Part 16 - No knock, no doorbell (SPOILERS)

[yaxomoxay]

Holy hell some people need to take a chill pill and not reach so fast, jesus lorde

True, and I jumped on it... and I was wrong. But you would admit that the joke was done in bad taste.


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[Elric99]

I don't really know what to think of the Roadhouse scenes as a whole - whether they are real or some sort of projection of different characters' thoughts, dreams, etc. I think there is one shot of the lights outside before the epic sweeping scene where all four lights are lit instead of just the three that are lit whenever there are performances, but I don't know if that has any meaning. I thought maybe it was some sort of code for shady dealings like the light at the top during the original series that warned Jacques to stay away.

Hmm yeah I went back to check how the lights outside the Roadhouse were lit for each time. Here's my notes below. The only time all the lights are on and all 4 floodlights directly under the Roadhouse sign are working is in Part 7, the sweeping scene with no band performing. That episode is also the one that ends at the RR Diner with the extras changing suddenly and the Windom Earle theme "hidden" underneath the Sleepwalk song. What does it all mean ?!

roadhouse: 4 upper level lights, 3 lights that curve down, 4 floodlights right under bang bang sign
part 2: 0-0-3. chromatics, shelly, renee, james, freddie, red
part 3: ?-?-?. only reflection of sign in puddle. only band plays, no characters.
part 4: ?-?-3. closeup of sign, can only see floodlights. only band plays, no characters.
part 5: 0-0-3. "bing", richard horne, chad
part 6: 0-0-3. only band plays, no characters.
part 7: 4-3-4. sweeping scene, jean-michel. this part ends with the strange RR Diner scene where Bing shouts about Billy, not at roadhouse.
part 8: ?-?-?. no sign shown at all. pine cone announcer, "the" NIN.
part 9: ?-?-?. only reflection of sign in puddle. "rash" girl/penguin talk.
part 10: 0-0-3. only band plays, no characters.
part 12: ?-?-3. closeup of sign, can only see floodlights. chromatics. talk about angela, clark, mary, trick getting run off road
part 13: 0-0-3. pine cone announcer, james' song, renee
part 14: ?-?-3. closeup of sign, can only see floodlights. talk about "nuthouse" and Tina and BIlly
part 15: 0-0-3. crawling/screaming woman.
part 16: 0-0-3. pine cone announcer, eddie vedder, audrey, charlie

[Elric99]

I am of the belief that tulpas inherently sense something hollow about their existence, even if they're unaware of their true nature, and they seek to fill that void or numb out unhappiness. Both tulpa Diane and Dougie Jones drank heavily, and both seemed to seek out relatively meaningless sexual encounters (Dougie and his escorts, Diane and the gentlemen who come to her apartment).

Makes me think Sarah Palmer could be a tulpa with all the vodka drinking... perhaps the "face removal" ability she and lodge-Laura have is a tulpa ability?

[Daliz]

Perfectly stated! Also don't forget where they grew up, and the fact that they never had parents.
My feeling is that they mostly "played the part" in Vegas, that is they faked it until they made it in Vegas and beating a guy that they are sure cheated them of $500K is a small price all things considered.
I don't think they ever murdered anyone, what they wanted to do to Dougie seems more out of rage and impulsivity rarher than experience (there was even a witness that THEY involved), and the job on Ike was probably in self defense as they knew that Todd wanted them dead.

That's a great point about the limo driver. He struck me as a decent, sweet guy who really liked DougieCoop. Their having him bring them to the murder scene was pretty inept.

Could be or they are gangsters, bosses of a crime ring and that limo driver is a loyal soldier in their organization. I mean as soon as they saw FBI agents they ran but I don't know they seemed OK with Coop being FBI

In the scene in the desert where the Mitchums are about to kill Coop, there is a rectangular patch of dirt that stands out. I noticed it right on the first time watching that scene. I think someone is buried there and this spot has been used in disposing of someone else recently.

[Mr. Strawberry]

I'm surprised by your reaction to this, as I usually agree with all of your recaps. Maybe you're right, and this was a "too perfect" reintroduction of Cooper. But I don't know. Cooper actually did fight his way out of it. You can tell in Part 15 that he was determined to get that fork into that socket. This whole thing is largely about his identity, that even when he's trapped in a shell of himself he still retains the traits that make him unique, and it signifies that this whole time he was hyper-aware of what was happening because Cooper was there all along. So him just snapping out of it and instantly being whole, while unexpected, seems perfect to me, as he is who he is and always will be. As well as a hilariously winking joke to go along with so many others about patience and audience participation and unpredictability: "Finally." And it occurs at the exact moment we both most expect it (after the electricity jolt) and least expect it (he's in a coma and we resign ourselves to thinking it's yet another tease with no wake-up in sight). This seemed like a very natural yet unpredictable event to me, which also gave us what we were promised and gloriously teased about ("Bear With Me") from the get-go: A Return. All I know is that it was joyous in what felt like a very sincere way to me. I hope it's real, but even if it isn't, the moment remains.

Diane was a tulpa, but isn't that also kind of perfect? We can still feel for her as she has Diane's memories, so her pain is real, what she's gone through is real. At the same time we still haven't met the real Diane, so the most mysterious main character in all of Twin Peaks has found a way to be kept under wraps. Which is pretty neat.

It's just one of those things where the show is so good that it makes us care to this degree. We all have certain directions we'd like to see the thing to go in, but I'm ready to be shown up by Lynch & Frost, and see myself proven wrong for calling the Cooper arc shallow. 2 Days 21 Hours 36 Minutes 25 Seconds to go.

You may be right about the sincerity, if it's viewed as an attempt to truly bring back the Old Twin Peaks Feelings. It totally had something going on with the hospital interior, Coop up and at the ready waking from disaster, swinging into action from his bed against everyone's advisement. That immediately hit me on an instinctive level just how similar it was to the moment when he awoke from being shot. In a way it represents The Return to Twin Peaks, as both the presentation and score take a step back to what was once familiar to us, while Dale makes his entrance.

[claaa7]

You may be right about the sincerity, if it's viewed as an attempt to truly bring back the Old Twin Peaks Feelings. It totally had something going on with the hospital interior, Coop up and at the ready waking from disaster, swinging into action from his bed against everyone's advisement. That immediately hit me on an instinctive level just how similar it was to the moment when he awoke from being shot. In a way it represents The Return to Twin Peaks, as both the presentation and score take a step back to what was once familiar to us, while Dale makes his entrance.

i was slightly on the fence about his 100% regained ability coming out of the Dougie state, but after such a long time of seeing him Dougiefied it did feel earned and gave me the chills.. it did certainly remind me of episode 8's hospital escape as well i just can't believe that in less than 3 days we will see Cooper walk back into that sherrif station after driving past the cassic Twin Peaks sign (at least that's what i would think).

i have noticed some episodes have obviously been cared about more than others.. it's easy to see that a higher percentage of budget, shooting time and editing time has been spent on episodes 3, 8 and 15 which has also made them stand out. i would think the final will be in the same bracket.

[Mr. Strawberry]

For whatever faults there might be about the Diane/Tulpa storyline...it was all worth it for her to give the One Armed Man a big F/U in the Black Lodge .

But just in general, Twin Peaks is a fantastical story- it really doesn't need to adhere to any logic beyond dream logic to work for me. It also does not take itself too seriously, which means it can get away with scenes where Cooper wakes up, is himself suddenly, then asks Bushnell to give him his gun with no questions asked, and then asks the Mitchum Brothers to fly him to Washington (which they do, with no questions asked).

I thought all those things were highly unrealistic, but they worked very well in the context of the world Lynch and Frost have created.

Completely agree, but after this many years we've all kind of built up what these fantastical things mean in our individual minds. It's just the nature of the beast when this much time elapses before the story resumes. Some of us are seeing things that are mostly in line with the personal definitions we've assigned to this dream logic, others not so much, and yet others maybe here and there. On a major level this is a classic Fire Walk With Me experience, with directions taken being so unexpected as to cause offense.

I will say that being challenged like this is great. After thoroughly enjoying 15 Parts that just kept getting better and better, Part 16 had me so pissed off and let down that I almost couldn't believe it. Hard to say if anything else would have had me feeling that way. I tend to merely abandon a story if it falls apart or jumps the shark, then briefly lament the time lost. Anyway, I'm really excited to see if its revelations were my own point of No Return, or if I let myself buy into the misdirection.

[claaa7]

I will say that being challenged like this is great. After thoroughly enjoying 15 Parts that just kept getting better and better, Part 16 had me so pissed off and let down that I almost couldn't believe it. Hard to say if anything else would have had me feeling that way. I tend to merely abandon a story if it falls apart or jumps the shark, then briefly lament the time lost. Anyway, I'm really excited to see if its revelations were my own point of No Return, or if I let myself buy into the misdirection.

i know exactly how you feel.. i was super excited and thoroughly enjoyed the 12 first parts, 13 i felt a little lacking and then came 14 which hit me like a thunderbolt of dissapointment. i haven't rewatched that one yet so i hope it will grow on me but there are a couple of elements in that part that i don't like the direction they took it in

[Mr. Strawberry]

If I had to guess, I'd say it's the difference between regular people like Ray, who only end up in the Red Room if they're wearing the ring when they're killed, and those associated with the lodge, like Dougie or 'Diane'.

I went with associated because Leland (presumably) was a regular person, however it doesn't explain why Mr C would need to be wearing the ring.

If Mr. C needs to be wearing the ring in order to return to The Red Room, does that mean that he's completely human -- a 100% Dale Duplicate?

[Mr. Strawberry]

To kind of go off subject for a moment, I'm gonna be really sad when the series ends and we stop sharing with each other every day. I'm surely not the only one here that is removed from former days of steady friendships and frequent get togethers. It's not simply a matter of getting older, I don't think. Part of it is a general shift in society, and certainly part of it is personal, but technology has empowered us with the ability to communicate and share by way of online boards and texts and email, and the abundant ease of access has had an isolating effect.

It used to be a normal thing to pop over to a friend's and knock on the door unannounced. These days, those same people might find your sudden appearance to be an inconvenience, as they are "busy" shopping online, writing social media life updates, gaming alone or with strangers on the net, watching hours of TV uninterrupted, and generally hiding out from all the good things that brought us joy in not so distant times. It's like they're living in the Convenience Store.

:'( me too. I'm just gutted I didn't know this place existed until 10 weeks ago.

This is only the second message board that I've ever frequented. The other forum I've been part of (sort of an evolution of several boards, really) is a video game translation & hacking forum. It's centered around taking games that never made it out of Japan (and on occasion other countries), and doing the necessary hacking / reprogramming, translation, new fonts and localized graphics in order to unofficially bring them over. Passion project for me, a major hobby, though a handful of people do put their finished projects on actual Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges and sell them along with localized box and instruction manual.

I jumped on in 1997 and have been there for 20 years now, involved in many projects during that time, as a translator, graphics artist and romhacker, but also there for the off topic discussion. It's always surging with activity, since old games are constantly being picked up and worked on. There are thousands of games that never made it out of Japan, and it will take a long time to get them all localized.

Well, anyway, I've been here every day since joining and it's a blast, so I hope the discussions stay alive, and that everyone here doesn't split once The Return ends.

[Mr. Strawberry]

This is a great articulation of how I feel about it. One of the pro-Dougie story line justifications was, "What do you just want him to snap out of it? That would be unnatural and predictable." Well that is exactly what we got. It just dragged out for a very long time. I was quite happy to see Cooper and his interactions with everyone were great. However, my next feeling was annoyance. Why couldn't this have been done this in episode 6 or 9 or something! I feel that the story they told could have been accomplished much quicker and a more robust story including Cooper would have been superior. Although the season is wonderful as a whole, it could have been better with more Cooper. We do not have any confirmation of a fourth season and so little Cooper after 25 plus years is an issue.

Bringing him in just a bit sooner would have satisfied many an Agent Cooper fix. Even if he is the focus of The Finale, we may still find ourselves wishing things had been balanced just a bit more between the Vegas life and the actual. I enjoyed Dale in Dougie's life once I realized it wasn't a little gag they were going to run for a couple Parts. Still, need to see how I feel the next morning once it's all over. Gotta dream on it.

[ScarFace32]

People are still going off about the CGI? Has everybody been conditioned so widely that CGI must inherently equal realism, and that intentionally wanting to look like something else is unthinkable/nigh implausible? I'm not saying "you have to like it" but jeez louise is it getting old. "MUH BUDGET!" all you want I guess. lol

Please dude those special effects looked so shitty. Nobody said "CGI must equal realism". CGI fucking sucks, but that was just so awful and stupid and cheap

[Mr. Strawberry]

I keep thinking about all the glaring errors that were in TSHOTP - stuff that there was no way they could have gotten wrong on account of reviewing the first two seasons... it feels to me like there aren't any mistakes here.

So do you think that a clever means of concealing the bigger picture has given us occasion to initially see these as inconsistencies, and only to retrospectively recognize how they fit in as missing pieces of the whole?

[ScarFace32]

I'm still reading this thread but did Diane say that the Convenience Store (Gas station in her words) was next to the Sheriff's station? Does that mean the convenience store is right in Twin Peaks next to the sheriff's station? Are they going to have a shot of the sheriff's station and pan out and the Convience Store is right there lol?

Also the CGI with Diane was beyond bad. It was like something from a cellphone App.

I hate to be harsh, but what?

She did not say that, it does not mean that, and man, it was NOT "bad Cgi" it was exactly what Lynch wanted. Do you have a better video of what REALLY happens when a tulpa breaks down to seed? Its not meant to be realistic. Its art. It looks exactly like Lynch wanted it to.

Yeah, I actually thought the tulpa-deseeding process looked very Terry Gilliam-esque, and was apropos. Now, the real world Duncan Todd headshot is another story -- I much prefer the practical effects of something like Bobby shooting the guy in the head in the woods in FWWM, but given that it was not a close-up, so be it... (but still thought it looked unintentionally cheesy -- it's not like they had a Microsoft Paint burst of red appear when Mr. C shot Ray).

[referendum]

Please dude those special effects looked so shitty. Nobody said "CGI must equal realism". CGI fucking sucks, but that was just so awful and stupid and cheap

if you are talking about the FX when the Dougie and Diane 'tulpas' were converted into gold balls (' you have been manufactured...') I very much liked the way this was done, making explicit that the person was a ' representation' or copy of a person, and rendering them as 2D, with the graphic black smoke and simple animated ball, a great image I thought. I liked the shrinking Dougie ( ' that's weird') and i liked the Diane face being ripped like paper. I liked the clean graphic quality of the image, the way it moved from filmed footage to animated jpg. One person's ' awful and stupid and cheap' is another person's ' surrealist collage' I guess. But then I like John Stezaker.

Also worth noting that in ep 8 when the Laura Ball was sent to earth by the weird tube thing, that was also done via a 2D image, a flat black n white cinema screen, rather than a misguided attempt at 3D ' realism '. I like these moves between different modes of representation. Another one being in the pink world sequence in episode 3, when Naido goes up onto the roof of the obviously collaged box in space. The fact that this sequence, and the floating Briggs head, was 'awful and stupid and cheap' ( aka visually as simplified as possible) was, for me anyway, what lent it it's dreamlike fairy-tale quality, like an illustration out of a book.