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I agree with you flyonethewall2983. There still is a narrative I find compelling in the new season. It's just not the main thing for me. The main thing is enjoying the little moments, so many of which are mentioned here week to week.

Actually, as I'm sure most folks already know, "being zen" or more precisely - practicing meditation - is very much a part of Lynch's creative process. Though I am not a TM practitioner, I've learned some about how to be a viewer from Lynch's reflections on consciousness. Staying in the moment. Catching the big fish as it comes. Plus, his creative process gives us insight into scenes of ecstasy that we can find throughout Lynch's oeuvre. Lynch wants to show us how he feels on screen. We get ecstasy represented in part 5 with the scene of Amanda Seyfried arching her face up to the sun as she experiences her high. Lynch gets his by meditating. I get mine by paying attention to the little moments in Lynch's work.

I'm sad there will be no medals. [-o< And that we have to wait a week for another episode.

Meanwhile, I wonder how many people remember the beheaded corpse from the season premiere and still wonder what happened with that.

well, it keeps getting mentioned, so... hopefully a few?

I totally missed that in the latest episodes then (ep 7, notably), then. My bad.

tenia wrote:I totally missed that in the latest episodes then (ep 7, notably), then. My bad.

You don't mean part 8, do you? In part 7,

Spoiler

Constance Talbot shows the beheaded corpse to Lieutenant Knox, who then has a phone conversation with Colonel Davis about it.

To be fair, a LOT happened in that episode!

I don't know what it was about this episode, but it was the first that I hardly enjoyed at all. It felt like all plotty connective tissue with no real meat. But I guess I'm not sure what "meat" is or isn't in a Lynch project.

It was definitely something of glue episode. Which is fine. If last episode was commonplace, it wouldn't be as extraordinary as it was.

I was a little impatient watching it but since ep 8 was a halftime show of sorts it makes sense we get a lot of plot in this ep since there are now just 9 eps left.

Foam wrote:I don't know what it was about this episode, but it was the first that I hardly enjoyed at all. It felt like all plotty connective tissue with no real meat. But I guess I'm not sure what "meat" is or isn't in a Lynch project.

It is frustrating at this point in the series to have an episode like this, essentially laying out things we've been able to piece together ourselves to this point:

Spoiler

That the body is Briggs, that it would've necessitated his coming directly from the Black Lodge due to his age

And the stuff with the police officers in the Dougie Jones timeline has never really left the runway at all for me. I appreciate that these plot threads are all beginning to connect and that before we know it, Dougie will be in the presence of Gordon and Albert. But for now, I feel pretty exhausted by the Dougie stuff and I wonder if perhaps Lynch overestimated the patience any given viewer might have for it. I can't shake a sense of "running out of time" with this season, despite there being a full nine more hours left - threads we've been given glimpses of (Richard Horne, Shelly's daughter, etc) seem like they either aren't going to reappear or aren't going to have any room to breathe if they do. And in spite of the fact that the whole season has been better than any of us could have expected, those moments have been the ones that have really stood out - ones that introduce the possibility of new characters and plot details to the existing framework.

Especially with the shadow of how tremendously exciting Parts 7 and 8 were, this was the worst hour of this season so far.

For pure emotional punch I've not seen anything that affected me more on first watch than

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Charlotte Stewart's eponymous "chair" scene in either series so far. I'm not afraid to say I cried. The spirit of Major Briggs loomed large in this episode. Hastings' tearful travelogue was remarkably vivid.

Part 9 is definitely a transitional episode and its weaknesses (too exposition heavy and talkative) are all the more evident after Gotta Light? but it's not without its charms either: Cole eyeing Diane's cigarette was pretty funny and I liked the scenes with Mrs Briggs.

Nine hours to go (or is it ten? I keep reading that Episode 18 is a two hour finale, or are people misinterpreting this, and they're coupling Parts 17 & 18 together)...

Parts 17 & 18 will air together.

Here, from earlier in the thread, is the breakdown of when which episodes will air.

mfunk9786 wrote:

Foam wrote:Especially with the shadow of how tremendously exciting Parts 7 and 8 were, this was the worst hour of this season so far.

I'm surprised you are listing 7 in there, since I'd put it up there with 9 as being the least exciting episodes in the series. Not to say that either was bad, but they both advanced the story in fairly predictable ways, with episode 7 showing

Spoiler

Hawk finding Laura Palmer's diary, Cole getting confirmation that Cooper may not be who he appears, and evil Cooper inevitably escaping captivity.

All of these elements were anticipated and none play out in ways too far removed from what was expected.

That being said, there are still surprises in each of these. I liked that episode 9

Spoiler

finally tied the William Hastings plot into the larger whole, since I was beginning to wonder if Lynch merely intended it to be a surreal detour from the main story. I hope he starts connecting more of these disparate threads soon, like Amanda Seyfried and most of the other folks who inhabit the Bang Bang Bar.

I feel like one expecting this show to conform to a more standard approach taken by episodic dramas (by connecting the dots sooner) is like expecting Rivette's Out 1 to develop more along the lines of a traditional miniseries. Personally, I think Lynch (and Frost) are being innovative by introducing isolated vignettes that may not be paid off until several hours later. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised or disappointed if it takes until Episode 18 for some of these threads to tie together. And if nothing ties together? Well, Lynch has already delivered two or three short experimental films as part of this behemoth that can stand alone and alongside his earlier work as respectable efforts.

It's been probably half a decade or more since I last posted here -- and I'd hate to go back and read those old posts, as I wrote the majority of them as a teenager -- but I figured I'd come back after years of just reading the forum to discuss this revival. I agree last night's episode was at once heavy on exposition and meager vis a vis any sort of narrative payoffs, but I found a lot of it hilarious and moving (the smoke break scene in particular).

I read somewhere a couple weeks ago that it was Lynch himself who insisted the show air weekly, which is interesting given that it really does read so far as a one-unit film. This show really is messing with TV temporality in a rare way (whether viewers like it or not).

Roger Ryan wrote:Personally, I think Lynch (and Frost) are being innovative by introducing isolated vignettes that may not be paid off until several hours later.

That's a fair point, and I'm inclined to agree with you, but at the same time (and perhaps this is just me being a lazy viewer) it's tough to follow everything that's going on when we meet a character like, say,

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Chantel

, and then have her disappear for a month and half before dropping back in again.

Back to episode 9, one thing I liked that I felt was missing from a lot of the episodes until now was that we got some more of the low stakes character drama that was ever present in the original. Moments like

Spoiler

Bobby tearing up upon learning that his dad knew he'd turn his life around, Andy and Lucy arguing over which chair to get (with Andy in beige and Lucy in red, too boot!), and Ben Horne rejecting the advances of his assistant

helped bring the tone of the series back to Twin Peaks when it had been veering more towards Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive, and I appreciate that variety.

I can't think of a character that more people have despised based on so little screen time than Tammy, by the way. Reading Twin Peaks group comments, etc every week means absolute nonstop bile. She's not lighting her scenes on fire, but she's not ruining them, either. ...right?

I actually think her performance opposite Lillard was very well-measured, a successful balancing act. I loved that scene wholly. It's unclear how she fits into the chronology of the novel (Lynch apparently said that this is Tammy and that is Tamara???) which is 2 years after the events of the series (and in the novel she is unaware of Philip Jeffries and other things she is clearly learning of here).

I bet nothing will come of it, but she's clearly being built up toward...something? The scene with Denise was telling and I would love for that scene to be more than fan service as well.

I could tell from the beginning she would be a bit hard to swallow, but fortunately all of if not most of her scenes are with Lynch and Ferrer which means she's in good hands and not having to really be depended on to carry anything. But I was quite distracted by her during Matthew Lillard's performance during the interrogation. A good comparison would be the scene in Se7en with Leland Orser and Morgan Freeman. Orser's character is in this heightened place of terror and Freeman just sells it with stillness and it works all the more for it. Lillard did a great job of portraying the kind of horror that character must be feeling internally, but she dampened it by almost over-performing in her silence.

The silence was what I liked so much about it! It was the best she's (Tammy) been at her job so far and her treatment of the traumatized (and, from my point of view, nigh on exonerated) Hastings was professional, thorough, and kept on target. The upside is that, if anyone's going to believe him, it's this lot; but she keeps her cards close to the vest and calmly and sternly puts him through the necessary processes. I thought she (Bell) was up to the standard of this scene in a way that she hasn't been with her less meaty material. It was an exercise in extremes for sure, but Lillard made me tear up, and that always goes far for my easily manipulated self!

LQ's primary complaint is that the way she carries herself, walks, emotes - is in no way resembling how an FBI agent would do any of those things. She's got a chewing gum walk and absurdly tight clothes, we've already had a gratuitous shot of her butt - I can't say I disagree that it's sort of a bizarre character considering that she was made up from whole cloth for this season, one that has a lot of inspired casting all over it - Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, etc. Why her?