It’s seven o’clock. Do you know where your freedom is?
Many viewers experienced Twin Peaks Part 12 as an exercise in patience. Some of you stayed zen like Albert during the seemingly endless exit of Gordon’s French companion, while others felt the urge to start yelling like an infuriated Audrey after Charlie’s disturbing phone call to Tina. And sure enough, also in this part, David Lynch reuses a whole minute we’ve already seen in Part 5. As if we’re not running out of precious new Twin Peaks time, we’re presented with recycled Dr. Amp footage plus some of the same reaction shots of his biggest fan, Nadine Hurley. This is not the first case of repeat footage. Drugged-out mom’s “1-1-9!” scene appeared in both Part 3 and Part 6, for instance. But this was certainly the longest.
In the same vein as the glass box/purple sea mashup, a fan synced the segments to demonstrate they are one and the same. So far, no significant synchronicity has been discovered observing the side-by-side footage. Nevertheless, some interesting simultaneous events include Audrey Horne saying her very first line in the new series just after Dr. Amp hits the golden shovel with his hammer, and her going “What kind of SHIT are you?” when Dr. Amp just dug himself out of it.
Dr. Amp in Twin Peaks: Part 5 versus Part 12
Can you think of a reason why David Lynch would show us the exact same intro? Is it just because he can? Or are the people of Twin Peaks caught in a Groundhog Day-ish time loop? Is it future, or is it past? What are your thoughts?
Thanks to Thomas for creating and sharing the video.
Fire walk with 
I don’t have the technical ability to show comparison. Maybe he should take a look at these two scenes….
Season 2, episode 1 — approximately 35.5 minutes in. Philip Gerard approaches Lucy in the Sheriff’s office. He says… “Excuse me, Is Sheriff Truman here?”
Season 3, episode 1 — approximately 18 minutes in. Insurance salesman approaches Lucy in the Sheriff’s office and says, “Hello, I’d like to see Sheriff Truman”.
sync them both when they both say “Sheriff Truman” and watch the comparison for awhile.
hi Nate,
I just put the two together, but nothing really sticks out to me apat from the scenes being about the same length. Thanks for the suggestion though!
It’s entirely possible that he just needed a short extra bit to fill out the episode to normal running time. He and Frost had previously said that they wrote the whole thing as a single script, and would break it into episode-length bits later. Perhaps the next full scene was too long, or would’ve been one they preferred to have open an episode, rather than to close one.
My thought is that he’s using it to show that a flashback is happening, as though the show is being down out of order. If this holds than it means that the Audrey scene happened concurrently with the previous episode. I wonder if Jacoby’s intro will be seen again and perhaps fill us in on the other end of Charles’ phone conversation.
The dates are all mixed up. We see Miriam in the hospital on Sept 25. Audrey speaks of the new moon, which was the 13th or so. At one point, Frank and Hawk are speaking on the 30th. There are other dates shown or indicated, as well. Jerry is lost, but not for days, or he’d die. His scenes are probably all on one day or two.
Times in Las Vegas and Buckhorn seem to be shown more linearly.
Something that caught my attention is that the music cue after Dr. Amp digs himself out and turns on the golden lamp on…is that the same music as when the ?????? giant is creating Laura in part 8? If not, it sounds eerily similar. And it might be a reason for replaying the scene, a sort of post-part 8 recontextualizing from what we’ve picked up since part 5.
If so, that casts Dr. Amp in an even more delusional light than he was already in, and that’s saying an awful lot. But hey, maybe he’s been to the White Lodge or something. Maybe that’s what happened during his ayahuasca trip in Secret History, and he’s subconsciously mining his memories of that for use in his vodcast?
In this case, I think Lynch uses the same footage again to show us a routine. He sure loves routines
It starts the same but proceeds differently. There’s first some comfort, then some content
It’s just the same opening, and probably the best take, so he used it twice. I don’t think we’re supposed to read anything into it myself.
The timing with the flashlight turning on, illuminating Jacoby in his pit of shit, is grand.
I thought it was meant to show the scene more from Nadine’s point of view. She seems to have a crush on Dr. Jacoby, and I didn’t pick up on that when they showed her before. I also think it’s meant to point out the nonlinear storytelling. Just before Jacoby’s scene, we see a crescent moon in the sky. When Audrey is fighting with Charlie, Charlie mentions that there’s a new moon out so it will be dark. It takes a couple of days for the moon to go from crescent to new, so we know these scenes do not take place on the same day.
New moon isn’t a moment or a day. The moon passes in front of the Earth. Sometimes there can be the or four nights of no moon.
A crescent moon in the evening comes AFTER the new moon, and the right side is illuminated like a D (in the Northern hemisphere at least).
Before the new moon, the crescent will be seen just before sunrise in the shadow of a C, illuminated from the left. Such a moon was seen in E.T., wrongly implying that the boys were having a pre-dawn d&d pizza party.
Of course it does – there is a certain point at which the new moon is at its most “full” (black) and this day is the New Moon… Same as Full Moon, same as any moon. What a strange thing to say…
I notied. I found it anoying. As much as I appreciate us trying to find a reason, I think it’s just season 3 being a bad production. I give it 4 of 6 stars. I do want a season 4 though.
This scene has lost its novelty on me. It was funny at first, but repeating it was not necessary. Borderline annoying now. I like Dr. Jacoby and he’s a good character. I hope to see him do something else.
I don’t know why the same footage was used. If there’s a reason, then I’m cool with it. If it was lazy editing/reuse of footage, then it’s really annoying.
However, giving how very deliberate nearly everything Lynch does is, I really doubt it was the latter. And I do think it plays into the events in Twin Peaks being out of synch with events elsewhere.
I think the purpose of showing the same scene twice was simply to introduce the idea that events may not be depicted in The Return in linear fashion, something that’s becoming more and more obvious with each passing episode.
The reason Lynch is reusing old footage is same reason Lynch has F’ed up everything in season three: he doesn’t give a shit. He didn’t want to do season three in the first place. This project was a paycheck, nothing more.