Jake

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

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Now that the dust is settling, the weekly void that will be left from this show is starting to sink in. What an exciting four months.

 

Now, time to begin filling said void with things like...

 

 

 

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To those who feel Lynch was in no way making fun of the audience: first, I get that these episodes are complex and people will arrive at very different conclusions, that's all good. I'm glad a lot of folks liked the way it wrapped up. But Lynch didn't even try to hide his contempt for viewer expectations. Which can be a legitimate thing to have contempt for...but there are interesting ways to subvert expectations and then there is last night's finale, which, for me at least, was just Lynch creating a set of mysteries and complex feelings and shrugging it all off so that he could spit in the audiences face. And if you disagree, that's fine...but you have to contend with Freddie and the magic gardening glove. Sorry. That character and his super powered glove, that happened. He punched a Bob rock. Lynch was openly laughing at the audience with that, it was intentionally absurd. By design, the end of the Evil Coop story line was rushed, abrupt and involved a magic gardening glove. I don't think I'm off base when I feel like the finale was in many ways Lynch's middle finger to the audience. He wasn't even subtle about it. Anyway, thanks for the discussion everyone.

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Time for a rewatch of season 3.

 

Also to the above poster, I think it's important to distinguish "contempt" from simply disregarding viewer expectation as a formal limitation.

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45 minutes ago, lethalenforcer said:

Does RR To Go = Meals on Wheels? I don't have a strong enough recollection of those moments, but I think that's an interesting detail.

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6 minutes ago, Frohike said:

Time for a rewatch of season 3.

 

Also to the above poster, I think it's important to distinguish "contempt" from simply disregarding viewer expectation as a formal limitation.

 

I agree. Cockney Freddie and the magic glove versus a Bob rock: that's not "simply disregarding viewer expectation". That's David Lynch laughing at you.

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I keep coming back to this EW article from about a month ago about the insurance salesman from Part 1. While he obviously didn't turn out to be important in the way that article's author predicted, the "It's about insurance" line keeps sticking with me, and I'm wondering if it could be the key to the whole season. In the obvious sense that the Dougie storyline ended up centering around insurance fraud, and solving that ended up perfectly setting up Coop to get back to Twin Peaks once he woke up; but maybe it refers to the larger Lodge-related events as well? Could the world in Part 18 be Judy/Mother/Experiment's insurance policy against Laura being saved? She's alive, but at the cost of being taken away to an alternate, bleaker version of the world without the Cooper we used to know? Was the whole season really "about insurance"?

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When Laura in the lodge was whispering in Coop's ear as the credits rolled, I was scared she'd turn out to have said "I'll see you again in 25 years"

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I don't want to engage in idle (geddit) theorising as there's far too much of that going on elsewhere on the internet – well done this forum for all the feelings, and for on the whole showing such charity and thoughtfulness to a work of art that so easily might not have been created. Wish I'd jumped in and taken part earlier.

That said, there's one thing that gnawed at me after viewing episodes 17 and 18 for a second time. I strongly dislike the implications of this theory for the original run and the ethical structure of Twin Peaks. But the sheer purpose of the direction and writing during the last hour-and-a-half makes me think there's something to this.

I assumed on first viewing that the footage of Laura and James talking in the woods from FWWM served the purpose of 1) firmly setting the viewer back in the space of 1989 and the night of Laura's death, and 2) the retcon of Laura's scream as a response to Coop watching through the trees. I personally thought the latter clever but a tad diminishing, since that moment in FWWM is played perfectly by Sheryl Lee as the traumatic response of a victim who now sees malevolence in every shadow.

Then on second viewing I was more attentive to the dialogue and noted the following:

Laura: 'Open your eyes, James. You don't know me. Even Donna doesn't know me. Your Laura disappeared... it's just me now'.

In FWWM this in uncomplicated – a reflection of Laura's double life and the darkness that is about to utterly consume her. Given the overt retconning of this very same scene in The Return, however, this put me on alert.

Subsequently, Coop intercepts Laura (I know it's uncredited but I could've sworn this was a different actress altogether..?) and leads her 'home'. Sarah attacks the photograph of Laura but can only break the glass – her daughter's image, the only permanent and unchanging part of Twin Peaks throughout its chronology, remains intact. Then Coop loses his grip on Laura – she disappears off-screen with a classic Sheryl Lee blood-curdler.

She delivers such screams so perfectly that it's difficult to tell, but this certainly sounds like the same scream that accompanies Laura flying off, stage-left, in the lodge sequence from episodes 18 and 2. The only other character to whom this happens – in much the same fashion – is tulpa-Diane after she is shot by Gordon and Albert. In the extended lodge scenes of episode 2, immediately after Laura is dragged into the air, MIKE asks Cooper, again, 'Is it future, or is it past?' In the shortened lodge sequence of episode 18, Cooper immediately passes Leland, and hears once again his instruction to 'Find Laura'. 

You see where I'm going with this... Rather than the 'real' Laura being whisked away from Coop's grasp in 1989 to Odessa in (what year is it?), are we supposed to infer that the origins of Carrie Page lie even further back? Are we supposed to draw a relation between Laura's capriciousness in her scenes with James, which were central to the raw and uncompromising depiction of trauma in FWWM, and tulpa-Diane's abrasiveness (and what would that mean for the show's representation of abuse victims)?

The narrative significance of 1989 Laura being another Tulpa would be to provide a rationale for her sudden disappearance and Coop's failure to save her. Approaching the show with the seriousness it merits, however, I don't think that Lynch and Frost would retrospectively shrink the cosmic, human dimensions of Laura's murder in the original run like this. Further, I think that stepping back from the task of untangling this gordian knot shows how the practically endless permutations of lore-driven plot that can be projected onto the last two hours of The Return suggests something more truthful to the creators' vision. Namely, that this is all part of a process of gradually unmooring the viewer, of prising their fingers away from the last few scraps of solid ground in the show's universe, in preparation for the final moments of episode 18. Of course Lynch would want to do this through the gradual dissolution of identities.

All that said, the retconning has made me nervous. Firmly in the camp of 'no more Twin Peaks'. The ending was just fine by me. The lights have gone out, but boy did they shine brightly.

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5 hours ago, Frohike said:

I'm getting hints of the Orpheus & Eurydice myth, where Orpheus is granted passage to the underworld to bring Eurydice back on the condition that he not look back until they've passed the threshold into our world. Of course this rule is broken, he looks back, Eurydice is taken away and Orpheus eventually is torn apart by Maenads and his soul taken into the Underworld be be reunited with Eurydice.  This season's ending seems to be a blending of that concept and a re-imagining of what would have occurred if Orpheus had been at least partially successful and broken his own timeline before being banished into an infinite recess of possible worlds forever dictated by his muse, his Eurydice. The past dictating the future over and over again.

 

While I'm on the subject, I enjoyed the mystical concept of dictation in this series. There are so many instances of intra-diegetic note-taking, note retrieval, memorizing coordinates, dictaphones, gramophone recordings.  It's like the idea of dictation carries an obligation not only to transcribe what's being said, but to somehow transmute what's being dictated into significance at just the right places and just the right times. Take those dictations into other contexts, and they reverberate & fall apart. And as stated above, one of the core acts of dictation, recording, and eventual loss of self in that message is between Laura and Dale.  That final frame was an amazing way to end it.

Excellent synopsis. Plus the subject of physical note taking..at Judy's diner, Coop says "write down her address on a piece of paper." In the original series taking notes was a large part of the story for all characters. Add to that Lucy saying I understand cellphones now after shooting Evil Coop after 25 years of ignorance. So many deep connections. 

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Yes, thanks Chris and Jake for helping us parse out this season.  You have a piteous task ahead of you going forward.  Have you considered bumping this out to three podcasts?  17, 18, then a season recap?  We sure could use three hours to unpack everything!   I'm anxious to know if Chris, Jake or both think it was an ending or a cliffhanger. 

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1 hour ago, Aether said:

 

I agree. Cockney Freddie and the magic glove versus a Bob rock: that's not "simply disregarding viewer expectation". That's David Lynch laughing at you.

 

I'm having a hard time understanding your statement. Cockney Hulk Smash was... fully expected and glorious.  I mean, in my experience I guess.

 

It sounds like you didn't enjoy it so much, but I'm not sure that implies some trickster director who has some sort of contempt for your personal expectations.

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1 hour ago, Aether said:

 

I agree. Cockney Freddie and the magic glove versus a Bob rock: that's not "simply disregarding viewer expectation". That's David Lynch laughing at you.

 

I've never, ever gotten the feeling that Lynch has contempt for his viewers.

 

When Lynch is mad at something, he gives us goofy scenes like Mr. Eddy's tirade against inconsiderate drivers in Lost Highway--which can directly be traced to a drive he took with Michael Anderson before that movie.

 

Lynch loves Twin Peaks. You really think he'd fight so hard for a large budget and 18 episodes instead of 9 because he hates his audience and wants to laugh at your expense? I really don't think there are many--if any--creators out there at all who are motivated by hatred of their fans. Creators aren't 4chan trolls. You don't spend so much time and energy and passion into making something just because it might make someone mad.

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This thread has been so much fun to read through and pour over. I've contributed very little to the forums over the run of this show, but this podcast and the discussion in here has been a real source of joy for me over the last few months.

 

I suspect (as Jake had talked about Lynch's work on previous episodes of the podcast), that on subsequent viewings, The Return will be a much more coherent work, and the ending may be less frustrating than it is now. 

 

I find myself most frustrated on getting nothing more on Audrey after the end of episode 16, but on the whole am just so pleased we got this season of television...what a gift

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35 minutes ago, Frohike said:

 

I'm having a hard time understanding your statement. Cockney Hulk Smash was... fully expected and glorious.  I mean, in my experience I guess.

 

It sounds like you didn't enjoy it so much, but I'm not sure that implies some trickster director who has some sort of contempt for your personal expectations.

 

Bob, a major force in the show, was dispatched by a character we barely knew using a magic gardening glove that was revealed to the viewer in an exposition dump. So no, I didn't enjoy that, it didn't feel like Lynch intended for anyone to enjoy it. 3 seasons and a films worth of build up involving Bob was resolved with an abrupt mega punch. That entire story ended with a shrug. Fuck Lynch for that. However, that one scene is not what makes me feel that the finale was Lynch's middle finger to the viewer. Most of the finale seemed to be about brushing off everything that came before it, in terms of the structure of this season, and wallowing in the trajectory of Cooper's failure and loss of self. As I've said before, this season could have ended in all sorts of bleak ways that were also meaningful, but episode 18 just felt like Lynch spitting in our faces. The languid pace of the return and the ambiguity of so many scenes ultimately served no purpose and led to nothing. Where's Audrey? Lynch could care less. Her fate is not enigmatic, it was just discarded. In retrospect, a lot of the season meant very little, these were starting points that Lynch never intended to take anywhere interesting. The finale undid much of the season and much of Twin Peaks as a whole (literally) just so that we could witness Cooper (once again) lost and defeated. I only focus on the magic gardening glove nonsense because it's a window into how Lynch viewed the finale. Some of it was a joke to him, the rest was contempt for the viewer. You disagree and that's perfectly fine, it has been interesting to see the various reactions. Thanks, Frohike.

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One person's "exposition dump" is another's off-screen back story. I find it interesting that Lynch can be simultaneously criticized for being inscrutable and for this "exposition dumping," a phrase I am coming to despise.

 

I'm still ambivalent about the finale, but never in the series did I feel the creators were spitting in my face or giving me a middle finger. 

 

It's certainly true lots of threads were started that were never concluded, but I don't equate that with those scenes serving no purpose. As far as them never going anywhere interesting, that's in the eye of the beholder as well. Jerry in the woods was one of my favorite diversions of the story, and I'm baffled that so many people seem utterly confused about his mini-drama.

 

I also didn't feel that the conclusion undid anything about the season or the series as a whole, unless you mean Laura's body on the beach disappearing. Even there, lots of room for debate remains on what that meant when combined with that which follows. 

 

It should go without saying it's perfectly fine to love it or hate it, but I do get a little peevish about attributing motives to the creator such as claiming it was a joke to Lynch and he was showing contempt for the viewer. On the contrary, I think he may have put too much faith in the viewer judging from some reactions. In any case - he's not dead, nor is Frost. I don't know how reclusive either is from the public, but it's certainly possible to ask them if it was all a giant troll on TP fans with the aid of a large Showtime budget. That interpretation is convenient for those who are not satisified, since it makes them the smart marks while everyone else is being played. I mean, if it was a giant troll, I just got Rickrolled Lynch-style and not only did I not notice, I enjoyed the ride.

 

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2 hours ago, MabaseSlums said:

Does RR To Go = Meals on Wheels? I don't have a strong enough recollection of those moments, but I think that's an interesting detail.

 

RR To Go appears to be an additional service that the Double R offers in season 3 (maybe as part of Norma's franchise operation?). Whenever people are drinking to-go coffee or eating donuts in Twin Peaks in S3 it always seems to be from an RR To Go branded box/cup.

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3 hours ago, anoldtoilet said:

At the end of episode 18, Laura is alive, knows who she is, and is back in Twin Peaks. Cooper succeeded in saving her. BOB is in the Lodge again, and will remain there. There are loose ends to tie up, but they're in a better position to do so than ever before. Chalfont/Tremond tried to trick Coop and Laura into walking away into the darkness, forgetting everything that happened, and living a life lost, empty, and filled with pain, but it didn't work. Laura still woke up from the dream.

 

I don't think I agree with that interpretation. As they walk away then turn back to look at the house in puzzlement, Cooper seems to stutter forward in horrified realisation when he asks what year is this. Then we hear Sarah's voice shout 'Laura' which to my ears sounded like it was taken from the very first episode of Season 1 when Sarah shouts up the stairs for Laura to get up for school. Of course, she is already dead by this point.  Laura then starts to scream and the lights go out in the house which I feel indicates Cooper has arrived too late to help her. 

 

I wondered if the reference to the Chalfonts/Tremonds, who also lived for at least more than one generation at the trailer park suggest that this just a cycle that will continue forever, that it is not something that can be broken and Laura is forever doomed to these horrors, much as humanity continues to suffer from making the same mistakes throughout history. Bob may have been destroyed but presumably the creature that laid him will continue to produce more.

 

In a separate note, I thought perhaps the reason Cooper seems more subdued and withdrawn after leaving the lodge, is because he had sacrificed part of his soul to make the new Dougie. It has left him not evil, just devoid of sentiment and emotion so while he still behaves in a generally positive manner, he does it without real feeling or compassion.

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12 hours ago, Hansel Bosch said:

 

If that's true, then Kyle MacLachlan played no less that six versions of Cooper this season!

 

 

The genius of ending each episode with "Starring Kyle MacLachlan" is that Lynch never has to name the character(s) MacLachlan is playing.

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I think that Lynch/Frost did not have a lot of great ideas for Twin Peaks plots; they had a lot of great ideas for Twin Peaks scenes, and decided those were worth filming even if they had nowhere to go with them.

For instance, if Lynch came to me and described the scenes he had planned for Audrey Horn and said, "But I have no good ideas where to go with that; whether she's in a coma or a dream or a spirit realm--none of those ideas seem to lead anywhere interesting." I would say, just go ahead and film what you've got, because that final scene at the road house is sublime. That scene of Steven and Gersten nestled in the roots of a gigantic tree, cowering on the edge of violent death, was incredible and shouldn't be cut out just because Lynch doesn't have a great idea to answer the question of what exactly Steven did that got them there.

The resolution to Bad Coop can be seen as Lynch saying, "Look, I could try to resolve everything left dangling, but it wouldn't be very good. Wouldn't you rather I just move on to the ideas I have for scenes that I think will be good?"

And that's the nature of soap operas. They never end. They're always dangling new plots, so no matter where you stop, you're always left with lots of things unresolved. If you don't enjoy the journey for its own sake, you might as well skip it. 

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17 hours ago, Mentalgongfu said:

Cooper looked very much like Mr. C during the sex scene with Diane. I think this was intentional, as I have seen I'm not the only one in the audience who made the connection. No idea what it means yet, but kind of goes along with the black hat idea.

 

I wonder if that was meant to be Diane's perspective?  No matter how glad Diane was to be with the real Cooper, it seems hard to believe she could kiss him or have sex with him without having traumatic thoughts about Bad Coop. Cooper could have been grinning like Dougie when they were having sex, and she might still see Bad Coop's face.  It was frightening the way she was completely covering his face with her hands.

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9 hours ago, Urthman said:
 If you don't enjoy the journey for its own sake, you might as well skip it. 

 

I tend to enjoy the journey, especially with Lynch's films, I just thought the finale was weirdly bitter and petty, it was genuinely a let down.

 

The questions it left me with had nothing to do with TP lore...I'm not trying to understand Audrey's plight or the new Cooper reality. Lynch doesn't give a shit about that, so it's not worth thinking about further. Mostly I'm trying to figure out why I watched. You mentioned "skip it"...given how the original finale played out, why did I watch this? I love Lynch's films, but for some reason TP takes him to this place where his conclusions generally undermine the rest of series. And now I'm trying to figure out why I put myself through another round of this...a "fuck you" finale seemed incredibly likely to happen again...that's how it played out the first time. It's like I have some sort of Twin Peaks Stockholm Syndrome. However, it's on me. There were red flags and I ignored them, chose to watch...ultimately, I'm responsible for the viewing experience. I've been feeling sort of bummed out and miserable all day and definitely wondering why I watched. It'll work out, this shit happens with art...it's intense, it pulls you in and sometimes that goes wrong, the connections we try to make with artistic experiences: it's intense and messy. Other times it works out okay. Humans are weird.

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Well, I for one found Twin Peaks the Return packed with weird, arresting, compelling, funny scenes the likes of which I've never seen in any other TV show.  And a solid majority of TV shows committed to narrative closure have disappointing endings anyway.

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54 minutes ago, Aether said:

The languid pace of the return and the ambiguity of so many scenes ultimately served no purpose and led to nothing. Where's Audrey? Lynch could care less. Her fate is not enigmatic, it was just discarded. In retrospect, a lot of the season meant very little, these were starting points that Lynch never intended to take anywhere interesting. The finale undid much of the season and much of Twin Peaks as a whole (literally) just so that we could witness Cooper (once again) lost and defeated. I only focus on the magic gardening glove nonsense because it's a window into how Lynch viewed the finale. Some of it was a joke to him, the rest was contempt for the viewer. You disagree and that's perfectly fine, it has been interesting to see the various reactions. Thanks, Frohike.

"...so many scenes ultimately served no purpose..."  What purpose is a scene allowed to serve?  Does it have to be literally advancing the plot?  As an example - the languid pace: what sort of conclusion would have justified it for you?  I think it was mostly tonal - a way of dragging out the impatience and suspense.

Does anything that is not completely explained count as 'discarded'?  How is there any room for 'enigmatic' in that arrangement?  When you have an explanation, you no longer have an enigma.

"Some of it was a joke to him, the rest was contempt for the viewer."  Did you get his autograph during the discussion where you established this?  I'm happy to argue just about any interpretation of the work, but I think that attributing authorial motive is a much trickier question, especially in a work this inscrutable.

 

Personally I find it unlikely that someone would throw their lives into making 18 hours of television just as a show of contempt, or that if they had, that this season is what we would have ended up with.

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Some puzzling phrases when Cooper talks to Jeffries:

 

"--Philip?

 

--Please be specific

 

--The date: February 23, 1989"

Jeffries skips the acknowledgement and gets straight to business. It's implied that he just needs a date to send Cooper into. It seems like Jeffries can use the same "tech" that the Fireman uses to send people anywhere at any time. I'm actually starting to wonder whether Jeffries "finding" Judy was just a lie; when BadCoop finished his conversation with Jeffries and asked about Judy he was told that he had just met Judy.  I think most viewers assumed this meant the woman who opened the door.  I think it was the entity behind the door: Jeffries himself.

 

"There may be... someone. Did you ask me this?"

 

This might imply that someone else had come to him with a similar request to go back to that night. Who could this be? Is Audrey traveling in the same space as Agent Cooper, maybe lurking behind the walls as she usually did. What did she contribute to the dream of that timeline?

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15 minutes ago, BonusWavePilot said:

Personally I find it unlikely that someone would throw their lives into making 18 hours of television just as a show of contempt, or that if they had, that this season is what we would have ended up with.

 

Believe me, I want to agree with you, I just poured 18 hours of my life into the season and many more thinking about it. I want to agree with you. And yet: Cockney Freddie and the magic gardening glove. That scene is not the problem, it's just an example of the problem. But there was just too much that Lynch threw under the bus in overtly ridiculous ways (or ignored all together). Having Cooper spring back last week "100%" only to very quickly turn into a different, Evil Cooper influenced self...that was intentional. The build up to Cooper's return was intentional...it was done knowing we would never really see that character again, in any meaningful way. Which is fine...that's Twin Peaks. You can mine rich stories out of expectation and altered selves. Lynch does it in his other work all the time.  This season was just structured in such a way that the build up never really meant anything. It's hard for me to see that as anything other than contempt for the audience. I'm glad so many others disagree and enjoyed the season. I just wish it had hit me the same way. I'll leave it at that, I'm being overly repetitive at this point. Thanks for the discussion forum people.

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