setsuled

This is my favourite so far, both song and video, from Chrystabell and David Lynch's new album, "Cellophane Memories". I love how subtle the video is. Lynch doesn't direct the viewer to any of the almost imperceptible changes that occur, your own eye is responsible for whether you're watching Chrystabell in the see-through dress or the little man with half a face caught in mid-motion.

Like the previous songs, there's a siren's call quality to it. Chrystabell seems not so much to be a definite woman but a dreamt of ideal or manifestation of fundamental, irrepressible desire. The man with the fractured face is almost indistinguishable from his environment. One indefinite being dreams of another. The sense of sorrow and urgency underlying it all imbues these clouds with anxiety parallel to the weird sedative quality. It's lovely.

It reminds me of "Ghost of Love", Lynch's song from the Inland Empire soundtrack, especially with that guitar and percussion.

Every three days or so, I get a mad desire to watch a David Lynch movie. Which is terrible because Lynch movies benefit from infrequent viewing, when he can surprise you with a well chosen sound effect, musical cue, or image. Fortunately, I've only watched Inland Empire about fifteen times or so and not at all since moving to Japan three years ago. So I watched it last week.

Released in 2006, it's looking increasingly likely to be Lynch's final feature film. Which would be appropriate considering the closing credits feature what seems almost to be footage of his retirement party, complete with dancing girls and a man sawing wood.



Some consider the third season of Twin Peaks, released in 2017, to be basically an 18 hour feature film. I do believe I ranked it among films myself on my yearly ranking and on my ranking of films from the 2010s. American TV has become increasingly serialised over the past decade, but even by those standards, the episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return feel inextricably linked in ways no other show does. Inland Empire is not dissimilar.



It's a three hour film about an actress, Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), who gets trapped in a haunted screenplay. Inland Empire is arguably Lynch's most postmodern work because, at its heart, it's a commentary on the audience/artist relationship. The concept of a haunted screenplay is a good vehicle for this because it provides a pretext for commenting on how stories connect people across time and space. Lynch uses the concept, too, to string together a number of previously standalone vignettes he filmed for his web site that all take on a broader meaning within the narrative.



But unlike most postmodernist dramatic works that are unsatisfying due to the emotional distance the writer clings to in an analytic mode, Lynch's unique mastery of visual and audio storytelling creates a visceral and personal experience. That shot of Laura Dern running on the hillside with that garish grin is always scary. The troupe of prostitute spirits, which becomes a kind of Greek chorus, almost an audience surrogate, is effectively mysterious and unnerving yet oddly comforting. Their mocking dance to "Locomotion" is a celebration, a satire, and a tormented cry all at once. Because human feelings are that complicated and self-contradictory.



I love the scene where Nikki, performing with her co-star played by Justin Theroux, has to break character and laugh, commenting how the lines are just like the screenplay for the movie. It's such a brilliant moment of Alice in Wonderland logic. something that literally makes no sense and yet also makes perfect sense on a deeper level. We know what she means even though what she says is meaningless.



The story is episodic and disjointed and yet undeniably all a smoothly connected whole. I often feel Lynch's movies are best taken in one gulp, an opinion I think he shares, considering he dislikes providing chapter menus on his DVD and blu-ray releases. People underestimate the importance of sequence not just on a narrative level but on a sensual level. A funny scene has a different impact if it comes right after a scary scene, a scene of romantic consummation is different if it comes after scenes of darkness and confusion. You really have to be open to taking the ride.

Inland Empire is available on The Criterion Channel.

After all these years, the premiere episode of Twin Peaks season two remains absolutely delectable. I've blogged before about how I love the anti-momentum of it. How the finale of season one was plot driven, high melodrama and then David Lynch immediately threw a wrench into the works, bringing us to a full stop with Cooper lying on the floor and . . . Hank Warden shows up with warm milk.



The episode is a sequence of scenes and moments that are just exquisite. Audrey with that mask and her father. The Giant. Jerry and Blackie with the heroin. The wood tick in the path of a bullet. The man in a smiling bag. "What's there to smile about." "Uncle Leland's hair turned white." The stain on the floor. "Mairzy Doats". "These same geese were flying that night." Andy getting that board in the face and his line, "Do you know who it is? Do you know who it is?" which, like the best of Lynch, is simultaneously completely bizarre and absolutely natural. It's my favourite Andy moment in the whole series, and that includes season three.



There's also Pete taking a moment to quietly ponder smoke inhalation. There's Donna playing femme fatale with Laura's glasses--which recalls Laura's "Don't ever wear my stuff," line from Fire Walk With Me, giving the funny scene a darker meaning. There's Bobby playing doctor with an adorable Shelly Johnson.



There's Major Briggs' lovely vision of Bobby shortly thereafter, which has become more poignant knowing where Bobby ends up in season three. There's the Brothers Horne pacing around Hank. And, of course, there's the delicate, nervous nightmare of the Hayward Supper Club.



There's the incredible ending with the first depiction of Laura's murder. Sheryl Lee gives us her great horror scream in that scene but she's just as good earlier on with Donna in that diner booth scene I love so much.



I wonder if this scene was the impetus for all those booth vignettes in season three.

This is the first time Maddy really looked good after hair, makeup, and wardrobe were such consistent misfires for her in season one.



I even like the combination of olive green and, what, mulberry? And that massive collar. It's a strange but cosy outfit. You could say that about the whole series.

I spent a few days devouring Mark Frost's Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier, a short book that any Twin Peaks fan would read in double time. But I haven't read The Secret History of Twin Peaks, also written by Mark Frost, released before the première of season three. Partly I avoided it because of this quote from David Lynch from a press conference:

Q: What did [Lynch] think of Frost’s book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks?
A: I haven’t read it. It’s his history of Twin Peaks.

Lynch's emphasis on "his" made me think the book reflected a perspective on Twin Peaks Lynch didn't share. I was reminded that Lynch and Frost parted ways creatively after the series and that Frost didn't contribute to the screenplay for Fire Walk with Me. I wondered if their reunion for the series return was on the condition that Frost be allowed to put out his version of events in book form while Lynch was the dominant creative control on the show itself.

I can only guess what the differences in perspective might be. When reading the Dossier I tried to spot contradictions and inconsistencies compared to the show. Aside from the fact that Agent Preston is referred to as "Tammy" on the show--even the plaque on her desk says "Tammy"--and in the book she refers to herself as "Tamara", I only caught one real contradiction--on the subject of Judy. The Dossier takes the form of a report from Preston to Gordon Cole and in the section on Judy she makes inferences and deductions based on Phillip Jeffries' statements in Fire Walk with Me and on some info found in Buenos Aires. She doesn't once refer to the great deal of information on Judy supplied by Gordon himself on the show. This made me wonder if I was right in one of my earlier suspicions regarding the disagreement between Lynch and Frost, that Lynch preferred a more spiritual explanation for the strange forces operating in Twin Peaks while Frost preferred an extraterrestrial one. As it is, the show mixes the two together a lot with references to Project Blue Book and Major Briggs monitoring the skies alongside things like Hawk's map or the angel in Fire Walk with Me.

The book also doesn't spend much time talking about new characters. The only new character from the third season who has his own section is Ray Monroe. It's no surprise that characters like the Mitchum Brothers, Candie, or Janey E wouldn't figure in the book since it's supposed to be about the residents of Twin Peaks but I was surprised by the absences of Carl and Miriam. I actually really wanted to know what happened to Miriam.

The urge to find out "what happened" was the main compulsion behind reading the book, of course. The show does an excellent job of piquing your interest and leaving it piqued. A review of The Final Dossier I read yesterday describes the differences between Lynch and Frost as being the differences between "artist" and "storyteller". This isn't accurate enough for me. I'd say the difference is more like the difference between "sensation" and "exposition". I would say both involve art and storytelling. I think Lynch would argue the experience of watching the Fusco brothers grin stupidly at each other conveys a story that couldn't come across in words. Stories are more than words. But words are pretty good too.

The Dossier spends a surprising amount of time catching us up on season two characters--I was particularly interested in learning more about Annie Blackburn. I'd heard there were some intriguing contradictions about her in the Secret History, also related to contradictions involving her relationship with Norma and their mother, played by Jane Greer in season two. Who knows if these were mistakes on Frost's part--given Lynch's love for mistakes, I think he'd likely focus on the strangeness of the discrepancies but Frost endeavours to tie up all lose ends logically as possible. So references to Lana as the winner of the Miss Twin Peaks contest in Secret History are explained by Annie being stuck in a coma requiring the runner up to assume duties. Frost surprisingly spends time delving into Lana's subsequent biography which includes an obliquely referenced affair with Donald Trump. This was both amusing and unpleasant--it's nice to get away from any mention of that asshole but it actually makes perfect sense Lana would seek him out.

Frost's explanation for Norma being an only child and also having a sister is a little more complicated but it results in Frost giving a much bigger back story to Vivian, which, considering she was played by the noir great Jane Greer, I did kind of appreciate.

So the book did satisfy some of my urge to know the scoop. At the same time, if Lynch wants to contradict any of it in the future, I'd be perfectly happy to go on that ride.

One of the reasons Twin Peaks: The Return kept me glued to the screen is David Lynch's seeming ability to read my expectations and then exploit them to provide a striking experience. It's like he could read my mind and knew just how to pull the rug out from under me. So here's a list of ten times Twin Peaks: The Return went off the rails in a really wonderful, frightening, or funny way.



Chantal and Hutch

Casting Jennifer Jason Lee and Tim Roth as the two ultimate assassins hired by Mr. C to take out sleep walking Agent Cooper already sets them up as significant players. Their meandering conversations about Mormons and philosophising somehow implies they're even deadlier--in standard storytelling parlance it's this kind of thing that usually indicates someone is a particularly formidable killer. It's the main reason the two feel like they come out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, aside from the fact that both actors were in The Hateful 8. So when they meet their end at the hands of some random accountant with anger issues, it's kind of a shock even as it's perfectly in keeping with their story. They who live by the non-sequitor may die by the non-sequitor.



Billy

The unseen Billy was teased all season, not just by Audrey Horne but by a man looking for him in the RR and by some of the girls in the recurring vignettes of characters in the roadhouse booths who were never seen again. When one girl talks about Billy having a relationship with her mother her friend asks for her mother's name and Lynch intentionally holds the moment, knowing we're expecting her to say "Audrey". When she says "Tina" instead we start to sense the story about frustrated, diverted connexions perhaps infecting the community on some massive subconscious level.



Cops

The three cops investigating Dougie Jones aren't exactly incompetent and they're not exactly masters but their oddness causes us to expect one or the other. From their first scene in Dougie's office they show a capacity to arrest the viewer when one of them, who hadn't spoken for the whole scene, emits his strange, high pitched laugh for the first time. And then it turns out there's nothing really extraordinary about them aside from their very credible, extraordinarily normal weirdness.



The Turnip Joke

Who would have thought Gordon having some foreplay with a mysterious French beauty was a setup just for him to tell a hilariously dumb joke about turnip farming to Albert? But it's Albert's reaction that clenches this scene's play on expectations--somehow his complete lack of response, his completely blank expression, is both odd and yet, characteristic of Albert, impossibly down to earth.



Candie

From the early scene where she hunts an elusive fly Candie establishes herself as the fly in the ointment of otherwise smooth sailing. Right up to her final line about preparing so many sandwiches, Candie had a bizarre knack for making everyone stop and wonder just what the hell is really going on. From her over enthusiastic agreement with Cooper that the Mitchums have "hearts of gold" to her intense contemplation of traffic on the Strip, Candie was like a canary in the coal mine of reality, alerting us to some hidden danger that even now remains obscure.



Dougie Jones, coiled cobra

Another reason a showdown with Chantal and Hutch had such a buildup was because of the unexpected revelation that even sleep-walking Cooper could instantly marshal his legendary reflexes and coordination. The gentle, cow-like, grazing man suddenly sprang to life when Ike the Spike threatened him and Janey E. An appearance by the Arm cemented the strangeness of the lighting fury in the scene.



The Sound at the Great Northern

By the end of the series this sound seems to be related to a portal in the Great Northern's boiler room yet we also hear a similar sound when Cooper wakes in the hospital. But for most of the season it was a background noise to Ben and Beverly's sinister flirtations. So while the sound drew our minds to one mystery it really served as a way to inject a strange energy into the chemistry between the married Beverly and her boss. Were the two phenomena related? Given the way the supernatural is intimately connected to personal relationships, I'd say probably. But it's the uncertainty that keeps our attention.



The Walking Woodsman

We see him in the morgue, walking, unnoticed by Cynthia Knox who's busy talking on the phone about Major Briggs' body. The Woodsman just keeps getting closer and closer and finally . . . continues down the hall, not even breaking stride. Somehow this is more disturbing than him actually doing anything, the sight of his walking and the ominous sounds perfectly playing off the grisly mystery involving the body.



Janey E, Negotiator

Dougie's got a bad gambling debt so when Janey E confronts the lone sharks the history of such stories have taught us this can't go well for her or Dougie. But somehow she seems to get her and Dougie out of it by sheer willpower and the ferocity of Naomi Watts' performance. And we never see these schlubs again.



"This is the water . . ."

My list isn't in any particular order but this one is probably my favourite. Why is that chant uttered by the Woodsman on that fateful night so effective? The words he chooses and his tone are a crucial part of it--"This is," he starts out like he's going to give us any radio call sign, "This is TPKR in Chicago and you're listening to--" or whatever. Then he takes it to something primal; "This is the water and this is the well." It reflects the sense of reassurance meant to be intrinsic in such radio announcements and the promise meant to be in there that you're going to hear something that nourishes you spiritually in some way, either with good music or maybe some entertaining talk. Some reassuring human sound, in other words. But by laying it bare in this way, saying this is life sustaining water in this place, the well, where you can reliably go back and get it, is incredibly sinister. The fact that we know such announcements are normally exaggerated and intended to seduce us implicates us as complicit. The mind is forced to loop back on its interpretation and accept this Woodsman's stripped down reality. That's how hypnosis works. It really is a spell.

Part of me wonders how I can go back to watching any other TV show after Twin Peaks, part of me feels like the brilliance of Twin Peaks has enhanced my viewing experience of everything else. As last night's finale brought home, it is a show about experience, about contemplation of the moment and the potentials that are inherent in every moment. Among many other things, the third, hopefully not final, season of Twin Peaks is the nexus of Hitchcock and Cocteau, where the essence of suspense meets the essence of surrealism in a beautifully, startlingly meaningful way.

Spoilers after the screenshot



It's relatively well known that Laura Palmer's murder in the original series was never meant to be solved, that Lynch and Frost were forced by the network to reveal the killer's identity. The virtue in this original plan became clear to me some years ago when I was watching the series with my sister and I realised how much more interesting every scene must have been for her when virtually any character could be the killer. Like Hitchcock's bomb under the table, there's the suspense of that hidden fact and it compels the viewer to evaluate everything about each of the many characters we meet, to wonder whether some aspect of their surface personality is a reflection or a distortion of some other reality hidden from us.



Like the second season finale, the third season finale brings us more troubling, unanswered questions in the end. Twin Peaks doesn't leave all questions unanswered and not all of the clues lead nowhere--if it did, we'd get used to it and stop being engaged. Andy's (Harry Goaz) mission given to him by the Fireman (Carel Struycken) is fulfilled in a satisfying way as is the destiny of Freddie (Jark Wardle), which seems to have been nothing less than punching out Bob (Frank Silva's picture inside a black ball). The Fireman and the head of Major Briggs (a photo of Don S. Davis) even seem to make sure Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives at the sheriff's station after finally getting to the right coordinates, seemingly indicating how sure they were all the right pieces were falling into place. It was an exceptionally well executed conventional showdown plot with plenty of ingenuity and entertaining ideas. I love the fact that Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) shot Mr. C and that the two Coopers somehow finally made her understand cell phones. There's a mysterious logic at play in Lucy's brain--it's easy to say she and Andy are stupid but I think Lynch's point is that what they have is a kind of intelligence organised in a vastly different way from how most of us understand it.



But on the other hand, that's true of everyone. It's easy to demonstrate by looking, for example, at reviews of the Twin Peaks finale. In an otherwise very positive review by Emily L. Stephens of A.V. Club, she feels compelled to note:

Naido being reduced to a placeholder for Diane is another example of Lynch’s clumsy sidelining of non-white characters. In this case, she’s not even a character, but a symbol of a character.



Why does Stephens reach this conclusion? Because most of Lynch's characters are white? In a finale so full of ambiguities, why is Stephens so sure that Naido (Nae Yuuki) is only a symbol of another character? We can interpret it like Stephens but we can as easily interpret it many other ways. For example, how do we know Diane (Laura Dern) isn't a symbol for Naido?

Naido's name is almost "Diane" in reverse. It becomes "Odian" when spelled backwards. Maybe meaning "Oh, Diane" or possibly "Zero Diane". The Twin Peaks wiki also has this explanation:

In Japanese Buddhism, the term naidō (内道) literally translates to "Inner Path," simultaneously describing "inner teachings" or "[one] within the path" of nature and righteousness.

Is Naido really Diane, or is her assuming the form of Diane a response to Cooper's (Kyle MacLachlan) need?

Incidentally, I recently learned about the second kanji in naido, 道, which means "way". The box on the right represents a severed human head and the line on the left represents a road--it represents an incident in ancient times when a conquering army left the severed heads of their enemies all along the road on their way back to their castle. In could be a coincidence but we've sure seen plenty of severed heads along the path this season.



The seemingly straight forward action climax shifts at one point to having footage of Cooper's stunned face overlaid on the increasingly strange occurrences in Truman's (Robert Forster) office. Like Phillip Jeffries in Fire Walk with Me, the close up of Cooper's face says that we live inside a dream and, indeed, things start to seem more and more dreamlike, especially when Candie (Amy Shiels) and the two other girls working for the Mitchum brothers bring in baskets of snacks. It is a good thing they made so many sandwiches but when did they make them and how did they know so many people were going to be there? Cooper, Diane, and Gordon (David Lynch) going to the boiler room under the Great Northern feels even stranger.



In episode 18, it becomes even clearer that Lynch's aim is to present scenes that do have a meaning but which also require interpretation from the viewer. Information given to Cooper by the Fireman at the beginning of season three starts to come into play--Cooper had been told back then to look out for the number 430 and we see him and Diane drive 430 miles out from some unmentioned location. Then, after checking into a motel, they make love, after which Cooper finds a note that seems to indicate he and Diane have become the Richard and Linda mentioned by the Fireman way back. I love how Lynch's sex scenes aren't just extended ways of saying, "They had sex." Each one is a vital and distinctive part of the story. This one had some things in common with the sex scenes in Lost Highway and there's a sense that Cooper's identity is becoming strange to Diane in this moment of physical intimacy. Her hands seem compelled to cover his face and in the note the next morning "Linda" says that she no longer recognises the person "Richard" has become. Before this, Diane has a vision of herself outside the motel and all together it seems that travelling between worlds has once again required the travellers to inhabit other identities and stories.



But Cooper is still Cooper. It seems twenty five years in the Black Lodge have taught him some magic. But what is he doing? Still trying to save Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)? Is this the story of the little girl down the lane? Is it like Scottie in Vertigo, trying to make reality into a story about himself, a lawman, saving a beautiful woman from untimely death? The chivalrous knight is quick to protect the waitress (Francesca Eastwood) from three assholes in Judy's diner.



In the end, it seems to become a masterfully executed nightmare about a time travel story. Like the season two finale, everything seems to crash into enigmatic disaster. Jeez, I hope there's going to be a season four. I want to know what happens with Bobby and Shelly, what happened to Becky, what the deal is with Candie, I want to see more of Tammy Preston. In short, I want more. But I probably always will.

Twitter Sonnet #1030

Refreshing xylophone appraised the ice.
The party cooled beyond martini chill.
A name too far in sloth exchanged for rice.
A pie awaits upon the autumn sill.
The steam is pressed against the kettle's gut.
The melting air appears on ev'ry brow.
To screaming heat no window now can shut.
A boiling tide consumes the dipping bow.
Two birds ingest a single stone again.
The dream advanced behind the forward moon.
The only chance became a pyrrhic win.
An endless quest may also end too soon.
The absent eyes invite the seer home.
A skipping sound compels the dream to roam.

It's weird getting used to an absolutely transcendent experience in television every Sunday night, watching Twin Peaks. And it's always different--the newest episode, "There's Some Fear in Letting Go", I doubt left any fan of the old series with dry eyes.

Spoilers after the screenshot



In an extraordinary moment of life and art coalescing, actress Catherine Coulson, who died before filming on this season completed, performed the death scene of Margaret Lanterman. Seeing her looking so frail all season with her hair gone and tubes in her nose, it's hard not to feel the reality in her discussing death with Hawk (Michael Horse). As one of the most recognisable figures of what made Twin Peaks distinct from the beginning, it's appropriate for the death of the Log Lady to be given such attention . . . and the grief in that dim conference room where only a tearful Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) is fully illuminated is . . . well, there are no words to do it justice.



Margaret's not the only character death in the episode. In addition to the abrupt execution of Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) and his assistant, it also seems Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) commits suicide though we don't actually see him die.



I loved the way Alicia Witt played Gersten's reaction on the other side of the tree when she heard the gunshot. The way she claws at her hair it's clear she's immediately trying to scrub her mind of any understanding of what she's just heard. She looks up at the trees--we'd been getting point of view shots from Steven of the trees too and I really love how much this season makes the forest a character. There had always been talk about a darkness and a mystery present in the woods around Twin Peaks but since there had to be more limitations on exterior shots in the old series you didn't get to see the forest nearly as much. Now Lynch is using the woods every chance he gets. It's there for bad things and good, as when we see shots of trees and mountains after Ed (Everett McGill) and Norma (Peggy Lipton) embrace and kiss openly in the RR, finally free to be together.



Once again, we have a work of art being interpreted and provoking actions its creator could never have anticipated. This new season began with Dr. Jacobi receiving the shipment of shovels and painting them. Lynch invited us to contemplate them long before explaining how they were tied to Jacobi's political internet show. Who could have guessed Jacobi's exhortation that his viewers shovel out of the shit would motivate Nadine (Wendie Robie) to set Ed free?



Likewise, Bill Wilder never knew that giving Cecil B. DeMille a line about a character named "Gordon Cole" would inspire Lynch to use that name for a character and would also inspire Dougie Jones (Kyle MacLachlan) to be Dale Cooper again.



The new Twin Peaks can function as a public safety video, too. Don't run out into traffic and don't stick a fork in a power outlet. If you didn't know before you're certainly never going to forget now.



Maybe the most amazing segment, though, was Mr. C's (Kyle MacLachlan) encounter at the legendary convenience store. This segment tied the area above the convenience store, first mentioned by Mike (Al Strobel) in Cooper's original Red Room dream (or in the alternate pilot ending), with the old room with torn floral wallpaper Laura (Sheryl Lee) entered through the picture given to her by Mrs. Tremond. In Fire Walk with Me it seemed to connect to the Black Lodge but in a marvellously spooky sequence last night we saw Mr. C walk with a woodsman through the same doorway only to enter a long corridor of complete darkness which occasionally faded into ominously creaking trees.



He finally finds Phillip Jeffries--is he trapped in that ghostly motel? In any case, he's now a massive tea kettle voiced by Nathan Frizzell. My friend Caitlin pointed out to me that this tea kettle resembled one of the machines from the Fireman's home in episode 8.



Speaking of eight, Jeffries motel room is eight.



It's also the number on Freddie's (Jake Wardle) cell.



All these numbers on the show. I hope some mathematician fans are getting a kick out of them, I can't make heads or tails of them so far. Dougie seems to be associated with the number seven a lot. Does it mean something that James is in cell seven?



Poor James. His shy little greeting to Renee (Jessica Szohr) sure got out of control. But it puts Freddie in the same room with Naido (Nae Yuuki) so perhaps all this was arranged. Andy (Harry Goaz) said people are trying to kill her, now she's got the police station around her and a guy with super strength.



Finally, it was confirmed at last that Richard (Eamon Farren) is Audrey's (Sherilyn Fenn) son. This was followed by another strange scene between Audrey and Charlie (Clark Middleton) who is not, as I thought, a dwarf. The actor actually has a form of arthritis that inhibited his bone growth and he was apparently in Kill Bill vol 2 but I don't remember him at all. Anyway, the scene ends with Audrey trying to strangle him and after the way bits of their conversation have resembled things said in the Girls in Roadhouse Booths vignettes and we'd just seen Steven apparently feeling guilty about something, possibly for harming Becky in some way, I wonder if the idea is that actions tend to travel on spiritual currents out into a community. Or maybe through power lines.

Last night's new Twin Peaks showed the clear contrast between benevolent forces and cruel. It also contained the best arm wrestling scene I've seen in any movie or TV show and the best use of dandruff since North by Northwest.

Spoilers after the screenshot



Looks like a field of stars.

Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has become a master zen fool. He has lost all connexion to illusory human attachments, even identity, and allows the flow of existence to carry him. There's no guile when he becomes transfixed by the dandruff on Anthony's (Tom Sizemore) coat but it just happens to be the right thing to do. I wonder how much Mike (Al Strobel) and the Arm appreciate this new mode of existence for Cooper since Mike had told him he needed to "wake up". Maybe there'll be limits to Cooper's new powers.



There's something unsettling about his success with the Mitchum brothers. When they come into the Lucky Seven insurance building in that conga line the music sounds like a handful of screws dropped in an air duct. And Candie's (Amy Shiels) glee at giving gifts to Bushnell (Don Murray) seems manic. Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) in his new jungle gym at night with a spotlight is almost frighteningly delirious.



A more markedly uncertain reality appears in Audrey Horne's (Sherilyn Fenn) second episode of the new season. We see her questioning her own motives and identity and her relationship with Charlie (Clark Middleton) has become less clear. Last week he seemed to be her husband, now I wonder if he's a psychiatrist who indulges Audrey when she slips into delusional narratives. Or maybe she's in a dream. It almost feels like Lynch and Frost didn't know what to do with Audrey in the new series and decided to use this uncertainty as a prompt. Well, it certainly works, in my opinion, and I'm intrigued. Her desperation at searching for a basic identity, lacking Cooper's contentment, is kind of heart breaking.



Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) shows how malevolence has greater, more logical efficiency than Dougie's brand. I thought the idea of an arm wrestling scene was silly at first but I was completely won over when C tortured the gang boss, Renzo (Derek Mears), not merely with physical pain but with a complete disruption of the rules of strength and dominance that define the world Renzo understands. Cooper's a master Jedi and C's a consummate Sith.



Cherry pie was discussed a lot again this week, both at Lucky 7 Insurance and at Twin Peaks where we have another nice scene at the RR. Becky (Amanda Seyfried) reveals she has a love for the famous pie as well, also revealing she hasn't seen Steven in two days. I'm no relationship expert but firing off several rounds into his girlfriend's door might have made him skittish.



Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) says they've just found something of his father's "to-day" which is either a continuity error or the police have recovered whatever treasure the capsule map was leading to. Lynch and Frost show a genius level attention to detail so it's hard to believe it's an error.



And poor Big Ed (Everett McGill), finally back and, while he seems to be doing better with Norma (Peggy Lipton) than Bobby is with Shelly (Madchen Amick), things are still remarkably unsure with Norma apparently being wooed by some cheesy corporate cutthroat (Grant Goodeve). Honestly, Ed, I wouldn't worry.

One of the episodes most satisfyingly reminiscent of the first two seasons, last night's Twin Peaks, "There's Fire Where You're Going", also continued Lynch's discussion of the relationship between violence and children. It also showed how the forces for good are slow, misdirected, and mysterious, sometimes tragically so. I saw the episode on Friday at a screening at Comic Con--David Lynch had requested that no-one in the audience discuss the episode on social media until after it had aired and I was certainly willing to take direction from him. All the same, I'm glad I can talk about it now.



I'd caught the panel for Twin Peaks in Hall H on Friday afternoon, despite knowing most of it would likely end up on YouTube anyway, which it has:





My favourite moment is in around 20:10 in the second video where Everett McGill talks about Lynch's "sharp edge" after everyone else had been talking about how warm and comfortable the experience of working with Lynch is.

There are a couple things not in the videos, though. The panel was moderated by Damon Lindelof, the creator of The Leftovers and co-creator of Lost. It's unusual to see someone like Lindelof moderate a panel, which in itself speaks to the nature of Twin Peaks' influence, but to make it even clearer, Lindelof began with a speech in which he listed off the variety of great television shows, mentioning The X-Files, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Stranger Things among others, that wouldn't exist without Twin Peaks, concluding by saying that Lost would most certainly not have existed if not for Twin Peaks.

After this, a video David Lynch recorded for the panel was shown. It looked like it was filmed at the same time as his promos for the Japanese station, Wowow, that's airing Twin Peaks in Japan--Lynch sitting, talking to the camera with a black background. But this was much longer than the Wowow promo with Lynch pretending to do multiple takes of his Comic Con message, each time getting interrupted by something absurd--a man off camera jumping out of the window, someone evidently riding into the room on a horse. It was a funny video in an anachronistically corny way but also slightly disturbing. I'm glad I saw it.



When I found out that there was going to be a screening that night at 10pm of episode 11, two days before it aired, I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Did seeing it two days early really matter and did I really want to see it in a crowded room with uncontrolled potential distractions? Not to mention I had left my apartment at 7:30am and leaving Comic Con at 11pm meant I wouldn't get home until at least 1am. But I finally decided I wanted the experience of seeing an episode of the new series with an audience of fans reacting to it for the first time. Apparently David Lynch thought the same thing because we were informed that he was watching us watching the show. I suppose there hasn't been a screening for the show since Cannes and this would be Lynch's chance to gauge the reaction of a completely different kind of audience.



The screening started a few minutes late because some "talent", we were informed, were unable to get into the building. It being so late, a lot of doors were evidently locked. But finally we were surprised to see walking into the room Kimmy Robertson, Everett McGill, James Marshall, and Don Murray who plays Bushnell Mullins on the new series, Dougie's boss. Before they arrived, I found myself in agreement with someone I overheard sitting behind me who said he hoped people would avoid too much cheering or applause during the episode. But as it turned out, I felt really good when the audience broke out into applause when Don Murray appeared on screen, doing little push-ups on his desk. It must have felt good for him to hear that.



None of the surprise guests spoke except a woman whose name I didn't catch who told us that she had just face timed with Lynch, informing us that Lynch could see us, and saying that Lynch had instructed her to recite a poem and asked those of us who could to speak it along with her. I wish I'd had more memory left on my camera by that point to get more than this brief clip:



She started it quickly but many people in the room did catch up and start saying it along with her.

I felt sort of worried that people were going to laugh at the wrong moments during the screening and I hoped people wouldn't respond in a way that would disappoint Lynch. The screening was held in Room 6A, one of the larger rooms upstairs and I sat through several panels before it. Any asshole could've walked in but the Con crowd is generally pretty cool and civil to one another. That and the fact that it was held so late, I think, ensured that it was a screening blessedly free of distraction. "There's Fire Where You are Going" turned out to be a particularly good episode for the occasion, featuring as it did several crowd-pleasing moments.

Spoilers after the screenshot



The episode begins with a rather old fashioned scene of three little boys playing catch. One of them is older than the other two and seems to be using his higher rank responsibly, encouraging the other two, complementing a successful catch and saying it was okay when a catch was missed. When he ran out into the street to get the ball, worried sounds from people in the screening audience told me everyone was thinking he was going to get hit by a car. But instead we see Miriam (Sarah Jean Long) who has managed to survive her encounter with Richard and crawl away. The sweet pie lover from the RR now looks pretty horrific.



I guess she doesn't have a phone--this would explain why she chose to report Richard via letter and why she couldn't call for help. Why doesn't she have a phone? Why can't Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) wake up? The paths to safety and effectiveness are mysteriously blocked.



Except Dougie seems to be getting by on pure instinct. When Dougie's meet up with the Mitchum brothers concluded in the desert with Rodney (Robert Knepper) and Bradley (Jim Belushi) ecstatic over the 30 million dollar check, the audience applauded widely and it occurred to me how the episode was broken down into little stories and how masterfully Lynch orchestrates the telling of them with sound and editing. Dialogue, too, but I think what Twin Peaks is showing is how many aspects of cinematic storytelling are being neglected for the fact that the star of this modern age of television tends to be the writer. I can see this being related to the joy in experiencing Twin Peaks without the spoilers of trailers and synopses--audiences who are used to getting all the material via language might see little difference between getting the description of an episode plot from Wikipedia and actually experiencing the episode itself. Obviously I'm a great lover of writing but Twin Peaks is highlighting the other methods of storytelling.



The episode features two instances of guns being fired but failing to harm or kill--Becky (Amanda Seyfried) firing a gun into the apartment of Donna's sister, Gersten (Alicia Witt), and the little boy who finds a gun in his parents' car and fires off two shots. Where the first seasons of Twin Peaks began with the horror of a child murdered by an adult, Lynch is now writing for a world where the horror often comes from the fact that kids are murdering kids. Neither Becky or the little boy ought to have had access to a firearm, I think that much is clear.



The one point where I felt like the audience had an inappropriate reaction was when they laughed at this shot of the little boy. I think Lynch meant for it to be a little more disturbing though I think laughter is sometimes provoked by nervousness and fear. Lynch tellingly juxtaposes the kid with his father, both looking like hunters in their camoflage--or one could say woodsmen.

This sequence, beginning to end, is in itself a masterpiece. From where it starts in the diner to where it ends with the sick girl in the car, Lynch strings along surprising pieces of information with the instincts of a great orchestra conducter. I want to point out again how much mileage he gets from the briefest shots of Peggy Lipton.



This actress has become a genius at communicating with subtle facial expressions. I'd also be surprised if Dana Ashbrook doesn't get a lot of phone calls for cop roles after this.



We finally get filled in on the details of the new Briggs family dynamics and we see Shelly (Madchen Amick) has once again fallen for a bad boy, Red (Balthazar Getty), though he seems to be a lot worse than Bobby ever was. It was nice to see the brief look of sympathy Becky gives to Bobby, as was her sudden realisation that she'd very nearly killed her mother in one of the show's most effective stunt sequences.



Becky does love her parents and, like Shelly's love for Red, Becky's love for Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) seems misguided though one is given pause when one considers the same might have been said for Shelly's love for Bobby in the original series. Like those gunshots, things never seem to hit the mark.



And I can talk about all this and I still haven't mentioned Gordon's (David Lynch) encounter with the woodsmen and the death of William Hastings (Matthew Lillard). That was wonderfully done and I loved the compositions in the police station afterwards--I mean, jeez, look at this, where do you see anything like this in film or television?



Laura Dern is making Diane a strange and beautiful femme fatale.

And after all this greatness, the episode ends with a scene that might be the best of all, the Mitchum Brothers and Dougie dining on cherry pie and champagne with the piano tune that magically switches from heartbroken to mysterious and playful at just the right moments. I loved how Candie (Amy Shiels) seemed about to break into a song about the traffic on the strip.



Seeing her with Dougie, and their similarly spaced out personalities, made me feel more and more that, if the question this season is "Who is Laura Palmer," my money is on Candie.

Twitter Sonnet #1016

In future darkness dreams of pie await.
In space magicians long to see a play.
Between two worlds of dawn and night we ate.
In steady step with fire I assay.
In dough began the sign of coffee smoke.
In dreams the special box directs the heat.
Tobacco dragons saw the fated stroke.
Forensic cats ascend the hotter seat.
In turning skies the stairs descend on Earth.
In barrels ev'rywhere the shots'll miss.
Beneath enclosing air's encrusted worth.
A fighting bull awaits in quiet bliss.
The lights on asphalt crashed into the toad.
Electric stones begin to burn the road.

Look at those colours and angles. Diane (Laura Dern) is a dragon on that couch.

Last night brought the most linear, logical episode of the new Twin Peaks season so far, but it was still wonderfully weird and refreshing.

Spoilers after the screenshot



Is it just me or did Constance (Jane Adams) and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) just fall for each other over Major Briggs' headless corpse? They seem like they'd be a good couple.

Don S. Davis, who played Major Briggs in the original series--and was forever typecast as a military man afterwards--died some years ago but he's still a big presence on the new series. The sequence of scenes where Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), Frank Truman (Robert Forster), and Hawk (Michael Horse) uncover the capsule that's been kept hidden by Betty Briggs (Charlotte Stewart) all this time was wonderful. Mostly a call back to the surprisingly tender moment from the première of season two between Bobby and the Major at the RR, the scenes in the new episode were both effectively sweet and engrossing as puzzle pieces falling into place.



Sound is playing a very prominent role so far on the new season. This episode features two examples of a strange hum, both in Briggs' capsule and the recurring mystery hum in the Great Northern.



I love these little scenes between Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and Beverly (Ashley Judd). Beymer's mannerisms as Ben have always been strange and funny and the two actors play out these moments well as little pockets of tension. They're fascinating as a potential affair largely because the sound, Beymer's performance, and the knowledge of Beverly's home life make you wonder what else is going on beneath the surface. Ben Horne was always one of my favourite characters--he was funny, sweet, and scary, and sort of like a dangerous, unpredictable predator. At least until he thought he was Robert E. Lee in season two. I'm glad no-one's dwelling on that.



I wondered if we were going to see Johnny Horne (Eric Rondell) in this season. Apparently that's Ben's wife, Sylvia (Jan D'Arcy) with him though we don't get a good look. It suggests Ben's family life is still as dysfunctional and cold as ever, something where maybe he and Beverly might have a lot in common.



Poor Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) continues his bad trip in the woods. He finds himself in an estranged relationship with his foot, which could be seen as a version of what Ben is going through, though it might also be, like his feeling that his car had been stolen a few episodes earlier, a reflection of Cooper's (Kyle MacLachlan) story, a man whose life is certainly not his own.



Mr. C arrives at the farm and things feel a bit Tarantino-ish for the presence of Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I hope we'll see more of them both. I love the unexplained pair of people motionless on the ground in the background--such a Lynchian detail.



One of Lynch's talents it's easy to forget about if you watch his movies over and over (like I do) is how good he is at crafting surprises that are strange but also just close enough to credible keep you in the reality. I really, really love the three big cops investigating Dougie's case. I love the one credited as "Smiley" Fusco (Eric Edelstein) whose laugh Lynch deploys with surgical precision. The cops are like classic, cynical noir detectives just tipped into the surreal. Even the sergeant who comes in to take the fingerprints--he's in such a good mood and he's got those weird, big gestures, but it's weird like real people are weird.



I wasn't familiar with Sky Ferrera before this but I loved her scene in the roadhouse where she talks about working fast food places and scratches the huge rash in her armpit. I was reminded of the idea Lynch and Isabella Rossellini had for Rossellini's character in Wild at Heart, that she should somehow be both ugly and beautiful at the same time and that the two qualities should be related to each other in a strange way. Ferrera's conversation with her friend (Karolina Wydra) was also like a deranged version of the conversation between Donna and Maddy in the season two première.

Last night's episode ended with a welcome second performance from Au Revoir Simone. This season of Twin Peaks may end up having one of the greatest soundtracks in the history of television.