Lynch's comments regarding Audrey could be the key here. Maybe there is no definitive story, point, resolution or ending, and the whole of it is a collection of stuff to create an emotional and/or cognitive response in the viewer. A true non-linear "story" that doesn't actually do anything in the traditional sense of story. It's a popular approach in music and other arts, so why not a tv show?
We keep coming up with ideas to make the whole thing hang together, which is a reasonable idea, since some individual sections make sense on their own. What if the whole thing doesn't hang together, and deliberately so?
I admit I have no idea if this is true but think it's worth considering.
Lynch's comments regarding Audrey could be the key here. Maybe there is no definitive story, point, resolution or ending, and the whole of it is a collection of stuff to create an emotional and/or cognitive response in the viewer. A true non-linear "story" that doesn't actually do anything in the traditional sense of story. It's a popular approach in music and other arts, so why not a tv show?
We keep coming up with ideas to make the whole thing hang together, which is a reasonable idea, since some individual sections make sense on their own. What if the whole thing doesn't hang together, and deliberately so?
I admit I have no idea if this is true but think it's worth considering.
I think my life has taught me that it doesn't all hang together. Threads left dangling.
I laughed when Carrie / Laura screamed and it cut to black. The end was so whacked out. I loved the series for that moment alone. I don't think anyone outside of the know could have or did predict how it would end. I've loved reading all the theories, and have let them sit together alongside what's in your post above, Sam. What if.
As the article https://25yearslatersite.com/2017/09/10/lessons-of-lynch-embrace-ambiguity-and-relish-your-writerly-role/ suggests, the ambiguity is divine in so many ways. It, like Twin Peaks when it stopped 25+ years ago carries on. Who knows where Audrey is. She's stuck somewhere. We the participants decide. What a gift that is.
🙂
You know what, Sam, I actually think you've hit the nail right on the head. And I think we should have been expecting this all along.
I mean, look at the episodes Lynch was involved with in seasons 1 and 2. He put stuff in there just because he liked the look of it. Then the other writers had to somehow weave it into the story.
For example, take the original red room scene which appeared in Cooper's dream but was actually originally filmed as part of the closed ending for the European movie version of the pilot episode. I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually meant to mean anything logically. Lynch just liked the red curtains, the dancing dwarf, the backwards talking, the music. He probably just thought it was funny.
Or the last episode of season 2. If you've read the script, all the red room stuff was written totally differently. Lynch re-wrote it (uncredited) just before filming it. He just wanted to fill it with as much crazy stuff as possible.
Even with Mulholland Drive, the only reason it is the way it is, is because it didn't get picked up for a series. It was meant to be a pilot, so Lynch was setting up all these crazy plot points so he could sit back and let other writers and directors struggle to make sense of it all. But it didn't get picked up for a series, so he filmed a crazy closed ending to it to turn it into a movie, just like he did with the red room stuff for the European ending of the Twin Peaks pilot.
Lynch has gone on record saying that he believes the artistic process is more important than the end result. He has images and feelings inside him that he wants to put on the screen. Will any of it make sense? He probably doesn't care.
Sam, I think you are correct, but I just can't accept it. It is a natural thing, to expect books and films to tell a story that leads to some kind of result, conclusion, solution. I know many films don't give one definitive ending or solutions for all the mysteries contained within them. But in most cases, viewers leave with a fairly good idea of what was going on.
I think Lynch has taken the "death of the author" idea to an extreme. A creator delivers the material, and once out in the world, others decide it. But people naturally long to know what was the author's intent, what meanings did he attach to what he laid out for us. I simply didn't want to decide this story.
The series looks neither like art for arts sake, nor art mimicking life. I have moved on to other interests and, though I love the whole series, I doubt that I will ever watch it again. Just parts of it.
Even if season 4 comes to fruition and Audrey's fate revealed, new questions will be raised without any answer. That's about the only thing we can predict with certainty. I'd love to have resolution for the main stories and characters, but I don't see it happening even if TP runs for another 10 seasons.
Sam, I think you are correct, but I just can't accept it. It is a natural thing, to expect books and films to tell a story that leads to some kind of result, conclusion, solution. I know many films don't give one definitive ending or solutions for all the mysteries contained within them. But in most cases, viewers leave with a fairly good idea of what was going on.
I think Lynch has taken the "death of the author" idea to an extreme. A creator delivers the material, and once out in the world, others decide it. But people naturally long to know what was the author's intent, what meanings did he attach to what he laid out for us. I simply didn't want to decide this story.
The series looks neither like art for arts sake, nor art mimicking life. I have moved on to other interests and, though I love the whole series, I doubt that I will ever watch it again. Just parts of it.
Same here. I know that I shouldn't expect a "typical" ending from Lynch, but part of me still does. That is why even as I don't think it's going to happen, a part of me still believes - or wants to believe - that we will eventually get a proper closure for Cooper, Audrey, Laura and the rest.
Yes, I can draw or make up my own conclusion about what happened to Audrey, make it a happy one even. But I'd rather know the truth no matter how it turns out to be.
(original picture (c) Don Detrick)
Thanks all for the replies.
I haven't given up thinking about a possible resolution to the story, as with Damien's post above. I'm an "answers, not mysteries" sort of guy. Funny thing, though, I don't think I'd feel cheated if there isn't an answer, although most surrealist work does have some kind of answer in there, even if it's a very personal one, such as many of Dali's paintings.
laughingatsky's remark about Lynch exploring the creative process may be the one, though; perhaps that's what we're getting here.
I like Colin's view; it's true about life, so why not a tv show? Stuff happens and it doesn't always - or even often - make sense.
Jocelyn - Yup, it's natural to expect something of a conclusion to a story. Maybe though, this isn't a story. It has story like elements that sometimes link together but maybe the whole is, as laughingatsky mentioned, the result of a creative process, an end in itself not necessarily in line with the conventions of story telling.
I'm still undecided. By that I mean undecided about the who/what/why/where. As a thing to watch and enjoy, whatever it may be, I've enjoyed it and will watch again. Maybe not tomorrow, though.
Also, Lynch was originally a painter, and he said he originally got into film making because he wanted to make paintings that move. And have you seen his paintings?
The ending I have got from Twin Peaks is that Cooper managed to kill 2 birds with one stone i.e. Cooper managed to kill Judy by destroying the electricity in her house and save Laura at the same time by taking the stone (Carrie Page/Laura/orb/essence) to her family house and then allowing her to remember who she was after hearing her mother shout Laura and then herself screaming to destroy Judy and wake up from her dream. Well that is my interpretation of the ending.
I enjoyed every minute of the show, even the action-packed sweep scene 😉 If not all the question are answered, i don't care. It was a hell of a ride and both the show and forum gave me a lot of fun for months. After the serie ended i read a lot and came to a conclusion which fits for me. If it's right or wrong doesn't mattter. when i decide in a couple of months to change my view about the theory it's also fine. Enjoy the scenes, the funny parts, the creepy scenes and all those wonderful characters, it is what it is... 😉
Lynch's comments regarding Audrey could be the key here. Maybe there is no definitive story, point, resolution or ending, and the whole of it is a collection of stuff to create an emotional and/or cognitive response in the viewer. A true non-linear "story" that doesn't actually do anything in the traditional sense of story. It's a popular approach in music and other arts, so why not a tv show?
We keep coming up with ideas to make the whole thing hang together, which is a reasonable idea, since some individual sections make sense on their own. What if the whole thing doesn't hang together, and deliberately so?
Bingo. If there is a "definitive story, point, resolution or ending," Lynch did a piss-poor job of conveying it.
Which is why you see a never-ending, near-infinite stream of new theories right here on this very Forum.
But once again, why would anyone have ever expected anything different? It's Lynch! 😉
- /< /\ /> -
Yeah, people keep trying to figure it out, like it's a real crime with real clues, and with a real answer hidden somewhere. People are trying to find out what the "real" meaning behind it is, but all we have to do is look at the creator of it. He obviously doesn't want to make stuff that has a definitive meaning to it. If his films had clear meanings, he probably wouldn't respond to theories by saying that people can interpret them however they want. He would probably respond with: "No, that's wrong, it means this..." He refuses to explain his films to other people because he doesn't understand them enough himself.
I mean, he didn't even read Mark's book. If he'd wanted to make sense of it all himself, he'd have read that book to find out all the details. But he didn't, because he just wants it to be a crazy series of powerful dream imagery.
It's not all lynch though, remember. Frost wrote his parts, Lynch wrote his.
I think there is probably a lot of unspoken, unexplained story that is important to the backstory (if you want to know it) but which we'll never know about (unless there's a new season or Frost mentions these story elements in his new book).
A lot of it was probably removed by lynch and replaced with the more surreal, questioning elements. But a writer can't really write a story without knowing the history of the characters and their motivations. Frost has those answers. I'm sure of it. But whether they're important to frost and Lynch's creation is another matter.
I'm happy without answers because I enjoyed the series. I'd definitely take any that are going though 😀
Thanks for a wonderful thread, Sam, and thanks to all for some great reflections. I think this is the most insightful postmortem (pun intended) discussion of the The Return (post 17/18) that we've seen yet.
Sam and Joceyln, I think you're onto something about Lynch and Frost bending the edges or pushing at the boundaries of what would still be recognizable as TV "storytelling" (thanks, Jocelyn, for introducing the notion of the extreme "death of the author" to which I would introduce, as a corollary, Michel de Certeau's "textual poachers," the participatory culture of fan communities, etc.)
This strikes me as a more artistically ambitious approach to reimagining TV narrative than the broadening (or slackening, or neglecting) of narrative that has prevailed in the era of "reality TV," wherein drama-- in the traditional, Freytag's pyramid sense-- is exchanged for something that tells the same story, in different circumstances, season after season (c.f. the "Punch and Judy" thread in the Part 17/18 forum)... Now, I realize this runs afoul of the other prevailing idea of "Peak TV," or "prestige TV" or what have you... I just am not sure that so-called "prestige TV" is all that artistically compelling or any more experimental than a certain segment of Hollywood films of the past 25 years have been... (Here, I'm remembering Groovy Llama Fan's politely remonstrating me for conflating "arthouse" film culture--international, independent, and largely neglected in the U.S.-- with U.S. wide-release "arty" or art-ish film...)
What I find particularly interesting is the possibility that Lynch and Frost have reminded us that "weird is the new normal" has become naturalized such that audiences have forgotten what 'weird" really feels like ... In my view, the two have managed to thematize (or, at least, to formally explore) a sort of "reality TV"-like stasis in The Return, incorporating it back into what we are prompted, initially, to perceive as traditional drama... something they accomplish, IMO, by fragmenting narrative, calling into question the veracity of his camera's gaze, introducing the possible/probable psychosis of more than one of his original protagonists and inviting/enticing the viewer to identify multiple/parallel/cyclical timelines-- or, as many here have chosen to believe, the possibility of the coexistence of parallel/alternate realities...
Yet, by empowering the audience to "finish the story," to close or resolve what is ambiguous or internally contradictory, I suspect Lynch and Frost are also aiming to purposefully frustrate such efforts, perhaps a means of ultimately calling into question just how important TV audiences, fan cultures, etc. really are... The feeling of empowerment on the part of the viewer proves illusory and unsatisfying (at least for this viewer...) It's a wildly anti-social position for Lynch to take at the end of his career, IMO... But I think Ric is right in pointing out that "Lynch will be Lynch," to the last...
It's all pretty uncomfortable as television, but pretty impressive, IMO, as a quasi-performance-art subversion of television. Narrative, identification with characters, etc. proves ephemeral, not unlike.... er... human life. Stable "meaning," whether in a text or in one's life, is elusive and all-too-often seems impossible-- the absurdist's dilemma?
Either a cynical-- or a serenely meditative-- perspective, I reckon.
Fire walk with