2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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NormoftheAndes
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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enumbs wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:04 pm
NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:56 pm This is not uncommon now but I was prescribed anti-depressants at university and the idea of being 'depressed' or agitated has coloured my perspective ever since - even to the extent that I found The Return to be portraying a lot of depression and anxiety. Its a very agitated work and I think that partly comes from Lynch - whilst he may seem like a happy camper, I think he has a lot of turmoil in him. You only need watch The Art Life and he admits he barely goes out - so he has something of the hermit about him. That quality colours The Return majorly, in my view. You could say I am the same and subjectively applying my own view on life to the work.
Fascinating perspective which totally fits with the way Lynch talks about the “rubber clown suit of negativity” and Judy’s status as “an extreme negative force”. There is a real yearning and sense of absence to season 3, especially considering Cooper’s state and Laura’s disappearance from the red room.
Very good way of expressing it. Absence due to loss, grief, any number of things. The characters were absent too - even ones who had a fair amount of screen-time like Frank Truman, there was never any insight into their feelings or inner life. Even when Cooper claimed this was the 'real him' in the last episode, his emotions were just hidden. Then we get to Leland Palmer - all he had to say was 'find Laura'? SOMETHING IS WRONG. I am not sure if the entirety of The Return was supposed to be the doppleganger version of Twin Peaks, everything malfunctioning on some GRAND level, but to be honest I do think that was what was happening.

People here wanted Hawk as the Sheriff and I like that idea but in s3 he was pretty much zoned-out and then seemingly trapped in the toilets on two occasions. I loved that, I must say. Was there an in-joke here that Mark and David had really sent Twin Peaks down the shitter?
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AXX°N N.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:16 pm
enumbs wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:04 pm
NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:56 pm This is not uncommon now but I was prescribed anti-depressants at university and the idea of being 'depressed' or agitated has coloured my perspective ever since - even to the extent that I found The Return to be portraying a lot of depression and anxiety. Its a very agitated work and I think that partly comes from Lynch - whilst he may seem like a happy camper, I think he has a lot of turmoil in him. You only need watch The Art Life and he admits he barely goes out - so he has something of the hermit about him. That quality colours The Return majorly, in my view. You could say I am the same and subjectively applying my own view on life to the work.
Fascinating perspective which totally fits with the way Lynch talks about the “rubber clown suit of negativity” and Judy’s status as “an extreme negative force”. There is a real yearning and sense of absence to season 3, especially considering Cooper’s state and Laura’s disappearance from the red room.
Very good way of expressing it. Absence due to loss, grief, any number of things. The characters were absent too - even ones who had a fair amount of screen-time like Frank Truman, there was never any insight into their feelings or inner life. Even when Cooper claimed this was the 'real him' in the last episode, his emotions were just hidden. Then we get to Leland Palmer - all he had to say was 'find Laura'? SOMETHING IS WRONG. I am not sure if the entirety of The Return was supposed to be the doppleganger version of Twin Peaks, everything malfunctioning on some GRAND level, but to be honest I do think that was what was happening.

People here wanted Hawk as the Sheriff and I like that idea but in s3 he was pretty much zoned-out and then seemingly trapped in the toilets on two occasions. I loved that, I must say. Was there an in-joke here that Mark and David had really sent Twin Peaks down the shitter?
I think these are all on point, but it's funny because at the same time, a huge portion of S3 is also pretty silly and goofy and minimalistic. I think a lot of it is in line with the original show's sense of celebration of the mundane and savoring of details; Dougie is, I think, extremely empathetic and humanistic and is more or less saying "isn't it enough that this is a human stripped down to its essentials?" There's a weird kind of joy expressed in the breakfast scene with his son that is in its own way just as aggressive (or more like blindly sure-footed) as anything more overtly harsh or dark. And I don't find it strictly alienating, I find it pretty inviting. I absolutely hated how long the Dougie scenes were going until that scene where the coworker is left with only a green tea latte but then finds he likes it, and wouldn't have known unless it was this initially really unpleasant thing he didn't want. And I liked it just because it was a nice scene. :)
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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enumbs wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 2:31 pm
It’s interesting how subjective even conversations about Lynch can be! I haven’t seen many fans going crazy about criticism of season 3, but I’m sure there have been some. My issue was not with criticism of the show but with the characterisation of season 3 fans as sycophants or cult-members. Can you see the frustration someone might have if after explaining an aspect of how the season emotionally affected them or struck them as interesting, somebody dismissed their sincere response as going “to wild lengths to defend Lynch’s creative choices”? It would be like responding to one of your thoughtful critiques of the show with “Well you just wanted coffee and cherry pie, didn’t you?”.

I don’t think I’m humourless about the show, but it’s only natural that if somebody makes fun of an aspect of season 3, a fan might chip in and say what they liked about it. I don’t know what you mean about quite liking parts of the show not being enough these days - I haven’t seen anyone insisting everyone worship the show, just exchanges of differing opinions. I like hearing your thoughts on the show very much, and it would be a shame if you stopped your recent streak of posts. I just hope that people take each other’s opinions in good faith rather than viewing each other as deluded fanatics or dedicated haters.
Seconded! I’ve been enjoying Brad and Audrey’s posts. I just hate absolutist arguments from either side that amount to “anyone who disagrees with me must be biased.”
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:15 pm
boske wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:04 pm I disagree, and we can certainly disagree here, I respect your point of view. I just saw it differently, but saying it is "a bit too much" to me simply reinforces, in a wide stroke, what Brad was just talking about earlier.
This actually gets into something I've noticed in these discussions over time. To me there's a difference in approach here:

Part of your viewpoint is supposing the motivations of the creator.
Part of my viewpoint is not.
I think the creator of something would have to have some motivation, otherwise why would he/she create it in the first place? Would they be able to create it at all? That does not mean we need to be interested into it, we necessarily need not, although we could, if you ask me. One clarification though: I did not say here earlier that the show was insulting, I think it can be insulting if you let yourself be insulted by it, whatever it may really mean to different people. Somebody else said it was nasty, and I agree that it was nasty in some places, and not in others.
AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:15 pm And I think what I take issue with is not so much the idea that the experience was nasty for you (this is subjective, anyway), but the certainty that you apparently objectively know what Lynch/Frost intended and that it was mean-spirited, negative, and desiring of your hostility. It happens to tbe the case that those with negative opinions more often engage in that kind of speculation, but I'd take just as much issue with it if someone with a positive take did so. It happens to be, though, that most of the positive (or mixed) analysis on dugpa is less interested with presuming the creator's mindset and instead looks under the hood and approaches the narrative and its effects on a more subjective and technical level.
Well, are we allowed to say, having been teased with Dougie for 14 parts, that it is a bit too much? That we got the message? I honestly think that if we had 28 parts, that Dougie would have been in 25 of them, doing the same thing. Regarding "that it was mean-spirited, negative, and desiring of your hostility", who said that? And do you yourself objectively know what I had in mind?
AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:15 pm I just think it's off-base to rope Lynch into negative appraisals and make a character judgment and personal value assessment (or assassination). I don't quite believe in death of the author, it's just I don't think imagined mental interiors is productive and that it lacks substance or evidence value. It always comes across to me as "well, your arguments are fine and you can keep them, it's not my business if you can't see the ultimate truth that Lynch is actually an asshole."
Again, you are virtually putting words in my mouth that were not said by me. All that I said was that Dougie teases were scripted and not accidental.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:27 pm
NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:16 pm
enumbs wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:04 pm

Fascinating perspective which totally fits with the way Lynch talks about the “rubber clown suit of negativity” and Judy’s status as “an extreme negative force”. There is a real yearning and sense of absence to season 3, especially considering Cooper’s state and Laura’s disappearance from the red room.
Very good way of expressing it. Absence due to loss, grief, any number of things. The characters were absent too - even ones who had a fair amount of screen-time like Frank Truman, there was never any insight into their feelings or inner life. Even when Cooper claimed this was the 'real him' in the last episode, his emotions were just hidden. Then we get to Leland Palmer - all he had to say was 'find Laura'? SOMETHING IS WRONG. I am not sure if the entirety of The Return was supposed to be the doppleganger version of Twin Peaks, everything malfunctioning on some GRAND level, but to be honest I do think that was what was happening.

People here wanted Hawk as the Sheriff and I like that idea but in s3 he was pretty much zoned-out and then seemingly trapped in the toilets on two occasions. I loved that, I must say. Was there an in-joke here that Mark and David had really sent Twin Peaks down the shitter?
I think these are all on point, but it's funny because at the same time, a huge portion of S3 is also pretty silly and goofy and minimalistic. I think a lot of it is in line with the original show's sense of celebration of the mundane and savoring of details; Dougie is, I think, extremely empathetic and humanistic and is more or less saying "isn't it enough that this is a human stripped down to its essentials?" There's a weird kind of joy expressed in the breakfast scene with his son that is in its own way just as aggressive (or more like blindly sure-footed) as anything more overtly harsh or dark. And I don't find it strictly alienating, I find it pretty inviting. I absolutely hated how long the Dougie scenes were going until that scene where the coworker is left with only a green tea latte but then finds he likes it, and wouldn't have known unless it was this initially really unpleasant thing he didn't want. And I liked it just because it was a nice scene. :)
Brilliantly put! You could go so far as to say ALL of s3 was 'pretty silly, goofy and minimlalistic.'

Thanks to the scene you described, I started ordering the LIME GREEN matcha tea lattes from Starbucks. Whereas in the original Peaks we had some pretty tense thriller material and intrigues, here we had a cherry pie in a box. Did I particularly love the Mitchums? No as they seemed to be just clownish stereotypes of gangsters from 1940. Did I love the vortex effect used in the sky in Buckhorn and Twin Peaks? No, it looked ropey as hell, like something from Adobe 2000, if that exists. Do I think the special effects were bad on purpose? Well, YES.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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boske wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:37 pm Again, you are virtually putting words in my mouth that were not said by me. All that I said was that Dougie teases were scripted and not accidental.
That wasn't my intention, I apologize. I think I mistook your position and assumed too much of what you were seconding, and so conflated it with the rest of some of the disussion when addressing you. Although looking back over my post, I don't think I was clear enough on when I was being rhetorical, general, and specific. The last part wasn't meant to characterize you, for instance, but was more generally the tone I've gotten from a lot of "Lynch did this to be insulting" takes. When you said "see through them," to me it denoted a kind of BS-detecting on your part, which is the kind of language that ends up construing Lynch/Frost's project as some kind of plot to displease; it makes it sound like their intention is hidden (and thus suspect) to the extant that they had to hide it, but then anyway failed to hide it. It paints a picture of some kind of absurd bumbling yet simultaneously devious duo. :)
Last edited by AXX°N N. on Fri Aug 06, 2021 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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I really liked the Mitchums, Candy, the cherry pie scene and the old lady - such a touching scene, beautiful music, one of the moments I really did love in the return (and not because of the cherry pie!).
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: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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Jonah wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:07 pm I really liked the Mitchums, Candy, the cherry pie scene and the old lady - such a touching scene, beautiful music, one of the moments I really did love in the return (and not because of the cherry pie!).
I think that scene might be the 'eye of the duck' moment in The Return Jonah, good call. Just as the music by Badalamenti is called, 'Heartbreaking', the scene is that.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:17 pm
Jonah wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:07 pm I really liked the Mitchums, Candy, the cherry pie scene and the old lady - such a touching scene, beautiful music, one of the moments I really did love in the return (and not because of the cherry pie!).
I think that scene might be the 'eye of the duck' moment in The Return Jonah, good call. Just as the music by Badalamenti is called, 'Heartbreaking', the scene is that.
I’ve always thought of Cooper’s superimposed face in the sheriff station as the eye of the duck moment, but the scene you mention might be my second choice. The Diane/Cooper sex scene feels oddly pivotal as well.

I laughed out loud at your comment about Hawk getting repeatedly trapped in the bathroom by the way. Quite a lot about Hawk in season 3 amuses me for some reason.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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And how could I forget Cole’s Monica Bellucci dream? That might even be my number one choice actually.

The Return’s eye of the duck scene could be an interesting topic for a thread. I imagine people’s suggestions would be quite telling with regards to how they see the series.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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I don’t know Lynch at all, but everything I have heard about him is really positive, and I would like to think he is really empathetic. But sometimes in creating something you can go down your own rabbit hole. I might be making a broad assumption here, I don’t think he has anyone ever going over things during the process, bouncing ideas off him. I think most are afraid to question him. And I don’t think that’s it’s his fault, just a byproduct of the aura around him.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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From a production standpoint, several people earned their salaries having Lynch bounce ideas off of them, giving yes or no answers to "is this idea feasible given the budget/schedule?" As for the content of those ideas, there was Frost (and Sherilyn Fenn!) in the scripting, but if you mean in the realm of Lynch-original rewrites, or something like the entirety of Inland Empire's production, where it just came out of his head ... ideally, I don't think artists should be chained down by anything but their own desire. Roping in producer concerns, test audiences, or confidants runs the risk of every piece of art tending toward homogenization. It's more nuanced than to completely write off collaboration or outside inspiration, but the kind of control a painter has over their painting is ideal to me from a creative standpoint. Ask enough people what they would change about Eraserhead and a film as distinct as that would be unwritten before it ever existed.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:06 pm
boske wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:37 pm Again, you are virtually putting words in my mouth that were not said by me. All that I said was that Dougie teases were scripted and not accidental.
That wasn't my intention, I apologize. I think I mistook your position and assumed too much of what you were seconding, and so conflated it with the rest of some of the disussion when addressing you. Although looking back over my post, I don't think I was clear enough on when I was being rhetorical, general, and specific. The last part wasn't meant to characterize you, for instance, but was more generally the tone I've gotten from a lot of "Lynch did this to be insulting" takes.
Thank you AXX°N N., there is no need to apologize, I know you meant well, it is all good, let us all enjoy a weekend and good weather. :)
AXX°N N. wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:06 pm When you said "see through them," to me it denoted a kind of BS-detecting on your part, which is the kind of language that ends up construing Lynch/Frost's project as some kind of plot to displease; it makes it sound like their intention is hidden (and thus suspect) to the extant that they had to hide it, but then anyway failed to hide it. It paints a picture of some kind of absurd bumbling yet simultaneously devious duo. :)
Ok, let me explain what I meant there. If I see "day in, day out" that Dougie is being used to tease the audience, and yet simply nothing comes out of it, then Dougie becomes a sort of a "one-trick pony", and one simply loses interest in the character. I honestly think if we had 28 parts, that Dougie could have gone to win the "Wheel of Fortune" or something like that . And it would have been really, really funny.
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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Apropos Lynch, I obviously do not know him personally. And people who have met him privately have nothing but good words for him. Would it be nice to meet him and talk to him in some venue, yes, he is definitely a great artist. Somebody just said here that he does not like to go out that often, well I do not like to go out that much, so I may understand that he likes to be creative at his home, and have plenty of time to work on what one likes.

So if he creates a work that is challenging, nasty in places, if this work tempts or teases the audience, would that imply he is an "asshole"? No, absolutely not. What I will offer here as an illustration is cliché, but for people who just joined the army, is their drill sergeant an asshole? Privately, maybe, maybe not. But that is not his job. His job is to help you stay alive, not lose your head, not drown, not panic, etc. So he is basically on your side, even though his methods may be harsh. Not always though, but harsh and nasty on the surface when needed. So if a work of art is challenging or nasty does not imply that its creator is necessarily an asshole, but that he is trying to make one think, to approach his work from certain angles, to learn something from it, to understand what it is about. Which is what Cooper tells Fireman at the end of their exchange, if I recall its flow correctly: "It all cannot be said aloud now." "I understand."
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Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

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Lynch’s best friend Jack Fisk once said that Lynch would probably be a murderer if he didn’t have his art as an outlet. I’m sure he was joking, but if you look at Lynch’s paintings in particular, I think he works out a lot of his inner darkness through his art in an almost therapeutic way, so that he can be a mostly happy and positive person in his everyday life.
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