Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 39: The Return, Part 5

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3 hours ago, pyide said:

So the corpse with the missing head and the military classification on the prints was Major Briggs, as most assumed. But he had Dougie's wedding band in his stomach? That's odd, has to be a deliberate plant. But was he possibly used to help create Dougie as well?

Cooper's scenes continue to be hilarious, and Bad Coop seems to be in much better shape this episode than I assumed he'd be after the state he was in last time. There's so much to unpack in this one despite not a lot moving forward on the whole. Need to watch it again.


Also, nice little nod to Don Davis by naming Ernie Hudson's character Colonel Davis.

 

Not just Major Briggs, but the 16th time someone has looked up Major Briggs fingerprints in 25 years.  Implying that perhaps other Major Briggs "bodies" may have appeared from time to time.  Completely unsupported as of now, but since Coop has had multiple doppelgangers running around, possible that Bad Coop was for some reason using Briggs body as a calling card for certain killings. 

 

The mystery of the golden shovels couldn't have been solved in a better way.

 

I'm super impressed with the character arcs from original TP to S3 that have so far been shown, in that the people who have changed have done so in believable, if surprising ways, while the people who have remained very similar are very believable as well.  I'm so used to feeling in shows where something picks up many years later, people just don't feel like they are where they would have ended up.

 

I cheered when Ernie Hudson showed up.  I like the guy a whole bunch.

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3 hours ago, gormanate said:
  • Random office guy slurping down a green tea latte cracked me up.

 

It says so much with so little. This guy has been ordering coffee his whole life out of peer pressure, faking his enjoyment, even though everyone around him knows it. Then it turns out he's been a tea person all along and he didn't even know it!

 

1 hour ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

-This episode was great, but maaannnn New Sheriff Truman's nagging caricature of a wife bummed me the fuck out. C'mon guys. We can do better than this.

 

I was about to turn to my wife and say something like, "Man, poor guy," but then she said to me, "You know what? I'm kinda on her side! Yeah, it's NOT fair!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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2 hours ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

-This episode was great, but maaannnn New Sheriff Truman's nagging caricature of a wife bummed me the fuck out. C'mon guys. We can do better than this.

 

Nagging wife? Whoa, what?

 

I for sure interpreted that as someone emotionally abusive, not just nagging.

She throws out argument after argument over minor things, and turns anything he says into something incredibly negative that she implies is Clearly His Fault, and you can tell by his reactions that he's simply given up trying to reason with this person because she simply cannot be reasoned with - she just wants to be miserable and nobody's allowed to say anything otherwise. It's a really uncomfortable interaction overall.

 

I think overall it indicates a shitty relationship due to a total lack of communication both ways, but notice that she turns the issue of money (like $4, i mean how expensive can a big bucket be) on solving a practical problem, into an intentional plot to keep her from buying the things she wants (and a new rug is hardly practical). It's gross.

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4 hours ago, Argobot said:

Was he empathizing? I read that scene as a part of the real Cooper realizing what it means to have missed the past 25 years of his life. It was truly heartbreaking.

 

My son was standing there. He was happy and carefree, clearly living a life of deep harmony and joy.

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There's so much to unpack in this episode but just to note a couple of little things no one has mentioned yet:

 

Spoiler

- Sonny Jim seems to blink backwards when he's sitting in the car 
- I was so excited to see Norma and Shelly still working together at the RR, I got way too emotional
- I loved the impending sense of doom in the many of the scenes but especially the shot of Amanda Seyfreid's character grinning in the car, I think like a lot of people I was waiting for that sudden crash to happen 

- Jade's brief appearance made me happy and hope she's more involved 

- Mike is the guy that chews out Amanda Seyfried's boyfriend over his terrible resume

- That shot of Bob in the mirror was incredible and I think a nice tribute to Frank Silvia 
 


I, too was a bit bummed out with the nagging wife thing, but hopefully that's actually going somewhere because it seemed like a really unnecessary scene in the context of everything else.  

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Mike! I didn't realise until you wrote it!

 

So many details in this episode. As JustFlo noted, that strange sound when the the drug addict woman woke up was disconcerting. A great effect. And in terms of special effects, I think this episode perfectly encapsulates every facet which has been a prolonged talking point on the forums. The BOB mirror shot was SO subtle I had to close the blinds and skip back to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Skipping in 5-10 second chunks made the change obvious but watching with daylight on the TV screen, I wasn't sure if it wasn't just Kyle MacLachlan grimacing. And then on the other end of the spectrum was the reverse shot of the kid when the car exploded that looked like I did it! I love the eclectic choices made and it feels inspiring. Young filmmakers don't need cutting edge CG - they can use the oldest tricks in the book and still capture the emotional truth(!).

 

Tammy Preston and BadCoop's prints - I expected her to compare them and find BadCoops 'reversed'.

 

purps mentioned that this makes the Missing Pieces canon because we go to Buenos Aires - for me, the Missing Pieces are the same as the extra scenes in the international pilot. If Lynch wants to go back and cherry-pick the juiciest parts of that unused material, then fantastic. But until it's actually seen in the series, I wouldn't say it's canon. I'd be fine with seeing Bowie's Missing Piece included, but that doesn't mean Cooper's crappy conversation with 'Diane' is legit ;)

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Really enjoyed this episode! Some things I jotted down while watching:

 

- The 'speed' of this episode felt much more like a normal TV show. Dialogue seemed more natural, despite the situations being absurd.

 

- Going to school theme. I think Cooper was crying because he saw how miserable Sonny was. Cooper getting out of the car for work seemed to evoke this feeling as well.

 

- 'Damn good Joe'. More teasing.

 

- Ridiculous car explosion. Everyone was too close to the blast. It was cut really choppily. Very funny.

 

- Truman's wife is a condensed cliche, like the recurring Hill Street Blues "Hello Fay." moments, which Mark Frost wrote.

 

- Setting up a new Laura Palmer, smiling upward in a similar way to the end of FWWM.

 

- Jacoby was like someont straight ouf of Bioshock Infinite. Laughed out loud at the shit-digging shovel.

 

- Taking the "Oh, this rebel bad boy is kind of charming." trope and killing it. That part shocked me, and then I felt stupid for being lulled into it.

 

- Tammy looks like she's floating in water.

 

- Lastly, it's interesting to have this meet or defy expectations over a longer period of time. It's different from his films where those questions are contained in a couple of hours, and everyone discusses the whole thing afterwards.

 

Sorry for the choppy notes! Overall I really enjoyed this episode. It's one of my favourites so far.

 

 

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One thing I don't think anyone has mentioned: the woman who is trying to hook up with her married coworker (and I think the same woman who lets Dougie into the ladies' room) seems to have --NDA on her coffee cup. Maybe this is the Linda the Giant/?????? mentions in episode 1?

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Initially I was expecting Cooper to be back to his old self this episode, after the scene with the coffee last episode. I was a tad disappointed that wasn't the case but all the scenes with Dougie were so good that I could forgive. I saw this theory being passed around last night which has now made me think he won't become Cooper until he retrieves what he lost in transitioning back into the real world, that being his shoes. The scene in this episode where he stares longingly at the statue's shoes kinda reinforces that, in my interpretation. Where would he get his shoes back you might ask? Well there's a one-armed shoe salesman in Twin Peaks that might be of help. 

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One thing I noticed was the return of the drum shuffle background music (when Dougie-Coop follows the coffee into the lift).

Jacoby as an Alex Jones-style paranoid salesman was such a great payoff. 

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9 minutes ago, Bolegium said:

One thing I noticed was the return of the drum shuffle background music (when Dougie-Coop follows the coffee into the lift).

Jacoby as an Alex Jones-style paranoid salesman was such a great payoff. 

Yeah coffee definitely gets the jazz soundtrack fired up, after last week's Take Five and the elevator scene this week. 

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2 hours ago, SunBroZak said:

Where would he get his shoes back you might ask? Well there's a one-armed shoe salesman in Twin Peaks that might be of help. 

Yahtzee! It's a different experience being so into the lore this time round and having some context for the surreal aspects - there's something about that shoe idea that is almost too cyclically logical!  My radar for what's weird or not is a bit off.

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8 hours ago, LillyBaeum said:

 

Nagging wife? Whoa, what?

 

I for sure interpreted that as someone emotionally abusive, not just nagging.

 

If her character existed in isolation, I would agree with you. However, given the less than amazing portrayal of women in the show so far, something about the scene read to me as "Women, amiright?"

 

To be clear, I would never use words like 'nagging' or 'hysterical' to describe an actual person as they are disproportionately applied to women when men who display the same behavior usually aren't seen in as negative a light. In reality, the problems are almost certainly not one sided, her labour is probably not fully appreciated, and the lack of communication probably goes both ways. However, the way the scene was put together I got the impression that we were supposed to side entirely with Truman's quiet rationality and laugh at her broad ranting and raving. I could be wrong, though! We'll see as the show progresses. 

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I miss real Coop :sad:

 

Also, was I seeing things, or was there a green flashing light on Tom Sizemore's character's face just before Coop said he was lying?  If so, then there's some sort of external force guiding Coop through his initial Dougie-days, pointing him to the right slot machines and telling him when his rival coworker is lying.  My theory is that whatever it is, it's taking care of Dougie's loose ends before Coop reverts back to his old self and leaves a big hole in Dougie's family.

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There was indeed a green light. My first thought definitely linked it to the slot machine video game quest markers, but then, Cooper proper was always almost spookily good at reading people, right? I wonder if that was somehow a post-Lodge visual manifestation of how Cooper mentally saw the world in the first place, only maybe he 'sees' that way for real now. I don't think that would track with the slot machine markers but maybe this was something else, who knows.

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BadCoop's reflection was so good 

 

Liked the stuff with Amanda Seyfried and her boyfriend a lot. Similar to the teenage stuff from Wild at Heart and old Twin Peaks, but much more gross. Classic Lynchian corrupted Americana. Felt very tragic. That close-up of her with the music was so unexpected and emotionally intense and in-your-face filmic - might be my favourite moment in the series so far.

 

Also want real Coop back, though the feeling isn't as strong after this episode as it was after the last. Does no one at work give a shit about this totally catatonic man? It's kinda implied by Naomi Watts that Dougie has experienced bouts of depression or something like that (he's also established to be an alchoholic?), but this is still stretching it.

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55 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

 

If her character existed in isolation, I would agree with you. However, given the less than amazing portrayal of women in the show so far, something about the scene read to me as "Women, amiright?"

 

To be clear, I would never use words like 'nagging' or 'hysterical' to describe an actual person as they are disproportionately applied to women when men who display the same behavior usually aren't seen in as negative a light. In reality, the problems are almost certainly not one sided, her labour is probably not fully appreciated, and the lack of communication probably goes both ways. However, the way the scene was put together I got the impression that we were supposed to side entirely with Truman's quiet rationality and laugh at her broad ranting and raving. I could be wrong, though! We'll see as the show progresses. 

With so little context it's tough to say, but I felt strong echoes of the Nadine/Ed relationship.

 

Also, they're taking care to establish Harry Truman's illness but keeping the character 'in' the series. What's the purpose? Again, it makes me wonder how they'll address Donna and Annie.

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I always come back to annoyance at David Lynch and women because he seems both able to write good female characters with consistent voices that he empathises with, but also, if he estimates a female character to not be that important he's way more likely to just shit out underbaked, stereotyped shit. He's a very thoughtful writer that seems to always short circuit himself in the exact same ways. It just feels like it reveals something worse in his character that he so regiments his interest. 

 

In fact, a strong point in this episode, in my opinion, is Lynch demonstrating lots of different scenarios where men feel emboldened to harass or take advantage of women (the bar scene, Shelly's (daughter?) and knockoff Steve Buscemi, the dude hitting on the bathroom lady, etc) but then Lynch's conception of how women might mistreat men is just like - nagging them? 

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8 minutes ago, Gamebeast23456 said:

but then Lynch's conception of how women might mistreat men is just like - nagging them? 

 

Well, we have Laura 'vs.' Bobby and James which got pretty complex and then Evelyn vs. James (I guess). And Phyllis vs. Bill. But yeah Truman's wife certainly could be lazy shorthand. It went on so long though that I couldn't tell if it was intended to be grating in a way that recognizes the cliche.

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What do y'all think the significance of the green light on the guy's face in the meeting was that let Cooper know that dude was lying?

 

When Cooper was being helped with the slot machines by the floating Red Room icon, I had assumed that somebody from *beyond* was helping him out. But this interaction made me feel more like Cooper may have some sort of "second sight." They establish in Fire Walk With Me that he may very well have predictive powers, and we know from Twin Peaks stuff in general that Cooper has some kind of mystical connection to the world. Is it that that connection is one of the strongest parts of his personality, manifesting like his love for coffee? Or maybe his time in the Black Lodge gave him even greater powers of insight. Or maybe somebody like Mike is actually helping him from beyond, and these revelations are meant to shuttle him towards some goal.

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5 hours ago, Tirranek said:

- Taking the "Oh, this rebel bad boy is kind of charming." trope and killing it. That part shocked me, and then I felt stupid for being lulled into it.

 

This scene in the bar was so distressing because of how the women were shocked and taken aback, but they neither called for help nor tried to fully break out of the dude's grip. It seemed like they were resigned to the idea that he can get away with this so they just let it happen.

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Interesting! Seems that Mr. C also has powers of prediction, but I initially attributed that to BOB's influence. Maybe it's BOB taking advantage of something in Cooper though.

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4 minutes ago, SuperBiasedMan said:

 

This scene in the bar was so distressing because of how the women were shocked and taken aback, but they neither called for help nor tried to fully break out of the dude's grip. It seemed like they were resigned to the idea that he can get away with this so they just let it happen.

 

And the way it just ended without resolution, with his hand around her throat. His threats felt a bit "Do you wanna play with fire, little boy?" (I'm not actually making the connection beyond vibes though)

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