Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

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boske
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by boske »

mlsstwrt wrote:Just imagine - you make a work whose very point is to antagonise an audience. Then the audience showers you with praise, calling every episode genius. How would you feel about that? How would you feel if you spit in someone's face and their reaction wasn't to punch you as hard as possible but lick up that spit while purring, 'Mmmmmm..... delicious.'

That's how I feel about this. I wouldn't post it outside of this thread because I appreciate it's offensive to fans. But it is how I feel about this and I'm interested in discussing it with OTHER PEOPLE WHO FEEL THE SAME WAY. Not out to offend anyone. There is no way Lynch would make this and not be conscious about how much it would piss people off. I don't think he would be at all surprised by this thread. Maybe he would be surprised by the threads calling this the greatest work ever produced and I can only imagine it would increase his epic cynicism even further.
That would have to feel like being in some sort of a personal hell, Audrey Horne style. If S4 were ever to come back, maybe it'd be even nastier.
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boske
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by boske »

David Locke wrote:
boske wrote:
David Locke wrote:The amount of Gordon Cole in The Return does strike me as pretty excessive and self-indulgent on Lynch's part, in retrospect. He's portrayed in such a flattering light, unsurprisingly - look at the beautiful women he beds! Look at how even Tammy makes goo-goo eyes at him! Did anyone notice that, in Part 17? After the cringe-y "You've gone soft in your old age" / "Not where it counts, buddy" exchange, we cut to a reaction shot of Tammy, and she's smiling and looking at Cole as if she wants to fuck him right then and there. Like, it's a ridiculously over-the-top "oooh, sexy" kind of reaction.
Yes, saw that too. Just imagine how that scene was being directed: "Thrysta :-), you now look at the camera and appear subtly agitated, yes, good, good, like that". What a joke.
:lol: At least TR didn't end with Cole/Lynch waking up suddenly in bed after another of his Monica Belluci dreams, the sheets soaking wet :shock:

Remember, it could always be worse...
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by musicaddict »

riesje wrote:
Agent Earle wrote:
Seriously, how clueless can you be???? Ah, well, at least it'll keep me LOL-ing throughout the night, that's fo' sure! :D
thats pretty condescending. I think he asked a valid question about how you would be satisfied, what kind of S3 would you rather have? When I browse through this thread where people just want to strike off character arcs, like that only matters. Lynch isnt intrested in that at all, never was. I think you're looking at a J. Michael Straczynski leading S3, where every character arc is nicely resolved, but thats not why I watched Twin Peaks, and would frankly defeat ANY purpose for this season.
Can I please point out that Twin Peaks was never just Lynch. This just infuriates me that some people keep talking as if this was a solo venture (which the The Return turned out to be). If Lynch wanted to make his own show he should have done that and not used the Twin Peaks name.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by douglasb »

There are lots of good and strong characters in TR - the Las Vegas material, the Buckhorn stuff. I like 'em. They're engaging for the most part. Like I said somewhere up this thread (I think) I was reasonably happy watching them, but the actual story was never that interesting (insurance fraud!) and it proved to be the FBI shenanigans that fell flat once BadCoop escaped from the prison.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by snusmumrik »

musicaddict wrote: Can I please point out that Twin Peaks was never just Lynch. This just infuriates me that some people keep talking as if this was a solo venture (which the The Return turned out to be). If Lynch wanted to make his own show he should have done that and not used the Twin Peaks name.
BTW, about that. You can thank Frost for Freddie's story arc.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by musicaddict »

snusmumrik wrote:
musicaddict wrote: Can I please point out that Twin Peaks was never just Lynch. This just infuriates me that some people keep talking as if this was a solo venture (which the The Return turned out to be). If Lynch wanted to make his own show he should have done that and not used the Twin Peaks name.
BTW, about that. You can thank Frost for Freddie's story arc.
I am not saying Frost in blameless in any of this but it is very clear that this more Lynch than Frost but I am annoyed by posters and fans who keep just calling this Lynch's show - it was never just Lynch's show. It really is a slap in the face to all those who worked on Season 1 and 2 of Twin Peaks who actually contributed and made the show what it was.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by KnewItsPa »

I'm beginning to feel like the Returns biggest betrayal of Twin Peaks comes from the thematic absence of love and intimate human relationships.

The number of romantic connections in TP is huge, from Laura/Bobby/Shelly, Laura/James/Donna, Nadine/Ed/Norma, Coop/Audrey Pete/Catherine/Ben, Andy/Lucy/Dick (etc.) It formed the major weaving of characters and plot. Yet romance was completely and utterly absent in the Return. Instead we have casual, meaningless sexual encounters and endless misanthropy.

It's like going from the viewpoint of a normal thinking feeling person, who finds characters and people interesting, to one of a complete sociopath unable to understand or care about emotions. The one, singular scene of empathy or love, between Norma and Ed focuses almost entirely on Eds loss, the reconciliation almost perfunctory.

The thing is, the absence of love didn't make the Return darker, more gritty, more serious in an adolescent edgelord way, it just led to their being no counterpoint, a flatness and vacantness of tone. Instead of evil, grief and darkness being contrasted and given depth by the love, warmth and light. Instead of an ear in the grass behind a white picket fence, we get endless gangster-ridden back rooms peeked through slatted blinds.

It's all to easy to justify this by putting intentionality in the way, that the Return was deliberately designed to sabotage the text of Twin Peaks, to recreate a symphony as a dirge. We all know Lynch didn't like much of the original Twin Peaks material that was not his own handywork, so was never going to show those elements the respect they deserve. But what I didn't exepct from the director of the Elephant Man and the Straight Story, was the absense of love or empathy. But why ascribe to malice where there is stupidity?

It's clear that throughout the Return, Lynch didn't once step out of his comfort zone, to go beyond any of the baseline tropes or themes that have established his ouvre. This was movie-making on easy mode, an onanastic exercise in self referentialism. Rather than some genuinely creative avant-garde drone noise, with subtle cadences and rhythm texture and complexity we got a pedantic 3-chords strummed over and over again on top of a preset drum machine with the reverb set up to 11, not as an intentional statement, because they really do not know how to do anything else, unless someone else pushes them to.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by powerleftist »

Yrev very well said.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by snusmumrik »

musicaddict wrote: I am not saying Frost in blameless in any of this but it is very clear that this more Lynch than Frost but I am annoyed by posters and fans who keep just calling this Lynch's show - it was never just Lynch's show.
No-no, I agree with you on the part it's not just Lynch's show - Freddie, the numerology etc. are obviously from Frost. Just pointed it out.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Poiuyt »

Is there any way to salvage the original show after this? I don't want to think about Diane being raped or having awkward sex with Coop every time he brings out his tape recorder. I don't want to remember that all of seasons one and two get erased from existence because Coop inexplicably goes back in time and "saves" Laura (except he doesn't really because "Laura" no longer exists). I fear that the only closure I might get is to just disconnect from this show and expunge it from my life.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by musicaddict »

snusmumrik wrote:
musicaddict wrote: I am not saying Frost in blameless in any of this but it is very clear that this more Lynch than Frost but I am annoyed by posters and fans who keep just calling this Lynch's show - it was never just Lynch's show.
No-no, I agree with you on the part it's not just Lynch's show - Freddie, the numerology etc. are obviously from Frost. Just pointed it out.
Sorry I wasn't attacking you :D , just feeling so much frustration and disappointment right now about The Return :(
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by AnotherBlueRoseCase »

David Locke wrote:
boske wrote:
David Locke wrote:The amount of Gordon Cole in The Return does strike me as pretty excessive and self-indulgent on Lynch's part, in retrospect. He's portrayed in such a flattering light, unsurprisingly - look at the beautiful women he beds! Look at how even Tammy makes goo-goo eyes at him! Did anyone notice that, in Part 17? After the cringe-y "You've gone soft in your old age" / "Not where it counts, buddy" exchange, we cut to a reaction shot of Tammy, and she's smiling and looking at Cole as if she wants to fuck him right then and there. Like, it's a ridiculously over-the-top "oooh, sexy" kind of reaction.
Yes, saw that too. Just imagine how that scene was being directed: "Thrysta :-), you now look at the camera and appear subtly agitated, yes, good, good, like that". What a joke.
:lol: At least TR didn't end with Cole/Lynch waking up suddenly in bed after another of his Monica Belluci dreams, the sheets soaking wet :shock:

Remember, it could always be worse...
I'm not sure it could have been worse, David. I'd have taken a Lynch wet dream over Green Glove SMASHES BOB TO SMITHEREENS!!! and a retcon of Laura's murder. Such a wet dream would just put the cap on an appallingly poor series. It wouldn't badly tarnish my favourite film.

Cheers for your posts in this thread BTW. Outstanding work.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by snusmumrik »

musicaddict wrote: Sorry I wasn't attacking you :D , just feeling so much frustration and disappointment right now about The Return :(
No worries :)
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by David Locke »

AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:
David Locke wrote:
boske wrote: Yes, saw that too. Just imagine how that scene was being directed: "Thrysta :-), you now look at the camera and appear subtly agitated, yes, good, good, like that". What a joke.
:lol: At least TR didn't end with Cole/Lynch waking up suddenly in bed after another of his Monica Belluci dreams, the sheets soaking wet :shock:

Remember, it could always be worse...
I'm not sure it could have been worse, David. I'd have taken a Lynch wet dream over Green Glove SMASHES BOB TO SMITHEREENS!!! and a retcon of Laura's murder. Such a wet dream would just put the cap on an appallingly poor series. It wouldn't badly tarnish my favourite film.

Cheers for your posts in this thread BTW. Outstanding work.
Thanks ABR. I've always enjoyed your posts as well, you're a very good writer even when I don't agree completely. And I definitely have a more positive opinion of TR than you do (I generally think I like it, even though it's absolutely a very flawed mess... and I'm not sure if my goodwill towards it will last). But uh, yeah, BOB-Ball '17, as I think one poster calls it, was easily, hands down the single worst sequence in all of Peaks. Yes, including the Little Nicky thought-bubble; yes, including Nadine going back to high school and throwing some kid 1,000 feet in the air; yes, including everything Evelyn Marsh; yes, including Ben Horne's Civil War phase, or the pine weasel, or Lana's witchy woman enchantin' the whole sheriff's station with her sexy wummen powers... no, as lame as those things were, at least they were not meant to be an extremely serious scene, a scene which shows the defeat of THE villain of Twin Peaks, at least the original run. (Some of them were also fairly brief, compared to the extended BOB-Ball scene which makes us watch in its entirety with no respite).

Many have said the scene's intentionally absurd, so as to highlight the dramatic mind-fuck of what follows, as if saying "Ha, there's your tidy comic-book ending - now let's really get down to business..." And I get this, and it's probably true, but it still doesn't make the scene any better. It doesn't make the CGI any less laughably bad (previously I was mainly only finding Duncan Todd's headshot especially amateurish-looking, but this?!?) It doesn't make the whole fucking premise - the Green-Gloved young man with the stereotypical Cockney accent, has been Chosen by the Fireman to defeat BOB - any less stupid, any less of an easy way out, any less antithetical to what TP is about, or should be anyway.

The comparisons people have made have been spot on - like a final boss in some lame 90s video game, like, well, a superhero movie - the culmination of GreenGloveman's intricately laid-out origin story. And just, God... the fucking use of "I'll catch you with my death bag!" right before BOB-Ball attacks Freddy again, like a stock villain spouting a catchphrase before moving Bond, tied to the conveyor belt, a little closer to the flames/knives/whatever. Most of all, the LOOK of it, of the BOB-Ball, like a giant meatball or a bouncing ball, a beach ball... but mostly like a fucking meatball. What the hell were they thinking? It's not like this level of winking "ain't-this-dumb-but-cool-'cause-we-know-it's-dumb?" idiocy was present in the rest of TR, which was pretty devoid of anything this playful, over-the-top, comic-book-flick conventional.

Ugh, I just get frustrated the more I think about it... Cooper's involvement is somehow even worse. "Freddie, kill him!" The fuck?

Oddly, I actually love Part 18. I think along with Part 8 it's the only time we've gotten something really exceptional, original and well-executed in most every way - to me, probably Lynch's best work since Mulholland (which isn't saying much, but hey). Is it a coincidence that 8 and 18 are also the two hours of TR that go furthest away from the aesthetic/general M.O. of the other episodes? I can also pick out, say, 3, 7, 9, 11 and 16 as standouts, but I'm hesitant to say that they're anything special. Overall, the structure (or lack of one) really screwed TR. It really does feel like 18 hours of footage dumped on a desk, lazily sorted out but forgetting some pieces here and there and ultimately creating a narrative structure that feels incomplete when it doesn't feel plain pointless. To look for quality in many episodes, you have to go to specific scenes... the cross-cutting and relation between the disparate stories was surprisingly shoddily done.

But, I wouldn't quite agree that Laura's murder was unambiguously retconned - I think it's more precise to say Cooper tried to do this, but failed (it seems so, anyway). But yes, that idea is icky, even if it's Cooper's failed plan more than what the show is trying to literally do. Even just seeing those scenes of the body disappearing and such have a strong affect on anyone who knows and loves the original run. So I can understand how that, among other things, would almost tarnish the show. Which is sad. I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching and loving Seasons 1 and 2 and FWWM. I think I can separate any elements of TR I don't like from them fairly well... I hope.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by powerleftist »

David Locke wrote:like a final boss in some lame 90s video game, like, well, a superhero movie
It's exactly this. Someone is dreaming all of this in the nineties, that's the reason why the dreamer imagines a super-fight taken right out of a nineties arcade game.
Last edited by powerleftist on Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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