Worst ongoing plotline in the second season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS)

Really bizarre that they would solve Laura's murder in the middle of the season rather than build up to a finale or something.

yeah the murder was solved early (or at all) do to pressure from the network

due

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that Lynch wanted Laura's murder to go unsolved for the span of the series.

I love Lynch's metaphor about killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

Yeah it just seems like such a stupid thing to do, to solve it in the middle of a season. I can understand the network pressuring them to do it but I don't see why they didn't put it at the end of the season. At the very least it would give plenty of time to hype it up. It must have been the network's decision to put it that early in the season. Idiots.

Also, amateurist, I think you may be on to something wrt the plot fugue playing a big role in the declining viewer interest, but I think Lynch more or less abandoning the show to work on Wild at Heart (and I think some other stuff...Industrial Symphony, maybe?) played the bigger role in its demise. The two causes were probably pretty intertwined, honestly.

The early resolution was also maybe an outgrowth of it starting from a short first season - if Laura Palmer had been dragged all the way through to the end of Season 2 they might have lost the viewers anyway and we'd be complaining about "that damn Laura Palmer plot that refused to end, while intriguing threads like the murderess Evelyn went undeveloped" or whatever. I mean, killing the golden goose yeah, but how long can you tease a plotline like that without just driving people crazy?

They should've kept up with "Invitation to Love".

I sort of know what you mean, Dr Casino, but at least if the creators had been allowed to choose that, then we might not have had stuff that felt rushed or shoehorned in. I will say as well, though, that the first season doesn't seem short to me, really. I know that US programmes do go on for a lot longer than UK ones, but I think that's kind of their big failing. Almost all of the stuff I like lasts for about two British series lengths - so about 12 episodes in total?

I have to say I liked Dick.

― emil.y

Hey! No fair!

Or, wait, is it just me who read that as "taking posts out of context"?

I also don't mind the length of season 1 - in fact, if TP had been done as a string of six-episode miniseries it might have actually worked even better. I just think season one PLUS two as the length to get to Laura's murderer - - that'd be, what, five British seasons? People would be screaming.

I voted James Hurley on the road, but I do have to say Windom Earle was a huge letdown. When we first hear about him Cooper is petrified and the moment feels really powerful and then he turns out to be kind of pathetic and silly.

Yeah, I would more or less cosign that; I didn't hate him onscreen and he did seem suitably evil and twisted but he just wasn't quite as terrifying in the flesh as he was as a vague threat coming in from beyond. Always a risk when you set a villain up that much though - "Wait 'til Martin comes!"

Hrm, I guess I should have listed the continuing war between Catherine Martel and Ben Horne, but I suppose that's sort of covered under the umbrellas of some of the others.

My ranking of these -

ACTUALLY WAS INTO THIS AND IT MADE THE SHOW STILL WORTH IT

Cooper and Truman work to solve the murder of Laura Palmer
Audrey gets mixed up in the business of One-Eyed Jack's and needs rescuing
Donna befriends a shut-in named Harold Smith, with terrible consequences
Donna becomes convinced that there is a connection between her family and Ben Horne
Cooper, with the help of Dennis/Denise, tries to clear his name after a frame-up
Windom and Annie, with Cooper in pursuit, locate and enter the Black Lodge
Josie is re-embroiled in the Martel saga as Andrew Packard and Thomas Eckhardt reappear
Gordon discovers that he can hear Shelly's voice PERFECTLY
Harry tries to come to terms with the fallout of the Josie saga
The Martels and Andrew try to unravel the secret of Eckhardt's puzzle box
Ed and Norma attempt to pursue their long-forestalled love
Cooper and Truman, with Pete's chess finesse, try to outwit Windom Earle
Ben Horne becomes obsessed with the Civil War, and tries to turn over a new leaf

...although I'd add that the Donna father thing suffered from it being really obvious where it was all going, while Donna pouted around being apparently too dense to put together the really, really obvious clues. And Gordon and Shelly is a throwaway, but a genuinely amusing one so I don't mind it being in there at all. Josie I accept only because it's crucial to Harry's plotline, about which I gave a shit.

STARTED OUT OKAY BUT DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE AND/OR GOT OLD FAST

The mayor's fiancee exerts a dumbfounding force on all men, for some reason
Bobby and Shelly's relationship is strained as they take care of a semi-comatose Leo
Windom Earle, using Leo as his pawn, engages in kidnapping and murder in the woods
The upcoming Miss Twin Peaks contest is on everybody's minds this was fine once it got us to the climax obviously, but all of Windom's clue-dropping and disguise-playing really didn't actually go anywhere.

LIKE NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD EVERY SECOND THAT THIS WAS GOING ON

Audrey gets involved in staging a fundraiser for the Pine Weasel, and falls for Billy Zane
Nadine, suffering from amnesia, returns to high school with superhuman strength
James leaves town and becomes mixed up in the torrid affair of Evelyn, Malcolm and Jeffrey
Andy and Dick compete for Lucy's approval as prospective fathers through babysitting, etc.
Cooper meets Norma's ex-nun sister Annie and falls in love

Teenage Nadine was maybe okay for the first, like, two scenes. In a way, I think the Billy Zane and Annie plots are the most damaging - I never liked James in the first place, and Andy and Lucy were comic relief from the get-go, but to hitch two of the most interesting characters to these really...really...really unexciting romantic pairs actually made you like the protagonists less, according to the "what does he see in her?" principle. It made Cooper seem way less cool, and Annie's total blandness worked against the idea that somehow getting drawn in by this woman was throwing him off his game and causing him to make mistakes. This is what's wrecking Coop's concentration? With Audrey you at least go, well, she's a teenager (even if you see her at school, like, twice), teenagers fall for good looking bland people. But it still sucked.

The *only* storyline I absolutely hated was the fucking tedious James story. All of the others were at least okay, and I must confess that I love the Civil War thing.

totally OTM came here to voice this exact sentiment

Spent those sections half-heartedly punching the couch in frustration

http://cdn.static.ovimg.com/episode/11692.jpg

Dick: “Andy I believe that Little Nicky, incredible as it may seem, may in fact be the devil.”

Nadine, suffering from amnesia, returns to high school with superhuman strength

The three I really hated were Nadine back in high school, James' love triangle, and the Civil War stuff. I know many people like the latter--the appeal completely escapes me. I love everything having to do with Windom Earle. I guess I'll register the only Civil War vote.

Isn't the first season pretty short, like 10 eps or something? And the second is more the standard 22 or whatever? I watched season one for the first time recently since the original air date and actually had some trouble with it, but most disturbing was how many memories of the show I had that were from the second season, and not the first.

So, maybe this belongs in more a general-purpose TP thread, but I just watched the pilot for what I think must be the first time (when I watched the show my roommate didn't have that DVD and just gave me a recap). It's actually really striking how different it is from where the show ended up...I feel like a lot of things changed gradually, just in terms of tone and focus, so that by the time it got to this round-robin goofball show of high school Nadine, Civil War Ben, and Andy/Dick/Lucy antics, you didn't exactly notice where it had all changed. But man - the pilot is damned spooky, brilliantly loose-ended (in the sense of there being no really strong effort to set up plausible murder suspects), almost unrelentingly downbeat, and incredibly human. The opening scenes with people reacting to this horrible crime are really, really affecting...you can see why people would have wanted more of this show! (Audrey notwithstanding, who seems totally unsympathetic and annoying in this iteration.)

I wonder if the ongoing project of exposing all these people as having their own dark secrets and skeletons in the closet actually robs the show of its emotional impact in this way, even more so than making half of them into clowns. Of course the "dark secrets" thing is kind of thematically crucial so it's a no-win. But man, that pilot was great. Long, but really nails the eerie emptiness of being out in the woods in the dark.

Yeah, season one is only eight episodes - ends with Cooper getting shot by a mystery assailant in his hotel room.

The pilot is very different in tone--closer to something like River's Edge, but better. Grim and serious. I think of the principal breaking down during his announcement of Laura's death, or (as I remember it, unless I'm thinking of Elephant) the shot of student running past the classroom screaming. I can't remember if the tone changed suddenly, or if it was more of a gradual thing.

Yeah, student screaming is totally in it. Everybody just seems totally shaken and shattered. Even things like Truman being really short with Andy about him crying, sort of feels out of character based on later developments - or just, Harry's on edge and trying to keep it together himself.

otm dr. c

I was introduced to and immediately absorbed by the show when i was thirteen or so, right around the same time I had my first real experience w/ the death of a friend. A kid I was friends with died in a car crash & the degree to which that wrenched MY community from within i guess i found some parallel with in the TP pilot & the subsequent reverberation of grief, dread & uncertainty throughout the first & early second season.

Pretty sure they didn't set up the killer from day one, but rewatching that pilot when you know who it is, your mind picks up on so many hints. For instance, Leland apparently knows his daughter is dead before hearing it from the police.

Yeah, it's subtle, because it also reads just fine as "he just got this phone call from his wife and can just kind of sense the dread in the air and what Harry's probably about to tell him." I was also really interested in his reaction shots at the morgue when he sees Laura's body.

Bob is in the pilot, and Bob killed Laura so

Also right when he's on the phone with his wife, and she asks if he was with her. The instant he says "No" a police car drives into view, pretty much right into his head the way the scene is framed. He says "Maybe she was with Bobby". Bob. Bobbby. Eh?

Maybe reading too much into this.

I'm just realizing that, despite having seen everything through about the middle of season 2 more times than I can count, I might've only ever seen the last stretch of the season once. On the VHS boxset, before any of TP was available on DVD. I probably should rectify that. That said, I do remember being the most underwhelmed by the James storyline.

I think the realisation that a crossbow is far more terrifying than a gun drags Windom across into classic for me.

Also I really should rewatch all of this.

FYI - it's all streaming on Netflix, if people are into that kind of thing.

Nadine high school

Yeah that's a pretty big shark jump plotline, jarring in that it doesn't just go against tone or characters but general physics. Maybe if she was later revealed as being possessed by a White Lodge spirit or something it would make more sense.

Gotta say though, it is super nice to see Big Ed and Norma end up together, however briefly.

1) As someone has suggested, I think TWIN PEAKS would have worked better had subsequent season(s) been short, like 10–11 episodes rather than 22 or whatever. But the current situation where the creators of high-profile shows like MAD MEN can negotiate very short seasons wasn't in place in 1991 (in fact it's really THE SOPRANOS that permits these short seasons, and that wasn't until well after TWIN PEAKS was just a memory).

2) I don't everything David Lynch touches turns to gold or anything, but 75% of what went wrong with this series can be traced to Lynch's lack of involvement. Nearly every episode he directed is a noticeable jump in quality, and even the non-Lynch episodes in season 1 (when at least he was involved in laying out the overall plotlines) are superior to most of season 2. As soon as Lynch jumps back in for the final episode, the series gets a crazy jolt as if the last few--dire--episodes didn't even happen (literally in some cases: Lynch abandons or ret-cons several of the season 2 plotlines in 45 minutes).

3) I can't remember who has said what about this, but I'm pretty sure they knew the dad was the killer from before the production of the pilot. They played a good hand it not letting the audience know, but there is too much pointing to this in retrospect (not just in the show but in the books that came out in the interregnum between the two seasons) for it not to be true. Obviously Lynch really settled on the "themes" he could draw out of this resolution only with the film (TP:FWWM).

BTW I wonder how much of the incest/abuse theme Lynch had in mind from the beginning and how much was imagined for TP:FWWM.

In other words, was he forced to submerge that theme heavily in the series and then gave it full play for the (very R-rated) movie? Or did he not really settle on it until the series was over or nearly over?

Obviously in retrospect this theme helps to bind together much of the show, but it also renders parts of the show somewhat thematically incoherent IIRC.

I mean obviously he wasn't selling the show to networks as "This show about incest and parental abuse as the root of all sadness and evil"! But did he plan on this and just keep his cards close to the vest -- or did he only realize this as a central theme gradually?

Anyway.

Which of the season 2 plotlines gets the abandon/retcon treatment, in your eyes? Not disputing it at all - just haven't watched this in a while and was kind of not paying attention to when one episode ended and the next began.

James Hurley by a mile. Some of the others were v stupid but at least fun. Nothing involving Gordon Cole should even be on this list. He is going to write an EPIC POEM about this pie!

Given that Twin Peaks was meant to be as much a pisstake of yr average 80s soap opera as it was a murder mystery or anything else, a lot of these still make sense within the context of the show. That says, the James storyline still blows.

The Andy/Dick/Lucy plotline is quite sweet really.

I don't everything David Lynch touches turns to gold or anything, but 75% of what went wrong with this series can be traced to Lynch's lack of involvement. Nearly every episode he directed is a noticeable jump in quality, and even the non-Lynch episodes in season 1 (when at least he was involved in laying out the overall plotlines) are superior to most of season 2. As soon as Lynch jumps back in for the final episode, the series gets a crazy jolt as if the last few--dire--episodes didn't even happen (literally in some cases: Lynch abandons or ret-cons several of the season 2 plotlines in 45 minutes)

I think people tend to reach a bit with stuff like this. If Lynch was really that anti- a lot of what had been happening over those episodes, would he have turned up playing a recurring FBI agent in a plotline that doesn't really go anywhere?

i don't think he was anti- anything. i just think his level of involvement in terms of planning out plotlines and so on was pretty damn low.

So, last night some friends and I were talking about Twin Peaks and I posed the thread question; when the Billy Zane plot came up, one of them told me that they'd heard that this began because Kyle MacLachlan and Lara Flynn Boyle were dating (?! did not know this!) and she objected to the chemistry between Cooper and Audrey. If true, this also leads me to wonder whether the Annie story was also ginned up for this reason: give Cooper the least sexually charged relationship of possibly any couple on the show.

love this thread. i'm more forgiving of S2 than most people i know), but even i can't deal with jaaaaaames.

another poll I have no time for bcz RESCREENING is impossible for now. I remember basically none of this after 20 years.

have some of you watched the whole series 4x or something?

2x (once on VHS, once on dvd)

Pretty sure this last one was the 3rd time for me.

someone mentioned 'Josie Packard' to me recently and I couldn't even guess who she was

I would've voted for (the first half of) "Ben Horne becomes obsessed with the Civil War, and tries to turn over a new leaf," which last time I rewatched was pointless, irritating, and, as silly as it is, pretty dodgy in a Lost Cause way

great post karlakrlarkal

ppl horrendously not otm about wally brando

The whole point is that TP is out of time

...or that Lynch switched off his cultural perceptions around 1962.

The Nine Inch Nails

the point of James was that he was a wet noodle
i can understand and appreciate his character’s purpose while ALSO finding him to be a wet noodle
and that doesn’t include nor will it ever include wanting to hear him sing me the song of his people ie that he is a wet noodle

if i am to tolerate James then the least he could do is NOT. SING.

the wally brando scene, especially in the context of those first few episodes of the return when everyone was still trying to get a handle on it, was and remains incredible

some of the freddie sykes stuff on the other hand…

I love all of that

Maybe more for the other thread but I just got to the Brando ep in my rewatch the other night, I think I like it even more than I did the first time

Speaking of cringey dudes [...] Wally Brando/Michael Cera would definitely be up there.

... wasn't that the entire point of that scene? Robert Forster can barely keep a straight face.

and OMG i want to kick Harold and his 2-cent Norman Bates impression into the fucking sun

OTM, especially when he’s “menacing” Donna and Maddie after they attempt to steal the diary. There’s two of them versus a wimp with a hand rake—just push past him!

My vote is more the absence of a plot line: the lack of reaction to Leland’s guilt. You’d think that Donna would be traumatized by learning a man she saw often had been molesting her best friend. Or Jacoby, having finally learned Laura’s secret. Instead, the town seems to shrug and move on after the funeral reception—which is all the more bizarre considering it’s only been about two weeks since Laura died.

I think that episode is the low of the series to me, even if goofier stuff followed--it just seems so disrespectful of what came before, especially considering how the pilot dwelled on grief. This should have been a big moment but instead we get slapstick with the mayor. You really feel the network/new writers coming in and saying, “OK, enough of that stuff, time to do our own thing."

otm, and the final episode of s2 feels like a correction in that regard: lynch comes back in & brings back maddy & ronette (the one bafflingly forgotten as soon as she’s murdered, the other pretty much only ever appearing in lynch-directed eps), the palmer family also return (Sarah also having disappeared after the wake, like how on earth do you do that ffs), Laura palmer is literally screaming in our faces &c. And then the film even more so obv. I like the post-wklp episodes but I’d be way more down on them if those corrections didn’t exist, as it is the tone shift feels like the town/show making a supernatural effort to bury deeply this terrible secret, which never goes well in lynch

Although it wasn’t so much new writers coming in as existing staff writers being left holding the bag after both lynch & frost checked out

i think fire walk with me is a corrective in that way, where it does get you to sit with the reality of how she died and who killed her and it doesn’t at all let you turn away from that, the way much of s2 does

ugh i memory-holed so much of this and now it’s all flooding back to me like a blocked sewer drain

piper laurie in asian-face

help me i am in hell

u guys so much of this season really is the pits

you're still in the part of season two i like!!!! agreed that the asian-face is terrible tho

very unnecessary plotline, also not sure why multiple characters had to be masters of disguise in season two of twin peaks

There’s two of them versus a wimp with a hand rake—just push past him!

he immediately turns it on himself [drawing that super-fake mark across his face with the visibly pre-bloodied rake]: he's emotionally terrorizing them, not blocking their path. (who hasn't met this guy.) nevertheless "2-cent norman bates impression" pretty undeniable but i do like "there are things you can't get in books" "there are things you can't get anywhere, but we dream they can be found in other people"

ratty norman bates cornering donna & maddy with the little garden tool is v funny, esp when maddy screams the fuckin house down and all he did was scrape his own face slightly!
i mean this is the same girl who screamed at a stain on the carpet
like u may look like Laura but if yr gonna live in this town u can’t pee yr pants every time u see a shadow TOUGHEN UP MADDY JFC

tbf all she did was come to a funeral and it's like she fell into a dream

then again she’s been staying in that cursed fkn house for all this time w Leland & Sarah & BOB so screaming all the time is prob understandable, all things considered

guy that played Harold was really terrible (RIP I guess). He's no better when he shows up in FWWM.

Lynch is fond of Ronnette, it's not for nothing that she showed up in the Return also (in another dimension with no name)

Harold! That's my man Edgar, Lenny Van Dohlen, from Electric Dreams. Okay he's not very good in that either but it's still a classic.

oh wow i forgot he was in Electric Dreams! he def looks better w the glasses & a bowtie. also he had better hair in that

wasn’t so much new writers coming in as existing staff writers being left holding the bag

and Engels (ie 50% of the staff writers) wrote Fire Walk With Me

e7 of season 2, the one directed by lynch, def feels like a reprieve … we’re not so brightly let, everything gets a bit more muted & sombre & proper weird again

(salvation army bouncing rubber balls lmao)

*lit