Part 11 - There's fire where you are going (SPOILERS)

[nick1218]

1. There's no reason all of the storylines should resolve. In real life everyone doesn't experience some neat little kind of resolve at the same time, if ever. Lynch famously either avoids resolution, or leaves resolution very much open to interpretation (just look at the various interpretations of the end of Blue Velvet).

2. The entire narrative arc was written ahead of time, over the course of years. They wrote the entire story they wanted to write, then Lynch filmed it, then cut it up and arranged it into "parts". There's not going to be an issue with Lynch having said "Sorry gang, I was so busy filming this stuff I didn't have time to film the whole story that we wrote, so I just stopped at 75%."

There's been a lot of concern along the lines of:

Oh my gosh! THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TIME!
THERE'S. NOT. ENOUGH. TIME!!!

They're telling the story they wanted to tell. The whole thing.

A surprisingly large amount of people act as though they're under the impression that Lynch and company are pumping these parts out week by week, perhaps just finishing a day before the show airs.

No one think that

[frompureair]

Another arm with relevance to the plot?

There are a few, aren't there? Ruth's arm, Gordon's drawing + his "cat on a hot tin roof", all the other shaking arms in the old series / FWWM, James's green-handed friend, the one armed man, the evolution of the arm, Dougie's disappearing hand trick, and this hand/arm from Hawk's map that was discussed a day so ago:

manvomitshand.jpg
Could be a Truman pictured next to it. I'm sure there are other arms I'm missing (the arms on the clock at 2:53?)

Is that a pic of a sheriff going backwards? Are we finally going to see frank go backwards through that corn? Is the black corn a reference to the "black mold" currently killing his brother? I really shouldn't post when I'm high...speaking of I believe that someone is about to run into Jerry in the woods. His phone being blocked mirrored what happened to Diane.

[Jasper]

1. There's no reason all of the storylines should resolve. In real life everyone doesn't experience some neat little kind of resolve at the same time, if ever. Lynch famously either avoids resolution, or leaves resolution very much open to interpretation (just look at the various interpretations of the end of Blue Velvet).

2. The entire narrative arc was written ahead of time, over the course of years. They wrote the entire story they wanted to write, then Lynch filmed it, then cut it up and arranged it into "parts". There's not going to be an issue with Lynch having said "Sorry gang, I was so busy filming this stuff I didn't have time to film the whole story that we wrote, so I just stopped at 75%."

There's been a lot of concern along the lines of:

Oh my gosh! THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TIME!
THERE'S. NOT. ENOUGH. TIME!!!

They're telling the story they wanted to tell. The whole thing.

A surprisingly large amount of people act as though they're under the impression that Lynch and company are pumping these parts out week by week, perhaps just finishing a day before the show airs.

No one think that

Correct, but "act as though" vs. "literally believe exactly this" are not the same thing.

[Wonderful & Strange]

Double post...

[Wonderful & Strange]

I´m wondering if they are going to humanize Red a bit and make him more likeable? I mean the Mitchum brothers were introduced as violent but more classy thugs and look how nice they have become.

I don't know. After this ep I'm more inclined to think Red is supernatural. All hell breaks loose right after he appears. Two children are involved in this right after he appears. Red was the one who set the events of the hit and run in effect during his scene with Richard.

I shook my head at the idea he was the grown up Tremond boy, since that was a spirit, but maybe his connection to corruption and harm of children means he IS the spirit evolved and now independent from the grandmother.

Maybe he'll be humanized. But this one is definitely more than he appears.

Red has nothing to do with the events that transpire after he leaves Shelly -- unless the vomiting girl was on sparkle.

We should always remember that Lynch's aesthetic is usually absurdist in nature, and that means he sees most human events as random and chaotic. As viewers and humans, our first impulse is to try to tie events together under the fallacy of false cause and make narrative meaning -- Red is behind this.

For Lynch, if there is any connection here at all it should be read in terms of the show's overall theme of civilization falling apart. There may be a remote cause or origin to all of that, but nothing so easy and direct as Red.

[Wonderful & Strange]

That's why I don't like the woodsmen. I honestly think it's cause they are extras either overcompensating or with little experience or something

This whole season has had an intentional b-movie vibe, which we saw most clearly in Part 8, but Part 11 also was full of b-horror references. The woodsmen are meant to be campy like a Bela Lugosi film.

This is all part Lynch's expressionist aesthetic, where he not only pays homage to early German expressionism and its descendants, but also part of his avant garde critique of traditional realist representation. The average viewer just assumes that everything is naturally supposed to be represented a certain way, and he subverts that with a variety of other representational strategies.

The avant garde in general values the look of b-cinema exactly because it does humorously subvert "realistic" (according to a certain culture's perceptions of real) representation.

[Ragnell]

I´m wondering if they are going to humanize Red a bit and make him more likeable? I mean the Mitchum brothers were introduced as violent but more classy thugs and look how nice they have become.

I don't know. After this ep I'm more inclined to think Red is supernatural. All hell breaks loose right after he appears. Two children are involved in this right after he appears. Red was the one who set the events of the hit and run in effect during his scene with Richard.

I shook my head at the idea he was the grown up Tremond boy, since that was a spirit, but maybe his connection to corruption and harm of children means he IS the spirit evolved and now independent from the grandmother.

Maybe he'll be humanized. But this one is definitely more than he appears.

Red has nothing to do with the events that transpire after he leaves Shelly -- unless the vomiting girl was on sparkle.

We should always remember that Lynch's aesthetic is usually absurdist in nature, and that means he sees most human events as random and chaotic. As viewers and humans, our first impulse is to try to tie events together under the fallacy of false cause and make narrative meaning -- Red is behind this.

For Lynch, if there is any connection here at all it should be read in terms of the show's overall theme of civilization falling apart. There may be a remote cause or origin to all of that, but nothing so easy and direct as Red.

I agree that there is no proof that Red has anything to do with the events that transpire after he leaves Shelly. But this is a guy who was playing with coin tricks--instruments of fate, who set off a chain of events with Richard that led to a lot of trouble. And now moments after he appears randomly in a scene and leaves... all hell breaks loose.

I absolutely reserve the right to be suspicious of a guy like that in Twin Peaks when the stars are aligning and the lodges might be opening again. The idea that Red is a Magician and is causing chaos in town beyond simply dealing drugs is no less plausible than the possibility Jerry might actually be fighting off a lodge spirit or that the 119 lady and her son are the new Tremonds. It's Twin Peaks, it could go either way.

[Dreamy Audrey]

The wood paneling on the wall looks similar to the wood paneling in the convenience store in FWWM:

I experience the same creepy abandoned house aesthetic with respect to the rooms in the picture Mrs. Tremond-Chalfont gives to Laura in the RR Diner carpark ('this would look nice on your wall') in Fire Walk With Me. I can't recall the exact look but I seem to remember the same wood panelling / dado there also. Highly dilapidated of course. If anyone has images confirming this it would be nice to see them.

Others have commented on the designs of the sofas and chairs being fairly consistent across the spirit realm. I noticed this too. There's a certain type of rich cotton velvet upholstery fabric overprinted with metallic burnished foil (sometimes 'antiqued' or pre-distressed) in an acanthus leaf pattern, after the William Morris style. Interesting choices.

The picture from Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont doesn't have would paneling on the wall, only flower wallpaper (the floor has wood paneling, though). However, someone pointed out that behind the woodsmen in Part 11 there is something that looks like the flower wallpaper in the picture, so it's possible that the Tremond/Chalfont room is upstairs.

[HagbardCeline]

This whole season has had an intentional b-movie vibe, which we saw most clearly in Part 8, but Part 11 also was full of b-horror references. The woodsmen are meant to be campy like a Bela Lugosi film.

The actor who portrayed the piano player is a friend of Lloyd Kaufman's and has appeared in several Troma movies. You may be on to something.

Something that struck me as funny the other day. A friend of mine claimed that his impression of the original Twin Peaks seasons was that the town was a kind of purgatory where anything could happen and Cooper was trapped in purgatory while there and had to earn his way out by defeating his inner demons (Caroline, et. al.). I don't think that Twin Peaks as purgatory is true, but it was a interesting take from someone who watched the first two seasons as they aired, but then never gave Twin Peaks a second thought after that.

I am of two minds on Hawk's map. I wish it had been an element that had been introduced earlier in the series. To have it appear now seems a little too on the nose. It has been fun examining it for clues though. It really makes me wish there was some discussion about the Bookhouse Boys though. With the city in chaos, it should be all hands on deck. Frank seems quite practical when it comes to his approach to the supernatural. I really wish Ontkean had chosen to do the series though. There was just something about him as an actor that radiated good. Forster has that subtle Upstate New York accent and it always throws me off.

[Cappy]

I think Diane is working for Phillip Jeffries, who is actually working against bad Coop. Just a theory.

That kind of makes sense. I suspect that the Woodsmen are acting on Jeffries behalf, and if DIane is in league with Jeffries as well, it might go to reason that she has some sort of understanding with them as well.

So perhaps Diane is working with Jeffries to get back at Cooper... Do we know what Diane's job at the FBI was 25 years ago? Secretary, junior agent perhaps?

[Cappy]

I am of two minds on Hawk's map. I wish it had been an element that had been introduced earlier in the series. To have it appear now seems a little too on the nose. It has been fun examining it for clues though. It really makes me wish there was some discussion about the Bookhouse Boys though. With the city in chaos, it should be all hands on deck. Frank seems quite practical when it comes to his approach to the supernatural. I really wish Ontkean had chosen to do the series though. There was just something about him as an actor that radiated good. Forster has that subtle Upstate New York accent and it always throws me off.

I hope the Bookhouse Boys have some sort of clandestine mission at some point before the series is up. Maybe that's why we haven't seen any of Big Ed and very little of James so far; perhaps both of them have been busy staking out Red and Richard Horne's drug operation.

Also it would be neat to see Bobby and James teaming up in some context, or at least have them bump into each other somewhere.

[manalicream]

The number plate at the site is VR2EK sounds a lot like vortex!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Mr. Reindeer]

The number plate at the site is VR2EK sounds a lot like vortex!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Good catch. And your post was sent from a nexus!

[sylvia_north]

The credits list Penderecki's "Threnody" again, but I don't recall hearing it. Where did it play?

You hear some of it along with some "woo woo woo's" when Becky is about to go off... like a bomb (during phone call to Shelly and when Shelly drives up)

edit: the woo woo's could also be the sound heard in Naido's/American Girls room when the lamp goes off at 2:53

God, the sound design on this show is so freaking rich. I recently got a rescue dog, who is perfect, but thanks to him I can't crank this baby up and rock the house foundations the way I'd like to.

I'm waiting for Lynch to recycle that rad cue from Wild at Heart when they pull up to Perdita's. Also I despise people that sonically torture their dogs with their loud media. I brought a stray chihuahua mix last night and named him Armstrong.

[Deep Thought]

This whole season has had an intentional b-movie vibe, which we saw most clearly in Part 8, but Part 11 also was full of b-horror references. The woodsmen are meant to be campy like a Bela Lugosi film.

This is all part Lynch's expressionist aesthetic, where he not only pays homage to early German expressionism and its descendants, but also part of his avant garde critique of traditional realist representation. The average viewer just assumes that everything is naturally supposed to be represented a certain way, and he subverts that with a variety of other representational strategies.

The avant garde in general values the look of b-cinema exactly because it does humorously subvert "realistic" (according to a certain culture's perceptions of real) representation.

Nicely put. People rasied on contemporary American cinema are used to looking for realism (even Marvel movies!), when realism is but one stream in the cinematic river. True realism is more like John Cassavetes, but "reality based" may be more like what I'm thinking of. I'm sure there's a term for it.