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Twin Peaks Season 3 |OT2| It's Just A Change, Not An End

Klocker

Member
I think it is my favorite movie of all time. Although, the last few moments of Eraserhead are very, very good too.

The article by David Foster Wallace that was posted earlier reflects some of my feelings about Lynch too. Subverting the audience's expectations about what they will experience seeing a film can lead to heavier emotional impacts. The Club Silencio scene for example, reflecting on that and when they start to cry, seeing the illusion crumble as the nightmare reality comes crawling back. It devastates me very deeply and it is interesting to think if as deep an emotional response could be brought about though more conventional methods of story telling in cinema. I'm not sure, but I absolutely love it for what it is.

On the subject of DFW, and this has nothing to do with Lynch, his speech was really wonderful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI Real tragedy.

Good speech
thanks
 

LaneDS

Member
Little disappointed the, uh, let's say Roadhouse soundtrack on vinyl doesn't have both Au Revoir Simone songs on it... A Violent Yet Flammable World is maybe my favorite track in a season full of amazing musical performances. Still a great collection that should be a good way to remember the season from time to time without re-watching it all.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Just watched the scene in episode 10 where Cole opens his hotel room door and sees Laura and hears Sarah Palmer call to her seems to have a lot more importance after seeing the whole show.
 

Flipyap

Member
Just watched the scene in episode 10 where Cole opens his hotel room door and sees Laura and hears Sarah Palmer call to her seems to have a lot more importance after seeing the whole show.
Does it? It seems even less connected to anything now that the show has ended with no-one else experiencing anything similar, and with Gordon having absolutely nothing to do with the Laura Palmer case or her many ghosts.
At least if we assume that Gordon Cole is still supposed to be a character of his own and not some dream world avatar of David Lynch.
 

SCHUEY F1

Unconfirmed Member
Does it? It seems even less connected to anything now that the show has ended with no-one else experiencing anything similar, and with Gordon having absolutely nothing to do with the Laura Palmer case or her many ghosts.
At least if we assume that Gordon Cole is still supposed to be a character of his own and not some dream world avatar of David Lynch.

Can't remember the exact line but it made of think of Jefferies I think it was saying that Gordon will know the true account?
 
Just finished it. I loved it from beginning to end. After living in this world for basically 2 months now, binging through the original, FWWM, and this, I'm sad I don't have any more to look forward to.

Favorite line of the season: "We're gassing it up." Mitchum brothers were just a delight.
 

cb1115

I Was There! Official L Receiver 2/12/2016
watched Mulholland Drive last night

can't say i have anything meaningful to say about it other than holy shit
 

Futureman

Member
so I assume we're going to have some people in here dressing as TP characters for Halloween.

I don't think I've dressed up for Halloween in almost a decade but it sounds like my GF wants to.

She wants to be Diane but I don't really know about doing Coop. My hair is too short right now for one thing. Thoughts on any other characters that could be interesting?
 
I've been knee-deep in Lynch's universe for the past few days watching several Eraserhead documentaries and what not on YouTube due to being laid up with a cold.

I actually felt immensely sad and had a few tears roll when I saw the dedication to Jack Nance at the end of episode 17 (was it 17?) credits. I've always found the circumstances of his death haunting, but I don't know, something about the placement here and revisiting of his fishing scene shortly prior was really sweet.

I finished season 3 last night and despite quite frankly not knowing what the fuck was going on while it was happening, the emotional impact of the last two episodes was way harder hitting than I've ever felt after viewing any Lynch stuff. Again, I don't even know what's going on fully, but it's really sad seeing Cooper so utterly lost and helpless.

What are some good theories and/or explanations to read up on out there? I got a bit lost because I took a huge break somewhere in the middle.

And some specific questions:

1. Who was the dead guy in Laura's house when Cooper arrived? What did that mean?
2. The credits of episode 18 show Cooper back to square one essentially with Laura whispering in his ear once again, is this meant to symbolize a sort of "you failed, try again"
situation after the house and everything going black after Laura's scream?
 
I've been knee-deep in Lynch's universe for the past few days watching several Eraserhead documentaries and what not on YouTube due to being laid up with a cold.

I actually felt immensely sad and had a few tears roll when I saw the dedication to Jack Nance at the end of episode 17 (was it 17?) credits. I've always found the circumstances of his death haunting, but I don't know, something about the placement here and revisiting of his fishing scene shortly prior was really sweet.

I finished season 3 last night and despite quite frankly not knowing what the fuck was going on while it was happening, the emotional impact of the last two episodes was way harder hitting than I've ever felt after viewing any Lynch stuff. Again, I don't even know what's going on fully, but it's really sad seeing Cooper so utterly lost and helpless.

What are some good theories and/or explanations to read up on out there? I got a bit lost because I took a huge break somewhere in the middle.

And some specific questions:

1. Who was the dead guy in Laura's house when Cooper arrived? What did that mean?
2. The credits of episode 18 show Cooper back to square one essentially with Laura whispering in his ear once again, is this meant to symbolize a sort of "you failed, try again"
situation after the house and everything going black after Laura's scream?
I think the implication of the credits was that
whatever she whispered to Cooper is the answer to what went wrong at the end.
 
so I assume we're going to have some people in here dressing as TP characters for Halloween.

I don't think I've dressed up for Halloween in almost a decade but it sounds like my GF wants to.

She wants to be Diane but I don't really know about doing Coop. My hair is too short right now for one thing. Thoughts on any other characters that could be interesting?

Hair be damned. Go as Dougie. Green jacket. Tie on your head. The whole bit.
 

Vectorman

Banned
Sabrina Sutherland, The Return's showrunner, was on Facebook saying some stuff about Mark Frost's books yet again:

Mark wrote the first book on his own after David and Mark worked on Season 3's script. (David continued writing and directing Season 3 while Mark was writing his book.) Mark did not detail or talk about his book at all before he finished it. David did not read the book and does not know Mark's theories of the history of Twin Peaks. This second book, again, is Mark's book. It's 100% Mark's version without David's notes or ideas. David does not know what this second book contains either. The bottom line is David is not a part of these two books. The books contain only Mark's ideas.

Seems like the two of them (Frost and Lynch) were doing the script but then Frost broke off to do the books while Lynch pushed forwards with the script and shooting the season. Honestly seems like both of them seemed to just go off to do their own visions of TP, one in the literature side and the other in television. Just seems like a shame that Frost will only be able to show off the fate of some of the other beloved characters off-screen rather than during the season and also show why the town was slowly being corrupted with Coop's absence.
 
Little disappointed the, uh, let's say Roadhouse soundtrack on vinyl doesn't have both Au Revoir Simone songs on it... A Violent Yet Flammable World is maybe my favorite track in a season full of amazing musical performances. Still a great collection that should be a good way to remember the season from time to time without re-watching it all.

100% agree. Discovering Au Revoir Simone’s back catalogue after hearing Lark for the first time in the show was quite something, but Lark really stood out as their best....until hearing A Violent yet Flannable World in the show was a revelation, it blew me away and has become one of my favourite tracks of the series.
 
Sabrina Sutherland, The Return's showrunner, was on Facebook saying some stuff about Mark Frost's books yet again:

Seems like the two of them (Frost and Lynch) were doing the script but then Frost broke off to do the books while Lynch pushed forwards with the script and shooting the season. Honestly seems like both of them seemed to just go off to do their own visions of TP, one in the literature side and the other in television. Just seems like a shame that Frost will only be able to show off the fate of some of the other beloved characters off-screen rather than during the season and also show why the town was slowly being corrupted with Coop's absence.

Seems appropriate to me. Frost didn't work on FWWM. So David (a filmmaker) has a film he made without Frost, and Frost (a writer) has 2 books he made without David.

I'd be shocked if there wasn't some things they both discussed that made into their separate projects. You figure at some point they discussed Laura Palmer's last seven days, what Twin Peaks was like once up on a time, and what happened in the 25 year gap between seasons.
 
Sabrina Sutherland, The Return's showrunner, was on Facebook saying some stuff about Mark Frost's books yet again:



Seems like the two of them (Frost and Lynch) were doing the script but then Frost broke off to do the books while Lynch pushed forwards with the script and shooting the season. Honestly seems like both of them seemed to just go off to do their own visions of TP, one in the literature side and the other in television. Just seems like a shame that Frost will only be able to show off the fate of some of the other beloved characters off-screen rather than during the season and also show why the town was slowly being corrupted with Coop's absence.

I don't think that's sad. Frost and Lynch wrote the show together. If Frost really really really wanted something to be on the show he had as much clout as Lynch to make it happen.
 
Sabrina Sutherland, The Return's showrunner, was on Facebook saying some stuff about Mark Frost's books yet again:



Seems like the two of them (Frost and Lynch) were doing the script but then Frost broke off to do the books while Lynch pushed forwards with the script and shooting the season. Honestly seems like both of them seemed to just go off to do their own visions of TP, one in the literature side and the other in television. Just seems like a shame that Frost will only be able to show off the fate of some of the other beloved characters off-screen rather than during the season and also show why the town was slowly being corrupted with Coop's absence.
Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the show but I can certainly see how there was a disconnect between their visions. Frost's books just went from potential reading to required reading for me. (I hope I will still enjoy the prologue book post-show).
 
She sucks but Diane takes the cake for me. I just can’t see someone like Diane getting along well with coop.
I guess she’s not exactly the “good Diane” for most of the show but still.
Bad character that doesn’t fit well with Coop

Fuck you, Robot Pants
:p

I'm going back to the original series and trying make sense of it with what I know with S3. There are so many characters and subplots that I don't even remember lol
 

bunbun777

Member
I just saw on Twitter that the dead guy in Laura's apartment was the same guy that was one of the loan sharks that met with janie e in the park...
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
I just saw on Twitter that the dead guy in Laura's apartment was the same guy that was one of the loan sharks that met with janie e in the park...

Yeah, I've been thinking about this. Saw similarities when I did a re-watch. Interesting. The guy's a loan shark, and Carrie/Laura was in some deep shit apparently.

Season 4 needs to happen. I think we're just beating about the bush and trying to find an ending where there probably is none as Lynch and Frost plan on continuing the show.
 

Flipyap

Member
Yeah, I've been thinking about this. Saw similarities when I did a re-watch. Interesting. The guy's a loan shark, and Carrie/Laura was in some deep shit apparently.

Season 4 needs to happen. I think we're just beating about the bush and trying to find an ending where there probably is none as Lynch and Frost plan on continuing the show.
Season 4 doesn't need to happen. We're going to need Season ∞ if stuff like this is enough to require a follow-up.
Lynch/Frost wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) revisit a nameless corpse when they've abandoned so many major characters. They've made it quite clear that they're not interested in answering any questions, solving mysteries or completing character arcs.
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
Season 4 doesn't need to happen. We're going to need Season ∞ if stuff like this is enough to require a follow-up.
Lynch/Frost wouldn't (and probably shouldn't) revisit a nameless corpse when they've abandoned so many major characters. They've made it quite clear that they're not interested in answering any questions, solving mysteries or completing character arcs.

I'm not saying a new season needs to happen because of a nameless corpse, but because they've set up a new mystery quite beautifully at the end. There are several possibilities as to where this can go, with a whole new Twin Peaks the town.
 

Flipyap

Member
I'm not saying a new season needs to happen because of a nameless corpse, but because they've set up a new mystery quite beautifully at the end. There are several possibilities as to where this can go, with a whole new Twin Peaks the town.
The thing about their definition of "mysteries" is that they're not meant to be followed up on. The mystery isn't being set up, it's already here, it's complete because making you wonder about those possibilities is its entire purpose.
The Secret History of Twin Peaks said:
A secret's only a secret as long as you keep it. Once you tell someone it loses all its power--for good or for ill--like that, it's just another piece of information. But a real mystery can't be solved, not completely. It's always just out of reach, like a light around the corner; you might catch a glimpse of what it reveals, feel its warmth, but you can't know the heart of it, not really. That's what gives it value: It can't be cracked, it's bigger than you and me, bigger than everything we know. Those tight-ass suits can keep their secrets, they don't add up to anything. This deep in the game, pal, I'll take mystery every time.

If this were to continue, I wouldn't be surprised if we never saw Carrie Page again because that's what Twin Peaks is now - a miserable pile of secrets mysteries.

(How's Carrie?)
 
I'm not saying a new season needs to happen because of a nameless corpse, but because they've set up a new mystery quite beautifully at the end. There are several possibilities as to where this can go, with a whole new Twin Peaks the town.

I know what you mean, but I kind of feel like it was conclusive in its inconclusiveness. With the niceties and stuff stripped away, I really feel like the season is kind of concluding with Cooper being like Sisyphus. It was the first thing that came to me at the end of the finale.

I wouldn't say it is necessarily bad either, it just is what it is.
 

Menome

Member
I know what you mean, but I kind of feel like it was conclusive in its inconclusiveness. With the niceties and stuff stripped away, I really feel like the season is kind of concluding with Cooper being like Sisyphus. It was the first thing that came to me at the end of the finale.

I wouldn't say it is necessarily bad either, it just is what it is.

For me, the finale was a way to tuck Cooper and Laura Palmer away from the 'real' Twin Peaks, leaving any potential fourth season to be the remaining cast, old & new, dealing with the wider angle of weirdness going on.

It gets to become 'Twin Peaks' again instead of a constant expectation of being 'The Dale Cooper Show'.

That's not to say he can't appear from time to time in some fashion, but someone like Bobby Briggs taking the lead can give the paranormal/Black Lodge elements a fresh perspective if he's solving something that's not explicitly intertwined with Laura Palmer.
 
For me, the finale was a way to tuck Cooper and Laura Palmer away from the 'real' Twin Peaks, leaving any potential fourth season to be the remaining cast, old & new, dealing with the wider angle of weirdness going on.

It gets to become 'Twin Peaks' again instead of a constant expectation of being 'The Dale Cooper Show'.

That's not to say he can't appear from time to time in some fashion, but someone like Bobby Briggs taking the lead can give the paranormal/Black Lodge elements a fresh perspective if he's solving something that's not explicitly intertwined with Laura Palmer.
I like this a lot

And honestly, despite it driving the entire story forward, this season showed that you can do a Twin Peaks season without Cooper in the traditional sense

Though honestly I can't imagine it happening without Cooper involved in some capacity
 

Linkura

Member
I was watching episode 4 and someone showed up who nearly made me crap my pants laughing
Michael Cera

Yeah I'm going through it for the first time myself now and couldn't fucking believe it when I saw it. That was a hell of a thing not to be spoiled on.

I'm on the middle of ep 5 right now. Other than a few scenes I don't know what the fuck to think. I'm thinking it's a mess, but I still want to give it a chance having loved the original 2 seasons.
 

Anung

Un Rama
Watching season 3 through for the first time. I watched season 1, 2 and Fire Walk With Me as preparation and I'm blown away by this season so far. It's wonderful but I feel like it's gonna take me a while to mentally unpack everything after I'm done.

Episode 8 was incredible and I have no idea how Lynch managed to trick the people with money into actually letting him make this thing.
 
Watching season 3 through for the first time. I watched season 1, 2 and Fire Walk With Me as preparation and I'm blown away by this season so far. It's wonderful but I feel like it's gonna take me a while to mentally unpack everything after I'm done.

Episode 8 was incredible and I have no idea how Lynch managed to trick the people with money into actually letting him make this thing.
Oh most definitely
 

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
Massive essay on the Return by one of my go-to reviewers over at Asking the Wrong Questions:

That Gum You Like: Scattered Thoughts on Twin Peaks: The Return

One of the things that struck me once I finally let myself experience the show properly this spring is how nimble and multifaceted its storytelling is. The conversation surrounding Twin Peaks tends to concentrate on its mythology, but there's so much more to the show than that, and it is precisely that polyphonic quality that makes it so special. Twin Peaks is a murder mystery, a soap opera, a melodrama, a comedy, a portrait of abuse, and a genre story about a cosmic battle between good and evil. The different styles penetrate and influence each other in a way that shouldn't work but absolutely does, but which also proves incredibly difficult to imitate. Just look at the precipitous drop in quality in the show's second season, after the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder was solved and David Lynch left in a huff because of network interference. The same ingredients are there, but the stew they make quickly turns rancid.

From a water-cooler show, Twin Peaks has become prestige TV, the kind of show that gets lauded by critics and wins Emmys, but which hardly anyone watches. That's a profound shame, because The Return is easily the most exhilarating, exciting TV series I've watched in some time, and it deserves a wider audience. But at the same time, its weirdness, its determination to be exactly what it wants to be, necessarily limit its appeal. I'm thrilled beyond words to have gotten this version of Twin Peaks, which so thoroughly changes what came before it as to make it into a different (and to my mind even better) show. But I can't help but notice that in order to achieve this, Twin Peaks also had to destroy itself, that edifice of what the show came to mean in the popular consciousness. I suspect that's not lost on Lynch either--might, in fact, be part of the appeal.

Another reason is that, underneath its weirdness, The Return is an incredibly earnest show. Twin Peaks is sometimes discomforting in its willingness to look directly at ugly, outsized emotion. Fire Walk With Me, for example, is among other things a character study of a young woman crumbling under the psychological weight of years of sexual abuse and the denial that she hides behind. It completely rejects the convention that such serious topics should be depicted with restraint and understatement, and instead allows star Sheryl Lee to rant, scream, weep, and have hysterics (there are a lot of reasons one can imagine for Fire Walk With Me's incredibly unfair reception and reputation as a failure, but it's hard not to assume that it was an unwillingness to see Lee's performance as the fearless tour de force that it is that is the culprit). The belief that melodrama is as serious and fruitful a source for meaningful emotion as a more naturalistic style underpins Twin Peaks, and--especially when buttressed by sensitive writing and searing performances like Lee's--it makes it impossible to develop a protective skin of irony. No matter how silly the events of Twin Peaks get, the pain that lies beneath them is too real to ignore.

There's so much more to say, really. I haven't touched on the series's (extremely iffy) approach to race, or its repositioning of Sarah Palmer as a villain, or the strange and terrible fate it gives Audrey, or the alternately interesting and frustrating turns of the FBI storyline, or what I think the Road House actually is, or the absence of queerness, or or or. We'll probably be talking about The Return for years to come, for the simple reason that it's one of the richest and most expertly made works of television for years, if not ever. And one of the things we'll have to talk about is how, in an age of revivals and reboots and appeals to nostalgia, David Lynch created one of the remarkable works in the medium by refusing all those impulses, by unmaking his most famous creation and making something completely new out of it. It's hard to imagine that the new Twin Peaks will have the kind of influence that the original series did, if only because Lynch has upped his game so much that it will take an entirely new generation of TV creators to follow in his footsteps. But for the time being, we have The Return--messy, meandering, frustrating, problematic, but so completely its own thing that one can only be grateful for its existence.

Lots more in the piece.
 
I woke up at 5 30am this morning because i've basically trained my body clock to do that so i can watch new Peaks on a Monday morning before starting the day properly.

I've never known a show leave a void like this, I crave the discussion and theorising about each new episode.
 

fenners

Member
I woke up at 5 30am this morning because i've basically trained my body clock to do that so i can watch new Peaks on a Monday morning before starting the day properly.

I've never known a show leave a void like this, I crave the discussion and theorising about each new episode.

We started re-watching Carnivale on Sundays via Hulu, as my wife & I have been talking about it off & on for years, but it's never had a decent release on bluray & we didn't have access to it... Now we do, and even though we watched it on original broadcast, it's been so long we're forgetting elements, and it's giving us some mystery, some thing to gape at & discuss.

But it's not the same as new Twin Peaks.
 

Mogwai

Member
We started re-watching Carnivale on Sundays via Hulu, as my wife & I have been talking about it off & on for years, but it's never had a decent release on bluray & we didn't have access to it... Now we do, and even though we watched it on original broadcast, it's been so long we're forgetting elements, and it's giving us some mystery, some thing to gape at & discuss.

But it's not the same as new Twin Peaks.
I'm almost done with a rewatch of the original 30 episode of TP and was looking into other TP'esque shows. I see Carnivale mentioned in several articles, and was thinking to take a look when I'm done with TP in a bit.

Quick edit: Holy crap, Carnivale actually won 5 Emmys?!
 
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