Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[mlsstwrt]

I keep half expecting to be won over by each new episode but just grow progressively more unhappy with this. I genuinely can't understand the overwhelming praise for the latest episode but then I guess most probably can't understand how anyone doesn't adore it. There seem to be a few who can bridge the gap but I'm not one of them.

Edit: You know, I'm guilty of being too diplomatic I think, so I'm just going to say it. This is a show called 'Twin Peaks'. And it felt like half of this was set in Las Vegas. LAS F***KING VEGAS!! I didn't read the spoiler thread before The Return began but I knew some of it was going to be set in Nevada. I had the eerie desert in mind, not some Golden Nugget level casino.

[Bookworm]

i can't be the only one. please someone. 10 down. 8 to go. i'm just feeling like we could have had an epic storyline involving cooper hunting down his doppelganger already. but just another hour of retard coop, a bunch of characters that probably won't get fleshed out. no big ed yet. and another 10 minutes at the roadhouse. i love twin peaks. and i'm really trying. i promise. i'm really trying.

This season is "DroolCoop Peaks."

I think if we were told in advance that this season would feature a mentally absent zombie Dale Cooper for most of it's run (perhaps all of it) as well as an extremely unsympathetic yet one dimensional Diane, most people would have quite a negative reaction to that.

And yet that's exactly what we got.

It's not the fact that Lynch isn't trying to please fans. That's perfectly ok in my book. It goes beyond that.

Anyway, still watching for the good moments here and there, and I want to see how they tie up some of the main loose ends.

Well, that episode was really disappointing for me. Only eight episode left and I'm now convinced that ZombieCoop won't snap back until the last episode. If he snap back at all. I feared something like that would happen back before the season aired. Dale Cooper, my favorite character from any show ever, reduced to this idiot retard from now more than half part of the season is really hard to take. And don't make me start on that absolutely stupid and not funny at all scene where Janey-E get on with her retarded husband. How but look, Coop is smiling he's enjoying it, so everything is fine. I fear now that Cooper is going to be useless in the grand shame of things. He won't accomplish anything. If he ever snap back everything will be already done. No confrontation with his doppelganger, no real return to Twin Peaks. How cruel it was from David Lynch to say that new season is centered on Cooper. Yeah, it was, sadly not the right one. Don't get me wrong I quite like DoppelCoop story but he wasn't even in the episode at all (And don't point the photo he was on, it doesn't count!)

And frankly those musical parts are really getting on my nerves too. Useless and screen waste. For now I'll just fast forward throughout that part or just plainly stop right there.

I don't think I would be able to handle a new sex scene between Janey-E and Cooper.

Oh and Richard is apparently Audrey's son conceived while she was in coma. Yeah, in ICU no less. I hope Ben hold the whole hospital accountable and sued their ass out, because it seems you can sneak into ICU, rape a young woman their and leave unnoticed (well except for one particular doctor)

I'm going to go with the hope it was just one episode but that very hope is growing thin, very thin. I'm going to keep watching but just because by now I'm only really interested by DoppelCoop plot. As far as I'm concerned, Cooper is dead and will never come back.

[LurkerAtTheThreshold]

I'm so confused about how I feel about this show. This episode threw me again. Can't tell if I love it or hate it.

Episodes 7 and 9 restored my confidence in Lynch as a director. because it seemed like everything was deliberately planned, even the sweeping scene. But I really thought by episode ten that we wouldn't have these pointless disconnected roadhouse scenes anymore. So much of this just Lila and drags. I'm getting really sick of feeling bored. It feels so poorly constructed. Inland Empire was always disconcerting to me and sometimes I really wonder wether Lynch has the skills as a storyteller.

Anyway, at the same time, I liked a lot in this episode. I love Belushi and the Las Vegas people, though I can understand the criticism of people who are sick of Las Vegas in their Twin Peaks. I don't know.

What the hell is going on with this show?

Is David Lynch actially mentally ill and having a public nervous breakdown, like those scenes where the clown goes homicidal and crazy and everyone just laughs?

[mlsstwrt]

I hate the Roadhouse scenes. Despise them. That was like a poverty version of Crying Over You in Mulholland Drive (I adored that scene).

I'm not saying I would necessarily despise the Las Vegas stuff in another show but this is Twin Peaks. I don't understand how people can be so accepting of the Lynchian mish mash as compared to the fairly self enclosed, magical place that we had before. You wouldn't put NIN in Narnia would you. Well would you?!!!!

Lynch isn't the only one who is losing it.

[The Gazebo]

I keep half expecting to be won over by each new episode but just grow progressively more unhappy with this. I genuinely can't understand the overwhelming praise for the latest episode but then I guess most probably can't understand how anyone doesn't adore it. There seem to be a few who can bridge the gap but I'm not one of them.

Edit: You know, I'm guilty of being too diplomatic I think, so I'm just going to say it. This is a show called 'Twin Peaks'. And it felt like half of this was set in Las Vegas. LAS F***KING VEGAS!! I didn't read the spoiler thread before The Return began but I knew some of it was going to be set in Nevada. I had the eerie desert in mind, not some Golden Nugget level casino.

I hear you. I guess those of us who are gradually won over (for now, but I still fear a sense of overall disappointment after ep. 18) have been desensitized to the drastic change in tone/mood/location/etc, accepting the show on its own premise.

[mlsstwrt]

I keep half expecting to be won over by each new episode but just grow progressively more unhappy with this. I genuinely can't understand the overwhelming praise for the latest episode but then I guess most probably can't understand how anyone doesn't adore it. There seem to be a few who can bridge the gap but I'm not one of them.

Edit: You know, I'm guilty of being too diplomatic I think, so I'm just going to say it. This is a show called 'Twin Peaks'. And it felt like half of this was set in Las Vegas. LAS F***KING VEGAS!! I didn't read the spoiler thread before The Return began but I knew some of it was going to be set in Nevada. I had the eerie desert in mind, not some Golden Nugget level casino.

I hear you. I guess those of us who are gradually won over (for now, but I still fear a sense of overall disappointment after ep. 18) have been desensitized to the drastic change in tone/mood/location/etc, accepting the show on its own premise.

Thanks man, at least you don't feel it's completely unreasonable to be disappointed that most of Twin Peaks isn't set in Twin Peaks. This is another thing I don't get about the attacks on those of who who aren't exactly loving this. We keep being told it's our fault we don't like it because we expect more of the same. I mean, yeah, that's the show we fell in love with and the one we were so excited to see come back. We couldn't wait to revisit that world. Even if this is the most amazing thing there has ever been on television it's still so different from Twin Peaks as to be almost a standalone work.

[Agent327]

I hate the Roadhouse scenes. Despise them. That was like a poverty version of Crying Over You in Mulholland Drive (I adored that scene).
.

Certainly from a musical standpoint it was a poor man's version of it.

As a musician, the obvious use of auto-tune (or pitch correction) bothered the hell out of me. Again, if Lynch is such a perfectionist, why would he allow that as a final cut? And before anyone goes "well most people can't hear it", that is what *makes* someone a perfectionist producer/director/artist. The fact that your work lives up to a certain gold standard, and is not just passable to the untrained eye/ear.

I know the Roadhouse music is not supposed to represent music being played there in an authentic sense, other than in a dreamlike impressionistic sense. But bad autotune (listen to how her vibrato in several places is chocked by the classic phasey-ness artifacts of the tuning for instance, that stuff is inexcusable to me. It is there from the start of the performance, naturally not applied on every line, but used manually and selectively, in this case semi poorly executed).

The good news is she is 100 % slap bang on tune, which in itself is unnatural/impossible and makes it sound much more robotic than it should, making it less emotional than it could have been. She is obviously a tremendous singer. I wish they had kept the humanity in that performance.
Julee Cruise was the opposite; dreamy in the performance which was heightened by the production, but extremely human in it's natural imperfection.

I guess that I hold Lynch up to a gold standard of direction and artistry. In the past he would usually live up to that. I feel like this season is similar to how an aging artist like Paul McCartney will put out a new album, that a core group of fans will each time claim is the single greatest thing he has ever done, a TRUE masterpiece, even when it's significantly less sharp in the writing than his best work, and the substance of that later work doesn't really live up to this hardcore fan label for a variety of reasons.

[The Gazebo]

This is another thing I don't get about the attacks on those of who who aren't exactly loving this. We keep being told it's our fault we don't like it because we expect more of the same.

I'm not an avid television viewer, but I doubt there have been many shows as divisive as this one. What struck me, listening to a few podcasts just before the show started, was the joyful anticipation that "so-called fans" would be turned off by The Return. Having browsed a few of the major Facebook fan pages, I'm astonished at the pure delight of other people not "getting it". Not to mention the snide remarks of "If you don't like this, go watch [insert random trash-tv show]". The acceptance of other views on this forum has been a bit better, I feel. Even though the odd troll has thrown a few comments in this thread as well, I have personally benefitted from fans in here trying to explain the brilliance of The Return.

In addition to all the forthcoming academic papers on TP, I sincerely hope that someone will try to dissect and analyze the fan reaction itself.

[mlsstwrt]

Agent 327, wow your reasons for disliking that scene are much more technical and uninformed than mine!

Couldn't agree more with your overall sentiments though.

I'm also hating Jacobi. What is the point of him or his out of control rants? He played an important part in the original. I also liked his character. Shady, lascivious but he arguably also genuinely cared about Laura. Does he actually have any place in this or is he just a platform for Lynch to rant at his audience?

[mlsstwrt]

This is another thing I don't get about the attacks on those of who who aren't exactly loving this. We keep being told it's our fault we don't like it because we expect more of the same.

I'm not an avid television viewer, but I doubt there have been many shows as divisive as this one. What struck me, listening to a few podcasts just before the show started, was the joyful anticipation that "so-called fans" would be turned off by The Return. Having browsed a few of the major Facebook fan pages, I'm astonished at the pure delight of other people not "getting it". Not to mention the snide remarks of "If you don't like this, go watch [insert random trash-tv show]". The acceptance of other views on this forum has been a bit better, I feel. Even though the odd troll has thrown a few comments in this thread as well, I have personally benefitted from fans in here trying to explain the brilliance of The Return.

In addition to all the forthcoming academic papers on TP, I sincerely hope that someone will try to dissect and analyze the fan reaction itself.

People like feeling superior I guess. Don't like this? Should be watching Iron Man 4 instead. Kind of renders all legitimate criticism redundant doesn't it?

[Jonah]

I'm still going along with it but can't say I'm loving it. As I've said before I think of this more as "The David Lynch Show" than "Twin Peaks".

I'm TRYING to like it, rather than actually liking it.

I don't think I've particularly enjoyed an episode to date. I've enjoyed a few moments in each episode.

I'm already imagining a fan-edit in my brain, snipping out 2 - 5 scenes per episode.

I just don't understand why the focus needs to be on subplots in Vegas or Jacoby's rants or any of these things. As someone pointed out elsewhere, the original cast all seem confined to little boxes, not just going about the town.

I know some people will jump on me for saying this: Lynch is brilliant - but I think his brilliance works better in small doses IMO.

I LOVED Episode 14 of the original series and Episode 29. Ditto The Pilot and Episode 9. All the Lynch ones. So far nothing in The Return has come close to the heights of brilliance we saw in those episodes. Even the more meandering Episode 8 of the original series had more highlights in it.

I do think the pay off will be huge and theres wonderful stuff ahead. I think I would have preferred 2 episodes a week or all of it uploaded at once.

[mlsstwrt]

I'm still going along with it but can't say I'm loving it. As I've said before I think of this more as "The David Lynch Show" than "Twin Peaks".

I don't think I've particularly enjoyed an episode to date. I've enjoyed a few moments in each episode.

It's absolutely the David Lynch show. It's just an opinion and I can't prove it but I feel like Lynch probably doesn't have the discipline or patience any more to shape a coherent story. He's happy to just film a bunch of ideas that struck him as good and sloppily paste them together.

[Agent327]

Agent 327, wow your reasons for disliking that scene are much more technical and uninformed than mine!

Couldn't agree more with your overall sentiments though.

I'm also hating Jacobi. What is the point of him or his out of control rants? He played an important part in the original. I also liked his character. Shady, lascivious but he arguably also genuinely cared about Laura. Does he actually have any place in this or is he just a platform for Lynch to rant at his audience?

Hopefully not "uninformed" as this is something I work with every day.

Regarding Jacoby, it strikes me as Frost shoehorning in an obvious parody of Info-wars. It aligns perfectly with Frost's Twitter narrative.

In a very slow paced show like this, they probably figured there was room for it, at the same time it would give Jacoby something to do, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't care enough to give it a deeper meaning than that.

Mindset being "Alex Jones is perhaps the most vocal supporter of Trump, let's make a Jones parody and show that it is the nutcases (Nadine and Jerry) in Twin Peaks who listen to the local Alex Jones, thus also semi vaguely getting the narrative across that idiots vote Trump/ support nationalism, etc". It's perfectly plausibly that this was the point, you'd even expect something along these lines if you've been following Frost the last couple of years.
However it's a parody that feels devoid of any relevant nuance to be heard beyond an echo-chamber.

[mlsstwrt]

Oh God, I'm sorry. I meant informed.

Jacobi feels totally shoehorned in. It just seems sad though, reflective of the show as a whole. Jacobi, for his weirdness, was always pretty upbeat and cheery. Now he's just some vocal dullard.

[anthoto1]

People like feeling superior I guess. Don't like this? Should be watching Iron Man 4 instead. Kind of renders all legitimate criticism redundant doesn't it?

Well, thing is Twin Peaks : The Return is vastly superior to most of the current TV production. It is sure very different from S01/S02 and is letting some of the most demanding fans on the side, but it's much, much better than almost everything on TV right now. Better comparing this to what actually exists instead of comparing it to what you'd want it to be.