Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

I would like to attend that

― treeship., Friday, September 27, 2019 9:22 AM (seven minutes ago)

I would like to attend that

― treeship., Friday, September 27, 2019 9:22 AM (seven minutes ago)

^ it is happening again

lol

what year is this?

*screams into the void*

Baltimore. Only other dates I saw were Bloomington, IN and Miamisburg, OH.

Saw FWWM in a totally empty theater when I was 16. It shook me.

Should have happened

#OnThisDay 1991: An April Fools' Day film that BBC Archive wishes was real - Reporting Scotland revealed that David Lynch was thinking of relocating Twin Peaks to Scotland. pic.twitter.com/eKFn0ljy4Q

— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) April 1, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MnOtMP41k4

OMG, this cracked me up

1000x better than any of the S3 Roadhouse performances

Renault's ridiculous monologue to Coop about how things were better before he showed up is kind of interesting considering The Return:

"Before you came here, Twin Peaks was a simple place. My brothers sold drugs to truck-drivers and teenagers. One-Eyed Jack’s welcomed curious tourists and businessmen. Quiet people lived quiet lives. Then a pretty girl dies. And you arrive. Everything changes. My brother Bernard is shot and left to die in the woods. A grieving father smothers my surviving brother with a pillow. Arson, kidnapping. More death and destruction. Suddenly the quiet people here are no longer quiet. Their simple dreams have become a nightmare. Maybe you brought the nightmare with you. And maybe, it will die with you.”

ooooh

also I'm rewatching Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning and it has a serious dose of Return vibes, aesthetically speaking

Laura's Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks
Paperback – October 20, 2020
by Courtenay Stallings (Author), Sheryl Lee (Foreword)

In 1990, the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks, co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, opened with a murder mystery when a beautiful homecoming queen, wrapped in plastic, washed up on a cold and rocky beach. Laura Palmer’s character began as a plot device that triggered a small town to face its fractured self. But after three seasons and a film, Laura Palmer is no longer just a plot device. Instead of solely focusing on the murderer, like most traditional storytelling at the time, the audience gets to know the victim, a complex young woman who explores her sexuality and endures incredible abuse. Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks is an examination of Laura Palmer’s legacy on the 30th anniversary of Twin Peaks. Palmer’s character was one of the few frank and horrific representations of sexual abuse victims which did not diminish the strength and complexity of the victim. Sheryl Lee, who played Laura Palmer, discusses the challenges of the role and how it has impacted herself as well as women she has met over the years, many of whom are survivors of sexual abuse. The role demanded Lee give all of her vulnerability as an actor to this role. This role is one she cannot escape, one with which she will forever be identified. It’s a role that still haunts her today. For many women, this character represents them. Here was a woman who was not just a victim, but who was owning her sexuality as well—a woman coming into her own and discovering her sources of power. This book is a reckoning in which women from the show and community speak about grief, mischief, humor, sexuality, strength, weakness, wickedness, and survival.

do I need to finish s2 before I watch s3 or can I skip the last 5 episodes? jfc.

the s2 finale, directed by lynch, is essential. you might as well power through imo

Unless I'm remembering wrong the penultimate S2 episode was pretty good as well...

The third-to-last episode is much better than the penultimate episode, really feels like it nails the atmosphere for the first time in ages.

Also Simon’s podcast helps make the awful episodes a bit more bearable!

The final few eps of s2 are great, I'd rather skip season 3 in its entirety tbh

finally got around to watching the original Twin Peaks series a few months ago. Saw 'Fire Walk With Me' at a drive-in last week. Kinda all over the place but still entertaining. Looking forward to Season 3, and annoying my girlfriend with other David Lynch movies.

yes, last few episodes of twin peaks are when it finally gets good again, and it's so incredibly good at the end

of S2 i mean

Counterpoint: the 2nd last ep is just about the worst of the whole run. The one before that is good (and finale is great obv) tho

wow good to know, didn’t know it actually got good at the end. Thanks all!

I m/l enjoy all of S2 except James' wild ride, and I reckon cutting out that and any Ted Raimi-adjacent material would be enough to make it bearable for nearly everyone who otherwise loses faith

if you're really burnt out but keen for FWWM / The Return though, you can jump to the final ep whenever the burnout sets in

nah I’m just gonna watch the rest

you've got some good Gordon Cole scenes coming up then :)

i watched everything over the summer and some of those late season 2 eps are stupid sure but it still flew by

I m/l enjoy all of S2 except James' wild ride

lol, I got this far into your post and was like 'but what about Raimi?' Thank u for addressing my primary concern, sic.

I’m a confirmed s2 enjoyer except for anything raimi-adjacent (which I understand to mean all of windom earle) but the beauty contest ep is the nadir for me, way worse than the wacky/aimless/boring stretch that includes Evelyn

there's a certain amount of fun / creepy material with Windom Earle. pegging the Raimi parts as the nexus / apex of it going off the rails lets the imaginary editor fillet as far out from there as they prefer :)

beauty pageant plotline is absolutely terrible but iirc it not only allows for more Heather Graham onscreen, but also brings the giant back to warn Coop to stop faffing about and go and join the plot again? great meta moment

oh I spoiler tagged for brimstead but I guess it doesn't work on Flagging?

oh I spoiler tagged for brimstead but I guess it doesn't work on Flagging?

Yeah, just skip to the last 3-4 episodes.

I am still saving the last 2 episodes of S3 for a rainy day! And now I've waited so long, I should probably just start S3 from scratch again.

Yeah, probably. Not sure I'd want to watch the last two episodes of s3 in isolation.

wow good to know, didn’t know it actually got good at the end.

it's an oft-told twin peaks / lynch anecdote, but he left during most of S2 to do Wild At Heart, but came back once it was clear that cancellation was imminent to take the reigns on the last few episodes, which is why they're suddenly much better (imo). there's also the counterpoint about frost's heavy involvement all the way through, and there are definitely many series highlights that are from the period where lynch was off less involved. but still, when he comes back for the last few episodes it's like night and day

That oft-told anecdote is entirely untrue fwiw

haha, i knew this would happen - i almost advised brimstead to just look upthread for this discussion

What year is this

But seriously, lynch was not away during series 2 working on a film that premiered a month after series 1, though he always claims he was

He was absent for most of the making of the first series because he was making wild at heart

it's all coming back to me...and yes, that timeline you present does go against the commonly-told version (which is Lynch's version? i don't even know).

it still seems so odd, because the 1st season is pretty consistently good all the way through, and....well you know how my reaction to this goes. :) I'm seriously going to scroll up and see what i say next

hmm, can't seem to find it, it was probably on one of the many other lynch threads. still, it seems striking to me that even lynch's biographers seem to support his version of events (one of many examples: Worst ongoing plotline in the second season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS))

that doesn't mean anything, of course - biographers can get it wrong and lynch is certainly not past exaggerating or straight up lying

He definitely withdrew from the production during s2 (even when he was technically “around”) but I think it’s more to do with losing interest/feeling like the project got away from him post-Laura Palmer than any commitment to other projects. The wild at heart story that he tells and everyone repeats is so clearly, verifiably untrue it reminds me of lost highway “I like to remember things my own way”. He’s IN the show for a lot of these eps he pretends he was absent for!

He’s IN the show for a lot of these eps he pretends he was absent for!

many are saying this is where the idea of tulpas came into the mix

i'm curious about that, though. i guess he would say that he was in those episodes but wasn't directing them or writing them? but it's really, REALLY hard to imagine lynch on set, no taking control of everything.

He was actually busy filming Industrial Symphony No. 1 during season 2. A beleaguered 15-month shoot iirc (Anderson had a hell of a time learning to saw that log to Lynch's liking).

_ He’s IN the show for a lot of these eps he pretends he was absent for!_

many are saying this is where the idea of tulpas came into the mix

It's funny, it's clear how much Lynch liked the idea of making a TV show with ongoing plots. He even tried to do it again with what became Mulholland Drive. But at the same time, staying focused on one thing for such an extended period was probably kind of at odds with his instincts. Especially when it involved dealing with network brass etc. He cleared the landscape ahead of time for S3 by making sure he could do pretty much whatever he wanted, and he obviously approached it more as an 18-hour movie than a show with no definitive cut-off.

Lynch got disillusioned about ~creating~ on Peaks after the network forced them to reveal a killer: this is supported by the accounts of himself and every other writer, plus the fact he stops writing or directing immediately afterward.

Which, to be fair, is not an unreasonable or unexpected request of a TV network.