The Twin Peaks Season 3 discussion thread! [SPOILERS]

After watching episode 5, I have so many more questions than I did before. I feel like the credits in these early episodes are just as important as what's actually happening. The smoking asshole in the bar near the end is listed as "Richard Horne." Ben seemed a little old to be having more kids by the time the original series ended so I don't know what the relation is there.

As far as the rest of the episode goes, it's hard to even know where to start. It seemed like almost every scene was focused a different group of characters. The most exciting parts of the episode, for me, were the brief flashes we saw of Cooper snapping out of his post-Black Lodge haze. I don't know if everyone else noticed that there was brief green light flash on the Tom Sizemore character's face right before Coop said "he's lying" (not that I have any idea of what that could possibly mean) and his reaction to the word "agent" definitely got me excited as well.

There's about a hundred other things I could talk about (Dr. Jacoby as Twin Peaks' Alex Jones, why is Dougie's wedding band in Major Briggs' decapitated corpse?, what the fuck did Bad Coop do at the end?, how is it related to that shrinking electronic box thing in Argentina?). Either way, it seems obvious at this point that wherever this show is going, it's going to take as much time as it likes getting there and it's not really concerned with guiding the viewer very much along the way.

I'm still waiting for this to feel like Twin Peaks.

@kevin_cogneto: I hadn't seen a picture of him recently so I wasn't sure at first, but it's definitely Mike. Wonder if we'll see any interaction between him and Bobby. Big Ed is 100% in it, One of the trailers that dropped right before the first few episodes had a brief moment with him in it. The Secret Histories of Twin Peaks also makes the Ed/Nadine/Norma/Hank situation way more tragic than the show ever made it.

@milkman Yeah the Major Briggs part is puzzling, especially given he died in a fire at the listing station he was working at near Twin Peaks. The Secret Histories goes into more detail on Major Briggs' past and relationship to the town. The most important detail is that he was taking over a Project Blue Book operation previously run by Douglas Milford. If anything Major Briggs has a similar connection to the strange experiences going on to that of The Log Lady, and so the 17 appearances of his finger prints since his death may be in part to his proximity to said strange experiences.

@spamfromthecan If you've seen Fire Walk With Me then this feels like that side of the Lynch/Frost telling of the Twin Peaks story. It's much darker, leans more into David's repertoire and involves a lot less direct storytelling.

Austin also posted a tweet about the character Amanda Seyfried is playing that relates to a character she played on Veronica Mars that has a similar role to that of Laura Palmer and that her character in Twin Peaks might be hinting at her being the Laura Palmer of this season.

Episode 5 was alright. The comedic moments with "brain dead" Coop are already starting to wear thin. The reveal of Dr. Jacoby as a nutty conspiracy radio host selling gold painted shovels was pretty good though. And why is Jim Belushi in this? He should not be in anything. I'm most interested in Amanda Seyfried's character and the dude at the Roadhouse towards the end. Don't know what to make of the small black box and its connection to everything else going on. Did it destroy itself at the end when it shrunk? Also no idea how evil Coop was able to fuck up the whole prison system. Do the doppelgängers just naturally have the ability/power to control electronic devices and whatnot? Coop came through a power socket when he reappeared in the real world, so I assume there is a connection there? In any case, I liked the "Should I call Mr. Strawberry?" line.

Yeah, BOB and MIKE used electricity in the Twin Peaks universe to manifest. Coop coming out of the power main is the first time I saw it so blatantly shown, however. Was it in FWWM where that shot of the mouth repeats, "ELECTRICITY."? Also in FWWM, the lights dim and Laura is transfixed by its flickering, then BOB appears. It's a surprisingly grounded explanation in such an insane show.

@brunothethird: Ah cool. I have yet to see FWWM, but was the connection with electricity all explained or revealed in the movie, because I don't remember there being anything hinting at that in Season 1 or 2 unless I forgot something vital which is likely since my memory is horrible.

I want Cooper back. I want the full Cooper.

@goboard: Yeah she immediately seemed like a solid candidate for "it happening again," or at least being an analogue for Laura.

Also this:

@boonsong: You didn't forget anything! I don't think it was ever described that way in the original series, no, much like how the green signet rings in season 3 were introduced in Fire but also never seen in the original series, even though it's a prequel. In Fire it is more of a visual indicator of evil (like that scene I described before), and fans made the link with that character saying 'electricity' in a droning voice. Ultra close-ups I feel are Lynch nudging the audience a little, so it's not a concrete answer, but I think it's a clearly important shot. There are other links too, like the broken power lines directly next to the location of a disappearance in Fire, which hints that one of the spirits used the lines to manifest (which severed them in the process) and take that character wherever.

It's not a full retcon, but Lynch definitely added details that semi-explain (and may fully answer in the coming weeks) a couple of things. Evil Coop looking at the stereo so intensely mirrors that Laura scene in many ways, which is why I'm more confident that's what was going on in Fire. It's really cool I think; an actual (possibly) indicator of how these beings use and thrive on energy.

@theht You're right, that's a deleted scene isn't it? I've barely seen those, that's real interesting. Or have I removed that awkward scene from my head...

@brunothethird: I don't know that the beings from the black lodge thrive on electricity, it may just be their easiest means of travelling or moving from place to place. I hadn't actually noticed the shows preoccupation with electricity before so that is pretty interesting. The beings actually consume Garmonbozia (fear and sorrow) which appears in the show as creamed corn & FWWM. This is another one of those things only ever called out in Fire Walk With Me, but it did make an appearance in the first two seasons. In this season when Coopers doppelganger and Dougie Jones are puking there is yellowish stuff in it as well which is likely Garmonbozia.

@brunothethird: Deleted, yeah. It's from The Missing Pieces released a few years back. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't seen it and are very into Twin Peaks.

@goboard: Also true, that's right. My 'thrive' comment was a stretch, maybe, but emotions are created using electricity to some extent, so you could force that angle. Laura is in a state of bliss in that scene with the light, but you could argue it's BOB's presence doing that. Something's going on though, I think they're linked in essence, at least. Emotions/electricity - positive/negative - white lodge/black lodge - input/output. Lots of opposites and intermingling states of being.

I don't think ep 5 had all that much going on. They may be piling just a little bit too much mystery on (now there is a shrinking box, and another (??) mafia after Douggie), without really pushing forward on anything else (no FBI, no progress on Cooper, the Jacoby stuff was a dead end).

The phone call scene was great though.

I hadn't realized it when I saw the 5th episode but Rebecca (Amanda Seyfried) is Shelly's daughter. That put the whole scene into a very different light. It's been two weeks since the first episode where it was even mentioned that Shelly has a daughter so I straight up forgot. Also agent Tamara Preston is one of the narrators of the Secret Histories of Twin Peaks so she pretty much has full knowledge of what transpired in Twin Peaks both during Coopers investigation and well before. It will be interesting once she starts to play more of a role because she's certainly as aware of what's going on as Gordon and Albert are. She may even be the next Cooper.

A small update on the appearance of the actor who played Jacques Renault, he may be in the show as a small way of helping the actor. On a recent episode of Idol Thumbs' Twin Peaks podcast they brought up that he's had a lot of bad luck due to mounting medical bills from knee surgeries so other actors and show runners have been known to help him out in ways like that over the years.

@roomrunner I don't think that was a second mafia group, just a car jacking crew that had noticed a car had been in the same spot for a while. Of course if this is true that means that people that were watching Dougie before will likely know he's not dead and might cause things to heat up for Cooper in the next few episodes.

Hah!! Good catch!

Also, felt that episode 5 wasn't the greatest. Still loved the Dougie parts though, despite many people tiring of it.

Episode 5 was kind of losing me until the end. It's weird to go back and look at the original series, because people actually talked to each other, you got to learn about them and their involvement in the plot, and it wasn't just a camera rolling over dead silence for half the runtime. This season has its good moments, but also a lot of it is just 2-minute vignettes that don't do much for me since they feel so disconnected and emotionless. Also, how many plotlines are they trying to cram in at the start without resolving any of them? It used to be they'd have a few subplots running and they'd touch on all of them regularly, but so far this series just keeps adding new stuff and not progressing the old stuff at all.

It's mostly my fault because I'm hoping for answers and conclusions to where stuff left off in season 2, but I guess they can't rush into that stuff (or touch on a lot of it realistically after a 25-year gap).

@teddie: Yeah the lack of dialogue in this series compared to the original is really jarring. There are so many good lines and character interactions in the first two seasons. I know there are people that hated the whole soap opera drama of it all, but that was also a big part of the charm for me. I thought episode 5 was alright, but I agree they are really cramming in a lot of stuff that have yet to be explained. And honestly I don't know if I would count on a lot of it ever being explained, and I guess that would piss off a lot of people too.

This is so odd for me there's not a show in tv history where I already enjoy this new season a million times more than the first two seasons. To be honest I always hated the Soap Opera element of Twin Peaks it was cringe worthy. For me Twin Peaks is at it's best when it's dark but also has a little humor mixed in too looking forward to the next episode..

I wonder how many of you are watching season 3 who aren't familiar with Lynch's work other than Twin Peaks.

So far this season is the most david lynch ass david lynch I've ever david lynched

@frostyryan: I am not familiar with any of David Lynch's films other than having caught some scenes of Eraserhead and Mulhollan Drive on TV years ago. I am working on fixing all of that by going through his filmography pretty soon. But yeah I've read a lot of people saying that this new season is really David Lynch. But that is why I think the original Twin Peaks stands out so much as this unique weird thing, because it incorporated some elements that, at least from what I understand was not classic Lynch. Like the cheesy soap opera stuff. Perhaps I'm wrong though.

@boonsong: Twin Peaks seasons 1 and 2 are definitely the least Lynchian thing he's made.

For Lynch-ass Lynch fans like myself, season 3 is an absolute dream come true. See, he quit making films after 2006's Inland Empire. So to have him come back 11 years later, with 18 new hours of Lynch material, and have it be some of the craziest shit he's ever done is just orgasmic.

Please watch Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive. Turn the lights off. Middle of the night. Bend your mind.

@frostyryan: Yeah I can totally understand that. And for the most part I have been enjoying this new season, although I think I do prefer the tone of the original show more. Perhaps getting familiar with Lynch's other work will make me appreciate this new season more though.

Diane exists and she has an age-inappropriate hairstyle!

Man, fucking Chad. That guy is the worst.

I started off loving this new season so much but as it's going on I'm growing a little tired. It's dragging along at a snail's pace and I really want to see old Cooper back. The Dougie stuff was funny at first but now it's just become farcical and unbelievable at this point that no one has taken him to a doctor or something. This feels like something that would feel better binge watched as a big 18 hour movie. I plowed through those first four episodes and now that I'm having to wait week to week watching something that moves this slow it's starting to become just a little frustrating.

Sharon Van Etten hype!

Oh holy shit I didn't even put it together it was her. Awesome.

I'm sure the Dougie stuff'd get old eventually, but for now I'm still enjoying Rain Man Cooper From Another Place. And Naomi Watts is the best. Just the best.

Also, and tell me if I'm being crazy here, but I think they're occasionally playing short scenes of characters looking at stuff in reverse. I noticed it before but wrote it off as nothing, but here it was more obvious. Look at Sonny Jim looking back towards his book after Cooper walks into the other room. That shit don't look right. That ain't how people move. Pretty sure there's been little bits of that since the premiere.

Also also, I'm thinkin those pages are lost pages from Laura's diary that would've helped them rescue Cooper in the old idea for season 3.

@spiceninja: I agree that I wish this was a Netflix series so I could just blast through the whole thing. Maybe we're spoiled nowadays with stuff like that. But I think the frustration is very much intentional. Keeping the viewer happy and satisfied has never really been something that David Lynch seems all that interested in. For better or for worse, he's steering this thing and you never really know where he's going to go or how he's gonna get there. It's a strange thing and I imagine a lot of Twin Peaks fans who are not David Lynch fans completely hate this new season.

That being said, that moment when Cooper does finally wake up (assuming it ever happens, which...it's gotta, even Lynch isn't that cruel) is going to feel so satisfying with how long this has been dragged out. I'm at the edge of my seat every time Dougie is on screen, thinking if this might be the moment.

@spiceninja: I used to agree with you until I remembered there are 18 episodes in total, and we have become conditioned to "blast" through a series and not really take in the project as a whole. In terms of the Dougie stuff, it is a little far fetched, however, his wife seems to admit and know the Dougie has some type of mental illness. But Twin Peaks as a whole has always been about very extreme characters living in an extreme world so that when a "normal" person shows up it can demonstrate just how weird the weird really is.

Diane is a real person!

I'm lukewarm on this show so far. I find myself picking out specific scenes from each episode that I really enjoy, instead of liking any episode as a whole. Like in this one (Part 6) the scene with Richard Horne and the dealer was the one that really stuck out to me.

Also why does Chad exist?

@spamfromthecan: I agree with you, 100%

None of what I enjoyed, seems to be happening in season 3. Also, the show is quiet in comparison to seasons 1 and 2.

I kind of feel like this is David Lynch pushing back against what made his show successful.

I have a new thing I hate about this season so far: I don't know who any of the new people are. Like, their names I mean. Nobody has even said Richard Horne's name in the show as far as I can remember, but they've spent like half an episode focusing on him now.

Recently talked with a friend and we're probably gonna watch the first 2 seasons, but it's gonna be a hard sell to continue into season 3 when I only find half of it watchable so far. Too much dead air, too many subplots and characters to keep track of, but somehow it still feels like nothing has happened 1/3rd through the series.

Just watched episode 6 and I can say safely, this is Mulholland Drive in Twin Peaks clothing.

There are number of things I don't like about the current season but I may be done after that ice pick scene.

We may be at a point where the tributes being made, understands the original season better than the creator.

ep six still just messing around, but more fun than ep 5.

- DIANNNNNNNNE!! I can't believe that wasn't the stinger at the end of the episode.

- Mini-Vin Diesel is hilarious, not because "lol dwarf", but what kind of mafia hires a hitman that just sloppily tears through a place killing everyone in earshot? Also, the time is now for Cooper to "wake up".

- OK, so the lights are spirits, gotcha

- The diner waitress that laughs like a chimpmunk is classic TP

- I wonder if the note Hawk found was left by the one armed man when he was taking his meds

- Lynch can still crank up the serious when he wants. My gf was horrified by the hit and run scene

- wasn't the old guy who witnessed the hit and run the guy who ran the trailer park in FWWM? What is he doing in TP?

- fuck chad

@roomrunner said:

People are theorizing they're the missing pages from Laura's diary, where she wrote about "good Cooper" being in the lodge. Since that was apparently going to have something to do with the old plans for season 3.

- Lynch can still crank up the serious when he wants. My gf was horrified by the hit and run scene

I felt uncomfortable every time I crossed the street today. What a way to make you hate a character. People are noticing it's the same intersection where MIKE screamed out Leland in FWWM, for whatever relevance it might have.

- wasn't the old guy who witnessed the hit and run the guy who ran the trailer park in FWWM? What is he doing in TP?

The sign outside his trailer park said "New", implying he packed up and moved shop to Twin Peaks. Honestly though that actor is great, I wish more of the cast could convey the kind of emotion he was with so few words, considering how little everyone speaks in this season...

Pretty much my reaction to anything that is happening in the show. i just know i likes it.

This was the first episode of this season that really felt like it dragged it's feet. Even though we got the hint of changes for Dougie/Cooper with Mike telling him to wake up and not Die and his now wearing a black suit like he used to, it still seems like we won't be getting to a normal Cooper anytime soon. The Richard Horne parts were some of the most intense scenes for the show so far, but a lot of the shots during the hit and run felt incredibly stilted. the actor who plays Carl Rodd really saved it for me. I hope they can start pulling some things together, because so far the show just keeps splitting into so many directions it's hard to tell if it can ever bring itself back to focus.

@cannonballbam:I think a lot of people forget that both David and Mark weren't around for 100% of the first two seasons of Twin Peaks and that a lot of other directors and a few other writers worked on it in leadership capacities. In many cases those people brought their own sensibilities and tried to carry forward the parts that Lynch and Frost began it with. This season is very much a different Lynch and Frost from that point in time and it isn't that surprising given how long it's been that there is a shift in tone, especially when the most recent piece of Twin Peaks is FWWM and that itself was a big shift from the show and only a few years removed from the second season when it was released.

@roomrunner: The RR Diner waitress is Heidi from the first season and the guy from the Trailer park is the same actor who played Carl Rodd in FWWM. His scene alone was a huge signal for how much more FWWM we can expect this season. Between him and the return of the electrical pole shot it's super clear how much Lynch & Frost are both 100% leaning into it over the previous seasons. Although the return of the stop light is also an interesting motif to have return. It previously represented that something dark or bad was about to happen.

I don't know, folks, I'm just about done with this season. I'll give it another episode or two, but this past episode (episode 6) did absolutely nothing for me. Actually scratch that, it didn't do nothing, it actively made me like the show less.

@frostyryan: I don't know. What about The Elephant Man? That seemed relatively mainstream.

I'm starting to worry that Come Back, Cooper is going to be the Who Killed Laura Palmer of this season... in that Cooper won't "wake up" until the last episode. But y'know, based on the rest of the show, I don't think it matters? Like, even if he did "wake up", with the way characters barely interact anymore I wouldn't be surprised if he's still completely flat and quiet.

Stuck in for the long haul still no matter where this show goes. I'm sort of coming around on it as its own thing separate from Twin Peaks, and hearing that it was all written without episodes in mind and then split up and edited into what we're seeing, makes a lot of the stuff I hate make sense in hindsight... but it still doesn't make it a good watch, at least not in the weekly format.

I don't know what I expected going into this season, but this wasn't it. But I'm LOVING it anyway. Like everyone else I want to see the old Coop back, but even if that doesn't happen until the final frame, I'm enjoying the ride.

@cannonballbam: I think Lynch understands the original perfectly, and is 100% uninterested in doing it again just for the purpose of fan service. There's an interview where he said as much. I think not wanting to retread old ground is exactly why he was against a revival for so long.

@max_cherry: You're right. I always forget about the elephant man.

Amazing movie

One one niiiine! One one niiiine!

Man, that woman had a voice. I'd like to hear her sing. Reminded me of Fiona Apple in that one video.

Also, I have a theory about episode 3. So Coop gets sucked into the machine thing on the wall with the number "3" on it, and it spits him out of the wall socket in Dougie's place. Which makes me wonder, where would the previous wall machine have taken him had he been allowed to go into it (the one with the number "15" on it)? I'm thinking it would have allowed him to switch places with evil cooper via the cigarette lighter. Especially since evil Coop was staring at the lighter, and it was starting to glow, right as Cooper approaches the "15" machine. And who prevented Cooper from using the "correct" machine? The woman with the sewn shut eyes! So does that mean she was working with Evil Coop and/or BOB? Or maybe Evil Coop put a trap on the lighter, and the woman was trying to warn him away from it? I guess we'll never know, but it would be nice to at least make some sense of that scene.

Absolutely loved the new episode. Felt like it moved at a much faster pace than the previous episodes and there was a lot more plot development. I was pretty much enthralled the whole way through in a way that I hadn't been for the previous episodes, to the point where I kept checking how much time was left because I didn't want it to end.

Yeah, this one was good. Some things I didn't really catch right away; the finger counting thing was referencing how evil Coop said very backwards. In Cole's counting of the words, that 'yrev' fell on the ring finger. Also, in the diner at the very end, everybody in the scene changes/moves around after that guy comes in. https://imgur.com/gallery/hP9GI Not sure it's intentional, but it's real weird. Loved that creepy hallway shot too, great stuff.

That definitely picked up a lot compared to the last few episodes. Hopefully the show just had a painfully slow start and it'll keep this pace up.

Poor Mr Strawberry.

Patience really is a virtue when it comes to Lynch. Remember Micheal Cera? That seems like such a long time ago, now. It reminds me of when I watched Lynch's Inland Empire. Somewhere in the third hour of that movie I looked at my dad and said, "remember when William H. Macy was in this movie?" I don't know if that movie is good, or if I'd watch it again, but the experience was one of a kind. It bucked my expectation constantly and kept me thinking. I feel the same about this season. Sooner or later everything will end back up in Twin Peaks. Sooner or later old Cooper will come back. Except maybe not. That's what's drawing me in, I think. Not knowing what the hell to expect.

I'm not in love with this season so far, it's tedious, but episodes like part 7 make the tedium worth it, just like most of what I've seen from Lynch. Also I feel like I actually know what's going on, which is rare for me and Twin Peaks. I'm sure that won't last long.

If episode 7 had been another episode 5 or 6, I might have cut my losses there, but it managed to do enough of what I liked about S1 and early/late S2 to get me reluctantly back on board. Things happened. Stories progressed. Stuff was "huh, that's... really weird" fucked up rather than "I hope you like abject human misery!" fucked up (well there was some of that, but much less than usual).

Episode 7 felt like a good balance to 5 and 6 since it progressed a number of story lines whereas the previous 2 introduced or dead ended a bunch. Limiting the Dougie/Good Cooper scenes in this episode worked out well, too; it's still funny and interesting but there's only so much I can take at once. I am left wanting more at the end of every episode so I am still way into this season.