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Twin Peaks Returning on Showtime

Incandenza

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Yeah, "Tarifa"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XA2anxuU8s

I had never listened to her prior to her appearance on the show. I like OK the stuff I've heard since, but nothing has been quite as good as this song. (EDIT: referring specifically to Sharon Van Etten's music here, not the Roadhouse performances in general.)
 

Byron The Bulb

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I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with myself after this weekend. This show has really been the main thing going on in my life for the last three months.
 

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I've gotten myself emotionally invested in these characters and the fact that evil will have to triumph in the end is probably gonna shake me up bad.
 

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I can't remember the last show I've been this emotional towards. At least one or more times during nearly every episode, I find myself getting choked up. There are shows coming up that I'm excited for like Bojack Horseman or Black Mirror, but nothing can compare to what this show does to me.
 

Byron The Bulb

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Czech said:
I've gotten myself emotionally invested in these characters and the fact that evil will have to triumph in the end is probably gonna shake me up bad.

You really think so? I feel like Lynch wouldn't have gone through all this just for the show to end up back where the original run finished. For all his interest in darkness and evil, I think he also genuinely believes in unalloyed goodness, and have to believe that this, likely his swan song, will end with that goodness winning out. Remember: Laura is the one.
 

Incandenza

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I think there's a possibility Cooper dies in the end, but in doing so achieves some sort of grace. Think of the ending of FWWM and how Laura Palmer got something peaceful after dying in so horrifying a fashion. I can see Cooper actually liking an afterlife as some otherworldly wanderer, given his mysticism.
 

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Byron The Bulp said:
Czech said:
I've gotten myself emotionally invested in these characters and the fact that evil will have to triumph in the end is probably gonna shake me up bad.

You really think so? I feel like Lynch wouldn't have gone through all this just for the show to end up back where the original run finished. For all his interest in darkness and evil, I think he also genuinely believes in unalloyed goodness, and have to believe that this, likely his swan song, will end with that goodness winning out. Remember: Laura is the one.
I feel like the best-case scenario for Coop is that he dies and goes to the White Lodge, having attained whatever perfection he needed to attain. The obvious ending, that he sends his new tulpa to work in the FBI while he retires to Las Vegas to be ridden by Naomi Watts every night, is too fan-servicey and Young Frankenstein to really happen.

EDIT: also, am I way off base in calling the Roadhouse scenes a tribute to Stop Making Sense? I can't stop thinking about that every time I see shaded heads weaving in front of the stage.
 

Incandenza

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Just rewatched part 16.

I'd be surprised if we saw Janey-E and Sonny Jim again. Cooper commissioned Mike to create a double for the sole purpose of giving the pair a husband and father; I think they've filled their purpose for the series now.

I wonder if we'll see Diane--the real Diane--by the end? "I'm in the sheriff's station" suggests Diane is in some way the sightless Asian woman currently in the Twin Peaks jail cell. But will we ever see the real Diane?

John Belushi was never in anything as good as this show, so it's time to say Jim Belushi is the Good Belushi.
 

Youth N Asia

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Incandenza said:
John Belushi was never in anything as good as this show, so it's time to say Jim Belushi is the Good Belushi.

This doesn't bend the curve enough for Jim. His bad work is still plentiful.
 

Incandenza

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So, Cooper's attempt to rescue Laura fucked up the timeline and that's how the ending happened
 

Czech

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Byron The Bulp said:
Czech said:
I've gotten myself emotionally invested in these characters and the fact that evil will have to triumph in the end is probably gonna shake me up bad.

You really think so? I feel like Lynch wouldn't have gone through all this just for the show to end up back where the original run finished. For all his interest in darkness and evil, I think he also genuinely believes in unalloyed goodness, and have to believe that this, likely his swan song, will end with that goodness winning out. Remember: Laura is the one.

Eerily prophetic choice of words, ending up back where we started. I think Judy/Jao-de made Cooper destroy the entire time-space continuum as we know it.
 

Byron The Bulb

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I'm at a complete loss. How can there be other TV shows, or movies, or art of any kind after that?
 

Czech

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I don't know. I'm indeed pretty shaken up. Either Dale stopped Laura from dying so that she could wake up that morning and keep being molested or there never was a Dale and there never was a BOB or a Lodge and it was all just the coping mechanisms of a young woman with a plain old rapist for a father. Or I'm still getting something wrong. This certainly feels like the end of something as far as television/film storytelling goes, though. I don't think I've ever walked away from art this assured that everything is meaningless and the darkness of the human condition is always one step ahead.
 

Byron The Bulb

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Looking back, it was obviously naive hopeful projection to think that this would end with good unequivocally triumphing. As dull and cliche as the comparison might seem, the thing this reminds me of the most is In the Aeroplane Over the Sea: a despairing rumination on the cyclical temporality of trauma and the inescapablilty of history's horrors. And like that album, this show has left me feeling speechless and adrift, and has meant more to me than nearly any other work of art I've ever encountered.
 

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Something a bit more lighthearted: Lucy's being flustered by cell phones early in the season (a gag I didn't think was funny and felt was a bit mean-spirited) actually paid off in the end!
 

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The better Belushi also muttered a few lines that made me chuckle.

The hate the finale is getting is kind of funny too me. So many people are pissed because it didn't answer the all the questions or have a satisfying fist pump worthy conclusion. Has any David Lynch directed project ended with everything wrapped in a nice bow with a happy ending? I think only maybe Blue Velvet had something close to a happy ending.

It actually took me two viewings to fully appreciate the finale. I will admit that some of those driving scenes did test my patience the first time, but I think it had to do more with how breakneck paced part 17 was.

I'm thinking I like this more than the original series. Nothing here was a bad as the middle of Season 2 and even some of the Catherine/Josie/Ben mill storyline in season 1 kind of drags a bit. I am awestruck in what Lynch has achieved with this series. Episodes like 8, 11, or 16 are among the best television episodes I've ever seen. If this is the end of the series, I'm glad Lynch went out on his own terms in the most Lynchian way possible.
 

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Did something about the cinematography change when Dale/Richard woke up in Odessa? I know there was much more handheld camera work, and it almost looked more like real film stock and not digital. Something changed for sure.
 

Incandenza

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I'd have to rewatch it (which I don't think I can bring myself to do anytime soon), but...maybe that it employed the bright, sun-scorched lighting you often see in films shot in small Texas towns?

For those keeping track, Kyle MacLachan played five different characters* during the course of The Return:

Dale Cooper
Mr. C
Dougie Jones
Cooper As Dougie Jones
Richard

Give this man an Emmy

*Six characters, if you count the Mike-created duplicate of Dougie.
 

Brocklock

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Incandenza said:
I'd have to rewatch it (which I don't think I can bring myself to do anytime soon), but...maybe that it employed the bright, sun-scorched lighting you often see in films shot in small Texas towns?

For those keeping track, Kyle MacLachan played five different characters* during the course of The Return:

Dale Cooper
Mr. C
Dougie Jones
Cooper As Dougie Jones
Richard

Give this man an Emmy

*Six characters, if you count the Mike-created duplicate of Dougie.

And he added just enough to make each character feel like a different performance. He should get a statue.
 

Czech

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Incandenza said:
I'd have to rewatch it (which I don't think I can bring myself to do anytime soon), but...maybe that it employed the bright, sun-scorched lighting you often see in films shot in small Texas towns?
Maybe. It looked different from even the Las Vegas (or Los Angeles doubling as Las Vegas) scenes.
 

Byron The Bulb

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I rewatched them, and Part 18 was even more powerful and haunting the second time around. A few things immediately stood out:

1. Watched outside the context of initial expectations, and knowing what Part 18 would actually be, Part 17 functions almost perfectly as a stand-alone finale for both the season and the series, replete with its circling back to FWWM and the pilot, and ending with Julee Cruise. It's essentially the "curtain call" Cooper referenced before going inside the room at the Great Northern.

2. Speaking of the Julee Cruise scene -- it functioned, basically, in the same way that all of this season's Bang Bang Bar/Roadhouse outros functioned, but was set in the Red Room. Does this lend credence to the theory that those Roadhouse scenes existed outside of the "normal" world of the show?

3. I'm still not sure how "real" Richard and Linda were. When Cooper wakes up in Odessa he still calls out to "Diane," and is confused when he reads that the note addressed to Richard. More (or less?) significantly, Sheryl Lee is billed separately as both Laura and Carrie in the final credits, while Dern is only credited as Diane. This discrepancy also points to the way Lynch used Kyle McLachlan's special billing in the credits to further blur the lines between the various Coopers, since none are ever identified by name.

4. Everyone is calling the final scene bleak and despairing, and it no doubt is. But what do we make of the significance of the scream causing the electricity to go out in the Palmer house? All season long, electricity has been associated with the Lodges, its buzzing nearly always indicating the presence of malevolent forces. The power going out would also, of course, cause that damn ceiling fan to stop spinning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63VHeu5V0zA

(note how this scene ends, also)
 

Incandenza

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One thing I'm still confused about—and haven't found a satisfactory explanation in anything I've read—is if the Fireman was able to prevent Mr. C going to Sarah's house, and instead had him go to the sheriff's station (where, presumably, he [the Fireman] had an idea he [Mr. C] wouldn't survive the encounter), what was stopping him from exerting such power earlier?
 
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