Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

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

Post by IcedOver »

Snailhead wrote:OK after a few months away from this thing I really like it again... Golly, I've never had such a love/hate relationship with a movie or show before like this! l:
As far as the back and forth between liking and hating it, I also can't come up with anything comparable. I still haven't rewatched the while thing, although I did rewatch most of the parts at least once during the run. Still, though, during the show, and now considering it months removed, my feelings go between thinking it was semi-brilliant and a completely wasted opportunity, in the space of a few seconds. You can say that so much of it is so unique, but then I can't help but recall how plotlines were dropped or were just plain uninteresting, or the flat characters with no introspection.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by NormoftheAndes »

IcedOver wrote:
Snailhead wrote:OK after a few months away from this thing I really like it again... Golly, I've never had such a love/hate relationship with a movie or show before like this! l:
As far as the back and forth between liking and hating it, I also can't come up with anything comparable. I still haven't rewatched the while thing, although I did rewatch most of the parts at least once during the run. Still, though, during the show, and now considering it months removed, my feelings go between thinking it was semi-brilliant and a completely wasted opportunity, in the space of a few seconds. You can say that so much of it is so unique, but then I can't help but recall how plotlines were dropped or were just plain uninteresting, or the flat characters with no introspection.
Season 3 was written like this deliberately, so Lynch and Frost designed it to be this way. You could view it as a missed opportunity in some senses. I mean, if we had 18 episodes of Cooper back in full Special Agent detective mode, it would have been a very different season right? However, I do feel that they wrote this season with an eye on a continuing story. I can only imagine more Twin Peaks would also be quite different to the style or approach of s3.

Some of the characters were barely in it, others I wanted to know a lot more about. Stephen was an ostensibly unlikeable character but I still wanted to see more of him - he just interested me. It helped that Caleb Landry Jones is such a great actor too, even when I couldn't understand what he was saying!
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by IcedOver »

NormoftheAndes wrote:
Season 3 was written like this deliberately, so Lynch and Frost designed it to be this way. You could view it as a missed opportunity in some senses. I mean, if we had 18 episodes of Cooper back in full Special Agent detective mode, it would have been a very different season right? However, I do feel that they wrote this season with an eye on a continuing story. I can only imagine more Twin Peaks would also be quite different to the style or approach of season 3g!
That's all conjecture. We don't know whether the intent was to drop plotlines and have one-dimensional characters or if it was purely bad and lazy storytelling. It just depends on how much you want to believe Lynch can do no wrong and how much you're willing to bend theories to justify it. Personally, I don't just automatically give him a pass. If all the dropped and poorly developed plotlines were intentional, it smacks of him replicating aspects of "MD" (what I consider his worst movie) the same as he paid homage to some of his other work throughout the season. People have bent over backwards for years about how brilliant those fragments are, but they were simply the result of it being a pilot, not a movie. So if he tried to copy that feel, he's doing the same thing in a whole work as was done in a fragmented film.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by laughingpinecone »

IcedOver wrote:
That's all conjecture. We don't know whether the intent was to drop plotlines and have one-dimensional characters or if it was purely bad and lazy storytelling. It just depends on how much you want to believe Lynch can do no wrong and how much you're willing to bend theories to justify it. Personally, I don't just automatically give him a pass. If all the dropped and poorly developed plotlines were intentional, it smacks of him replicating aspects of "MD" (what I consider his worst movie) the same as he paid homage to some of his other work throughout the season. People have bent over backwards for years about how brilliant those fragments are, but they were simply the result of it being a pilot, not a movie. So if he tried to copy that feel, he's doing the same thing in a whole work as was done in a fragmented film.
But lots of people appreciate that aspect of MD before knowing, or without ever knowing, that it started out as a pilot... It didn't work for you, so it obviously doesn't work for you now, but it works for many, many viewers. What's wrong about seeing that a lucky accident worked and intentionally trying to expand a strange format?
And while some plotlines are very much up for debate and their ending could be just lazy narrative inertia with no intent behind it (eg does Albert have an arc? What's its conclusion? I think he does but I sure wouldn't swear by it. Does Janey-E?), it's humanly impossible to drop and forget about half the cast? If it were just (eg) Red, maybe? But these interrupted narratives are everywhere, starting from up top with Cooper, Laura and Diane and all the way down to the likes of 119 girl and Deputy Holcomb. Laziness/carelessness isn't so consistent... Of course it doesn't mean the intention was implemented well (although I think it was), nor that it should be to everyone's taste.
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NormoftheAndes
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by NormoftheAndes »

IcedOver wrote:
NormoftheAndes wrote:
Season 3 was written like this deliberately, so Lynch and Frost designed it to be this way. You could view it as a missed opportunity in some senses. I mean, if we had 18 episodes of Cooper back in full Special Agent detective mode, it would have been a very different season right? However, I do feel that they wrote this season with an eye on a continuing story. I can only imagine more Twin Peaks would also be quite different to the style or approach of season 3g!
That's all conjecture. We don't know whether the intent was to drop plotlines and have one-dimensional characters or if it was purely bad and lazy storytelling. It just depends on how much you want to believe Lynch can do no wrong and how much you're willing to bend theories to justify it. Personally, I don't just automatically give him a pass. If all the dropped and poorly developed plotlines were intentional, it smacks of him replicating aspects of "MD" (what I consider his worst movie) the same as he paid homage to some of his other work throughout the season. People have bent over backwards for years about how brilliant those fragments are, but they were simply the result of it being a pilot, not a movie. So if he tried to copy that feel, he's doing the same thing in a whole work as was done in a fragmented film.
You make some good points. I was never a huge fan of Mulholland Dr. either. It feels like a salvaged tv movie.

By its very design, how could season 3 not have a lot of loose ends though? The huge cast and big variety of locations prevents any simple closure of storylines and so on.

However, it was clearly very deliberate. This is not just Lynch but Mark Frost writing this out. Just look at the last two episodes - the whole season is designed very specifically to prevent any simple sense of closure for pretty much ANY storylines! Which is kind of insane, I've still not quite digested it now.

To say that Jerry Horne gets the most clear and simple storyline says it all for me!
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Strawberry »

It's not fair to dismiss criticism. Everyone is right when it comes to art. If someone tells you why they like or dislike something, that's all there is to it. How something was designed, or why it was fashioned a particular way, has no bearing on the subjective reception of the completed work.

If I drew someone's portrait using a dirty towel and motor oil, and the result was a smeary and unrecognizable mess that did not interest or delight the viewer, could I then fall back on how it was created in order to argue its merits? What about if I wore a blindfold and played random piano keys using a wooden stick held between my teeth? If the result was uninteresting to the listener, then could a case be made to defend "how" or "why" it is what it is? Of course not. And on the flip side of that, if someone enjoyed hearing those random plinks more than Chopin's or Beethoven's piano compositions, for example, they would be completely entitled to that opinion as well.

What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter how Season 3 was designed or what the motives behind each scene were. It doesn't matter if dropped plot lines and extremely brief appearances by beloved characters was intended or not. It doesn't matter if the writers wanted to illustrate that one can never go home, or if subverting expectations was a major goal. In the end it either works for you or it doesn't. Everyone is entitled to love this work, or to hate it. Attempting to explain away the fact that someone did not like the new season by stating that it was designed a certain way can be seen as an effort to excuse any criticism that is leveled against it.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by LateReg »

laughingpinecone wrote:
IcedOver wrote:
That's all conjecture. We don't know whether the intent was to drop plotlines and have one-dimensional characters or if it was purely bad and lazy storytelling. It just depends on how much you want to believe Lynch can do no wrong and how much you're willing to bend theories to justify it. Personally, I don't just automatically give him a pass. If all the dropped and poorly developed plotlines were intentional, it smacks of him replicating aspects of "MD" (what I consider his worst movie) the same as he paid homage to some of his other work throughout the season. People have bent over backwards for years about how brilliant those fragments are, but they were simply the result of it being a pilot, not a movie. So if he tried to copy that feel, he's doing the same thing in a whole work as was done in a fragmented film.
But lots of people appreciate that aspect of MD before knowing, or without ever knowing, that it started out as a pilot... It didn't work for you, so it obviously doesn't work for you now, but it works for many, many viewers. What's wrong about seeing that a lucky accident worked and intentionally trying to expand a strange format?
And while some plotlines are very much up for debate and their ending could be just lazy narrative inertia with no intent behind it (eg does Albert have an arc? What's its conclusion? I think he does but I sure wouldn't swear by it. Does Janey-E?), it's humanly impossible to drop and forget about half the cast? If it were just (eg) Red, maybe? But these interrupted narratives are everywhere, starting from up top with Cooper, Laura and Diane and all the way down to the likes of 119 girl and Deputy Holcomb. Laziness/carelessness isn't so consistent... Of course it doesn't mean the intention was implemented well (although I think it was), nor that it should be to everyone's taste.
Exactly. You can argue whether or not it worked, or whether or not leaving dangling threads is fundamentally lazy, but to say that we don't know whether the intention was to drop plot-lines strikes me as false. This was a closed-off sequel made the way Lynch/Frost devised. Their methods aren't infallible or immune to debate, but they dropped the plotlines on purpose, and it makes sense to me and I love it. This is psychological, intuitive storytelling, where the mood of each scene is the story and the conversations had in each scene and character arcs don't need to reach their logical conclusion because it's all working toward forming a picture, a feeling, a state of mind, a set of ideas, all of which could be argued to tie in to the structure (dropped plotlines) of the piece. I also don't think the characters are one dimensional; I think that we're only seeing them briefly, and we're accessing moments of their lives, and therefore don't see the developments we're used to seeing. And I love that, too.

Many times in this thread and others we've tried to make blanket statements to suss out certain viewers, such as "how many people who love The Return watched the original when it aired." One thing I've noticed is that there are very few who seem to like Lynch's later works (Mulholland Drive/INLAND EMPIRE) who also liked The Return. I'd be interested in hearing from those who love Mulholland Drive or Inland Empire but dislike The Return, or like The Return but dislike both of those films. I know that there's a few of you on this board.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

Mr. Strawberry wrote:It's not fair to dismiss criticism. Everyone is right when it comes to art. If someone tells you why they like or dislike something, that's all there is to it.
Everyone has the right to express their informed opinion. If f.ex. you are an experienced reviewer, film scholar, director, screenwriter etc. it gives your opinion a heck of a lot more weight than those just expressing their gut feeling. Everyone is not as "right" as others when it comes to art. Some people don't see the forest for the trees, because they are not trained to do so.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Kilmoore »

eyeboogers wrote:Everyone has the right to express their informed opinion.
So, what are your credentials? Which university has given you the vast education needed to state an opinion on a TV-show?
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

Kilmoore wrote:
eyeboogers wrote:Everyone has the right to express their informed opinion.
So, what are your credentials? Which university has given you the vast education needed to state an opinion on a TV-show?
Doesn't matter, my point is that I find the argument that everyone is as qualified to evaluate the merits of an artwork to be not thought through. If you're ill, then there's a reason you see a doctor and not a plumber.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

Given TPTR is the epitome of postmodernism, anyone with any genuine intellect should dismiss it for the cultural irrelevance it is. It’s not art. It’s also possible to be objective about art (unless you’re a postmodernist, in which case any old crap can be called ‘art.’)

My values come from the Enlightenment. A is A. The world exists. Therefore TPTR is is nothing more than counter-Enlightenment, anti-Renaissance garbage. It’s the televisual equivalent of mediaeval imagery, designed to provoke fear and despair. It snuffs out the candle that lifts the darkness.

Bury it and salt the earth that covers it.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by The Gazebo »

This thread still up and running? :)

I haven't mustered the will to do a rewatch yet (apart from the opening 4-5 episodes in the first month or so). I still expect the good bits to be really good, and the sh*t bits to remain utter sh*t. I'd love to watch the scene at Otis' place, the glass box, the Mauve Room, "Gotta light?", any nighttime scene and many more, but I just can't stomach the inevitable "Heeeeeeere's Dougie!"-moments.

I gratefully appreciate the effort the sensible fans (Mr. Reindeer, mtwents, yaxomoxay, et.al.) have made in explaining what I should "look for" in the show. I just can't relate to most of it. You can't go back or Do we really live inside a dream? might be spot-on explanations of what Lynch/Frost had in mind, but I really don't find it enough of a justification for the fragmented mess we were given. It has no real-world value to me. It's not compelling in any way. The (possible) subject matter, along with the supernatural excesses left me with an experience that all in all was deeply unsatisfying. It should have been a show I'd be raving about, annoying all my friends and acquaintances in the process. There are a number of scenes I would show to anyone with an interest in cinema, but I'm unable to justify anything that follows those great scenes.

I've said it before, but I can't shake the feeling that this was just an opportunity for Lynch to visualize any old idea he'd been harbouring for a long time, and Twin Peaks was the convenient vehicle, no matter how unrelated these ideas were to the original universe he created. My only hope now is that a few young and aspiring writers/directors take some kind of inspiration from the good bits, eliminate the sh*t bits, add a bit of compelling storytelling, and create a universe that captures my imagination. TPTR will probably be bettered in the next decade or so, and if that's the case, I might look upon this debacle with a bit more enthusiasm and respect.

Anyways, all the best to friends and foes alike :D
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

LateReg wrote:One thing I've noticed is that there are very few who seem to like Lynch's later works (Mulholland Drive/INLAND EMPIRE) who also liked The Return. I'd be interested in hearing from those who love Mulholland Drive or Inland Empire but dislike The Return, or like The Return but dislike both of those films. I know that there's a few of you on this board.
Are you saying that most people who like TP:TR tend to dislike MD and IE, and vice versa? Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that.

I will say that when I first saw IE, I thought it was massively different from MD — dour and impenetrable, much more convoluted than MD (which more or less clicks into place at the end and makes you want to rewatch as soon as it ends with the new knowledge you’ve gained). It was only after multiple viewings of IE that I came to enjoy it as its own brilliant beast, and I still think many who love MD find IE self-indulgent, overlong and convoluted (I don’t agree, but I think it’s a common sentiment). I still haven’t arrived at a place where I think TP:TR is a masterpiece, as I believe MD and IE are in their own ways. I love TP:TR, but I’ve been vocal about the aspects that don’t work for me (too mythology-driven); it does grow more on me with each rewatch (as IE and Eraserhead did and, indeed, still do) — so that bodes very well. But realistically, this is such a long work and such a time commitment, I may not rewatch it as often as those films.

I think TP:TR incorporates stylistic elements from MD and IE, but it feels very much like its own thing — far more linear than either film for most of its run, with the game-changing final hour only making up 1/18 of the work; brilliantly frustrating in its refusal to lend resolution, even in the oblique-but-intuitively/emotionally-cathartic way that most DKL works end; and utterly unique in DKL’s canon in the way it commits across the board to the maddeningly drawn-out pacing DKL had previously deployed more sparingly in certain scenes. The Dougie stuff, which occupies a lot of real estate, is also a tone very unique among DKL’s works, even if it echoes some aspects of prior L/F endeavors in certain ways. And the show’s Frostian globetrotting nature is a shock, coming from a director who has always prided himself on telling “neighborhood stories” that tend to be told from one character’s very subjective POV. So I guess I can certainly see why someone would like one or both of those earlier works and dislike TP:TR.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by LateReg »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
LateReg wrote:One thing I've noticed is that there are very few who seem to like Lynch's later works (Mulholland Drive/INLAND EMPIRE) who also liked The Return. I'd be interested in hearing from those who love Mulholland Drive or Inland Empire but dislike The Return, or like The Return but dislike both of those films. I know that there's a few of you on this board.
Are you saying that most people who like TP:TR tend to dislike MD and IE, and vice versa? Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that.

I will say that when I first saw IE, I thought it was massively different from MD — dour and impenetrable, much more convoluted than MD (which more or less clicks into place at the end and makes you want to rewatch as soon as it ends with the new knowledge you’ve gained). It was only after multiple viewings of IE that I came to enjoy it as its own brilliant beast, and I still think many who love MD find IE self-indulgent, overlong and convoluted (I don’t agree, but I think it’s a common sentiment). I still haven’t arrived at a place where I think TP:TR is a masterpiece, as I believe MD and IE are in their own ways. I love TP:TR, but I’ve been vocal about the aspects that don’t work for me (too mythology-driven); it does grow more on me with each rewatch (as IE and Eraserhead did and, indeed, still do) — so that bodes very well. But realistically, this is such a long work and such a time commitment, I may not rewatch it as often as those films.

I think TP:TR incorporates stylistic elements from MD and IE, but it feels very much like its own thing — far more linear than either film for most of its run, with the game-changing final hour only making up 1/18 of the work; brilliantly frustrating in its refusal to lend resolution, even in the oblique-but-intuitively/emotionally-cathartic way that most DKL works end; and utterly unique in DKL’s canon in the way it commits across the board to the maddeningly drawn-out pacing DKL had previously deployed more sparingly in certain scenes. The Dougie stuff, which occupies a lot of real estate, is also a tone very unique among DKL’s works, even if it echoes some aspects of prior L/F endeavors in certain ways. And the show’s Frostian globetrotting nature is a shock, coming from a director who has always prided himself on telling “neighborhood stories” that tend to be told from one character’s very subjective POV. So I guess I can certainly see why someone would like one or both of those earlier works and dislike TP:TR.
No, sorry if I was confusing. I'm saying people who like MD and IE seem to like The Return, whereas people who don't like those (Gabriel, Agent Earle, for example) usually seem to dislike The Return. I'm curious if anybody loves the later works but dislikes The Return, and why.

For my part, I love MD and IE and think every Lynch film improves with age and multiple rewatches. It's hard to compare an 18 hour behemoth with even a 3 hour film, but I do think The Return is almost certainly greater than IE...and I say that as someone who has seen IE 19 times...and The Return six times. I do see the argument that the uncompromising aesthetic of IE provides a concentrated blast that The Return does not, but I think The Return has at least 9 hours that are as strong as IE's 3, and consistently breaks ground and contains so many ideas piled atop one another that work simultaneously that it could one day be considered Lynch's peak. I think it is his headiest, most intellectually idea driven work, perhaps thanks to Frost. I do love your description of it in your response to me above, though.

But back to the point: I love Lynch's later work, and I love The Return. Many, including Iced Over up above, dislike Mulholland Drive and also have similar problems with The Return.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by IcedOver »

The Gazebo wrote:
I've said it before, but I can't shake the feeling that this was just an opportunity for Lynch to visualize any old idea he'd been harbouring for a long time, and Twin Peaks was the convenient vehicle, no matter how unrelated these ideas were to the original universe he created.
I doubt that anybody would debate that. I actually don't have a problem with that. It's just him playing around in a very casual way.

As far as the whole dropped plotlines thing, it's really only when you get to the consequential plotlines and characters that I feel Lynch dropped the ball, and not intentionally. I highly doubt they planned to have Mr. C be such a flat character who barely goes anywhere, or to make the Woodsmen (especially Mr. Gotta Light) so totally memorable and promising only to leave them dangling and barely shown again in any important way. That episode pointed to such amazing things coming up, and I waited and waited, and it never came. Someone will probably say that was the intent, and maybe it was (the unlit cigarette, perpetual lack of fulfillment), but at the moment it just feels like not enough attention was paid to it, to Mr. C, to Sarah, and others.

Having said this, I still would take the total playfulness and casualness and idiosyncrasy of this show, flaws and all, over some of the new films I've been to lately. Man, such standard stuff, and these are films getting praise and awards. The last film I considered more than ten minutes after leaving the theater was "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" which I would recommend to you all; it was my favorite of last year -- dark and bizarre.

As for the idea mentioned of people liking his later works and not this, and vice versa, I think those films and this come from a similar place, so I don't know why fans would necessarily reject one and not the other. It's just a question of which one(s) do some similar ideas better. This show is better than "MD" (which, though I consider it his worst, his least sincere and most lazy film, I wouldn't say I "dislike"). However, I really hate the fact that some unwelcome identity shifting stuff from that film appears to have found its way to this show. I liked "IE" on first viewing, and my feelings for it have remained strong since. I both like and dislike "Return".
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