• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Twin Peaks Season 3 |OT2| It's Just A Change, Not An End

Airola

Member
as 18 went on (before the end) I also sorta felt it would have worked well as the first episode of a season. It was definitely weird to casually check the time and suddenly realize there was only 11 minutes left, hah.

This is exactly how I felt too.
For a season opener episode 18 would've been fantastic.
 

AoM

Member
People expecting this finale to wrap things up were expecting Lynch to not be Lynch.
People expecting a potential Season 4 to wrap things up are making the same mistake they made with Season 3.

You guys are forgetting that this is the same Lynch that literally never wanted to reveal Laura's killer in the first place. A lot of the best plot points of this series came from TV execs pressuring him to resolve things.
I can't speak for all who disliked it, but it's to do with the overall quality of the episode and its role as a season finale.
 

Airola

Member
but let me correct myself because i just rewatched episode 17 and im pretty sure that the silhouette that descends the staircase is THE JUMPING MAN.
i wasn't sure it was when i first watched it but i just saw the credits for that episode and he is credited.

i dont remember anyone mentioning an appearance by him, was this known?

Yeah I noticed him and oh god, now I realized the Jumping Man was another disappointment. I love that character in FWWM and was excited to see his actor being in the cast list. I expected to see him in other ways than in two short clips of shaking camera where he really can't even be seen too well.
 

BTA

Member
I'm about to reopen the book because there's a couple things I want to bring up from it but first I should say:

I had some issues with the season overall and the lack of uh... Twin Peaks itself, I guess? I would really have liked to have seen more of those old characters and their children, especially since the ones we did get were usually great. I get the sentiment of "time was wasted" overall but not regarding that, and I also think if things were cut we would not necessarily get scenes replacing them? There's no exchange of time that'd happen.

I enjoyed it a lot overall, in any case. I know that watching the entire series over the past month or so, and knowing it was closer to FWWM and such in tone going in, puts me in a different mindset regarding expectations for The Return specifically than a lot of you (though I should mention that I knew nothing about Dougie Jones; I had just assumed the little I heard about the name was Bad Coop), but still.
 
I can't speak for all who disliked it, but it's to do with the overall quality of the episode and its role as a season finale.

Yeah, it's pretty bad from a narrative perspective, but this is Lynch. He actively chooses to give his audience blue balls in basically every piece of media he's ever produced.
 
Fire Walk With Me had the only ending everyone will ever like from the series, regardless of if this is the conclusion or it gets one more year
 

HotHamBoy

Member
I'm not a huge fan of 18, but I might have actually liked it more than 17. I still can't get over Bob being defeated in a Punchout match. That seriously feels wrong given the otherworldly nature of his menace and threat. The rest of 17 was pretty good, though.

It was really dumb
 

Mossybrew

Member
After the ending I just sat there. When there was that black screen, I was just like, no, I want more, please be more. And then that was it. I really can't imagine Lynch coming back and doing this all over again for another season, but who knows? And that's fine with me. Lynch has always been able to twist the viewer's imagination to a skewed angle and then let their imagination fill in the blanks. What is just up ahead that dark highway, about to be revealed in the headlights? I just really enjoy the unanswered mystery. The fucking tease when things start to fall into place then actually fall into a void. And what now? What next? It's wonderful.
 

Chitown B

Member
Maybe the "what year is it" means Alice would eventually SELL her house to the Palmers, and go live in that recluse cabin where she appears to Laura in the future.

No. That would've made it like 1970s and it wasn't. He said "what year is it?" but the correct question would be which reality is it?

that car ride was honestly one of the best things in the series. Dreadful as hell, I was so tense

oh give me a break with that BS. We knew we have 10 minutes left and we were wasting time with nothing happening.
 

Courage

Member
Read this on dugpa

I feel like that final episode was almost a meta-commentary on the entirety of The Return. I think the whole idea is that some things are meant to stay dead, trapped in amber, and that bringing them back can change them irrevocably. By bringing Laura back, they destroyed the reality of Twin Peaks - by bringing the show back, we may have destroyed Twin Peaks. Dale, Laura and the audience are all trapped in a purgatory together at the end of the series. It's one of the most nightmarish things I can imagine.
 

Moff

Member
I don't need closure or every plot to be resolved, I don't mind that at all. But the season 2 finale blew my mind in every possible way and what I saw today did not.
 
Just let her stay dead
Cmon Cooper, you got what you wanted, you escaped the lodge, Diane is with you, Bob is gone forever and only Judy was left to take care of.

Take one punch man, Gordon, The Mitchell brothers and go after Judy
 
I uh.. yeah, no idea how to take episode 18. As an episode of Twin Peaks I liked it. As a set-up for a season 4 I really liked it. As a series finale... I'm going to have to mull it over a little. I loved that final scene though.
 
If man fucking with the laws of physics let the lodges have more direct access to earth and cause havoc, why would messing with time itself not also cause unknown terrors to emerge? I think the balance is always maintained even if the "good" spirits are helping humanity in some way.
 

BTA

Member
also considering they were wasting screen time just sitting there in a car driving and not talking. come on.

Sometimes scenes can exist for reasons other than just plot. And again, there's no such thing as wasting screen time. Maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here but with episode runtimes varying, I don't get the sense that they had to be hugely specific such that like the lack of them in the car would mean there'd be something to replace it, and beyond that it's not like it's inherently mean you'd get more resolution or something.

that car ride was honestly one of the best things in the series. Dreadful as hell, I was so tense

Yup, that was super tense.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
So are you just going to keep quoting people who liked the finale? Some of legitimately enjoyed, we're not just pretending.

I just enjoyed the reference.

C7t_rsyWsAEPqJe.jpg
 

Chitown B

Member
Sometimes scenes can exist for reasons other than just plot. And again, there's no such thing as wasting screen time. Maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here but with episode runtimes varying, I don't get the sense that they had to be hugely specific such that like the lack of them in the car would mean there'd be something to replace it, and beyond that it's not like it's inherently mean you'd get more resolution or something..

Every episode was 55-59 minutes. We knew there were to be 18. that's a finite amount of time. And don't pretend you knew what was going to happen "so the wasted time didn't matter". We were all watching the same show with the same amount of time left. you can count it down.
 
David Lynch Presents Prometheus: A Movie that People Loved, Hated, or Indifferent about it. This season had alot of style but it struggled to give it substance at times. It lacked heart at times, which is something that I dearly enjoyed when it would occur ie Bobby and his mother, Coop returns, the gangster bros rewarding Dougie with that pie. It just wanted to be constantly oppressive that everything was shit and the season finale really wanted to bury that nail in your head. If anything the only happy thing that happened in TP was Ed and Norma getting together in a sequence so fast that you were like lol okay. There's literally so much I was curious about the town and how it was being affected rather than having us sit in South Dakota and Vegas so much. Like Gordon, TP, and Albert sat in one damn room the entire time after Hastings was murdered. I could go on with the random TP plotlines that don't seem to have a conclusion that I guess are now wiped now that we are going into Fringe territory pretty much. OH MY GOD we are watching Fringe now lol.

This has been the most memorable series I've watched in ages but I think these are fair points. If I'm going to take issue with anything this season, it would be--

-There was very little interconnection or cohesion to Twin Peaks itself. Besides there just not being as much Twin Peaks as you'd expect in general, all of the characters and places seemed siloed off from one another. It lacked heart, as you said.

-Along those lines, it could have had a few more emotional payoffs along the way to change the mood up from, well, bewilderment and dread. It was some fantastic bewilderment and dread, though.

-Contrary to people griping that there weren't enough answers, this season explained so much that it came dangerously close to strangling the mystery out of everything with lore-y gobbledygook.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
Read this on dugpa

I feel like that final episode was almost a meta-commentary on the entirety of The Return. I think the whole idea is that some things are meant to stay dead, trapped in amber, and that bringing them back can change them irrevocably. By bringing Laura back, they destroyed the reality of Twin Peaks - by bringing the show back, we may have destroyed Twin Peaks. Dale, Laura and the audience are all trapped in a purgatory together at the end of the series. It's one of the most nightmarish things I can imagine.

And suddenly "What year is it?" takes on a whole new meaning.

Well, I guess this is a better angle to approach the series from.
 

Vectorman

Banned
Sometimes scenes can exist for reasons other than just plot. And again, there's no such thing as wasting screen time. Maybe I'm speaking out of my ass here but with episode runtimes varying, I don't get the sense that they had to be hugely specific such that like the lack of them in the car would mean there'd be something to replace it, and beyond that it's not like it's inherently mean you'd get more resolution or something.

At some point, it's just better to move on with the scene than just sit the camera. I mean they didn't even bother with putting Angelo's music behind them at least. At least you can say that it can make it seems lively instead of it being dull. It basically is wasting screen time ie that sweeping scene.
 

AoM

Member
I don't need closure or every plot to be resolved, I don't mind that at all. But the season 2 finale blew my mind in every possible way and what I saw today did not.
Yup. Episode 29 was a filmmaker at the top of his game. Part 18 was something, I guess.
 
I feel like that final episode was almost a meta-commentary on the entirety of The Return. I think the whole idea is that some things are meant to stay dead, trapped in amber, and that bringing them back can change them irrevocably. By bringing Laura back, they destroyed the reality of Twin Peaks - by bringing the show back, we may have destroyed Twin Peaks. Dale, Laura and the audience are all trapped in a purgatory together at the end of the series. It's one of the most nightmarish things I can imagine.

"Lynch made a Season 3 about why Season 3 should have never been made."

Sounds pretty accurate, actually.
 

robotrock

Banned
Every episode was 55-59 minutes. We knew there were to be 18. that's a finite amount of time. And don't pretend you knew what was going to happen "so the wasted time didn't matter". We were all watching the same show with the same amount of time left. you can count it down.
I don't have a clock near my TV. I also don't look at my watch when I watch stuff. My life is pretty great.
 

Plum

Member
I can't agree with this sentiment at all. Some of the scenes with old characters/the next generation in the town were great. Not everything had to inform the main plot. Sometimes things can be enjoyable in themselves, like Jacoby's radio show or Ed and Norma finally getting together. Rather, I feel like the scenes about life moving in the town were "important" if only for that reason.

Those scenes, to me, had the emotional resonance of being told what some old acquaintance is doing in an otherwise regular conversation:

"So what's Dr. Jacobi up to these days?"
"Oh, he runs a crackpot radio broadcast where he sells shovels to dig yourself out of the shit."
"Ha, alright."

"Ha, alright," was my reaction to the first scene. When that third Dr. Amp scene came around and there had been no development or character building I just couldn't care less. That's the worst case scenario, but it was similar for almost all of the returning cast (and most of the new cast as well). Ed and Norma getting together happens in a single scene; Nadine walks up, says Ed can do what he wants now, Ed goes to R&R, Norma and Ed hook up and they're never heard from again. None of that is earned by either the characters themselves or the writing team, you can't just show me something happening and expect me to care.
 

Vectorman

Banned
Read this on dugpa

Yeah that makes sense. But it just makes it seem like he has contempt for a certain portion of the fanbase. I think if he had made this season and he never put it out, he would be content with that. I honestly don't think he gives a fuck lol.
 

HoJu

Member
At some point, it's just better to move on with the scene than just sit the camera. I mean they didn't even bother with putting Angelo's music behind them at least. At least you can say that it can make it seems lively instead of it being dull. It basically is wasting screen time ie that sweeping scene.

It wasn't supposed to be lively. It was supposed to be dull and somewhat disturbing.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
Those scenes, to me, had the emotional resonance of being told what some old acquaintance is doing in an otherwise regular conversation:

"So what's Dr. Jacobi up to these days?"
"Oh, he runs a crackpot radio broadcast where he sells shovels to dig yourself out of the shit."
"Ha, alright."

"Ha, alright," was my reaction to the first scene. When that third Dr. Amp scene came around and there had been no development or character building I just couldn't care less. That's the worst case scenario, but it was similar for almost all of the returning cast. Ed and Norma getting together happens in a single scene; Nadine walks up, says Ed can do what he wants now, Ed goes to R&R, Norma and Ed hook up and they're never heard from again. None of that is earned by either the characters themselves or the writing team, you can't just show me something happening and expect me to care.

I agree but again, it almost felt like Lynch was mocking us.
 
I'm wondering if Lynch pretty much told Frost "hey, I'm going to confuse tf out of these people. You wanna wrap everything up in the dossier?"

"Sure man, go for it. I got this"
Lol
 

BTA

Member
Every episode was 55-59 minutes. We knew there were to be 18. that's a finite amount of time. And don't pretend you knew what was going to happen "so the wasted time didn't matter". We were all watching the same show with the same amount of time left. you can count it down.

My point isn't that I knew what was coming? When did I ever say that?

My point is that "wasting time" isn't a thing. Your actual argument is "I would have preferred the last episode resolved the plot and explained things more instead of just building tension.", which would make more sense to me.
 

hydruxo

Member
I think that Audrey's arc being cut off so abruptly is because Cooper just...broke everything and fucked it all up. Everything just stopped and got flipped on its head.
 

Chitown B

Member
At some point, it's just better to move on with the scene than just sit the camera. I mean they didn't even bother with putting Angelo's music behind them at least. At least you can say that it can make it seems lively instead of it being dull. It basically is wasting screen time ie that sweeping scene.

this.
 

Vectorman

Banned
Can anyone give me a reason why you think he put the season's events out of order at times? I mean if we can just chalk it up to, 'Well TIME PARADOX' then I guess whatever.
 

Chitown B

Member
My point isn't that I knew what was coming? When did I ever say that?

My point is that "wasting time" isn't a thing. Your actual argument is "I would have preferred the last episode resolved the plot and explained things more instead of just building tension.", which would make more sense to me.

meaning at the time of watching, on the edge of your seat wanting to know how it will end, sitting there with them doing nothing saying nothing with no music is wasting precious time.

Can anyone give me a reason why you think he put the season's events out of order at times? I mean if we can just chalk it up to, 'Well TIME PARADOX' then I guess whatever.

fitting everything into 55-59 min parts.
 
Top Bottom