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Twin Peaks Rewatch 42: The Return, Part 8

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1 hour ago, WickedCestus said:

And then, uh, well, whatever happened happened! There were like three or four moments where I thought it would end and cut back to something relevant. I checked how long was left in the episode at about 49 minutes, and went, huh, well, I guess that's just that. I didn't dislike the episode; I think it's cool, but I'm not especially crazy about it either. I absolutely did not see it as the lore dump that everyone else did, since I guess I'm not well-versed enough in the lore. A lot of what seemed to be introduced about Bob and Laura does not excite me much; I expected Dale to be in the bubble instead of Laura, because he is way more of an antithesis to Bob than Laura is. Are we just supposed to ignore that Laura is complex? Is all her badness supposed to come from Bob? That just seems a bit too simple to me.

 

Yes, Laura's "badness" is born almost entirely from trauma caused by Leland/BOB, and at the end of the day is self destructive rather than harmful to others.  And her badness is functionally just 1) has sex and 2) does drugs, both as an escape mechanism from the horrible abuse she's suffered.  In the grand scale of badness, it's barely bad at all both in comparison to others evil in the show and in the context of her own life. 

 

 

The immediate dominant response about her seems to be that she's intended to be the foil to BOB, but what I'm more afraid is that she was released as a trap to catch him, a woman designed to perfectly attract his insatiable desire.  Which...ugh...idk, I'm not sure what's worse.  That her lot in life was accident, or inevitable. 

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1 hour ago, WickedCestus said:

As soon as BadCoop was shot, I got really excited, expecting this to mean the return of Real Coop. I expected a cut to Dougie, a long drawn-out scene with him, before he suddenly snaps back into being Real Coop and we would all jump out of chairs and cheer and everyone would be happy forever. Then, I thought, OK, let's be realistic, it'll probably cut to Gordon and Albert first, or cover some mundane stuff in Twin Peaks, just to let us stew in our excitement for a bit.

 

And then, uh, well, whatever happened happened! There were like three or four moments where I thought it would end and cut back to something relevant. I checked how long was left in the episode at about 49 minutes, and went, huh, well, I guess that's just that. I didn't dislike the episode; I think it's cool, but I'm not especially crazy about it either. I absolutely did not see it as the lore dump that everyone else did, since I guess I'm not well-versed enough in the lore. A lot of what seemed to be introduced about Bob and Laura does not excite me much; I expected Dale to be in the bubble instead of Laura, because he is way more of an antithesis to Bob than Laura is. Are we just supposed to ignore that Laura is complex? Is all her badness supposed to come from Bob? That just seems a bit too simple to me.

 

Also, was the guy who introduced NIN the singer from the Red Room in the finale? It kinda reminded me of him.

 

I don't think it has to feel reductive. It remains to be seen what it all means or to what extent it defines Laura's life and choices. It's too early to assume she's merely the victim of some kind of cosmic chess fight. I don't think we have to forget, as viewers, the complexities of the characters we already know to be true. Magical realism isn't the right term to describe what Lynch does but I think he views the mythological elements in a way more symbolic or impressionistic way than in a literal sense like Frost does. Also, I don't think stories about cosmic struggles are automatically shitty and overly reductive to the human consequences of the forces at hand. Or rather they're just about something else entirely. 

 

1 hour ago, Gailbraithe said:

Oh, and my least favorite thing about this episode:  Now I have to sit through two more weeks of people speculating that Evil Cooper raped Diane and Audrey.  Was really, really hoping for a development that would quash that, no such luck.

 

...and how did Ray trick Evil Cooper anyways?  Did he make a deal with the warden?  Why would the warden make a deal with Ray?  It sure didn't seem like Ray had time to swap the guns, and where did Ray get a gun anyways?  Yeah, sure, you guys can sit and ponder the meaning of the atomic bomb and ask if the Giant is God, but me, I'm asking the real questions.

 

By which I mean desperately clinging to the five minutes of this episode I can vaguely make sense of.

 

Seriously, that was the weirdest thing I've seen since Begotten.

 

The Warden probably paid Ray to kill Cooper. When Cooper said "You're out half a million" to Ray I assumed he already knew somehow about a deal they made. I'm wondering if his text when he threw the phone out the window was to send the info out to bust the warden. 

 

1 hour ago, Owlsy said:

Great observation.  I bet you're right.

 

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. 

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I'm fine with the macro plot as long as the main thrust of the story is told through the micro plots that have been weaving together. This episode felt like an intentional interruption to the steady pace of the show, perhaps a catalyst for things to start moving.

 

I'm eating this season up. Even the Dougie stuff has me transfixed. Can't say I've been feeling the frustration.

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7 minutes ago, wonderboy said:

The Warden probably paid Ray to kill Cooper. When Cooper said "You're out half a million" to Ray I assumed he already knew somehow about a deal they made. I'm wondering if his text when he threw the phone out the window was to send the info out to bust the warden. 

 

Ok, yeah that makes sense.  I was thinking that if Cooper was killed that would cause the information to go out, but maybe not.

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38 minutes ago, Bjorn said:

Yes, Laura's "badness" is born almost entirely from trauma caused by Leland/BOB, and at the end of the day is self destructive rather than harmful to others.  And her badness is functionally just 1) has sex and 2) does drugs, both as an escape mechanism from the horrible abuse she's suffered.  In the grand scale of badness, it's barely bad at all both in comparison to others evil in the show and in the context of her own life. 

 

33 minutes ago, wonderboy said:

I don't think it has to feel reductive. It remains to be seen what it all means or to what extent it defines Laura's life and choices. It's too early to assume she's merely the victim of some kind of cosmic chess fight. I don't think we have to forget, as viewers, the complexities of the characters we already know to be true. Magical realism isn't the right term to describe what Lynch does but I think he views the mythological elements in a way more symbolic or impressionistic way than in a literal sense like Frost does. Also, I don't think stories about cosmic struggles are automatically shitty and overly reductive to the human consequences of the forces at hand. Or rather they're just about something else entirely. 

 

I'll admit that I was being flippant and reductive, especially in my use of the word "badness". You both make good points. I was concerned that making her character into some sort of vessel for cosmic good and evil would retcon some of her agency, but when I think about it more, Fire Walk With Me actually fits into this concept well, because it gives weight and importance to the actual choices that Laura makes, even if she is dealing entirely with things that have been thrust upon her. My hope always with this kind of stuff is that the grand mythos is in service of the characters, and not the other way around. To my mind, Lynch has proven that he is capable of this; as for Frost, I am never quite sure.

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I love Dune! I love the Beast of Yucca Flats! Now they're the same thing!

 

Oh, and Ray is working with the fake Jeffries? Jeffries has to know that the doppelganger Cooper can pull that trick, so what good is Ray, anyway?

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1 hour ago, WickedCestus said:

Also, was the guy who introduced NIN the singer from the Red Room in the finale? It kinda reminded me of him.


Jimmy Scott who sang the sycamore trees song has been dead for a few years now. I knew this already, but still had a brief moment where I thought it might have been him.

 

This episode reminded me of the myth of Prometheus. The fire orb from the nuclear blast was arrogantly stolen from the gods, and we were left to eternally suffer as a result of our horrific actions. But instead of Prometheus giving birth to humanity, our evils birthed a new kind of being that reflected what we had become. Or something like that.  

 

I really liked how the shot of the cicada frog being born remained centered on the egg as it crawled out of frame. I had trouble making my mind follow its movements because I've been trained to pay attention to the big bright thing in the center of the screen. It was compositionally unnerving. 

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8 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

 

I really liked how the shot of the cicada frog being born remained centered on the egg as it crawled out of frame. I had trouble making my mind follow its movements because I've been trained to pay attention to the big bright thing in the center of the screen. It was compositionally unnerving. 

 

I had a similar reaction to that, particularly waiting for something else to happen to the egg or another frogbug to come out of it.

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4 hours ago, MechaTofuPirate said:

Man, I feel like the only person that liked this episodes. Everyone I know hated it.

 

Twitter is lavishing it with praise tonight. I'm glad people enjoyed it, but personally I was sighing all through this episode. Especially after leaving episode 7 thinking, "Okay, things are finally starting to come together."

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God, just wonderful.

 

It's obvious to say, but almost all TV is written for what an audience wants, either explicitly or in some teasing Abrahms puzzle box kinda way. And especially with how TV is consumed by the fervent these days, with the de rigueur morning after recap and searing hot takes, is it ever different and wonderful to see something that's just so utterly unconcerned with what the audience wants. This isn't "content" you "consume" to immediate satisfaction and then regurgitate, you're just forced to sit back, experience it, and then walk away and deal.

 

Especially at a time when people are kinda whinging with "I'm sick of this Dougie Jones shtick" and then THIS is what gets dropped next? Delicious, just delicious.

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For me, the most aweful and dreadful part was the long, slow shot of the a-bomb explosion.

At first it's like, "Oh the bomb. I've seen that before."

But then David Lynch says, "Look closer."

"Closer."

"Closer."

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How Ray got the drop on evil coop is a real mystery to me.

 

It seems weird that the warden got Ray to do it since Evil Coop makes it clear if he dies, the info he has on him will get out. He also suggests he sent the other dog legs to people who will visit the warden in the event he dies.

 

But then the gun in the glovebox isn't loaded..... So he must be involved???

 

But also, Ray has a contract to kill Evil Coop right? That's the reason Evil Coop killed Darya. She tells him her and Ray would split half a million once the job is done. I guess that's the money they are talking about.

 

All this stuff seems needlessly convoluted. There's endless layers to all the hitman stuff, and it doesn't seem to be in service of anything interesting yet.

 

Sadly I'm hating the lore they are introducing. The lodges were only interesting to me when they were telling me things about the characters. I loved BOB in relation to Leland's desire for his daughter, or as Laura's attempt to shield herself from the truth about her dad. I loved the lodges as a bursting of the dams of all the guilt, betrayal evil and goodness in the town. Created by the characters. Manifested into reality.

 

So instead, BOB birthed from "mother" during an atomic blast. What does that tell me about the characters or the nature of evil? Or anything at all? I guess it says "atomic bombs are bad!!!!". The beauty of many of the images doesn't really make me feel better about this. I hope I'm missing something here!!! I've loved almost everything so far.

 

If this does turn out to be great in the end, they are telling the story in the wrong order.

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I thought the frogbug egg came from the LauraPalmerBall...

 

Which pretty much sums up the episode! I was worried when it went to 1945 because I thought we were going to start getting boring explicit links to The Secret History but that obviously didn't happen. I don't want Doug Milford showing up!

 

I especially enjoyed the use of B&W and the whole section in the Bioshock Mauve Zone/Giant's Theatre.

 

Edit. More on the frogbug/LauraPalmerBall - the bug didn't strike me as 'evil' in any way, certainly not an incarnation of BOB. There was no music or any other indicator it was malevolent. It was presented sympathetically - only its appearance was repulsive. I interpreted it as a force for good, sent by ?????? to combat the evil unleashed by the bomb.

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While watching, I kept thinking about this comment on your Youtube video for Ep. 2:

 

I don't find this conversation very engaging because you seem to be more focused in technical unimportant details rather than trying to unravel the story. The total opposite of what Twin Peaks is about.
 
I really want to be a fly on the wall when this person watches and tries to "unravel" Ep. 8

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I cannot even begin to unravel the contents of this episode, so I'll make a silly little observation instead!

 

Those super-jittery scenes (the gas station & Naido's appearance) really remind me of scrubbing through footage in NLE software. I wonder if the act of editing on a computer somehow influenced Lynch and co.? I can't say for certain if this would be the first production he's encountered that "effect", but it'd be cool if that was the case. 

 

Seriously, that's all I can come up with. This show, I swear to god

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Is this where "fire walk with me" comes from? I wonder... And I am speculating that the girl that the "insect" crawled into is either Sarah Palmer or Bob's mother. If it were Sarah Palmer, that would be the most interesting in my opinion, but I also didn't care for the "ball sent to Earth" thing because I have a feeling that I'm not going to like exactly what that means. If they end up being aliens or something - since it appears they sent it down to Earth - that would be a bummer. But I can't believe we have to wait two weeks after seeing THAT. Incredible episode.

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6 hours ago, actually its aerith said:

Did anyone catch what shape the gold aura the Giant was projecting was taking?  It seemed to be a shape but I wasn't able to catch it.

 

I was already thinking 'Is that a golden, glowing uterus?' before an egg came out of it.

 

As regards the last few episodes, it feels like there was an editing miscommunication (I'm assuming that there wasn't; and it's just the part of my brain that alphabetises CDs that is upset).  Specifically, it feels things have been edited into episodes of around the same length +/- 5 minutes, with a roadhouse band at the end, in the understanding that someone will have to go back and even out the episode lengths...but that never happened and someone just arbitrarily cut it up into 58 minute sections.  It feels like the Coopleganger & Ray followed by NIN belongs at the end of the previous episode and that this episode could have been 100% crazypants visual imagery.

 

I'm glad that it wasn't, because contrast and juxtaposition are useful, but I still can't shake the feeling that it was originally intended to be divided differently.

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When the bomb zoom came up on the screen I thought for a second that they were going to play that whole sequence again, which would have been amazing.

 

the black and white fortress in the purple ocean appears to be where cooper talked to the giant in the opening scene of this season.  the walls and general uncomfortable decaying yet preserved atmosphere.

 

and like i guess the explosion created bob or released him or released all of the inhabitants of the black lodge with him? (there were other bubbles in the grey person's vomit that could have had their own faces)  and laura was/is meant to combat him in some way, and is something like a good version of bob or a different but still supernatural being?  Who knows if the bug frog was laura or bob or something entirely different related to the tar-feedback people?  (have they always been on bob's side or are they just now working with him to thwart the lodge?)

 

speaking of the tar people, they are insanely terrifying. in an episode designed to be constantly unnerving and uncomfortable, they still managed to make me feel genuinely afraid.

 

and honestly I feel like this episode was meant to convey feelings more than lore.  The actual facts of what is being conveyed are important, but it wouldn't matter at all if they hadn't been conveyed in a way that genuinely feels like something great and terrible and bigger and smaller than we could possibly imagine.

 

Quote

It feels like the Coopleganger & Ray followed by NIN belongs at the end of the previous episode and that this episode could have been 100% crazypants visual imagery.

 

I'm glad that it wasn't, because contrast and juxtaposition are useful, but I still can't shake the feeling that it was originally intended to be divided differently.

I don't at all feel like the cooper and band sections of this were unrelated to the rest. The figures that rebirth him and the NiN song are our gateway into the rest of the episode, both tonally and metaphysically.  Just because the roadhouse has been used as a neat and clean book-end a few times doesn't mean it's a mistake when it's used differently.

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I get why some like this, but as a viewing experiencing of an episodic show it was beyond frustrating. It would be one thing if all the episodes were available, but they're not. It's manipulation, especially as they continue to dangle the Cooper thread in our face each week just to jerk the rug out from under us to go on some free form jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd. Jesus, if I wanted a NIN video I'd Phillip Jeffries back to 1994. If I wanted 2001, I'd pop in the Bluray. This was Lynch letting his uneditable ego run wild, and now we have to wait TWO weeks before we get anything of narrative consequence, or more likely 22 minutes of Norma flossing her teeth which many will claim to be brilliant. 

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1 hour ago, Ford said:

I get why some like this, but as a viewing experiencing of an episodic show it was beyond frustrating. It would be one thing if all the episodes were available, but they're not. It's manipulation, especially as they continue to dangle the Cooper thread in our face each week just to jerk the rug out from under us to go on some free form jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd. Jesus, if I wanted a NIN video I'd Phillip Jeffries back to 1994. If I wanted 2001, I'd pop in the Bluray. This was Lynch letting his uneditable ego run wild, and now we have to wait TWO weeks before we get anything of narrative consequence, or more likely 22 minutes of Norma flossing her teeth which many will claim to be brilliant. 

 

I think it's somewhat strange that people have come to think art is not allowed to be manipulative. and I hope this series will give people some leeway back into actually pushing people in popular entertainment. 

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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 think the three sigils on his phone (one was "FIRE"; interesting) were the "three legs of the dog"--people to whom he sent the blackmaily information.

 

Still have no idea whether the cicada frog was good or evil. And speaking of good and evil, as much as I loved this episode, the Manichean creation myth seemed to take place a bit late. I mean, evil...already existed? As a girl in the world, I can tell you, bad guys out to do bad things to women is a thing, and has been since the dawn of man.  Gailbraithe brings up a good comparison with Begotten. In that, the forces are primal, timeless and infinitely recurring. Beyond the graininess, lack of text and Lynchian manipulation of sound, Begotten makes that struggle hopeless and horrifying. It cuts deep. In TPTR, well, it seemed to represent either a renewal of the primal moral and mortal forces or the birth of them. Which horse has left the stable by 1945. My only cavil, really, except for NIN, who can shut it.

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I'm sorry, I'm sorry for my previous attempts at speculation, I won't do it again. Anywho...

 

Are we split on who/what the #frogroach is? (:tup: @KaiserAullirio

I assumed it was BOB as a literal familiar as MIKE has called him during the original run.

 

Man, that episode, loved it. I agree that there is a intentional holding out against giving us what we want. I want Coop back. But I can't stare into the void that this show presents and ask for all my ducks to be in a row.

 

Although I agree, @Demimonde, the A-bomb representing some focal point for evil to come through, is a little on the nose. There are a lot men like Richard Horne out there.

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10 hours ago, Owlsy said:

We are, and are all surrounded by, energy changing form.  Energy burns bright and ascends.  Energy burns out and descends.  Every action contains energy which has an equal and opposite reaction. 

Example: Bad Coop's gun doesn't fire.  An opposite reaction to the bullet he fired into Darya, or countless other victims?

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29 minutes ago, Gamebeast23456 said:

 

I think it's somewhat strange that people have come to think art is not allowed to be manipulative. and I hope this series will give people some leeway back into actually pushing people in popular entertainment. 

 

Where did I say it wasn't allowed to be manipulative? It can be anything it chooses to be. However, that doesn't make it compelling or good, which IMO it was wasn't. 

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