Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 5: The One-Armed Man

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Speaking of Andy, kind of but not really...

 

One of my favorite bits from Will Forte's SNL run was Tim Calhoun, terrible political candidate.

 

After watching Twin Peaks, I realize that his mannerisms are pretty much just Andy's. Coincidence? Possibly. However, it should be noted that the Twin Peaks hospital is: Calhoun Memorial Hospital. *record scratch* Whaaaat!? Boom goes the DYNAMITE! Myth BUSTED! ETC!

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Not only does this episode continue to show us how the townspeople are perfectly comfortable with the supernatural and that we've already been shown how quickly Cooper embraces it, but we hear that he's a "Strong sender" and doesn't want to risk interfering. Stating that the eyes were closer together shows he places more faith in the accuracy of his dreams than in Sarah's eye-witness (hallucination, vision, or whatever they're assuming it was) account (or, I guess, her ability to describe the man). If he's a strong sender, couldn't be be influencing people's perception rather than just corroborating their insights?

 

Andy's portraited as a dolt most of the time and, usually, as a more delicate man than one would expect of a police officer. Does this belie his keen understanding of the back channels and underbelly of TP? When asked the distance to the hotel, he disagrees with Harry by a significant margin (10 versus 30 minutes), saying it depends on which way you go.

 

IIRC, The point of the "strong sender" comment is that's why Cooper _wasn't_ there when Sarah was creating the police sketch. Cooper gave himself something else to do to avoid being in the same room specifically to avoid influencing her representation of the face. The fact that it matches his own description can therefore be seen as independent corroboration.

 

I'm not sure if I'm missing the a joke here, or if you're reading something totally differently? As I recall, Andy claims it's 30 while Harry claims it's 10 minutes, the point is that something that's 10 minutes away can take 30 minutes if you go the wrong way, which Andy inevitably would.

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When Audrey is asking her dad for a job at the department store, there's a picture of her and Laura that she glances down at on her father's desk. For those who have already watched the show:

 

Does that picture every get explained? I've watched the Laura Palmer episodes of this show more than a few times, and I cannot remember if that picture ever ends up having significance. This whole time I was under the impression that Audrey had nothing to do with Laura, but this picture suggests they spent time together in some form. I wish I could remember if that thread continues in later episodes, or if the only take away that picture gives is onetime these two women were in a picture together, the end.

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IIRC, The point of the "strong sender" comment is that's why Cooper _wasn't_ there when Sarah was creating the police sketch. Cooper gave himself something else to do to avoid being in the same room specifically to avoid influencing her representation of the face. The fact that it matches his own description can therefore be seen as independent corroboration.

 

I'm not sure if I'm missing the a joke here, or if you're reading something totally differently? As I recall, Andy claims it's 30 while Harry claims it's 10 minutes, the point is that something that's 10 minutes away can take 30 minutes if you go the wrong way, which Andy inevitably would.

I got the point of his avoiding it, just noting that his dream of it seems to him to be more accurate than what's taken as an eye-witness account. And, if his claim is to extrapolated, that his "sending" could be influential on the town.

I might've missed the joke if I misremembered and reversed their roles, I should probably take notes.

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Ever since the description of James in the last Rewatch episode, I can't help but see how much of a dork he is all the time. Sure Maddy's appearance is shocking, but he just stammers around like a goober for the whole scene! What a dork!

 

Also interesting to have a scene in the school. Real mild spoiler I guess?

I don't really remember any other scenes at the school after this. I always thought it was weird that all these kids seem to have so much free time. I guess we're supposed to assume they're in school when we're following the adult characters around? I guess Bobby might be a big enough piece of shit to skip all the time, but then later Donna starts her little investigation of the orchid guy which seems to take a lot of time... Argh! Dumb kids! Stay in school!

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In my personal opinion not culled from any other site. I believe that we as humans shift our understanding throughout our lives into three categories on a continuum: the probable, the possible, and the impossible. When we read or watch fiction, we sort the world that is being created into these categories so that we can expect the world to play by certain rules. We do this in real life when we are children. Monsters under the bed (in the closet) are possible until we have enough experience of them not grabbing us to sort them into the impossible category. In opposition to this, logic dictates that you can't do this, because you can't prove the absence of something. But, in order to live our daily lives we have to be illogical so that we don't fear monsters under the bed or realize every waking moment that there are missiles that can annihilate us all. We sort those things closer to the impossible because of the experience of them not happening constantly, because we must. Otherwise, we wouldn't be any less scared of the dangers of monsters or nuclear war than the day we first learned about them. This could be called something, but I don't know the philosophical term. Twin Peaks is slowly letting us know how possible and probable the magic in their world is.

This is really eloquently and wisely said. I don't think everyone sorts their lives into buckets like this, or these exact buckets, but it is definitely true of a lot of people.

 

I just wanted to mention one thing about your comment on

Leland being the only impatient one in the vision scene because of him being the killer. And now we're debating if they had decided if he was the killer at this point in the show's production. I think we all agree that Lynch and Frost wouldn't have decided who the killer was until - public knowledge - the network pressured them into solving it. But we know that the network didn't do this UNTIL they saw the ratings declining. Which was season 2. So I doubt they knew at this point that it was Leland. So that's just worked out retroactively for them thankfully, but looks intentional.

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This is really eloquently and wisely said. I don't think everyone sorts their lives into buckets like this, or these exact buckets, but it is definitely true of a lot of people.

 

I just wanted to mention one thing about your comment on

Leland being the only impatient one in the vision scene because of him being the killer. And now we're debating if they had decided if he was the killer at this point in the show's production. I think we all agree that Lynch and Frost wouldn't have decided who the killer was until - public knowledge - the network pressured them into solving it. But we know that the network didn't do this UNTIL they saw the ratings declining. Which was season 2. So I doubt they knew at this point that it was Leland. So that's just worked out retroactively for them thankfully, but looks intentional.

 

This is really eloquently and wisely said. I don't think everyone sorts their lives into buckets like this, or these exact buckets, but it is definitely true of a lot of people.

 

I just wanted to mention one thing about your comment on

Leland being the only impatient one in the vision scene because of him being the killer. And now we're debating if they had decided if he was the killer at this point in the show's production. I think we all agree that Lynch and Frost wouldn't have decided who the killer was until - public knowledge - the network pressured them into solving it. But we know that the network didn't do this UNTIL they saw the ratings declining. Which was season 2. So I doubt they knew at this point that it was Leland. So that's just worked out retroactively for them thankfully, but looks intentional.

 

Well, according to Lynch and Frost - and we only have their word, since they didn't share it with anyone else - they had decided on the killer very early on (whether this means the pilot or when they began writing season one is unclear to me; I wouldn't be surprised if the pilot was written without knowing though there's evidence there if you look for it). They didn't want to reveal it publicly till the end of the show (sometimes they say "never" which doesn't make sense to me) but between the two of them they had a specific idea who they wanted it to be. Here's an interesting quote from Frost on the subject:

"We started with this image of a body washing up on a lake," says Mr. Frost. "It took us a while to solve the murder. We had to know the town before we could make up a list of suspects. Only after we knew most of its people was the killer revealed to us." (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/08/arts/television-when-blue-velvet-meets-hill-street-blues.html)

This is from April 8, 1990 (the day the pilot aired, and a good six weeks or so before a second season was commissioned) - so unless he's lying, they knew who the killer was going to be before they planned to reveal it.

 

Some of the actors and writers seem to suspect they were full of it, but they - particularly Frost - are very insistent on the subject.

 

I tend to believe them, given the subtle clues in season 1, but more importantly because I think they cared much more about Laura and the murder mystery than critics gave them credit for. The murder was more than just a MacGuffin to get Cooper in town, introducing us to the locals. It also reveals things about the townspeople and their relationship to her - to not actually have a killer in mind would mean that Lynch/Frost didn't actually care about this theme beyond its plot utility, and I don't think that's the case. Also, according to Frost, the idea that there would be a supernatural component to the killing - that Leland would be part of some more general "darkness in the woods" - was also present from the very beginning though the specifics of Bob and the Red Room were improvised by Lynch on the fly.

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Well, according to Lynch and Frost - and we only have their word, since they didn't share it with anyone else - they had decided on the killer very early on (whether this means the pilot or when they began writing season one is unclear to me; I wouldn't be surprised if the pilot was written without knowing though there's evidence there if you look for it). They didn't want to reveal it publicly till the end of the show (sometimes they say "never" which doesn't make sense to me) but between the two of them they had a specific idea who they wanted it to be.

 

It's also important to note that the script could have been written in such a way and stage direction given that would have made the scenes seem ironic on second viewing even if the actors didn't have any idea who the killer was.

 

Ray Wise just gave an AMA on reddit in which pretty much cements the idea that Lynch and Frost may have known, but the actors were taken off guard by the revelation:

http://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/2lt1jy/so_a_little_thing_i_noticed_from_the_ray_wise_ama/

http://i.imgur.com/E4lipSS.png

If this is true, it is interesting to think of all the things which seem inocuous on first viewing but on second viewing are played for their irony. This is further complicated by the fact that we are uncertain how "in control" of Leland Palmer BOB is at any one given time. The material suggests his possession on Leland is periodic, because Leland remembers lots of things but not killing Laura Palmer.

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This is really eloquently and wisely said. I don't think everyone sorts their lives into buckets like this, or these exact buckets, but it is definitely true of a lot of people.

 

I take umbrage (not really) at the idea of buckets for the idea I was trying to express. The probable, possible, and impossible I am describing are placed on a continuum. Think of it as a slider that moves throughout our lives from one end of the spectrum to the other. In fiction, especially things like Fantasy and Science Fiction and Urban Fantasy and Magical Realism, the continuum is constantly played with and we constantly have to readjust our understanding of what is probable, possible, and impossible. Remember when R2D2 flew? I'm assuming people watched the prequels (I don't know why.) When R2D2 flew, it didn't just ask us to move the slider to account for that, it pretty much through everything out the window as far as the what they were asking us to believe about that character.

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I have to blame myself for that one, I lazily used the first term that came to my mind, which was buckets. And you're right, a slider is a much better way of describing it.

 

As for that quote from Ray Wise, that's interesting about filming

the death scene with Ben Horn too. I'm assuming it was done to prevent the correct identity being leaked to the public. They did this on LOST with who was in the coffin. They shot three different people in there, including Locke.

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It's also important to note that the script could have been written in such a way and stage direction given that would have made the scenes seem ironic on second viewing even if the actors didn't have any idea who the killer was.

Ray Wise just gave an AMA on reddit in which pretty much cements the idea that Lynch and Frost may have known, but the actors were taken off guard by the revelation:

http://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/2lt1jy/so_a_little_thing_i_noticed_from_the_ray_wise_ama/

http://i.imgur.com/E4lipSS.png

If this is true, it is interesting to think of all the things which seem inocuous on first viewing but on second viewing are played for their irony. This is further complicated by the fact that we are uncertain how "in control" of Leland Palmer BOB is at any one given time. The material suggests his possession on Leland is periodic, because Leland remembers lots of things but not killing Laura Palmer.

And, if they had decided on the killer fairly early on, it makes scenes

like Leland at the funeral

especially horrific.

Going along with previous discussions tied into that article, I think that one of the ways Twin Peaks could be considered valuable in a critical sense is how well it hid razor blades in bubblegum. I have to imagine, even if you somehow were only interested in the James/Laura/Donny posthumous love triangle or the murder mystery, you would still be somehat intrigued or at least befuddled by everything else that wasn't quite right. At that time, I don't get the impression that anything quite as dark as Twin Peaks was on air on the big networks.

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Ray Wise just gave an AMA on reddit in which pretty much cements the idea that Lynch and Frost may have known, but the actors were taken off guard by the revelation:

http://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/2lt1jy/so_a_little_thing_i_noticed_from_the_ray_wise_ama/

http://i.imgur.com/E4lipSS.png

If this is true, it is interesting to think of all the things which seem inocuous on first viewing but on second viewing are played for their irony. This is further complicated by the fact that we are uncertain how "in control" of Leland Palmer BOB is at any one given time. The material suggests his possession on Leland is periodic, because Leland remembers lots of things but not killing Laura Palmer.

 

I personally totally buy the idea that they knew who the killer was from early on because it being Leland is so perfect. Twin Peaks is an idyllic seeming town, full of wonderful people but with a deeper darkness hidden inside. I feel like Leland reflects that, as a man who is shown as in terrible mourning for a daughter he seemed to love so deeply but deep down he also has immense darkness that allowed him to do what he did to Laura.

 

I don't think the two are meant to entirely be mirroring each other but the themes of the show are the source of both these dichotomies. I think if they didn't begin the show with this plan, it'd be hard to miss the opportunity for long.

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I think that one of the ways Twin Peaks could be considered valuable in a critical sense is how well it hid razor blades in bubblegum

 

^This. And I think that's a huge part of the backlash, at least on a subconscious level. You don't see many people address this openly - it's always about "oh, it's weird for weird's sake" or "they were never going to solve the mystery" or "it lost the magic." But the big turning point in popularity,

the season 2 premiere not only featured the infamous waiter & giant stuff, it ended with the really harrowing flashback of Laura's murder. Although the pilot is pretty grim (at least till Cooper shows up), so much of season 1 is really zesty and fun - even Lynch's second episode is relatively light in tone, if also spooky. But for all its wacky moments, the season 2 premiere establishes a more serious tone hinting that it won't just be coffee, donuts, and a dash of murder. And the bandwagon starts to fall apart. Oddly enough, the press reaction to episode 14 was pretty muted. Granted, the tide had already turned so Twin Peaks didn't seem as newsworthy but even the articles covering it treat the big reveal in a pretty cursory manner. The most honest reaction I've seen - though it's pretty negative on Lynch - is by Warren Goldstein, in an article called "Incest for the Millions" which is difficult to find but he has some great quotes that go along with your "razor in bubblegum" idea: "It's as though Lynch tried to think of a series of cruelties that would boggle any imagination and add them on, week by week. That way we wouldn't notice all at once; we'd be gradually seduced, in the way that a diabolical wife might addict her husband to a drug by doctoring his food over a period of months.

Once you start this process, what you used to be able to chalk up to quirky weirdness looks much more malevolent." and also: "Lynch had seduced me into his forbidden world. And now it's the morning after and I'm ashamed."

 

I've often wondered if more critics fell this way but kept it to themselves out of discomfort (it's much easier to dismiss Twin Peaks as a passe fad than grapple with the way it possibly indicts both the viewer and itself for getting entertainment out of violence and tragedy). Just when I think, "No, that's reading too much into it" I'm reminded of the response to the movie, which was so angry and so disconnected to what was onscreen that it leaves little doubt critics were recoiling from something more substantial and subconscious than intellectual objections to the storytelling or filmmaking.

 

Anyway, David Foster Wallace deserves the last word on this:

 

"[T]he really deep dissatisfaction - the one that made audiences feel screwed and betrayed and fueled the critical backlash against the idea of Lynch as Genius Auteur - was, I submit, a moral one. I submit that Laura Palmer's exhaustively revealed "sins" required, by the moral logic of American mass entertainment, that the circumstances of her death turn out to be causally related to those sins. We as an audience have certain core certainties about sowing and reaping, and these certainties need to be affirmed and massaged. When they were not, and as it became increasingly clear that they were not going to be, Twin Peaks' ratings fell off the shelf, and critics began to bemoan this once "daring" and "imaginative" series' decline into "self-reference" and "mannered incoherence."

...

In Fire Walk With Me, Laura was no longer an "enigma" or "the password to an inner sanctum of horror." She now embodied, in full view, all the Dark Secrets that on the series had been the stuff of significant glances and delicious whispers.

This transformation of Laura from object/occasion to subject/person was actually the most morally ambitious thing a Lynch movie has ever tried to do - maybe an impossible thing, given the psychological context of the series and the fact that you had to be familiar with the series to make even marginal sense of the movie - and it required complex and contradictory and probably impossible things from Ms. Lee, who in my opinion deserved an Oscar nomination just for showing up and trying.

...

I am not suggesting that Lynch entirely succeeded at the project he set for himself in Fire Walk With Me. (He didn't.) What I am suggesting is that the withering critical reception the movie received ... had less to do with its failing in the project than with its attempting it at all."

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An interesting thing I noticed about the show that you kind of commented on is that the idiosyncratic nature of the universe allows for actors to get away with what may not traditionally appealing acting. There are some geniunely bad performances (James), but then also there are performances that are so bizarre and intriguing I don't know what to think of them (Leo, Nadine, Pete)

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I loved this episode. So many weird/fun little things. Here's some I noticed: 

 

 - At the end of the scene with Ben and Catherine in the motel, Ben pulls out an Elvis doll and says, "Little Elvis needs a bath", which then causes the poker chip to fall out of his pocket. What?

 

- Hawk high-fives random biker guy at the gas station, while Harry plays with a lady's dog. Shows the small-town-y nature of Twin Peaks and the friendliness of everyone around (except, of course, every person involved in the weird heinous nonsense that makes up the main plot). 

 

- There is an oversized fire hydrant in the corner of the veterinarian's lobby. Focus is entirely taken away from it through the fact that it is right next to a llama. 

 

- During Donna's conversation with James on the payphone, her dad says "Who ever heard of diet lasagna?" What a dad thing to say!!

 

-Toad, the gross diner-goer is introduced very briefly in this episode.

He later shows up in probably the worst subplot/episode of Twin Peaks, in season 2 when Norma is worried about the restaurant critic

 

These are the things that make me love Twin Peaks. Dumb background stuff that just makes me chuckle. Maybe some of you will find these interesting if you didn't notice them while watching. 

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All of their scenes together feel like The Room. In a good way. 

 

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight had a joke about Turkey's President's palace having a thousand rooms one of which must have been The Room room. A room dedicated to watching The Room.

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Wait, Mike's tattoo says "Mom"? Both times I've heard "Bob." 

I haven't seen FWWM or the final Season 2 episodes, but I assumed it had something with them working together, and when they split he lost the arm somehow.

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Just a quick note about this podcast and the men who are the bad guys. Every time I see Hank, if he isn't wearing the leather jacket, he is wearing a short sleeved white shirt with the arms slightly rolled up. But he doesn't have biceps. Well, not awesome ones. It reminds me of BBC dramas like I Claudius where the actors who play the "Centurions" have muscled breast plates but thin little legs that haven't marched anywhere ever. Think John Cleese in Life of Brian. Then I wind up wondering if that was what passed for biceps in 1991?

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Just a quick note about this podcast and the men who are the bad guys. Every time I see Hank, if he isn't wearing the leather jacket, he is wearing a short sleeved white shirt with the arms slightly rolled up. But he doesn't have biceps. Well, not awesome ones. It reminds me of BBC dramas like I Claudius where the actors who play the "Centurions" have muscled breast plates but thin little legs that haven't marched anywhere ever. Think John Cleese in Life of Brian. Then I wind up wondering if that was what passed for biceps in 1991?

 

No!

 

 hqdefault.jpg

 

Btw, love I, Claudius. What it lacks in production values does it ever make up for in juicy scenery-chewing. John Hurt's Caligula gives me goosebumps.

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