Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[KnewItsPa]

And unless Mr. C had a bullet-proof vest, the rising from the dead is hugely vexatious and outside the symbolic framework of the original for supernatural agents to intervene in such a dramatically tangible way. Verging on complete bunkum.

Are you suggesting that he would be dead because bullets kill humans? He's a doppleganger (and we really don't know what that means at all). Are doppleganers human or are they spiritual? If the latter, then Ray just shot bullets into a ghost and, guess what, he didn't kill it.

Maybe I'm missing something here.....

Yeah, ghost things get knocked down and bleed when they are shot, all the time. Common folklore fact about ghosts, that.

So either a) the supernatural woodsmen ritual brought Mr.C back or b) Immortal bullet-proof dopplegangers. The point is, it's not the explanation, but the phenomeon that fails to fit well with the cosmology of the original.

Oh I know, Mr C. now has superpowers just like Nadine did after her near death experience, only he got 'bulletproof' and she got 'superstrength'. That works

I much preferred the occult mysteries implied than so overt. The red room/black lodge was always better when it was uncertain wether or not it was a dream

I'm a subscriber to this school of thought, and concur with much of the criticism of episode 8 you've posted. I did think at one point that most of Ep 8 could be Mr. C's dream / near-death experience. Much like Coops after he was shot - also episode 8 of the original series. We could read the whole of the cosmological weirdness and 1950s sci-fi as the workings of Mr Cs subconscious.

[Skip Bittman]

All I'm saying is... Lynch pulled out half way through this production, and was evidently going through some inner turmoil as evidenced by the emotional confusion in the narrative.

Don't be silly. It was a bog-standard LA power play to get what he wanted. It worked, and he got what he wanted.

[mlsstwrt]

I was back on board last episode. But this----
This----episode 8 business.....
Surely this is a fuck you to the audience? I'm still riding this wave to the beach, but should we be calling the authorities about the tsunami?
This series really feels like psychological abuse.

I am not going to talk about the fact that you hate the show as it's not only your right but a legitimate feeling, even if I disagree.

But let me disagree as vehemently as possible with the above statement. Episode 8 was the biggest, greatest love letter to Twin Peaks fans. We invested time and some money in it, and yesterday David Lynch transformed the whole world of Twin Peaks from a mild murder mystery in a god forsaken town in which two forces are fighting to the most important event in human history.
He moved Laura from being an abused druggie to a creation of God that most likely suffered to save our world. It made Twin Peaks the most important place in history due to human's choices (the nuke). He made everything the center of the existence planes, including the lodges. He made Bob the creation of pure evil (or pain and suffering on a nuclear scale), making Cooper's sacrifice even more incredible.

Am I the only one that found the mythologizing of Laura in this sci fi- 1950's nostalgia fest space epic/pseudodrama Lynchian wank fest trite?

Why would I want to see Laura Palmer floating around in a bubble in the giants spaceship and her become the redeemer of humanity?

That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard

Visually yes. This episode was stunning
But it was so boring I went to be at 9pm from being exhausted watching it.
It's really fucking stupid.
Are you telling me that you really buy into a murdered teenage high school girl being the saviour from a demon caused by a nuclear blast?
And they idea doesn't make you cringe?

This is Ed Wood funny but it's not good.

I'm sorry. As I say every week. Im going to keep watching this. Im going to take it as it is.
I'll appreciate individual aspects. Cinematography is great... etc etc

But I'll never love this series as a cohesive whole

It's just dumbfest 2017
I've had enough creamed corn now, and I want my coffee and donuts

You're certainly not the only one. I didn't think I could like this any less but I can honestly say I now truly despise the way this has gone. And that it's pretty much already ruined my memories and love for the original. I'm not trying to debate this with anyone, I'm just saying this is how I feel about it. It's an unmitigated disaster. I loved Laura for what she was, a teenage girl driven to madness, despair and escape through questionable means by forces outside of her control. That was beautiful to me. Now she is some kind of heavenly being and the lodges were brought into existence through the advent of nuclear weapons. Words cannot describe how much I hate this.

[mtwentz]

I am not trying to debate with anyone, but just to remind everyone, our view of Laura changed, quite radically, several times during the original series and Fire Walk With Me:

View 1: Laura was the homecoming queen, a goodie two shoes and a humanitarian

but oops, that led to...

View 2: Laura was a coke addict, call girl, someone who secretly made fun of James behind his back, etc.

and just when you thought she had no good in her

View 3: Laura was Leland's angel, who fought off 'them' and 'wouldn't let them in', sacrificing her own life in the process, later forgiving Leland as she led him into the light.

View 4: Laura is Dale's guide in the Black Lodge, ready to lead him out BUT also she has an evil doppelganger that is quite frightening.

This new view of Laura from the latest episode, IMHO, builds on Views 3 and 4, of Laura as having strong spiritual dimensions. It is entirely consistent, again in my opinion, with the thread of Laura in the second season and FWWM.

But a deeper question is this: are we not all spiritual beings, capable of great good and great bad at the same time? Must we divide humans into those that have great spiritual capability and those that do not? Maybe I have a different philosophy than most, but I don't really see Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed etc. as all that much different than any of the rest of us. They just did a better job of tapping into the same resources we all have access to.

So yes, Laura is still an ordinary girl. And she's someone extraordinary. at the same time.

Edit: I do not believe Episode 8 shows the Black Lodge being created by a nuclear explosion, but a gateway to the Lodge being opened, or something along those lines. I would also note many fans had trouble getting used to the idea of an owl cave ring, which was never in the original series, but they gradually warmed up to it and accepted it as part of Twin Peaks mythology.

[LurkerAtTheThreshold]

I am not going to talk about the fact that you hate the show as it's not only your right but a legitimate feeling, even if I disagree.

But let me disagree as vehemently as possible with the above statement. Episode 8 was the biggest, greatest love letter to Twin Peaks fans. We invested time and some money in it, and yesterday David Lynch transformed the whole world of Twin Peaks from a mild murder mystery in a god forsaken town in which two forces are fighting to the most important event in human history.
He moved Laura from being an abused druggie to a creation of God that most likely suffered to save our world. It made Twin Peaks the most important place in history due to human's choices (the nuke). He made everything the center of the existence planes, including the lodges. He made Bob the creation of pure evil (or pain and suffering on a nuclear scale), making Cooper's sacrifice even more incredible.

Am I the only one that found the mythologizing of Laura in this sci fi- 1950's nostalgia fest space epic/pseudodrama Lynchian wank fest trite?

Why would I want to see Laura Palmer floating around in a bubble in the giants spaceship and her become the redeemer of humanity?

That's the stupidest shit I've ever heard

Visually yes. This episode was stunning
But it was so boring I went to be at 9pm from being exhausted watching it.
It's really fucking stupid.
Are you telling me that you really buy into a murdered teenage high school girl being the saviour from a demon caused by a nuclear blast?
And they idea doesn't make you cringe?

This is Ed Wood funny but it's not good.

I'm sorry. As I say every week. Im going to keep watching this. Im going to take it as it is.
I'll appreciate individual aspects. Cinematography is great... etc etc

But I'll never love this series as a cohesive whole

It's just dumbfest 2017
I've had enough creamed corn now, and I want my coffee and donuts

You're certainly not the only one. I didn't think I could like this any less but I can honestly say I now truly despise the way this has gone. And that it's pretty much already ruined my memories and love for the original. I'm not trying to debate this with anyone, I'm just saying this is how I feel about it. It's an unmitigated disaster. I loved Laura for what she was, a teenage girl driven to madness, despair and escape through questionable means by forces outside of her control. That was beautiful to me. Now she is some kind of heavenly being and the lodges were brought into existence through the advent of nuclear weapons. Words cannot describe how much I hate this.

Yeah it's a shame. I didn't think the new series could alter my feelings about the old series. But it's hard not to re-evaluate everything now that Laura is apparently a floating orb spat out by a space giant.

I dunno.

[BOB1]

I get it and actually if I were you, I'd just refuse to consider it canon - makes things easier, then for you Laura just ISN'T any floating orb... how about that?

But I do have to say that - while myself I loved Fire Walk With Me from the first sight - I certainly remember many, MANY Twin Peaks fans who said NO. That's NOT Twin Peaks that we like and that's shit/bullocks/whatever. And I think most of them didn't mind scenes like Pink Room or Leland burning the engine of his car orthe visualisation of the Jacques' cabin orgy or Questions on a Wolrd of Blue... but they couldn't stand stuff like Philipp Jeffries, above the convenience store, owl cave ring, grandma and grandson taking Laura into the painting etc.
Probably many of those then-disappointed never reconciled with FWWM. Did it spoil the original series for them? I don't know, though I'd find it strange (why not simply ignore it as a failure continuation which should never have happened?). But certainly many of them made a turn and started to like the new mythology, too.

My position now is that while...

I loved Laura for what she was, a teenage girl driven to madness, despair and escape through questionable means by forces outside of her control. That was beautiful to me. Now she is some kind of heavenly being and the lodges were brought into existence through the advent of nuclear weapons. Words cannot describe how much I hate this.

I don't hate it and in fact, I still don't know what to make out of it (definitely want a rewatch this week). But I can't say I was moved by all this new mythology. I liked things visually, especially at the beginning - the blow, the fire - and then cut to this crazy editing around the building of the convenience store. The images charmed me. But then all the stuff with the Giand and the other lady, later Laura in the bubble, BOB in goodness knows what... I don't have strong feelings against it but at least as far as now I didn't care much about it, either, and fact is, I started dozing off again, well...

... I want to see it till the end very much and I suppose that all evaluation may easily get re-valuated depending on how it all develops and concludes.

[Agent Earle]

It's just after last week, with a solid narrative I was really looking g forward to a progressive narrative this week and I'm really getting tired of this alien landscape Dune-esque shit. I really don't think the lizards or the black-faced homeless men did anything to enhance the world building of Twin peaks. The opposite for me.

Maybe after the next episodes if we return to more conventional narrative I will be able to look back on this with more appreciation, like I could somewhat with the eyeless woman/purple world stuff. The less of this shit the better in my opionin. This is James and Evelyn for me but I'm glad others are enjoying it.

I'm curious...what DID you want from season three?

Just some solid world building.
Is that too much to ask?
I want to engage with a piece of fiction that is not so immersed in its own mythology it can't spend time in one location for more than a fragment of an episode. A story that is at least partially rooted in some extant reality.
I want a narrative that is not jarring and constantly elusive for no reason.

At least something that is self aware enough to know what it is. This seems so unsure wether it's a murder mystery, or a satire, or a science fiction space opera, or a time travel alternate dimension story.

I don't intrinsically have anything opposed to these themes. It's just not very engaging. It's goofy. It's muddy. It's cheesy.

Well said, good points all around! I'm within an inch of adopting your attitude towards what's gradually shaping up to be Twin Peaks (Or Is It?): The Mess (2017) ...

[LurkerAtTheThreshold]

I get it and actually if I were you, I'd just refuse to consider it canon - makes things easier, then for you Laura just ISN'T any floating orb... how about that?

But I do have to say that - while myself I loved Fire Walk With Me from the first sight - I certainly remember many, MANY Twin Peaks fans who said NO. That's NOT Twin Peaks that we like and that's shit/bullocks/whatever. And I think most of them didn't mind scenes like Pink Room or Leland burning the engine of his car orthe visualisation of the Jacques' cabin orgy or Questions on a Wolrd of Blue... but they couldn't stand stuff like Philipp Jeffries, above the convenience store, owl cave ring, grandma and grandson taking Laura into the painting etc.
Probably many of those then-disappointed never reconciled with FWWM. Did it spoil the original series for them? I don't know, though I'd find it strange (why not simply ignore it as a failure continuation which should never have happened?). But certainly many of them made a turn and started to like the new mythology, too.

My position now is that while...

I loved Laura for what she was, a teenage girl driven to madness, despair and escape through questionable means by forces outside of her control. That was beautiful to me. Now she is some kind of heavenly being and the lodges were brought into existence through the advent of nuclear weapons. Words cannot describe how much I hate this.

I don't hate it and in fact, I still don't know what to make out of it (definitely want a rewatch this week). But I can't say I was moved by all this new mythology. I liked things visually, especially at the beginning - the blow, the fire - and then cut to this crazy editing around the building of the convenience store. The images charmed me. But then all the stuff with the Giand and the other lady, later Laura in the bubble, BOB in goodness knows what... I don't have strong feelings against it but at least as far as now I didn't care much about it, either, and fact is, I started dozing off again, well...

... I want to see it till the end very much and I suppose that all evaluation may easily get re-valuated depending on how it all develops and concludes.

Actually this pretty much echoes my feelings exactly. We're a lot closer in feelings than I probably make myself appear.

I did like it, and I didn't like it at the same time. If that makes sense.

[LateReg]

I am not trying to debate with anyone, but just to remind everyone, our view of Laura changed, quite radically, several times during the original series and Fire Walk With Me:

View 1: Laura was the homecoming queen, a goodie two shoes and a humanitarian

but oops, that led to...

View 2: Laura was a coke addict, call girl, someone who secretly made fun of James behind his back, etc.

and just when you thought she had no good in her

View 3: Laura was Leland's angel, who fought off 'them' and 'wouldn't let them in', sacrificing her own life in the process, later forgiving Leland as she led him into the light.

View 4: Laura is Dale's guide in the Black Lodge, ready to lead him out BUT also she has an evil doppelganger that is quite frightening.

This new view of Laura from the latest episode, IMHO, builds on Views 3 and 4, of Laura as having strong spiritual dimensions. It is entirely consistent, again in my opinion, with the thread of Laura in the second season and FWWM.

But a deeper question is this: are we not all spiritual beings, capable of great good and great bad at the same time? Must we divide humans into those that have great spiritual capability and those that do not? Maybe I have a different philosophy than most, but I don't really see Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed etc. as all that much different than any of the rest of us. They just did a better job of tapping into the same resources we all have access to.

So yes, Laura is still an ordinary girl. And she's someone extraordinary. at the same time.

Edit: I do not believe Episode 8 shows the Black Lodge being created by a nuclear explosion, but a gateway to the Lodge being opened, or something along those lines. I would also note many fans had trouble getting used to the idea of an owl cave ring, which was never in the original series, but they gradually warmed up to it and accepted it as part of Twin Peaks mythology.

Good stuff. It could also be, for what it's worth, that all of us have a golden ball, but in the case of Laura, they see her in the golden ball at that moment because they are looking for the person who will one day defeat Bob. Not necessarily that she was created to defeat Bob. But that she is the shining light, a future vision, that one day will defeat Bob. We really don't know exactly that particular scene means yet, and it could be interpreted many ways.

[Hockey Mask]

Before the season began...

I hope every fan pauses for a bit to soak in the next couple weeks. Some of us have been huge fans of Twin Peaks for nearly three decades. We have all been perfectly happy for years with the Peaks that we had. All that is about to change. Everything we thought we have always known about Twin Peaks is most likely going to be turned on its head; for better or for worse.

This is not meant as a word of warning, I'm sure Lynch will give us something great, but everything we have loved for the last 25 years will be different.

[Twin Peaks Podcast]

This is literally the only place I feel safe after this last episode. Anywhere else that I try to talk about my feelings on this new season I'm summarily told to GTFO...

Specifically for this episode, if they are trying to explain the origin of BOB with this whole thing, I really don’t like it. It feels like explaining away the magic, sort of like how the Star Wars prequels handled the Force.

I preferred it when BOB and the Lodge entities were just malevolent spirits that had been haunting the woods in and around Twin Peaks for hundreds of years, since Native American times.

As for how I feel overall on the season, this isn't my thought, but rather one I found on another forum that I wholeheartedly agree with. This is basically how I feel too:

Something I think a lot of people aren't getting when they try to rationalize the disappointment of old fans is that Twin Peaks used to be a character-driven show. One of the things that made Twin Peaks so successful and influential was it's extremely strong characterization.

You were following the characters in Twin Peaks. The lore and the mystery were the backdrop that occasionally reached from the background and gave you a good shake. But first and foremost, Twin Peaks was about the dramatic lives and intersections of a whole town's worth of characters.

Even the season two finale, which people say is the show's weirdest, was character driven. Hawk warned Cooper he has to face his shadow self with perfect courage. Cooper goes in alone to save Annie and a vigilant Harry waits outside for hours. Andy, knowing what is going on is over his head, tends to Harry by offering him breakfast rather than ask what's going on. In the meantime, Benjamin Horne is confessing to Donna that he's her biological father. Doc Hayward, in a break from character, reacts violently and throws him into the fireplace while Donna sobs and screams about her paternity. The onus is on Donna's mother for the first time, an inconspicuous character, who suddenly is shaded with a history of betrayal. Audrey Horne chains herself to a bank vault to protest her father's development, Pete and Thomas detonate a bomb, and Leo is trapped beneath a spider cage in Windom Earle's hideout.

The hugest and most palpable difference is that old Twin Peaks focused on people and characters and relationships. It was about what made them hurt and what made them scared and what made them cry. We saw deep into their hearts and souls and cared for them. And when crazy inter-dimensional travel happened, it was still about them. It was still about them and what they wanted and how it was going to affect everyone around them.

New Twin Peaks is not like that at all. We don't get to know any characters. Characters rarely make appearances in consecutive episodes. They don't have deep conversations. Dougie is literally a non-character. That's how polar opposite the show is. The show's protagonist is a vegetable who cannot think, barely feels, and cannot actualize any individual motivation.

The old show had so many funny and charming character moments. It was so quotable. Season 3 has no fish in the percolators.

The reason the new show is leaving me cold and disappointed constantly is because there is no heart to it anymore. It is completely devoid of emotion. There are rare scenes with Albert and Gordon, or Gordon and Denise, but everything else is pure surface-level fuckery based on the lore and no characters.

When every single character you meet is presented as an enigmatic question mark, you can't feel compassion and interest in them. They become set pieces and props for a cosmic mystery. We are regularly meeting people we've never met before and then saying goodbye. Because they don't matter. Only the faceless space demon matters.

I was on board for all manner of twisted ambiguity. I was not on board for an eighteen hour movie with no protagonist.

People laughed, but for me, the best scene of the show is when Bobby sees Laura's picture and cries. Because I know Bobby. I know what he's been through and how Laura affected him. I know why it hurts him and how it takes him back to a person he isn't anymore. We see Bobby grown up, but that scene makes him a teenager again and it's really sad. Laura Palmer casts a long shadow.

Bizarre trips through the atom bomb, scenes totally detached from character and location, do not make me happy the show came back.

I am trying not to jump the gun. There's still a lot of show left. We'll see how it comes together. But right now, I am perpetually disappointed. No more buddy drama. No more silly side antics. No more love stories. No more character study. Just... something else.

[oldforce]

This is literally the only place I feel safe after this last episode. Anywhere else that I try to talk about my feelings on this new season I'm summarily told to GTFO...

Do people on your podcast have a diversity of views?

[Twin Peaks Podcast]

This is literally the only place I feel safe after this last episode. Anywhere else that I try to talk about my feelings on this new season I'm summarily told to GTFO...

Do people on your podcast have a diversity of views?

Well, I suppose I feel safe among my cohosts. You're right. But I was really referring to message boards, fan groups on facebook etc.

On the podcast, most of us range from very disappointed to mildly interested. Out of the hosts, I'd say that I like it the least, then Mel, then Brad and Caitlin is probably the most okay with it.

[oldforce]

Well, I suppose I feel safe among my cohosts. You're right. But I was really referring to message boards, fan groups on facebook etc.

On the podcast, most of us range from very disappointed to mildly interested. Out of the hosts, I'd say that I like it the least, then Mel, then Brad and Caitlin is probably the most okay with it.

That was kind of what I was getting at. We seek out the company of those whose interests and ethics line up with our own. It isn't insensible to think you'd get a harsh reaction sharing an (extremely) minority view, since its clear many love the new season, and often time it feels like those who don't are personally affronted by it, thus starting a spiral of bad will between people.

I also was curious because though I'm really looking for a good podcast that has people actually debating the merits, I do feel I'd need someone who shares my opinion at least mostly that it's masterful and great, because I either get the frustration of not being able to insert myself into the conversation (casts being passive), or unchallenged theorizing and gushing.

[Twin Peaks Podcast]

Well, I suppose I feel safe among my cohosts. You're right. But I was really referring to message boards, fan groups on facebook etc.

On the podcast, most of us range from very disappointed to mildly interested. Out of the hosts, I'd say that I like it the least, then Mel, then Brad and Caitlin is probably the most okay with it.

That was kind of what I was getting at. We seek out the company of those whose interests and ethics line up with our own. It isn't insensible to think you'd get a harsh reaction sharing an (extremely) minority view, since its clear many love the new season, and often time it feels like those who don't are personally affronted by it, thus starting a spiral of bad will between people.

I also was curious because though I'm really looking for a good podcast that has people actually debating the merits, I do feel I'd need someone who shares my opinion at least mostly that it's masterful and great, because I either get the frustration of not being able to insert myself into the conversation (casts being passive), or unchallenged theorizing and gushing.

Yeah. It's really rough out there. I've even seen people out there laughing together, joyful that some old school fans are disappointed at this new season. They are so swept up in Lynch that they are actually getting joy out of other people's sorrow.

And believe me, I legit am feeling sorrow because of this new season... The mystery of the forests of the northwest and the small town homey/quirky characters are what made this my favorite piece of media of all time. To have it come back, but be so unrecognizable fills me with a deep sadness.

I understand you on not being able to listen to over theorizing or gushing. Believe me, we don't really do that. In fact I spent most of this morning checking out the regular rotation of podcasts, trying to find something to relate to. However I ended up deleting most of them like 15 minutes in because it was just gush, gush, gush. Apparently this was the most perfect thing to ever grace a tv screen. I don't get it, but I'm happy for other people.