Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

S2 has the giant, the waiter, the owls not being what they seem, meals on wheels, maddy's death/roadhouse sequence, gordon cole, the perfect final episode, dick tremayne and the greatest of all s2 plotlines, the s2 plotline "Norma's mother comes to stay"

Windom Earle is lame as shit tho

xpost You just mentioned most of the parts that I love (add also Ben Horne's Civil War obsession), and the majority of those parts were happening while Lynch was involved.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is saying all of season 2 is weak, just the latter half. IIRC one of the main writers admitted that after the network forced them to reveal Laura's murderer, there were no long-term plans for the plot, and they were just making shit up as they went along. Which is pretty easy to see during those later S2 episodes. Some of the stuff they came up with, like Tremayne, was still funny and interesting, but other things, like the MILF episode, were only tangentially related to how the show had been before the big reveal.

to me it's not as simple as dismissing the entire latter half of s2, though i agree of course that james and the older woman was awful (wasn't that while lynch was still there?)

haven't seen the film for years so i might be misremembering, but aren't there shades of Lost Highway in that James and the temptress plotline?

Lynch still appears as Gordon Cole troughout the season, but he didn't direct or write anything between the murderer reveal episode and the finale.

(xpost)

xpost to wins

A lot of those things happen before Laura's murder is resolved though. It drives off a cliff after that. The Lynch directed episodes in S2 (first two, the killer's reveal, the finale) are fantastic.

Most histories of TP that I've read say that he was mostly away from the set during the latter half of season 2, because he was shooting Wild at Heart. That would include the older woman episode too.

James left town around the same time as Lynch's departure iirc.

(x-post)

I might argue that the Lynch-directed s2 episodes are better than s1.

The reveal episode certainly is one of the most memorable in American television history. The S2 finale too, but not necessarily in a good way; the Black Lodge scenes show how incoherent Lynch can get if he's given free reign, so it kinda presages the long, tiring mess that is Inland Empire.

boooooooo

the finale is awes (and so is IE)

I think you misspelled 'astonishing journey' in your description of IE, Tuomas.

The scene at the bank in the season 2 finale is one of my favorite from the entire series.

Was disappointed to find out Gordon Cole was simply hard of hearing - for a long time I figured the earplugs were from a walkman that he insisted on listening to 24/7 at high volumes and couldn't or wouldn't remove.

Have watched Inland Empire 3 times in its entirety and the finale enough times that I can identify the scream sample in The Weeknd's "The Hills" as Laura Palmer in the Black Lodge.

Wild at Heart had already come out by season 2 but both he and Frost were pretty checked out for the last half of it and there were a couple of staff writers basically running the show.

dl, that is hilarious. I think I prefer your take.

yeah, i was so disappointed when I found out I'd been laughing at what is essentially a one-note ableist joke.

Btw it's funny this got bumped cause I dreamed I was watching the new series last night. It was shot inland empire style

all of season 2 is worse than season 1. the last half of season 2 is trash except for the very last episode.

Thankfully it's been confirmed the new series is being shot on cameras that cost above $50.

LG not sure if you're trolling or not. there isn't a single new subplot in the 2nd season that is compelling or well-written, it's like watching Twin Peaks: The So Random Cartoon.

well, i prefer the last part of S2 so far. maybe i like so random.

there are dozens of murder mystery shows on tv. only one Twin Peaks

It's hardly trolling to say that you don't hate the bulk of a show you like

the essence of the show is in the pilot and radiates through season 1 but once season 2 starts it's just going through the motions

season 2 attempts remixes of the season 1 material and for the most part utterly fails. season 2 it is the essence of the show only in that technically there are more episodes in it but that's about it.

i was being a little provocative but i honestly love s2. i just love the world of twin peaks and it didn't much matter to me that it veered off into nothing happening.

i can get behind that. i'm just never going to want to watch the Miss Twin Peaks Contest again personally.

once season 2 starts it's just going through the motions

Do you... actually... remember how season 2 starts

just realised, i think i forgot to watch the pilot and just went straight in on the show. might explain why i found the first few episodes i saw a little confusing.

yeah i remember the first episode of season 2, which was kind of a reckoning of all the dramatic characters arcs climaxing at the end of season 1. the giant coming back again and again was great, i'll give it that. don't really care about Nadine's post-coma personality, or the Meals on Wheels guy past the introduction with the creepy kid and old lady, Dick Tremayne introducing a literal cartoon character into this world 3 eps into season 2, etc. don't get me wrong it's still great at first but it's a huge fall from the dizzying heights of season 1 imo.

yeah pilot basically is the entire show in one episode

The Wyndham Earle plot actually really grossed me out -- it seemed like this bizarre inversion of the David Lynch episodes, which deal with very very dark subject matter in an oddly tender way in spite of how terrifying they are, whereas the Earle stuff seemed sadistic.

It was like some mediocre television writer thought "Yeah, I can do David Lynch style -- you know, weird and demented and fucked up."

Yeah, it seemed like they were going for some sort of Hannibal Lecterish brilliant sociopathic aesthete trope, but it just winds up being cartoonish rather than sad and disturbing in the mode of BOB/Leland.

otm "He kills a guy and stuffs him in a giant chess piece. SYMBOLISM!"

having Leo as a slave was funny though

it was all far too broad though. and really squandered wyndham earle, who as an unseen character was scary and enigmatic.

although i would argue that much of the strongest stuff in the whole series is in season 2 (denouement of the who dunnit element, the finale) i do think that a lot of season 2 is crap. i feel like James's little road-trip and dalliance with the femme fatale lasts for several episodes, given how interminable it seems as you watch it.

It doesn't? I could swear it's a 3-4 episode arc.

It literally does last for several episodes

Lol xp

Windom Earle is probably the thing I dislike most from the 2nd season, and it's from the part where the show found its footing again in terms of having a direction beyond like "cooper is suspended or whatever". The few episodes immediately post-reveal are rudderless and rough as hell (the writers were totally dropped in the shit, with TWO central plotlines scotched - the murder mystery and the romance that had been built up for a season and a half - and the creators just ditched them) but I don't dislike them. Soaps are supposed to be drifty! The mayor is hilarious, dick is great, the hornes are great, Denise is great, ernie is great, Norma's mother comes to stay. The black widow sucks and the James plot sucks.

I agree w all that. well, maybe not the Denise part.

What's bad about this segment of the show is how decisively it shrinks from the implications of the reveal imo, the film was a necessary corrective in that regard and I hope the new season continues that thread

Btw another weird coincidence I found a copy of the secret diary in a 2nd hand bookshop a few hours ago, been reading it

I love this show. Ready to get in a fistfight about it at this point

I would like to insert my annual affidavit here to the effect that the secret diary of Laura Palmer was surprisingly great and ppl should absolutely read it as part of their TP rewatchings.

Lol xpost!!!

the windom earle plot was just awful

the comic plots in the 2nd season are easier to ridicule, but with some exceptions they are harmless and diverting, as opposed to some of the more 'serious' plots (the drug bust at the brothel, windom earle) that are completely uninspired and thus genuinely depressing.

i still like the 'look' of twin peaks, although obv the lynch-directed episodes are in another league from the others. (the diane keaton one being particularly embarrassing.)