To answer your question - "Why did they create this ending?" - I think there are many possibilities, including a desire to nip TP nostalgia. To prove a point that you can 'never go home again.' But life has taught me that in fact you CAN go home again. No, it's not exactly the same, but good things from the past can be reclaimed and brought into the present.
How crazy would it have been to save Laura Palmer from being murdered and grow to happy adulthood against all odds? Again, I think that's more radical than what was offered.
Thanks for much food for thought, Roberto. I've singled out only the last portion of your post, need some time to chew on it and produce a more thoughtful and thorough reply soon. In the meantime, pardon me for the unfiltered, "thinking out loud" reflection here...
I like your idea that Lynch would have achieved something less characteristically Lynchian had he eschewed the WTF ending ... although I wonder if it would have been read by audiences/critics as radically experimental or merely a conventional ending to an unconventional story... For that matter, I wonder if Lynch already played his meta- "surprise straight-ahead film" card with The Straight Story.
Your observations have led me to consider more carefully whether or not the "nostalgia critique" angle I've posited really has legs to stand on.... Perhaps Lynch fans like me are getting a different kind of nostalgia service ...
I'll never forget hearing Patricia Arquette whisper "You'll ... never ... have ... me!" or Laura Harring's terrifyingly abrupt vanishing... Or Grace Zibriskie's scariest line ever ("Bru-tal f*ck-ing mur-der!") ...
Not sure what this tells me ... Other than, perhaps, that those were exhilarating experiences that left an indelible impression, one that has stayed with me like little else I've ever seen in a movie theater.
The Return did the same, repeatedly (Parts 3, 4,. 9 and 18 were unlike anything I could have imagined) but maybe that says more about me than it does about Lynch, Frost, or The Return.
What I'm sure of, at very least, is that I haven't seen anything this compelling or thought provoking in a looong while.
I think I may start a topic called: "What's better than Twin Peaks: The Return?"
I've started a loosely chronological survey of Hitchcock's films that should keep me occupied until the post-Return grief subsides...
But what I actually should probably do is give up on TV altogether and actually start reading seriously again...
"If you liked Dougie Jones and family.... .... you'll love Don DeLilllo's White Noise!"
"If you liked Laura Palmer and Family... ... you'll love Henry James .... or Ibsen's Ghosts!"
etc., like an Amazon bot.
Without doubt, there are individual moments and extended scenes throughout TP season 3 that are seared into my head and will just keep reverberating in my unconscious. I feel like Kubrick is the only other director whose work speaks to me this way.
The work is absolutely thought-provoking and refreshing in its relentless approach. I looked forward to watching it every week and obsessed over its details like many others here. I can't say the ride wasn't great.
The moments you site with Arquette & Harring definitely bore down straight into the soul. Those movies are exceptional.
Iron Fist Cockney Teen didn't leave an indelible impression?
I mean his punches were like totally POWERFUL!
I can't tell whether I'm the butt of the joke here, or Lynch/Frost, or Freddie Sykes. But, yes, his fists were as powerful as your wit, to be sure. : )
Freddie was the butt of the joke here...sorry about that...lol.
Fire walk with