(Please no spoilers!)
"Harry, I have no idea where this will lead us but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange." - Dale Cooper, about to start watching Twin Peaks for the first time.
So I made a post last month when I finished watching season one with my mum and I thought I'd make an update post now that we've just finished season two. I still haven't seen the movie (I will tomorrow!) or season three yet so please don't spoil anything from those for me in the comments.
First thing I want to say is that I definitely agree with those that say season two isn't as good as season one. It started off so well but it still wasn't quite as dreamy as the first season. But then it really lost a lot of the magic after they solved Laura's murder. There were still good parts in every episode but a lot of the storylines were honestly a little boring and I wasn't expecting that. I could have done without basically everything involving Catherine, Andrew Packard and Thomas Eckhard. And the Mayor, his brother and their grave robbing gf. The James storyline went absolutely nowhere. The stuff with Nadine, Ed and Norma wasn't particularly great either. I love Andy and Lucy but that storyline with Dick dragged on way too long. Ben Horne's war reenactment thing was beyond filler. Also, Audrey is one of my favourite characters but she really got wasted this season with being tied up in One Eyed Jacks for half of it and then in a cheesy romance sideplot for the other half.
Typing out all those things I didn't like makes it sound like I hated the season but there was a lot that I loved too. Dale Cooper is one of the best TV characters I've ever seen and every moment with him is worth watching. I love the Sheriff and all the deputies too. When Hawk came and saved the day when they were rescuing Audrey my heart soared. I love Shelly, partly because she looks like me (just a way prettier TV version) and may be my new style icon, but also because she's really funny in a very real way, like when she was making fun of Leland throwing himself on the coffin back in season one, or how she was cracking up laughing during the Miss Twin Peaks dance routine. You don't normally see that on TV because it runs the risk of coming off as mean, I guess. I love Pete and Dr Haywood. They didn't really have any storylines of their own, but they're both so wholesome and loveable. Albert got on my nerves a little bit in the first season but I love him now. Gordon Cole, who my mum tells me is none other than David Lynch himself, is hilarious. Denise and her legs! I was not expecting Fox Mulder as a trans woman but she made a brilliant addition to the cast and I wish she'd stuck around for more episodes. Basically everything involving Bob and the giant and the little dancing man and the one-armed Mike and the "black lodge" was right up my alley too. Oh, and Cooper's love story with Annie Blackburn was so sweet and pure.
Now I want to talk about how they wrapped up the mystery of who killed Laura, so big, huge, show-ruining spoilers ahead if you haven't watched it!
The episode where Leland murders Maddy was the most a TV show or movie or book has ever shook me in my entire life. I was going to make a Reddit post after I watched it but decided I needed some time to let it sink in before I did. Here's what I wrote then, though:
I know who killed Laura Palmer. I can't believe it. Maybe it was super obvious to other people but I never once suspected Leland. Thinking about it now as I type this, it's one of those twists that once it happens you say "yeah, of course it was him, of course, they were spelling it out for us the whole time!" Laura is basically a perfect example of a victim of incest. The way she acted out sexually, the way Bobby described how she treated him, her drug use, self-medicating, the way she described herself to Jacoby as rotten and dirty inside. Cooper said it started in early adolescence. Is Bob the way she saw her father? Some defense mechanism against admitting who was actually abusing her? What was happening with Sarah Palmer? The horse? I think the spotlight is the show's way of showing us what's going on beneath, things that aren't actually visible in real life. What does the horse mean? I think I know what Bob means. Leland sees him in the mirror. But Cooper sees the giant. And The Log Lady saw him too. I'm not 100% sure what is actually supernatural and what is the show using these things as a way to describe real evil. Maybe it's both. Poor Maddie. That scene was one of the worst things I've ever seen. It wasn't even gory but it was so real. Her absolute terror. I don't really cry at TV very often but I was sobbing watching it and then Donna and everyone in the bar was like a reflection of how I was feeling. Just shock and sadness. And that music they were playing (that wasn't on the soundtrack I have)... I need to find that song. This show is like nothing else.
Of course, they explain more in the following episodes so I know the answers to some of those questions. We took a break after the episode where Leland dies. The way that Cooper holds him and talks to him while he's passing away just broke my heart into a million pieces. At that point, it really feels like the story is over.
And now I want to talk about the finale that I just finished watching a few hours ago. So I'm sure this is common knowledge (I'm not going to read anything about the show online until I've finished the whole thing) but according to my mum David Lynch didn't want to reveal who killed Laura so when the TV network made him he left the show for a while, which is why the second half of season two is the way it is, and the first episode he directed when he came back was the finale and he threw out the script for most of it and did his own thing. I know it's probably more complicated than that, but that really explains a lot, including why David Lynch has such a cult of personality around him. Because that finale was absolutely incredible and completely recaptured the magic of the first season, just like the episode where Leland killed Maddy (which he also directed).
I can't wait to read up on all the symbolism of that sequence in the black lodge when I've finished with the show. I think I have a grasp on what happened though. Hawk said something about facing your "shadow self" in the black lodge, and we saw a scary version of Cooper, as well as Laura and the little man. So Cooper fought his shadow self and I guess the shadow self is what came out into the real world at the end. Because he didn't go in with "perfect courage" because he was scared for Annie. And Windom Earle dragged Annie in there to trade for Cooper's soul, but Bob was like "uh, no, who tf are you?" and took Windom Earle's soul instead. Seeing Cooper with Bob in his reflection was seriously disturbing, whether it's really him or not. "How's Annie?" Is Annie a shadow self too? Is she dead? And, totally unrelated to that, did Audrey die..? (Don't tell me!) If they hadn't made any more Twin Peaks after that, I don't even know how I would be feeling about that cliffhanger... My heart goes out to everyone who watched it back then.
I'd heard about the "see you in 25 years" thing before I'd even decided to start watching the show, but it was so wild to see it in context and knowing that they made a third season 25 years later. I wonder if that was truly planned out or if they just jumped onto it as reason to make another season after all that time. Something else to read up about!
Something else my mum tells me is that everything from now on, the movie and every episode of season three, is all directed by David Lynch, so I could not be more excited to get stuck into it. I'll make another post when I've finished it all to tell you guys what I thought (unless this post gets downvoted to the black lodge, if that happens I'll keep it to myself)!
Meanwhile...
Submitted May 05, 2020 at 08:47PM by theknack-mycorona https://ift.tt/3dr6wtX
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