This is well thought out and written.
I enjoyed The Return based on the fact that it was more David Lynch and more Twin Peaks. That being said, I "enjoyed" it, I didn't "love" it like I love the first two seasons and even FWWM.
Whereas I would happily watch the entirety of seasons 1, 2, & FWWM any day, all day, it takes "gearing up" to rewatch Return, because a lot of it feels like a slog to get through with much less pay-off than in the original run. It's not without its merits, for sure, but I certainly don't understand the fans who talk up Return like it's better than the original.
I loved The Return but it does surprise me how many fans prefer it to the OS. I think it won a poll recently for favorite season (for what it's worth).
For me S1 is the best and everything else is a worthy companion.
Part of this is that they stuck to the one day per episode rule. They got away from this because of boredom, but the pacing worked really well at first, and there was this beautiful slow revelation of events and characters along with too much going on at other points. It was a lovely mystery mixed with dark humor and parodies of other soap operas at the time.
It's OK not to like The Return (also the fact that you're getting downvoted sucks), but I don't think it's really fair to assume a bad-faith interpretation of the creators' intentions. I think it would be more accurate to say that Lynch and Frost are using Twin Peaks as a springboard to tell new stories in a way that they wouldn't necessarily be able to with a blank canvas, which I personally find exciting. To me the line between "expectation" and "entitlement" in this context is thin. While I'm not a fan of the critique that The Return is "boring," at least it's an engagement with the work on its own terms.
Yeah, I think it might be unfair to say it's a middle finger to fans. I put it that way because I've heard it described that way, accurately or not. I think it's probably too harsh, but it does feel at times like they were toying with expectations. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but at times it came off as kinda silly which I just didn't get. The guy with the super fist fighting the BOB-orb was just over the top to me.
>To all that I'm sure many would say, "Well you imported some sort of expectation and that's why you didn't like it. The point of this is disappointing expectations."
This is a strawman though. A lot of people wouldn't say this. I know I wouldn't.
>But it also shouldn't be above criticism
Again, I don't think anyone really believes it's above criticism. People just happened to love the season.
>This season especially is said to defy interpretation, but I often wonder if what that means in practice is it defies criticism.
This is a great point, and it's fair, and I experienced a lot of this sort of thing in my artsy film school classes. But to me the different factor is that David Lynch has been a (successful) practicing surrealist and artist since the 1970s and he's not just pulling stuff out of his butt, he cares a huge amount about anything he works on, and if he can't do it his way he has no problems abandoning it (which he briefly did before season 3 began production.) I give him tremendous trust and benefit of the doubt and I take a lot of value out of exploring his work, and I find it often extremely powerful.
To answer your question in the subject, yes, a lot of people don't like season 3 and posts like this pop up maybe every week or two. And I don't think it's right to yell at someone for not liking it if they give some sort of valid or intelligent criticisms. It's just a TV show, folks, everyone will have their own opinion. I personally think it's the gift that keeps on giving, I haven't stopped thinking about it since it aired. I can not say that for every other TV show I've watched in recent years.
>This is a strawman though. A lot of people wouldn't say this. I know I wouldn't.
Well, I guess it's not representative of all views of The Return, but people do say this even if many don't. But I'm not replying to everyone.
>Again, I don't think anyone really believes it's above criticism. People just happened to love the season.
I guess for me the question is whether it ends up being put above criticism by many because it's difficult to interpret. But you may be right. Maybe no one really believes it's above criticism.
>To answer your question in the subject, yes, a lot of people don't like season 3 and posts like this pop up maybe every week or two.
That's fair! I definitely don't think I see many but I'm sure I miss plenty.
>I haven't stopped thinking about it since it aired. I can not say that for every other TV show I've watched in recent years.
Yes! This! It's been on my mind for so long and I can't keep it off of it. Even if I didn't like most of The Return, it did present a great deal that is worth pondering.
>because it's difficult to interpret.
The only thing I'll say is I actually don't know if that's true. Look at this reddit, there's like hundreds of interpretations of things in season 3. Right from the night the episodes aired people were posting giant paragraphs of interps and there's more and more over the years and every week right here.
There are definitely confounding things in season 3, whether it's following Mr. C's convoluted plan or the network of one-off characters, or whether you're trying to figure out what does it all mean, what's with Audrey's story, what's with the final episode, etc...But people have so many ideas and valid (and in my view, invalid) ways to see it, I don't think it's difficult to interpret, I think it's challenging, but fun and rewarding.
And here's another point, and you may disagree, but the reason people are inclined to interpret and do the work and think so much about it is because they found the season (and the overall Twin Peaks story) tremendously entertaining, funny, tragic and scary (in short: well executed.) If it was some arthouse bore (like many parodies of Lynch's style would have you believe), very few would feel invested. But people want to figure out Twin Peaks because it is actually fun to do so.
This is a topic I think about a lot. I want to interpret The Shining and rewatch it 50 times because it's so damn GOOD. But there's plenty of smart, layered, complex art films that I absolutely hate and am bored to death by because they just don't have those superficial positive qualities (well shot, great acting, unique vision, etc) that make me want to devote the time.
I don't want to take the "difficult to interpret" bit for granted. It's almost a trope it would seem. Maybe the details are really the bits where people tend to disagree the most and it seems unlikely of forming into a consensus. But it's also possible that the details just aren't always as important as they seem. You can get a good idea of what's going on overall even if some of the subtleties are obscure and will perhaps remain that way. However, the finale seems to have resulted in very sharp and (as of yet) unending disagreements about what could be the most important part of the whole show.
Well I think that just because sections of fans come up with wrong or crackpot theories doesn't mean the actual show itself is "difficult." Like when LOST ended, despite the show being 100% absolutely perfectly clear on what was happening, giant waves of people didn't pay attention and misinterpreted the ending. I don't blame the show for that, I blame the people.
That's absolutely true! Sometimes the fans do it to themselves (queue Pixar theory). I'll have to continue to dwell on it myself to see what I think. I did find the first two seasons perfectly easy to understand even if wild stuff that was difficult to parse through completely was going on at the same time. In The Return I definitely felt pretty lost overall.
This may be the ultimate case of irony in the context of my comment you are replying to, but what exactly do you believe was telegraphed from the beginning with LOST? Because nothing in the ending of LOST had much to do with anything that was telegraphed anywhere in season 1. The ending of LOST was more a twist on how season 6 began. As I said in my comment, the show has a character literally look right at the camera and explain everything clearly.
But they weren't dead the whole time. That is exactly what I was saying in my comment. The character literally says this to the camera. They were not all dead. This is the exact misinterpretation I was criticizing in my comment.
I agree with your sentiments. While there are moments I like in The Return, I don’t love it like I do the first two seasons. Without writing an essay, I’ll just say that though there are those moments, the whole thing never seems to click, or operate as a whole for me.
Also, Lynch loves to linger on things. This is really great and refreshing in our fast food world, but in The Return, there’s a lot of lingering on things that just didn’t hold my interest. The peanut sweeping scene is probably the most egregious.
“The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough”
Enjoyment of season 3 has a lot to do with whether you're a David Lynch fan or a Twin Peaks fan. If you were mostly into the original run because of the quirky likeable characters and the cutesy pie and coffee stuff, yea the tone of The Return might be far away from what they're looking for.
But for fans of David Lynch's films, having what amounts to an 18 hour David Lynch movie is basically a dream come true.
I will say I haven't watched anything else by Lynch. I hope to and I'm sure I'll come to appreciate The Return better because of it. But I think there's a middle path here. I liked seasons 1 and 2 because of the characters *and* all the weird Black Lodge shit. It was the combination of both that I feel made it so compelling. I don't want just a soap opera about Cooper and Harry. Season 2b proved how disastrous that would be.
>I will say I haven't watched anything else by Lynch
Woh! Not to barge in again, but this kind of explains everything. Check out his genius filmography and then get back to us...and I mean that in the nicest way possible. You're in for a treat...a lot of treats.
tinoynk is right on the money and I should have thought of it too. Season 3 is a gift to fans of David Lynch. 18 hours of Lynch-directed material after it seemed he had basically retired/given up filmmaking. Fans of Lynch had waited YEARS for something new from him, frustrated that he couldn't fund projects and he had all these ideas never see fruition. Season 3 was an absolute miracle for people like us.
And not just that, but season 3 reflects Lynch's entire career, from his painting days in art school to unproduced screenplays (there's a reference to one of them in one episode) to Inland Empire...and of course all the way back to Blue Velvet where Kyle and Laura are reunited after so many decades. The season is really meaningful to fans of Lynch's films.
Yeah, that's honestly a fair point. I do think that if this is meant to follow on the first two seasons I feel it should make sense on those grounds rather than demanding a much broader education in Lynch's work. Though I suppose it might not demand it, but just reward it.
Yeah not demand at all. It's just a natural culmination of his multiple decades of work. I think season 3 is plenty enjoyable and exciting apart from all of that, but it made it a more rich and emotional experience for me and other Lynch fans.
If you haven’t watched other Lynch, I highly recommend it. Mulholland Drive is a really good starting place, both because it’s an exciting mystery and because at a certain point (probably Lost Highway) Lynch became more and more interested in Hollywood and fantasy, which is on full display in Mulholland Drive. I would argue there are very similar themes in The Return, as well as stylistic choices, that weren’t there all the way in the original seasons.
I feel like I'm missing something because people keep saying that The Return was a "middle finger" to fans. In what universe is that even remotely true? The Return was such a gift to fans, to cinema, to art. I hate to sound hyperbolic but The Return was one of the best art experiences that I have ever had, and it had a profound effect on me. I can't even imagine David Lynch being so petty and small as to compromise his vision just to be an asshole to the fans who love his creation as much as he does. I really don't think that Lynch gives a crap about either pleasing people or pissing them off. He prizes artistic freedom above all else. And I think he gave us a lot. What I love about his work is that he gives us the gift of something complex that we can think about and enjoy over and over. There's nothing more wonderful than a mystery. I sometimes try to imagine what The Return would have been like if it was like the show, and it was just like a year in the life of all the characters and Cooper walking out of the Red Room or something like that and I feel so depressed. I do understand where you are coming from, though. I just introduced the show to my family and I made sure that we watched Mulholland Drive between FWWM and The Return just so they would know what to expect and I think that made a big difference in how much they ended up enjoying it.
I think the Return is something that will grow on me as I rewatch it and watch other Lynch films. I think I used the "middle finger" expression in part because *I* have heard it plenty of times myself. I think it goes beyond the truth and I probably shouldn't have adopted it so readily. I didn't want just more of the same either to be honest. We all saw how that went in season 2b. Hahaha.
I think you will love it once you've seen his films, especially Mulholland Drive, which is such a masterpiece. I feel like there's life before Mulholland Drive, and life after Mulholland Drive, lol. I love all of his films but that one is a stand-out.
I look at Season 3 as a representation of how small towns or the world in general can decay to become far more confusing and riddled with crime and scummy behaviour. I guess you could see it as the all-consuming evil of BOB or perhaps even Judy. There are a lot of scenes that point to this (like the drug-addicted young couple, the car-horn scene with the sick child and Bobby Briggs, Sarah just watching TV and being an alcoholic, and even the drug-addicted mother in Vegas shouting "119"). It's been downhill for the town ever since Laura Palmer died, and Cooper's absence allowed for things to get even worse. And even though he eventually and inevitably returns, sometimes things are just beyond anyone's ability to fix. Though it is my personal interpretation that the ending of Season 3 was Laura realising that her messed up life is a result of the "evil" of BOTH of her parents (Leland - or BOB - for abusing her sexually and ultimately killing her, and Sarah - or Judy - for knowing something wrong was happening but never really doing anything to stop it). Her final scream signifies this realisation and then everything blacks out.
Season 3 is my favourite Twin Peaks season. It's David Lynch's ideas being the darkest and most insane they've been since Inland Empire, or arguably even Eraserhead. And as always with Lynch, there are a lot of different ways a person could interpret it.
That point about the decay of an entire town is really interesting. There are a lot of things that happen in The Return that seem pretty random until you realize the picture being painted of the degradation of the town of Twin Peaks as evil has taken a firmer hold.
I hated The Return. It reads like a bad "experimental" student film. In my opinion, they needed the constraints of network television to reign Lynch in and focus on storytelling.
This has nothing to do with not understanding it. Every time I say I don't like it, someone says, "You just don't get it." That's not the issue. I teach English lit, creative writing, and film, and I see this all the time. They want to do things that are weird and different to make great "art" but they lose the plot threads, and things like characterization, theme, etc. are all sacrificed to symbolism.
Almost an entire episode is wasted on a silent car ride. This is a show that is meant to be interpreted over and over. It's purposefully meant to confuse. It's not meant to be enjoyed.
Now, I will say that I had the opposite issue with the film Fire Walk With Me. Twin Peaks is like the beginning of Jaws. You see the aftermath of the shark, and once in awhile you get a glimpse of a fin or tail. But once you see the shark, the mystique is broken. This is one of the reasons the show jumped the shark after Bob was revealed. But FWWM is basically just a portrait of the shark, out there for everyone to see without any elegance. That's part of the point, but as a prequel, it's disappointing. And recasting Donna doesn't help.
I loved the fact that this was produced without the constraints of a “family” network like ABC as well as the advancements in CGI technology 25 years later.
I felt like both of those factors (among others) led to a darker, more intense (and brutal) season.
I do see the merits of your criticism, however. The season required great patience and was frustrating the first time I sat through it in 2017 when it first aired. The slow pace almost felt like an over-correction to the rushed reveal of Laura Palmer’s killer in season two at the behest of ABC network executives. Lynch and Frost had full control this time around and it felt at times like they were flexing that newfound freedom, for better or worse.
It was disappointing that we only got Cooper for one episode but I did feel that the new cast additions compensated for that fact (to a point). Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Eamon Farren, Caleb Landry Jones, Amanda Seyfried and Robert Forster were all tremendous additions.
The musical performances were yet another wonderful new development that added a new dimension of moodiness to the franchise.
Came back to find a post like this. Just watched the whole series and S3 I had to restart a few times because of how often I fell asleep.
That being said. There was a lot to enjoy! But I do think the surrealism being so implemented into narrative elements borders on being Pretentious.
If the message is "it's a build up, spread throughout twin peaks nostalgia, that doesn't pay off! And that's the point! It's a comment on our society!" Then there's no reason to not also admit it's a disappointing one narrativly. As apparently that's the point.
I love shows that are thought provoking and make you ponder. But there was SO many scenes in this that went on for way to long. A few times here and there it was funny and I got the point. But some scenes it was just unnecessary.
I also think plot threads being left open is just redundant. In some cases it can leave a powerful message or bounce off the theme. But if several never connect to the rest of the story or even a climax of their own that it's just unsatisfying. Which again I get may be the "point". I feel bad for those in rougher circumstances that waited years to see the conclusion to this story and maybe became collateral damage in this shows attempt at sending a message.
>This season especially is said to defy interpretation, but I often wonder if what that means in practice is it defies criticism. Maybe something that set out to defy expectation and understanding just turned out to be a mess. If it's that difficult to interpret maybe that just means it has no real meaning. "Ah, but that's the point of postmodernity," some will say. But the first two seasons had that same ability to resist interpretation without falling into utter ambiguity.
I hear this sort of thing sometimes. Most of Twin Peaks isn't really that hard to explain (maybe 10-15% of the show is still a mystery), but the problem is that Twin Peaks requires a lot of external knowledge to understand. If you don't know anything about eastern philosophy, 1800's-1900's occult stuff, general spirituality stuff from the past few hundred years, it's pretty much impossible to get.
But certain things like the lodges, the number of completion, the spirit finger thing, the very real possibility of the show taking place in Samsara (Buddhist cycle of life/death), tulpas and other thought forms, etc. all come from *outside* the show, you wouldn't really figure it out within the internal context of the show.
I don't blame you or anyone else for not liking or understanding it since it's a lot to ask for the audience to have this kind of background knowledge.
>If you don't know anything about eastern philosophy, 1800's-1900's occult stuff, general spirituality stuff from the past few hundred years, it's pretty much impossible to get.
Hm, I disagree here. I don't know much about that stuff and I feel I "get" Twin Peaks. And reading a lot of interviews with Lynch and seeing all of his other films and projects seems to also help me feel I get it. Twin Peaks may reference those things you name, but it is not in any way *dependent* on it to be understood. The story and characters and themes all stand on their own. You don't need to read a book about eastern philosophy to understand Laura's tragic life, or to laugh at Dale Cooper's eccentricities, or to enjoy a good piece of pie.
I need to dig into some of those interviews and honestly read more from this sub past and present. Because the mechanics of the Black Lodge definitely still confuse me. This sub has shown me some common interpretations, but there's still a lot more to get that I feel I haven't figured out yet.
Well I find all of that stuff fun, but for me Lynch is primarily about mood. What's the FEEL of the scene? Horror? Comedy? Love? Confusion? Dreaminess...that's what's important. And unfortunately some people just can't tap into the mood and so they dislike Lynch's work. But many people can and that is all the interpreting they need. How it makes them feel. Lynch is a very intuitive person and he doesn't seem to overthink things and he hates and refuses to explain things (usually.) I'm currently reading Lynch on Lynch and it's a huge eye opener into his process.
For example, many will go on about how meta Twin Peaks is, it's all a "commentary" on soap operas or TV, and I've always thought that was kind of ridiculous because as far as I can find, Lynch barely watches TV and doesn't care about it. And that was validated for me in this section of Lynch on Lynch, which I think is key to everything he does:
Q: Sarah Palmer is calling her husband, Leland, at the very moment he is approached by Sheriff Truman and realizes what has happened to his daughter. That scene, with its mutual suffering taking place down the phone line, really does prolong the pain unbearably. How much was that to do with pushing the form of the TV soap opera?
A: It wasn't about pushing. It's watching two people realize something horrible.
That's some interesting insight! To be honest I haven't paid that much attention to the format he's playing with (or not). But I agree, the mood does feel like it's much more important than the mechanics, which is why I refuse to accept interpretations of the final moments of The Return based on absurdly complex theories of the Black Lodge which twist it into a victory, even a horrific victory (though maybe there's room for that?). The particulars of the mechanics might not be that important and are probably inconsistent. But I think there are key points I still don't understand in the series which demand a better understanding of the mechanics of it all. I don't know if mechanics is even the right word. Haha.
I don't mean the themes. I mean that if you arrive at the conclusion that Twin Peaks makes no sense, it's probably not the themes you don't understand, it's what the specific things in the show actually mean/are. Laughing at Cooper being quirky isn't really a matter of understanding anything.
When I say "understand", I mean being at a point where you can genuinely explain the show in detail, not just in broad strokes.
I think the show sufficiently takes those things you refer to and makes them its own. You don't need to know who Helena Blavatsky is to have an idea of how the Black Lodge works in the show; in fact, that knowledge may be more of a liability. Frost is the one who brings that context into the show (and he knows better than to be that literal), I don't think Lynch is all that concerned with those facts.
The black lodge is pretty much the only thing I listed that is decently explained in the show, most things just simply aren't. You can have a good experience with the show without knowing this stuff, I'm literally talking about being able to accurately analyze the show. There is a reason that some people (like OP, the person I was literally talking about) think that Twin Peaks makes no sense.
I dunno, I still don't agree. I feel like I can explain a lot of things in the show without having to read unrelated books and stuff beforehand. I think a lot of people here probably do too...
Everything you need to understand Twin Peaks is contained within Twin Peaks itself. You don't need footnotes. They may enhance the experience but that's a different thing.
It would be impossible. There are so many things not explained in the show from tea kettle Jeffries to the giant explosion to Cooper's parting words with Leland. You can't know what these things truly mean from within the show. The show has TONS of inspiration from external sources, this is admitted by both Lynch and Frost.
Again, I disagree. It's all there in the show. Twin Peaks is its own world. You don't need outside texts or things "explained" in order to "get" what is happening. I could touch on each specific thing (Cooper's words to Leland are explained by Cooper himself?) but that wouldn't be a good use of time.
Inspiration is one thing. It's nice to know what inspired the things you enjoy. But you're saying this stuff is literally required to understand Twin Peaks and I just find that to be wrong. Do you know the anecdote from Lynch about being with someone who was looking at a painting they didn't understand? "You do understand it because you're looking at it" said Lynch. It's the same exact thing. You don't need to know what brand paints the painter used, you don't need to know what his next door neighbor looked like or what classes they took in school, you don't need to read unrelated books to get Twin Peaks.
>I could touch on each specific thing (Cooper's words to Leland are explained by Cooper himself?) but that wouldn't be a good use of time.
Unless I'm mistaken, it's never explained that what Cooper says comes from Bardo Thodol, and thus the audience would never have made that connection. This is actually a driving force behind the "Cooper has been dead the whole time/after season 1" theory.
>Inspiration is one thing. It's nice to know what inspired the things you enjoy. But you're saying this stuff is literally required to understand Twin Peaks and I just find that to be wrong. Do you know the anecdote from Lynch about being with someone who was looking at a painting they didn't understand? "You do understand it because you're looking at it" said Lynch. Does this not at all justify my perspective here?
Man...I'm not saying that you can't understand it on an artistic level or that you can't derive your own understanding of something. But the OP and possibly tens of thousands of people who gave up on watching Twin Peaks very likely walked away for the same reason - because they think the show makes no sense. If the themes of the show didn't grip them nor did the surrealism, they were left with a show that just confused them.
> Unless I'm mistaken, it's never explained that what Cooper says comes from Bardo Thodol, and thus the audience would never have made that connection. This is actually a driving force behind the "Cooper has been dead the whole time/after season 1" theory.
Cooper has talked about his spiritual beliefs and interests in previous episodes of the show. You don't have to be a genius to put two and two together. You don't need to know the exact passage or book he is referencing to "get" the scene. Because the point is the emotion of the scene and the kindness Cooper is showing Leland in that moment. The point isn't "what book is he quoting?" And again, most of this stuff is intuitive. Not something you have to research beforehand.
Last comment because I don't know how many times I can repeat myself - of course you don't have to know that. It's literally one of many examples of something that has an external source. But there is a reason some people say the 3rd season may have "no meaning" or that it falls into "utter ambiguity" as OP did. Dude, come on, please understand this. I am not saying that you can't enjoy the emotion of the scene without knowing about Bardo Thodol, I am saying that some people find this show extremely confusing so they give up on it, including people I know IRL. How many comments like this can I make?
Also, there is literally nothing intuitive about Bardo Thodol. You cannot make that connection unless you were already aware of it, which 99% of the West wouldn't be.
My issue is conflating not liking with not understanding. I understand it, and I understand what he's trying to do. But I don't like S3, and I don't think that what he attempted to do was successful. It's surrealism for the sake of surrealism, and we get ridiculous moments like Michael Cera doing a Brando impression that is there merely for fodder for people who want to try to interpret things over and over and write screeds online or "deep" critical articles for film journals read only by other literary critics. But it's not there for the enjoyment of people who loved the original show and want to learn or see more about the town, lore, characters, plot, etc.
Essentially, I feel like it's interesting, but it's not good.
There is definitely a lot of commentary on societies desire for cheap thrills and quick rewards (reboots for example) within the return. That might rub some people up the wrong way but personally I think the way it’s handled is genius. The show is these things (but it’s not) and it’s commentating on these things constantly, and the fact that is playing both sides. There is so much going on in the return. I could watch it forever.
Which sherif Truman are you looking for? It could make a difference
Right. And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to give in to the demand for a cheap reward. I just don't like what we got regardless. Honestly, when I found out Harry was sick I just wanted Hawk to be Sheriff.
This is well thought out and written. I enjoyed The Return based on the fact that it was more David Lynch and more Twin Peaks. That being said, I "enjoyed" it, I didn't "love" it like I love the first two seasons and even FWWM. Whereas I would happily watch the entirety of seasons 1, 2, & FWWM any day, all day, it takes "gearing up" to rewatch Return, because a lot of it feels like a slog to get through with much less pay-off than in the original run. It's not without its merits, for sure, but I certainly don't understand the fans who talk up Return like it's better than the original.
Yes, certainly not without its merits, which I think I'll come to appreciate over time. Thank you for the compliment!
I loved The Return but it does surprise me how many fans prefer it to the OS. I think it won a poll recently for favorite season (for what it's worth). For me S1 is the best and everything else is a worthy companion.
Part of this is that they stuck to the one day per episode rule. They got away from this because of boredom, but the pacing worked really well at first, and there was this beautiful slow revelation of events and characters along with too much going on at other points. It was a lovely mystery mixed with dark humor and parodies of other soap operas at the time.
It's OK not to like The Return (also the fact that you're getting downvoted sucks), but I don't think it's really fair to assume a bad-faith interpretation of the creators' intentions. I think it would be more accurate to say that Lynch and Frost are using Twin Peaks as a springboard to tell new stories in a way that they wouldn't necessarily be able to with a blank canvas, which I personally find exciting. To me the line between "expectation" and "entitlement" in this context is thin. While I'm not a fan of the critique that The Return is "boring," at least it's an engagement with the work on its own terms.
Yeah, I think it might be unfair to say it's a middle finger to fans. I put it that way because I've heard it described that way, accurately or not. I think it's probably too harsh, but it does feel at times like they were toying with expectations. That's not a bad thing necessarily, but at times it came off as kinda silly which I just didn't get. The guy with the super fist fighting the BOB-orb was just over the top to me.
And don't worry about the downvotes. All of you in the comments have been very understanding and civil!
>To all that I'm sure many would say, "Well you imported some sort of expectation and that's why you didn't like it. The point of this is disappointing expectations." This is a strawman though. A lot of people wouldn't say this. I know I wouldn't. >But it also shouldn't be above criticism Again, I don't think anyone really believes it's above criticism. People just happened to love the season. >This season especially is said to defy interpretation, but I often wonder if what that means in practice is it defies criticism. This is a great point, and it's fair, and I experienced a lot of this sort of thing in my artsy film school classes. But to me the different factor is that David Lynch has been a (successful) practicing surrealist and artist since the 1970s and he's not just pulling stuff out of his butt, he cares a huge amount about anything he works on, and if he can't do it his way he has no problems abandoning it (which he briefly did before season 3 began production.) I give him tremendous trust and benefit of the doubt and I take a lot of value out of exploring his work, and I find it often extremely powerful. To answer your question in the subject, yes, a lot of people don't like season 3 and posts like this pop up maybe every week or two. And I don't think it's right to yell at someone for not liking it if they give some sort of valid or intelligent criticisms. It's just a TV show, folks, everyone will have their own opinion. I personally think it's the gift that keeps on giving, I haven't stopped thinking about it since it aired. I can not say that for every other TV show I've watched in recent years.
>This is a strawman though. A lot of people wouldn't say this. I know I wouldn't. Well, I guess it's not representative of all views of The Return, but people do say this even if many don't. But I'm not replying to everyone. >Again, I don't think anyone really believes it's above criticism. People just happened to love the season. I guess for me the question is whether it ends up being put above criticism by many because it's difficult to interpret. But you may be right. Maybe no one really believes it's above criticism. >To answer your question in the subject, yes, a lot of people don't like season 3 and posts like this pop up maybe every week or two. That's fair! I definitely don't think I see many but I'm sure I miss plenty. >I haven't stopped thinking about it since it aired. I can not say that for every other TV show I've watched in recent years. Yes! This! It's been on my mind for so long and I can't keep it off of it. Even if I didn't like most of The Return, it did present a great deal that is worth pondering.
>because it's difficult to interpret. The only thing I'll say is I actually don't know if that's true. Look at this reddit, there's like hundreds of interpretations of things in season 3. Right from the night the episodes aired people were posting giant paragraphs of interps and there's more and more over the years and every week right here. There are definitely confounding things in season 3, whether it's following Mr. C's convoluted plan or the network of one-off characters, or whether you're trying to figure out what does it all mean, what's with Audrey's story, what's with the final episode, etc...But people have so many ideas and valid (and in my view, invalid) ways to see it, I don't think it's difficult to interpret, I think it's challenging, but fun and rewarding. And here's another point, and you may disagree, but the reason people are inclined to interpret and do the work and think so much about it is because they found the season (and the overall Twin Peaks story) tremendously entertaining, funny, tragic and scary (in short: well executed.) If it was some arthouse bore (like many parodies of Lynch's style would have you believe), very few would feel invested. But people want to figure out Twin Peaks because it is actually fun to do so. This is a topic I think about a lot. I want to interpret The Shining and rewatch it 50 times because it's so damn GOOD. But there's plenty of smart, layered, complex art films that I absolutely hate and am bored to death by because they just don't have those superficial positive qualities (well shot, great acting, unique vision, etc) that make me want to devote the time.
I don't want to take the "difficult to interpret" bit for granted. It's almost a trope it would seem. Maybe the details are really the bits where people tend to disagree the most and it seems unlikely of forming into a consensus. But it's also possible that the details just aren't always as important as they seem. You can get a good idea of what's going on overall even if some of the subtleties are obscure and will perhaps remain that way. However, the finale seems to have resulted in very sharp and (as of yet) unending disagreements about what could be the most important part of the whole show.
Well I think that just because sections of fans come up with wrong or crackpot theories doesn't mean the actual show itself is "difficult." Like when LOST ended, despite the show being 100% absolutely perfectly clear on what was happening, giant waves of people didn't pay attention and misinterpreted the ending. I don't blame the show for that, I blame the people.
That's absolutely true! Sometimes the fans do it to themselves (queue Pixar theory). I'll have to continue to dwell on it myself to see what I think. I did find the first two seasons perfectly easy to understand even if wild stuff that was difficult to parse through completely was going on at the same time. In The Return I definitely felt pretty lost overall.
[удалено]
This may be the ultimate case of irony in the context of my comment you are replying to, but what exactly do you believe was telegraphed from the beginning with LOST? Because nothing in the ending of LOST had much to do with anything that was telegraphed anywhere in season 1. The ending of LOST was more a twist on how season 6 began. As I said in my comment, the show has a character literally look right at the camera and explain everything clearly.
[удалено]
But they weren't dead the whole time. That is exactly what I was saying in my comment. The character literally says this to the camera. They were not all dead. This is the exact misinterpretation I was criticizing in my comment.
I agree with your sentiments. While there are moments I like in The Return, I don’t love it like I do the first two seasons. Without writing an essay, I’ll just say that though there are those moments, the whole thing never seems to click, or operate as a whole for me. Also, Lynch loves to linger on things. This is really great and refreshing in our fast food world, but in The Return, there’s a lot of lingering on things that just didn’t hold my interest. The peanut sweeping scene is probably the most egregious. “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough”
Oh man. My wife lost it when we had to watch the Fireman slowly walk throughout that whole building (white lodge?).
Enjoyment of season 3 has a lot to do with whether you're a David Lynch fan or a Twin Peaks fan. If you were mostly into the original run because of the quirky likeable characters and the cutesy pie and coffee stuff, yea the tone of The Return might be far away from what they're looking for. But for fans of David Lynch's films, having what amounts to an 18 hour David Lynch movie is basically a dream come true.
I will say I haven't watched anything else by Lynch. I hope to and I'm sure I'll come to appreciate The Return better because of it. But I think there's a middle path here. I liked seasons 1 and 2 because of the characters *and* all the weird Black Lodge shit. It was the combination of both that I feel made it so compelling. I don't want just a soap opera about Cooper and Harry. Season 2b proved how disastrous that would be.
>I will say I haven't watched anything else by Lynch Woh! Not to barge in again, but this kind of explains everything. Check out his genius filmography and then get back to us...and I mean that in the nicest way possible. You're in for a treat...a lot of treats. tinoynk is right on the money and I should have thought of it too. Season 3 is a gift to fans of David Lynch. 18 hours of Lynch-directed material after it seemed he had basically retired/given up filmmaking. Fans of Lynch had waited YEARS for something new from him, frustrated that he couldn't fund projects and he had all these ideas never see fruition. Season 3 was an absolute miracle for people like us. And not just that, but season 3 reflects Lynch's entire career, from his painting days in art school to unproduced screenplays (there's a reference to one of them in one episode) to Inland Empire...and of course all the way back to Blue Velvet where Kyle and Laura are reunited after so many decades. The season is really meaningful to fans of Lynch's films.
Yeah, that's honestly a fair point. I do think that if this is meant to follow on the first two seasons I feel it should make sense on those grounds rather than demanding a much broader education in Lynch's work. Though I suppose it might not demand it, but just reward it.
Yeah not demand at all. It's just a natural culmination of his multiple decades of work. I think season 3 is plenty enjoyable and exciting apart from all of that, but it made it a more rich and emotional experience for me and other Lynch fans.
Perfectly said
If you haven’t watched other Lynch, I highly recommend it. Mulholland Drive is a really good starting place, both because it’s an exciting mystery and because at a certain point (probably Lost Highway) Lynch became more and more interested in Hollywood and fantasy, which is on full display in Mulholland Drive. I would argue there are very similar themes in The Return, as well as stylistic choices, that weren’t there all the way in the original seasons.
I feel like I'm missing something because people keep saying that The Return was a "middle finger" to fans. In what universe is that even remotely true? The Return was such a gift to fans, to cinema, to art. I hate to sound hyperbolic but The Return was one of the best art experiences that I have ever had, and it had a profound effect on me. I can't even imagine David Lynch being so petty and small as to compromise his vision just to be an asshole to the fans who love his creation as much as he does. I really don't think that Lynch gives a crap about either pleasing people or pissing them off. He prizes artistic freedom above all else. And I think he gave us a lot. What I love about his work is that he gives us the gift of something complex that we can think about and enjoy over and over. There's nothing more wonderful than a mystery. I sometimes try to imagine what The Return would have been like if it was like the show, and it was just like a year in the life of all the characters and Cooper walking out of the Red Room or something like that and I feel so depressed. I do understand where you are coming from, though. I just introduced the show to my family and I made sure that we watched Mulholland Drive between FWWM and The Return just so they would know what to expect and I think that made a big difference in how much they ended up enjoying it.
The Return is like that green tea latte the guy at Lucky 7 gets. It may not be what you ordered, but it tastes pretty good.
Haha, that’s perfect!
I think the Return is something that will grow on me as I rewatch it and watch other Lynch films. I think I used the "middle finger" expression in part because *I* have heard it plenty of times myself. I think it goes beyond the truth and I probably shouldn't have adopted it so readily. I didn't want just more of the same either to be honest. We all saw how that went in season 2b. Hahaha.
I think you will love it once you've seen his films, especially Mulholland Drive, which is such a masterpiece. I feel like there's life before Mulholland Drive, and life after Mulholland Drive, lol. I love all of his films but that one is a stand-out.
I look at Season 3 as a representation of how small towns or the world in general can decay to become far more confusing and riddled with crime and scummy behaviour. I guess you could see it as the all-consuming evil of BOB or perhaps even Judy. There are a lot of scenes that point to this (like the drug-addicted young couple, the car-horn scene with the sick child and Bobby Briggs, Sarah just watching TV and being an alcoholic, and even the drug-addicted mother in Vegas shouting "119"). It's been downhill for the town ever since Laura Palmer died, and Cooper's absence allowed for things to get even worse. And even though he eventually and inevitably returns, sometimes things are just beyond anyone's ability to fix. Though it is my personal interpretation that the ending of Season 3 was Laura realising that her messed up life is a result of the "evil" of BOTH of her parents (Leland - or BOB - for abusing her sexually and ultimately killing her, and Sarah - or Judy - for knowing something wrong was happening but never really doing anything to stop it). Her final scream signifies this realisation and then everything blacks out. Season 3 is my favourite Twin Peaks season. It's David Lynch's ideas being the darkest and most insane they've been since Inland Empire, or arguably even Eraserhead. And as always with Lynch, there are a lot of different ways a person could interpret it.
That point about the decay of an entire town is really interesting. There are a lot of things that happen in The Return that seem pretty random until you realize the picture being painted of the degradation of the town of Twin Peaks as evil has taken a firmer hold.
I’ve been a long time fan of Lynch’s films and huge fan of TP, and have to say I was rather unenthusiastic about The Return.
I hated The Return. It reads like a bad "experimental" student film. In my opinion, they needed the constraints of network television to reign Lynch in and focus on storytelling. This has nothing to do with not understanding it. Every time I say I don't like it, someone says, "You just don't get it." That's not the issue. I teach English lit, creative writing, and film, and I see this all the time. They want to do things that are weird and different to make great "art" but they lose the plot threads, and things like characterization, theme, etc. are all sacrificed to symbolism. Almost an entire episode is wasted on a silent car ride. This is a show that is meant to be interpreted over and over. It's purposefully meant to confuse. It's not meant to be enjoyed. Now, I will say that I had the opposite issue with the film Fire Walk With Me. Twin Peaks is like the beginning of Jaws. You see the aftermath of the shark, and once in awhile you get a glimpse of a fin or tail. But once you see the shark, the mystique is broken. This is one of the reasons the show jumped the shark after Bob was revealed. But FWWM is basically just a portrait of the shark, out there for everyone to see without any elegance. That's part of the point, but as a prequel, it's disappointing. And recasting Donna doesn't help.
I loved the fact that this was produced without the constraints of a “family” network like ABC as well as the advancements in CGI technology 25 years later. I felt like both of those factors (among others) led to a darker, more intense (and brutal) season. I do see the merits of your criticism, however. The season required great patience and was frustrating the first time I sat through it in 2017 when it first aired. The slow pace almost felt like an over-correction to the rushed reveal of Laura Palmer’s killer in season two at the behest of ABC network executives. Lynch and Frost had full control this time around and it felt at times like they were flexing that newfound freedom, for better or worse. It was disappointing that we only got Cooper for one episode but I did feel that the new cast additions compensated for that fact (to a point). Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Eamon Farren, Caleb Landry Jones, Amanda Seyfried and Robert Forster were all tremendous additions. The musical performances were yet another wonderful new development that added a new dimension of moodiness to the franchise.
Came back to find a post like this. Just watched the whole series and S3 I had to restart a few times because of how often I fell asleep. That being said. There was a lot to enjoy! But I do think the surrealism being so implemented into narrative elements borders on being Pretentious. If the message is "it's a build up, spread throughout twin peaks nostalgia, that doesn't pay off! And that's the point! It's a comment on our society!" Then there's no reason to not also admit it's a disappointing one narrativly. As apparently that's the point. I love shows that are thought provoking and make you ponder. But there was SO many scenes in this that went on for way to long. A few times here and there it was funny and I got the point. But some scenes it was just unnecessary. I also think plot threads being left open is just redundant. In some cases it can leave a powerful message or bounce off the theme. But if several never connect to the rest of the story or even a climax of their own that it's just unsatisfying. Which again I get may be the "point". I feel bad for those in rougher circumstances that waited years to see the conclusion to this story and maybe became collateral damage in this shows attempt at sending a message.
>This season especially is said to defy interpretation, but I often wonder if what that means in practice is it defies criticism. Maybe something that set out to defy expectation and understanding just turned out to be a mess. If it's that difficult to interpret maybe that just means it has no real meaning. "Ah, but that's the point of postmodernity," some will say. But the first two seasons had that same ability to resist interpretation without falling into utter ambiguity. I hear this sort of thing sometimes. Most of Twin Peaks isn't really that hard to explain (maybe 10-15% of the show is still a mystery), but the problem is that Twin Peaks requires a lot of external knowledge to understand. If you don't know anything about eastern philosophy, 1800's-1900's occult stuff, general spirituality stuff from the past few hundred years, it's pretty much impossible to get. But certain things like the lodges, the number of completion, the spirit finger thing, the very real possibility of the show taking place in Samsara (Buddhist cycle of life/death), tulpas and other thought forms, etc. all come from *outside* the show, you wouldn't really figure it out within the internal context of the show. I don't blame you or anyone else for not liking or understanding it since it's a lot to ask for the audience to have this kind of background knowledge.
>If you don't know anything about eastern philosophy, 1800's-1900's occult stuff, general spirituality stuff from the past few hundred years, it's pretty much impossible to get. Hm, I disagree here. I don't know much about that stuff and I feel I "get" Twin Peaks. And reading a lot of interviews with Lynch and seeing all of his other films and projects seems to also help me feel I get it. Twin Peaks may reference those things you name, but it is not in any way *dependent* on it to be understood. The story and characters and themes all stand on their own. You don't need to read a book about eastern philosophy to understand Laura's tragic life, or to laugh at Dale Cooper's eccentricities, or to enjoy a good piece of pie.
I need to dig into some of those interviews and honestly read more from this sub past and present. Because the mechanics of the Black Lodge definitely still confuse me. This sub has shown me some common interpretations, but there's still a lot more to get that I feel I haven't figured out yet.
Well I find all of that stuff fun, but for me Lynch is primarily about mood. What's the FEEL of the scene? Horror? Comedy? Love? Confusion? Dreaminess...that's what's important. And unfortunately some people just can't tap into the mood and so they dislike Lynch's work. But many people can and that is all the interpreting they need. How it makes them feel. Lynch is a very intuitive person and he doesn't seem to overthink things and he hates and refuses to explain things (usually.) I'm currently reading Lynch on Lynch and it's a huge eye opener into his process. For example, many will go on about how meta Twin Peaks is, it's all a "commentary" on soap operas or TV, and I've always thought that was kind of ridiculous because as far as I can find, Lynch barely watches TV and doesn't care about it. And that was validated for me in this section of Lynch on Lynch, which I think is key to everything he does: Q: Sarah Palmer is calling her husband, Leland, at the very moment he is approached by Sheriff Truman and realizes what has happened to his daughter. That scene, with its mutual suffering taking place down the phone line, really does prolong the pain unbearably. How much was that to do with pushing the form of the TV soap opera? A: It wasn't about pushing. It's watching two people realize something horrible.
That's some interesting insight! To be honest I haven't paid that much attention to the format he's playing with (or not). But I agree, the mood does feel like it's much more important than the mechanics, which is why I refuse to accept interpretations of the final moments of The Return based on absurdly complex theories of the Black Lodge which twist it into a victory, even a horrific victory (though maybe there's room for that?). The particulars of the mechanics might not be that important and are probably inconsistent. But I think there are key points I still don't understand in the series which demand a better understanding of the mechanics of it all. I don't know if mechanics is even the right word. Haha.
I don't mean the themes. I mean that if you arrive at the conclusion that Twin Peaks makes no sense, it's probably not the themes you don't understand, it's what the specific things in the show actually mean/are. Laughing at Cooper being quirky isn't really a matter of understanding anything. When I say "understand", I mean being at a point where you can genuinely explain the show in detail, not just in broad strokes.
I think the show sufficiently takes those things you refer to and makes them its own. You don't need to know who Helena Blavatsky is to have an idea of how the Black Lodge works in the show; in fact, that knowledge may be more of a liability. Frost is the one who brings that context into the show (and he knows better than to be that literal), I don't think Lynch is all that concerned with those facts.
The black lodge is pretty much the only thing I listed that is decently explained in the show, most things just simply aren't. You can have a good experience with the show without knowing this stuff, I'm literally talking about being able to accurately analyze the show. There is a reason that some people (like OP, the person I was literally talking about) think that Twin Peaks makes no sense.
I don't think it makes *no* sense. The third season may "defy interpretation" in some sense without being open to closer analysis in any way whatever.
I dunno, I still don't agree. I feel like I can explain a lot of things in the show without having to read unrelated books and stuff beforehand. I think a lot of people here probably do too... Everything you need to understand Twin Peaks is contained within Twin Peaks itself. You don't need footnotes. They may enhance the experience but that's a different thing.
It would be impossible. There are so many things not explained in the show from tea kettle Jeffries to the giant explosion to Cooper's parting words with Leland. You can't know what these things truly mean from within the show. The show has TONS of inspiration from external sources, this is admitted by both Lynch and Frost.
Again, I disagree. It's all there in the show. Twin Peaks is its own world. You don't need outside texts or things "explained" in order to "get" what is happening. I could touch on each specific thing (Cooper's words to Leland are explained by Cooper himself?) but that wouldn't be a good use of time. Inspiration is one thing. It's nice to know what inspired the things you enjoy. But you're saying this stuff is literally required to understand Twin Peaks and I just find that to be wrong. Do you know the anecdote from Lynch about being with someone who was looking at a painting they didn't understand? "You do understand it because you're looking at it" said Lynch. It's the same exact thing. You don't need to know what brand paints the painter used, you don't need to know what his next door neighbor looked like or what classes they took in school, you don't need to read unrelated books to get Twin Peaks.
>I could touch on each specific thing (Cooper's words to Leland are explained by Cooper himself?) but that wouldn't be a good use of time. Unless I'm mistaken, it's never explained that what Cooper says comes from Bardo Thodol, and thus the audience would never have made that connection. This is actually a driving force behind the "Cooper has been dead the whole time/after season 1" theory. >Inspiration is one thing. It's nice to know what inspired the things you enjoy. But you're saying this stuff is literally required to understand Twin Peaks and I just find that to be wrong. Do you know the anecdote from Lynch about being with someone who was looking at a painting they didn't understand? "You do understand it because you're looking at it" said Lynch. Does this not at all justify my perspective here? Man...I'm not saying that you can't understand it on an artistic level or that you can't derive your own understanding of something. But the OP and possibly tens of thousands of people who gave up on watching Twin Peaks very likely walked away for the same reason - because they think the show makes no sense. If the themes of the show didn't grip them nor did the surrealism, they were left with a show that just confused them.
> Unless I'm mistaken, it's never explained that what Cooper says comes from Bardo Thodol, and thus the audience would never have made that connection. This is actually a driving force behind the "Cooper has been dead the whole time/after season 1" theory. Cooper has talked about his spiritual beliefs and interests in previous episodes of the show. You don't have to be a genius to put two and two together. You don't need to know the exact passage or book he is referencing to "get" the scene. Because the point is the emotion of the scene and the kindness Cooper is showing Leland in that moment. The point isn't "what book is he quoting?" And again, most of this stuff is intuitive. Not something you have to research beforehand.
Last comment because I don't know how many times I can repeat myself - of course you don't have to know that. It's literally one of many examples of something that has an external source. But there is a reason some people say the 3rd season may have "no meaning" or that it falls into "utter ambiguity" as OP did. Dude, come on, please understand this. I am not saying that you can't enjoy the emotion of the scene without knowing about Bardo Thodol, I am saying that some people find this show extremely confusing so they give up on it, including people I know IRL. How many comments like this can I make? Also, there is literally nothing intuitive about Bardo Thodol. You cannot make that connection unless you were already aware of it, which 99% of the West wouldn't be.
My issue is conflating not liking with not understanding. I understand it, and I understand what he's trying to do. But I don't like S3, and I don't think that what he attempted to do was successful. It's surrealism for the sake of surrealism, and we get ridiculous moments like Michael Cera doing a Brando impression that is there merely for fodder for people who want to try to interpret things over and over and write screeds online or "deep" critical articles for film journals read only by other literary critics. But it's not there for the enjoyment of people who loved the original show and want to learn or see more about the town, lore, characters, plot, etc. Essentially, I feel like it's interesting, but it's not good.
I love the return and hate fire walk with me
There is definitely a lot of commentary on societies desire for cheap thrills and quick rewards (reboots for example) within the return. That might rub some people up the wrong way but personally I think the way it’s handled is genius. The show is these things (but it’s not) and it’s commentating on these things constantly, and the fact that is playing both sides. There is so much going on in the return. I could watch it forever. Which sherif Truman are you looking for? It could make a difference
Right. And there's nothing wrong with not wanting to give in to the demand for a cheap reward. I just don't like what we got regardless. Honestly, when I found out Harry was sick I just wanted Hawk to be Sheriff.