World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

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It wasn't my least favorite storyline, but Ben as Donna's father had to be the most unoriginal storyline in the whole show.

Did anyone else remember thinking, 'same storyline borrowed from any serial drama'?

"Ben as Donna's dad" isn't an original storyline by any means, but it's partially salvaged by Doc Hayward going postal on Ben in the finale.

Can we add twenty-three more additions from The Return to the choices?

Audrey Horne wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:43 am Can we add twenty-three more additions from The Return to the choices?

Sounds like a good idea for a new thread. It might be a bit controversial as The Return is viewed better than the middle stretch of Season 2 by many, but there's definitely a lot that could be added to such a poll.

Wait - was there already such a poll? I have a dim memory of seeing one that included the sweeping scene as an option, but maybe that was something else.

Edit - a search reveals nothing.

Cappy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:19 am "Ben as Donna's dad" isn't an original storyline by any means, but it's partially salvaged by Doc Hayward going postal on Ben in the finale.

Maybe this is a candidate for the unpopular opinions thread since I feel like I'm in the minority on this based on what I've read on these message boards, but what makes the Ben/Donna storyline for me is actually Donna's delivery of "You're my daddy." To me, that is a moment of pure, unfiltered emotion, Lara's best performance since the first season, and one of many moments in the finale in which Lynch seemingly intentionally restores a character to an urgent and vital place in the narrative. I know some think she doesn't pull it off but that moment ranks with Sheryl Lee's rawness in FWWM for me. I find it chilling and true, and I think it's now pretty well reflected throughout The Return: in Lara's absence, in Ben's goodness, comments, and reminiscences, and in prevalent themes about fatherhood and absent fathers, and most literally in Sonny Jim's mirrored statement of "you're my dad" in Part 16.

LateReg wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:13 pm

Cappy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:19 am "Ben as Donna's dad" isn't an original storyline by any means, but it's partially salvaged by Doc Hayward going postal on Ben in the finale.

Maybe this is a candidate for the unpopular opinions thread since I feel like I'm in the minority on this based on what I've read on these message boards, but what makes the Ben/Donna storyline for me is actually Donna's delivery of "You're my daddy." To me, that is a moment of pure, unfiltered emotion, Lara's best performance since the first season, and one of many moments in the finale in which Lynch seemingly intentionally restores a character to an urgent and vital place in the narrative. I know some think she doesn't pull it off but that moment ranks with Sheryl Lee's rawness in FWWM for me. I find it chilling and true, and I think it's now pretty well reflected throughout The Return: in Lara's absence, in Ben's goodness, comments, and reminiscences, and in prevalent themes about fatherhood and absent fathers, and most literally in Sonny Jim's mirrored statement of "you're my dad" in Part 16.

I see your point.

The build up has the feel of, ‘we need a storline for Donna, let’s use the oldest soap opera trope in the book’

It was a very conventional storyline played conventionally in an unconventional series. (I guess the ‘Andrew is really alive’ fits that bill as well, but at least the groundwork for that was set up early on and did not feel so shoehorned in)

Audrey Horne wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:43 am Can we add twenty-three more additions from The Return to the choices?

I see The Return as having only one real storyline. Nothing else is a full blown storyline like in the original series.

LateReg wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 1:13 pm

Cappy wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:19 am "Ben as Donna's dad" isn't an original storyline by any means, but it's partially salvaged by Doc Hayward going postal on Ben in the finale.

Maybe this is a candidate for the unpopular opinions thread since I feel like I'm in the minority on this based on what I've read on these message boards, but what makes the Ben/Donna storyline for me is actually Donna's delivery of "You're my daddy." To me, that is a moment of pure, unfiltered emotion, Lara's best performance since the first season, and one of many moments in the finale in which Lynch seemingly intentionally restores a character to an urgent and vital place in the narrative. I know some think she doesn't pull it off but that moment ranks with Sheryl Lee's rawness in FWWM for me. I find it chilling and true, and I think it's now pretty well reflected throughout The Return: in Lara's absence, in Ben's goodness, comments, and reminiscences, and in prevalent themes about fatherhood and absent fathers, and most literally in Sonny Jim's mirrored statement of "you're my dad" in Part 16.

Heh, I don’t hate that line reading and it doesn’t ruin the scene for me, but I don’t think it’s terribly good. For me, LFB’s best work in season 2 is probably her telling Harold Smith about the swimming expedition. (I also like her graveside scene speaking to Laura, which is also in itself a controversial opinion, I think.) I appreciate you comparing the line reading to Sheryl in FWWM after our “turkey in the corn” debate a bit ago.

I also like all the stuff Mr. Reindeer chose, but Donna's best Season 2 moment for me is in Episode 16 after her encounter with Bob/Leland - she's walking away, almost running, and crying. You sense she realises what happened Laura on an instinctive level, that she's glimpsed the lodge world, sensed the evil that's inhabitating Leland, maybe outright suspects he's the killer. Would have liked to have seen that storyline expanded, perhaps with Bob coming after her next, maybe in a different host.

Yeah, my personal favorite Donna scene in season 2 would also be her telling Harold Smith about the swimming expedition.

My least favorite Peaks storyline has got to be Windom Earle though. I know that a lot of the show's mythology comes from that, and Earle gives the show the narrative thrust that eventually takes Cooper to the Black Lodge... but Earle's antics are like something out of Batman or a Bond movie. He just completely changes the tone of the show.

Stuff like Evelyn or Little Nicky is not *good*, but they feel somehow consistent with the soap-y elements of S1 (i'm pretending that Andy's thought bubble never happened). And even BOB/Leland and the Giant, as weird as they are, they fulfill the otherworldly promise of Cooper's dream in ep. 2/3.

But Windom Earle turns a guy into a giant chess piece. He sits around in a lair, playing wooden flute and explaining his schemes to a mindless henchman. Great moments are spun out of Earle, like his weird face behind the bad of spiders, and all of the S2 finale, but more than any other storyline or character he undoes that perfect mood and nuance of early Peaks. He takes a show about the ambiguity of small town life and turns it into a yarn about good guys that solve the puzzles left by bad guys.

Mr. Reindeer wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 3:16 pm Heh, I don’t hate that line reading and it doesn’t ruin the scene for me, but I don’t think it’s terribly good. For me, LFB’s best work in season 2 is probably her telling Harold Smith about the swimming expedition. (I also like her graveside scene speaking to Laura, which is also in itself a controversial opinion, I think.) I appreciate you comparing the line reading to Sheryl in FWWM after our “turkey in the corn” debate a bit ago.

I forgot about my involvement in this thread and I'm glad Cappy's post reminded me. Really good post, by the way.

First off, to be clear, mtwentz, I agree that the Donna-Ben daughter-father is a very conventional storyline. All I'm saying is that I feel that episode 29 results in an incredible payoff all around.

And Reindeer and Cappy, I don't disagree that Donna's Harold Smith dialogue is among her best work; conversely, as Reindeer and I have talked about, I actually think that the graveside scene caps off a lowpoint in a semi-lull in an otherwise excellent stretch of episodes, though I'm not sure if it's her fault or the dialogue or the combination of performance and music that results in such an over-the-top moment. Obviously, her "You're my daddy" might be read as over-the-top as well, but the total combination of music, performance, direction, etc. makes it come across more as a pure shot of unhinged emotion, whereas at the graveside it feels more like it's trying (and trying and trying) to achieve that sort of effect. I understand that opinions vary on that, but the interesting thing to look at is how "you're my daddy" is so short while the graveside dialogue is so drawn out. I don't know what looking at the length gets you, but it's interesting regardless.

But ultimately, I'm just responding to Reindeer's notion that Lara's line reading isn't terribly good, and I think what I really look at in the "you're my daddy" moment is the overall intensity of the scene, directed by Lynch himself. Given that the line reading has already at times produced genuine chills via its forceful emotion in me (a totally subjective thing), it's hard for me to see it as anything except great considering that Lynch himself directed the scene and likely got exactly what he was looking for out of Lara. At any rate, it just feels like one of those many moments in episode 29 in which Lynch forcefully righted the wrongs of previous plot and character trajectories, in this case giving Lara a unique chance to bust out of inconsequential plotlines and be viscerally felt and heard. It all feels just as real and intense to me as FWWM. (All that said, my writing about the scene is based on a couple of really great reactions to it, and I'm not sure if I feel it's THAT effective every time. Still, it's fun to put all this out there.)

"You're my daddy" works for me personally.

I'm probably pulling on a lot of stuff outside the "text" with this, but "you're my daddy" sounds like a response to "who's your daddy?", a phrase not typically associated actual father-child relationships. Instead, it conjures up thoughts of sexual situations, and by extension, Ben's almost tryst with his other daughter Audrey earlier in the show.

So Donna's proclamation of "you're my daddy" isn't a literal statement as much as it is a signifier of how her newly discovered association with Ben Horne has degraded her. And maybe witnessing that is finally what causes Doc to snap like he does.

Cappy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:51 pm "You're my daddy" works for me personally.

I'm probably pulling on a lot of stuff outside the "text" with this, but "you're my daddy" sounds like a response to "who's your daddy?", a phrase not typically associated actual father-child relationships. Instead, it conjures up thoughts of sexual situations, and by extension, Ben's almost tryst with his other daughter Audrey earlier in the show.

So Donna's proclamation of "you're my daddy" isn't a literal statement as much as it is a signifier of how her newly discovered association with Ben Horne has degraded her. And maybe witnessing that is finally what causes Doc to snap like he does.

That's really interesting and plays into what I'm getting at, too. Namely, I feel a real and deep sense of trauma there.