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Twin Peaks Rewatch 42: The Return, Part 8

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On 6/27/2017 at 8:38 PM, LillyBaeum said:

 

 

 

 

To make an argument against his points: "What lynch is making here he is making for himself" - that's something that I don't think is a bad thing. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to 'make art for other people', and I don't think you can do it in a way that isn't pandering/disingenuous in a way, after all, the only thing you can know for sure is that YOU enjoy something, you can't be sure if someone ELSE would like something, so all you can do as a proper artist is create what YOU want to see in the world, and make it as genuine as possible, and then HOPE other people find it interesting after the fact. Of course, TV involves generally many more steps of process between creation and airing, but the point still stands.

 

And if they think the episode is so obviously bad, why are they assuming Lynch is making it for himself? I.e. if something appeals to Lynch about this episode, what is it and how can we access it too? It sounds like the OP is equating "for himself" and "nonsense" when they obviously aren't equivalent.

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On 6/28/2017 at 8:41 AM, James said:

Great post, @prangman

 

In the podcast they mention the casting of genuine teens for once. It might just be a matter of changing media sensibilities (do people not cast adults as adolescents as much any more? I'm not sure),

 

Out of curiosity, I just looked up the ages of the Riverdale cast and it definitely still seems to be a thing (the actress who plays Josie is nearly 30)!

 

It's especially striking for Lynch because he hardly ever used child actors before The Return. I can probably list of all the examples, including even TV commercials, on one hand. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if The Return has already has more child actors than all of his other features combined.

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38 minutes ago, LostInTheMovies said:

 

And if they think the episode is so obviously bad, why are they assuming Lynch is making it for himself? I.e. if something appeals to Lynch about this episode, what is it and how can we access it too? It sounds like the OP is equating "for himself" and "nonsense" when they obviously aren't equivalent.

 

That's a really good point. Which is more self-indulgent, an artist who makes something that lots of people don't like, or a critic who assumes that, sInce he doesn't enjoy something, nobody else in the entire world could possibly enjoy it except the artist himself. 

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"We lived among the people.
I think you say, convenience store.
We lived above it.
I mean it like it is... like it sounds."

 

Yet the convenience store doesn't appear to have a second floor. If it's the same convenience store, that is. 

 

What if was the timbers which held up the roof of the store that was where they lived? Inside them. Like insects trapped in amber. Perhaps, like much of the west and southwest, the convenience store was built with wood from the environs of the Pacific Northwest --or in this case the area around Twin Peaks specifically? That somehow spirits trapped within the wood were released by the events of Trinity? Might begin to explain what "woodsman" were doing wandering a desert region?

 

[sp]

 

 

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On 6/29/2017 at 0:20 PM, Bjorn said:

 

This...this summary is really messed up?  It's off-loading a lot of responsibility onto Laura for other characters decisions and actions.

 

My read of Bobby is that he was already dealing drugs, and that's why Laura started dating him, was to get free drugs.  It's crappy, but not evil and Bobby is doing an excellent job of making bad decisions all on his own (and him and Mike are both shown to have some pretty awful controlling and abusive behavior in regards to their girlfriends).  Bobby doesn't kill anyone for Laura.  He shoots a dirty cop dead when that cop tries to double cross him as part of a drug deal.  A drug deal he set up. 

 

I assume the Donna thing you're referencing is coming from the FWWM other bar scene.  Laura argues with Donna about stepping foot into Laura's other world, tries to talk her out of it, finally allows it, and then has a total freakout when she realizes that Donna's too fucked up to be consenting to what's happening.  It's literally the opposite of what you described. 

 

Who does Laura recruit into prostitution?  It's the manager of Horne's Department Store who actively recruits young women who work in the store into being sex workers at One Eyed Jacks.  She did jobs with other sex workers, but all of those are women who are already doing that kind of work. 

 

There seems to be this trend to want to take the sins of a bunch of other people around town and ascribe them to Laura (this thread isn't the only place I've seen it).  She wasn't evil.  She wasn't pure.  She was human, a broken, flawed human trying to find ways to cope and get by in the world.  She absolutely judged herself harshly, but that's such a reflection of the pain and shame she had around things that were wildly out of her control. 

 

Edited to add:  Laura, like many young women, was very well aware that she was heavily idealized by many people in town, including people like Donna and James.  Part of separating herself from them wasn't about corrupting them, it was about fearing their disappointment if they ever found out too much about her. 

I believe you are incorrect on a few points.  James says he was selling drugs to get Laura her fix, and to keep her.  In FWWM Laura sees the men drugging the drink and says, "Chug-a-lug, Donna."  Corruption isn't forcing people to make bad decisions, it is encouraging them to do them on their own.  The only characters on the show that are true evil are the ones from the black lodge.  Ben Horne, Leo, Josie, they hurt others, but it is not all they do.  Laura was struggling with her own corruption, and in the end, it seems, rejected that corruption, but it doesn't erase what she did.  

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On 6/29/2017 at 1:10 PM, Gailbraithe said:

 

I have to agree with Bjorn, this seems like a really unfair and skewed reading of the text.  Laura insults James behind his back, but at the same time she tries to protect him from the black hole consuming her.  Donna pushes her way into that dark part of Laura's world, and Laura freaks out and tries to protect Donna.  Bobby seems pretty intent on being his own undoing with or without Laura, as we can see from his interactions with Shelly and the Hornes -- I think it would be more fair to say that Laura is used and corrupted by Bobby then the other way around.  And I'm not sure who you are referring to when you say Laura recruited young women to be prostitutes.  Ronette?  I don't think the text supports that.  Seems more like Ronette was recruited into prostitution either by Emory Battis or Teresa Banks around the same time Laura was.    

Bobby is not a great guy, but we do see that his tough guy facade is just that.  He really is sensitive and eager to please, Laura exploits that.  Laura is not hiding her "cheating" on Bobby from him, in fact, she plays on his insecurity.  At times she does try to protect James and Donna, but she doesn't do it consistently.  She often insults James, and sleeps with James, possibly partially because she knows Donna likes him.  

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On 30/06/2017 at 2:24 PM, James said:

Thanks. I thought it might be, but it's been so many years since I've seen that film, and my memory for these kinds of things is pretty bad. I should watch it again.

Last night I did watch Mulholland Drive for a second time, over a decade since the first. I was able to make more sense of it than last time, in part because I remembered some of what was going to happen, and in part because I came pre-equipped with a rough ideas of some of the theories as to its meaning. My prevailing impression is much the same, though: it left me with a sad feeling that has stuck with me well into the following day. Lynch is pretty good at that. It made me contemplate how The Return might end. I have an intuition that there's a pretty good chance it'll be a massive downer. Which I expect would be good good, but I fear for my poor little sentimental heart. 

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On 6/28/2017 at 7:16 PM, Gailbraithe said:

Fire Walk With Me is a prequel that focuses on Laura Palmer, and gives some needed background on the FBI's involvement in supernatural affairs, but isn't essential to Cooper's story.  Also, I treat the Q2 fan-edit Teresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer (which edits most of The Missing Pieces into FWWM) as canon over FWWM, since I think it's a much better movie and closer in feeling to Twin Peaks and Lynch's vision than FWWM, whose length was determine more by commercial realities than artistic choice.

 

Sorry to sound harsh, but I HATE the "Q2 is better/more canon than FWWM" argument with the fire of a thousand BOBs. To be honest, I find this utterly impossible to comprehend as FWWM and the Missing Pieces aren't even edited, sound-designed, or scored as similar movies: hell, Lynch doesn't use similar shots for much of the material. Arguably Lost Highway has more in common, stylistically, with Fire Walk With Me than The Missing Pieces do. Raw footage from the same shoot does not the same movie make.

 

And how can a movie which cuts from a doomed teenager's despair on the night of her death to goofy shenanigans at the sheriff's station be a much better movie??

 

I'm glad The Missing Pieces are out there, I enjoy watching them, and I think they helped build a sense, indirectly, that Fire Walk With Me was a crucial part of the story. But the thing I despise most about their existence is the excuse they provide to dilute both the aesthetic integrity of the cinematic feature narrative as its own form and the radical gesture of centering a spin-off of a popular TV series on the subjective experience of an abuse victim.

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On 6/29/2017 at 1:14 AM, Gailbraithe said:

The Giant has outsmarted BOB, because he knew that by attempting to claim Laura, BOB would draw the attention of Dale Cooper, who has the intuition and intelligence to possibly defeat BOB, given a few helpful nudges in the right direction.

 

But Laura defeated BOB, while Cooper lost to him.

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11 minutes ago, LostInTheMovies said:

 

But Laura defeated BOB, while Cooper lost to him.

I'm not sure.  Cooper lost to the doppelganger, or did he?  He was trapped. certainly, but I'm not sure this is a win for BOB.  BOB now has closer scrutiny from the FBI, and maybe original Cooper who may have a better understanding of the lodge and its workings.  Cooper also has had communication with the giant, something we never saw Laura have.  In episode one of the return the giant again meets with Cooper and gives him some clues including an insect sound (the bug thing we saw at the end of episode 8?), so he may be able to recognize the evil no matter where it resides.  

 

Laura did, in essence deny BOB her body, but it cost her her life, Cooper still exists albeit as Dougie.  

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1 hour ago, LostInTheMovies said:

And how can a movie which cuts from a doomed teenager's despair on the night of her death to goofy shenanigans at the sheriff's station be a much better movie??

 

Have you actually seen Q2's edit?  The first part of the movie, the Teresa Banks part, focuses on the FBI and Chester Desmond's investigation.  Then it switches gears as it begins counting down Laura's last seven days.  Each day starts with a black title card announcing the day (Monday, Tuesday, etc.), a scene from the town, then shifts focus to Laura.  The Missing Pieces scenes give you a real sense that Twin Peaks is happening all around Laura, blithely unaware of what she's experiencing, and highlights the loneliness and disconnect that Laura experiences.

 

39 minutes ago, LostInTheMovies said:

But Laura defeated BOB, while Cooper lost to him.

 

Laura didn't defeat BOB, she escaped his clutches.  If she had defeated him, then Maddie wouldn't have died.

 

And Cooper hasn't lost yet.  Story isn't over, last time I checked.  If you consider all three seasons as acts in a Three Act Narrative, then Cooper's loss in the Black Lodge would fall at the the Crisis point:

3-act-structure.jpg

 

Cooper's escape from the Black Lodge would be the climax of Act Two, and the entire DougieCoop storyline is the journey from the Act II Climax to the Act III Climax.

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22 minutes ago, Digger said:

I'm not sure.  Cooper lost to the doppelganger, or did he?  He was trapped. certainly, but I'm not sure this is a win for BOB.  BOB now has closer scrutiny from the FBI, and maybe original Cooper who may have a better understanding of the lodge and its workings.  Cooper also has had communication with the giant, something we never saw Laura have.  In episode one of the return the giant again meets with Cooper and gives him some clues including an insect sound (the bug thing we saw at the end of episode 8?), so he may be able to recognize the evil no matter where it resides.  

 

Laura did, in essence deny BOB her body, but it cost her her life, Cooper still exists albeit as Dougie.  

 

Cooper lost to the doppelganger, but the finale consistently implies that this is BOB's victory as well. As for life/death, I don't think that necessarily has relevance as to who defeats/doesn't defeat BOB.

 

Many seem to be concluding that Cooper's scene with the giant takes place after (or, anyway, apart from) the rest of the narrative we've seen so far and I'm inclined to agree. Something about it felt different from when we see him in the Lodge later on.

 

I think Cooper may overcome BOB yet, but suspect it will be with Laura's help...somehow. I also have a hunch (sorry, folks) that his physical form may not survive the victory anymore than Laura's did.

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20 minutes ago, Gailbraithe said:

Laura didn't defeat BOB, she escaped his clutches.  If she had defeated him, then Maddie wouldn't have died.

 

My point is that BOB was unable to achieve his aim with Laura, but was with Cooper. I really am not on board with the idea of reducing her to BOB-bait when she was an active and heroic presence in the narrative, underscored by the fact that she achieves something that the more expected hero could not.

 

Even if he re-emerges/overcomes BOB in pt. 18 that's still 25 years of impotence/a loose doppelganger to account for. I'm not necessarily saying Coop is evil or a horrible failure or anything for letting that happen, but it still marks him out as unable to pull off what Laura does, for whatever reason.

 

Quote

 

Cooper's escape from the Black Lodge would be the climax of Act Two, and the entire DougieCoop storyline is the journey from the Act II Climax to the Act III Climax.

 

One thing we probably agree on...Cooper's identity cris(e)s can't be resolved until the conclusion of the story because that IS the story.

 

Regarding the Q2 edit, I haven't been able to see it yet unfortunately (I don't/can't generally mess with torrents and missed it during the brief window it was up on YT). One of these days...

 

I'm curious about it as an experiment, and I'm sure there are things I'll like about it but I really dislike how it is used to obscure the integrity of the theatrical cut as it exists. And I think it's practically a crime to encourage new viewers to seek it out first, as I've seen many do. The FWWM screenplay is honestly kind of a mess, much improved in the cutting (as well as decisions Lynch made during production). I've been led to believe that Q2 with a few exceptions (like cutting the awkward Diane sequence) follows the script's structure pretty closely. Is that not correct?

 

And the aesthetic stuff just never gets a mention in the praise, which blows my mind. Long master shots with little to no music are a totally different tempo than the way Lynch cut the actual film, which leans heavily on close-ups, dissolves, and strong score/sound design. I strongly dislike the notion that such formal integrity gets no consideration at all. 1992 Mary Sweeney and 2014 David Lynch cut different works, and at the end of the day they should be treated as such.

 

(Also, just a tip: you double-posted.)

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For me FWWM was borderline unwatchable in parts (Especially the Bowie/Philip Jeffries scene), and on the whole it seems a bit disjointed. Almost like Lynch just kind of threw it together or something (there may have been outside pressures acting on some of the decisions, especially cutting it down for time. I'm not aware of the background behind it all)  I really don't know what Lynch was thinking with that Jeffries scene but the Q2 edit makes it play out a lot better, although is it like 4 hours long with all of those scenes, which doesn't particularly bother me too much.


The Q2 edit, while it's not perfect, just flows a lot better and makes a lot more sense to me, like important story bits were put back in. Plus just individual scenes work a lot better. I think there's a bit of extra stuff with Chester Desmond that was put back in that makes that makes it a much better watch.  Each movie FWWM and The Missing Pieces feel sort of incomplete as separate things, but Q2's edit made it all sort of watchable. 

I also really enjoyed the Twin Peaks cut. Kind of streamlines the whole Laura Palmer case. I still enjoy watching the show proper, but I recently watched his edit of the show for the sake of brevity to sort of refresh all that stuff without having to invest 20+ hours.

Edited by Nordelnob
added something

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15 hours ago, Digger said:

I believe you are incorrect on a few points.  James says he was selling drugs to get Laura her fix, and to keep her.  In FWWM Laura sees the men drugging the drink and says, "Chug-a-lug, Donna."  Corruption isn't forcing people to make bad decisions, it is encouraging them to do them on their own.  The only characters on the show that are true evil are the ones from the black lodge.  Ben Horne, Leo, Josie, they hurt others, but it is not all they do.  Laura was struggling with her own corruption, and in the end, it seems, rejected that corruption, but it doesn't erase what she did.  

Just to add to this, in his therapy session with Jacoby, Bobby explicitly states that Laura made him sell drugs so she could have them.

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On 01/07/2017 at 7:49 AM, LostInTheMovies said:

Yeah, I have to say the constant and near-ubiquitous demand for Bring Cooper Back perplexes me. Not only do I think what they're doing is more interesting, and that restoring Cooper ends the story just as ending the Laura investigation prematurely ended the original one...I also don't understand how that would even work. *Going in* to this series, I knew that a good and/or fully-integrated Cooper could not be a thing based on this premise.

 

I assumed (having no premonition of the rather ingenious Dougie solution of course!) that the good Dale would remain in the Lodge for 18 hours while the bad Dale rampaged, and/or another character would be guiding us slowly toward him, and/or good/bad Dale would fight for control over the body in the real world.

 

Did people really expect to see the Cooper of s1/2 in a black suit, grinning and sipping coffee and eating donuts, 25 years older but fundamentally unchanged? I just don't get how this would work narratively/thematically at all but since I seem to be in a significant minority, I gotta ask for clarification!

I agree that what they're doing is very interesting, but I don't see how restoring Cooper 'ends' the story - certainly not in the way Leland's reveal stymied the initial run. The Return is delivering the surreal in spades and we've been savouring every little familiar character moment we're served (mainly through Gordon and Albert), but Cooper's zeal and optimism were a big part of Twin Peaks and we've had almost none of that.

 

And Cooper's 'return' needn't be reduced to him throwing his thumbs up while furiously downing coffee and doughnuts either. There's plenty of material (some we've perhaps already glimpsed) to help that character evolve - dealing with the loss of 25 years, the guilt of his bad self wreaking havoc with his friends and family, returning to the real world, processing his experiences in the Lodge. The investigation would continue - Gordon's down with the doppelgangers - just with his presence. I've really enjoyed the series so far, and for the second half I'd like just a little more Twin Peaks in my Twin Peaks. I miss his dialogue and his interactions with Harry and other residents. He was a fine audience surrogate and I'd like to see the show through his eyes again. I don't see how anything we've seen thus far needs to be sacrificed for that.

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So I just found this on Tumblr, no way I could figure this out myself, but I just wanted to share this with people who can probably make better sense of it than I.

IMG_9779.PNG

IMG_9780.PNG

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33 minutes ago, dartmonkey said:

And Cooper's 'return' needn't be reduced to him throwing his thumbs up while furiously downing coffee and doughnuts either. There's plenty of material (some we've perhaps already glimpsed) to help that character evolve - dealing with the loss of 25 years, the guilt of his bad self wreaking havoc with his friends and family, returning to the real world, processing his experiences in the Lodge. The investigation would continue - Gordon's down with the doppelgangers - just with his presence. I've really enjoyed the series so far, and for the second half I'd like just a little more Twin Peaks in my Twin Peaks. I miss his dialogue and his interactions with Harry and other residents. He was a fine audience surrogate and I'd like to see the show through his eyes again. I don't see how anything we've seen thus far needs to be sacrificed for that.

 

The stuff dartmonkey talks about here is actually how I assumed the show would start when it was first announced. I don't really mind the Dougie stuff, but I think there's a lot of meat on this particular bone that I'd hate to see left unexplored.

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Also, this is kind of unrelated to actual Twin Peaks discussion, but God, do I want one of Nick's "And this is Important If True!" intros to be done in the Black Lodge backwards-talk.

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19 hours ago, Digger said:

I believe you are incorrect on a few points.  James says he was selling drugs to get Laura her fix, and to keep her.  In FWWM Laura sees the men drugging the drink and says, "Chug-a-lug, Donna."  Corruption isn't forcing people to make bad decisions, it is encouraging them to do them on their own.  The only characters on the show that are true evil are the ones from the black lodge.  Ben Horne, Leo, Josie, they hurt others, but it is not all they do.  Laura was struggling with her own corruption, and in the end, it seems, rejected that corruption, but it doesn't erase what she did.  

 

3 hours ago, Arianna said:

Just to add to this, in his therapy session with Jacoby, Bobby explicitly states that Laura made him sell drugs so she could have them.

 

I went back and rewatched the scene from FWWM.  It is quite believable that Laura could see the beer being drugged, the angle is right.

 

The Bobby stuff just isn't that cut and dried to me, it's very messy and both of them are using one another.  Bobby was already partying with Leo and involved in drugs to some degree before Laura.  He introduces Laura to Leo and that whole crowd (Secret Diary). He gives her cocaine for the first time (Secret Diary).  He was already multiple steps down that path, and there's not a lot of evidence he would have deviated from it with or without Laura.  Laura is manipulating him at times, sure.  But he's also feeding her drugs and manipulating her that way and getting things he wants.  Laura is a teenager who *thinks* she's a master manipulator, it's part of the internal framework she's built to view herself.  But that doesn't make the framework true to the outside world.  She's wrong.  She's a teenager.  Overestimating their ability is what they do. 

 

I'm not arguing that Laura's an angel, but I do think people want to offload other people's sins and bad actions onto her in ways that aren't particularly fair to the character. 

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8 hours ago, Nordelnob said:

For me FWWM was borderline unwatchable in parts (Especially the Bowie/Philip Jeffries scene)

 

Amazing you should say that, because for me, when I first watched FWWM (and every subsequent time) that stuck out for me as one of the most amazing and powerful scenes. I've seen the missing pieces, and rewatched both the convenience store and Phillip Jeffries in Philadelphia scenes from TMP several times, and while I love the extended versions, I think Lynch's decision to shorten both scenes and lay them over the top of each other is a brilliant one. The scene is so disorientating and confusing- you, the viewer, feel as Gordon, Albert and Cooper, not to mention Jeffries must be feeling, and the electricity/static must represent the energy Jeffries brings with him. And the intrusion of the lodge/convenience store into the physical world, and the way the static first appears when Jeffries points at Cooper and asks 'who do you think this is here?' is so uncanny.

 

In the extended scenes, I feel way too much is given away- we know where Jeffries has come from and returns to, we  know in some detail (or can surmise) how the LMFAP and his pals work ('from pure air'... 'animal life'... 'fell a  victim'... 'fury of my own momentum'...) and while this is fascinating for Peaks obsessives i don't think it's something we should, or could know. What Jeffries brings us  in the canonical FWWM feels right to me. Would still love to see the full cut though!

 

1 hour ago, dartmonkey said:

 I've really enjoyed the series so far, and for the second half I'd like just a little more Twin Peaks in my Twin Peaks.

 

Just a thought. Given that what we have so far is the same length more or less as the first series, and also given that so many of Lynch's films over the past two decades are split into 2 parts, usually not quite equal in length and related but not in a direct way (e.g. Desmond-Laura in FWWM, Betty-Diane in Mulholland Drive, Laura Dern filming with Jeremy Irons- Insanity in Poland in Inland Empire, Bill Pullman-Balthazar Getty in Lost Highway) it's not at all impossible that the second (slightly more than) half could be distinctly different both in tone and setting from the first half. That may even mean that it is (mostly) set in Twin Peaks...

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48 minutes ago, prangman said:

Just a thought. Given that what we have so far is the same length more or less as the first series, and also given that so many of Lynch's films over the past two decades are split into 2 parts, usually not quite equal in length and related but not in a direct way (e.g. Desmond-Laura in FWWM, Betty-Diane in Mulholland Drive, Laura Dern filming with Jeremy Irons- Insanity in Poland in Inland Empire, Bill Pullman-Balthazar Getty in Lost Highway) it's not at all impossible that the second (slightly more than) half could be distinctly different both in tone and setting from the first half. That may even mean that it is (mostly) set in Twin Peaks...

 

I very much agree and suspect the second half (or last third, or whatever it may be) of the work will be quite different but...let's be honest, the films usually get MORE disorienting and dislocated at that point. So if anything I'd suspect we'd see less Twin Peaks after that transition (which we may already have reached with the last episode).

 

However, I'll readily admit I have no idea and certainly haven't predicted any major turns so far, and wouldn't have it any other way...

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1 hour ago, Bjorn said:

 

 

I went back and rewatched the scene from FWWM.  It is quite believable that Laura could see the beer being drugged, the angle is right.

 

The Bobby stuff just isn't that cut and dried to me, it's very messy and both of them are using one another.  Bobby was already partying with Leo and involved in drugs to some degree before Laura.  He introduces Laura to Leo and that whole crowd (Secret Diary). He gives her cocaine for the first time (Secret Diary).  He was already multiple steps down that path, and there's not a lot of evidence he would have deviated from it with or without Laura.  Laura is manipulating him at times, sure.  But he's also feeding her drugs and manipulating her that way and getting things he wants.  Laura is a teenager who *thinks* she's a master manipulator, it's part of the internal framework she's built to view herself.  But that doesn't make the framework true to the outside world.  She's wrong.  She's a teenager.  Overestimating their ability is what they do. 

 

I'm not arguing that Laura's an angel, but I do think people want to offload other people's sins and bad actions onto her in ways that aren't particularly fair to the character. 

 

The diary also essentially says that Laura raped Harold, which I think is a step too far for the character, honestly -- in every other situation she may behave badly or take advantage of people but she doesn't quite go as far as BOB would want. I suspect that the incident is more the result of different mores/perceptions in 1990 (in terms of female-on-male assault or a psychological condition trapping one in a situation to which they don't actively consent) and wonder if Jennifer Lynch would prefer to write it differently today if she had the chance.

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