Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

'Mmm, you're almost there, but it feels like something is still missing from the tableau...'
'What if Pete just hangs around outside while they fuck?'
'Kid, you've got the goods.'

who wouldn't!

I just wonder - how much can you really put on Cooper/Audrey not happening? Apart from the perfectly legitimate concern that an upstanding FBI agent shouldn't be romancing a high school girl (even if she only goes to school every fortnight or so), would that have eliminated all the bad storylines? Would we have been spared the Widow Milford? Would Windom Earle have become menacing for more than two scenes out of 25? Could Josie's plotline ever have become comprehensible or meaningful in any way? Would "Asian Man Killed!!" have been a real gut-punch of a reveal?

Storyline Killed!

^ ha

With the murder's exposure of the darkness and secrets permeating the town being removed completely as a motivating engine, they were left flailing to try and come up with a version of the show that contained existing elements / characters but was also acceptable to the network. Who, probably, were now looking for it to be competitive to Northern Exposure in 18-49 demographic viewers who buy branded tea towels.

(even if she only goes to school every fortnight or so)

reminder for fun here that the entirety of OG Twin Peaks takes place in a month!

I just wonder - how much can you really put on Cooper/Audrey not happening? Apart from the perfectly legitimate concern that an upstanding FBI agent shouldn't be romancing a high school girl (even if she only goes to school every fortnight or so), would that have eliminated all the bad storylines? Would we have been spared the Widow Milford? Would Windom Earle have become menacing for more than two scenes out of 25? Could Josie's plotline ever have become comprehensible or meaningful in any way? Would "Asian Man Killed!!" have been a real gut-punch of a reveal?

― JoeStork, Friday, 9 October 2020 22:51 (twenty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Now you're asking! My own answer is "a bit" - the cancellation of one major storyline is one extra thing that was piled on to the new de facto showrunners, along with all the other stuff cited upthread

But I have a different view to most wrt what went wrong in s2. Lynch has never got over the fact that the network forced him to reveal the killer and everyone takes his side because blah blah artistic vision but the bad and hated network execs made the correct call - the episode where the killer is revealed is the best episode of the series, without it you don't have fwwm which is the centre of the tp universe for me. In the parallel universe where his hand was never forced the show still gets cancelled (ratings were tanking from the start) but the show is a bit more consistent for a few more episodes and they never face these issues of patriarchal violence head-on.

With the murder's exposure of the darkness and secrets permeating the town being removed completely as a motivating engine

why on earth is this a given? If lynch/frost had the nerve to follow through on their big reveal, the devastating effect of Leland's crime on the community could easily have been the driver of the rest of the series - but they got bored/fed up and bailed. Much as I can enjoy the latter half of s2 the fact that they abruptly bury the palmer murder(s) is what's jarring. It makes zero sense.

& for me the same thing holds with the audrey/cooper thing, kyle m's objections are obv sound but I don't think it immediately follows that they completely abandon the relationship they've been building for a season and a bit (which is what ends up happening) - it doesn't have to be "cooper and audrey bang and this is a good thing", they could instead have worked with the chemistry they'd built up to explore that dynamic in a show obsessed with older dudes preying on young women, at the same time they were consciously introducing fatal flaws in their perfect hero.

20/20 hindsight obv but the accepted narratives are all a bit self-serving - I think lynch had a sulk and fucked off, and the writers tore up the main stories unnecessarily and that's why those eps are the way they are. Windom earle is the most unlynchian creation but he's ok when lynch directs him in that last ep, he might not have been 100% shit in previous eps if lynch was more engaged.

yeah Earle is finally genuinely unsettling in the s2 finale

If lynch/frost had the nerve to follow through on their big reveal, the devastating effect of Leland's crime on the community could easily have been the driver of the rest of the series - but they got bored/fed up and bailed.

They were forced to stop doing what they wanted; if they'd followed through on the reveal that they were forced to do, then they would - we can infer - have felt forced into every element of that, and not done it well.

Lynch stepping away and coming up with a deeper and better way (three times!) to address disjunctive trauma from a protective authority figure, after feeling a disjunctive trauma from the network daddies, is a much better outcome than just getting more and more resentful and making a Peaks that neither of them believed in, which peters out and is forgotten.

& for me the same thing holds with the audrey/cooper thing, kyle m's objections are obv sound but I don't think it immediately follows that they completely abandon the relationship they've been building for a season and a bit (which is what ends up happening) - it doesn't have to be "cooper and audrey bang and this is a good thing", they could instead have worked with the chemistry they'd built up to explore that dynamic in a show obsessed with older dudes preying on young women, at the same time they were consciously introducing fatal flaws in their perfect hero.

Yep. Audrey also would have flourished if Cooper had mentored her into developing her investigative skills, something she showed a genuine (if misdirected) flair for. She only overstepped in order to get Coop's attention - growing up around Ben Horne's business had inculcated her to identify undercurrents of malicious behaviour.

Mentioned this on the Roadhouse bands poll, but the IRL Bang Bang Bar is having a pandemic-related gofundme.

A few comments after rewatching the first two seasons (+ pilot).

When I was 10 or so, my next door friend Dermot and I got permission to sleep outside in the backyard. (Do parents still give the okay to such things in this day and age?) As soon as it turned dark, we snuck away for a walk around our (suburban) neighborhood. I think we ventured maybe half a kilometer up Delrex and into the Chelvin/Fagan area (had to look up those names). It was so strange walking around after dark that I still remember the experience vividly 50 years later. The best parts of the first season of Twin Peaks get at that feeling probably better than anything I can think of. The other thing I love most is the Hawksian rapport between Cooper and Truman and Hawk, three guys trying to do their job as well as they can. When Truman tells Cooper at one point (of self-doubt from Cooper) that he's the best lawman he's ever known, I find that very moving.

S2 has lots of good stuff--Leland's meltdown, the Giant (amazing), the continuing mystery of the woods, Windom Earle (I know some people dismiss that character)--and three detours I find pointless: Ben's Civil War fixation, Evelyn Marsh (her classic noir name is the best thing about that whole subplot), and Little Nicky. I could do without Dick Tremayne in general--he's occasionally amusing. I think my favourite scene for laughs is Albert's return--the new, collegial Albert--where he hugs Truman and imitates Gordon Cole.

I'm going to finish off by rewatching S3 for the first time. With an open mind, ideally, although I'd be surprised if it got any better, so probably not.

s3 is a very different animal. have you watched Fire Walk With Me yet?

I'm with you on everything except Windom Earle.

I think I would have liked his character more if he hadn't been so built up. By the time he actually shows up I'm expecting a badass or a monster and we get a flute playing elf.

FWWM is strongly recommended before The Return, esp if you watch the fan edit that rebuilds it with The Missing Pieces (deleted scenes) included in screenplay order.

I've seen FWWM more than once.

I just started rewatching my bootleg of S3, and I'm thinking I might try to order a real DVD instead. (Not streaming right now on either Netflix or Prime.) The biggest negative about bootlegs is just adequate sound quality and no subtitles. And if you turn up the volume too much, you end up jumping out of your chair with the first loud bit of music.

They build up Earle a bit too much, agreed, but I do find him sinister, and for me he got S2 back on track and away from the Lynch jokiness of the three things I mentioned.

it is my lonely opinion that S3 is best experienced on headphones.

similar to eraserhead in that way: watch it normally and it’s one of his best, watch with headphones and suddenly it is maybe the very best

Was able to order it for $20, so I'll put this off for another couple of weeks.

I've seen FWWM more than once.

the Missing Pieces has lots of material in the tone of / setting up elements of The Return, which is why I recommend the fan edit for "between S2 and S3" rewatches in particular, not as a replacement for the film itself

(it basically plays as a full episode of The Casefiles Of Agent Chester Desmond, followed by a near-three-hour Town Of Twin Peaks movie)

I meant to add Herculean Nadine and Mike to my list of dubious subplots. It's amusing a couple of times, and it does set up the ending--where it feels like Lynch wants good people like Ed and Norma and Donna and Dr. Hayward to end up miserable--but I would happily do without it. Also, the supposed overpowering allure of Lana in the midst of Madchen Amick, Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle, Peggy Lipton, and Heather Graham, that doesn't register with me.

i used to be anti-earle and still sorta think it would have been better had jean renault ("maybe you bring the nightmare with you") fled into the woods after the dead dog farm bust (deep in the doldrums iirc) and (driven by anti-cooper animus) become himself obsessed w accessing the power in the lodge. but earle is a more complete shadow-cooper than renault could have been (maybe if you made him a blackmailer? shadow coop needs to have something to do w secrets+interpretation) and tho the whole chess thing is extremely cheesy imo i do like: him cackling amidst a growing clutter of bespoke surveillance and analysis hardware (precursor to evil cooper's gadgets in the return); his disguises (scene w donna is particularly successful); the business with leo's shock collar (deep); the interrogation of major briggs; the part where he sees a postcard with an owl on it. also think quite an affecting performance is given by the shocked and mourning friend of Heavy Metal Youth.

james/evelyn was the runaway winner of classic ilx poll Worst ongoing plotline in the second season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS) but i enjoy it-- coming after maddie's awful failure to escape the dream i like that james' own less tragic attempt is met w imprisonment in this xeroxed culdesac, like the soap opera he is trapped in is procedurally generating content as he tries to reach its boundary. (this is literally what is happening ofc.) also enjoy the gratuitous sirky cinematography (leaves on driveways etc) and that when the rich husband finally shows up to his manor he is wearing a full nike tracksuit. obv all the writing in this section is v silly-- you really like to make everything sound pointless and stupid don't you!!

the high school stuff w nadine on wrestling team etc is pretty bad but all nadine/ed/norma/even mike stuff is amazing: them in bed, the shattered milkshake, wrenching final therapy session. (single fave Missing Piece may be ed and norma listening to sycamore trees.)

i find it impossible to care about donna's parentage but like the pine weasel it is mechanically useful to the Good Ben plot. little nicky otoh not mechanically useful to much.

Donna's parentage is such a huge thing, I find it so odd it was left as a throwaway right at the end. I suppose this has been asked many times, but was there a possibility of a third season at the time? Seems like the Donna-Audrey relationship would have been a key element of a third season circa 1990.

I agree with sic's recommendation of the fan edit even though its obviously not as Lynch intended, at the very least watch as much of missing pieces as you can, because there are absolutely critical scenes in there. like the extended bowie scene that shows you what happened after he disappeared.

the Widow Milford plot was really brutal in my last rewatch, boring, pointless, and super gross/offensive.

also think quite an affecting performance is given by the shocked and mourning friend of Heavy Metal Youth.

agreed, they just wanted to get out of Moses Lake!

uh that was intended to be a quote, oh well

It's happy hour in France.

Bobby, you're wanted in the office.

#ツインピークス #twinpeaks pic.twitter.com/mimNPly2tv

— かかし (@kakasi_2020) April 23, 2022

eeeeek

today i properly watched the movie for the first time (chickened out the first watch and put on a fan edit that combined it with The Missing Pieces... so it would have all the hokey stuff in the mix).

this looks like the setup of the red room that was in the last scene of the movie. it seems like there was a TV or something out of frame. I think Laura was watching the TV show? or if she was seeing an angel it was oddly out of her field of view/overlaid on the screen.

in the middle of my first rewatch of everything, and jumping around a bit

Rewatching the original series (and everything else) for the first time in at least 20 years. I was a Twin Peaks obsessive when it aired originally, taped every episode (and then retaped off cable a few years later) but intentionally didn't rewatch the series before the Return so I wouldn't feel like I had to compare them. Now I'm watching with my kid who is about the same age I was when it first aired. Really enjoying lots of things about it that I didn't care about that much in the past, like the secondary plot lines and characters; and somewhat marveling at the vast amount of red herrings that were perhaps not really red herrings when originally written (Waldo the bird, etc). And remembered that, at first airing, I was 100% convinced we'd find out Andy was the killer.

also, there is likely no better casting than Sherilyn Fenn. I'm not going to pretend any other acting she ever did was excellent, but she is 100% perfect as Audrey. And I'm very glad Sheryl Lee got to eventually play Laura, because her portrayal of Maddie is kind of crap (not really her fault, I don't think Maddie is a well written character, she's just too goofy, too Montana).

at some point or another almost every single actor in it produces at least one miracle imo

How old is your kid?

We’ve got a couple more months before ours turns 14 which is when we’ll watch the first season, but spread out an episode a week. The death of Maddie is the only thing that gives me pause. That was brutal.

FWWM and The Return will have to wait a few more years.

17 1/2.

damn i wish i had a parent who showed me twin peaks when i was 14. by the time i was 13 i was watching like emotionally traumatic adult things like akira and magnolia so idk if you should give the maddie episode too much pause, as much as it’s objectively the most fucked up thing that aired on network tv

i came home from work once to find out that my spouse had put on The Dark Crystal for our then 2-year old because the internet was down and she decided to put on the next best Jim Henson equivalent!

Yeah, I mean…. I guess I was a stereotypical 80’s kid; my parents didn’t really care what I watched as long as it wasn’t over the top explicit. Anything horror was fair game, I was watching Friday the 13 when I was 9 or 10. It wasn’t good for me though,

I was 14 when I saw the Maddie episode; it might have been the first episode of TP that I saw. I remember the horse freaked me out more than the violence because it was so out of left field. But I think that’s a good age for the original series. You definitely get different things out of it when you’re older, but the dreamy nature of things and the season 2 wackiness seems less off-putting to a kid. I dunno.

Mainly, it’s one of my favorite things ever and I just can’t wait much longer to share it.

As a kid, movie violence didn’t faze me but it gets to me now. The torture scenes in Pan’s Labyrinth had me burying my face in my wife’s shoulder.

But FWWM, that’s going to be awkward at any age.

at some point or another almost every single actor in it produces at least one miracle imo

otm

I did the full Twin Peaks run with my kids during the pandemic. FWWM was a lot, yeah — like, legit freak-out. But we talked about it afterward, they thought it was a great movie but also really disturbing — and also that that was intentional, that it was supposed to be disturbing, and it was about disturbing things. It was a good conversation, but definitely need to know if your kids are ready for it. Our were 16-17 and 13-14 at the time and had already seen a bunch of horror films. We've watched a lot of Lynch together, even Inland Empire (which they thought was great). They're fans.

xxp i remember watching The Secret of Nimh all those years back and the one scene that truly stuck with me was when the children are screaming as their house is sinking into the mud. and i'm not even sure that was the most upsetting part of the movie!

but - going back to when i'd introduce this to my kids - idk, for me it's tough because i wouldn't consider the first two seasons that bad. it's all of the stuff put out after that i think makes the totality of it more difficult for me to want show to them.

but, that's the kind of program i'd rather their friend hips them to, and not forced by their parents.

I only saw TP for the first time in my late 30's, about ten years ago, and it changed for the better how I approach art and creativity in general. I wish I'd been introduced to it a lot earlier.

I only saw Secret of Nimh several years ago and wondered what all the fuss was about, but I don't remember anything about the sinking house.

almost done with season 2 in my first rewatch in over 20 years of the entire thing, surprised at how many things I'd completely forgotten about, like Ernie and the Dead Dog Farm story; and that a young Molly Shannon was in this for one scene. Things in season 2 I liked more than I thought I would: the little nicky story and Dick Tremaine; Windom Earle; Nadine's personality shift to wrestler. Things that still blow: Evelyn Marsh (I discovered the actress, Annette McCarthy, who did not have a very lengthy or deep acting career, died earlier this year, no cause revealed. James Marshall posted on instagram that he enjoyed working with her and she brought something too a "unlikeable storyline" or something. good to know nobody liked this); Donna Hayward generally useless; the entire Mill/Packard/Josie story is a drag and Joan Chen starts to get really tiresome. I'm not 4 episodes out from the end, which is frankly where things started to pick up again (Annie, Earle, Miss Twin Peaks).

things that bug me now that never bugged me before: what the hell happened to Philip Gerard and Ronette Pulaski? They just vanished. Obv Gerard returns in the Return but only in the Lodge; and it's not clear that Pulaski is actually Pulaski, in fact, she probably isn't.

mill plot is the only plot, including who-killed-laura-palmer, that actually runs uninterrupted from the first episode to the last-- such that this is really a show about various factions seeking to monetize the land around a sawmill-- and is a pointless spinning flywheel the entire time. it's great of course

boxes inside boxes! i can't stand this anymore!

I think the only part of the Mill plot I actually enjoy is the Little Pine Weasel.

Glad you like Windom Earle. I always remark how much I like that character--one of my favourites over the entire run--and rarely encounter anyone else who does. There's a cut in one episode to his set-up with Leo and the spiders that's unforgettable

yeah that's pretty good. He hams it up almost to an unforgivable degree half the time, but he is really good in the disguise scenes, so good that my kid didn't even realize it was him in half of those (like when he goes to the Hayward home). I don't think he becomes legitimately 'scary' until the final episode though and that's due to Lynch's direction.

i listed my earle hits upthread:

cackling amidst a growing clutter of bespoke surveillance and analysis hardware; his disguises (scene w donna is particularly successful); the business with leo's shock collar (deep); the interrogation of major briggs; the part where he sees a postcard with an owl on it