xxp
Contorted indeed! That scene was both painful (I think the dread never left for the rest of the evening) and euphoria-inducing (because it was so goddamn good). Not sure I've ever been more consciously on the edge of my seat, ha.
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:08 (seven years ago) link
OTM
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:09 (seven years ago) link
re: painful & euphoric
xxxxpost. Not only were the two hotels different, but I think there's good evidence that they were from different times.
The car Cooper drives seems to be old (e.g., look at the steering wheel & listen to how it runs), and the motel seems to be old-timey. I'm guessing that's from the 40s or 50s (maybe supposed to be near New Mexico, as in episode 8?).
But I immediately noticed that the hotel room he wakes up in is different, noticeably including a remote control for the TV: I don't think there was any sign of such technology from the night before.
I probably need to rewatch.
In any case, although I like speculating some at all this, I really like that nothing (for the most part) is wrapped up in a nice simple story.
Maybe one way to put is this: Lynch likes to float all sorts of signifiers of things having deeper meanings that we can figure out, which gets the audience into the mode of watching most other TV & film. But just like such signifiers in real life, everything is much more ambiguous. In that sense, despite all his surrealism (or whatever you want to call it), his film-making actually comes closer to depicting reality than things that seem much more normal. All this reminds me of Kafka.
I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, so maybe I need to go to bed now.
― Pataphysician, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:10 (seven years ago) link
i really loved the group of characters in the superimposition scene. when superimposed coop said that it was a dream (i forget the actual quote) it made perfect sense. andy looking like tintin, a guy with a hulk fist, the three casino gals...jim belushi. it was just an intensely odd assortment of characters.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:11 (seven years ago) link
All this reminds me of Kafka.
definitely. and of course lynch has a deep affinity for kafka, and tried to make an adaptation of metamorphosis at one point
― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:12 (seven years ago) link
The line is "we live inside a dream", it's what Jeffries says in fwwm xp
― streeps of range (wins), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:13 (seven years ago) link
there you go.
i can't wait to rewatch everything, starting from scratch, in a year or two
― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:13 (seven years ago) link
the second motel room - the one with a tv and a remote - also had a rotary phone. suggests that whatever weird parallel universe Cooper wakes up in is structurally/metaphysically corrupt & confused (i.e. the dead man stuck in time in Carrie/Laura's house - just like the Yellow Jacket Man in Blue Velvet).
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:14 (seven years ago) link
laura's hestitation to Coop when he re-appears is heartbreaking - like he gets back in contact with her but she's frozen with grief
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:15 (seven years ago) link
in 18 I mean
his film-making actually comes closer to depicting reality than things that seem much more normal.
Yep. In a different register, I had that in mind when writing earlier that what we got was the traversal of several interlocking and mutually constitutive spatio-temporal apparatuses... that's basically what, um, ~the world~/~reality~ is like anyway. And I don't mean that in the literalist sense of e.g. parallel dimensions, time travel, etc.; but what Part 18 most clearly opened up to was a variety of intersecting contexts that shift and modify and modulate each other.
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:18 (seven years ago) link
Can we take a second to appreciate Tammy's one-second Google and recitation of Douglas Jones's antics
― streeps of range (wins), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:27 (seven years ago) link
Good second to take, that moment was great/funny
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:29 (seven years ago) link
What if we're completely wrong about how remarkable this was and in ten years we'll look back at it and the main thing we'll remember is Bad Coop's minimalist and inscrutable anti-tracking app
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:30 (seven years ago) link
Special mention to the return of Major Briggs's disembodied head, a screencap of which I will send to my Stargate-loving brother
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:32 (seven years ago) link
How tf can they let Audrey hang with that final shot in the mirror in the white room at the end of 16???
Because it's awesome and frightening and suggestive.
― sciatica, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:33 (seven years ago) link
god, that really crappy looking briggs head was a signifier of things to come. it's like, here's where briggs is, the noble, patient briggs - his head is floating, blankly, in perpetuity
― Karl Malone, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:34 (seven years ago) link
Also, Bad Coop in THAT CAGE was really funny
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:35 (seven years ago) link
Dougie's antics were transmitted to them from the LV FBI
xxxxxp
― Moodles, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:37 (seven years ago) link
How tf can they let Audrey hang with that final shot in the mirror in the white room at the end of 16???Because it's awesome and frightening and suggestive.― sciatica, Monday, September 4, 2017 2:33 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― sciatica, Monday, September 4, 2017 2:33 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm 😔
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:39 (seven years ago) link
I took that as an FBI transmission too but I think wins was right about how Google-y it felt, or simply how funny that recitation was. Lots of exposition in that first scene! Unlike in anything else that was to follow.
― Dancing on the Pylons, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:39 (seven years ago) link
xp
So the whole point of getting the coordinates and going to the secret location was to just get teleported a little ways down the road to the sheriff's office.
I appreciated the reveal that Jerry and the Richard immolation happened somewhere in Wyoming, not in TP.
― Moodles, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:40 (seven years ago) link
Carrie Page is a waitress who tried so hard to keep a clean house before getting fed up and shooting her husband... sounds familiar...
― sciatica, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:41 (seven years ago) link
oh fuck
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:41 (seven years ago) link
Well the whole point of the initial clue that the missing thing that had something to do with Hawk's heritage was for him to drop a dime in order to see a label for Nez Perce Manufacturing.
― sciatica, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:42 (seven years ago) link
Last episode eternally ruined for me by watching with wife who refused to get off her phone and yelled how irritating the screams were and interrupted me every five minutes to tell me about Shit I didn't care about
― akm, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:44 (seven years ago) link
this show has helped me with depression so much, quite a gift that it came on this year
now the bottom feels like it has fallen out
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:44 (seven years ago) link
all my questions are no longer "why" so much as "why did they bother", e.g. why did the log lady bother saying "laura is the one"? why did the fireman bother spewing a laura ball back to earth? why did they bother putting an unknown entity in sarah's kitchen? why did dr amp bother making shit shovels? why did dale bother to embark on any of this?
honestly it feels like the first 17 hours of this show didn't need to happen. i can't get past this thought, and in hindsight i would probably not recommend this show to anyone. either watch the last hour only, or watch the first 16 hours and make up your own fanfic ending.
this is not anger, it's not sour grapes, i just don't know what the point of this enormously long show was, apart from being an endless procession of truly astonishing set pieces. a 2–3 hour movie with an abstract ending, fine. 18 hours across three months, totally confounding.
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:45 (seven years ago) link
also there's still a page missing from laura's diary and i just fuck
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:46 (seven years ago) link
good post AA
feel like this show is a demonstration in beauty that goes nowhere, deflates expectations and then inflates them as needed - not sure I feel trolled, but feel taken for a ride.
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:49 (seven years ago) link
like Laura's facial expression in that final car ride in 18 - I feel like that, like what is all worth? and if it's worth nought, i know that feeling, but christ is it crushing
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:51 (seven years ago) link
Like when Laura says "i was too young to know any better'" - we can intrinsically understand that now but what much has changed overall? I'm haunted
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 06:58 (seven years ago) link
I just remembered how that car turns around in the middle of nowhere and follows them for a second and then pulls ahead again and speeds off.
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 06:59 (seven years ago) link
not sure I feel trolled, but feel taken for a ride.
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 16:49 (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i feel trolled. mark frost deliberately set up an abundance of puzzles and devices for us to work on and think about, and it turns out there was no point to any of it.
weeks ago i said this show has raised my expectation of tv to the point that nothing else satisfies me. that remains true, but now it's what this show could be that has raised my expectation, not what it's turned out to be.
i imagine there's a full part-18 draft on frost's hard drive that brings many of the clues and subplots to a clear and satisfying conclusion, but was nixed the second lynch had a crazy gut instinct to go on this nihilistic trip. (not that i'm demanding a satisfying conclusion, but parts 1–16 are merely a sour taste in my mouth now.)
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:00 (seven years ago) link
nihilistic is OTM AA
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:01 (seven years ago) link
which is fucking disappointing. when people perceive you to be unpredictable and it always turns out that way, kinda start being a caricature. The most unpredictable thing for Lynch to do is to deliver some good news...meh
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:03 (seven years ago) link
when Laura says she's "trying to keep a clean house" she's talking about addiction (coke) which is devestating
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:05 (seven years ago) link
xp to ross: yeah. i mean i don't want to say lynch's art is ~wrong~ (that's never true of art), just that the enormous setup has fallen mostly flat. i was all prepped to buy the 4k blu-ray boxset but i don't think i'll bother now.
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:07 (seven years ago) link
Can't believe lynch made a mockery of the little man's famous line "she's filled with answers"
― streeps of range (wins)
Every tv thread eventually gets its own "it's called mad men not happy ladies"
― sciatica, Monday, 4 September 2017 07:08 (seven years ago) link
in some ways it's a piss-off that the longest scene between Coop and Laura is driving in car with desolate silence ala Lost Highway. At least they could've played modest mouse it's a long drive with nothing to think about
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:12 (seven years ago) link
lmao
― flappy bird, Monday, 4 September 2017 07:13 (seven years ago) link
Would've been rad if they bumped into Harry Dean Stanton's character from Paris Texas walking along the side of the road or something
― The Marmadook (latebloomer), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:18 (seven years ago) link
it's a dick move that there's no-one by the name of Sarah Palmer at the end of S18. I mean, Christ
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:19 (seven years ago) link
it just occurred to me that right at the start the fireman said "remember 430, richard and linda, two birds with one stone" and dale said "i understand". but in the end he apparently didn't understand at all.
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:25 (seven years ago) link
i mean, i can't imagine a version of lord of the rings where frodo gets to mount doom and goes "wait, what am i doing with this ring again"
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:27 (seven years ago) link
it's a discordian logic, what actually matters here? I just feel mesmerized without logic, i feel like this is chaos personified in media
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:27 (seven years ago) link
otm
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:28 (seven years ago) link
in the end like the silencio scene - i've felt something, i've been manipulated - that's art
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Monday, 4 September 2017 07:28 (seven years ago) link