Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 44: The Return, Part 9

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23 hours ago, Digger said:

 I can't tell how time is passing on this show.

 

Is it possible that the recycled Au Revoir Simone performance is an indication that these storyline fragments are not chronological?  

 

At first I figured the rotating band showcases were a way for Twin Peaks to self-reference how the series has seeped into pop culture (it's hard not to feel echoes of Julee Cruise's floaty nostalgia and sentimentalism in almost all the bands.  If the show has been anything so far it's been on-brand-Twin-Peaks.  Sometimes I feel like I'm watching both Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Soundtrack marketing in every episode.) 

 

But it would be interesting if the music also serves as timeline touchstones as the storyline begins to jump around in sequence.

 

IMG_2477.JPG

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Is Johnny's death going to be the catalyst for Audrey to show up? Feels like it.

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19 hours ago, Tirranek said:

I just had a horrible thought: What if Janey-E is there when Dougie becomes Cooper again, and it's like that damn squirrel scene from Sword in the Stone? My heart's not ready for that again.

 

This is a great reference.

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7 hours ago, Urthman said:

 

And was anyone else put off by Hawk being so petty as to not bother getting the door for Deputy Chad?

 

I absolutely loved that scene.  Chad is a selfish, corrupt asshole who so far hasn't been shown to have a drop of propriety or empathy in him.  Chad expects doors to be opened for him, but wouldn't ever stoop to open one for another.

 

(Yes, I know, I'm basing a bigger picture of him off a lot of conjecture, but whatevs)

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1 minute ago, Bjorn said:

 

I absolutely loved that scene.  Chad is a selfish, corrupt asshole who so far hasn't been shown to have a drop of propriety or empathy in him.  Chad expects doors to be opened for him, but wouldn't ever stoop to open one for another.

 

(Yes, I know, I'm basing a bigger picture of him off a lot of conjecture, but whatevs)

 

I think common human decency tells you that you should open a door for someone who has his hands full. Especially as you want the person to leave to room. By not facilitating that you're both mean and counterproductive. I agree with Urthman, it felt small of Hawk.

 

Funnily enough, many scenes at the police station seem to showcase this lack of energy or effort in caring about other people. In very small, everyday manner. Truman's wife(?) complaining, Truman's exhausted attitude towards said complaining, everything Chad does, Hawk's attitude towards Chad. And to some degree Andy/Lucy show as well. Even if that's mostly just an awkward gag machine.

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I'm surprised by Ben Horne's turnaround.  In season two we see even when he is trying to do "what feels right" or "is the right thing" (admitting he is Donna's biological father) it seems he can only bring pain or act selfishly.  This season he's a good man?  Bobby is in a similar state, but a little less so.  Do you think there will be a reversion to type, or is this alternate sides of a coin like Coop and his doppel on a less supernatural level?

 

In The Secret History of Twin Peaks folks that inhabit the lodges were stated to know nothing about our morality or immorality.  yes, the Black Lodge feeds on suffering, or use it as a currency, but choosing to nourish oneself can hardly be seen as a moral choice.  We've seen characters like the arm and Mike feeding on this suffering and their purpose in thwarting BOB seemed based on getting their share.  The first season of Twin Peaks had characters full of flaws, Sheriff Truman while mostly a boy scout was sleeping with Josie, Laura was full of contradictions, only the very simple (Lucy, Andy, Johnny) seemed ignorant of corruption.  This season seems to be focusing on clear distinctions of good and evil, and redemption (more than the corruption we saw in previous seasons).  I'm having trouble gelling the seasons together into a larger narrative.  

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1 hour ago, unimural said:

 

I think common human decency tells you that you should open a door for someone who has his hands full. Especially as you want the person to leave to room. By not facilitating that you're both mean and counterproductive. I agree with Urthman, it felt small of Hawk.

 

Even when asking for help, Chad doesn't say the magic word. "Are you gonna get the door? A little help here?" Nah, Chad needs what he got from Hawk.

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41 minutes ago, Digger said:

I'm surprised by Ben Horne's turnaround.  In season two we see even when he is trying to do "what feels right" or "is the right thing" (admitting he is Donna's biological father) it seems he can only bring pain or act selfishly.  This season he's a good man?  Bobby is in a similar state, but a little less so.  Do you think there will be a reversion to type, or is this alternate sides of a coin like Coop and his doppel on a less supernatural level?

 

I read this as the result of a long change. In season 2 Ben has just started trying to do right by people, and fix his mistakes. He hasn't had 25 years of practice and understanding to figure out just what that means, and the myriad of ways he can hurt people with his actions.

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9 hours ago, utilityfrog said:

So, was Chad eating creamed corn? If so, seems appropriate.

I wondered that too. Garmonbozia is waaaay above Chad's pay grade though.

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3 hours ago, unimural said:

I think common human decency tells you that you should open a door for someone who has his hands full. Especially as you want the person to leave to room. By not facilitating that you're both mean and counterproductive. I agree with Urthman, it felt small of Hawk.

 

lmao, what?

 

Wasn't Chad a horrible prick to Andy or something in an early episode when Hawk was in the room?

 

I also get the feeling Hawk suspects his illicit side-activities, or at least doesn't trust him in general.

 

And he's never been one to show courtesy to bad people, e.g. tripping an injured Hank when Hank was giving Truman grief.

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1 hour ago, marblize said:

 

lmao, what?

 

Wasn't Chad a horrible prick to Andy or something in an early episode when Hawk was in the room?

 

I also get the feeling Hawk suspects his illicit side-activities, or at least doesn't trust him in general.

 

And he's never been one to show courtesy to bad people, e.g. tripping an injured Hank when Hank was giving Truman grief.

Chad was a dick to Hawk when he was in the Men's room finding the diary pages. I think in general nobody likes Chad because he is straight up mean to everyone.

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1 hour ago, marblize said:

 

lmao, what?

 

Wasn't Chad a horrible prick to Andy or something in an early episode when Hawk was in the room?

 

I also get the feeling Hawk suspects his illicit side-activities, or at least doesn't trust him in general.

 

And he's never been one to show courtesy to bad people, e.g. tripping an injured Hank when Hank was giving Truman grief.

 

Yeah, I mean, the whole scene is Chad doing something they've expressly told him not to do multiple times, and then acting like they're in the wrong when they tell him to leave. I think it's normal for humans to get tired of people acting cartoonishly mean, especially in the workplace. 

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3 minutes ago, Gamebeast23456 said:

 

Yeah, I mean, the whole scene is Chad doing something they've expressly told him not to do multiple times, and then acting like they're in the wrong when they tell him to leave. I think it's normal for humans to get tired of people acting cartoonishly mean, especially in the workplace. 

 

A minor thing I like about that scene is the believable assholishness of Chad, who tries to argue, "but you guys have donuts and coffee in here!"  Which ignores the point that donuts and coffee are a group thing, and usually (always?) done when multiple people are working on the same case, in that room.  Whereas Chad just selfishly wants the room for himself.  It's just exactly the kind of way that someone would see and argue that situation. 

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Fuck Chad. I was waiting for Hawk to not do anything so Chad would have to set some stuff down and awkwardly open the door and brace it, then pick up his food and back out in shame or anger. Or just see them all immediately blow past him still carrying his lunch out in the hallways a few moments later when they leave to go outside. That would have been amazing.

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2 hours ago, Jake said:

Chad was a dick to Hawk when he was in the Men's room finding the diary pages. I think in general nobody likes Chad because he is straight up mean to everyone.

 

In the toilet scene, Chad walks in as Hawk is dismantling the toilet. Hawk hardly acknowledges Chad's perfectly reasonable puzzlement, just telling him to use the ladies bathroom. And sure, Chad is a dick in that scene as well.

 

As a character Chad is seems to be a thread of the dark underbelly of the town, and I think we're supposed to get from these scenes the sense of everyone being tired of Chad's bullshit. But with these scenes (the toilet and the meeting room) being so distant from each other, their impact is more individual, and at least what I see is bunch of people being kind of petty towards each other. Someone being an asshole does not make it right or useful to be an asshole back at them. Unless one wants to be vindictive and delight in the comeuppance. But I feel Chad hasn't earned that yet in the series.

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I had also interpreted this as Hawk waiting for a 'please' (or maybe knowing he wasn't going to get one and trying to make a point about it), but it could also just be that Hawk is sick enough of Chad's shit to happily watch him struggle.

 

I think him trying to use the coffee & doughnuts in the conference room as an excuse for why he should be able to eat his lunch there deliberately highlights his place as an outsider - I can't remember if we see the coffee & doughnuts tradition in the conference room being started in S1, but it is a definite part of the cameraderie of the original Twin Peaks Sheriff's Dept.

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I guess it seems to me that a deputy would get his ass fired before he got to the place of deserving that much contempt. It makes me wonder if we're going to get a story behind the division between the half of the sheriff's department that has been around since Cooper's time and the younger, more realistic (?) folks working in the other wing of the office. 

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Episode 44 was live as of a while ago!

 

Was this the most Badalamenti used in any episode so far? Seemed like there was a fair amount to me, maybe only a few minutes in total but more tracks than usual for The Return. From the tail end of the police station the jazzy drums kicked in through the Ike the Spike capture, then at Betty Briggs' house and the multiple establishing shots of Twin Peaks and The Great Northern, even a sweet guitar riff! (usually reserved for James in the original run? I can't quite remember - but it's very familiar). I am totally fine with his classic music being used sparingly, it has a greater effect when it kicks in now. They went overboard with all music and character themes seemingly all the time in the original series, but some of the more comedic attempts are still real weird without anything in the background. Such as all of Andy and Lucy's dumb bits so far, and the stuff with Jerry Horne. Feel like some of the FBI scenes could use some spicing up, like that outdoor smoke break.

 

I was surprised by the lack of mentioning the text message Diane received on the podcast, but then I suppose there's not much to talk about there yet aside from the different formatting. Total speculation. But it's driving me crazy.

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I take issue with the notion that Ben Horne isn't a Good Man.

 

The last time we saw him he had (maybe) a near death experience after (merely?) ostensibly trying to be a Good Man for half a season, post mental breakdown. Maybe this plus his daughter being put in a coma was enough to push him fully into Good Man territory. We definitely haven't seen anything this season to contradict Beverly's claim.

 

Also I too think it's a bummer that Jake found Tammy distracting during the cigarette scene. I thought it was a really well done sequence of subtle POV shifts, starting with Diane obviously and quietly bouncing around based on gazes and bodies shifting. It was really impressive for such a static shot, imo. I also thought maybe Tammy was so shifty partly due to high heel fatigue (since the clacks were so prominent in the sound mix), but maybe that's a weird thought, lol.

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31 minutes ago, marblize said:

I take issue with the notion that Ben Horne isn't a Good Man

What did he do to become good in season two? It felt like everything he did had the potential to be a scheme. And because bad things happened to him he's good now? He ran a totally insane and entrenched human trafficking and drug ring. He directly fucked up dozens of human lives and we never really got a resolution to any of that. I appreciate that he let Beverly's remark stand without fully accepting or contradicting it. I don't think he deserves more than that ambiguity. I may have overstepped by saying I wish he contradicted her, but beyond that I dunno. I love Ben Horne as a character, but as a human being I find it hard to let go of his complete history and accept it on faith that he's "good" now. 

 

And I've flip flopped on that Tammy smoking shot about a dozen times haha. I don't really know what I think about it. 

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9 hours ago, Bjorn said:

 

A minor thing I like about that scene is the believable assholishness of Chad, who tries to argue, "but you guys have donuts and coffee in here!"  Which ignores the point that donuts and coffee are a group thing, and usually (always?) done when multiple people are working on the same case, in that room.  Whereas Chad just selfishly wants the room for himself.  It's just exactly the kind of way that someone would see and argue that situation. 

 

Donuts and coffee don't stink up a room. Note that the first thing they do once Chad leaves is open a window. As someone who worked at a place where the IT department microwaved fish stew in the lunch room every single day, I support this rule.

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2 hours ago, Jake said:

And because bad things happened to him he's good now?

 

Possibly! Emphasis on the 'now.' I'm positing that a near death experience when he was already working on a path to attempted redemption (even if tongue-in-cheek) and 25 years has made him chill on the whole actively bad person thing. Grave injuries are known to change outlooks, no? I mean yeah, One Eyed Jacks and Ghostwood things certainly would beat out the mild neutral living he seems to do now (from what we've seen) in a tally. It just seems like he worked his way out of a lot of those bad 'habits' to become a seemingly pleasant, possibly good-at-the-moment person. But true, maybe the good person descriptor should account for collected works rather than recent selected works. I guess there are a lot of evil real world people I'd probably never call 'good' under any future circumstance. Maybe I'm just charmed. And with that I'll stop getting offended for this fictional character, lol.

 

relevant Andrew WK tweet I saw today.

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