Part 10 - Laura is the one (SPOILERS)

[Esselgee]

didnt the stabbing in the red room (black lodge) do a sudden reverse video? As if he stabbed him, then unstabbed him? Maybe Im remembering wrong but the red room has no rules. Remember he entered with a rain coat and suddenly inside had no rain coat.

Yes, but wasn't that just mimicking when Cooper got stabbed in Pittsburgh. It was believed that Windom Earle stabbed Cooper. I'm not sure how Cooper could not know 100% who stabbed him unless it happened when he was sleeping or knocked out.

[Trudy Chelgren]

Of everything this Part threw at me, and I loved this one, Johnny staring into his freaking teddy bear is going to stay with me the longest. That was both deeply unsettling and deeply heartbreaking, much like many of the more violent scenes. But there was something so tragic in that situation. Masterful.

[nick1218]

Of everything this Part threw at me, and I loved this one, Johnny staring into his freaking teddy bear is going to stay with me the longest. That was both deeply unsettling and deeply heartbreaking, much like many of the more violent scenes. But there was something so tragic in that situation. Masterful.

How is he not in a home? I wonder if he got better and he is regressing. We need a Johnny spinoff

[cgs027]

Couldn't the casino bosses just ask the driver of their limo service to tell them where the house was with the red door that they dropped off mr jackpots at?

But that would be too easy! (And yes, this is a totally valid point -- I guess they were more willing to write him off on scamming them on the slots, as long as he never showed his face again. Once the $30 million insurance claim came into the picture, things changed -- which they found out about AFTER they had identified him on the local news).

[The Gazebo]

Of everything this Part threw at me, and I loved this one, Johnny staring into his freaking teddy bear is going to stay with me the longest. That was both deeply unsettling and deeply heartbreaking, much like many of the more violent scenes. But there was something so tragic in that situation. Masterful.

Beautifully put. The entire scene was one of those where one is left helpless watching, unable to intervene, yet at the same time mesmerized by it.

[wxray]

How is he not in a home? I wonder if he got better and he is regressing. We need a Johnny spinoff

Another inconvenient dose of reality comes from Frost/Lynch.

Putting your child "in a home" isn't easy, and may not be financially viable. Sylvia clearly loves her son, and feels that she can take care of him. I kind of disagree seeing how he was restrained. But, the point is that millions of people the world over face this issue of how to take care of an adult child, or senior parents. It is tough stuff.

BTW, in watching the difficult scene again, I think Johnny was recast with a stuntman in order for him to handle the falling over in a chair with restraints on regardless of the availability of the original actor.

[thunderclap82]

Sonny Jim is a reference to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" . In that story Sonny Jim is a non-existent construct thought up by a quarreling married couple to disguise their loneliness. I don't think Lynch/Frost would have used this name is he was just another kid.

In thinking about this a little more it's a very interesting connection. But maybe Sonny Jim isn't a physical manifestation of the quarreling couple in this regard but, rather, Cooper's mind. During the sex scene Sonny Jim sits up suddenly, so could this be showing Cooper waking up? Since the world we've seen thus far is so dark, and Dopple Coop is so evil, perhaps the physical act of love counteracts that. Yin and Yang. Maybe he needed that love to regain himself. Remember the One-Armed Man tells Cooper to "Wake Up!"

[dud]

duncan todd's little smile after informing anthony that he will be forced to kill dougie himself if he can't convince the mitchum brothers to do it was so good lol

[dustoff]

While I'm here, and apropos of everything else in this thread, I think:

--The Miriam's-name-thing was intentional;
--The door glitch was just a glitch, probably a result of the fact that Lynch was stitching together these shots in his living room;
--There's no one behind that bald guy, who is not David Bowie; and,
--Chrysta Bell's portrayal of Tammy is pitch-perfect, and is a gift to us all.

[gary2381]

DoppleCoop and the glass box. Sorry for the size.

DoppleCoop

bc_glass.jpg (675.7 KiB) Viewed 8768 times

[Another owl]

Did you all realize that, with 18 episodes, we'll have more screen time of Dougie than Cooper, right?

[Ragnell]

Did you all realize that, with 18 episodes, we'll have more screen time of Douguie than Cooper, right?

He's Dale underneath it. We've seen him surface. The emotional core is there. It's just like he's sleepwalking.

...

Heh. Now that I think of it. Dale took Ike the Spike out IN HIS SLEEP. And it sent reverberations through the Las Vegas underworld. The Mitchem brothers have no chance. And Tony's doomed.

[mtwentz]

What is it about this particularepisode that somehow crosses the line though??? Seriously? Miriam's death wasn't handled in a particularly gratuitous manner, the Stephen/Becky scene was also not graphic, very brief and was meant to garner sympathy for Becky... Nothing remotely as violent as Spike's hit on Lorraine, for example. Undeniably, it's valid to analyze the gender politics of the series, whether or not Lynch/Frost are trying to "say something". Personally, I don't believe any of the scenes so far have been genuinely exploitative or gratuitous.

Honestly, I didn't think so either. For me the introduction of Richard and him threatening that girl was the most upsetting scene when it came to women. But I think, for a lot of people, the line was Sylvia. Sylvia is an older woman, Richard's GRANDMOTHER, and he chokes her, yells at her, threatens her son, steals from her, and calls her the C-word. That's abusing a woman, abusing an elder, a step above abusing his mother, terrorizing her, and using foul gendered language. That scene is like a checklist of terrifying, abusive things and I can see how it was too much for some people. Especially when its preceded by introducing Sylvia as the caregiver for a now-injured son, and followed by that conversation with Ben that establishes she's a) divorced, and b) Ben is apparently (APPARENTLY, because maybe his ethics break will include being willing to use his influence to take measures against Richard now?) not able or willing to defend her.

All of this with the added trauma of watching poor Johnnie witness this, try desperately to help his mother and be restrained from it. (Which may be a metaphor for how the whole town, including Ben, is restrained by ethics, fear, or corrupt interference from stopping Richard.)

And it's Richard. We already saw Richard attack a woman and leave her for dead this ep. (And I was grateful we didn't actually see him attack Miriam in the trailer). Previously we've seen Richard threaten rape on two girls in the roadhouse, and run a young child over in the street. It's a distinct possibility that Richard is the result of the season villain raping the most popular female character on the show. We learned he has Chad interfering with attempts to bring him to justice.

Richard is just an upsetting character, and this was his most upsetting scene. This was the most upsetting scene in the ep for me (Johnnie put it over the top there.) I don't want just anyone to get Richard. I want COOPER to get Richard now.

Because Richard is a bully. Richard is afraid of Red, Richard is paying off the cops to keep the good guys off his tail, but Richard violently terrorizes, assaults, threatens, and kills woman, children, the elderly, and the disabled even if they are in his own family. And one of the reasons I love Cooper is he is immune to bullies, and disgusted by guys like Richard.

*Ahem* But anyway. Richard's basically a character that embodies the horror of misogyny, domestic abuse, and small scale tyranny. He's a wild, rich bully with no empathy. He probably tortured animals as a child. In a scene with violence against a woman, the effect is amplified when the perpetrator is a guy like Richard because you know the motive is he's trying to secure his own power by robbing that woman of hers. It's perfectly understandable that people find that upsetting, and that it may seem gratuitous since so far Richard isn't really involved or connected to the main Cooper plot. (Except, of course, by his first name and the possibility that the most popular female character from the original series was raped. Which is just more upsetting.)

I think that's one thing we can all agree on: Richard is a bastard. Figuratively and probably literally too!

[Jasper]

Did you all realize that, with 18 episodes, we'll have more screen time of Dougie than Cooper, right?

I think that's been the assumption, yes. That said, this is a very broad story with an ensemble cast, and as various disparate elements begin to converge, it's possible that regular Cooper will have more and more screen time, so it's not necessarily true that there will be more Dougie-Coop, especially when we factor in Cooper appearing a lot in episodes two and three. Personally, I'm enjoying both Dougie-Coop and the resultant Dougie-Coop angst.

[BOB1]

Wow, I know it was 40 pages back but what a great post this is:

I have a few thoughts:

I'll start with the Becky/Stephen/Carl scene. First, to address your point, I don't think Carl was "annoyed." I think he was resigned. My guess is that he hears Stephen and Becky fighting a lot (they live right near the management office) and he may very well have even spoken to Becky about it in the past. He feels like there's nothing he can do. He might not know how violent Stephen gets, but even if he does, this is sadly a common reaction to this kind of situation. I feel like what we got from Carl in this scene was that sad helplessness that we've seen a lot of in Twin Peaks--people knowing about awful truths but feeling like they can't do anything to stop it is one of the major themes of the entire series (especially FWWM).

The brief sketch we've seen so far of Becky and Stephen's relationship is interesting. Obviously, there is a major theme of history repeating itself. Shelly has a strong intuition that something is very wrong but she has no idea how close Becky's situation is to her's with Leo. Remember, "Everybody loves Stephen!" My guess is that Becky met him when they were both young and he always came off as a "lovable loser" type--someone Becky always thought of as sweet--and then they got together and this side comes out from time to time. Their scene in the car takes on a whole new meaning--she's gauging his words and reactions, waiting to see which side of him she's going to be dealing with. She genuinely loves the side of him that she initially fell in love with, and there's probably even a part of her that alternately rationalizes his violence or feels crazy--like she must be imaging or exaggerating it. This happens in abusive relationships all the time! And it's an interesting contrast with Leo, who always seemed so one-note. Stephen isn't Leo--he's more insidious. Which leaves Becky all the more alone when he explodes.

My point is that this is a complex picture being presented. And I feel confident after Part 10 that we'll learn more about Becky.

Now, moving on to Candie: I thought Candie was absolutely fascinating! This is a complex woman dealing with some heavy sublimated rage. She has this job in which she is expected to be a prop--to make her bosses feel important and specifically, and quite perversely, to witness their violence against other men so that the men feel--what?--emasculated/humiliated in front of "pretty girls" as they're being beaten up or threatened. It's seriously fucked up, that's for sure. And what I saw in every one on Candie's scenes was a woman feeling the emotional impact of doing this job. She's angry as hell and frightened and trapped and it's taking a toll. Honestly, I've never seen this character before! I mean, I've seen the prop but never the character. There's a part of me expecting Candie to kill both of her bosses--though I'd really love it if she fucks up their business in a big way without becoming a murderer. Either way, put me fully on Team Candie!

What I saw in Part 10 was very much of a piece with Lynch's general approach to violence, and especially violence against women, throughout his entire career, and it is mournful, it's confrontational, and deeply complex.

I hardly ever manage to follow these episode threads... so I post my thoughts on the Profoundly Disappointed thread, even though I am not profoundly disappointed (just quite critical)...
But instead of reading the whole episode threads I sometimes stick to following the posts of some users whose posts I appreciate the most... I made a good choice, I can see

I sincerely hope you are right about Becky & co. coming back to us with more. SOON. Cause I was very disappointed (I mean: profoundly! ) when this very good scene had no follow-up in this episode. They hung up the thread for 5 episodes and then came back for a moment and that's it?! I don't like it. But if they come back on topic soon in the next episode, I'll forgive them