OH also I started to listen to the audiobook The Secret History of Twin Peaks thanks to this thread! I had no idea it existed, slipped by me completely. The fact that it is written by Mark Frost and read by cast members really makes it feel essential if you enjoy the lore. I love all the fake history with Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson and the free masons, etc.
The cast was the reason I got the audiobook, but I'm sad to say, that version is more of a novelty. Many of those cast members are voicing different characters and at least one of them phones it in, in the most disappointing way (I guess that isn't such a big deal now that we finally have the show).
Getting to hear some familiar voices wasn't worth losing all the cool document reproductions and illustrations.
This has been all I've been thinking about since I watched the four episodes. Definitely have to watch them again this coming weekend. Lots of great, often unsettling, stuff we've gotten so far.
Really loved the part in episode 4 when
Bobby sees Laura's picture and the music hits. The lack of it in the previous episodes really made it hit a lot harder than it would have I felt.
The (episode 3)
Cooper stuff in the casino was cracking me up too. HEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Gotta say though, age has made him look less like a Zoolander-esque doofus. and that fantastic final few minutes of episode 2 with the Chromatics song kind of made me feel for the guy. I'm pulling for him.
Gotta say though, age has made him look less like a Zoolander-esque doofus. and that fantastic final few minutes of episode 2 with the Chromatics song kind of made me feel for the guy. I'm pulling for him.
Gotta say though, age has made him look less like a Zoolander-esque doofus. and that fantastic final few minutes of episode 2 with the Chromatics song kind of made me feel for the guy. I'm pulling for him.
He's seems like he's in a good place now. Here's a panel he did with Dana Ashbrook at Living Dead Con in 2015. They share some pretty cool stories about working on the show. IIRC his Chia Pet hair cut was the result of a botched job done just before filming the pilot and Lynch wanted him to keep it that way for continuity sake. Poor guy.
Showtime isn't HBO and has never had their Game of Thrones type of hit. I would imagine for them that the strength in having Twin Peaks will come from word of mouth and subsequent viewings. I kind of expected the numbers it got. It's a 25 year later direct continuation of a cult show, the crowds that made it a phenomenon initially are now watching The Voice every week. Also, I couldn't imagine that demographic sticking around very long after getting a taste of this new series. It's too damn weird for them.
Yeah, my mom said she liked Twin Peaks when I told her I was watching. Last year she gave it another watch (she didn't remember much) but she didn't like the ending, nor the movie, much, she prefers something a bit more straightforward, which I'd imagine is what a lot of older fans may want (they probably don't even remember the crazy stuff that happens in the last episode and they probably didn't even see the movie).
Can't quote everyone, but some good points about why the effects are so amateurish.
I guess I'm okay with them if they are intentional to help with tone and set the mood, but still... part of me would have liked more effort put into them.
Saying that, the scene with the cube and with Coop falling were extremely well done.
Don't want to overanalyze everything, but did anyone else think that this shot from Episode 4 seemed very deliberate?
I doubt that Lynch only wanted to show Tamara's/Chryta Bell's ass-wiggling, he already did that in the shot just before this. Supports the theory that this might be Tamara's Doppelgänger, but I don't know.
Don't want to overanalyze everything, but did anyone else think that this shot from Episode 4 seemed very deliberate?
I doubt that Lynch only wanted to show Tamara's/Chryta Bell's ass-wiggling, he already did that in the shot just before this. Supports the theory that this might be Tamara's Doppelgänger, but I don't know.
Yeah, I think the shot lingers for a bit to emphasis that Cole's waiting for her to walk out of earshot, while Albert uses it as an excuse to get an eyeful... the big perv.
Can't quote everyone, but some good points about why the effects are so amateurish.
I guess I'm okay with them if they are intentional to help with tone and set the mood, but still... part of me would have liked more effort put into them.
Same here. I respect Lynch's fearlessness when it comes to not giving a damn about mainstream acceptation and standards, but maaan, I wish we could have gotten at least one more "polished" series/film from Lynch.
These experimental home-made effects can be interesting and the visuals definitely do stick with you, but for me they just doesn't compare to the classically beautiful visuals of his pre-Inland Empire movies.
It's interesting that while it's a direct continuation of how the story ended, telling what people wanted (What happened with Cooper and evilCooper) the style is totally different.
It will be interesting to see if when the story focus again on Twin Peaks proper that style/tone will also come back, or maybe Lynch is just uninterested in retreading back or in nostalgia.
As a flaw I have to say the humor isn't working for me, mostly. You are going to say "but buuut that's the closest to original Twin Peaks!!", however there is a difference in context: the original seasons of TP had a different tone, with the goofy/chirpy characters, innocent scenes, soap opera parts, idealized small town (even if it had dark secrets) and all that. Here it's jarring because most of the episodes are slow, unnerving, violent and darkly surreal and then it transitions to some very silly comedy sketch, which usually is also too long for its own good, comedy-wise. It feels shoe-horned to fulfill expectations of what Twin Peaks is.
Related episode 4 spoilers:
the scene in the casino was ok, but then it continues on and on in the house with the wife and family. Hell, I think all of it was Lynch trying to play smart with the audience and create expectations until he drinks the coffee, the audience expected to finally recover with it, but nope!
And it's so stupid, I could see how the confusion could appear when he dealt with strangers but I had to roll my eyes when the wife didn't notice his husband wasn't behaving in a normal way (and had a totally different hair color and hairtcut, and was much thinner). As a minimum maybe she should believe it's her husband but think he had a brain stroke or something.
Plot-wise, well, to everyone surprise isn't being that hard to follow. Obviously there are mysteries related to it, but the key plot points are:
-The possession has an expiry date: 25 years.
-Cooper is going to return to the real world and the doppelganger will return to the Black Lodge.
-Doppelganger has a plan to avoid it: he somehow made a fake Cooper so he will get absorbed in his stead. The ring may have served a purpose for that?
-Cooper returns but both Doppelganger (evil Cooper) and Cooper are impaired, only one can exist at the same time. Evil Cooper planned to kill real Cooper at the moment of return, but he was lucky.
-FBI got in contact with evil Cooper but they suspect something isn't right.
And that's it. Now some details / side plots / background info we got teased
-Evil Cooper may have a business relationship with the Casino owner. Fake Cooper seems to have also a relationship with the casino company, so there is plot thread there.
-Hawk is implicated in helping Cooper through the Log Lady, but for now I think this a plot thread introduced so there is at least a little of Twin Peaks inhabitants in the main story.
-The glass box.
1. It serves to catch or attract lodge spirits, so it was built to a) rescue Cooper or b) capture Bob spirit, or similar evil spirits. In any of the two cases it seems the billionaire behind it (Audrey?) is part of the 'good guys'.
2. It's very suspicious the girl visited just when the guard was mysteriously missing, and that Cooper appeared in the box just at that moment, making the watcher miss him for few seconds. I think the girl was hired by one of the bad guys (Evil Cooper through the casino owner) for that purpose, or was a journalist that was fooled and directed to that place and time.
-The strange murder in another town. At first I thought it was Bob that had learn to be more efficient: posses someone temporally, do the killing, then return to his Cooper body. But it seems it was another similar evil spirit, in the wife body. Now, we don't know why Evil Cooper kills her, it may be expanded upon in the next episodes and related to the main story, or it maybe that evil spirits are evil and feel no allegiance to his similar kindred.
Can't quote everyone, but some good points about why the effects are so amateurish.
I guess I'm okay with them if they are intentional to help with tone and set the mood, but still... part of me would have liked more effort put into them.
Saying that, the scene with the cube and with Coop falling were extremely well done.
I'm with you. I get why they are the way they are, but my gut reaction to a lot of the special effects is just "wow that's bad", which I (for me) detracts from what they should be conveying. There have been several moments that just haven't resonated with me almost purely because they look so cheap and weird (and not really in like an "otherworldly" or "surreal" way). I can't agree with anyone that says some of these scenes would be less effective or striking if they looked more well-produced.
I don't think we can say that for certain. Leland has definitely been possessed for more than 25 years (or at least that's how it looks from what he said); maybe the doppelgangers have an "expiry date", or rather, they have to come back after that time.
The only times I've had issues with the effects are EPISODE 3&4
Dougie's transformation into a gold marble and some of the driving scenes. Lynch has always used fake driving scenes in his work, but they really stood out a couple of times here like when Doppelcooper was swerving around and during the CARSICK moment in the fbi vehicle.
I actually warmed up to the cinematography and digital look on my rewatch of the four episodes. They don't hold a candle to the filmic Fire Walk With Me version of Twin Peaks, but there are some beautiful shots still.
I have a small question about the first episode: what is the thing they found in Bill's car at the end? It looked like a piece of meat or fish, but I'm not sure what it was supposed to be.
I have a small question about the first episode: what is the thing they found in Bill's car at the end? It looked like a piece of meat or fish, but I'm not sure what it was supposed to be.
It's outrageous. I was really thinking i was seeing an unpublished old footage.
Just compare him with the brother of Ben Horne.
This aging dimension of this season make it very dense, filled with nostalgia and the question of how time fly. I can easily say that it's one of the most powerfull thing i saw on TV.
I honestly like episode 1+2 more than 3+4. Not by a whole lot, but I feel 3+4 faltered because the focus and tone shifted, but the approach and style didn't really shift so it gave a different feel that didn't work entirely for me.
Still loved it for classic Lynch, but 1 and 2 felt more like it knew what it was doing if that makes sense.
Made this correlation, but figured I'd add pictures to it.
Episode 2 spoilers, with speculation:
So the card Bob Cooper had with the weird silhouette on it really made me think of the Owl Cave symbol. I kind of wondered if they are actually different interpretations of the same thing and possibly the owl cave original symbol was actually mistakenly interpreted as an owl, but what if it was actually some type of head of a Lovecraftian type thing? I mainly just wonder if they depict the same thing and Bob Cooper's card is actually the more accurate interoperation?
So that brief scene of Sarah Palmer watching the brutal nature doco on her massive TV at the end of episode 2.
Is that a blooper where we can see the camera and a hand holding it in the very left side of the mirror. Seems like something that shouldn't have been missed considering how prominent the mirror is ><
So that brief scene of Sarah Palmer watching the brutal nature doco on her massive TV at the end of episode 2.
Is that a blooper where we can see the camera and a hand holding it in the very left side of the mirror. Seems like something that shouldn't have been missed considering how prominent the mirror is ><
So that brief scene of Sarah Palmer watching the brutal nature doco on her massive TV at the end of episode 2.
Is that a blooper where we can see the camera and a hand holding it in the very left side of the mirror. Seems like something that shouldn't have been missed considering how prominent the mirror is ><
In the pilot(or second episode?) when Sarah screams because she sees something and you see Bob in the mirror was not intentional. Bob was just a stage hand type guy and Lynch rolled with it and kept it in and made him Bob.
