Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

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.)

my partner watched the whole series a few years ago, and i joined her -- i'd seen it several times, she had never seen it. once we got to a certain point in the 2nd season i just couldn't will myself to follow it along with her as i had.

i do think people overstate how terrible it is, since 'the 2nd season sucked' has become a kind of canard (to be honest it wasn't as obvious as it was happening back in the early 1990s). but that doesn't mean it's particularly good.

on the other hand, some of the non-lynch-directed first season episodes are a little flimsy, too!

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

uh what? the creators were forced to reveal the killer due to studio pressure i thought. David Lynch has said it was the worst idea ever, like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

the writers had so much to work with. all those wonderful characters that had these relationships with each other. what's up with the Bobby-Laura-Shelly love triangle hinted at in the first season? they just completely forget about it. the only time we see the high school is for Nadine's ridiculous plot. it feels like on the whole there were a lot of things set up that they just tossed away in favor of new plots. Andy and Peggy's romance was just fine and far more believable and interesting in the first season than when Dick shows up like a broadly mugging guest star out of a 50s sitcom.

Audrey's character change from Seasons 1 to 2 is the difference between 2D and 3D

it's like everyone is now a plot device in "their" "new" "stories"

A straight S1 vs S2 comparison isn't terribly fair, considering S1 had 8 episodes (including pilot) and S2 had 22.

IMO it makes more sense to think of S2 as 3 separate seasons, with S2 ending either at the Lynch directed reveal or 2 eps later with Leland's death, S3 the much hated middle stretch, and S4 beginning around when Cole returns and Cooper gets his suit back.

Taken that way, S2 is just as good if not better than S1, S3 mostly sucks and S4 is not as bad as S3 but with a superb ending.

i think we can get even more granular here. start rating these episodes by the minute

that s2 would absolutely be better than s1.And it's about as long iirc

xxxp, sorry, bad writing. when I said the creators "ditched them", I meant the writers (by withdrawing from the show). After the two main storylines had been scotched by the network (murder mystery) and a couple of the actors (romance)

(as in, the creators ditched the writers)

That's how it felt to me anyway, the huge drop in quality comes straight after Leland's death, that's when the fast forward buttons started getting used during my rewatch.

If not for the season ending cliffhangers in the first season, if I watched the series all the way through with no prior knowledge and was asked "where do you think S1 ended and S2 began?", the funeral episode and subsequent sub-plot explosion would be my guess.

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

windom earle is classic you silly sods