Twin Peaks

[hork]

Grown ups don't sit back and say "convince me," children do.

What kind of weird ass children have you been hanging out with? And anyway, when did I say "convince me"? I merely asked you to explain why you think it's a masterpiece, since you keep attacking me for my opinion without defending your own or even bothering to elaborate on why you think I'm wrong. You'll never convince me, but I certainly would have been open to civil, rational discussion of the show, which, sadly, you don't seem capable of.

 

I just don't understand, like others here, why someone who deemed the series garbage early on would continue to watch and then complain about the 18 hours of their life they'll never get back. 

I called it garbage six days ago. That's not exactly early on. And just because I thought it was bad, it doesn't mean I wasn't interested in where it was going. I mean, hell, I'd been waiting for this show for 26 years. There was never any chance of me not watching it to the end.

I doubt Lynch will sign on for another season, but I'm hoping for at least a 2-hour movie to tie up some loose ends.

He's made it pretty clear that this is it, the end.

[FrankieSay]

Luscious, I think the fact that part 17 seems to have closed one braided narrative strand and part 18 unveiled a few new threads being braided together [well, that and the infinity symbol that the tea kettle made out of the owl cave drawing!] it is clear that Lynch is saying that this story is never over even if the series is [or isn't].

Personally, I'm totally satisfied with what this "18-hour film" showed us. Humans are deeply flawed and fragile and trauma is enduring and it's often impossible for us to connect to others in a meaningful way... anybody who has aged or cared for the aging knows the particular existential dread than can boil up in a confused memory: What year is this?

I love that the Rolling Stone rave review called "The Return" both a masterpiece and a con job, though I don't necessarily agree with the traditional definition of the second term being applied.  All story telling is a "con job." The way I know this storytelling was successful for me is that when I first heard the show was coming back, I couldn't believe it.  Then I heard it was going to be 18 hours and I thought that was too long.  But in the end it was so satisfying and fulfilling.  It seemed just right.

[ErikJ972]

I finally get to sit down and watch the final two episodes and Showtime streaming is down across all platforms. After waiting 25+ years. That blows.

Anyway I'm not reading anything y'all wrote until after I get a chance to watch it.  Talk to you then!

[FrankieSay]

Don't worry, you're not missing anything!

j/k

 

[Luscious]

FrankieSay said: "Hello Luscious. Let's engage with others up to the task in one of those little-seen "conversations with grown-ups."

I wasn't prepared for such an extended meditation on loss, grief, trauma (including inherited traumatic responses), love, the evil done by those with bad intentions and the unintended consequences of well-intentioned people trying to correct past mistakes.

For me the whole thing was really about aging, and dying, and the old truism about not being able to go home again. In retrospect,m "The Return" was the perfect season title, since nothing goes as planned when you try to move backwards.

I think of the whole season as a very close relative to Munch's "The Scream," as Laura Palmer's and "Laura Palmer's" unearthly shriek echoed across the dimensions."

I agree with you, Frankie, that it certainly can be seen and appreciated as a rumination on loss, grief and trauma, but those were not the themes that resonated the most with me, in the way that, say, a show like The Leftovers did. I think it was about many things, and can be appreciated (and analyzed) in many ways and on many levels. For me, one of its primary themes was time and space, but more specifically, parallel alternate realities existing within the same time-space continuum. I also think it was about good vs.evil (the battle over Laura's sole), and how the fight between the two never really ends. But, ultimately, what I really think it was about lies in the Sanskrit scripture that Monica Bellucci whispers to Gordon Cole in episode 14, “We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream.” She then adds, "But who is the dreamer?" Who is the dreamer, indeed? Both Phillip Jeffries and The Giant/Fireman echoes this idea by stating "We are living inside a dream". The entire story may be someone's dream, perhaps Dale's (Richard's), perhaps Laura's (Carrie's), perhaps Judy's, or someone else's entirely. Lynch's entire career has been spent telling stories and communicating ideas through what can best be described as "dream logic". From Eraserhead to Blue Velvet to Wild at Heart to Lost Highway to Mulholland Drive to Twin Peaks - they all have a dream-like quality and logic to them. And dreams never really have any one interpretation or true coherence and resolution. Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts in a nutshell. I'm sure that die-hard fans of the series, myself included, will be hypothesizing about it for a long time to come. I really don't think there's a right or a wrong interpretation. That's the beauty of Lynch's work. Like all art, it's subjective. You get from it what you bring to it.

[TotallyEffed]

Luscious gets it.

[darquegk]

It's not for nothing that Judy (Anglicized from Jowday) is Chinese for "explaining;" Lynch has made it clear that the worst thing you can do is explain or analyze something to death. In a way, the finale of The Return was both a frustrating and beautiful "screw you" to the season before it, to the franchise at large, and to fans in general.

Twin Peaks is destroyed. Probably the universe that contained Twin Peaks is destroyed. Hank and Norma's long-gestating reunion, Bobby's maturity, Nadine's growing mental self-sufficiency: it was all for nothing, because Cooper wanted to go back and tie up loose ends. "When you try to tie up loose ends," Lynch seems to be implying, "you break what you once had."

Laura's final scream came right before the blackout, and her unearthly screams have always or mostly come before one recurring event: an otherworldly force (Judy?) tears Laura out of the plane in which she currently exists. If this pattern proves true, Dale Cooper (who has forfeited his world, his softness and even his identity to try and save Laura one last time) is about to be left marooned in a world where he does not exist- a world without Twin Peaks as we know it. It's hard to read his "What year is it?" as not being in part a commentary on the return of Twin Peaks- it's never gonna be 1989 again, folks.

[FrankieSay]

I totally get how things can be contradictory, but as a viewer I was dazzled by the way the show was so clearly lovingly crafted that it's hard for me to find a "screw you" in there.  Tho I do think your insight about tying up loose ends being impossible is a great one. "To get what you want better see that you keep what you have."

[darquegk]

Not so much a "screw you" as a refutation of nostalgia and comfort. Like a reminder that the show was never the quirky dream-pop nostalgia world it's remembered as, but a frequently harrowing look at the cycle of abuse set in a stylized world.

[ErikJ972]

Rolling Stone and Vulture both named Twin Peaks:The Return the best show of the year.

From Rolling Stone: "Agent Dale Cooper lives. So does Audrey Horne. And so, for that matter, does David Lynch, who revisits his legendary TV cult favorite and goes back to the haunted Pacific Northwest town he left behind in 1991. Twin Peaks: The Returncould have been just a sentimental rehash – getting the old band back together one more time. But Lynch doesn't merely live up to the original – he completes it. Nobody saw this coming. Our ghost town is full of familiar faces – Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Sherilyn Fenn, Trent Reznor – and new ones. We see actors who died after filming their scenes (R.I.P., Log Lady) and some who passed to that red velvet room in the sky later, like the late, great Harry Dean Stanton. (Not to mention a poignant cameo from David Bowie, beyond the grave.) Cheers to Showtime for trusting Lynch, along with co-creator Mark Frost, to pull off all 18 hours. Nothing like Twin Peaks: The Return has ever happened before or will again. This is the water and this is the well."

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists/20-best-tv-shows-of-2017-w512711/twin-peaks-the-return-showtime-w512712

Vulture: "A weekly mind-effing event the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the first year of Lost. This 18-hour series from Twin Peaks co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost wasn’t a straightforward continuation of the story, but something more like a series of variations or improvisations on familiar characters and situations. It took a while to grasp that it was a largely non-narrative experience, conceived in terms of light and shadow, rhythm and visual rhyme, color and music (most hours ended with a full-length musical performance). Episode eight, which reconceived the postwar history of the United States in mythological terms starting with the first atom bomb test, is a masterpiece; at least five other episodes are nearly as good."

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/best-tv-shows-of-2017.html

I know it's a long shot but I really hope there is a season 4.

[darquegk]

The fourth Twin Peaks novel, "The Final Dossier," tied up a lot of loose ends in the narrative between Season 2 and the recent finale; it also hinted at some plot points a potential Season 4 could explore.

SPOILERS:

Cooper's dislodging of Laura from time probably bumped her, and him, into not another dimension but a time-shifted position. This had the effect of gradually changing the present, to the point that Tammy Preston, who has been taking notes and archiving the Blue Rose files, is the only person who remembers Dale Cooper, the murder of Laura Palmer, or the supernatural intrigue of Twin Peaks at all. Additionally, Laura and Cooper were bumped back in time, to a point before either of them were born (probably 1957). It's implied that if they continue trying to travel through time, their physical forms will become corrupted, leaving them as bodiless presences existing at all times simultaneously (see: Philip Jeffries's fate).

Also noteworthy... the book reveals that Annie is in the same mental facility as Audrey Horne. Two of Mr. C's sexual and psychological victims in the same residence- it's almost like a neon "Something's going to happen here" sign.

[ErikJ972]

Cool. I bought "The Final Dossier" but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Probalby over the holidays. After reading the first book I think it's amusing when people suggest Mark Frost isn't all that involved with the creation of Tiwn Peaks.

[ErikJ972]

Fingers crossed.

'TWIN PEAKS' SEASON 4 RUMORS ABOUND, COULD IT BE HAPPENING AGAIN?

[Bettyboy72]

I have no idea who would put their money behind this. The last season flopped and Showtime wasn’t happy with the final product. I did not like the last season which only served to get me attacked by holier than thou fans who act like you’re an imbecile if you didn’t get it.

I swear to god most critics praised it to appear like they were cool or something.

[broadway86]

Bettyboy72 said: "I have no idea who would put their money behind this. The last season flopped and Showtime wasn’t happy with the final product. I did not like the last season which only served to get me attacked by holier than thou fans who act like you’re an imbecile if you didn’t get it.

I swear to god most critics praised it to appear like they were cool or something."

Not liking it is perfectly cool. Implying that those who did like had ulterior motives for doing so, not so much.

[darquegk]

The streaming wars happened since 2017, and are poised to perpetually fly into an even bigger divide. Showtime is a very minor player in premium TV at this particular moment, perhaps more prestigious in some senses but less of a blockbuster than HBO, and nowhere near as commercial as Amazon or Netflix.

The one trump card they have to play is that they financed the television return of one of the twentieth century's greatest film auteurs, and produced a staggering work of audience-alienating, critic-baffling genius. Showtime won't have the next Game of Thrones, and it's not going to likely have the next Handmaid's Tale either. But they've got arguably the greatest work of avant-garde experimental television film ever made in their pocket, and if that's the only card the other guys don't have, they'll absolutely play it the first chance they get.

[ErikJ972]

In spite of the ratings Showtime has been pretty vocal they were very pleased with The Return and would be open for another season. Plus they got a bump in subscriptions. Critical acclaim and media buzz are just as important for a channel like Showtime as ratings.

[Impossible2]

S3 was occasionally patchy and totally self indulgent, but brilliant all in all.

As much as I'd love another series, I don't think it really needs one, it had the perfect ending as it was.

[Bettyboy72]

broadway86 said: "Bettyboy72 said: "I have no idea who would put their money behind this. The last season flopped and Showtime wasn’t happy with the final product. I did not like the last season which only served to get me attacked by holier than thou fans who act like you’re an imbecile if you didn’t get it.

I swear to god most critics praised it to appear like they were cool or something."

Not liking it is perfectly cool. Implying that those who did like had ulterior motives for doing so, not so much."

As I stated not liking it WASNT perfectly cool. I was attacked on message boards by other fans.