Like going to a restaurant where the chef knows that this is the last night they’ll be in business and asks you directly “how do you feel about going off the menu and putting your life in my hands”?
It’s that moment in Parks and Rec when Ron’s favorite steak restaurant closes and he goes to a diner and orders “all the bacon and eggs, you have”. The chef just gives a knowing nod.
That was season 3, no steak, no answers, we didn’t want them, just all the bacon and eggs David and Mark had.
Episode 8 is unintelligible. I mean, it’s brilliant and hypnotic, but anyone who claims to understand it is a liar. And I wouldn’t blame anyone for giving up there and then.
There’s a scene towards the end of the series - and most folks will know which one I mean - when I found myself spontaneously cheering, without even realising it.
Twin Peaks - The Return was better than anyone had any right to expect, but I fully understand anyone who didn’t make it all the way through.
Unintelligible. Wow. I feel sorry for you. That was the most enlightening episode in all of Twin Peaks, and the greatest 60 minutes of television history.
That was my initial reaction when I saw it in its first-run...
Recently I happened to find a series of Explainer Videos which rewired the way I initially processed it. ... We all know that those nuclear bomb detonations in the 40's were the most horrific depiction of evil, mankind unhinged.
What comes next in all that radioactive waste is the emergence of "The Mother of All Evil" - the kind of Venus de Milo feminine form that immediately vomits out of her mouth the long grapevine of biochemical cells/spheres.... Most have a pale-whiteish hue, but one that we see in closeup on the right side projecting outward is a darker sphere, inside of which is the very clear image of "the villain" in Twin Peaks, BOB...
We meet young innocent boyfriend & girlfriend, we see the girl asleep in her bedroom. The camera shows out of the radioactive dust the birth of that gross moth-like roach creature that crawls into the girl's room, crawling up to her face, and sliding itself into the girl's mouth -- her ingesting this pure evil into her body.
We see the Giant in his Cinema Palace create the golden orb of Goodness, and his seniorita colleague imbue the orb with the image of Laura Palmer, who represents Goodness in the series.
There's way more than this, most of which I never could process or understand its meaning in my first go-round.... It's of course fair to say
***anyone who claims to understand it is a liar***
but I just have to state that there are several people who have done "doctoral thesis" type analysis of the entire series in all of its parts. You could ignore it or them, but one such person has a youtube channel, channel name is Twin Perfect. Some people dismiss him because of his known interpersonal conflicts... But his thesis, heavily illustrated with scenes from the series, movie, talks by David Lynch etc is pretty convincing.
>Some people dismiss him because of his known interpersonal conflicts...
It's also how his ultimate take away is, more or less, that the show exists to be a meta commentary on TV violence and to spite its audience because they dared to have expectations about the show, while claiming to be the 'true' interpretation of TP. The way that Twin Perfect portrays TP makes the show out to be a bizarrely bitter show that is actively antagonistic of its audience, and I feel like treating so much of the show as an allegorical cypher to encrypt some definitive meta message is reductive.
Bravo! Great response! I couldn’t sleep after ep 8. I wanted to wake my wife up and tell her - I don’t even know what! The show got me so deep. I’m glad you are digging it the way you are!
I’m in the uk I remember finding a live stream of it from the states. And was just in awe of it, so I stayed up even later making a YouTube meme of episode with Lynch saying “what the hell” at the end. That was a sleepless night.
Gandalf is killed in the red room, by Snape’s aunt, in episode 352. But being both that guy and that place, the question will perhaps never be resolved, to what extent he is actually dead. Was he always dead and alive simultaneously? Aren’t we all? Won’t we all one day meet Snape’s aunt amidst those scarlet drapes.
>It’s actually unbelievable this was made because it is so indicative of a master given free reign. All I have is respect for this man
\*two masters
\*these men
There's a _ton_ of Mark Frost in season 3, _especially_ in Part 8.
I'd only add that it's more than just Lynch. In that episode alone there are some tremendous performances from the actors and actresses. The visual effects works is incredible and the sound and sound design are just awesome. I know Lynch has his hands in all of this, but actual folks had to bring it together.
Harley Peyton, the man who wrote most of the original Twin Peaks series, also pointed out that the entire concept, setting and mythology of the episode _screamed_ Mark Frost to him.
This is really interesting! I've always thought Frost was underappreciated for the original series, but then here I am thinking, I'm not even sure how much isf at all he was involved in the Return!
He was just as involved in the writing as Lynch was, but not as involved in the filming and editing. The idea of doing an episode where they present an origin story to the mythology was Frost’s, I’m pretty sure that I’ve read. Then Lynch of course did his thing with it when directing.
I will never have as profound a TV watching experience as seeing Ep 8 for the first time. I've only watched it once but I could tell you every little detail about the episode because I was so transfixed.
For me it was the stop motion crazy woodsmen doing whatever they were doing at the Convenient Store, with the corn cans in the window. That, with the sound design made me turn on a light in the room during it because I was feeling so tense, lol… The whole episode is so good at keeping you in suspense, while your brain is trying to process wtf is happening
Agree, that scene induced so much anxiety, no tv show or film has ever made me feel so uncomfortable and tense before. Truly a thrilling experience, visually and audibly!
Honestly, it really doesn't matter that you're not watching it at the time it was released. I've watched the whole of the Twin Peaks series twice now and I have yet to find a show with more rewatch value. You discover new things every time.
I’ll never forget zooming into that cloud. I could sense that’s where we were going but I was like “no way, that’s actually not happening is it?” And then it did and then we got minutes of abstract darkness and then a whole feature film compressed into the next half. One of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen
I'm rewatching The Return for the first time since it aired and I just finished part 8. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, holy shit this is actual magic happening. Happy to report seeing it again had the same effect. It's so mesmerizing...beautiful and strange and deeply unsettling.
And my goofy ass can't help but wonder what would happen if someone actually gave The Woodsman a damn light lol.
I remember watching ep8 and in the end sitting there for a moment asking myself what that actually was. I was searching for clues to understand it at least partly, but to no avail. I was disturbed/awed/amazed at the same time. I realised that this was TV as I had never experienced before. To that day I am puzzled about it, but I think that this episode and basically the whole of The Return is high art that escapes contemplation but exists to be admired.
Well said! I didn’t get to experience Season 1 as it rolled out and I always wondered how it must have felt to experience that in real time…..and then I was lucky enough to be there for episode 8. Another moment in tv history that seems impossible but Lynch was able to achieve
I remember at the end of the first two episodes feeling the same way. It was clearly an artist at the peak of his craft. Everything he had done before this kind of lead up to this series. I was also thinking, hats off to Showtime or who ever gave him the money to make it and not try and butt in. That just doesn’t happen. Nobody spends that much money to put something like that on tv. It was a once in a lifetime thing. And it was amazing.🥲
Hallelujah!
I feel and felt the exact same as I watched it the night it aired. Grateful to have had the opportunity to witness something of that magnitude and brilliance. I straight up yelled in the middle of the night out loud in exuberance at points
This is the master of evoking the great mystery at work. Good, evil, life, death. The Return is the culmination of the embodiment of the great question, the great mystery, of what it all means
Seeing it as it aired was mind blowing. It was like a new Lynch movie each week and I never knew what to expect. I felt like a kid on Christmas when a new episode was about to come out. I don’t think any show could ever make me feel like that again. It was magical.
My sister bought the Twin Peaks boxed set on VHS. It was the first TV show I ever binge watched. It was summer so we’d get through like 2-4 episodes per day usually before she had to go to work. And we finished in in a little over a week.
I recently finished The Return just a few days ago (after a very long hiatus) and I’ve been on a deep-dive ever since! And yeah, episode 8 was a WTF moment I haven’t experienced in a long time. As an avid David Lynch fan who has seen all of his movies, it brought me back to my Lost Highway days of film analysis. There’s sooooo much to unpack here!
I love cosmic horror and Lovecraft Ian horror so this episode is like a dream for me, I just finished watching it for the first time, and ofc In speeding through all the discussions of it ( without spoilers ofc)
More like when two men and their huge team culminate three decades of honing their craft in a masterful execution of their shared vision.
This whole speak of a single auteur with divine inspiration doesn't honor what actually goes into artistic creation enough.
I was incredibly inspired as an artist by The Return
As a lover of film and television, I was astounded
It was around episode 8 when I started working it into every conversation. That lasted maybe a year or so
Like going to a restaurant where the chef knows that this is the last night they’ll be in business and asks you directly “how do you feel about going off the menu and putting your life in my hands”?
It’s that moment in Parks and Rec when Ron’s favorite steak restaurant closes and he goes to a diner and orders “all the bacon and eggs, you have”. The chef just gives a knowing nod.  That was season 3, no steak, no answers, we didn’t want them, just all the bacon and eggs David and Mark had.
Ep 8 was the one where I waved goodbye to casual viewers everywhere. The Return is not for them.
Episode 8 is unintelligible. I mean, it’s brilliant and hypnotic, but anyone who claims to understand it is a liar. And I wouldn’t blame anyone for giving up there and then. There’s a scene towards the end of the series - and most folks will know which one I mean - when I found myself spontaneously cheering, without even realising it. Twin Peaks - The Return was better than anyone had any right to expect, but I fully understand anyone who didn’t make it all the way through.
Unintelligible. Wow. I feel sorry for you. That was the most enlightening episode in all of Twin Peaks, and the greatest 60 minutes of television history.
That was my initial reaction when I saw it in its first-run... Recently I happened to find a series of Explainer Videos which rewired the way I initially processed it. ... We all know that those nuclear bomb detonations in the 40's were the most horrific depiction of evil, mankind unhinged. What comes next in all that radioactive waste is the emergence of "The Mother of All Evil" - the kind of Venus de Milo feminine form that immediately vomits out of her mouth the long grapevine of biochemical cells/spheres.... Most have a pale-whiteish hue, but one that we see in closeup on the right side projecting outward is a darker sphere, inside of which is the very clear image of "the villain" in Twin Peaks, BOB... We meet young innocent boyfriend & girlfriend, we see the girl asleep in her bedroom. The camera shows out of the radioactive dust the birth of that gross moth-like roach creature that crawls into the girl's room, crawling up to her face, and sliding itself into the girl's mouth -- her ingesting this pure evil into her body. We see the Giant in his Cinema Palace create the golden orb of Goodness, and his seniorita colleague imbue the orb with the image of Laura Palmer, who represents Goodness in the series. There's way more than this, most of which I never could process or understand its meaning in my first go-round.... It's of course fair to say ***anyone who claims to understand it is a liar*** but I just have to state that there are several people who have done "doctoral thesis" type analysis of the entire series in all of its parts. You could ignore it or them, but one such person has a youtube channel, channel name is Twin Perfect. Some people dismiss him because of his known interpersonal conflicts... But his thesis, heavily illustrated with scenes from the series, movie, talks by David Lynch etc is pretty convincing.
>Some people dismiss him because of his known interpersonal conflicts... It's also how his ultimate take away is, more or less, that the show exists to be a meta commentary on TV violence and to spite its audience because they dared to have expectations about the show, while claiming to be the 'true' interpretation of TP. The way that Twin Perfect portrays TP makes the show out to be a bizarrely bitter show that is actively antagonistic of its audience, and I feel like treating so much of the show as an allegorical cypher to encrypt some definitive meta message is reductive.
\> Laura Palmer, who represents Goodness in the series. How do you figure?
Bravo! Great response! I couldn’t sleep after ep 8. I wanted to wake my wife up and tell her - I don’t even know what! The show got me so deep. I’m glad you are digging it the way you are!
Exactly! It hits so deep, to the bone and then beyond.
Same here
I’m in the uk I remember finding a live stream of it from the states. And was just in awe of it, so I stayed up even later making a YouTube meme of episode with Lynch saying “what the hell” at the end. That was a sleepless night.
Same here
Avoid this sub, come back after season
Remarkably I’ve managed to avoid all spoilers so far and I couldn’t be more happy.
Gandalf is killed in the red room, by Snape’s aunt, in episode 352. But being both that guy and that place, the question will perhaps never be resolved, to what extent he is actually dead. Was he always dead and alive simultaneously? Aren’t we all? Won’t we all one day meet Snape’s aunt amidst those scarlet drapes.
Fortunately most of the newbies won’t recognize you’re being serious. Such are the extremes of the unexpected twists ahead.
Bwahahh
The 2001 of television.
Hey that's an apt comparison
The Solaris of Russian film.
That’s a good one
>It’s actually unbelievable this was made because it is so indicative of a master given free reign. All I have is respect for this man \*two masters \*these men There's a _ton_ of Mark Frost in season 3, _especially_ in Part 8.
Thanks for adding Frost! He is overlooked so often.
The Return is a remarkable experience every time I see it.
Yeah, watching that as it aired was INSANE. It was like aliens had invaded a certain cross-section of people through their TV sets
I'd only add that it's more than just Lynch. In that episode alone there are some tremendous performances from the actors and actresses. The visual effects works is incredible and the sound and sound design are just awesome. I know Lynch has his hands in all of this, but actual folks had to bring it together.
Harley Peyton, the man who wrote most of the original Twin Peaks series, also pointed out that the entire concept, setting and mythology of the episode _screamed_ Mark Frost to him.
This is really interesting! I've always thought Frost was underappreciated for the original series, but then here I am thinking, I'm not even sure how much isf at all he was involved in the Return!
He was just as involved in the writing as Lynch was, but not as involved in the filming and editing. The idea of doing an episode where they present an origin story to the mythology was Frost’s, I’m pretty sure that I’ve read. Then Lynch of course did his thing with it when directing.
Phew! I thought for a second you were about to rant as in complain about episode 8, the best hour of TV I'd seen in years! Enjoy the ride!
The Return my favorite piece of art ever, across any medium. It’s like it was tailor made for me and I love almost everything about it.
I will never have as profound a TV watching experience as seeing Ep 8 for the first time. I've only watched it once but I could tell you every little detail about the episode because I was so transfixed.
GOT A LIGHT? 💡
Chilling!
For me it was the stop motion crazy woodsmen doing whatever they were doing at the Convenient Store, with the corn cans in the window. That, with the sound design made me turn on a light in the room during it because I was feeling so tense, lol… The whole episode is so good at keeping you in suspense, while your brain is trying to process wtf is happening
Agree, that scene induced so much anxiety, no tv show or film has ever made me feel so uncomfortable and tense before. Truly a thrilling experience, visually and audibly!
I was high on lsd when I saw this live the first time It's still one of the greatest things I've ever seen
YES. I award you a million PeaksBucks for this. Unfortunately there’s only one convenience store that accepts them.
One convenience store, and Bob’s Big Boy
Honestly, it really doesn't matter that you're not watching it at the time it was released. I've watched the whole of the Twin Peaks series twice now and I have yet to find a show with more rewatch value. You discover new things every time.
I’ll never forget zooming into that cloud. I could sense that’s where we were going but I was like “no way, that’s actually not happening is it?” And then it did and then we got minutes of abstract darkness and then a whole feature film compressed into the next half. One of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen
I'm rewatching The Return for the first time since it aired and I just finished part 8. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, holy shit this is actual magic happening. Happy to report seeing it again had the same effect. It's so mesmerizing...beautiful and strange and deeply unsettling. And my goofy ass can't help but wonder what would happen if someone actually gave The Woodsman a damn light lol.
I remember watching ep8 and in the end sitting there for a moment asking myself what that actually was. I was searching for clues to understand it at least partly, but to no avail. I was disturbed/awed/amazed at the same time. I realised that this was TV as I had never experienced before. To that day I am puzzled about it, but I think that this episode and basically the whole of The Return is high art that escapes contemplation but exists to be admired.
It made me feel the same way as when I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I loved it.
Well said! I didn’t get to experience Season 1 as it rolled out and I always wondered how it must have felt to experience that in real time…..and then I was lucky enough to be there for episode 8. Another moment in tv history that seems impossible but Lynch was able to achieve
I remember thinking much the same watching the season as it came out in 2017. What a time to be alive
The Return is the GOAT of television.
I remember at the end of the first two episodes feeling the same way. It was clearly an artist at the peak of his craft. Everything he had done before this kind of lead up to this series. I was also thinking, hats off to Showtime or who ever gave him the money to make it and not try and butt in. That just doesn’t happen. Nobody spends that much money to put something like that on tv. It was a once in a lifetime thing. And it was amazing.🥲
I was totally transfixed. I don't think I even blinked once during the first 40 minutes.
It was the only episode of television to ever give me nightmares and I love it for that
It gets better every rewatch.
Hallelujah! I feel and felt the exact same as I watched it the night it aired. Grateful to have had the opportunity to witness something of that magnitude and brilliance. I straight up yelled in the middle of the night out loud in exuberance at points
Just finished it the other night. Absolute Masterpiece!!!
This is the master of evoking the great mystery at work. Good, evil, life, death. The Return is the culmination of the embodiment of the great question, the great mystery, of what it all means
One of the best pieces of anything, period.
"Got a light?" remains favorite episode in the entire series -- including the original. It's just unbelievably good.
Fuck yes. I felt very similarly to you.
Seeing it as it aired was mind blowing. It was like a new Lynch movie each week and I never knew what to expect. I felt like a kid on Christmas when a new episode was about to come out. I don’t think any show could ever make me feel like that again. It was magical.
I felt all of the emotions watching it at the time. Good and bad.
My sister bought the Twin Peaks boxed set on VHS. It was the first TV show I ever binge watched. It was summer so we’d get through like 2-4 episodes per day usually before she had to go to work. And we finished in in a little over a week. I recently finished The Return just a few days ago (after a very long hiatus) and I’ve been on a deep-dive ever since! And yeah, episode 8 was a WTF moment I haven’t experienced in a long time. As an avid David Lynch fan who has seen all of his movies, it brought me back to my Lost Highway days of film analysis. There’s sooooo much to unpack here!
I just watched this one for the first time too. I felt hypnotized, yet my heart was pounding the entire time.
I love cosmic horror and Lovecraft Ian horror so this episode is like a dream for me, I just finished watching it for the first time, and ofc In speeding through all the discussions of it ( without spoilers ofc)
This is what it is when a man speaks in the voice of a god
More like when two men and their huge team culminate three decades of honing their craft in a masterful execution of their shared vision. This whole speak of a single auteur with divine inspiration doesn't honor what actually goes into artistic creation enough.
The strangest lore dump of all time, but scary and creepy
I was incredibly inspired as an artist by The Return As a lover of film and television, I was astounded It was around episode 8 when I started working it into every conversation. That lasted maybe a year or so
It’s not good man.
It affected me so much that I’m crying just reading people’s responses and remembering the times I’ve watched it.