Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

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

I was a fan of Scott Frost's non-canon Cooper autobiography which had more Earle in it. I should re-read that and see if I still like it.

Loved him in the diner dressed up as an inconspicuous hunter-type.

oh also, this watch through I am very charmed by Shelly Johnson in ways I never was before. Amick is really good in this, I'm not surprised she's had a steady career ever since.

I have that wrong--he was a biker in the diner.

https://25yearslatersite.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/C-spLkmVYAEYy2I.jpg

Wasn't he a hunter at one point?

he's also in the diner dressed up in some kind of inconspicuous puffer vest/hat at one point

That must be it...I am completely smitten by Madchen Amick.

my uncle used to play music with her dad! they were hotel jazz musicians together in Reno NV. Alas neither of my cousins knew or ever met her.

amazing bit in a dvd extra where she's talking about simultaneously doing the twin peaks pilot and the baywatch pilot then after being absorbed into twin peaks for years emerging having forgotten that "in the real hollywood you're not always so..." she thinks "...free," and lynch sitting next to her yells THIS IS THE REAL HOLLYWOOD, BABY

The Cooper autobiography is surprisingly good.

Access Guide to the town is super fun.

Amick just strikes me as amazingly professional. she's in a lot of scenes in the diner that could be throwaways. there's no reason for her to be as good in those scenes as she is. That scene where Gordon discovers he can hear her is completely delightful because of her reactions while talking to him.

Gordon's infatuation with her is one of the true highlights of the series.

one of the most pointless scenes in the entire show: Ms Jones (Eckhard's assistant) played by Brenda Strong trying to strangle Truman. Why?

also, while Brenda Strong has had an admirable career in acting, I cannot see her and not think of a Sudafed nasal spray commercial.

love Windom Earle’s scenes, performances and traps; origin-storying Coop and giving him a grand nemesis sucks

imo the whole Earle storyline is terrible but it's also totally part of TP as soap so i don't blame it for happening

origin-storying Coop and giving him a grand nemesis sucks

otm especially as they set up a totally organic nemesis w jean renault, throw him away, then decide they want one after all

no earle scene is as bad as any scene where coop talks up earle to truman: his mind is like a diamond etc

jean renault was annoying though

i love jean's monologue about "the nightmare" at dead dog farm and take it as evidence he is ascending to the kind of ambitious awareness that defines+endangers coop and later has to be conferred hastily on earle via exposition

also like "in the other room, the girl dreams of fishes, and dark lakebeds, and tangled weeds"

shot of him wiping blood from his mouth after killing blackie faintly foreshadows later shots of earle in garmonbozia ecstasy

yeah that was a good description of being under the influence of opiates

I've never liked how easily Audrey swept her father's ownership of One Eyed Jacks under the rug after she was rescued.

oh also: john jacob jingleheimer wheeler billy zane is some terrible shit.

while watching this last night I told my kid "this actor went totally bald sometime after this" and then I looked it up and he was apparently bald when he made twin peaks.

anyway, we'll soon be on to Fire Walk With Me, and I'm debating watching the official cut vs one of the two fan edits that weaved in the Missing Pieces scenes. There are two: one is comprehensive and added in everything bar one scene, and the other is more selective and apparently flows better. I think I'll do that one; several of these scenes (the full Bowie/Jeffries scene, for instance) are critical to the Return, and the family scenes with the Palmers are extraordinarily good.

audrey is pretty visibly depressed for a while after her return iirc but somewhere around the civil war plot yeah she seems to get over it. maybe hard to follow thru on network tv with a scene as mythologically traumatic as audrey in white kitten mask / ben w cigar, at least any further than: "the things you must have seen" "i saw so much"

billy zane stuff is truly unbearable but there's one or two moments i like between him and "good ben".

Curious about the fan edit but Missing Pieces is great as a separate unit. I prefer to resist the (irresistible!) urge to make Twin Peaks make sense.

I last read the Coop book when I was a teenager and remember a surprising number of entries about masturbation habits.