Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 42: The Return, Part 8

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So this collage of Albert's line in the original series + the Bob blob in Part 8 has popped up in my twitter feed, and I think it brings a lot of it together.

 

My feeling is that the whole lore with the a-bomb doesn't literally mean the a-bomb brought all of the evil into the world, but that the bomb is the utmost representation and a powerload of the evil that already resides in men. The thing is, its power is so great it had the capacity of exposing this in a very raw form, unleashing it into the world and arguably creating some kind of disturbance between our reality and parallel dimensions (i.e. Black Lodge, White Lodge, room-above-the-convenience-store, room-in-laura's-painting). The mother is, then, man-made, a byproduct of the concentration of this pure evil force - which, as we now should know, creates the garmonbozia Black Lodge beings adore so much. 

On another realm (which I reckon might be the White Lodge or somewhere in between), The Giant and Señorita Dido seem to work together to bring light into our world and counteract the darkness. That golden is the only significantly bright colour in a nearly all B&W episode called "Got a light?" makes it inevitable to address Laura as a "good" force. As someone pointed out, and I noticed it while watching too, the golden mass of light which later becomes Laura's blob is shaped like an uterus. So, while Bob's dark blob seems to come off Mother's head (and mythologically, the head, matters of the mind and such are often connected to a masculine energy), Laura's light blob comes from a womb (which sprouted out of a mythical being's head, but that's on another level). 

Does it contribute to an unfortunate trope? It does, if you look at it simply like Good x Evil, but we are in Lynchian/Frostian domain here. Nothing is as it seems. Lynch's intense involvement in transcendental meditation is very likely going to influence this imagery and narrative into a reflection rather than an outright morally correct conclusion. Very often, in the world, evil trumps good - Laura, for instance, was so corrupted from an early age, she didn't even stand a chance against Bob. 

I think the whole Good x Evil debate is much more centered in the balance of good and evil within each person - which is why, very fortunately, we have lots of complex characters supporting this debate, Cooper being one of them (people tend to think of him as 100% good, but he does have an evil doppelganger which wouldn't exist if there was no complexity to his character). 

 

EDIT: My guess about the Cicada Frog, Moth Frog or whatever you call it: Laura's blob became the egg as it came down. The frog is "good", climbing into the girl.  As for the Woodsmen, they seem mighty evil, but they might also be a byproduct of the imbalance caused by the bomb.

 

albert.jpg

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Holy shit!

WOW BOB WOW indeed!

 

Of course, just as we hit the fifties we get a bunch of screaming women. I seem to stay on the lookout for how women are portrayed this season. Could be better even in this very abstract episode.

Maybe people are generally more inclined follow the plot and to extract information, intent and motivations. I didn't quite realize what can be read so literally. I was so invested in the sounds and images and atmosphere created by them.

 

Love how polarizing this episode is received on the Dugpa forums. One commenter is in awe, the next wants to throw their phone through the TV.  I don't think this is a bad thing. I hated some of my favorite albums before I loved them.

 

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I liked this episode a lot as a series of moving pictures paired with sound. I'm not so sure about the lore implications.

 

 

Also, I never expected to find out that Joey Castillo is working with Nine Inch Nails through Twin Peaks.

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Haven't seen anyone mention yet the obvious Sandy/Jeffrey/"I just know" reference to the teenagers' 1956 walk. Had me thinking off the bat....could this be "Cooper's" mother?

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5 hours ago, Cleinhun said:

Some parts of the abstract bomb scenes were uncomfortably similar to a dream I had once.

 

That's not a joke, by the way. a couple moments in there felt like they were literally plagiarized from a dream I had years ago. It was a weird experience, to say the least.

it was also very similar to a recurring dream of mine

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I'm not confused by people's demands that 'the plotlines should be continued, goddammit'!

But to me the previous episode felt like the most uneventful one. Yes, sure, it had the most churn of plot, but the least amount of memorable scenes, too.

Also, I guess I'm at a point where I watch something of David Lynch without expecting anything. Because I learned that that's foolish. I just let myself be dropped in this world for an hour and surprise me where it takes me. Sooner or later it will lead to a destination.

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I'm really wondering a lot how much the Dougie rebirth storyline is connected to Lynch's personal interest in rebirth through meditation and shamanism. Dougie's reintroduction to the world after a heavy ego-destroying spiritual experience (such as being trapped outside of time and space for 25 years with a bunch of spirits) either has tapped him into some kind of intuition he didn't have before OR lodge spirits are just directly intervening and helping him at certain times. I really hope it isn't the latter because that isn't interesting. If or when Dale Cooper wakes up inside of Dougie's life, what will be the fallout? The Dougie story is already so much about the weight of Cooper's sacrifice. The curse of lost time and the blessing of rebirth. Cooper loses 25 years of human relationships and gains a new perspective on life and a new connection to the spiritual world. Janey-E and Sonny Jim lose a husband and a father but they gain (potentially) a new relationship with a legitimately gentle and good hearted person in Cooper whereas Dougie Jones is implied to be a scumbag and a poor father. I wonder if Dale Cooper will leave them behind by choice?

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1 hour ago, belamoscovitz said:

 

 

EDIT: My guess about the Cicada Frog, Moth Frog or whatever you call it: Laura's blob became the egg as it came down. The frog is "good", climbing into the girl.  As for the Woodsmen, they seem mighty evil, but they might also be a byproduct of the imbalance caused by the bomb.

 

 

Sooo, just went back to rewatch it in better quality in a bigger screen and now I see definitely eggs & bob come from the same place, so Laura (or any good force) wasn't around for that last 1956 sequence. My bad. 

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I somehow doubt Lynch or Frost want Laura as an agent of divinity. It divests her of her choices and opts to make her tragedy a product of fate. I think they probably know that.

I don't know about others, but I sort of view the original Twin Peaks run and FWWM as separate of each other. They're so visually and tonally distant that it's hard to see them existing in the same space; I also think that helps me appreciate their individual intentions. I originally figured The Return would occupy the same space as FWWM, but even it feels like its blooming out so much further from the (very personal) story of FWWM. I wont be too heartbroken if The Return does embrace a sort of hammy cosmic battle, because it already feels relatively divorced from the nuanced depictions of characters in the earlier series.

 

Maybe I'm just giving them all a pass because I enjoy watching Lynch do his thing. At any rate, what a stunning episode. 

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Now that a teensy bit of time has passed, my feelings on this episode have already become more mixed. As a viewing experience I absolutely loved it. It was hypnotic and unlike anything I've ever seen. But it was also all awfully on-the-nose and featured a lot of images and symbols that I have seen a few too many times. I might have liked it better it wasn't explicitly set in 1945 and could more easily be seen as being a metaphorical aside; the space scenes at the beginning of Eraserhead showed a similar act of creation, but gained something by remaining more abstract.


ALSO: Abe Sapien's origin story in Hellboy's BPRD: The Plague of Frogs was visually pretty much exactly the same, down to the weird egg and space uterus. 

timthumb.jpg.47744db12b1033d7953a9b88be596043.jpg

 

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6 hours ago, Demimonde said:

Dirty Cooper already knew Ray was being paid to betray him, possibly by the warden, considering the empty gun, which really, he should have checked.

I don't know much about guns, but he flips the drum thing open and the chambers appear to have bullets in them. Should he have checked whether they were spent rounds or something?

 

6 hours ago, TurboPubx-16 said:

In writing this post I've realized that I think the opposite, that is; adding Good vs Evil cosmic lore does indeed make it shitty and overly reductive to the character's stories. In addition, I think it's a lazy and boring trope. I'm not saying that this is definitely what is happening here. I'm not passing judgement on The Return before I've seen it all. I actually enjoyed the episode. I'm just a bit worried, is all.

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm struggling to come up with the right adjective for what I want to convey. As one example, the notion that the Bible contains one being of pure good and another being of pure evil who fight over humanity's souls is not supported by the text. Anyone who does a deep-dive into their own spirituality and honestly tries to tackle the big issues will quickly drop simplistic notions of good and evil because they are simply not useful to one's spiritual growth or well-being, because they don't offer insight into reality and cannot help with someone dealing with grief and trauma.

(I'm posting on mobile and can't for the life of me figure out how to remove the spoiler section at the end of that quote. Ignore it.)

 

In its own right, I loved this episode. It was the strangest sustained sequence of television I've ever seen, and I really appreciated it for that. Even beyond that, it was a remarkable experience.

 

Initially, my reaction to the Laura orb thing was similar to JP's; the woman seemed to be showing compassion or live for Laura's spirit or something, I'm not sure exactly what. But in retrospect, it's hard not to think that the fears of it being more of a cosmic struggle deal are right, and I'm really not keen on what that means for the series as a whole. But even if Laura isn't some sort of agent of the heavens or whatever, and even while enjoying the episode, I wasn't and am not entirely happy with the relatively small but powerful story of Laura Palmer and Twin Peaks being dragged into this larger context. Sure, the Lodges added a certain aspect of grandiosity, but that was fine if I saw them as some strange place we glimpse at the extremes of human experience, or whatever. But the idea that Laura was in some sense picked out or even just known about before hand is somehow dissatisfying to me. Twin Peaks is at its most horrifying in domestic settings. It employs the supernatural to convey an unfathomable horror, but that horror is made all the more terrible by the knowledge that it exists in private in ordinary neighbourhoods, maybe just around the corner from me or you. Too many stories are about the destruction of the world, when the destruction of a single life is so much more relatable and relevant to everyday life. Laura's story resonates because it's human. To me, putting it on this larger stage just makes it more abstract. 

 

I'm short, the TurboPubx quote above puts it better than I could. 

 

I felt pretty gross writing that out, though. Like human suffering is a resource to be mined for drama. Garmonbozia indeed. 

 

Oh, and I agree about the tower room being the same as from the very start of the season. It has the same floor, and of course was also in black and white, which I believe are the only times Twin Peaks has ever done that. 

 

Speaking of which, cheesy though it is to use B&W to signify the past, it totally works here. In fact, I really enjoy Lynch's use of technology in general, particularly film-making technology. He seems to be embracing all eras, and finding both lore symbolism and emotional resonance in it all, from the flickering light of the early cinema screen in this episode, to the high-tech glitch aesthetic of the digital video scrubbing effect (in  this  episode the audio from that sequence even sounded like a corrupted video file). He's able to harness all this stuff in a very natural way to create a kind of modern mythology. I'm not speaking in terms of pedantic lore; I'm speaking in terms of the Lodges being coherent places and beings that suggest their own internal logic. I'm sometimes distracted by the pairing of supposedly timeless beings with contemporary objects, but he really makes it work. He seems to have a good sense of the "spirit" of the thing, if that makes any sense at all. 

 

I'm still enjoying the show, and still optimistic for its future. I'm starting to steel myself for the prospect of it not resolving things in the way people think they want it to, though, because who the hell knows with this damn season. But I'm 100% along for the ride. 

 

Oh, and am I understanding everyone right that there's no episode next week? God, what a drag. But I suppose it makes complete sense for this to be a mid-season break bookend episode. It's almost like some sort of nightmare overture. 

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One of my favorite scenes from the original series:

 

Think there's any connection to the place Cooper goes in episode 3 and the place where we meet the giant this one? We get "a palazzao of some fantastic proportion" "a gleaming radiant marble" "knocking at the door". I kinda hope it's not connected. 

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19 minutes ago, James said:

I don't know much about guns, but he flips the drum thing open and the chambers appear to have bullets in them. Should he have checked whether they were spent rounds or something?

 

I'm not a gun expert either but my understanding is that it's possible to interfere with the mechanics of the gun (the firing pin?) in other ways such that it just won't fire.

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Holy shit, that slow-motion atom bomb..

 

Like.. this episode was absolutely *packed* with grade A CGI. The slow-motion nuclear blast looked amazing. The insides of the blast effect looked amazing. Even the ocean and long track into the Giant's domain looked fantastic.

 

All that really complex CGI coupled with the classic overlaying footage and weird timelapse motion stuff.. I feel like this episode made it absolutely clear that Lynch's visual choices in regards to CGI and compositing are totally considered and deliberate. When he wants things to look real, they look real.

 

Sometimes he just wants weird hobos overlaid on top of footage like ghosts... and sometimes Lynch wants realistic, gross liquid simulations coming out of a monster's mouth. :tup:

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I don't think I've seen anyone else mention this, but when we see the golden orb with Laura's face, I thought of the small golden marble that the real Dougie turned into once he was in the lodge. 

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15 hours ago, wonderboy said:

 

 

I thought it was Bob like as in the person Bob used to be. I think he resembles a young Frank Silva more than a young David Lynch. But then the bug (who I assumed was Bob) went in the girl's mouth and now I don't know what to think. 

 

Perhaps she'll birth Bob, giving him physical form and human agency? Of, the dangers of a kiss on the first date!

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40 minutes ago, BigJKO said:

All that really complex CGI coupled with the classic overlaying footage and weird timelapse motion stuff.. I feel like this episode made it absolutely clear that Lynch's visual choices in regards to CGI and compositing are totally considered and deliberate. When he wants things to look real, they look real.

Yeah, I had the exact same thought. 

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Lots of great takes in this thread. My $0.02:

 

- The "mother" or "experiment" has a similar-looking head to The Arm as it (he?) is now

- Whatever rich person set up the box with all the video cameras: were they anticipating the mother specifically? Did they have any idea that's what they would find? Also: is the mother "out" now, on the loose?

- I kept thinking "electricity" in this episode. FWWM stressed it and it seems to be a recurring theme in this episode specifically. The tar men buzzed around the convenience store like electrons or something. Less confusingly, they talked with electro-voices. I don't know how that ties into it, but I guess it does.

 

I was really hoping that BadCoop getting shot would mean that Dougie/Coop would suddenly snap back to good old Cooper

 

Are we meant to understand that Bob is a corrupted form of whatever these things were that the "mother" spewed upon detonation of the atom bomb? Because he looks like a tumor. A vomit tumor. (Vomit Tumor will be the name of my death metal band.)

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I fuckin love the black and white bits b with the giant. He has such a striking face! I liked this episode a great deal. 

 

Not sure about the Laura orb but the v person I watched it with thought that was being sent to DougieCoop to snap him out of it. 

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2 hours ago, James said:

I don't know much about guns, but he flips the drum thing open and the chambers appear to have bullets in them. Should he have checked whether they were spent rounds or something?

 

I do know a lot about guns (dad was a gunsmith), and if they were spent rounds it would be very obvious because the firing caps would have been blown. They weren't blanks either, as those have firing caps and no bullet (so loud sound, no projectile).  Given what we saw, my guess would be that the warden removed the firing pin from the gun.  That would be hard to notice without taking the gun apart and definitely wouldn't have been spotted in the quick exam we saw Bad Cooper give the gun, and would result in nothing happening when you pulled the trigger.

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I was listening to last week's Fire Talk With Me (another excellent Peaks podcast) and they looked up the meaning of the Spiritual Mound that Cole mentions on Tammy's hand. According to wikipedia:

Quote

Spirit Mound Historic Prairie is a state park of South Dakota, USA, featuring a prominent hill on the Great Plains. The Plains Indians of the region considered Spirit Mound the home of dangerous spirits or little people; members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition climbed it on August 25, 1804


So, that's crazy. 

EDIT: They also proposed that Mr. Strawberry might have been the name of the warden's dog, and that the dog legs also carried the direct threat of violence against his family. I don't know if there is really any support for this theory, but I do like it.

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1 hour ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I was listening to last week's Fire Talk With Me (another excellent Peaks podcast) and they looked up the meaning of the Spiritual Mound that Cole mentions on Tammy's hand. According to wikipedia:

 

 

If I'm not mistaken, he could also be referring to the Mounds in chiromancy. When reading someone's palm, the ring finger is related to the Mount of Apollo, which is believed to reveal their self-assurance, compassion, their desire to stand out on a crowd. The implication behind Cole's association of Tammy's fingers to the words DoppelCooper had said during their encounter is that "Yrev" being on the left ring finger indicates Cooper's persona is somehow inverted. The left ring finger is also where married folks in various cultures put their wedding rings, symbolizing a connection to a higher power. 

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Sigh. Siiigh.

 

Let's explain everything!  Sci-fi atom bomb bullshit!  Good versus Evil! I see a heavy coat of Frosting on this one.

 

And here's some gamonbozia.  Literally vomiting in our face.

 

Concepts at the expense of characters.

 

I did like the dateline ticking ahead 5 years. That moment -  that was genuinely funny.  Perhaps almost Lynch saying, "Look, Frost put all this shit in here.  I'm gilding it as much as I can, but I got like 45 pages of this shit to get through.  So, uh... 5 years later."

 

 

 

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35 minutes ago, belamoscovitz said:

 

If I'm not mistaken, he could also be referring to the Mounds in chiromancy. When reading someone's palm, the ring finger is related to the Mount of Apollo, which is believed to reveal their self-assurance, compassion, their desire to stand out on a crowd. The implication behind Cole's association of Tammy's fingers to the words DoppelCooper had said during their encounter is that "Yrev" being on the left ring finger indicates Cooper's persona is somehow inverted. The left ring finger is also where married folks in various cultures put their wedding rings, symbolizing a connection to a higher power. 

I think all of these things work together quite well. Cooper's spiritual being is inverted in a way that is connected to the black lodge. In Twin Peaks, this place exists as a part of Indian lore and contains little people spirits as is the case with the Spirit Mound according to wikipedia. The owl ring serves as a connection between worlds. In the The Secret History of Twin Peaks, Lewis and Clark encounter the owl ring and figure into the lore. In real world history, they also literally visited the Spirit Mound. I think it can be both a topographic feature of her hand with implications according to chiromancy, and an actual place with relevant history. 

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20 minutes ago, Crunchnoisy said:

I'm gilding it as much as I can, but I got like 45 pages of this shit to get through.  So, uh... 5 years later."

 

 

 

That is probably very close to the truth.  Nice!

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