Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 1-7)

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David: Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 1-7) – Detailed Summary

Release Date: December 1, 2024
Produced by: Ben Hosley

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1. Introduction to Twin Peaks: The Return

Griffin and David open the episode by delving into the highly anticipated revival of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult classic, Twin Peaks. They set the stage by highlighting the rarity of such revivals, emphasizing the significant creative freedom—termed the "blank check"—granted to auteurs like Lynch to pursue passion projects.

Griffin (06:11): "We're kickstarting a four-episode run on Twin Peaks: The Return, which is one of the greatest blank checks in history."

2. Production Challenges and the Blank Check Philosophy

The hosts discuss the tumultuous journey of bringing Twin Peaks: The Return to fruition after a hiatus of over two decades. Initially deemed impossible due to budget disagreements between Lynch and Showtime, the project eventually secured funding with the stipulation that it be produced as an 18-hour feature film.

David (07:12): "It's gotten about more breathless praise than almost anything."

They explore how Lynch’s vision clashed with traditional television production models, insisting on a cinematic approach that diverged from episodic storytelling. This led to a unique blend of film and television, resulting in a series that is twice as long, more expensive, and markedly eccentric compared to its predecessor.

Griffin (27:01): "The budget arguments, it's not happening. And then suddenly it's back on happening twice as long, twice as expensive..."

3. Character and Actor Analysis

A significant portion of the discussion centers on Kyle MacLachlan's portrayal of Agent Dale Cooper and his doppelgänger, Mr. C. The hosts laud MacLachlan’s nuanced performance, which embodies both the goodness of Cooper and the malevolence of his alter ego.

David (42:03): "It's an incredible performance by Kyle MacLachlan."

Naomi Watts is also spotlighted for her compelling role, with the hosts expressing admiration for her ability to convey deep emotional resonance within the chaotic narrative framework.

Griffin (78:09): "That's the perfect way."

They touch upon the emotional weight carried by legacy characters like Dana Ashbrook's Bobby and the impact of actors like Miguel Ferrer and Harry Dean Stanton passing away, which adds a layer of poignancy to the series.

4. Technical Aspects: CGI and Cinematography

The use of CGI in Twin Peaks: The Return is a focal point, with the hosts debating its effectiveness in creating unsettling and surreal imagery. Lynch’s embrace of digital technology allows for hyper-clear visuals that contribute to the show's eerie atmosphere.

Griffin (56:20): "He's using digital photography to make things, like, unsettlingly clear."

They compare the CGI aesthetics to Lynch’s earlier works, noting how the digital effects enhance the dreamlike quality of the series, though not without eliciting mixed reactions regarding their creepiness and surrealism.

David (57:49): "It feels like, really, it's trying to capture his dream world."

5. Themes and Narrative Structure

Griffin and David analyze the non-linear and fragmented narrative structure of Twin Peaks: The Return. The show interweaves multiple storylines across different locations, primarily Las Vegas and New York City, diverging from the original town-centric plot. This sprawling approach mirrors Lynch’s inclination towards creating a vast, interconnected mythology.

Griffin (13:29): "It's like there's this drafts folder where there's like a big unifying idea. There's sort of a collective mythology."

The hosts appreciate how the series eschews conventional TV pacing, opting instead for a more deliberate and introspective rhythm that challenges viewers to engage with its abstract symbolism and layered storytelling.

6. Comparisons and Reflections on Modern Television

A recurring theme is the contrast between Twin Peaks: The Return and contemporary television trends. Griffin and David reflect on how Lynch’s ambitious project stands in stark opposition to the formulaic nature of much modern TV, highlighting the show's role as a pioneering experiment in narrative form and artistic expression.

David (81:13): "It's like, Lynch and Frost, like, the world's only gotten worse."

They lament the current television landscape's reluctance to afford similar creative freedoms to auteurs, suggesting that Twin Peaks: The Return represents a lost art of storytelling that is increasingly rare in today's media environment.

7. Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

Throughout their discussion, Griffin and David reference several standout moments and quotes from the first seven episodes, underscoring the show's ability to blend horror, mystery, and surrealism seamlessly.

Griffin (69:13): "An astonishing performance."

David (95:15): "It's like they are people, they are going through things. Everyone has their pains..."

Moreover, they highlight pivotal scenes such as the introduction of Mr. C., the unsettling red room sequences, and the emotional depth of characters like Gordon Cole, played by David Lynch himself.

8. Conclusions and Final Insights

In wrapping up their analysis, Griffin and David express a profound appreciation for Twin Peaks: The Return's ambition and artistic integrity. They acknowledge the series' demanding nature for viewers but celebrate its role in pushing the boundaries of television as an art form.

Griffin (112:17): "I think it's really well done in that way."

David (133:07): "If you're watching this show, you understand that Mr. C is out there and you understand that good Cooper's kind of trapped in this body."

They conclude by emphasizing the show's thematic exploration of good versus evil, the psychological turmoil of its characters, and its reflection of contemporary societal issues, all orchestrated through Lynch's signature surreal and enigmatic lens.

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This summary encapsulates the in-depth discussions between Griffin and David as they dissect the intricate layers of Twin Peaks: The Return. From production hurdles and character studies to technical innovations and thematic explorations, their conversation offers a comprehensive analysis for both longtime fans and newcomers to the series.

Transcript

[David]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blank Jack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say, who to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blake Jack.

[Griffin]

Highways and Byways of my days on the road, My shadow is always with me. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right. Except on cloudy days or at the podcast. I fucked up. I said the word podcast too early, and then I decided I didn't want to not finish the monologue.

[David]

Well, you could just do it twice.

[Griffin]

I mean, I did do one retake in the middle of it. Get ready. I'm doing it again.

[David]

Nah, let's just keep here. I want to get right into this.

[Griffin]

My family, my friends.

[David]

What's your voice here? Because it's not quite Sarah as Wally Brando.

[Griffin]

I'd love to hear your Sarah as Wally Brando.

[David]

No, I'm not doing it, but it reminds me of another impression you do, and I can't think of which one it is.

[Griffin]

Is it my old Bruce Willis impression?

[David]

Maybe that. Maybe that.

[Griffin]

I think so. Right?

[David]

Sure, sure. Kind of like. Right, yeah, like soft spoken actor. Right?

[Griffin]

Someone and Edward.

[David]

Yeah, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

[Griffin]

I think that's what it is. All right.

[David]

Thank you. That cleared that up. The whole time you were doing it, I was like, I know he's doing Wally Branda, but who does this sound like?

[Griffin]

Okay, so now that we cleared up, I could do the quote from the beginning. My family, my two friends. I've crisscrossed this great audio landscape of ours several times. I hold the map of it here in my heart, next to the joyful memories of the carefree days I spent as a young boy here in your beautiful town of Blank Check from Shyamalan, the Cameron, the Bigelow. I think about David and his friend Griffin, the first friends to ever host a podcast. How about that?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then I don't have to. Thank you.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The Caucasians line is so funny in the context of the show. Absolutely. And then once I said it, I was like, the implications are wrong. Yeah. We all know the first Caucasian ever hosted podcast was Conan O'Brien. It's just a fact. He invented it.

[Ben]

He invented it.

[David]

He did.

[Ben]

He invented needing a friend.

[Griffin]

He did. And then we showed up and said, what if we're already friends?

[David]

What if we've been doing podcasts for years and we're already friends?

[Griffin]

That was our big innovation is we said, what if we've actually been doing it for longer and we've Been friends the whole time. I really. I worry about Conan sometimes.

[David]

Why? What's up?

[Griffin]

For them this many years, he still hasn't found a single friend.

[David]

What a loser.

[Griffin]

This fucking failure. How old do I think Conan is?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

58?

[David]

61.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Sometimes I just think he's even older than that, just because he's such a lifelong presence for me. But he started being famous very young.

[Griffin]

That's the thing, is that, like, by the time he gets late night, he has a legendary comedy career. But that's because he started getting hired onto the biggest things right out of college.

[David]

Right out of College, right.

[Griffin]

He's 27. When he gets the show, maybe.

[David]

Yeah. I mean, he was a young man, and everyone was like, who's this young? And no one's ever talked about this, but he kind of, like, almost got canceled.

[Griffin]

That's not true.

[David]

The show was really skating on thin ice for a while.

[Griffin]

David.

[David]

And the press were not on his side.

[Griffin]

David, if that had happened, I would have heard about it from someone, most of all him.

[David]

I love Conan O'Brien. He's been to a show every week.

[Griffin]

He never talks about this.

[David]

The man is a totemic figure in my, like, comedy history.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

But I swear to God, sometimes I just want to be on his podcast and be like, conan, you're doing good. It worked out. I'm sorry about 1993 or whatever.

[Griffin]

Here's what's crazy to me, and I'll say, I actually am always kind of interested to hear his stories about how bad he felt at that time.

[David]

It's. He's being candid. It's not uninteresting. Like, and it was crazy that he got that job and that he totally made the show. He made.

[Griffin]

And what is astonishing to me is how often his guests are like, wait, really?

[David]

What?

[Griffin]

And they're not doing the bit. They were like, because I'm watching, I'm thinking, you're a big success. And he was like, no, it was bad for eight years.

[David]

It wasn't eight years. Like, late night was hot by the time I was a kid.

[Griffin]

Do you remember the Conan 15th anniversary primetime special? And Mr. T comes out with a big gold chain with a 7 on it and goes like, conan, I'm here to give you this surprise. And he's like, Mr. T, thank you very much. But we've actually been on the air for 15 years. And he goes, yeah, but only seven of them were funny.

[David]

That's a good, good joke.

[Griffin]

Incredible joke has stuck with me forever.

[Ben]

It's good stuff.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

That's sort of a different era when, like, Mr. T would just get a pop. Right? Where it's just like, look, it's Mr. T. This is so funny.

[Griffin]

I mean, he did that with Shatner. Vagoda, Mr. Tucker.

[Ben]

T is a perfect example of a celebrity that should have, like a haunted house devoted to him.

[Griffin]

Great call, Great call.

[Ben]

And I just went to the Fallon.

[Griffin]

We went to Jimmy Fallon's To Nightmares, which is kind of like the Twin Peaks, the return of Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show.

[David]

Oh, is it?

[Griffin]

Yeah, it's sort of just like all of the loose, unstructured thoughts. Sometimes it's tying into the past mythology, the Tonight Show. Sometimes it seems totally unrelated.

[David]

Do you, like, do a list?

[Griffin]

Hopefully it's the final statement from an.

[David]

Artist at any point.

[Griffin]

No, no, no.

[David]

How long is it?

[Griffin]

10 minutes. A robust 10 minutes.

[David]

How much for 10 minutes?

[Griffin]

$43, I think. All in.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Per person? Sure. And this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David]

I'm David.

[Griffin]

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. I know I say things like this a lot, but this is a miniseries on the films of David lynch and his TV shows.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

It's called. Or at least one of them. It's called Twin Pods Fire Cast with me. Today we are kickstarting a four episode run on Twin Peaks the Return, which is one of the greatest blank checks in history.

[David]

100%. Almost by, like, mistake. It feels like, like someone was like, oh, sure, you want to make a new Twin Peaks? I'll let you do that. And it's like. And it's gonna cost how much? Yeah, and you need how much more? Wait, you're here again.

[Griffin]

We'll talk about it. The most fascinating thing to me is this thing slowly coming together after years over a decade of like, Twin Peaks will never return. Then there's excitement and then suddenly the announcement is, it's not happening.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

David lynch and Showtime couldn't agree.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

The budget arguments, it's not happening. And then suddenly it's back on happening twice as long, twice as expensive, and twice as weird as anyone expected. The fact that it came so close to getting pulled from reality and then ended up this insane.

[David]

Yes, it is A miracle.

[Griffin]

Is a miracle.

[David]

It is a miraculous piece of content. I would call it a piece of content.

[Griffin]

It's one of the best pitch Tents I've ever seen. Today we are talking about Twin Peaks the Return, episodes one through seven.

[David]

Episodes one through seven, Parts one through seven.

[Griffin]

Now, we are loath to cover TV on the show.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Because primarily this is a show about filmographies. Early on, we did it. We did it twice in our first proper year. Then we said, like, enough of this. And then we bent a couple times in the last couple years when it felt really essential.

[David]

This is obviously essential.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And it is possibly the last thing David lynch will ever make.

[Griffin]

Quite possibly.

[David]

I'm not saying it definitely, but, you know, because he's been kind of, you know, like. But here's contradictory.

[Griffin]

Here's the bigger point I wanted to make.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

The relief of this is the first time we are not attempting to cover an entire season of television in one episode.

[David]

And we're doing it by splitting it up, which we've never done before. But it felt essential because Twin Peaks the Return is very long and does have sort of somewhat distinct movements to it, especially one particular episode, episode eight, which we are giving its own episode next week. Apart from that, I think the way it was made, it is just this sort of giant document that got cut up. It's not like he was sitting down being like, I'm gonna write a Sawyer episode.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

I'm gonna write a Hurley episode.

[Griffin]

Maybe he should have tried.

[David]

I mean, he could have put Sawyer in this.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Sawyer just shows up.

[Griffin]

I don't even need Sawyer to be in it. I just want to have the feel of a Sawyer episode.

[David]

So, like, Kim Dickens is there and someone's sad.

[Griffin]

Tattoos.

[David]

No, that's Jack. The whole thing with Sawyer was always that. It was like, yeah.

[Griffin]

No, the Sawyer ones were always the.

[David]

Sawyer episode, where he's like, me, thinks I'll run a con. And I'm like, yeah, I know. That's what you did. Sawyer.

[Griffin]

And he brings Kim Dickens. And he's like, but this time, trust.

[David]

Me, this time I'm good. And then at the end, he's like, I'm upset about this again. Yeah. I'm not a good con man.

[Griffin]

Morally conflicted.

[David]

Twin Peaks the Return aired on Showtime in 2017, before Showtime was.

[Griffin]

Showtime plus Paramount, plus a great name for a channel.

[David]

Yes. I watched it live. I watched every episode as it aired. Now, you guys had never seen it?

[Griffin]

No. Watching for the.

[David]

Ben and Griffin are watching it for the first time.

[Griffin]

I have only watched up to seven, eight being such a huge thing, its own episode. I was like, I, I. I dare not watch one ahead yet. I Want to be able to talk about up until this exact point in this episode without future knowledge?

[David]

That's fine. Okay, so here we are. What do you guys think of Twin Peaks the Return so far?

[Ben]

I'm fucking blown away.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I think it's good.

[Ben]

Holy shit.

[Griffin]

I think it's good television.

[Ben]

So good.

[Griffin]

It is. I mean, I've heard such breathless praise.

[David]

It's gotten about more breathless praise than almost anything.

[Griffin]

Truly. Almost anything. I mean, I'd forgotten that Caye de Cinema declared this the best movie of the decade.

[David]

They did. And everyone was normal about that declaration.

[Griffin]

Yes, yes. Because I don't think it's totally fair to count something that is over 1000.

[David]

Minutes long and was aired in episodes on television.

[Griffin]

This is what I was going to say.

[David]

This is just this big fight.

[Griffin]

We'll talk about this more. The nature of how it was made versus how it was distributed and all of. Of this. But like, David lynch goes into this knowing it's going to be broadcasted television episodes, even if he did not, like, write it and shoot it as such. What? Surprised?

[David]

To be clear.

[Griffin]

Yes. What surprised me is I'm. I'm focusing on lynch just because he was the director.

[David]

He directed every episode.

[Griffin]

Yeah. What surprised me is how much it does feel like the episodes have their own thing. And I'm sure episode eight and some of the other episodes are going to be even more so. That feeling, as much as this does, in a lot of ways, this feels very similar to Paranoia Agent to me.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

In an interesting way where it's like here's kind of this drafts folder where there's like a big unifying idea. There's sort of a collective mythology, there's a narrative running across it. But then you'll also just get these fragments of pieces and stories that may or may not feed into other things and like stylistic experiments and like playfulness with tone.

[David]

But Paranoia Agent has like, you know, it's sort of a focus on a single character. Every time it's a little more. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

But I mean, part of what's fun for me watching this for the first time, and I don't know if you have this feeling as well, Ben, you'll just. Like the first time, in the first episode, it cuts to drone shot of New York City, titled New York City. You're like, what the fuck? I didn't know Twin Peaks could leave Twin Peaks.

[David]

That's a good point.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

Yes. It's a pretty drastic thing right away to be doing that.

[Griffin]

It's immediately. It took Me a moment to figure out why I felt so jumbled by that.

[David]

Guys, I gotta pee. I'm sorry. I'm realizing this immediately. I can't hold it.

[Griffin]

This episode's going great.

[Ben]

That's fine.

[Griffin]

Should I take the Wally Brando monologue a third time?

[David]

No. We'll just pause.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Okay. Griffin, I'm sorry. I interrupted us.

[Griffin]

And we're back. I have to say I followed your lead. I also went to the bathroom.

[David]

Cool.

[Griffin]

Here's my first thing to say. That was no P. No, it was.

[David]

No P. You're right.

[Griffin]

I have to. I have to go. We need.

[David]

I mean, I appreciate you putting that.

[Griffin]

On the radical honesty. Here's why. Because it ties into the point I was about to make.

[David]

Which is what?

[Griffin]

Before you interrupted with your not be the disorienting thing about watching the show and knowing it's also 18 hours, which so few modern shows are network procedurals and sitcoms are. Most shows outside of that do not go more than 12 episodes.

[David]

And they're not, you know, especially shows where the episodes are an hour long. Yeah.

[Griffin]

And especially anything that's prestige or cable or whatever it is. You know, I guess Walking Dead still was doing long seasons for all. But whatever. Even Walking Dead has now does miniseries. Yes. You watch this show or I do. And like, something happens. Like, cut to New York. And I'm like, what the. And now we're introduced to three characters I've never seen before. And I'm like, are they important? Anytime it cuts to a character from classic Twin Peaks, I'm almost surprised that they're in it. And I'm like, how much are they going to show up?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Suddenly a big movie star enters and you're like, so are they major? Is that the only scene they're in? You have these, like, notions, these like, plot lines that like cut out abruptly that are inserted. Insert episodes don't come back in that episode. And you're like, I don't know if that was just a complete one off self contained idea sometimes or if that will return in three episodes sometimes. I'm guessing it's a balance of both. Which.

[David]

It's a bit of a balance of both. But you're. I mean. And also imagine the experience of fans. Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

I keep trying to put myself in this space.

[David]

Their show is back.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And getting this. Which I think most Twin Peaks fans have hardly embraced, but it took them a minute.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And watching it week by week was really kind of a struggle. Where you, like, it slowly dawns on you, like Right. This show is never. This season is never going to be. Everyone's in the town and there's mysteries and soaps and romances. It's like, that's just not it.

[Griffin]

It's almost most surprising that everyone did adjust to it rather than having a firewalk me type response and people coming around to it later.

[David]

I think the show is so interesting that and is so dense with kind of like sort of theories and symbols that you can pick out and overanalyze that it worked out okay. But I'm on the Twin Peaks Reddit and you'll always see new fans posting or people watching, currently posting, like, hey, I just finished my first watch through of seasons one and two and I started season three. Is it always. Is this what it is?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Where's Dale?

[Griffin]

Right. When does it. Where's.

[David]

You know, like, you know, and you're like. And you see the fans being like, yeah. You know, get used to it. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Twin Peaks is so plotty. It was the thing I was not prepared for watching the first two seasons for the first time. Vases versus the vases. Vases. There's not a lot of vases in it. If I have to ding it for.

[David]

Anything I remember there might be a few.

[Griffin]

Versus the sort of like cultural meme fication of Twin Peaks. The amount of like soap opera, small town intrigue of just like, oh, this thing has like 25 primary characters and they're all tied up in naughty drama. And you're cutting between all of them. And anytime in the. The abc, the original rung. Twin Peaks.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

They're cutting from one thing to another. It's like, important in some way. Right. Even if it's like one of the goofier plot lines, you were like, this is an arc they're building. This will just have like a character, for example, stand up and go, I'm sorry, I need to pee. And then it turns out it's a poop. And then you're like, what was the meaning of that?

[David]

I was doing the Laura Palmer.

[Griffin]

Oh, you're doing the Laura Palmer.

[David]

Let me open the dossier. Because JJ did make one. Just one.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Lazy.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Probably told him that that's what he should do.

[Griffin]

David lynch made 18 hours of twin Peaks the Return and you made one dossier.

[David]

Just more to give a sense of the lead up to this show's existence.

[Griffin]

Am I correct in my memory that the marketing basically gave up nothing?

[David]

Marketing gave up nothing.

[Griffin]

That at David Lynch's insistence, Kyle McLaughlin's in it right there.

[David]

That's about it.

[Griffin]

There was the poster, the It's Happening Again poster. I remember. But that there were like, no images, no, like, trailers or commercials that use actual footage that, like, tuning in for the first time. People had no idea what it was going to be.

[David]

I think fans on the Internet have been delving into, like, who was clearly involved because I guess that was easy enough to figure out, like a giant press release of, like, a huge list of names, some from the show, some like Naomi Watts or whatever. But the poster was just like, Dale Cooper now right over the trees. And then the other one was just the classic Laura Palma picture.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I remember watching the first two episodes were broadcast back to back.

[Griffin]

And were three and four, I believe so the same?

[David]

Yes. And then I think it premiered at can.

[Griffin]

Interesting. Okay.

[David]

Right. Is that right?

[Griffin]

Or you tell me you got the dossier in front of you, my friend.

[David]

I will tell you.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Soon. Yeah, maybe not. Two episodes were screened at the camp film festival. Maybe not premiere.

[Griffin]

And when does the actual premiere happen?

[David]

May 21, 2017. Which does.

[Griffin]

Right? Okay. Yeah.

[David]

And I remember Karen Hahn and Emma Stefanski came over and my brother Joey, and we all watched together, past and future, kind of shrieking. But it's also kind of like not the show to watch in the way of, like, I can't wait to see all my buddies again. You know, like, we were kind of like, what the fuck?

[Griffin]

It does start immediately. Like, in a statement way of like, this is not just picking up Twin Peaks again.

[David]

Right. We're not just like.

[Griffin]

Even when it starts with legacy characters and the theme and whatever, it's like, immediately different.

[David]

But. Okay, let me open the dusty, Please Creek. So Inland Empire comes out 2006.

[Griffin]

Made like 250 million domestic.

[David]

Yeah, right. Got 40 Oscar nominations. And post that. Lynch is not like, doggedly pursuing making another movie, but in 2010, supposedly he did find an idea for a new film and had a script called Antelope Don't Run no More.

[Griffin]

I was really hoping it was going to be an idea for a new film. It was called Ronnie Rocket.

[David]

It's about electricity. He goes back once again, he's got like a mustache and Groucho glasses and the guy's like, I know about the fucking electric. We're not doing that.

[Griffin]

He puts the old script in the microwave and is like, this is hot off the printer. I just finished writing it.

[David]

He shopped it around a little bit.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

It's apparently set mostly in Los Angeles. It braids some threads from Mulholland Drive in Inland Empire into a narrative fantasia that incorporates space aliens, talking animals, and a beleaguered musician named Pinky Sounds pretty lynchy. Yes. A of people say the script is very good, but he has not been able to attract any financing. And he's not really upset about it because he's kind of like, if it's meant to be, it'll happen.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

Even in 2024. In an interview with Sight and Sound, lynch said, maybe one day. But then that was sort of the same time that he was like, but I have emphysema and I don't know if I'm going to do anything anymore. And everyone was like, david lynch retires. And he was like, I don't retire. I love cigarettes. Lighten them up. Puff, puff, puff.

[Griffin]

We've talked about that statement, but him explaining his regret over smoking his entire.

[David]

Life and then describing the experience of smoking as an orgasmic experience, sounding like.

[Griffin]

The radish shit in human history.

[David]

So instead, what does he do? He writes the book Catching the Big Fish, which I feel like a lot of our guests have referenced. A lot of people have enjoyed sort of about his creative process.

[Griffin]

He serves to do a lot of that kind of stuff. I mean, he did like a masterclass. He does a lot of, like, he.

[David]

Did some art exhibitions.

[Griffin]

He lets that David lynch the Art Life documentary.

[David]

He's crazy clown time.

[Griffin]

But I feel like he's sort of opening up the process of, like, here are all my philosophies on creativity. It did feel like he was starting to, like, pivot into old master. Let me share the text.

[David]

Right. Like he appears on the Cleveland show, for example. Right.

[Griffin]

The kind of things. Do you know, the kind of thing you do is a regular cast member on every episode of the Cleveland Show.

[David]

He's the bartender.

[Ben]

Well, of course I do, because I watch the Cleveland show every week religiously.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

One of my favorite shows.

[David]

He is also on Louis. He's incredible.

[Griffin]

An incredible performance.

[David]

Very, very interesting.

[Griffin]

But, yeah, he's starting to do a little more acting stuff weirdly popping up in other areas.

[David]

I think it's one of those things where it's like, if you think of it and you can reach him, maybe you can talk him into it.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Um, he also worked on a Duran Duran concert documentary. I don't think I knew that.

[Griffin]

I think I knew that. Yeah.

[David]

He did an ice bucket challenge where he challenges Vladimir Putin at the end of it. Great.

[Ben]

A lot of our fans were saying we should have mentioned or covered the Duran Duran thing on our music shorts episode.

[David]

Okay. Don't you cover it and I'll eat your shorts.

[Griffin]

Post poop. Sims is wild but.

[David]

Comma Clocklin.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Many years after Twin Peaks would check in with lynch, kind of be like, what do you think? Anything. You know, at one point there's talk of making me making a comic book back when it was hot to do like a sequel. Comic books copy did that.

[Griffin]

Yes. The season eight. Yeah, yeah, that was. It was sort of kickstarted by. Do you have the name of the writer there?

[David]

Matt Haley.

[Griffin]

Right. They were going to finally put out the like complete box set because season two had been out of circulation for so long and it was going to include the.

[David]

Yes, it was going to be part of the box set.

[Griffin]

And lynch nixed it. Right. Because I think Frost and some of the people were on board and then lynch nixed it. Lynch nixing it feels like the first instance of maybe him thinking he has something more to say. If you look at the quotes.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Up until that point. And from he's after it's done. I'm not doing that is a doornail. We'll never come back. And like the second someone else. And the pitch on the comic book was I want to get all the notes on what you think season three would have been and try to recreate it. I'm not looking to make my own thing.

[David]

Yeah. Haley. I mean he talks about some of his ideas, but I honestly don't even want to get into them because they're not that important. Because David lynch was just like. No, rude. Well, not rude.

[Griffin]

Really rude on your point.

[David]

And then apparently around 2012, right after Christmas, David had lunch with Mark Frost at Musso and Frank's LA institution. Bob's big boy. Probably closed for the night or something.

[Griffin]

Yeah, well, he'd already eaten there five times that day.

[David]

They start chatting Peaks and they keep it under their hats. But Mark starts coming for lunch to Lynch's painting studio and they would sort of write together. And Frost, you know, basically was like, Laura's saying, I'll see you again in 25 years. That's what we're talking about.

[Griffin]

We're coming up on 25.

[David]

Exactly.

[Griffin]

Yeah. If we're gonna do it, now's the time to do it.

[David]

Right. And we have this dilemma of, you know, good Cooper trapped, bad Cooper out in the world that we never had resolved. And why don't we pick up that thread and. Yeah, I mean Lynch's big thing is like I have to be involved in writing and directing every single one. I don't want to have it be like it was when it was broadcast tv. And so they start to co write the screenplay over Skype.

[Griffin]

Wild.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Which Skype is part of the show.

[David]

That's true. It is.

[Griffin]

It's one of these things where I feel like.

[David]

Like Warren Frost's performance or Mark Frost's father, obviously, is entirely over Skype.

[Griffin]

Entirely.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

At a time where that was not as much of a thing.

[David]

Now we're sort of very blurry, like, hello.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but you know what I'm saying, Now we're like, oh, they'll write in like a character only exists over zoom because it's an easy fix or what. I feel like that was a little novel at this point. One of the wet hot summer seasons has this.

[David]

But other than that, supposedly they did write it as a gigantic document. One big document. One source says 335 pages, another says 500 pages.

[Griffin]

Is there any sense of whether they were sort of writing stuff in any chronology, like, narratively or if it was just like. As stuff came to them? And here are all the pieces.

[David]

I think it's more the latter.

[Griffin]

Okay. Yeah. I just wonder if there's.

[David]

Lynch does this.

[Griffin]

That is like each plot thread as like 20 continuous pages, like, untangling it.

[David]

All Right. Lynch does say he sees it as a film.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Which, you know, is part of the reason people are like, it's a film.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Mark Frost, I think, cares less about that distinction. He says one thing that really Frost interested him was to explore what happened to a town over 25 years and the people in it, how they change. Yeah. Okay.

[Griffin]

It does feel a little secondary, tertiary to where this ended up.

[David]

But one thing that they were very interested in, which is very clear in the film, is this sort of post recession.

[Griffin]

You're calling it a film, you're doing it, whatever.

[David]

The Twin Peaks is the post recession kind of meltdown that left behind these kind of like ghost towns.

[Griffin]

Interesting, right?

[David]

Like, because that's so much of this movie of Jesus, of Twin Peaks, the return, whatever you want to call it. Um, does that set in those weird, like Phoenix and Vegas, like, subdivisions, Right. Where it's just like these empty abandoned houses?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You know, the sort of post great recession stuff.

[Griffin]

Does that become more. Even more textual as it goes on?

[David]

It's just. I guess. Yeah, I guess I'm. Now I'm trying to put myself in where you guys are. It's just a show.

[Griffin]

Been picking up on that. Yeah.

[David]

Anyway, we can talk about in the same way, David Nevins.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Who runs Showtime at The time hears wind of this.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And basically sits down and like begs them.

[Griffin]

Twin Peaks, the original is of course owned by CBS Television.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Who also is the parent company of Showtime.

[David]

Right. And obviously on Showtime you can do what you want. You know, there's no content restrictions. Really.

[Griffin]

They loved on Showtime.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

It's one of their favorite things.

[David]

And Frost was very interested in avoiding like a binge model. He didn't want to go to Netflix because he wanted to roll it out week to week, sort of like the original show had been. And so in 2014, it is announced Showtime will be producing a nine episode revival of Twin Peaks in 2015. Lynch starts saying, like, the show's in jeopardy and tweets like, I wasn't offered enough money to do this in the way I wanted it to be done.

[Griffin]

But it's pretty much dead, kind of canning public negotiation.

[David]

Right. Showtime's like, oh, we're very saddened to read this, but we love the world of Twin Peaks and we hope we can bring it back. I think the big clash, it seems, was Showtime being like, can this please be episodic television? And David lynch being like, no, I want to make a basically 18 hour feature film. So you're going to have to pay for like a feature film crew every single day.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Of this gigantic shoot, including, like lighting machines, standby painters, special effects technicians, like, basically like not going by the way television is produced.

[Griffin]

No. And it even manifests in ways, like on the absolute, like, back end of the thing. I mean, I feel like you talked about this in another episode, but actors on TV shows get paid per episode. So if he's shooting something like this and someone shoots three days, but those three days end up being split that footage across nine episodes, that's you're paying them. Like, there's a lot of weird accounting at two points of like, how much you're paying them weekly to film film, and then how much you have to pay them later based on how it edits out.

[Ben]

And just because he's considering it to be a film.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

It is technically, to the accountants.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

Episodic.

[Griffin]

Right. And I think, by the way, that extends into like most positions. Yeah. I mean, I've had versions of this before where you like shoot two scenes and then they end up putting one in another episode and they have to pay you twice. And it's like a nice bonus. He's basically designed a production where all of it's going to be like that, where he's asking to have like open, like field to do A really long shoot his way with his people and then construct it however he wants later, which is also going to cause all sorts of complications. This is my second question for you. When they. Because the original announcement's nine.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Then.

[David]

Then they have this falling out and then the renegotiation is. Nevins basically comes to him and is like, what can we do? And lynch is like, I don't know, it might be more episodes. I. You know, and bean counters are like, it can't be more episodes. That's even more expensive. And finally, apparently Nevins was just like, I can give you this much money. Yeah, tell me if that's enough. And lynch was like, okay. And Nevin said like, the money we gave him, he worked it out. He.

[Griffin]

Yeah, he.

[David]

He made it conservatively, like, or whatever, you know, it's not like he like went crazy.

[Griffin]

But they didn't announce 18 at that point. No. Right. So this is. My question is almost. And maybe there is no answer for this. Is it like, I've written a bunch of shit. You're giving me the sum of money. I'm going to figure out how to shoot it. And then afterwards I will figure out how many.

[David]

I think that's exactly what happened.

[Griffin]

Because you could totally see, based on certain scenes playing out at different lengths than they do and how much this show experiments with time and rhythm, that there are many different ways you could construct this into various different episode orders.

[David]

Yes. I do not. There's nothing about this show that suggests it had to be the way it is there. I love how it is.

[Griffin]

There might be a point where all the extra cost from him making it this weird way ends up evening out if it starts to be divided across a long enough number of episodes. You know that like, oh, we're getting like almost four months of Twin Peaks. And so much of this show also, its weird thing was this is like a different time in both cable television and streaming, where it felt like the future was more individual channels having their own streaming services. And Showtime wanting to get people to sign up for whatever it was called at the time. Showtime, anytime. I think.

[David]

I just know I'm gonna have to poop again.

[Griffin]

You know, you're gonna.

[David]

I just know it's gonna happen.

[Griffin]

This is what I'm saying, though. You think certain plot threads are resolved and then they come back and you're like, ashley Judd is still in this. That wasn't a one off.

[David]

And I love how.

[Griffin]

But Jennifer Jason Lee might be gone.

[David]

It's like, I'm gonna go Again. Yeah. And then you can come back out and you're gonna be like. And what was Showtime branded as at this era? Like, yes, I think it was called Showtime anytime. They're, like, on demand.

[Griffin]

No, what happened when you pooped last time was very Twin Peaks the return. There was just two minutes of silence. It was like we were just quietly sweeping up the Bang Bang bar floor. And you're like, is this the end of the episode? No, there's, like, two more scenes after this.

[David]

The production lasted 140 days.

[Griffin]

What I was gonna say. Oh, what were you gonna say when this premiered? And people were like, oh, ratings aren't great. Showtime very quickly was like, we know this is the kind of thing that has obsessives. Who will sign up for our streaming service solely for this. And they did.

[David]

They're right.

[Griffin]

And they were like, oh, like 400,000 people or 500,000 people watched it. And then within a week, Showtime was like, hey, the. Like, seven day was a million per episode. And also, by the way, the number of subscribers we got solely off of this was worth it to us.

[David]

I don't. Yeah. And I don't care. I never care about people, like, telling me premium television ratings is right. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Like, but they don't sell ads against.

[Griffin]

This is the experimentation of, like, them being like, we're getting four months of Twin Peaks coming out weekly. Like, we're both trying to get people to sign up for the channel and sign up for the streaming service and whatever. Like, this was a time where the business was in such flux that they were open to this kind of experimentation. Yeah, in a certain way also.

[David]

It just. But it was funny because this show came out in the midst of, like, the sort of Game of Thrones era of tv. And so there was this whole kind of machinery online geared towards, like, episodic analysis, weekly podcasting, the kind of industry theory, you know, sort of unspooling.

[Griffin]

Yes, yes, yes.

[David]

And this show is, like, slap in the face. Try to write, like. And people were like, twin Peaks is back. We need to, like, get ready for this. And then this show was so resistant to that kind of immediate scrutiny.

[Griffin]

You want to watch three minutes of Rust Hamlin painting shovels.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

So that will give you no answers until two episodes later. And the answer is just, oh, it's a grift. David. February. February movie preview. Okay. And I gotta say, it's pretty interesting. February we have coming up.

[David]

Yeah. What do we got?

[Griffin]

The monkey actually called the monkey. New film From Oz Perkins, whose long legs I loved last year. Starring another one of our friends, past and future guest Tatiana Maslany.

[David]

That's right. And looks very, very funny and cool and scary. Also very intrigued by this Martin Campbell action or cleaner With Daisy Ridley.

[Griffin]

Starring Daisy Ridley, someone I've always had very, very calm opinions about on this podcast I'm very excited for. It feels like she's kind of ramping up her movie career again.

[David]

Here's the thing. Oh, and then there's the Day the Earth Blew Up.

[Griffin]

I was gonna say if that weren't a February ending with, but the first original feature length animated Looney Tunes movie ever that I have heard is excellent.

[David]

And here's the thing, the Day the.

[Griffin]

Earth Blew Up, a Looney Tunes movie.

[David]

What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting, different kinds of movies in theaters that you can go see.

[Griffin]

And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable.

[David]

And I find that once, you know, you have the Regal Unlimited, right, you know, sort of the option of basically like, let me pop over my theater.

[Griffin]

I have three free hours. That's what's nice.

[David]

You do it more.

[Griffin]

You do it more.

[David]

Go see the movies.

[Griffin]

Go see the movies.

[David]

Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the description in our show notes and use code blankcheck to get 20% off your three month subscription. And then you're gonna be in the Crown Club. You're gonna get rewards, you're gonna build.

[Griffin]

Up points, get free popcorns and sodas.

[David]

25 grade off candy on Tuesdays, 50% off popcorn, discounted ticket, going to the.

[Griffin]

Regal Crown Club website. And as I said, it's a little deep. It's a little buried in here. There is a section where you can redeem your points for old promotional movie memorabilia like Red one socks.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Follow the link in the show notes, go to the Regal app, click on the unlimited banner and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code blank check when prompted to receive your discount. And look, I'm just going to say it again, David. Signing up for Regal Unlimited or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Great way to support the show. This is, this is a dream advertiser. Yes, A dream partner for us. We want to keep this going. We think it could benefit everybody, especially the movies. David.

[David]

Yep.

[Griffin]

You know what I love?

[David]

How about quints? New year, new chance for new clothes. Okay, well, listen, to me, I think everyone needs to try and refresh their liquid quality pieces but stay on budget. I think everyone needs Quince's Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $60. I genuinely love Quince. I think I've talked about this on the show before, but I am Quince pilled.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I be loading up Quince and buying some nice soft shirts and good fitting pants all the time. They've got some activewear, performance tees, tech shorts. They've, you know, soft shirts that are warm which I've been really favoring in the winter. And you know, they're priced 50 to 80% less than the similar brands because they partner directly with the top factories. No middlemen.

[Griffin]

Perfect.

[David]

And they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices.

[Griffin]

No sharks.

[David]

Anyway. So yeah, if you want to upgrade your closet this year without the upgraded price tag, you should go to Quince.com check for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com check to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com check. Bye. Bye. 140 days of shooting. Lynch obviously did it all himself. He said it was exciting but extremely difficult.

[Griffin]

So that's about a six month shoot.

[David]

Like five. Yeah.

[Griffin]

I don't know. That's a lot with weekends. It's exhausting.

[David]

It's exhausting and grueling, I think. And there's lots of day shoots and night shoots. You only have one day off a week, yada, yada yada. But at the same time, you know, he loved doing it, I think. And it's kind of his opus in a way. And.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And it does feel like. Let me like empty the tanks completely of everything I have in me right now. Right. It doesn't feel like this is made with the intentionality of. Here is my final word.

[David]

No. But he's, you know, Peter Deming, the dp.

[Griffin]

Yes. A legend.

[David]

A legend himself.

[Griffin]

A guy we've covered with a very diverse filmography on this show. Who shot the Evil Dead movies, the Austin Powers movies in twin films.

[David]

And we've never done Scream, which is.

[Griffin]

And Mulhollandra. Yeah. But like wildly different looking films. Is like quietly a legend.

[David]

He is. He's a fucking incredible dp. He says they shot it like a feature film. Like you would go to a location and shoot all the action that took place at that location over the course of 18 episodes.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Like that's not how you make TV obviously, but actors didn't really know what was going on. They didn't have access to the entire script or anything like that. McLachlan's really the only one who's sort of in on the big story. Everyone is basically everyone else given their pages.

[Griffin]

He is basically the big story.

[David]

He is, he is. But obviously he's not in every scene. Like, he's all over the place. But it must have been very strange to be, say, Russ Tamblyn. No, not Russ Tamblyn. Richard Bamer.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

Right. And you know, it's like, hey, what should I do? And it's like, yeah, yeah, show up. You and Ashley Judd are gonna, like, hear a weird noise.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And he's like, oh, and how does this feed into anything? It's like, well, we'll see you later.

[Griffin]

You know, Anyway, have a long conversation with your brother about weed over the phone.

[David]

So. Yeah, exactly. It's interesting. Carol Strickland stricken the. The giant. The fireman Lurch said that he. Back in the day. Wait. He says that the pace of Lynch's action was slower. And lynch was telling him to do everything slower. But McLachlan's like. But he was very efficient. We would do things in one or two takes.

[Griffin]

Yeah, it's pace of production versus pace of scenes.

[David]

Yeah, I guess that's it. Right. Jim Belushi at one point ad libbed something. And I think this is either you can either watch a clip of this or I've just read this before, but where Lynch. There's a pause, they call cut And lynch goes, Mr. Belushi, do I need to report you to the principal's office? Because he had, like, gone off script.

[Griffin]

Funny. Very funny.

[David]

To think about it. Lynch is very uninterested in, like, improv. Like, he's like, no, no, do what you're, you know, do what you're told.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

They shot on digital. Obviously, lynch wanted Fisk to be the production designer. Jack Fisk.

[Griffin]

Great.

[David]

Jack Fisk. But he was working on the Revenant, so he gave him lynch. His protege, Ruth De Jong, who later worked in Oppenheimer. Very cool.

[Griffin]

A digital thing. It's wild to see this be the first major work he had done since Inland, which looks, you know, bad on purpose. That is lynch wanting the kind of roughest.

[David]

Whereas this is like 4k cameras that are really, you know, top of the line.

[Griffin]

Like, he's using digital photography to make things, like, unsettlingly clear.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

I watch this and I'm like, this is, like, uncomfortably focused. You know, it feels like, he's leaning into the digital of it in a way where it's like, oh, it's become easy enough to have, like, a very quick production where images are this incredibly clean.

[David]

Okay. Colin McLaughlin. They get him on board. Phew.

[Griffin]

Thank God.

[David]

And essentially, very much immediately, lynch is like, you'll be playing essentially three characters. Dale, who we don't see too much of so far. Bad Cooper. I don't know how, you know, Doppelganger. I don't know what you want to call him.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You know. Yeah. Dougie. Mr. Jackpots. Sort of the finest creation of Twin Peaks, the original.

[Griffin]

I'm late to the party. I'm just gonna say what everyone's been telling me for years. An astonishing performance.

[David]

It's an incredible performance by Kyle Maclachon.

[Griffin]

I was ready for this character to be funny and compelling.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

You know, I'd seen a lot of images and heard people talk about it, and even still, I was not prepared. And I think the actual, like, technical craft of what McLachlan's doing here, there's so much stillness. Extraordinary.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

But also it's like, craft, craft.

[David]

Cheese.

[Ben]

I just like how he says just the last thing, says. And it's.

[David]

But it's like I say something to you and you're like, something.

[Griffin]

But that's my point. It's like he's right.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

He's a big gag, basically, playing head. Empty. No thoughts, right?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And part of the big joke so far, at least from what I've seen, is that it's like if you look like him and you have the right haircut and the right suit, people will inevitably start to project meaning onto it.

[David]

This is the brilliant gag of.

[Griffin]

Right. There's a Chauncey Gardner esque thing he said.

[David]

Being there is something he looked at. He looked at Jeff Bridges in Starman. You know, like, all of these performances, head. Empty. Right, Right.

[Griffin]

This is the most empty I have seen of anyone trying to play this sort of thing.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And you keep watching these scenes where he, like, doesn't know how to walk and is holding cups weirdly and whatever. And every one of these scenes, I'm like, how is this scene not going to end with people having him institutionalized? How will he make it to the end of the scene without someone having a complete mental breakdown and snapping at him? And he just slowly brings everyone around to him despite genuinely seeming hollow and.

[David]

Sometimes causing real trouble.

[Griffin]

Truly. Yeah.

[David]

We'll talk about it. Anyway, con McLachlan involved, obviously. Some guys who are in the show, I think were just like, yeah, of course I'll come back. People like Everett McGill, Big Ed, he had basically retired from acting, but.

[Griffin]

But haven't gotten to him yet. That's a spoiler.

[David]

Yes, he's in the show. I mean, damn it. Lynch just had to call him. Probably the biggest missing name is Michael Onkin.

[Griffin]

As Sheriff Truman was fully retired, had not acted in a while.

[David]

Correct.

[Griffin]

And then did say he was going to come out and do the show.

[David]

There was, I think, some suggestion of.

[Griffin]

That, but it's never been clear what happened.

[David]

Robert Forster, who was the original pick to play Sheriff Truman way back in the day, comes in. I mean, just a performance that I adore him and Twin Peaks. He's just so fucking funny and good.

[Griffin]

This is perhaps a dumb thing to say. Maybe not dumb, but I was just taken watching this by, I think part of its time dilation of the pandemic. Right. That I feel like this show came out only three years ago and have felt that way for the last five years. Even though it's now eight years since it aired. Right? Yeah. And so this is just eight years. Shit happens. Whatever. And the nature of using a lot of older actors, it is astonishing how many people. This is like their last project or one of their last projects.

[David]

Miguel Ferrer, Harry Dean Stanton died both.

[Griffin]

Like the people who are legacy from original Twin Peaks and some of the new actors in this. This feels like this weird curtain call for so many people. And a lot of them had died in between it being shot and it airing. Like you have end credits in honor of dedicated to. For Coulson, for Ferrer. Yeah.

[David]

Right. Then you have plenty of new faces. Matthew Lillard, who you guys have already met. Michael Cera is in these first seven episodes. You might have referenced him before.

[Griffin]

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ashley Judd, Amanda Seyfried, Caleb Laundry bag.

[David]

There's a lot of people who make sense.

[Griffin]

Jimbo Lushi Belushi.

[David]

Robert Knepper is going to show up. I'm not sure if you've seen him yet. Tom Sizemore. Have you seen him?

[Griffin]

I've seen Sizemore. Gelman, Dulce Machian, Gelman.

[David]

Yeah. Anyway, let's get into Twin Peaks. I am just.

[Griffin]

But the list is pretty crazy for how many of these I feel like I knew were on it while watching it. You cannot keep all those names in your head.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So someone will pop up and you'll be like, oh, holy shit. And then you're like, oh, Naomi Watts is one of the main characters.

[David]

She's kind of one of the main characters and then others. Right. Are just kind of popping in.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Including some, you know, legacy characters.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

So we're starting off with Twin Peaks. Cooper in the Red Room. I'll see in 25 years. 25 years later, the giant comes and is basically like, off you go. Gives him some cryptic clues. Here we go. Richard and Linda. These are things that fans obsess over. The number 430.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

And then Cooper disappears.

[Griffin]

The things in this scene, particular people.

[David]

Obsess over anything in Twin Peaks, the Return, that is in the other world, in the Red Room or any other such. You know, all the language is metaphorical and, like, symbolic and stuff. And so people try to understand, like, what does it mean? Because I think Mark Frost especially loves that kind of stuff.

[Griffin]

So what do you make of that opening?

[David]

You. We can't talk about.

[Griffin]

We can't. Because.

[David]

Spoil the future episodes, I think. I think it's mostly setting up the sort of finale of the show. Okay. And. But. Yeah. So, you know, but just think about, like, again, everyone's on their couch being like, okay, yeah. And then the next scene, I think, is Dr. Jacoby. We love Dr. Jacoby. Gets some shovels.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Moving on. You know, and then you're just. You're sitting like, okay, Jacoby has shovels. I can't remember who's in Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Distant shock.

[David]

Right, Right. Yes. The car coming in, it's this immediate.

[Griffin]

Like, this is not the tone, the rhythm, the flow I was expecting for this show. And then is New York the third thing you see?

[David]

Basically, yes. And then we're in New York in one of the set pieces of Twin the Return that I love so much. There's a high rise. There's a weird glass box sticking out of the high rise.

[Griffin]

Yes. Ben Rosenfeld.

[David]

The camera's on it. Ben Rosenfeld is there.

[Griffin]

He just sits on a couch all day and stares at it. And every once in a while takes out the SD card from the camera, swaps in a case, swaps in a new one. Madeline. It's not Zima. Yes. Famous from the Nanny.

[David]

Child actor. Right. From the Nanny, who is in California. She's around.

[Griffin]

Come to visit him, or at least to drop off coffee. And clearly is constantly making a play to figure out what's going on in that room. Also, maybe has a crush on this guy. The rules are very clear. No one else is allowed in. You're like, what the is this? As I said, just immediately being in New York City, all new characters, things that feel totally unrelated is very jarring.

[David]

And then we cut over to the hotel. I'm just going through the episode.

[Griffin]

But also, it's pretty easy. Right. The multiple scenes you've talked about maybe take up 30 minutes.

[David]

They're long, they're lingering.

[Griffin]

Long, slow cinema, basically. Yes.

[David]

So, right, what do we have? We have Ben Horn kind of just rotting away at the Great Northern. Right. You know, having, like, this sort of aimless conversation with Ashley Judd, who's playing his sort of, you know, assistant secretary. Whatever. Yes. About, you know, a refund. And you got Jerry Horn, now with, like, a crazy white beard, like, stomping.

[Griffin]

Around and basically talking about, like, legalization of pot. How he's basically made a business off of this. Is that right?

[David]

I guess so. Jerry is one of the characters where I'm just like, I'm so exhausted by this.

[Griffin]

Sure. But also I'm like, in these first seven episodes, way more Jerry.

[David]

Not a Jerry.

[Ben]

It's nice to be back in the hotel. It's the first time we're back in a location that's familiar.

[David]

It's a little bit more relaxing, certainly.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You got. Then we got Lucy. Here's Lucy. Thank God. Lucy's still behind the desk at the sheriff's department. We're being introduced to Truman. There's a different Truman. She still can't keep the Truman apart.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I mean, unsurprisingly, maybe my favorite bit. I think it comes in episode two or three. But her being so confused by cell phones still.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

That it makes her literally, like, rocket out of her chair.

[David]

It seems that people can move around on the phone.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

It seems the way they've run the sheriff's department is there's, like, the original.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Part.

[Ben]

And then there's, like, where they actually are doing real police computer back.

[Griffin]

And those people are, like, so dismissive. Or, like. Like, who are these legacy characters?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

But. But the, like, all the stuff in the police station feels the closest to the original show.

[David]

It does. But it's the change in energy from Aunt Keane as kind of like, do good or Harry Truman to Forrester, who's so good as, like, this kind of weary, like. All right. You know, like, it's sort of like how he's being given, like, crazy news and he just kind of reacts very, very evenly.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

It does kind of feel there. It's just there is this sense that, like, Twin Peaks has gotten pretty nasty in a modern way.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Like, are a little depressing or something. Right. Like that. There's still a lot of, like.

[Griffin]

And all our original characters Feel sort of like wistful dinosaurs.

[David]

Kind of tired. Right. You know, obviously they're older, you know.

[Griffin]

But like, I think part of this is just that, like, Andy and Lucy are never gonna change.

[David]

Andy.

[Griffin]

Their energy is so consistent.

[David]

Right. Even though they've physically changed a little bit or whatever, Hawk is still. Hawk is amazing in the Return. He looks so good, at least. Got so much point.

[Griffin]

I'm at. Feels like the second lead of the show.

[David]

He has a lot of, like, action.

[Griffin]

Yes. He's the other character that is like driving, quote unquote story and certainly just has like a lot of screen time. Feels like he's now the primary character within the police station now. Yeah. And looks unbelievable.

[David]

He looks really cool.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then we have Mr. C. We.

[Ben]

Cut to a driving scene with slowed down music.

[Griffin]

And I'm like, wait, is it Christmas already?

[Ben]

The is happening. This is incredible.

[David]

Yeah. I think that's how we should refer to the doppelganger. Right. They call him Mr. C. Right.

[Griffin]

He looks like Bob and Dale Mashtob.

[David]

Yeah, that's the idea. Right. It's like. It's kind. It's a. I think it's a brilliant job on him because the wig is sort of Bob esque. Right. He's got like the black eyes.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

So he's really like, automatically unsettling looking. And then he talks in that kind of stilted way.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

That's, you know.

[Griffin]

I know. There's the later scene where they start to, like, truly superimpose Bob's face over him. They do that a couple times.

[David]

Yeah. It's their way of getting around him.

[Griffin]

But I also like doing something like, prosthetically. I don't want to say prosthetically, but I feel like they're like, maybe pulling McLaughlin's face back a little bit. They're giving him a little tautness to make him have a little more of the grimace of.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Or it's something that he's just doing.

[David]

He might be clenching his jaw, I don't know.

[Ben]

Just the way he's dressed too. He looks like us.

[David]

A bad man.

[Griffin]

He looks like a real piece of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Slick back hair, sloppy stays.

[David]

And if he's hanging out with people there, he does that's. I mean, he's a sloppy steak guy.

[Griffin]

He likes to slop.

[David]

He slaps him up.

[Griffin]

He slaps him up.

[David]

He's always, like, going to.

[Griffin]

You can change. It's never too late to change.

[David]

Going to some shack where there's like four, like, guys in wife beaters and stuff, like in Rocking Chairs, who are like, howdy. Like, he, like, knows every bizarre criminal in the world.

[Griffin]

Yes. I do just love this kind of thing. I. I mean, I. Being John Malkovich, has a version of this, but, like, someone so badly wanting to take over another person's body and then they get in there and they cannot help but morph that body into their own look.

[David]

Right, right.

[Griffin]

That it's like, oh, my God. I'm now, like, in the body of Dale Cooper. I, like, am able to walk amongst the living. I can, like, take advantage of this. And then, like, Bob basically just turns Cooper into himself.

[David]

Then we're back to the. The New York office and we. The two characters, Tracy and Sam, they look. Let's be honest, they have sex with each other.

[Griffin]

She shows up with the coffee, the guards are gone. He's like, this is an opportunity.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

She makes the entree, and then nothing.

[David]

Weird happens to them. They have sex and it's lovely.

[Griffin]

Starts to explain, like, what he's doing here. I don't even know who I'm working for. I don't know what this is. Right, right. Apparently, sometimes something happens. The last guy saw something happen, but he's not around anymore. Like, the weirdness of this job, I will say this, for me, is the most unsettled I have been with any lynch scene.

[David]

It's pretty nasty, to be clear. They are slashed to pieces by a monster that emerges in the box.

[Griffin]

And I don't know if it's just because I had no sense of this coming or even this plotline being anything in the show, but some of the other things that I feel like you and some of our guests have talked about as, like, imagery that has, like, primally haunted you forever.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Like the lady behind the diner in Mulholland. And some of those things where I, like, watch them and I'm like, yeah, that is upsetting. This, like, actually kind of physically shook me.

[David]

It's nasty.

[Griffin]

The actual projection itself and the length at which it stays and the eeriness of it, like, really kind of freaked me the out. And then obviously, the attack itself is so upsetting.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

It did immediately, like, recalibrate me to, like, oh, this show has me on edge.

[David]

Yeah. But it's also. It is kind of a welcome to premium cable moment where you're like, right. This is, like, gory and, like, sexual.

[Griffin]

I do not to question Lynch's intent, but I do think it was a little bit weird to have a chiron pop up of Freddy Krueger saying, welcome to premium cable. I just think that's mashing in a whole different mythology.

[David]

I don't know. I. I really appreciated Robert Englund's work on the show.

[Ben]

The effect of the monster is kind.

[David]

Of like a humanoid, faceless thing.

[Ben]

Yeah. But there's something about it, too, that it feels, like, really crisp. Like, just like how the whole series looks.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I don't know why. There's just something about it. There's something about the. The special effects throughout this.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Can we talk?

[Ben]

I can't really put my finger on it, but it feels like he's really capturing his dream world.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

In a way that he never really has had the access to the technology. Maybe in the past.

[Griffin]

I feel like when this came out, I remember people kind of clowning on the use of computer effects.

[David]

Sure. Because, of course, it's his own particular style.

[Griffin]

And a lot of it was in the framework of, like, you know, so baller that David lynch will just, like, reuse, like, a basic 101 assets and doesn't even give a shit. Right. With this massive budget, he doesn't care about the effects looking realistic. And then other people were, like, almost framing it as a Michael Mann watermark. Is he that checked out? Is he this lazy to this sort of stuff? I just, like, find we have this conversation. I feel like it's come up several times now in our crew text with the Doughboys.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Where we'll just kick this question of, like, is there any instance of scary cgi? Is there any horror movie? It's usually when CGI is scary.

[David]

When these modern horror movies have to deploy their CGI monster.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

It's usually a little underwhelming or even.

[Griffin]

CGI augmentation of a monster. There. There is, I think, evocative imagery that has been created. But, like, has anything ever, like, truly scared us in that way? And I'm like, all the CGI in this actually scares me.

[David]

I agree.

[Griffin]

And there's something weird about it. Feels like by not trying to go for, like, the modern version of, like, really render it in that physical space and light it like this and whatever. It's like he's doing a digital version of, like, old optically printed effects, where part of what's interesting is that it's, like, truly a layer on top of the image. And it's surreal and you're trying to position it, whatever. But it also just feels like the imagery is so much more uncanny. Cause you're like. It's just weirder for there to just be this green Ghostwriter thing moving across the screen or this blur you can't make sense of. Right. Or just these images morphing at this odd pace or any of that. Like, anytime, even when it's just, like, red block on Patrick Fishler's screen, I'm like, that's fucking creepy. That scares me more than, like, Pennywise having 8,000 teeth, you know, Even if those teeth look perfect, I'm like, if that happened in real life, I'd be freaked out. Because it's that kind of weird, inexplicable thing of, like, what?

[David]

Pennywise is a good example where you're, like, the scariest that character is, is when Bill Skarsgrd is giving a performance in makeup because his performance is effective.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I am less scared when he then goes, like and opens his mouth.

[Griffin]

And, like, it is the perfect example because you're, like, the two things that are scariest in his performance where you're like, that's good cgi. Are him, like, walleyeing?

[David]

Yeah, sure, sure.

[Griffin]

And his weird shaped smile. And both of those are things he just does himself that look uncanny that he can just do with his face.

[David]

Good for him.

[Griffin]

But anytime he, like, stretches into something more, I'm like, gives a shit.

[David]

Look, if I was younger, I think it would freak me out. It's nightmarish imagery.

[Griffin]

It doesn't scare me, though.

[David]

No, not so much.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

Are you scared by a creepy motel room where there's, like, a dead body that's headless?

[Griffin]

Yeah. By this point, I'm basically scared by everything that happens. I feel perpetually just kind of ill at ease.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And part of it is just the, like. I don't know why we're seeing this scene now, you know, and. And we talked about this in the Fire Walk With Me episode. But, like, this style that I feel like lynch has been, like, evolving further and further across his career. And this is the ultimate heightening of it of, like, going against the basic principles of narrative editing of get in late, get out early. Where every scene you're like, why is this scene starting now? Why is this shot starting now? Even sometimes camera movements or, like, rack focuses or things like that, he's, like, weaponizing the way we're used to processing images and, like, putting importance on them. Where sometimes a shot will start of, like, 30 seconds of something where you're like, why am I seeing this? What is this gonna pay off into? And then the camera just pans over and you're like, that was nothing. Now this scene is starting.

[David]

It's Beginning. I. I'm also. Right. I'm really, like. I'm thinking about the first two episodes and remembering how unsettling they were as this ain't your daddy's Twin Peaks. Because it's like. Right. There is a lot of brutal violence. The thing we just mentioned, the corpse. And then later on, Mr. C. Killing.

[Griffin]

Being a lot of casual nudity.

[David]

Yeah. There's a lot of sexual things. Right. Yeah. But then there's. Right. There's also just this kind of, like. There's no center to it.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

When we check in with the town, you're kind of like, okay, are we sticking with the town? And then we're immediately like, no, we're going off to another location now and then.

[Griffin]

And the townspeople feel like any of the stuff shot in the town feels weirdly kind of elusive and distant. I was saying, outside of Andy and Lucy, who still have their basic comedy energy, you. You're like, the show doesn't have the constant swelling. Angelo. Score. It doesn't have the sort of, like, overly emotional, like, monologuing, spilling out, intrigue.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Like, these people just all feel kind of, like, slowed down.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

You know, and it's also not that all of this weird stuff is happening in one place anymore.

[Griffin]

No. And I.

[David]

He's.

[Ben]

He's. He's expanded it, and it really is such a great distillation of his. Like, there's weird things happening right now somewhere in the world.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

There's these unsettling people here. There's this weird, mysterious box here. There's this crime happening here. And you don't know how it's all connected. It's so. So I'm. I got so locked in, basically, as soon as episode one ended.

[David]

Certain other things I want to touch on the Log lady call, which I remember, like, the hush in the room when we all watched that, because it was so clear that Katherine Coulson was, you know, basically making this call. She'd already passed away. She certainly had. But, like, you're clear that, like.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

That she shot this in sort of her final weeks.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Where she's basically telling Hawk, like, something's missing. You have to find it. It's to do with your heritage. Okay. It's the closest thing these early episodes have to, like. Like, a plot line for fans to grab onto, because everything else is. It's like, what's going on with the weird box? What. What's the headless corpse?

[Griffin]

Yeah. And how does any of this relate to.

[David]

Right. Where's Cooper?

[Griffin]

Right. Even the. The sort of subplots you can follow as their own thing. It's unclear how it ties into anything else.

[David]

Right. And then it takes six episodes to.

[Griffin]

Identify that the body is Briggs. I think.

[David]

Yeah. Moving. Right. Moving on to episode two, you have Matthew Lillard as Bill Hastings. A pretty incredible performance, I agree.

[Griffin]

I mean, I.

[David]

Of a very agitated person. And Lillard is good casting, but. But left field casting.

[Griffin]

I feel like he's been talking a lot recently about what a, like, lifeblood infusion Five Nights at Freddy's was to his career and being like, I've never been this back. Like, you know, I've been sort of on the outskirts of the industry for a while.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I mean, like, he, you know, notably, he was directing stuff for a little bit. He also, after case of casem died, has taken over voicing Shaggy in all media, which he's talked about is like, like just the ultimate gift of like, a stable job in an unstable industry where there's always going to be Scooby Doo stuff done. But, like, every couple of years he will pop up in a liveaction thing now as like an older character actor and fucking destroy. He is so good in the Descendants, a movie I don't like.

[David]

But that's.

[Griffin]

He's incredible in.

[David]

But that's a long. That's.

[Griffin]

This is what I'm saying.

[David]

More than 10 years ago.

[Griffin]

Yeah, you pop up in that, I'll be like, okay, so Lillard's back, right? Everyone's going to use.

[David]

And this was similar where you're like, great, perfect use of Lillard.

[Griffin]

And by his account, like, now. Now people are hiring him again a bunch for a movie that no one likes but was obviously successful. This guy has just kind of been an untapped resource for a bit now.

[David]

So he's accused of this, like, murder of this corpse, but he doesn't know what's going on.

[Griffin]

Right. The murdered woman is a woman he was having an affair with, which is why he's kind of edgy when they're interrogating him. Right. Or on edge, at least. You can't tell. Like, I mean, it's. It's part of what's unsettling is like, this guy is clearly hiding some secret. Is he lying about being a murderer or does he not understand what he's being accused of?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And the, like, watching him process all of that and, like, break down in real time and the reveal of the body is so upsetting where it's like, you know, this sort of. It almost feels like the straight story scene. Of like so much wind up to getting through the door, you know, with the next door neighbor complaints and the keys or whatever.

[David]

What's it gonna be?

[Griffin]

What's it gonna be? And then you see this like rotting head of a woman in a bed. Oh, she's been there for a while. It's upsetting already.

[David]

I'm missing.

[Griffin]

Right. And then you pull down the covers and you're like, why is this head disembodied lying on top of a clearly different body? Right. That is also like sliced open.

[David]

Cool.

[Griffin]

I wouldn't say cool.

[David]

I think it's good. I think that's. That's what motels should have. No, I've been watching.

[Griffin]

I don't know when you've been watching this show, Ben, but I've often been watching it at night right before I go to bed. It certainly puts me in a headspace.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

No, I've been watching it late and I. Yeah, yeah. It's terrifying. It's affected my dreams, made me feel very uneasy.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

I think at the time there came a point where I would actually wait to watch this show night. Right. Even though it was airing at 10 o'clock.

[Griffin]

Here's the thing. It feels right to watch it as much as it with me. I'm like, yeah.

[David]

So we've got that going on. We've got Mr. C with this sort of coterie of weirdos that he's gathered on some weird mission. We do have Patrick Fishler in a Las Vegas office who's vaguely talking about money changing hands. We don't really know what that is. We see the red room again. Mike, is there. Older Laura is there.

[Griffin]

Is this the introduction of the evolution of the arm?

[David]

Correct. It's where Laura reveals her, opens her face up and there's kind of light inside of it.

[Griffin]

Yes. Another very creepy effect that is done at a level that could be done by like a 12 year old on their computer, you know, but you're like, it's more upsetting for that.

[David]

We are indeed introduced to the arm. Michael J. Anderson's character, the man from another place who is now a tree with like a brain blob on top of it that sort of goes like. Like that.

[Ben]

It reminds me of his first piece of art.

[Griffin]

Yes. It's got the installation pieces getting sick.

[David]

Or whatever Michael J. Anderson was posting on Facebook at this time. Like he was really had gone. It seemed a little loony.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And he said that lynch, as many.

[Griffin]

People his age were on Facebook at this time.

[David]

Right. He said that lynch screwed him over or whatever, money wise or whatever. I don't know.

[Griffin]

And apparently demanded more money than anyone else on the show.

[David]

And Lynch. Right. Probably Michael G. Anderson was probably thinking, like, I am such an iconic image. My person is like, you can't do without me. And lynch, of course, is like, what do you mean? You can just be a tree. Yes, I'll just have you be a tree now. Who cares? And so. Yeah, so he's there. Yeah. I don't know.

[Griffin]

I don't know if there's any way to parse that. No, no, no, no. I was going to say support this, but I do feel like what they do with the arm is fascinating and is also very effective. Right. I have to imagine a lot of the dialogue that would have gone to Michael J. Anderson had he agreed to do this is what they end up doing with Mike.

[David]

Now, Mike is there where they're sort of explaining stuff.

[Griffin]

If you have the evolution of the arm in this form, saying all the dialogue, it will be too much. You maybe need someone who's a little more grounded. And then you cut to the weird tree arm for maximum impact.

[David]

And then we kind of basically have like the exit of Cooper. Right. Like, there's a lot of sort of mysterious red room stuff that, you know, you can sort of parse as you will. I don't know how to describe all this stuff, but it's like.

[Griffin]

But you do have, like strong theories and all this stuff.

[David]

Yeah, there's. Yes, you'll. You'll watch the show and you'll see there's a logic to what happens.

[Griffin]

I want to call ahead that I'm going to ask you at the end of us covering this show, I mean. Cause I feel like you've very often, throughout me watching this show for the first time, alluded to there are answers to all of this. You can get down to. Like, you can.

[David]

I mean, look, the simple fact of the matter is Cooper got stuck in the red room. The doppelganger took his place.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

So what we see now, essentially, and we're moving into episode three as well, is like, you know, it's like Cooper gets ejected out of the red room, but the doppelganger had anticipated this and so he's redirected into this fake Cooper that got made. Dougie Jones.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

A tulpa, to quote the empty man. They use that word here too.

[Griffin]

Like a sort of an artificial being created to basically have a vessel for good coop to go back into.

[David]

Right. And so Cooper kind of gets stuck there for much of this. Show like he is now. Dougie, who is not a real person to begin with. But is this perfect way for lynch and Frost to make fun of, Right. Like the modern American salaryman in a way, Right. Where, like, he exists. He. He has some sort of useless insurance job because.

[Griffin]

Lives in this, like, subdivision and has a gambling addiction.

[David]

Has a gambling addiction. And like a wife who's like, I hate you, you suck.

[Griffin]

Cheats on her with sex workers.

[David]

And then he suddenly shows up and is like, hello, coffee. And she's like, you're my dream man. You rock.

[Griffin]

David, you're doing way too much.

[David]

I know. Exactly. It's like, it's hard to do him on radio.

[Griffin]

Yeah, we. We should, we should reclaim this as a radio.

[David]

This should be on radio, I think 20, 25.

[Griffin]

Let's go on like 1010 wins. Let's reach out to Z100, get a syndication deal and exclusively refer to this, this am.

[Ben]

No, am.

[Griffin]

Am.

[Ben]

I'm putting my foot down on am.

[Griffin]

This is a radio show about film. They. They love to hand out like three hour slots on radio.

[David]

Yeah, exactly. They like, they like variable running times and all that stuff.

[Griffin]

David.

[David]

Oh, hello.

[Griffin]

Hi. How are you doing?

[David]

I'm good, I'm good. I mean, Valentine's Day is coming up.

[Griffin]

I mean, I was gonna bring it up. You're a married man.

[David]

Sure. For me, there's only one place I trust. 1-800-flowers.com.

[Griffin]

You gotta show your wife that you love her and that you care.

[David]

Each year I'm ordering stunning, high quality bouquets from 1-800-flowers that my wife absolutely loves. And we're partnering with 1-800-flowers to make sure you're a Valentine's hero with this exclusive offer for our listeners an easy sell.

[Griffin]

This is a great time of year to encourage people to order flowers for the love of their life.

[David]

Look.

[Griffin]

And they this, it doesn't need extra spin on it. We don't need to put any mustard on this ad.

[David]

Reed offer with double the flowers. Double the roses for free. When you get one dozen, they'll double your bouquet to two dozen. It's the perfect way to say I love you without breaking the bank.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

1-800-Flowers. It always delivers.

[Griffin]

Trust. I trust you when you say that. Yeah. This is all that needs to be said. Ding dong.

[David]

And who's that at the door?

[Griffin]

We should check quickly, right? I mean, I know we're almost. We're getting through this ad read.

[David]

Okay? But I'll tell you that I got a great bouquet from 1-800-Flowers. It arrived right away.

[Griffin]

I'm just gonna walk to the door. Quickly.

[David]

It's really nice. I didn't get roses. I got a sort of double blue. Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

Hand Outraged.

[David]

Comes in a really, really nice container. Yes.

[Griffin]

Who can plant a rosebud?

[Ben]

My God, Dan Pluck petunias, too. It's been a while. How are you?

[Griffin]

Dan Candyman? Cam. Been a dog's age. It has. It's been a long time. City guys have invited me to come over.

[David]

No one invited you.

[Griffin]

I felt like it. I felt it in the air. My ears were burning.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

Dan Candyman, you look like crap.

[Griffin]

It's been a rough couple years.

[David]

Why? What's going on, Dan?

[Griffin]

I come from the Candyman family, of course, of the Montreal Candyman. And we're a flower family by trade. The name does tend to confuse people. Along with me singing a song that's a modified fight version of the Candyman, the Willy Wonka song. And it always confused people. So I'm actually here today selling candy.

[David]

Oh, okay.

[Griffin]

Well, I'll buy some candy to raise money for my high school's basketball team.

[David]

Okay, cool. How much?

[Griffin]

You're not gonna ask any questions about that? What are M M's?

[Ben]

Well, you know, these are just gray shells. There's not a color in sight.

[Griffin]

Look, I'll admit. Yes, I'm selling candy. That's not really why I came in here today.

[David]

Okay, what's going on?

[Griffin]

I need flowers. I no longer have the hookup. My family has completely divested.

[David]

Oh, well. And I actually do have great news for you because all roses from 1-800-Flowers are picked at their peak, cared for every step of the way, and shipped fresh to ensure lasting beauty. The bouquet I got came fresh, sat on our table, looking great for ages. Didn't like wilt after two days. Like some local sort of bodega flowers you might buy or whatever.

[Ben]

Comes with a little pack.

[David]

Little packet to sort of spruce them up and make them alive. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Gosh. Because this is a stressful time of year for me. You know, Valentine's Day is really rough on Dan Candyman.

[David]

I don't.

[Griffin]

Because I'm part of a very large polycule. I have to get a lot of flowers.

[David]

I hate all your lore.

[Griffin]

I think it's interesting and people are going to be excited.

[David]

Well, you better get on it because bouquets are selling fast. Laundry in your order today. And of course, if you do order a dozen roses, they'll double the rose bouquet for free. That's a great value to claim your double roses offer. Go to 1-800-flowers.com check that's 1-800-Flowers.com check to get your double your roses offer.

[Griffin]

100Flowers.Com check now that sounds great, but I have to admit my many, many partners have some pretty specific tastes. Double roses sounds nice, but by Any chance is 1-800-Flowers offer kaleidoscope roses, hand dyed 24 stems in a purple vase with wind chime included. I'm looking it up. Okay. They do have it. Great. What a great product. Would you like to buy 1m?

[David]

Sure. Fine. Give me an M. There you go. Thanks.

[Griffin]

That'll be $25.

[David]

Wait a second.

[Griffin]

I have to raise money.

[David]

1,800Followers.Com Check.

[Griffin]

David?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

If I know one thing about you, okay, it's that you're tired of figuring out what's for dinner every night after night. Especially on those busy weekdays when you walk into the studio every day and you go, I'm so tired. I go, don't even finish the sentence. I know the one root cause of that problem.

[David]

Busy weekdays. I just said it. Busy weekdays.

[Griffin]

No, I'm saying it's you trying to decide what to make for dinner night after night.

[David]

Busy weekdays. How do you make my weekdays less busy?

[Griffin]

These issues are linked. I go, how are the twins? Sleeping. You go, great. No problem there. I'm joking. Sleeping through the night. Yes.

[David]

I have to feed my family.

[Griffin]

You have more mouths to feed.

[David]

And that is true. Although they just eat. They don't eat lovely meals. But I have to make lovely meal and I get home and my time limit is. My time window is limited and it is hard to just kind of, you know, find a magic recipe in the fridge every single day.

[Griffin]

What a compelling personal it is sort of experience this is. Yeah.

[David]

I mean if you really want to get into it, basically like it's 5:30. Right. Dinner's got to kind of be on the table because everyone's going to bed around seven.

[Griffin]

Right. Podcasting has ended 15 minutes before that.

[David]

That's.

[Griffin]

That is why be honest.

[David]

Anyone who listens to the show might notice that I am a little. But look, it's easy to find time to eat well because you can get 50 whole some hassle free meals to choose from every week to get delivered right to your door. These hellofresh ready made meals that go from fridge to fork.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

In just three minutes. One, two, three minutes.

[Griffin]

That's the journey. I like fridge to fork.

[David]

It's the same high quality ingredients in restaurant or the flavor you expect from hellofresh, but none of the work. Okay, so it's not like I hate this stuff you're talking about. You know, they give you all these pre packaged ingredients. You make a meal that's fun. These things come together with minimal mess and just of five minutes of prep. Your oven does most of the work, not you.

[Griffin]

But this is what's nice about Hellofresh is they got a lot of variety. There's a lot of adjustment you can make on your end as the customer to serve your own needs. So as you're saying, you got two twins now that don't eat real food, but sooner rather than later.

[David]

They will, they will.

[Griffin]

And you can adjust your order 100%. Fit a family of five rather than a family of three.

[David]

Yeah, you can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for [e-mail] Check10FM. That's. Check10FM.

[Griffin]

That's interesting. That's interesting code. We've never gotten that code before.

[David]

No, that's why I'm repeating it.

[Griffin]

Hey. And Green Chef is now owned by HelloFresh. So with a wider array of meal plans to choose from, there's something for everyone. I personally love switching between the brands because I'm verse. And now my listeners can enjoy both brands at a discount with us.

[David]

One item per box with active subscription free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only. Varies by plan. That's up to 10 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to hellofresh.com check10fm. It's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit.

[Griffin]

No, what I was going to say is. I know as you're saying there are sort of like in universe explanations of this.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Our Lost highway episode as people I think can tell, was recorded way, way early. That was the first one we recorded chronologically. So like even just that episode coming out, I'm like, oh, I would have talked about this movie differently having.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Had we gone through no shade on that episode, I think it turned out great. But just digging in more on lynch career stuff that I wasn't digging in on at the time we recorded that episode. How much of Lost highway came out of lynch being like completely confused by. And this is so much of his whole filmography, the sort of like, how can people be capable of this level of evil? How can that be contained within like a human psyche, a person, the ability to commit this kind of harm to other people. Sure. But that he was also by all accounts particularly fascinated BY like, like O.J. simpson during the peak of the trial.

[David]

Lost highway, right.

[Griffin]

Yeah, right. Just being, like, out with his kids and being like, hey, I'm O.J. i'm innocent. And being like, how can you, like, murder your wife? And then just kind of allegedly go forth and just be like, I'm dropping my kids off at school.

[David]

Hey, it's very disturbing, Juice.

[Griffin]

Right? And I do think in the way I talked about maybe in the Twin Peaks season two episode, the sort of manhuntery thing of, like, if you live in this world, if you're investigating crimes, at what point does it start to break you? Have you just, like, let too much evil into your psyche, even if you are, quote, unquote, the one doing good beyond the, like, inner narrative mythology. I do think there's something he's getting at here with the, like, splitting of the coop psyche of, like, what happens to you if you're just, like, looking at dead bodies all the fucking time, right? Like, do you start to split into, like, do you curdle? Do you go dead inside? Like, do you just compartmentalize? There. There is an allegorical level.

[David]

I see what you're saying. I think there is also just this thing of, like, to lynch and Frost, like, the world's only gotten worse. Yeah, it feels like, you know, kind of Boy Scouts like Cooper, who had their flaws, have been replaced by these kind of, like, amoral figures, right? For the last 25 years. Like. Like, that's, you know, like, you watch twin peaks in 92 and you're like, yeah, this is about a seedy town. There's, like, coke and there's sex work. And now it just feels like it's like it's not just drugs and, you know, prostitution or whatever. Now it's just like, yeah, empty houses being sold to nobody by, like, faceless gangsters. And, like, so, yes, the.

[Griffin]

The sort of feeling of, like, here's this town that looks quaint, but underneath it has, like, all this weird darkness and drama. And here's a guy who, like, looks like a Dick Tracy drawing, right?

[David]

Showing.

[Griffin]

Right. And acts like beer cleaver, right?

[David]

And, like, that's all people. So many people clearly just wanted this show to be like him drinking the coffee, which happens, and it is important to him, but not in the way they want it.

[Griffin]

I think it's a construction of this kind of, like, one pure, simple lawman who is unwavering and unaffected by the darkness, you know, and can always cut through it with, like, humanity and grace.

[David]

I like everything you're saying.

[Griffin]

All of his performances are incredible con. McLaughlin rules.

[David]

He rules. This is his master work.

[Griffin]

I was going to say he's like.

[David]

Dividing this character into two extremes with the middle gone.

[Griffin]

I'm a fan of his work in general. In particular his work with David Lynch. It is wild that there's such a long gap. And a lot of it is of course like the bad fallout of Twin Peaks. This is the kind of thing I had no idea he was aware of.

[David]

Same. Well, that's because he's now become this guy you call in for a specific kind of thing, right. Like the way he's.

[Griffin]

A couple of variations on it. There is him as like smarmy politician sort of guy. There's him as like sort of like goofy dad. There's him as exactly like cartoon villain. But all of them do feel like a certain broad weird bent on his square jawed like all American thing.

[David]

Exactly. How can we fuck with that a little bit?

[Griffin]

We should call out that. Of course. Colin McLaughlin has reinvented himself in 2024 as Mr. Blockbuster, the king of the box office.

[David]

Cause he's an inside out too.

[Griffin]

He's Riley's dad. He's the star of the biggest film.

[David]

So Cooper is going. We see this kind of series of dreamy things, right? You've got the weird kind of purple sea which we see a few times like this kind of odd void place. He goes to this weird room, this kind of like this dimly lit mansion room. There's this eyeless woman who's stuck by a fireplace. She'll come back. At one point you see Garland Briggs. Don Davis has died, the actor who plays Garland Briggs at this point. And again David lynch is like no problem. Just have his fucking face float by and go blue rose, like there you go. So Garland Briggs still in the show, which will be important. And then we see him basically sort of try to enter the world again. We see Mr. C like barf corn everywhere, right? Like while driving the car.

[Griffin]

Well, he's trying his hardest to hold it down exactly as like he's getting like engulfed in this sort of fade out of the curse, right?

[David]

And he survives that. And so we see Cooper essentially get redirected over to the box, right? That's true. Yeah. You know, like that's how it ends up being.

[Griffin]

But we've already seen Dougie.

[David]

We see Dougie with Jade, who's a sex worker who. He's like in one of these empty houses.

[Griffin]

Houses with right across the street from Haley Gates as like an addict mother, right?

[David]

And he also barfs up corn.

[Griffin]

Garmin blows it up a different thing. Dougie barfs up almost looks like a fucking rump roast or something.

[David]

Right. And then he goes to the red room and gets turned into an orb.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Which I love. Where they're like, enough of you boink.

[Griffin]

But there's a difference to, like, when Mr. C finally breaks down and pukes. It's like this. This endless stream of like this cream corn type corn.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then when the cops come to get him, they're like, this is the worst smelling thing of all time. The one cop who gets.

[David]

Because it's like evil. It's despair. That's what the corn is. Right.

[Griffin]

Two steps closer is then like, almost like comatose. They mention that, like, a few of the guys are now laid up in the hospital and they call them back up with gas masks. Whereas, like, Jade comes out from the bathroom and is like, when did you get a haircut? Why are you wearing this suit? Were you wearing a wig the whole time? And then it's like, ooh, are you sick? It seems like what he puked up is a little bit foul. But it's not like.

[David]

No, it's not. It's not the milk of human evil or whatever that. Yes. No. Yeah. He comes out of the electrical socket.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And right. So now we have him in Mr. In Dougie Cooper's life. But now instead of being the douchebag that Dougie Cooper, we assume was and.

[Griffin]

Like a doofy douchebag, he's this sort.

[David]

Of trim, silent, black suited zombie kind of guy, you know, who just repeats what is said to him.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And has really no reaction to anything until he drinks some sweet, sweet coffee.

[Griffin]

He has the literal look of authority. It's like lynch tapping into why he was so drawn to this guy in the first place.

[David]

Yeah, exactly.

[Griffin]

Right. Just the look. And there's something about, like, cum. Laughlin is so fascinating physically. And the other times we've talked about him were decades earlier when he was much younger. Right. And there was something about him, like, looking like a Ken doll, looking like a Chester Gold drawing, where it's like, well, he is literally like an illustration of what we think of as a manly man, but yet also is like, so pretty and delicate.

[David]

He is very pretty.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Even today.

[Griffin]

And it is odd to. To see him at an advanced age where you're just like, he looks like an aged boy in a way. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, he doesn't look rugged now. He's not like grown into some, like, Sean Connery has passed over into like his silver fox age and I. Obviously they're like dyeing his hair in this and making him look as sort of like natty as Cooper. But there is something about like he's aged incredibly well and there's something uncanny about just that face drooping only a little bit. You know, he doesn't have these deep lines.

[David]

No, he looks good, but he looks old.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

He's never gonna be pretty like he was as a young man. Yes, he's now become this like hot silver fox. But that's sort of post this, what I'm saying.

[Griffin]

This is trying to go for a different look. It is going for the uncanniness of like. Yeah.

[David]

This is. Then when we have. We do have some interludes such as Dr. Jacoby spray painting his. Spray painting his shovels.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

We have the crazy drug addicted woman screaming 119 randomly in a room, you know, where you're kind of like, what?

[Griffin]

Doesn't that happen in response to. Does that start before the car explodes?

[David]

Isn't it right after.

[Griffin]

That's what I'm saying.

[Ben]

It's where they sleep together, Dougie and the sex worker.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

He lives across the street and it's where Dougie's car is left parked.

[Griffin]

Yes. So then. Right, Right. And then he doesn't take his car because she drives him home because she can tell that he's.

[David]

No, Jade takes him to the casino.

[Griffin]

Oh, yes.

[David]

And then of course, call for help. Give him the $5. Call for help.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And he starts just. He becomes Mr. Jackpots.

[Griffin]

He starts.

[David]

It's one of the funniest fucking things that's ever been on tv.

[Griffin]

He starts seeing glimpses of the red room above.

[David]

Machine will pop off next. And then he gets all the money and he starts going hello.

[Griffin]

So not to get too ahead of shit that I imagine is even going to come more to the forefront across this, but it really feels like, at least in these first seven episodes and like the hawk being front and center, the casino, the stuff that's already happening at the end of season two. That like a lot of the big sort of point of Twin Peaks as a grand media experiment is the, like, we are a country built upon an Indian burial.

[David]

Yeah, I think that's. I think that is a thing running through Twin Peaks. It's never like loudly screamed or anything. Although you do, right? You do have things like the log lady being like, it's to do with your heritage.

[Griffin]

Right. And that's all of Hawke's stuff is him trying to like Andy being like, is it about coins? Like, is it what's the connection here, but also that you have, like, the end of season two, the last handful of episodes, where they're starting to, like, lay things out more directly, is coming back to Hawke being able to filter through. Like, in my culture, there's this notion of, you know, that suddenly these things in the show that have seemed really abstract are being reframed as, like, spiritual beliefs within, like, Native American traditions.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And then I. I just feel like it's not coincidental that he is going to a casino, a thing that is largely owned by, like, Native American groups at this point in time in the country, especially if you're outside of, like, Nevada. Right. And that he's being given, like, directed glimpses from the Red Room Room to direct him towards the money.

[David]

I. Again, Right. It's not like someone screams this out loud.

[Griffin]

No, but it doesn't even. It doesn't.

[David]

But. No, but I mean, fundamentally, the elemental stuff in Twin Peaks is that Bob is something you can just think of in any way you want to think of.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

And that's what's happening in Twin Peaks. The Return is Bob is running rampant. And there's sort of a battle against Bob. It's an abstract battle for a lot of the time, Right. Because it's all these threads coming together. But Mr. C is the villain, and he is Bob, and he is the thing we need to stop. And then Agent Cooper. Dougie is sort of our hero, but he's kind of a zombie who slowly is absorbing the world around him. And the world is reacting to this mirror he puts up. Right. This kind of just like, friendly, reflective thing. Mr. Jackpots. As we're moving into episode four, you know, the casino is freaking out about him because he's making all this money. And so they take him home. And then here comes Naomi Watts, just in full Mulholland Drive mode, just, like, dialed all the way up.

[Griffin]

I feel like we've talked a lot about how the last 10 years of Naomi Watts has been a disaster in a way that feels like very unfair to her.

[David]

She's just got, like, pretty lame roles.

[Griffin]

Why can't she catch a break?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And this is the only outlier.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So fucking goodness. Unsurprisingly, like, lynch knows how to use her.

[David]

That's the thing. Right.

[Griffin]

But she's in this so much, and, like, watching it now, years later, I'm just like, why is everyone else failing her?

[David]

I think she's just. I've said it before, like, she's the fourth choice, you know, for a lot of these Plum roles and she doesn't get them and instead she gets these kind of like, okay, roles, Leading roles.

[Griffin]

She's had a handful of abject disasters as well. Not just like Book of Henry and stuff, but it's like, oh, like, here's like a career lifeline. She's going to be the lead on the Game of Thrones spin off. And then they're like, never mind. This one isn't happening. Pilot buried, new show happening. There've been like a couple things like that where you're like, this almost feels cursed now. Although, married Billy Crudup. Hot couple.

[David]

Sure. But didn't she, you know, have her relationship with Leif Shriver for a long time and that fell apart? Yeah.

[Griffin]

And I'm saying on the rebound, she married Billy Crudup.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

He's definitely never cheated on his w with the nanny or whatever he did. I forget what he did. Claire Danes, allegedly. Oh, yeah, right. It was Claire Danes. Right, yeah, whatever. I can't care. All the celebrities, they're always cheating on each other. Who, you know, who, who can get excited anymore?

[Griffin]

Hotlines from Twin Peaks, who's been who.

[David]

At this point? I think it starts in late. Late in episode three.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

We're bringing in Gordon Cole, played by David lynch, who is one of the biggest characters in this show.

[Griffin]

Watching this, I just, I thought, why is he the funniest actor alive? Why is he funnier on screen than anybody I know we've made?

[David]

He's very funny.

[Griffin]

A lot of hay out of his voice. Yes. Doing the impressions. Almost anything is funny in a David lynch voice. But somehow his performance is funnier than David lynch as a person is the idea of him. There is such an odd presence to how he performs as an actor, beyond just the voice and everything, but especially at this age where he has that, like, gravitas that everyone gets to in the later decades of their life.

[David]

The weirdest thing to me about Cole in this series and like a lot, a lot of this storyline is always just going to be Cole. And you know, Miguel Ferrer, another actor.

[Griffin]

Who had passed away by the time the show aired.

[David]

Albert, obviously. And then Tamara Preston, who's this new character played by Christa Bell, who is this kind of stand in character. She's, you know, whatever the newbie. I feel like she's also lynch being made fun of for like casting these gorgeous women and then like, you know, like having a crush on them or whatever. Right. Because, like, that's what Gordon Cole has basically been criticized for with her presence.

[Griffin]

Right. Everyone's like, gorgeous or she's just a good agent.

[David]

But Gordon, especially throughout the show, is kind of the exposition guy.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

The FBI agents are the ones who out loud the most will be like, here's what's going on. Like, we're on a hunt for Bob. Like, we're. We're, you know, we're trying to figure out what Judy is. Like. They're the ones that are sort of like, talking about the mission.

[Griffin]

Well, also, with Cooper, like, pulled apart into, like, these weird abstracted forms, he becomes the moral center of the show.

[David]

And that is very apparent early in season episode four, where he goes to see Denise, David Duchovny's character from Twin Peaks Season 2.

[Griffin]

The kind of character you might expect. They'd go like, we don't need to.

[David]

Check in with everybody. Exactly.

[Griffin]

Maybe it's risky to try to revisit this.

[David]

Like, lynch looking down the camera, basically, and lecturing his audience. Not in a bad way, just sort of incredibly moving, direct moment of him saying, fix your hearts or die.

[Griffin]

It took eight years for me to watch this show. I remember seeing someone post the night this episode aired with just the screen grab with the caption on, and I told them, fix your hearts or die. And just being like, wow. That is the best way to put it. It is a line that has stuck with me just off of seeing a screen grab.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

For a decade of like. Yeah. That's how I just think about all of this now.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Of people who refuse to change in a way that is tolerant of other people.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Who, like, insist on being prejudiced out of habit.

[David]

Yeah. It's just. It's a. It's perfectly fascinating scene.

[Griffin]

And there's something to just the simplicity of lynch as a performer for how bizarre and overstated he is. It is like, it's him and Louie and it's him in the Fableman. Where it's like, is anyone more effective? Just have, like, basically staring down the barrel of the lens and saying the thing.

[David]

Absolutely. Yeah. Just kind. I mean, the ostensible point of that scene. Right. Again, is like your mission, if you choose to accept it, is figure this out.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Mr. C. Like, who's this? But it's really right. This scene of lynch being like, your character was a part of season two that I am not forgetting about. And, like, I want to address that. Like, you, like, you know, your identity is paramount. Like.

[Griffin]

Right. I mean, I think the Covenant's performance is very good. I'd love to in this scene in particular. But also, like, you watch Season Two comes on screen. You're like, is this gonna be a problem for someone watching, like, me for the first time, decades later? And, like, unlike a lot of performances of trans people, until, let's say, the late 2010s, when those roles start to be played by actual trans people, there was a lot of, like, they were being played as if they are drag performers.

[David]

Yeah, sure.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

There's not a real understanding of the actual what's going on. Right.

[Griffin]

Yes. And I do feel like Duchovny, to his, like, best abilities, tries to play it like a real person. This is like a woman. I'm not, like, overstating it, you know, I'm not sort of, like, doing. Yeah. The Broad Strokes. Yeah.

[David]

Lucy Truman. I'm trying to think, what else? Is this where Wally Brando shows up? Yes.

[Griffin]

Yeah. They set it up early. They named their son Wally Brando because he. What is it? He was born right after Brando died.

[David]

Born the same day as Marlon Brando is what we know.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Just another scene that's just so fucking memorable.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Here's the thing I want to talk about.

[David]

This is Michael Cera's only appearance on Twin Peaks, the Return not.

[Griffin]

So that was my assumption.

[David]

Yes. He's coming in and out.

[Griffin]

Yeah. He has said that the way he got this part was that he went to one of David Lynch's transcendental meditation classes, and that afterwards he was like, I might have a part for you. I feel like a lot of directors in this age group, when they are casting things and in interviews, people are like, so what made you want to work with this actor? You often get the sense of, like, oh, they don't really watch stuff at this point. You will get the thing of, like, Paul Schrader being like, my financiers gave me a list of, like, 10 people who I can get the movie made if I get one of them. And I watched their reels, and I said, like, this guy feels like he could work, but he's not, like, watching every episode of Euphoria and going like, oh, I should write a part.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

You know?

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

What's his name? Why am I freaking tall guy's name.

[David]

J. Elordi.

[Griffin]

Thank you. Similarly, I know, like, Vinyl, when Ray Romano went into audition casting was like, hey, just so you know, he doesn't know who you are. And he was like, oh, he's never watched the show. And he's like, no, he's never heard of you existing. And he was like, how could I just, like, without taking this personally? The show was big enough, long enough, wouldn't he at least have heard the name? And he's like, he has no awareness. But I feel like with these kinds of guys, oftentimes it's either the casting directors are just like, we have picked actors we think you would like and we'll put them in front of you. And the first time they're ever seeing that person perform is in that audition. Or it is like they've been told that this name is Bankable or you'll hear that they saw one. Weird. I cast them because I saw them on the Tonight show and I thought their interview was funny.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

So when any of these, like more current day actors show up who lynch hasn't worked with before in the Sarah case, I know it was that, right? Some of them I'm like, has he seen Amanda Seyfried in anything?

[David]

Might have.

[Griffin]

Did Amanda Seyfried, like, reach out to her?

[David]

Imagine him watching TV or going to the movies. I'm sure he does it sometimes.

[Griffin]

Did she like reach out to her reps and go, like, anything to be in Mama Mia, I'll audition for anything? Or was he like, I've seen red riding hood 10 times.

[David]

Ben, did you have something to say?

[Ben]

Well, I was going to say, also at the police station, we see Bobby.

[David]

Oh, that's. That's right. That's when that scene is an incredible scene.

[Ben]

I mean, it's the first time that we hear the.

[David]

The. Which is just such a hammer blow. And like, it's what people have been talking about. My love of Dana Ashbrook. And on, I've noticed on like the Reddit and stuff. And it's like, yes, he has a particularly broad thing. It's not like Dana Ashbrook. I look at him and I'm like, wow, Hollywood, like gave up on a big movie star here. I understand that his acting style as Bobby is very big and like, it's very well geared to this show, by.

[Griffin]

The way, but it's so beautiful. A very good career and has kept working consistently. He's one of those guys where it's like, it's not like he disappeared. He works steadily, you know, lots of tv. Yes, he does feel like a perfect fit for this. And it does feel like he is one of these guys who is able to have a foot in multiple spheres simultaneously. He knows how to play to the bigness of Twin Peaks and the emotional realism of Twin Peaks simultaneously. That scene is. I mean, it's not just that the score comes back in, but him sort of being Surprised by how much it can still be emotional.

[David]

It still affects him.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And like.

[Griffin]

And then trying to kind of COVID it and be like, wow, it's just a blast from the past. Like, he's embarrassed that he broke that quickly.

[David]

But it also feels like the show, like this, like vault of light coming through a crack where it's like, yeah, everyone sort of agreed to forget about that. As we talked about with Connor about season two, if you think about how Twin Peaks actually moves quite slowly, like day by day, the whole Cooper Laura thing is just a few months in their lives. Exactly. And it's just like. And then that was that. And Cooper disappeared.

[Griffin]

And also season two, once it solves, Laura's mystery, stops invoking her a lot. Like, if I were to throw out a major ding on season two, it's. I think the most powerful thing about Season Peaks from the onset is there is something about her death that has shaken this entire town to its core.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

It feels representative of like a cultural rot that they've all been ignoring. And everyone is so haunted by it. And then once they solve her murder, it does feel like it's like, well. And on to other weird things in Twin Peaks. So, like him being this affected. Seeing the photo again does feel like there's this reminder of like, this is where this all came together. You know, this is what it was all about at its core.

[David]

It's magnificent.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Some of the other things I want to mention. Yeah. You sort of have Preston and Rosenfeld and Cole going on their mission, but you also have Dougie drinking coffee, doing this sort of like laughing where he has like the tie over his head. His connection with his son, his connection with Sonny Jim. Sonny Jim, his inability to know how to pee. So he has to be like, shown how that works.

[Griffin]

But you've also set up this thing.

[David]

Richie again, Naomi Watts, making scenes that make no sense make sense. Where she's like, ugh. I mean, fine, I'll just take your penis out for you. Basically, like. Like she's just this put upon housewife, like I Love Lucy. Having you be like, ah, Richie, you know, Desi, don't you know how to pee?

[Griffin]

But also he's come home in a limo with this inexplicable bag full of money. A burlepsack full of money that Brett Gelman was loathe to give him is like, I'm gonna fucking. I'm dead. Right? Belushi and his guy come in and beat the shit out of him and fire him immediately. And she's like, oh my God, amazing. We can get ourselves out of this jam, right? This immediate setup of like he was in some financial hole. Everyone's been closing in on them. He now has this like, windfall of money. Everything can be corrected.

[David]

The only problem is he doesn't know how to speak English, right?

[Griffin]

Or go places or open a car door. Do anything, let's say it, do basically anything.

[David]

But he drinks coffee and that does something.

[Griffin]

He loves the coffee. It's a reminder. Much as when they. Someone acknowledges that he is an insurance agent, the word agent rings in his head, right? It's like the Cooper psyche is in there deep down waiting to be activated.

[David]

In episode five, which I'm moving to now, like there's that point where the. His boss is like, here are some case files, case files. So again, it's like, right, like, yeah, that's something in FBI when he stops.

[Griffin]

The assassin and suddenly it's like he has the muscle memory of how to like, like, right. Stop a shooting from.

[David]

And that assassin, by the way, is really normal and not lynching at all. Like to have like a weird little wolverine of a man who's just like.

[Griffin]

Did someone else guest direct to this scene?

[David]

Episode 5 also has a scene that like, so, like I. I watched this show live and I had not really seen it since, apart from in clips, because the show doesn't kind of pervasively exist in that form. Completely forgot about the scene with Candy Clark as Doris, Sheriff Truman's wife, who just comes and fucking harangues him about a leaky pipe in this like black box theater monologue. And the forester just completely impassive, right?

[Griffin]

And then she leaves this thing I've talked about a lot that like lynch can pull off like no one else, which is have a scene with actors in wildly different performance styles in a master shot, somehow feeling intentional. They are in opposite universes.

[David]

It's like Truman seems just like burdened with sadness.

[Griffin]

His brother, we Forster is just all honest presence. Like, that's his whole thing.

[David]

The way they've written off Harry Truman is that he's clearly sick with something. And Truman, you know, Sheriff Truman will just occasionally be like, yeah, he's, you know, he's still fighting, you know, but.

[Griffin]

Like we don't know what phone call scene where you only hear his side of it. And he says, like, just promise me you're going to beat this thing.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Which coming out of Forster is like very emotional, very moving.

[David]

But so he's obviously sad about that. But then he's just also Just feels burdened by all the sadness of the town.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And everyone, all these old characters like Ben Horn, when we see them, it's like, yeah, they just never got over it. The time passed, but he's just still stuck there, like kind of. And it's not like fun anymore.

[Griffin]

Much fun.

[David]

Or you're jacoby and you just went nuts and you just got cold shovels and you're doing your podcast.

[Griffin]

Figured it out.

[David]

Right, right, right. The fucks are at it again. He's right.

[Griffin]

Yeah. That's an incredible sales pitch. No, I was just gonna say, much like the new agent, it does help to have someone in the precinct who is on the side of the old people, but wasn't on the case in the original show. Not as like an entry point for new viewers, but just to sort of re establish things where characters can explain things to him. You know that he has a little bit of a, like one foot in, one foot out awareness of the history. And then that second Candy Clark scene is so devastating where she comes in even hotter but my dad's car isn't working and this and that. That guy is such a fucking good actor. Who was also incredible on Barry, who plays like the asshole new cop who also is the one takes the cash buyout from the smoking guy. Which we need to talk about in a second. My new most evil character in the world of Twin Peaks.

[David]

Yes. So the character you're talking about is Richard.

[Griffin]

Yes. Pin in that for one second. But that scene of her chewing him out and then him just being like, what a fucking hag. What a ball and chain, whatever. And just the immediate, like this thing that lynch is so good at is just like making these like desperate pleas for empathy.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

In a weird way, in a non corny way of just like they are people, they are going through things. Everyone has their pains and they're like suffering like their child killed himself. This will haunt them forever. They're never gonna get over it.

[David]

That's exactly it.

[Griffin]

Yeah. So no one just like turns out some weird way.

[David]

So Richard, the character you're referring to, played by Eamon Farren. Not an actor, he's an Australian actor, but I don't really know him at all. He'd worked. He was in Jennifer Lynch's movie Chained, which I haven't seen. He's got David Lynch's daughter.

[Griffin]

Quite a look.

[David]

The craziest face. So obviously, basically he's his bully face. He is. Is the most evil character.

[Griffin]

It is astonishing.

[David]

In Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Bob is obviously evil as well, but with Bob, you're like, this is a spirit. It's a little bit different. It's not like Bob's someone who can go to a grocery store and be mean to someone. I mean, it's like Richard, like, even Jacques Bruno, right, That's an evil businessman. I get it.

[Griffin]

But he doesn't feel spiritual. He just feels like a terrible person, you know? And even like, Papa Horn. Richard, not Ben Horn. Thank you. Ben Horn has the thing that is so terrifying of like. He is able to put this veneer of like, gentle sophistication, you know?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And class on top of, like, horrible behavior.

[David]

Right. And then Richard, it's like. Right. It's like pure, pure, like, no mask or facade or whatever. It's just like, what if there was the most evil piece of on earth just kind of walking around?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And like.

[Griffin]

And everything about him's awful. That. That first, like, bar cigarette scene.

[David]

Yes. Which starts with just under a smoke, no smoking sign. Smoking.

[Griffin]

Right. This guy's such a dick. And the staff is so pissed off at him. He pays off a cop. Then you see the girls at the booth next to him be kind of turned on by his bad boy attitude. Dude. And he immediately pivots to just the most upsetting behavior.

[David]

I will rape you. Like, it's just not. It's. Again, it's just there's like a blunt, naked, like, evil, like, talked about that.

[Griffin]

Lynch is so good at capturing of, like, these moments in life where reality just suddenly changed. Where you are seeing behavior that is so bizarre that you almost don't know how to process it. Right. And like, her friends sitting at the booth next to it who, like, kind of don't know how to react because they're like, wait, did this guy truly, in 15 seconds say that choking her.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

He's got. And then you cut out of that scene.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And it's so much more disturbing to not have resolution on that.

[David]

You'll sort of get it. But.

[Griffin]

But certainly I'm watching for several episodes after that point. They're not cutting back. The next time we see him, he's just in a truck. And then he does something terrible.

[David]

He runs over a boy.

[Griffin]

Correct.

[David]

With impunity and no remorse.

[Griffin]

Yes. And yells, I told him to move. When he's like, five blocks away.

[David]

This is the only. So, like, again, when this shows show premieres, I see some people being like, gut. There's a lot of, like, sexual violence. There's, like, nastiness in this show. That's like, kind of too Much. I know Twin Peaks was about dark.

[Griffin]

Things, but like also basically the entire David lynch project.

[David]

Right. But like, this is so explicit and intense and someone like Richard, I think especially it's like, do I want to watch this every week? Like, and I remember having that feeling a little bit with like Richard especially where you're just like, I kind of want to go to bed. Like, like having watched, you know, Nelly bake a really good cake on Bake off, like, you know, and make a couple, you know, funny jokes with Noel Fielding. Like, I'm not sure I want to watch like a slab faced evil boy, like running people over.

[Griffin]

Ben's fiance's on Bake Off. Yeah.

[Ben]

I can't believe this hasn't come up sooner.

[Griffin]

I'm actually offended.

[David]

Who is delightful? Who's incredibly delightful?

[Griffin]

Who plays the character? Who did they get in the cast? Cast? She's a, she's a human being, David.

[David]

A real, a wonderful person.

[Griffin]

Flesh and blood. No, I, I think we've talked about a little bit the flip of how you felt by the end of our. Yes. Yeah, I have. I have greatly enjoyed this lynch experience and watching all of these things, both the rewatches and the things for the first time, I, I will be pretty happy to move on from this. It has been an oppressive headspace to stay in.

[David]

Yeah, you're right. And I think the next couple things we're doing are going to be lighter.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Not that there won't be intense stuff in there.

[Griffin]

There is, but it's.

[David]

It's more commercial fare as well.

[Griffin]

Correct. Which is, by the way, conscious on our.

[David]

It's a little conscious.

[Griffin]

Strategic.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But this is definitely, I mean. Yeah. I don't know. David Lynch's work makes me think about the worst parts of humanity a lot in a way that I don't think think feels exploitative or like punishing for like effect. It's really him trying to reckon with.

[David]

These, but it's, it's nursty.

[Griffin]

I can't think of any better way to put it is narcy. And that's what Kaya de Cinema said when they called this the best film of the 2000s.

[David]

So to give you some other things from episode five, I want to mention more on Dr. Jacoby's podcast where he is Dr. Amp, feels like his two listeners are Jerry Horn out in the woods getting high. And Nadine, who basically is just like.

[Griffin]

In love with him, silently loves it. We don't know how long she still is or isn't right or what year.

[David]

She Thinks it is.

[Griffin]

Yeah. David.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That's got to hurt. That's a quip. That's a quip that people make. Or like, do not go in there. That's like another quip. But if they're saying that's got to hurt, maybe they're saying it about root canals. And if they're saying do not go in there, maybe they're saying it about a mouth with a bunch of plaque buildup. My point here is if you want to avoid being the subject of quips like that, maybe you should use our sponsor today Quip.

[David]

Yeah. So why don't you get yourself quip360. It's an oscillating toothbrush. Griffin, that's literally going to revolve around you.

[Griffin]

That's what I like.

[David]

I've been using quip for a long time. But the, the, the, the 360 is the, you know, you know, the kind of like round brush.

[Griffin]

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole thing with, with quip, it's an electric toothbrush that doesn't over complicate the most basic daily ritual. I feel like quip just exists to make this as easy as possible.

[David]

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[Griffin]

It's fine. It's, it's easy to travel with, it is convenient, it's easy to clean, and if you do love it, you can brush easy. Knowing you get a free lifetime warranty for purchasing on GetQuip. That's QIP.com and the opportunity to subscribe to refill heads by mail every three months. So you never have to go to the store. This is a part I like. That's the kind of thing I forget.

[David]

You don't have to go to the store. It just happens. They just send it.

[Griffin]

It shows up and you go, oh, right too.

[David]

I got a bunch of quip stuff sent to me every, you know, few months. It's really, really helpful. They've got 25000 five star reviews and you know, people love quip and they.

[Griffin]

Got a perks program. You know, I love perks programs.

[David]

You do love quip Perks.

[Griffin]

Quip, quip puts. Quip Perks is a little hard to say. I'm going to say that's just for me. Quip puts their money where their mouth is. When you subscribe to Auto Ship, you'll be enrolled and quip perks to earn credit back over time.

[David]

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[Griffin]

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[David]

We have these cuts to the Pentagon where Ernie Hudson plays like a colonel who's like, you know, Major Briggs's fingerprints have just popped up and we have to figure it out.

[Griffin]

I need to pull the brakes for a second. I had this thought every time they cut to Ernie Hudson sitting behind this desk just fucking, just, just like serving me dialogue on like a silver platter, right?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And I feel this every time he shows up for fucking four steady moments in a new Ghostbusters movie. Why is no one writing like the incredible late career part for Ernie Hudson?

[David]

Someone do it.

[Griffin]

This guy.

[David]

He's here. He looks amazing.

[Griffin]

He looks unbelievable. He is like a classically trained, like, titan of an actor who is like, beloved. Anytime he shows up, people are like, oh, yeah, Ernie Hudson, we love him. And, and like, speak a lot of bitterness about the fact that he's basically never been utilized to his full ability throughout his career. And you're like, anyone writes like a meaty, dramatic supporting part for Ernie Hudson in a TV show or a film is going to look like a fucking genius. Like, he has like a Robert Forster, Jackie Brown esque. You could frame him in a way that would feel.

[David]

So you're saying the Frozen Empire didn't do this for you?

[Griffin]

It tried. It got close. I will say the one scene you, you saw Frozen Empire. Yeah, there's the one scene with him and Aykroyd arguing about the running of the business. That I'm like, just by the nature of Ernie Hudson being such a pro and Ackroyd so deeply believing this shit, of course, for like three minutes, you're like, this movie feels like it's about something, even though it's nonsense and it's just These two guys. Ackroyd thinks he's not acting right. He is in a real conversation with his good friend Winston Zettlemore, who he willed into existence. And Ernie Hudson can just sell shit. And I'm looking at Ernie Hudson in this, who basically has to sit behind a desk and go like, good reporting, thank you. Report back with more. And I'm like, this guy is so captivated.

[David]

He is.

[Griffin]

He just speaks with such gentle authority.

[David]

It's the kind of stuff.

[Griffin]

And he looks like $10 billion.

[David]

He certainly looks.

[Griffin]

Do you know how old Ernie Hudson is now?

[David]

70 or something?

[Griffin]

He's like 75 and jacked. Wow.

[David]

Really? Yeah.

[Griffin]

And not like a weird old man jacked, like just.

[David]

He looks just in great shape.

[Griffin]

He's incredible.

[David]

Yeah. I mean, again, right. If Showtime was just like, hey, this has to be 10 episodes. Stuff like Jane Addams and Ernie Hudson, like this sort of random cuts to these sort of procedural workers being like, there's a weird thing with these fingerprints.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Would probably go.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Like the assortment of cops in very. In like Arizona and Vegas and you know, where it's just like, like these great David lynch character actors being like, yeah, I don't know what's going on. That probably all go. But I love it.

[Griffin]

I love it.

[David]

I love sitting in all that. No.

[Griffin]

And I do. I'm repeating myself here. But I do love the thing of like, when a new element or a new world or a new thread is introduced, you have no idea what kind of follow up or continuation you're going to get and when.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

So something like Jane Addams, you're like, I could see this being a character who's in this one episode a lot until they get the conclusive, like findings they need from this autopsy. And instead that's like doled out across the show. Yeah.

[David]

She's kind of in it a fair amount, but just in little bits. Right. Okay. So some things that happen. The biggest thing that happened in episode six is we meet Diane, played by Laura Dern, the person that Dale Cooper talked to on the recording. You know, on his tape, he's always addressing Diane. Here is Diane. This is the one card they play in that kind of legacy. Cool way.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

You know, where you're like, not only are we showing you Diane, but she's played by like David Lynch's muse, Laura Dern.

[Griffin]

A real. Like, how could you ever cast someone who is satisfying in the role of Diane?

[David]

It's like, that's the perfect way.

[Griffin]

It's the perfect one.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And she Is. She's got chip on her shoulder.

[Griffin]

She does.

[David]

Griffin just sent us a picture of her.

[Griffin]

Ben needs to see this. This. This is Ernie Hudson at the Frozen Empire premiere this spring. He is 78 years old.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

Holy.

[Griffin]

Right?

[Ben]

That's crazy.

[Griffin]

And that looks natural. That's not like Stallone muscles.

[David]

No, he's just in. Great, great.

[Griffin]

It doesn't look like he's had work done if he has. It's been very subtle and delicate.

[David]

I don't think he has. I think he just looks good.

[Griffin]

I want to see, like an Ernie Hansen, like, Oneman, like, Broadway show with him melting down.

[David]

Well, I don't know. This is my age inspiration right now, guys. I don't know.

[Griffin]

You just sent one to us.

[David]

I'm gonna send one now. This is the guy I want to.

[Griffin]

Be when I'm Ben. Just the confidence of going to the premiere just wearing jeans and a black T shirt. Yep. And he's like, I gotta show off the guy. David, who are we looking at? What is this photo you just sent us?

[David]

Are you not aware of this?

[Griffin]

No, I don't know. What.

[David]

So that's Frankie Valli.

[Griffin]

Oh, Jesus Christ.

[David]

And there have been. Because he's still on tour. He's 90. Yeah, right. And there are these videos of whatever, you know, where it' basically like these four young men doing the four season stuff where they're, you know, they're all in sync and they're singing and they're singing the old hits. And then he will come out looking this. Honestly, this picture looks pretty good.

[Griffin]

Moving, like, Dougie.

[David]

He looks like a broken Chuck E. Cheese. Animatronic.

[Griffin]

David, I.

[David]

It's like, remember when there was those, like, Prince Philip, like, the last 10 years of his life when he was alive? But you would be like, what's that, like, dead body doing sitting next to the queen, Right?

[Griffin]

Who's. Where are the puppeteers hiding?

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Are they just out of frame?

[David]

And he's kind of like lip sync. It's kind of unclear what he's doing. His mouth is moving to the Frankie Valley parts.

[Griffin]

David, what you just sent me is an upsetting image. The only thing that could make it more upsetting is to imagine the Frankie Valley voice coming out of it. That face with, like, baby.

[David]

That's basically what's going on. I'll show you a video at some point. So weird.

[Griffin]

No, you should.

[David]

It's really fun. Fun.

[Griffin]

This is the thing that happens. I just want people to know. If we talk about an image on an episode that we feel like the other ones need to see. We send it to the blank check group text which Marie is in. And then Marie will just respond with something like I can't wait to find out the.

[David]

What's this?

[Griffin]

Now she's not hearing the conversation. She'll hear it like a month from now. Then she listens to the edit and we send the things that she knows to post them when the episode comes out, but we don't tee them up at all for her. So she just got Jack D. Hudson and Frankie Valley face.

[David]

But the whole thing was like these videos started going around. People were like, this is an elder abuse. So he had to then be like, put out a statement. Being like, no one's making me do this. I like doing. Doesn't look like you like doing it, but okay.

[Griffin]

When I hear about something like this that I've somehow missed, it makes me feel really proud that I'm in a good place.

[David]

You are.

[Griffin]

You're.

[David]

You're doing really well.

[Griffin]

I've been missing. Popped up a lot of bad. There's been a lot of like, you know, this thing and I'm like, I don't know how, but I've actually maybe got my under control Griffin.

[Ben]

That's a great sign.

[Griffin]

Thank you. Been a long process.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But I'm just like. I don't want to be engaging with most of this.

[David]

Sorry, baby. Yeah. So there's. Right. There's this. Part six is I would say one. One of the darkest episodes where Richard runs over the kid with impunity.

[Griffin]

You say run over. He runs through the kid, kills child, mother screaming.

[David]

You know, it's. I don't even really want to talk about it. But there's also.

[Ben]

What's his name?

[David]

Is there.

[Griffin]

We should.

[Ben]

Harry Dean.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Which is like them tying in a fire walk with me only character for the first time.

[David]

Yeah, that's true. I'm trying to think if there's more.

[Griffin]

But another person who's no longer with us, like, yeah, yeah, he died the.

[David]

Year this came out for sure. It's 2017.

[Griffin]

It is crazy how much this show ends up being. Not to repeat myself.

[David]

Well, don't.

[Griffin]

It's sort of like final bow for so many people.

[David]

But yeah. Yeah. And other upsetting stuff that the. The. You know, Truman's wife. Yeah. Like this is just kind of a dark episode. Diane's just like this sort of like clearly kind of fucked up person who's really mad at them. So there's not like that like Immediate.

[Griffin]

Satisfaction, which is the episode that introduces se. And Laundry bag. You have laundry bag ending the worst job interview of all time where a guy's like, your resume sucks.

[David]

Carry on, Caleb. Laundry Jones, of course, is your piece of you dress. They show up in a seems crazy 5.

[Griffin]

I want to say the baseline from Tush sucks. It feels like the. Anyway, that's.

[David]

Do you know. So do you know who Becky is?

[Griffin]

Who Becky is?

[David]

That's Seyfried's character.

[Griffin]

Yes. She is Imagination Ramchik's daughter.

[David]

Right. She is Bobby and Shelley's daughter.

[Griffin]

I've gotten to the end of that.

[David]

Right? Yeah, yeah, because that's what I'm trying. I. In my sort of rewatch, I forget, like, when that information appears or whatever.

[Griffin]

Right. You're in.

[David]

She works at the diner.

[Griffin]

Laundry bag. Then you see Amanda Seyfried coming into the diner asking her mom for money.

[David]

She's stuck with this, like, you know, even worse version of the sort of toxic relationships we saw on the original show.

[Griffin]

Right, right. Are they going to continue to be a part of the story?

[David]

Yeah, they're popping in and out.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I just feel like the shot I knew was the tilting her head back to know him is to love him kind of glow staring at the sky, coked up thing.

[David]

Right, right.

[Griffin]

So when that came so quickly, I was like, is that the end of her stuff? I don't want you to spoil these things.

[David]

No, it's not that.

[Griffin]

Ask questions. No.

[David]

But she's around. Yes, she's absolutely around. Episode seven. I want to think, just take a look at here. Right. So at this point, Hawke finds Laura's diary that's in the bathroom stall. There's this sort of reference to Annie Blackburn, things like that. I guess the point is that these points, parts of the diary which implicate Leland were hidden by Leland in, like.

[Griffin]

One of his interrogation questions.

[David]

Season of Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Right, right. But yeah, Hawke finds it through a series of, like, Native American reappropriation symbolism.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Logos and coins and like these things that are like the cultural sort of commodification of his people leads him straight to this. Yeah. These hidden pages.

[David]

Albert and Gordon work on Diane and basically convince her, like, can you go talk to Cooper? We found Cooper. He's in prison. Like, we need you to identify that this is Cooper.

[Ben]

There's something off about it.

[David]

Right. Diane's like, mega reluctant, but they make her do it.

[Griffin]

They go on the plane, but she's very hostile to. To.

[David]

To Albert especially.

[Griffin]

Yes, yes. And then, yeah, he's like, I have to go back with Cole. They really Implore her. And then that scene is so upsetting where you just see immediately her clock that something's wrong. She's got this test in her mind of, like, when was the last time we saw each other? And even when he seemingly kind of answers correctly, she knows it's not him.

[David]

I mean, it's very, very upset.

[Griffin]

Dern is the best.

[David]

She is the best. And then we have Cooper. Just the way Cooper talks in his, like, creepy kind of like, hello, it's good to see you again. You know, like, it's so pitch down.

[Griffin]

It sounds like imposed, especially when he's behind the glass. But you also, you already have the thing of him asking for his phone call and calling the number that makes the security system short circuit. And then saying the Mr. Strawberry thing that clearly, like, terrifies the warden. You have this sense of like, he has a plan for how to get out of here.

[David]

Of course. Something about a strawberry.

[Griffin]

Mr. Strawberry.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And so that's going along, but very.

[Griffin]

Shortly after the Diane conversation where she says, like, there's something missing here that's not the same person. Then bad coop, Mr. C. Makes his, like, very quiet escape, right. Which is basically tells the guard to tell the warden he wants to talk about Strawberry, goes in and says, like, I'm not gonna talk about it, but I'm gonna tell you what I'm not talking about.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And if you don't want me to talk about it more. That's the other part. The fucking dogleg thing. When they arrest him, they find the one dog leg in the car and they're like, what the fuck is this? And he's like, that dog leg wasn't coincidental.

[David]

There's three other legs sent to other people who know about you or whatever.

[Griffin]

They will be sent if you don't release me. And then he just drives away with his buddy, right? Yeah.

[David]

Pretty weird in my opinion.

[Griffin]

No. Good.

[David]

And what else do we have going on? This. This is right? This is where Ike, the Spike, the. The strange little assassin, very normal assassin, tries to kill.

[Griffin]

Well, does kill the other woman, given the two photos.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And Dougie stops him by, like, going into, like, muscle memory.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

At one point, the tree pops out and is like, squeeze his hand off.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

It's kind of cool.

[Griffin]

But you also have the thing when he's assassinating the first woman and going through all the other people in the office who are witnesses.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Where he, like, bends his assassin spike.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

He's got his like, what? Like, what is it? Is it like a letter Opener or like, an ice pick.

[Ben]

It's an ice pick.

[David]

Yeah. It's like an ice pick. Exactly.

[Griffin]

That's like a neat, wooden carved handle. Yeah.

[David]

Right, right, right. Yeah. We haven't talked about. I guess that's all the big stuff. Right. We haven't talked about, like, that most episodes end with a musical performance at the Roadhouse.

[Griffin]

Disconnected and does feeling. There's a little, like, David lynch playlist. Like, here are some artists I like.

[David]

I think that kind of is it. But there is also just this thing of, like, we're seeing the townspeople. Like, we're seeing characters we know. We're also seeing characters we don't know who turn out to not matter. Like, sometimes we're just sort of, like, in. On a conversation for a minute between some girlfriends, and we're like, who are these people? And it's like, don't worry about it. It's just like Twin Peaks kind of like chunders on, even though, like.

[Griffin]

But it's all part of.

[David]

All these years have passed.

[Griffin]

The deliberate disorientation of. It's like training you out of trying to make this show conform to normal television narrative expectations. Right. Like, you need to stop looking at every single thing as a clue. There's a certain part of me that thinks. I mean, part of it is just him evolving as an artist and being interested in different things. Right. But there's the thing at the beginning of Fire Walk With Me where Lynch is literally, like, creating this woman who does a pantomime of clues that are meant to be deciphered as to what the case is. The thing with his.

[David]

Yeah, the interpretive dance woman. I love her.

[Griffin]

Right. That felt like him mocking people, wanting to, like, solve Twin Peaks.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And he didn't overanalyze you.

[David]

Just look at the clues. Right. It's all there.

[Griffin]

Rather than this doing the mocking. It's like there are scenes in this that are in this just because I think they're interesting. Not all of this is like building to a codex.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That you need to use to decipher it.

[David]

No, it's not.

[Ben]

I'm realizing something we haven't touched upon and we don't have to spend that much time, but just the money that Dougie owes. That whole little subplot where there are the two hitmen who put a bomb under his car.

[David]

The kid explores it, and you're like, the kid's going to blow up, and then he doesn't.

[Ben]

Instead, it's like carjackers get exploded, and then Jeremy Davies.

[Griffin]

Who's that Jeremy Davies, one of our twitchiest actors was Faraday on Lost and was in Saving Private Ryan. And he. He's the one with the crazy hair who goes to meet her at the playground to get the money in this guy. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Nice.

[David]

Yeah, Just popping in.

[Griffin]

The Naomi Watts performance was just so good. But her fucking monologue where she convinces these guys to accept her terms.

[David]

Right. Again, just force of nature kind of stuff.

[Griffin]

And the same thing happens with the investigators who come to check in on the exploded car at Dougie's office. This where she's able to just talk these people down, but she's also able to like, weirdly contextualize Dougie, you know?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

He can say his two elusive things. People are like, what the. And then she comes in, she's like, you don't understand what our life is like. The other scene, that is unbelievable. I mean, I shouldn't say the other scene, a scene we have not talked about that is unbelievable is Dougie coming into his boss with all the folders where he's done the doodles. And his boss is like, how am I supposed to make sense of this? And Dougie just repeats, make sense of this. And then he looks at it and this guy gives this fucking unbelievable performance. Checking the notes back and it dawning on him like, oh, my God, it all makes sense. And it's a great lynching.

[David]

What happens over and over again.

[Griffin]

He doesn't explain what has now become clear to him, but he's like, this is a stunt.

[David]

He's just someone.

[Griffin]

I can't believe I was.

[David]

Sit down and think about things.

[Griffin]

He drew a staircase, moving from one line down to the other.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And now I see these things so clearly.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

So, yeah. I feel like now that I've gone through these episodes before episode eight, we really are just completely grasping in the darkness.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Like, if you're. If you're watching this show, you understand that evil Cooper is out there and you understand that good Cooper's kind of trapped in this body. You also are beginning to understand that the show is definitely not just going to be about. About sheriffs and deputies and Twin Peaks solving mysteries.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

But you don't really know anything else about what the. Is going on long term in this show.

[Griffin]

No, you.

[David]

I guess it's just like. It's a lot of plot lines, but even some of them, you're like, I don't see where they're. How they're tying into other stuff. Right. You're just kind of like, I guess.

[Ben]

We'Re just The Las Vegas.

[David]

Right. Like, what's this gonna be?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then. And that's probably just by design, obviously, but it does mean that episode eight, which is not like an episode that explains what's been happening, but why it hits in this kind of crystal way where you're like, suddenly it's like a mission statement episode about this season and this show.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

And like, Bob and what @ the core of Twin Peaks. And it feels like lynch and Frost doing that more than they do. It's kind of what you're talking about, but it's not really about Native American, you know, sort of heritage or anything like that. It's a little bit of that. You'll see. You haven't seen it?

[Griffin]

No, I haven't seen it.

[David]

Do you know anything about it?

[Griffin]

I know it's the atomic bomb episode.

[David]

Right. So you know that.

[Griffin]

Look, I was. Unlike now when I am healthy and good and in control. I was way too online at the time that this show was airing. And so I just remember reading so many fucking tweets of, like, live watching and immediate responses. I was very fascinated by just watching people talk about the show.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Not in, like, a spoiler sense. I wasn't reading, like, full. People floundering, trying to recap it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But just the sort of like, holy shit of like, Wally Brando or whatever. I remember that episode seeing the wave of people being like, David lynch just, like, rewrote the rules of television. This episode changes everything. Not just within Twin Peaks, but, like, this medium. Yeah. And I feel like you've talked about this, but that this was a point in time where it felt like TV is in some transitional stage. Is it about to evolve into something much more interesting? And it feels like we've gotten stuck in an absolute dead end of television.

[David]

And it's partly because nobody actually gets to make TV Like, David lynch got to make this.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Like, most people aren't being given a true blank check by a network of like. Yeah, it can be as long as you want with as many people as you want.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Here's another thing. I was talking to my brother, James Newman, past and future guys, about a prestige TV show he is watching that is similarly directed by one auteur filmmaker.

[David]

Uhhuh.

[Griffin]

And was complaining that he's like, this really just feels like he couldn't figure out how to edit the script down to a movie. Like, one episode ends because an hour is up and the next episode starts immediately where the last episode ended.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And they're just credits tacked on to the beginning and end of every hour. Like what are we even doing here, here? And as much as he did not design these as like separate episodes in the scripting stage or the shooting stage, it sounds like. And as much as it's not like each episode resolves its own thematic concerns, each episode does in these first seven at least I know eight's going to be very much its own thing.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

Each episode does feel like a piece.

[David]

It's really well done in that way.

[Griffin]

Of this doesn't just feel like a fucking.

[David]

It doesn't end abruptly. I think that's one. The musical performances really help with that as well. And sort of like decompressing you. But there's like a tension.

[Griffin]

Just wait till next editing and construction and sort of rhythm and flow and mood and tone of these things where I'm like. What I like about it is that it doesn't feel like he's trying to do a movie as much as he maybe talks about it that way. You know. And I'm sure if you watch all 18 hours straight through and you cut the credits out, maybe it plays differently. But I'm like, I think these things have inherent value as one hour chunks. I know the first four were aired as to two hour chunks. But like all of this. Yeah. It works in whatever form.

[David]

Trying to find like the ratings. I know that's kind of not that helpful.

[Griffin]

I did see on the Wikipedia there was the hyperlink to the deadline piece of the first.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Episode not living up to expectations.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

I mean it's like a funny article to read where they're like much higher expectations for the return of a cult.

[David]

Legacy show debut for Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay. I have found that article.

[Griffin]

Okay. Can you just find.

[David]

Got a point to. In the demo.

[Griffin]

Any ratings list from that?

[David]

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to look for here. Deadline's not exactly the most useful on this front. There's just not anyone that keeps like a clean database of this stuff.

[Griffin]

That's weird because in every other sense the Nielsen ratings make perfect sense. Are flawless.

[David]

It's another thing Conan talked about recently on an episode where he would be like, we realized like that the demo fluctuating for us would be like six people with Nielsen boxes at one in the morning. Like just not turning their TV on that day like it was. The sample was so small.

[Griffin]

Is insane. That for decades the way television success was measured was they would just randomly write to certain people and be like, congratulations, you've been selected to choose to receive a new Box. And by the way, you have to keep a detailed diary of what you're watching and when and which member of your family is watching it. And then they'd get the reporting back from those people on honor system that they were reporting things accurately. And they would extrapolate from that. Well, if 30% of the families we sent boxes to are doing this, a probably means 30% of America is watching the same thing. That's.

[David]

That's how they did it.

[Griffin]

It's insane.

[Ben]

Makes no sense.

[Griffin]

And now we have all of our television in a way that is very easy to track. Like you can get hard ass data and all the companies are like, we're not really. I mean, seconds watched over years.

[David]

All right, maybe this is something.

[Griffin]

Just give me something.

[David]

All I ask is broken websites. Jesus Christ. Interactive TV ratings database. Help me out here, please.

[Griffin]

Please help the man out.

[David]

You know what? We're just doing the top 10 shows of 2017 right now.

[Griffin]

Great.

[David]

Okay, I'll think of other things. Maybe if I can find them later. But Twin Peaks didn't crack this sadly. And I'm. You know, it's kind of annoying what the number one show of 2017 was.

[Griffin]

It's kind of annoying.

[David]

Well, because it's just Sunday Night Football. It's always annoying when it's just that.

[Griffin]

That's very annoying.

[David]

But. All right, but what's number two?

[Griffin]

Number two? Is it the long running theory?

[David]

The Big Bang Theory?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay, what's number three? Newer procedural drama I think just recently ended its run.

[Griffin]

Blue Bloods.

[David]

No, that is not on the top 10.

[Griffin]

Is it an NCIS?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Is it a Chicago?

[David]

No, it's not part of a series.

[Griffin]

It's. It's a total standalone.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And it just ended.

[David]

Yeah, it just ended its seventh season. This is its first season.

[Griffin]

Weird. It's not the Good Doctor.

[David]

It is the Good Doctor.

[Griffin]

The Good Doctor, that was the number.

[David]

Three show on tv.

[Griffin]

It was huge.

[David]

He was a good doctor.

[Griffin]

Yeah. This is another fascinating thing. That show was huge. It obviously like, you know, its peak was early, but it stayed big. The financials of television are so fucked that the show ended season seven basically because they were like, it is impossible for this show to stay profitable.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Like the old systems in place of how much actors get raises, the longer shows get go on and when they have to renegotiate contracts, they're now at like a perfect like sort of bottleneck of the show is so successful that they can't argue that there isn't room to give them raises. But Also, if they give them raises, the show no longer makes money because the value of a show is so dispersed now.

[David]

Speaking of.

[Griffin]

And like every year, just ad sales money goes down. Anyway, go on.

[David]

Number four. Spin off of a sitcom.

[Griffin]

Young Sheldon.

[David]

Young Sheldon.

[Griffin]

Sheldon Burn.

[David]

Also recently ended. Correct.

[Griffin]

Yeah, finally did. Now, there's a spin off that people think is problematic.

[David]

Zygo. Sheldon.

[Griffin]

No, it's Sheldon's brother in law.

[David]

Oh, boy.

[Griffin]

I'm not kidding. It's. It's Sheldon's sister's first.

[David]

Margie and Mandy's first marriage.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Jesus. Okay, number five, give me something big running show, procedural. You've already mentioned it.

[Griffin]

I have. Is it Blue Bloods?

[David]

Nope.

[Griffin]

Is it. Is it Law N. Law and Order?

[David]

Nope.

[Griffin]

Is it Mothership? Ncis.

[David]

It is Mothership. Original brand ncis. Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

[Griffin]

Which now they're doing a prequel show about young Mark Harmon.

[David]

Good.

[Griffin]

Yeah, great.

[David]

Just NCIS Origins. You're right.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Starring Austin Stowell.

[Ben]

It's naval.

[David]

They do naval crimes. It's a JAG spinoff. People forget that NCIS is a spin off of the show. Jag.

[Griffin]

I never forget.

[David]

I know you don't. I know you don't. Jag. Jag. Which is one of those shows when I was a kid where I was like, this is just like for. For grownups.

[Griffin]

Yeah, Like.

[David]

Like who are boring. Like, that's what that show is.

[Griffin]

There was like a run of like two or three years on SNL where sketches kept making references to Katherine Bell from JAG as, like the hotte in the world. Like, they used her as, like, placeholder. Hot woman.

[David]

She was hot.

[Griffin]

Where I was a clearly one writer at SNL has a huge thing. This keeps coming up.

[David]

Number six, big drama. That was a big hit. Big buzzy drama. Network drama.

[Griffin]

Are you being facetious?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Is it the Good Wife?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Bigger than that.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Way bigger.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Buzzy. And it's ended since.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Where was it in its life? At the this point?

[David]

It would have been.

[Griffin]

I don't need hard numbers.

[David]

Just give me kind of like this is the end of its first season, I think.

[Griffin]

Oh, wow. This was the start.

[David]

It ran for six seasons.

[Griffin]

Is it how to Get Away with Murder?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Is it a Shonda? No, it's not. It doesn't take. It's not within shonda land.

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Well, don't get angry at me. I think that's a fair question. It's not my fault. You need to poop again.

[David]

I don't, actually. It went away.

[Griffin]

What a twist. Much like Twin Peaks of Return. Sometimes you are feel guaranteed need that a thread.

[David]

All right. I don't even know why we're doing number six. We don't usually do that.

[Griffin]

We're going to eight this time. Number six. It just ended. It was buzzy. This was season one.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Was it an Emmy player as well?

[David]

Yeah. It won Emmys.

[Griffin]

What network was it on?

[David]

NBC. It was the rare. Yes, yes. The rare network drama that actually was like, an awards player. Bad show, I think, but lots of good acting and crying and stuff.

[Griffin]

Anytime I would just read a headline about, like, shocking twist and this week's this is Us, and I'd click the deadline for the explanation. I'm like, I swear to you, every twist on this show is you're introduced to a character, and at the end of the episode, they revealed that character is related to something else.

[David]

That is. I think what the show kept doing.

[Griffin]

Was a different character at a different age.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Yeah. That man just loves the like. Oh, well, of course. You're a bunch of disconnected characters that have nothing to do with each other. Twist. They're married. That's not a twist. You're just telling us stuff in the wrong order.

[David]

Number seven is a reality competition program.

[Griffin]

It's not American Idol.

[David]

The Voice? No.

[Griffin]

No. Is it H. Dancing with the Stars?

[David]

Nope.

[Griffin]

Survivor.

[David]

America's Got Talent. America's Got Talent.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Kind of the one people forget about, but was obviously a big deal.

[Griffin]

It still is.

[David]

And number eight is the only cable show on the top ten.

[Griffin]

The Walking Dead.

[David]

Correct. Which was a phenomenon unlike any other in terms of. Right. It was a basic cable show that did network hit numbers.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

It's crazy.

[Ben]

They still have, like, new offspring.

[David]

Yeah. Now it's like Walking Dead, the one time they went down this road at that point, these three characters are there. What do they do? I don't. They fucking fight zombies, bro. It's always the same shit. What do you think they do?

[Griffin]

They're like.

[David]

They're dirty.

[Griffin]

They're fighting Atlanta. Yes. I think there's one that is Walking Dead. Colon. Daryl Colon. Terry. Yes.

[David]

That's what I'm saying. Like, it's literally becoming just kind of like these two characters.

[Griffin]

But wasn't Fear the Walking Dead created for, like, eight seasons?

[David]

I know, yeah. And I watched at least two of them. I was kind of into that show.

[Griffin]

I mean, had an incredible cast.

[David]

Yeah. Kim Dickens and Coleman Domingo. Reuben Blades.

[Griffin]

Yes. Cliff Curtis. That show was like, day one, Right. It was like, this is like boots on the ground.

[David]

The start that was taking you back to the start with new people. Yes.

[Griffin]

Right. And then they did a show that was like, latchkey kids in the middle.

[David]

Yeah. Is that World Beyond?

[Griffin]

I think. And then now there's like.

[David]

Yeah, I don't know, man. There's one. There was like a Negan spin off, right. With Lauren Cohen and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

There was one that was Daryl. That one's still going, I think. And then there's the one that's, you know, Rick and Michonne.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Doing their own kind of thing where they just, like.

[Griffin]

But they're all, like, now filling in different timeline gaps.

[David]

I don't. I don't know. Like, that's the simple fact of the matter.

[Griffin]

Maybe dossier.

[David]

I have no idea.

[Griffin]

Maybe Dossier for next episode. Maybe jj.

[David]

Right. Fill us in on the chronology of the Walking Dead and its seven spin offs. Yeah. The other shows in the top ten are Another Day of America's Got Talent and Bull.

[Griffin]

Bull. Remember Bull?

[David]

Bull.

[Griffin]

Bull.

[David]

Is that still on?

[Griffin]

No, I think ended. Bull had a lot of.

[David]

Just ended.

[Griffin]

Just ended. Had a lot of lawsuits around it that it survived, but it finally ended.

[David]

Yeah, it was certainly surrounded. No, not just. It ended in 2022.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Yeah. Yeah. So there you go.

[Griffin]

There you go.

[David]

But, yeah, just crazy thing about the Good Doctor we will be talking about.

[Griffin]

Look, the number one takeaway from this, our episode on the first seven chapters of Twin Peaks, the Return, is that it's crazy to think about the good Doctor. What if a doctor was good and.

[David]

Conan, you know, give it a rest, man. You've had a great career. No, I'm joking. We love you, Conan. Come on the show, Conan.

[Griffin]

So I'll make some friends. Maybe the podcast format's not how you're going to make friends. Maybe go to a bar, bring a book with you, wait for someone to strike up a conversation.

[David]

No. And say, he's got to talk to Jack White.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I bet that one's going to bear fruit Root. Look, Conano is old.

[David]

He doesn't have space in his life for you to be his friend.

[Griffin]

You've known Jack white for, like, 20 years. If you were gonna become friends, it would have happened by now. You've done a bunch of projects together and you're not friends.

[David]

It's so funny how it was initially him, like, I'm talking to interesting people. And now it's like, so I hear you have a TV show. Well, she's like, obviously.

[Griffin]

It's like the show originally was, do I have friends who aren't in show business? And are show business friends real? I'm gonna have people on who I have a history with.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And interrogate. Are we actually friends?

[David]

And then after 20 episodes, it just became the WTF. Right? Two. WTF two.

[Griffin]

Yeah. To be fair, we both enjoy the show.

[David]

I love it. I listen to it every week and it's really well done.

[Griffin]

Although, can I, can I throw out a complaint? It's a sloppy feed.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

It's one of those things.

[David]

Too much.

[Griffin]

It's basically now composed of four different shows, but did you listen to the.

[David]

One where it's him and Jordan Schlansky at a each other's throats for an hour? It's really funny. Great.

[Griffin]

But I'm also like, having a hard time keeping track of, like. Yeah, because there's Conor. Br needs a friend. Conan. Brian needs a fan. Then the. The campfire ones. Yeah, yeah, they had the carvey ones, which then I guess basically kind of indirectly turn into fly in the. It's like the Walking Dead. Yeah, it's like the Walking.

[David]

Join us next week for episode eight of Twin Peaks, the Return.

[Griffin]

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for helping to produce the show, AJ McKeon for editing and being our production coordinator. JJ Birch for our research, Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon Blank Check special feature where we are finishing up our series on Andrew Lloyd Webber leading up to a big end of year Cats bash. A Jellicle ball, if you will. So check that out. And as always, Ernie Hudson, 78, still looking hot as hell.