Twin Peaks Rewatch 49: The Return, Part 14

[Mentalgongfu]

43 minutes ago, pyide said:

I still think Audrey could be in a coma. Nothing about the Billy and Tina mentions in that Roadhouse scene cement the same reality for Audrey and Charlie to me. Audrey could just be hearing people talk about similar events from her bed and incorporating them into her coma dream state or bizarre constructed reality, whatever that may be. Audrey wanting to go to the Roadhouse to find Billy could be from a conversation of one of those women or someone else wanting to go to the Roadhouse to find Billy. Doesn't one ask right away if the other had seen Billy all?  Then the other replies not for a couple of days, and gets something like "I heard you were the last one to see Billy" back, then the story unfolds. Doesn't Audrey say in a previous episode that she heard Tina was the last person to see Billy? It was very similar, whatever the quote was.

 

I don't know if that stuff in the Roadhouse was meant to be a red herring or what, but it definitely seemed fishy to me. Especially the way the one woman hesitated a moment when asked what her mom's name was before saying Tina (almost seemed like a lie, or wanting to protect someone). Then the ominous background noise kicks in. And how she said a few times how she was unsure if her uncle was there or not. Very strange. I don't know what to make of the particulars being tossed out, and perhaps I'm grasping and it's all super straight forward, but I dunno. The Audrey scenes and her exchanges with Charlie are so much more unsettling if she's actually awake and kicking.

 

I am still on the fence about the Audrey coma theory. It is plausible, but I don't want it to be true. I would prefer something more imaginative, or at least different. That said, there were definitely some oddities with that Roadhouse scene. I noticed the same sorts of things you did that give it an uneasy vibe. I didn't take any of it as super straight forward.

 

But since I like to contradict myself and play devil's advocate, I just started re-watching the first couple hours last night, and there are definitely some scenes there that play very oddly and seem to hint at something deeper but have never been mentioned again - Hard to tell what they mean, if anything.  At face value, some of them seem hard to tie in. But I'm starting to doubt much of the footage included is incidental, and I think any scene with electrical hums in the sound must be intended as clues of some sort. Maybe that's what the Giant/Fireman means when he tells Cooper (and us) to "Listen to the sounds." I might have to buy a better set of headphones to see if that enhances the experience, as Lynch has suggested. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there is deeper meaning to the notorious sweeping scene aside from just being "Lynchian."

 

For example, the maintenance guy (Hank)  at the apartment complex where Ruth Davenport's body is found in Part One/Two, about 40 minutes in. The cops are merely trying to gain entry to Ruth's apartment by getting a key, but Hank's dialogue indicates he somewhat expected the police to be coming for him due to whatever he was up to with some guy named Harvey. (Did Harvey send you? ... Well who told you I was going to see Chip? ... I was just on my way, but how did you know? ... Chip? Chip ain't got no phone. ) There's a slow pan when the cops enter Ruth's apartment where the camera moves to show some things plugged into an electrical outlet and lingers on a clock, though we can't see the time (2:53, or 4:30?), and electrical noises in the background. Later we see Hank on a phone call with Harvey, where he asks Harvey if he sent the cops after him, "to my place of business?," then says "No, I got it. I got all of it. But it's all mine. Mine and Chip's. No. You opted out of this one, remember? Don't threaten me Harvey. Harvey? Harvey ? (sounding worried)" [end scene]

 

What does Hank have that he and Chip got while Harvey opted out - stolen money? garmonbozia? magic beans?

Many questions, few obvious answers.

It's one big reason I am loving The Return - there's always more to think about. It is not as easily digestible and predictable as most TV, even when I have some qualms like Jake and Chris mention about things like Truman failing to mention the key to Cooper's hotel room when he talks to Gordon, or Gordon not telling the Las Vegas FBI about Dougie's wife's name.

[marblize]

Three points about Truman undersharing with Cole:

 

1. It's well-established that time is being presented somewhat nonlinearly and it's possible that the phone call happens before the sheriff's department has made the headway in the case we know they will/have. It's also possible that time in Twin Peaks alone is fucked up, so the phone call could literally be happening on different days for each party.

 

2. Frank is unassertive to a fault and you joke about this with the miranda rights but we've seen him lazily withhold important information in the past as well (with his wife, regarding getting her dad's car fixed I think?).

 

3. Even if everything is as it seems, I think the withholding is frustrating to such an obvious degree that it could serve as critique of prestige tv plot-blocking, as you guys alluded to but didn't reckon with as intentional beyond maintaining a particular internal rhythm/pace.

 

 

Also, Monica Belluci's "Ancient Phrase" is apparently a loose translation from the Upanishads, and I think similar lines of fragments of these lines are said at some point in Inland Empire.

[DinerGirl22]

Great podcast episode this week!

 

While I agree with Chris and Jake about being nervous about where the Sarah Palmer storyline could potentially be headed, I also think it is important to cite previous examples of her being aware on some level of some of the stuff going on in town. 

 

In the first season, she and Cooper are the only ones able to see Bob. And it is her vision that provides the police sketch for the wanted poster, so she seems to be able to tap into that world fairly early on. I also believe it is in Laura's diary (??) that she confirms that her mom has strange feelings/connections to the woods too. Or just strange visions. There also might be mention of it in the show as well, maybe Donna says it to Maddie or James. And then of course you have the season 2 finale, where she is possessed by Windom Earle. 

 

In terms of her current day "possession", it is my hope that they will not try to retcon it as being something that has always been there. However, I  can totally see this particular instance being a recent development, and can personally buy that it is happening at all because of the past examples of her being connected to the Lodge world in some way. Since the pilot episode, Sarah Palmer has been a fascinating character, and Grace Zabriskie knocks it out of the park every single time. 

[Mentalgongfu]

I agree on hoping Sarah Palmer isn't retconned, and I think it makes more sense story-wise that it is something new. Surely something would have happened in the interceding 25 years worth noting by other main character residents of Twin Peaks if she had exhibited other signs of possession and throat biting prior to now. (I know, assuming such logic doesn't always fit into the TP world). But I, too, will be disappointed if it is developed as something she always had.

 

As I continue my own Return re-watch up to episode 14, I hope no one minds if I keep dropping random observations, even though they have garnered little comment so far. Perhaps I am only amusing myself, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum. But if it is bothersome, feel free to send me off with a kind but firm word. @Jake @Chris

 

I'll try to plop them in the proper threads for each Part, but no doubt there will be some crossover as things relate to where we are in the story now.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jake]

1 hour ago, Mentalgongfu said:

I agree on hoping Sarah Palmer isn't retconned, and I think it makes more sense story-wise that it is something new. Surely something would have happened in the interceding 25 years worth noting by other main character residents of Twin Peaks if she had exhibited other signs of possession and throat biting prior to now. (I know, assuming such logic doesn't always fit into the TP world). But I, too, will be disappointed if it is developed as something she always had.

 

As I continue my own Return re-watch up to episode 14, I hope no one minds if I keep dropping random observations, even though they have garnered little comment so far. Perhaps I am only amusing myself, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum. But if it is bothersome, feel free to send me off with a kind but firm word. @Jake @Chris

 

I'll try to plop them in the proper threads for each Part, but no doubt there will be some crossover as things relate to where we are in the story now.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven't commented but I'm enjoying reading your notes as you drop them. Please continue

[UnpopularTrousers]

Concerned about the widening possibility space, huh? Spot the Firewatch developers. 

 

Sure, the jailhouse monkey sounds could just be a callback to Bobby and Mike howling at James in the pilot...OR THEY COULD BE COMMUNICATING WITH THE JUDY MONKEY FROM FIRE WALK WITH ME. 
 

 

Also: The only two shows I'm keeping up with right now are Twin Peaks and the Lucha Underground. Both are noir-tinged supernatural soap operas, and both currently have a plot threads involving men being given mystical gloves which grant them super-strength. It's not a place I expected either show to ever go but apparently they both decided to go there at roughly the same time time and I couldn't be happier about it.

[Mentalgongfu]

3 hours ago, Jake said:

I haven't commented but I'm enjoying reading your notes as you drop them. Please continue

 

Thanks. I'm glad to know I'm not just speaking (typing) into the void.

 

@UnpopularTrousers

So there's someone in Lucha Underground with a Hulk-hand? I know nothing about the show, but as a Twin Peaks fan who also has an unhealthy obsession with old-school professional wrestling, I might have to check it out.

[Mentalgongfu]

9 hours ago, marblize said:

1. It's well-established that time is being presented somewhat nonlinearly and it's possible that the phone call happens before the sheriff's department has made the headway in the case we know they will/have. It's also possible that time in Twin Peaks alone is fucked up, so the phone call could literally be happening on different days for each party.

.....

Also, Monica Belluci's "Ancient Phrase" is apparently a loose translation from the Upanishads, and I think similar lines of fragments of these lines are said at some point in Inland Empire.

The time phenomenon might make more sense of Bobby's diner comment last episode about things that happened "today." It would still seem the night-time scene with the shooting and horn-honking/zombie girl took place prior to Bobby's dinner with Big Ed, or on a different night at least,  but perhaps time is not moving in Twin Peaks the same way it is everywhere else. Not just at a different speed, but in a different order.  I'm not sure about that, but it's damn fine interesting to contemplate.

 

And thanks for the Upanishads clarification. I figured it had to be an ancient phrase somewhere, and that makes sense with Lynch. The Ramayana reference must be next.

[Mentalgongfu]

Regarding the ancient phrase, "We are like the dreamer who dreams, and then lives inside the dream... But, who is the dreamer?"

 

In a seeming throwaway comedy scene in Part 4, immediately after DougieCoop has a vision of the Red Room, wherein Mike/the One-armed Man tells him he was tricked and "Now one of you must die," Janey-E enters the bedroom and chastises him.

“Dougie! You're not even dressed! Is something wrong? Oh, for God's sake, what is with you?"

Dougie holds his crotch and does the pee-pee dance, and Janey-E guides him toward the bathroom.

"Listen Mr. Dreamweaver, you go potty and let's get you dressed fast. You're worse than Sonny Jim."

 

 

[UnpopularTrousers]

10 hours ago, Mentalgongfu said:

 

@UnpopularTrousers

So there's someone in Lucha Underground with a Hulk-hand? I know nothing about the show, but as a Twin Peaks fan who also has an unhealthy obsession with old-school professional wrestling, I might have to check it out.

Yes, and it's honestly not even close to the craziest thing on the show. The world building is great in that it starts out as a normal wrestling show with some wacky characters and then slowly introduces all of this mythology with ancient Aztec gods and time travelers and a coming apocalypse. Since the seasons are pretaped and the behind the scenes segments are shot like a grindhouse movie rather than a fake documentary they're able to do a lot of slowburns where characters are introduced who you don't even see wrestle until a full season later. It's closer to a live action mortal combat than the WWE style of gigantic filmed stage play.

 

If you want to get into it you should definitely start at the beginning of season 1. Some aspects of the show are a little rough to start but when it finally shows its hand on episode 19: GRAVE CONSEQUENCES it's all so so so worth it. The treatment of female characters is also sometimes pretty icky at first, but they get way better about that in the second half of the first season. 

[Urthman]

Regarding the discussion of Freddie's and Dick Tremayne's accents and how the actors are both doing exaggerated versions of accents from where they grew up:  It seems to me that one of the hardest accents to do is a parody of your own accent as other people hear you.  That seems like exactly the sort of thing David Lynch would be interested in as another way to push actors into the uncanny valley.  It's much less drastic, but seems similar in kind to the idea of having people speak backwards and then reversing the film.

[dartmonkey]

One aspect I have really enjoyed with the Return is how well absent actors/characters have been honoured in the show. We've only seen a disembodied floating head but Briggs feels very naturally integral to the plot. It doesn't feel like they're working around his absence but really using it and honouring Don S. Davis. Frank Silva too, and I think (as mentioned in the podcast) we're going to get some archival footage of him in the boiler room (which I believe we HAVE glimpsed before in the series proper - the 'death bag' speech in a vision? We've definitely seen the candles.) In fact, Harry is the only character so far whose references feel very forced. I THINK he MIGHT be sick, Jake. I've heard that.

 

So, four hours left. Do you think we'll get some Josie/Judy? Donna is the only other character who seems conspicuously absent. Obviously I'm not expecting Lara Flynn Boyle, but most everyone else has been name-checked at least. Even Annie.

 

And would Lynch be past reprising his Family Guy gag cut to Leo in the cabin? Just a skeleton, his hand comically falling off before getting back to Dougie and co.

[richardco]

Thanks for getting an episode out this week Jake and Chris. I think you two are both out of town, but I really appreciate your commitment. Listening to the podcast has become such a part of my enjoyment of this season.

[SuoTempore]

On 19/08/2017 at 5:36 AM, Mentalgongfu said:

As I continue my own Return re-watch up to episode 14, I hope no one minds if I keep dropping random observations, even though they have garnered little comment so far. Perhaps I am only amusing myself, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum

 

I'm a veteran of the podcasts but new to the forums. From what I can tell, all of us are just amusing ourselves with random observations. The more the better, so keep them coming.

 

On 19/08/2017 at 3:54 AM, DinerGirl22 said:

Grace Zabriskie knocks it out of the park every single time. 

 

↑This x a million

[purps]

The Sarah Palmer stuff could still work with the existing fiction. It's been established since the pilot that she has a connection to the supernatural that others don't, I.E. having a vision of the locket in the woods and being able to see BOB in Laura's bedroom, the white horse. Somewhere in season 1 Donna says to Maddie something to the effect of "Laura's mom has always been spooky". 

 

Her having some sort of monster inside her is a pretty big jump, but it's not completely out of the blue

[MylastnameisPalmer]

Apologies if someone has mentioned this already, but I don't think I've seen it anywhere. After the tulpa talk this week, what are some thoughts on Maddie having been one?

[Mentalgongfu]

48 minutes ago, MylastnameisPalmer said:

Apologies if someone has mentioned this already, but I don't think I've seen it anywhere. After the tulpa talk this week, what are some thoughts on Maddie having been one?

 

I've seen people float the idea elsewhere, but I'm not on board.

I always took Maddy at face value, as Laura's Patty-Duke-style look-alike cousin. I mean, she seemed to have a family of her own, which she was ostensibly heading back to when Leland/Bob killed her.

And if she was made out now to be a tulpa, I think that would pretty well kill that part of the storyline.

[marblize]

59 minutes ago, Mentalgongfu said:

I mean, she seemed to have a family of her own, which she was ostensibly heading back to when Leland/Bob killed her.

 

Sure but so did Dougie

[Mentalgongfu]

15 minutes ago, marblize said:

 

Sure but so did Dougie

 

True, but Cooper took Dougie's place. Maddy didn't have a place to take. Unless the idea is there was a real Maddy, who Leland and Sarah Palmer knew about, and some tulpa slid into her spot.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an interesting thought, but I have trouble imagining how it would work, and it seems like a horrible retcon if Maddy was not Laura's real cousin but was a manufactured thought-form instead.

[marblize]

I think 'retcon' is being a bit overused when none of this stuff was all that pinned down in the first place. Maddy was always a bizarre and uncanny soap presence and I would not blink if I were told she was 'manufactured for a purpose'. (Aren't all characters?  )

 

I doubt the show will deal with her anymore so it's probably just a matter of headcanon.

[Mentalgongfu]

Fair enough. maybe "retcon" isn't the right word. I just don't think it fits in with my headcanon.

[MylastnameisPalmer]

2 hours ago, marblize said:

 

I doubt the show will deal with her anymore so it's probably just a matter of headcannon 

 

"Headcannon" is a fantastic word. My headcannon involves Annie being a tulpa as well.... errr I don't wanna overuse tulpa now, but a lodge entity of some kind meant to distract Cooper and lure him into the lodge. 

[BonusWavePilot]

@Vellan said:
"I'm also concerned that putting someone in a cell is Andy's idea of keeping them safe.  We know that the Woodsmen a) bump people off, and b ) have no trouble getting in/out of gaol cells, head or no head."

 

True, but given that they seem to just descend from the sky, can become invisible at least temporarily, and have super-strength and a willingness to use it to murder people - there probably aren't many places that would be safe.

 

@Marblize said:

"Also, Monica Belluci's "Ancient Phrase" is apparently a loose translation from the Upanishads, and I think similar lines of fragments of these lines are said at some point in Inland Empire."

 

Yup, seems to be from the Aitereya Upanishad specifically - Thomas Egenes' translation has it as:
"We are like the spider,” said the king. “We weave our life, and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream."

 

Which seems to be making an interesting point about the weirdness of the phenomenon of both creating a dream-world (as the 'dreamer') but also being conscious within that dream-world ('living in the dream').  To the extent that I feel confident claiming to have understood it, I believe the point is about how what we perceive as the world is actually just our own thoughts, having already abstracted away the reality of the world into concepts by the time we can reason about it.  (But I am no religious scholar, and have not read much of the Upanishads, although this kind of makes me want to)

 

[Mentalgongfu]

@BonusWavePilot

 

I haven't read the Upanishads, other than random snippets online.

But I still regret loaning out my only copy of the Ramayana to someone who ate my book.

Jim Morrison once said "Some of my biggest regrets have been haircuts."

I would add to that list, loaning valued books to the wrong person.

I also lost a book of scrolls/prophecies from a cult-like preacher from Arizona,

whom my cousins' family followed. Lost that book in the same way but to a different person-

Brother Frisby was his name (the preacher, not the book-eater). Crazy as he seemed, I wish I still had it. It was intriguing, and the

discourse on aliens as demons would potentially fit within the Twin Peaks lore.

 

I'm not a religious scholar either, but if you have an interest in religious mythology, especially the rich history of "Eastern" religion,

such as Hinduism, and later Buddhism, then I would recommend following that instinct to dive deeper.

 

BTW @Jake

Part 15 thread please?

 

 

[Chris]

46 minutes ago, Mentalgongfu said:

BTW @Jake

Part 15 thread please?

 

 

Here you go: