaks apologist). This all happened before any internet communities existed, and I wasn't paying any attention to directors at that point. I'd always assumed that Lynch had consulted with directors just as he had the actors--probably, not true. The Tremond substitute practically constitutes another opening to Lodge activity. This scene remains one of the most unexplained of all for me, its ramifications and its derivation. For example, did Tremond II know Laura Palmer?
Oh I agree completely about the first Tremond scene. I'm family I read somewhere (Brad D's book Reflections maybe) that Frost saw the creamed corn in the dailies and asked Lynch what that was doing there and he said "I saw some creamed corn in the cafeteria today and I just had to include it!" But what I wonder is if it was also his idea to have a different, presumably unrelated Tremond woman living in the house a few episodes later - even though he didn't write or direct that episode.
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