John Bernardy
We see one new podcast beginning their coverage while more favorites take their last bows (for a while at least) and one jumps back in like Jeffries and concludes after a long time away. Seems like we’re at a crossroads this week where many hosts are solidifying their feelings on season three, and sense is being made of things now that there’s a month’s worth of time between the present and the finale. Some hosts are looking forward to The Final Dossier openly though most are acting like it’s a nebulous thing in the future if they’re mentioning it at all. One thing at a time please, they seem to be saying.
Onto the podcasts:
Black Lodge / White Noise came back after dropping off the face of the Earth for 20 months (their last episode covered Coma) to cover the rest of Season Two, Fire Walk With Me, Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Return, all in two and a quarter hours. They start by throwing shade on “corporate” podcast networks that covered Twin Peaks because they had to rather than because it was in their bones. They understand Lynch films as something where mood and characters (sound design too) all come before story, so they say when the theme is the infinity loop of good and evil you CAN do broad strokes like Season Three did. They start to look at the remainder of Season Two by asking how much was Leland and how much was Bob, crediting the show tunes as Leland trying to stay in control. They say The Secret History of Twin Peaks made the Josie plotline better than the original, Tojamura was a misstep and so was Josie’s indentured servitude. They’re down on John Justice Wheeler, forget anything Donna after the reveal, and credit the season with enough good moments it’s worth the time. They reinforce a lot of urban legends and hearsay throughout the whole podcast such as Lynch throwing out the entire Episode 29 script and starting from scratch, so they could easily be better researched. Don’t take their words for everything but I think their hearts are in the right place. They share one of their pre-season three theories that Cooper went into the Lodge for Annie but when he’s in there he figures out the time powers of the Lodge to help himself solve the case through the past. A pretty good theory. The hosts think Fire Walk With Me really benefits from the retcons in season three, and Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive compares more favorably now too. They ask if The Secret History of Twin Peaks would have come out anyway if season three wasn’t in production, share a pertinent quote from the Log Lady (“Everything is changed, but nothing is lost”), ask if the Lodge spirits are aliens, and are pro-book. At this point in the recording one of the hosts was actually on location at the iconic waterfall of the Salish Inn, and the other host was originally from the area, so they go on a tangent about their local experiences in real life Washington. Then they finally get to season three. They liked watching the show like old television, instalment by instalment, and loved both the experience and the show. They say it’s left a more lasting impression on them than the original show. They describe it like Lynch made a collection of short films, revisited characters, and made a meta reunion show, all Lynch style with a message of “you can’t go home again.” They compare the ending to the Dark Tower where the show’s saying “this ending is great, but if you keep reading I can’t help what you’ll learn.” They like having TV that challenges them (“without being an asshole about it”). They share favorite moments, among them “fix your hearts or die” and Ed and Norma, and they assume Judy is inside Sarah for sure. They think the convenience store is a nexus point and possibly also is the Palmer house. They liked the bands, and asked if the Roadhouse was all in Audrey’s head. They lauded the characters of Janey-E and everyone related to the Mitchums. About the ending, they ask if the whole thing was reset and this was early days of Dark Coop, or was it now the real world? Are the ultimate good and evil aliens? “I am the FBI” is worth the whole thing, and they give props to Robert Forrester and the entirety of Wally Brando. Next up for these hosts they announced Pod Like a Hole, a podcast all about the music of Nine Inch Nails.
Corn Cobs & Donuts put out their first episode (titled Pin Tweeks) covering Part One of Season Three with slight insight into future parts. They note the Part One intro has the Mill and other old locations of Twin Peaks shown almost like a preview of things not to come. They single out the drone waterfall shot as spectacular, then call out every Red Room scene in the season as mundane, a waiting area while the action happens elsewhere. For the black and white scene, they note Cooper answering the Fireman with confidence. “It” is Judy, 430 is the Cooper/Diane car trip mileage, and Richard/Linda takes a completely different meaning in Part 18. Cooper disappears the same way as Laura which the hosts say links them in a time. They put Jacoby’s shovels on the question board with the Giant’s info, note Jerry being the more featured Horne brother this season, and mention American Woman’s new sound design by Lynch. Most controversial moment: Mr. C is not Bob, because there’s no evidence of him having non-consensual sex. The hosts don’t think the new series fulfills the Cooper-is-Bob cliffhanger from season two’s finale. They could do with less of Beulah and Otis, think Tracy has a job to seduce Sam (but not to actively summon the glass box demon with sex magic), and they note that Lynch seems to use sex as a doorway to dangerous worlds. Rather than Judy, they name the glass box monster Mother, then mix up the My Life My Tapes book with the Diane… audiotapes. They also call Annie’s last name Blackberry for a bit before correcting themselves and say Hawk’s name according to The Secret History of Twin Peaks as Tommy Hawkins, which is news to me. Their take on TSHoTP is that UFO lore didn’t need to be mashed into Twin Peaks lore (they consider it similarly problematic when Judeo-Christian lore is added to Twin Peaks). They liked Buckhorn quite a bit, and noted how Ruth’s apartment could be smelling like engine oil as much as a dead body. Hank the janitor throwing out a ton of random names reminded the hosts of Roadhouse and Audrey scenes. They think the woodsmen killed Ruth and made that hole near her eye, and the whole apartment reminds them of Mulholland Drive. The Log Lady scenes feel like they’re all one scene spread out over multiple episodes. They paraphrase Joel Bocko that Frost writes Cooper in more of a bullheaded/less intuitive manner, they’re not a fan of Phyllis Hastings, and they don’t think Bill actually drove Betty home that night. They credit the sound cue associated with the fleshy lump of grizzle in Bill’s car trunk wth electricity and the Lodge. The hosts are interesting and I’m not sure what to make of them, but I’m good for listening to their next episode.
Drink Full and Descend is becoming the place where all the more provable theories go to get even-handedly discussed, whether it’s the hosts’ pet theories or not. This time around their episode is titled Epilogue 2 (on Audrey, Shakespeare, etc. in Twin Peaks The Return). The hosts think the bow tied happy ending theories don’t give an indication Judy’s actually destroyed, and they don’t feel like the good guys won. And Cooper’s in over his head. They started with a take on the Audrey scenes: we may see Sherilyn Fenn herself looking into that mirror, like she’s caught between realities and doesn’t know if she’s Audrey or herself. The hosts talk about an old film and acting technique called modelling and compare it to tulpas. The hosts also discuss if the characters realize they’re trapped in a fictional reality and use self awareness as a reference to Shakespeare’s As You Like It, where all the world’s a stage and you get character name references such as Jaques, Audrey and William (THERE’s Billy!), and the leader loses power, goes through a religious epiphany, then returns to his station like he never left. Is the Giant the audience? The hosts praise Twin Peaks for the fact that whatever your theory is it can fit. The show references a ton of mythologies and stories, and never has too much evidence that any path can close a circuit any one way. The hosts discuss if Audrey is affected by Cooper not coming to Twin Peaks to solve Laura’s murder. It’s like she’s trapped between those two stories. The hosts casually mention timequake as if it’s just a thing, which warms my heart immensely, and note how the yin and yang is separated but the black and white of the lodge floor is woven together and inseparable. The hosts wondered how all the indeterminate reality stuff from Bill Hastings’ website could be presented but Lynch and Frost did it. They discuss collapsed spacetime and how one could move through realities, and they suggest Oz was revealed in the sheriff’s station where another reality takes over and this one has to collapse. They suggest if Jeffries exists where all realities exist he’s literally spread himself too thin. They ask what DoppelCooper’s plan was, what Judy’s plan was, and if the FBI undermined/threatened reality with their plan. The Twin Peaks RichardCoop and Carrie drive through is a dark void of a world, and possibly they’re to embrace the darkness, which is a spiritual sort of goal. The hosts bring up “don’t take the ring” which is the same advice Twisted Hair gives Lewis in Secret History. They also ask about the Palmer family’s garmonbozia being attractive to Judy, and if Laura really was used as a pawn to get Judy out of our dimension. Does reality condense and/or restart? The hosts close the show by saying there will be another podcast released before Final Dossier is released. These guys have some good momentum going here.
Formica Table covered Part Seventeen with the influence of Part Eighteen all over it. It sounded like they were going to rag on the finale but they made good points throughout and were generally fair much of the time even though the hosts’ initial takes went like this: 17 was Twin Peaks-y but a failure while 18 was stuffed with pretentiousness, 17 and 18 were mostly successful because of its truthfulness to the nature of Twin Peaks though he sees missed or barely used opportunities and wasted time, and 70% win 30% lose. The Judy retcon is a race, and does two birds with one stone matter? Bushnell is the name of Lynch’s first art teacher, and Don Murray’s big deal Hollywood past is mentioned. They ask if Chad didn’t escape would it matter? He could be easily removed from the show. They posed the same question for Jerry before stating the emperor isn’t naked but he isn’t wearing very much, and that less episodes would’ve made a better show. The accurate coordinates led to Jack Rabbit’s Palace. The caged DoppelCooper head in the White Lodge was great, science fictional upper-dimensional tech rather than from the spiritual realm. Mr. C’s journey seems the maguffin. MacLachlan does great acting with Andy and Frank and the western standoff was great. Lucy’s cellphone understanding moment was great, seemed to fit the metaphor of don’t hold yourself back in the past rather than move forward, and even added weight to what they saw was just a dumb joke. The hosts found the Bob ball effect stupid but well done and also understandable considering Frank Silva’s not with us. Coop’s always been ahead of the game so they’re okay with him knowing of Freddy. They ask if Diane was a late replacement for Annie, due to Lynch wanting to work with his best pals, but it didn’t work because every indication was that Coop and Diane had a professional relationship. Her red wig and black and white nails mirrored the Waiting Room, and the superimposed Coop implied he was remembering and experiencing at the same time. They note how in the Bellucci dream Cooper’s a body with an unseen head, and here is his head. They bring up Tibetan Buddhism in that we live our lives many, many times until we reach enlightenment. When Coop mentions the curtain call they thought it might go meta and they’ll start walking off the sets or something. They discuss if the owl symbol means an 8 or the way to get to the infinity symbol, and the orb on the eight is a break in that circuit. Retconning the owl symbol is rough on one of the hosts. This Part feels like Lost Highway but in a less graspable less put together kind of way. At this point they put Dick Tremayne’s Swing in the background and ask if Jeffries is happy in there, and ask if Chris Isaak’s next to him strumming away in his own kettle. Then they go on and ask if the Fireman is God. They think he is, and also kind of The Wizard of Oz. Per old MIKE statements, fire is a purifier, so maybe the Fireman purified Mike. The Fire Walk With Me scenes felt right because Cooper would totally complete the mission. And it occurred to them this is a continuation of the pickle Cooper was in the season two finale. Before this, the hosts thought Laura didn’t loom large enough in the season, and they can tell Lynch couldn’t wait to be done with those Twin Peaks parts so he could get to this Laura coda He hit fifth gear. They discuss the techniques and CGI involved with having Sheryl Lee play young Laura and they say job well done. They think Coop was bringing her back to the White Lodge but couldn’t quite get there. They end awkwardly but promise a part two soon.
Ghostwood covered Part Seventeen and took the first 18 minutes to celebrate the life of the recently passed Harry Dean Stanton. They bring up Alien and Repo Man in particular but go through a number of highlights from his expansive career. After that they go into Part Seventeen where they say the mythos storyline is wrapped up and Chad reveals his Get Smart/James Bond boots with the universal key in the heel. Did Jerry travel to Wyoming by foot, car or portal? Was DoppelCooper’s head in that White Lodge cage a reference to the glass box? Lucy’s cellphones(!) understanding comes from someone who can’t be in two places at once, and the hosts have no value judgment on the Bob/Freddy fight scene. Cooper In Space met Naido but did he recognize her or Diane? They touch hands like they’re reflections. One of the hosts asks if Diane is Lil, which was a real theory and not too far afield…one of her Bureau jobs could’ve been Cole’s message delivery girl. If true, red hair is the tell. Is Cooper’s mention of the curtain call a fourth wall break? The only Jumping Man theory is he’s there in the stairwell to connect the location firmly to the convenience store. The “unofficial” version could be Cole remembering the first timeline rather than the updated timeline that Cooper created? Laura’s body disappears and Pete doesn’t see her. Cooper leads Laura to Jack Rabbit’s Palace and we hear the same scream as Lodge Laura being ripped away in Part Two. The hosts saw the red curtains and assumed the Lodge but found the Roadhouse instead with their favorite Julee Cruise song. They hear the lyrics about Stay meaning rather than go with Leo and Ronette, and don’t take the ring. They worry if Ronette’s in even more trouble in that timeline with the removed Laura, or does Bob follow Laura into the new timeline? Bob unattended isn’t good. After some thoughts they mention The Secret History of Twin Peaks discrepancies and discuss if they’re different due to the alternate timelines. The hosts agree that this Part puts the worms back in the can then opens a whole case of worms, and Charles is optimistic because the story can go anywhere, while Xan is less optimistic because of the hanging plots and lack of resolution in particular for Audrey. They head off down a few final tangents to wrap up and get ready for their Part Eighteen coverage.
Gifted and the Damned put out a listener feedback mailbag episode that mixed emails from listeners into their standard formula of their general Twin Peaks commentary and sharing of their iTunes reviews. The emails came in evenly positive and negative with the listeners’ overall response to Season Three, with one particular (paraphrased) response catching my ear: What’s more disturbing than the realization that everything you think is important isn’t of value at all to this other reality? The hosts share listeners’ favorite (and least favorite) characters, favorite scenes and Parts, favorite and least favorite relationships (including platonic ones like Hawk and Log Lady), while sharing thoughts like “the fact people find meaning in The Return is a positive thing.” They discuss common theories such as “in the real world,” Jow Day = explanation, and discuss journey vs. destination in regards to plots that go nowhere. Bubba explains how random things solving almost every “what’s going to happen here” moment really derailed the narrative momentum for him, and counts himself in the camp of fans who were not captured by the dream while watching Season Three, which I agree with him is a valid school of thought. We get a little background of their podcasting experience, like the origin of their Double-L (loyal listeners) alliteration stuff comes from, and the hosts talk about one of Mork’s lingering questions: Why is Cooper trying to help Laura if she’s at rest? The hosts wrap up stating their plans to cover Final Dossier and otherwise stay podcasting. This show is not closing up shop anytime soon.
Mr. Podcast with Claude and Justin put in 7 hours and 48 minutes for their coverage of Part Eighteen and fine tooth combed every scene and thought through any angle they could think of. I put it on the scale more thorough than meandering. They summed up everyone’s understanding right up front with this: “while my head is confused, my heart knows exactly what happened.” They started as a joke but decided there’s truth that it’s easier to explain what happened in a song than a podcast. Another regular dark joke: “LOST influenced Twin Peaks in ways we all regret.” One major assumption they stick with is that Sarah is definitely inhabited by Judy and that Judy/Sarah did some magic hitting that prom picture that erased Laura into some other universe. Also, they don’t refer to Aurbach’s cage universe theory by name but they framework most of their theories adjacent to it. They mention how in Part Two Cooper says “but Laura Palmer is dead,” and that Coop’s Judy/find Laura plan isn’t in place then at all (they suggest it happens after Leland says “find Laura”). The show pulls away from exposition when it counts and when it does add exposition it usually makes things worse. DoppelCooper on fire is obviously not dead, so is his non-finale the point or is it saying tulpas and doppelgangers are different? Identity switches and new worlds have no setup nor explanation of how they affect people. They discuss time paradoxes, how the Dougie ending is not a happy ending for Cooper (who is now basically a Dr. Who guy now), and if Laura is the girl who lived down the lane. They can’t pin the black and white Fireman/Cooper scene anywhere in the show chronology, and the final credits whisper seems to be about the nature of reality. They discuss the “you’re not good enough to save me” interpretation of Laura’s words, the possible Audrey connection, and how if they don’t tell us what’s whispered we’re not supposed to know. Lynch’s seeming message is “I’m not going to reveal the ultimate mystery this time.” As far as Cooper’s plan knowledgeability about-face they suggest it’s a memory issue and “now that I remember what you said I know to do X, Y and Z.” There are things typically explained in a movie and why does Twin Peaks not want the audience to know these things? MIKE consistently being the deus ex machina for CooperDougie but only gets “is it future or is it past” for Dale. They ask why time travel changes Coop and Diane’s identities, and why the 430 miles matter after the Jeffries portal? They ask how time travel and universe hopping works together and why, if Jeffries and Giant’s plans mean different things, why geography changes, how does Coop know that highway is the one, and why Diane is a love interest at the last minute? Coop’s feelings for Annie and Caroline are all messed up if he was sending his feelings on tape to the woman he had romantic feelings for. Did Coop imagine Diane, and why not imagine a Diane that’s in love with him for real? Can she never really love him just like he can’t ever save Laura? How can he know Laura’s a diner waitress in Odessa yet not know what year it is? The hotel scene had “textbook sex: looking up and crying.” Diane seeing herself is like she’s readying to leave part of herself behind, and Cooper gives Diane no reasons for why they’re doing anything (why?). As Cooper reinforces himself, “Linda” doesn’t know him anymore…did Diane ever exist? If so, why is Cooper okay leaving her stranded between timelines? If you just forget about the past of Twin Peaks, this part works like Lost Highway. More forgetting: Andy seems to not remember his vision when he sees DoppelCooper for the first time. They point out there’s no Laura orb in Andy’s Lodge vision. The hosts’ conversation about scenes taking place in relation to other scenes ends up sounding like a tongue twister, and they ask if maybe the tree mentioning the girl who lived down the lane means the Lodge denizens are just as confused as we are. In Judy’s Diner the damsel in distress waitress isn’t happy at all with “Richard” taking charge and “saving the day,” and the hosts declare an uncanny valley between what Cooper KNOWS and what he just plain DOESN’T. In Carrie’s house, nobody talking about the dead body feels like they’re gaslighting us. Did Laura kill the Bob of this universe, and is the white horse there because of death? Why no comment? Maybe because if you find out life is a dream you don’t care about some things. Worse than why Coop doesn’t care, the hosts want an answer for why he cares about Laura so much. They ask if “keep a clean house” is a callback to “It’s in our house now”, and note a similarity with the James Fire Walk With Me scene where she jumps randomly from topic to topic. They jump back to Part Sixteen when Cooper wakes up in the hospital WITH his FBI lapel pin, and they ask where he got that from, assuming the possibility that Vegas could be some form of manufactured reality. At the Tremond house, the “Laura” call is definitely Sarah from the pilot. Carrie’s scream is scary because it’s not threatening. They guess either the bad guys are winning or Laura realizes it’s not real. Her being sent to a random reality matches jackpot sounds cue, and was she sent to one where Laura doesn’t exist, or is there also a Laura in this reality? Did she get there by the #6 pole? The hosts find it hard to believe breaking the fourth wall is the intent. They discuss why characters might not change their take on reality if they find out it’s all a dream, and are sure the characters are not realizing they’re characters in a fictional work. The hosts consider Laura and Audrey as the Dreamer’s identity, and wonder if Cooper entered into Laura’s dream. In their listing of portals they also list the celestial bassoon as one. Laura’s whisper to Cooper is probably an explanation of what went wrong. The hosts ask why DoppelCooper doesn’t have access to Dale’s retroactive memories as they share their memories, then go into another take on coordinates as they ask if retrospectively that part of the plot holds together. They wish Bob would’ve been a bigger/menacing presence in season three (though they understand the Frank Silva issue). Then they ask about the Lodge denizens’ motivations again, settling on helping Dougie leads to stopping Mr. C. Cooper’s motivations for “don’t take the ring” means either Cooper doesn’t know what he’s doing or “don’t bind yourself to the Black Lodge.” The Lodge/Waiting Room used to be menacing but wasn’t threatening this season, and they think Hawk went to the curtains when Cooper was supposed to be released. The show squandered the connections between Richard Horne and DoppelCooper, Becky, and payoffs in general, though they still appreciated how the series challenged them. The hosts made a case for the difference between having under three hours of emotional distance from characters (that works) and how long it happened here (where it didn’t work so well). On their own, a LOT of scenes worked well, but as part of Twin Peaks? Not as much. The hosts think the ending would’ve been a good establisher of a new season rather than the crazy tangent it became. The hosts were fair to this show considering how confused they were by its choices. Overall this came off as a net positive response.
Podcasting Them Softly covered the early movies of David Lynch from Eraserhead through season two of Twin Peaks (skipping Wild at Heart for now) with guest Raymond Bensen, who saw Eraserhead for the first time in a New York theater in 1979. The hosts say Lynch has interesting feelings on fatherhood, and the movie can also be seen as an absurd comedy. The talk about how the movie was made, its timing, and how all Lynch’s film school friends end up making it into his movies (including Sissy Spacek who was in The Straight Story). Bensen saw David Bowie play the Elephant Man on stage in 1980 right before he saw Lynch’s film version, and the hosts credit Mel Brooks with giving Lynch the prominence that boosted his career. Elephant Man was the reason why the makeup category was in the next year’s Oscars, and Lynch learned so much on set the hosts call it his graduate school. Onto Dune, they say it was meant to be a four hour movie, which would’ve kept the story much more clear. The production seems to have gotten away from Lynch, though the visuals were all him and the trait of casting musicians as actors began here. DiLaurentis still had Lynch under contract for one more movie and that became Blue Velvet, which the hosts call a perfect movie. It’s Lynch’s take on Americana, and they suggest even has blurred timelines: It’s a 50’s vibe right up until Frank Booth arrives and suddenly it’s dark 80s. Its tone and total lack of ability to predict anything is on display, and the hosts suggest Lynch is the surrealist of his generation. They call his sex scenes dark, lurid, and not erotic (excepting Wild at Heart). They call Blue Velvet pure kitsch but when it wants to unsettle you it does. They go into the Twin Peaks Pilot next, suggesting Lynch and Frost were looking at making a serialized Blue Velvet for television. They note Lynch brings in the surreal big time in Season Two which they credit as when the general viewer drops off. They are kind to the “lesser” episodes because the show didn’t know where it wanted to go, and like the last six or so episodes with Earle. They ask near the end if they’d rather have had season three now or then, and their answers aren’t identical. There will be a follow-up episode where the later Lynch movies are covered.
Twin Peaks The Return closes up shop with an episode titled The Journey of Agent Cooper with guest Keith Gow, who originally saw Twin Peaks when he was 15 and it was originally airing. He calls Cooper an inquisitive and nonviolent character, which makes him unique even today. Gow’s initial question about The Return was why was it going to take him 18 Parts to get back? He says this new Cooper doesn’t deal with people the way you shoild deal with them, he’s not concerned with others as individuals anymore, thinking more about time and space instead. It feels like Cooper’s done parts 17 and 18 before and he still doesn’t get it. This feels like a worse failure than in season two because he so much more enlightened and he makes a bad choice intentionally. He’s not concerned with the rest of the town, just fixated on fixing the Laura issue. He hasn’t been able to adapt to the real world again, has no support network, he’s basically a Lodge entity now. And the show’s kind of made him Windom Earle now. Watching the show is not getting answers, having the experience, then coping with it. It’s not about nostalgia this time, it’s about the world we live in now. Gow loved the experience but it didn’t feel like the show he wanted back. Will knowing Cooper made the wrong decision poison the rewatch of the season? If Cooper’s not listening, it makes him villainous or an anti-hero. If he exacerbates Laura’s trauma it’s hard to forgive no matter the intention. It may be Laura’s Part Two rip-out from the Lodge was caused by Judy rather than Cooper, and Gow doesn’t want Laura to be a creation of the White Lodge because it messes with her humanity, but it’s possible they’re both White Lodge agents or a recreation of their dream. Why has Laura aged and is not with her angel? Where does Cooper’s victory (that other fans are trying to logic together) come from? What sound does Cooper need to listen to? Is the point keep going and don’t look back, like in Orpheus and Eurydice? Cooper doesn’t seem to fully understand in the Richard/Linda letter scene. The hosts discuss if in Part 18 they’re in our reality, if season three exists because basically created it like a tulpa, if Richard was the real Cooper, and if Dale really has looped through this time frame before and took on some DoppelCooper tendencies by now. The sex scene feeds into the subtext of re-experiencing trauma and can you patch over it or not. Were they recreating the rape? It seems “necessary” to their plan but it’s all about Diane’s trauma. Is the message you can try to fix her trauma but you can’t? You can’t undo it or erase it but you can come to a form of peace with it. Do the hosts want more Twin Peaks? Maybe, maybe not. There’s so much in Gow’s head right now he could use some time without new material just to process what’s in there now. Andy ends with a quick thank you, and a possible episode to coincide with the home video release, but otherwise there’s nothing else on the horizon for this show. If this is it, it was a good run and it ended strong. If there’s another, I welcome it.
Twin Peaks Unwrapped’s episode #123 was an interview with John Carroll Lynch, director of Lucky. The movie starred Harry Dean Stanton, who does not suffer fools, so Lynch (usually an actor himself) tried not to be foolish in his directorial debut. David Lynch, also in the movie as an actor, needed to be rock solid with his part and he was. The movie was filmed in 18 days and this interview kept spoilers to a minimum. Lynch talks also about his appearance in Channel Zero as an actor and his American Horror Story turn as Twisty. The hosts come in alone after the interview, liking how Lucky was a movie without violence. They thought it was a statement on how we look at life and morality. They didn’t know lucky was based on Harry Dean Stanton’s life before the interview, but now that they know the movie is even more rich for it.
Wrapped in Podcast covered the hosts’ final thoughts in their “final” episode (I assume they’ll cover The Final Dossier sooner than later) titled “The Absurd Mystery of the Strange Forces of Existence.” JR was dumbstruck and awestruck by the whole thing. Ken asks if Coop is a hero, and JR says he’s doomed. A lot of misery came out of his well meaning quest and his tragic flaw is overreaching. Coop is a flawed hero who is regularly about the denial of women’s agency and his curiosity about things that are none of his business, and season three is about his education. Is he David Lynch personified? Is he a patriarchal busybody? He regularly wants to know about everything, dives headlong into everything tangential. Shifting gears they bring up the idea that all the screams in season three are happening simultaneously across universes, and they bring up a fundamental point to grapple with: Cooper says don’t take the ring, Laura does anyway, and the implication is Cooper hasn’t learned much in the past 25 years. They delve into Auerbach’s cage theory where Judy expresses her power by sweeping Laura away from Cooper in ‘89. They also mention DoppelCooper think’s he’s special and regular rules don’t apply to him but they do, and Dale is basically the same feeling special. The hosts explore MIKE’s motivations (he wants Bob back), think Briggs is a Lodge figure now (a force for good), and then Kyle explains his dream theory which we’ve since published here. Cooper goes along with the dream logic of Parts 17 and 18 but begins to wake up. “What year is this” is the next “get Gordon Cole”. Right after he closes out this solid-as-rock theory, they all applaud Twin Peaks for its ability to be interpreted correctly in different ways and directions, and then they talk about their initial blindsided reactions to the finale, where they say “what the hell did I just watch” is supposed to happen and is part of the process. After time’s passed they’re good with the degree of ambiguity, and think there are three questions we’re left with at the end of The Return: what year is this, how’s Annie, and who killed Laura Palmer? It’s a show about free-floating grief and it ends with free-floating grief. There are no states no borders between dream and reality. There’s honor in the trying to end suffering and the alternative is even worse. They end by stating they spent a lot of time detailing plots and theorizing and they’re thankful for their listeners, ending with a shared quote from Major Briggs: “achievement is its own reward, pride obscures it.”
