Twin Peaks Rewatch 35: The Return, Part 1

[James]

I never actually finished watching Eraser head, but the new arm is awfully reminiscent of the baby in that, right? 

 

A silly micro-observation: the titles dwelling in silence for a moment on Laura's portrait before the music kicks in is very powerful to me. 

[electricblue]

The sudden jump to New York was really surprising to me and the beautiful, slow moving drone shots were probably the highlight of the episode. Andy and Lucy were hamming it up a bit much while Hawk fits into the new tone of the show perfectly. I have to agree that its disappointing that they are the exact same people 25 years later down to Lucy's over-explaining how landline telephones work

[MarkHoog]

I am still not sure whether I enjoyed this first hour of TP. I agree that it felt more like an extension of Mulholland Dr. or Inland Empire than a return to the quirky 90's TV show that everyone remembers. There were a lot of moments I enjoyed (the bad Coop driving with the bad ass beat over it, the scenes with the glass box - despite Madeline Zima's - intentional?- horrendous acting), but I felt the 'Fargo' storyline consisted of overlong scenes and misfired weirdness. Hastings' interrogation was stellar, though. The episode DID affect me in that subconscious way that Lynch often does; I (dreamt that I??) woke up screaming because I was sure something was about to happen in the still darkness of my bedroom. I can only assume that something was a video effect.

 

Probably not a popular opinion, but I felt the return of some of the old cast a bit... unfitting, somehow? I can't put my finger on it, but a part of me would've liked this episode better without the likes of Lucy and Ben Horne (the scene with Margaret and Hawk was powerful as hell, on the other hand - given the context). It's like Lynch is standing with one foot in the past while the other is taking things in a totally new direction. What I also didn't like is the explicit gore. In Mulholland Dr. that obscured image of the corpse on the bed haunted me for days. Here we get a long close up of a severed head. Why? Don't get me wrong, I love me some buckets 'o gore, but this felt out of place and somewhat gratuitous... it's kinda like how monster movies are at their best when you can't really make out the monster and your imagination gets all fired up.

 

One more tip, and I don't mean to sound like one of those oversensitive internet douchebags; I would go for somewhat less revealing image for the episodes. Various (re)tweets for this podcast episode showed me tan, long haired Coop before I'd had a chance to watch the episode (I'm in the Netherlands), and that was a visual that I would've liked to have come at me out of the blue while watching. Just a thought.

 

Still love you guys and everything you do! Can't wait to hear all of your your ponderings and interpretations these coming months.

 

[Jake]

Sorry about the revealing image. I'd seen it on twitter and Facebook a dozen times before using it for the episode (I actually took it from a tweet) so it seemed okay, but I should have weighed my currently-Twin-Peaks-heavy feed when making that call. 

 

edit: I changed the art!

[Argobot]

Speaking of revealing stuff, the Showtime app is really bad with spoilers. I am rewatching old Twin Peaks episodes on the app, and before some of the episodes play, they run an add for Twin Peaks: The Return. That ad is usually just a shot of the Laura Palmer picture or of older Cooper, but occasionally the ad that runs has the a image of the season 2 BOB in the mirror with Cooper scene. Seems like a pretty huge spoiler to run in your ad for people watching season 1 and season 2.

[Jake]

Yeah they're playing old trailers for The Return before you watch an episode of The Return! I didn't mind those trailers before the season started, but now that I have context, the incidental shots feel like spoilers. It's subtle but annoying all the same.

[Urthman]

Sheriff is usually an elected position.  In a larger town, you might have new deputies and staff turning over whenever there's a new sheriff elected, but it seems right that a small town like Twin Peaks might elect a new sheriff to replace the old one but all the deputies and staff would remain the same.   Also completely unsurprising that the town would elect a younger new guy (especially the old sheriff's son -- although I'm kinda hoping it turns out to be his daughter) rather than one of the older deputies, and that's not even taking the quite plausible racism into account.

 

So Hawk and Andy remaining deputies seemed completely and ordinarily plausible to me.

[Urthman]

3 hours ago, MarkHoog said:

There were a lot of moments I enjoyed (the bad Coop driving with the bad ass beat over it

 

 

It seemed to me that "bad ass beat" was some kind of normal rock song slowed way down until it seemed like something out of the red room?

[BigJKO]

The song is this but slowed down making it sound super creepy:

 

 

Bad Coop Super Power Moment:

[Gregalor]

It sounded very industrial slowed down, which made me joke, "Is this the introduction of Trent Reznor's character?"

[Jake]

2 hours ago, Urthman said:

Sheriff is usually an elected position.  In a larger town, you might have new deputies and staff turning over whenever there's a new sheriff elected, but it seems right that a small town like Twin Peaks might elect a new sheriff to replace the old one but all the deputies and staff would remain the same.   Also completely unsurprising that the town would elect a younger new guy (especially the old sheriff's son -- although I'm kinda hoping it turns out to be his daughter) rather than one of the older deputies, and that's not even taking the quite plausible racism into account.

 

This totally tracks. (They actually elected a peer which makes perfect sense.)

[PinkCrayon]

One hilarious little "Twin Peaks" thing I noticed this episode, when the Log Lady calls Hawk, the phone she is talking on is this comically small corded phone. Meanwhile, maintenance man Hank from the apartment building makes a call on an absolutely huge cell phone.

[Gattman]

One thing I noticed is at the end at The Bang Bang Bar the Aussie actress Gia Carides is one of the women with Shelley

I think Lynch loves Australians as there were 2 in Mulholland Dr.

[Eraserhead72]

People sitting on a sofa watching a glass box.
Waiting a long time for something to happen.

Getting off on the secrecy of it all.

They miss Cooper (literally).

Something else appears in the glass box instead.

Its dark. Unrecognisable. Raw. Ugly. Violent.

It completely messes with their heads.

Welcome to the new Twin Peaks....

 

As people have no doubt noticed, like the opening 'smash a TV with a lead pipe' sequence of Fire Walk With Me, i reckon Lynch is being less than subtle with this sequence. It feels like his intention from the start is to destroy expectations and conventions again. Reckon this won't be the most comfortable ride but something that will be appreciated more with distance and time. Just like the movie.

I had bad dreams that night.

[MarkHoog]

2 hours ago, Eraserhead72 said:

People sitting on a sofa watching a glass box.
Waiting a long time for something to happen.

Getting off on the secrecy of it all.

They miss Cooper (literally).

Something else appears in the glass box instead.

Its dark. Unrecognisable. Raw. Ugly. Violent.

It completely messes with their heads.

Welcome to the new Twin Peaks....

 

 

 

Whoa, great interpretation. Also, I think Death by Motion Blur is going to be the name of my new post-punk band.

[TurboPubx-16]

 

Along these lines: the early scene with Jacoby spoke to me as, "We're digging up this ancient thing, gonna need A LOT of shovels."

 

I also watched the first two episodes in a single uninterrupted format, but I'll try not to speak about part 2. 

 

Over and over again in the two-hour super cut, I kept saying to myself, "This is not season 3 of Twin Peaks, this is the sequel to Fire Walk With Me."  I am very curious to see if the season turns into a soap opera/comedy in the middle. I love David Lynch films but I also find them to be exhausting; I don't think anyone on this earth believes 18 hours of Lynchian non-stop tension would work at all. I predict that the bulk of the season will skip between dead bodies, stories of love, and wacky nonsense; the finale will be another two hour film like this one. 

 

When the cops opened the principle's trunk and we see the large ice box, was anyone else chanting to themselves, "Se-vered head, se-vered head!" ? Instead we get a chicken nugget-sized piece of human, which turns out to be way worse D:

 

 

[thenexus6]

Not limited to episode one, but man the meme game has been tremendous so far. It's been non-stop. I am quite enjoying it.

 

I recommend this facebook group:

 

https://www.facebook.com/firewalkwithmemes/

[Pogemon]

i just rewatched Episode 1 as a solo episode after watching the cojoined episodes on Sunday night. 

 

I stopped for for a second to look at the bookshelf in Ruth Davenport's apartment/murder scene and on top there was a book called "Indian Heritage".  I know she was a librarian.  Was this an overdue book?!?  

 

Hmmmm.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Jake]

33 minutes ago, Pogemon said:

i just rewatched Episode 1 as a solo episode after watching the cojoined episodes on Sunday night. 

 

I stopped for for a second to look at the bookshelf in Ruth Davenport's apartment/murder scene and on top there was a book called "Indian Heritage".  I know she was a librarian.  Was this an overdue book?!?  

 

Hmmmm.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

OH MAN fingers crossed that the Log Lady (or Hawk) misinterpreted something her log said and whatever is missing is literally inside that book or something ridiculous like that.

 

I grabbed a still:

 

[electricblue]

I really hope its something like that and not mystical native american stuff

[Destra Novedieci]

So, the Arm... everyone is referring to it as a tree, but given the anatomical connections and the electricity crackling through it, maybe it's more akin to a nerve bundle?

[Gregalor]

4 hours ago, Destra Novedieci said:

So, the Arm... everyone is referring to it as a tree, but given the anatomical connections and the electricity crackling through it, maybe it's more akin to a nerve bundle?

 

It's basically the ultimate Electric Brain Meme courtesy of David Lynch.

[Woodfella]

I just assumed that the "something about your heritage" was Glastonbury Grove.

[Jake]

4 hours ago, Destra Novedieci said:

So, the Arm... everyone is referring to it as a tree, but given the anatomical connections and the electricity crackling through it, maybe it's more akin to a nerve bundle?

 

It really seems like both.

 

Attached: The trees of Glastonbury Grove, some neurons, and the Arm in season 3.

[Gregalor]

Since there's electrical impulses that flow through it, my thoughts never even went to "tree". It's been a nervous system this whole time to me. (Have you ever been to the Body Worlds exhibit? It gave me flashbacks to that.) But now that it's brought up, yeah, I can see how it also looks like a tree.