Twin Peaks Rewatch 47: The Return, Part 12

[Jake]

Twin Peaks Rewatch 47:

The Return, Part 12
Though the map is both figuratively and literally starting to center on Twin Peaks, this week we're all over the place. After some fantastic moments with the FBI, Ben Horne, Sheriff Truman, and Sarah Palmer, Audrey makes her long-awaited return, seemingly to bombard us with names and relationships we can barely grasp. Who is Tina and what did she say? Where's Billy? Is Chuck Richard? These questions and more will remain unanswered for now despite everyone's best efforts, but that's probably the point.

If you have a question for us or thoughts to share on the new season of Twin Peaks, write us at twinpeaks@idlethumbs.net.

Looking for a place to discuss the season with fellow viewers? We recommend the Twin Peaks Rewatch forum.

 

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This week for sure, we'll get answers to the threads we REALLY care about...

 

 

Really though, let's talk about The Return, Part 12!

[Gregalor]

So how bout that Audrey scene. Will we ever see her again? Did it have any bearing whatsoever on the rest of the show? Who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jayroo69]

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[Mike Danger]

1 hour ago, Gregalor said:

So how bout that Audrey scene. Will we ever see her again? Did it have any bearing whatsoever on the rest of the show? Who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Is the Chuck she's talking about Richard? The story she tells about the truck sounds an awful lot like what happened with Richard and the guy Andy talked to who we never saw again...but then again it could be a weird coincidence which would totally be par for the Twin Peaks course.

 

Another connection I can't believe I missed this week: Blue Rose as the successor to Blue Book

 

Edit: I love that that first scene goes down in a room which has curtains for two of the walls, apparently

[Lechimp]

The FBI stuff made me really happy. The Audrey was weirdly disappointing.

 

Who were the people the two girls were talking about in that last scene? I didn't really understand what was going on there.

[Ford]

Few quick thoughts/questions:

 

The scene with Gordon, Tammy, Albert and Diane was so Red Room. 

 

Who was was in the house with Sarah Palmer? 

 

Was as a good bit of the Dr. Amp scene a replay of the first? 

 

Good of to see Audrey, but didn't follow any of the dialogue. 

 

Still completely lost on the story. 

[richardco]

Man, I really didn't like this episode. Wasn't much that held my attention aside from poor Sara Palmer's bummer life.

 

I thought the Audrey scene was pretty bad. Her performance felt really out sync with her husband. It was kind of distracting.I was never a huge Audrey fan though, so maybe that's why it didn't hold my interest.

 

I also really didn't need to know what the Blue Rose cases meant. Felt like one of the mysteries better left a mystery. But Mark Frost is all about connecting the dots, which sometimes hits and sometimes misses.

 

Looking forward to podcast and the discussion here. I'm hoping other folks enjoyed it and can point out all the good stuff. But hey, even I still end up not liking this episode, that's only one miss out of twelve so far. Pretty damn good ratio.

[GregsVice]

Well that was a bit of a snoozer.  I always find myself minorly disappointed when the episode skews away from Vegas (what a weird thing to think about Twin Peaks). Audrey's scene was kind of hilarious; fans were chomping at the bit to get anything with her, and we're treated to the most unceremonious direct cut to her with a drawn out, inscrutable, static conversation. Hope y'all like Billy Zane!! 

 

I guess my highlight was anything involving Sarah Palmer. Very happy to have her back on screen in any capacity. When Hawk asked if someone was in her house and she responded no, there's "Something in the kitchen" I got a bit creeped out. "It is in our house now."

 

I know it's kind of tired to suggest something strange is going on with the timeline of events, but at this point in the story i'm having a difficult time internalizing when events are happening in conjunction to one another. At this rate I'm guessing Jack Rabbit's palace is gonna be visited in the finale just after a three second vignette of Big Ed. 

[ThatThomas]

Do we know for sure that Audrey is out of the coma? Because the only way I could fully make sense of that scene - outside of the complete randomness being kinda funny - is that might be a coma dream Audrey's having where she's partially tuning into what's happening in the real world and incorporating it into the dream.

[agorman]

I really liked the opening parts of this episode. The opening FBI scene was terrific, and the Sarah Palmer bits really unnerved me. Oh, and I thought the Been Horne scene was a joy to watch. I didn't connect with the Audrey scene but it was good to see her back

[Bjorn]

1 hour ago, Mike Danger said:

 

Is the Chuck she's talking about Richard? The story she tells about the truck sounds an awful lot like what happened with Richard and the guy Andy talked to who we never saw again...but then again it could be a weird coincidence which would totally be par for the Twin Peaks course.

 

Another connection I can't believe I missed this week: Blue Rose as the successor to Blue Book

 

Edit: I love that that first scene goes down in a room which has curtains for two of the walls, apparently

 

Yeah, Chuck being Richard is the only thing I could come up with, but it feels like a real stretch that that's what she meant. 

 

 

 

Ben elected to not tell the Truman about Richard's assault on grandma.

 

I'm sharing the sentiments so far on this one, that it's one of the weakest episodes.  A few highlight moments, but a lot of other time spent that just didn't feel like it was hitting the mark for me. 

 

"I really worry about you sometimes Albert" was my solid laugh out loud moment, although by and large that scene was a miss for me.  I'm assuming the french woman is a sex worker and it was drawn out to show Albert's discomfort.  I can't quite put my finger on what I found wrong with it though, because all the component parts I'm fine with. 

[pyide]

38 minutes ago, ThatThomas said:

Do we know for sure that Audrey is out of the coma? Because the only way I could fully make sense of that scene - outside of the complete randomness being kinda funny - is that might be a coma dream Audrey's having where she's partially tuning into what's happening in the real world and incorporating it into the dream.

 

That makes more sense than what was on screen, haha. And might explain why we still haven't seen her until now if she's still in Twin Peaks. She did mention going to the Roadhouse, yeah?

 

Has Billy been seen before? With him and Tina and Chuck and the new ladies in the bar scene dropping a bunch of other new names, my brain got all jumbled up. I have no idea who most of these people are or why they matter. Except that it was Chuck's truck that Richard was driving when he killed that boy? I suppose most of the other info is unnecessary. That's like the third bar conversation with random townies that seemed to have no real purpose beyond populating the bar so these acts show up. We did learn Mr. late guy got driven off the road by some nut, but that could have been anyone? Richard fleeing town? Seemed like he'd be long gone already but he also seems like a raging idiot so perhaps not.

 

Speaking of Richard, great to see that he's finally being hunted. Next stop, Wendy's.

[GregsVice]

3 minutes ago, pyide said:

Has Billy been seen before?

 

[WickedCestus]

When "Starring Kyle McLachlan" popped up on screen, my thought was "Oh, that guy who got a baseball thrown at him?" 

 

I didn't dislike the episode as much as some, but it was almost an entire episode of very long drawn-out static conversations. I enjoyed some of the character moments but would've preferred a bit more dynamism, especially after last ep which was relatively action-packed.

[pyide]

Oh yeah, is that Billy?

 

Still confusing to me because the subtitles for that episode said Bing but it sounds like he said Billy.

[UnpopularTrousers]

I'm shocked that people weren't into this one. It was totally different from last week's, but I thought it was equally great. Probably the two most entertaining episodes in the series, so far.

 

Part of what made last week feel more like Mulholland Drive than old Twin Peaks was that the melodrama captured an exaggerated hopefulness rather than a depressive melancholy and was shot with the bright lighting we've seen since the Take Five Breakfast. This week almost everything took place at night or with very warm lighting, and the drama was more about looming problems between characters mixed with hints of something scary coming from beyond this world.

The pacing was totally different too. I wanna say that this episode had the fastest editing we've seen and the least empty space surrounding dialogue. Last week we spent over twenty uninterrupted minutes on the Mitchum dream and meeting with Dougie, whereas this episode MOVED.

 

-The opening talk with Tammy was so sweet and there was so a lot of genuine warmth between all of the FBI crew. Was lovely. Although none of them took real sips from their wine which always bothers me, even though I know that continuity with drinks is hard.
-I'm not sure what kind of real world room has red curtains like that, but I totally dug it stylistically, and Diane saying LET'S ROCK was super creepy and didn't feel forced in the way that lines like that often do.
-Sarah Palmer was great as always. Loved her going to the store just to buy three bottles of vodka and a carton of cigarettes. The turkey jerky brought to mind the "Long gone, like a turkey in the corn..." scene in FWWM. It was a subtle connection that brought her lost daughter into her otherworldly freak-out
-I love how Harry Dean Stanton is always annoyed and curmudgeonly, but how his frustrations come from him genuinely caring about people and wanting to help them
-Sonny Jim taking out Dougie for a game of catch was hilarious. It was one of the shortest scenes in the whole show, and was such a quick visual set up and punch line. Really showed the difference in pacing versus last week
-CEILING FAN! So many creepy hints that bad shit is about to go down
-I liked how Ben Horn's conversation with Truman about Richard directly paralleled the conversation he had with his ex-wife after Richard attacked her. He acted very compassionately concerning Miriam and agreed to pay for all of her medical expenses, but showed no compassion for his family and refused to give them any money under similar circumstances. It made his actions this week seem shallow and ingenuine
-I usually furrow my brow whenever an older director hires a pretty young actress to be super sexually attracted to them, but his scene with that woman totally worked for me. Although I'm not sure if Denise's concerns about Gordon being a lecherous old man made this better, or if that was just a convenient excuse...and come to think of it Shelly kissing him in season two was a bit odd...Actually, I liked the scene at the time but now I'm second guessing myself. I need to rewatch it.
-I thought Sherilyn Fenn was great and I enjoyed her scene...but I totally lost track of what Audrey and her husband were even talking about it. Her being in shitty marriage but still totally being a strong and in control woman totally tracks but who is fucking who and who is Billy and why is he missing and what exactly is going on with that phone call and stuff? Can anyone give me a cliffnotes summary? Similar deal with the final roadhouse scene. 

[UnpopularTrousers]

25 minutes ago, pyide said:

Still confusing to me because the subtitles for that episode said Bing but it sounds like he said Billy.

I believe it was officially confirmed that the subtitles were incorrect.

[MarkHoog]

I've been enjoying most (but definitely not all) of this season, but this is the first time that I've actively disliked an episode. Sure, it was funny that I could've learned a foreign language in the time it took that French lady to leave Cole's room, but frankly I've had my share of that this season. I'm sorry, but unlike my ability to love and be kind my patience actually has limits. The podcast often discusses the fact that a lot of what we see will/might be appreciated differently once we've seen the whole batch of episodes, so yeah, until then I can't be bothered with whatever's rattling in Sarah's kitchen, Billy's (?) whereabouts and whether the two women in the Roadhouse have any relation to that armpit scratching lady that we'll probably never see again.

 

The only scene that really grabbed me was the one with Ben Horne. There's was a sad, pensive sort of sweetness to it.

[Demimonde]

The ceiling fan gave me the screaming meemies. But otherwise, like most normal people, I had a hard time following this episode. Coupla things: Dian's nails were full-on Red Room/Black Lodge, red, black and white. Ben Horne's hilarious woodcut of BEN on his desk shot in reverse so we see the letters backwards.

 

Also, something that's been bothering me in all the Great Northern scenes is that no one seems to stay at the place. In seasons 1 and 2, the hotel was always populated and bustling, but all we've seen in The Return is Ben in his office (black, white and red Native glyph thingy on the wall behind him) taking calls and macking on Beverly. No sign of guests, no talk of guests, the need for supplies or food, staff issues or problem or VIP guests. Just Ben. Sometimes Beverly.  I'm starting to wonder whether Vegas is real and Twin Peaks is the dream. Bobby's dream? "The policeman's dream"?

[UnpopularTrousers]

I think I should partially amend my comment regarding the pacing. It wasn't always that the scenes were always that much shorter (although some certainly were), but rather that the individual shots didn't linger and they were always dense with dialogue where the actors were going back and forth rather than letting things hang as if speaking to an empty room. They had a cadence that more closely resembled old Twin Peaks than the rest of The Return where things have been more contemplative and minimalistic. While the lack of Dougie was a factor in this (as his character is define by his unresponsiveness), I think the shift carried into the structure of the scenes with all the other characters as well. Like, it was closer to Blue Velvet's approach to noir and old Hollywood convention than Mulholland Drive's approach to noir and old Hollywood convention which had previously been more present. 

 

Is anyone else with me on this? No?

 

Like I said, kinda shocked that no one else thought this was episode was one of the best thus far.

[Gregalor]

1 hour ago, pyide said:

Has Billy been seen before? With him and Tina and Chuck and the new ladies in the bar scene dropping a bunch of other new names, my brain got all jumbled up. I have no idea who most of these people are or why they matter.

 

We'll probably never meet them, and they almost assuredly do not matter. Will there be any payoff for the rash girl who went from working at one burger joint to another? Doubt it.

 

I think my biggest issue with The Return is how many scenes seem to be filler-scenes lifted from some other production and dropped in. Earlier in the season, I thought I might have been wrong and things could start to connect, but as we get down to only a handful of episodes remaining, my confidence in my assessment grows.

[therealdougiejones]

A lot of people are really trashing this episode on social media. I think for the "Fandom" type of viewer who has a certain kind of attachment to the old characters I can see why this one was so off-putting. I'm looking at this as an 18-hour Lynch/Frost film that I'm watching in bursts. Not trying to judge or rate each episode as a discrete thing so much. As I've said in past discussions - I don't care how little regard Lynch shows for the fanbases attachment to these characters at all. I enjoyed the Audrey scene almost as much as anything in the series. Her impatient and hammy acting made me feel a weird and compelling tension in contrast to the extremely deliberate and slow performance by the actor who played Charlie. Multiple times in this episode characters show frustration as they wait and wait and wait for crucial information. Albert and Audrey. This feels like the kind of episode that happens just before the plot starts moving at warp speed. It's so hard to predict how each week will play out and I really doubt whatever I want it to be is going to be half as interesting as what it will be. I don't care about every thread paying off. When I think back to Season 1 even, there is this constant and almost overwhelming barrage of secrets and mysteries. Everyone is having an affair with their affair and has some secret artifact hidden in a secret compartment. Everyone is involved in some secret alliance or has some secret knowledge and a huge amount of it has nothing to do whatsoever with who killed Laura Palmer. It's just like Twin Peaks to reveal what looks like a dozen more threads that could go interesting places and then smother it completely in the following episode or just never address it again. For a surrealist director it shouldn't surprise people that not everything we see is going to lead somewhere in terms of a literal and coherent narrative.

 

Beautiful moments between Gordon and Albert tonight. Albert may have blown a fuse waiting for him to kick out his fling. I'm having a harder time getting a grasp of Diane's intentions somehow the more information is revealed. Sarah Palmer knows very very bad things will happen soon. Also, I'm guessing Billy is the fellow Andy was supposed to meet with? Everything with Audrey reveals a hundred more mysterious questions but they could very well be answered by the most blatant and dry exposition imaginable. It was too appropriate for this show to reveal what the Blue Rose is in such a direct and banal way. That's easily one of the most obsessed over "fan mysteries" so to speak. 

 

58 minutes ago, Demimonde said:

The ceiling fan gave me the screaming meemies. But otherwise, like most normal people, I had a hard time following this episode. Coupla things: Dian's nails were full-on Red Room/Black Lodge, red, black and white. Ben Horne's hilarious woodcut of BEN on his desk shot in reverse so we see the letters backwards.

 

Also, something that's been bothering me in all the Great Northern scenes is that no one seems to stay at the place. In seasons 1 and 2, the hotel was always populated and bustling, but all we've seen in The Return is Ben in his office (black, white and red Native glyph thingy on the wall behind him) taking calls and macking on Beverly. No sign of guests, no talk of guests, the need for supplies or food, staff issues or problem or VIP guests. Just Ben. Sometimes Beverly.  I'm starting to wonder whether Vegas is real and Twin Peaks is the dream. Bobby's dream? "The policeman's dream"?

 

We only see Ben's office which is likely separated from anywhere guests would be by several rooms. There's no reason to believe that it isn't busy. It seems likely that everything is real because everything going on in New York, South Dakota, Twin Peaks, and Las Vegas has crossed over at some point. BadCoop in South Dakota sends Hutch and Chantel to Vegas and talks to Duncan Todd. Todd interacts with Dougie. Jade sends the key back to Ben Horne. The FBI knows about the New York incident and both Coopers were there.

[Mentalgongfu]

1 hour ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I believe it was officially confirmed that the subtitles were incorrect.

 

Correct. He said Billy. And subtitles are often wrong, not just on this show. I didn't think that needed to be pointed out, but many reviewers have gone off the deep end about the non-existent "Bing" as a result of that incorrect transcription.  I wouldn't base anything important on them, especially when they conflict with your own eyes and ears.

[WickedCestus]

28 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

I think I should partially amend my comment regarding the pacing. It wasn't always that the scenes were always that much shorter (although some certainly were), but rather that the individual shots didn't linger and they were always dense with dialogue where the actors were going back and forth rather than letting things hang as if speaking to an empty room. They had a cadence that more closely resembled old Twin Peaks than the rest of The Return where things have been more contemplative and minimalistic. While the lack of Dougie was a factor in this (as his character is define by his unresponsiveness), I think the shift carried into the structure of the scenes with all the other characters as well. Like, it was closer to Blue Velvet's approach to noir and old Hollywood convention than Mulholland Drive's approach to noir and old Hollywood convention which had previously been more present. 

 

Is anyone else with me on this? No?

 

Like I said, kinda shocked that no one else thought this was episode was one of the best thus far.

 

I might have to re-watch, but I got a completely different impression from this episode. This episode felt emblematic of the long, awkward conversations that I thought characterized a lot of the early episodes, and especially the interactions between Lucy and Andy so far. The scene with Audrey was almost entirely dead space, Gordon and Albert's "turnip" conversation had a ton of silent shot-reverse-shots, and even Frank and Ben's conversation felt stilted. I'm not saying I disliked it; I actually agree with you that it's strange so many people dislike the episode, but I thought the pacing was the most The Return-ish we've seen so far, and incredibly distant from Old Twin Peaks. I enjoyed it, but I can totally see how someone would feel that this episode dragged its feet a lot. 

[Mike Danger]

The Great Northern thing is kind of weird, now that you mention it. I'm wondering if they didn't want to go through all the work of building all those sets when Ben seems to a a relatively minor player in the larger scheme of things.

 

w/r/t people's reactions, I think a lot of people were expecting Cooper to "wake up" this week after the cherry pie scene last week.