I mean, what the hell, David Lynch?!
I realize I'm a decade too late but is Twin Peaks the Best Show Ever with the most open-ended series ending in HISTORY?!
Five years ago I started this journey with R in his Carroll Gardens apartment. We would watch one episode whenever I slept over there and it was mind blowing. For one, HOW was this show on prime time television?
There's rape, murder, spousal abuse, schizophrenia and good old fashioned money-motivated deviant behavior (not to mention a lady who talks to a log).
Slowly but surely we made our way through. I found comfort in Special Agent Dale Cooper, Norma and Ed, and the small pleasures of a damn good cup of Joe.
But we stopped after we found out who killed Laura Palmer. There were some rumors on R's end that the second season wasn't as good and I was creeped out enough to take a break.
Five years later I find myself with an empty apartment, a computer and the full season of Twin Peaks. Having no idea where I actually dropped off, I popped in a disk and let the story unfold again.
And, yes, the Laura Palmer storyline is the clincher. But there's clearly something else going on in this funny Alaskan town and I was instantly hooked on the whole weirdo clan.
And things were going well. With Special Agent Dale Cooper's leadership we were able to find out who killed Laura Palmer (yes, again. I backtracked). And found spice and stories of long-lost love in our favorite FBI agent's past when a former partner comes to the once-sleepy town to terrorize via chess game.
Slowly but surely "Coop" gets incorporated into the town -- is stripped of his FBI suit-fatigues and even meets and girl.
I creep toward the end of the special edition set. R returns to our new humble abode and I pop in the second to last disk. Each of the three episodes is stranger than the last but we take comfort in that one last disk sitting in it's case, reeking of answers and closure.
We get to the third episode, pop it in haphazardly on a Friday night. It's weirder than most, steering the plot into the other-worldly, mysterious part of the show that lives in red velvet drapes and characters back from the dead.
But we swallow it, putting our trust in Mr. Lynch.
Audrey and Pete go into a bank and don't come out and Coop kind of comes out of the velvet-draped dream land but we're not entirely sure and then the creepy spirit appears in the mirror and Coop is bleeding from the head and talking funny and the credits come and we're all, what the what?
Thank GOD there are more episodes.
Except there aren't.
There weren't.
The next day we take a break from unpacking and pop in the last disk ever so carefully and flick through a menu of... extras?
The realization came slow.
Wait, that was the... end?
We go back to the last disk. Fast forward a couple of scenes, see if we missed anything.
Same Dale, same mirror, same bloody head, same creepy spirit.
Same ending credits.
I search the blogs.
What was that ABOUT, I ask?
But there are no answers. Only speculation many years too late.
It had to be this way, they said.
But it's not fair.
Cooooooooop!
COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
Enough with the dramatics. But it was weird, right? Has anyone seen it lately? If not, I implore you to check it out again. Seriously, how was this show on prime time? And how did the TV-viewing public allow Lynch to get away with a series ender so full of cliff hangers? If only I had been there, old enough, to watch it. Mr. Lynch would have heard from ME -- in frantically written letters sent on torn out sheets of school book paper penned in different colored ink. He would have read my wrath. But now, I'm too late. And I'll never have Special Agent Dale Cooper back. (sigh) I even tried watching the 1991 SNL episode where Kyle McLaughlin hosts. It wasn't the same.
I'm even renting the weirdo movie that acts as a precursor to the series because one blog wrote there were some allusions to what happened at the end. I'll take anything I can get.
xoL
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5 comments:
Ok, we followed it too way back when, and the best season was the first. If it is any consolation at least you know who killed Laura Palmer. Now go watch Jewel in the Crown or Brideshead for a fulfilling series. For quirkiness I recommend Doc Martin on PBS. Start with the first season, on Netflix. You'll fall for the odd people and it takes place in the sunny part of England. Cheers!
Just want to point out that Twin Peaks is not an "Alaskan town" as you wrote... It's meant to be in the state of Washington.
Like much of David lynch's work twin peaks is a beautiful work of art from start to finish, even the second season. People started to pull away because it became a little convoluted. I've watched the series beginning to end several times and I've postulated several things regarding the finale. The first is to take it literally. That Coop became possessed by BOB because he wasn't strong enough or pure enough to make it to the white lodge, which had been discussed earlier in the season with Garland Briggs. Or that reaching the white lodge was never a priority, only the rescue of Annie which left him susceptible to the evil in the Black Lodge.
The second which is the one I'm inclined to stick with is that Coop actually never left the Black Lodge. He remains there searching for Annie but can't get away. A variation upon that would be to take a harder look at the doppleganger following Coop through the Lodge. Perhaps it wasn't Coop that left but rather his 'evil self'.
The third idea that came to me was that perhaps the entirety of Coop's stay in twin peaks was an attempt by him to deal with the mental trauma of losing Caroline. Perhaps Windam Earl and his atrocities were figments of Coops mind, a coping mechanism of some kind. Annie became a replacement for Caroline and killing her just firmly established his madness, realizing that his 'double life' (Windam Earl) had finally taken over. This implies that much of what happens in the show ( in particular the second season) is part of Coops mind and not a reality.
Those are my idea's. Perhaps they aren't correct, perhaps they aren't plausible but I always enjoyed surmising what may have occurred.
I just finished the series several minutes ago and rushed to the computer for answers...but there are none.
I feel like this was the series finale by default. Was the show just not picked up for a 3rd season?
I'm satisfied with most of the character closers like Shelly/Bobby, Norma/Ed/Nadine, Lucy/Andy, Donna and her daddy discovery, even the bank blow-up scene. Catherine/Josie - I fast-forwarded through Josie scenes anyway.
What I'm not satisfied with is obviously Bob/Cooper, the Leo storyline - what was with that contraption in his mouth?, why we had to follow Lana the Milford gold-digger trying to rig the Miss Twin Peaks pageant - what was the point of taking us through that?, James? Wasn't he set up and was wanted for murder? That story just disappeared. What was with the oil that the log lady brought to the police station? Ah, I can keep going.
It's these things that lead me to believe they were building the story for a 3rd season that never happened. Damn Hollywood and their budgets!
I KNOOOOW! I just watched it and practically cried. Can we go back in time and make this okay!?
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