Post by rushy on Jun 1, 2024 13:26:26 GMT
I finally finished watching this mess-terpiece.
POSITIVES
*Kyle MacLachlan. No matter what role he plays, he commits to it absolutely and is always very engaging to watch.
*I was very happy with how the show handled Bobby, Hawk, the Log Lady, Andy, Lucy, Ed, Nadine, Norma, MIKE and Shelly.
*The atmosphere was very strong, and I liked the idea of reality breaking down around the characters. The visual and audio editing was superb.
*Andy's visit to the Fireman's place (the White Lodge?) was such an amazing moment of the mundane encountering the supernatural. I never expected him of all people to end up there.
*The Log Lady's death was extraordinarily well written.
*I was very impressed with Robert Forster as Frank Truman. Replacing Harry with a random new brother sounds so cheap, yet somehow it worked perfectly.
*I really liked Naomi Watts' performance as Janey-E. Of all the newcomers, she was my favourite.
*The evolution of the arm was so f*cking awesome. Way to make lemonade out of lemons.
MIXED
*Although I enjoyed Dougie and Demon Coop as characters, their storylines eventually started to feel like Lynch just wanted to make two extra movies without bothering with studio negotiations, so he just squeezed them into his Twin Peaks show.
*Demon Coop in particular was really oddly utilised. I would have thought the whole point of having a doppelganger is to make use of the fact that he looks like someone else. Him raping Diane is the one thing I would EXPECT Demon Coop to do. To me, it would've worked better if he stayed in Twin Peaks and committed acts of evil against people Cooper has a connection with.
*I really enjoyed the dynamic between Gordon Cole and Albert (my personal interpretation is that Cole has kept him close out of fear of losing the last agent he has a connection with). But nothing they did was very interesting. I wanted to see them actually discover the Black Lodge and maybe share a few more scenes with Demon Coop. It was cool when they brought Tammy into the fold, but then she does absolutely nothing.
*The Audrey Dance was a delight, and I thought Charlie's actor was hilarious. That aside, her storyline was a disgrace.
*I felt the Roadhouse band-of-the-week thing was kinda silly. Nice music, though.
*I didn't necessarily miss Annie's character, but I wish Coop at least asked about her and showed some emotion instead of suddenly being into Diane now.
*Speaking of her, Laura Dern gave a good performance, but I really can't imagine her as Coop's secretary.
*A few of the original characters seemed to just kinda be there, namely Ben, Jerry, Dr Jacoby and James. The actors did fine with what they were given (I especially loved that first scene between Jerry and BROTHER BEN), but the material wasn't there. Jacoby's transformation into an alt-right commentator was mildly funny, but could've gone a lot further than the occasional monologue.
NEGATIVES
*The narrative was very weak, consisting mostly of overconvoluted lore and shameless retconning. Nothing that they introduced here was as compelling or worth exploring as the threat of Bob and the Black Lodge in the original show.
*I was surprised how minimal Bob's involvement was. I know Frank Silva is sadly no longer with us, but Ray Wise proved that the character can be magnificent even without him.
*I no longer understood what our characters were fighting for and why, so it was difficult to care. The show was far too obtuse for my personal tastes. Despite how ambiguous the original could be, they made Bob into a visceral and real threat whom we hated for hurting characters we liked. Judy is barely a concept, and Demon Coop spends most of the show wandering around America killing random one-off characters. It just didn't have the same impact.
*The British guy with the green glove is the single dumbest thing in any Twin Peaks story.
*I did not need to see Dougie have sex.
*As a fan of the Windom Earle character, I didn't appreciate his total erasure from the canon (not even a member of Blue Rose??).
CONCLUSION
Overall, I felt that Twin Peaks: The Return was experimental and intriguing, but not a good Twin Peaks story or a standalone piece of art.
I have to emphasise again that I went in knowing that it would have a different tone, that it would focus on other characters, that Cooper wasn't in it much. All of that I can live with. It can be its own thing whether I like it or not.
But centering the entire story around a minute-long cameo from David Bowie in a spin-off prequel film and pretending that this was what Coop, Briggs and Cole were working on the entire time during the original show confounds me. It's like Lynch and Frost want The Return to be a follow-up to some idealised version of the 1990 Twin Peaks where they had full control. A sequel to a show that doesn't exist. They want people to care about their version of the story, not the story that was aired. And that's just sad.
This dependence on the original lore and characters means it cannot be its own thing. But it's also completely ignoring how that lore and those characters used to function on a fundamental level, preventing it from being a good Twin Peaks story. So to me, it just doesn't come together. You can say "reality is breaking apart" and "who is the dreamer", but as a viewer, I'm not satisfied purely by Lynch's half-sleepy musings. Why bother building up these characters and this world in the first place if that's all that matters?
The only interpretation that makes even halfway sense to me is that both Cooper and Laura are still trapped in the Black Lodge, and all of season 3 is just their demented fever dream as they slowly realise they can never leave. But that's hardly worth a whole season of television.
POSITIVES
*Kyle MacLachlan. No matter what role he plays, he commits to it absolutely and is always very engaging to watch.
*I was very happy with how the show handled Bobby, Hawk, the Log Lady, Andy, Lucy, Ed, Nadine, Norma, MIKE and Shelly.
*The atmosphere was very strong, and I liked the idea of reality breaking down around the characters. The visual and audio editing was superb.
*Andy's visit to the Fireman's place (the White Lodge?) was such an amazing moment of the mundane encountering the supernatural. I never expected him of all people to end up there.
*The Log Lady's death was extraordinarily well written.
*I was very impressed with Robert Forster as Frank Truman. Replacing Harry with a random new brother sounds so cheap, yet somehow it worked perfectly.
*I really liked Naomi Watts' performance as Janey-E. Of all the newcomers, she was my favourite.
*The evolution of the arm was so f*cking awesome. Way to make lemonade out of lemons.
MIXED
*Although I enjoyed Dougie and Demon Coop as characters, their storylines eventually started to feel like Lynch just wanted to make two extra movies without bothering with studio negotiations, so he just squeezed them into his Twin Peaks show.
*Demon Coop in particular was really oddly utilised. I would have thought the whole point of having a doppelganger is to make use of the fact that he looks like someone else. Him raping Diane is the one thing I would EXPECT Demon Coop to do. To me, it would've worked better if he stayed in Twin Peaks and committed acts of evil against people Cooper has a connection with.
*I really enjoyed the dynamic between Gordon Cole and Albert (my personal interpretation is that Cole has kept him close out of fear of losing the last agent he has a connection with). But nothing they did was very interesting. I wanted to see them actually discover the Black Lodge and maybe share a few more scenes with Demon Coop. It was cool when they brought Tammy into the fold, but then she does absolutely nothing.
*The Audrey Dance was a delight, and I thought Charlie's actor was hilarious. That aside, her storyline was a disgrace.
*I felt the Roadhouse band-of-the-week thing was kinda silly. Nice music, though.
*I didn't necessarily miss Annie's character, but I wish Coop at least asked about her and showed some emotion instead of suddenly being into Diane now.
*Speaking of her, Laura Dern gave a good performance, but I really can't imagine her as Coop's secretary.
*A few of the original characters seemed to just kinda be there, namely Ben, Jerry, Dr Jacoby and James. The actors did fine with what they were given (I especially loved that first scene between Jerry and BROTHER BEN), but the material wasn't there. Jacoby's transformation into an alt-right commentator was mildly funny, but could've gone a lot further than the occasional monologue.
NEGATIVES
*The narrative was very weak, consisting mostly of overconvoluted lore and shameless retconning. Nothing that they introduced here was as compelling or worth exploring as the threat of Bob and the Black Lodge in the original show.
*I was surprised how minimal Bob's involvement was. I know Frank Silva is sadly no longer with us, but Ray Wise proved that the character can be magnificent even without him.
*I no longer understood what our characters were fighting for and why, so it was difficult to care. The show was far too obtuse for my personal tastes. Despite how ambiguous the original could be, they made Bob into a visceral and real threat whom we hated for hurting characters we liked. Judy is barely a concept, and Demon Coop spends most of the show wandering around America killing random one-off characters. It just didn't have the same impact.
*The British guy with the green glove is the single dumbest thing in any Twin Peaks story.
*I did not need to see Dougie have sex.
*As a fan of the Windom Earle character, I didn't appreciate his total erasure from the canon (not even a member of Blue Rose??).
CONCLUSION
Overall, I felt that Twin Peaks: The Return was experimental and intriguing, but not a good Twin Peaks story or a standalone piece of art.
I have to emphasise again that I went in knowing that it would have a different tone, that it would focus on other characters, that Cooper wasn't in it much. All of that I can live with. It can be its own thing whether I like it or not.
But centering the entire story around a minute-long cameo from David Bowie in a spin-off prequel film and pretending that this was what Coop, Briggs and Cole were working on the entire time during the original show confounds me. It's like Lynch and Frost want The Return to be a follow-up to some idealised version of the 1990 Twin Peaks where they had full control. A sequel to a show that doesn't exist. They want people to care about their version of the story, not the story that was aired. And that's just sad.
This dependence on the original lore and characters means it cannot be its own thing. But it's also completely ignoring how that lore and those characters used to function on a fundamental level, preventing it from being a good Twin Peaks story. So to me, it just doesn't come together. You can say "reality is breaking apart" and "who is the dreamer", but as a viewer, I'm not satisfied purely by Lynch's half-sleepy musings. Why bother building up these characters and this world in the first place if that's all that matters?
The only interpretation that makes even halfway sense to me is that both Cooper and Laura are still trapped in the Black Lodge, and all of season 3 is just their demented fever dream as they slowly realise they can never leave. But that's hardly worth a whole season of television.
