There's a body allright.
Posted: 23 June 2017, 22:04
I've been quite surprised to realize that a lot of Twin Peaks fans consider this Part 7 as their favorite episode of the new season so far. I had not really felt any desire to "rank" the episodes myself anyway, but that made me wonder what could explain such an opinion.
Part 7 to me is the "recollections" part, the episode where a lot of pieces come together and form a cohesive emsemble. I suppose a lot of fans prefer it because it's definitely the most narrative and the most classical in its structure as well. As to me, I like to "get lost" in David Lynch stories (and Parts 1-3 totally fascinate me because of this), but I also perfectly understand that, as storytellers, Mark Frost and David Lynch need to "structure" their multiple threads from time to time : we will probably never have a full look of the genesis of the full screenplay, but it would be captivating to know how the whole story was developed.
The most symbolical scene that illustrates the more narrative aspect of Part 7 is probably Hawk telling Coop's story to Frank Truman. It "brings back some memories", to quote Bobby Briggs, and plays with one of the most iconical images of the first season, Laura's Secret Diary : it's then a subtle mix between nostalgia, revisiting the past with a new light and connecting these elements to the new story.
Another iconical image (or, in this case, "non-image" !) of the first seasons was Diane. To know if Diane existed or not has never really been a question to me, but we all know that the mystery of a character or an object is of course multiplied by our imagination and our mind if we don't see this object or character at all. In a way then, whatever Diane's look was going to be (and her look is stunning !), her appearance was going to let a big part of the magic go. This choice to give her a role in the new season was then very "dangerous".
David Lynch and Mark Frost's very wise decision about Diane is then not to show her like we had imagined her, based on the first seasons, but to play with our expectations as 1) her character first seems very different to what we expected ; 2) Diane makes us wonder if Dale Cooper had not fantasised a kind of ideal Diane ; 3) we gradually realize that the Diane that we thought we knew doesn't exist anymore because a still mysterious and dreaful event has "broken" her and she's now one of these numerous lynchian "women in trouble".
Playing with our expectations is definitely one the main patterns of the new season. I particularly like the variations that David Lynch creates in the Roadhouse. I remember a lot of us quickly assumed that each episode would end with a new band playing in what some call the Bang Bang Bar but, even if that really happened quite a few times and will probably happen again, there have already been at least two major variations so far : the introduction of Richard Horne during one of these Roadhouse songs (by Trouble) and this "cheeky" 2' scene of a guy gently sweeping the Bar while we wonder if / when we hear a new song there.
Will the upcoming parts keep on finding the perfect balance between playing with expectations and recollections ?
Part 7 to me is the "recollections" part, the episode where a lot of pieces come together and form a cohesive emsemble. I suppose a lot of fans prefer it because it's definitely the most narrative and the most classical in its structure as well. As to me, I like to "get lost" in David Lynch stories (and Parts 1-3 totally fascinate me because of this), but I also perfectly understand that, as storytellers, Mark Frost and David Lynch need to "structure" their multiple threads from time to time : we will probably never have a full look of the genesis of the full screenplay, but it would be captivating to know how the whole story was developed.
The most symbolical scene that illustrates the more narrative aspect of Part 7 is probably Hawk telling Coop's story to Frank Truman. It "brings back some memories", to quote Bobby Briggs, and plays with one of the most iconical images of the first season, Laura's Secret Diary : it's then a subtle mix between nostalgia, revisiting the past with a new light and connecting these elements to the new story.
Another iconical image (or, in this case, "non-image" !) of the first seasons was Diane. To know if Diane existed or not has never really been a question to me, but we all know that the mystery of a character or an object is of course multiplied by our imagination and our mind if we don't see this object or character at all. In a way then, whatever Diane's look was going to be (and her look is stunning !), her appearance was going to let a big part of the magic go. This choice to give her a role in the new season was then very "dangerous".
David Lynch and Mark Frost's very wise decision about Diane is then not to show her like we had imagined her, based on the first seasons, but to play with our expectations as 1) her character first seems very different to what we expected ; 2) Diane makes us wonder if Dale Cooper had not fantasised a kind of ideal Diane ; 3) we gradually realize that the Diane that we thought we knew doesn't exist anymore because a still mysterious and dreaful event has "broken" her and she's now one of these numerous lynchian "women in trouble".
Playing with our expectations is definitely one the main patterns of the new season. I particularly like the variations that David Lynch creates in the Roadhouse. I remember a lot of us quickly assumed that each episode would end with a new band playing in what some call the Bang Bang Bar but, even if that really happened quite a few times and will probably happen again, there have already been at least two major variations so far : the introduction of Richard Horne during one of these Roadhouse songs (by Trouble) and this "cheeky" 2' scene of a guy gently sweeping the Bar while we wonder if / when we hear a new song there.
Will the upcoming parts keep on finding the perfect balance between playing with expectations and recollections ?