The Modernist wrote:Goat Boy wrote:G doesn't like Lynch when he does this sort of thing. He prefers more straight ahead linear narratives.
That's fair.
Funnily enough I liked episode 18 more than episode 17 (which whilst providing a more traditional climax and resolution, I just found a bit silly) in many ways. Although there were lots of things that were dramatically unsatisfying about it, I did feel it was itching towards something more profound and poignant and human. There was a sadness about seeing Coop with (not) Laura as they stood outside the house not knowing who they were or where they were.
Oh I thought it was all those things. What could be more human than Coops desire to bring back Laura and remove all that pain and suffering from the world? Cooper wants to right some terrible wrong and he will pursue this to the bitter end. We, the audience want this wrong to be righted too, on some level I think, which is why Cooper represents something greater here, he represents that irrational but entirely human desire to change this. He becomes the tragic hero, the one whose noble desire will eventually lead to his undoing. Remember when he’s in the sheriffs office and he says the “past dictates the future”? That’s Coop declaring he is going to attempt this. For Laura and for Twin Peaks, a place he came to love. That’s the decision he makes. The realisation at the end that he has failed – his reaction on the street, his confused face in the red room – is heartbreaking to me. Coop was the best of Us and if he couldn’t do it nobody could, which is the point. What year is this? It doesn’t matter really. This is every year.
The Modernist wrote:I'm not even sure how much final control Mark Frost had ultimately (although I hold him responsible, or to blame if you prefer, for the schlocky X-Files/sci-fi direction the show took).
Well season 2 had the schlocky X-Files stuff with Briggs and the UFOs. I think this was different because it wasn't a cheap trick. It was using a sci fi element (alternative timelines, dimensions, whatever) to say something more profound about the human condition, in particular the consequences of death ands the impact of Lauras tragedy on those around her
The Modernist wrote::lol:
So you have the age old conflict of good vs evil and it turns out all you need to defeat evil is someone with a superhuman punch. It really is like something a 13 year old would come up with. They should have just called up Mike Tyson back in the late eighties to do the job for them and save themselves the bother. :.
One of the (many) problems they had in this series was how to replace Bob and the very real visceral evil he represented in the original. For me they failed to devise a good solution for this. I did think The Woodsmen were creepy though and, if anything, were underused.
Er, Evil Coop?
The thing is, evil hasn’t been defeated. Bob was ultimately ‘replaced’ with something much more powerful and greater in the form of Judy, which is some kind of eternal evil. And yet there needs to be a victory of some kind – for the audience and for Coop - but there also needs to be a defeat and an understanding that there is no Great Victory here and that people like Coop are part of some eternal ying and yang between darkness and light. One of the strokes of genius of the original show was to create some kind of supernatural analogy for good and evil through the lodges. Season 3 expanded upon this and made it clear that there are supernatural forces fighting against each other and that these forces use Us for this purpose (the creation of Bob by Mother, the golden Laura orb).
The ending inevitably casts a shadow backwards over everything that came before. As horrible and visceral as Bob was the shadow of Judy and Coops failure creates something far grimmer than Bob, some kind of existential nightmare that we live in. Forever.
And G's reply which is a bit fucked up now because the man is a fucking ninny...
Expect I didn't get a lot of that from watching it. It seems to me that we are projecting an awful lot of meaning onto things that are pretty ill-defined. And because they are ill-defined I didn't get that emotional pull from it. TP3 generally is a classic case on how people can watch things on different levels. If you're prepared to invest a lot of time in understanding all the lodge lore then it can be fascinating exercise in puzzle solving.
But I guess I lose patience with that aspect, I prefer more visceral things..my loss probably.
As for Evil Coop, he was okay. I can enjoy watching Kyle Machlachan in anything (although I may make an exception for Showgirls , but I didn't find Evil Coop particularly 'evil'. He seemed more like a ruthless super-criminal that can be found in any number of crime narratives. Almost like a stock character.
I have enjoyed reading your insights Dougie, I must say and they've made me more sympathetic to what Lynch & Frost were trying to achieve. I may return to some of your other points.