Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[Hockey Mask]

I wanted to chime in on this particular aspect to say that I think the best way to think of this is not just as an 18-hour movie where we expect things to move forward as they would in nine 2-hour movies, but rather as an 18-hour movie that is structured like a 2-hour movie. People have often been saying that we're only 1/3 in and we shouldn't judge it yet, and I agree specifically because this 18-hour movie really feels as though it was made as an expanded 2-hour movie; expanded in the sense of upward/outward, layered expansion, like multiple 2 hour movies playing at once. All of these scenes so far feel like scenes we would get in the first 40 minutes of a standard film; introductions, set-ups and intrigue. Because Lynch/Frost have such a large canvas, they can pile-up the plotlines that are happening simultaneously and don't have to streamline the narrative, and can continue to add to it until all there is left to do is strip away the subplots one by one. I think it's part of what makes The Return so unique. Obviously, of any standard length film I can think of, The Return's structure most closely resembles that of Mulholland Drive. Which is to say a series of interconnected tangents that will solidify into a more streamlined narrative over time. There's a ton of stuff happening, but because the plot isn't moving forward in a fast or streamlined manner, it seems like barely anything is happening, but I think this is all going somewhere.

Actually, one thing that makes me worry is that this will be ultimately like "Mulholland" in structure (I consider that his worst film, and no, I don't feel like debating it).

Silencio!

[LateReg]

I wanted to chime in on this particular aspect to say that I think the best way to think of this is not just as an 18-hour movie where we expect things to move forward as they would in nine 2-hour movies, but rather as an 18-hour movie that is structured like a 2-hour movie. People have often been saying that we're only 1/3 in and we shouldn't judge it yet, and I agree specifically because this 18-hour movie really feels as though it was made as an expanded 2-hour movie; expanded in the sense of upward/outward, layered expansion, like multiple 2 hour movies playing at once. All of these scenes so far feel like scenes we would get in the first 40 minutes of a standard film; introductions, set-ups and intrigue. Because Lynch/Frost have such a large canvas, they can pile-up the plotlines that are happening simultaneously and don't have to streamline the narrative, and can continue to add to it until all there is left to do is strip away the subplots one by one. I think it's part of what makes The Return so unique. Obviously, of any standard length film I can think of, The Return's structure most closely resembles that of Mulholland Drive. Which is to say a series of interconnected tangents that will solidify into a more streamlined narrative over time. There's a ton of stuff happening, but because the plot isn't moving forward in a fast or streamlined manner, it seems like barely anything is happening, but I think this is all going somewhere.

Actually, one thing that makes me worry is that this will be ultimately like "Mulholland" in structure (I consider that his worst film, and no, I don't feel like debating it). Remember that "MD" was just a pilot episode with a lazy "Wizard of Oz" coda shoved onto it, and its plotlines that go nowhere aren't a result of deliberate structuring but the fact that the series wasn't picked up, and Lynch left them in with no resolution. "Return", however, was a whole work from the start. Why leave important plots like Hastings dangling? I'm sure things are leading somewhere, and a convergence will happen, but the question is whether it will matter. Will it be "Oh, this is the person from two months ago, I think," or "Oh, Richard and Linda . . . 430," or whatever, or will it have actual emotional and thematic resonance (not much in the show so far has had any emotional resonance)? I'm less interested in a puzzle being put together just for its own sake, and more in the emotion involved, and can't believe Lynch wouldn't be as well.

The 18-hour structure is unprecedented, and is making us adjust our expectations for what to expect each week, but that doesn't mean things don't have to get moving at some point. It has to hit another gear, hit its chorus, stop introducing these new minor characters and allow things to gel, relatively soon. Even as I say that, I do hope we haven't been exposed to the absolute MAIN plot that will be resolved in the final hours (if we have, it would be the two Coopers against each other). It would be nice if that would happen earlier, and something else of greater importance be the overarching plot.

Exactly, plotlines were left dangling in Mulholland and were tied together via a subconscious burst of creativity and everything resolved itself perfectly imo (I consider the final 45 minutes of Mulholland Drive one of the most brilliant sequences ever filmed), but as you say, this isn't that. This, as you said, is a whole work from the start, and so I have every reason to believe that Lynch/Frost took that Mulholland structure and made it complete. I think we're going back to Hastings, or at least that murder; it only appears that it's left dangling because we haven't heard about it in weeks (as for Hastings himself, I'd be fine if he were there in the opening parts just to signal that a lodge spirit may have been inhabiting his body, cluing the viewer in to the fact that it is indeed happening again). But the other thing The Return is doing is experimenting with time, making the viewer process time differently, starting with the 25-year gap between the old series and the new one, and more so with the pacing as well as the layered 18-hour movie structure that stacks plot upon plot, stacking time itself and taking its time getting to the next logical plot development that would usually be found in the very next episode of most TV shows (this series isn't episodic at all). It's important to remember that within The Return's timeframe it's technically only been a couple days since the headless body's fingerprints were identified, so while it seems like it's taking weeks to get back to that storyline, it's really taking the correct amount of time within the story being told. It can be frustrating, but it's built to be paid attention to as if it were viewed in a single sitting, in which case it wouldn't feel like anything is left dangling right now, but rather like we just haven't gone back to certain strands yet. I'm sure plenty of people will be trying to remember who's who and what's what when certain revelations arise, but this is challenging storytelling that I feel is built for close attention and repeat viewings. I'm okay with it taking a couple of views for me to fully grasp its direction and the plot's connections. And I'd hope that Lynch's filmmaking will provide us with some purely emotional moments down the stretch that the plot itself can't provide.

As for the emotional content, I've been moved a few times already. Dougie-Coop was making me tear up from the end of part 5 and directly at the start of part 6. I know it's not working for everyone, but I've slowly come to understand the purpose of his storyline and feel I'm falling deeper and deeper into an emotional connection with it. I was also moved by the Bobby scene as well as the hit and run, though once again I understand plenty weren't. Ultimately I do agree with you, though, that I hope the storylines converge soon enough, which I think they will, and result in something momentous and emotional, melting the ice and making sense of the more distant early scenes in The Return.

[Henrys Hair]

I wanted to chime in on this particular aspect to say that I think the best way to think of this is not just as an 18-hour movie where we expect things to move forward as they would in nine 2-hour movies, but rather as an 18-hour movie that is structured like a 2-hour movie. People have often been saying that we're only 1/3 in and we shouldn't judge it yet, and I agree specifically because this 18-hour movie really feels as though it was made as an expanded 2-hour movie; expanded in the sense of upward/outward, layered expansion, like multiple 2 hour movies playing at once. All of these scenes so far feel like scenes we would get in the first 40 minutes of a standard film; introductions, set-ups and intrigue. Because Lynch/Frost have such a large canvas, they can pile-up the plotlines that are happening simultaneously and don't have to streamline the narrative, and can continue to add to it until all there is left to do is strip away the subplots one by one. I think it's part of what makes The Return so unique. Obviously, of any standard length film I can think of, The Return's structure most closely resembles that of Mulholland Drive. Which is to say a series of interconnected tangents that will solidify into a more streamlined narrative over time. There's a ton of stuff happening, but because the plot isn't moving forward in a fast or streamlined manner, it seems like barely anything is happening, but I think this is all going somewhere.

Actually, one thing that makes me worry is that this will be ultimately like "Mulholland" in structure (I consider that his worst film, and no, I don't feel like debating it). Remember that "MD" was just a pilot episode with a lazy "Wizard of Oz" coda shoved onto it, and its plotlines that go nowhere aren't a result of deliberate structuring but the fact that the series wasn't picked up, and Lynch left them in with no resolution. "Return", however, was a whole work from the start. Why leave important plots like Hastings dangling? I'm sure things are leading somewhere, and a convergence will happen, but the question is whether it will matter. Will it be "Oh, this is the person from two months ago, I think," or "Oh, Richard and Linda . . . 430," or whatever, or will it have actual emotional and thematic resonance (not much in the show so far has had any emotional resonance)? I'm less interested in a puzzle being put together just for its own sake, and more in the emotion involved, and can't believe Lynch wouldn't be as well.

The 18-hour structure is unprecedented, and is making us adjust our expectations for what to expect each week, but that doesn't mean things don't have to get moving at some point. It has to hit another gear, hit its chorus, stop introducing these new minor characters and allow things to gel, relatively soon. Even as I say that, I do hope we haven't been exposed to the absolute MAIN plot that will be resolved in the final hours (if we have, it would be the two Coopers against each other). It would be nice if that would happen earlier, and something else of greater importance be the overarching plot.

My guess would be that the main plot comes to centre on Laura Palmer again - we've seen her (seemingly) sucked out of the red room and Leland asking Cooper to find (or save, can't remember which) Laura again. Her image has also been used prominently in promotion - this might just be down to nostalgia but would be strange if so as nothing else on the show has been particularly nostalgic.

[Rhodes]

Actually, one thing that makes me worry is that this will be ultimately like "Mulholland" in structure (I consider that his worst film, and no, I don't feel like debating it). Remember that "MD" was just a pilot episode with a lazy "Wizard of Oz" coda shoved onto it, and its plotlines that go nowhere aren't a result of deliberate structuring but the fact that the series wasn't picked up, and Lynch left them in with no resolution.

You can't drop a bomb like that and then say "I don't feel like debating it".

So: there are no plotlines that "go nowhere" in MD. Every second of the movie makes sense and is an essential piece of a brilliant unity. I said earlier that the term "brilliant" is used too often and too easily. But this movie qualifies as a brilliant piece of art. I dare say that you did not study this movie as well and as detailed as others have. Otherwise you might acknowledge that this is possibly the greatest movie in the history of cinema.

Now we can stop debating it.

[BOB1]

I had a very good rewatch of Part 6. Finally, today. Last time I posted here and ended up with "let's go and see it again" I fell asleep after 5 minutes Well I know it's silly but the time of watching seems to play an important role in how I feel about the episodes... HBO airs it at 10 p.m. here and I don't think I actually enjoyed any part after having watched at this time. That sucks, doesn't it? I had been profoundly disappointed after the first two hours (well these I didn't get to like later, either). I liked 3 and 4 much better but not as much as after a rewatch as well. Part 5 I watched at 3 in the morning when it premiered here and loved it straight away. And Part 6 I slept over twice when it was at 10 p.m.

But now I had a very good rewatch. It didn't seem to me like "bad tv" anymore. Most importantly - I didn't find it unstructured or messy. OK, maybe the final minutes a bit. But from the beginning it is coherent - Dougie for some time, cut to Diane, then a long sequence centred around the Richard Horne character. This is where I had started to doze off, I remember, and parts of it I didn't, in fact, remember. This time I liked the scene with Red and the amphetamine and the coin, it was tense, not boring, and it showed very well how the frustration grew in young Richard. Then a lot of scenes wander around the ice pick hitman and I gotta say that the tarantino-like murder scene... well, would be bad to say I enjoyed it, right? But it was so ridiculous, so extreme in its ridiculousness, it came so out of nowhere, and this music... - definitely it did have some tarantino-ish quality to it (not to mention obvious Mulholland hitman association) and it was good.

Now Hawk. This was a scene I practically missed 100% at first viewing. Now it did intrigue me though. But not more than: HOW DOES ANYONE KNOW it was pages form Laura's diary that he found? And was I dreaming or did I see somewhere here a picture of it where one could try and guess that there was the name 'Annie' written somewhere?! Cause in what I saw today absolutely nothing could be seen!

Most of all, though, Dougie. This is a plot I'm finding myself in. The world has become a strange place (dark, dark age indeed) and often enough I can hardly find my place in it. So there comes this man, lost for 25 years, thrown into it. What is he supposed to say? What is there to say, anyway? We all want him to speak because we want the old Cooper back but really, what's there to expect? Well OF COURSE I want the key to return to Great Northern and I want Diane to find and identify the real Cooper and I want him to be able to pee on his own. But at the same time I can so well understand the state when there is just NOTHING to say or do or think. Blank. Coffee. Case files. Makes sense. Dougie is my man. No, I mean of course not Dougie - Dougie is out in the Lodge, he was manufactured and by now probably long de-manufactured and we won't see more of him. And the world around him, was it also manufactured, you say? not literally, I guess, but doesn't it feel artificial? When Cooper came to Twin Peaks, he felt real life. Ducks on the lake! Where he is now, that's just a world where you can have breakfast sitting with your tie on your head cause who cares anyway.

OK, so I'm back to getting Profoundly Appointed I hope it works for some more people here, too. Even more, I hope Part 7 works better from the very first time. And, oh yes, I remember someone mocking here that now we might wait until 9 till Hawk remembers to tell anyone that he found something and around Part 12 we will perhaps find out what it might have been. So I certainly do hope it is not going to go this way!

And if Diane doesn't turn up in Part 7, I'm coming back DIS again!

[cowwithfivelegs]

.

[LateReg]

I guess what I don't understand is why part 6 turned so many people off to the point that they called it awful TV. What I mean is that I don't see what was so different about it from the previous parts, and therefore how it was so much worse. I felt like it was just the next step of ebbing and flowing in the series...part 5 felt wild and energetic to me, part 6 felt wild and depressing. Is it because part 6 was the final straw in an increasingly disappointed fan base; because it continued to crawl into unwanted areas rather than progress what most view as the important plotlines? I know some people didn't like Ike, and others felt that the hit and run was pointless (I thought both were good, and the hit and run specifically functioned as so much more than pointing out that Richard is an asshole), but I'm just curious what was so bad about this part that caused so many here to single it out as the point where they're ready to jump ship. I don't see it as being that much different in either content, execution or quality.

[BOB1]

What I felt (at first sight) was that it completely lost focus. And that it has gone too far. I could put up with narrative experiments on my patience for some time; in a prologue. But it was high time story-telling stopped pretending it was an unnecessary load for High Art. Does that answer your question?

I feel much better now but I'm not saying the above is not valid, at least up to some point.

[Adolphus]

As much as I hate to say this, so far, 6 episodes in as I type this, season 3 has not been anywhere near the brilliance of the original run .

For me, it is exactly the opposite.

What was so billiant about the original run? The pilot was brilliant, so was episode 14 and so was episode 29. The other Lynch-directed episodes were also good.

But overall, was it such a brilliant show? We all know the examples of Evelyn Marsh, Little Nicky, Ben Horne and the civil war, John Justice Wheeler etc. But what about Tamajura? The video-message for Jacoby? Norma's mother? Leo's disability check? Pete's chess match? The beauty contest? Even in season 1 and the first half over season 2, there was a LOT of filler material. Although I feel a strong connection to Twin Peaks, the overall quality of the show was far from brilliant. The quality of writing, acting, dialogue, production was not even close to shows like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

Of course it is subjective how we perceive season 3. But at least, we can say that it is an ambitious project (as opposed to season 1 and 2). There is very complex puzzle, and every second of the new show has been put in place for a reason. At least, season 3 ASPIRES to be a "brilliant" show. Will it succeed in actually achieving that? That is to a large extent subjective. We will have to wait to part 18. Only then we will be able to evaluate how it all fits together. The same was true for Mulholland Drive, which would have been to impossible to evaluate properly after 2/3 of running time (let alone 1/3).

Personally, I have already seen some things that classify as "brilliant" (a word that is too often and too easily used, especially regarding the original run of Twin Peaks. Note that "brilliant" has a different meaning than "good" or "enjoyable"!). I thought for example that the "Mauve Room scene" was truly brilliant. Those 15 (?) minutes are more precious to me already than at least half of the original TP episodes combined.

I was hoping for an entire new approach to the show for season 3. I was also optimistic about it, but I couldn't have dreamed that they would be so courageous and innovative. (Nevertheless, I predict that the dissapointed fans will be less and less disappointed in the next few weeks/months, because the show will be more like the original run. Not too much so, I hope).

Excellent post- nailed it.

[N. Needleman]

This is not the thread to lecture people (or be lectured to). It's one thing to discuss but I don't see how bulldozing people for not liking it as much as you helps, Adolph.

[Adolphus]

This is not the thread to lecture people (or be lectured to). It's one thing to discuss but I don't see how bulldozing people for not liking it as much as you helps, Adolph.

Saying I like a post is bulldozing?

[sylvia_north]

For real, I can't compare the Twin Peaks variety show of season two with the Mulholland Drive show that we are seeing in Return. It's about the same, mixed bag, I did not want to see either but I was hoping for 18 hours of FWWM + TMP.

I do get a kick making fun of things I like! I take offense that anyone is going to try to tell me I'm in my own Black Lodge because I dare to be critical. Half the fun of being on message boards and newsgroups for 25 years was the mockery. And look at all the material we have!

I knew the wait between episodes was going to drive me nuts. It's like coitus interruptus every week with no reacharound. As much as I love Dougie Coop. And the nostalgia and the supernatural elements. I wish I cared about anyone but Cooper and Hawk. (Jade and Wally would even grow on me with more exposure. Tracy was interesting, but now dead.) everyone else is just reading lines, involved in not very engaging scenes. Albert showed some promise...

I know Cole + Shelley has come up a few times ( I had no idea anyone didn't like that mini romance) but does anyone think that Gordon was drinking that fine Bordeaux with Tammy?

[LateReg]

What I felt (at first sight) was that it completely lost focus. And that it has gone too far. I could put up with narrative experiments on my patience for some time; in a prologue. But it was high time story-telling stopped pretending it was an unnecessary load for High Art. Does that answer your question?

I feel much better now but I'm not saying the above is not valid, at least up to some point.

I wish that helped but it doesn't since I don't understand how it seems to have lost focus or went too far. From my perspective, if anything, the part was very focused, giving us the most melancholy, emotional Dougie content, showing us Diane, giving us Shelly RR content for the second straight part, and giving us the scenes with Red and Richard (following up directly from his scene in the previous part) as well as that hit and run which seems to me to really be a kickstarter to a major plot element in the town of Twin Peaks itself, and something that I think most of us would have more easily embraced had it occured in an earlier part, thus spelling itself out as an important catalyst for the main storyline rather than seeming so random. So I still don't get it, but thanks for trying to explain!

[Gabriel]

This is not the thread to lecture people (or be lectured to).

Sadly, there's always some sort of character who will turn up on a thread like this who thinks that the subject shouldn't be debated, different opinions shouldn't be heard, who gets psychologically disturbed that people think differently from the way they do and, more than anything, wants to be the one who ends the debate, who shuts it down once and for all. It's a perverse form of convincing themself that they wield some sort of power and importance – wielding the pen as if it's a sword, so to speak.

The debate is pretty chilled here. Sadly there'll always be someone who breaks wind in the elevator.

[Saturn's child]

Sadly there'll always be someone who breaks wind in the elevator.

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