Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 9: May the Giant Be With You

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*snip*

 

Well, it is either Norma or Harold. Wikipedia says it is Norma, but now that you mention it, I also do remember Donna saying that. Not that it matters much.

Regarding Norma's motives? I do not really think Norma need any motives. She is properly the least scheming character in the entire show. She properly just overheard the group discussing what to do about their investigations, and just decided to give them a hint.

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Wikipedia probably just means that Norma brought Donna the note. But someone mailed the note to the diner for Donna Hayward and, on the phone, with Mr. Smith she says "I received yours."

When she meets Harold for the first time, he explains that Laura had told him to get in touch with Donna if anything happened to her

. Since he doesn't leave his house, it makes sense he would mail it the only place he knew (being part of the Meals On Wheels program and all)--the Double R Diner.

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Man the end of this episode contains some of the most disturbing and discomforting scenes I've seen on television.

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Man the end of this episode contains some of the most disturbing and discomforting scenes I've seen on television.

Agreed. some of the most intense stuff yet. 

 

I in absolutely no way want to complain about the release schedule of a free podcast. I do wonder what happened though. Jake said ten days ago that it was coming soon. So, I'm just curious. 

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I in absolutely no way want to complain about the release schedule of a free podcast. I do wonder what happened though. Jake said ten days ago that it was coming soon. So, I'm just curious. 

five days ago* oops

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Had a dream I chugged half a bottle of gin and then listened to episode 9 in a stupor. Don't drink gin and haven't even had a drink in weeks. Woke up hungover. Weird.

 

How was the episode? Good?

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Had a dream I chugged half a bottle of gin and then listened to episode 9 in a stupor. Don't drink gin and haven't even had a drink in weeks. Woke up hungover. Weird.

 

That gin you like is going to come back in style.

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Agreed. some of the most intense stuff yet. 

 

I in absolutely no way want to complain about the release schedule of a free podcast. I do wonder what happened though. Jake said ten days ago that it was coming soon. So, I'm just curious. 

 

Considering that Chris wasn't able to make the main podcast either, I'd say something is afoot. Hopefully, it's either holiday parties or hard work on Fire Watch, rather that anything sinister.

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One thing I'm confused about is what The Giant means when he says "The question is: Where have you gone?" In response to Cooper asking where he came from. That's always befuddled me.

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One thing I'm confused about is what The Giant means when he says "The question is: Where have you gone?" In response to Cooper asking where he came from. That's always befuddled me.

 

To me the implication of that is that Cooper is the one who has travelled to a new a place, ie. the semi magical place where the Giant resides.

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Good point about the ratings of episodes (by your count) 7, 8, 9, and 10. Also worth pointing out that the season 1 finale and season 2 premiere were aired on unusual nights - Wednesday in the first case, Sunday in the second, rather than at the show's normally-scheduled time. In season 1, the series aired on Thursdays directly against Cheers, the most popular show on television. For most of season 2, it aired on Saturday night - which many considered the worst venue for Twin Peaks' audience, which trended young and hip and was usually going out at that time. So that can also account for some of the slippage in ratings (as well as the higher marks for the beginning and end of the season, aside from those being episodes people would tune in for anyway).

 

That said, the season 2 premiere as a major turning point in this sense: while the ratings can be difficult to gauge, this is definitely where the buzz about Twin Peaks started to go sour. If the show had firm popular support, press reaction might not be a problem but the media had essentially carried the show through season one since its ratings were not particularly remarkable (except for the pilot and, to a lesser extent, the next couple episodes). Twin Peaks is a good example of a show that really NEEDS positive press to thrive and when critics and journalists decided the show was no longer hot, that was maybe the biggest nail in its coffin. Though many columnists continued to write about the show positively early in season 2, the majority (that I've been able to see) did not and even the admirers noted a general cooling in the show's favorability. What's amazing to me is how quickly it happened, particularly in the pre-internet age. There is a columnist who writes enthusiastically about the show just before the premiere (at which point, let's remember, MacLachlan is hosting SNL, Twin Peaks is on the cover of numerous magazines - including Time, and Jennifer Lynch's Secret Diary is shooting up the NY Times Paperback Bestseller List).

 

Two weeks later (!) he is writing that "no one cares who killed Laura Palmer" anymore as if it's a fad from months ago. And this sort of thing is pretty ubiquitous. Again, considering that this is pre-internet, the public - and perhaps most importantly, the executives - can only access a handful of media narratives. As the pilot went to air, the media narrative was that David Lynch had brought art to television and this was maybe the most revolutionary moment in TV history. During the first season, the narrative shifted to the idea that this was wildly provocative and playful entertainment, unprecedented but above all, fun. Over the summer, the narrative was that this was a pop culture phenomenon with the subtext, sometimes explicit, that its bubble could burst if the creators weren't careful and viewers became too frustrated. And then, after season 2 began, the narrative changed: Twin Peaks had gone too far, outlived its usefulness, and above all extended its mystery too long and now it was washed up. Within a month or two there was no real narrative at all, because Twin Peaks wasn't even being discussed anymore.

 

It's interesting that even today, during press commemorations of the show (most notably when the new Showtimes series was announced), Twin Peaks is still presented along these lines: as a show with a groundbreaking pilot and fascinating first season, with the rest a disappointing afterthought. In addition, there is some revisionism as critics and reporters claim the show's eventual unpopularity and decline in quality resulted from a -

resolving Laura's murder mystery

and b - David Lynch disengaging from the show. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Read almost any contemporaneous account, and the writer is complaining about

Laura Palmer remaining the focus of the show (and/or her killer remaining at large),

and - this is key - specifically blaming Lynch for abusing his audience. Indeed, their objections began with the episodes Lynch was MOST heavily involved with.

 

Again, I can't stress this enough: the negative reaction to Twin Peaks in the fall of 1990 was very personal and led to a massive backlash against David Lynch. Up to this point, the media was grooming him as an offbeat mainstream celebrity, America's Favorite Surrealist. From this point on, he was characterized as a phony, cynical trickster laughing at his audience and lazily indulging his outlandish whims to make a buck ala P.T. Barnum. This is one of the biggest factors in the shockingly negative response to Fire Walk With Me (I say "shockingly" not because it was negative, although I love the movie, but because the level of vitriol and loathing in many reviews is pretty astonishing). I have a lot of thoughts on why this is, but it would take another post so maybe later in the season - or when we get to the film - I'll go into it. Suffice to say Lynch is pretty unique in the way he gets viewers invested in his work while simultaneously frustrating their desires. People felt they were striking a bargain when they headed into Twin Peaks and that Lynch was not holding up his end of the bargain. I suspect he got past critics' defense mechanisms and under the skin in a way they couldn't forgive him for.

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Oh, and I completely concur with the Lynch-had-Maddy-break-her-glasses-because-he-didn't-like-them theory!

 

EDIT: If we need a bigger explanation (or a motive for him not liking it, besides him not being a glasses fetishist) I think he's all about making Maddy more like Laura at this point. Less remarked upon, but in a way even more notable, is that overnight Maddy's hair has changed completely. Leland's not the only one in the family with magical hair follicles. I suppose she could've just broken out the straighteners in the morning but it looks more like she's still waking up when we see her so I doubt it. Like Doc Hayward said, it was quite a night.

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Oh, and I completely concur with the Lynch-had-Maddy-break-her-glasses-because-he-didn't-like-them theory!

 

EDIT: If we need a bigger explanation (or a motive for him not liking it, besides him not being a glasses fetishist) I think he's all about making Maddy more like Laura at this point. Less remarked upon, but in a way even more notable, is that overnight Maddy's hair has changed completely. Leland's not the only one in the family with magical hair follicles. I suppose she could've just broken out the straighteners in the morning but it looks more like she's still waking up when we see her so I doubt it. Like Doc Hayward said, it was quite a night.

 

I agree that the writing justification for it is probably to be more Laura like, given that later down the line both James and Leland treat Maddy as a Laura surrogate, while up until now it's been a quirky fact how they look so similar.

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The Log Lady is chewing gum because 

because Norma mentions her not doing that anymore in a future episode.

 

(written by Lynch)

 

Don't know if that's what it was in the actual shot, or if he liked the idea afterwards. It does put "that gum you like is going to come back in style" into a new light.

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Although LostInTheMovies, I think, truth be told, wouldn't a show today that had the kind of ratings Twin Peaks did, even in it's decline, still have a big chance at staying on the air?

 

Funny thing is I feel the opposite from what, apparently, the general viewing public thought at the time. I do really like the first season, I like all the little clues and introductions to the quirky cast of characters and how everything seems ominous and filled with grief and dread. And it is somewhat disappointing how much turns out to be mere red herrings and things that never pay off (though knowing that Lynch originally intended to *never* reveal the killer, it makes sense that this is the case). I like the breathing room that is left to imagine how it all fits together.

 

But the show doesn't really become the show I love until the high strangeness start's taking center stage with the Red Room, Bob, the Giant, the creamed corn disappearing etc. I love that dark, spooky tone whereby there seems to be these supernatural goings on beneath the surface, taking a small town murder mystery and placing it in the context of a just being a part of a much larger cosmic horror story almost incomprehensible to the human mind. If I hadn't known something like that was coming I probably wouldn't have sat through the James and Donna melodrama or soap opera elements.

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More on Gersten Hayward: Her portrayor, child prodigy Alicia Witt, was nine years old when she played Alia Atreides in Lynch's Dune. Rather than her parents getting her the part of Gersten, I'm pretty sure Lynch had decided to make her a star and was just looking for a way to get her on TV.

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Although LostInTheMovies, I think, truth be told, wouldn't a show today that had the kind of ratings Twin Peaks did, even in it's decline, still have a big chance at staying on the air?

 

Funny thing is I feel the opposite from what, apparently, the general viewing public thought at the time. I do really like the first season, I like all the little clues and introductions to the quirky cast of characters and how everything seems ominous and filled with grief and dread. And it is somewhat disappointing how much turns out to be mere red herrings and things that never pay off (though knowing that Lynch originally intended to *never* reveal the killer, it makes sense that this is the case). I like the breathing room that is left to imagine how it all fits together.

 

But the show doesn't really become the show I love until the high strangeness start's taking center stage with the Red Room, Bob, the Giant, the creamed corn disappearing etc. I love that dark, spooky tone whereby there seems to be these supernatural goings on beneath the surface, taking a small town murder mystery and placing it in the context of a just being a part of a much larger cosmic horror story almost incomprehensible to the human mind. If I hadn't known something like that was coming I probably wouldn't have sat through the James and Donna melodrama or soap opera elements.

 

I feel somewhat similarly to you on this - although I've never hated the James-Donna stuff (James in particular is not a very interesting character, but their storylines do tie in nicely with the Laura mystery, in a way many season 2 subplots don't). In particular, I have to say Donna and Lara Flynn Boyle's performance have really been impressing me on recent revisits. In fact, I think the upcoming storyline with Donna has some of the best acting on the series (ep. 12 - er, ep. 13 by the system we're using here - is particularly nice).

 

But yes, season 2 is where the show REALLY gets interesting to me. Mythologically, psychologically, and stylistically I think it breaks new ground. The first time I watched the series I remember being thrilled by the season 2 premiere, feeling like, ok we're really gonna take the plunge now.

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I like a lot of the stuff that Season 2 adds. A few of the story lines are lame ducks, but a few of them are pretty cool. 

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I feel somewhat similarly to you on this - although I've never hated the James-Donna stuff (James in particular is not a very interesting character, but their storylines do tie in nicely with the Laura mystery, in a way many season 2 subplots don't). In particular, I have to say Donna and Lara Flynn Boyle's performance have really been impressing me on recent revisits. In fact, I think the upcoming storyline with Donna has some of the best acting on the series (ep. 12 - er, ep. 13 by the system we're using here - is particularly nice).

 

What bothers me is that, in the pilot, I feel like James has the potential to be an interesting, non-traditional kind of character. I do agree with you that there are some well-acted parts coming up for Donna, and maybe some of the behind the scenes information about the actor's influence on the show further colors my view of her negatively, but sometimes it doesn't seem like she was Laura's sweet and loving best friend at all, more like a bitchy jealous shadow of her. And she wants to find out who killed Laura but she is constantly telling the others not to go to the police, for really no reason at all. Donna just frustrates me I guess.

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A large portion of the start of the series is about how each person in the town was effected by Laura, both when she was alive and when she died. Donna's swings between nice and jealous I think are indicators of Laura's darkness infecting her.

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