Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 14-18) with Jane Schoenbrun

Summary

Podcast Summary: Blank Check with Griffin & David – "Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 14-18)" Featuring Jane Schoenbrun

Introduction In this engaging episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David, produced by Blank Check Productions and hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims, the hosts delve deep into the concluding episodes (14-18) of "Twin Peaks: The Return." Joined by special guest Jane Schoenbrun, the conversation explores the intricate layers, character developments, and thematic resolutions crafted by the enigmatic director David Lynch. Released on December 22, 2024, this episode offers listeners a comprehensive analysis of one of television’s most talked-about finales.

Overview of Twin Peaks: The Return Griffin opens the discussion by highlighting the unique branding of the series, noting its distinction from traditional seasons:

“[05:00] Griffin: ...this is never called season three. It’s its own show, using the Twin Peaks intellectual property but presented as a brand new television show.”

David elaborates on the contractual nuances that define the series' identity, drawing parallels with other reboots and miniseries:

“[05:44] David: ...contractual things about making it exist as its own piece of television rather than a direct continuation of the first two seasons.”

Character Analysis and Plot Points

Sarah Palmer and Her Evolution The conversation delves into the transformation of Sarah Palmer, a character steeped in trauma and darkness from the original series:

“[22:53] Ben: ...externally, how devastating and empathetic Cheryl Lee’s portrayal is in capturing Sarah Palmer as a monster.”

Cooper’s Duality and Mr. C A significant portion of the discussion focuses on Agent Cooper’s complex return, embodying both his original self and the dark doppelgänger, Mr. C:

“[38:27] Griffin: ...Mr. C is just like, what if Bob was in Cooper's body?”

Freddy and New Antagonists Introducing new characters like Freddy, the episode explores the infusion of fresh threats while maintaining the show's eerie essence:

“[39:05] Ben: Freddy was also a fan favorite in my home.”

Themes and Insights

Nostalgia vs. Innovation David reflects on the show's balance between honoring its legacy and pushing narrative boundaries:

“[18:27] Ben: It feels like David Lynch is in conversation with the memory of his filmography and of Twin Peaks.”

Unresolved Questions and Open-Endedness The hosts express their fascination and frustration with the show’s choice to leave many plot threads unresolved:

“[38:08] David: ...half a way to believing in how these lingering questions are part of the show’s intricate tapestry.”

Emotional and Psychological Depth The discussion underscores the series' exploration of deep psychological themes, particularly through characters like Sarah Palmer:

“[50:15] Griffin: 'People are under a lot of stress,' delivered beautifully, highlighting the show's enduring themes.”

Concluding Thoughts

Final Impressions and Legacy As the episode winds down, Griffin and David share their mixed feelings about the finale's enigmatic nature, acknowledging both its brilliance and the lingering sense of unease it leaves:

“[84:12] David: 'Yes, Yes. But there's something more profound and upsetting about Mr. C's portrayal.'”

Jane Schoenbrun adds her perspective on how the show’s ending resonates on a personal and cultural level, emphasizing the enduring impact of Lynch's storytelling:

“[86:43] Griffin: 'Jane, if you have any thoughts on Freddy, we’d love to hear them.'”

Conclusion This episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David masterfully navigates the labyrinthine finale of "Twin Peaks: The Return," offering listeners a nuanced understanding of its characters, themes, and unresolved mysteries. Through insightful dialogue and thoughtful analysis, Griffin, David, and Jane Schoenbrun illuminate the complexities of David Lynch’s final foray into the Twin Peaks universe, leaving fans both satisfied and contemplative about the series' enduring legacy.

Notable Quotes:

• Griffin (05:46): “In a way that probably has to do with not carrying over certain people.”
• David (18:27): “This is a rare kind of thing where you can watch this at a young age, it can impact you in that way, and then you can revisit as an adult.”
• Ben (22:53): “There’s a degree of complicity that eats at her, and a degree of genuine victimization.”
• Griffin (38:38): “It's like, I do get a sense of just, like, he kind of wants Big Ed and Norma to get together unencumbered.”

Timestamped Highlights:

• [05:00] Introduction to Twin Peaks: The Return’s unique branding.
• [22:53] Analysis of Sarah Palmer’s transformation.
• [38:08] Discussion on Cooper’s duality and Mr. C.
• [50:15] Highlighting the emotional delivery of themes.
• [84:12] Final thoughts on Mr. C’s portrayal.
• [86:43] Guest perspectives on new characters like Freddy.

Recommendation for Listeners: For fans seeking a deeper understanding of "Twin Peaks: The Return," this episode provides a thorough and engaging exploration of its final chapters. Even for newcomers, the thoughtful breakdown of characters and themes offers valuable insights into David Lynch's complex narrative tapestry.

Transcript

[Griffin]

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blank. Jack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blake. Jack has to take me out.

[David]

What podcast is this?

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

That's what you told me.

[Griffin]

I think that's what you should do. It doesn't matter. We have to talk about this.

[David]

Never say it doesn't matter. Never say it.

[Griffin]

Sometimes I think the opening quote we pick doesn't totally matter.

[David]

I think it matters so much. Weird. I've never gotten that vibe from you that you think it doesn't matter.

[Griffin]

Just sometimes we spend 20 minutes. Not 20 minutes.

[David]

We've never spent 20 minutes. We've never spent twenty minutes. I think it matters. Beginnings are important. We're here with a storyteller.

[Jane]

Do you want to take it again?

[David]

No, no, absolutely not. Beginnings are important. Right?

[Griffin]

Sure.

[Ben]

Well, it's actually all the beginning and end.

[David]

Hear that, David?

[Griffin]

Those are the things people remember the most.

[David]

The quotes and the end, as always. That's the rule of storytelling. Yeah.

[Griffin]

How does TV glow begin? What's the first shot of TV glow?

[Ben]

First shot of TV glow is slow. Pan down that street, you get the ice cream truck.

[Griffin]

You need a good opening.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The rest of it, who cares?

[Griffin]

People have already filed their letterbox review. At that point, they just get their phone out. Like four stars. Pretty good.

[David]

Yeah. Right? They've taken out their phones. Yeah. They photographed the title card, they've logged it on, letterboxd, they've sang along and they've walked out after 30 minutes. The state of Mogone 2024.

[Griffin]

Did you. Did anyone go to a Wicked screening where people sang along? I did not experience that.

[David]

I saw Wicked, of course. In 40x, where I think physically the.

[Griffin]

Chairs are singing along. Right.

[David]

Have you seen Wicked, James?

[Ben]

I have not seen Wicked yet. I literally have asked all of my friends to see Wicked with me and no one wants to go. So I'm going to see Wicked alone.

[David]

I think the people won't stop singing during Wicked. Shit is a little bit of like, there are murders happening every two steps in New York City story, you know?

[Griffin]

Go ahead.

[David]

I think there's an overstatement of how much this is like an epidemic.

[Ben]

There's also, like movies where you want the audience to be shouting at you.

[Griffin]

Want rowdiness.

[Ben]

Yeah, absolutely.

[David]

Yeah. I think the mistake was not simultaneously releasing a sing along cut, which I just saw there. Now, from this day on, right, that's what we'll be playing 100% will there.

[Griffin]

Be a little broomstick that, like, touches all the letter, all the words?

[David]

I assume so, yeah. Or a grim word. What's the grimmery?

[Griffin]

Grimmery.

[David]

A little grimmery. This is stuff you don't know, Jane. You have an open book.

[Ben]

I know very little about the plot of Wicked, and I'm so excited because I love lore, you know, Fuck, then.

[Griffin]

You will like it.

[David]

You're gonna.

[Griffin]

Because Wicked, the book, especially. But the musical, too, is basically like, I feel like there's more opportunity to plumb this lore, guys, and make up our own lore and kind of put it on top.

[David]

You want shit explained.

[Ben]

And I am also a big fan of Return to Oz.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You guys have seen oh, love.

[Griffin]

Return to Oz, I think a movie we'd love to cover somehow.

[Ben]

Soul directing.

[Griffin]

Soul directing credit. But obviously we could do an Oz series before.

[David]

Previously would have included Oz the Great and Powerful, which now we've covered through Raimi, but we could include Wickedness. That's right.

[Ben]

That's Sam Raimi, huh?

[David]

Yeah, unfortunately.

[Griffin]

Have you seen us? The Green Power.

[Ben]

No, I can't say I have. Has the lore.

[David]

The lore's bad.

[Griffin]

The lore is awful and unfortunate because it should be all lore.

[David]

That's part of the huge failure.

[Griffin]

That's another attempt to be like, let's explain why the Wicked Witch is the way she is.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Coming from a completely different direction. Her tears hurt her face because she's allergic to water.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I mean, just like Bruce Willis in glass.

[David]

Exactly like Bruce Willis and glass.

[Griffin]

Does glass ever address that? Bruce Willis could hurt himself by crying. Does that come up?

[David]

No. He's an emotional guy. David Dunn.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I feel like you never see him sob, but he's often kind of, like, right there.

[Ben]

But he can drink water, right?

[Griffin]

Well, this is a good question.

[David]

They call out in the movie, you drink it too fast, you choke.

[Ben]

Oh.

[Griffin]

Oh, my God.

[Ben]

Which is true.

[Griffin]

I mean, of anybody, I guess. I mean, how fast are we talking? Like a fire hose. Like, what do you feel like?

[David]

I think with him, we have to remember. Spoilers. This man died in a puddle. I don't think. I think he could drink water pretty slowly and still make him choke.

[Griffin]

What's our podcast?

[David]

This is Blank. Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[Griffin]

I'm David.

[David]

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. We are concluding.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Resolving. We're answering all questions.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

No mysteries unsolved at the end of this miniseries about the films and TV of David lynch called Twin Pods Fire Cast with me, of course, Today we are covering the last five episodes of Twin the Return, sometimes called Twin, a limited series, never called season three. Well, no, this is the thing. It's never called that. And I saw people on the Reddit asking why. And even they announced they're doing a reissue of the Blu Ray. And the wording on the box is very weird. People are like, why is it like this? Almost definitely contractual things about making it exist as its own piece of television rather than a direct continuation of the first two seasons.

[Griffin]

An ABC show, sure.

[David]

In a way that probably has to do with not carrying over certain people. I don't know. Someone was calling out a lot of these, like the Gilmore Girls, Netflix season, these things. A year in the life, these many years later, produced for a different platform or network revivals that have a different subtitle. They get to be like, this is its own show. This is a show that is using the intellectual property, but it's a brand new television show and we decide which gets carried along.

[Ben]

In this case, kind of works.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I mean, this is the most. This is the case of like, yeah, it's Twin Peaks season three. But unlike seasons one and two, you know, there's boobs, which is the only difference.

[David]

I'd say that's. I'm trying to think butts. You do see butts. So maybe those are the two differences.

[Griffin]

It would just be funny if Lynch Gibney was like, there's tits. We get to have tits in Showtime.

[Ben]

I was watching these episodes with friends and my roommate who had never seen Twin Peaks, but actually that day had been like, I think I might start watching Twin Peaks.

[David]

Oh, wow.

[Ben]

She came in and sat down and watched 17 and 18 with us and she was like, is this what the old one is like?

[Griffin]

And what did you say?

[Ben]

We were like, no, not really at all. Like, the old. The old one's like, like, like cozy, let's say.

[David]

Our guest today, very excited and talking about things our listeners ask about online. It wasn't even a, like, suggestion, demand thing. I've started to see people be like, man, it'd be cool if they got Jane Schoenbrunn to do a Twin Peaks episode.

[Griffin]

Would be cool.

[David]

Would be cool. And guess what? Fucking did.

[Ben]

Right. Right under the wire.

[David]

Happening right under the wire. Incredible filmmaker, I think a filmmaker you and I are constantly very excited by and talk about as like, yeah.

[Griffin]

Yes, I'm a huge fan.

[David]

Yes, a very early booster.

[Griffin]

Whatever.

[David]

No, but I feel like you, you were talking up.

[Griffin]

No, I feel on the spot.

[Ben]

They're like, they're like, they're like, hey, Jane, here's your. Here's your blank check. And I'm like. Actually says $50 on this check.

[Griffin]

You've written a number here.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Jane Schoenbrunn, filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow. One of my favorite movies of the year. We're all going the World's Fair and Twin Peaks. The Returned mega fan. Is that fair to say?

[Ben]

I often describe Twin the return as the highlight of my adult life pre transition.

[Griffin]

I think when we last spoke, we definitely discussed the return briefly. I. I know, I know. It's on your site. And sound top 10 as well, right?

[Ben]

I think so, yeah.

[Griffin]

Pretty sure. Let me find it. So, you know, I knew you were a fan.

[Ben]

I'm trying to be in discourse, you know. Yeah, it's not my 1010 favorite. No, I know my sight and sound. But you try to. Try to say like hey guys, check this out.

[Griffin]

You had a really cool. Is it Speed Racer, is it TV.

[Ben]

Or is it movie?

[David]

Well, it's provocative conversation. Okay, well give me the full 10.

[Griffin]

Oh, oh, sure. Meshes of the afternoon, which rocks. If people have never seen that, you know, is it tv, is it short film or is it feature film? Cares.

[Ben]

A lot of these are movies that I want to be released officially on Blu Ray. This is.

[David]

This is a chess move.

[Ben]

This was a chess move.

[Griffin]

There's the Friend's House Kami movie that I love. The Quinn street son I've never seen.

[Ben]

There you go, cuz it's not. Not really available.

[Griffin]

Is it a rise or Riche?

[Ben]

I think it's a riche.

[Griffin]

Yes. Ariche movie. Heinz. How do you say. How do you pronounce it? Hyenas. Yeah, totally fucked up.

[Ben]

The Ragaraka movie, which at the time was not. Not really bad.

[Griffin]

Oh.

[David]

And now at least by Criterion. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Welcome to the Terror Drone. Which I've never seen.

[Ben]

Check it out.

[Griffin]

You would love to check that out early. Saffron Burrows. What happened to Saffron Burrows?

[David]

Great question.

[Griffin]

Great, great. Okay, well, you guys figure it out.

[David]

Let's pin that for later.

[Griffin]

A movie, I am going to assume. Oh, August in the Water. I do not know that movie.

[Ben]

That one you guys have to see. It's this like very quiet Japanese coming of age sci fi movie with the greatest like weird synth soundtrack from the 90s.

[Griffin]

Oh. And it's on YouTube.

[Ben]

Yeah. It's very much not available in anything, but terrible quality.

[David]

Wow.

[Griffin]

Fantastic. And then Speed Racer, which we've covered on this show. One of my favorite movies. Uncle Boon Me, A wonderful movie. How could you not come on? And then Twin the Return.

[David]

Wow.

[Griffin]

Heard of it?

[David]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been covering on this show. I'm scrubbing through the last episode because there was something as I was finishing the series where I was like, that would be a good opening quote. And I drafted it in my head and I forgot it.

[Griffin]

What was it?

[David]

I don't know. We're gonna find out or we won't. It'll be unresolved, like certain plot threads at the end of Twin the Return.

[Griffin]

So, Jane, David lynch, what is your relationship with this filmmaker beyond Twin Peaks the Return? Just in general.

[Ben]

Oh, let me see. I mean, Twin Peaks, I think, kicked it off. I remember my parents would always talk about Blue Velvet as, like, the worst kind of movie you could see. Not in a. Like, don't watch it, but just in a. Like, you know, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

The most upsetting thing Blue Velvet is, you know, is another level, like. So I think it held from. From the earliest moment. It held sort of a mystique, which.

[David]

Let's just say I. I'm sure we said this to some degree in the episode. That movie is upsetting and intense. It is wild to read the statements from the time it came out when people were just like, this is a new low. Yeah, this never should have happened. This should be illegal. There should be cops standing by the fucking ticket booth. And you watch it now and you're like, I don't know if. Just like, our culture's degraded so much, but I find, like, most episodes of SVU more upsetting than Blue Velvet.

[Griffin]

Or maybe in content, more upsetting, but maybe not like, you know, emotionally, psychologically.

[David]

Yeah, right.

[Griffin]

You know. But yes, lynch, it'll cut deeper.

[David]

That's a great snapshot of that. Of, like, your parents, who probably saw it in theaters at the time and were just like, I can't believe that happened. This will ruin people.

[Ben]

So that sort of loomed in the video store. And then I started watching Twin Peaks in early middle school. It had already aired on vhs. And also I couldn't find. I remember very clearly going to the Museum of Television In California, in LA, where pre. TiVo, pre DVD, really, you could sit at a console and they had an archive and you could request episodes and you got two hours.

[David]

We've ever talked about the Museum of Television and Radio, which is now the Paley Center.

[Ben]

That's right.

[David]

But was so big in my childhood, as well as, like, this compulsive.

[Griffin]

They had, like, everything.

[Ben]

Yeah, it was. It was like. I remember thinking for, like, months about what TV show I would spend my two hours on.

[Griffin]

Was there a time limit? Right. Like, is there. You had two hours in the booth.

[David]

Yeah. But it was.

[Griffin]

They would give you whatever you want.

[David]

You'd go to, like, an ancient PC that looked like the War Games computer that had this, like, terrible interface. And you'd search through their archives and it was like, oh, now I can finally catch, like, the three episodes of Freaks and Geeks I missed when they aired before the DVD came out. Or, like, pull up, like, any random Johnny Carson.

[Griffin]

Right. Anyone? Like, I want Johnny Carson from 1983, January 2nd.

[David]

But, like, get a life. I feel like I had to watch through multiple visits the Museum of Television and Radio.

[Ben]

I grew up on the east coast, so this was really. It was like family vacation.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And just like, leave me here, please.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

But I remember watching Twin Peaks there. I bought a Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me T shirt in sixth grade from Generation Records.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

On Thompson.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Great records.

[David]

What was on the shirt? I got.

[Ben]

Got bullied for it. It kind of had like. Like.

[Griffin]

Because they were like, oh, come on. That movie was Boudican. What are you doing?

[Ben]

Exactly. We expected some resolution. That's what the bully Rob said, I think, just from. For being idiosyncratic, you know.

[David]

What was on the shirt?

[Ben]

It kind of had, like, Japanese bootleg tour poster energy.

[David]

That's cool.

[Ben]

I remember. I think Cooper was on there. Yeah. It kind of had, like, a confused vibe to it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And then the other childhood David lynch thing for me was my friend Ari's parents took me and him when we were 12 to see Mulholland Drive in theaters.

[David]

Oh, wow.

[Ben]

And I remember, like, there's this specific vibe. And sometimes I'll rewatch these movies now and be like, oh, like. Like, I remember watching that movie just kind of being like, there's something that I'm not understanding, and it makes me, like, feel bad. And when I go back and watch it, I'm always like, oh, it was sex.

[Griffin]

That you sure.

[Ben]

Like, there's something here that's just, like, not really. Like, I don't understand.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

What? Why?

[David]

I mean, not to, like, just blow you up. But I think part of what has, like, I saw the TV glow, I think is, like, a masterpiece and has really stuck with me all year. And I think part of what reverberates so strongly. And I know David had a similar reaction to it, but it's like we're both people who also grew up, like, obsessively, with our sense of self tied to this stuff that we watched obsessively, needed to read into, speculate on, socialize around. And that feeling of, like, why does stuff stick with you? What is it saying in you that sometimes takes years to resolve? And without spoiling it for people who haven't seen it, there is a moment at the end of your film where the main character, the Justice Smith character, re watches this thing that was so big in their childhood that I was blown away by where I just went. This is such an intense, I think, fairly universal phenomenon in some form or another that I had never seen, really acknowledged, let alone captured and depicted. But it's interesting to me that Twin Peaks was something that you watched in that sort of age.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then over and over again and really did have, like, recurring dreams about it coming back.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And I remember, like, when they announced. The day they announced the reboot being just like, I was working. I was, like, 24, 25, probably, and working at this nonprofit. I remember just, like, falling to my.

[David]

Knees, you know, Was it full triumph, or was there any part of you that was concerned?

[Ben]

Oh, it was full triumph.

[David]

You had full.

[Ben]

Because it had been. Inland Empire came out when I was in college, you know, and I. And at that. And by around then, I sort of, like, found David lynch as an adult as. Just like, when I. When I rewatched Mahal and Jai for the first time as an adult, I, like, rewatched it four more times in, like, a weekend.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah. I watched movie ever made.

[Ben]

Lost Highway. I had this, like, incredible viewing of after my 30th birthday party, like, 2:00am and I was like, I want to watch Lost highway right now.

[Griffin]

You just toss it on. That is a good time to watch it.

[David]

I think this is what I was trying to tee up is that, like, in the fictional show with an. I saw the TV glow. I feel like there are some clear kind of, like, influences, you know, And I feel like people have talked about, like, oh, it has elements of, like, are you afraid of the dark? And the Goosebumps TV show. But maybe some of, like, the fan culture around something like Buffy and things like that.

[Griffin]

And the font of Buffy. Come on. Yes.

[Ben]

And the actors.

[David]

Right. Yeah. There's this. Yes. This soup of stuff and stuff that has its own integrity, but stuff that, like, if you catch it at the Right. Age. And it activates something in your brain, lives in a very large way. But if you were to revisit as an adult, perhaps some of it plays differently, you know.

[Ben]

Yeah. But we all, like, long for it. We long.

[David]

Totally.

[Ben]

And I guess this is the thesis of the movie, right? Is that, like, we long for the way it felt. We don't actually long for it.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Which I think is, like, one of the very profound things you get at in the film. But. And I'm someone who's obsessively regularly rewatching things that, like, stuck in my craw as a child. To be like, what was it? What was the thing? Why did this, like, stick with me? And it's always an interesting thing to watch it through different prisms, especially if you're, like, resigned to not getting the same feeling out of it. You're almost watching it, like, as an archaeological expedition.

[Ben]

Sure.

[David]

You know, to sort of dig through yourself. But this is that rare kind of thing of, like, you can watch this at a young age, it can impact you in that way, and then you can revisit as an adult and be like, oh, my God, it's better than I thought it was. I understand it more now. I'm more invested in it.

[Ben]

And it feels to me like one of, if not the, like, fundamental sort of starting point for the return is, like, engaging with this idea.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

Right. It's like, it's not season three. It's David lynch in conversation with the memory of his filmography and of Twin Peaks.

[David]

Yeah. We were talking right before recording about sequels that seem to hate the audience or at least seem to be in conflict with what people are expecting. It will be based on love of the first thing, the previous thing, whatever.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

And this isn't quite that, but there is that sense of, like, he's not doing the thing. Right. Like, even when you get, like, a stretch, like, within these episodes, the sort of, like, resolution of Big Ed talk about it.

[Griffin]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Right.

[David]

Where it's like, this is the kind.

[Griffin]

Of thing, a moment that feels a little more like, okay, love, long line. Longtime fans of twin peaks, like, 10 minutes.

[Ben]

Then he cuts to a gas station flickering for, like, 15 minutes.

[David]

You get, like, 10 minutes that feel like probably what a lot of Twin Peaks fans wanted to see.

[Griffin]

I've been waiting 30 years to know if Big Ed is going to figure it out with, you know, Peggy Lipton.

[David]

Norma.

[Griffin]

Norma. Sorry.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And those moments in this show are few and far between.

[David]

Correct. And I feel like, basically, from the beginning of the show. He's teaching you this is not going to be that. And yet I'd never watched it before. Doing it for the podcast has been my first watch.

[Ben]

Oh, wow.

[David]

These last five episodes, there's a run there, I would say maybe the two 17, 16, 15, where it feels like the show is starting to deliver what certain fans would have hoped for.

[Griffin]

It gives. It gives you a version of what you might want.

[David]

It's like, this is coming together.

[Ben]

The FBI.

[Griffin]

Imagine if it ended with episode 17. Like, that have been terrible. Would have been bad, but would be. That's probably what some people thought was going to happen, I think so.

[David]

I was watching.

[Griffin]

Someone punched Bob. He's gone, right? And Cooper's like, you know, big thumbs up, and everyone gets together, and it's like, yay.

[David]

It's fascinating because it does feel like he's doing it and he's doing it.

[Ben]

Well, the fireman's plan worked, but here. But. But I think what's, like, fascinating, like, watching it, watching these five episodes again and just thinking about, like, the relationship to, like, spaces. You know, he's like, we're jumping between all of these different spaces, and they almost exist in, like, literal different universes. Like, you have to, like, sort of travel through portals to get from Rancho Rosa to the sheriff's office. It's like. And maybe most overtly with Audrey there at the end, you know, to me, it feels less. Like, he's less interested in, like, should I subvert your expectations or should I, like, give you what you want? And he's more interested in, like, this. We all have this shared memory of, like, 25 years ago watching this thing, right? Let's explore, like, what that, like, down to the last line of the series, right? It's like, like, let's explore that phenomenon.

[David]

Well, and what year is it? I think he's. To your point.

[Griffin]

I mean, the last line of the series is actually. But apart from that, I think, to.

[David]

Your point, he is not strategically gaming out, like, what should I give them and what should I withhold? I think the show is just driven by what do I feel like doing, right?

[Ben]

Probably at the same time, Dougie is hard to, like, throw in there without, like, kind of a little bit of a troll energy.

[David]

Totally. Yes, yes. No, you're right. You're right. But it's like, I do get a sense of just, like, he kind of wants to see Big Ed and Norma get together unencumbered, right? He's putting that in there, not out of some sense of, like, I Owe them this. I owe it to the actors or to the audience. There are other things that it just feels like he just doesn't really care about. You know, when you hear these stories about certain cast members, Joan Chan in particular, who's like, I really wanted to come back. And he just told me he couldn't find a way to fit me into the story. And I'm like, he fit anything into the story that he wanted to. I don't.

[Ben]

David. I think doorknobs in almost every scene.

[David]

Just have her wave in one of them. But I. You know, whether that was, you know, based on past relationship, ship, whatever, it's like he's putting in what he wants to put in.

[Ben]

Well, and isn't there some story about Audrey Horne, the actor, Sherilyn Finn, like, asking for her to be rewritten, and he rewrote it as, like, that whole plot line that ended up in there.

[David]

I didn't know that. That makes a lot of sense, because I will say that remains the element of this season of television that I am most perplexed by.

[Ben]

I love it.

[David]

And I was looking for some sort of explanation as to how we got there. And even the, like, Audrey dancing, you know, to her theme.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Felt like, okay, now we're getting somewhere where I'm gonna understand why he's using her in this show in this way. Here's this, like, weird, emotional her, like, literally dancing with her own legacy as a character on the show, and then she's just fucking gone. That's a resolution.

[Ben]

Well, she. She snaps into herself, and then we see her in a pseudo white void with a. With, like, the same.

[David]

That's true.

[Ben]

And that shot is framed, I think, very similarly to a famous shot from Sunset Boulevard.

[Griffin]

One of Lynch's most, like, enduring inspirations is Sunset Boulevard.

[Ben]

But also that guy I love, Audrey's husband, what's his name?

[Griffin]

God, he drives me crazy.

[David]

Who has now passed away. He had Clark Middleton.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jane]

Charlie's the character.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

Taking off my coat.

[Griffin]

All right.

[Ben]

Audrey.

[Griffin]

I love the Audrey plotline so much. I'm experiencing. So my whole experience of the return is so rooted. Right. And just, like, week to week, you know, cracking my knuckles, sitting down, like, what? What's it gonna be? And experiencing things like that where I've already been thrown for so many loops. And then two thirds of the way in, he's like, let's check in with Audrey. And you're like, oh, Audrey, sure, sure. And it's just like they're arguing about characters. We Never meet. They say so many names where you're like, am I supposed to know who that is?

[David]

They spend like three.

[Griffin]

His cadence is so magnificent. Like, who? You know, wherever he was found.

[David]

But also it feels like they spent three episodes, maybe su. Like, frozen in time. Right. Where we to them in the same conversation being like, I swear I'm going to walk out this door.

[Ben]

Oh, it's very botian.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And you're like, other things, like, days are progressing outside.

[Griffin]

There is plot in this show. There is. Right. There is actual back to them.

[David]

And they're stuck here being like, don't pick up that phone.

[Griffin]

But, but yes. I mean. Right. The implicate. I I the question. I think what you're saying is correct, that there was another Audrey plot initially intended and that Sherilyn Fenn objected, but no one knows what the original plot was. Right. I think that's never really been figured out. But this makes sense as lynch going like, well, okay, can think of something else. And like, this, how contained it is makes sense is sort of like, well, if I'm gonna rewrite it, I'll give you this little sort of play like that you do. Right.

[David]

She does not interact.

[Ben]

No, she's. But the names that she. She is saying in this long, extended, sort of meaningless conversation about people that we don't actually know, those names are also used by a lot of the people at the Roadhouse.

[David]

Sure.

[Ben]

Like, who we also don't know.

[Griffin]

Right. Where we'll check in with their drama.

[Ben]

And I think this kind of mirrors, like, the myriad, like, FBI agents who we meet throughout the series who don't actually end. It's almost. It's like there's like, the core of the show, which is like, what we remember, nostalgia. And then there's just these, like, doppelganger versions of it, like, on the fringes.

[David]

The Roadhouse stuff is particularly interesting to me. Not that I was expecting some kind of traditional resolution, but, like, all these little snippets of, like, Charlene Yee and Jane Levy and like, Sky Ferreira and.

[Ben]

These like, she said Jane Lynch.

[David]

I wish Jane lynch would.

[Griffin]

Jane lynch is a sassy. Like Twin Peak Peaks High School would be fine.

[David]

Yeah. But these, like, very upsetting sort of like, fragments devoid of context, of just like, people in very odd situations that are never revisited.

[Griffin]

I always just get this sense that, like, Twin Peaks is. Is a very sad, fraught place now. And probably and was then too. But, like, now, you know, we, we only catch glimpses of it. The sheriff's office, they're always discussing a lot of like, tragic, terrible stuff.

[Ben]

It's a lot of drug running happening.

[Griffin]

Right. You know, Frank Truman seems real. I love him to death. I, I would vote him for president. Although, I mean, maybe I don't want to know all of his views, but like, I love him, but he seems very like weary and beaten down and kind of like, you know, in a.

[David]

Way that is to some degree like reflection of what has happened to a lot of small towns in America.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

You know, I think that, I think lynch has like a lot of fondness for and has had to watch sort of like erode culturally over decades.

[Ben]

People are under a lot of stress these days.

[Griffin]

Is that what people are under a lot of stress, Bradley? It's my favorite line in the series. It's delivered so beautifully. The fact that they are around for the finale, like it's just one of the many, many, many decisions that lynch and Mark Frost obviously made where I'm like, there's no reason for them to, to tag along. But it's so great that they're there.

[David]

David February. February movie preview. Okay. And I gotta say, it's a pretty interesting February we have coming up.

[Griffin]

Yeah. What do we got?

[David]

Heart eyes.

[Griffin]

Yeah. From our friends.

[David]

An original horror film directed by our friend, past and future guest. Overdue to have him back on the pod. Josh Rubin.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Well, he's been busy making films.

[David]

He has, which is wild.

[Griffin]

He's got a new one. Heart Eyes. That, that looks really exciting.

[David]

Love hurts. I would argue one of the weirdest Kean action movies. Movies to be pushing the fact that it stars two Academy Award winners in history. All of the marketing is Academy award winner Kean. Academy award winner Ariana DeBose. And you're like, yeah, right. I guess so.

[Griffin]

That's very exciting. You've also.

[David]

Well, let's acknowledge that someone's coming.

[Griffin]

Hail to the chief.

[David]

Stomp. Stomp.

[Griffin]

President Red Hulk.

[David]

Let me check my glasses here. I'm used to Hulks being green, but this one's red. Finally, finally we can stop talking about Red Hulk because we'll be able to see him and vote for him.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And also opening up. You know who's going to possibly kick Red Hulk's butt? The monkey Paddington in Peru.

[David]

Oh, sure. But can we look patent and perfect. Were all obviously excited to eat some marmalade sandwiches with Paddington. Although I'm a little worried about how they've maintained with the long distance flight to Peru underneath a hat.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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.

[David]

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

[Ben]

You do it more.

[David]

You do it more.

[Griffin]

Go see the movies.

[David]

Go see the movies.

[Griffin]

Sign up now in the Regal app.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Or at the link in the description in our show notes and use code blank check to get 20% off your three month subscription. And then you're going to be in the Crown Club. You're going to get robot rewards, you're going to build up points, get free.

[David]

Popcorns and sodas, 25% off candy on.

[Griffin]

Tuesdays, 50% off popcorn, discounted ticket.

[David]

Go to the 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.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

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 gonna say it again, David. Signing up for Regal Unlimited or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

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.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

You know what I love?

[Griffin]

How about Quince? 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 mango 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, right? I be loading up quints and buying some nice soft shirts and good fitting pants all the time. They've got some activewear, performance tees, tech shorts. They've got, 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.

[David]

Perfect.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

No sharks anyway.

[Griffin]

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. Quint.com check. Bye. Bye. So, okay, but Twin Peaks, the return is announced and then you watch it. How did you feel at the time?

[David]

You were watching it week by week.

[Griffin]

Jane?

[Ben]

I was on set. I was producing a movie called Change for Life.

[David]

Oh yeah, Wonderful film.

[Griffin]

Aaron Schindberg.

[Ben]

Aaron's movie in what is the capital of Pennsylvania?

[Griffin]

Harrisburg.

[Ben]

We were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where beers were $2.

[Griffin]

Hell yeah.

[Ben]

And karaoke was abundant that I wouldn't have predicted. And my friend Dan Carbone, who also shot We're All Going to the World's Fair and is a wonderful filmmaker, he had made this movie called Hide youe Smiling Faces. We were both Twin Peaks heads. This was a very important thing. We were staying at like a comfort in off the highway. And did they have showtime? They did not have Showtime.

[David]

Sounds like an uncomfort in.

[Ben]

But we would eat dinner every night at this. And I was like literally calling local movie theaters being like, will you do a screening for us of the. Of the first two episodes when they are. And no one, no one said yes. And there's this Indian place that we hosted a lot of crew dinners at. And I like talked to the, the woman who ran it. We were like putting her kid through fucking college, you know? And, and, and she, she bought Showtime so that we could watch it.

[David]

And you were like, if we come here on Sunday nights, you'll let us control the tv.

[Ben]

But yeah, but like, for whatever. Maybe she was just lying to me. The cable package like didn't kick in until the next month, so that didn't work either.

[David]

Okay.

[Ben]

And so we like sat in a hotel room and we. This was like a while ago. And so like cell phone data plans were not commonly unlimited. And so we all had these like limited cell phone plans. And we like literally, we like mobile hotspotted.

[Griffin]

You like, chained your various cell phone plans.

[Ben]

Yeah, we all bled. Like, we, we, we drained our cell phone plans, like, and somebody like hooked it up to the hotel TV somehow. And, and this was how we watched it. And everyone was just like, eh, right.

[David]

It's like immediately.

[Griffin]

I love the beginning of the show, but it is definitely not like anything you would have expected to happen.

[Ben]

And then the ending. I'll never forget the last Two episodes I watched right near here at the Drafthouse. They did, like, a secret screening of it. Forget who organized it, but I weaseled my way into it, and we literally all sat in a theater at the Draft House, and they simulcast those two episodes live as they air back to back.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

And. And there was still, like, waiter service.

[Griffin]

Hell, yeah.

[Ben]

And. And it was. It was actually like the. The. I remember it looking kind, you know, like when you. When you blow something up, that isn't the best resolution to a screen like that. It, like, looked a little off and janky. And. And I just remember, like, when it ended, the waitress was, like, hanging out, waiting for everyone to leave, and everyone was just kind of, like, sitting in.

[David]

This space, needed to process. Yeah.

[Ben]

She was like, you guys seem. Seem upset. And that ending.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I mean, that ending haunted me for. For months.

[Griffin]

I don't. I think the Sopranos is the only other TV show where I had that experience where the ending was both immediately shocking to me and then, like, months of rumination for me. But this is very different, obviously. Whereas the Sopranos, I had the reaction that literally everyone had, which is, is my TV broken? It's such a. It's such a boring reaction. But literally everyone had the same reaction. Whereas this. I was rattled. Like, very, very rattled.

[Ben]

Truly rattled. Yeah.

[Griffin]

And not unhappy, because I had no expectations of this show. I wasn't watching it being like, fucking Cooper had better marry Audrey. Or. I don't. I have no idea what I would be wanting from the end of this show, but the absolute ending freaks me out to this day. And I think it's amazing, and I think lots of things about it, but the shots of the forest at night with Loras just screaming over it, that is the thing that freaked me out the most. Watching at home in my dark room with no one else, because my wife was like, I have no. Every time she would check in with it, she would just be like, what the fuck is this? And I'd be like, well, it's Twin Peaks, but it's also very different. And she'd be like, okay, I'm going. You know, like. You know, those.

[David]

They retitled it technically can't be season three, because they don't want.

[Griffin]

The CBS executives experiences a teenager where maybe your parents check in with something you really love at a moment that it's quite unwatchable. And they're like, ugh. And you're like, no, no, come back. Come back. I'm gonna explain the X Files to you in a way that makes sense. Like, that, like, that would be. My wife would, like, check in and it would be the guy in the prison with the. The, you know, giant pole in his face going, this cannot be considered watchable television. I'm like, no, it's really, really good.

[David]

See, what's interesting to me, as someone who had not watched any of Twin Peaks, but has so many friends who are so obsessive and spends is way too online, the amount of stuff I got through cultural osmosis before finally watching all of this show and the things where I was like, yeah, this I'd gotten. And the amount of stuff that I felt like wasn't represented to me, that was surprising. And I think part of going into the Return was just knowing, like, well, this whole thing's legacy is that, like, it upended all expectations and it sort of rewrites the rules of television. So I. The only thing I know to expect is to not expect anything and to not go in with any assumptions. So I'm less rattled by how much the show is not delivering the obvious sort of Twin Peaks legacy season, because I. I'm going in knowing that. And then even still, I got kind of tricked in this final run of episodes of, like, holy shit. Like, Cooper's doing fucking Avengers time travel. He's going back and he's.

[Griffin]

Cooper's getting the Infinity Stones, right?

[David]

Everyone's together. He and Diane are in love. Like, I was just like, oh, my God, lynch is doing it. And I was like, part of me was suppressing this memory of just remembering.

[Griffin]

Every time being, like, what?

[David]

Not only did he not answer most of the unresolved questions from the first two seasons in the movie, but he actually created new questions that he also hasn't answered. And I'm watching it and I'm like, he's actually going to fucking tie everything together. Maybe the unresolved stuff is that we never go back to fucking Sky Ferreira, but, like, I can live with that. And then somewhere across episode 18, basically from the start, where I'm just like, oh, right, he's.

[Griffin]

There's something else that will happen here.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Now I'm trying to think of the Avengers thing where he, like, stops, you know, Ray Wise from killing Jacques Renault. Like. Like, he's, like, hopping through the whole show. Like, he's being awkwardly CGI'd into, like.

[David]

Every single cuts back to Jack Nance. We need his evidence when he starts reusing the original series footage in that way.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

I was just kind of like, I can't believe he's doing this. That this feels like the kind of thing totally. That he would avoid.

[Ben]

No, I think that's a big part of that second to last episode. Yes.

[David]

Is.

[Ben]

Is like how artificial that kind of narrative resolution is.

[Griffin]

Right. You're getting it feeling Cooper's face is superimposed over it. Right. We are. This is a dream that we are having. We'll get to that.

[Ben]

Freddy uses his green glove.

[David]

We're.

[Griffin]

Well, we have to talk.

[David]

We're gonna talk about Freddy for half an hour. Listeners. It might surprise you to hear that I am all in on Freddy. That Freddy is so my kind of shit.

[Ben]

Freddy was. Freddy was also. Also a fan favorite in my. In my. In my home.

[David]

What if the Artful Dodger had a green glove that could punch so good, could defeat. I just made my little glove here, ain't it?

[Griffin]

I mean, you're. You're doing the voice.

[David]

That's what I'm saying. I was like, what does he sound like? And I'm like, oh, it sounds like he's singing. Consider yourself.

[Griffin]

The whole thing with Jake Wardle, that actor who I don't really know, is that when he's in the show, you're like, oh, this is someone doing like, the most exaggerated kind of cockney East End accent. Right. Like, this can't be real. And you realize, you know, that's just what he sounds like. It must be. What. Yeah, but the other thing about him.

[David]

He has like 20 minute YouTube videos that are like all UK accents where he shows off that he knows all the regional dialects.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And then I went to his website and it has this endorsement I. I'll pull up so I can read it verbatim. But David lynch being like, I love these crazy voices he does.

[Griffin]

That sounds like. That sounds right.

[David]

There's a rugby player named Jake Wardle, which. With actor Jake Wordle's SEO. But where's this?

[Griffin]

That rugby player wishes he could punch anyone.

[David]

The David lynch quote is having seen his Internet video of him doing many incredible accents, his talent and naturalness really impressed me. Jake was perfect for Freddy. You see a thousand people on the Internet. But I knew Jake could do this. He's super smart and he's like Harry Dean. He's just a natural.

[Griffin]

Hey, sure, highest praise imaginable. He's just like Harry Dean.

[David]

He's just like Harry.

[Ben]

A thousand people on the Internet.

[David]

I'm like, is. Is David lynch watching?

[Griffin]

Surfing the superhighway.

[Ben]

Sean Baker's on TikTok looking for, like, hot new sex workers for his next movie. And David lynch is on there Searching, like, just hilarious.

[Griffin]

1,000 impressions in one minute, guys. Yeah.

[David]

Hopefully this is not a betrayal of trusted information, but someone who knows, someone who works with David lynch told me recently, like, I was like, have you heard anything about his health and everything? And they're like, they said, you know, he's like, bummed that he, you know, he feels like he has to stay at home, but he's, like, fairly happy. And he just watches body cam footage on YouTube all day. And I was like, that's the least surprising thing I've ever heard. And he was like, when people come over, he's like, you won't believe this video I saw.

[Ben]

We should all be so lucky.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

I mean, he can do whatever he wants, obviously.

[David]

Also, he should make a fucking body cam movie.

[Ben]

Well, it's also like, I remember, I think part of the gravitas of Twin Peaks beyond the Return. Beyond, like, oh, I have 25 years of sort of like subconscious emotional attachment to this as an idea. Also, like, oh, this is like, probably the filmmaker of my life and this maybe is the last thing he's ever gonna do. And he probably understood that while he was making it. But then it's lovely to remember that, like, after this, he made a Netflix short film where he talks to a monkey for 20 minutes, where he, like.

[David]

Gives a monkey the business, like a third degree.

[Ben]

I actually think the monkey is giving him the business.

[David]

You're right. They're kind of, you know what, they're kind of antagonizing.

[Ben]

Tete a Tet.

[David]

Yes. It's a real.

[Griffin]

And he's done like a. Right, hasn't he done a bunch of little short films on the Internet that I've never watched, you know, about, like, bugs and bees and stuff.

[Ben]

Like, he did a bunch of weather reports, obviously. And he did, didn't he do a music video?

[David]

Yeah, some of the music videos we watched, I feel like were post return, Right? Yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

The bug stuff, I, I now I'm Remembering it's on YouTube. You can watch it. It's just like him standing by a tree where there's like a bug and he's like talking about what the bug is doing.

[Jane]

He just did that recent album with Christabel.

[David]

Yeah, that's nice.

[Jane]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

So I'm going to take us through these episodes a little bit. So part 14, if you guys can cast your memory back all the way, there is the I had a Monica Bellucci Dream episode.

[David]

Oh, my God. David, go ahead. That was the quote I wanted to use. You just reminded me there you Go. When I was watching that episode, it was longer ago. So I was like, why can't I pull this? It wasn't a last episode thing, but I had another podcast about Monica Bellucci. That is. That is the funniest line in the entirety of Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

Mostly because it's delivered by him. It becomes funnier when you cut the cream and you're like, oh, he got belushi.

[Griffin]

Right. But also that the reaction from the other agents.

[David]

That's the thing.

[Griffin]

It feels that Gordon is so horny and they're all so annoyed with Gordon for being horny, like, as part of his crime process.

[David]

But I'm like, that is somehow, in a certain way, it feels like the most vulnerable thing David lynch has put in any of his work. The admission that it's like another dream about a books of me, star of European cinema.

[Ben]

Well, I think also they had some, like, French money and needed to shoot something in Paris.

[Griffin]

Is that. Is that for real? I believe that.

[Ben]

I think that's right. Because that's actually shot in Paris, right?

[Griffin]

Oh, no, it's absolutely.

[Ben]

Or maybe wanted to go hang out with Monica. This is what I would do if I was in my 70s with Showtime.

[Griffin]

And he must have seen Monica Bellucci when she emerges as an actress, like, you know, like. And been like, I never got to make a movie with this person. This is like the most David Lynchy actress who ever existed.

[David]

That's the bigger thing to me. And it's part of what's so interesting about his sort of public negotiations with Showtime and being like, maybe I won't make it. Maybe I'm not going to do it unless they give me enough money. Is. Even if he didn't know this would be his last major project, I think he knew this is the last time the industry is going to let me do something on this scale. Like, if not for health and aging, it's like I basically have the Twin Peaks chip. I can play one time.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah.

[David]

To get this level of creative freedom and this many hours, that's basically all.

[Ben]

That'S going on here, I think.

[David]

Right. And. And the Monica Bellucci. So it's so funny to me, his choice in a series where we have so many hyper famous people show up as, like, surprise new characters to introduce her as herself in a dream.

[Griffin]

Because this is the episode, I guess, where. This is the episode where Andy gets summoned to the fireman's house, right? You know, to the, you know, the other. The zone, the other world, right. And discovers.

[David]

Discovers the woman in the woods, the.

[Griffin]

Woman, Naido, the woman, the eyeless woman in the woods. Right. That's the main stuff that happens. But I get. What else? Well, this is also the episode that introduces Freddy. Freddy's lore, Freddy's backstory, Freddy's long monologue.

[Ben]

It's also where his magic glove, Sarah Palmer, right at the end of the.

[Griffin]

Episode, it reveals that she had off. Yeah. Has a face behind her face and kills someone at a bar.

[David]

She diggy chins a man.

[Griffin]

That scene rocks so fucking hard.

[David]

Yeah. I think this whole episode's incredible. This is like top to bottom, exceptional shit.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

That's my very astute criticism that it's exceptional. My intellectual analysis is this top to bottom, really good shit.

[Griffin]

That's kind of the. The last major thing that Sarah Palmer does. Right.

[Ben]

I was thinking, because when I was watching these episodes through, I was like, oh, is this the last time we see this person? But we see her smashing the picture. Smashing the picture and sort of like crawling around her.

[Griffin]

Disturbing.

[David]

But another thing that fucking tricked me is I'm just like, oh, my God, he's going to bring like new Laura Palmer to like a point of resolution with her mother. And then the ultimate rug pull of just like. I'm never giving you that.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

What's your take on Sarah Palmer in Twin the Return? Open question, but I was asking Jay.

[David]

Very kind of you.

[Ben]

Thank you, David. I remember this like nerd message board conversation while it was airing after episode eight, right. Where it's like, she's the girl, is that girl Sarah Palmer. And even if it's not, I feel like it's an association that is invited timeline wise, Right.

[Griffin]

Mark Frost has sort of nodded to like, yeah, that's what we're going for, right?

[Ben]

And just this like, if the show is this like post nuclear origin story of like American innocence or something, like that bug crawling into her mouth is like equivalent to the rot of her, you know, life that she builds herself and her ceiling fan, et cetera. And so the out of nowhere, never really extrapolated on relatively late in the game reveal that she's like a monster.

[Griffin]

Now has evil superpowers.

[Ben]

And the thing we see in her face beyond being like incredible David lynch cgi, I love his CGI because it looks terrible.

[David]

But then as we talked about in episode eight, you're like, this is some of the best CGI I've ever.

[Griffin]

Sometimes immaculate, often terrible. But this look is unbeatably, right?

[David]

Both, yes.

[Ben]

But I think he knows it's both totally.

[David]

It's what's fascinating about episode eight and our guests on that, Connor Ratliff throughout. The theory that it's like he's giving you purposefully janky.

[Ben]

Yeah. Totally.

[David]

Incredibly artificial. Unsung, unsettling. Kind of like this feels like a technical error. Even the cell phone screens for most of it. In a way that makes the stuff in episode eight feel more real. When your mind, you don't question its reality because you're like, well, I know what CGI looks like in this show.

[Ben]

Yeah. I think, like, emotionally, just like Sarah Palmer as, like, demon. It, like, tracks emotionally.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

I think it's like an interesting, Interesting space to leave that character in, especially.

[Griffin]

Right. If you're going to do a thing that's like, okay, what's everyone doing almost 30 years later.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Sarah Palmer's still alive. Yeah. She would be this, like, festering demon.

[Ben]

I remember being, like, very excited to see what, like, Ray Wise was gonna do in Twin Peaks the Return before it aired, you know? Cause Leland is just, like, such a figure. Absolutely. And he's like, not really in there.

[Griffin]

Nope. I mean, we see him in the red room.

[David]

Incredible seconds.

[Griffin]

Yep. I mean, he's got a great face. I love to see his face always.

[Ben]

And he's sort of like. When we do see him, you know, he's like, fine, Laura. He's like this, like. He's like the tragic version of him.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

Whereas, like, Sarah Palmer as this, like, person who, like, lived through it and is still there freaking out in the supermarket is like, got more of the Bob style rot inside of her now.

[David]

But the rot is the big thing. I mean, I feel like as much as Twin Peaks as a project at large is about anything, it feels to me like it is about the way those things fester. Right. The way darkness and pain lives inside of people and how it gets there and what it does to us psychologically and physically and all of that. Whether it is the kind of darkness that causes you to inflict pain onto other people, or is the byproduct of pain inflicted onto you. And there is this. I feel like, how would I put this? Situations like the Palmer family. Right. In real life, when these stories blow up in the news and there are these horrible tragedies, you know, these terrors.

[Griffin]

Happening, spoken abuse in the home. Right.

[David]

I feel like so often the line of questioning goes straight to, like, what? And the wife was just there. She was in the house. This was going on for years. How did she not notice this was happening under her nose? How did she not stop it? There's sort of this. There almost becomes. I don't want to say a shifting of blame, but this, like, extension of culpability to, like, how is this possible? This. The mother failed her. You know, like, the father was the one inflicting the damage, but the mother is the one who, in a certain way, is harder to get your head around. And I don't think that Sarah Palmer is, like, unsympathetically portrayed in the original series, but in the plottiness of the original series, it's a lot easier to just be like, so this is a woman who just, like, gets sort of hopped out of her mind and then imagines a horse. And then stuff happens and she's oblivious to it. And there's something about settling in the reality of, as you said, like, who would this woman be 30 years later? She would be a fucking mess, like, once things came to the surface and she was no longer able to deny what had happened and just had to live with that for decades and outlive the rest of her family. She would just be, like, not a functional person in one way or another.

[Ben]

Yeah, but there is also. Because I feel like even between Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me, there is a reassessment of maybe not a rewriting, but it feels like Lynch's pulling back some of the, like, genre metaphor. You know, I think we see. Right, don't we kind of, like, see her aware of it in Fire Walk With Me, Like, Leland is, like. Is basically drugging her, and she's, like, willingly taking the drugs. And I think there's, like, an implication that she knows what's going on in the home.

[David]

I think he's sort of trying to reckon with both sides of it, realistically. Right. And then there is the expressionistic side of it, of her turning into a monster who can rip people's chins off. But it is like, there is a degree of complicity that eats at her, and there's a degree of, like, genuine victimization that eats at her. And both of these things have created someone who is just, like, incapable of existing with other people or existing with, like, a framed photo in her house. Like, it is all just this sort of, like, negative energy festering inside of her that's looking for any release.

[Griffin]

What do you make of her smashing up the picture in the later episode? And it's part 17? Because that's when we're. That's when has Laura been sort of plucked out at that point? And we're sort of trying to reckon with that. I Don't.

[Ben]

Yeah, I never quite.

[Griffin]

I haven't really ever figured that out.

[David]

I. I mean, I.

[Griffin]

Not that I need to.

[David]

Look, I've lived with this for, like, fucking 12 hours, right? But my read on it in the moment is it's like her attacking the representation of, like, her life collapsing.

[Griffin]

Laura. Laura's prom picture.

[David]

Yeah. Like, not Laura as a person, but, like, Laura's prom picture, which is this image that has been, like, constantly repeated throughout the show as this sort of, like, tragic beauty. It is a perfect snapshot of that moment.

[Ben]

But the. I guess, like. And I haven't really thought about this either, but, like, smashing up that picture right before history is about to get rewritten to remove her from that home with the. I think there is an implication, right, because when she takes off her mask, the thing we see inside of her head is the monster from that machine in New York City at the beginning of the series that comes through, right?

[Griffin]

This sort of.

[Ben]

Which is like a Judy adjacent thing.

[Griffin]

Jowdy Judy thing. It's like the. Again, the jokey, like, sort of Avengers. The idea of, like, oh, yeah, yeah, we had Bob meet Judy. Judy makes Bob look like Bob came out of Judy. Judy Barf Bob one time when there was a nuclear explosion. But Judy's been around since ancient. It's like. It's like X Men apocalypse, where they're like, oh, Magneto, he's. Oh, he's like a radical mutant. Well, what about the. The mutant from the pyramid? Did you ever consider there was a mutant there? What would he be like? I don't know. Five, six, blue.

[David]

He touched TVs a lot. Sorry. No, I think you're right that there's.

[Griffin]

Some version of that demon.

[David]

There's a feeling of wanting to. Like she wants to remove it from the timeline. You know, like, that's part of the guilt of, like, I brought someone into the world and then allowed pain to be inflicted upon her. But just to go back, even the episode eight being this. We sort of assume Sarah Palmer backstory.

[Griffin]

Yeah. The last part of episode eight, Right.

[David]

That is represented in this very odd way, but does start to fill in this notion that it's not like Sarah Palmer was this oblivious woman who married a monster and then her life went to hell and all this horrible thing, you know, this. This damage stemmed out of it. There's shit that's been going on to Sarah Palmer since she was a small child. Whether you literally interpret it as like.

[Griffin]

A bug went in her mouth, right.

[David]

Weird people in the sky decided that she would Be the vessel for pure good, to fight pure evil or whatever. There is this degree of like now cosmic level of you are being used for. By people, for other ends and to other means.

[Griffin]

It's also funny that the. Right. The Avengers of Gwen Peaks. The Return is the fireman. Older. Right. Briggs's floating head just sort of goes.

[David]

Yeah. Bob in the bubble.

[Ben]

Michael J. Anderson replaced by a tree.

[Griffin]

A tree with a brain on it.

[David]

Yeah. David Bowie as a teakettle.

[Griffin]

Right. A talking tea kettle. That is David Bowie. Like, there's a pivotal scene in one of these episodes that's like Jeffrey's being like, of course I've always been allied with you. I am a tea kettle. Go to this electrocution zone.

[David]

I'm David Bowie, impressionist. Could you imagine if this show ended endgame style with the end credit, curtain call of everybody to triumphant music and then the signatures over the decade.

[Griffin]

Anyway, Freddy, the other thing I want to discuss from episode 14. Do you guys have Freddy thoughts? I remember watching the scene in Relative bafflement at the time. And James is a character that doesn't have much to do in the Return. So.

[Ben]

Happy he's there.

[Griffin]

Exactly. It's sort of a sweet thing. I like James too. He looks great.

[David]

Am I wrong in thinking that this is the look? We've obviously watched this show fairly spread out due to record scheduling and such. Am I wrong in thinking that this is the first scene where you identify that he's a security guard?

[Griffin]

I think so because I feel like understand what their job is. He's at the Roadhouse, but he's usually.

[David]

Wearing like a leather jacket.

[Griffin]

He's.

[David]

He's performing. He's coming in in street clothes looking sexy.

[Ben]

I don't know that he's looking so sexy.

[Griffin]

Okay, so my take is Jane is disagreeing with my take that she doesn't care.

[Ben]

Bobby's looking sexy.

[David]

Bobby looks incredible.

[Griffin]

My favorite character of the.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Sort of. You know, my favorite performance of the Returning. I mean, apart from Col McLachlan's, you know, unbelievable multi character work, I guess. But like, yes, Bobby, super sexy. You don't think so? You don't think James is working?

[Ben]

I feel like there's a line early on, right. Where isn't somebody like, James had a motorcycle accident and he hasn't been quite right since then.

[David]

Poor James talked about this in other episodes. But do you know, Jane, that like he was part of a huge lawsuit against an acne medication that he said fucked up his face and lost him work.

[Ben]

Wow.

[David]

And spent years and Like David lynch, like, testified on his behalf. And people there is this degree, it's a lot less tragically, kind of like sexy than a motorcycle accident, than the James Dean kind of thing. But there was this feeling of like, this is Accutane. He's Accutane, right?

[Griffin]

Accutane.

[Ben]

Yeah. It seems like he, like James in the original series. Right. Is like such a. Such a James Dean figure.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

And here he's more like a townie.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas Bobby's arc is more surprising, I guess. Like that this is where Bobby ended up. But then just really tracks. And he is very. He looks great with it. He. Johnny Knoxville, you know, he went silver and it worked perfectly for him.

[Ben]

100%.

[David]

David.

[Griffin]

Oh, hello.

[David]

Hi. How are you doing?

[Griffin]

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

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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 listener.

[David]

An easy sell. This is a great time of year to encourage people to order flowers for the love of their life. This doesn't need extra spin on it. We don't need to put any mustard on this ad.

[Griffin]

Reid 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.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

2800 flowers. It always delivers.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

And who's that at the door?

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Okay. But I will tell you that I got a great bouquet from 1-800-Flowers. Arrived right away.

[David]

I'm just gonna walk to the door quickly.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

Hand Outraged.

[Griffin]

Comes in a really, really nice container. Yes.

[David]

Who can plant a rosebud?

[Jane]

My God, Dan Pluck.

[David]

Petunias, too.

[Jane]

It's been a while. How are you?

[David]

Dan Candyman. Cam. Been a dog's age. It has. It's been a long time since you guys have invited me to come Over.

[Griffin]

No one invited you.

[David]

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

[Jane]

Wow. Dan Candyman, you look like crap.

[David]

It's been a rough couple years.

[Griffin]

Why? What's going on? Dan?

[David]

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 version of the Candyman, the Willy Wonka song. And it always confused people. So I'm actually here today selling candy.

[Griffin]

Oh, okay.

[Ben]

Well, I'll buy some candy to raise.

[David]

Money for my high school's basketball team.

[Griffin]

Okay, cool. How much?

[David]

You're not gonna ask any questions about that?

[Ben]

What are M M's?

[David]

Well, you know, these are just gray shells.

[Jane]

There's not a color in sight.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Okay, what's going on?

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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, you know, local sort of bodega flowers you might buy or whatever.

[Jane]

Comes with a little packet.

[Griffin]

Little packet to sort of spruce them up and.

[Jane]

And make it gosh.

[David]

Because this is a stressful time of year for me, you know, Valentine's Day is really rough on Dan Candyman. I don't, because I'm part of a very large polycule. I have to get a lot of flowers.

[Griffin]

I hate all your lore.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Well, you better get on it because bouquets are selling fast. Lock 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. 1-800-flowers.Com check.

[David]

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 does 1-800-Flowers offer kaleidoscope roses, hand dyed 24 stems in a pearl 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 one M?

[Griffin]

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

[David]

That'll be 25.

[Griffin]

Wait a second.

[David]

I have to raise money.

[Griffin]

1,800Followers.Com check.

[David]

David?

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

If I know one thing about you, okay. It's that you're tired of feeling 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.

[Griffin]

Busy weekdays. I just had it. Busy weekdays.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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

[David]

These issues are linked. I go, how are the twins?

[Griffin]

Sleeping.

[David]

You go, no problem there. I'm joking through the night. Yes.

[Griffin]

I have to feed my family.

[David]

You have more mouths to feed.

[Griffin]

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.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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

[David]

Right. Podcasting has ended 15 minutes before that.

[Griffin]

That's. That is why be honest. 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 wholesome, hassle free meals to choose from every week to get delivered right to your door. These hello fresh ready made meals that go from fridge to fork.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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 and that's fun. These things come together with minimal mess and just a five minutes of prep. Your oven does most of the work, not you.

[David]

But this is what's nice about hellofresh is they got a lot of variety. There's a lot of advantage 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 donate real food, but sooner rather than later.

[Griffin]

They will, they will.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

Yeah. You can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for [e-mail]. check 10 FM. That's. Check 10 FM.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

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

[David]

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.

[Griffin]

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 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to HelloFresh.com. check 10 FM. It's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. But yeah, Freddy. Freddy, yeah. He's a boy from the East End of London who had an epiphany in an alley and met the fireman, AKA the giant. And the fireman told him to put on a big glove and he's never been able to take it off. Anyone tries, they essentially die. Because he's super strong.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Any questions?

[David]

No. Perfect. No notes. I love it. I agree. It feels like a kind of wild, baffling thing to devote this much time to this late. But I was fully locked in.

[Griffin]

It was a concept that I believe lynch had had for Jack Nance at some point.

[David]

Interesting.

[Griffin]

Like he's had the concept of the magic arm.

[David]

It feels like a real Ronnie Rocket kind of thing.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

What do you. There's this like, what do you say about Freddy?

[Ben]

Just tension.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

But it's like the Mark Frost, David lynch eternal tension that is playing out in funny ways. And the Return where I just always imagine Mark Frost being like, right, and the green glove, maybe the fireman summoned it and it's going to knock Bob out at the right moment. David lynch is like, sure, sure, sure. Can we get this Irish guy?

[Griffin]

There's an interview with Mark Frost where they ask him about. Some people were confused that Bob is defeated by a random character. We basically meet for the first time by punching. And Mark Frost is like, yeah, it's called a Day six machina. Like, it's clearly. They were just like, we wanted to resolve that. But we wanted to resolve it in this. This particular way.

[Ben]

It's fun.

[Griffin]

I just very.

[David]

I love introducing a character this late and having a character basically announced, I have been sent here to resolve this show.

[Griffin]

Right. I've never really met any of you and have no relationship with any of you. I know James a little bit.

[David]

If he was set up in episode two, maybe I would hate it. Cause I'd just be like, oh, God, he's going to end up punching the guy. The fact that he's introduced so late makes it work for me.

[Ben]

The other thing that I noticed for the first time this watch through is that they're working at the Great Northern.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

They're both security guards.

[Ben]

And James goes down at the end of that whole sequence to check the boiler room, which is the same space that Hooper goes to.

[Griffin]

To like, to cross over. Like to fight Windhamrle or whoever.

[Ben]

No, no, no. To. In. In episode 17.

[Griffin]

Oh, right, right, right.

[Ben]

It's like where he. And. And it's like where he says goodbye to David Lynch.

[Griffin]

Right, right, right. So I guess.

[Ben]

And like, even when the Guardian, when James goes down there, it like the show slows down a little bit to like, give the space some power.

[Griffin]

I did not track that. I shouldn't. Well, I'm gonna have to rewatch Twin Peaks of the Return again. I'm taking us to episode 15.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Which begins with the moment you already referenced Nadine toting the shovel. You know, reprogrammed by podcasting Happy as a clown. Right.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Just walking up to Ed and being like, I have been a huge pain in your ass and you really should, you know, marry Norm.

[David]

We should have resolved this decade.

[Griffin]

It would be funny if she says she's a mega babe. Like, Norm is great. Like, I'm a. You know, I'm a lot saying that. Yeah. She is basically saying that. And Ed, you know, goes over to the Double R diner and, you know, it's a 10, 15 minute chunk. 10 minute chunk, basically. Right. Like, it's the only. Is it the only, like, classic Twin Peaks story that really gets resolved?

[David]

It kind of feels like it.

[Griffin]

Are there any others?

[Ben]

Log Lady? Arguably.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

I mean, we see like codas for characters like that. Yeah.

[David]

But that feels like the only pure.

[Griffin]

Emotional resolution, a dangling thread that we never got to pick up.

[David]

This is one of the things I was surprised by watching the show for the first time, watching the first season in particular, is how much of it is kind of just traditional primetime soap opera that it is truly caught up in, like, purely Emotional, interpersonal, dramatic, interweaving plot lines. And that's the shit. He's not largely concerned with returning to, revisiting, resolving, even commenting upon. In this, we type in with new.

[Griffin]

Soapy storylines, Caleb Landry Jones or Amanda Seyfried.

[David]

But those are things that also don't resolve within.

[Griffin]

They do not.

[David]

No, no, I think you're right. That that's the only classical original Twin Peaks thing that gets that kind of like emotional bow tying.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's wonderful.

[Griffin]

It's wonderful and very satisfying and beautifully acted. I mean, and that song I love, you know, Everett McGill so much.

[David]

And he was one of the many original Twin Peaks cast members who had basically retired.

[Griffin]

Right. He wasn't really working anymore.

[David]

I think the story is that he, he hadn't worked in a long time. No one even knew how to reach him. He didn't have representation. Lynch sort of like sent out like the shot up the flare gun to try to find him. Someone passed along a number he called a landline. Everett McGill picked up and he was like, I can't believe I found you. And he was like, this was my, like, in law's parents house that we never sold. And I've never disconnected the phone line, but I only come here to check it like once every other month. And I happen to be here when you call.

[Griffin]

Beautiful.

[David]

And it was like, and of course, by the way, I'll come back for Twin Peaks, sure. But that feels like this weird sense of some warmth and fondness for Everett McGill as a guy translating to like, you know what, I want to see him get his happy ending versus, like, Joan Chen doesn't need to be here. And Sherilyn fan can yell at her husband.

[Griffin]

Right? Or, right? Or Everett can have a plotline that's just like him yelling in a convenience store one time. And they're like, anyway, so. Or I mean, I love Ben Horn in the Return, but Ben Horn's plot line being like him sitting sadly behind a desk being like, I feel like I hear a noise. And Ashley Judd's like, yeah, kind of. He's like, you know, he not saying out loud, but I feel like he's just sitting there being like, am I shitty? Was I like an evil villain now? I just stuck here, Like, I don't know. So that's nice. Do we, so do we think that Nadine was healed by the podcast? By Mr. Yeah, seems like it.

[David]

Look, we all know the podcasts are unilaterally a positive force.

[Griffin]

She's like, dug her shit out. Like, she the shovel worked.

[David]

Like she dug her shit out, but also, like, you know, she was engaging in, like, the marketplace of ideas.

[Ben]

Sure.

[David]

She was activated. Podcasts have never led to the wrong people being elected president. They're good.

[Ben]

She was having a parasocial relationship.

[David]

And those are positive.

[Ben]

And they always lead to real relationships.

[David]

Absolutely.

[Griffin]

In episode 15 as well, after this, we have Cooper, Mr. C, you know, evil Cooper, going to the convenience store and as you say, following this lovely plot line with the more deep surrealism of like, I'm going to meet the jumping man and talk to a tea kettle. That is David Bowie's character. And that sets up the sort of end of Richard Horn. Right. Does that happen in this episode or the next?

[Ben]

Maybe that he meets him in this one and Richard Horne very quickly gets axed in the next one, which is another.

[Griffin]

Nothing about Twin. The Return is bad. Everything is good and I'm glad everything happened. But it is interesting that we're subjected to Richard Horn, a very, very tough character to look at and interact with the behavior of.

[David]

Yeah. A puss level pox upon the world. Yes.

[Griffin]

And you're like, what is this? What's going. Who is this? And then you realize, okay, this is like Mr. C basically raped Audrey Horne when she was comatose right. After the bomb went off at the end of Twin Peaks Season 2 and created this monster.

[David]

Right. I mean, this is like one of the darkest things.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It's awful. And then it's like, well, what's. Well, then why is he in the show? Apart from to like, run kids over and be evil? It's like he's just another Dougie. He's another thing the doppelganger can use to avoid decoy. Right. Another sort of like. And that's all he does. And then he dies. It's sort of satisfying when Richard Horde is exploded.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

But I don't know. I mean, is there anything about Richard Hormut Horn I'm not grasping? Or like, what do you think lynch wanted to achieve with that character? Apart from freaking me out, it almost.

[Ben]

Seems like it's been 12 years since I've watched the Wire. But remember when there was like, what was his name, the bad guy towards the end of the Wire?

[Griffin]

Marlo Stanfield. Yeah, Basically, like, what if there was Avon Barksdale with, like, no charisma? It was just terrifying.

[Ben]

I think. I think maybe, you know, like, especially when Richard Horne first appears, he's sort of like, his sociopathy is like, very reminiscent of a classic, like, lynch sociopathy. But he's Just like. Yeah, it's just, like, charmless.

[Griffin]

Completely uncharismatic, with this terrifying face. I mean, I love him.

[David]

That almost feels like. It almost feels like a no country for Old Men kind of. Like, in the same way that he's commenting on what would happen to a town like Twin Peaks over time. That even if in the 90s, it felt a little Mayberry, the, like, small town he was presenting and out of time, these are the exact kind of towns that have. That have come upon hard times. Right. And are under a lot of stress. And, like, the version of evil that exists now isn't even charismatic.

[Ben]

It's like Chad.

[David]

Right, right. That this is, like an evil predator in a way, you know, like. And it's not even disguised in anything.

[Griffin]

Right. Like, it's. The evil is completely naked in Richard, where it's like, there's lots of evil in Twin Peaks. Lots of characters that are suffused with.

[David]

And he doesn't feel supernatural.

[Griffin]

No. He's just yelling hunt at people and running over children.

[David]

Like he's neither Bob nor Leland Palmer.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Like, there are people who feel like they exist purely as supernatural forces, and there are people who have, like, deep darkness within them and are, like, putting on a show on top of it. And here's just this awful kid who just walks through the world, runs through the world, drives through the world, doing horrible things and continuing basically unabetted until, like, a greater evil explodes him.

[Ben]

I was going to say something that I hesitate to say out loud because it is a criticism of Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

The Return, my favorite, but go ahead, go ahead.

[Ben]

You know, I don't really. I don't really like Evil Cooper.

[David]

Interesting.

[Griffin]

Oh, well, that's a major criticism, I would say. Like, you don't like his vibe?

[Ben]

I don't think it really lands. I like a lot of his scenes. I especially like him in the prison when they come to interview him. And his voice is weird.

[Griffin]

Do you like the arm wrestling fight.

[David]

With the goon crossing?

[Ben]

I love the arm wrestling.

[Griffin]

That's pretty fun.

[Ben]

But I remember, like, that scene in the hotel room early on, right?

[Griffin]

Where he shoots the lady, like, brutalizing.

[Ben]

That woman, you know, and it's like classic lynch stuff. And I mean, he kind of resolves. Like, he just gets shot, and then that's it for, you know, Bob comes out of his belly and it's, like, gets punched and. I know. I imagine that it's like David lynch Giving Kyle MacLachlan, like, a very clear direction to, like, be a little bit, like, vacant in the performance, right? Like, the performance is very like. It's like both pastiche, but also kind of just like blank.

[David]

Dougie and Mr. C are both kind of like hollow performances in an interesting way.

[Griffin]

Right. And obviously Dougie is very funny and, like, the way the world works around Dougie is very funny. The most interesting he is, as Mr. C is the prison definitely is just spooky. But in the episode 17, I think when he shows up to the sheriff's office and is kind of mimicking being normal.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's like Truman, you know, it's interesting.

[Griffin]

It's a little interesting to see, right? To see him make a little bit of effort to pretend not to be a scary psychopath.

[Ben]

But I just think, like, Cooper in the mirror, and maybe I'm like, expecting something, which is a bad thing to do with this. Right. But Cooper in the mirror at the end of season two. Bob laughing there's like a psychosis that's, like, entered the equation that is just.

[Griffin]

Sort of like, not there with Mr.

[Ben]

C, there with Mr. C. And I like, well, Mr. C is just bad, but he's like, not even bad in a way that, like, he's bad in this, like, more mythical way than Richard Horn is bad, but not in a more, like, interesting way.

[David]

Okay, this leads to a question for me. There's the scene, I think it comes in the following episode, perhaps 15.

[Ben]

Maybe.

[David]

Episode 16, where Diane gives the whole explanation of being sexually assaulted by Mr.

[Griffin]

C. Yes, that's in episode 16.

[David]

But then that turns out to be revealed to me.

[Griffin]

Yes, that is the Diane we've dealt with for the whole show is a tulpa, is a creation.

[David]

But she is telling this story because so much of our time with this Diane is like, what was the falling out between her and Cooper? Why is she so hostile to Cooper? And there is a part of me as a viewer that is still as much as I'm trying to disabuse myself of this, processing some of these things like traditional television storytelling and going like, what's the backstory reveal going to be? And you're ready for it to be some kind of, like, TV drama betrayal. And not Laura Dern giving a very sobering five minute monologue recounting a sexual assault by a beloved character. Right. I know it's Mr. C and it's not Dale Cooper, but even just in her playing, that scene is deeply, deeply upsetting. And you're like, oh, this is like a more harrowing thing than you're even kind of led to expect from this Reality. And then almost immediately, she's dissolved.

[Griffin]

She zaps into non existence.

[Ben]

Well, they shoot.

[Griffin]

They shoot her. Yeah, yeah. And then she goes to the red room and she says, I know. Fuck you. When she's told she's manufactured and turns into a, you know, seed.

[David]

Yes. But that coming very close to the kind of like, very quiet, passive reveal that. What's his name? Richard Horn.

[Griffin]

Richard Horn is the son.

[David]

Yes. Is also the result of Mr. C sexually assaulting Audrey. Does make it feel like. Oh, in the immediate aftermath of that moment in the mirror at the end of season two, does he go on, like, a maniacal spree of evil?

[Griffin]

That seems like.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And he, like, doing, like, criminal super villain.

[Ben]

Right, right.

[David]

And not just, like, kind of fun evil, like arm wrestling, but, like, raping the most beloved women in the. In the world of Twin Peaks, one.

[Ben]

Of whom might be in a coma.

[Griffin]

Right. Right to this day.

[David]

Right. And that what we're getting now by jumping this many years ahead, just from the nature of when the show actually started filming, is this guy almost, like, running on fumes. Like, there is something kind of, like, bored and checked out by this guy who is like, well, he's just creating.

[Griffin]

Rube Goldberg machines so he can't be zapped by another zone or whatever.

[Ben]

I don't think there's even the implication. Right. Because all of this is sort of thrown into some new equation by Cooper in 18. Right. Who seems to be this fusion of all Coopers.

[Griffin]

We'll talk about it. Absolutely.

[Ben]

Yes. And there's this watching it this time and thinking about. Okay, we get this kind of convoluted story about how Cooper and David Bowie and Gordon Cole launched this plan, like, you know, 25 years ago, and it was all leading towards capturing Judy. That, like, there's almost this feeling that, like, Mr. C is part of the plan. Like, Mr. C isn't even a.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

It's like an antagonist.

[Griffin]

I meant to. You know, it's the Joker. You know, I was always supposed to go to jail. That was part of the plan. Yes.

[Ben]

And that, like, I imagine there's something that's being said. Right. About, like, the. The. The myth of Agent Cooper.

[Griffin]

Right. Which I think is what the finale is about.

[Ben]

Like, but I still don't think it's a very interesting performance or character that's fair.

[Griffin]

I mean, so I feel like what you're saying also is, like, when Bob is in Leland. Right. Like Leland. Classic Leland from Twin Peaks. Like, that's such a fascinating, like, wrestling between, you know, this. This horrible Darkness and this real person. And Ray Wise is so good. And the mania is so interesting. And. Right. Like, Mr. C is just like, yeah. What if Bob was in, like, a golem body, basically?

[Ben]

He doesn't even seem like Bob.

[Griffin]

Right? I mean, no, because Bob, you know, Bob's drooling everywhere and Bob is to, as the kids say now serving cunt. Right. Like, Bob is.

[David]

So are they going saying that now?

[Griffin]

I don't know. Theatrical.

[David]

Are your children saying that now?

[Griffin]

Bob has crazy monologues. You know, he's talking about his death bag.

[David]

But I'm like, if. If David lynch and mark frost.

[Griffin]

Where's Mr. C? Is like, hello, how are you? Squishes someone's head and then, like, moves on.

[David]

If David lynch and Mark Frost had made season three in 1991 or whatever, is that what we would have gotten?

[Ben]

You know, I believe that they've said on the record that it would have turned out that they were all aliens.

[David]

Hell, yeah.

[Ben]

And creamed corn is the food that they eat to survive.

[Griffin]

There was definitely lots of plans for UFO stuff. Like it was going to be X Files before X Files, because that's all the implications at the end of season two of, like, yeah, Garland Briggs has been, like, tracking UFOs from a weird station and there's a lot of stuff going on that's cool. They definitely had a Evil Cooper plan. Certainly.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

It was not going to, like, open with whatever. Season three of Twin Peaks in 1992 of, like, Evil Cooper is gone and we're back to regular twin. Like, there was going to be an arc.

[David]

I'm saying, if that had happened at the time, do we think they would have given us the version of, oh, this is really Bob in Cooper's body?

[Ben]

That seems like that's who it is. More, Where's Ann? Even Where's Annie? As a line is like. There's so much more color in it.

[David]

Totally. I. I think. But there's something that, like, is carried holistically across the show, which is this kind of, like, sad hollowing out of everything and everyone.

[Ben]

Sure.

[David]

And even the warmest scenes on the show, the scenes that are kind of satisfying as, like, oh, look, it's our old friends having a conversation again in a location. We remember the way that lynch is playing with time in the show, that he is leaving these odd pauses in and stretching scenes out beyond their natural or kind of expected rhythms does make everything just feel kind of odd and off in a way where to a certain degree, we have these new characters and these new environments. That are being established, that are inexplicable. And every time we go back to sort of legacy stuff, it feels like they're almost stuck in, like, a historical reenactment mode, you know? Like, here are these older people showing up wearing the same costumes in the same spaces, same hairstyles, kind of doing a version of what they were doing before, but yet he's not trying to get them to fully, I don't know, hit the same target. There's something. To me, I mean, I'm still processing all of this. This is all very new for me, and I understand where you're coming from. But there's something I find kind of more profound and upsetting in the fact that, like, Mr. C is just kind of boring and shitty.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, he's boring and shitty.

[David]

That it's like we missed out on the period of him being a fun supervillain, and now he's just an awful guy. Like a kind of awful, boring guy. He's lived so long as, like, a supernatural force possessing a body of good, that now he's just settled into some routine.

[Griffin]

Other things happened in part 15 that I want us to mention. The insane sort of snippet scene between Caleb Langley Jones and Alicia Witt. Right.

[Ben]

It's incredible.

[Griffin]

Sort of resolving a story there, but also leaving a lot open to you. Have we seen Gersten, Alicia Witt's character, in any other episode?

[Ben]

Yeah, we see her briefly, like, hiding on a staircase.

[Griffin]

Yeah, that's right. Like a few episodes prior. But, like, obviously she's in Twin Peaks as a young actor because she knows David lynch from Dune and she plays the piano. And that scene is also kind of. Anything you guys want to say about that?

[David]

I mean, perhaps a dumb podcast statement, but watching this, I was like, oh, this must have been the thing that made Oz Perkins hire her for Long Legs, which I think is an extraordinary performance.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

You and I like Alicia a lot and talk about her a lot.

[Griffin]

Major crush for you.

[David]

Long Legs. I was like, I genuinely had no idea she had this in her. She's never shown this before.

[Griffin]

Oh, and then you're seeing this, and I'm seeing this.

[David]

I'm like, oh, this is the one other time she's shown this.

[Ben]

It's, like, great writing.

[Griffin]

Yeah, it is.

[David]

It is.

[Ben]

What does he say about, like, bluebirds or something?

[Griffin]

Yeah, it's also that magic thing that this show can do where it's like, we're just going to give you this kind of little masterclass, almost just sort of floating in space. And you can watch it and experience it and then move on.

[Ben]

And there's sort of this implication of, like, he has murdered Amanda Seyfried. Right. And now is going to kill himself probably.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Yeah. And just like that, that all kind of wraps up as this. Another one of these, like, half satisfying. If that much echoes of, like, another dead blonde girl, you know, is Right.

[David]

I mean, that's a very good point. And one that is not even shown on screen, is never sort of, like, referenced again. That it's an implication that, like, the cycle is starting again. There is another death in this town that is probably gonna shake people to their core.

[Ben]

And the most memorable moment of that whole plotline, I think, is Amanda Seyfried's close up in the car. Right. Like, after she does those drive. Just like. That's David lynch. Just like, look at beauty.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And I feel. Yeah, that is like an image people, you know, like, post all the time, like, the recall so fondly.

[David]

It's also like beauty engaging with beauty. Like, it's like a beautiful face looking at the wonder of the sky, listening to a perfect pop song. Like, it is this moment of purity in the life of someone who already is trapped in cycles of hell.

[Griffin]

Other things. The death of poor, poor Patrick Fischler in Vegas, where he's shot and exploded. There's a dummy of him that just explodes. It's very cool. You have Cooper watching Sunset Boulevard and hearing the name Gordon Cole and, you know, jamming a fork into a socket. The sort of the conclusion of whatever.

[David]

He's doing it. Dougie Cooper, it unlocked in him. He's ready to come back. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Where I guess you feel like you're like, yay. Like, finally we're gonna get some. Yeah. He'll be back.

[David]

Now the show can start. Sixteen hours, I think, to some people. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Oh, and of course, the farewell to the log. But to Margaret, you know, this is incredible. Unbelievable. Yeah. Like, kind of like. Which I watch both times, like, just hushed tone. Kind of like, you know, it's. Yeah, it's beautifully performed. But also just like, you know, I don't know, it's. I love it when Twin Peaks is, like, purely emotional in that way.

[David]

Do you remember this thing that the New York Times tried to push that did not take. Where they would record, like, prominent elderly figures delivering their own kind of eulogy that they would then post as video after they died?

[Ben]

No, but that's awesome.

[David]

And the first one they did was David. What's the name of the humorist who had the Lawsuit for coming to America.

[Griffin]

Art Buchwald. Art Buchwald, the famous Washington Post political satirist and humorist.

[David]

Thank you. So they posted this video on the New York Times site that was like, I'm Art Buchwald, and I just died. And it. I saw it on the local news. And they interviewed one of the New York Times editors, and he's like, I mean, that immediately goes down in history as one of the greatest leads in the history of newspapers. And I was like, you're calling your own shot To a major degree. Right. And they only did a couple of them. It felt like it didn't stick with the public and they abandoned it. But he was stating it as like, this is a thing we're doing and we're going to stockpile them. And that way, rather than just running some obituary we've have saved for years filed away, we get to let people speak in their own voice. And I think part of the notion was the profundity of someone recording something that they know will only be heard after they are gone. And I feel like the Log lady scenes have that feeling to them where it's like. I mean, he's presumably doing one day of stockpiling five or six scenes.

[Ben]

I think she was like, day or two away from passing away.

[David]

Totally. It's like her final days of life. She's on oxygen and she's delivering scenes that will be distributed across 18 episodes, but almost definitely will outlive her. And I think that's what you're saying. The weird effect of how sacred this final goodbye feels is that, you know, it is being delivered by someone who knows that this message will outlive them.

[Griffin]

Yeah. No, it almost feels like I shouldn't watch it. Right? Like that. It's like this is too sort of intimate and private.

[David]

Right. Versus I'm Art Buchwald and I just died. Felt jokey.

[Ben]

But it's also like the show, right? So many of these episodes end with an in memoriam. So much of the cast passed away, like, right after they released it.

[David]

We keep talking about this. It's very. There's something very haunted about it. And a lot of it is, look, he had an older cast for a network show to begin with, and he waited many decades to return.

[Griffin]

But it's also elegant for David Lynch.

[Ben]

No, absolutely. It's. I think there is this feeling that even after two films, I'm like, making films is fucking tiring. When I'm 70 or like you, you have to find ways to, like, make it your life. If it's just sep. If it's separate from your life, your life is going to have this weird hole in it.

[David]

Well, this is like so much of the fucking David lynch thing is his whole life being designed around creativity and him basically being like, I am monastic in like designing the entire structure of every day of my life around developing work, creating work at the expense of perhaps all other areas of my life.

[Ben]

But it feels so. I mean, he seems well loved by at least some of the people he collaborates with.

[David]

Absolutely. And it doesn't seem like he has regrets about it. But you watch those sort of longer form interviews or the documentaries about him and he is just sort of like, these are the decisions I've made. This is how I have to. It is monastic in a way where it's like I feel a higher calling to a thing. These are the sacrifices I have to make. I'm happy with them. But I do think when you're staring down the barrel of like, is this one of the final things I get to make of this size? And your whole life has been devoted to making things like this. It is a very bittersweet experience.

[Ben]

Yeah, I mean, in that the sex scene in episode 18 is just like. It's so. I mean, talk about sort of a funereal or, you know, like.

[Griffin]

Yeah, it feels like a death ritual.

[David]

It's also, I mean, which is.

[Griffin]

That's how I always.

[Ben]

If you're not fucking like a death ritual, you're not.

[Griffin]

Some people. We're summoning a portal right now and it ain't just somewhere good.

[David]

I call it LeGrand. More like you're not giving it your all.

[Ben]

I'm gonna make you call me a different name in a different reality in a letter in the morning and then vanish.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

David. Yeah, that's gotta 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 gotta hurt, maybe they're saying it about root connection canals. And if they're saying do not go in there, maybe they're saying that about a mouth with a bunch of plaque build up. My point here is if you want to avoid being the subject of quips like that, maybe you should use our sponsor today quip.

[Griffin]

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[David]

That's what I like.

[Griffin]

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

[David]

Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the whole thing with, with quip, it's an electric toothbrush that doesn't overcomplicate the most basic daily ritual. I feel equipped. Just exists to make this as easy as possible.

[Griffin]

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[David]

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[Griffin]

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

[David]

It shows up and you go, oh, right.

[Griffin]

I got a bunch of quick 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.

[David]

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

[Griffin]

You do quip perks?

[David]

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[David]

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[David]

When they go to the. The boiler room underneath the. The Bang Bang. And you have this sort of like three shot of now real Diane Cooper back in his body and Agent Cole. It does feel like as much as there are many, many pivotal collaborators lynch has had, even just the on screen collaborators there does feel. It feels like there's something about, like, at the end of the day, it kind of comes down to these three, you know, like lynch putting himself on screen with two of his greatest, like, leads he ever found and these people who felt like avatars for him to a certain degree and also were the younger stars that he developed because a lot of his older analogs are gone now. It does feel like he's looking back on everything and having the two of them have this, like, incredibly tender, sad, sensitive love scene. Feels like part of that as well.

[Ben]

Where the same song plays. Right. Isn't it the same song from the radio? Yeah, in episode eight. Yes, that's this, like, you know, 1950s childhood hope.

[David]

But, like, compare it to the way that, like, Laura Dern has sex in Wild at Heart, you know, and it's like a wildly different thing. Like, that is like playing under, like, guitar riffs and it's like hallucinatory, like, camera lingering on her body stuff. Not an exploitative way, but it's like very like a static shit. And here is just like the thing you actually rarely see in movies, I find is like two people having sex in the dark.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but I mean, it's. Well, let's talk about the sex scene in a second first in part 16. Okay, uh, Cooper comes back. Cooper. Real Cooper. I am the FBI Cooper. We also have the explosion of Richard Horn, which we talked about. Satisfying and yet also baffling, I would say, just as a sort of like.

[David]

Oh, okay, I'm happy to see him gone. Sure, sure.

[Ben]

Jerry Horan watching from the distance.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. Having. Having a. Having a weird time. Uh, we finally have the disposal of poor Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Lee getting murdered by a random Polish guy.

[David]

Yeah, love this guy. Basically like a parking disagreement.

[Griffin]

I guess so. I mean, I don't know what I'm supposed to think if there's anything deeper going on.

[David]

You also have the FBI watching, being like, should we intervene?

[Griffin]

What?

[David]

It feels like shitty people are just getting rid of each other. So what's the conflict here?

[Jane]

This poor neighborhood.

[David]

Yeah, that's another character we never Go back to. Is the Haley Gates with the small child.

[Ben]

Oh, so good.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

There's some moment, like, some scenes in this show reminded me of Breaking Bad to the point where I was like, was David lynch watching Breaking Bad? And was just kind of like, that.

[David]

Neighborhood feels very bad. Right.

[Griffin]

There's sort of post recession.

[Ben]

The scene with the guy from Lost highway where he, like, does the coin in the air, stays in the air. Like, that scene always felt very, like, Breaking Bad coded to me. Like, I wonder if David lynch was.

[Griffin]

Just, like, he thought it was awesome. Yeah.

[Ben]

And, like, the way that scene is, like, just this extended, like, mishap feels very, like, post Coen Brothers, you know, Like.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

We never see Haley Gates again. I remember I read an interview with Mark Frost where someone was like, what was going on with that? And he was like, I just say the people in another world talk backwards. Because she's saying, like, 119. And I was like, I love. I love it that they just think about this stuff.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

People with a foot in another world.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

I think is how he's putting it. Yeah. Yeah. That's where we get people under a lot of stress. Right?

[Ben]

Yep.

[Griffin]

Yep. God, I love those guys. But, yeah. Cooper is back, bids farewell to Janie. Ian. Sonny Jim says, don't worry, you're going to get a great Dougie Jones sent to you. Essentially in the mail, they recognize that.

[David]

He is not their husband and father.

[Griffin]

Right. Diane Tulpa is destroyed after the monologue we discussed and then is turned into a seed. Great stuff. And I guess we've talked about a lot of this stuff already. Audrey does her dance and, you know, we sort of understand what has happened to Audrey. I guess, like, that. That I think that Audrey has just been comatose. I'm. People have complained that I've been like, I don't want to talk about, like, theories in the prior episodes. And I did because I didn't want to spoil anything, but. And also because I think you can do whatever you want with Twin Peaks the Return. And it isn't a thing where I'm like, I've solved the show.

[David]

Can you give us your read on the Audrey thing? Can you unpack it a little bit?

[Griffin]

She gets blown up in the finale of season two. Everyone forgets that plotline because it's bizarre.

[David]

Yes.

[Ben]

It's incredible, though.

[Griffin]

It's awesome. But a safe deposit box blows her up, I guess. And so I guess. Right. The implication is she's never recovered and that she was assaulted and had a baby in hospital. I guess in like, you know, but like that. And that's Richard Horn.

[David]

But all of this is in mind.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It's a representation of what's happened to her, I guess. Right. I mean, that's the simplest way to think about it. But I think there's probably more.

[David]

Unbelievably bleak.

[Griffin]

Sure. It's a little bleak.

[David]

Yeah. A little.

[Ben]

Does the. But the scene in the Roadhouse touches other characters who we see elsewhere. Right. Like it, it almost. It. It feels to me like this, like layered, you know, like each space is its own, like memory, you know, its own dream of another space. And. And I think she's like. She touches the rest of the show just enough for it not to quite work. That it's this like own separate unreality. Right.

[Griffin]

And it speaks to how Audrey in Twin Peaks is in the high school but not really friends with any of those characters and quickly moves beyond that storyline and is often in her own weird storyline, like with One Eyed Jacks or the bank or what? You know, like where she's kind of doing her own thing.

[David]

Girl bossing to make the lodge a better business.

[Griffin]

Like where you're like, what? You know, which is partly, I guess, them just not knowing what to do with Audrey. Right. When they're like, oh, I guess she can't hook up with Cooper, what do we do? She just does other stuff.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I don't know. Audrey.

[Ben]

Yeah. I don't know. There's just like something in David Lynch's gaze on her here in general, but especially during that dance that I find like, affecting setting in a way.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Like the way that she's not Audrey.

[David]

But also I think you said something that's effect earlier in the record, but that it's like her dancing to her own theme song is an acknowledgement of like, we can't go back. This wrestling with the sort of nostalgia and the legacy of the show where it's like, it's this character almost tortured by the fact that she can't be original Audrey anymore.

[Griffin]

It would be funny if she danced a Sharp Dressed man instead. They were just like. Because they dance the Sharp Dressed man. In my. My constant crusade to get Ben to like ZZ Top. ZZ Top's in Twin Peaks the richer.

[David]

They call it out, don't they? They go, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

And now Sharp Dressed man people are.

[David]

Like, this song rules. Ben should like this. Why doesn't Ben like them?

[Ben]

This also, this is. And it's right after Eddie Vedder plays.

[David]

Yes, but under a fake name.

[Ben]

He's playing a character he's playing as his birth name.

[David]

Oh.

[Griffin]

What is interesting.

[Ben]

I think so.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Richard Severus III or something.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Edward Lewis Severson iii.

[Jane]

Oh, yeah, that was a good name change.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah, he figured it out. Part 17 is right, is the satisfying conclusion in a way to twin the return Gordon lays out to everybody. Like, so I've been on the tail of a mythological evil force named Jody, Judy, whatever, for the last 25 years.

[Ben]

Okay. It's episode 17. I got some stuff to tell you.

[Griffin]

Hey, Albert. I've been hiding something.

[David]

I guess I owe you guys.

[Griffin]

Jeffries was in league with me possibly. You know, Cooper was sort of involved too. And so that's really what we've been working on. And now Cooper is back and we're going to go to Twin Peaks Sheriff Department, like, where he's going to, like, finally have this big showdown. And they have a big showdown because the. I guess it's like Mr. C, the doppelganger, he's. He's trying to use the portal to go somewhere else. Right.

[Ben]

This is what's totally.

[Griffin]

And the fireman kind of like pulls some levers and Garland Briggs, his head wobbles a bit. That's right. No, you get sent to Twin Peaks instead.

[Ben]

But he wasn't he kind of already in Twin Peaks?

[Griffin]

That's what I don't. Because, like, Richard is there.

[Ben]

Enters a portal.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

He goes. I think he goes to like, the portal that we saw earlier up in the mountains.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

But I think he's trying to go somewhere else. Right. And he's gets sent to Twin Peaks.

[Ben]

That's right. He's a little like, what. When he gets to the sheriff's department.

[Griffin]

And you know that he is shot triumphantly by Lucy, who figures out how cell phones work and that there are two Coopers. And the Woodsmen come to do their little. I'm doing the Woodsman, But I guess Bob comes out. The orb comes out.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I don't know what's supposed to be different at this point. Maybe it's just time for no more Mr. C. Like, Bob's just gotta go somewhere else.

[Ben]

Well, the other thing that's different is that real Cooper is there.

[Griffin]

So I guess that's part of it. Right. Like, Bob is no longer able to like body.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I remember being sort of like. Because I was watching it this time to watch sort of like this, the. How they get from one space to another. And it is really strange that, like, Cooper, evil Cooper, gets to Twin Peaks, right? Then has to go to an alternate dimension to get to the sheriff's station. But it almost feels like that. It's like the whole series, you know, they've been trying to get to Twin Peaks, they've been trying to return, and now, like, finally we've reached the point in the narrative where, like, both of them can combine in some sense.

[David]

Well, the other key difference is that one punch man is in the room this time.

[Ben]

Yeah, Freddy.

[Griffin]

Freddy is there and he. I mean, I think again, the visual effects here are awesome. Yeah, like, they're so cool. Angry Bob Sphere is awesome. He should be put in like a Marvel versus Capcom thing. You could just be him. Like, the Bob is very good.

[David]

Twin Peaks versus Capcom.

[Griffin]

Yeah, that sounds great. Are you kidding me? You can. Someone, like, turned into a Tulpa, right? You could have like a Tulpa spell.

[Ben]

Honestly, like Twin Peaks continue. Like, if you reboot. If I rebooted Twin Peaks, the Internet would be very mad at me. But if Twin Peaks was rebooted by Nintendo as a series of tennis kart fighting, super Twin Peaks Fight golf, people would be ecstatic.

[Griffin]

Twin Peaks Party Jamboree Birdo and shy guy. These would be great. I mean, like, the little jumping man, basically is a shy guy.

[Ben]

Ike the spike.

[Griffin]

Ike the spike. I miss Ike the spike.

[David]

There's that story we've heard about how I feel like this is like public, but all the sort of licensing out of the Sopranos, the video game, the slot machines and all this shit where the cast was like, isn't this going to diminish the show? And David Chase was like, none of this touches the show. The show is the show. If the show stays good, I don't care if we're fucking making money off the side on like slot machines.

[Griffin]

Right.

[Ben]

100%.

[David]

I do kind of wish David lynch would be like, you know what? Open game. Like, everyone do what you want with Twin Peaks now. I finished my statement.

[Griffin]

The rights are now open.

[Ben]

He made those Japanese coffee ads.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He should do that.

[David]

Twin Peaks emoji ads.

[Jane]

It would be a great pinball.

[Griffin]

Is there? Definitely. Well, the return, especially where your ball just sort of disappears.

[David]

Yeah.

[Jane]

It ends up in a different pinball machine.

[David]

Like two down, the machine shoots coins in your eye.

[Ben]

The little screen starts just showing an 8 bit broom sweeping for 14 minutes.

[Griffin]

Or it opens its face or just screams cunt at you.

[David]

Yeah, you're. Dare I say it, you're serving content this episode.

[Griffin]

Look, it's the Britain.

[David]

David's from the uk. He can say it I just felt uncomfortable saying.

[Griffin]

Is. I do reflect on the fact that, like, that's a word I would say in front of, like, my friend's parents in high school. Because it's such an innocuous word.

[David]

Yeah. It's like calling someone a jerk.

[Griffin]

Anyway. Insane. We then get what I think is just. It's so awesome, the explosion of Bob. But then, like, Right. The almost parody of, like, bring in the girls from the Vegas casino. Bring in everyone. Everyone. Let's do a curtain call.

[David]

It's like a Wizard of Oz. Like, saying goodbye to all the friends you've made along the way. Yeah.

[Griffin]

But superimposed over this, like, lovely farewell is Cooper's face. And he is. We, like, just. We're just this impression of, like, we're in a dream. Right? Or he and he is the dream. Like, this is one way it could work out maybe for, you know, for Cooper to perceive it this way.

[Ben]

And then it dissolves to him and we stay with him. Right. Like. Like, eventually.

[Griffin]

Superimposed Cooper, we live inside.

[Ben]

A dream, becomes, like, the only Cooper.

[Griffin]

Right? And that's when we go into the furnace room. And then he goes to see Mike, like. And they do the Fire Walk With Me chant. And, you know, they.

[Ben]

It's very obviously not young Laura Palmer in certain shots.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

Well.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

I mean, because we're getting real footage. And then once she breaks out of the conversation, then it's. But this is the shit I love. Like, the constant, ongoing conversation about, like, the proper technology for de aging and are we on the cusp of it and whatever, and people trying to crack this nut of, like, how do you successfully digitally de age actors and keep them at the perfect age in their perfect projects? And I'm like, I accept this. I don't bump on this at all. There was the moment where I clock. Oh, we've gone from vintage 1992 footage totally, to new footage. But he's keeping her far enough away from the camera. He's putting a lot of makeup on her. He's putting a wig on her. I get what this means. Like, I'm not fucking struggling.

[Ben]

And there genuinely is this moment in Fire Walk With Me where she kind of, like, looks off screen and just kind of, like, gasps. And it's taken advantage of here to be like, she saw Cooper.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

I totally buy it.

[Griffin]

Me, too.

[Ben]

I totally buy that that was the plan.

[David]

It feels upsetting to have the eras in conversation with each other.

[Griffin]

It's very, very jarring.

[David]

It cuts from that footage now in black and white, put In a sort of a language that's more of the Return. And then we cut to the reverse of it and it's just Cooper at his current age watching it feels wrong.

[Griffin]

And those shots of the woods and just her screaming, I mean, she's got the most. It takes me right to Blair Witch, which I always associate with like woods and screaming. Right. The scariest shit in Blair Witch is just her screaming.

[Ben]

Well, and she hears. We hear that sound which plays throughout the series. And it's like David lynch was fascinated by a slowed down slot machine sound.

[David]

Mr. Jackpots.

[Ben]

Yeah, well, yeah, we hear it a lot in the casino. And he hears that sound and he turns around and she's getting whisked away. And it's sort of like, oh, sorry.

[David]

But the other thing is it feels like he's re edited this footage to match the weird unnatural tempo of the Return. Like now this old footage from the 90s has the sort of like too much dead air, out of rhythm, response time. Shit. That feels weird that he's able to like with old frozen footage in that way.

[Griffin]

Which I think is the point.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Is that what Cooper does in his supreme arrogance in a way is he's like, great, I defeated Bob, now I will also save Laura Palmer. I can do anything. I. He has, it seems, some sort of mastery of the Red Room and like the crossing between worlds. He didn't before because there's that moment where he kind of points at the curtain and it starts flapping when he's in the. Where you're like, oh, he like. He knows the rules of this place now because in the finale of season two, when he's running around the Red Room, he's just like running through curtains and looks confused. And now it's like, yeah, no, he's like evolved into. And so he can fix everything. And obviously, like, that's what part 18 is. Is like he has obviously fixed nothing or he has created a new reality or a new dream or. I mean, let's talk about it. Like, let's.

[David]

Well, so he makes Laura's body disappear.

[Griffin]

Yes. Well, he plucks her out. He makes her not die.

[David]

Exactly.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Jack Nance never discovers her. Leland ends up in the Red Room much earlier. Basically, like protecting everyone else from his damage. And then rather than just accept that, he's like, I have to find this universe's version of Sarah Palmer and Laura Palmer, both of them, and like reunite them to heal the wounds. And it does. It doesn't work. He can't get resolution.

[Griffin]

There's so much going on. We. There's. Yes. I mean, I. I don't know what you think, Jane, but yes. Right.

[Ben]

Generally. Yes. Yes.

[Griffin]

Generally. It's sort of like. I mean, it's just so gutting, this feeling that, like, this poor woman is being tortured again.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

This woman who's a new person.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Carrie. Right. That's her name. Like, look, let's talk. I'm like, part 18. I just write. I want to progress exactly through it. Right. We've got first the. The. The one fan service. Y Lovely bit. The. The creation of the new Dougie Jones. Just walking in, like, greeted with open arms.

[Ben]

But it is, like, I think it's important that we see Dougie in that episode. Right. Because, like, I feel like Dougie is very transparently, like, meditation. David lynch being like, this is the only sane way to live.

[David]

Yes. I mean, it is. It is.

[Griffin]

The thing I find big, slow thumbs up. Yeah.

[David]

So fascinating about David lynch in a larger way is, like, here's this man who is, like, intensely spiritual and, like, spends his time trying to reckon with, like, the primal forces of the universe and existence and, like, the sort of perversion of the world and all of this. And then simultaneously, he's like, you know what makes me happy? A poster of a cat. Soda pop. You know, like these, like, very artificial commercial creations and this sort of, like, packaged idea of, like, domestic bliss are things that he approaches with zero cynicism. Like, he's like, this is genuinely what makes life worth living.

[Ben]

A bag of Cheetos, Jim said, right?

[David]

Like, he's simultaneously in conversation with, like, the absolute, like, darkness and the absolute light. And also all of the, like, man made distractions away from both of those things.

[Ben]

I remember while it was airing a friend's read on Twin Peaks, and I think she was dealing with this in her real life, but she was like, to me, this is a show about Alzheimer's. This is a show about, like, memory being lost. And so, like, Dougie as a character living in this kind of eternal presence.

[David]

Catatonins and having a loved one who kind of isn't themselves anymore and just like.

[Ben]

And just loving it, you know, just like, doing great. Like, putting that against. End of episode. What year is this? Hunched over, sort of, like, seemingly addled by time, confused. Cooper is.

[David]

Well, that's like the consciousness is a prison. You're like, dougie's got it figured out totally.

[Griffin]

And there's something like. So in. In the last two episodes, Cooper is kind of the Cooper we know. I guess he's Got this swagger to him. But in this episode, he's off. Especially after.

[Ben]

After they cross. The.

[Griffin]

They cross after the sex. The really, really hot, normal sex that they have. But yeah, after they cross, like when he goes to see Carrie and she's just got a dead body in her house, he's just like.

[David]

Let's also say the violence of the.

[Griffin]

Diner scene when he confronts the guys in the diner, right? He's like this kind of sick cowboy all of a sudden. He's not like Cooper at all, right?

[David]

He's lost his, like, folksy charm.

[Ben]

He's like Fusion. He's like a more realistic Mr. C. Right?

[Griffin]

Or it's like, right. Mr. C is still part of him, right?

[David]

It's like Dougie Cooper and Mr. C all in him as this sort of, like, while he's basically cosplaying as vintage Halloween costume Agent Cooper, the FBI.

[Ben]

The other one thing I noticed this time that I hadn't noticed before is when he first comes out of the red room at the beginning of this episode, he is arriving at, I believe, the place that he entered it at the end of season two, right? Which we haven't seen that much in this series, with that weird little puddle thing in front of it, like the. The tree that kind of has a puddle in it. You know what I'm talking about? Or like the little campfire thing with the stones around.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah. And the tree, sorry, the. The arm brain tree says, like, is this the story of the little girl who. Down by the lane? Which feels kind of mocking to me, right?

[David]

Of, like, the episode eight stuff, but.

[Griffin]

Also, like, to me, it's like, well, this is just Timmy, like, you know, like, you can't fucking drop this storyline, Cooper. Like, you still have to save Laura Palmer. You just exploded, Bob, with, you know, like, you've defeated evil. You. The evil is defeated. Like, you know, right?

[David]

Like, we did it.

[Griffin]

And he's like, yeah, but what about Laura Palmer? And it's like, why can't you shake this, like, innocent that you never got to rescue, even though she was dead before you even arrived?

[David]

Well, he goes to this kind of cowboy diner, right?

[Griffin]

Which is called, of course, Edith Judy's, right?

[David]

And he is, minus folksy charm, very kind of, like, bizarrely and intensely interrogating this waitress about, where's the other waitress? In a way that is unnerving everybody in the room. I was like, oh, is the thing now that he's getting some transmission of another crime that is going to happen? He is trying to prevent in this Sort of like, future. Can I get ahead of the. It is happening again, right? Am I now, like, committed to this infinite loop of being? Like, well, I live in darkness, and my whole life is trying to prevent these tragedies right before they happen. I couldn't figure out where it was going. Then you have, I think, kind of importantly. He does not seem to enjoy his coffee.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

She serves him coffee.

[Ben]

He takes us.

[David]

He has no response. Then he sees this woman. Bad coffee, right?

[Griffin]

Y.

[David]

With. You're like, oh, I want to see Cooper take these guys down. But you want to see him take it down.

[Griffin]

He'll be like, gentlemen, you know, what are we doing here?

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

That's no way to treat a lady. And instead, it's, like, upsetting. And he's putting guns away. The bullets might explode. And I'm like, you're gonna, like, like, burn this diner to the ground. Then he's driving there with all this purpose. And then when he goes to the door, it is so upsetting because you're like, why are you poking this? Right. There's this feeling of, like, shouldn't the happy ending here be just knowing that you prevented the crime from happening? What more do you need to meddle with?

[Ben]

Sort of in its way, right? Like the meta. The. The meta extrapolation is that it's like a. Like a disavowal of the entire idea of the re.

[Griffin]

Why do we need more Twin Peaks, right? Yeah.

[David]

But then, as you said, when he walks in, there's a dead body.

[Griffin]

She's rattled. She's clearly in the midst of some insane personal drama. And he's like, yeah, yeah, Laura Palmer, Twin Peaks, Washington. Want to come with me?

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

And she's coming with him because she's like, well, I have to escape whatever the fuck this is.

[David]

She literally, I'm in a bit of a bind, and it would be better for me to escape with a jacket. It's like, yeah, I was older, planning on getting out of Dodge, right. Neither of them addressed this body.

[Griffin]

No, no, I mean, what, you don't have a dead body on one of your couches?

[David]

Of course I do, but I'm just saying that's not a mission of guilt.

[Griffin]

And they go to the Palmer home, which is this, like, at this point, it's like the fucking Amityville Horror House, right? Like, the very sight of it is kind of like, for a Twin Peaks fan, I think, a little freaky. The woman who plays the woman, Ms. Alice Tremond, is the real owner of the house. I don't Know if you like, look that up.

[David]

Wild.

[Griffin]

Who probably, I guess, has to deal with people being like, hey, did Laura Palmer get molested?

[Ben]

She seems lovely.

[Griffin]

She seems great. Like Twin Peaks tourists showing up.

[David]

We were doing George Lucas talk show in Seattle earlier this year, before David lynch had won our March Madness, before I had seen any Twin Peaks. And Connor and Patrick went to the house. They wanted to go to Tweety's, they wanted to do all the sort of landmarks, tourism, Right. And they were saying this woman bought the house, had never seen Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

Then had to start dealing with people coming to the house. And now has turned her home into like 50% Twin Peaks Museum. Now is obsessed with Twin Peaks.

[Griffin]

Good for her.

[David]

Now, like, kind of lives in Twin Peaks by design.

[Ben]

She closes. Closes the series out.

[Griffin]

She does. What a way to go.

[David]

Yeah. And I didn't put together that.

[Griffin]

I just remember watching. I really. I will never forget it. Like, just watching this on my couch alone.

[Ben]

And you're like, checking the clock, right?

[Griffin]

Exactly.

[David]

Like there's like five minutes left.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Like, and. And it's truly right. What's happening is just Cooper being like, eh, Laura, like, is this sparking anything? Like, do you know Sarah, by the way?

[David]

Like, you know, she's like, talking to a husband who is hidden behind the door. And she's like, let me ask him quickly.

[Ben]

But she is dropping Twin Peaks lore.

[Griffin]

She mentions that she bought it from Miss Chalfont. The old lady. The creepy old lady from Twin Peaks. I don't know how else to describe. Right. This lady.

[Ben]

Yeah, we all know and love her.

[Griffin]

We love her. So it's true. There's some, like, breadcrumb, I guess, for fans to think about there.

[Ben]

Well, and then she hears, right. Like there is some implication of, like, this world as like a sinister mirage or something, because Laura hears her name whispered and.

[Griffin]

And screams as Cheryl Lee is, you know, the best in the world at doing. What year is it? I mean, like, I've. There's this read that I've read. You know, I've sort of plumbed around, like, Reddit and, you know, things like that and my darker days, you know, and like this read that, like, it's like we're in Laura's dream now, right? And she's created this sort of COVID in the dream and he's like, waking her up, right? And that's why she's screaming. Like, he's.

[David]

He's messing with this about coping mechanisms.

[Griffin]

Right. And that's one way, but, yeah, the sort of indictment of Cooper is the White Knight strikes me as sort of a crucial thing for the finale of the Return.

[Ben]

Well, and, like, the idea that Fire Walk With Me is, you know, maybe my favorite film, and that film is like. Is all Cheryl Lee. Like, her performance in that film is incredible and devastating. And it almost. It feels like there is this, like, ugliness in, you know, like, in why my parents didn't want me watching Blue Velvet because there is this, like, very deep ugliness that, you know, David lynch talks about as this, like, seeing that naked woman on the street and, you know, the bugs under the ground and, like. Right. There's this sort of origin story of, like, deep trauma rot at the heart of this, like, 1950s American dream that seems to be, like, very crucial to the filmography. But, like, nowhere is this, like, rendered in more just, like, ugly, devastating, and, like, empathetic. Just close, close terms than with Charlie and Fire Walk With Me and.

[David]

And her performance in this episode is incredible as well.

[Griffin]

It is, but she goes.

[Ben]

She goes to heaven at the end of Fire Walk With Me.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

He gets a release.

[Ben]

He, like, lets her ascend, and then here's Cooper to, like, rip her back out.

[Griffin]

Exactly right. Buffy vibes again. Buffy went to heaven.

[Ben]

It's true.

[Griffin]

Spoiler alert for season five of Buffy.

[David]

I mean, it's. Where. Where do you stand on Matrix resurrections?

[Ben]

Oh, I love Matrix.

[David]

Okay. We're in a safe space.

[Griffin]

Martin. Normal.

[David]

So, Right. We. We love that movie. But that's a movie that has, I think, when a lot of people still, I see to this day, go like that is this, like, incredibly cynical movie about someone acknowledging I'm basically being forced. Warner Brothers making me do this, to make a movie defensively, to hold on to the rights. And I'm like, that is such a passionate, personal, empathetic movie. But that is also about examining the cultural weirdness of us wanting these actors to stay in these characters in these places, retelling the same stories. What are we looking for here? And there's some of that in. I think this ending of, like, you wanted resolution at Twin Peaks. Like, Laura Palmer was in a good place.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Why do you want more from her?

[Ben]

And then offer you anything else? Yeah. That, like, perhaps if this is David lynch making a final. He's like, okay, how do I close it out? Besides the monkey. He's like, the pursuit of resolution. The pursuit even of unpacking something from your past creatively will ultimately just lead you back to originary trauma, you know?

[David]

Yes, Yes. I think that's beautifully said.

[Griffin]

I do too. It rattled me at the time. The Merovingian should be involved now that you're thinking that that should have happened.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Like, maybe Cooper's like, I need to cross to this other world. The Mervyn is like, very well, well, first you must eat my magic cake or whatever.

[David]

But, like, so upsetting that this show ends on credits playing over still image of Laura whispering into Cooper's ear when, like, most of this season has ended. Over concert footage.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Or Ed sadly eating an instant lunch right at his desk. But this is closer to the language of the original series, where it's like, credits playing over prom photo of Lore. And it's like, now this is the new cursed image that has replaced it. That is frozen in time forever.

[Griffin]

White, cursed fun to revisit.

[Ben]

Oh, my God. Yeah. I had such a great time.

[Griffin]

Griffin, you've watched Twin the Return.

[David]

Like.

[Griffin]

C plus.

[David]

C minus cinema score. But no, I, I, no, I, I liked it a tremendous amount. I don't know. It's been, I, I've, I've said this, but it's just the lynch headspace. Living in it for months. Not the only thing I'm watching, but, like, it being the overriding world I'm living in because of this being my career now, my job, chained to the old blink check desk. I'm, like, a little relieved, especially because this is so challenging. The Return in particular, and is really kind of litigating his whole body of works, themes and ideas and images and everything in a way that can sometimes feel very punishing by design.

[Ben]

I think the thing that was so exciting about it at the time was, like, someone being given that canvas, you know, and like, 18 hours on television to, like, break. Like, I just look at it, I'm like, oh, my God. Like, the way that this is subverting structure, you know, narrative structure, but on such a grand scale that we usually only see, like, it's TV is just so conservative. Right.

[Griffin]

It's like, by design, it has to be. There's a status quo. You have to obey.

[Ben]

Like, even, like, knowing what people are going to be wanting week to week and knowing, you know, knowing like, that the episode before the end is like some kind of emotional resolution. And then the last one does a different thing. Like just seeing David lynch explode these notions or not even explode it. Cause it just feels like he took it and ripped it apart until, like, each of the threads were like their own island that, like, kind of saw the other one, but didn't quite. It's just like, I don't know, it's like a ball that I, and I think many other filmmakers are just like, that would be a fun ball to run with further down court.

[David]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's a thing that you and I complain about a lot. You even more than me about how frustrated we are with this notion that, like, streaming and the legitimacy, the legitimizing of television as an art form and as a storytelling form has created some, like, golden age where now we're no longer shackled to the structures and expectations of broadcast television and people can really branch out and do other shit.

[Ben]

And you're like a B level Marvel character.

[David]

This is the fucking thing. You're just like, you watch this and you're like, it's been almost 10 years since this aired and everything still feels conservative. It just feels conservative in, like, different clothing. There is as much of a like notion, a very kind of, like, limited notion of how TV can function. We just changed what that is. But most TV shows still fit into, like one of three boxes at most. And when you're, you know, watching something like this, where you really are, I think, to your point, Jane, like, exploding the notion of storytelling and structure and episodic narratives and all of this. And then you're like, and what do we, like, get on the other end of this? Like, other filmmakers take a lot of money from big streaming companies and make like a 10 hour movie. And I'm like, this is neither fish nor foul. You're just making something that is, like, trying to. I don't know.

[Ben]

Well, in a funny way, like, a lot of those, A lot of the best shows, like, have a lot, I think, in common with this. It's just when Peaks Return, like, pushed it way farther, you know, like something like the Sopranos was, like, constantly about subverting.

[Griffin]

The Sopranos is the Calvin and Hobbes of, like, where it's like, Calvin and Hobbes is like Bill Waterston eventually being like, I fucking hate that I have to do four panels. Like, can I do something else? And it's like, not really, man. It goes in the newspaper and David Chase is kind of doing that in the Sopranos, but can't go all the way.

[Ben]

But, you know, if it does in a pretty adventurous way, he's like, all right, so like, Michael Imperilli is going to die in 10 minutes in, and then like, Tony's going to go do drugs in Vegas. Like, that's like a radical departure from.

[Griffin]

Spoiler alert for the Sopranos.

[Ben]

Sorry.

[Griffin]

And no. But also things like the test dream, where that feels like David Chase being like. To all the fans of the show who are like, who's whacking who? He's just like, fuck you.

[Ben]

Here's Annette Benning.

[Griffin]

Tony's gonna talk to Annette Bening in his dream and say, are you Annette Bening? And she's gonna go, yeah, I am. Or the Lauren Bacall episode. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in Evans in Front of Us that feels very violently angry at its audience in the best way. I don't. The Return doesn't feel that way, but it does feel. This feels sort of violently angry at resolutions.

[Ben]

A little bit confrontational about, like, form and narrative.

[Griffin]

Yes. And, like, obviously, Twin Peaks is a show that had a resolution foisted on it a little bit by its network. Right. Like, you have to tell us who killed Sarah Laura Palmer. Like, what are you talking about? And he's like, you didn't want that and you don't want this either. Cooper thinks he wants it, but you don't want this.

[David]

That's a really good point. The part of him fighting against the expectations and structures is like, we did the show where we did what everyone asked us to do. Everyone got furious. It made everyone unhappy simultaneously.

[Griffin]

I hate to do those big meta reads because I'm like, it's not just him grousing about network notes, but, like, you know, resolutions are unsatisfying.

[David]

Is a thing you can think about maybe, like, dishonest. Is there something, like, inherently dishonest about, like, putting things all in a neat, resolved space, which his movies don't really.

[Ben]

And I do. I remember, like, thinking. Because when this aired, in the aftermath of, like, unpacking the ending for myself, I was very much, like, working on World's Fair, and I remember really thinking just a lot less about, like, the ending contextually and more like the how the end. Like, what the ending left me with. Right. Like. Like, the ending left me on a hook that I was basically, like, having dreams about for two months, trying to, like, wrestle and come to my sort of peace with. And it's, like, a wonderful way to. I've ended two movies this way. You know, It's a wonderful way to end the movie because when the TV show ends with, like, all of the plot lines getting satisfyingly, like, settled, you just. You're like, okay, that was fun. What's the next TV show? Doesn't really leave you with.

[Griffin]

Yes, no questions.

[David]

Right, Exactly. It's ending with questions rather than ending.

[Ben]

With answers, which are, I think, in this case quite generative to a lot of the things that he is preoccupied with.

[David]

I agree with that.

[Griffin]

God bless. Do you want to play the ratings game, Griffin? Yeah, I just noticed. I looked up the. We usually do a box office game, which is harder to do with TV, that aired on Showtime. But the USA Today article about cable ratings in September 2017 notes rudely that Showtime's twin, the Return, sputtered out with a typically low 240,000.

[Ben]

It sucked. Yeah.

[David]

Now, because we're covering TV, of course, we're doing the ratings game this week, but I should mention that it is brought to us by our friends at Regal. Regal Unlimited, of course, is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. And for this month, only an unprecedented 20% off your first three months. Use code blank check in the Regal app or the link included in the episode description.

[Griffin]

The number one cable show, it seems. Well, all right, this is boring. This is the problem with TV ratings, Griffin.

[David]

Well, look, here's the thing. For the fourth week in a row, playing the ratings game, I think has us longing for the box office game, which of course would be brought to you by our friends at Regal in absentia, they are presenting to you the ratings game. But the point here is, God, isn't it great to go out to movie theaters to say, sign up for Regal unlimited, use promo code check and see arguably an unlimited number of movies?

[Griffin]

Sure. At least one of them big screen.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I'm gonna remove from the ratings game all news, sports. This is cable ratings.

[David]

Oh, I think this makes it more interesting.

[Griffin]

All news, sports. And like wrestling, which is sort of a sport.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

To be clear, no offense to wrestling. So the number one cable broadcast that week, Griffin, was a soap opera on Oprah's network, O W N that is created by Tyler Perry Brown.

[David]

No. What's the show called?

[Griffin]

Ran for 196 episodes.

[David]

Did he have a show called Brown Sugar? Am I misremembering?

[Griffin]

That was a show on own? I'm not sure if it was a Tyler Perry show.

[David]

Yeah. Okay. What is this thing called? It's not called, like the Haves and have nots. Right. What's a.

[Griffin]

It is called the Haves and the have nots. Okay, you nailed it.

[David]

I got it. It was somewhere there deep in my.

[Griffin]

Subconscious with Tika Sumpter, was the star of this. But a lot of big actors like Danielle Deadweiler, who's probably gonna get an Oscar nomination this year in my film.

[Ben]

Most talented actor I've ever met in My life.

[Griffin]

One of those, like, you know, sort of like, nobody writes about this stuff in like, whatever mainstream TV criticism that much because. Partly because it's just like a torrent of soap opera episodes, right? It's like five a week or whatever. But that is the highest rated scripted thing that I can find. Number two is a rerun of a sitcom. Griffin.

[David]

Number two is a rerun of a sitcom on cable is a Big Bang Theory.

[Griffin]

It's the Big Bang Theory, Right?

[David]

That was the thing. I remember getting a lot of ink at that time was that Big Bang re airing on primetime on TBS would get bigger ratings than most things airing on network television.

[Griffin]

Number three is a crime thriller TV series that I believe continues to be ongoing interesting in new forms. They're always opening new chapters of this.

[Ben]

I think I got it.

[Griffin]

Please.

[Ben]

Dexter.

[Griffin]

Not Dexter. Although that is another one. That one is messing with things so much where they're doing a new Dexter where they're like, ignore the finale of the last Dexter thing we did. We know you didn't.

[David]

Like, they're addressing the original sin now. Finally.

[Ben]

I don't know.

[David]

Okay, but it is one of, again.

[Griffin]

One of those, like, long running hit shows that people don't talk about too much.

[David]

But it's not like Leverage. Am I. Am I on the right?

[Griffin]

I can't remember what Leverage is.

[David]

So it's a Timothy Hutton one where they're like, robbing.

[Griffin]

Oh, yeah, they were robbing. Yeah, but I feel like that's premium cable.

[David]

It's on premium cable.

[Griffin]

There's a new book recently.

[David]

Oh, it's Power.

[Griffin]

Power.

[Ben]

Power.

[David]

Yeah, there are many books. They got a whole shelf now.

[Griffin]

Power Number four. I'm. No, I'm. I'm out of scripted stuff.

[David]

God, it's all Jesus.

[Griffin]

All right, so you know, that's it. I mean, like, number. It's just lots more Big Bang theories, a lot of Fox News, some Red Sox games. All right, what's this? All right, this is. Maybe Ben's watched this. Okay, it's a reality show.

[David]

Is it about home restoration?

[Griffin]

No, it's about people who live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina that are taught basic wilderness survival skills. It's on the History Channel.

[David]

Ben?

[Jane]

No idea.

[Griffin]

It's called Mountain Men. It's been running for 12 years.

[David]

Okay.

[Jane]

Not familiar.

[Griffin]

He teaches you stuff.

[David]

If you say so.

[Griffin]

And then another one is about fishing people. You must know that one. Either of you. Anyone? The reality show on Discovery Channel.

[David]

Masters. No, no, don't say it like no. That was a reasonable guess.

[Griffin]

Sure. Fishing.

[David]

I don't even know if that's a real show.

[Griffin]

I think that was a video game.

[David]

Yeah, you're probably right. It's. Isn't that the thing that's at like the bar? Bars have it.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Okay. It's about fishing, people.

[Griffin]

It's called Crab Fishermen, I believe in Alaska.

[David]

Okay. It's called Crab Fishermen in Alaska.

[Griffin]

It's called Deadliest Catch. Y'all don't know Deadliest Catch?

[David]

Yeah, no, of course.

[Griffin]

Been running for 20 years.

[David]

Yeah, of course.

[Griffin]

351 episodes of Deadliest Catch. Anyway, apparently one of the guys died.

[David]

Yeah, everything's a bummer.

[Griffin]

It's just crazy to think about this indelible, important piece of culture that was voted like the greatest cinema of the decade by Caillou de Cinema or whatever. Right. Like, you know.

[David]

Right. And then Twin Peaks the Return is airing at the same time. I assume you were talking about Deadliest Patch.

[Griffin]

But then you look it up like the ratings news is like Showtime's like fart of a revival. Nobody cared about that.

[David]

But them also saying like, like a leaky 240,000 viewers.

[Ben]

But it's.

[David]

And you're like, isn't that bigger than most network shows now?

[Ben]

I remember after sundowns doing what is called the Water bottle tour. After my first film where you meet all of general meetings, develop this time.

[Griffin]

Oh, they're all giving you water bottles. Is that the idea? Like take a show time. Branded.

[Ben]

Although thankfully this was. I was at home because it was the pandemic.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure. So it's just a lot of water bottle zoom meetings.

[David]

Yeah, it's called the. The Brit.

[Ben]

Yeah, it's called the Keeping Good Boundaries By Not Leaving the House tour.

[Griffin]

We're all in it together.

[Ben]

And I remember, I think I still had like more optimism about the taste of your average LA development executive. Just like talking about Twin the Return as this seismic moment for me and my cohort of starry eyed artists and. And people just being like very much that, like, didn't that thing bomb? Totally. I thought nobody watched that shit very much. Just like seen as this like minor failure in the same way that like some other forgotten reboot that was like unsatisfying was a failure.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Wait, what is a good two Dexters ago?

[David]

Yeah, because there have been obviously Murphy Brown. That didn't really hit when they brought Murphy Brown.

[Griffin]

Right? That's the thing.

[Ben]

There's like the X Files, right?

[Griffin]

The X Files, season 11.

[David]

Great.

[Ben]

Exactly.

[Griffin]

Yeah. People lost interest. Like Twin Peaks. The Return is like reinventing forms and right is like, you know, will be discussed for a generation in there anyway. And it will be.

[David]

What I find even more aggravating than what you're describing are the people in those same positions who are like, oh, my God, I love Twin Peaks the Return. It reinvented the form. Obviously, I can't make anything like that. Like, my dad used to always invoke the, like, young development exec who has a framed Cassavetes poster. And it's like, that guy's my fucking hero. Anyway, who am I rooting for in your script.

[Griffin]

Griffin? Do you have a Lynch list? Yeah. The other thing you have to rank David Lynch. Jane, if you off the dome, want.

[Ben]

To rank David Lynch, Happy to rank. Let me do a little work on my phone.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I mean, this. This feels a little very hard to.

[Griffin]

Rank David lynch because almost all of his work is meaningful to me.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

So I feel a little silly saying that one is better than the other, but, you know, such a.

[Ben]

Did you guys watch the. I think unavailable except for dvd Industrial Symphony?

[David]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Griffin]

We covered that on Patreon as part of our David lynch sort of, you know, shorts and ephemera.

[Ben]

I love that I put it on my list.

[David]

Like, I've seen almost everything now in the.

[Griffin]

Like, there's just always more weird shit.

[David]

Yes. I mean, this feels like a very fungible list. Like, even as I'm looking at it right now, I'm questioning it. But I'm just going to.

[Ben]

Are you including Twin Peaks as one entity? Twin Peaks. The Return with me in the original series is separate.

[David]

I am putting Twin Peaks purely as the movie. I am solely ranking the movies. But I guess you could also say in that spot, I put Twin Peaks as a total project. Maybe. I don't know.

[Griffin]

You do what you want.

[David]

David, you go first.

[Griffin]

Okay, number one, Mulholland Drive. Basically my favorite movie ever made. Number two, Twin Peaks, the Return. If we're talking about.

[David]

Oh, so you're putting it in there.

[Griffin]

Okay, number three, Twin Peaks. Fire Walk With Me. I'm not going to count the others. The other Twin Peaks, because those are directed by lots of people and they're a little different. Twin Peaks of the Return. I debate away on. Is it a movie? Is it a TV show? At least he directed the entire thing. And it's very much. Number four, Lost Highway.

[David]

Wow, you have it. Highway.

[Griffin]

It's my slight surprise. Number five, the Straight Story. Number six, Eraserhead. Number seven, Blue Velvet. Number eight, the Elephant Man. But. But no offense to any of these things.

[David]

Yeah, we got a little bit of flipping going.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Which is good.

[Griffin]

Number nine, Inland Empire. Number 10, Wild at Heart, which is probably the first thing where I'm just kind of like, I love Wild at Heart, but it doesn't speak to me, maybe in quite the same way. And number 11, Dune, which I adore. And that's the worst thing he ever directed.

[David]

Yeah, I guess. No, I agree with you. And I. I came out fairly positive on. On Dune, watching it this time. What's what?

[Griffin]

Ben sent us a. A. A website I forgot about, but I did. I do remember at the time, which is the sort of geocities Matthew Lillard search for the Zone website.

[Ben]

Oh, yeah.

[David]

Oh, was this, like, as a promotional thing?

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

That's cool.

[Jane]

It has some fun stuff. I'll include it in the episode description.

[Griffin]

Yes. You know, like the blog that that character was creating. In Search of the Other's World.

[David]

Okay, here's my list. It feels very.

[Griffin]

I will be vacationing in the zone in 2025 just to announce I'll be going to that purple sea.

[David]

You'll travel there.

[Griffin]

Want to hang out with Garland Briggs's.

[David]

Floating head, Ben, Write a note to check live show venues in the Zone to see if we can get him to do one of those. If he's already going there.

[Griffin]

Okay, go ahead.

[David]

Okay. Fungible list. I feel like I've changed it three times in the last 10 minutes and perhaps. Right. Whatever. I have number one, Elephant Man.

[Griffin]

Yeah. That's your favorite.

[David]

It's my favorite. I also feel like, even though, to certain degrees, it's like the lynch movie that other people could have directed, the things that he did that no other filmmaker would have done, and the fact that it is kind of like, simultaneously a more conventional narrative for him while also being more experimental than anyone else would make that movie, it's also just a movie that devastates me emotionally. Number two, Mulholland Drive. Number three, Twin Peaks. Fire Walk With Me. Number four, Eraserhead. Number Five, the Straight Story. Number six, Blue Velvet. Number Seven, Wild at Heart. Eight. Inland Empire. Nine. Lost Highway. Ten. Dune. That's where I landed.

[Griffin]

Lost Highway. Lower for you.

[Ben]

I'm going to count down.

[David]

Do it.

[Griffin]

Yeah, do it.

[Ben]

10. Dune.

[David]

Wow.

[Ben]

With apologies. Not in the Elephant Man.

[David]

Okay. No, that's fair.

[Ben]

Never really. Never really lit up for me.

[David]

Yeah, it just. It really lights up for me.

[Ben]

8. Wild at heart. 7. Straight story. 6. Eraserhead. 5. Inland Empire. Oh, wait, I've got. I didn't actually write numbers here. And I have five things left to list so 11 through 6 so far. Blue Velvet number five, Lost highway went number four. Twin Peaks of the Return. Number three, Mulholland Drive number two, Firewalk with Me number one.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I'll say this for Lost Highway. Yeah. I verbalized my problem with the trade in value on the Bill Pullman 4 Balthazar Getty in the second half of that movie. We also recorded that one like months ahead because of Lowry's availability. So that was the one I watched before I was fully. Oh, that's a fair emerged and I hadn't seen it before. It's the one I've been most eager to rewatch now at the end of this series. Even if I'm maybe gonna.

[Griffin]

Very fun to rewatch that.

[Ben]

Yeah, that one. See it. See it on film if you can. That is a movie to sit and watch in a theater.

[David]

It pop up as a screening. I will absolutely jump on that.

[Jane]

I like to rank out of all the episodes we did for our lynch series, not from a quality standpoint. As far as the conversation from a production standpoint. Fire Walk With Me, number one, worst episode.

[David]

I would agree with that.

[Griffin]

Jane. To be clear, we had the filmmaker Akasha Stevenson on who was Akasha Stevenson.

[Jane]

Very patient.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Was in New Orleans and was taken to some sort of like ghouls lair of a.

[Jane]

Of a rental studio to zoom with us.

[David]

We had a kind of catastrophic dual podcast studio collapse.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It was bad.

[Jane]

A fucking nightmare.

[David]

Yeah, we did.

[Griffin]

Sorry about that one.

[David]

Yeah. Anyway, it still turned out great. Yeah. Hey, and you know what? A lot of credit there to AJ and the whole blank check team. Doing a lot of massaging.

[Griffin]

This is. Yeah. Because this is our Christmas episode.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Merry Christmas, everybody.

[Ben]

Merry Christmas. Trauma is originary and unending.

[David]

And hey, perfectly said.

[Griffin]

Jane, is there anything you want to plug endorse?

[Ben]

I watched the Polar Express last night for the first time.

[David]

I talk about traumas enduring.

[Griffin]

Please go on.

[Ben]

Well, I didn't know it was animated actually when I started watching it.

[David]

Jane. Excuse me. It's not. It's a very original art form that Robert Zemeckis wants you to know. Not animated.

[Ben]

Captured perhaps.

[Griffin]

Hot. Hot. We got it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I loved it. I mean I love that. I'm going to watch that again. And I can't wait to watch His Christmas Carol next.

[Griffin]

That one is putrid.

[David]

But I think that might be the most boring movie ever.

[Griffin]

I will say, I will confess that I've been watching the movie a lot because my daughter found it.

[David]

You sent us a video on Thanksgiving morning of your daughter Watching it. And I said, I can't believe you would do this to yourself. You're ready to, like, have to watch Polar Express 17 times, knowing your daughter's.

[Griffin]

Viewing habits over and over.

[David]

And your response was, I don't give a shit. I'm not David Erlich.

[Griffin]

True.

[Ben]

I would watch that movie 20 times happily.

[David]

Is it growing on you?

[Griffin]

It's growing on me a lot.

[Ben]

It's so nightmarish and interesting and there's no real plot. There's just like these set pieces, but kind of classical Zemeckis impressions of set pieces.

[David]

Ben put it on at his holiday party last weekend on mute. And I will admit I was a little transfixed.

[Griffin]

It's transfixing. And then there's choices. Like, the kids will now interact with a bunch of weird puppets that yell at them. Puppeteered by Tom Hanks playing the hobo who hates Christmas and lives on top of the train.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And you're like, like, well, this is different. Like, this is. This is something unusual.

[David]

Can you remind me the rule about the hot chocolate? It's fine if you let it settle to room temperature.

[Griffin]

Never. Never let it cool.

[Ben]

No, hot.

[Griffin]

Hot. It's just so weird that the conductor spends the whole movie being like, you kids better fucking stay in line and not mess around. And hot. And then. But then there's one moment where he's like, hey, you kids want to drink or anything? And they're like, yeah. And he's like, great. Bring in the hot chocolate dancers.

[David]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben]

I loved it.

[Griffin]

Fantastic.

[David]

Okay, so you're plugging a Polar Express.

[Griffin]

Love it.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's my main thing right now.

[David]

And. Hey, David. No, what were you going to say?

[Griffin]

I was going to thank Jane for joining us.

[David]

And I. I want to plug. I saw the TV glow. One of the favorite films of 2024.

[Ben]

Check it out.

[Griffin]

Is it on Max?

[Ben]

It's on Max.

[David]

Yes, it's on Max. You can take it to the Max. Here's the thing I want to say. We're recording this pretty close to release because of your availability, Jane. And a pleasant, unexpected surprise gift in that regard is we are recording this on Wednesday, December 18th. And, David, do you know what else happened on December 18th in history?

[Griffin]

I don't.

[David]

A man named Steven Spielberg was born.

[Griffin]

Oh, Happy birthday, Steve. I didn't know it was your birthday.

[David]

Why today, the day we are recording our final David lynch episode and our final episode of 2024.

[Jane]

I don't see the.

[David]

Is the birth of a man who we will be covering right at the start of 2025.

[Ben]

But a man who also cast David lynch in what might end up being his final on screen appearance.

[David]

Very true. Maybe the greatest movie performance in history. Steven Spielberg. We are finally settling the balance of the first half of his career. Starting January 2025, we are covering Duel through Schindler's List.

[Griffin]

That's right. That's right.

[Ben]

Like the full spectrum from Drew to Schindler's List.

[Griffin]

Darry Spielberg on Patreon.

[Jane]

We're going to be doing a bunch of different varied kinds of bonus episodes around.

[David]

Amazing Stories. Twilight Zone segment, Night Gallery, Columbo, Murder.

[Ben]

By the Book, Poltergeist.

[David]

We are not. We went back and forth on whether or not it felt rude. Toby Hooper to Toby Hooper. And also there was enough sort of like pure Spielberg ephemera. Especially since it's taken us so long to do the early career. We were like, let's cover the early non movie stuff. You seem disappointed that we're not covering Poltergeist. Do you love Poltergeist?

[Ben]

I do love. I mean, come on. Of course I love Poltergeist.

[Griffin]

Yes. Yes.

[David]

You know what? Yeah, Good goo. I was gonna say the original TV glow movie. In a lot of ways, the TV does glow. The TV does.

[Ben]

When A24 sent us the first draft of the Pulse poster for TV Glow, I was like, oh, wait, isn't that Poltergeist, though?

[Griffin]

I mean.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

So stay tuned for that.

[Jane]

Yeah. I want to shout out here at the end of the episode. Something I'm going to try start doing for each miniseries is build out a Spotify playlist featuring songs from each soundtrack.

[David]

Well, certainly a lot of options in the David lynch filmography. A man who loves his music.

[Jane]

He has so many incredible pop songs that he uses in his movies as well as great scores. So there'll be a link to that in the SO description.

[David]

And hey, speaking of great music, I know you plugged it in earlier episodes, But Slow Christmas, Volume 4 is still out there on the interwebs.

[Jane]

Check it out.

[David]

Yeah.

[Jane]

Yep.

[David]

Do you know about this train?

[Ben]

No.

[Jane]

I have now for five years in a row. It's become an annual tradition. I put out a holiday compilation album where I get various different artists to do either original covers of holiday songs. But it gotta be slow, Slow core. Slow, Slow core.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Jane]

Some good stuff. Yeah, Check that out. And I don't know if you had an at and as always lined up.

[David]

Oh, I do.

[Jane]

All right.

[David]

Is there something you want to say?

[Jane]

Not necessarily. It's just more we had a get. Eva Anderson was a. A previous guest. She had promised that she would provide a voice message that was related to the return.

[David]

Okay.

[Jane]

So I thought that might be a nice thing that we could play at the end of the episode.

[David]

Can we play it here? Do we have it?

[Jane]

I sure do.

[E]

Hey, guys, Eva Anderson here. So a couple months ago, I was talking to my co worker, Juliana about weird jobs we had, and she was talking about working on a like a History Channel documentary as a pa and she said they had a really bad Abraham Lincoln impersonator. Bad in that he looked great, but he did not know the Gettysburg Address. And she had to make cue cards of it and hold them up for him. It's a funny story. And I was like, which impersonator was it? Because there's a couple in la. And we dug around and finally found his name and his IMDb page. His name's Robert Bross. He's an LA area Abraham Lincoln. Some of his credits include Pee Wee's Big Holiday, the movie written by Paul Rust. He played Abraham Lincoln, something called Abe and Trump Being Frank, in which he played Abraham Lincoln and the upcoming Infinitely Dense, and Trip to the Moon, where he's playing Abraham Lincoln. But buried in the middle of his credits was Twin Peaks one episode, the Woodsman.

[Griffin]

He's the God I like.

[E]

So now none of you will ever be able to unsee the Woodsman's Abraham Lincoln beard. That he didn't change at all. He just painted it black. It's delightful. It makes me so happy. And I hope you guys are having a spooky Twin Peaks the return record. Okay, bye.

[Griffin]

Thank you, Eva.

[David]

And we forgot to mention there are cobwebs and bats flying all around this record. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, thank you so much for that, Eva, for sending that in.

[Griffin]

Farewell to David Lynch.

[David]

Remember when we did season one with Eva? That fails like 17 years ago.

[Griffin]

Right, right, right.

[David]

But thank you for the pie and the coffee, Eva, and the voicemail. Thank you, Jane, for being here.

[Ben]

Thanks for having me.

[David]

And as always, before I came up, I was on the phone with Ben Hosley at Blank Check. He told me they are onto something from the podcast indicating two friends. And last night, I had another Monica Bellucci dream.

[Griffin]

Good job. That's what you wanted.

[David]

That's what I wanted to do.