Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

[musicaddict]

Hi there,

long time lurker, first time poster. English is not my native language, so be advised.

I think I started reading this thread the first time after watching episode 3 and 4. Since then I enjoyed every film of David Lynch (except Eraserhead which I never saw and IE, which I consider a mess), I asked myself why I was so disappointed in the first 4 hours of TR. I rewatched FWWM and the first season of TP, which I again greatly enjoyed. I started to like DKL because he added another level to his movies, his work really provoked a thinking process in me, BUT: his films up until IE had a certain cinematic quality. Meaning even if you "didn't get" it, you could appreciate the camerawork, the editing, the sound design, the sound track and many, many more elements a film is made of. TR in my opinion completely lacked that. I work in the editorial part of "the industry" aswell (in Europe), and I instantely had the need to cut atleast 50% of the time of every episode when people kept starring at each other while saying nothing. The horrid pink room at the start of episode 3 was badly enough, and the face of Major Briggs floating around in space almost brought me in a kind of rage, since every VFX guy in his third semester of film school could do better work than this abomination of shots.

However, I kept watching, I wanted to know if Dougie Cooper was only a thing for a couple of episodes. When Dougie was yelling "Hellloooooooo" in the casino I died inside. What in the world happened to Lynch and Frost? Did no one from the production staff questioned the decision making on the set or maybe even before that in the script? I was facepalming when the first shot of my beloved series started with a stock footage clip from New York and then moved to Las Vegas later in the episode. This was not the Twin Peaks I would ever sign up for! If this would be a new, original series, okay, but TR broke every connection with the original run, even slaughtered FWWM in the last two episodes. I never could have guessed that after this season was done, all I wish is that TR never came into existence and that EP29 was the last episode we ever got. Some things better stay dead.

But this was not the end - people on Twitter, Facebook, Dugpa - they all praised TR as a masterpiece, as a perfect series, new, refreshing, while I wondered how bad this series was going. People wrote that they laughed, that they cried - every episode up to episode 5 I watched emotionsless, questioning myself how bad one can screw up a project both artistically and technically. If this thread wouldn't exist I would have lost all hope in humanity, so thank you my friends for being here.

I'm sorry that I wrote in such a negative way, especially since this is my first post. But after the finale, I just wanted to share my experience with you all!

I completely understand how you feel.

[douglasb]

Were expectations too high? If Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones got together as Led Zeppelin to record a new album, what are the chances it would equal (or even better) their 1970s albums? Pretty low I suspect.

On what basis did we presume that Lynch and Frost would be equal to the task of two-handedly writing and directing an 18 part project after 25+ years?

[nimeoa]

Thinking back, it strikes me as particularly and purposefully cruel to finally have Coop come back with the iconic "I am the FBI." (which fans of the season as a whole collectively shit themselves over after belittling the disappointed crowd for just wanting nostalgia) only to have him pretty much do nothing and NOT be Cooper in the final 2 episodes. That guy at the end definitely wasn't the Cooper we know. And this would have made more sense had they not taken the time immediately after him waking up to hammer it in that it is INDEED the old Coop.

This show sucked.

[nimeoa]

Were expectations too high? If Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones got together as Led Zeppelin to record a new album, what are the chances it would equal (or even better) their 1970s albums? Pretty low I suspect.

On what basis did we presume that Lynch and Frost would be equal to the task of two-handedly writing and directing an 18 part project after 25+ years?

No, I think a lot of people with completely grounded and sensible expectations, like myself, were crushingly disappointed by this meandering, aimless, pretentious vanity project.

[Hercousin]

Were expectations too high? If Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones got together as Led Zeppelin to record a new album, what are the chances it would equal (or even better) their 1970s albums? Pretty low I suspect.

On what basis did we presume that Lynch and Frost would be equal to the task of two-handedly writing and directing an 18 part project after 25+ years?

Yes, I think our expectations were too high. I think as a director, he still has it. As far as the story goes, I think they did exactly what they set out to do which is where they lost me. It would have been great to get some other writers and editors up in there.

[Framed_Angel]

Thinking back, it strikes me as particularly and purposefully cruel to finally have Coop come back with the iconic "I am the FBI."

Not only that -- claiming he was back "ONE HUNDRED PERCENT" !?!
/L-O-L

Were expectations too high? If Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones got together as Led Zeppelin to record a new album, what are the chances it would equal (or even better) their 1970s albums?...On what basis did we presume that Lynch and Frost would be equal to the task of two-handedly writing and directing an 18 part project after 25+ years?

Can we make that a separate thread? It's a legitimate question you're posting. I'll say, I was highly skeptical when The Return was announced as a thing 'happening again.' I knew you couldn't go home again. It seemed purposeless, against better logic, and as I sought details how the new show would emerge, then realized developments and script & story premise was all super top-secret, I allowed myself to indulge in the intrigue of What-If just to see how it'd pan out. Like... "an Experiment."

And so your question has endless implications. I'm surprised I hadn't see it posed as a new thread sooner.
The music analogy had occurred to me. Yet, when I hear a performer live on stage, I like hearing a familiar tune in a new spin. It's an incomplete analogy but I've taken it beyond your original context. I have plenty more to say about it. But there's too many other aspects of the show I'm trying to process as well...

[referendum]

framed angel: I knew you couldn't go home again

and that's what we got. literally.

2)

And so your question has endless implications. I'm surprised I hadn't see it posed as a new thread sooner.
The music analogy had occurred to me. Yet, when I hear a performer live on stage, I like hearing a familiar tune in a new spin.

yeah i think this deserves a new thread, i have been trying to say things about this aswell, also connected, about how Lynch applies editing rhythms he has picked up from making more CD's than music over the last ten years, and how this translates ( or doesn't) when transplanted into film.

[AnotherBlueRoseCase]

Goodbye to boske and judasbooth, then. Superb signoffs from you both. Thank you for your insight, sanity and wit -- you are both v funny fuckers.

And yeah, let's use this shambles as rocket fuel for our own projects. We've just sat through a gruelling eighteen-hour crash course in precisely how it shouldn't be done, a rare and precious thing in its own way. There is as much to learn from The Return as from the greatest masterpieces. If you know any young writers or filmmakers who haven't yet watched it, maybe invite them round your place for a (quick) watch so they can see the disaster that awaits when extremely ambitious conception meets extremely self-indulgent and over-confident execution. Years down the line they may find themselves considering inserting some element of extreme self-indulgence into their work -- it happens to all of us -- but then they'll remember their exposure to The Return. Don't deny them this chance. Let the unprecedented tediousness, charmlessness and audience contempt wash over them. Let them absorb all the anti-lessons on offer here. Sometimes it really is necessary to suffer for your art.

Love your viewer. Love your reader. Invite them in, give them your best wine and the best seat in front of the fire. Give them something as generous, devastating and haunting as the myth of Laura Palmer RIP.

Hilariously/pathetically, I completed a project this year that has TP's influence running right through it. Interdimensional beings preying on the young through nasty sex, glam blondes, haunted woods, birds everywhere, literal world of blue, etc. As things stand, no way will I be broadcasting any TP connection. Too bloody embarrassing. "Yeah, my new album is mainly influenced by 'The Birdie Song'."

[SpookySculder]

My expectations weren't too high. My initial beef with the show was lack of original cast. That was it. I was pretty open-minded to whatever was coming my way. What I didn't expect in a million years was an incoherent plot and characters that amounted to nothing.

Were expectations too high? If Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones got together as Led Zeppelin to record a new album, what are the chances it would equal (or even better) their 1970s albums? Pretty low I suspect.

On what basis did we presume that Lynch and Frost would be equal to the task of two-handedly writing and directing an 18 part project after 25+ years?

[TwistedFate_L4]

Can you imagine if Showtime had possessed the temerity put their foot down in that dispute and fired Lynch instead of giving in to his diva demands? They could've kept Frost on board and hired some of the original TP writers and directors who are still around. One can only dream...Coop needs to go back and create a new timeline with Lynch staying the hell away from this project.

There's no way my 2014 self would've allowed it. I think this is simply a case of "If we only knew then..."

If Showtime could've foresaw this and did take those actions then they would be vilified and who knows if any of the original team, in front and behind, the camera would've touched this without Lynch. Remember- "No Lynch, No Peaks". We probably would've gotten a modernized version of the original show with all new characters set inside familiar sets- which still probably would've been more captivating than the incoherent mess Lynch gave us. But I'm glad it worked out this way because no one can blame Showtime or any one for "interfering"- it's all 100% on Lynch. This was a necessary lesson to be learned. The creator doesn't always know best. I shall keep that in mind whenever I hear about a creator returning to a brand I like.

At least we don't have to fantasize about how David's pure unfiltered "vision" for The Return would've been for the next 25 years. Now we get to imagine what it could've been without him and his Tulpas.

[Venus]

I'm kinda tired so likely shouldn't be posting this now and this is the first time I've had to post since watching the last episodes. I refuse to call them 'parts' lol. I feel like I'm swimming against the current a little because I was actually intrigued by the last two episodes. It may be because there was actually something akin to a storyline. It may be because stuff actually happened. All in contrast to the other episodes. Yes it was massively flawed and some of it was awful but if the rest of the show could have been more like the majority these more disciplined episodes I wouldn't have thought that the previous 16 were a complete waste of time and money. I'm still at the point of trying to get my head around a lot of it. I've only seen them once. I liked the going back in time to visit Laura bit (but oh my.....that appalling wig totally took away from it). I found it hard to keep up in ep 18. Everything moved so fast. I saw a lot of Lost Highway in it all, a film that intrigues me. I thought there was quite a lot of cleverness going on with different undercurrents flowing. And I even felt a little scared for the first time ever when we were at Sarah's house and the noises were coming from elsewhere, whatever they were. It was unsettling. I felt like the ending of episode 18 should have happened in the middle of the season so there was time to explore it and work through it, possibly to a conclusion of some sort.

Then of course came the crushing disappointment of even more questions being posed and we yet again have been left hanging, this time from the edge of Everest. Now I quite enjoy a bittersweet ending. Not everything should always tie up as it doesn't always in life, but to pose even more questions on top of questions at the end seemed rather cruel as they know what the fans felt about the end of ep 29. I'm disappointed in them for doing that whilst knowing the history of how people felt. Also with the possibility it was a dream and that Coop was never Coop but some guy called Richard......well what on earth can I say to that? I think episode 18 left with many tales left to tell but what a shame those tales were not told during this season when they had their one definite shot to do so. To me these last two episodes were thought provoking and engaging but Mr Frost and Mr Lynch I feel sad that in my opinion, you squandered your talents on the previous 16 episodes and didn't do yourselves justice. These last two episodes were more along the lines of what I was looking for in a new TP, we were taken into another world and didn't quite know where we were being taken with the past meeting the present meeting the future, but even those episodes could have done with a lot of fine retuning.

So many cliches spring to mind that maybe they were thinking, 'Treat 'em mean, keep them keen'. 'Leave them wanting more'....maybe they wanted it to end in such a frustrating way so it doesn't get forgotten. If everything was tied up it would have become a little footnote in tv history. It worked at the end of S2, why not do it again now? Now we are left with a void of continued frustration. As if the last 25 years wasn't enough.

[TwistedFate_L4]

So I guess I'll join in and give my two cents about my feelings on "The Return". Let's get one thing straight- Not once did I ever want a pure nostalgia trip or a flashier remake of the first season just with a new "dead girl". I wasn't expecting the show to open or end with Coop eating Cherry Pie at the Double R 25 years later with Audrey and Norma & Shelly cheering them on with pom-poms. I knew this would be something darker, something vicious- I knew Lynch was going to take the world of Twin Peaks and bring it into 2017 with a harsh awakening and I was ready for it. I love the over the top soapy moments in the original series, I even fall for some of them, but I love the horror beyond as well. Twin Peaks is frightening as it is beautiful and I was excited to see Lynch & Frost bring that to us completely unfiltered and unrestricted. So no, the brutality displayed this season didn't bother me, the huge body count I enjoy, I liked the mayhem. I was perfectly fine with that. I imagine the original series would've been a lot more vulgar if it hadn't been on Primetime TV. So all of this I was perfectly fine with and HAPPY with.

What I wasn't happy with was the fact that the entire project came off as if it was cooked up originally because Lynch & Frost were sitting around and coming up with a list of actors- big or small- they'd love to work with and when that giant list was finished they decided to write an overly long, nonsensical story around that and then threw in their favorite bands to boot. Maybe even that's giving them too much credit. Characters appear and disappear, narrative dead ends abound, no one seems important not even Cooper, 7 minutes of screen time wasted on a dude sweeping a floor, 5 on someone painting shovels, 6 on a dumb blonde trying to swat a fly, spending the whole season of a show called "Twin Peaks" in Las Vegas and South Dakota for plotlines that really don't matter, 200 new characters introduced with none mattering, oldies being set up for great development but being left as glorified cameos(What? Shelly Married Bobby who's a deputy and now she has a troubled daughter who's being led down a dark path by her junky of a husband and Shelly herself is dating some magical psychopathic drug dealer named Red? Should we dig into that? Nah, more pressing matters at hand- like hearing about how Gordon Cole can still get it up.), Norma and Ed finally getting together after all these years but you don't give a crap because it just came out of nowhere, Audrey survives an explosion and is raped by dopplecoop and gives birth to a complete nut for a son but only shows up to be a nagging old shrew who dances and disappears. Oh yeah, was that even Audrey? Is the real Audrey trapped? Where has she been for the last 25 years? Oh who cares- let's have a ten minute sex scene of Diane- I've been waiting a quarter of a century for that.

As others have said, Lynch could have still "deconstructed" the show and gave his "fuck you!" to the tradionalists WITHOUT making himself look like a fool in the process. I was neutral, I had no expectations, I was open- and I still was very disappointed. I actually loved the first two episodes- I thought they were wonderfully dark, scary, foreign, and a great cold opening to the show...but every thing after has been a huge fumble. We should've been 100% back in Twin Peaks by episode 6 and it still could've been disturbing, twisted, and still Twin Peaks. That's what I find so frustrating about The Return, with some tweaks it could be half-way decent. You have a huge cast of talented actors, you have Amanda Seyfried for crying out loud, and yet no one truly matters. The Mitchum Brothers and the gals grew on me, but couldn't we just have had the Casino in or on the outskirts of Twin Peaks? Maybe tie them to Red? Couldn't Janey-E have been a Twin Peaks resident? Couldn't Cole, Albert, and Tammy come to town much earlier? Couldn't all of these characters actually have been tied together well? You were partially there with the Bobby/Shelly/Becky/Steven/Red/Richard connections. I see absolutely no point in the multiple-locations beyond perhaps the first few episodes of following Bad Coop. If I had the energy and the desperation- I'd indulge in a little fan fiction but I rather focus on my own work. I agree that at the end of the day, we should take our disappointments and put the pain into our own art. Don't like someone else's? Make your own. The Return wasn't a complete waste as it did inspire me and there were things I did enjoy- but as others have said the show is basically mini vignettes. I for one loved the scene at the end of episode 15 with Ruby crawling on the floor of the roadhouse and screaming her head off as the band plays that chilling tune- Beautiful, haunting, and just makes me go "Damnit Lynch, if only this scene was in an actually good show."

Also, can we admit that there is a lot of good TV out there these days? TV is where its at. I'm annoyed with people acting as if "The Return" is the only "good"(ha) thing on television. Yet those same people claim to not watch much TV. lol

The Return does not tarnish the original series for me because it is so far removed its not even funny. Nothing could EVER tarnish the original show- its been too long and its foundation has been set, so nothing that comes after- good or bad, can change that. So I can watch my Twin Peaks complete series and Fire Walk With Me Blu-ray and never have to feel bothered about leaving The Return out of it.

Season 4? No thanks. I don't see myself tuning in. Perhaps if they decided to basically chalk the entirety of season 3 up to being a dream and then have season 4 actually about a town, you know, called Twin Peaks rather than a bizarre Gordon Cole wet dream- but that will never happen so I'm absolutely fine with "How's Annie?!" being the last word on Twin Peaks.

[mtsi]

To me, the series reminded me of a long Coen Brothers movie, where everyone is stupid, except one character, and that one character was never really given to us until the end, where he (maybe) turned out to be someone else.

No wonder we are all frustrated.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[cgs027]

And Miriam's last name on the envelope was confirmed to be a prop error

No one ever provided conclusive backing for this. The most we saw here in the forums was a link to a post on twitter, however that post only contained another unverified claim from a commenter that stated confirmation had been made, without providing any evidence of such, so unless I missed the proof, it has actually never been furnished.

I thought I had seen a link to the person on set at some point. I'm not part of the Twitter universe, so I may have missed a reply somewhere. Either way, I will be shocked if they return to the Miriam character at all in these last 2 episodes. Don't see it as being a driving plotline anymore, and thus, it begs the question -- if the argument is that it was done on purpose, then for what reason? I'm not seeing it. They arrested Chad and he is now in jail along with the others, Lucy saw him fumbling with the mail (which may or may not have helped lead to his arrest -- remember, they had been watching him for a LONG time), Miriam survived and they were able to peg Richard as the suspect without the letter anyways, Richard is now dead (and if not, I don't expect to see him in the mortal plane again), etc... where does a second Miriam play into this in any way that enhances that story?

(And yes, I will come on here and eat crow if we have a long exposition scene in the last episode, Agatha Christie style, where Lucy explains how she brought down the corrupt officer when she figured out that he had taken a letter out of the mail, but unbeknownst to him it ended up being the WRONG Miriam, and she received the letter from the real Miriam the next day).

Well, this may have been lost in the ep 16 thread, but here goes (courtesy of vicksvapor77):
"Sabrina got back to me on the Cooper age issue. It definitely seems to be a simple continuity mistake (which I won't be telling her haha), which is further emphasized by the case file picture I posted during the marathon. Just thought you guys would like to see!

2017-09-06_8-46-27.jpg"

If you can't see the pic linked, it is Sabrina Sutherland (the producer) stating:
"Cooper Double says he's 25 years older than Richard, which means Richard is 25 years old. It's not saying how old Cooper Double is."

So... this is a huge continuity error (her statement is obviously mathematically wrong -- as debated at great length, if Richard Horne is 25, Mr.C has to be 50 in this equation, which makes Cooper 25 when he goes into the lodge -- NOPE). Are we still going to argue that these are all intentional, for godsakes? I hate that the ending provides an easy out to explain all of this sloppiness away...

[CarriePage]

I'm very disappointed. So many stories never told (Audrey?!), so many character introduced and forgotten. Too much Las Vegas and too little Twin Peaks.