Suggestions for episode 17 - 28 recap

[enumbs]

Hi everyone, long-time lurker, first-time poster. Now, I know that things are going pretty crazy with regards to the Showtime rumor mill, but I'd be really grateful if anyone could give me some advice about re-watching the show with a friend. Basically, I'm introducing Twin Peaks to them for the first time, and last night we finished episode 16 (and with it the Laura plotline). Now I'd given my friend heavy warning with regards to the way the show goes off the rails, but halfway through episode 17 he paused it and said that he got the idea, and would frankly rather skip to the good stuff. While I would normally recommend trudging through the second season in order to fully appreciate what Lynch accomplishes in episode 29 and Fire Walk With Me, I can appreciate the desire to simply jump straight to Lynch's work. Like my friend, I come to the show primarily as a fan of the director, and really only appreciate the majority of season 2B for it's comparative value when placed against Lynch's approach to the material.

Anyway, considering that we have decided to go ahead and watch the finale straight away, I figured I would provide a recap of the episodes he missed. To be honest, I was surprised by just how little there was of narrative importance; how much of the show was taken up by the likes of Little Nicky and Billy Zane. If you guys could have a look at my summary and tell me if you think I've left out anything of contextual importance, then I'd be really grateful. Any opinions on how you regard this approach to watching the series would also be interesting to hear!



• The mill plot continues in a convoluted fashion, and it is eventually revealed that Josie’s husband is still alive. Suffice to say it all becomes too much for Josie, whom it transpires shot Cooper in the belief that he might uncover her criminal activities. She commits suicide, and her spirit is seemingly absorbed into the wood of the Great Northern Hotel.

Leading into the final episode, Pete and Josie’s husband discover the key to a security vault belonging to a dead former rival.

• Donna discovers that Ben Horne is likely to be her real father.

• Nadine, still afflicted by amnesia, falls in love with a teenager. They start dating, allowing Ed and Norma to continue their affair without guilt or secrecy.

• Windom Earle, a sinister figure from Cooper’s past, arrives in Twin Peaks. Years ago he discovered that his wife and Cooper were having an affair, to which he responded by killing her and vowing vengeance against Cooper.

Cooper settles into Twin Peaks and falls in love with Annie, Norma’s sister from out of town.

Windom Earle encounter the brain-dead Leo, whom he decides to use as a slave. Windome becomes increasingly obsessed with the Black Lodge, a mythical place in the woods from which spiritual beings like BOB supposedly appear. Learning that he needs the sacrifice of an innocent to break into this place, he disguises himself as the log lady and kidnaps Annie from the Miss Twin Peaks Festival.

As episode 29 opens, Cooper and co are preparing for action in the wake of this event...

[N. Needleman]

Frankly, my response would be, 'fuck that, watch all of it.' There's still good amidst the detritus, and I think it would be a terrible mistake to skip anything, certainly not 23-28, which IMO is the stretch when the show finds its footing again.

[enumbs]

Haha, fair enough! I can't say I agree with you though. While I think the show does regain a sense of narrative direction in the episodes you mention (and with it the sense of propulsive energy that drove season 1), I can't agree that it was a particularly fruitful direction to go in. Aside from the wonderful diner scene in episode 25 and some of the creepier moments which build throughout episode 27, there isn't much that I would personally miss. I suppose I'm mostly interested in the way in which those episodes contextualize and contrast with episode 29 and the movie, as opposed to regarding them as artistic achievements in themselves. I appreciate that our opinions are bound to differ on this however!

[Shloogorgh]

I don't blame you for wanting to skip to the end. I've had several friends who got lost in the slog and stopped watching (for one of whom I did exactly what you're doing and summed up the plotlines going into the finale)

I think it's better to hear a brief summary and then watch the finale/FWWM then to stop watching altogether.

It looks like you covered the major stuff you need to know going into the finale. Maybe mention owl cave since the symbol is on the ring in FWWM.

And are you calling Josie's death a suicide for simplicity? Because "mysterious circumstances" would more accurately describe it

[LostInTheMovies]

These are relatively minor points which can probably be deduced from the action of ep. 29, but you might also want to mention that Lucy chose Andy to raise her baby, and that Ben recovered from his post-arrest breakdown by trying to become a do-gooder. This is what led him to visit the Haywards (leading Donna to suspect that he was her dad) and also to launch a "Stop Ghostwood" campaign and involve her daughter in it. (Hm, I never thought about how Ben's "redemption" not only nearly kills him, but his daughter too!)

Also, in case they're wondering, Hank ended up in jail and Norma left him. You might not want to mention Annie being Norma's sister since apparently Lynch & Lipton forgot all about that for the finale!

Finally, there's the mythological lore. A lot of it plays as mumbo-jumbo (fun mumbo-jumbo, but still) during the course of season 2 but I'd argue a lot of it actually has substantial bearing on what we see unfold in both the finale and Fire Walk With Me. Would you consider showing them a few isolated scenes before starting the finale? I'd recommend Hawk's Lodge/dweller in the threshold speech in ep. 18. Additionally, Windom's interrogation of Maj. Briggs in ep. 27 & the Project Blue Book Windom video in which he talks about dugpas (also ep. 27 I believe) might be worth watching.

I agree with others who say it's best to watch the whole series, warts and all, but I also agree that the risk of someone dropping out/losing interest is real and that it's better to make sure they get to the finale & FWWM if that's gonna be the case. I shudder to think how many Twin Peaks viewers over the years have never seen the 2 highest points of the saga (imo) because they tuned out too early.

[OK,Bob]

Perhaps set aside a 5-hour block and rocket through Episodes 17 through 23 in one sitting? After that it's relatively smooth sailing...

[LostInTheMovies]

Oh, and I forgot - you gotta tell them about Coop's backstory with Caroline & Windom since that actually plays a significant role in Coop's Lodge odyssey. Maybe even show them the scene where he tells Truman about her in ep. 21 (they even show what she looks like, for good measure).

Tbh, the biggest thing your friend will miss by skipping the show's back half - and this is no small matter - is a real sense of Cooper's trajectory, and how it leads him to Bob. Up until ep. 17, he is our guide into the story but not really its subject. Only when he is kicked out of the FBI, confronted with his old partner, and falls in love with Annie does he become a more traditional protagonist, with flaws and doubts and weak spots. Without this background, the outcome of ep. 29 could seem much more arbitrary.

[OK,Bob]

Seriously: have an insane amount of good coffee on-hand - perhaps some pie - and just sit down one evening and push on through until you finish Ep 23. Perhaps a dash of Irish cream in that coffee to ease the pain of Episodes 21 and 22.

[Jasper]

I almost feel like this attitude is even weaker than the weak stretch of episodes. I say watch it all or don't bother with any or it. This is coming from someone who designed the Twin Peaks guide (a work in progress, btw) posted below.

The final episode is something that happens in context. It's also made more powerful by the weaker material, and naturally the narrative leads up to it, building a bit of tension, or at least some sense of momentum or expectation. I would never recommend skipping the weak stuff the first time through, and I wouldn't recommend skipping it on a second time through either. I feel that the first time through almost anything is for total immersion and feeling, and a second time through might be more for deeper analysis and understanding of some of the trickier questions and details.

It's very interesting to note the similarities between the James/Evelyn arc and part of Lost Highway, which is a good example of why a person who claims to be a Lynch fan should watch the whole series. In Lost Highway Lynch may have been grappling with some of that stretch of Twin Peaks, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Another thing I'd say is that all of the weak patch is not equally good or bad. Despite the jarring contrast between the final Lynch episode and the ones that precede it, I think things generally improve towards the end, or at least gain more sense of direction, beginning with episode 24. There are some fantastic moments in that stretch. with episode 27, for instance, boasting some extremely Lynchian moments, which almost seem to have come directly from Lynch himself:
http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... =15#p34011

Here's the guide (and "survival" is a bit of a joke meaning you survive the entire thing):

Twin_Peaks_Guide_main.jpg (407.59 KiB) Viewed 10822 times

[N. Needleman]

Today, I take the weaker episodes as part of the town of Twin Peaks struggling to reconcile itself with what's happened. Trying to deny it all and go back to screwball small town comedy. I enjoy it as part of the tapestry. And even when some stories are very weak, there's often dialogue, plotlines or bits of business or what have you which are still very strong, IMO. I enjoy it all, even with the messy portions.

I feel that what really shocks the story back into reality - though I know some disagree - is the sequence with Josie's death. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, BOB and the MFAP are back in this world, very suddenly infringing on a plotline that had been wholly earthbound and submerged in very human criminal skullduggery, and Josie, a femme fatale, is lost in the netherworld. That's when things all begin sliding back into the woods, and the dark. To me it's proof that they can't escape it. From there, everything starts heading back to the Lodge, and the spirits there. This culminates in Episode 27.

I don't think you can have the dark without the light in TP, and I don't think you can have the great without the bizarre or even the low. I think it all, ultimately, works together to come back to a very strong final stretch of episodes. The last time I watched, when Annie Blackburn mentions Laura Palmer out of the blue, it hits, because it's around that same time that things are really beginning to come back into focus. I think they all have to be seen. And I think there's a lot to appreciate in even the lowest points of TP, because even at its bottom, that bottom is, IMO, still way, way ahead of most television.

But that's me. I often find spectacular or ambitious failures fascinating - and the 'bad' part of TP is certainly all of that. While I'm less forgiving of it now than I was, say, upon my first rewatch in HS, I still find it to be a part of the whole - the part where they all try to forget, and the town fumbles through denial, before going back into the void.

[MasterMastermind]

It's worth noting that a lot of the mythology was built in that stretch of bad episodes, and at least for my money, Cooper's storyline remained pretty compelling throughout.

[LostInTheMovies]

I feel that what really shocks the story back into reality - though I know some disagree - is the sequence with Josie's death. All of a sudden, from out of nowhere, BOB and the MFAP are back in this world, very suddenly infringing on a plotline that had been wholly earthbound and submerged in very human criminal skullduggery, and Josie, a femme fatale, is lost in the netherworld. That's when things all begin sliding back into the woods, and the dark. To me it's proof that they can't escape it. From there, everything starts heading back to the Lodge, and the spirits there.

A compelling argument. At this very moment I am debating about watching episode 23 next in my "least favorite to favorite" rewatch of Twin Peaks. That would place it 4th from the bottom, which is much lower than I initially expected. However once I started this exercise I realized that I was much fonder of the lightweight episodes that don't attempt anything they can't achieve than I was of the episodes whose ambitions way outstrip their grasps (23 falls into that category for me, as does 28, which I just rewatched and found even worse than I remembered). But the news about Ontkean, who obviously plays a big role in that episode, plus some discussion of Josie and Bob and other stuff now has me inclined to maybe rank it a little higher. Hm.

[N. Needleman]

Oh, there's still things I can't really excuse. Evelyn Marsh and a lot of the Little Nicky story are definitely up there in the 'war crimes' department, though I didn't mind some of the early scenes with Joshua Harris, Goaz and Ian Buchanan. Some of the extended Super Nadine hijinks in, I think 17 and 18, are just way too much going on too long when other things could be happening, though I do like that subplot. There's a bit too much of Ernie Niles, who I enjoyed initially, and there also comes a point when you're like 'why is the Norma's mom subplot still here?' Even the Civil War Ben story, which I always liked, started wearing me out the last time I watched recently. But even with those weaknesses, IMO, it's still utterly unlike anything else. I mean, who would even attempt half of that?

[LiAnn]

Oh, there's still things I can't really excuse. Evelyn Marsh and a lot of the Little Nicky story are definitely up there in the 'war crimes' department, though I didn't mind some of the early scenes with Joshua Harris, Goaz and Ian Buchanan. Some of the extended Super Nadine hijinks in, I think 17 and 18, are just way too much going on too long when other things could be happening, though I do like that subplot. There's a bit too much of Ernie Niles, who I enjoyed initially, and there also comes a point when you're like 'why is the Norma's mom subplot still here?' Even the Civil War Ben story, which I always liked, started wearing me out the last time I watched recently. But even with those weaknesses, IMO, it's still utterly unlike anything else. I mean, who would even attempt half of that?

The way I see it, Twin Peaks is a lot like pizza: even when it's bad, it's still pretty f---ing good.

[LonelySoul]

Agree with the above pizza comment.

I never recommend skipping any of the show. In fact, I particularly enjoy latter season 2 (and I've been crucified on reddit simply for saying so). The reason is that after the Laura plot wrapped up, I was very interested in simply watching what else was going on in and around town. All the characters are so quirky and strange and I love watching them interact. Yes - even the Little Nicky and Evelyn Marsh plots. (As an aside those dissolves where Evelyn is wearing her veil and looking super somber and dramatic are supreme guilty-pleasure parts of the show for me.)

All that being said, I do think that compared to the rest of the series the second part of season two (save for the finale) is not as good as the rest. But that's comparing "bad" Twin Peaks to good Twin Peaks. Compared to everything else on TV, "bad" Twin Peaks leaves it in the dust.