My final verdict doesn't arrive until at least a few days after I've seen the final episode. Until then I hold onto the very real understanding that we're not even halfway through this. My temporary opinion is that I'm helplessly fascinated and also challenged in my psyche to process everything I'm taking in. That's a rare thing. I'm enjoying it though.
I was not emotionally prepared for what happened with the atomic bomb sequence. At first I though, "Yup. That's a bomb," and then the camera kept moving closer. Then came the realization that, "Oh my God we're going into the explosion!? I don't want to go in there!" This is a return to the kind of fear people felt with the old monster movies where slow and creeping was more terrifying.
This is a wonderful description of why this scene worked so well. It presented us with something terrifying, showed us its paradoxical beauty, and then dared us to look inside where we had never dared looik. It's exactly like the ear in the grass in Blue Velvet, the journey into the Earth in Erasorhead, etc. It's a Lynch motif. Oh yeah, first time poster here!
Welcome!
Stumbled upon this interesting juxtaposition of TP scenes and surreal and expressionistic art DL clearly has been inspired by to create some of the scenes.
And maybe the answer is in the words of Ray: "Tricked ya, fucker"? Maybe it's just Lynch who wants to show he has bigger cojones than the producers?
Episode 8 actually made me angry. I don't know where Lynch is going with this. And where is Mark Frost? What was his contribution to todays episode? Did David Lynch ask for an episode all for himself? Looks like it.
A lot of the ideas and conceptions that appeared in episode 8 came from Frost. Just look at the Secret Histories, its all there. Frost and Lynch are in this thing together, 50/50. Lynch directed the episode, so obviously it feels like a Lynch-solo episode, but its far from it. Frost would definitely have been on board 100% of the way.
Also, the idea that all the remaining episodes might be like this one is a completely superfluous notion, because that would mean 99% of things that have occurred on the show would barely be re-visited or resolved, which is entirely counter intuitive. I would expect the last hour of the finale to be in a similar style to episode 8, but also be similar to the ending of Season 2.
It's okay if you didn't enjoy the episode, its not a requirement to enjoy Twin Peaks. You don't have to come with some out-there rationale to explain your frustration. For example,
"Episode 8 didn't make us anymore wiser about anything. It was just plain weird, and again, stole valuable screen time. "
I believe this statement is entirely false, as I personally believe we gained a mass amount of knowledge regarding the Twin Peaks universe. It wasn't "weird", unless you can give clear definitions of what weird actually is and then can apply it to the episode? Stole Valuable screen-time? You mean Lynch stole screen-time from himself? All episodes, every single minute of it, is valuable screen-time to and for the story. Saying that Lynch's own creation, which contained an "out there" episode stole screen-time is nothing but entitlement.
I agree that episode 8 is very significant to the show's overall mythology.
That said, the original poster is certainly allowed to feel any way he likes.
Though I note that, over the years, works of art which at first I thought I hated often stayed with me. Sometimes we dislike art when it 'violates our expectations' or we feel the artist is engaging in intentional obfuscation. Which is why I try to have as few as possible these days and let it be what it is.
Sometimes a work of art that I thought I hated, I actually come to admire and like. But it doesn't sink in right away.
Every interview I've read with Lynch, he goes out of his way to say that he is never trying to obfuscate just for the sake of being clever. I believe him. In time, most of the big mysteries of Twin Peaks seem to make a circular kind of sense, like dream logic.
Episode 8 deeply disturbed me. It made a compelling case for the alteration of time/space/dimensions by unlocking the nuclear secrets of the universe, allowing malevolent beings from other places to enter ours. I was glad to see that the Giant aka "The Fireman" has a role in attempting to balance off darkness. He creates radiant beings of light, a frequent Frost/Lynch metaphor.
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.
Oh Bob was removed? Gee I didnt pick up on that, I thought they moved him a few inches while they fixed the wound or something. Maybe they did. So Bobs pure form is an embryonic sack (seen twice)
I'm not certain Bob was removed from Mr. C. or that Bob couldn't simply reinhabit him at will.
If you asked me if I would call it great art if Lynch gave us lots more parts like 8. If they were each as beautiful, creepy, provocative, wonderful, and strange as 8, then yes, I would.
As I wrote somewhere else on here, this is the water, oh sorry, this is the part that's stayed with me the most compared to the others, although there are some key scenes which have also had a similar impact. Someone else said it stands on its own and I agree with that. I don't feel we need to categorise it at all, musing over whether it's great art or art at all, and moreover what is great art? (steady, Colin, that could run and run). I was mesmerised the whole way through. So much came up for me during the experience, I can't even articulate, but I was moved. The two scenes that bowled me over were ?????? and Señorita Dido (and that music) and the Woodsmen on the road at night and then the lone woodsman at the radio station, in as someone noted, a genuine 50s horror movie scene. And of course, the frogmoth. Surreal. Darn it, I loved the whole thing... Those distorted voices from Ray and the woman in the car...
I loved it too. I recently re watched it and was even more engrossed than the first time round.
There are so many amazing scenes in it, but one I'd like to mention is the woodsmen floating down from the sky and gently landing on the floor. Almost like he's popping into existence, from out of nowhere or from somewhere. Very ominous on second viewing, when you know what he's up to.
Fire walk with