Differing Views on The Return

[LateReg]

fuller realization of Lynch's aesthetic for television and deconstruction of the hero.

... for better or for worse

Until there’s a book about it, I’m not taking a generic, glowing review at face value. Anyone in media or publishing knows DL is a genius, and that they risk looking like an idiot if they disagree in print. I wonder how she really feels though.
I’ll also accept a feature length article.

Sopranos did nothing for me. The Wire I found unwatchable. Those are low bars to surpass.

There is a book. The series prompted a book. Television Rewired: The Rise of the Auteur Series. The cover is related to The Return, and it is covered in the final chapter.

Your subjectivity is one thing, but those series are groundbreaking and acclaimed and thus the subject of nearly any discussion of TV's (2000s) golden age. To many, they are the highest of bars to surpass, and I think that has to be acknowledged in a discussion of form, influence, innovation, legacy, etc., regardless of one's own personal taste.

[sylvia_north]

“Groundbreaking and acclaimed” geez I dunno. I feel like that phrase has become meaningless through overuse, it’s meaningless to this conversation, as far as discussing disappointment is concerned. It’s meaningless because Hollywood and media are.. what’s the word... corrupt? Dishonest for $ and alliances?

Does she give it the full Swerves treatment? I just ordered a used copy.

If DL fulfilled his TM-quantum-Hindu vision with S3 and he’s happy, and you guys here are happy, and everyone that gets paid to have the correct opinions or speak as an authority on DL’s artistic motivations got paid, I am happy for everyone

[sylvia_north]

She just might (hear me out) feel exactly how she said she felt. Not everyone is a liar.

I just watched Part 1 tonight. Part 1 was so promising.

[mtwentz]

When I think of the Return, I think of Gordon offering a cigarette to Diane. I think of Sam staring at the glass box. I think of Dougie, which went on far longer than anyone expected, and whose scenes are comedically functioning off of the fact that the situations (owing to Cooper's literal physical/mental slowness) are drawn out. I think of the ending, which is mostly a night drive. I think of the eerie black and white opening, which is as slow as the Red Room ever is, and which segues into very slow, atmospheric pans into the first time the introduction plays. Each episode ends with a pretty lengthy, often slow-tempo musical performance, which we can never know for sure will eventually be credits, and so even here our patience is being modulated. Most illustrative of all, the very first proper moment of the series is Jacoby receiving his shovels. The camera is way on the other side of trees, we can barely hear what's being said, we have no context for what's happening, and it goes from there.

To my mind, the primary tone of S3 is suspended anticipation, and while this is capitalized on with fluorishes of dynamic events and unexpectedly swift happenings, there's still this dominant tone to me of a trickling or even damming of events, and an easing into and out of each episode. I think it's deliberate and, to be unambiguous, I find it to work extremely well. But I just don't think of S3 and free-associate to 'fast-paced' whatsoever.

Agreed the two are not mutually exclusive: The Return can be about suspended anticipation, but the plot can also be lively with lots of things happening, and twists and turns.

And a lot of scenes in The Return take place at a fairly brisk pace by Lynchian standards.

[mtwentz]

She just might (hear me out) feel exactly how she said she felt. Not everyone is a liar.

I just watched Part 1 tonight. Part 1 was so promising.

My recollection is that your posts were mostly positive or neutral until about Part 14, where Naido shows up nude.

It felt to me at the time that that scene really turned you into the Profoundly Disappointed.

[enumbs]

fuller realization of Lynch's aesthetic for television and deconstruction of the hero.

... for better or for worse

Until there’s a book about it, I’m not taking a generic, glowing review at face value. Anyone in media or publishing knows DL is a genius, and that they risk looking like an idiot if they disagree in print. I wonder how she really feels though.
I’ll also accept a feature length article.

Sopranos did nothing for me. The Wire I found unwatchable. Those are low bars to surpass.

You said you’d accept a feature length article, but would a long form interview do? The conversation with Joel Bocko (Lost in the Movies) is best, but the one with Scott Ryan is also quite interesting.

https://www.lostinthemovies.com/2019/08 ... d.html?m=1

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/th ... 9EmukzBSe/

She does hate the Wally Brando scene, if that makes you feel any better.

[enumbs]

“Groundbreaking and acclaimed” geez I dunno. I feel like that phrase has become meaningless through overuse, it’s meaningless to this conversation, as far as discussing disappointment is concerned. It’s meaningless because Hollywood and media are.. what’s the word... corrupt? Dishonest for $ and alliances?

Does she give it the full Swerves treatment? I just ordered a used copy.

If DL fulfilled his TM-quantum-Hindu vision with S3 and he’s happy, and you guys here are happy, and everyone that gets paid to have the correct opinions or speak as an authority on DL’s artistic motivations got paid, I am happy for everyone

Are you really suggesting that The Sopranos and The Wire are acclaimed because of Hollywood corruption? Come on.

[mtwentz]

“Groundbreaking and acclaimed” geez I dunno. I feel like that phrase has become meaningless through overuse, it’s meaningless to this conversation, as far as discussing disappointment is concerned. It’s meaningless because Hollywood and media are.. what’s the word... corrupt? Dishonest for $ and alliances?

Does she give it the full Swerves treatment? I just ordered a used copy.

If DL fulfilled his TM-quantum-Hindu vision with S3 and he’s happy, and you guys here are happy, and everyone that gets paid to have the correct opinions or speak as an authority on DL’s artistic motivations got paid, I am happy for everyone

Are you really suggesting that The Sopranos and The Wire are acclaimed because of Hollywood corruption? Come on.

I will allow that there is a certain amount of critics that can be...shall we say...swayed by the studios.

In the case of a Lynch production, I think the case could be made there is a bias for anything by Lynch by certain critics.

I don't actually think that is the case, but that could be a coherent argument. And critics are like anyone else, they have their biases.

But in general, if critics like something, they really like it. I do believe the idea of being shut out by certain powerful corporations like Disney probably gives critics some pause. I don't if Showtime has that type of power.

[Jonah]

Some quick thoughts.

On the pacing, I think there is truth to the fact that modern day media has made us all less impatient for slower-paced works (to some extent). I've felt it in myself. I read less, I get impatient with Youtube ads, etc. However, I don't think that's the reason some of the slower moments in The Return might not work. I'm fine with most of it (the sweeping scene, etc.) but I detest the scene with the lady outside the diner, the puking kid, I'm not a huge fan of the French lady either (but don't mind it as much as it feels like it's all in good fun much like the sweeping one), and I really dislike the execution (but not the idea of) the Audrey scenes, the roadhouse randos, etc. I was saying that to Brad recently - I admire Fenn for standing up for herself and asking for better scenes and I think the whole idea behind the Audrey scenes is really great and intriguing but the actual execution of the first couple of scenes (the first in particular) is rather painful. It's fun to see Audrey ranting, some of the name drops and mentions of Billy are vaguely intriguing (though lead to nothing), and I love the mention of Ghostwood. However, it's the longest static scene in TP history I believe, and rather than going on for 10-15 minutes really should have been 3, 5 tops. Much like a lot of the rest of the show, it feels like outtakes and extended footage. Did Lynch literally put 99% of what was shot into the show? I think a 9 to 12 episode series would have been better. Heck, maybe a FWWM-style movie with extended scenes as long as the Missing Pieces would have been enough to tell Cooper's story (and a lot of the original cast was sidelined anyway). The entirety of the 18 hours doesn't work for me and I think a lot less people would be disappointed if the show was shorter.

But back to the slow scenes themselves. I don't really hate them and in general love scenes like this. I really loved the ones in the original series. I can't put my finger on why the new ones don't work for me as well. Some of it is that it descends into gross out dark humour (the puking kid) or that it feels too on the nose and unsubtle (Lynch speaking through the lady outside the diner, telling the viewers to slow down and stop demanding answers) but also a lot of it just feels extraneous. Yes, some of the slow scenes in the original did too, but they were placed in crucial scenes - purposefully slowing down the scene after Cooper was shot when audiences were impatient, even slowing down Audrey's dramatic chaining herself to the bank vault scene. So the slow scenes felt more crucial to the plot and more deliciously delightful as a result, slightly perverse but not like Lynch was directly lecturing the viewer like I felt with some of the scenes in The Return. But back in the day a lot of the general audience hated them, so maybe people's attention span was always short (or at least their impatience when it came to TV shows and movies), even back in 1990 long before social media and Youtube.

As for the critics, I don't put a lot of stock in them. I often enjoy reading insightful reviews and commentaries, but critics are really just people with opinions like anyone else, sometimes more discerning with insightful views but not always. And I think many of them aim for snark or to sound superior, especially if they're writing for more highbrow publications (this is not always the case). I think they did genuinely like The Return but, again, I think there could be some truth in some critics not wanting to dismiss Lynch in case his work is later regarded more highly. A lot of them bashed FWWM unabashedly and later that movie was (rightfully imo) regarded in higher esteem. When Inland Empire came out, I remember at least one prominent critic admitting he didn't understand it but thought it was genius. I think in that case a lot of them praised that movie too as they were afraid not to be ahead of the curve. Could be wrong on that - and in a lot of cases I do think they genuinely like his work - but sometimes I do wonder if it's gone from one extreme (bashing FWWM) to another (praising everything).

[mtwentz]

omg Jonah, the whole sequence from when the bullet goes into the diner until the girl pukes is one of my favorite in the whole series. In fact, at one time I rated it as my favorite sequence of the whole series.

It's one of those things I guess that either you get or you don't, based primarily on the area you live in.

Here in America, we have a ton of road rage, drivers honking on end for no reason, and I felt that scene was Lynch's response to 'America's Fascination with Blaring the Horn'.

I never knew quite what to make of the puking girl, but earlier there is a reference to Tammy getting carsick, so maybe Lynch has a friend who gets carsick or he himself gets carsick, and that was the inspiration for that. Maybe also a wink and a nod to Zombie movies/TV.

Whether you love it or hate it, I personally would not classify it as 'slow'. In fact, I would not really classify anything in Part 11 as slow- that was one of the faster paced parts, if I recall correctly.

[Jonah]

I definitely got the scene - I just didn't like it. Perhaps it would have hit harder if I was in the US, but I'm not so sure. Modern society is quite comparable in most places these days and everything you described pretty much goes on here too. I think others commented too at the time that it felt like Lynch chastising viewers to slow down and stop demanding answers. It felt very meta but not in a good way, in a very on-the-nose fashion.

I don't really mind the shootout at the diner (though I'm on the fence whether it felt a bit silly or not), or even the screaming lady herself, but then the puking kid and it just all ... ugh. It was just one of those moments for me where the original Twin Peaks felt very far in the rearview mirror indeed. Depressingly so - but not in the way they intended it to be depressing.

It didn't even feel like the town. I know that was part of the point (progress marches on, the issues got worse) but I felt like a lot of that stuff (the town being overrun with drugs and crime) while true to life felt very heavy-handed and just grotesque to me. Sure, the original series had the town rife with drugs and prostitution and murder, but somehow it was handled better and still kept a magical or mystical element to the town, which I think made the hard stuff hit harder. Here all of that was missing. Perhaps it would have been better had Coop just emerged from the red room into Glastonbury Grove and gone straight to TP after all. Perhaps have Andy (in place of Harry) still go out to that log periodically and sit there keeping watch. I feel like we got a brief glimpse of that kind of mystical wonder with Hawk seeing the red curtains in the woods and some of the Log Lady's scenes, but not nearly enough.

The diner scene, though, just felt like ... I'm not even sure, borderline parody? I don't think the scene itself was slow, not really, I just included it as I felt it was referencing the overall slower pace of the series. You know, it's an okay scene but it's a bit silly to me. If you cut out the puking kid and the woman's over the top reaction to it, it sits better with me. But I still didn't like it. I mean, I don't hate it. I don't even think it's bad. It just didn't work for me for a lot of reasons.

I was reading on the first page of the General S3 Discussion thread (http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3635) I had listed all the things I liked and didn't like about the series back in 2017 and both lists are surprisingly of comparable lengths so I guess I really am 50/50 on the whole thing. Maybe if it had been cut in half I would have loved it more (but depends what ended up in the half we'd get lol!). I was thinking earlier, it's one of those things, I really have to extract the stuff I love from and just put up with the rest. I think The Return is very much love it/hate it or like some of it/dislike some of it more than most other things I've watched. The original had so much I just loved, I didn't have to wade through much stuff I didn't to pick out the bits I loved apart from in the middle stretch. So I suppose the middle stretch of Season 2 is very comparable to The Return for me (ironic given how much Lynch apparently hated S2 but also fitting in that I felt a lot of the humour in The Return was comparable to that middle stretch).

I will say, though, the strong stuff in The Return is much much stronger than any of the good nuggets in S2's middle stretch. There are flashes of utter brilliance. I just think it would have been a much stronger revival had it cut the fluff. And, you know, while it's great that so many people love The Return and I'm completely on board with people who do (I wish I did more), it is interesting to me that, of all Lynch's works, EVEN "Inland Empire", it is really the only recent one with no known deleted scenes/footage. So I think, even if people like it's length, it should be worth noting that he definitely threw every bit of footage (for the most part) into it and imo it shows. I think he also expanded the script from what he and Frost originally handed in? That shows too - most of the roadhouse scenes for example. The comparisons to IE and its deleted footage, BV and its deleted footage, and especially TP and The Missing Pieces is very strong to me - but in this case, it feels like they were combined and then some.

[mtwentz]

I understand what you're saying, but I don't see anything in the original series that approaches the brilliance The Mauve Room, Ep. 8 and Ep. 17 ('we live inside a dream') if you love surrealism and 'mind movies', which I do.

So I think, yes, the original is stronger in certain areas, FWWM is stronger in other areas (best soundtrack of the three IMO), but The Return is strongest of all three IMO in being thought provoking, consciousness expanding cinema. I've probably watched each episode over 10 times, and I get something new out of it each time, pick up on some larger theme or some subtlety. And it does have the advantage of a bigger budget and fewer constraints than the original series had.

So here is how I break it out:

If I want witty dialogue and a lot of humor and just to feel the comfort of a friendly small town, I'll tune into Season 1 or 2. I re-watch the original really for the witticisms of Agent Cooper that I might have forgotten abou.

If I want an audio visual fest that will expand the mind and my consciousness, I'll plug in The Return or FWWM. For those two, I will have a new perspective possibly with each viewing, something I did not catch before.

[Jonah]

Comparisons aside, the stuff you highlighted is great (although I'm not as into Part 8 apart from the bit with the Fireman as other people - but I do like 17, 18 very much and think the Mauve Room and things like that are visually stunning) but it doesn't make the other stuff surrounding it any more palatable - it really does feel like wading through a lot of not quite dross, but at times just subpar material (imo) to get to these great nuggets, or in cases like Audrey, a really interesting idea weighed down with long, barely intelligible dialogue peppered with numerous names (amusing, yes, but goes on too long) or plots stretched out beyond all interest (Dougie is great but again it goes on too long), ideas that are not only hammered home but repeatedly so as if the creators thought the viewer didn't get them the first, second, or even tenth time.

There are undoubtedly wonderful moments, genius moments, visually splendid moments, but I feel the stuff surrounding them brings it all down. I mean, in most other cases, we'd all agree that tighter or concise editing is very important to any piece of narrative art, that by distilling them down (while, yes, still leaving some room to breath and odd little slice-of-life moments here and there) you're highlighting the greater moments more. I'm not saying cut everything but a lot of it cut have been cut back or relegated to a bonus disc. That would have benefited the overall series and made the stunning stuff you mention stand out even more imo.

For example, I really dislike all the stuff with the Spike hitman, the bumbling cops (two lots of them!), a lot of that feels very derivative of Mulholland Drive to me (and those kind of sequences, left over from the original MD Pilot, also brought that movie down for me too), all but maybe two of the roadhouse conversation sequences, about half of the Dougie stuff (almost everything after the casino sequence, where I feel it peaked no pun intended, apart from maybe a few fun scenes), some of the stuff involving the original cast such as the Jerry stuff, Ashley's Judd's scenes, some of the Lucy stuff, and almost all the stuff involving Jennifer Jason Leigh (weird as I love her) and Tim Roth (whom I also like)... Now some people may love some of that stuff, tastes differ, that's fine, but it's just an example of stuff that doesn't work for me and makes The Return hard for me personally to enjoy overall, though I did enjoy it much more on rewatch. I think it would have benefited from being at least half its length or better yet a couple of long movies like FWWM and The Missing Pieces.

I don't really compare it to the original series anymore, though the highlights of some of it for me were also seeing the original cast again - but even those snippets could have been resigned to a Missing Pieces style segement. They often felt like they were off a deleted scenes disc anyway.

Edit: Just wanted to add - who am I to say it should be cut down more than it is. Yes, I think it would improve it, that strong editing usually improves a work, but that is just my personal opinion. I think the creator's vision should reign supreme - so if Lynch and Frost are happier with the more the merrier approach, then fair enough. It just reminds me a bit of certain writers whose early novels are edited and tight but later works become bloated, overlong doorstoppers because their editors were no longer allowed to trim them down. And it's the first time I've ever watched something and been tempted to see a fancut that reduces it (I've never had any interest in fancuts really, but the few times I did was usually because I wanted to see more footage if anything - i.e. deleted scenes added back into a movie) so I think The Return is the one of the very few times I've felt this way (that there should be less) about a movie or TV series except for maybe Mulholland Drive, which I loved, but again felt some of the padding (that was left over from the original pilot) made it a bit weaker - had it cut down on those few scenes of the hitmen/gangsters, I think it would have been an even stronger movie.

[LateReg]

omg Jonah, the whole sequence from when the bullet goes into the diner until the girl pukes is one of my favorite in the whole series. In fact, at one time I rated it as my favorite sequence of the whole series.

It's one of those things I guess that either you get or you don't, based primarily on the area you live in.

Here in America, we have a ton of road rage, drivers honking on end for no reason, and I felt that scene was Lynch's response to 'America's Fascination with Blaring the Horn'.

I never knew quite what to make of the puking girl, but earlier there is a reference to Tammy getting carsick, so maybe Lynch has a friend who gets carsick or he himself gets carsick, and that was the inspiration for that. Maybe also a wink and a nod to Zombie movies/TV.

Yes, I think that sequence is easily one of the best in Twin Peaks, and also Lynch's career. Not only that, but I referred to it as Twin Peaks in microcosm just after it aired - a supreme example of the way Lynch/Frost blend disparate genres and ideas. A day later, two separate critics referred to it using the same microcosm term. It's a special, brazen, layered sequence.

It leaps from genre to genre and tone to tone, offering emotional whiplash (Bobby and Shelley are together! Wait, no they're not!) and encapsulating generational repetition in Shelley and Becky's behavior alongside the father and son standing in the same poses, alongside a commentary on gun violence and the issue of an insane world beyond comprehension that lacks empathy or patience. It paints a picture, and despite Bobby's growth as a character, pointedly displays his powerlessness and confusion over it all.

I don't dwell on the plot details - I believe that is counter-intuitive to the methods of The Return, and I find it impossible to refer to parts of the story as never amounting to anything. It's about how it feels and the mood it conjures and the ideas that are contained within - to me, that's where the narrative resides. The puking girl is grotesque and strange and fits in with Part 8's nod to classic genres, but it mostly, along with the rest of the sequence, points to an encroaching malaise that cannot be understood or halted; the way The Return interacts and predicts the mood of the modern world is fascinating, and the puker plays even better now after an unforeseen disease overtook our reality. There's also the mention of a long-unseen uncle, which harkens back to FWWM and points to the confusion over a missing uncle in a future roadhouse conversation. And the honking lady is hilarious to me, another of many examples of meta-commentary positioned within the narrative. On the nose and obnoxious, yes, but wildly hilarious, and, in my opinion, a moment that is less about the viewer and more about the world at large. "Why is this happening???!!!"

[mtwentz]

Great LateReg, better than I could ever have stated it.

The whole thing about the 'diseased corn' also seems to have a different interpretation in the face of COVID...as in, foreshadowing of a coming plague!