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

otm. if twin peaks is about anything it's about cycles, repetitions, returns - particularly those of abuse, trauma, addiction & mental illness. This is consistent from the pilot thru part 18 of the return

xpost sorry, meant to correct your typo there (43 to 33). but yeah, it almost seems like some of the essential lodge entities played a role in NM (BOB, Judy, etc) but the rest was a glimpse into the first blue book case. they aren't literally the same characters/lineage as the TP crew, but their experiences overlap in certain ways

thought that was obvious from the get-go. all that stuff about the girl possibly being Sara Palmer or whatever seemed really strained, similar to the backwards blinking and airplane window morse code nonsense

Yeah the 1956 stuff felt completely self-contained from the off, to the point that I was very surprised by its slight return in the form of "my prayer"

deep sigh

I'm going to take all of the "why did I even watch the first 16 episodes" stuff upthread as deep anxiety about the show being over and not knowing how to deal

right. he used the 315 key (which he had apparently kept with him during his entire 25 years in the Lodge?) and it took him back to the Lodge... for some reason.

that was the room he was shot in, the room where he first had the Black Lodge dream.

i like how this ending posits a _possible_ 4th breaking awareness but it is still not explicit. the real lady who owns the house is there, the gas station is a modern one, everything is very realistic and Cooper constantly fucking up was the most real thing ever because we had just witnessed him gliding Harpo-like through life. it is shot in realistic style, no stop motion animation, no dancing dwarfs. so compared to what we witnessed for ~17 previous hours even though this world was crazy and bizarre it felt real, because of the way it was shot, because of the lack of audio design. Lynch often gets accused of gimmickry and its nice how stark and REAL the final sequences felt. what snaps us out of it is when Laura explodes the lights of the house with her scream. could this be her defeating electricity, killing that which haunts the Palmer house? did they actually defeat Judy here?

the ending was supremely creepy like the Twilight Zone. it is really impressive, to kind of take Film Noir tropes like the spooky disappearing femme fatale and the FBI agent rescuing a girl and bringing her safely home, and have these people sleepwalk through that sort of phony narrative, then shatter the illusion.

season 3 feels like it was meant to play concurrent alongside the others as we are seeing scenes jump around to different times. there is only so much series, if it were possible, we would see many variations on the Lodges and everybody and everybody's doubles. we are meant to be chronologically jumping all over the place across the entire series so the ending really isn't necessarily the ending. this is what is meant by infinite Twin Peaks. the abstract storytelling gives us the freedom to go to places we could never go with a "proper" story. season 3 is sort of a 18-hour pilot for a cable channel's worth of Twin Peaks spinoffs. dreams within dreams. season 3 is like Twin Peaks Galaxy.

rewatching FWWM it seems like they were already playing with this 25 years ago, there is David Bowie, there is Harry Dean Stanton reminiscing in FWWM while looking at the telephone pole about an event they wouldn't film until 25 years later. i did love how David Bowie's character stopped glitching in and out of time long enough to be the steampunk Dungeon Master to both Coopers while he is under the spell of the Black Lodge, that was very cool.

the past dictates the future, Bowie's dialog may have been just a "bunch of nonsense" that didn't mean anything at the time. now it is created a whole universe of ideas. 18 hours of new Twin Peaks dreams. i really hope they do a 4th season, imo the mystery is meant to go on forever.

Cooper creating Dougie makes me think he has created other doubles and there are infinite Cooper variations in the Twin Peaks multiverse

Rewatched 18 last night properly--after dark, all the lights out, no other sounds in the house, volume cranked--and the tone of it (quiet dread pulled absolutely taut) reminded me a lot of No Country For Old Men. Which itself is pretty Lynchian.

"abstract storytelling" is a great descriptor for the thing about this approach to narrative that I enjoyed so much.

xpost

I grew up in Shelton, WA, in the 80s and early 90s, which at the time was not only still dominated by logging but was also a major port for heroin smuggling. I didn't watch Twin Peaks for the first time until years later (on the hazy SLP VHS set), when I'd escaped to Portland. I was captivated by how accurate it was at catching the creepy mood of that time and place, yet there was something more to it, a romanticizing that wasn't trivial but opened it up and made it feel like something more... I went onto usenet and discovered that the series grew out of Frost and Lynch's attempt to adapt the Marilyn Monroe bio Goddess. I tracked down a copy (as well as the Secret Diary) and was captivated again, this time by the idea that a story that played out in the larger, more brightly-lit world could have an analogue in a compelling facsimile of my shitty little town whose barely-disguised traumas I was still trying to grapple with.

Anyway, wins otm: all of these thematic elements were already there in the original series, both in the series itself and in its relation to time and place and source material, just a bit more oblique.

I expected Lynch would have said something by now. Maybe he's hiding like David Chase. There's no chance a bunch of people haven't asked him about more.

he's been hiding out in france since the premiere iirc

already on a rewatch - and the one thing that sticks out is how CARTOONISH everything is compared to part 18. which makes that final part such a gut punch. i dont think albert/cole's "youre getting soft in your old age." "not where it counts, albert." was a dick joke, but dl being like "i still got it, motherfuckers." re: his filmmaking.

^ also it's Lynch telling the audience there would be no easy answers over-all

One thing I've been coming back to again and again: In the original series, there's a show called Invitation to Love, watched by the people of Twin Peaks, who are involved in deadly serious real life shit. In The Return, most (80%?) of the show basically is Invitation to Love; meanwhile there's a whole nother level of deadly serious real life shit.

https://media.giphy.com/media/l0JMrPWRQkTeg3jjO/giphy.gif

Put another way the original series simultaneously captures the feel of living in that time and place and also the sensation of immersing yourself in books and movies in an attempt to escape it. Yet there's really no escape, since books and movies will just draw you back. Or something. It's hard to explain.

literally in the middle of watching episode 18 for the first time i was like "damn he sure hasn't gone soft where it counts"

The associations of the names of the two lead investigators is also hugely important from a local perspective: D.B. Cooper, the man who jumped into the northwest woods and disappeared; Harry Truman (this one), the local who refused to leave, and was buried...

"there is Harry Dean Stanton reminiscing in FWWM while looking at the telephone pole about an event they wouldn't film until 25 years later." what? I don't get that at all.

it's a dick joke

I wouldn't put it past Lynch to have an idea of what references and symbols mean, even if it's never revealed on screen. Maybe even multiple ideas.

glad to see that NA is with me on this dick joke though

someone make me a supercut of all the times people stare at Gordon because he makes some innuendo, they think he is about to say something lecherous, or he makes a bad joke about his libido

ending the finale by turning cooper into "richard" is also a dick joke. the finale was book(houseboys)ended by dick jokes.

Did we ever get any confirmation that Coop's new last name is Tremayne?

Dick/Dale

The timing of the return of "My Prayer" is pretty key. The first time we hear it these are the lyrics just before the Woodsman *record scratch*

My prayer and the answer you give
May they still be the same...

The young girl who's just had her first kiss, dreaming of an ideal consummation. But it's interrupted at this point. She's put to sleep, and the cicada-frog crawls into her mouth.

The verse is allowed to play out during the Richard and Linda sex scene, which is a kind of reckoning with or attempted resolution of sexual violence:

...for as long as we live
That you'll always be there
At the end of my prayer

Which seems highly ironic and full of double meanings, in context.

It's also pretty funny that at the radio station the line that plays just before the Woodsman first asks GOTTA LIGHT? is:

Oh tell me the words that I'm longing to know

Though not really funny when it's repeated, since this bridge is the moment Diane seems to realize something horrible, and covers Dale's face.

Or Diane and Dale sex scene would be more accurate I guess

i think there's something to be said for dream logic in the sense that in dreams people know and do things that they don't quite understand, as if the information is already encoded in their dream DNA. Not sure how much this applies to Peaks, but I'm often confused how much Dale knows when he's bumbling through or how much the dream is guiding him

The one time Judy/Experiment appears in the glass box, 2 people are having sex in front of it. The Coop/Diane sex scene had an almost ritualistic feel, and they're in the same position.

(Creepy Mr. C voice) This is an interesting thing to think about.

also wanted to throw out the entertaining details when Naido reverts to Diane - bright red wig, alternating black + white fingernail polish. sounds familiar.

lol Chris

I realize the dark aspects of sexuality and its connection to Judy etc is kind of obvious and has already been commented on, I'm just really impressed by how well orchestrated "My Prayer" is with this when it appears.

sorry if this has already been pointed out but i only just realized that coop holding his arm out and sorta telepathically brushing the curtains of the red room seems... pretty similar to the gesture he makes in the middle of the street in front of the palmer house before he says "what year is this"

Yeah I thought that while watching

"Not where it counts, buddy."

Definitely a dick joke. And a funny one at that.

Diane kisses Cooper throughout the sex scene. Then progressively covers his entire (unemotional) face. She seems to be the only one expressing tenderness. I don't think the sex is ritualistic or traumatic. Just not very exciting for either party it seems. After years apart the consummation is -- not what it could've been.

I don't think they _feel_ like Cooper and Diane at that point. If they wanted to really be together, it'd have to be before that road journey. They're already drifting into different identities while trying to hold on to their own. Diane wakes up as Linda, Cooper's still trying to keep present.

Diane covering Cooper's face also is an echo of her exile as Naido, imo

Q: was Naido identified as Naido anywhere outside of the credits?

Laura Dern's performance in that scene is all I need to be convinced it's a reckoning with her prior trauma, albeit a complicated and conflicting one. But then there's also the silent yet fraught exchange between her and her double, Cooper commanding her "You come to me," and just... the whole history there. The rape, obviously, but also my favorite line during her confession, "It had only happened once before," just how much must've been left unresolved from that, and how the rape must've destroyed any lingering longing or trust between them.

even before this, but specifically reinforced by what you've described, I've thought Dern was America's best actress.

if anyone in this thread hasn't seen enlightened it was my favorite tv show of all time before this season of tp

Enlightened was incredible and no Dern fan should miss it.

Dern saying "I'm not me" was one of the most haunting lines in the series for me

yeah Dern FTW

even before this, but specifically reinforced by what you've described, I've thought Dern was America's best actress.

actor tbh

Enlightened is my favorite show of the past half decade or so (reserving judgment on The Return's placement until I've rewatched).

Just the difference in a static shot of Dern's face when she was portraying Diane vs. faux Diane. She's a master.

yes I think that's accurate xpost

Her performance in IE and Naomi Watts's in MH are two of my all-time favorites, so getting both of them in this series was a real treat.

I'd have a lot of trouble trying to name Dern's best performance whereas I think it's pretty clear this is Kyle MacLachlan's best, right?

xpost (They're up there with Adjani in Possession, which is white-hot praise coming from me.)

Yes, I'd agree this was MacLachlan's greatest performance, easily. He was amazing and deserves all the awards.