Worst ongoing plotline in the second season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS)

love 'just you and i,' it's perfect. there's something in it that is emphasized a lot more in the return, individuals being fated by their archetypes, the doppelganger who is caught in larger patterns, a magnetic pull towards your place in the cosmos regardless of how you stuggle against it in an effort to "fix" things. it adds such tragedy to donna's jealousy, she sees her position slipping out of her grasp because she isn't the girl and james is the guy, doesn't matter that he's a doofus, he has the motorcycle and the guitar

otm, great post

I'm with VG on this sorry

There were six to ten S2 episodes where I was wimpy punching the couch wishing it was over

Speaking of cringey dudes, if a poll-thread is made for Worst character/plotline in the third season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS):

Wally Brando/Michael Cera would definitely be up there.

:/ agreed, awful moment in an otherwise perfect season

In retrospect, since the show was set in the Pacific Northwest in 1989, James should really have been a grunge balladeer instead of a Paul Anka throwback.

the wally brando scene is so fucking funny

The whole point is that TP is out of time

Widow Milford subplot deserved some votes

I would've voted for (the first half of) "Ben Horne becomes obsessed with the Civil War, and tries to turn over a new leaf," which last time I rewatched was pointless, irritating, and, as silly as it is, pretty dodgy in a Lost Cause way

great post karlakrlarkal

ppl horrendously not otm about wally brando

The whole point is that TP is out of time

...or that Lynch switched off his cultural perceptions around 1962.

The Nine Inch Nails

the point of James was that he was a wet noodle
i can understand and appreciate his character’s purpose while ALSO finding him to be a wet noodle
and that doesn’t include nor will it ever include wanting to hear him sing me the song of his people ie that he is a wet noodle

if i am to tolerate James then the least he could do is NOT. SING.

the wally brando scene, especially in the context of those first few episodes of the return when everyone was still trying to get a handle on it, was and remains incredible

some of the freddie sykes stuff on the other hand…

I love all of that

Maybe more for the other thread but I just got to the Brando ep in my rewatch the other night, I think I like it even more than I did the first time

Speaking of cringey dudes [...] Wally Brando/Michael Cera would definitely be up there.

... wasn't that the entire point of that scene? Robert Forster can barely keep a straight face.

and OMG i want to kick Harold and his 2-cent Norman Bates impression into the fucking sun

OTM, especially when he’s “menacing” Donna and Maddie after they attempt to steal the diary. There’s two of them versus a wimp with a hand rake—just push past him!

My vote is more the absence of a plot line: the lack of reaction to Leland’s guilt. You’d think that Donna would be traumatized by learning a man she saw often had been molesting her best friend. Or Jacoby, having finally learned Laura’s secret. Instead, the town seems to shrug and move on after the funeral reception—which is all the more bizarre considering it’s only been about two weeks since Laura died.

I think that episode is the low of the series to me, even if goofier stuff followed--it just seems so disrespectful of what came before, especially considering how the pilot dwelled on grief. This should have been a big moment but instead we get slapstick with the mayor. You really feel the network/new writers coming in and saying, “OK, enough of that stuff, time to do our own thing."

otm, and the final episode of s2 feels like a correction in that regard: lynch comes back in & brings back maddy & ronette (the one bafflingly forgotten as soon as she’s murdered, the other pretty much only ever appearing in lynch-directed eps), the palmer family also return (Sarah also having disappeared after the wake, like how on earth do you do that ffs), Laura palmer is literally screaming in our faces &c. And then the film even more so obv. I like the post-wklp episodes but I’d be way more down on them if those corrections didn’t exist, as it is the tone shift feels like the town/show making a supernatural effort to bury deeply this terrible secret, which never goes well in lynch

Although it wasn’t so much new writers coming in as existing staff writers being left holding the bag after both lynch & frost checked out

i think fire walk with me is a corrective in that way, where it does get you to sit with the reality of how she died and who killed her and it doesn’t at all let you turn away from that, the way much of s2 does

ugh i memory-holed so much of this and now it’s all flooding back to me like a blocked sewer drain

piper laurie in asian-face

help me i am in hell

u guys so much of this season really is the pits

you're still in the part of season two i like!!!! agreed that the asian-face is terrible tho

very unnecessary plotline, also not sure why multiple characters had to be masters of disguise in season two of twin peaks

There’s two of them versus a wimp with a hand rake—just push past him!

he immediately turns it on himself [drawing that super-fake mark across his face with the visibly pre-bloodied rake]: he's emotionally terrorizing them, not blocking their path. (who hasn't met this guy.) nevertheless "2-cent norman bates impression" pretty undeniable but i do like "there are things you can't get in books" "there are things you can't get anywhere, but we dream they can be found in other people"

ratty norman bates cornering donna & maddy with the little garden tool is v funny, esp when maddy screams the fuckin house down and all he did was scrape his own face slightly!
i mean this is the same girl who screamed at a stain on the carpet
like u may look like Laura but if yr gonna live in this town u can’t pee yr pants every time u see a shadow TOUGHEN UP MADDY JFC

tbf all she did was come to a funeral and it's like she fell into a dream

then again she’s been staying in that cursed fkn house for all this time w Leland & Sarah & BOB so screaming all the time is prob understandable, all things considered

guy that played Harold was really terrible (RIP I guess). He's no better when he shows up in FWWM.

Lynch is fond of Ronnette, it's not for nothing that she showed up in the Return also (in another dimension with no name)

Harold! That's my man Edgar, Lenny Van Dohlen, from Electric Dreams. Okay he's not very good in that either but it's still a classic.

oh wow i forgot he was in Electric Dreams! he def looks better w the glasses & a bowtie. also he had better hair in that

wasn’t so much new writers coming in as existing staff writers being left holding the bag

and Engels (ie 50% of the staff writers) wrote Fire Walk With Me

e7 of season 2, the one directed by lynch, def feels like a reprieve … we’re not so brightly let, everything gets a bit more muted & sombre & proper weird again

(salvation army bouncing rubber balls lmao)

*lit

The consensus these days seems to be that the season 2 quality doesn’t significantly drop until after the Laura mystery wraps up, I would go a step further & say that those first 9 eps of s2 are better than season 1

Right away you’ve got the giant & the waiter, everything is way spookier & scarier & funnier, Albert’s best scenes are here, the major’s speech to Bobby… I even like the Harold stuff, I was gonna shout out the exchange dlh cites but it’s less von dolen’s performance & more that the best LFB acting is in those scenes (and in this stretch generally, the Laura’s sunglasses/tremond meals on wheels stuff is as interesting as the character gets pre-fwwm)

Also they found this guy

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoVUaS3nlY_u_j1FgDzW2MJ5TMW6aseu7Qx0EFDsIgPZ9NFnvK5xKxhyphenhyphen-2MH-cDn2Zs-p48yLI-_EHAm4Ws8BdbvIUSnWKfiJGQeNifMiUKlFVr-XrkJN4vo8VQmSynv0I7dsCdd39dfo/s1600/Picture+2.png

that is an insane take and you are welcome to keep it

i of course disagree in every possible way and loudly and to the death

dick tremayne is annoying af
and dumb

those first 9 eps of s2 are better than season 1

otm

I love James twin peaks pic.twitter.com/WPBuPHVMnL

— JT (@Jtaylor0_3) April 20, 2024

lmao

I like dick tremayne, I don't know why. he's one of the dumbest things in the show but also one of the funniest

love dick tremayne

I agree w wins, I always say “when a season 2 episode ends with a shot of a bird flying at the camera, skip ahead to the final two episodes of the season and don’t look back”

I do remember enjoying the two? three? episodes that Duchovny was in

tremayne rules

also ian buchanan untouchable in "on the air"

jeez i had no idea you guys were all so season-two-pilled

it has tremayne, man — the main man

Really enjoying the posts. I only remember watching season 1 and have little memory (enough to recognise any screen shots on twitter, so basically none) but I might just watch season 2

jeez i had no idea you guys were all so season-two-pilled

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, April 21, 2024 7:11 AM bookmarkflaglink

season 2 is like 3x longer than 1, i get the feeling a lot of folks who deride s2 are splitting the og series evenly and assuming the killer reveal episode is part of season 1

even ignoring the finale, s2 eps 1~7 > s1

i agree with this consensus, have since the first time i watched the show! the lynchian vibes at the beginning of season two are jacked up way higher than they are in season one. and then the reveal of leland is prob the best episode of the show that isn’t the pilot or the finale

leland’s death really sucks tho. every day i am thankful that fwwm was made so that we never got too comfortable with the idea that he was completely unaware he was abusing his daughter