The flip side being that Frost and Lynch have gone to a ton of effort to consolidate rights for all the previous Twin Peaks stuff back in their hands, so I could easily see them having made sure they own the new season as well. And yeah, it’s also possible Showtime has an arrangement with Netflix that will include The Return. But like I say, I wouldn’t count on it.
You’re lucky and you’re in for a treat. I usually wait for a show to finish (or for a season to finish) before starting but I wasn’t able to resist watching each Return episode as they came out. I think binging all 18 episodes in one weekend or whatever would be overwhelming, but having the option to binge on several at a time, at your own pace, is probably ideal. Having to wait a week between each episode felt frustrating at times and also made it more challenging to retain important details from prior episodes.
So
Umm
Yeah…that certainly was something.
That was awesome.
Honestly I rather disliked the last episode because of my own expectations, the lack of any kind of resolution on many plot points and the rather seemingly pointless, too long, played-out scenes*. Having said that, I really enjoyed how this writer used a very personal viewpoint to show his appreciation:
*Of course these are also all the reasons I love David Lynch joints
Agreed! While I can appreciate why it’s being met with a kind of confusion, I loved how patient and intentionally frustrating Cooper’s trip to and meeting with Laura was. Like the Audrey and Charlie scenes, everything at her place was attempting to delay them, from the phone ringing, packing, grabbing a coat, the dead guy, being hungry, and later being followed on the road, it was all so dream-like. The best part was arriving at her place in Twin Peaks, and hearing the home owner talking to her partner off-screen. His voice is so faint and muffled that we never hear the specifics.
I think the revival was a massive artistic success. Lynch has such a knack for making the irrational so threatening through odd conversational strategies that he can create such a sinister atmosphere, which in someone else’s hands would just feel silly.
I…
uh…
what?
Having set my expectations and having a couple of days to think about the last episode I think it stands up as one of the best things that Lynch has done. I rewatched it again, this time not only as a coda to the series but also as a summary of a bunch of Lynch films and a meditation on the fundamental horror of being a human being – and it’s a lovely, beautiful, poignant, mysterious, and terrifying piece of film making. This last hour and episode 8 are probably now two of my favorite pieces in Lynch’s oeuvre.
It is so haunting. The ending is so moving.
I have no idea why, nor I am sure I intend to understand what is going on some day - just like I have really little understanding of what happened in the original Twin Peaks, or any of Lynch’s most interesting works for that matter. I like to just feel it, and that impression it leaves. Doesn’t prevent me from having stupid theories of my own, too: best of both worlds.
Funnily enough, it made me reminisce what I felt watching the first series when I was so much younger: lots of weird things going on, lots of attaching characters… and then an ending that left me haunted.
By the way, is it me or was there binaural sounds running through that episode in its background?
This seems like pretty quick turnaround but good news for folks like me who don’t have Showtime:
Just finished reading Mark Frost’s second and presumably final Twin Peaks companion book The Final Dossier. I would describe it as non-essential. If you wondered what happened to the many Twin Peaks characters who did not return on The Return and whose fates were ambiguous or unremarked, well, The Final Dossier will tell you, for the most part. But it turns out the reason those fates weren’t part of the show is they aren’t really that important or interesting. Leo, for example? Definitely dead. Someone shot him five times, probably Windom Earle. Does that matter? Not really. There are interesting tidbits - how Leo and Shelly got together in the first place, why Norma and Ed didn’t quite make it work in the interim, why The Secret History of Twin Peaks said Norma’s mom died before the events of the show when season 2 had a character that was purportedly Norma’s mom (turns out she was a stepmom). The Widow Milford is suggested to have had a fling with an unnamed New York businessman who is probably meant to be Donald Trump. We get details on how Jacoby became a crackpot internet streamer and where James and Donna got to and so on. It’s nice to know, but it’s largely pretty prosaic.
Towards the end it does touch on the events of the Return series and confirm a few fan theories about what was going on in things like episode 8 and the tail end of the series (but not what the hell happened to Cooper), so if you want a little more certain and official hold on the weirdness therein, it does offer that. But Agent Preston wasn’t there for the majority of the supernatural weirdness and has no way of confirming the theories she does have, so the biggest questions aren’t answered, and probably shouldn’t be anyhow. Even what it does have to say, I think, risks spoiling the effect a bit.
It was definitely the Cooper doppelganger, by the way, despite Tamara’s inaccurate guess. She correctly said it was someone with FBI training, but we know it wasn’t Windom Earle because he was already dead in the Black Lodge.
The most interesting tidbit in the Final Dossier for me was the realization that it was also the Copper doppelganger who set up the glass experiment in NYC, since there was a lot of musing post-show that the “billionaire” was Ben Horne or (until her fate was revealed) Audrey. It was also fun to learn about Donna’s fate.
There are also some inconsistencies with the Return, likely reflecting Lynch’s changes during production which Frost didn’t catch to update the book, such as the manner of Cooper doppelganger’s death and what happened with the Diane doppelganger.
Agree that the book, by spelling some things out, does spoil the effect a bit. It’s also clear that Frost has a real fetish for the UFO stuff which Lynch just ignores entirely. Making Doug Milford such an important character doesn’t seem to fit with the original series at all. But the Final Dossier does provide the information on the fate of all of the characters from the original series that people were hoping for from the Secret History. Having only read Secret History after seeing the new season, I actually enjoyed it more than I likely would have had I been expecting something more directly related to the original series.
Watching the blurays for the new season now, along with the fantastic special features. I am so happy that we got this 18 hour gift. I generally prefer more coherent dramas, but the intelligence and creativity of David Lynch is just such a joy to experience. It even made me appreciate Eraserhead more, and consider transcendental meditation since Lynch is such an evangelist for it. Lynch is the greatest.
Were people speculating about that? I thought it was explicitly revealed in the show (insofar as the show was explicit about anything) when there was that photo of Bad Coop there on site.
Not sure what you’re referencing - in NY? When?
When the FBI collects the footage off those cameras. I don’t remember which episode.
Oh cool, the Blu-ray is out already? Need to get my hands on a copy.
Yeah, I remember that reference, but thought it was to actually Cooper when he appeared in the glass.
No, there’s a photo of Bad Coop. And I think he’s referred to as the money man or something. Anyway, seemed pretty clear to me.
Nice! I vaguely remember but will keep an eye out on my rewatch. There are so many details like that, or even ties to other movies of his like Lost Highway (and the resuse of the name Alice at the end - “if she says her name is Alice, she’s lying”) to muse.
Hehe
Watched this again during a recent marathon on Showtime. It holds up REALLY well and is firmly in my top 10 TV shows of all time etc.