LostInTheMovies

I recently read the ones that Lynch directed, and there are some interesting changes there too (most notably in the episode discussed in next week's podcast

And of course goes without saying, but don't read it if you want to avoid any future spoilers about Twin Peaks (I don't think he discusses one of the biggest upcoming ones, but this was written after the series and the film and discusses both in their entirety). I don't agree with all of Wallace's takes on Lynch (I don't see Lynch as being as "cold" as Wallace does, although to be fair his early works are much colder and at the time this was written, only Wild at Heart and Fire Walk With Me offered a sense of the more fluid, impressionistic filmmaker Lynch was becoming). But boy does he hit the nail on the head with Fire Walk With Me and the critics' hatred of it (and, to a certain extent, the TV show). And (spoiler if you don't want to know what FWWM takes as its subject, although that's probably already been spoiled by now) Also love the bits about Balthazar Getty. They had me literally laughing out loud.

Related - this really bizarre Japanese special on Twin Peaks. Unfortunately, there's no English translation for the hosts but these are cued up to short moments that speak for themselves: Bob's "message" to Twin Peaks fans: A fast-forward stop-motion paper cutout re-enactment of the final Lodge sequence (yes, you read that correctly): And the hosts stumbling around in the Red Room for the opening sequence of the special:

"Jimmy Stewart from Mars." - Stuart Cornfeld (executive producer of The Elephant Man) about Lynch

Just wanted to say thanks for responding - it's really interesting to see many of these events/incidents through the eyes of a first-time viewer. I always kind of kick myself for not keeping some kind of basic viewing diary of my first run-through as it's now hard for me to remember how I actually responded to much of this initially (even though I'm a later viewer - I didn't see it till the DVD release about 6-7 years ago). Looking forward to your thoughts on the next episode.

Also gonna use this to respond to one of StealThisCorn's observations. Lots of great thoughts here. A few responses: - The real world explanation for Bobby's reaction at the Road House is that the actor visited the set that day and Lynch, on a whim, decided to include him (he wasn't scripted in the scene). Which is great, imo, because without him there it would feel just a little smaller. Even though, as you note, only a few people are really reacting to what's happening the fact that it's Cooper, maybe the Log Lady, Donna/James (well, maybe not James), AND Bobby makes it feel a bit more universal. That's Lynch in a nutshell - the intersection of opportunity and instinct. - - I agree that there's only so much the giant and the waiter and others can do. Ultimately it's Cooper's job to piece everything together. Which leads me to your other point... - I love the idea that Cooper is going to the Roadhouse for a "sentencing" - which, ironically, is where Leland was let off the hook a few weeks earlier. After watching the series several times, it occurred to me that the mystery/investigation unfolds in an unusual way, at least up to this point. For fifteen episodes we have followed the detective as he pieces together the evidence, receives visions, and draws deductions. And then...he gets the wrong man, and the killer strikes again. Obviously this says something about Coop although it's easy to overlook that aspect, since he is such an admirable hero. But he has a flaw that has blinded him to getting the right man. Among other things, I think his flaw - like the rest of the town - is that he cannot recognize that ground zero of Laura's trouble was at home. The diary gives him plenty of evidence as do all the aspects screaming "sexual abuse victim" in Laura's life. But he falls for the "big baddie" trap that the show also kind of leads us into. Ben Horne is the perfect culprit and usual suspect, but the show is always telling us to look beneath the surface, to realize how deeply good and evil and light and dark are intertwined, how there isn't actually a "safe place" to which we can retreat from the troubling aspects of the world. Later in the series - I relate this to what StealThisCorn says about Maddy. Cooper never connects with her over the series which DOES seem really odd. And there may very well be real-world reasons for this as well...it could just have been overlooked by the writers. But it also works narratively and thematically because, once again, Cooper is unable to see that family and home are at the root of Laura's problems even after Laura essentially gives him a clue in the dream. Maddy is the closest to the killer of anyone in Twin Peaks, and Cooper never gives her a second thought. It's one more way he's looking in the wrong direction. In the fact, the people who are most on track with their investigations are - surprise! - James and Donna who look for clues in Laura's inner world instead of her social connections (Audrey) or criminal/spiritual underworld tormenters (Cooper). Interestingly, their investigation is also the most destructive, landing Jacoby in the hospital and killing Harold. Regarding Leland/Bob responsibility for the attack on Maddy, - Later in the show,

With that info dump out of the way, a couple thoughts on the podcast: Your discussion of aspect ratios made me laugh out loud (probably the only time I'll be able to type that sentence). So true. The zooming thing is bad enough, but the default for most viewers seems to be the Stretch Armstrong setting where everyone looks twice as wide as normal, just to fill the space. I've even seen this applied to shows that are ALREADY in 16:9, just because people make it their default standing! So much for HD improving home viewers' visual senses. I agree that something about Mike/Phillip feels more like Frost than Lynch. The first few times I watched the series I figured Lynch was bringing in all the supernatural stuff, since it usually occurs in his episodes. But I don't think he likes to be as on-the-nose about "inhabiting spirits" and lore like that; Frost has a bit more of a genre sensibility in that sense. I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall for the discussions where stuff like this was hammered out.

Thanks again for the Rosenbaum link. I was hoping he would have more to say than just those intros. Can't wait to read it. EDIT: Good stuff, but still short especially compared to what he originally wrote back in 1990. I'd love to read another long Rosenbaum piece on the series (and film), if he ever decides to write one.

Re: your podcast discussion of Lynch's involvement with season 2. This post discusses the production context of the show (who wrote/directed what) and the pace at which Laura's mystery unfolds, without revealing any specific plot details. The David Lynch-in-season 2 thing is a really tough nut to crack. Lynch's version of it is that he was mostly hands-off in season 2, at least after Laura's mystery ended, because he was working on Wild at Heart. But chronologically, this is impossible. EDIT: I originally wrote a really long post, including a timeline, but I boiled it down to just the timeline to avoid redundancies. This is all from either the Reflections oral history, online searches, or extra materials on the DVDs (like production documents). The post is still really long. Sorry. The behind-the-scenes story of Twin Peaks is really fascinating (to me, anyway) and almost as dramatic as the show itself. 1989 Winter: Twin Peaks pilot is shot, along with the Red Room dream footage which is originally part of an "alternate ending" to the pilot in case it isn't picked up. Sometime in spring or summer: Seven more episodes are commissioned by ABC. Late summer-fall 1989: Twin Peaks first season is shot, simultaneously with Wild at Heart. Frost is the showrunner and Lynch is mostly absent although he is credited as co-screenwriter for the first two episodes. He also directs one of the early episodes, but its shoot is postponed until the very end of production (right before the finale). Lynch is distracted by his work on the feature film and cannot work on it till then. Again, note, Wild at Heart is shot during the FIRST season, not the second despite what many (including Lynch himself!) have later claimed. Around Christmas: First season of Twin Peaks is wrapped. 1990 April 8: Twin Peaks premieres on ABC. Circa May 21: ABC commisions season 2 of Twin Peaks. May 23: Final episode of Twin Peaks airs. May 25: Wild at Heart premieres at Cannes. May-July: Work begins on season 2. It is REALLY hard to pin down what Lynch's involvement was: did he attend story meetings, did he expect himself and Frost to work it out between them on another occasion? Due to network pressure and Frost's desire to keep the show from being overwhelmed by Laura Palmer, the decision is made to reveal the killer during sweeps month. Lynch and Frost have both later claimed that Lynch always disliked this idea and wanted to keep the mystery going as long as possible. Summer: Lynch has a bit of post-production (to avoid an X rating) & promotional work to do on Wild at Heart but nothing that should prevent his involvement in planning season 2, as far as I can tell. July-September: The first 7 episodes of season 2 are shot. Lynch directed 1/2 of the 8 hours so he's very heavily involved at this point. August 17: Wild at Heart debuts in the U.S. With that film completed, Lynch is hard at work on season 2. Late September: The killer's reveal is shot, directed by Lynch. This will be his last episode before the finale. Circa September-December: A Lynch-Frost documentary show called American Chronicles airs on Fox. It receives very low ratings and is quickly cancelled. September 30: Season 2 premieres. A backlash against the show quickly builds in the media. October 6: The second episode airs. From now on the series will air on Saturdays. Ratings plummet. November 10: The killer's reveal episode airs. Ratings spike but eventually go down even further. By now the crew must be deep into shooting season 2 and according to later reports, Lynch and Frost are no longer heavily involved and Harley Peyton is effectively the showrunner. Circa December, or early in '91: MacLachlan and others convince Lynch and Frost to get a grip on their show again. 1991 February 19: The "drawer pull" episode airs, and after this the show goes on hiatus. I don't know when this decision was made or when Lynch-Frost were notified. By this point the finale had just been written (script is dated Feb. 14) so the other remaining episodes had probably been shot already. February - March: Lynch and Frost launch a media campaign to get ABC to bring Twin Peaks back on the air. They hold a press conference, Lynch appears on Letterman, there are numerous articles and columns about the show (the first time Twin Peaks has really been in the news since the killer's reveal). Circa March: Lynch shoots the final episode. March 28: Twin Peaks starts airing again on Thursdays. But within a month, ABC will put it on hiatus again, with only two episodes unaired. Circa spring: I think this is when Lynch and Frost shoot the pilot of their sitcom On the Air, although it will not premiere for a year. Frost is also heavily into preparing or maybe even shooting his directorial debut Storyville at this point. There are the first whispers of a possible Twin Peaks movie. Late May: ABC announces its fall schedule and Twin Peaks is not on it. June 10: ABC airs the final two episodes of Twin Peaks together as a Monday movie-of-the-week. A year earlier, the pilot was a huge smash (I believe it was the highest-rated TV movie of the season). This finale pulls fewer viewers than reruns of Northern Exposure on other channels. Circa July: The Twin Peaks movie is in limbo because Kyle MacLachlan does not want to be involved (later he said that he was really resentful of the way Lynch "abandoned" the show). Eventually he is coaxed back into it. Circa August - October: The Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk With Me, is shot. Frost is not involved with the production, because he is still working on Storyville, editing perhaps, and also (he has later said) because he did not like Lynch's conception for the film. 1992 Circa Spring: I believe this is when the other episodes of On the Air, Lynch-Frost's last collaboration, are shot. Lynch does not direct any of these (although he directed the pilot, probably a year earlier). May: Lynch premires Fire Walk With Me at Cannes. It is booed at the press screening (there were some boos for Wild at Heart too, but it ended up winning the Palme d'Or at the festival, whereas the takeaway from FWWM is generally negative). June-July: Lynch-Frost's final collaboration, the sitcom On the Air, is cancelled after just two weeks on ABC. Their partnership formally dissolves either around this time or within a year. Circa August: Frost's film Storyville debuts to generally positive reviews but virtually no box office (I think it may only have been released in a few theaters). He does not direct another film and his future TV shows (Buddy Faro, which last less than a season in the late 90s, not sure if there were others) are not successful. But he writes several bestelling novels and nonfiction books. August: New Line Cinemas dumps FWWM in theaters at the end of the summer without any advance screenings for critics. It receives terrible reviews (most famously, Vincent Canby wrote "it isn't the worst film of all time, it just seems to be") and makes about $4 million at the box office. It will take Lynch another 5 years to release a feature film. 1993 Circa August-December: Bravo re-airs Twin Peaks. Lynch has written and directed 30 Log Lady intros, one for each episode. Not sure when these were shot but presumably long after Fire Walk With Me had left theaters. Interestingly, the very first one has the Log Lady re-contextualizing Twin Peaks, pushing it more toward Lynch's own view: "It is the story of many, but it begins with one...the one who leads to the many is Laura Palmer. Laura is the one."

That makes sense. All I'll say is that, whether or not Bob was with Leland when Laura was killed, there is a lot about Bob's relationship to Leland, Bob himself, and Leland himself that remains to be unveiled - some of it not until the film.

Apologies if I spoiled anything (I just changed the wording so that people who watched the episode can be left with some ambiguity - although at this point it looks like the rest of the thread is not following suit). In 1990 but you are correct that the episode itself is not 100% clear on this.

Great idea. FWWM in particular has been hijacking recent episode threads. And probably will continue to do so as some of the upcoming TP episodes prove slightly less...compelling.

Well, finally the big reveal. Who could have foreseen that Mr. Tojamura was really Catherine? In all seriousness, what an episode (if you're for some reason reading this thread before watching this episode, stop now. Trust me, the above spoiler is nothing compared to what's coming). This, to me, is the one which emphatically disproves John Leonard's speculation that Twin Peaks "had nothing in its pretty little head except the desire to please." The post-Maddy scene in the Road House crystallizes what this show is all about: a town that knows something is wrong, and cares deeply about this, but is too lost in the fog to actually figure out what what it is, let alone what to do about it. They feel it deeply, but cannot fully acknowledge the tragedy in their midst. And the look on Cooper's face as he realizes, vaguely, that he has failed in his duty. Man! It's amazing to think Lynch wrote the lyrics to "The World Spins" several years before this episode aired (there's even a spot where she says - I just looked it up - "a dog and bird are far away" and it always sounded to me like "the darkened murder far away"). So haunting. The scene that precedes this is, of course, the most well-executed (no pun intended!) in the entire series. And it resets Twin Peaks completely. No longer is this the show of exciting, winking evasions and moody suggestion in lieu of stark revelation, even when it wants to be. You'd think, leading up to it, that nothing could actually fulfill all the hype and anticipation of the Laura mystery. Lynch shatters this complacent expectation in what remains, to me, the most emotionally devastating sequence he's ever directed. It's surprisingly graphic for 1990 network television (God knows how this got past the censors), but more importantly it puts you in the victim's shoes completely - the sense of helplessness is palpable. I find it much more upsetting, and harder to watch, than scenes 100X more gory. This is one of my favorite episodes yet it isn't really one I look forward to watching for that reason. Sheryl Lee, whose daffy Maddy was a sweet but mostly unchallenging character for the untested actress, really proves her chops in this sequence. She went through hell that day - not only attacked by Frank Silva and Ray Wise but also Richard Beymer (Ben Horne) because the crew needed to be kept in the dark about who the killer actually was. I also like the way the Leland/Bob reveal is handled. Although the show is setting up a supernatural context we don't yet know exactly how this works. Is Leland a helpless puppet of Bob? Is he a kind of metaphysical partner? Is Bob simply a name for his evil side? As we watch Leland look in the mirror and see Bob (and that really spooky 2- or 3-second superimposition) the irresistible feeling, for me at least, is that the Leland we've come to know and love is implicated in this reflection. I remember the first time I watched this on DVD, going off to watch it all excited to find out what I'd been waiting for (the season was clearly leading in this direction) and then my gut kind of sinking when I saw who it was. Somehow, the filicide aspect seemed distant enough from reality (although, of course, it isn't), but I was really unsettled by the jarring, creepy realization that Leland must also be the mysterious abuser and sexual partner that the series kept hinting at. My perception of the show shifted and none of the subsequent comic hijinks or clunky melodrama (not to be spoiler-ish, but the rumors you've heard about the rest of season 2 are true) could erase this memory. And finally, on another note entirely, the implicit killer's reveal obviously overshadows everything else in the episode but boy is this is a superbly-directed episode of Twin Peaks. Every scene crackles with a weird energy and extremely effective cutting, camera, and design choices. Weak subplots like comatose Leo and (especially) super Nadine are actually effective, reminding us of the dark heart and psychological reality that beats underneath even these wacky storylines (the cherry dripping down Nadine's hand is a foreboding indication of what's to come). That slow move through the Palmer living room is so ominous, and what a needle-drop. And even if you hate James-Donna, you've gotta love that moment where she lip-syncs Rockin' Back Inside My Heart. Well, I do, anyway. Questions: -Were you expecting this? Or anything like this? -Who did you suspect? -How do you think the Leland/Bob relationship works? Do you think it is a dramatic cheat (many in 1990 did)? -Were you surprised that Harold killed himself? -Be honest? Did you see the Catherine thing coming? Did you find it humorous or too Mickey-Rooney-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffany's cringeworthy? -Did you believe that Ben was the suspect when he was arrested, or did it seem too easy? -What do you make of Cooper's failure to correctly identify the killer from Laura's diary? -Do you think there are more big revelations to come? -Is Maddy dead? If so, will Cooper be able to stop Leland/Bob before he kills again? How long will it take him to catch the killer? -I asked this last week, but where do you see Twin Peaks going once the Laura Palmer mystery is solved? Will she remain a part of the story somehow? Or will a whole new show begin? This is only a very minor spoiler, but don't read if you don't want to know anything about the production context of upcoming episodes, or how big a role Laura Palmer plays later in the season. There are no real plot spoilers though.

Wow, thanks so much for posting this. Rosenbaum can be extremely frustrating (and rude!) at times but he is an excellent critic and, ultimately, fair in his approach: unafraid to criticize himsel as well as te work in question. I was aware that he had reconsidered his generally cynical view of Lynch after Inland Empire, but did not know he had also reconsidered Fire Walk with Me. I really look forwar to reading this piece.

And it makes the situation feel even more tragic than it already is. I really like the perspective the Missing Pieces brings to bear since we get a wider view of that whole week (and a sense of how Laura interacted with the community). But I also like that Lynch kept the intense focus of FWWM intact instead of diluting it with an expanded cut. In my opinion the scenes are great on their own and do bring something new to the larger Twin Peaks saga but the film itself doesn't need them.I recently watched the movie for my video series and it's amazing how, every time, I get drawn into its world. By the final third, I've pretty much completely forgotten that I'm watching "the Twin Peaks movie" and the context of the series is far from my mind. I love the TV show, but I mean that as a compliment. Word of warning to all first-time viewers on this thread, btw. Be really, really careful if you try to download FWWM rather than rent/borrow a disc. There are a lot of mislabeled files out there that are actually the deleted scenes and/or fanedits incorporating the deleted scenes into the movie. I keep running into people who think that they saw the actual film when they didn't.

This is one of my favorite episodes of the series and Mike's speech at the end gives me goosebumps (three cheers for Al Strobel). Gordon Cole's comment about the "one-armer" probably answers the question in the last podcast about whether they are trying to be funny with the insensitivity of the whole "one-armed man" bit (in this moment at least, I'd say they succeed). Boy, do they mistreat Phillip Gerard! Am I missing something here? Like is his drug illegal and therefore it's ok for the FBI to withhold it (though they seem just as ready to inject him if need be). You'd think he would slam them with a lawsuit when this whole experience is over...yikes. I really love Maddy's scene with James at the lake. By all rights, it should just be ridiculously corny and nothing else...the dialogue is pretty cheesy, they pump up that theme music to the max, and it's lit in a sort of gauzy paperback romance fashion. But it really works for me, maybe just because Sheryl Lee is so likable as Maddy. She does an excellent job making her distinct from Laura. Gordon Cole...yeah. What a great move on Lynch's part. What's that? Oh, I said WHAT A GREAT MOVE ON LYNCH'S PART!!! I love how Lara Flynn Boyle looks like she's going to burst out laughing any second when he pops in. The Audrey-Ben scene is great: so creepy and unsettling and the moment where Cooper registers that something is a bit "off" is very well-played. Really sets up events in the next episode, in several subtle ways, though I won't say more than that! I like that Audrey's coming into play again as an active character after being sidelined so long in One Eyed Jack's. I'm probably forgetting some other excellent scenes here because this episode is chock full of them. I love how there's a building sense of anticipation in the air and how, after a bit of a lull, the Laura investigation (or, at this point it almost feels like "the Bob investigation") is finally stepping up again. Questions for first-time viewers: - Harold's breakdown scene has a certain finality to it. Do you think his role in this story is finished? Or will we see him again? What role do you expect the diary (still in his possession) to play in the rest of the investigation? - Donna and James seem committed to ending their junior investigations. Do you believe they're really done? - Do you think Maddy is actually leaving town, or will they find a way to keep her around? What do you make of her character and her purpose in Twin Peaks? - What's up with Mr. Tojamura? - For that matter, what's up with Mike? Do you believe Mike is really a spirit, as he claims, or that he is one of Phillip Gerard's personalities? What's your take on the whole supernatural aura of Twin Peaks at this point? - Did you know Gordon Cole was David Lynch when you saw him (or, for that matter, when you heard him over the radio way back in the first season)? - What's going to happen with Shelly, Bobby, and Leo? Do you care? - When Mike suggests Bob is at the Great Northern, what do you take this to mean? Is he staying there? Is he there at that moment? Is he present inside a host or inhabiting the hotel itself as a spirit? Where do you see this clue going? - What role do you see Bob playing in revealing the killer - will he be a clue to the killer, the killer himself, or is something else going on entirely? - Do you expect the killer to be revealed soon? At the time of this episode (click this tag only if you want to know what viewers knew back in 1990, when this episode aired): - On that note, who killed Laura Palmer? - And where does the show go if/when we find out?

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm in the midst of writing the final chapters now, so hopefully some more videos will be up by the time you get to the end; if not, stay tuned - hopefully in a week I'll have the last chapters up (either 5 or 6 more, 4 specifically on FWWM, which seems like a lot but boy is there a lot to unpack in that movie!).

Excellent post. A few thoughts:

From the evidence, it seems this was indeed Mark Frost's intention, although David Lynch had a different reading of the character. The chapter on Twin Peaks in The Passion of David Lynch by Martha Nochimson provides a good overview of their divergent visions. I also recently created a video on the subject:

Re: the reader mail on the killer,

As soon as I saw the updated threads, I was going to take credit for commanding it into existence. Look forward to listening.

Any prognosis on the upcoming podcast?

I view early s2 as a mixed bag. It is definitely less consistent than s1, and the subplots begin to drag whereas I genuinely enjoy a lot of the mill-Ed/Norma-OEJ stuff in s1. The problem, I think, was that the writers were concerned that viewers were too attached to the Laura Palmer storyline so they tried to separate more characters from that arc. Likewise, with a 22-episode order (vs. the first season's pilot + 7) they were not compelled to maintain the tension originally inherent in ALL the storylines (hell, even Andy & Lucy had a bit of suspense in their narrative!). Basically, season 2 is where you start to see the show become a TV show in structure rather than a miniseries or serialized film, which is what it feels like in season 1. It's like "hey, let's tune in this week to see what these characters are up to" instead of "oh my God, what will happen next?" On the other hand...the mystery part of season 2 really steps up its game. In season one, for all her centrality, at times Laura can feel like a MacGuffin, a plot device to get us into the town. This is fun, but as we start to explore her character and her troubles (and actually get a glimpse of her death), and the larger dark, cosmic world she's a part of, the show becomes much deeper and more compelling. As a result, I generally rank the first part of season 2 higher than season 1 but that's a matter of taste. I prefer power to perfection, and don't mind the lows because the highs seem higher to me. I think the first time I watched the show I didn't even notice the lows as much, partly because I was caught up in the mystery, partly because I didn't realize yet where they were leading (for a while, I still thought that everything was going to tie back to Laura and that there would still be suspense and surprises ahead in all the subplots). But yes, many viewers in 1990 did share your feeling. Even though today people write about the show as if viewers and critics lost interest at a later point, it was really the season 2 premiere and subsequent episodes that tipped the scales. At any rate, my favorite parts of the saga come after season 1: a certain climactic episode (you know the one I'm talking about), the finale, and Fire Walk With Me. Ironically, none of these may have been possible if Lynch & Frost had gone by their original plan and . So I consider it a good decision made for the wrong reasons. Also, not sure if you're being tongue-in-cheek about

Just ran across this Japanese TV special on Twin Peaks (from when Fire Walk With Me premiered there). Unfortunately no subtitles, but the interviews are in English. Two moments worth jumping right into. The first is not a spoiler (as long as you just watch for a minute or so) and the second is, technically. Although I defy anyone to deduce what's going on from the fast-forwarded stop-motion paper cutout re-enactment (yes, you read that right). Bob's "message" for Japanese Twin Peaks fans: http://youtu.be/mjbrFiqS5hA?t=2m40s And the paper cutout re-enactment of the final episode: The first minute of this is also pretty memorable: Apparently, the Japanese really liked Twin Peaks.