anderbubble

Lynch frequently describes ideas as though they are entities that are alive, and flit into and out of his presence. He must catch them and hold onto them, or he loses them. Then he can use those ideas as bait to attract other ideas. Lynch also tends to avoid explaining his interpretation of his work; and, when presented with someone else's explanation, often says that it is not what it means to him; but if it's what it means to the viewer, that's great. My wife and I are quickly settling on the interpretation that Judy is jiāo dài (交代, "to explain"); that the ultimate evil is to explain the idea. That BOB, the offspring of Judy, is literally the explanation ("who killed Laura Palmer") who killed the idea, Laura.

I think I want no more of the show, but I want some really satisfying Frost-type explanations. Here's hoping The Final Dossier is good.

But she's played by Mary Reber, who apparently literally owns the house in real life. http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Reber https://www.heraldnet.com/news/theres-a-little-mystery-and-a-whole-lot-of-screaming-at-twin-peaks-house/

I haven't thought this through much yet; but I wanted to at least get it out there. I think the ending might be about the border between the reality of Twin Peaks in the show and the reality of the real world itself. The first thing I though this about was when Leland says "find Laura"; who does Cooper go find immediately? Laura Dern. Then, they go to Sarah Palmer's house. Who do they find? The literal person who actually owns the house in real life.

One... and... the... same.

My touchstone for this tends to be Slumdog Millionaire.

I really don't think that's a valid way to interpret this. If this were the way it works, Cooper's Doppelganger wouldn't have a backwards fingerprint. But, ultimately, I don't think much of this matters so far as it's been on the screen. Cooper has a cut physique because that's what Frost and/or Lynch decided they wanted on the screen. Because they wanted to present a contrast between Dougie before and after Cooper. Because they wanted Cooper to be portrayed with confidence and strength. Why doesn't Dougie have a gunshot wound? "When the will is invoked, the recuperative powers of the physical body are simply extraordinary."

I still want to stay far away from the "is it rape or is it not rape" argument. That stuff is poison. But I'm still bothered by the sex scene, and I'm still piecing together why. In an earlier post I tried to describe my perspective on what this means for Dougie; but, as I posted it, I knew I was leaving Janey-E's perspective out. It wasn't that I was blind to the fact that she has a perspective; but I needed more time to work through my thoughts. I find the scene sad, not funny, and the reason I'm uncomfortable about it is because I think we're meant to interpret it as comedy, not tragedy. Even setting aside the potential tragic implications of what this means for Coop if he stops being Dougie, which could just as easily be written away; the scene itself represents continued disregard for Dougie and his situation. But for Janey-E, it's just as tragic. She is so desperate for intimacy, to feel respect for her partner, to be attracted to and be seen as attractive by her husband, that even these dark glimpses of Cooper coming through the image of her husband seem to her like a rejuvenation of their relationship. There's a bit of fantastical setting in the fact that Dougie disarmed Ike like he did; but if we allow that to be muted a bit as standard television over-drama what we have here is the tiniest evidence that her husband cares for her, takes care of himself (in a good way), and is even interested in having a relationship with their son. Contrast that to what we know of Dougie: a man who was off gambling in stead of being at his son's birthday party. A man who had rung up life-threatening gambling debt. A man who was unfit (in more ways than one). And, ultimately, a man who has managed to be confused for the Dougie we pervasively have on screen right now: absent, incapable, disconnected, unresponsive. I can't reduce the scene to comedy, both because of what it represents to me about the Dougie character as an unseen rebirth for Cooper; but also because of what it represents to me about Janey-E as an unseen and unappreciated wife and mother.

I interpreted this as just one more way in which Janey-E just hasn't actually been seeing him. She's going through the motions, not paying too much attention, and this just happened to actually catch her attention this time. In some ways, she's both the counterpoint to, but on the same track as, Dougie. They're both disconnected. They're both in a haze. They're both going through the motions. But Dougie is stuck, incapable of action. Janey-E is stuck pressing onward, unable to look to either side.

I don't want to quibble about the definition of rape here. That's turning into a distraction [edit: and I don't know that anyone's going to be satisfied with the argument in the context of a fictional, fantastical setting]. What I'm thinking about, though, is the fact that Janey-E still hasn't given appropriate thought and consideration to the fact that Dougie has changed in every conceivable way, and is acting like he has suffered some kind of trauma. The doctor signing off on him mutes this concern at least a little bit; but she should know that something is wrong. If we can consider Dougie as he is as his own character for the moment, this scene makes me feel sad for him. Sad for the play-acting of intimacy that the sex scene represents. Sad that Janey-E's entire demeanor towards him has changed, partly due to having seen him without a shirt on, but she still isn't actually seeing him. He's still just Mr. Jackpots. Wandering around the casino, with everything going right for him, but no-one is actually taking the time to understand what he's going through.

Except maybe this episode. It seems to me that it exists solely to convince us that other stuff in the show matters. Everything totally connects, man! I felt disappointed by this episode. It's not bad; but it seems non-essential compared with everything else that's come before it. In a second viewing, where there's no mandatory wait between episodes, I expect this one will be waited through more than looked forward to. The drape runners sign was good. Most everything else felt redundant: doubling-down on something we've already seen. Bad people keep being bad, or we have new reasons to keep thinking they're bad. That's about it. The one exception might be Dougie and Janey-E, but we'll have to see where that goes (as in all things). From Cooper's perspective, I already got this kind of familial emotionality when he cried while watching Sonny Jim. There's value in seeing Janey-E start to see Dougie differently; but while he's still in his fugue state, it could just as easily be a gag, and at her expense. It really all depends on who Cooper is if and when he comes out, and what their relationship is at that point.

I don't think ridiculing others' ignorance is the answer. The audience here is just a more tightly self-selected group of people. People who have chosen to seek out a more niche forum, and likely who are interested in not only watching a show but in listening to an hour-long podcast on each episode. One of the things that also makes this forum so great is the generally positive discourse.

Well, that's not actually what I said. I don't have a problem with people disagreeing; it's great, in fact. But simply voicing a different opinion isn't constructive, either: describing one's experience is. It's fair enough that I didn't really provide much else to go on myself: perhaps a better response I could have had would have been to ask _why_ the poster thought this episode was bad. The poster claims that it is as though it's obviously true and needs no supporting argument, but that's clearly not the case given the general conversation in the forum to that point. The poster should state their opinion in the context of the current discussion. As-is, the post comes off as though anyone who doesn't see the episode as ridiculous garbage is an idiot.

Why are you voicing this dislike in a forum clearly populated by people who enjoy it?

I relay an observation from my wife: I was originally interpreting the giant's scene as feeling like a low-budget student arthouse project film; but she pointed out that it actually very specifically feels like an _old_ film. The costuming, the makeup, the set design, the pacing, everything.