Twin Peaks Rewatch 52/53: The Return, Parts 17 and 18

[plasticflesh]

Having now actually viewed episode 17 and 18 simultaneously, I think that theory is a little forced. Sarah stabbing the Laura photo and Carrie screaming at the house do sort of line up. 

[DEC Jr.]

First post*. Love the podcast and this forum. The asterisk is because these are actually the thoughts of my brother (I guess posting this means I'm his doppelgänger or tulpa?), who has been a fan ever since S1 when he was 12 ...

[plasticflesh]

Okay so, I'm back on board that episode 17 and 18 are meant to be overlayed. But literally overlayed, when that happens, they create strange new compositions with imagery lining up. (facebook group post)

 

Also check out this syncronisity with episode 1 and 2. This is not an accident, it gives me chills, and is amazing. What a beautiful puzzle.

 

[axis1500]

11 hours ago, The Great Went said:

 

Garmonbozia For Her. 

Garwomanbozia

[utilityfrog]

Just listened to the podcasts and enjoyed them greatly!

 

One small nitpick: Jake mentioned several times that doppelgangers in the red room have blue eyes. The eyes have always looked definitively white to me, both in ep 29 and in Mr C's brief scene in ep 18 of The Return. This also potentially ties in with the line in the Woodsman's poem about the "white of the eyes".

[pabosher]

2 hours ago, utilityfrog said:

Just listened to the podcasts and enjoyed them greatly!

 

One small nitpick: Jake mentioned several times that doppelgangers in the red room have blue eyes. The eyes have always looked definitively white to me, both in ep 29 and in Mr C's brief scene in ep 18 of The Return. This also potentially ties in with the line in the Woodsman's poem about the "white of the eyes".

 

Theyre definitely a light blue!

 

https://goo.gl/images/vx8ywM

[lethalenforcer]

I always thought his were light blue, but also wasn't sure if they were meant to be white but that was as white as they could get them (via usable contacts)? This crossed my mind when I saw that they released those Funko Pop figures of Black Lodge Coop, who has white eyes. That being said, the Laura and "evil" Leyland figures also had white eyes too so who knows.

 

 

[Persistence of 3]

On 9/7/2017 at 10:52 PM, ThatThomas said:

 

You're saying at the time? Because the bluray versions don't end with TO BE CONTINUED as far as I can tell?

 

 

Defintitely at the time. Wasn't aware they were scrubbed for 'the complete mystery' set.

[dartmonkey]

So I just rewatched 17. It's so great to rewatch after the podcasts and reading some theories, and after the I've gotten some stuff straight in my head. I noted a couple of things. Cooper's overlaid image after the BOB-omb fight fades briefly when he kisses Diane, then snaps back.

 

Also, it was unclear to me where Cooper was taking Laura (other than away from Leo/Renault/Leland/Sarah/Judy), but this time I saw he was clearly taking her back to Jack Rabbit's thingy - 'home' to the Fireman's cinema from whence Laur-orb originated. This got me thinking about BOB (and perhaps Judy) watching over Laura in the Palmer House, and the difference between the cinema and the red room. BOB/Leland killed Laura only when he had 'no choice' when she wore the ring (thrown to her by Phillip Gerard). He knew she would end up in the red room, which didn't prevent him from killing her. So (and I am probably being a Dougie here), this clearly delineates the difference between the cinema (the White Lodge?) and the red room (the waiting area). Fuck knows where the Mauve Zone fits in. Is the convenience store a portal to the Black Lodge or is the dark staircase, the night motel and Phillip Jefferies' slippery black kettle room some other place?

[dartmonkey]

Also, the lamppost outside the motel where Cooper wakes up in Ep18 looks very Evolution-of-the-Arm-like and there's noticeable wind in the scene that sounds like the blowy sound he made when he introduced himself. The shot lingers too long with the lamppost in the centre of the frame to be random. Is he somehow responsible for transporting Cooper into Richard's realm/time?

[EvaDK]

18 hours ago, Jake said:

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

I just read this theory that DOES attempt to connect every single thing together. It doesn't ring emotionally true to me, to what I got out of the season, but it was still an interesting read: http://www.waggish.org/2017/twin-peaks-finale/

 

(as I said at the end of the part 18 episode, it is rad and refreshing to have a television show on that can generate this much different thought, interpretation, writing. I love it.)

 

It's an amazing write-up and I pretty much subscribe to all of it, plus a few detail of my own. Great work by that guy

 

17 hours ago, pyide said:

 

Yeah, it's great how open it is.

 

As for that one specifically, there's some interesting stuff in there but also a big discrepancy right away for me. He says Sarah smashes the picture of Laura after she screams and disappears in the forest, but that scene of Sarah is actually in between Cooper meeting her and leading her by the hand through the forest and her ultimate disappearance, not after. The editing and order of events seemed extremely deliberate.

 

As for Judy/Sarah smashing the picture, it might be worth noting, that when we see that glass frame being destroyed, the edit jumps back and forth, back and forth, as if it becomes stuck in time for a moment. Exactly like the minute hand on the clock in sheriff Truman's office, it moves between 52 and 53 (or 53 and 54) shortly after Bobs demise. It could indicate that this is Judy realizing that Bob is destroyed and she destroys Laura's image in rage as an response. But it is necessary as part of the plan, it motivates Judy to find Laura at all costs, which is what the Fireman has anticipated.

 

Here's another symmetry detail I noticed after re-watched the entire thing:

- Gordon and Albert use the fake Diane to assert whether the imprisoned Cooper is the real Cooper or potentially someone else.

- The White Lodge use the real Diane to assert whether the Cooper they pulled out from the glass box and into the Purple Room, is the real Cooper or potentially the doppleganger Cooper.

 

Another detail: Lynch has slightly re-edited the doppleganger Cooper head smashing mirror scene from the finale of season 2: Frank Silva no longer jerks his head slightly backwards after the impact, revealing the trick. That slight imperfection has been edited out when seen in episode 5 of The Return.

[pabosher]

I don’t understand that last bit. I guess I don’t even remember that scene being in the Return??

[Jake]

37 minutes ago, pabosher said:

I don’t understand that last bit. I guess I don’t even remember that scene being in the Return??

 

We flash back to it at some point early in the season.

[pabosher]

4 minutes ago, Jake said:

 

We flash back to it at some point early in the season.

Weird! I know I’m just lazywebbing the hell out of this, but we don’t see him say How’s Annie, right? There are 0 mentions to annie in this season?

[EvaDK]

48 minutes ago, pabosher said:

I don’t understand that last bit. I guess I don’t even remember that scene being in the Return??

 

Mr. C has a flashback when in prison. The scene in question starts at 1:32

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM2Y4Ho-SbE

 

Scene as it is edited in season 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rjJ51N7qZY

 

@pabosher Annie is mentioned by Hawk, when he discusses the missing pages from Laura's diary with Frank Truman, in which she mentions her dream/vision with Annie.

 

[pabosher]

Thank you!! I hope The Final Dossier talks about her some more. 

[axis1500]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but I've been rewatching and the fence / telegraph pole outside of Carrie Page's Odessa house is part of the massive Twin Peaks Lore download Andy receives from the Fireman. I guess that's how Cooper knew where to find her.

[marblize]

18 hours ago, DEC Jr. said:

First post*. Love the podcast and this forum. The asterisk is because these are actually the thoughts of my brother (I guess posting this means I'm his doppelgänger or tulpa?), who has been a fan ever since S1 when he was 12 ...

 

damn i love this

[Mike Danger]

On 9/8/2017 at 7:24 PM, Rich lord said:

Something I don't think I've seen pointed out. Remember those weird metal things that we first see(I think) in the bit where Naido throws the switch and is thrown up into the air? The Fireman also has one, and I think Jeffries is supposed to be inside one. There's a shot in Part 17, as the Fireman sends Evil Coop to the sheriffs station, where you see loads of these all jammed into a room. What are they! I can't help but see them as some kind of traffic control stations for all the electricity flying around, and I somewhat hate that. Anyone have any ideas on what they are? They seem important.

 

 

 

I can't find it now, of course, but I think I saw a post on the Twin Peaks subreddit that they're an older type of electrical capacitors.

[Mentalgongfu]

4 hours ago, Mike Danger said:

 

I can't find it now, of course, but I think I saw a post on the Twin Peaks subreddit that they're an older type of electrical capacitors.

Those would be some damn big capacitors.

[Urthman]

On 9/8/2017 at 8:40 PM, Jake said:

I just read this theory that DOES attempt to connect every single thing together. It doesn't ring emotionally true to me, to what I got out of the season, but it was still an interesting read: http://www.waggish.org/2017/twin-peaks-finale/

 

While much of that seems to go too far into writing his own story that fits with what we saw, I really like the idea that Coop and Dianne are having sex in an attempt to summon the creature that killed the young couple having sex in Episode 1 (which must have been captured on film and seen by--Bad Coop? the FBI?)  It explains a lot of how they interact in that scene and provides significance to what otherwise seems like a gratuitous horror trope in the first episode.

Also huge slap to the forehead for the observation that Naido flipping the switch from 15 to 3 corresponds with Cooper fully coming to himself back outside the Lodge in Episode 15 rather than when he attempted to leave in Episode 3.  I hate/love/hate/love it.

[pyide]

I had forgotten all about his briefcase computer, haha.

 

I should probably go back and rewatch this season in as large of chunks as I can handle sometime. Really curious to see how I'll react to various scenes and threads knowing the outcomes, or lack thereof. Also interested in what new details I'll pick up on, what else I've completely forgotten about, and how it works as more of a whole experience compared to an episodic one. I'd like to get some more distance from it before committing to that, but right now I'm also really itching for more Twin Peaks since it's been a weekly staple that's now missing. Maybe I'll finally force myself to check out the few remaining Lynch films I still haven't seen in the interim.

[richardco]

Well, as a man named Richard who was 100% satisfied with season 3, it was a dream come true.

[kuddles]

So, there has already been a ton of writing and I don't want to repeat too much, so just a smattering of my thoughts below:

 

- Boo to no more "Invitation to Love".

 

- Boo to the original Sheriff Truman not being there.

 

- Maybe it's because I binge-watched it after the whole series came out, meaning I always had a new episode to watch, but I thought the Dougie Jones stuff was amazing and I couldn't get enough of it.

 

- I wonder if that creepy, gross drunk guy in the cell was a doppleganger that went wrong. He was repeating everything being said, Dougie-style.

 

- With how much this tied into weird asides from the original series and FWWM, and even re-used footage so that they made more sense in this new contect, I'm curious how much of this Lynch and Frost came up with now and how much of this was maybe a version of how they originally planned to end the series had it gone for multiple seasons, with the required changes due to time passing (i.e. The new season of Twin Peaks is like the new season of Gilmore Girls!). The fact that the new season needed a "Sheriff Truman" despite the actor not coming back and other significant attachments suggest this might have been Lynch's plan all along. But then again, it's just as plausible that Lynch had a new story and Twin Peaks was the vessel where he could get his 18-hour story funded.

 

- I definitely get the feeling that at least part of the show is meant to mock the trend of nostalgia television as a whole. Dougie was basically a hilarious version of how ridiculously intuitive Cooper was. The show basically starting with someone staring at an empty box, waiting for something to happen, and eventually something does happen and he dies while not really paying attention. The original stars of the show are now old and it's the younger generation telling their stories and replacing them with interesting drama. The bits about the original cast that are there - most of those characters have changed so much in time passing, they aren't recognizable as their current selves (Bobby is an understated police officer, Dr. Jacoby is a raving Alex Jones-style lunatic). The boss obsessed with his time as a young boxer, several instances of characters being stuck in a lobotomized state re-watching the same content over and over again, watching something we just saw in the context of the show, re-shown on a screen inside the show being watched by other characters. You get the gist.

[pdm]

3 hours ago, pyide said:

I had forgotten all about his briefcase computer, haha.

 

I should probably go back and rewatch this season in as large of chunks as I can handle sometime. Really curious to see how I'll react to various scenes and threads knowing the outcomes, or lack thereof. Also interested in what new details I'll pick up on, what else I've completely forgotten about, and how it works as more of a whole experience compared to an episodic one. I'd like to get some more distance from it before committing to that, but right now I'm also really itching for more Twin Peaks since it's been a weekly staple that's now missing. Maybe I'll finally force myself to check out the few remaining Lynch films I still haven't seen in the interim.

Watched first 11 episodes this week. Feels much more like an 18 movie now.