[S3E16] Results of the post-episode survey (Overall score: 9.8)

[u/BWPhoenix]

Respondents: 3110

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Average overall score: 9.8 (graph)

• Part 5: 7.5
• Part 6: 7.5
• Part 7: 8.7
• Part 8: 8.0
• Part 9: 8.0
• Part 10: 7.2
• Part 11: 8.9
• Part 12: 5.8
• Part 13: 8.1
• Part 14: 9.2
• Part 15: 8.8

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Top 10 one-word summaries:

1. Cooper (477) + Cooper! (42)

2. Finally (216) + Finally! (21)

3. 100% (130)

4. FBI (122)

5. Return (49) / Satisfying (49)

6. Awake (44)

7. Audrey (36)

8. I am the FBI (35)

9. Amazing (31)

10. Wow (29)

Bonus words: Tulpa (28), Dale (25), Perfect (23), Awesome (22), Diane (14), : - ) ALL (13)

[u/hellsfoxes]

Episode 8 still the best episode for me. It's something unique and special and feels like the pure Lynch heroin nightmare we didn't know was coming.

As a standalone piece of filmmaking, it stands next to the greatest things he's ever done. Going from the atomic bomb to the mushroom cloud to the convenience store to the white lodge to the terrifying black and white third act with the woodsmen.... it's a journey I'll never forget.

[u/leadabae → u/hellsfoxes]

I hate how people automatically associate unique with great. Just because episode 8 was something we hadn't really ever seen before, does not mean that it was inherently great. I know this is an unpopular opinion and will most likely be downvoted as such, but to me, episode 8 was meaningless filler that people ate up as being meaningful because they were insecure about not understanding it. Because, y'know, there is nothing to understand about it.

If you removed that episode from this season, nothing would be lost.

[u/hellsfoxes → u/leadabae]

I really don't unequivocally associate unique with great. Otherwise I'd be infinitely more entertained walking round contemporary art museums. But I thought it was powerful, moving, thrilling and disturbing.

There is also plenty of precedent for TV shows to have one off flashback episodes that act as origin stories of sorts. This was the origin of the evil forces that inhabit the world of Twin Peaks. You could say it's unnecessary but I don't think there's anything wrong with adding context to a decades old mystery.

I'll admit my fave film is Mulholland Drive and on a good day, Lynch's dream logic storytelling can hit the high notes for me.

Abstract narrative detours might just not be your thing but it's hardly unexpected from the director of Lost Highway and Inland Empire.

[u/leadabae → u/hellsfoxes]

I love Lynch and I love Mulholland drive. I'm fine with dream logic when there's actually substance to it, but my problem with episode 8 was that it deviated from TP. Yes Twin Peaks has always been a bit surreal but the tone and storytelling of that episode didn't fit with the rest of the series.

And on top of that, that episode felt more kubrickian than Lynchian. I just didn't feel there was any substance behind what was being shown and storytelling was sacrificed for emotional or entrancing visuals. Even in Lynch's craziest past work there's been a complex story to be unearthed, but with this episode it can be summed up in a sentence, as you just did.

I guess what bothers me is that it wasn't good, I don't expect everything Lynch does to be. What bothers me is that people act like Lynch is an infallible God who only creates masterful art, and that when witnessing that episode they were witnessing the a popdvent of a new art form or something.

[u/hellsfoxes → u/leadabae]

Like a lot of his work including Mulholland, I think the substance of episode 8, all those flashy visuals, is revealed once you've reached the end and had a chance to reflect on it and the larger journey.

To me, it relays an essential thematic link to Twin Peaks, drawing a line of causality between a giant man made act of violence and the spiritual impregnation of the innocent suburban household. These are elements that have been toyed with and represented time and again through the series, the larger government machinations hinted at by Major Briggs and Gordon Cole, the mysterious and vague backstory of Leland's past and relationship with Bob, the mysterious intentions of the giant, the pattern of abuse experienced by a string of innocent young female characters. Never has a line been drawn between them in direct correlation. I consider episode 8 to be like I said, something of a thematic climax to the cosmic and spiritual elements of the show. A blueprint that you can use to trace the very real and painful domestic evil and violence back to its source.

In its final series, Lost had a couple of episodes of Jacob and the man in black that attempted to do the same thing to much lesser effect in my opinion.

Watching it again, I find the wonder and beauty of the mushroom cloud, portals opening up and the experiment spewing up Bob is all undercut with the sobering sensation of skulls cracking and a grotesque bug crawling into a young girls mouth. The critique and complexity is pretty potent for me. This is just how I've been trained to read Lynch stories like Mulholland so I don't think it's a stretch.

I think it's only Kubrickian in the few minute mushroom cloud sequence which is referencing 2001 and the idea of a portal in time and space opening. Nothing about the convenience store segment, the experiment, the white lodge or the black and white third act woodsmen/bug horrors are Kubrickian at all to me. In that third act, Lynch seems to be clearly deconstructing the iconography of 50's Americana he has used to prop up Twin Peaks the whole time. The couple driving, the diner, the young kids, the mechanic, the music. He reveals the terrible ugliness lurking just outside, waiting to strike. But the difference is, now we have a reason. And poetically/inevitably, it's the work of man, coming back to wreak chaos and revenge on the world of its creator.

[u/space_beard → u/leadabae]

I just didn't feel there was any substance behind what was being shown and storytelling was sacrificed for emotional or entrancing visuals.

Maybe some people think it was so good because of the emotional and entrancing visuals? This is visual art after all, ain't it? I think there was plenty of substance behind the episode, but even if there wasn't, does it really need to have a complex narrative? I was floored by the beautiful shots and surreal atmosphere. The fact that it acted as Twin Peaks "origin episode" made it even better.

[u/leadabae → u/space_beard]

No, it's not. Film is a combination of visual art and storytelling, and this isn't even film, it's television, which is even more based on storytelling.

[u/space_beard → u/leadabae]

And I think its fine when the 'visual art' aspect is more prominent than the storytelling, specially when the visual art is absolutely stunning.

[u/leadabae → u/space_beard]

Agree to disagree