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Twin Peaks Rewatch 46: The Return, Part 11

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13 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I'm sure the German preview images will wind up being canon when it comes out on Blu Ray.

 

True Twin Peaks fan right here, haha.

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9 hours ago, Kolzig said:

Big Ed was finally mentioned at least! And shots fired there, so next episode we will maybe know what's up?

 

Damn good episode and pie.

 

I thought it was that the cop was at Big Ed's when he heard the RR shots fired.

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5 hours ago, Ford said:

Is it the countless connections people make about the show from nothing? Wow, those kids were throwing a ball. The ball represents Laura's orb. We throw her around, but can never receive her essence. Lynch is a genius.

 

I'm a huge fan of The Return so far, but this tendency in the fandom irritates me, too. I think it irritates me because it reduces the whole show into just an intricate jigsaw puzzle to be solved, where each piece of the puzzle is a formal visual element. That's not to say that there aren't interesting recurring themes throughout the series, though. I've found joy and fascination in watching the contrast between different characters' reactions to situations that feel formally parallel. Here are a few examples: 

(1) The exploration of conspiracies. The show depicts many characters reacting in contrasting ways to perceived dark conspiracies.

(2) Hope and hopelessness in the face of a possibly preordained life.

(3) Dreams and visions in either conflict or concordance with the physical world.

(4) Characters that are confused about how they feel, or that feel multiple emotions simultaneously and strongly.

 

Other things that delight me about the show:

(5) Absurdist humor and arch, bad-on-purpose writing (Andy & Lucy, and many other bit characters).

(6) Mysticism unlike anything I've seen elsewhere, that's vague enough to let my mind wander around in, but concrete enough to be an occasional plot element, with elements that interact with more than one character.

(7) Captivating and varied music / scoring / sound design.

 

I like abstraction and surrealism, but I am at a loss as to how to convey why you should, too. I also can't really explain why I like some abstract or surreal works of art more than others. If anyone on the forum has the training and language for that kind of art criticism, I'd love to hear about it.

 

I hope you find some things to like in the richness of the show. But if what you liked the most about the original series was the whodunit plotting, then I can understand why The Return would be frustrating, Although, I'd point out that this isn't really new. After re-watching the original series recently, I was surprised by how little screentime is devoted to solving the mystery of Laura's murder. Way lower than I remembered. Way more Mill Machinations and domestic violence. And there are very few 'reveals' in Fire Walk with Me.

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I liked this episode a lot, especially compared with the, in my opinion, relatively dull one last week.

 

I love the direction the Mitchum brothers plot went, even if I'm a bit baffled by what their exit strategy in case they murdered Dougie would have been. Gordon Cole and Albert stuff was great as usual, and seeing Bobby get even more screen time was good.

 

Even if Shelly had bad taste men, her exit during the family drama scene felt really over-the-top and unconvincing to me.

 

Cooper seemed more active in Dougie than ever before when he got to eat that pie, but I'm sure that this means that he will definitely not wake up in the next episode.

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12 hours ago, richardco said:

 

I also lost my shit when, after studying Hastings's blown apart head, Gordon announces, "He's dead."

 

10 hours ago, Ozzie said:

 

And Tammy's eyeroll to Gordon's comment! XD

 

Ah dang, I missed that eyeroll because I was looking at Lynch's expression, more to take in on the second viewing!

Gordon Cole stole the damn show again with that line and delivery. So good!

 

Also loved Albert pulling Cole out of the zone's vortex, and the different views of that whole scene. The wobbly focus shifting stuff nearby and especially the far shot with Lynch reaching up to the sky at apparently nothing were both amazing. The vortex effect in the sky itself not so much, but it did the job. Everything about that scene with the woodsmen sneaking around while disappearing and reappearing, the view of the woodsmans on the staircase, Hasting's head exploding and the aftermath. All of it was so fucking enjoyable. Edge of the seat stuff. I agree with the folks saying Gordon Cole is the Dale Cooper of this series, it's not the same but still enjoyable in its own right. Going in I really thought Lynch would be all behind the camera with directing every single episode and that Gordon Cole would barely have a role, but he's got a fairly significant part and a central one to a main investigation. And I'm loving it. Miguel Ferrer is killing it too, glad he's partnered up with Cole for the run.

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56 minutes ago, ddennism said:

 

I'm a huge fan of The Return so far, but this tendency in the fandom irritates me, too. I think it irritates me because it reduces the whole show into just an intricate jigsaw puzzle to be solved, where each piece of the puzzle is a formal visual element. That's not to say that there aren't interesting recurring themes throughout the series, though. I've found joy and fascination in watching the contrast between different characters' reactions to situations that feel formally parallel. Here are a few examples: 

(1) The exploration of conspiracies. The show depicts many characters reacting in contrasting ways to perceived dark conspiracies.

(2) Hope and hopelessness in the face of a possibly preordained life.

(3) Dreams and visions in either conflict or concordance with the physical world.

(4) Characters that are confused about how they feel, or that feel multiple emotions simultaneously and strongly.

 

Other things that delight me about the show:

(5) Absurdist humor and arch, bad-on-purpose writing (Andy & Lucy, and many other bit characters).

(6) Mysticism unlike anything I've seen elsewhere, that's vague enough to let my mind wander around in, but concrete enough to be an occasional plot element, with elements that interact with more than one character.

(7) Captivating and varied music / scoring / sound design.

 

I like abstraction and surrealism, but I am at a loss as to how to convey why you should, too. I also can't really explain why I like some abstract or surreal works of art more than others. If anyone on the forum has the training and language for that kind of art criticism, I'd love to hear about it.

 

I hope you find some things to like in the richness of the show. But if what you liked the most about the original series was the whodunit plotting, then I can understand why The Return would be frustrating, Although, I'd point out that this isn't really new. After re-watching the original series recently, I was surprised by how little screentime is devoted to solving the mystery of Laura's murder. Way lower than I remembered. Way more Mill Machinations and domestic violence. And there are very few 'reveals' in Fire Walk with Me.

 

Thanks for this response. There are things I do enjoy about the show which is why I continue to watch each week. IMO, this season has lost the equilibrium of the surreal and character driven narrative the original balanced so nicely. 

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Why did Albert have a gun? Self proclaimed pacifist, but also, a pathologist? Not a lot of field work there? I mean, maybe he's just the Scully of Gordon Cole's X-Files?

 

Before they go through the fence, Gordon says to Albert, "You think there's one in there?" Not someone, anyone, but just "one". Are they already aware of the Woodsman (Woodsmen?). There's also the practiced? unalarmed? way Albert just grabs Gordon away from the doom funnel when Gordon starts to flicker. I think it's not just Gordon that knows more than he's letting on, but Albert too. Also the way Gordon says to Albert "Get a picture?" like Albert didn't just obviously take a picture. They walk over there together. Even if Albert is facing away from Gordon, he's at angle where Gordon might be able to see him taking the picture and if not, certainly infer it from his movements. I think this scene, along with the stilted conversation in the sheriff's office is entirely for Diane's benefit. Something about it seemed so off to me in the way Gordon and Albert were speaking and the way they chose their words. Some have just called it a badly acted or written scene, but I don't think so. I mean, the way Albert just forks out the picture and then pretty much stares at Diane for her reaction? We know Gordon "can't" hear, and we've already had one Gordon misunderstanding things (watch your language!) gag this season that was legitimately funny. Why try and shoehorn in this one that was so atonal? I think it was more a planned conversation or even code.

 

A few things from the credits:

 

Minivan mom is Carrie. Jodee Thelen is credited as Maggie, but remind me who Maggie is? Most notably, Al Strobel is credited Phillip Gerard, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss an appearance by him in this episode. Unless, of course, we didn't know it was him. The way the Woodsmen are staged in Gordon's vision, we can't see the left arm of the one in the middle (right arm from the viewer's perspective, of course). 

 

I can't blame anyone for losing patience with the series and wanting something to, you know, happen. I'm along for the ride and enjoying it, we are certainly meandering our way to any sort of meaningful conclusion. 

 

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3 minutes ago, marfy said:

Al Strobel is credited Phillip Gerard, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss an appearance by him in this episode. Unless, of course, we didn't know it was him.

 

He beckoned Cooper-as-Dougie into the cafe to buy the cherry pie.  Presumably he knew about/planted The Dream?

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3 minutes ago, marfy said:

Before they go through the fence, Gordon says to Albert, "You think there's one in there?" Not someone, anyone, but just "one". Are they already aware of the Woodsman (Woodsmen?).

 

I think they meant "one" as in "a portal" - not necessarily a woodsman. "You think there's a portal in there?" or whatever they call the junctions between Earth and that other place. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

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18 minutes ago, Vellan said:

 

He beckoned Cooper-as-Dougie into the cafe to buy the cherry pie.  Presumably he knew about/planted The Dream?

 

Shit! I didn't realize that's why Dougie went into the cafe. That's what I get for watching on my phone. I just heard the Mr. Jackpots music cue. 

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41 minutes ago, Ford said:

I'm a huge fan of The Return so far, but this tendency in the fandom irritates me, too. I think it irritates me because it reduces the whole show into just an intricate jigsaw puzzle to be solved, where each piece of the puzzle is a formal visual element. 

 

I think it's great, and the show clearly both courts and trolls this sort of behavior imo, what with thesearchforthezone.com and all the reversed bits of footage etc.

 

Also on reddit I've seen a lot of silly minute detective work turn into discussion involving deeper critical analysis, which is not something I used to see as much on the GoT subreddit when I frequented that one for instance.

 

edit: whoops, the quote-copy labelled this quote as the wrong person, sorry!

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3 minutes ago, purps said:

 

 

But I...work...lunch...waiting for hours...I mean...

 

giphy.gif

 

...okay.

 

25 minutes ago, pokysharpy said:

 

I think they meant "one" as in "a portal" - not necessarily a woodsman. "You think there's a portal in there?" or whatever they call the junctions between Earth and that other place. That's how I interpreted it, anyway.

 

That makes more sense. Still, they seemed familiar with what they encountered. 

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1 minute ago, marfy said:

That makes more sense. Still, they seemed familiar with what they encountered. 

 

Absolutely. I don't know that we've ever seen other concrete confirmation that they know specifics about the Black Lodge stuff. I could be very wrong.

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59 minutes ago, marfy said:

That makes more sense. Still, they seemed familiar with what they encountered.

 

 

Yeah when Gordon started slipping away into another realm Albert was quick but seemed really casual and calm about pulling him back lol

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1 hour ago, marfy said:

 

But I...work...lunch...waiting for hours...I mean..

 

...okay.

I mean, it makes sense that as an artist Lynch would be adamant that people only watch his work under ideal circumstances. I think I would be pretty frustrated too if I felt like people's opinions of my work were being warped by them viewing it under less than ideal circumstances and perhaps I would even prefer that they hadn't seen it at all. But the fact is that we all have lives and only have so much time to devote to various things and if watching Twin Peaks on a phone is what makes sense in your life then there is no shame in that. It's pretty much impossible to truly give your whole self over to a film and not be even a little bit distracted, anyhow. My mind drifts, I think about something that someone said to me earlier in the day or how my tummy is grumbling, or the two year old on the floor above starts crying and I look up and wonder what happened, or maybe one of the actors looks kinda like my brother and then I think about how he was so mean to me as a child for the rest of the scene, and so on and so forth. Lynch understandably wants us to watch his work on the biggest screen possible without any of the outside world creeping in...but that just isn't always possible. You do you. 

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wasn't that clip from a number of years ago? i think he may feel differently now. NuPeaks is pretty much a perfect show for phone viewing with headphones in a dark room. I feel this way about Kurosawa's Pulse too. Both dealing with technological ghosts of sorts.

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42 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I mean, it makes sense that as an artist Lynch would be adamant that people only watch his work under ideal circumstances. I think I would be pretty frustrated too if I felt like people's opinions of my work were being warped by them viewing it under less than ideal circumstances and perhaps I would even prefer that they hadn't seen it at all. But the fact is that we all have lives and only have so much time to devote to various things and if watching Twin Peaks on a phone is what makes sense in your life then there is no shame in that. It's pretty much impossible to truly give your whole self over to a film and not be even a little bit distracted, anyhow. My mind drifts, I think about something that someone said to me earlier in the day or how my tummy is grumbling, or the two year old on the floor above starts crying and I look up and wonder what happened, or maybe one of the actors looks kinda like my brother and then I think about how he was so mean to me as a child for the rest of the scene, and so on and so forth. Lynch understandably wants us to watch his work on the biggest screen possible without any of the outside world creeping in...but that just isn't always possible. You do you. 

Yeah, Lynch seems to be a big stickler for that stuff. The Criterion blu ray for Eraserhead has a little guide for correctly calibrating your TV before you watch the movie along with a message from Lynch asking you to do it before watching the movie. There was also a story about how when he first screened The Missing Pieces to an audience he spent a long time personally calibrating the sound system in the theater I believe as the audience was seated because he wasn't happy with it.

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Albert knows that Diane is a baddie so what's he doing showing her coordinates!? Had he intentionally altered or obscured them as some kind of test!? Who knows? But what I do know is that this episode was brilliant. Cooper s voice at its most Cooper like when he said "Damn good", Hastings getting the THIS IS THE WATER AND THIS IS THE WELL treatment, the strange electrical storm and Albert stopping Gordon from getting fucked through the portal and everything Dougie does continues to either make me laugh or cry. 

 

All the strange goings on in Twin Peaks too what the heck was that exorcist kid about?  Evil is alive in Twin Peaks. 

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1 hour ago, purps said:

Yeah, Lynch seems to be a big stickler for that stuff. 

 

 

David Lynch is a visual artist who only began exploring cinema when he saw one of his paintings move and re-interpreted filmmaking as a form of painting with movement. I feel like this is one of the most important things to keep in mind when viewing his work, and it's very much on display in season 3. His desire to have his audience fully experience the aesthetic he's creating is completely understandable with this context.

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3 hours ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

...it makes sense that as an artist Lynch would be adamant that people only watch his work under ideal circumstances. I think I would be pretty frustrated too if I felt like people's opinions of my work were being warped by them viewing it under less than ideal circumstances and perhaps I would even prefer that they hadn't seen it at all. But the fact is that we all have lives and only have so much time to devote to various things and if watching Twin Peaks on a phone is what makes sense in your life then there is no shame in that.

There must be a limit beyond which a viewer has to hand in their critics' badge though - it just doesn't make sense to be basing criticism on something you haven't watched properly.  Maybe you can work around slightly bad sound, or missing a few bits here and there, but would you have much that is useful to say as someone who, say, scaled the show down to watch it on such a small screen that it was hard to differentiate the characters?  (Not saying that this is equivalent to watching on a phone necessarily, just making the point that there must be a limit somewhere).
 

Ultimately an artist doesn't get to say how their work is experienced once it is out in the world, but I think if I am going to make public proclamations about it after the fact, I should probably try to give it a decent shake first.  (Granted this forum is maybe not exactly a 'proclamation', but it is public, and we are playing at criticism here)

 

This is something that annoys me disproportionately...  I had an ex with whom I had this argument, as she had an infuriatingly precise ability to jump up to go grab a drink, or do whatever, when we were watching something at *exactly the worst moment*.  (My theory on this was that her attention-span was really well synched to the usual length of the buildup in an important scene, sans its conclusion)  I would return the show to the point before she had left, (probably making a bit of a production about it, truth be told) and often we would disagree about whether that was necessary.  My eventual position was that just about any film or TV show can be made significantly worse (or possibly nonsensical) by removing just one or two sections of less than a minute each.  Hers was that while that might be true, the majority of sub-minute sections in a show can be safely missed without significantly degrading the experience.  (She disagreed with my general claim that her timing was like this, although she did concede a few specific examples of scenes she had missed being important) 

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17 hours ago, Mike Danger said:

As crazy as it is, I kind of like the idea Candie is Laura/the Laura doppelganger in a Dougie-esque fugue state.

I think my heart skipped a beat when Cooper snapped out of it for a split second.

 

I'm loving Candie and really hoping her and Dougie/Coop have a bizarre mutually oblivious interaction. And, in the abstract, I do like the idea that she's more significant than she seems.

 

That said, even putting aside the logistics of why one person would reappear in their old form while another wouldn't, Lynch would never let anyone other than Sheryl Lee play Laura or anyone vaguely representative of her.

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