Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 45: The Return, Part 10

Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Kolzig said:

The name of the Miriam in end credits is different last name than the one on the envelope.

 

Sullivan in end credits and Hedges on the envelope.

 

Whoah, nice catch!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, SuperBiasedMan said:

I'm not going to argue that it definitely is rape because we don't really know DougieCoop's internal world for sure yet. But I will say that all it needs to be rape is a lack of consent. Being married, in love or male don't preclude someone from being raped. A man who loves his wife can still be raped by her if she does not have his consent.

 

In the barest logic, I understand what everyone is saying, but I can't help but roll my eyes that people are shuddering an monocle-clutching so earnestly about "consent" in a scene obviously played as a goof, and was one of the lighthearted events in a rather violent and unpleasant episode.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, SuperBiasedMan said:

But I will say that all it needs to be rape is a lack of consent.

 

How does the fact that the man Janey-E is fucking is not who she thinks he is and he just goes along with it figure into this? Seems like consent is dicey both ways if we're going to have this conversation.

 

 

(i'm more prone to find the scene funny, touching, and sad)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Crunchnoisy said:

 

In the barest logic, I understand what everyone is saying, but I can't help but roll my eyes that people are shuddering an monocle-clutching so earnestly about "consent" in a scene obviously played as a goof, and was one of the lighthearted events in a rather violent and unpleasant episode.

 

I wasn't going to get involved in the argument, but I agree with you.  It's very eye-roll inducing.  No offense to the people advancing this theory, but they're operating on a strictly literal, technical application of a not particularly grounded definition of rape.  All you really need to know this is not rape is to look at Cooper's face during the scene.  He's clearly enjoying himself.  To many people on the internet use this completely clinical, mechanistic definition of rape that completely excludes the fact that rape is a crime and it's supposed to be an offense against a person, so they end up defining things as rape but then balking at the idea that anything should be done about it.

 

The way I look at it, if you say "X is rape." then you're saying a criminal act has occurred and thus justice is demanded.  The average sentence for a rapist is 10 years in prison.  Does Janey-E deserve to spend a decade in jail because she took a man she thinks is her husband to bed and he had an extremely pleasant experience?  Is that justice?  I find the idea that this could be called justice pretty silly, and thus its pretty silly to call it rape.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 minutes ago, Gailbraithe said:

 

I wasn't going to get involved in the argument, but I agree with you.  It's very eye-roll inducing.  No offense to the people advancing this theory, but they're operating on a strictly literal, technical application of a not particularly grounded definition of rape.  All you really need to know this is not rape is to look at Cooper's face during the scene.  He's clearly enjoying himself.  To many people on the internet use this completely clinical, mechanistic definition of rape that completely excludes the fact that rape is a crime and it's supposed to be an offense against a person, so they end up defining things as rape but then balking at the idea that anything should be done about it.

 

The way I look at it, if you say "X is rape." then you're saying a criminal act has occurred and thus justice is demanded.  The average sentence for a rapist is 10 years in prison.  Does Janey-E deserve to spend a decade in jail because she took a man she thinks is her husband to bed and he had an extremely pleasant experience?  Is that justice?  I find the idea that this could be called justice pretty silly, and thus its pretty silly to call it rape.

 

Dougie is not in a mental state where he is capable of consenting. Janey-E is also not capable of consenting because the man that she believes is her husband is actually someone else.

 

Let's say Cooper regains his faculties and retains his memories from the time he was Dougie. It would be a reasonable reaction to look back on this with horror -- he (unintentionally) misled a woman in a way that ended in her having sex with him under the pretense that he's someone she knows and loves and trusts. He is not that person, the one who she would be consenting to have sex with.

 

Let's say Janey-E comes to understand who Cooper is and why he isn't Dougie. It would be a reasonable reaction to look back on this with horror -- she had sex with someone who wasn't even remotely in control of their faculties and looks to be mentally developmentally comparable to a toddler at this point. He isn't capable of understanding what's happening, and while he understands that he feels good in the moment, he's unable to make judgments around the potential repercussions of what he's doing and consent to the implied responsibilities.

 

This is an offense against both people involved. Neither of them know exactly what it is that they're doing or who they're doing it with. Justice for this wouldn't involve prison because prison is completely divorced from any concept of justice, but this is rape. People are harmed. It's a failure of imagination and empathy to not be able to see that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I also felt uncomfortable seeing the sex scene. I can see how it it a light hearted, funny scene for people, and I don't judge them for how they view it.

But I must say that I find it unsettling that the topic of rape causes eye-rolling, because we live in a time where rape culture is a thing and where victims constantly have to face people that don't take them seriously or blame them. It is a real thing, and I think it's important to talk about concerns of popular media that has a huge audience.

Again, I completely understand how people can enjoy that scene, and I truly believe that they are level headed and understand the awfulness of sexism, rape culture and all, but I find it wrong to eyeroll at people who have honest problems with this scene.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really hope Lucy gets to out Chad for intercepting the mail. I've been disappointed in how she's been portrayed thus far in The Return... still can't get over the awful cell phone scene. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
20 minutes ago, Marius said:

I also felt uncomfortable seeing the sex scene. I can see how it it a light hearted, funny scene for people, and I don't judge them for how they view it.

But I must say that I find it unsettling that the topic of rape causes eye-rolling, because we live in a time where rape culture is a thing and where victims constantly have to face people that don't take them seriously or blame them. It is a real thing, and I think it's important to talk about concerns of popular media that has a huge audience.

Again, I completely understand how people can enjoy that scene, and I truly believe that they are level headed and understand the awfulness of sexism, rape culture and all, but I find it wrong to eyeroll at people who have honest problems with this scene.

 

To be clear: The topic of rape does not induce eye-rolling. I'm with ya there.

But, the scene is not rape, so what I'm rolling my eyes at are those who are overprescribing the term where it doesn't belong.

 

We have two people depicted in a pleasant act, and meanwhile there are a bunch of overintellectuals almost literally next to the bed with charts and diagrams screaming "Problematic!  It doesn't matter if you're both enjoying it!  It doesn't matter that you have a long-standing marriage! There are forms to fill out!  Notarizations!  Did you wait 10 minutes after eating?  Cramps!"

 

Fricking life is problematic.

Lynch is problematic, too.  

That's what makes him interesting.

But this scene?

 

Nah.

 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, scrub lover said:

Really hope Lucy gets to out Chad for intercepting the mail. I've been disappointed in how she's been portrayed thus far in The Return... still can't get over the awful cell phone scene. 


So I re-watched the pilot not to long ago and noticed that Andy calls Lucy from a giant 90's cell phone when the police find where Laura and Ronette were tortured by Bob....and unless it's a weird walkie talkie, it makes me hate this recent Lucy cell phone scene so much more. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 minutes ago, awesomeocelot said:


So I re-watched the pilot not to long ago and noticed that Andy calls Lucy from a giant 90's cell phone when the police find where Laura and Ronette were tortured by Bob....and unless it's a weird walkie talkie, it makes me hate this recent Lucy cell phone scene so much more. 

Oh man, I forgot about that. DL's got some 'splainin to do.

 

Also, while I'm not particularly enthralled with the Mitchum Bros. plotline, I did love their reaction when Candie was taking too long to retrieve Anthony. They almost served as audience surrogates for people who get frustrated with the slow, meandering pace The Return can have sometimes. My wife had the same reaction during the sweeping scene in episode 7!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't want to quibble about the definition of rape here. That's turning into a distraction [edit: and I don't know that anyone's going to be satisfied with the argument in the context of a fictional, fantastical setting].

 

What I'm thinking about, though, is the fact that Janey-E still hasn't given appropriate thought and consideration to the fact that Dougie has changed in every conceivable way, and is acting like he has suffered some kind of trauma. The doctor signing off on him mutes this concern at least a little bit; but she should know that something is wrong.

 

If we can consider Dougie as he is as his own character for the moment, this scene makes me feel sad for him. Sad for the play-acting of intimacy that the sex scene represents. Sad that Janey-E's entire demeanor towards him has changed, partly due to having seen him without a shirt on, but she still isn't actually seeing him.

 

He's still just Mr. Jackpots. Wandering around the casino, with everything going right for him, but no-one is actually taking the time to understand what he's going through.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
25 minutes ago, Crunchnoisy said:

 

To be clear: The topic of rape does not induce eye-rolling. I'm with ya there.

But, the scene is not rape, so what I'm rolling my eyes at are those who are overprescribing the term where it doesn't belong.

 

We have two people depicted in a pleasant act, and meanwhile there are a bunch of overintellectuals almost literally next to the bed with charts and diagrams screaming "Problematic!  It doesn't matter if you're both enjoying it!  It doesn't matter that you have a long-standing marriage! There are forms to fill out!  Notarizations!  Did you wait 10 minutes after eating?  Cramps!"

 

Fricking life is problematic.

Lynch is problematic, too.  

That's what makes him interesting.

But this scene?

 

Nah.

 

 

 

I find it completely resonable to interpret the act in that scene as rape, you don't have to be mean about that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 minutes ago, anderbubble said:

I don't want to quibble about the definition of rape here. That's turning into a distraction [edit: and I don't know that anyone's going to be satisfied with the argument in the context of a fictional, fantastical setting].

 

What I'm thinking about, though, is the fact that Janey-E still hasn't given appropriate thought and consideration to the fact that Dougie has changed in every conceivable way, and is acting like he has suffered some kind of trauma. The doctor signing off on him mutes this concern at least a little bit; but she should know that something is wrong.

 

If we can consider Dougie as he is as his own character for the moment, this scene makes me feel sad for him. Sad for the play-acting of intimacy that the sex scene represents. Sad that Janey-E's entire demeanor towards him has changed, partly due to having seen him without a shirt on, but she still isn't actually seeing him.

 

He's still just Mr. Jackpots. Wandering around the casino, with everything going right for him, but no-one is actually taking the time to understand what he's going through.

 

This is true.  As Dougie persists, we're starting to see that many people in his life feign frustration at his non-responsiveness, but really, they expect it.  They have, actually, built their lives around it. Want it, even.  In a long marriage, even inconveniences become familiar and comforting. 

 

But let's talk CoopBod for a second: J-E's reaction is baffling, in the fiction.  Dougie can hardly move on his own.  He's led around.  Are Frost and Lynch really suggesting that Janey-E hasn't seen him in the shower, or had to help him get dressed?  How is it she hasn't seen him naked every day, just administratively?  That... that doesn't track.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
16 minutes ago, Marius said:

I find it completely resonable to interpret the act in that scene as rape, you don't have to be mean about that.

 

I'm sorry for being mean.  I started riffing and couldn't stop.

"I'd like to apologize in advance for Crunchnoisy..."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
17 minutes ago, Crunchnoisy said:

How is it she hasn't seen him naked every day, just administratively?  That... that doesn't track.

 

I interpreted this as just one more way in which Janey-E just hasn't actually been seeing him. She's going through the motions, not paying too much attention, and this just happened to actually catch her attention this time.

 

In some ways, she's both the counterpoint to, but on the same track as, Dougie. They're both disconnected. They're both in a haze. They're both going through the motions. But Dougie is stuck, incapable of action. Janey-E is stuck pressing onward, unable to look to either side.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
27 minutes ago, Crunchnoisy said:

 

I'm sorry for being mean.  I started riffing and couldn't stop.

:) All good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 minutes ago, anderbubble said:

 

I interpreted this as just one more way in which Janey-E just hasn't actually been seeing him. She's going through the motions, not paying too much attention, and this just happened to actually catch her attention this time.

 

In some ways, she's both the counterpoint to, but on the same track as, Dougie. They're both disconnected. They're both in a haze. They're both going through the motions. But Dougie is stuck, incapable of action. Janey-E is stuck pressing onward, unable to look to either side.

 

Okay, this tracks.  What other things have broken her out of the haze?  The casino winnings, and the attack on Ike the Spike.  But she slides right back in again.  But interesting, the sex stuck with her longer (the morning after she was still glowing).  So this may be a catalyst in the story?   It might not be a goof after all.  It wouldn't be the first time Weird Sex was an engine in a Lynch story.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Like I said, I don't want to be in this argument.  My background is in criminology, and the people making this argument's background is in feminism or something, and my experience is that it's better if the "rape is a crime" people (i.e. me) don't talk to the "rape is social phenomenon/culture/accident" people, because we will never understand each other, and their worldview offends me.  Once you start talking about something is rape but nobody deserves to be punished for it, I just check out.  You're talking total nonsense as far as I'm concerned.  If you want to call Janey-E a rapist, feel fucking free, I will just stand over here and roll my eyes at how dramatic you're being, knowing good damn well that it means nothing to you to call her that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Honestly, part of me feels like this conversation undermines actual rape. Maybe theoretically you can make an argument for why it's rape, but it wouldn't be that dissimilar from Dworkin's argument that all penis-vagina sex is fundamentally rape; it makes sense in theory but can never be carried out in the real, messy world we live in.

 

Janey-E and Dougie are heightened, comedic versions of sitcom man and wife. She is the attractive, put upon wife who is constantly crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at her dopey husband who just does not get it. It's so clearly a farce and meant to be funny that serious calls of "she raped him!" seem obtuse to the point of harm. As someone else pointed out, if you follow the scene logically, Janey-E also technically did not consent, since Dougie isn't really Dougie. But again, that's a road that leads no where and is fruitless. What honestly is the point of this conversation? What great injustice is being visited by this scene that we're all arguing against? Why create a culture where we can't given something like this the benefit of the doubt and move on?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I didn't mean to offend anybody, ok? Again, I understand why you see the scene as fine and light hearted and I find nothing wrong with it!

Shit I will shut up next time.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My comments aren't directed at any person in particular and I don't think the takeaway should be to not say anything in the future. However, I am increasingly frustrated by the very predictable and very unhelpful conversations progressive people will have about art and want to point that out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think there's a strange culture of Lynch schadenfreude (that I also indulge in) that almost feels uncomfortable with the amount of weight Lynch has in counter-culture or just sort of niche culture because he's also very clearly a 70 year old Midwestern white guy who totally carries that background with him in his work, and often subverts it. I think there's a desire to catch him stumbling. 

 

I don't mean for this to sound like I feel Lynch is beleagured or misunderstood or needs to be protected, no one is above critique. But it often feels like people really want to jump the gun on him. To not deflect my point onto anyone else, I personally feel like, as much as I love his work, my personal opinions and points of discomfort often leave me considering his work in bad faith, and this is heightened with this new series which is very weird and not complete or total. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, Argobot said:

My comments aren't directed at any person in particular and I don't think the takeaway should be to not say anything in the future. However, I am increasingly frustrated by the very predictable and very unhelpful conversations progressive people will have about art and want to point that out.

 

I'm a progressive -- vegan and all -- and even I share the frustrations. We are the Fun Police. Being progressive, sometimes it feels like other progressives are your biggest hurdle as you're judged on not being hardcore enough. I'm fully on the side of "There is a cultural problem that's far more prevalent than the man-hiding-in-alleyway image," but sometimes I wonder what other couples' intimate moments are like. "Consent is sexy", yes, but I envision forms being signed before each and every encounter. If you wake up one morning to your partner performing foreplay on you, were you raped because you weren't awake to sign off on it? There are people who will say that you absolutely were. And while there is a certain logic there, I can see how someone could lead themself down that mental path, I think they're trying to find more victims than there actually are. Which only makes it harder for the world to take you seriously when it really matters.

 

In a season that's been far more brutal than we were expecting, can we not have a moment of levity without it being yanked away? Am I now supposed to feel guilty about giggling at DougCoop's giant grin and floppy arms? We might as well also discuss the trauma that Sonny Jim suffered that night and all the therapy he'll need after what he heard. Does this season really need one more victim?

 

The fact of the matter is, we don't get to see what happened between the kitchen scene and the sex scene. We have no idea how that played out. But Lynch would probably be amused by how each viewer filled in that blank differently, and in doing so revealed something about their worldview.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Gailbraithe said:

The way I look at it, if you say "X is rape." then you're saying a criminal act has occurred and thus justice is demanded.  The average sentence for a rapist is 10 years in prison.  Does Janey-E deserve to spend a decade in jail because she took a man she thinks is her husband to bed and he had an extremely pleasant experience?  Is that justice?  I find the idea that this could be called justice pretty silly, and thus its pretty silly to call it rape.

 

I think the connection here that keeps getting missed is this: for people who take issue with this, the issue is not that Janey-E raped DougieCoop or that DougieCoop has been raped whether he realizes it or not, the issue people have is with the idea that Lynch/Frost wrote this into the plot line as a goofy comic relief and saw nothing wrong with it. 

 

I don't have an issue with it and I'm not going to begrudge anyone who does see an issue with it (though I do tend to fall on the side of "someone wanted to kill him and he ended that in seconds, someone else wanted to have sex with him and I don't see why he wouldn't also have ended that in seconds if he wasn't interested").

 

I will say that Lynch's worlds are brutal (Charcoal Abe Lincoln Skull Crusher anyone?) so it makes sense that his comic relief is brutal as well. In one scene we went from silent DougieCoop eating cake to being ridden in bed with his arms flapping like he's trying to take off for flight. Being as far as I can remember only the second sex scene in this season, we're lucky the two of them weren't mutilated to death by a video effect like those poor horny penthouse millennials.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, Mangela Lansbury said:

Let's say Cooper regains his faculties and retains his memories from the time he was Dougie. It would be a reasonable reaction to look back on this with horror -- he (unintentionally) misled a woman in a way that ended in her having sex with him under the pretense that he's someone she knows and loves and trusts. He is not that person, the one who she would be consenting to have sex with.

This is exactly what I thought of after admittedly finding the sex scene funny.  If Coop came around and remembered, he wouldn't find it funny at all, based on what we know about his character and relationships with Audrey and Annie in S1 and S2.  I'm sure the scene was written so we could see Dougie/Coop discovering another physical pleasure, like peeing or drinking coffee, and there may even be some commentary there about how one should treat sex as lightheartedly as the others, with which I definitely disagree precisely because multiple people are involved and consent is important. 

 

I do think Janey-E's consent is a bit more complicated based on how she started trying to get Coop into bed by saying "Do you find me attractive?  I find you attractive."  This was of course a ludicrous thing for a wife to ask a husband if they have any sort of sex life at all.  We've also had basically zero evidence that Janey-E loves Dougie, she spends all her onscreen time berating or dismissing him, and only seems to show affection for him when he's doing Coop things (disarming Ike, being hot).  It would not be unreasonable, I think, to suggest that Janey-E is falling for Coop, not Dougie, though of course from her point of view she's just discovering new things about her husband that are reigniting the spark. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now