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Twin Peaks Season 3 (The Return - A Limited Event Series)

Farted by RobClock, September 12, 2019, 11:42:41 AM

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RobClock

Two years later I'm still held up on this show.

To my mind the entirety of Twin Peaks The Return A Limited Event Seriesâ,,¢️ was an exercise in putting shit back in a horse.
Ending as it did with the image of Laura whispering into Coopers ear in the red room, Lynch has successfully restored the mystery of what happened to Laura Palmer- which he famously hated being resolved after being pressured by the studio to do so.

My favourite bits in season 3 were Gordon Cole talking to Tammy, saying something cryptic but somewhat plot pertinent and capping it with “NOW YOU THINK ABOUT THAT!" The co-writer and director of the show himself, maddeningly teasing the audience, desperate for deeper insight and clarity into the mystical happenings of the story.

It’s a shame so much of the cast has died now, I very much doubt we’ll ever see another foray into the series, but with the seeming hints to an infinite cyclical nature to the events transpiring in the show- I’m not sure you could really follow up The Return in any meaningful way.

Anyone else into Twin Peaks? Any thoughts or insights into s3 or the show on the whole? How’s Annie?

GreyClock

Trying to watch season two after the killer was revealed felt like a real chore. I started again after they announced The Return. It got better towards the end. Season three was great. Although there was a lot of stuff that didn't really seem to go anywhere (I'm struggling for specific examples, uhh... Michael Cera Brando, the angry rape baby guy, whatsherface's daughter... Shelly's daughter, the stuff with Audrey, the stuff with Bobby?) I don't know, I'll have to rewatch it all at some point.

RobClock

Season 2 has a serious filler problem, some of it can be amusing but when youre trying to be invested in the story it drags the whole thing down. Incredible the degree to which things turn back around in that last handful of episodes.

I'm not sure if you want to talk about any specific instances throughout the return just because of potentially spoiling things for others, but i consider the little snippets we get of other characters that dont really receive resolution as a nod to the farther reaching implications of the primary plot. There's more to the world than just Coop and the bookhouse boys, and theres some subtle implications to the warping of reality as things progress (Big Ed's cup of noodles). Wally Brando was great though, c'mon.

GreyClock

Quote from: RobClock on September 16, 2019, 10:25:40 AMI'm not sure if you want to talk about any specific instances throughout the return just because of potentially spoiling things for others, but i consider the little snippets we get of other characters that dont really receive resolution as a nod to the farther reaching implications of the primary plot. There's more to the world than just Coop and the bookhouse boys, and theres some subtle implications to the warping of reality as things progress (Big Ed's cup of noodles). Wally Brando was great though, c'mon.
I live to spoil things. That said, I don't really remember much of it, I think. If you've got some particular things you wanna talk about let's try and alley-oop.

Coincidentally, I came across this today:
[u2]o9LvqESsRlM[/u2]

Firstly, angry David Lynch is hilarious.

Secondly, I think I made a point in our ongoing discussion during The Return's run about how hard it is to believe that Lynch planned out the whole thing in advance. I can't remember what it was exactly that sparked this notion. In the clip he's lamenting the time constraints, lack of room to experiment and not having ideas for a particular scene. I still don't know how Lynch works, it's all just bits and pieces, and I don't want to put too much stock in a few sentences from a short clip. (Like I'm sure he had a general framework going in and particular points he wanted to make.) However, I do think it's interesting when it comes to these small, seemingly random moments in The Return. You could try and find some particular meaning in them, but if they're the result of experimentation or, as I think I described it at the time, snippets from a dream journal, is there really much to find? If you want to be cynical about it you could just as easily argue that some of it felt a little fan-servicey. Like, even though it has no bearing on the story, here's this character you remember from a quarter of a century ago, doing something strange. I feel that if I knew more about Surrealism or fucking Jacques Derrida I could make a more cogent point, but here we are.

Disclaimer: I thought it would be more fun to only look up my earlier post(s) after I'd finished this one, and apparently one was a drunk post:

Quote from: GreyClock on August 14, 2017, 02:31:48 PMI sat in the sun all afternoon drinking beer so this might will become little rambly and inaccurate (incoherent?), but here goes:

[...]

You mean the Monica Bellucci dream sequence? I don't know all that much about Lynch, but you get the feeling he really had a dream about her and was like yeah fuck it I'll get her to do a scene with me. Apparently that's what the whole Shelly/Cole kiss was about in the original run, like him going "I wanna get in on that." Come to think of it, is all of his stuff just his dream journal put to film or what? Or rather dreams put to film. A dream journal in film format? The first thing sounds maybe a bit disparaging, which is not intended. There's always that dreamlike quality when watching his stuff, which also makes it so hard to interpret, like you know, a dream you had last night. Last night I dreamt I was learning Korean. What's that about? Maybe this is a well-known thing/ground floor, obvious-type explanation, but I'm unable to gauge that in this state, and I don't feel like looking it up right now. Like everyone's going "BUT... what does it MEAN?" when in reality, who the fuck knows, maybe he doesn't? I don't know.
I stand by it. Also:

Quote from: GreyClock on August 14, 2017, 03:11:09 PMLike am I supposed to sit here and think that the whole "Blue rose..." "Blue roses don't occur in nature" or whatever it was, that that was planned when it first came up in FWWM or in the original run (I can't remember that either, FWWM for sure though), as if there's some sort of whiteboard in his house with the whole thing planned out in meticulous detail, or that maybe he just rolls with it. Not necessarily meant to prove the dream point but surely it indicates a more loosey-goosey approach. I mean the man paints abstract-expressionist works in his spare time right.

Quote from: GreyClock on September 04, 2017, 07:49:49 AM
Quote from: GreyClock on August 28, 2017, 04:26:38 PMYeah, it's a shame really. It's been a wild and unexpected ride so far, and it's still hard to really predict where this is all going. I mean some sort of showdown between Coop(pelganger) is inevitable, but how? And (how) will all the (more disconnected) pieces fit together? Will there be another "I'll see you again in 25 years" and "How's Annie?" etc.? How is Annie, anyway?
"What year is this?"

Strap in, because here comes another unstructured rant: I don't really understand it. I read something about it being some sort of meta-commentary on trying to recapture the essence of a series that ended 25 years ago. I guess it comes down to the spontaneity vs. planning thing I was wondering about before. It's hard to believe that Lynch et al went "In 25 years we'll make a new season that will comment on this thing we're now in the process of wrapping up" vs. "See you again in 25 years" as just a mysterious, weird little thing to end a mysterious, weird series on, and not some sort of declaration of intent. I guess it could be both, a general idea of "if we ever get the chance, we'll revisit this and have two Coops out in the world" or whatever, with some new ideas and reflections tacked on. (I doubt that there's one single interpretation/explanation though.) Not to take anything away from the series, which I enjoyed immensily, but somehow the ending does feel sort of tacked on. Another mysterious, weird little thing, to end another mysterious, weird series on. I mean, there's a semi-conventional ending where Dark Coop is defeated etc. (Which is also subverted because Hero Coop is more or less a bystander.) And then we're going one step beyond, because that's maybe what's expected? Maybe it's one of those travelling back in time to kill Hitler things, where (aside from the obvious paradox) you return only to find that the entire universe is different. Although it's hard to place exactly with the 430 (?) miles and "Once we cross, it could be all different" stuff that happens in the interim. It turns out to be different, i.e. Richard, Linda, Carrie, but there's a slight lag. It's also hard to relate to the vague scream for Laura from the house, which I had to read about and rewatch because I didn't even hear it the first time.* In a way, Lynch succesfully pulled the carpet out from under me as it were, so even if it does feel tacked on, it perhaps doesn't matter because it worked. I mean, regardless of everything, the whole thing succeeded in giving me that strange tight feeling in the pit of my stomach that only the best art can generate by resonating with something intangible and unknowable somewhere deep inside of you. So, good job!

* I figured it was another one of those random Laura screams like in FWWM, which might have been a reaction to spotting Coop it turned out? Nibbler's shadow.



GreyClock

I didn't quite catch it the first time I watched it, but he literally says "we never get to go dreamy" and "dream up all kinds of stuff [on set]", so suck my big dick.

RobClock

I'm not going to sit here and argue for the point that Lynch isn't just flying by the seat of his pants creating things he thinks is cool, however I would argue that there's thematic resonance in most all of it.

There are instances like the man sweeping discarded cigarettes off the floor of the Roadhouse for five uncut minutes before Not!Jacques takes a phone call which I'm willing to bet fall more in line with "Who gives a fucking shit how long a scene is?" than any kind of deeper meaning, but alternatively you have the little vignette of Bobby meeting up with Shelly at the Double R and running out to the street to deal with the traffic shooting and that absolutely fucking insane fat woman with her seemingly possessed sickly child. Aside from the young boy in full hunting garb and the super subtle implications of the cyclical nature of violence- I read things like that as glimpses into 'the darkness in these woods', the pervasive malicious supernatural force that dwells within Twin Peaks affecting more than our principal cast. Shelly and Bobby's daughter being addicted to drugs and dating a dealer mirroring Laura and Bobby's relationship from highschool (although more explicitly seedier) is a good example in a way we've seen before, though amplified. You can say some of this stuff is fan-service but my counter point would be that it's all universally subversive of fan expectation and desire, except maybe the closure of the Big Ed, Nadine, and Norma love triangle.

And that's another thing; I'm not sure if Lynch himself said it but I know Kyle MacLachlan described 'The Return' as Cooper's return to Twin Peaks, but on the meta level it is the audiences return to Twin Peaks- the show and the town. That much is obvious, right, but its that thought that leads into the 'Season 3 as a critique of nostalgia' theorizing, which i not wholly but somewhat agree with. The stuff like Dougie Jones being a literal braindead version of Cooper that's all about coffee and cherry pie is one side of it, but I see more subtle hints of it within the overarching narrative. Kind of expanding on my OP "Lynch has successfully restored the mystery of what happened to Laura Palmer", Cooper's entire mission, seemingly, after escaping the Black Lodge is to A) Defeat BOB, B) Save Laura. We see elements of alternate timelines bleeding together like over the credits of one episode where we're shown the Double R and then suddenly all the customers have shifted around, some are missing and there are others present, or when Ed is eating his cup of noodles and glimpses his reflection in the glass and the two are synchronized. We're told that Phillip Jeffries doesn't even really exist anymore, and when we meet him, he's in this extra-dimensional, supernatural plane. When the revived Coop meets with him and asks for co-ordinates he produces an infinity symbol with a ball rolling along within it that stops at a certain point. "Did you ask me this?", "It's slippery in here", or even his appearance in FWWM and the accusatory "Who do you think this is there?!" towards Cooper lend credence to the idea that Jeffries is aware of the timeline fuckery and is present in, or at least travels between, those multiple existences. But I'd like to take for granted that Jeffries exists now beyond the realm of space and time, and return to the infinity symbol he showed Cooper. Perhaps it is ascribing too much meaning to something throw-away, but that entire sequence is animated which means it had to have been thought out rather than shot extra on set and included. When Cooper and Diane are about to 'cross over' Diane seems very hesitant and Cooper stays mostly quiet with a determined look on his face, and when Coop goes to check into the motel, Diane sees a mirror version of herself in the parking lot. Another Doppelganger? Or intersecting timelines? How many times exactly has this been attempted? It leads me to think that Cooper is essentially stuck in an eternal loop of attempting to go back and save Laura, stuck forever returning to Twin Peaks over and over. Maybe that's a little too meta, but knowing Lynch I think an opened ended somewhat cynical closure is more likely than there ever being a definitive resolution.

And I think it just being a bunch of shit Lynch dreamed up is kind of an expressed mission statement

RobClock

Oh, and pertaining to Audrey Horne;

I remember reading at some point (which I can't really verify because it would have been 2-3 years ago) that there was something else entirely planned for Audrey but Sherilyn Fenn hated it and so Lynch basically pulled her entire story out of his ass. The entire thing makes her seem somewhat manic depressive and miserable, but the Audrey's Dance scene when she finally reaches the Roadhouse makes it seem like at very least THAT scene was a dream, and then she snaps to reality in that close up infront of the mirror wearing a johnny shirt. Perhaps the Audrey we saw all season long was a tulpa? In any case, I'm apt to think of Audrey's story as a sort of representation of tragedy in growing old. The young head turning seductress settled. The world was her oyster in her youth and now we see her as an adult, constrained and miserable in a relationship love left behind long ago. To the greater themes of the series, maybe just a subversion. It's far from what one would have expected from Audrey, and it's entirely disconnected from the central plot (although 'Billy', his stolen truck, and his going missing are mentioned by others in town).

also this song
[u2]VI-Lukyr4UY[/u2]

i really tried to make my points clear here but there's a lot of ground to cover and i spent way too long writing this up to go back over and edit the whole goddam thing so I hope it makes some sense.

GreyClock

Quote from: RobClock on September 17, 2019, 09:25:45 AM
I'm not going to sit here and argue for the point that Lynch isn't just flying by the seat of his pants creating things he thinks is cool, however I would argue that there's thematic resonance in most all of it.
Yeah, sure. Then again, Lynch is Lynch. This is all a bit speculative, but I'd wager that most of the things he'd come up with with would check at least some of the themes you're expecting to find. That's perhaps a little broad as well, but I hope you get my meaning. I think most art, at least art with some form of narrative, is generally approached as a sort of puzzle to be solved. What do all the elements mean individually and how do they fit together in the picture as a whole. If you put a scene in a movie where a bird flies into a window, people are going to wonder why you put that in and how it relates to the larger story and characters, right. (We've been conditioned to do so, not just by culture, but by however memory works and our linear perception of time. I can't remember where, but I recently read that humans inherently and hopelessly look for structure in absolute fucking chaos.) Now I don't have any clue how Lynch feels about any of this or if he even takes it into consideration when creating, but in reality birds fly into windows because they don't realize that glass is not air. It doesn't mean anything. With Lynch a lot of meaningful things are vague, surreal & random by design, making it harder to differentiate from other vague, surreal & random events. The extended scene of sweeping is a great example. Is it a comment about the mundanity of life, filler or even a middle finger to the people who've tried to limit him in some way in the past? Is it a vague, surreal, random & meaningful event, or just the first three? That, coupled with the whole "dream" business, makes it even harder still (twss). In one of the quotes I posted I made the point that I don't even know what my own dreams mean. Then again, does it even matter what Lynch meant specifically, as long as I enjoyed it and found my own meaning? I have no idea, which is why I mentioned Derrida, because I think I read something on Wikipedia once that suggested he might offer some insight... unfortunately my local library has a shitty collection. All in all, it's fun to think about, but I have to go now, I'll revisit tomorrow.

RobClock

Quite a bit of buzz going around regarding rumours of a potential second return, with no word from Lynch, Frost, or Showtime to confirm one way or the other. I'm perfectly fine with S3 being the end if it is to be, but with how well it turned out if season 4 were to happen, I have faith in it being something of equal quality.

Clocktopus

i will watch this "twin peaks" and tell you all what i think about it