Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 38: The Return, Part 4

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I don't know what to make of this series so far. Seems like in just 4 hours there's been more weird and bizarre than all of the previous Twin Peaks. Or close to it. I don't think that's a bad thing, but all these meandering vignettes with no payoff (yet) seem to be taking priority, although the story is starting to take shape.

 

If nothing else, it is all quite interesting and mysterious, really want to see where it all goes and how it all fits together, if it even fits together. Also a bit strange that for a show called Twin Peaks, very little of it actually takes place in Twin Peaks, but that doesn't mean all of this other stuff isn't related or connected somehow.


Only real negative for me so far is the lack of music. I enjoy Lynch's sound design but I feel the more unsettling stuff in the original show stood out and was far more effective when contrasted to the cheeseball music in all the other scenes. I don't think I'd want music all the time like the classic Twin Peaks, but all the absence of score and soundtrack has become trying, especially in the funnier bits. I was really pumped to hear Take Five of all things come in during that breakfast scene just to have something else finally going on. When it first began I thought it was just that classic drum riff coming back and got real excited, haha.

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I'm hoping that the classic twin peaks music is going to come back when cooper comes back and the FBI investigation moves to the actual town. 

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Hey folks! I'm to the forum but look forward to participating in future discussions. Some thoughts:

 

-Episode 4's silly breakfast scene prominently featured Dave Brubeck's song "Take Five". Up until this point, all of comedy scenes had been pretty much score-less and then suddenly Lynch cranks up this super overused playful jazz number (it's in Pleasantville, Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite, and a billion other places) while high-jinx ensue. Not only that, but this scene is lit like a modern sit-com and looks nothing like the rest of the show. I think this is Lynch playing with TV genre tropes yet again. Mike said that Dougie is a manufactured character, and so are his giant colorful suits, ikea kitchen, and his absurdly unaware American sitcom family. Lynch took these elements and added a dark undercurrent by placing our beloved Cooper in the role of the impossibly dumb sitcom Dad.

 

-Frost and Lynch are really going out of their way to have Kyle Maclachlan play every character under the sun except the one we actually want to see: We've had Red Room Coop, Evil Coop, Dougie, and comatose Coop as Dougie.  What a tease!

 

-Also, Dougie Jones? We already have Dougie Milford and I don't think I've ever met a single Dougie in my life. Do they just think it's funny to have multiple unrelated characters with the same names, because (as previously established) no sane person would ever do that? 


-Michael Cera's monologue felt like it was making fun of other reboots as well as the audience's desire to have every loose end connecting the old show to the new one explained. Michael Cera as Wally Brando totally would be a main character in Twin Peaks 2017 if Frost and Lynch weren't involved. We don't need to know who Andy's/Lucy's/Dick's kid is or why Harry isn't on the show any more. But fans want these sorts of things, so they stunt-casted Michael Cera and had him explain things with the most straightforward exposition possible with lines like "As you know, your brother Harry S. Truman, is my godfather. I heard he is ill...." and "These fine people, my parents, who I love so dearly.." He keeps restating who everyone is and reminding us that he doesn't live in Twin Peaks and just happened to be in the area and has no real reason to be there. It's both the most explanatory scene and the most deliberately superfluous.  Super funny, whether or not this was intended. 

 

-One of the episodes ended with The Cactus Blossoms singing "Mississippi" from their album You're Dreaming. There is another song on this album called "Change Your Ways or Die" that contains the following verse:

Quote

A lover's life is like a dream
Sycamore trees, peaches and cream
And if I could show you what I see
You'd take a chance, run away with me
A sip of whiskey gets your toes wet
If you dive too deep, you'll get caught in a net
Love and fire, burn to the core
I thought as I walked by the corner store


I like to imagine that there is a poor intern whose job it was to find songs with Twin Peaks shit in them and after days of fruitless Google searches he heard this song, ran straight to David Lynch, and went "I've found the perfect song! It mentions sycamore trees, a convenience store, fire, and classic American diner food!" And then David Lynch listened to it and went "I like the album! I think the song about Mississippi would be perfect for the show! Thanks!"

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I think Jacoby and his shovels will have significance. Remember he said that his own investigations into Laura Palmers death will last his whole life (paraphrasing), so I am sure his spray painting of shovels will have meaning. Maybe he has found out the location of Glastonbury Grove and is planning to dig it up? maybe the gold coating is some kind of protection? I don't know but I am pretty sure his obsession is still burning deep. I personally cannot wait until we see how the older cast relate to this new world, because sometimes those parts feel a bit like a Christmas special reunion show lol

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4 hours ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

-Also, Dougie Jones? We already have Dougie Milford and I don't think I've ever met a single Dougie in my life. Do they just think it's funny to have multiple unrelated characters with the same names, because (as previously established) no sane person would ever do that?

 

There is certainly precedence for duplicated names in TP though, like MIKE and BOB and Mike and Bobby.  I always thought it was likely to just cause a bit of audience confusion to have a pair of characters share a pair of names.  Could be something similar with Dougie.

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This is probably my favourite episode so far and not just because of the premium Albert trademark Zingers.  I love the bewildered old man Cooper cluelessly shuffling around. The breakfast scene was brilliant. Something weird going on with the casino staff. I loved it in the series when normal people rubbed up against the weird supernatural stuff and took the piss or dismissed it so I was very much in to "I'll have to discuss it with my pinecone"  Gordon Cole is an actual Character now instead of just popping up as David Lynch occasionally, really loved his scenes with Albert and the Cooper interview was really exciting. I really thought he was just going to launch straight in to a dead on Cooper impression.  

 

"Apologies in advance for Albert" love it.

 

Got really sad about Miguel Ferrer after this episode. 

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On 2017-5-23 at 9:42 AM, Ash_NR said:

 

I thought the woman that they were talking about was Sarah Palmer since she was connected to Dale in the Black Lodge in the finale.

That would also make sense with the line:"Do you know where she lives?"

   

"I know where she drinks"

 

Because she just sits at home drinking all day. But then how does he know that? Urgh. Speculation is pointless. And you could actually stumble on the right answer that's suck!

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On 5/23/2017 at 10:42 AM, Ash_NR said:

I thought the woman that they were talking about was Sarah Palmer since she was connected to Dale in the Black Lodge in the finale.

 

I was convinced they were talking about Annie? :-O

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2 hours ago, osohista said:

 

I was convinced they were talking about Annie? :-O

But Annie was so briefly in Cooper's life. Intense or not, it was barely a relationship before he entered the Black Lodge. Diane would be interesting, to be sure, but I don't know that I want to see her. Some mysteries should remain mysterious.

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Some thoughts:

 

I wonder if anyone has tried to unpack the numbers yet. I seem to recall a lot of very deliberate images of numbers in Fire Walk With Me, too - the telephone pole, and so on. I wonder if it's continuous. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if the numbers amounted to exactly nothing when assembled.

 

The use of colour is extremely pointed in this episode. The red door, the red chair, the red room; the blue rose case, the blue light that shrouds the final scene between Cole and Albert; the green of that horrible jacket, the green of the ring. I'm not sure it's useful (or possible) to ascribe a specific meaning to those colours in any given context. But there's a sense in which they're used to evoke a certain similar something in each case. Red for a threat, for a portal to some kind of Other; blue for perpetual mystery, like the blue box in Mulholland Drive; green is talismanic, a protection or a curse.

 

At first I thought the part where Denise teases Gordon Cole about bringing Tammy along was just a joke about Lynch's historic penchant for casting beautiful actresses in (some might say!) objectified roles in his movies. But it actually goes a bit deeper than that - a quick glance at the Wikipedia page for Chrysta Bell shows that she and Lynch have been working together on music since 1999. A better in-joke than it seems, I suppose.

 

The music sequences at the end of the episodes have been a little disappointing so far. It's partly because, to be honest, I haven't really liked any of the bands on show, and partly because those sequences feel like an afterthought. When Lynch uses music or shows a musician in his movies, and especially when he shows you the performer, it's generally for a very specific purpose - think 'In Dreams' in Blue Velvet, or the version of 'Crying' in Mulholland Drive, or even Jimmy Scott in 'Fire Walk with Me' - but there's none of that here. Nor is there any of the feeling of a world unto itself that we got with Julee Cruise in the original series - that always felt to me like a kind of fake music that couldn't have existed anywhere else but this odd TV series. In a strange way I wish they had at least had the bands miming, rather than playing live…

 

Anyway, I'm still enjoying the new season very much. The part where Cole simply repeated Albert's name three times is probably the most impressive bit of acting I've ever seen from Lynch. 

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Someone on Twitter described Tammy as being straight out of an X-Files porn parody and its kind of true.

 

I like the character and her interactions with Gordon/Albert, but given the way other young, attractive women have been used on the show (they are naked or murdered, sometimes both!), I'm starting to feel a little bit on edge.

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Robert Forster's reactions to Wally Brando were the redeeming part of that scene -- I thought it was hilarious, but it felt more like a comedy bit than like a part of the show.

 

The funniest bit of the entire episode to me was Cooper/Dougie's little gasp of surprise when the limo driver came to open the door for him.

 

Is Showtime selling mugs yet that say "I AM DOUGIE'S COFFEE!" in Helvetica Italic?

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Has anybody else noticed Doppleganger Coop slip in some backwards talking when seeing Gordon Cole? When he first greet Cole "it's very very nice to see you again old friend" it sounds like the first time he says "very" has been reversed, the closed captions only account for him saying "very" one time, but even Gordon Cole in his reply says "very very" which makes me think he also heard Coop say it twice. Then while Gordon and Albert are talking outside Gordon says "I don't think he greeted me properly, if you catch my meaning". 

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Disregarding all the lore stuff, the glimpses we get this episode really makes me wonder what Dougie Jones was like pre-Coopifying. When he returns home, his wife carries on as if she's having a normal conversation, even though he is just staring off into space and only answering in two-word sentences. And in the morning, the way she prepares his clothes and makes his food and everything (even labeling his coffee cup (although that could just be a little joke, I guess)) suggests to me that perhaps Dougie has some sort of mental health issue that his wife is already aware of. It makes me think that Dougie was never really all there. I mean, even in his conversations with Jade and the one-armed man, he seems a bit gormless.

 

If this isn't the case, then his wife's reaction is just completely nonsensical. Although, much like the chocolate bunnies, that possibility can never be fully discounted.

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Okay, I had a couple more thoughts after a rewatch.

 

- I enjoy how Cooper brushes the falling coins with his fingertips as he gets a jackpot.

 

- I recognised one of the actors in the casino (the one who guides Cooper into the office) from various things (like Batman Begins where he played a guard in Arkham?) He crops up everywhere and has a certain quality where he always looks unhinged. Nothing to add, but I liked seeing him here.

 

- Owl flyover and the lo-fi overlay when Cooper sees Mike in the bedroom.

 

On 2017-5-29 at 11:20 PM, Argobot said:

Someone on Twitter described Tammy as being straight out of an X-Files porn parody and its kind of true.

Man, second time round it really stood out. The way she walks is straight up Bayonetta levels of insane.

Spoiler

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For some reason I got into my head that Laura Dern would be Tammy Preston so I listened to The Secret History audiobook imagining her. It has taken me a while to adjust!

 

Re. the woman Gordon and Albert need to talk to - from the cut, she drinks at the Roadhouse, no? I doubt Sarah Palmer has ever been there. I assume it must be a resident of Twin Peaks. I don't see how Audrey could give any insight because her interactions with Cooper were fairly limited after Leland was revealed as the killer (although maybe BadCoop saw her after returning from the Lodge.) Annie makes most sense to me - she was the last person to see GoodCoop and was with him in the Lodge. She is/was a resident of Twin Peaks.

 

Diane would be another possibility - someone with an intimate knowledge of Cooper and his personality quirks, and who could give valuable feedback on BadCoop...but why would she drink at the Roadhouse? Or have I completely misread that final cut?

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I wouldn't assume the unnamed woman drinks at the Roadhouse since the show apparently would've cut there no matter what since the episode had come to an end and it was time for the end credits sequence. I agree that that's the logical inference based on the standard rules of editing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the woman isn't in Twin Peaks at all.

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7 hours ago, dartmonkey said:

Man, second time round it really stood out. The way she walks is straight up Bayonetta levels of insane.

  Hide contents

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Everything about her acting is very exaggerated. Look at the way she flings her face around when Albert and Gordon send her away. It's all very distracting, I can't say I've been enjoying her performance.

When she did that walk, flinging her hips around, I said, "I don't buy her as an FBI agent for a second." But now that I know from the podcast that she's the "footnotes agent" from the Secret History book, my conspiracy theory about her infiltrating the FBI from some other faction is pretty much out the window. I'm going to chalk it up to Lynch giving his friend who can't act very well (IMO) a job.

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8 hours ago, dartmonkey said:

For some reason I got into my head that Laura Dern would be Tammy Preston so I listened to The Secret History audiobook imagining her. It has taken me a while to adjust!

 

I dunno, I could imagine Laura Dern's character from Wild at Heart walking like Tammy Preston. 

 

 

Did I understand the scene where Cooper was cast out of the Red Room correctly? The Arm/Tree mentions its doppelganger, who then appears in front of Cooper and goes crazy. So the Arm has a doppelganger too? Also, is that Mike's arm? I'm very confused by the whole thing. 

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16 minutes ago, brkl said:

Did I understand the scene where Cooper was cast out of the Red Room correctly? The Arm/Tree mentions its doppelganger, who then appears in front of Cooper and goes crazy. So the Arm has a doppelganger too? Also, is that Mike's arm? I'm very confused by the whole thing. 

Yes, when tree is going crazy it's head is a different color and is presumably the doppelganger. It's established in the final episode of season 2 that the lodge people also have doppelgangers. In that episode they were portrayed as having white eyes. 

 

And yes, that is Mike's arm. It is also the dancing dwarf from the red room scenes of the original show. In Fire Walk With Me the dwarf says "I am The Arm, and I sound like this..." which the tree repeats when we first meet it. Also in FWWM at the end there is a part where the dwarf puts his hand where Mike's arm would be and they speak in unison. 

 

So yeah, Mike cut his arm off and it turned into a little dancing dwarf which evolved into a weird tree thing over the last 25 years. You know, Lodge stuff.

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15 hours ago, Blaine.1989 said:

Has anybody else noticed Doppleganger Coop slip in some backwards talking when seeing Gordon Cole? When he first greet Cole "it's very very nice to see you again old friend" it sounds like the first time he says "very" has been reversed, the closed captions only account for him saying "very" one time, but even Gordon Cole in his reply says "very very" which makes me think he also heard Coop say it twice. Then while Gordon and Albert are talking outside Gordon says "I don't think he greeted me properly, if you catch my meaning". 


A friend of mine pointed that out to me. Such a good catch. 

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I too hated Lucy's dumb cellphone reaction. There was a scene in original Twin Peaks where she keeps talking to someone over the sheriff's department intercom after they have left the room and then when they run up front, she is scared and baffled by how they could be in two places at once. The updated scene really doesn't work though and is made all the more dumb by the fact that the twin peaks sheriff's department has always had mobile radios. 


Oh, and I really hate that Andy still has the same haircut. It feels like he's just dressing up as original series Andy and I just don't buy it.

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Slight correction: I think y'all slightly misheard what Albert says to Gordon in the blue outdoor scene; one of you said that he'd described it as happening 'a year ago,' but I'm pretty sure he says "it was years ago." I interpreted it as meaning that when Albert was in contact with Jeffries, Cooper wasn't necessarily clearly missing at all yet. 

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29 minutes ago, Gerretic said:

Slight correction: I think y'all slightly misheard what Albert says to Gordon in the blue outdoor scene; one of you said that he'd described it as happening 'a year ago,' but I'm pretty sure he says "it was years ago." I interpreted it as meaning that when Albert was in contact with Jeffries, Cooper wasn't necessarily clearly missing at all yet. 

Oops yes. I remember that as well. Must have totally tricked ourselves on the cast. I'll rewatch the end of episode 4 before episode 5 to make sure I have it all straight in my head. 

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1 hour ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I too hated Lucy's dumb cellphone reaction. There was a scene in original Twin Peaks where she keeps talking to someone over the sheriff's department intercom after they have left the room and then when they run up front, she is scared and baffled by how they could be in two places at once. The updated scene really doesn't work though and is made all the more dumb by the fact that the twin peaks sheriff's department has always had mobile radios.

 

While watching I immediately thought of their mobile radios when Andy was trying to comfort her and again explain how people can talk on phones while walking around and driving now. Wasn't she the sole dispatcher in that place back then? Absolutely ridiculous that wireless communication would now be confusing to her 25+ years later.

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