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

There was a fish in the detonator!

p.s. no wayyyy, they totally would have survived!

I'm watching this show for the first time, on netflix instant viewing, and am now slogging through the dregs of the second season. Up until now I think I would have gone with Nadine as worst plot line. The James thing is awful but kind of irrelevant and sidelined, like it's happening on a different show. Nadine is something that makes no sense and is in the midst of everything. And the "comedy" of the scene where she was introduced to the wrestling team was pretty much excruciating, some of James' scenes seem almost funny in comparison.
But, I also really hate Josie as Catherine's maid and everything to do with her this season. I know a lot of people hate this character and performance anyway but I think they were sort of well suited in the earlier episodes, here it is horrible all around. Like the Nadine situation, it seems to compromise/contaminate other characters. More self contained plot lines, like the love triangle and the civil war, don't seem as bad in that they don't compromise previously established characters as much.
The Windom Earle thing would, so far, be better if it didn't involve Leo Johnson.

just want to highlight this post in case anyone that's interested in the odd turns that the 2nd season takes missed it upthread:

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.

from reading about this in the books Lynch on Lynch and the biography Beautiful Dark, this seems to be accurate.

one pleasant paragraph in Beautiful Dark suggests that when David Lynch (as the FBI boss) tells Cooper to ditch the open collared plaid shirts and get back to the crisp white t-shirt and black suit combo, that's a not-so-subtle comment on the loss of direction of the show under the various directors and writers that took charge while he was off doing Wild at Heart

It certainly feels like it was under the control of people who didn't understand what made the show and its characters work.
Josie and Nadine were both pretty limited as characters, for different reasons,but I think they worked quite well as one note characters with little screen time. In the second season they not only become grating and annoying with the larger roles but are taken in completely different directions to which they are totally unsuited.
Even with characters like Cooper and Harry, there are moments that ring false, like poor replications.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Axyq7fH_XeY/mqdefault.jpg

otm

I have to admit the pine weasel event, and the weasel-cam shot in particular, is at least as "funny" as all the other Lucy-Andy shit.

just want to highlight this post in case anyone that's interested in the odd turns that the 2nd season takes missed it upthread:

_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._


from reading about this in the books Lynch on Lynch and the biography Beautiful Dark, this seems to be accurate.

I think I mentioned it before in one of these threads, but the episode with the pine weasel fundraiser is the only one I saw (in part) when the show was originally airing. It did not quite synch up with my general impression of what Twin Peaks was all about.

People in this thread keep referring to Nadine getting transformed into having super-strength in season 2 - but didn't she always have super-strength? She's bending the bars on her exercise machine in one of the first episodes.

Correct also that p

lotline is good

re-watching this as promised (on another TP thread) and I know it's almost a cliche at this point but boy does the back half of Season 2 suck. It's bad enough that it almost makes me not want to see the more recent reboot / season 3 thing (I am typically years late to these, err, events and have somehow managed to avoid spoilers).

power through! s3 as you have probably surmised even sans spoilers is a totally different beast

That's what I've heard! And I love the show so much right up until the Leland reveal, I'm willing to overlook almost anything, but man, this season is worse than I remembered. But since I do plan to spend the post-holiday pajamas-and-cocoa dead zone finally watching Season 3, I've been making it a point to re-watch Season 2 (and FWWM)

While I like lots of the second-half-of-S2 stuff (James’ Wild Ride excluded) and love the Diane Keaton episode, as far as preparing for S3 goes you can just skip to the finale and FWWM.

and The Missing Pieces of FWWM I would say

While I like lots of the second-half-of-S2 stuff (James’ Wild Ride excluded) and love the Diane Keaton episode, as far as preparing for S3 goes you can just skip to the finale and FWWM.

― insecurity bear (sic), Saturday, December 14, 2019 2:51 PM (fifty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

my ocd tendencies would never permit this. What's The Missing Pieces?

The parts of the FWWM screenplay that were filmed but cut from the released film; Lynch edited a sort-of-feature out of them for a DVD bonus feature.

There's also a fan edit that cuts 99% of them back into original screenplay order, which I watched on my pre-season-3 rescreen.

I’ve always told people “there’s an episode that ends with an owl flying toward the camera. Stop. Skip to the season finale.”

That said, I remember the three-episode arc with David Duchovny very fondly?!

paul I agree that the back half of season 2 has a lot of letdowns, but season 3 might be the best season of TV I’ve ever seen. it is not to be missed

I liked Denise a lot, and I remember her as redeeming the episodes she was in, though that may just be wishful thinking. My vote for worst plotline would be Cooper falling in love with Annie, just because cringe-inducing terrible dialogue is harder to suffer through when it's Coop delivering it.

That said, I remember the three-episode arc with David Duchovny very fondly?!

Also touched on wonderfully in S3.

i’m in the middle of another rewatch and every time I get to this part my skeleton leaves my body and I disassociate

james is The Worst

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEn-mmFiYDs-

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

him and james, into the sea immediately

crooner James - not terrible
James & Evelyn - absolute complete dogshit (as evidenced by OP results)

James is cool

Also that scene is one of the best bits of the entire run

insanity

i hate it so much

https://gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/20/lx45gkyjy4tf05xcbx2z.png

James has ALWAYS been cool!

James is canonically a dipshit, it’s good

I’ve never understood reaction to that scene, at least if you’ve bought into the whole vibe of the show up to that point it surely makes perfect sense that there is this performance going on in the palmer living room, with the heightened artificiality of the vocal effects & the musical backing that cannot possibly be diegetic (but maybe is?? There’s always music in the air) & also it’s v funny because it’s dipshit James doing his teenybop scotty Ferguson bit toward his dead gf’s doppelgänger while his current gf is also in the room because they are both singing backing vocals on a song called “just you” lol — and then Donna & James rush out of the room and BOB comes in, not appearing out of thin air as previously but literally walking in from the other room, and crawls over the couch directly at the camera?

Start to finish that has to be top 10 most quintessential lynch scenes ever, not just TP

"just you and i" is amazing!!!!

The deliberately ridiculous singing alone is a joy

tension between donna and maddie is unbelievable in that scene

everything in season 2 is good

love 'just you and i,' it's perfect. there's something in it that is emphasized a lot more in the return, individuals being fated by their archetypes, the doppelganger who is caught in larger patterns, a magnetic pull towards your place in the cosmos regardless of how you stuggle against it in an effort to "fix" things. it adds such tragedy to donna's jealousy, she sees her position slipping out of her grasp because she isn't the girl and james is the guy, doesn't matter that he's a doofus, he has the motorcycle and the guitar

otm, great post

I'm with VG on this sorry

There were six to ten S2 episodes where I was wimpy punching the couch wishing it was over

Speaking of cringey dudes, if a poll-thread is made for Worst character/plotline in the third season of Twin Peaks (SPOILERS):

Wally Brando/Michael Cera would definitely be up there.

:/ agreed, awful moment in an otherwise perfect season

In retrospect, since the show was set in the Pacific Northwest in 1989, James should really have been a grunge balladeer instead of a Paul Anka throwback.

the wally brando scene is so fucking funny

The whole point is that TP is out of time

Widow Milford subplot deserved some votes

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