Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 7   First Watch 
June 18, 2017 7:17 PM - Season 3, Episode 7 - Subscribe

There's a body all right. (description from Showtime)
posted by infinitewindow (94 comments total)
 
This was one of the more straightforward episodes. A number of hanging possibilities were resolved, and in mostly mundane ways. Characters learn what the audience has already known. The plot has advanced in a smooth way.

What I mean:

The pages in the stall are Laura Palmer's diaries as many theorized, and they clue in Hawk and Frank to the idea of a "good Dale", though they seemed to be too easy to assume this was the same Dale, even though Cooper and Palmer apparently never met in life.

The mystery and build-up on Diane leads to--yes, she is a "tough cookie" and has bad memories of Bad Coop. (Boop.) Not so surprising.

Some had thought something dramatic was going to happen at 30 minutes into the episode, because of Bud Mullins's poster (June 18, 7:30 pm--this is episode 7). And indeed, two characters did have an appointment but only one showed at 30 minutes into the episode.

The body (referenced in the title) did have, as theorized, the fingerprints of Major Briggs. It is hard to see how THAT mystery (the body of a young man with the fingerprints of a known 70 year old man) is going to be resolved in a straightforward way.

The most dramatic part of the episode was Dougie-Coop recovering his muscle memory of how to disarm a little person with a gun. That was a well-filmed, exciting scene.

And... the arrival of the key to room 315 in the Great Northern Lodge finally provides a physical link between Twin Peaks and the Dougie subplot, which many thought might be a dream or fantasy or "manufactured world" of some kind.
posted by Schmucko at 7:27 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


- So it is Laura's diary but there's still a page missing. Huh.
- Why does everyone in this town insist on meeting at Sparkwood and 21? That's where Bobby should set up his cameras. He might get more than wildlife footage.
- That monitor coming out of Sheriff Truman's desk was amazing, and then to Skype with Doc Hayward on it? And then for him to have TWO TROUT IN HIS PAJAMAS?
- So DC visited Audrey while she was in a coma just days after she slept with What's His Sweater. If Richie turns out to be hers...bleh.
- Briggs' body! Wrong age! Called it! Except for the killed within the past 6 days part... I can't account for that.
- Oh Gordon. I love your whistling and your corn painting and your face and your...you.

"BUT YOU'LL GO WITH ME?"
"Say please."
"WHAT?"
"You heard me."
"Please."

- That plane's quite an upgrade from the one Agents Desmond and Stanley had in FWWM, but I guess when you're Deputy Director you get upgrades.
- Okay as much as I was with queenofbithnya and always wanted Diane to be the tape recorder, I'm a big fan of someone whose catch phrase is "Fuck you, [name]."
- Damn, Laura Dern sold the hell out of that and I bought it like it was Girl Scout cookies.
- The more I see Janey-E the more I love her. And I've loved Naomi Watts since she was Jet Girl.
- Action!Dougie versus Ike the Spike was amazing. Like my jaw dropped and all of a sudden Things! Things were happening! The arm! Cooper was back! And then it all quickly fell back into place.
- Introducing the atmospheric sound design into the plot was interesting.
- The bit at the roadhouse was *kisses fingertips* perfection. Fucking beautiful.
- Riley Lynch runs into the diner, shouts "Hey, anybody seen Bing?" and then he's named "Bing" in the credits. Okay...
posted by elsietheeel at 7:33 PM on June 18, 2017 [9 favorites]


That bar-sweeping scene would have been unbearable if they hadn't spread some visible litter on the floor. At least we got to see the guy making progress.

Also, Andy wears a Rolex.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:34 PM on June 18, 2017 [5 favorites]


The pages in the stall are Laura Palmer's diaries as many theorized, and they clue in Hawk and Frank to the idea of a "good Dale", though they seemed to be too easy to assume this was the same Dale, even though Cooper and Palmer apparently never met in life.

yeah but you know what, I like it, I like that this time poor Dale is the lost tortured wreck of so much potential and dead Laura Palmer is the intrepid detective saving him through a combination of intuition and guesswork and random weird luck. remember how weirdly respectful the local police were, and how ready to accept Dale's dingdong theories and weirdo behavior they were when he first came to town? why shouldn't they instantly jump on Laura's notions from beyond the grave, which are frankly a bit more straightforward and just as correct?

this is an insultingly simple reversal but I am a simple soul
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:40 PM on June 18, 2017 [6 favorites]


Action!Dougie versus Ike the Spike was amazing

wasn't it??

and god this show has so many angry grizzled blondes telling everybody to fuck off, I love it. surely they can't all get murdered! maybe a couple, but that's it.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:43 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


This felt like a much more plot-y episode than last week? I don't mean that as praise or criticism, I liked last week a lot. Just noting a difference.

Also somehow I didn't recognize Laura Dern at all last week and missed any comments pointing out who she was playing and then it clicked a couple scenes with her into this week's and I freaked out a bit. Lastly, I am still laughing at the ridiculously fake foley karate chop sound they used when Dougie is fighting and will likely still be laughing at it as I sit down to watch next week's episode.

What a fun episode this week's was.
posted by sparkletone at 7:50 PM on June 18, 2017


OH!! and what about the *nudge nudge wink wink ANGRY CRYING* last night between Coop and Diane 25 years ago!??!
posted by elsietheeel at 7:50 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


I mean did he sleep with her and then run off to Twin Peaks, send her a bunch of microcassettes full of smug theories and demands for silicone ear plugs, and then disappear forever?

I'd tell Albert and Gordon and the FBI to fuck off, too.

Okay maybe not Gordon.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:52 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


I was a little surprised the confrontation with the Spike played out the way it did; I was talking to a friend about the show last week, and we agreed it would go down "like The Bourne Identity," and then instantly realized it couldn't possibly happen like that, because...would David Lynch really just do The Bourne Identity? It didn't seem that likely. But here we are! The Arm shrieking at Cooper to "squeeze his hand off!" was delightful beyond words.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:34 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yankton Federal Prison Camp is in Yankton, SD not Sioux City, IA, and normally this would drive me nuts but this episode was just too good to dwell on it. (Still, maybe change that caption for reruns and DVDs)
posted by jason_steakums at 8:39 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also jesus, Lynch has gotten me trained up all Pavlovian in regards to his creeping, building suspense in some scenes but he's getting ridiculous about not resolving it and just letting it hang there and I feel like he's playing me like a fiddle, it's so good. Something terrifying stalking Ben in the woods just turns out to be Ben getting way too high. That slow zoom on the open door of Andy's would-be informant that made you simultaneously need to see and absolutely not want to see what's inside but then the shot just ends abruptly and goes back to the safety of goofy old Andy. The slow pan over the trees with the foreboding drone of the soundtrack and the feeling of something horrible coming any second and it just cuts to "Sleep Walk" playing over a happy diner scene. SO GOOD.

And you just know that one of these times after so many fakeouts Lynch is going to pull a hobo-behind-Winkies shot and keep you from sleeping soundly for days.
posted by jason_steakums at 8:57 PM on June 18, 2017 [7 favorites]


Okay, according to Vanity Fair, I misread that scene and DC is even more rapey than I thought.

God I feel so unclean.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:58 PM on June 18, 2017


(whoops, I mean Jerry in the woods, not Ben. I always mix up their ridiculous ice cream names!)
posted by jason_steakums at 9:05 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


jason_steakums: Did you think that the credits were going to roll over the roadhouse scene? Because I did and I aaaaaalllllmost leaned forward to hit my mouse to check and then I said no, this is David Lynch. You wait until you see STARRING KYLE MACLACHLAN on the screen. And it kept going and the longer it did and the more I waited, the more I laughed when the phone rang.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:08 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Big Brother Ben!
posted by elsietheeel at 9:08 PM on June 18, 2017


wait, I don't buy the VF speculation. I hate the Audrey idea but it seems likely. not Diane, though. maybe just because I don't want to believe it, but if that's what happened, why would it be a shock to her that this Cooper isn't the real Cooper? If she can just tell the evil one's different by looking at him, she would have known 25 years ago that it wasn't him then either.

I mean if wicked Cooper did something bad to her, she wouldn't have had to fly all the way to the prison to see him again, she could just tell Gordon that the last time she saw him it wasn't him.

and if it was regular Cooper she's mad at, we don't know what he did. regular Cooper can do and has done bad things, even though I'd never believe that particular bad thing. The way he talked to and about Josie used to give me chills. he could be spectacularly unforgiving and unyielding and then go home and enjoy a nice cup of coffee and slice of pie and not care about the tender feelings of some ruined woman who broke a good man's heart. he was a man who could feel no remorse if he'd done the right thing. until David Lynch decides to disgust me a little more I am going to assume it was actually Dale Cooper who did whatever he did, and Diane was asking him if he remembered to test whether this thing has access to those memories.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:10 PM on June 18, 2017 [6 favorites]


That's a good point, thank you for talking me down from that ledge. I feel less unclean now.

Also I don't think that Audrey is necessarily going to know that DC raped her while she was in a coma and instead will assume Richie is the offspring of The Warm, Worn Sweater Belonging To A Boy.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:18 PM on June 18, 2017


I went through the same thought process. I presumed Evil Cooper had raped Diane until I realized that...didn't make any sense if the point was that she knew this wasn't Cooper. I did think the implication of a sexual assault was fairly clear, although I think I (and the VF reviewer) must have misread the scene.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:19 PM on June 18, 2017



And you just know that one of these times after so many fakeouts Lynch is going to pull a hobo-behind-Winkies shot and keep you from sleeping soundly for days.


the man in the hall at the morgue!!!! ! ! when Agent whatshername was on the phone and they kept holding her in focus and him blurry but getting closer! and then you see him walk by the open door a minute later and nothing happens except I had a heart attack. the scene in Hannibal where another FBI agent is having the meningitis guilt hallucinations and sees a giant antlered elk clomping darkly through the hospital corridors was like one-twentieth as scary as this, this...just some guy just walking slowly past a doorway.

if I ever have to talk to an FBI agent about anything and they look over my shoulder and say "hey look at that" I am just going to run and take my chances that the THING will eat them before they can shoot me.
posted by queenofbithynia at 9:20 PM on June 18, 2017 [9 favorites]


We're getting so close to my girl Audrey coming back. They finally mentioned her, and I was on tenterhooks waiting for Sherilyn Fenn to appear. Ugh, not yet, but soon.

Speaking of Hornes, I'm leaning more toward Richard being Jerry's kid now. Someone stole his car and he's lost? And high? He deals in edibles, so to say he's high is kinda significant. That should be his default setting, but he seemed pretty distraught about it.

Doc Haywood. Damn. So many people I've had to tell the Kid are no longer with us.

After this episode, I actually showed Kid the hobo behind Winkie's scene because that has haunted me ever since I saw Mulholland Drive and Kid was not scared at all. (fun fact: the actual Mulholland Drive is one of my favorite places. I make it a point to drive part of it every time I'm in L.A. The last time, I got my bearings wrong and ended up navigating us to the undrivable missile silo part, where our rental Prius was surrounded by coyotes and the mister had to do a 100 point turn on a cliff face and now I can never navigate in L.A. ever again.)

Also, the Kid has changed my name in their contacts as Boop. While I'm glad Kid has taken to my naming convention of Mr. C, I wonder what that says about me. My contact name used to Lord Blackwood, but I swear Kid and I have a really good relationship. Really.

On preview, yeah, what was up with that dude in the morgue?
posted by Ruki at 9:22 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


jason_steakums: Did you think that the credits were going to roll over the roadhouse scene?

Totally! I was in love with how self indulgent that scene was for Lynch, just directorially putting his feet up and stretching out and living in that perfect little eternity of atmosphere building that so few people even get a chance to pull off in their work.

regular Cooper can do and has done bad things, even though I'd never believe that particular bad thing. The way he talked to and about Josie used to give me chills. he could be spectacularly unforgiving and unyielding and then go home and enjoy a nice cup of coffee and slice of pie and not care about the tender feelings of some ruined woman who broke a good man's heart.

Or Coop's incredibly snide "you didn't love her anyway" to Bobby before Laura was even buried. Sheesh, Coop.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:36 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


But he wasn't wrong. In high school, OF COURSE the homecoming queen and the football star are together. That's what's expected. Even though the football star is really in love with the tragic dropout and the homecoming queen is love with the dumbo with the exquisite jawline. That was the most real thing about the show.
posted by Ruki at 9:51 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah okay I watched the scene again and the DC raping Diane scenario is not flying with me either. I'm back to my original interpretation, which is that she and Cooper had a thing, he left for TP, then disappeared, and she kinda went off the deep end.

Because Vanity Fair cites this: "Diane is now an alcoholic and as Albert (Miguel Ferrer) says to her, no judgment there."

Which doesn't fit with Gordon then ASKING her about "last night" and Diane telling him that they will have to have a talk sometime. If DC raping Diane was common enough scuttlebutt for Albert to hear about it then I can't imagine that Gordon would be in the dark about it (he's hard of hearing but he's still a damned agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation!).

And also if DC *did* rape her why would she keep shtum for all those years? Unless he threatened her and the only reason she agreed to go see him was because he was in federal prison? Oh god and now he's out. Ew.

Anyway, I think her intense emotional reaction outside was the realization that Cooper is gone and the man in prison isn't him. And if you've been harboring a grudge against someone for 25 years and then all of a sudden you realize that maybe they've had nothing to do with it all this time...but wouldn't you be worried because he DISAPPEARED?

So that doesn't really work out either...not really. Does it?

Damn you, David Lynch. Damn you and your corn painting and your whistling and your hair and your face and your... you.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:52 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


But he wasn't wrong.

He wasn't wrong, he was just ruthless. I honestly don't care about that bit the way I did about the whole Josie situation because Bobby was a violent little prick. but he was also a kid whose girlfriend had been murdered, whether he loved her or not. but I can't get down on Cooper for not caring about that when I don't either.

but the thing about Dale is he is like that thing about how children are innocent and love justice, whereas everyone else is guilty and loves mercy. Dale is the living emblem of justice and even though he would be able to put together a fine speech about mercy, it was never his personal guiding virtue. Albert's, maybe, which was why Albert had to be a prick all the time because it is hard to have higher ideals and be a justice-loving FBI man at the same time. it makes you grumpy and harsh. but Dale loved justice like he loved a fine cup of coffee. he was not simple but he was pure. I was always afraid for Audrey because it seemed to me he was so kind to her because he idealized her intensely and did not trouble to understand her. might not have been so kind if he had.

and now he can survive only by mercy, by unmeasured amounts of it from a whole lot of people trying as hard as they can to help him out. Nobody knows what he deserves or what he's done, not even him, so nobody could give him justice even if they wanted to. so that side of things would be extremely disturbing for him if he were aware enough to be disturbed.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:07 PM on June 18, 2017 [14 favorites]


I didn't know until after this episode that Doc Hayward's actor, the late Warren Frost, was Mark Frost's dad. And it's father's day.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:10 PM on June 18, 2017 [4 favorites]


Badge.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:11 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


My head canon is that Diane tried to seduce Coop, but he declined because he was still hung up on Caroline.

Sherilyn Fenn spoke of how Lara Flynn Boyle shut down the Audrey/Coop romance and that's why Heather Graham and Billy Zane were brought in.

On preview, though, queenofbithynia gave me a lot to think about.

(Also, me too on Warren Frost. I didn't realize that until after he passed.)
posted by Ruki at 10:12 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


Context: Lara Flynn Boyle and Kyle MacLachlan were dating at the time.
posted by Ruki at 10:14 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


Now THAT works! (The Diane seduction theory I mean.)
posted by elsietheeel at 10:14 PM on June 18, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also re Gordon's whistling, did anyone recognize the tune? It was familiar but...I'm also prone to melodic earworms that my brain creates out of random sounds in my environment.
posted by elsietheeel at 10:25 PM on June 18, 2017


I hold out the tiniest of hopes that the rift happened because she asked Cooper to recommend her for field agent training and he said no, you're a terrific stenographer and desk jockey, stick to what you're good at. support staff is support staff. and she never forgave him and turned to the bottle so as to give her liver the harsh treatment she would have bestowed upon the criminals she could only dream of catching. and sex had no part in any of it, from any direction. and that is why she gave the otherwise gratuitous Fuck you to Tammy, because the bureau has changed some for the better in the last 25 years, but not soon enough for her.

(I have no idea how the FBI works really)
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:26 PM on June 18, 2017 [4 favorites]


It occurs to me that Diane probably saw and heard a lot of absolutely insane shit while working in Cole's department and maybe she's the kind of normal, grounded person who would justifiably find it all incredibly upsetting and wants nothing to do with the bureau after leaving and spending 25 years drinking away the memory of watching a man she cared about submerge himself in Gordon Cole's crazy, reality-upending world and get gradually more detached and out there only to vanish without a trace.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:29 PM on June 18, 2017 [3 favorites]


So the Sherilyn Fenn statement was recent, and it really does give a lot of insight on how things could have played out. Kyle MacLachlan was the only person who could have suggested a change of plot to David Lynch and I really do believe Sherilyn Fenn's view. In the first season, it was made explicitly clear that Audrey was not a minor. Audrey Horne, girl detective, was clearly set up to be the love interest and the Jack and Annie subplots were odd (for the Twin Peaks value of odd) so I'm kinda invested in the Coop/Audrey OTP. I want Audrey to be the NYC billionaire backing that weird box. AFAIC, Billy Zane died in a plane crash, so Audrey has dedicated her wildly successful life to bringing Coop home.
posted by Ruki at 10:35 PM on June 18, 2017


Gordon: This is extremely important, Diane, and it involves something that you know about, and that's enough said about that.

Although the non-sexy theories, as much as I would prefer them, don't necessarily explain the "last night at Diane's house" part of things, especially if they involve having a one-on-one with Coop's boss 25 years after the fact...
posted by elsietheeel at 10:36 PM on June 18, 2017


Audrey Horne, girl detective, was clearly set up to be the love interest and the Jack and Annie subplots were odd

showrunners in the 90s, who knows what went on in their minds, but barely legal or not, she was a high school senior. a bright, cute, ambitious kid. and I always had faith in DC's rectitude and relative immunity to temptation that came in that form, because the opposing temptation to be absolutely noble would clearly win out. the message of the Audrey/Cooper arc was that his gallantry would defeat her wiles every time. the wistful longing and seduction attempts could have continued indefinitely, but everything except her detective projects would have and should have failed.

he was set up to be her love interest, absolutely no question yes. falling in love with him was pivotal to her self-image and self-development and ability to get psychologically out from under the need to demand her father's respect and then lose it to see if he loved her, over and over again, hoping each time that either the respect or the love would be stronger than it was. in comparison to that, falling in love with this nice man was extremely good for her. but the idea that people seriously shipped it raises my eyebrows up past the top of my head.

however, I do not want to see Cooper happy in love with anyone except perhaps Naomi Watts in some now-unimaginable future. he is made for tragedy and women he cannot have, like Caroline and Audrey. the Annie thing was nonsense.
posted by queenofbithynia at 10:56 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


Okay last comments before I try to go to sleep without thinking about things behind the Winkie's.

- The Twin Peaks Wiki article on Diane Evans is interesting (mostly gleaned from the Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper -- written by Scott Frost, so likely canon, but it does have continuity errors because it was published before FWWM) and for some reason it pushes me even further toward the Diane came on to Coop idea. And also it somehow reinforces queenofbithynia's argument that Cooper idealized Audrey. He did so with Diane as well. He decided he was going to address all of his tapes to her, even if he knew she wasn't going to listen to them (so in a sense, SHE WAS THE TAPE RECORDER!!!) and that after 10 years he still didn't know her last name, and when they met he thought she was "an interesting cross between a saint and a cabaret singer".

- Shelly wears a ring around her neck and it looks like a wedding ring (actually it looks a lot like my mom's wedding ring from my dad). The last we saw of Leo was with a bunch of spiders hanging over his head and Eric Da Re is not returning to TP, so let's all happily assume that Leo is dead. The last we saw of Shelly and Bobby was when Bobby suggested that they get married. Bobby is also not wearing a wedding ring when we see him hamming it up in the sheriff's station. Is it too much to hope those two crazy kids got married, had a Becky, and then split up? Probably not, because if her dad is Sheriff Briggs I don't think druggie Steven would go over well and ALSO I think maybe he could have pulled some strings with his old pal Mike Nelson to get him a job. Darn. I always wanted to be the filling in a Shelly and Bobby sandwich.

- Once again I'm with queenofbithynia. Cooper's one true love is, and always will be, justice. That is his dharma (oh, to see Coop and Wally have a chat about Tibet...). And I don't know if I could see Our Special Agent, back and good as new *thumbs up!* being happy with someone like Janey-E. While she does also have a very strong urge to stand up for what she thinks is right -- it's not always what's actually right. It's usually what's necessary for her self-preservation and her family, but I don't know how Cooper would feel about it in relation to truth and justice. And badge.
posted by elsietheeel at 11:20 PM on June 18, 2017 [2 favorites]


Okay this is the last one for real because it's totally what the what and I haven't had more than four hours of sleep a night in the past week and the insomnia is getting to me but... the corn painting.

Is the opposite of creamed corn an idealized representation of a cob of corn still in the husk?
posted by elsietheeel at 11:29 PM on June 18, 2017 [3 favorites]


Someone over at /r/twinpeaks pointed out a weird detail I didn't notice on first watch. The initial shot of the diner showed one group of patrons. When Riley / Bing bursts in to yell "Where's Bing?!?", the patrons were completely different, but Shelly's in the same spot as the previous shot.

Lynch wouldn't make silly continuity errors like that, so must have been intentional. It was either shorthand for time passing in the diner, or the world changed (or Shelly shifted universes / timelines) when Bing yells.

The answer is probably the former, but I love that the latter is plausible in this show.
posted by honestcoyote at 1:08 AM on June 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


So in the plane, when Albert showed the only known photo of Agent Cooper in the past 25 years to Gordon and Tammi and said it was taken just outside of Rio. But then said, that when they got there, Cooper had left and the house belonged to SOME GIRL FROM IPANEMA!

The Girl from Ipanema.
posted by maupuia at 2:27 AM on June 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Re: the humming in the Great Northern offices. Remember Audrey had secret passages behind those walls.

Gordon's whistling: It sounded slightly like the old theme song to "Around The World in 80 Days," but not quite. Like the first part of the phrase is the same, but then Gordon trails off into something more like a bird call.
posted by dnash at 5:25 AM on June 19, 2017


One of the problems with thinking that there was anything between Diane and Coop before he left for Twin Peaks is that he kept recording memos for her about how he met this wonderful girl, Annie, and how he was falling for her. He's not cruel, so if Diane felt anything romantic towards him, he'd have to be oblivious of that fact.

I had the same read on that scene as the Vanity Fair article and I still lean toward thinking it's the correct read, unpalatable as it is.
posted by painquale at 6:14 AM on June 19, 2017


People on /r/twinpeaks seemed to think Gordon was whistling "Engel" by Rammstein
posted by Lucinda at 6:17 AM on June 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


not Diane, though. maybe just because I don't want to believe it, but if that's what happened, why would it be a shock to her that this Cooper isn't the real Cooper? If she can just tell the evil one's different by looking at him, she would have known 25 years ago that it wasn't him then either.

I took it that she never had reason to think that the person who assaulted her wasn't Coop. Albert and Gordon planted the seed of doubt in her. She had to get another look. Only once she came into the confrontation being prepared to question his identity was she able to see that it wasn't him.
posted by painquale at 6:24 AM on June 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


Someone over at /r/twinpeaks pointed out a weird detail I didn't notice on first watch. The initial shot of the diner showed one group of patrons. When Riley / Bing bursts in to yell "Where's Bing?!?", the patrons were completely different, but Shelly's in the same spot as the previous shot.

I just caught another thread there that said that a variation of the Windom Earle theme was playing under "Sleep Walk" in that scene - I definitely need to give it another watch.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:28 AM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


As frustrating as the pacing of the show can be, I have a feeling it will pay off when all these various threads start coming together, and that, because we have waiting so long, and are so desperate for resolution, the payoff will be significant.

We have a large variety of groups working on this from a large number of angles: There are the FBI, trying to deal with the doppleganger in South Dakota; there is the military, dealing with the body of Garland Briggs; there is Coop himself and the characters in the Lodge, trying to deal with, well, Coop; and there is the Twin Peaks Sheriff's department, dealing with a drug ring that the doppleganger is behind.

We should start seeing the threads converge in the next episode or so -- it's intimated at by Ernie Hudson saying he has to make that "other phone call."

I have to say, I already think the pacing is paying off. We're briefly introduced to characters, and so, as with Naomi Watts, it initially seemed like she was wasted in a small, shrill role, but she has just kept getting more and more fleshed out to the point that she's starting to be genuinely heroic, not just in how she dressed down the gangsters in the last episode, but in the fact that she was right there with Coop, smacking the hell out of the assassin. I'm loving this slow accumulation of character details, and how it is parceled out over so much time: Sometimes several episodes will go by before we see a character again, which seems unfathomable, except that two weeks in our world is less than a day in the Twin Peaks world.

And that parsimoniousness pays off as well. I like what this show has done with Bobby, but otherwise wouldn't think much about it if he showed up all the time. But right now I can't wait to see him again.
posted by maxsparber at 7:24 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Regarding parsimoniousness, Big Ed still hasn't shown up, despite being in the trailer.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:40 AM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


The biggest mystery now is what the Doppelganger's plan is, because he's actually responsible for these threads coming together. He's the one who left Brigg's headless body in the bed, he could obviously have broken out of the federal prison any time he wanted but instead allowed himself to be interviewed by the FBI. The only part of his plan that isn't working is Coop, because he somehow has repeatedly failed to kill him.
posted by maxsparber at 7:41 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Doppel Coop was heading toward Twin Peaks when he had his car accident. Whenever he's done with Ray Monroe (and that can't turn out good for Ray), he's going to cut his hair, buy a suit, and learn not to grimace when he eats pie.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:50 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Re: the humming in the Great Northern offices. Remember Audrey had secret passages behind those walls.

Remember also that the wood of the Great Northern very likely contains the unrestful spirit of Josie Packard.
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:16 AM on June 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


Remember also that the wood of the Great Northern very likely contains the unrestful spirit of Josie Packard.

...I actually did not remember that. Guess it happened in the parts of season 2 I did not rewatch.
posted by dnash at 8:47 AM on June 19, 2017


I took it that she never had reason to think that the person who assaulted her wasn't Coop. Albert and Gordon planted the seed of doubt in her. She had to get another look. Only once she came into the confrontation being prepared to question his identity was she able to see that it wasn't him.

She's so hard and tightly wound before the encounter, just like you would be to another encounter with your abuser.

...but she's completely undone afterwards. She cries freely.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:07 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Guess it happened in the parts of season 2 I did not rewatch.

Season 2 has a lot of stuff that pretty much no one remembers. I've seen a lot of people guessing at Richard Horne's parentage, but pretty much no one has suggested that Donna is his mother. Remember how Ben Horne revealed that he was Donna's father and that she was a secret Horne? Yeah, me neither.
posted by painquale at 9:41 AM on June 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


Remember how Ben Horne revealed that he was Donna's father and that she was a secret Horne?

I remember all. I sincerely doubt that Donna dropped the named Hayward, took the name Horne, and had a child she named Horne.

I mean, my biological father's name was Sexton, and you don't see me using that name.
posted by maxsparber at 9:56 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah, but look at Richard Horne's character. He'd rather be a Horne than a Hayward, I'm sure.

But this isn't a theory I really put any stock in.
posted by painquale at 10:00 AM on June 19, 2017


I think the fact that the Doppleganger visited Audrey in the hospital before disappearing cinched it, although it is dangerous to guess about Lynch.

Coop mentioned in the original series that having a family and children is something he wanted. Now he's in a world where two separate doppelgangers of him have had children. One he cannot be a father to because he's essentially catatonic, the other he doesn't know about and is actively evil.

It may not turn out this way, but I have a feeling it will.
posted by maxsparber at 10:05 AM on June 19, 2017


It was either shorthand for time passing in the diner, or the world changed (or Shelly shifted universes / timelines) when Bing yells.

The answer is probably the former, but I love that the latter is plausible in this show.


What makes that plausible in this show?
posted by kenko at 10:11 AM on June 19, 2017


We should start seeing the threads converge in the next episode or so -- it's intimated at by Ernie Hudson saying he has to make that "other phone call."

You could call them threads, or you could call them debris that has been littered chaotically all over the floor as a result of some sort of entertainment. Now a lot of that debris has been slowly and deliberately swept up and we're ready to start making another entertaining mess.
posted by Uncle Ira at 10:15 AM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lynch held so long on that one sweeping-up shot because he wanted us to listen to "Green Onions"!
posted by vibrotronica at 10:34 AM on June 19, 2017 [7 favorites]


Lynch held so long on that one sweeping-up shot because he wanted us to listen to "Green Onions"!

The song's hypnotic organ sound was definitely a contributing factor to my dawning realization somewhere around minute 2 of the floor-sweeping shot that I couldn't really account for where I was mentally during those two minutes. It was like Lynch decided to drop in a three-minute guided meditation in the middle of his show just to see if anybody would notice that was what he was doing.
posted by Strange Interlude at 10:58 AM on June 19, 2017 [13 favorites]




Count me among those who thought that the sweeping-up scene was going to last seven minutes and close out the episode.
posted by kenko at 11:30 AM on June 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


I just caught another thread there that said that a variation of the Windom Earle theme was playing under "Sleep Walk" in that scene - I definitely need to give it another watch.

I watched the last half of the episode with headphones (on my Kindle, because the streaming on my BR player was choking) and there was definitely a second, subtle theme mixed into "Sleep Walk." I don't know whether it was the Windom Earle theme, because...um...I tend to skip the Windom Earle scenes on rewatch...*cough*

I'm inclined to second the suggestion that we heard most of "Green Onions" because David Lynch likes "Green Onions." Who doesn't? There was a sportscaster here in Cleveland when I was a kid (mid-'80s) who would segue out of his nightly report with "And now...a little travelin' music," and then "Green Onions" would play over the sports scores. It was hypnotic. I never got bored. How could I? That song is awesome!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:26 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Lynch held so long on that one sweeping-up shot because he wanted us to listen to "Green Onions"!

...and just like that, I'm on Youtube and can't stop until it's finished.

I LOVE Rock Organ music from the '60s, man. Now onto House the Rising Sun and some Doors.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:42 PM on June 19, 2017


The song's hypnotic organ sound was definitely a contributing factor to my dawning realization somewhere around minute 2 of the floor-sweeping shot that I couldn't really account for where I was mentally during those two minutes. It was like Lynch decided to drop in a three-minute guided meditation in the middle of his show just to see if anybody would notice that was what he was doing.

Lynch is really into transcendental meditation, so I wouldn't put it past him.

Though that's more mantra based.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:44 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


...and just like that, I'm on Youtube and can't stop until it's finished.

I LOVE Rock Organ music from the '60s, man. Now onto House the Rising Sun and some Doors.


May I recommend other works by Booker T. and the MG's:

Time Is Tight

Summertime

Hip Hug-Her

Hang 'Em High

Groovin

The sublime reimagining of The Beatles' Abby Road, McLemore Avenue

and finally, a killer live version of Time Is Tight from 1970.
posted by vibrotronica at 1:13 PM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


People on /r/twinpeaks seemed to think Gordon was whistling "Engel" by Rammstein

He was. Oh good gravy.
posted by elsietheeel at 3:27 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ahhhhhh the thing in the hallway was same thing as the thing in the jail cell!

(And also it might be the ghost of Meriwether Lewis?)
posted by elsietheeel at 3:48 PM on June 19, 2017 [7 favorites]


A few people have pointed out that the thing in the jail cell has a shorter beard and different hat than the thing in the morgue buuut... there are two woodsmen above the convenience store in Fire Walk With Me with different hats and beards that generally match. So it may be some kinda Black Lodge tag team.
posted by jason_steakums at 4:34 PM on June 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


And I imagine if that/they are a woodsman/the woodsmen from FWWM, the reason that they're all covered in soot here is because a random stock lumberjack hanging around is definitely weird, but not totally creepy.
posted by jason_steakums at 4:37 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also soot... fire... why not? ALSO YOU'RE JUST PUSHING YOUR WOODSMEN THEORY.

Aaaaaloutte gentille alouette...
posted by elsietheeel at 4:38 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


I wonder if we'll get to see Diane's gentleman caller again.
posted by kenko at 9:18 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh man. I'm on a rewatch of the whole series between new episodes, and here's the script from the first episode of season two when Coop is bleeding out on the floor and talking to Diane via tape recorder:

At a time like this, curiously, you immediately think of the things you regret, or the things you would miss. I would like, in general, to treat people with much more care and respect. [...] I would very much like to make love to a beautiful woman who I had genuine affection for.

If Coop and Diane did have something before he went off to Twin Peaks and then he trotted out that one-two punch of "I need to respect and care for people more and also what we had meant nothing" in what he suspected could have been his dying moments, well, you definitely couldn't judge Diane for holding a grudge.
posted by jason_steakums at 9:21 PM on June 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm curious why several people think Cooper treated Josie so badly (without reason). She was a criminal, she paid to have Andrew Packard killed (and in the process had Hank kill an innocent person by running him over), she tried to kill Cooper by shooting him three times, she schemed all over town, she killed Thomas Eckhardt (no great loss, really), and then drew her gun on Cooper again! And if it's her whole story about being 16 when she was taken off the streets of HK, that was a lie. She was as crooked as Catherine Martell, if not more so.

I would very much like to make love to a beautiful woman who I had genuine affection for

Does that statement suppose that it's never happened before? Because what about Caroline Earle?
posted by elsietheeel at 9:37 PM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


Because what about Caroline Earle?

Is it known she was more than a gleam in a writer's eye by that point?
posted by kenko at 9:40 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


Good point. And there's plenty of continuity errors already.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:42 PM on June 19, 2017


For instance: In FWWM, seven days before her murder, Laura realizes that there are pages missing from her secret diary and then she gives the diary to Harold. THEN she has the dream about Annie telling her to write it in her diary. So even if she wrote it in a different diary, the pages are already in Leland's possession. Which is odd because it seemed like she hadn't QUITE figured out who BOB was yet at that point but she was getting close, but last night's episode said she KNEW WHO BOB WAS!

Dear David Lynch,
I suggest recutting the movie to put the diary scene in on the day after Laura meets Mrs. Chalfont/Tremond and gets the painting, sees BOB in her house and Leland come out of it, and then has her dream that night. It would make more sense.
Love, Elsie
P.S. Yes, I know, you don't have to make sense.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:59 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm having the strangest experience wherein I am reading this thread after having watched the new episode and having basically none of the comments in the thread make any sense to me at all.

I guess I'll have to watch it again. This is really bizarre!
posted by hippybear at 3:23 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


A detail I haven't seen brought up, including by Idle Thumbs - Ike apparently glued the gun to his hand, which is why he Cooper has to work so hard to 'squeeze his hand off', and why the cops later pull a strip of gross meat/skin off the gun. In the shot where Ike's hand comes off the gun and he runs away, you can see the wound at the base of his index finger.

If I remember right, Ike also previously tightly bound his shiv to his hand, so I guess he really hates losing his weapons.
posted by Drexen at 6:43 AM on June 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


Gluing his hand to the gun makes so much sense! I couldn't for the life of me figure out how that chunk of flesh got removed.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:15 AM on June 20, 2017


Small hands. Could be necessary..
posted by elsietheeel at 7:25 AM on June 20, 2017


Gluing his hand to the gun makes so much sense!

"Said no one ever." Am I doing this right?
posted by kenko at 7:50 AM on June 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Re: the humming in the Great Northern offices. Remember Audrey had secret passages behind those walls.

That humming was the same sound that it makes when The Arm/Man fron Another Place rubs his hands together in Coop's dream (at the end of Season 1, Ep. 2), right?
posted by Ennis Tennyone at 9:08 AM on June 20, 2017


Nah, it's got more of a melodic electromagnetic pulse to it. In fact, if you listen to NASA recordings on YouTube you'll find a lot of them sound familiar... the sound in the Great Northern reminds me of the rings of Uranus (yes, really) -- skip ahead to 2:28 but then listen to all of the sounds. They ALL appear in Twin Peaks. Especially Saturn.

Which ties in perfectly with Major Briggs and Project Blue Book.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:29 PM on June 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


(Please note these are likely not real NASA sounds, which makes them even MORE amusing when one considers their connection to Twin Peaks.)
posted by elsietheeel at 1:31 PM on June 20, 2017


Gods what a find. If David Lynch's entire sound design concept turns out to be based on a 7 minute YouTube video of fake space sounds I am declaring him the Winner of Everything Forever and Ever Amen.
posted by elsietheeel at 1:36 PM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I loved the sweeping. It was just so long and soothing and perfect.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:15 PM on June 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm curious why several people think Cooper treated Josie so badly (without reason).

not without reason! But he was just so merciless/empathy-less in a way that wasn't usual for him and had more than a trace of real viciousness in it. Like more than I remember him expressing towards Leland Palmer. In particular, the way he talked about her to Harry, including right after she died -- the implication and (if I remember rightly) the outright statement that she didn't love him and wasn't worthy of his love, or his sorrow and pity either. as though love works that way. as though breaking the law and sleeping around makes a woman incapable of human love.

or as though she didn't love him and therefore wasn't worthy of his love. he was terribly romantically protective of Harry. Cooper was always resenting her for not being good enough for him, in Cooper's opinion.

(I do always forget it was her that shot him. there is that. still, though!)
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:30 PM on June 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


"I would very much like to make love to a beautiful woman who I had genuine affection for."

If Coop and Diane did have something before he went off to Twin Peaks and then he trotted out that one-two punch of "I need to respect and care for people more and also what we had meant nothing" in what he suspected could have been his dying moments, well, you definitely couldn't judge Diane for holding a grudge.


my memory is like a thing full of holes so as always this may be contradicted by a million things that cannot be misinterpreted away. but I just assumed, both when I saw that scene and when I read it quoted above, that he meant he had never known the physical love of a woman in any form. because he is pure, like Galahad. the idea that Agent Dale Cooper might in the past have made love to a beautiful woman he did not have genuine affection for never entered my mind.

nor did the possibility that he might have made love to a woman he had affection for but did not find beautiful. because his is a transfiguring vision. when he gazes upon a woman with love, she is beautiful in the eyes of his heart.
posted by queenofbithynia at 3:44 PM on June 22, 2017 [7 favorites]


When I was a kid watching for the first time, I thought that Coop was a good role model for a young man, and felt vaguely ashamed when I didn't live up to him. 25 years on... glad I didn't and couldn't.

Over the last decade of rewatches, I've come to believe that the snide, puritan, G-man part of Coop was ever at war with the accepting, generous, merciful part of Coop in ways that we rarely saw on-screen, and that the downplaying of this essential conflict with one's self was one reason why the original show was so darn watchable. Now we have a super-textual, very on-the-nose version of that conflict on the horizon, and it's watchable in a completely different way.

Another viewpoint is that, even though this show is being promoted as an 18-hour long feature, this particular part felt like an episode about brothers—Business Ben and High Jerry, Sherrif Frank and Sick Harry, the Detectives Fusco, the peculiar Renault fraternité... and two aspects of Dale Cooper, one protecting his adopted family through innocent echolalia, and one planning impersonal murder and mayhem five steps ahead ahead of everyone else, but both with powerful internal motives rapidly overcoming external barriers.

Gonna be a real bummer when I have to wait two weeks for Part 9.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:48 PM on June 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


that whole scene when he's been shot, or that set of scenes, when the senile old waiter is right there bumbling back and forth as he bleeds out and is unable to speak, not helping and not understanding the first thing about what kind of help might be helpful, not noticing that anything is really wrong, that whole excruciating business (which is amazing and one of the harder things to watch in the original)

that is exactly what is going on with Cooper in the casino and following, in season 3, only at so much greater length that the agony becomes sublime. but the absolute impossibility of communication from the wounded position, and the heartbreaking equanimity with which the gunshot Cooper accepts that this man is just going to leave him to die there; oh, well! that's all being expanded and replayed and is still going on. so great. if I paid more attention I could probably figure out what other five-minute scenes from the original are being unfolded out into ten-hour kaleidoscopic variations and fantasias on whatever the hell they meant the first time.
posted by queenofbithynia at 5:59 PM on June 22, 2017 [5 favorites]


Another viewpoint is that, even though this show is being promoted as an 18-hour long feature, this particular part felt like an episode about brothers

I don't care much for Donna (and I think that's largely to do with Lara Flynn Boyle, because I did find Moira Kelly's Donna to be more sympathetic) but I do hope they address the unexpected sisterhood of Donna and Audrey. I hope even more that they address Josie as drawer-pull.
posted by Ruki at 7:45 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ruki, I too would be disappointed if there wasn't a similar sister-motif waiting out there. Not holding out much hope for Donna, though.

And there's still Doris, Audrey, Shelly, Janey-E, and the unearthly Mother pounding on the box in space waiting for a themed part.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:08 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


EXCLUSIVE: ep 8 will just be an hour at the Double R. Soundtrack here.
posted by kenko at 8:09 PM on June 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Continuing my belated first encounter with this season, I've been wondering how closely, if at all, the various story-lines follow a single time-line. And what's going on with the jailed principal and his late wife? Is her murder being investigated? Does anyone else even know she's dead?

Meeting Beverley's sick husband Tom I felt sure we'd already seen that actor playing another part in the show - but it seems not. I wish I knew who he reminded me of.

I rather enjoyed the floor-sweeping scene - might they have had a band booked in for that episode who had to cancel at the last minute?
posted by misteraitch at 12:53 AM on October 21, 2019


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