Drink full: The TWIN PEAKS 2017 spoiler thread, part 2

There are some fascinating posts throughout this thread about Dougie and dementia.

One of the things that happens often with dementia is that people around the affected person, through projection and interpretation, persistently find ways to believe the incapacitated person is still making sense. The extent to which Janey-E, Bushnell, and others all read Dougie's echolalia and other weird behavior as reasonable and goal-directed sharpens both the comedy and the pathos of the situation.

What's just struck me is how we as viewers of the show are being pushed into the same pattern, scrutinizing all Dougie's actions and speech for signs that good old Coop is on the way back, and sometimes even finding those signs where they might not exist.

I'd like to see Dale Cooper recover himself, but I'm no longer impatient with Dougie or assuming his story will move in that direction. In some ways, thanks to MacLachlan's astonishing performance, Dougie has started to feel more real than Dale.

The way Frost and Lynch are building the story around the absence of Dale Cooper feels different from anything else I've seen on TV -- much stranger than the way the original show was built around the absence of Laura.

Good post.

I can't even remember which recap it was but I read somewhere how 'The Return' in the title can be read as something ominous now, what with Coop trying to return to himself/the lodge.

Also Dougie's habit of repeating the last two or three words he hears out of some realisation, yet it also being an actual, accepted social conduct in real life to affirm what the other person was saying, is infectious. I've not done this out loud yet, but - say at work - when a co-worker says something stupid of w/e I repeat the last words in my head. Damnit.

One of the things that happens often with dementia is that people around the affected person, through projection and interpretation, persistently find ways to believe the incapacitated person is still making sense.

This is so incredibly true, especially if the person with dementia is in the same surroundings that the person they're interacting with is used to seeing them in. You see all the extensions of the person they used to be, like their home, clothing, possessions, and everything seems to make sense so you overlook the fact the person is missing.

Great post brad c

Ok, one dumbass question: every episode Laura Palmer is in the credits. We basically only see her in the opening sequence, never anywhere else. Yet she is always in on the credit roll. Is this standard practise or another hint?

I've always seen this as an homage to her importance in the series. The credits have also done this frequently with Frank Silva, as BOB, even when an episode just uses his likeness instead of archival footage. I believe they've done this with Don Davis as Briggs, too. I think it's kind of sweet, a way of honoring those characters and actors and making them feel like a part of the show and this world, even if they aren't actually on screen

(seconding the love for Brad's points, too; they are are spot on)

Thank you Brad.

I still think it's legit to criticize the decision to make post-Lodge symptoms resemble dementia, but the actual portrayal, and the patience required to comprehend it, is so true to the condition and so affecting it's kind of beyond aesthetic judgement, for me.

This is not unrelated to my investment in Candie also being a Lodge character.

Ty Evan. I do think crediting her even when she's not actually in the episode (apart from the opening theme) is a good thing. A homage, as you say, or just a reminder: she/her ghost/her story is what got us here.

(I just can't help thinking sometimes "wow shit did I miss a new appearance?!" seeing it when the credits roll. Like Alicia Witt last week :))

Sciatica, I'd def not be surprised by that re: Candie. Though it might be too on the nose?

I'm the guy sitting there who immediately points to the screen and says in my Dougie voice
"Alicia Witt"

Haha

I completely failed to notice who she was with, I was so focused

Dang. It was the exact opposite for me.

I still think it's legit to criticize the decision to make post-Lodge symptoms resemble dementia, but the actual portrayal, and the patience required to comprehend it, is so true to the condition and so affecting it's kind of beyond aesthetic judgement, for me.

I agree, it's absolutely legitimate to raise that criticism. Some of the dementia scenes have felt just as raw to me as Richard's violence. If I were to describe them to a non-viewer, I'm pretty sure they'd sound exploitative and tasteless, but so far that's not the way I'm responding to what we're seeing on the screen.

I think a big part of it is we're invited not just to laugh at the absurdity of his situation (and people's response to him), but also to empathize with his obvious distress. This is still a character we care about, and he's in pain

the look of pain and anguish on his face while in bed with janey-e will haunt me

Just announced: @MetrographNYC series inspired by #TwinPeaks instant-classic Episode 8 pic.twitter.com/YLXhydBGxt

— Screen Slate (@ScreenSlate) July 25, 2017

v cool

in my excessive enthusing in the wake of Ep 8 i remember telling people that they'd just it in theaters some day. didn't think it would happen as the season is still in progress!

There's a cinema in Brighton that showed the entire run of the original series over a weekend (I couldn't go to it but I totally would), I really hope somewhere does the same for this. I wouldn't hesitate to get tickets.

Btw I just remembered that Cooper said "damn good joe" in the elevator the first time he went to work, so this episode isn't even the first time he's said that particular catchphrase lol

Starts a bit slow and you may wonder why it's posted in this thread but hang in there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSfpA3AEKmY

I've never seen it but this was the last project that Lynch was involved in prior to Twin Peaks.

...Season 3.

To echo what people were saying upthread re: the schedule change: I watched the first episode of GoT shortly after watching TP, it all seemed so pointless, a made up thing with no ideas and the surprises were merely plot mechanics.

lynch is in the new harry dean movie too

yeah and that looks genuinely good

that's really interesting. hard to think there wasn't some influence in there on the dougie character, and episode 8.

Has john carroll lynch ever been in a David Lynch thing? He'd be perfect.

I've never seen it but this was the last project that Lynch was involved in prior to Twin Peaks.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 27 July 2017 08:36 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh shit, so he was! good call.

i saw this documentary earlier in the year and totally forgot about it. really really good (and optimistic) depiction of how a stroke can fuck things up and leave you feeling out of touch with your mind and body. now i need to watch it again with mr jackpots in mind.

also thanks brad c for your thorough explanation of dementia. it's not something i've ever had to face head-on, so your post really helped me contextualise the whole dougieverse.

Of all things, the recent wolverine movie did ok with dementia (although actually drug induced) and TP has hit the other side, the post-angry absence. I’ve had relatives hit that point in recent years

A few scenes in this could be straight out of conversations I had in my mom's dementia nursing home.

Dougie's love of coffee and now cherry pie are such beloved series touchstones introduced from such an askew angle that isn't at all fan service-y, that it got me wondering for the first time if Audrey might happen to encounter him in Las Vegas, and that given the Giant's mention of Richard to him could be part of the reason he emerged there.

Either that or Audrey's only appearance will involve her being terrorized by Richard or otherwise miserable, and people will be pissed off.

Fenn's role is probably smaller than planned because she refused to sign on until way into the production; she was openly critical on social media at the time re pay offer & the like (also possibly, ironically, the size of her part). She eventually came on board but all the location shooting had been done by then, so it's v possible there might have been Audrey scenes at the diner or wherever that had to be abandoned.

ah, so there might only be that one scene in which the experiment detects her love of dale and tears her skull open

Yeah I followed Sherilyn's public dispute at the time and it basically killed off most of the enthusiasm I had about her character returning.

I'm rewatching the original series piecemeal and I'm actually struck by how little cherry pie there is thus far (three eps into S2). When anybody eats pie it's almost invariably huckleberry - Eileen Hayward talks about how they're fully in season in S1 and the Bobby/Garland Briggs diner scene features Garland eulogising about how good the huckleberry pie is, as Coop does to Harry at one point and it's the pie he mentions to Diane on the tape. I think also (and I'd need to go back and check because it didn't occur to me until I started sensing a theme) when Cooper goes into the RR for the first time he asks Norma what pie is good and she serves him huckleberry. I'm actually pretty sure the only mention of cherry pie is Cooper saying when he first comes to town that he had a "damn fine" cherry pie on the way up from Deer Meadow (although obviously that's not how he refers to it).

I think this might all change when Gordon arrives and we will hit a fruit pivot then, but if not - is this a massive false memory? Or am I totally blanking on cherry mentions for reasons unknown?

Nah people just latched onto that one because it was in the famous introductory monologue I think (also Audrey did the cherry stem thing which probably helped)

Is he eating cherry pie in the scene where he learns about the Bookhouse Boys ("This must be where pies go when they die")?

Huckleberry pie there too.

Script: http://www.lynchnet.com/tp/tp03.html

Ed signals to Norma, she steps over to take Cooper's order.

TRUMAN
Agent Cooper, how would you like some fresh
huckleberry pie?

COOPER
I would love some huckleberry pie.
(for Norma's benefit)
Heated. Vanilla ice cream on the side. Coffee.

NORMA
Coming right up.

...

Just then: Norma arrives with Cooper's pie and coffee.

TRUMAN (CONTINUED)
Thank you, Norma.

NORMA
Enjoy.

Cooper digs in, gives Norma a hearty thumbs-up. Norma smiles, walks away.

COOPER
This must be where pies go when they die.

this adds weight to my theory that jackpots-dale is a deliberate response to the wider public impression that dale is that guy who loves cherry pie and coffee

If you follow the fb meme pages a lot of fans have really turned on fenn for stepping out of line back then & voicing her frustration (I think also there's a reaction against the more vociferous "where's Audrey" complainers) - people are saying things like "I hope we never see her", &c. I don't really get that, seems kinda lame to be offended by an actor complaining about low pay. Like the MJA thing was bad because he's a deranged nazi, not because he insisted on more money as is his right! Also I just don't care about this sort of drama - she tried the patented David Lynch negotiating tactic, Showtime called her bluff. She's said since that she's beyond happy with the material she was given, so I'm looking forward to seeing her

I wonder how much people were paid for their involvement

Apparently everyone apart from maclachlan worked for scale

wins otm, i don't understand people who get furious with an actor for not doing something that hasn't even existed yet. it's on par with people who attack a band for being late with that 7th album. who cares? listen to the six you've already got.

I read a contemporaneous review of OG TP whose entire description of Dale Cooper was 'food-obsessed FBI agent'. Which was way off-the-mark then but much less so today.

Cherry pie better fits the Twin Peaks name scheme where everything must be innuendo

Cooper should've started crying after taking that first bite, and then Badalamenti fades into some Warrant.

Huckleberries have a more quaint local association in Washington, since they grow everywhere here, wild huckleberry picking season is something a lot of people get really into, and when they're grown commercially it tends to be on smaller farms. Cherries are more associated with big eastern Washington agribusiness. Both would've been a big part of a Spokane valley childhood, but the emphasis on huckleberry pie in the original series was a nice local touch. If you ever eat at a small town diner in Washington, you really should go with the huckleberry (or blackberry) pie.

Interestingly, Hungry Horse, Montana, is famous for its wild huckleberries.

everyone else worked for scale, Kyle worked for coffee and a set of new suits