MovieChat Forums > Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) Discussion > Why I'm disappointed in the finale and w...

Why I'm disappointed in the finale and why we need a season 4.

posted 7 years ago by krl97a (5619)
13 replies | jump to latest

Audrey wasn't even in it apart from one indirect reference via the arm. How's Annie? The big 26 year old question wasn't addressed. How's Becky? What was up with the frog moth girl? What did Laura whisper to Cooper? What was Mr. C's goal? What was Cooper's goal? What was Cooper's plan? How close did it come to fruition? I'm fine with some mystery remaining but not even answering the biggest questions leaves this a badly incomplete story.

My guess is he was going back in time to retrieve Laura and have her face Judy (assuming that's who's possessing Sarah) in the future (assuming Judy was still on earth in the future) because she can somehow vanquish her. Then I hope he was going to take her back to 1989 to fulfill her destiny of being murdered and restore the timeline. Otherwise he's also bringing back Bob and undoing all the good that had been done. Laura's sacrifice in FWWM was beautiful and undoing that makes no sense artistically or story-wise. Or maybe the entire series was Laura's dream Mulholland Drive style and he was a figment of her subconscious trying to wake her up, which would be even worse.

I don't like time travel bits where long established events get changed, let alone a whole series gets wiped out. I don't like someone waking up to reveal that everything we've seen was a dream. I don't like parallel universes because they diminish the meaning of life and everything. None of these ideas are original or worthwhile. The show didn't provide enough information for fans to do more than blindly speculate which if any of these happened. We can't be certain even Lynch knows. In interviews he's indicated his creative process starts with a cool image (e.g. Red Room) or event (Laura screaming?) from which he builds a story outward. Critics charge that he slaps together weird, disjointed scenes just for the sake of being weird. I've defended him in the past, arguing that at least sometimes there's an overarching substance accompanying the delightful weirdness. I thought that was the case with Twin Peaks. But is it?

I was all set to proclaim Twin Peaks my favorite tv show of all time but I can't bring myself to do it now. Each episode was like a work of art, but the aesthetic should buttress the story. This isn't a painting. It's a tv series. Story is a crucial component. Twin Peaks is at its best when it's both weird AND coherent. The classic series started relatively normal and became more avant garde over time. This season started avant garde and appeared to be building toward a relatively normal conclusion, with the seemingly disparate threads many had complained about increasingly coming together in a wonderfully coherent way. That would have been uniquely beautiful framing and a reward to fans who have remained loyal since 1991 despite being dissatisfied with the season 2 finale. It would have been a true masterpiece if it had ended that way.

Lynch couldn't bring himself to do it. I doubt he was intentionally flipping the bird to fans, but he had to have a controversial ending to try to outdo similar endings by others. Or maybe he got overwhelmed by trying to finish the story and instead opted to hide behind obscurantism or the cop out "ambiguous ending" farce that's no more original than it is honest. I loved most of part 17. Then I got a sinking feeling as it seemed like they switched from Twin Peaks to Lost Highway. I'm more of a Twin Peaks fan than a David Lynch fan. Twin Peaks wasn't the work of one man, but included contributions by Frost, lots of writers, and the actors. Sherilyn Fenn practically created her own character, wowing Lynch in auditions and causing him to add "Audrey". Fans contributed too as, for example, Audrey's traction with them caused her role to grow in importance over time.

I know some fans will praise anything Lynch makes without a critical eye. But judging by online comments most are disappointed by this ending as they were the season 2 cliffhangers. Fans and the show itself deserve a better ending than this. This has been too important to too many people for decades of their lives. There must be a continuation. Laura, or at least her double, must die in 1989 so that the series actually happened and reruns aren't robbed of their rewatchability. The biggest questions must at least be addressed and reasonably answered. I wouldn't mind seeing Harry and Heather Graham too. This time I'd side with Showtime if it wanted to limit Lynch's creative control. If Lynch refused to work under those conditions I might be ok with that too. Find talented writers, perhaps with Twin Peaks experience, who will get the job done. Or maybe Lynch would be willing to finally end the show the right way. The finale certainly seems like he was angling for a season 4 after all. Maybe he'll get one, keeping the mostly negative fan response to the finale in mind as constructive criticism of a show by people who dearly love it and want it to be great.

[–] TwistedAcrobat (1725) 7 years ago

Agree 100%. By posing important imagery/information and not carry it out is just bad writing.

I said this already in another post, but I don't mind repeating it:

I was fine with Laura dying out of a sacrifice and finding her peace in the Lodge in FWWM. The image of her crying out of happiness with Cooper standing beside her gave Laura Palmer's murder case a good ending. Everything related to her was resolved.

By making everything that happens in Twin Peaks a story about an evil entity that spews insects and Bob and we have no idea of it's goals, a Doppelganger that apparently wants that creature but we never see him reaching it though he goes around saying he wants it [what for?], and making Diane a sort of blind monkey screeching recluse woman that someone wants to kill [why? she was safe where she was. And who wants to kill her? DoppelCooper? We never got that he is even trying to] because she is [for some weird never explained reason] important... and Laura being this sort of Space Holy Mary.... it makes no fucking sense.

What of Chester Desmond and his colleague? Why couldn't we have his side of the story?
What about Annie? Shouldn't Coop be wondering how she is doing? She was important. She was in the Lodge.

Love Lynch movies... but his imagery is lost in bad writing when it comes to Twin Peaks.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

Yeah, Lynch's strengths are interesting scenes that draw you in and atmospherics. A great writing team would include him but also people skilled at filling out stories so the end result isn't just a bunch of fragments that never fully come together. It's like Lynch starts interesting stories and then drops them to start new ones that he also never finishes. And while surprise can obviously be a great element in story telling, just because something is predictable doesn't necessarily mean it's not worthwhile. I wonder if sometimes Lynch forgets that. They need writers who aren't afraid to give fans what they want to balance his tendencies. I would have much rather had episodes focusing on Annie or Chet Desmond than any of the new stuff in S3.

[–] TwistedAcrobat (1725) 7 years ago

Totally.

[–] Beanchilla (7) 7 years ago

I agree, there are a lot of loose ends that I hope get wrapped up in the future. Audrey is the main one I am frustrated with.

That said Cooper's goal was to destroy mother and Bob. He thought Laura could destroy mother so he went into another reality, saved her, and then tried to use her to fight mother. Unfortunately, the host of Mother, Sarah Palmer, wasn't in the house and Cooper's whole plan backfired. He ended up just scarring this version of Laura and isn't sure where to go next.

Mr. C was trying to get rid of Cooper because he was part of the team that was going to destroy him. His main focus was stopping him and basically everyone working with the fireman. The coordinates he was given lead to a portal that should have helped him get to the Palmer household where he could team up or unite with mother via Sarah Palmer but instead, the fireman tweaked the portal to spit Mr. C out at the sheriff's station. Thinking this is where he was supposed to be he entered under the guise of cooper, unaware that he was about to be set up.

This is my take on it at least. It's a challenging show for sure so feel free to pick my theories apart.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

Are you saying Cooper was trying to destroy Judy (assuming that's the "Experiment" and the one inhabiting Sarah Palmer) and tried to cross over to another universe to get a different Laura and bring her back to his own to confront Judy? That didn't seem to be the case. Cooper warned his Twin Peaks crew that some things would change. Jeffries said Gordon would apparently be a rare person to remember the "unofficial" (original?) history. It seemed like they were expecting their own universe to change. We also never saw him try to cross back over into another universe once he picked up Laura in Odessa. On the other hand, changing history by wiping out Laura's murder would also wipe out Dougie and presumably Sonny Jim from existence (illustrating the horror of changing history), so what would have been the point of making a new Dougie or doing most of the other stuff Cooper took time to do?

Then there's the fact that 1989 Laura appeared to scream in response to Cooper in the woods, just as we originally saw her do in FWWM. This would indicate that any actions Cooper took in the past had already been baked into the timeline, like Annie's message to Laura or various characters' visions of the future, and he can't actually change anything we've already seen. There seem to be contradictions.

Maybe Cooper and his friends just had no idea what the hell they were doing. It's also possible that Lynch had no idea what the hell he was doing. As a sci fi fan I loved time travel stories in my childhood. But I've grown to dread them now because they're almost always done poorly. I was hoping they'd avoid crap like that, instead dismissing the inconsistencies with SHOTP with a line about Briggs altering some facts to protect people or leave coded messages. Artists often put more effort into making a pretty message than they do into the message itself. We certainly see this with Hollywood political propaganda, where the real world analysis quality is usually sorely lacking.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

Another possibility is that Lynch imposed a Mulholland Drive scenario onto Twin Peaks. Say Laura, played by Sherilyn Fenn, experienced something brutal that left her in a coma and the entire series was a dream. FWWM may have come the closest to real life events, but in that, perhaps to dissociate herself from the tragedy, she imagined "Laura" as a blonde girl played by Sheryl Lee. As the dream continues post "murder" she continues within it in the form of "Audrey", a character who did not appear in FWWM, as everyone proceeds to analyze Laura’s life. The dream eventually started to fracture as we saw in S3. All this would explain why the Arm cryptically tied in Audrey by repeating her line about the story of the little girl who lived down the lane. “Audrey’s” conversations with Charlie indicated she was starting to realize she was just dreaming and capable of ending or switching stories. Her waking up in the white room could have been a dream of waking up (a prelude to the real thing) or her actually waking up but shown out of order from the final two episodes. Laura screaming at the end and the house going dark could have been the final event in the dream, right before we see “Audrey”, who was really Laura, waking up.

If that dream scenario I just outlined above is the case that would completely suck. Mulholland Drive already exists. We don’t need to have Twin Peaks transformed into a copy of that and ruined. It’s so much more powerful and meaningful when these are independent characters interacting, each with their own real stories, and when the events in all their tragedy or glory actually happened.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

Maybe your theory is right. I prefer the one outlined in my op because at least it would mean Cooper wasn’t intentionally doing something that would have wiped Sonny Jim and the entire series from existence, rendering Twin Peaks pointless (or do the same thing to another universe). Or maybe someone else will come along with a completely different theory that’s right. The point is we don’t have enough information to even make confident guesses about Lynch’s intent. Lynch’s notion might have been full of holes he didn’t realize were there. Perhaps he's reading messages like these online and saying, “Boy…I didn’t even consider that. Good thing I didn’t show all my cards and embarrass myself.” That’s what I meant about hiding behind obscurantism or “ambiguity”. It means avoiding full judgment on the quality of the story you construct in your mind. I'm not impressed by it when the story is left this incomplete.

I suspect we're going to find out stuff about Audrey in the forthcoming book, but I had waited for over a quarter of a century to see her back on screen interacting with Coop again. They didn't have one scene together or even mention each other.

[–] scorp-945-748744 (151) 7 years ago

Process of solving mysteries brings out even more mysteries. Typical Lynch

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

That's like a Ponzi scheme if there's no payoff. The old mysteries weren't being solved before the new ones were introduced.

[–] Popcorn Kernel (2368) 7 years ago

I agree.
I loved the visuals and atmosphere of some of this season. I think episode 8 was a masterpiece. But the finale just seemed like lynch smelling his own farts and thinking it smells like mimosa.
I think I somewhat get the story line, such as it was, but there were too many red herrings, too many threads that went nowhere, too many useless characters, too many long scenes of people driving without talking or doing anything. The first time it's quirky, the second time it's just stupid filler.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

All that's without getting into minor issues like how odd it is that a man made nuclear explosion caused such problems when there are much vaster natural nuclear reactions constantly underway in stars that the universe seems to handle fine, and likely even occasional natural nuclear explosions on planets. I can live with such details. There are ways around them. The big narrative gaps are the problem.

[–] keybored (2656) 7 years ago

And Judy in whatever form was probably in those places also when the time was right, but not on 'earth' till the first explosion.

[–] krl97a (5619) 7 years ago

If man can send vehicles from earth to the sun without a special portal I bet Judy could manage the trip. Again though, that's a little thing that doesn't bother me. I'm not really even bothered by the question of whether all the subsequent and ongoing nuclear tests are similarly opening portals, let alone all the nuclear power plants. You could just say there were unique circumstances aligned with that one. Failing to bring the Judy issue into the ballpark of a resolution.....they didn't even get to the middle stage of that plot....bothers me. Omitting Audrey from the finale bothers me. Cooper only spending a couple of minutes in Twin Peaks bothers me. Having absolutely no explanation of why Cooper might want to change history, which would presumably wipe Dougie, Sonny Jim, and others from existence, or even if that's what he was trying to do, bothers me.