Recut of TPTR

Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne

Agent Earle
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1173
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 12:55 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Agent Earle »

Oh, I know there's something to this new "thing" that refuses to let go of me, so to speak - if it were not so, I wouldn't still be here, blathering about my disappointments over the show more than a year after it concluded. And even though I initially didn't care if we'd get more after S 3, I now know that I'd be all over any new material that would come from the creators' direction in a second. I'm in all this TP "nonsense" for life, I guess. Expectations are a bitch, though; even when one says he's prepared for the continuation of a beloved cinematic/TV property to go in a new, different direction, that doesn't mean he hasn't got ideas of his own about which direction it should go in.
But thanks for your longish post - I enjoyed reading it.
Mr. Strawberry
RR Diner Member
Posts: 294
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 10:17 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Mr. Strawberry »

Thanks for taking the time to read my long-winded nonsense! You know, Twin Peaks is like a set of dice. Maybe it's all weird and there are three die and they each have some shared and some unique numbers, or letters too, but whatever, I'm just saying, you throw the dice and get something different every time.

On first viewing I loved everything about the original show. Down the road I was repulsed by various elements of Season 2, and amazed that I took Windom Earle so seriously and found him so threatening the first time around, but then found myself enjoying the Silent Hill-ish aspects of the James and Evelyn storyline on rewatches, even though it was much hated material in the past.

Anyway what I'm hoping is that at some point you throw the dice and like what you roll. It could be life changes -- we are ever-changing and our views and preferences change right along with us -- it could be time, hell maybe "getting your Jerry Horne on" could give you a whole new perspective (boy have I got a story to tell about that). But hopefully someway, somehow you'll be able to get a new look from a different vantage point, however that may occur. 'Cause I know you are a fan and it makes me sad to think about how this latest iteration has affected so many fans.

From personal experience, I feel ya, and nearly went there myself due to the overwhelming combination of sensory experiences, from actually sitting there and realizing the nigh impossible phenomenon of Twin Peaks returning, to being shocked by the material, to fending off acute awareness of its brevity and potential to really be over for good this time. Throw in some unfulfilled wishes and there's surely a recipe for something there, whatever it ends up being.

I just got the Blu-rays and am really excited to watch the show for a second time. Who knows what the experience will be like? I popped the first disc in just to check it out and was surprised by the fact that I'd completely forgotten how the show begins (I thought it began with Cooper and The Giant seated in The White Lodge). The same thing happens when I watch the original, so very much is forgotten and the experience is fresh each time. You know how it goes. The structure is there but, it's always different, certain details are highlighted, no matter how well you think you know it. Memory is limited. (Is that a blessing or a curse?)
Agent Earle
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1173
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 12:55 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Agent Earle »

Mr. Strawberry wrote:Thanks for taking the time to read my long-winded nonsense! You know, Twin Peaks is like a set of dice. Maybe it's all weird and there are three die and they each have some shared and some unique numbers, or letters too, but whatever, I'm just saying, you throw the dice and get something different every time.

On first viewing I loved everything about the original show. Down the road I was repulsed by various elements of Season 2, and amazed that I took Windom Earle so seriously and found him so threatening the first time around, but then found myself enjoying the Silent Hill-ish aspects of the James and Evelyn storyline on rewatches, even though it was much hated material in the past.

Anyway what I'm hoping is that at some point you throw the dice and like what you roll. It could be life changes -- we are ever-changing and our views and preferences change right along with us -- it could be time, hell maybe "getting your Jerry Horne on" could give you a whole new perspective (boy have I got a story to tell about that). But hopefully someway, somehow you'll be able to get a new look from a different vantage point, however that may occur. 'Cause I know you are a fan and it makes me sad to think about how this latest iteration has affected so many fans.

From personal experience, I feel ya, and nearly went there myself due to the overwhelming combination of sensory experiences, from actually sitting there and realizing the nigh impossible phenomenon of Twin Peaks returning, to being shocked by the material, to fending off acute awareness of its brevity and potential to really be over for good this time. Throw in some unfulfilled wishes and there's surely a recipe for something there, whatever it ends up being.

I just got the Blu-rays and am really excited to watch the show for a second time. Who knows what the experience will be like? I popped the first disc in just to check it out and was surprised by the fact that I'd completely forgotten how the show begins (I thought it began with Cooper and The Giant seated in The White Lodge). The same thing happens when I watch the original, so very much is forgotten and the experience is fresh each time. You know how it goes. The structure is there but, it's always different, certain details are highlighted, no matter how well you think you know it. Memory is limited. (Is that a blessing or a curse?)
Hey, that's why I'm still scavenging these threads - to read what my fellow fans have to say about the highways and byways of TP, so a long post is always appreciated. Great view on the life of this eclectic series - one discovers something new each time he watches one of its iterations or comes to shape a different response to various parts of the saga than before. Who knows what will happen to my current attitude towards S 3 one day; as of now, I'm not yet ready to venture into it for a second time and I'm guessing that I'll not be ready for a good number of years (of course, if a S 4 is to be announced in the not so distant future, I'll be obliged to make it through S 3 prior to S 4 again, that much is certain).
Anyways, I just bought Lynch on Lynch and am looking forward to reading that from start to finish for the first time (up til now, I've only read a few snippets when I browsed through it in a local bookstore a decade and a half ago but didn't afford it as a student low on funds at the time). One would hope yet another revised edition will be published in future, one that would cover such things as Inland Empire, The Missing Pieces and The Return - that would be quite something!

P.S.: Don't you be talking bad about Windom Earle, or you'll make it onto my shit list! :D :D :D

P.P.S.: If you decide to share your "getting your Jerry Horne" yarn one day, I'll be all ears!
Mr. Strawberry
RR Diner Member
Posts: 294
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2017 10:17 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Mr. Strawberry »

Agent Earle wrote:Hey, that's why I'm still scavenging these threads - to read what my fellow fans have to say about the highways and byways of TP, so a long post is always appreciated. Great view on the life of this eclectic series - one discovers something new each time he watches one of its iterations or comes to shape a different response to various parts of the saga than before. Who knows what will happen to my current attitude towards S 3 one day; as of now, I'm not yet ready to venture into it for a second time and I'm guessing that I'll not be ready for a good number of years (of course, if a S 4 is to be announced in the not so distant future, I'll be obliged to make it through S 3 prior to S 4 again, that much is certain).
Anyways, I just bought Lynch on Lynch and am looking forward to reading that from start to finish for the first time (up til now, I've only read a few snippets when I browsed through it in a local bookstore a decade and a half ago but didn't afford it as a student low on funds at the time). One would hope yet another revised edition will be published in future, one that would cover such things as Inland Empire, The Missing Pieces and The Return - that would be quite something!

P.S.: Don't you be talking bad about Windom Earle, or you'll make it onto my shit list! :D :D :D

P.P.S.: If you decide to share your "getting your Jerry Horne" yarn one day, I'll be all ears!
I'll say this about Windom Earle. The first time I watched Twin Peaks, I was terrified of what he might do to Cooper and the townsfolk, and saw real potential for danger, and you know what? He came through. Just look at what he brought to the table. Look at that happened to so many lives. Coop, Annie, Major Briggs, Audrey, they all suffered tremendously and their lives were ruined. What's more, the result of Mr. C being out in the world means that Windom's machinations are still being felt, and in many ways the events depicted in The Return are the cold and brilliant echoes of his diamond-like mind.

So in fiction I would say about 99% of the time, there is no actual threat at hand, from the villain or otherwise. They bark and all that, show some fangs, maybe a "major character gets killed off" in a cheap attempt to present the notion of danger or tragedy, but in the end everyone wins against evil and the protagonist goes home with his arm around a babe. You know the routine. Windom and BOB demonstrate how to do this right and truly make someone threatening, frightening and dangerous, but that ties into Twin Peaks as a whole too, 'cause it's got an earnest and engaging presentation unlike any other. I'd never seen anything like it before, it just felt so real and believable the first time I watched it.

I'll see if we can get a topic going for "Getting Your Jerry Horne On" in relation to viewing Twin Peaks, otherwise I'll PM you.

On topic, I'd never tamper with anyone's work by executing my own edit, but purely as a silly time-wasting "nostalgia" activity, it would be fun to transfer the entirety of The Return to VHS and then watch it on a CRT television. I really feel like doing that for some stupid reason.
LateReg
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1435
Joined: Sun May 10, 2015 5:19 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by LateReg »

Mr. Strawberry wrote:
Agent Earle wrote:
Mr. Strawberry wrote:I simply can't imagine waiting 25 years for more Twin Peaks and then complaining that there's too much of it once it finally arrives.
Because what we got too much of is not Twin Peaks - not that Twin Peaks for which we've been waiting 25 years, at any rate. Yeah, give me more of what was once deemed as "Twin Peaks" any day - even 100 hours of it would not be too much in my eyes. But calling all the Vegas nonsense and Dougie frigging Jones "Twin Peaks" ... c'mon!
It's not as though I don't get where you're coming from. Interestingly enough, although I was 100% ready for full-on weirdness and totally not expecting or yearning for retread or forced nostalgia, I actually started to find myself feeling disappointed by the inclusion of certain elements, as well as by a lack of other material that I either had personal expectations of or otherwise assumed would be present.

It took some time for me to come to the realization that I actually was yearning for more of the same. Even though specific moods and atmospheres and settings were the stuff that I sought, and not specific story elements, that still counts as having expectations. At the same time, being so into what we did get, I found myself thrown off to a degree when things didn't go in the direction that I desperately wished they would.

What a fascinating experience. If this was just total garbage, we'd turn it off and move on without a thought. The fact that we care as much as we do, even get as upset as we do, just goes to show you how powerful the work actually is. It would not be able to grip us or affect us the way it does, if it was just another dump in the Prestige Bucket. There's power in the ability to create something so potent, and so beloved, that when we so much as perceive it as having been fiddled with or laid out in any manner that we don't approve of, we find ourselves outraged and even violated.

Perhaps to some degree, by caring so much, you have involved yourself with the current work as well, because by caring, you are accepting it and the effects that it has, rather than experiencing outright denial or complete dismissal of the work. Please don't take that as an attempt to define your feelings or tell you how to feel, though. I'm simply trying to relate and want to take this opportunity to share where I'm at with it today.

It seems that we are all invested to such a degree that any deviation from what we so desperately want can in turn throw us into emotional tantrums. I guess that's a sign of real art at work. You don't think I was absolutely pissed off and depressed at the same time when ol' Coop missed the last chance he'll ever have to reunite with his buddy Albert? Of course I was incensed and saw it as a flaw: "Can't these idiots do anything right? How in the world could you put Cooper back in the same room with all these people, and have none of them share a single word or moment together?! These dumb asses have fucking lost it, I feel sick!"

I know man, it's hard to accept, because it's not what we'd have come up with, and our minds have wandered and plotted for decades at this point. But I've reflected on it and accept that after years of planning and rewriting, this is what they did and it was daring and new if nothing else, and it was with purpose and intent. Did it have the intended effect? Perhaps it did. I've gone from delighted to flustered to bitter to confused and finally to eternally grateful. I'm glad that it was this sort of journey, too. The original show was indeed a slice of cherry pie. But keep in mind that you cannot fully understand the cherry pie unless you miss it and feel its absence, and you cannot fully savor it until you've lost it, yearned for it, struggled for it, and finally recalled what it was to have it in the first place. That's one way to get back home, anyway.
I just want to say that your posts on this page are quite beautiful, as are Earle's interactions with you. Great stuff to read, folks.

Strawberry said: "It took some time for me to come to the realization that I actually was yearning for more of the same. Even though specific moods and atmospheres and settings were the stuff that I sought, and not specific story elements, that still counts as having expectations. At the same time, being so into what we did get, I found myself thrown off to a degree when things didn't go in the direction that I desperately wished they would."

Specifically, what I can add to this is something I've said before elsewhere on these boards, something which my friend once put very eloquently to me, and which is the key to how the series was crafted, imo, as well as something that I think is so rare an accomplishment: It's predicated on the viewer's natural reaction to want the thing to be a complete RETURN as well as be willing to follow the creators wherever they take us, which is a paradox. And the series reads the viewer as though it is being crafted as the viewer is watching, and that relationship between the viewer and the series is so important. That's built into the series interrogation of nostalgia as well as its status as a reboot in the age of reboots and its subsequent subversions. I was in the camp that wanted the return of David Lynch - not Twin Peaks - yet I'd be lying if I said I didn't long for Cooper's return and to find out what the other characters were up to and to soak in the pure atmosphere of the dream town of Twin Peaks and everything that goes along with it. And I think you have to want those things on some level for the series to achieve its maximum impact and meaning, for sense to be made of the way expectations are twisted and revelations are withheld. Which is to say that I - and my friend - consciously realized the same thing that Mr. Strawberry did at some point during the series, that subconsciously the show was working so well for us because of the push and pull of want and need, expectation and subversion, dream and reality, etc.
User avatar
Cappy
Great Northern Member
Posts: 521
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:27 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Cappy »

Mr. Strawberry wrote: I'll say this about Windom Earle. The first time I watched Twin Peaks, I was terrified of what he might do to Cooper and the townsfolk, and saw real potential for danger, and you know what? He came through. Just look at what he brought to the table. Look at that happened to so many lives. Coop, Annie, Major Briggs, Audrey, they all suffered tremendously and their lives were ruined. What's more, the result of Mr. C being out in the world means that Windom's machinations are still being felt, and in many ways the events depicted in The Return are the cold and brilliant echoes of his diamond-like mind.

So in fiction I would say about 99% of the time, there is no actual threat at hand, from the villain or otherwise. They bark and all that, show some fangs, maybe a "major character gets killed off" in a cheap attempt to present the notion of danger or tragedy, but in the end everyone wins against evil and the protagonist goes home with his arm around a babe. You know the routine. Windom and BOB demonstrate how to do this right and truly make someone threatening, frightening and dangerous, but that ties into Twin Peaks as a whole too, 'cause it's got an earnest and engaging presentation unlike any other. I'd never seen anything like it before, it just felt so real and believable the first time I watched it.

Well said. I still maintain that there are a lot of genuinely creepy Windom scenes -- the first time he meets Leo, the scene where he delivers the voiceover with Caroline's death mask in Coop's room, his final goodbye to Leo, taking Annie into the red curtains at Glastonberry Grove, etc. I like a lot of things he brings to the show, and his character is the primary driver of plot in the final episodes.

Unfortunately when people think of Windom Earle, that scene with him wearing pajamas and playing the flute probably comes to mind. I think it's from the Diane Keaton episode..? Also that scene where he dressed as the metal head at the Double R, he just looks so intensely conspicuous and different from everyone else in the whole town. How did Cooper not notice him then? Windom, in a few scenes, seems to embody the goofier and less realistic tone than the realistic (and at times Lynchian, which itself is a blend of realism and absurdism) tone established in Season 1 and the first half of Season 2. I don't think this is necessarily a flaw of the character though, as much of the second half of Season 2 is colored with a sort of gimmicky, over the top humor. Ben as Robert E. Lee, Nadine in high school, Little Nicky, "the mayor and his brother". At least in the case of Ben and a few of the other characters, we can still remember how great they were earlier in the show, so the characters aren't really diminished by the Evelyn era of Peaks episodes.

With Windom, who we don't actually meet until this era, we can't really weigh his appearances here against appearances from a better time in Twin Peaks. Had we caught more glimpses of him prior to Leland's death, he probably would've been handled with more seriousness, and we might have an overall fonder recollection of him as a character. But yeah, Windom just seemed to come along during that period where Lynch/Frost weren't ultra engaged with the day to day of the show, and I think that might have hurt his depiction a little bit.

I think that breakfast scene where Windom is first mentioned as having escaped is great and really builds a lot of dark mystery around his character, but it takes the show a few episodes to even mention him again. The show probably does spend too much time setting up his storyline, as Mark Frost himself has admitted in interviews.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the Phillip Jeffries character, and how in Fire Walk With Me he exists as a pure anomaly. Like, it's not clear at all what his character contributes to Laura's story, or Cooper's story. Sure, his appearance sets up that whole Convenience Store scene, but couldn't Lynch and Engels just use the disappeared Chet Desmond in that role? Like most people, I've been stumped by Phillip Jeffries.

Even in Season 3, where he exists as some disembodied gatekeeper who can send people back in time (he reminds me of the Guardian of Forever (http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Guardian_of_Forever) in Star Trek here). He somehow makes less sense this time around, as he speaks in this vague, almost confused manner that suggests even he doesn't know what or where he is anymore. And on top of that, there is the Jeffries impersonator that Mr. C speaks with, which seems to totally blow up any chance of deciphering Jeffries at first, but having had time to chew on it, it's given me a degree of perspective on Windom Earle.

I think that the Jeffries impersonator is Windom Earle. Mr. C is using the same sort of computer briefcase that Earle did, and the impostor alludes to New York. The room with the glass box had bonsai tree, very similar to the one Earle used to spy on Cooper with during the original series. Also, who else would want to kill Cooper and be with BOB again? I think the Jeffries impostor is Earle, or at the very least, written in a deliberately vague enough way to let viewers who want to think this, think this.

But getting back to Jeffries in Fire Walk With Me, I wonder if in some early iteration of the story Windom Earle was in it, and filling the role that Phillip Jeffries came to fill. In a way, Jeffries and Earle can both be described as FBI agents driven mad by their interactions with the Spirit World. I can see Lynch and Engels using Earle initially, as he was a pretty important character in Twin Peaks, but then deciding on not mentioning him at all, as a way of moving the story away from the perceived shortcomings of Season 2. Supposedly at that point in the story, Earle was locked away in a mental institution and heavily medicated. Were he to just suddenly appear in Gordon's office, he might sound very similar to the incoherent Phillip Jeffries. Also, if he were to just appear at Gordon's office from his padded room at the asylum, then magically reappear there without alerting anyone else, it would create a situation where Cooper and the gang couldn't be sure that Earle really came to visit them at all, or if they were having some sort of shared vision, hence Cooper's insistence on finding video evidence of the encounter. And all of that is assuming that this would be Earle from that point in time, from the asylum. He could also very well be some echo or fragment of Earle from the Black Lodge itself. After BOB destroyed his soul, perhaps part of what was left of himself flew back in time to try and warn the Blue Rose Task Force, only to confuse them though.

But maybe David Lynch didn't want anything in his movie to remind people of that one scene where Windom Earle plays flute in his pajamas, so he and Engels just created a whole new character instead. Which is unfortunate, because I think Windom had a lot of juice left as a character, but obviously he left a sour taste for too many. It's funny that Gordon describes Jeffries as "who might not really exist anymore", because if he was created to fill in for the controversial Windom Earle, than he "who might not really exist anymore" is standing in for a character who, in the eyes of his creators, really doesn't exist anymore.
User avatar
mtwentz
Lodge Member
Posts: 2185
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:02 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by mtwentz »

I heard Lynch never liked the character of Windom, which is a shame.
F*&^ you Gene Kelly
User avatar
Mr. Reindeer
Lodge Member
Posts: 3680
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:09 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

mtwentz wrote:I heard Lynch never liked the character of Windom, which is a shame.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard DKL mention Windom, except in character as Gordon, although I certainly have a hunch you may be correct based on his comments on S2 and his stated vision of TP (even Harley Peyton has admitted the writers may have fallen a bit too in love with the character’s purple dialogue). I’ve noted it before, but it still tickles me that DKL as actor was the on-screen meat puppet for Frost and Peyton laying most of the Windom pipework.
User avatar
Cappy
Great Northern Member
Posts: 521
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:27 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Cappy »

mtwentz wrote:I heard Lynch never liked the character of Windom, which is a shame.
Yeah. I'll be the first to admit and complain about the problems of Windom's character, but I think the show finally got his character in the final two or three episodes, and he started to genuinely come off as scary. I think Windom's ghostly Kabuki face and his nighttime walk with Annie are almost as haunting as BOB lurching over the couch.

If Lynch had stuck with him for FWWM and Season 3, he might've turned into a more complex and/or well rounded character. We'll never know, but I can't help but think that the Jeffries impostor angle from S3 is a subtle nod to Windom Earle. And if you really love Windom Earle, you could really stretch things and suggest that Earle is even posing as Jeffries in the giant not-a-teapot thing, and that he sent Cooper back in time knowing good and well that Dale couldn't resist the lure of a damsel and distress (for the third time, after Carolina, Annie, and now Laura), with the hope that his former young protege would destroy himself again (and also retcon the circumstances of himself being annihilated by BOB).

I personally wouldn't want to think of all of Twin Peaks as just being Earle torturing Cooper though, but Jeffries as a concept is so nebulous that we can assign all sorts of crazy motives and identities to him and it always seems to make sense on some level.
User avatar
mtwentz
Lodge Member
Posts: 2185
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:02 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by mtwentz »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
mtwentz wrote:I heard Lynch never liked the character of Windom, which is a shame.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard DKL mention Windom, except in character as Gordon, although I certainly have a hunch you may be correct based on his comments on S2 and his stated vision of TP (even Harley Peyton has admitted the writers may have fallen a bit too in love with the character’s purple dialogue). I’ve noted it before, but it still tickles me that DKL as actor was the on-screen meat puppet for Frost and Peyton laying most of the Windom pipework.
In my opinion, there were three major issues with the Windom Earle character:
1. Initially, the Windom Earle plotline was too similar to the Jean Renault plotline that had just ended as Earle was about to be introduced in the flesh.
2. Very little mystery or suspense about the character initially. Yeah he wants to play a chess game with Cooper and stalk all the ladies in Twin Peaks. It somehow just doesn't feel very suspenseful to me.
3. He's played over the top goofy, maybe trying to mimic the way Leland was played? Not sure what they were going for, but it took the menace out of his character that had been building up all the way up to and including the moment Leo first stumbles upon him in the log cabin.

However, once the Black Lodge plot was converged with the Windom plot, I think we finally got some payoff with his character. After that, Windom does become very interesting and the perfect foil for Coop IMHO. And though some would say Lynch dismissively dispatches with Windom too quickly after half a season of a buildup of a confrontation with him and Cooper, I really loved that subverting expectations approach.
F*&^ you Gene Kelly
User avatar
Cappy
Great Northern Member
Posts: 521
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:27 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Cappy »

That's a really good point about Jean Renault. I had never really thought about Jean's obsession with Cooper as being problematic, but it is. Michael Parks' performance itself is fine, but how many career criminals out there make it their primary goal to murder a cop or FBI agent? It's very reminiscent of Batman villains who commit bank robberies just to lure Batman out, because defeating Batman is what they really want to do.

I know that both of his brothers were killed in Season 1, so some sort of response from him had to be expected, but it could've made him even more evil and cold hearted if he wrote off his dead siblings as failures, and wasn't overtly seeking vengeance against Coop. (Edit: Or just made Jean some totally unrelated French-Canadian, perhaps?)

Jean still could've kidnapped Audrey and feuded with Ben for control of One Eyed Jack's, and that naturally would've brought him into conflict with Coop, which is fine. But having Coop's death be his primary goal was too much like something from Batman or any comic book. Plus, the storyline where he frames Cooper with the Mountie just comes across as a really forced excuse for Cooper to stay in Twin Peaks.

That being said, I do really like Jean's dying words, about Coop somehow being a dark force that brought a "nightmare" to Twin Peaks, very foreshadow-y.
User avatar
mtwentz
Lodge Member
Posts: 2185
Joined: Sun Oct 04, 2015 10:02 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by mtwentz »

Cappy wrote:That's a really good point about Jean Renault. I had never really thought about Jean's obsession with Cooper as being problematic, but it is. Michael Parks' performance itself is fine, but how many career criminals out there make it their primary goal to murder a cop or FBI agent? It's very reminiscent of Batman villains who commit bank robberies just to lure Batman out, because defeating Batman is what they really want to do.

I know that both of his brothers were killed in Season 1, so some sort of response from him had to be expected, but it could've made him even more evil and cold hearted if he wrote off his dead siblings as failures, and wasn't overtly seeking vengeance against Coop. (Edit: Or just made Jean some totally unrelated French-Canadian, perhaps?)

Jean still could've kidnapped Audrey and feuded with Ben for control of One Eyed Jack's, and that naturally would've brought him into conflict with Coop, which is fine. But having Coop's death be his primary goal was too much like something from Batman or any comic book. Plus, the storyline where he frames Cooper with the Mountie just comes across as a really forced excuse for Cooper to stay in Twin Peaks.

That being said, I do really like Jean's dying words, about Coop somehow being a dark force that brought a "nightmare" to Twin Peaks, very foreshadow-y.
Totally agreed and we flowed from one comic book villain (Renault) after Cooper to a comic book super villain (Earle) chasing Cooper in almost the exact same way. But like I said, once it became apparent that Earle was seeking access to the Lodge, everything changed for me. He was still over the top in some ways but it brought intrigue and mystery to the character.
F*&^ you Gene Kelly
User avatar
Cappy
Great Northern Member
Posts: 521
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:27 am

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by Cappy »

Yeah, I totally agree. Windom really started to 'work' for me as a character during the last few episodes, as the quest for the Lodge(s) really put his character's motivations into focus. I honestly couldn't stand him at all the first few times I watched the show, but over time, his appearances in the final episodes have sort of endeared the character to me.

But yeah, it's interesting how Peaks has this string of comic book-y villains (Jean Renault, Earl) during it's second half. I feel like that might be an unintended consequence of Season 2's tilt towards the supernatural. In elevating BOB to this sort of unstoppable demonic level, they had to elevate Cooper and his capabilities as well. But in doing that, in making Cooper a full blown supernatural investigator, maybe the writers started to think that only larger than life villains would be credible threats to him.

Personally I don't see why they needed Renault's vendetta against Coop to keep him in town. Like, why couldn't he just stick around to look for BOB or the Lodges or something? The more the Jean Renault story arc is dissected, the less I like it. Thank goodness Michael Parks made the character so fun to watch.
LateReg
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1435
Joined: Sun May 10, 2015 5:19 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by LateReg »

mtwentz wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:
mtwentz wrote:I heard Lynch never liked the character of Windom, which is a shame.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard DKL mention Windom, except in character as Gordon, although I certainly have a hunch you may be correct based on his comments on S2 and his stated vision of TP (even Harley Peyton has admitted the writers may have fallen a bit too in love with the character’s purple dialogue). I’ve noted it before, but it still tickles me that DKL as actor was the on-screen meat puppet for Frost and Peyton laying most of the Windom pipework.
In my opinion, there were three major issues with the Windom Earle character:
1. Initially, the Windom Earle plotline was too similar to the Jean Renault plotline that had just ended as Earle was about to be introduced in the flesh.
2. Very little mystery or suspense about the character initially. Yeah he wants to play a chess game with Cooper and stalk all the ladies in Twin Peaks. It somehow just doesn't feel very suspenseful to me.
3. He's played over the top goofy, maybe trying to mimic the way Leland was played? Not sure what they were going for, but it took the menace out of his character that had been building up all the way up to and including the moment Leo first stumbles upon him in the log cabin.

However, once the Black Lodge plot was converged with the Windom plot, I think we finally got some payoff with his character. After that, Windom does become very interesting and the perfect foil for Coop IMHO. And though some would say Lynch dismissively dispatches with Windom too quickly after half a season of a buildup of a confrontation with him and Cooper, I really loved that subverting expectations approach.
I was going to say this a couple days ago in response to Cappy's initial post, but the idea of Windom Earle strikes me as flawed on the directorial level. I think you could have still had most of that dialogue, or variations of it, along with a similar plot, and the character would have been a villain worthy of his diamond-mind buildup. My evidence of this is that he has a couple great moments scattered throughout (I actually love him dressed as the Log Lady, which is silly without being overly theatrical from a performance perspective), and especially that as soon as Lynch gets ahold of him in episode 29, he suddenly becomes truly frightening, whether during his ride/walk with Annie or his time in the Black Lodge. I'm not trying to take away from anyone who loves the character as is, but I think that if Lynch would have directed Kenneth Welsh (a good actor) throughout, the very same character would have come across far more effectively. Episode 29 is suddenly like watching an entirely new, very scary character, so much so that I think it would be really interesting to show the episode to a first timer just to see how they might imagine how the character got to that point. As I already said, I do like Windom in episode 28 as well, and bits and pieces of him throughout.
LateReg
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1435
Joined: Sun May 10, 2015 5:19 pm

Re: Recut of TPTR

Post by LateReg »

Cappy wrote:Yeah, I totally agree. Windom really started to 'work' for me as a character during the last few episodes, as the quest for the Lodge(s) really put his character's motivations into focus. I honestly couldn't stand him at all the first few times I watched the show, but over time, his appearances in the final episodes have sort of endeared the character to me.

But yeah, it's interesting how Peaks has this string of comic book-y villains (Jean Renault, Earl) during it's second half. I feel like that might be an unintended consequence of Season 2's tilt towards the supernatural. In elevating BOB to this sort of unstoppable demonic level, they had to elevate Cooper and his capabilities as well. But in doing that, in making Cooper a full blown supernatural investigator, maybe the writers started to think that only larger than life villains would be credible threats to him.

Personally I don't see why they needed Renault's vendetta against Coop to keep him in town. Like, why couldn't he just stick around to look for BOB or the Lodges or something? The more the Jean Renault story arc is dissected, the less I like it. Thank goodness Michael Parks made the character so fun to watch.
Most likely, it was because TV back then wasn't ready for an investigation into BOB or the lodges as the central focus, and so the writers didn't even consider it at the time...which is kind of great, because having that stuff in the background and slowly built to is the narrative hook that keeps me interested during the rough patch, and if the more immediate storylines were better, that would have worked perfectly. But anyway, despite the tapestry of the townsfolk of Twin Peaks and the narrative and tonal daring of the show itself, I think that era of TV demanded that there be a central threat to the protagonists, or at least a more grounded mystery, and so once the murder was solved the most obvious thing to do was to introduce new tangible threats rather than a new mystical journey.
Post Reply