Twin Peaks: The Return, Parts 3 & 4   First Watch 
May 24, 2017 12:47 PM - Season 3, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Call for help. Bring back some memories. (Description from Showtime.)
posted by Ruki (113 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
So maybe it was the lady with no eyes who killed the box watching dude and his companion? Cooper appeared in the box after falling through the void, then met no-eyes who shortly fell into void, maybe just before the mystery thing kills the couple. Also they both make the knife-slashing sound.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:08 PM on May 24, 2017


So I think I know why Showtime released all four of these hours at once, the fourth spends the most time in Twin Peaks and feels most like the old show. And episode three was so bizarre; can you imagine if that had been the lone hour we got next week? Might have tested my patience.

Overall, though, I'm liking that this feels new, with hints of nostalgia thrown in. I'll be much happier when real Cooper emerges from his catatonic state, though.
posted by crossoverman at 1:27 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I generally dislike Michael Cera. The internet guessed correctly at who he would play, because really, who else could he be. The Vito Corleone affectation slayed me. It was so charming and weird and absolutely Twin Peaks. Andy and Lucy standing proudly next to him as he paid his respects. I loved it.

"Bobby!" When Deputy Bobby Briggs turned around, I actually screamed "Whaaaaaaaat?" at my tv. I finished watching it right before Kid came home and accidentally spoiled it by leaving it paused on the credits. "That does not say Deputy Bobby Briggs, whaaaaaat?" I thought it was odd that he openly wept at the picture of Laura. I suspect he was upset more over the life he led back then.

When DoppelCoop vomited in the car crash, was that garmonbozia? WHY was Ronette Pulaski in that weird space room? What did she mean that her mother was coming? Why did the number change on the portal thing? What's with all the numbers?

Dougie. Oh, Dougie. Teresa Banks' arm also went numb. And he had the ring. (I loved the way Kyle MacLachlan delivered the "That's... weird." line when his hand started shrinking. He is such an underappreciated actor. He's played three characters, or four, if you count non-existent Coop, so brilliantly.) I'm assuming that Dougie was DoppelCoop's plan to not to back to the Black Lodge, since Dougie's appearance in the Black Lodge allowed GoodCoop to escape.

The scenes with the lady with no eyes were so visually disorientating.

The people that were trying to kill Dougie, were they trying to kill Dougie or DoppelCoop? At first, I thought it was the latter, but when Naomi Watts opens Mr. Jackpot's bag, she said, "We have enough to pay them back."
posted by Ruki at 1:29 PM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


Phoebe Augustine (Ronette in original) was credited as American Girl, so perhaps she just looks like Ronette for some reason.

The Bobby crying scene made sense. He cried with Laura. He cried on Jacoby's couch. I like that he's the crier and Andy held it together in that scene, holding Lucy's hand.

Cera was indeed brilliant in that scene.
posted by crossoverman at 1:33 PM on May 24, 2017


Yeah, it seems like Dougie had some debts, and those people were looking to kill him. Coop's return in his stead seems to be enacting some sort of karmic reset for his wife and kid, since they probably don't deserve his debts. Probably some influence from the White Lodge? It's bad enough that they lose a husband/father even if he wasn't ever really there, and was probably doing a shit job at filling those roles.

Anyhow, I REALLY loved Coop's journey after 'nonexistence!' but before the real world. That whole area felt new and not somewhere that we've been/seen before (the waiting room, etc).

Yeah, Bobby crying was really touching and made sense to me, too. He was an evil dude back in high school but he loved Laura despite playing tough - remember how he acted at her funeral.
posted by destructive cactus at 1:55 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


That body in Ruth Davenport's bed is totally Major Briggs. I know the timing doesn't seem to line up, but it's Twin Peaks. Time is an illusion.
posted by elsietheeel at 2:11 PM on May 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


Especially since Major Briggs severed head floats through space intoning "Blue rose". There's also a blue rose on a table in the room at the beginning of episode 3.

And then of course there's the whole bit about the body's fingerprints being classified by the military.
posted by elsietheeel at 2:16 PM on May 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


I absolutely loved the experience of watching the four new episodes back to back - a total trip, to be sure, but after episode four it all felt so very right. This is Twin Peaks. This isn't what Twin Peaks was - this is what Twin Peaks is now.

There are so many Fire Walk With Me references I'm telling everyone I know to watch it if they haven't - I feel like things make a little more sense if you know your lore from there? But "sense" is of course relative. I'm also surprised by how much of Mark Frost's The Secret History of Twin Peaks book shows up, seeing as how that was always presented as his kind of stand-alone project that David Lynch hadn't even read. And yet by the end of episode 4 they've introduced two characters also featured in the book: Agent Tammy Preston and Sheriff Frank Truman. So curious to see what other familiar tidbits will turn up!

Seeing Albert so soon after losing Miguel Ferrer was quite the emotional gutpunch - same as seeing the Log Lady in the first couple of episodes.
posted by harujion at 2:19 PM on May 24, 2017 [7 favorites]


David Lynch told people that they should watch FWWM before the new episodes. I'm certainly glad I did. I rewatched it again last night, and read The Secret History of Twin Peaks. Wally Brando's Lewis and Clark reference makes more sense now...kinda.

(I loved that whole bit. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. First at the visual and then after I'd composed myself I lost it all over again when I heard him and then he said he was coming to pay his respects to his godfather. Good gravy.)
posted by elsietheeel at 2:25 PM on May 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


Albert and Dale are both lawmen on a spiritual path, totally consistent that Albert would not be fooled by CooperGanger.

Gordon: Do you still know where she lives?
Albert: I know where she drinks.

Who is "she"? Maybe she is Diane, though I hope she is Audrey Horne. Easy to imagine Audrey joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Agent Horne and Agent Rosenfield at a bar discussing humanity.
posted by otherchaz at 2:37 PM on May 24, 2017


My headcanon REALLY wants Laura Dern to be Diane. But Audrey was said to play a "significant role" and she was so delightful as Audrey Horne, Girl Detective, so I really hope she revisits that role. When Kid started watching the original series, they pegged Audrey as the killer of Laura Palmer, but quickly came around to adoring her. Kid also texted me a screenshot today of Coop saying to Hawk "if I ever go missing, I hope you're the one who looks for me." That's clearly significant.
posted by Ruki at 2:48 PM on May 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


OH! Also, I love love love the reference to Phillip Jeffries. It's such a bittersweet homage that they made him a plot point.
posted by Ruki at 2:50 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have a totally hare-brained theory based on this video. It makes the case that Mike/the Arm/Tree-Prime feeds on Bob's garmonbozia -- that is, Bob's own pain and suffering, not what he harvested from Laura, which is how I originally understood the arrangement -- and that by causing Bob to suffer for its nourishment, the Arm checks the full exercise of his depravity.

Since the beings of the Black Lodge always exist in some kind of antagonistic or oppositional tension, I think the Doppel-Arm-Tree came into existence as a result of Coop's prolonged stay in the Black Lodge, and feeds on Coop in some way analogous to the way Arm-Prime feeds on Bob. And it can scream about banishing Coop to nonexistence but it can't kill him, because its existence is contingent on Coop's.

So Doppel-Tree drains Coop's awareness and identity and (likely guided by DoppelCoop), creates Dougie, a dude who probably loves his wife and kid but loves his vices a bit more, which seems somehow appropriate as a warped and incomplete expression of Coop-Prime. When Dougie gets sucked into the Black Lodge and dissolved, the ring and the little golden sphere remain as a trap for Coop-Prime: that sphere is probably the nugget of selfhood that will restore his sense of self and purpose, but going back to retrieve it will trap him in the Black Lodge for another cycle unless DoppelCoop is there too.
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 2:58 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


the ring and the little golden sphere remain as a trap for Coop-Prime

Why is that the trap? The one-armed man holds up the little sphere as evidence that Coop was tricked, presumably because he replaced Dougie, who was created for that purpose, rather than Boop.[1] And BadTree is what seemed to emerge from Dougie after he vanished (before the sphere appeared).

Yeah, it seems like Dougie had some debts, and those people were looking to kill him.

People are also looking to kill Boop. People want to kill every Cooper, apparently.

So maybe it was the lady with no eyes who killed the box watching dude and his companion?

Why her? She doesn't seem malevolent; and also, she's, like, in the same place that Cooper wound up after going through the box apparatus. (If it has to be someone in that box-in-a-void, why not whatever's pounding on the door?)

[1] We are calling Bob-Cooper "Boop", right?
posted by kenko at 3:28 PM on May 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


I watched Deputy Briggs burst into tears and flashed back to the pilot, where Coop Classic rather viciously told an angry Bobby "You didn't love her anyway." Bobby was always angry about a lot of things, but I hope that Deputy Briggs is living up to his father's vision from Season 2.

Coop Classic wasn't wrong often, but when he was, it was a doozy. And Doppel Coop—especially when he confirms to Darya that yes, he's going to kill her—reminds me very much of the few times in the original series where Coop Classic seemed to relish being a little bit nasty.

Vegas Coop reminds me of the waiter from Season 2, the one Albert called "Señor Droolcup," who was likely the human host carrying the Giant in the real world. Perhaps the Waiter became senescent after being in the Red Room for an extended period as well?

kenko, I'm holding off on explicitly linking BOB and Doppel Coop just because I don't feel like I have enough evidence to say that Doppel Coop is being ridden by BOB the same way Leland was. Based on my reading of the show and movie, I think BOB takes great pleasure in perverting and corrupting truth and innocence, and probably would only possess non-doppelgängers in pursuit of that pleasure. Leland's doppelgänger said "I did not kill anybody," and I believe him.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:36 PM on May 24, 2017


I don't think DoppelCoop/Boop as we see him is still possessed by Bob. Bob used him as a means of escape, but Boop is already bad as Coop's shadow self. I think Bob used him to hitch a ride out of the Black Lodge, but found another host. Maybe Billings?

I do think that Deputy Briggs is desperately trying to be his father's son. For all that Bobby did (he killed a man!) I think Garland really got through to him, and he's trying to be the man Garland was.
posted by Ruki at 3:47 PM on May 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


I forgot to mention Denise! "Fix their hearts or die." I love that Denise is explicitly a trans woman (screaming hormones) and not a transvestite man as she was in the original series. And in such a position of power! Kid was soooo happy about this.
posted by Ruki at 4:34 PM on May 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


A small, cool detail I noticed upon rewatching today is that the first episode ends with the phonograph playing the blank end of a record, instead of a show at the Bang Bang, which is how the other three have ended. It makes the first episode feel like a prelude.

Just in general, something that I'm getting more of this time around is how much the Lodges feel like a representation of film making and photography. They contain spirits who travel through electricity, the curtain calls to mind a stage metaphor, the floor is black and white (which are the two principle components of an image), they produce inverted copies of whatever enters into them, (maybe most importantly) the Lodges completely ignore time and space, much in the same way that a director or photographer is able to create an artifact that is timeless, and also destroys conceptions of space (editing, for example).

In a lot of ways Lynch's work has always been about producing copies of other ideas, and using those copies to explore the darker elements. Blue Velvet is an inverted copy of white picket fence Americana. Mulholland Drive is an inverted copy of the hollywood success story. Twin Peaks is an inverted copy of a soap opera.

Coop Classic wasn't wrong often, but when he was, it was a doozy. And Doppel Coop—especially when he confirms to Darya that yes, he's going to kill her—reminds me very much of the few times in the original series where Coop Classic seemed to relish being a little bit nasty.

It's funny, because Cooper and Windom both make the same mistake: they foolishly believe that their spiritual dabbling has prepared them for the Lodge. Laura never made that mistake - she realized how powerful the place was, since it completely destroyed her life. The entirety of the U.S. military industrial complex (in the Lynchverse) seems intent upon getting into the Lodge and exploiting its power, but none of them seem to realize what sort of box they might be opening. It made me wonder if that wasn't what the Atomic Bomb explosion in Cole's office is a reference to (or maybe, if you want to think of it the other way, what the Lodges are themselves meant to reference).
posted by codacorolla at 4:51 PM on May 24, 2017 [12 favorites]


Vegas Coop reminds me of the waiter from Season 2, the one Albert called "Señor Droolcup," who was likely the human host carrying the Giant in the real world. Perhaps the Waiter became senescent after being in the Red Room for an extended period as well?

I was thinking about that as well. While Coop is blasting through dimensions, he seems pretty with it. He holds normal conversations (well, "normal") with a number of Lodge denizens, and eventually figures out a means of escape. It isn't until he blasts into Dougie's body that he seems to lose his mental faculties.
posted by codacorolla at 4:53 PM on May 24, 2017


The DoppelArm threatened GoodCoop with non-existence. Then Mike says "You were tricked." Boop created Dougie in order to evade the Black Lodge. GoodCoop was freed upon Dougie's return, but in a state of non-existence. That's why he can only speak in echolalia. He's a body with a non-existent soul. There can only be one Dale Cooper out in the world, and Boop is it right now. I don't think GoodCoop will be restored until Boop dies. (And I desperately want Audrey to make this happen.)
posted by Ruki at 5:15 PM on May 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


I don't think Cooper can be restored by flicking a switch. Cooper spent a quarter of a century on another plane of existence. He visited the Black Lodge bodily, and his body has aged normally, but his experience of time and space must have been unlike anything we could ever know. Just being back in the material world at all seems to have fried his circuits...but he also seems to be slowly coming back to himself. When Jade asked if he'd had a stroke, that seemed precisely like what did happen, and I imagine it would have happened even if he had replaced the real doppelganger.

I really didn't like episode three at first. My problem wasn't that it was too weird, but that it seemed to literalize a lot of things that until now had been weird and ambiguous. It's like the difference between Mulholland Drive and a PKD book. PKD is great, but he's a genre writer bouncing ideas off the walls of sci-fi tropes, whereas Lynch is more of a guy who independently arrives at the ideas behind tropes and does something completely new and unexpected with them. Usually. The story of Cooper replacing Dougie and going to the casino felt, to me, just very Syfy Channel and uncharacteristically on the nose. Like, is garmonbozia really just toxic waste, as Agent Preston made it sound? I find that idea bland and average. The first two episodes felt more like real Lynch to me. I'm not that interested in prosaic explanations.

I'm back on board after four, though. I don't really need this to be like the old Twin Peaks, but the old Twin Peaks stuff was great, plus the new additions. Robert Forster! And I know he doesn't get much love, but I've liked Michael Cera since Scott Pilgrim, and I enjoyed his pointless but hilarious cameo.

I'm not over the moon about the continuing saga of Dougie, but Naomi Watts (!!!) is there, and I feel like there's some poignance to the idea that this is a variation on the life Cooper might have had. When he is made whole, I think the enormity of what he's lost -- twenty-five years gone -- may weigh on him.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:56 PM on May 24, 2017 [4 favorites]


Really enjoying this. Watched all 4 back to back last night.

Although parts are creepy, ominous, or even harrowing, the last 2 episodes also had parts that were outright hilarious and had me guffawing. The idea that Ruth Davenport's neighbor didn't volunteer that she had a key to the room until she remembered she was supposed to water the plants if the murdered woman was away--that was hilarious because it was so nearly realistic about the way our memories work, and yet short-circuited the roundabout plans of the police to gain access.

I like the way even minor characters, the handyman at the apartment, are mixed up with the law... Who knows, we think he's a distraction from more serious crimes, but maybe that's a setup too?

I found Mr. Jackpot Cooper also to be hilarious. I guess it's by now almost an over-used trope, the Holy Fool, and it called back to Man Facing Southeast, Forest Gump, Being There, etc. Maybe it worked for me as contrast and release of tension of what had come before.

And Lucy's shock at cell phones a nice of-the-time-and-place joke. Michael Cera's character made me cringe so much I paused, as it makes me think: wow, me and my friends when we were younger--we couldn't have possibly been that pretentious and take ourselves that seriously?

The tank in NYC reminded me a bit of Herli Seldon's hologram appearing in Asimov's Foundation trilogy. But I don't think it was the lady with no eyes who appeared.

So... I guess the issue to be dealt with next is that Mr. Jackpot Cooper has replaced Dougie, whose car has a bomb afixed. Will his rapport with Dougie's son help make a connection to the kid across the street, who is the only one who knows the bomb is there? Or will Mr. Jackpot's luck continue?
posted by Schmucko at 7:45 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Like, is garmonbozia really just toxic waste, as Agent Preston made it sound

Presumably not, because how did toxic waste come to be in either of their bodies / how would they have lived / why would toxic waste have been evidently connected to anyone's return to the Black Lodge / why would they have been eating toxic waste in the Lodge? The fact that just inhaling its fumes put someone in the hospital doesn't compel a prosaic account—that's on you.
posted by kenko at 7:48 PM on May 24, 2017


Oh also, Twin Peaks Season 1 was ambiguous about whether anything supernatural was going on. These things could be visions, or hints, or possibilities. At the end of Season 2, or Fire Walk With Me which I didn't see, it had clearly come down on the side of the supernatural, and ruled out the Scooby Doo ending (just tricks and we would have gotten away with it if...) So... I lost a bit of interest in the Twin Peaks project after that loss of ambiguity (and as Lynch was no longer the director) but now I'm totally into it again!
posted by Schmucko at 7:51 PM on May 24, 2017


The fact that just inhaling its fumes put someone in the hospital doesn't compel a prosaic account—that's on you

But anyway, when we saw Bob vomit garmonbozia in the Black Lodge, it was different because the Black Lodge is a metaphorical space. It's poetry. Where the Lodges brush up against the material world, you get weird places where the literal and the metaphorical blend. But presumably, or I would have presumed it, when we see Bob vomiting up garmonbozia, that's our limited senses interpreting an act that's beyond our full understanding as best they can. A big pile of cat barf on a rug is, to me, pretty lame in the face of that.

Shorter: I did not think that Bob literally puked up stuff and Mike and the Man from Another Place ate it. It's whatever, I guess.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:04 PM on May 24, 2017


If that's the line you want to take, though, you can still take it. Something mystical and weird and ambiguous happened whose only mode of manifestation in our reality (just as our only way of assimilating it even in the Lodge) is as someone puking toxic stuff, whose toxicity is related to the person puking it, or something (Dougie's vomit doesn't seem to have the same effect). Is that its true reality, and is there nothing more to be said about it? Nothing forces that conclusion.
posted by kenko at 8:23 PM on May 24, 2017


Lucy's cell phone shock actually recalls a cut scene from FWWM (seen in The Missing Pieces) where Lucy is talking on the intercom to Harry and Andy while they're down in the interrogation room.

Lucy keeps talking and Harry shows up in from of her and she's shocked to the point of shrieking and asks how he got up there. Then she speaks into the intercom again to Andy saying that she's very confused, and then she asks Andy where he went and who is she talking to. She then gets so upset that she gets up and runs out of the room, only to bump into Andy, who has come up to reassure her, and they both scream in unison.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:46 PM on May 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


Is it about the bunny?
posted by elsietheeel at 10:10 PM on May 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's not about the bunny! But I'm rooting for DougieCoop to take a sip of some fine hot coffee and it rocking his world.
posted by dual_action at 10:58 PM on May 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


Although parts are creepy, ominous, or even harrowing, the last 2 episodes also had parts that were outright hilarious and had me guffawing.

Mrs. DougieCoop's complete obliviousness to the fact that her husband has pretty much lost all concept of life skills after a few days gone is amusing me to no end.
posted by dr_dank at 5:14 AM on May 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Then again, we didn't know Dougie for that long. Maybe that's just how he is. He wouldn't be the first middle-aged married guy who utterly depends on his wife to dress and feed him.

/Film's David Chen made an interesting observation about DougieCoop's behavior, and people's acceptance thereof, on the new "Peaks TV" podcast he just started with frequent collaborator Joanna Robinson: To liberally paraphrase, DougieCoop manages to unintentionally "fool" everyone into thinking he's the real Dougie while operating on almost total cognitive autopilot, because he seems respectable enough in his nice suit, and seems very agreeable because he just repeats back the last thing somebody said to him.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's a rather trenchant commentary on the current President.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:41 AM on May 25, 2017 [5 favorites]


Maybe that's just how he is.

Come on. He's clearly, in the few minutes on screen prior to being vaporized, capable of speech. He's presumably capable of driving. Jade thinks he's had a stroke.
posted by kenko at 10:06 AM on May 25, 2017


I get the feeling that Dougie was never "all there" in the first place, considering his origins, and for all we know he's had certain lapses like this in the past. Who knows?
posted by destructive cactus at 10:37 AM on May 25, 2017


Yeah, the whole creation-of-Dougie thing is pretty … when was he created? (Is GoodCoop in a third little pocket universe and not the real world after all?) Or perhaps he was an independently-existing person reformed into a Coopelganger?
posted by kenko at 11:22 AM on May 25, 2017


Come on. He's clearly, in the few minutes on screen prior to being vaporized, capable of speech.

I'm not saying Dougie was literally mentally impaired. I'm just saying that maybe he had enough of an aura of mediocrity (Think of the dumb dads in TV commercials, or perhaps Fox News' Steve Doocy) that most people outside of maybe his wife (or a highly-professional sex worker) wouldn't notice that something was off about him that couldn't be explained away by a new suit and haircut.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:35 PM on May 25, 2017


We hear an owl hoot in this episode, right?
posted by kenko at 12:37 PM on May 25, 2017


We hear an owl hoot in this episode, right?

When DougieCoop and the limo driver are standing outside, yes. DougieCoop gets visibly frightened and the limo driver agrees that owls are creepy.
posted by Ruki at 3:35 PM on May 25, 2017


Another neat touch is when Jade is driving him home, DougCoop sees a sign for Sycamore Street and states intently at it.I think both indicate that Coop's brain is churning away, but can't break through quite yet.
posted by codacorolla at 4:07 PM on May 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


I...kind of love the idea that Coop is an entirely fabricated universe. That tracks with something like Mulholland Drive or even Lost Highway, the Lynch movies this storyline most resembles. I do not believe anything has happened yet that would contradict the notion. I would think creating a pocket universe would be a lot of work for someone like DoppelCoop, who seems like more of a run of the mill badass dude than like...Saruman or something. But considering the more plausible idea is that he made a HomuncuCoop out of, like, his own toenail clippings, I dunno.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:13 PM on May 25, 2017


Did anyone else notice what look like burn marks on Lucy's sweater or am I imagining things?
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:08 PM on May 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Someone reminded me yesterday of the scene from early in the series when Cooper and Truman are at the shooting range, and Cooper manages to put one bullet through each eye of his paper target; the constant eyeball-shootings in this new season are maybe a callback to that (and to "Bunuelian eye-damage," as someone said in the post for the last episode).

I have to say I didn't love the Michael Cera bit - I like him as an actor, and I'm certainly game for some satire on James Hurley, but I found it to be pretty tasking to watch with the way it stretched on and on, cutting from Cera to Andy and Lucy's increasingly manic reaction shots to Truman's obvious disinterest.

Dougie seemed to possess the green ring which once belonged to Theresa Banks and was last seen being stolen from Annie at the end of Season 2, I think?

About the numbers, the weird machine in the room with the eyeless woman cycles between the numbers 3 and 15, and we later see an address or room number that is 315 - I believe it's Dougie's address, but I don't quite remember at the moment.

My overall feeling for these episodes was one of sadness for Agent Cooper (the good one, and by the way both Boop and DoppelCoop are terrible words and you people should feel terrible, maybe we can call him "Mister C" which is what he is called by some of the characters on the show). The idea of passing 25 years in real time inside the Black Lodge seems utterly unbearable, and it's no wonder that he's barely able to speak or do the most rudimentary tasks after having being cut off from the real world for so long.
posted by whir at 8:18 PM on May 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


The scene where Gordon Cole and his travelling companions visit the Doppleganger Cooper in prison is pretty damn chilling. I have a running tally in my head of occasions on which Lynch has managed to get a performance from an actor that manages to convey, via both the performance and the filming techniques used to capture it, that the role being enacted is entirely inhuman. I'm thinking here of the cowboy that confronts the movie director in "Mulholland Dr.", or the demon who accosts Bill Pullman at the party in "Lost Highway".

Basically, while Lynch is good at a lot of things as a director, I watch him for these moments depicting spiritual disruptions in the normal order of things. That's what makes him unique, the thing he does that no one else can really match.
posted by Ipsifendus at 8:35 PM on May 25, 2017 [17 favorites]


But what really makes that scene for me is that Lynch doesn't really want to commit Cole to noticing that anything is wrong until the end of the next scene.
posted by wotsac at 8:42 PM on May 25, 2017


and by the way both Boop and DoppelCoop are terrible words and you people should feel terrible

But there are too many Coops!
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 9:14 PM on May 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Watching the first double-ep again I noticed that Ray, in his call to Darya, reports receiving a message from a "Jeffries"—which Boop doesn't seem to pick up on at all, even though his immediate next action involves talking to someone he takes to be Jeffries.
posted by kenko at 9:23 PM on May 25, 2017


I haven't had time to watch the episodes yet, but love spoilers so have been reading through the threads and let me tell you, without context what you are saying makes like literally no sense. It is like you are speaking in code or something. Hopefully I can catch up this weekend and be able to understand what is going on in the next thread.
posted by Literaryhero at 4:17 AM on May 26, 2017


without context what you are saying makes like literally no sense.

Honestly, though, even in context, it makes only slightly more sense than that.
posted by crossoverman at 5:15 AM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]


The idea of passing 25 years in real time inside the Black Lodge seems utterly unbearable, and it's no wonder that he's barely able to speak or do the most rudimentary tasks after having being cut off from the real world for so long.

I was thinking this too, but on rewatch there appears to be a specific moment when Cooper gets zapped by the huge electrical outlet and switches from being lucid to dazed.

The scene where Gordon Cole and his travelling companions visit the Doppleganger Cooper in prison is pretty damn chilling.

I suspect that Mr. C was being played back at 90% speed in that scene.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 5:34 AM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Did anyone else notice what look like burn marks on Lucy's sweater or am I imagining things?

One of the flowers on her sweater definitely looked off - grey, rather than a normal flower color.

About the numbers, the weird machine in the room with the eyeless woman cycles between the numbers 3 and 15, and we later see an address or room number that is 315 - I believe it's Dougie's address, but I don't quite remember at the moment.

Cooper's room number at the Great Northern Hotel was 315 (shown on the key fob he still has).
posted by Lucinda at 7:52 AM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


The new series so far has made me really disoriented and uncomfortable, by which I mean I love it.

Watching a mentally damaged, absent Coop wander endlessly through a casino making jackpots was the strangest combination of sad and also painfully tedious and dumb comedically. It made annoyed, frustrated, and deeply, deeply sad.

In the AV club review of the first two, they note how, oddly, it's the lodge scenes that are more straightforward and narratively understandable than the myriad scenes happening outside of it, in the human world.

That continues in this episode -- the housing development, the casino, this new, strange, mediocre non-Coop Coop, the drug addict across the street, even, all feel stranger, darker, and more confusing than the more supernatural scenes to me. The sea-side room with the fire and the eyeless woman that was also a spaceship seemed pretty understandable, almost -- it's an outpost even further from normal reality than the lodges, I think, a place humans get to even more rarely. Time there is even more frayed and confused until that machine on the roof is activated. A kind of outpost on the edge of reality that manages to catch Coop when doppeltree curses him to nonexistence.

But this stuff with the third Coop? Fuck if I know. Some kind of trap made by Evil Coopelganger to prevent them switching places, but... it's so uncomfortable and sad, somehow.
posted by Rinku at 9:03 AM on May 26, 2017


I just saw Fire Walk With Me for the first time, to understand the new series better.

Just had a thought about the sea-side room with the eyeless woman: dreams (and dream-like supernatural sequences) have a way of inverting reality. Maybe the eyeless woman is like David Lynch's hard-of-hearing FBI boss, also someone who knows more about the unfamiliar situation (in spite of a disability) that Cooper finds himself in. (About the Lynch character's hard of hearing jokes... Personally, I like the way the foreboding symbolism alternates with such dumb and broad humor!) And the eyeless woman's fear of "mother" knocking on the house is like Laura Palmer's fear of her abusive father.
posted by Schmucko at 3:38 PM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


In an Entertainment Weekly interview with David Lynch, the director confirms that we are allowed to call Cooper's doppelgänger whatever we want, among other things.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:22 PM on May 26, 2017 [5 favorites]


It was a lot of fun watching various people teach Agent Cooper how to Dougie.
posted by guiseroom at 9:28 PM on May 26, 2017 [14 favorites]


I suspect that Mr. C was being played back at 90% speed in that scene.

Also, the first word he says to Gordon after his thumbs up is "yrev" which he corrects to "very". He let his backwards talking slip.
posted by crossoverman at 9:51 PM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]


Gordon comes on strong in Part 4. He steals the show for me.
Well, the actor who portrays Gordon is awfully good. But talk to Sabrina about him. He’s a pain the ass! [Executive producer Sabrina Sutherland, in another room, yells: “He’s really high maintenance!”]
posted by elsietheeel at 10:12 PM on May 26, 2017 [3 favorites]


Lynch got some pretty dumb questions in that interview, man.
posted by kenko at 10:31 PM on May 26, 2017


Boop 4 lyfe, sorry not sorry. I like Coopeldanger, too, but Boop is just so delightful. I'm Ruki and I'm a horrible person.
posted by Ruki at 10:37 PM on May 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's​ been years since I watched the original series, and I forgot just how much I love Gordon Cole yelling weird small talk.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:10 PM on May 26, 2017 [8 favorites]


It's a shame that the interviewer kept asking variations of "where do you get your ideas", and didn't explore that incredibly sick thinking table that Lynch designed.
posted by codacorolla at 8:00 AM on May 27, 2017 [2 favorites]


I forgot just how much I love Gordon Cole yelling weird small talk.

THERE THEY ARE, ALBERT. FACES OF STONE.
posted by sobarel at 10:48 AM on May 27, 2017 [17 favorites]


I've spent too much time think about this show, and am now wondering if there's anything to Bobby having white hair and bursting into tears at the sight of Laura. Like the answer is no, because that's Dana Ashbrook's hair and Bobby bursting into tears at the sight of Laura is a perfectly understandable reaction...

...right?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:44 AM on May 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I wonder if the golden sphere instead of a trap is Cooper's soul/mind.
posted by lmfsilva at 11:38 AM on May 28, 2017


I want fourteen more hours of Mr. Jackpots and Dr. Jacoby spray painting his shovels.

Also, David Lynch reintroducing himself by showing his character some weird shit from episode 2 and having him respond with, "WHAT THE HELL?" was just too good.
posted by sparkletone at 2:51 PM on May 28, 2017 [10 favorites]


There's probably a way for me to find this out for my own damn self, but what's happening tonight? Showtime's screening the third part, I assume. Will there be more parts released online, or was the release of four at a go a one-time-only sort of thing?
posted by kenko at 3:06 PM on May 28, 2017


I think Showtime is screening 3 and 4, 5 is for everyone next Sunday.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:09 PM on May 28, 2017


One sign that this show is really on the right track: I keep typing out theories on the underlying cosmology of the Lodges and all that, and inevitably before I'm done I've thought of something that turns my previous theory on its head and end up deleting the whole comment. My fan theory brain muscles got all soft on imitative things like Lost since I last saw Twin Peaks, I forgot what the real deal felt like.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:55 PM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


are we all united in the understanding that Naomi Watts' kid knows who Cooper is and knows he isn't his dad? presumably knows Dougie's not his dad either? probably knows he doesn't have a dad and is not actually a child?

I only get about two thirds of what's going on because David Lynch interferes with my usually good sense for when something unbearable is going to happen, so I look away and hide my eyes a lot more than I normally would and miss a lot the first time through. but like

just because the kid showed him how maple syrup works and gave him the thumbs up, that doesn't mean he's a benevolent presence. but he knows what's up. that quiet watchful amusement is not how one reacts when one's dad loses half his body mass and all of his mind, right
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:25 PM on May 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


I am not so happy with David Duchovny's line readings, or maybe the lines themselves. in most respects I do not care whether or not the show sounds like it was written twenty-five years after the last season was, but in that one scene I would not have minded if it did. but "THERE'S ROOM IN THIS FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION FOR MORE THAN ONE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN!" damned if Gordon isn't right about that.

that so-called eyeless woman isn't eyeless either. she has the most terrible eyes in the world underneath there, you can tell.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:35 PM on May 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


She's got a name--Naido!
posted by infinitewindow at 8:40 PM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


presumably knows Dougie's not his dad either?

Why would he know that? How do you know that?
posted by kenko at 8:42 PM on May 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Have names been really significant in Twin Peaks before? Because a quick Google suggests 'naido' might mean nonexistence in Japanese (please note I do not speak Japanese) and the names Janey-E and Sonny Jim are damn weird.

(Note: Sunny Jim was an old brand of peanut butter/jam/other stuff mostly known in the PNW, where Lynch and MacLachlan are both from. The latter was from the same town as my dad, who was called Sunny Jim as a boy, due to his resemblance to the boy in the logo. The kid in Twin Peaks looks nothing like this, however.)
posted by elsietheeel at 8:55 PM on May 28, 2017


How do you know that?

well I mean, I figure that all homunculi and human simulacra of all sizes are sterile by design, because conceptually they exist to bypass the ordinary human reproductive process and making them independently capable of it would defeat their symbolic purpose. but say they can do their own begetting, just supposing. then if Dougie's his dad, the kid's not real on his father's side. that's an untrustworthy quality to have in your ancestry.

mainly, you can just tell by looking in his eyes. and the necktie over Cooper's head wasn't exactly arranged so as to suggest hanging, but it suggested itself to me anyway, and that kid was gently amused by it. only a much younger child could read the whole presentation as an intentional joke. Everybody else is irritated with, angry at, or alarmed by Cooper's deportment and incapacity, even Naomi Watts. but not that kid. he doesn't see anything the tiniest bit out of place about a grown man discovering pancakes. but boy does he pay attention to it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:56 PM on May 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


well I mean, I figure that all homunculi and human simulacra of all sizes are sterile by design, because conceptually they exist to bypass the ordinary human reproductive process and making them independently capable of it would defeat their symbolic purpose

Ok, well, let's back up here. Why do you think any of that?
  1. We don't know when Dougie was created, or what that creation involved. (Is he as old as Coop? That doesn't make a lot of sense. Was he created from whole cloth at some point in the past 25 years, as a fully grown man? Was an already-existing person Coopified? Something else?)
  2. We have no particular reason to believe that "they exist to bypass the ordinary human reproductive process". Dougie specifically seems to exist for a quite different purpose, but perhaps you mean that in general the reason that anyone would develop or exercise the ability to create a simulacrum is to bypass reproduction.
    1. We have no particular reason to believe that, either. (It could be because simulacra are useful for occult purposes, say, not because anyone wanted to bypass normal reproduction.
    2. Even if that were the case, why would making the simulacra capable of reproduction go defeat their purpose?
  3. Bypassing normal reproductive avenues seems like a non-symbolic purpose.

posted by kenko at 9:23 PM on May 28, 2017


(...)simulacrum is to bypass reproduction.

We have no particular reason to believe that..


no no, I'm not making a Twin Peaksy-specific argument, I'm only saying that's what they're for, in the same way I might say that owls are the emblem of Athena or that FBI men wear black suits. In the world at large. you know that and I know that and David Lynch definitely knows that, whether he cares or not. and I know he does not always care. he might have some other secrets and tricks to reveal about his doughy departed MacLachlan monstrosity, for sure.

but he does not deal in constricted science-fictional world-building tedium, ever. that is why I love him. he is allusive but never literal about it. so I am not theorizing a consistent and formulaic occult/magical system, god strike me dead if I ever do. I am merely proposing that in those family scenes when one is naturally reminded of, on the one hand, the return of Martin Guerre and a million unsavorily (if that is a word) salacious stories about men deceiving the wives of their twins and doppelgangers, and one is naturally reminded on the other hand of Frankenstein's monster and golems and other shambling approximations of men who could not figure in a salacious story if their un-lives depended on it, the reminding is intentional even if the meaning is not what it would be in other artists' hands.

so I will freely grant that we do not know for dead certain whose son little Jim Jones isn't, if anyone's. but the implication that he is no man's son is there, even if it should later be revealed to be false. it is supposed to be in the backs of our minds that false semblances of men cannot make children, just as when we saw ominous owls in the seasons of yesteryear it was supposed to be in the backs of our minds that birds are what grievously wronged women are traditionally metamorphosed into, mythologically. David Lynch can write over that meaning or ignore it, but he didn't invent it so he can't unwrite it even if he wished to.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:15 PM on May 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm definitely going to rewatch the original series and FWWM soon, and one of the things I'm curious about is: have we ever really had it confirmed in the show that we've actually seen the Black Lodge, and not just the antechamber that is the Red Room?

Because that thing in the glass box seemed like it was fundamentally different from things like BOB and MIKE that have these weird rules they play by and are concerned chiefly with causing and harvesting suffering. That thing in the box just killed, brutally, no toying with the victims, no building up garmonbozia. It felt like it came from someplace even darker than we've seen, so what we've seen can't be the be all, end all of evil.

I think the Black Lodge might manifest itself in the Red Room just like it does in the real world, but I don't know that we've seen the real deal. Windom Earle's description seems like he's talking about something more than what we've seen: "A place of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare enter this frightful maw. The spirits there care not for good deeds or priestly invocations; they're as like to rip the flesh from your bone as greet you with a happy "good day." And if harnessed, these spirits in this hidden land of unmuffled screams and broken hearts would offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the Earth itself to his liking."

Like, BOB and MIKE and The Arm and company don't really seem to fit that bill. That thing in the box did. Maybe the Mother banging on the door in the purple room, too (though that may be the same entity from the box).

And there are things like MIKE having a religious epiphany and cutting off his arm and moving to oppose BOB (while still collecting garmonbozia, lest we think he really turned "good" after this epiphany). That's weird behavior for an entity from one of the Lodges, the Lodges seem like polarized concepts, good and evil starkly separated, not this changeable middle ground MIKE moves in.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:46 PM on May 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


I can't definitively back this up, but I believe the Black and White Lodges look the same and you don't know which is which until you get there. Coop was there in the White Lodge with Laura. He's also been in the Black Lodge with the shadow selves. It's like Purgatory squared.
posted by Ruki at 11:22 PM on May 28, 2017


But then we've got the version of the White Lodge that Major Briggs saw and it's totally different... I really need to rewatch soon!
posted by jason_steakums at 11:37 PM on May 28, 2017


I never realized how perfectly suited Twin Peaks was for Metafilter discussion.

It's like a Magritte painting of a plate of beans captioned "This is not a plate of beans."
posted by Schmucko at 12:41 AM on May 29, 2017 [17 favorites]


I'm only saying that's what they're for, in the same way I might say that owls are the emblem of Athena

Frankly I don't think that's true either. Not about owls—I mean that simulacra exist "to bypass human reproduction". I don't think that's nearly as solid a claim as "Owls are emblems of Athena", which is anyway only true in parts of "the world at large"—you'd still need a specific reason to invoke it with reference to any particular owl, especially if the context gave you no indication that Greek mythology was relevant.
posted by kenko at 8:08 AM on May 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


Somewhere in the series they indicate the two lodges are overlapped, right? I think that's sort of what the zig-zag pattern of the floor indicates?
posted by codacorolla at 8:11 AM on May 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


In the original series finale, Coop Classic's first ten minutes or so in the Red Room was in what the MFAP called "the waiting room." The internal geography of this place was relatively consistent; when Cooper tried to backtrack, MFAP told him bluntly "Wrong way." In the final confrontation chamber, Coop began his exit, but Doppel Coop entered from a chamber beyond which we as viewers never saw. Perhaps that chamber was the Black Lodge, where the hungry spirits dwell, waiting for their one chance out? I think not, though.

As Coop continued back to what was presented as the entrance, he and his doppelgänger hit every room in reverse order (or so it seems; certainly having a physically consistent space for Coop to traverse builds drama, as it's easier for us to understand that yes, he's getting closer to escaping). But so far, the other scenes in the Red Room from TPTR and FWWM are less internally consistent with their geography. Cooper's journeys primarily feature masculine furnishings in the Room--the globe a symbol of control, the statue inviting a male gaze, chairs staged with a "throne" and room for two guests of honor--while the ring sits in a Room furnished only with a seashell pedestal, which has a more feminine feel that fits FWWM. The third room with furnishings is the room, only seen once, where the concept of "doppelgänger" is introduced; this room has a unpholstered bench with two seats facing opposite directions, where sitters can't look each other in the eye unless they both turn their heads. Props disappear and reappear from these rooms as required by the director, not by the inhabitants.

The shifting nature of the place--and the floor--has always said to me that the Black Lodge and the White Lodge are "one and the same." Annie's line about how the good Dale was trapped never said Black or White, only Lodge. This is why when I talk about the place, I usually say Red Room or Other Place (since the "room above the convenience store" is on the same plane and directly connected to the Red Room but, well, isn't red).

It is fascinating to me how I find what most people would call "the weird parts" of the show the easiest to understand, while the action in contemporary US is baffling. This may also be a comment on how various groups in today's US interact with the world--burying themselves in video games, high finance or other industrial symphonies while failing to grasp the world of beauty, joy, suffering, agony, and loss we all share.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:12 AM on May 29, 2017 [4 favorites]


I don't think we can really rely on a lot of what took place in the second season after Leland dies and before the finale as Lynchian clue-fodder unless he's specifically incorporated them into his own canon, simply because of how much he hates the episodes in which he had no involvement.

So Windom Earle waxing rhapsodic over the true evil of the Black Lodge may just be total bullshit... but the idea of the Red Room/Other Place that we see being more of Purgatory makes sense to me, especially with the design of the floor and the transit of both good and evil people through it.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:20 AM on May 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't think we can really rely on a lot of what took place in the second season after Leland dies and before the finale as Lynchian clue-fodder unless he's specifically incorporated them into his own canon, simply because of how much he hates the episodes in which he had no involvement.

This touches on something I try to keep in mind when pontificating on the show, which is maybe one frustrating point with it: whether an aspect is really Lynchian, providing no easy answers but limitless possibility, or Frostian, which is more codified and restrained. Frost likes to pin things down, which maybe satisfies one's curiosity, but also takes away the mystery that makes it special. It's an interesting tug of war, and it can strike an amazing balance that elevates the tendencies of both creators, but I do worry about the show trending more Frostian with all the pieces set up where they are now at the end of this episode - it's fun to try to grasp at these shadows as a fan with theories and discussion, but when the creators solidify those shadows into something concrete it loses something. The show is at a point right now where it could go either way, and I hope it leans more Lynchian from here on out and doesn't necessarily give us every answer, instead of getting codified and nailed down and basically turning into The Great and Secret Show.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:53 AM on May 29, 2017 [7 favorites]


we are allowed to call Cooper's doppelgänger whatever we want, among other things.

Cooperganger.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:46 PM on May 30, 2017


Ok, we need about a million more of these.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:57 PM on May 30, 2017 [6 favorites]


That's amazing!

I didn't love Twin Peaks or really feel like I got where David Lynch was coming from in most of his work until I saw Gordon Cole and then it all clicked into place for me. But I don't think I could explain why in a way that made sense. It wouldn't be David Lynch if I could, I guess?

Anyway, that is why Gordon Cole is my favorite thing in all of Twin Peaks.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:30 PM on May 30, 2017 [2 favorites]


Cooperganger

DoppelCooper, surely.
posted by crossoverman at 2:21 AM on May 31, 2017


As someone who just saw 3 and 4 back to back at a local cinema, without yet seeing 1 and 2, and who is not at all steeped in Twin Peaks / Fire Walk With Me details, I would like to say two things. 1) this discussion is exactly what I love about Metafilter, and 2) hellooooooooo!!
posted by zippy at 7:13 AM on May 31, 2017 [9 favorites]


So I shared the Cole reaction YT link with a friend and he commented that the internet was going to have so much fun with the show and that was when it really kind of sunk in how much the world has changed in 25 years.

The internet was a fetus in 1990. A comparatively small group of people could discuss it on Usenet or a local BBS until your fingers fell off or your 2400 baud modem got kicked offline when your mom picked up the phone. No images or video. The entire world wasn't capable of providing feedback, especially not all at once.

Online commentary from the original alt.tv.twinpeaks Usenet newsgroup (1990-93)

So while the world might suck right now, at least we're living in a time when we get new Twin Peaks episodes + modern internet with all of the benefits and memes that allows?

Also when Game of Thrones comes back in July? Sunday nights are going to be CRAZYTOWN.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:04 AM on May 31, 2017 [3 favorites]


Cooperganger

DoppelCooper, surely.


An article I think was in Vulture was calling the BOB-possessed Cooper Mr. C while calling the Cooper trapped in the other place Agent Cooper. That nomenclature works for me.
posted by hippybear at 3:39 AM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


The podcast, Counter Esperanto (which I highly recommend), refers to DoppelCooper as DC and Agent Cooper as AC, because AC & DC is electricity. And also, he's back in black.
posted by crossoverman at 4:05 AM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]




That is a really interesting video. I wonder how much of TP is structured this way? I'm sure YouTube will keep us informed across the series.
posted by hippybear at 3:58 AM on June 2, 2017


Coop's trip to the glass box & purple room and Sam & Tracey's glass box room experience synced up.

The sync between episodes 1 and 2 (coop in the glass box; the kids outside the room) is obviously intentional and precise, but I'm not so sure the sync this video establishes between episodes 1 and 3 (coop in the purple place; the kids making out, etc.) is anything but arbitrary?
posted by nobody at 8:12 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think there are too many synchronicities between Coop in the purple room/kids making out for it to be coincidence - Coop/Naido and the kids have mirrored positions on their ​respective couches (mirrored by gender and position, Sam sitting/Tracey standing while Naido sits/Cooper stands, then Naido sitting on the left, Cooper right while Sam is left/Tracey right), the glass box goes dark when the lamp in the purple room comes on (another inversion), the pounding on the purple room door starts when the kids start having sex, and the big one, that Naido does the knife slashing gesture and identical sound during the slashing attack in the glass box room.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:16 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


And the similarity between Naido's room and the box room seems fairly strong to me at least, with the central aperture and flanking lights, and the repeated low arch fireplace/oven shape. Watching a fire is the sort of primal television.

Re: episode 4, I'm going to disagree a bit with most everyone — the Wally Brando and pancake scene in this are so drawn out and pointless that they really push episode 4 into Bad Actually territory for me. Both of those storylines were ready for some forward movement, but instead we got two big long farts. The Mister C interrogation scene was good, but not enough, and kind of worrying because I feel like my grades for the episodes are A, B, B, C- and I'm shifting from really excited to wondering if I'll even bother with the whole season.

One thing about Dougie Cooper ... A couple weeks ago I was thinking that one of the charming things about the original Twin Peaks is that Classic Cooper seems like he might not even be human; it feels as if he stepped out of a UFO and he's marveling at all life on Earth and bearing witness to it. What Dougie Cooper is going through is a disturbing reflection of that. Classic Cooper loved trees; Dougie Cooper gets slightly perky at a street named Sycamore. Classic Cooper was talkative, active, and engaged with people. Dougie Cooper is socially non-functional. And yet he ambles ahead, still like an alien tourist, but more like E.T. this time, bumbling and almost mute and with magic cheaty powers. Classic Cooper had some magic but it seemed like skill and experience and intuition, while Dougie Cooper's powers are stupid luck. But, maybe both Coopers are matched to their environments.
posted by fleacircus at 8:36 PM on June 2, 2017


Thinking aloud about what happens to Coop after he leaves the Lodge...

I think when he leaves the Lodge he has two problems. One is the tree monster (and faceless mouth monsters in general) that is trying to gank him before he leaves the Lodge, and another is the Dougie trap that Evil Cooper set up. Two things by two allied enemies.

The glass box saves him from the first problem, I think. It's set up like a wiretap. It catches Cooper and shuts him off through some trickery (the weird clunky nesting box thing), but the faceless monster chasing him is trapped, and not happy about it.

After the glass box, he is on the right path, and when he reaches the apartment, that is the place he's supposed to be.

It's something like a switchboard; he ends up in the room that will lead him back to the lighter socket where Evil Cooper is. He feels the call of the doorway, but Naido stops him. Maybe she does it to save him, or maybe she is a tragic femme fatale guiding him into the trap unwillingly. She takes him outside and flips a switch that reroutes him to a parallel line, and lets herself fall. Cooper is in the room that leads to Dougie now, and so he goes out the wrong door and becomes the wrong Cooper.
posted by fleacircus at 9:20 PM on June 2, 2017


the repeated low arch fireplace/oven shape

Or like the grounding pin hole on a power outlet smdh
posted by fleacircus at 9:22 PM on June 2, 2017


I like that they're getting very explicit with the electrical stuff. Phillip Jeffries traveling in the wires in FWWM was one thing, and even subtler things before that like Briggs picking up The Giant's words to Cooper as a transmission, but now we see Coop on the other side of that journey and it's literally goofy giant electrical sockets in weird electrical substation rooms floating in space, Coop coming out of the wiring like he was run through a Play-Doh Fun Factory, just that ridiculous fun Lynch brings when he's done with subtlety.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:31 PM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]


Everything in the Twin Peaks universe is a dream taking place in Wally Brando's head. You heard it here first, June third, the year of our Lord 2017.
posted by duffell at 7:49 PM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Everything in the Twin Peaks universe is a dream taking place in Wally Brando's head. You heard it here first, June third, the year of our Lord 2017.
posted by duffell at 10:49 PM on June 3

I... would actually be okay with that.

My best friend and I were discussing Twin Peaks over Facebook messenger the other day when my dog jumped on my lap (and thus my laptop) and sent her a nonsense message. She thought that was delightfully appropriate and replied "My dog has a message for you."
posted by Ruki at 9:39 PM on June 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Boooo, already been done.

And since Homicide crossed over with St. Elsewhere and they crossed Munch over into a bunch of other shows and into real life and that was when reality ceased to exist and now we all live in Tommy Westphall's snowglobe.

So I guess we could all live in Twin Peaks?

MY DOG HAS A MESSAGE FOR YOU.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:44 PM on June 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Is it tomorrow yet?
posted by elsietheeel at 9:44 PM on June 3, 2017


Yep.
posted by kenko at 9:10 AM on June 4, 2017


If Jacques Renault is to be believe, tomorrow never arrives.
posted by codacorolla at 9:24 AM on June 4, 2017


I was quite young when Twin Peaks originally aired, probably too young to be watching it tbh, be the thing I forgot the most (not having rewatched either S1 S2 or the FWWM) is how fantastic the sound design is.

The amount of dread that can be planted in mind by the low rumbling sub-woofer noise overlaying a scene which is otherwise visually benign is ..... Sometimes almost overwhelming.

But I can't stop watching because this show is nothing if not something that demands active attentive viewing, it's so captivating.

Also the pacing is .. Almost... Glacial.. But also everything almost feels like it's unfoldng exactly when it should.

It's all so deliciously unnerving and immersive.
posted by Faintdreams at 2:51 PM on June 7, 2017 [4 favorites]


So far I am loving it. I enjoyed how different Ep 3 and Ep 4 were. Ep 4 was delightfully goofy in that Lynchian way when he decides to give you a break from all the weird shit. Ep. 3 was very Eraserhead.

I have been a bit annoyed with the cheesy CGI effects though. I loved the way Ep. 3 started, with Coop entering the Purple Room, with visuals that seemed inspired by James Turrell. But the jump cuts with Naido went on a little too long and were too repetitive and wore me the hell out. But patience is certainly a virtue with Lynch.

(On that note, we rewatched 1 and 2 this weekend and while I remember the pacing to be really slow when we first watched them, then flew by the second time.)

Who woulda known that Bobby Briggs would grow up to be a bit of a silver fox. But did anyone else think he acted kinda weird when Sheriff Truman talked about the kid who ODed at the high school. Bobby was running drugs with Leo in his high school days — maybe he's a crooked cop? Just the way he excused himself so quickly to go pee rang weirdly to me.

Someone mentioned a feeling of bittersweetness watching these new episodes, especially with DougieCoop wandering around all disoriented. I was soooooo happy to see the return of Albert, my favorite character from the original, but it's hard to watch Miguel Ferrar knowing he's no longer wit us. Bowie is dead, Margaret Lanterman is dead, Major Briggs is dead, Jack Nance is dead. A lot can happen in 25 years but damn.

HELLLLOOOOOOOO.
posted by Brittanie at 12:53 PM on June 19, 2017


The "Sorry, I gotta go *euphemism for peeing*!" thing actually pops up like three or four times in the original series (I noticed it on my latest rewatch and was like oh... Bobby's molars floating makes more sense now...). So I think it might just be a David Lynch thing.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:12 PM on June 19, 2017


Ep. 3 was very Eraserhead.

Yeah, the lever on the roof of the spaceship — a pretty obvious reference to Eraserhead's Man In the Planet pulling his lever — only confirmed the intent behind the gray palette, industrial rumbling sounds, and images of Dale tumbling through space and time that echoed the sequence that ends with Henry's head in the eraser factory.

And if that was just fan-service, I'm all for it!
posted by mubba at 7:55 PM on June 21, 2017


I definitely had the impression that Sunny Jim might not be just a regular kid; it seemed to me like he had some understanding of what was going on with Dougie/Coop, and was watching with amused detachment. He sort of reminds me of Pierre Tremond from the original series.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 8:15 AM on September 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


It made me wonder if that wasn't what the Atomic Bomb explosion in Cole's office is a reference to (or maybe, if you want to think of it the other way, what the Lodges are themselves meant to reference).

What do we make of the Franz Kafka portrait on the opposite wall?
posted by each day we work at 6:53 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


The rough-edged visual effects were just one aspect of the overall air of artificiality Lynch seems to have been striving for - and/or - the rough-edged visual effects were a side-effect of time or budgetary constraints that Lynch was nevertheless content with. I thought the entirely unconvincing day-for-night effect used for the scene in the parking lot with Albert & Cole was similarly striking.

I agree with fleacircus about some of the scenes in episode 4. For me, Michael Cera's turn was hard to watch, and seemed superfluous.
posted by misteraitch at 3:51 AM on October 7, 2019


Ummm... everyone noticed that Wally is cosplaying Brando in The Wild One, right? It's just so obvious no one mentioned it? I'm just a little surprise there wasn't just a casual comment in all the time it took me to get around to watching this.

Watching Coop relearning how to human is just uncomfortable to me, and when I'm watching something that gets really uncomfortable I pause it and distract myself with something else for a bit, but then when I unpause it it's still uncomfortable and I get in cycle of doing that and I really need to find a better way to handle this sort of thing.
posted by ckape at 9:48 PM on November 15, 2019


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