2021 Thoughts on Season 3

General discussion on Twin Peaks not related to the series, film, books, music, photos, or collectors merchandise.

Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne

User avatar
boske
Great Northern Member
Posts: 593
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2016 4:15 am

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by boske »

As much as I have been "profoundly disappointed" with S3, I kept revisiting it, not necessarily by watching it that often, but more by frequently thinking about it, contemplating it, if I may say so. Sometimes you do not like a record on a first listen, and then once you give it a few more tries, it starts growing on you. This is not what happened to me here though, although I have, at least I think I have, understood what L&F may have been going after in some places.

It started very strong, the first three-four parts; I liked episode 8, in particular the desert scenes. Lynch was once talking about pitch-black desert nights from his youth, and I really liked what he achieved there, one has to feel that darkness.

And as much as I hated the fact that we see TP sign for a split second, what I think the message was is that you can relive what happened in the past only for a short amount of time before it slips through your fingers, which is exactly what happened with Laura in part 17, another part that I very much liked (minus the glove), as it gave us that "blast from the past". But that is all a mirage after all, things have moved on, it is hard to recapture that spirit, and the moment you think you have recaptured it, it is gone. It is a very powerful scene. And what do we otherwise see? A very bleak present (at that time); they (L&F) definitely did not want to sugar-coat it.

I was disappointed with how Dougie arc was (under)developed and how it dissipated. Cole arc was a colossal wasted opportunity, and my biggest gripe, the one that keeps me perpetually in the profoundly disappointed corner. Was that done on purpose or was it just a careless play? I cannot tell, but if it was done on purpose, then the message is that the emperor has been fiddling while Rome is burning.

To me, the most potent scene overall is from Part 3 (the best part imo), when American Girl implores Cooper "you better hurry, my mother is coming", it sends chills up my spine every time.
User avatar
NormoftheAndes
RR Diner Member
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 4:00 am

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by NormoftheAndes »

Mr Reindeer - I think the confusion between it being either tv or a film with The Return comes into the overall rating too. Since it was said to be a long film, that was one way of viewing it but since it was on tv that means generally we are more accepting and allowing of it than a film, in my opinion. If anything, this great forum is more of a Peaks/ Lynch echoplex. I am sure there were a fair few Peaks fans who watched The Return and enjoyed it on various levels but didn't dwell on it after that.

boske - great post and agree with you on Ronette's re-appearance - her being there in the show only momentarily sets out how the rest of the show will be with its multitude of characters.

I don't however think there is a message though in The Return about nostalgia or returning to the past. This is just one moment in time, one vision of how Twin Peaks COULD be - it is not necessarily either realist or a dream but both. I absolutely think a new season of Twin Peaks could be about the town exclusively and be a HELL of a lot more rosey and optimistic, more nostalgic too. Anything is posslble I feel, genuinely.
Teetotaling and prayer. Their hands touch yours and mine.
User avatar
Audrey Horne
Lodge Member
Posts: 2030
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:20 pm
Location: The Great Northern

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Audrey Horne »

I loved Ronnette’s cameo!
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
User avatar
dugpa
Site Admin
Posts: 1254
Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:45 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by dugpa »

Audrey Horne wrote: I think it’s not a big surprise though for a person to be disappointed with the tone the show took. If you go out for pizza and get even something like Filet Mignon handed to you, you’d probably still say, “but we were going out for pizza.”
It is statements like this reminds me why I have mad love for you my friend.
User avatar
Brad D
Global Moderator
Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Brad D »

Mr. Reindeer wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:31 am
Brad D wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 9:10 am Cheers to Lynch and Frost for doing whatever they wanted to do and not surrendering, but did anyone outside of the Lynch echoplex really dig it? I know popular opinion does not exclusively mean success (I think Mozart and Van Gogh died broke) but the whole nature of The Return is basically telling anyone who just watched TP on Netflix to go away.
The critical response was almost universally positive. Even if you want to argue that critics are predisposed to like whatever Lynch does, the rottentomatoes score of 94% is well above his last project’s 72%. It also ended up very near the top of most year-end lists by TV critics and even a few prestigious film lists.

I’m not saying that means everyone has to like it—of course not. But saying that no one outside Lynch’s echoplex could enjoy it seems dismissive.
That comment excludes critics, I’m talking about a general viewing audience.
User avatar
Brad D
Global Moderator
Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Brad D »

NormoftheAndes wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:07 am
mtwentz wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:03 am
Audrey Horne wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 9:27 am Don’t get me started on the Gordon Cole character. By the end, I was surprised there wasn’t a scene where a bunch of nubile actresses sat around in bra and panties debating exactly how large his penis is.
That was definitely directorial indulgence. I personally enjoyed all of it, and liked the counterbalance of Ben Horne making more ethical choices.

but if I told you it was anything but indulgence, I'd be a liar.

However, it did have its roots in the original series. It was just played out over 14 episodes instead of just one episode in Season 2 :-)
Seriously? Lynch wrote that in to say he can still achieve an erection at age 69? That is its sum meaning for you? If you're watching The Return on this level, its little wonder so many of you didn't enjoy it.
I mean… this followed him ogling Chrysta Bell in a totally unnecessary and icky way, and some random Italian woman crawling all over him for a whole scene. Was kissing Madgkin not enough? We get it, David. Your reply is appreciated tho for proving many of our points.
User avatar
enumbs
RR Diner Member
Posts: 255
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:44 pm

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by enumbs »

Brad D wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 9:10 am I think I was definitely expecting a tone more in the vein of FWWM. Something more harsh was not a surprise at all. But there is no sense of possibility in this series. Everything is falling in on itself. Decay, decay, and more decay until reality as we know it is gone. Cheers to Lynch and Frost for doing whatever they wanted to do and not surrendering, but did anyone outside of the Lynch echoplex really dig it? I know popular opinion does not exclusively mean success (I think Mozart and Van Gogh died broke) but the whole nature of The Return is basically telling anyone who just watched TP on Netflix to go away. It's a fortress covered in a briar patch and the same ending of FWWM awaits inside..
I don’t mean to be combative Brad, but some of your comments about season 3 admirers don’t sit well with me. Implying that people who love the show do so because they refuse to see fault in anything Lynch does, and suggesting that they live in “a Lynch echoplex” doesn’t seem to be a great example of accepting people’s opinions in good faith. Lynch has a history of making films and shows which often affect people on an extremely profound level, so it is hardly surprising that there are many people who consider season 3 a masterpiece. In any case, there were certainly a lot of critics and Twin Peaks fans who adored the revival, and not all of those people are Lynch obsessives like myself. Look at the responses on Twitter, on Letterboxd, on Rotten Tomatoes, on the lists of major publications. There is a level of abstraction and surrealism which means it could never be totally mainstream, but that’s surely the case of multiple revered works by Tarkovsky, Bergman, Fellini etc. And it’s worth noting that basically every Lynch fan is critical of some of his work. I consider Wild at Heart a lot of fun but ultimately a bit frivolous for example, and there’s no reason I wouldn’t have been similarly unimpressed by season 3 if it disappointed me.

Moving into more fun areas of discussion, I think that while your observations of the darkness in season 3 are astute, there is more light than you give it credit for. Carl Rodd is reimagined as an empathetic figure in an unkind world, and people like Benjamin Horne and Bobby Briggs are shown aspiring towards good and making up for past mistakes. I think Dr Amp is particularly crucial here. An opportunistic huckster he might be, but his message of digging out of the shit manages to affect the lives of Norma, Ed and Nadine in a dramatic way, while also getting to the heart of what the season is about.
User avatar
enumbs
RR Diner Member
Posts: 255
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:44 pm

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by enumbs »

I didn’t see Mr Reindeer’s post making some similar points to my own, sorry for any repetition.
User avatar
Audrey Horne
Lodge Member
Posts: 2030
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:20 pm
Location: The Great Northern

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Audrey Horne »

dugpa wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:16 pm
Audrey Horne wrote: I think it’s not a big surprise though for a person to be disappointed with the tone the show took. If you go out for pizza and get even something like Filet Mignon handed to you, you’d probably still say, “but we were going out for pizza.”
It is statements like this reminds me why I have mad love for you my friend.

Mutually mad.

I can’t speak for the others, but I think some of the verbiage is a result of this time of year when there was a festival and reconnecting with some of those people… none of my circles were left feeling good about it. And enough time has gone by where it feels good to complain about it. But I would not seek out a thread that is meant to celebrate it or take away other people’s joy for it.

Hell, I first found this place a hundred years ago where I thought it was a natural place to complain about the second half of the second season and one of the worst movies ever made, Fire Walk With Me. Imagine my surprise to find out people loved it, and thought the film was a masterpiece. I can roll with it.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
User avatar
Brad D
Global Moderator
Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Brad D »

enumbs wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:20 pm
I don’t mean to be combative Brad, but some of your comments about season 3 admirers don’t sit well with me. Implying that people who love the show do so because they refuse to see fault in anything Lynch does, and suggesting that they live in “a Lynch echoplex” doesn’t seem to be a great example of accepting people’s opinions in good faith. Lynch has a history of making films and shows which often affect people on an extremely profound level, so it is hardly surprising that there are many people who consider season 3 a masterpiece.
It’s merely my personal experience that a certain bloc of TP fans go crazy over the slightest criticism of s3, and go to wild lengths to defend Lynch’s creative choices. I also think this board has become entirely devoid of humor. We are all TP fans and I think if we were in a room chatting and laughing it would take a different tone. If you can believe it, I totally understand why some people love The Return and think it’s one of the greatest things ever. I love many moments and by no means hate it. But, that does not seem like enough around here most days
User avatar
Mr. Reindeer
Lodge Member
Posts: 3680
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:09 pm

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Brad D wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:11 pm
Mr. Reindeer wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 11:31 am
Brad D wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 9:10 am Cheers to Lynch and Frost for doing whatever they wanted to do and not surrendering, but did anyone outside of the Lynch echoplex really dig it? I know popular opinion does not exclusively mean success (I think Mozart and Van Gogh died broke) but the whole nature of The Return is basically telling anyone who just watched TP on Netflix to go away.
The critical response was almost universally positive. Even if you want to argue that critics are predisposed to like whatever Lynch does, the rottentomatoes score of 94% is well above his last project’s 72%. It also ended up very near the top of most year-end lists by TV critics and even a few prestigious film lists.

I’m not saying that means everyone has to like it—of course not. But saying that no one outside Lynch’s echoplex could enjoy it seems dismissive.
That comment excludes critics, I’m talking about a general viewing audience.
Critics are viewers too; I’m not sure why their opinion would be automatically discounted? The fact that a majority of people who essentially watch TV/films for a living rated it highly (as one of the best things of 2017) should surely count to disprove your hypothesis that only Lynch sycophants could “dig” it?

Even if you insist on discounting critics’ opinions for whatever reason, I echo enumbs and Norm’s point that, outside this board, the response in most places (Reddit, IMDB, various audience scores, etc.) across the Internet is overwhelmingly positive, particularly for such an aggressively inaccessible work. I honestly do think it’s the dyed-in-the-wool Peaks devotees who were hardest on it, just as a sports team’s harshest critics are often its biggest fans.

In any event, all due to respect to you and everything you’ve done for the fandom and this forum, the stance that “only Lynch sycophants could possibly enjoy TR” is the inverse argument to that other chestnut, “it’s impossible to not love TR unless you were expecting pure nostalgia.” Both arguments are equally insulting, simplistic, and damaging to constructive conversation IMO. I think we can all admit that the truth is more nuanced than either of these silly extremes.
User avatar
Brad D
Global Moderator
Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Brad D »

I know you guys are tired of my viewpoints, so unless anyone can really tempt me to reply, my work is done here
User avatar
AXX°N N.
Great Northern Member
Posts: 601
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:47 pm

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by AXX°N N. »

Regarding general audiences, just anecdotally, I've not met a single person in my personal life who knows what TP is and who wasn't head over heels for S3. One of my friends got into Lynch through S3, so was not at all a sycophant. Another had seen some of his films and thought well enough of them, had watched the original and found it average to great depending on the arc or episode, thought FWWM was well done, but was blown away by S3 and in returning to things like Blue Velvet again, found himself connecting with it even more. As mentioned, reddit, twitter, etc. are all positive about it. I've really only seen hostile reactions here.
Brad D wrote: Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:39 pm It’s merely my personal experience that a certain bloc of TP fans go crazy over the slightest criticism of s3, and go to wild lengths to defend Lynch’s creative choices. I also think this board has become entirely devoid of humor. We are all TP fans and I think if we were in a room chatting and laughing it would take a different tone. If you can believe it, I totally understand why some people love The Return and think it’s one of the greatest things ever. I love many moments and by no means hate it. But, that does not seem like enough around here most days
Well, as for myself, I view Lynch's work seriously, I think S3 is worth serious discussion, and I'm a serious person in general. So no, I don't take kindly to the notion that if you read into Cole's character beyond "it's gross, unselfaware gloating" that you imediately become wrong and deluded and your viewpoints and discussion of them automatically invalid.
Recipe not my own. In a coffee cup. 3 TBS flour, 2 TBS sugar, 1.5 TBS cocoa powder, .25 TSP baking powder, pinch of salt. 3 TBS milk, 1.5 TBS vegetable oil, 1 TBS peanut butter. Add and mix each set. Microwave 1 minute 10 seconds. The cup will be hot.
User avatar
Jonah
Global Moderator
Posts: 2815
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2007 8:39 am

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Jonah »

I'm only popping in here for a few minutes this evening, then I'm off again, so I won't be able to get into a discussion - but I might pick up again at another point. Though maybe not, as I'm not sure it's really worth debating about, though I like reading everyone's posts.

Don't come at me with pitchforks (joke!) but - but - I did sometimes wonder if some critics were really kind to The Return because they weren't to FWWM, which was in retrospect reevaluated and lauded, and they were afraid of missing the boat again in case the same thing happened this time. It also reminded me of a review I read of Inland Empire where the reviewer said something like "I think it's a work of genius ... But I don't know if I understood it." (Not his exact words, I'm remembering a review from 14 years ago, so the quote will not be exact.) Anyway, probably not the case - as has been pointed out, critical reviews were uniformly positive. But it is just something that crossed my mind, not saying I necessarily believe that.

One other thing - and this is probably my last "negative" thing to say about The Return for awhile (and remember, believe it or not, I do say a lot of good things about it too). I didn't like what I perceived as it, at times, speaking down to its audience. I wonder if anyone else picked up on that? An example might be it really stretching out Dougie "waking up", hinting it could happen every episode, which is fine - but then that scene with the woman in the car outside the diner ranting about being in a hurry. It seemed to be speaking directly to the audience, chastising them for their impatience with that plot point and perhaps with the entire show's slower pace. Combine that with the sweeping scene and stuff and it just felt very on the nose and dismissive and condescending towards the audience in a way the wonderful slow scenes in the original series (the opening scene of Episode 8, the bank scene in 29) did not. Add in to this some of the anti-nostalgia vibe and at times it felt like Lynch and Frost just did not want to be in this playground, the dismissive attitude to Audrey and other characters (at least initially in Audrey's case), though also some loving tributes to deceased actors granted, but as AudreyHorne pointed out at times it was like seeing a character from Cheers or Friends be brought back only to be ignored or mauled or have something unpleasant or dismissive happen to them.

There was just this overall vibe of, I can't quite put my finger on it, distaste for the fans, for the audience, for the characters themselves? Not throughout the whole show - as it was often touching and sweet and seemed really happy to be doing what it was doing - but at certain points. At times I found myself wondering, do Lynch and Frost even want to be writing this show again? Because genuinely it really didn't feel like it, which I thought was odd given it was them coming back after 25 years, not like they were in Season 25 and still creating it and grown understandably weary and sick of it - but rather coming back to a show for the first time in 2 and half decades, but feeling like they didn't want to be there? Even not wanting to set most of it in the town, Frost talking about getting away from the sleepy hamlet, like they felt trapped there - but why feel trapped in something you're voluntarily choosing to revisit 25 years later, why bother then?

Now, I know a lot of people will chime in to dismiss those views or counteract them with other arguments, and that's fine - have at it. But it's just some feelings I got with the show and have been unable to shake.

Again, there's a lot I do like about it.

Oh and one more thing - I do think people should be free to give critical and dismissive even downright "negative" views about the show on any thread on this board without people always jumping in to argue with the so-called "naysayers". I never liked how all the critical or negative opinions were sort of cordoned off into the Disappointed Support Group thread and more positive comments allowed everywhere else. I also didn't appreciate the comment that was made about the "same 5 people always being negative". (I'm not sure if I was being included there, but that's another story.) As Earle said, you could say the same thing in reverse - "the same 5 people who always praise the show" etc. So let's try to keep comments like those out of this and other threads moving forward. There's no need to get personal. As Brad said, we're all TP fans, but The Return just happens to be a bit more polarizing - oh, how about both sides stop saying things like "anyone who doesn't like the revival just wanted the original series" and "only Lynch fans love The Return"? (And yes, I acknowledge I made the pitchforks joke, but it was a joke, not all the other comments have been.) Let's just all air our views and discuss things in a friendly way - but also don't feel the need to jump on everyone's comments and debate them endlessly. Just my take.

Anyway, that's all I want to say - I'm not on here for long this evening as I have stuff to do, but I'll be back at some point no doubt.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
User avatar
Brad D
Global Moderator
Posts: 1070
Joined: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:56 am
Contact:

Re: 2021 Thoughts on Season 3

Post by Brad D »

I dont want to engage in any more nastiness - but my disappointment was deep and personal. I and many others waited and dreamed of a third season for a very long time, and in many ways it was an interesting Christmas Eve but in the end, you discover Santa is in fact just some guy in a costume. I’m glad many people love it. I wish I did! For the season three folks trying to prove a point, I ask you… is my deep disappointment not enough??!!
Post Reply