Part 9 - This is the chair (SPOILERS)

[Mr. Reindeer]

The "Search for the Zone" website reminds me of the sort of web/multimedia tie-ins Lost did, particularly in season 2, which ultimately amounted to very little. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to explore that stuff, but people who expected clues/"answers" that would play out down the line in the show were cruising for disappointment. I do wonder how involved L/F were in choosing the specific links, etc. (my guess is Lynch not at all, but Frost may have had a fair amount of input).

Personally, I'd rather not see this stuff creep into the show too much. I'm fine with Mark using his novels and other media tie-in materials like this site to explore every esoteric topic/theory he cottons to, as part of the expanded TP universe. However, I'd prefer that the Lodges, "Mother," etc. remain ambiguous, at least on the show proper (I can cheerfully ignore tie-in materials as necessary for my enjoyment/sanity). So much of the appeal of the original series mythology, particularly as expanded on in Episode 29 and FWWM, was how it made intuitive sense, but really wasn't quite like anything else that had previously been imagined. It was like a manifestation of the collective human subconscious that had somehow seeped through into reality. Boiling it down to alternate dimensions, quantum physics, string theory, etc. -- while all undeniably interesting areas to read about -- makes it feel not that different from the mythologies on Lost, Fringe, and about 20 other series.

[wxray]

Well, I think they'd better go directly for some DNA.

Does DNA make it through an oversized, ungrounded, ancient electric socket from a vibrating 5th dimension?

[dud]

someone on Reddit visited the coordinates lol

nothing there of course

[referendum]

Unread postby dud » Wed Jul 12, 2017 12:07 am
someone on Reddit visited the coordinates lol

nothing there of course

there might be 12 sycamore trees in a circle and a puddle of motor oil, or something else equally mundane.

[Cappy]

Given Mr C's demonstrated technomancy, especially hacking secure facilities, why would he need to get them from Bill's secretary? And why would she have them? And why would she only trust Ray with them? And why is she dead now?

This was baffling to me as well. I'm guessing that there is more to the secretary's story than we currently realize. Maybe when Laura was tossed out of the Lodge she ended up a few years in the past as the secretary of a high school principal (also her soul/essence is flying through time in a gold orb...). She got the librarian and the principal to do some Lodge voodoo with her, but DoppelCoop knew he could never approach her directly, because she would recognize him as an evil doppelganger.

I don't know, but I feel like this secretary has to be really important if she is entrusted with these coordinates and then killed in a car bomb. It's odd for a character with this much significance to the plot to exist completely off screen. Even BOB and Maj. Briggs, who's actors have long since perished, get a modicum of screen time.

Maybe we'll find out more about this secretary character, maybe we won't.

[counterpaul]

I like that in this part, Bobby has the wonderfully sheepish joy about him of one who realises he is finally of some use to the weird world of this investigation. Which then blooms to become full blown boyish enthusiasm tinged with memories of his late father. And then we have the belated discovery that his father believed in him wholeheartedly. That's a whole lot of redemption, in spadefuls. No wonder he's emotional.

Absolutely. I'm just loving Bobby in TPTR.

I did not enjoy how on-the-nose Hasting's 'parallel universes' are. To me it feels to lessen the ambiguity and narrow the potentials; having said that I will be fully aboard if this turns out to be either a red herring or a merely perspectival thing (Hastings' explanation not resolving definitively, and remaining only one of many).

This is exactly how I'm reading it. Hastings had a mystifying experience and he's trying to explain it the best he can, using his own preoccupations as a lens through which to view it. There's a lot of confirmation bias going on, here, and even Bill's own interpretation has wavered--just a few days ago, he was certain it was all a dream.

I think Hastings's "explanation" is part of a long line of largely contradictory, incomplete-at-best attempts we've seen throughout the show: there's Briggs's military investigation, MIKE's "inhabiting spirit" speech in Episode 13, Hawk's local legend perspective, Windom Earle's literalist speechifying, even The Arm's more abstract "from pure air" lecture. Twin Peaks is full of explanations, and it has been from pretty early on (from Coop's "crack the code, solve the crime" forward). I don't see any reason to read Hastings's version as definitive. He's just another in a line of people trying to make sense these things.

With all this said about Hasting's exposition-heavy scene, Lillard's signature wailing, gurning and sobbing (which must surely have been one of the primary motivations for picking this actor) was truly delightful. In a profound existential crisis of this magnitude, he regresses to a simple bundle of frustrated desires. He wants to go scuba diving with his girlfriend. And that is it. The experiences he's been through have emptied him out. We were gonna go to the BA-BA-HA-MAS and that's pretty much all that's left of him.

I agree. Imprisonment has hit him hard, and it totally makes sense. I found the discomfort of the scene quite moving.

The way the secret capsule is opened is through resonance, not through pressing buttons. This is interesting to think about. Lynch is not pressing buttons, he's attuning various strings to sound in harmonic resonance. One thing recalls another not because they are objectively tied together, but because of their internal relations, their subterranean or unconscious correspondences.

This is a beautiful way of articulating what Lynch is up to with this project. His whole approach to storytelling is all about resonance. I love that that is how Major Briggs's 25 year-old message in a bottle opened. And I love that only Bobby could have possibly made sense of the message within. Because, again, it resonates. That's how things work in Twin Peaks.

There's a lot of Nachträglichkeit in part 9. Things that are reported as happening long, long, ago merely happened nominally, and only really fully happen when something in the present activates their memory.

I think this can be said, in fact, about all of TPTR, not just Part 9. Since the very start, it's seemed to me that the piece has been structured so that the traumas of Season 2 have remained, in a very real way, in a kind of stasis that need to be, as you say, "activated."

It's been fascinating me since the beginning, and I've had a hard time articulating it. Your mention of Nachträglichkeit has given me a bit of an ah-ha moment. This is largely a piece about repressed traumas being reactivated by deferred action, and Lynch is dramatizing it in all kinds of beautiful ways.

Starting back in Part 1, it's like life in Twin Peaks has to be kickstarted back into action. It's Margaret's call that really starts things going, and she underlines this sense that, simply, it is time to reopen these wounds. I've always felt like Hawk's visit to Glastonbury Grove is why we're able to catch up with Coop in the red room--like Hawk had to guide us there or it couldn't happen. I'm also fascinated by the fact that the Twin Peaks police station feels practically deserted at first. It seems as if Lucy, Andy, and Hawk are the only people there until Frank finally walks in and guides us into the new control room where, suddenly, there's all this activity. In a certain sense, I feel like the station was actually deserted until that moment. Nothing could start happening now until the past started to be dealt with.

The whole damn town is gradually waking up this way, and I think Twin Peaks the town and Twin Peaks the show (its music and iconic characters and locations, etc.) have this very specific relationship in TPTR, and it all revolves around Coop's reawakening--which has everything to do with reactivating past trauma and moving forward after a long period of stasis.

[Soolsma]

someone on Reddit visited the coordinates lol

nothing there of course

Haha... It's pretty cool to read though, people geeking out.

Someone claims to have found a weird cd with weird audio mash on it. Very fake, almost had me going.

[wxray]

someone on Reddit visited the coordinates lol

nothing there of course

Haha... It's pretty cool to read though, people geeking out.

Someone claims to have found a weird cd with weird audio mash on it. Very fake, almost had me going.

Ha, ha. Fakes pulling fast ones on other fakes. One guy complains about the plants and trees not being correct in the other guy's pictures and smoked him out as a fake. Well, I noticed that Bad Coop walked up to the farm among what appeared to be Eucalyptus trees. Nice trick, Bad Coop! You got Eucalyptus to grow in SD! Quite a trick for a region that can go below 0 degrees F.

[HagbardCeline]

Someone a few pages ago was wondering about what's on page 253 of SHOTP. It is the beginning of a transcript of an interview between Dougie Milford and Jack Parsons. It seems to be the last interview before Parsons dies. (It's the one where he talks about Betty running off with L Ron Hubbard).

I'm glad someone ran out to the location from the zone website. Does anyone remember the Plubius Enigma? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Enigma) Man I got sucked into that back in the day. It was the first internet "puzzle" phenomenon I remember being into. The next one I participated in was the A.R.G. (Alternate Reality Game) for Tron Legacy. I ended up getting a bunch of cool swag from that. Eventually there were coordinates involved and people who showed up at the appointed time won some prizes.(Anyway, sorry for the digression).

It would be fun if someone went out there on 10/1 or 10/2 and found something.

[Wonderful & Strange]

Some fairly arbitrary critiques of exposition in here (exposition "bad" because I don't like it). It's a necessary aspect of narrative, and it's used well when the character who delivers it delivers it with some flair and life. Betty did so, and also Bill Hastings. Her delivery created a lot of pathos for the missing Garland and his visions for Bobby. And Bill's hysterical delivery made catching all the plot details fun and challenging.

One reason exposition is necessary is when there are certain aspects of the plot that either can't be shown dramatically to the audience or really aren't important enough to slow down for and represent in the moment.

What do both of these scenes have in common? Garland Briggs who can't be shown via flashback. So, yes, exposition was needed here, and it was delivered dramatically.

While it's perfectly fine for people to have aesthetic preferences, it's equally important to try to understand why something you don't like is being done.

[Mr. Reindeer]

Any thoughts on the "J.T." Ike the Spike calls to announce his failure and take sick leave? Based on the initials, it's not Duncan Todd or his subordinate Roger.

Lucy & Andy's chair and ottoman (presumably for the study in Wally's converted room) are ordered from Canworth Furniture Design, apparently a fictional company.

Garland "hibernating" is reminiscent of King Arthur spending time on the mythical Avalon to recover from his wounds while the world assumes him dead (a myth first proliferated by Geoffrey of Monmouth). In the 12th century, monks asserted that the actual location of Avalon was.....Glastonbury Abbey. (I love Arthurian myth, but dislike its heavy-handed use in TP....however, given the new show's return to using Arthurian naming with Lancelot Court and Merlin's Market, this parallel feels pretty intentional to me.)

Interestingly, Bobby refers to Jack Rabbit's Palace as being a place he and his dad imagined when he was a kid, near "our station." TSHoTP says the Briggses didn't move to TP until 1983, when Bobby would have been about 11, a bit old for jack rabbit fantasies? And there's no indication in TSH that Bobby ever learned about the station (indeed, in Episode 8, he has no idea what his dad does for a living)...the reference to "our station" seems a bit odd.

[Ross]

Any thoughts on the "J.T." Ike the Spike calls to announce his failure and take sick leave? Based on the initials, it's not Duncan Todd or his subordinate Roger.

I've been wondering about this as well. Anyone have any ideas?

Interestingly, Bobby refers to Jack Rabbit's Palace as being a place he and his dad imagined when he was a kid, near "our station." TSHoTP says the Briggses didn't move to TP until 1983, when Bobby would have been about 11, a bit old for jack rabbit fantasies? And there's no indication in TSH that Bobby ever learned about the station (indeed, in Episode 8, he has no idea what his dad does for a living)...the reference to "our station" seems a bit odd.

I don't expect anything to line up with TSH at this point. It pretty much contradicts half the details of the original series.

[AgentEcho]

Watching the Ike the Spike apprehension scene again, it really plays like Ike has something in his cast. He's not wearing the cast a moment before in his room when he walks over to the suitcase. The camera keys in on it when it's revealed he's got it on, and it's a bit bulky for a flesh wound. But they don't go back to that story after the 20 minute mark... if he had something in there you'd think it would play out right away.

[Hester Prynne]

Did anyone notice when Johnny runs into the wall it looks like there are holes and dents in the sheetrock that have been patched and painted over? It looks like running into the wall is a regular occurrence for Johnny.

[Ross]

Watching the Ike the Spike apprehension scene again, it really plays like Ike has something in his cast. He's not wearing the cast a moment before in his room when he walks over to the suitcase. The camera keys in on it when it's revealed he's got it on, and it's a bit bulky for a flesh wound. But they don't go back to that story after the 20 minute mark... if he had something in there you'd think it would play out right away.

The released ep 9 stills show a scene in the parking lot after Ike is in custody. So we might see something in ep 10.