Differing Views on The Return

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To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Still profoundly disappointed - my feelings have not changed.
7
30%
More disappointed.
5
22%
No longer profoundly disappointed but still disappointed.
1
4%
No longer disappointed at all but still have mixed feelings about The Return.
1
4%
My feelings have softened but not sure what I think of it.
2
9%
I need to rewatch before I vote.
1
4%
I need to rewatch it before I vote here, but I think I'm still going to be very disappointed.
2
9%
I need to rewatch it before I vote here, but I think I'm still going to be somewhat but less disappointed.
0
No votes
I'm neutral.
0
No votes
I now like The Return, but still have some mixed feelings.
1
4%
I now love The Return completely.
1
4%
Other - explain in comments.
2
9%
 
Total votes: 23
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boske
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by boske »

The issue with S3 is that it is simply not captivating. Could it have been? Of course. But it was, if I may finally infer so, purposely not made as such. It ended up being bland, tasteless, aimless, and just plain boring. However, if you look at Part 8 on its own, if is quite fascinating, thrilling, and, why not, awe-inspiring. Yes, some of that part may have been approached before in other works, I do not have a problem with that.

So what is it then, why was it not all scripted similarly? As much as I am disappointed into it overall, I think it was just a statement on the times. Part 8 gives the Genesis, the rest is the chaos and hell that has followed therefrom, and is now (or was then) literally "ante portas" (cue Part 3). It is possible to dislike it, I think it was actually meant or made to be disliked, and as Gabriel in the disappointed thread wrote "Bury it and salt the earth that covers it". The being said, it succeeded in what it wanted to do, so it cannot be called a failure, even though it has paradoxically failed.

Everyone's mileage may vary, as usual.
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Brad D
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by Brad D »

Part 8 sabotaged itself with me -- the implications of Laura being made to stop BOB? creating her to be a destined victim of rape/incest/etc? It undermines the core of what began in the Pilot - and for what? I also didnt like BOB's origins to be so hamfistedly delivered. FFS, let BOB just remain an ancient spirit from the natives who first occupied the land of TP. A lot of this sours my enjoyment of the visual marvel of Part 8. Again, visually, very cool. Story-wise? It really mucks things up for me, and I personally reject a lot of it from my own personal canon.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by missoulamt »

So well said. Lynch somehow managed to demystify Bob...
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by LateReg »

missoulamt wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 9:53 am
Brad D wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 7:57 am Attempting to find an intriguing thread in the Return is almost impossible for me.
Amen. Leland's pain and struggle in the original was real. Not much real stuff going down in TR apart from the captivating scenes with Sarah, Dougie looking at Sunny Jim with sadness and a few other scenes I can't think of right now. But given the number of hours of TR, *so* much filler.
I appreciate where you guys are coming from, and I really liked Audrey's last posts, and how Brad referred to his thinking the series meaningless was paradoxical. And I'll probably bow out of butting in to this thread after this.

I just want to say that the idea that the series somehow lacks meaning is so alien to my perception of it, since I think it contains the most profound depth of meaning of any recent artwork. I feel it in every frame, in the pacing, in the story. In particular, the examination of aging and the passage of time by creators who obviously find the subject meaningful. Try as it might, the reason the series never dips entirely into anti-nostalgia is because Lynch is looking back and returning to his past work, to his past collaborators, in a story about a man who is attempting to find his own way back to his former self after the same 25-year absence.

As far as there not being much real stuff in The Return...I like the examples you cite. Maybe we're looking at different aspects of it, but again I think that The Return is so powerful (to me) because of just how real it all is. For a fictional work, I think it's real on an unprecedented scale. The way it focuses on aging and time and its near-unbearable proximity to death, from its emphasis on the actors that have passed on and the parallel knowledge that more have since, to its scenes with Catherine Coulson to the sequence about the man donating his blood to live, is so incredibly real. And the meta-narrative element that some don't particularly like is an important strand that ties all of that together, coming to a head when both Coulson and her character receive separate remembrances in the credits.

Now if the whole thing is damn boring as Audrey said, or if it lacks the viscera we've come to expect from Lynch, or if you don't particularly like the dead-ends of the chosen plot, or if you think it failed at what it was trying to get across, I can actually see all that. But it all feels profoundly real and meaningful to me, so that's where I have trouble relating to this thread.

Not that I have to relate to it. I'll see myself out. :)
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Jonah
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by Jonah »

Have to admit Part 8 didn't do a lot for me even though I think it was the only (or one of only a few?) that actually got the show trending on Twitter, which was cool to see. I appreciate the stunning visuals and thought the "got a light?" stuff was kinda fun, but the backstory of the two kids - while beautifully shot - and the Fireman's scene (really beautiful) aside still didn't do a lot for me.

As for Laura's cosmic backstory ... yeah, not a fan. I mean, it's the kind of thing I can put to one side and just take it or leave it when I view the show. I feel like it's "optional backstory" if that makes sense, to perhaps be taken with a grain of salt I also wonder if it's meant to be read literally or more as a metaphor?

To be honest, I think the original series had a stronger - and more simple, which is why it was more devastating - backstory that FWWM arguably made murkier/darker and (depending where you fall on this) more powerful. Adding Sarah into it in The Return was a mistake in my opinion. I would've preferred to see Sarah's darkness perhaps have been a result from her grief and the lodge (and maybe Laura's painting) having an effect on her and her previous "spookiness" as mentioned by Laura perhaps opening a gateway into the lodge. Something like that. Having her as a vessel for the new big bad didn't work for me - but parts of it (such as the stabbing the photo scene and eerie repeating television) were certainly effective. I think we needed more scenes of her overall - such as the one in the grocery store and the one where Hawk came to visit her. They were great. But having her as the new big bad was a bit insensitive and didn't fully work for me.

Again, this all comes down to whether it is intended to be read as literal or more metaphorical. If it's literal, then Laura being conceived by the Fireman as a celestial force to battle against two dark, evil forces who would ultimately take over her parents - and Laura would end up dying anyway and then trapped in some sort of metaphysical limbo every time Cooper was doomed to fail saving her makes the whole thing feel somewhat goofy, coincidental, pointless, and just a lot of cosmic silliness. But I recognise there may be deeper, more nuanced and interesting readings on it. In any event, I dismiss most of it, enjoy some of it, and think the original series and FWWM presented a far more interesting reading on abuse, evil, and an unclear but deeply interesting reading on just how complicit Leland was (less in the original series, much more in the film). For me, all of that was stronger and vastly better. The stuff in The Return is a mixture of interesting and silly, beautifully shot, but more stuff I'm mixed on, though it's easy enough to take what you want from it and not let it cloud the original - in my view anyway.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by boske »

About the Laura orb, I never thought it was about the "original Laura", it simply looked to me that it was about incarnating Laura's spirit into Carrie Page (where the orb landed somewhere in Texas apparently), so it strictly had something more to do with Part 18 than with the pilot and FWWM. At that time she was dead and yet she lived. It was not the same "cycle of time".
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by Audrey Horne »

To LaateReg and others who enjoy and love it, that’s great. And I can completely see and understand it.

And I don’t go around to Save By the Bell message boards and spout how inane I think it is. I obviously have a tremendous love and respect for this show since day one, but also one of continued frustration. It really sunk in during the Leland death episode -which though beloved by many I thought was deadly to making the series sink in its own self importance. The fantastic original red room scene in the first season has acted almost like an albatross around the series’ neck. The continued supernatural elements practically around every corner in a way negates it’s power. It’s taken the live wire element out of it for me because if you blink there will be another one in the next scene.

This culminates in episode or part eight of the new series. Of course, it’s masterful done, but the end result is again leaving me cold. All the wonderful characters found in the first season who were fascinating and fun just by peeling another layer of the onion off have kinda taken a back seat to their inner workings, and are more of a slave to a mythology instead of vice versa.

I know 99.9% of the fandom loves Laura Palmer, but for me she keeps losing more and more power of fascination by the narrative mythology weight. She worked best as a phantom mirror to each individual townsfolk. Having her face in the orb and the Palmers intertwined with whatever cosmic forces of evil vs good is a head scratcher. Their inner workings as human beings were more fascinating and thrilling to me, just like Ben, Audrey, Cooper, Catherine et all.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by Brad D »

LateReg wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 12:02 pm
missoulamt wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 9:53 am
Brad D wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 7:57 am Attempting to find an intriguing thread in the Return is almost impossible for me.
Amen. Leland's pain and struggle in the original was real. Not much real stuff going down in TR apart from the captivating scenes with Sarah, Dougie looking at Sunny Jim with sadness and a few other scenes I can't think of right now. But given the number of hours of TR, *so* much filler.
I appreciate where you guys are coming from, and I really liked Audrey's last posts, and how Brad referred to his thinking the series meaningless was paradoxical. And I'll probably bow out of butting in to this thread after this.

I just want to say that the idea that the series somehow lacks meaning is so alien to my perception of it, since I think it contains the most profound depth of meaning of any recent artwork. I feel it in every frame, in the pacing, in the story. In particular, the examination of aging and the passage of time by creators who obviously find the subject meaningful. Try as it might, the reason the series never dips entirely into anti-nostalgia is because Lynch is looking back and returning to his past work, to his past collaborators, in a story about a man who is attempting to find his own way back to his former self after the same 25-year absence.

As far as there not being much real stuff in The Return...I like the examples you cite. Maybe we're looking at different aspects of it, but again I think that The Return is so powerful (to me) because of just how real it all is. For a fictional work, I think it's real on an unprecedented scale. The way it focuses on aging and time and its near-unbearable proximity to death, from its emphasis on the actors that have passed on and the parallel knowledge that more have since, to its scenes with Catherine Coulson to the sequence about the man donating his blood to live, is so incredibly real. And the meta-narrative element that some don't particularly like is an important strand that ties all of that together, coming to a head when both Coulson and her character receive separate remembrances in the credits.

Now if the whole thing is damn boring as Audrey said, or if it lacks the viscera we've come to expect from Lynch, or if you don't particularly like the dead-ends of the chosen plot, or if you think it failed at what it was trying to get across, I can actually see all that. But it all feels profoundly real and meaningful to me, so that's where I have trouble relating to this thread.

Not that I have to relate to it. I'll see myself out. :)
I get it I do - I think when you invest in this world like we all have in some way, the reactions are very emotional, 360 degrees. I don't think many fans can watch Catherine's performance without wincing, or perhaps feeling a sense of finality with Lynch's work. Could very well be his swan song, which is a hard pill to swallow. People came out of retirement to do this work, so, yes, the stakes are emotional. When will we see many of these people act onscreen again? Probably never. Still, for me, there wasn't a story to honor a lot of this levity. I'll beat the drum, it all could have been so much better - but again, that's my sole view. We are all in the gallery, looking at a painting, and from where we're standing, we all see it a little bit differently. And that's cool.
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To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by enumbs »

I suppose that I’ve never felt Laura’s character was diminished by “narrative mythology weight” because I’ve always seen the mythology in Twin Peake as a means of expressing emotional reality. I think this reading is consistent with Lynch’s other work, particularly Mulholland Drive, which ultimately “decodes” its supernatural plot elements as psychological and perhaps spiritual constructs. Looking at it this way, the golden orb scene is a way of emphasising the importance of Laura to the emotional through-line of season 3, as a light in a “dark, dark age”.

There is a lovely moment in the Blu-Ray documentary where Lynch emphatically directs Señorita Dido to kiss and hold the orb with “such love”, in a way which seems to mirror Lynch’s own feelings towards the character. The reverential use of music in the finished scene emphasises this intent, along with the choice to show the colour of the orb in a largely black and white episode. Gold is of course crucial to season 3, as a means of “digging your way out of the shit”.

For Cooper, Laura has been whisked away, but the aforementioned scene along with Cole’s vision reminds us that Laura is indeed the One, and that the season is ultimately about her absence. “Find Laura”… “Something is Missing”… all these hints and riddles pointing to an answer outside of the frame. Why do the angels appear in Andy’s vision? I think that by looking at Fire Walk With Me and the bravery Laura showed in the face of extreme suffering, you can see the moral and spiritual picture that Lynch and Frost are trying to paint. The contrast between the final shot of that film and The Return is quite striking.

Perhaps this seems like rambling nonsense to someone who doesn’t like season 3, but I’m not talking about a grandiose, precisely planned allegory in the fashion proposed by Twin Perfect. I’m just trying to communicate how aspects of the show that are sometimes seen as botched narrative elements can instead be interpreted as powerful thematic elements. I wonder if this is a big part of the divide in opinion? People who hate the show often discuss it in predominantly narrative terms, talking about a lack of “payoff” or preponderance of “loose ends”, while fans discuss emotional associations, recurring motifs and the like. How insufferably pretentious we must sound! But I do think there is a way In which late Lynch uses storytelling devices as a means to a end, rather than an end in itself, and that those receptive to this approach reap the most rewards from his work.

Another example of the difference in perspectives would be in attitudes towards Sarah’s predicament. Where some see her as host to the next “Big Bad”, and wonder whether this is a consistent development of the supernatural lore, others see Lynch/Frost depicting the monstrous nature of trauma and guilt in a visceral way, using genre conventions to convey a gaping void created by neglect and complicity with violence. If it doesn’t hit you emotionally then that’s that, but I think that here, as with much of the season, there is certainly a method to the madness.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by Jonah »

Brad D wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 1:28 pm We are all in the gallery, looking at a painting, and from where we're standing, we all see it a little bit differently. And that's cool.
I like this. Nicely put.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by mtwentz »

I don't believe a movie or a series has to have 'meaning', but most movies and shows explore different themes.

But the big thing I took away from the Return was we can never really know anything about the reality we live in. It may, in fact, be a dream. Or a delusion. Or an altered state.

We may really be asleep, even though we think we are fully awake.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by missoulamt »

enumbs wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:11 pm But I do think there is a way In which late Lynch uses storytelling devices as a means to a end, rather than an end in itself, and that those receptive to this approach reap the most rewards from his work.
Could it be that some of the most memorable scenes from the original were the results of other directors than Lynch? Forbidden thought :)

I totally agree with Brad in that Bob held so much more power when more was left up to the imagination. I still remember how my head was spinning after watching the scene in the original where Leland confesses how he first came in contact with Bob up at Pearl Lakes as a child. "Do you want to play with fire?" etc. Wise's powerful performance and the mental images that were created as a result. Compare this with the green glove scene in the police station which comes off as a cheap horror movie or the Fireman's literal "manufacturing" of Laura. When things become too obvious, the power goes away. One would think Lynch of all people would be the first to know.

The same applies to the convenience store. "They lived above a... convenience store". Same mental images created. The location continued to hold some power in FWWM, where it was shown, but again, the power went away completely in TR when it was treated as an art installation by Lynch with the words blatantly printed out, "CONVENIENCE STORE", in case someone didn't make the connection.

Lynch's reckless treatment of these revered TP artefacts left me cold and prevented TR from resonating with me on a whole, even though I still enjoyed many of the individual scenes.
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by mtwentz »

As a young boy growing up in the 70s in the Midwest, there was a store near me with a big sign; CONVENIENCE STORE. That was all it was called, just CONVENIENCE STORE.

So I realize this may be a generational thing, but back in the 50s through 70s many convenience stores would have had a sign labeling them as such., with no brand name.
Last edited by mtwentz on Sat Dec 18, 2021 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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enumbs
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To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by enumbs »

missoulamt wrote:Could it be that some of the most memorable scenes from the original were the results of other directors than Lynch? Forbidden thought :)
I’m pretty sure everyone would agree with this? Laura’s funeral, the trip to see the Log Lady, MIKE’s interrogation… the list goes on. I’m not sure how that’s relevant to the point I was making though!
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Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?

Post by AXX°N N. »

I think everyone would also agree that BOB (and other aspects of the mythology) were demystified. At the same time that bORB truly does scare me, the scene overshoots my ability to suspend disbelief. The Convenience Store thrilled me viscerally the night of 8's airing, because I felt bewildered that I was actually seeing it after all this time, and I still feel that thrill. At the same time, I recognize the mythology of S3 is a moving of the goal posts where the Convenience Store now functions as a waystation to larger things. I think the divide between those who liked S3 and didn't is that the former take the demystification as servicing a greater deliberate theme (given the previous forum discussions about how, for instance, the bORB climax plays on the level of a hero's journey wish fulfillment, whereas everything that follows forcefully resists that premise) and the latter find it inherently unrewarding before you even get to what it might be in service of, which to my mind is completely fair. If something doesn't work for you at step 1, why continue to step 2?
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