What I love about DL films (Twin Peaks and Part 8 included) is they can easily replace some lecture, essay, maybe even a book about philosophy, culture, religion, human nature but instead of just writing it, David uses his imagination to translate it into cinematic language. Plus he doesn't forget about traditional story, plot, mystery, intrigue and characters, he's got this skill to connect these two major ingredients of his films into one piece of art where there' s balance of them. So I never treated all the Lodges sequences and this season' s interdimensional journeys as some unnecessary bullshit that drags us away from Audrey and cherry pies.. No never! These are very important and unique scenes to enjoy and to try to understand as much of them as possible. Like Dougie Coop said: MAKE SENSE OF IT.
"violent, profane, directionless, cold and indulgent"
Applies to just about any society, ever.
The characters you have empathy for/with are still there, more or less but the focus of the show has widened. There's plenty of love in the show, too. Andy, Lucy and their son, for example, are as loving as it gets. Truman obviously loves his wife because he deals with her problems in a calm and reasonable way. Janey-E loves Dougie despite his failings, loves Sonny Jim and wants the best for him, and Sonny Jim loves his parents. There are more examples if you care to look. Hawk obviously cares deeply about Margaret, as a close friend, not just as a connection to the supernatural.
Yes, there are cold and frightening things but this is Twin Peaks, not The Love Boat.
Now the dust's settled a bit and I've had a sleep on it I'm getting more and more out of this episode. It's a lot more straightforward than it may appear, too. A bit odd, maybe, but pretty straightforward.
I think everyone agrees the bomb did something which gave rise to Bob. In return, the Giant created Laura.
I doubt the mutant insect/froggy thing in the young lady is anything good; Laura was shown in gold, which is traditionally a symbol of purity, whereas the mutant was made to look repulsive and altogether bad news.
A concept alien to me - I'm an atheist - but I wondered if the Giant is God, or at least a god. If he is God, in the Judeo/Christian/Islam sense, that would explain why his name is now a series of question marks. If that's so, then my understanding of things so far is:
Things on earth have existed in a sort of balance for a long time. There's good and evil but, by and large, good holds things together. The bomb changes all that and the potential for massive evil becomes an actuality. Bob is unleashed in order to take advantage of this and in return, God creates Laura as a way of restoring the balance. He may have also created others (Cooper?) to help things along.
Gordon Cole may also be an agent of God, since he seems to have a lot of idea about what's happening, more so than most, including Cooper's closest allies in the Bureau, Diane and Albert.
Possibly, in the supernatural realm, there's some sort of truce, or diplomatic immunity which allows all the different players to roam around in the lodges without - for the most part - coming to harm. Bob changes all that and begins attacking anything and anyone in his way.
As for the evolved Arm, I think it's a joke at the expense of Anderson. I think it's a nerve, as in "You have a nerve".
SamXTherapy That's just wonderful what you wrote, I agree 100%!
Wanted to add that this nuclear explosion escalated things, the evil acts. BOB says: I have the fury of my own momentum. I think thanks to Part 8 I finally understood that sentence.
To those claiming that episode 8's long abstract sequences were too long and not "entertaining," I have to say that I watched them all on the edge of my seat. I thought this episode was incredibly beautiful and is without question the work of a master film maker who has devoted his life to saying something beyond description with light and sound. That slow motion observation of humanity's first split atom and its subsequent chain reaction, brilliantly scored with Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, was literally breath taking and, again, I couldn't take my eyes off of it and its storm of terrible chaos and violence on the brink of nonexistence. As others have said, this episode was not absurd or without meaning or narrative, but actually very conventionally narrative and it hinted at or outright disclosed much of the underlying mystery of the Twin Peaks mythology. The rest of the season couldn't possibly be the same because this was a singular event in this series and in television. There are other examples of television's attempt to process the fear and shame surrounding the grotesque hubris of human beings in seeking to tear apart the very fabric of mater; I haven't seen any press in this deep to the evil consequences of that act without falling victim to cliched sentimentality and moralization.
A kiss is a kiss is a kiss, even if it is just one. Once offered, and once accepted, the connection is made and we are never the same again. The kiss opens a door, and something comes in. No blame. It's our fate, and we live in an endless and many layered web of forces seeking to cause harm and to offer comfort and help. We are always already doomed, and we are always already redeemed.
Isn't it too dreamy?
Nicely put, daviddemello.
I don't necessarily agree with it on a "real life" level; I believe in a random, mechanistic universe, but certainly within the framework of the Twin Peaks narrative, it holds together.
Going back to the episode itself, I feel as though the curtain has just come down on Act One. There is - to me, at any rate - a sense of completeness about everything that's happened so far. Characters are established, things are in motion and the stage is set for the next part.
The more I think of the way the episode played out after NIN appeared and DoppelCoop was revived, it seems like a very detailed, very carefully illustrated graphic novel. Sometimes, people forget that visuals can tell a story just as much as dialogue, sometimes even more so because they strike at a deeper, more primitive level than language. Even if you were to watch that entire sequence without any context, never knowing it was part of Twin Peaks, you'd know there was something extremely disturbing and powerful happening.
The burned out hobos wandering about remind me of nothing so much as the following from Yeats' "Second Coming":
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I've never understood people who dismiss any type of incomplete view of entertainment, such as Season 3, because they don't know what something means or where it's going? What's worse than not knowing? -- Knowing! You can't criticize the outcome of a football game at halftime. Let the process play out, stop being so impatient, and then render your opinion. Along the way, enjoy the journey with the rest of us.
I doubt there will be another episode like this...if there is it would be toward the end.
The episode didn't make us anymore wiser about anything?
Did you not see BOB being removed from bad Coop, the creation of BOB and the black lodge, the fabrication of Laura to fight BOB and Sarah Palmer as a child?
We honestly learned EVERYTHING this episode.
Indeed, this may be the most important episode of TP since the original pilot.
The only thing I disagree with is that this showed us the creation of the Black Lodge. I think those planes of existence were there long before the events of 1946, according to Frost's Secret History of Twin Peaks and the legends of the Indians in the TP area, there had been odd things going on in that forest for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
What we were shown is the that the explosion of the first atomic bomb broke the barriers that separated our mundane plane from the plane where the Black/White Lodge lies.
If this was a one off to provide a back story, I dig it.
The 10+ min explosion seen was a bit overdone and drawn out.
The one thing the "don't you get it, this is lynch" people don't get is there a lot of people who are big twin peaks fans first, a lynch fan second. For many, peaks is their favorite show ever, but have no interest in Eraserhead. That's why you see "this wasn't twin peaks" is said about ep 8, bc, well, it isnt.
But like I said, if ep 8 was a odd episode out and the majority of the rest are "normal" (I foresee another ep8 like episode to continue what we saw in ep8) it's all good with me.
The characters you have empathy for/with are still there, more or less but the focus of the show has widened. There's plenty of love in the show, too. Andy, Lucy and their son, for example, are as loving as it gets. Truman obviously loves his wife because he deals with her problems in a calm and reasonable way. Janey-E loves Dougie despite his failings, loves Sonny Jim and wants the best for him, and Sonny Jim loves his parents. There are more examples if you care to look. Hawk obviously cares deeply about Margaret, as a close friend, not just as a connection to the supernatural.
I disagree. Those are all (with the exception of the Janey-E/Dougie narrative) vignettes that have yet to become anything but snapshots; they all feel like cameos. There's no intimacy. The show doesn't dwell long enough on anyone to give the viewer the ability to connect in a significant way. It's an interesting tactic (pulling the viewer in so many directions) to build a story, but one that is, frankly, tedious. Twin Peaks used to feel lived-in; now it feels like mere spectacle.
After viewing this episode I believe that it was the most surreal and provacative hour of TV or film I have ever witnessed and it seemed unlikely that it will ever be topped. Then I thought, hey there's 8 more to go and that's the only chance it COULD ever be bettered.
I have no doubt this journey will include more mind-blowing events but I can see no way the next 8 hours will be on the same plane with this one. That said, Lynch has upped the ante and I think one or both of the final two will be amazing.
If this was a one off to provide a back story, I dig it.
The 10+ min explosion seen was a bit overdone and drawn out.
The one thing the "don't you get it, this is lynch" people don't get is there a lot of people who are big twin peaks fans first, a lynch fan second. For many, peaks is their favorite show ever, but have no interest in Eraserhead. That's why you see "this wasn't twin peaks" is said about ep 8, bc, well, it isnt.
But like I said, if ep 8 was a odd episode out and the majority of the rest are "normal" (I foresee another ep8 like episode to continue what we saw in ep8) it's all good with me.
Dunno how I'd class myself. I enjoyed Elephant Man, Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, FWWM, The original TP shows, and Blue Velvet. Even Dune is - sort of - forgivable, given that it's impossible to get the whole story in one movie. I haven't watched any of Lynch's other stuff but I guess I'll get round to it eventually.
I watch TP, however, because I enjoy it. Not because Lynch and Frost did it - although I admit that's the reason I enjoy it anyhow. See what I mean? If they hadn't done it, it wouldn't be the show we know and love. That aside, I'm loving the whole of the series because it's good.
I'm old enough - and hopefully wise enough - to be critical and open minded about things. If I think something is bad, badly done, or otherwise unappealing to me, I'll say so. Names do not influence me to like and accept without question. I'm 58 and have been a David Bowie fan (not really the right word, since it implies a lack of critical analysis) since I was 12. Never had a problem with saying some of his stuff was terrible, never felt the need to justify what and why I liked a thing.
This Twin Peaks thing, though... well, I enjoyed episode 8 on its own merits, not because I'm a Lynch and/or Frost fan. To be absolutely honest, I really don't give a damn what other people think of it. I do, however, bridle at the suggestion or implication that I'm following blindly.
On balance, I think the series gets better every episode. I reckon the whole Twin Peaks cast and crew got exactly the response they expected from episode 8.
I haven't read many of the posts following the initial post in this thread, but upon reading @EricfromSweden's post I had to respond directly. I'm probably repeating what has already been said, but here it is, in my own words:
Eric, your post makes so many odd assumptions, and your fears aren't grounded on much of anything. There have been so many movies and scenes since Part 8 that have utilized abstract elements in order to tell a story. These aren't things "no one but David Lynch gets". Have you seen 2001: A Space Odyssey? Alongside the dates, times, we are also given contextual clues like the use of Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima for 52 Stringed Instruments", which directly ties into the Manhattan Project.
You ask "where was Mark Frost", Really? We were given specific dates and times that have a direct connection with a historical event. Part 8 is a perfect example of Mark Frost's interest in history and how the mythology of Twin Peaks interacts with it.
No cinematic storytelling? Why do you assume that? Because you didn't understand it? That's fine, but don't assume because you didn't understand something, that means there's nothing to it. Why not ask questions? How does this not compel you to seek out answers upon rewatch?
There was so much revealed in Part 8:
- Coop was shot and Bob was removed from him.
- The genesis of the Black Lodge.
- A deeper understanding of who the Woodsmen are.
- The nod to the Convenience Store in Fire Walk With Me.
- The possible eternal presence of Laura Palmer and what she represents.
- The philosophical implication that Bob is not an alien, he is not a scapegoat, but is born from human depravity and is fueled by it. I'm aware this is my interpretation, and not necessarily cannon.
- Not to mention the comic relief when Nine Inch Nails were referred to as "The Nine Inch Nails".
Also, why would you be worried that all the remaining Parts would be like this episode? Based on everything Lynch has created, whether you are a fan or not, you would be hard-pressed to find something that is random. He might rely more on intuition and obfuscate linear logic, but from what I have seen there is always a clear purpose. Part 8 is no different: following the removal of Bob from DoppleCoop, we are confronted with the Woodsmen, now plural, and are then taken back in time to provide further clarification as to how old these spirits we have been watching for 7 hours are, and where they come from.
Lastly, your whole argument and reaction, seems to be based on Lynch taking care of the viewers. I believe that Lynch could care less about that. All he cares about is following the story and exploring that story honestly, no matter where it takes him. Mark Frost is definitely present and is grounding Lynch. Although Twin Peaks the Return has been abstract, horrifying and unrelenting, the purpose has always been clear, and we have been getting more answers than anyone could ever have hoped for. This is not a nostalgia trip. Thank Bob!
In my opinion, if what we saw in Episode 8 will turn out to be just a one time thing, then my guess is that this episode will be for Twin Peaks fans, what Episode 1 of the Star Wars saga is for the SW fans. Namely an episode nobody talks about. Everybody just goes around pretending it never happened. Even though it tells the very important background story.
From my perspective, we didn't get any answers to anyting. How could we? All I've read so far is just people's own interpretations. And I guess that was the purpose. Otherwise the episode wouldn't have been done like that.
I just sat there, one heavy sigh after another, thinking "will this ever end?". Of course, I was able to sneak peak through the entire episode, fast forwarding using the time marker on the player, but I did sit through it all incase I would miss something.
I do believe I read or heard somewhere in the early 90's that the original idea for Twin Peaks was a "surreal soap opera". If that is true, than the original "soap opera feel" was intentional. That feel is now gone. I sure miss it.
I do think David Lynch is an expert in making good "soap opera scenes", but his speciality is making creepy dialogue scenes, and he is very good at scaring us with very simple means. I loved FWWM, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway. And I loved the original TP too. But Episode 8 of The Return is something I just want to put behind me.
I got angry because I felt I had waited long enough when it came to the faith of William Hasting, the murder of his wife with gun from their laywer George, etc. I had hoped so bad that we would get back to that plotline in Episode 8, but noooooooooooooo. Instead I got, explosions, the Giant, and that cream shit coming out of the "White Alien/Mother" whit a bubble carrying the face of Bob, etc. It felt just so meaningless (even though I know there must be some kind of meaning to it).
Still, it is very interesting to read all your views on this matter. I'm just hoping we will find out more about Ruth Davenport soon, who she was and why she was murdered the way she was.
Last, but not least, thank you Google Translate. English is not my native tounge, so I'm finding it hard to fully express myself in English some times. But I think you all got my feelings about this perfectly fine.
The characters you have empathy for/with are still there, more or less but the focus of the show has widened. There's plenty of love in the show, too. Andy, Lucy and their son, for example, are as loving as it gets. Truman obviously loves his wife because he deals with her problems in a calm and reasonable way. Janey-E loves Dougie despite his failings, loves Sonny Jim and wants the best for him, and Sonny Jim loves his parents. There are more examples if you care to look. Hawk obviously cares deeply about Margaret, as a close friend, not just as a connection to the supernatural.
I disagree. Those are all (with the exception of the Janey-E/Dougie narrative) vignettes that have yet to become anything but snapshots; they all feel like cameos. There's no intimacy. The show doesn't dwell long enough on anyone to give the viewer the ability to connect in a significant way. It's an interesting tactic (pulling the viewer in so many directions) to build a story, but one that is, frankly, tedious. Twin Peaks used to feel lived-in; now it feels like mere spectacle.
So, don't watch it. Nobody's holding a gun to your head.
All I was saying was, if this episode was such a masterpiece, would you really want to sit through another 10 episodes just like it? Explosions, cream, gold balls, etc. I don't think anybody will, and that's why we'll just skip this episode while binge watching in the future, coz I doubt, in the whole, when it comes to the murder mystery that started this season, this episode won't matter. But that's just what I think. We still have 10 episodes more to go.
Fire walk with