Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 1-7)

My days on the road, my shadow is always with me, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, except on cloudy days.

Or it podcasts. I fucked up. I said the word podcast too early and then I decided I didn't want to not finish the monologue. Well you could just do it twice. Mm. I mean I didn't I I did do one retake in the middle of it. Get ready, I'm doing it again. Nah, let's just keep here. I want to get right into this. My family. My good friend. What's your voice here?

Because it's not quite Sarah as Wally Brando. I'd love to hear your Sarah as Wally Brando. No, I'm not doing it. I'm not I'm but like it reminds me of another impression you do, and I can't think of which one it is. Is it my old Bruce Willis impression? Maybe that. I think so, right? Sure, sure. Kinda like right. Yeah. Yeah. Like soft spoken actor. Right where you Yeah. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

Alright, thank you. That cleared that up. But the whole time you were doing it, I was like, I know he's doing Wally Brandon, but who does this sound like? Okay, so now that we clear it up, I could do the quote from the beginning. My family, my two friends. I've crisscrossed this great audio landscape of ours several times. I hold the map of it here.

My heart next to the joyful memories of the carefree days I spent as a young boy here in your beautiful town of Blank Check, from Shyamalan, to Cameron, the Bigelow. I think about David and his friend Griffin. the first friends to ever host a podcast. How about that? Yeah, that's it. And then I don't have to finish it. Thank you. Yeah. The Caucasians line is so funny in the context of the show. Absolutely. And then once I said it, I was like, the implications are wrong. Yeah.

We all know the first Caucasian ever host a podcast was Conan O'Brien. It's just a fact. He invented it. He invented it. He did. He invented needing a friend. He did. And then we showed up and said, What if we're already friends? What if we've been doing podcasts for years and we're already friends? That was our big innovation is we said, What if we've actually been doing it for longer and we've been friends the whole time?

I really I worry about Conan sometimes. Why? What's up with him? This many years he still hasn't found a single friend. What a loser. This fucking this project is a failure. How old do I think Conan is? 58. 61. You're about right. Okay. You're about right. Sometimes I just think he's even older than that just because he's such a lifelong presence for me. But he started uh being famous very young. That's the thing, is that like by the time he gets late night, he has a legendary comedy career

But that's because he started getting hired onto the biggest things right out of college. Right out of college. Right. He's twenty seven when he gets the show, maybe? Uh yeah. I mean he was young man. Yeah. And everyone was like, Who's this young and no one's ever talked about this, but he kinda like

Almost got canceled. That's not true. If the show was really skating on thin ice for a while, David and the press were not on his side. David, if that had happened, I would have heard about it from someone most of all him. I love Conan. I'm turning into a show every week. He never talks about this. The man is a totemic figure in my like comedy history. Yes. But I swear to God, sometimes I just want to be on his podcast and be like, Conan, you're doing good.

It worked out. I'm sorry about nineteen ninety three or whatever. Here's what's crazy to me.

And I'll say I actually am always kind of interested to hear his stories about how bad he felt at that time. It's g he's being candid, it's not uninteresting, like and it it was crazy that he got that job and that he made the show he made and what is astonishing to me is how often his guests are like Wait, really? What? And they're not doing the bit. They were like, because I'm watching, I'm thinking you're a big success. And he was like, no, it was bad for eight years.

It wasn't eight years. Like late night was hot by the time I was a kid. Do you remember the Conan fifteenth anniversary primetime special? And Mr. T comes out with a big gold chain. with a seven on it and goes like Conan, I'm here to give you this a surprise. And he's like, uh, Mr T, thank you very much. But we've actually been on the air for fifteen years and he goes, Yeah, but only seven of them were funny. That's a good good joke. Incredible joke. It has stuck with me forever.

It's good stuff. Yeah. That's sort of a different era when like Mr. T Would just get a pop, right? Where it's just like, Look, it's Mr. T. This is so funny. I mean, he did that with Shatner, Vagoda, Mr. T, Chuck. Mr. T is a perfect example of a celebrity that should have like a haunted house devoted to him. Great call.

Great Clyde just went to the Fallon. We went to Jimmy Fallon's Tonightmares. Which is kind of like the Twin Peaks the return of Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. Oh, is it? Yeah. It's sort of just like All of the loose unstructured thoughts. Sometimes it's tying into the past mythology of the tonight show. Sometimes it seems totally unrelated. Do you like do a lift? Hopefully it's the final statement from an artist.

At any point? No. No. No. How long is it? Ten minutes, a robust ten minutes. How much for ten minutes? Forty-three dollars. I think all in.

Okay. Per person. Sure. Um and this is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm 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, make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. I know I say things like this a lot. But this is a mini series on the films of David Lynch.

And his T V shows. Sure. It's called or at least one of them. It's called Twin Pods Firecast with me. Today we are kickstarting a four episode run on Twin Peaks the Return, which is One of the greatest blank checks in history. A hundred percent. Almost by uh like mistake, it feels like.

Like someone was like, Oh sure, you want to make a new Twin Peaks, I'll I'll let you do that and it's like and and it's gonna cost how much? Yeah. And you need how much more? And what Wait, you're here again? We'll talk about it. The most fascinating thing to me is this thing slowly coming together after years.

Over a decade of like Twin Peaks will never return. Then there's excitement. And then suddenly the announcement is it's not happening. Right. David Lynch and Showtime couldn't agree. Right. The budget uh arguments It's not happening. And then suddenly it's back on happening, twice as long, twice as expensive, and twice as weird as anyone expected. The fact that it so came so close to getting pulled.

From reality and then ended up this insane. Yes. It is a miracle. It's a miracle. It is a miraculous piece of Uh content, I would call it. A piece of content. It's it's one of the best pitch tents I've ever seen. Today we are talking about Twin Peaks the Return, episodes one through seven. Episodes one through seven.

One through seven. Now we are loath to cover TV on the show. Yes. Because primarily this is a show about filmography. Early on we did it. We did it twice in our first proper year. Then we said, like, enough of this. And then we've bent a couple of times in the last couple of years when it felt really essential. This is obviously essential. Yes. Um

And uh it is possibly the last thing David Lynch will ever make. Quite possibly. Mm I'm not saying it definitely, but you know, because he's been kind of you know, like Yeah. Um But here's a bigger point I wanted to make. Yes. The relief of this is the first time we are not attempting to cover an entire season of television in one episode. Um And we're doing it by

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

Sure. Maybe he should have tried. I mean he could have put Sawyer in this. Yeah. Sawyer just shows up. I don't even need Sawyer to be in it. I just want to have the feel of a Sawyer episode. So like Kim Dickens is there and someone sad. Tattoos. No, that's Jack. Fuck. The whole thing with Sawyer was always that it was like Yeah, no the Sawyer ones were always the card.

He thinks I'll run a con. And I'm like, yeah, I know that's what you did, Sawyer. And he brings Kim Dickens in. He's like, but this time, trust me. This time I'm good. And then at the end he's like, fuck, I'm upset about this again. Yeah. I'm not a good con man. Morally conflicted. Um Twin Peaks the Return, uh wa aired on Showtime um in twenty seventeen. Before Showtime was Showtime Plus Paramount Plus. Um a great name for a channel. Yes. Uh

I watched it live. I watched every episode as it aired. Now you guys had never seen it. No. And Griffin are watching it for the first time. And have only watched up to seven. Eight being such a huge thing in its own episode, I was like, I I I dare not watch one ahead yet. Um I want to be able to talk about up until this exact point in this episode without future knowledge. That's fine. Okay. Uh so here we are. Um, what do you guys think of Twin Peaks The Return so far?

I'm fucking blown away. Yeah, I think it's good. Holy shit. It's good television. So good. It is I I mean, I've heard such uh breathless uh praise. It's gotten more breathless praise than almost anything in recent memories. I mean I'd forgotten that Calle de Cinema declared this the best movie of the decade. They did. And and everyone was normal about that declaration. Yes. Yeah. 'Cause I don't think it's totally fair to count something that is w over one thousand. Minutes long.

And was aired in episodes on television. This is just this big fight that people talk about this more, th the nature of how it was made versus how it was distributed and all of this. But like David Lynch goes into this knowing it's going to be broadcast a television episode, even if he did not like write it and shoot it as such. What's an archivist to be clear? What surprised me is I mean I'm focusing on Lynch just because he was uh the director He directed every episode. Yeah.

Um, what surprised me is how much it does feel like the episodes have their own thing. And I'm sure episode eight and some of the other episodes are gonna be even more so, that feeling. Um as much as this does in a lot of ways. This feels very similar to um Paranoia Agent to me. Sure. In an interesting way where it's like, here's kind of this drafts folder.

Where there's like a big unifying idea, there's sort of a collective mythology, there's a narrative running across it, but then you'll also just get these fragments of pieces. And stories that may or may not feed into other things. And like stylistic experiments and like playfulness with tone. But Paranoia Agent has like.

You know, it's sort of a focus on a single character every time. It's a little more anthological. But I mean part of what's fun for me watching this for the first time, and I don't know if you have this feeling as well, Ben, you'll just like the the first time in the first episode.

It cuts to drone shot of New York City titled New York City. You're like, what the fuck? I didn't know Twin Peaks could leave Twin Peaks. That's a good point. Right? Like Yes. It's a it's a pretty drastic thing right away. uh to to be doing that. It's immediately like I it took me a moment to figure out why I felt so

Um jumbled by that. Guys, I gotta pee. I'm sorry. I'm realizing this immediately. I can't hold it. This episode's gone great. That's fine. Should I take the Wally Brando monologue a third time? No, we'll just pause. Okay.

Okay, Griffin, I'm sorry I interrupted us. Um I have to say I followed your lead. I also went to the bathroom. Cool. Here's my first thing to say. That was no P. No, it was no P. You're right. I have to I have to go. We need to I mean I appreciate you putting that on the air. Radical honesty. Here's why. Because it ties into the point I was about to make. Which is what? Before you interrupted with your not pee. The disorienting thing about watching this show.

And knowing it's also 18 hours, which so few modern shows are. Network procedurals and sitcoms are. shows most outside of that, do not go more than twelve episodes. And they're not, you know, especially shows where the episodes are an hour long. Yeah, yeah. And especially anything that's prestige-y or cable-y or whatever it is, you know? I guess Walking Dead still was doing long seasons for all, but whatever. Now does mini-series, yes. Um

You watch this show, or I do, and like something happens like cut to New York and I'm like, What the fuck? And now we're introduced to three characters I've never seen before. And I'm like, are they important? Anytime it cuts to a character from classic Twin Peaks, I'm almost surprised that they're in it. And I'm like, how much are they going to show up?

Suddenly, a big movie star enters, and you're like, So are they major, or is that the only scene they're in? You have these like Notions, these like plot lines that like cut out abruptly, that are inserted in certain episodes, don't come back in that episode. And you're like,

Complete one-off self-contained idea. Sometimes. Or if that will return in three episodes. Sometimes. I'm guessing it's a balance of both, which is it's a bit of a balance of both, but you're I mean, and also imagine the experience of fans, twin peaks. I keep trying to Put myself in this headspace. Their show is back. Yes. And getting this. Which I think most Twin Peaks fans have hardly embraced, but it took them a minute. Yeah.

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

It's almost most surprising that everyone did adjust to it rather than having a fire walk with me type response and people coming around to it later. I think the show is so interesting that And and is so uh dense with kind of like uh sort of theories and symbols that you can pick out and over analyze.

that it worked out okay, but I'm on the Twin Peaks Reddit and you'll always see new fans posting or people watching currently posting. Yeah. Like, hey, I just finished my first watch through of seasons one and two and I started season three. Is it always is is this what it is? Right. Where's Dale? Right. When does it where's, you know, like you know, and you're like and you see the fans being like

Yeah, you know, get used to it. Yeah. Well, Twin Peaks is so plotty. It was the thing I was not prepared for watching the first two seasons for the first time, Vases versus the vases. There's not a lot of vases in it. If I have to ding it for anything. Versus the sort of like cultural mimification of Twin Peaks, the amount of like soap opera small town intrigue.

of just like, oh, this thing has like 25 primary characters and they're all tied up in naughty drama and you're cutting between all of them. And anytime in the the uh ABC, the original run Twin Peak. Yes. They're cutting from one thing to another. It's like important in some way. Right. Right. Even if it's like one of the goofier plot lines.

You were like, this is an arc they're building. Right. This will just have like a character, for example, stand up and go, I'm sorry, I need to pee, and then it turns out it's a poop. And then you're like, what was the meaning of that? Um

I was doing the Laura Palmer. Oh, you were doing the Laura Palmer. Let me open the dossier. Yeah. Because J J did make one, just f one. Okay. Lazy. Yeah. Probably told him that that's what he should do. David Lynch made eighteen hours of Twin Peaks the Return, and you made one dossier? Um just more to give a sense of the uh lead up to this show's existence.

Am I correct in my memory that the marketing basically gave up nothing? Marketing gave up nothing. That at David Lynch's insistence. Kyle McLaughlin's in it. Right. There was about it. Poster the it's happening again poster, I remember, but that there were like no images. No like trailers of commercials that use actual footage that like tuning in for the first time, people had no idea what it was gonna be. I think fans on the internet have been delving into like

who was clearly involved because I guess that was easy enough to figure out. Some from the show, some like an Naomi Watts or whatever. Um, but the poster was just like Dale Cooper now, right, over the trees. Yes. And then the other one was just the classic Laura Palma picture. Right. I remember watching the first two episodes were

Broadcast back to back. And we're three and four that believe so the same. Yes. And then I think it premiered at Cam Interesting. Okay. Right? Is that right? Or I feel I you tell me. You got the dossier in front of you, my friend. I will tell you. Okay.

Soon. Yeah. Maybe not. Two episodes were screened at the Camp Film Festival, maybe not premiere. And when does the actual premiere happen? May twenty first, twenty seventeen, which does line up with the first time. Yeah. And I remember Karen Hunn and Emma Stefansky came over. Mm-hmm. And my brother Joey. And we all watched it together. Past and future. Kind of shrieking. But it's also kind of like not the show to watch in the way of like

I can't wait to see all my buddies aga you know, like we were kind of like what the fuck. It does start immediately. Right. We're not just like doo-doo doo. Even when it starts with legacy characters and the theme and whatever, it's like immediately different. Um but okay, let me open the dossier. Please create.

So Inland Empire comes out two thousand six. Um made like two hundred and fifty million domestic yeah, right, and got forty Oscar nominations. Um and post that Lynch is not like doggedly pursuing making another movie, but Uh in 2010 supposedly he did find an idea for a new film uh and had a script called Antelope Don't Run No More. I was really hoping it was gonna be an idea for a new film. It was called Ronnie Rocket.

It's about electricity. He goes back once again. He's got like a mustache and uh groucho glasses. And the guy's like, I know about the fucking electric we're not doing that one. He puts the old script in the microwave and is like, this is hot off the printer. I just finished writing it. Uh he shopped it around a little bit. Okay. Uh it's apparently set mostly in Los Angeles. It braids some threads from Moholland Drive and Inland Empire into a narrative fantasia that incorporates space aliens

uh talking animals and a beleaguered musician named Pinky. Sounds pretty lynchy, yeah. Yes, a lot of people say the script is very good, but he has not been able to attract any financing and he's not really upset about it because he's kind of like if it's meant to be it'll happen. Sure. Um, even in twenty twenty four in an interview with Sight and Sound, Lynch said

uh maybe one day but then that was sort of the same time that he was like, But I have emphysema and I don't know if I'm gonna do anything anymore and everyone was like, David Lynch retires and he was like, I don't retire. Yeah. I love Cigarettes, lighting them up, puff, puff, puff, motherfucker. We've talked about that statement, but him explaining his regret over smoking his entire life. And then describing the experience of smoking as an orgasmic experience. Sounding like the eradish shit.

In human history. Um so instead, what does he do? He writes the book Catching the Big Fish, which I feel like a lot of our guests have referenced, a lot of people have enjoyed sort of about his creative process. He starts to do a lot of that kind of stuff I mean he did like a master class. He does a lot of like he did some art.

uh exhibitions. The Art Life documentary is filmed the rest of the time. Crazy clown time. Uh but I feel like he's sort of opening up the process of like here are my all my philosophies on creativity. It did feel like he was starting to like pivot into old master, let me share on the Cleveland show, for example. Right. Do you know that if you was a regular cast member on every episode of the Cleveland show? Well, of course I do because I watch the Cleveland show every week. Religiously. Yeah.

One of my favorite shows in Telegram. He is also on Louie in uh it's he's incredible. An incredible performance. But yeah, he's starting to do a little more acting stuff weirdly popping up in other areas. I think it's one of those things where it's like if you think of it And you can reach him, maybe you can talk him into it. Yeah. Um Uh he also uh worked on a

Duran Duran concert documentary? I don't think I knew that. think I knew that. Yeah, he did an ice bucket challenge where he challenges Vladimir Putin at the end of it. Great. A lot of our fans were saying we should have mentioned or covered the Durant Duran thing on our music shorts episode. This is insane. Postpoob Sims is wild. Kyle McLaughlin, many years after Twin Peaks, would check in with Lynch. Kind of be like, what do you think?

Um at one point there's talk of making me make a comic book. Back when it was hot to do like a sequel comic books, Compy did that. Yes. The season eight. Yeah. Yeah. Uh that was I it was sort of kickstarted by do you have the name of the writer there? Uh Matt. Haley. Right. They they were gonna finally put out the like complete

box set. Because season two had been out of circulation for so long and it was gonna include the missing. It was gonna be part of the box set and Lynch uh nixed it. Right. Cause I think s frost and some of the people were on board and then Lynch nixed it. Lynch nixing it feels like the first instance of maybe him thinking he has something more to say. Because if you look at the quotes up until that point and from after it's done. I'm not doing That is a doornail. We'll never come back.

And like the second someone else and and the pitch on the comic book was I want to get all the notes on what you think season three would have been and try to recreate it. I'm not looking to make my own thing. Um yeah, Haley, I mean, he talks about some of his ideas, but I honestly don't even want to get into them because they're not that important because David Lynch was just like no.

Rude. Uh well not rude, really. Rude on your point. And then apparently uh around twenty twelve, right after Christmas, David had lunch with Mark Frost at Musso and Frank's uh an LA institution. Bob's big boy probably closed for the night or something. Yeah. Uh and well, he'd already eaten there five times that day. They start. Chatting.

And they keep it under their hats, but Mark starts coming for lunch to Lynch's painting studio and they would sort of write together. Um and Frost, you know, basically was like Laura's saying I'll see you again in twenty five years. That's where exactly. If we're gonna do it, now's the time to do it. Right. And we have this dilemma. Of, you know, good Cooper trapped, bad Cooper out in the world that we never had resolved. And why don't we pick up that thread? Mm-hmm.

And yeah, I mean Lynch's big thing is like I have to be involved in writing and directing every single one. I don't want to. have it be like it was when it was broadcast T V. Uh and so they start to uh co write the screenplay over Skype. Wild. Yeah. Which Skype is part of the show.

That's true, it is. It's one of these things where I feel like Like Warren Frost's performance or Mark Frost's father, obviously. Is uh entirely over Skype. Entirely, yes. Wait, at a at a time where that was not as much of a thing. Now we're sort of like a sort of thing. Like it's like hello. Yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Now we're like, oh, they'll write in like a character only exists over Zoom because it's an easy fix or whatever. I feel like that was a little novel at this point.

One of the wet hot summer seasons has this, but other than that Um supposedly they did write it as a gigantic uh document, one big document. Uh one source says three hundred and thirty five pages, another says five hundred pages. Is there any sense of whether they were sort of writing stuff in any chronology, like narratively, or if it was just like as stuff came to them and here are all the pieces. I think it's more the latter. Okay. Um yeah.

But I just wonder if there's a version of this that is like each plot thread as like twenty continuous pages. Like untangling it all. Right. Lynch does say he sees it as a film. Okay. Which, you know, is part of the reason people are like, It's a film. Yeah. Um Mark Frost, uh I think cares less about that distinction. Um, he says one thing that really Frost uh interested him was to uh But one thing that they were very interested in, which

Very clear in the film is the sort of post recession You're calling it a film. You're doing it. Whatever the fuck. Twin Peaks. Uh is the post recession kind of meltdown that left behind these kind of like ghost Towns. Interesting. Right. Like'cause that's so much of this movie of Jesus, of Twin Peaks the Return, whatever you want to call it.

Um is set in those weird like Phoenix and Vegas like subdivisions, right? Where it's just like these empty abandoned houses. Yeah. Um uh you know, the sort of post-great recession stuff. Does that become more even more textual as it goes on? It's just I guess yeah, I guess I'm now trying I'm trying to put myself in where you guys are. It's just a big part of the show. In the same way. Uh David Nevins.

Oh who runs Showtime at the time. Mm-hmm. Hears wind of this and basically sits down and like begs them. Twin Peaks the original is of course owned by CBS Television. Right. Who also is the parent company of Showtime. Right. Um and obviously on Showtime you can do what you want. You know, there's no content restrictions really. Um They love books on Showtime. Yes. It's one of their favorite things. And Frost was

Very interested in avoiding like a binge model. He didn't want to go to Netflix because he wanted to roll it out week to week, uh sort of like the original show had been. And so in twenty fourteen it is announced Showtime will be producing a nine episode revival. of Twin Peaks. In twenty fifteen, Lynch starts saying like the show's in Jeopardy and tweets like

Uh, I wasn't offered enough money to do this in the way I wanted it to be done. Uh, but it's pretty much dead. Kind of canny public negotiation. Right. Showtime's like, uh, we're very saddened to read this, but uh we love the world of Twin Peaks and we hope we can bring it back. Um I think the big clash it seems was Showtime being like, Can this please be episodic television? And David Lynch being like, No, uh I want to make a basically eighteen hour feature film.

So you're gonna have to pay for like a feature film crew every single day. Yes. Of this gigantic shoot, uh, including like lighting machines, standby painters, special effects technicians, like Basically like not going by the way television is produced. No, and uh it even manifests in ways like on the absolute like back end of the thing. I mean, I feel like you talked about this in another episode, but

Actors on TV shows get paid per episode. So if he's shooting something like this and someone shoots three days, but those three days end up being split that footage across nine episodes. That's you're paying them like Th there's a lot of weird accounting at two points of like how much you're paying them weekly to film and then how much you have to pay them later based on how it edits out. And just because he's considering it to be a film, right. It is technically to the accountants. Yeah.

Episodic. Right. And I think by the way, that extends into like a most positions. Yeah. I mean, I've had versions of this before where you like shoot two scenes and then they end up putting one in another episode and they have to pay you twice. And it's like a nice bonus. He's basically designed a production where all of it's gonna be like that, where he's asking to have like

open like field to do a really long shoot his way with his people and then construct it however he wants later, which is also going to cause all sorts of complications. This was my second question for you. when they Cause the original announcement's nine. Yeah.

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

He he made it conservatively, like or whatever. You know, it's not like he like went crazy. But they didn't announce eighteen at that point. No. Right? So this is my question is almost and maybe there is no answer for this.

Is it like I've written a bunch of shit, you're giving me this amount of money, I'm gonna figure out how to shoot it, and then afterwards I will figure out how many episodes. I think that's exactly what happens. Because you could totally see based on certain scenes playing out at different lengths than they do, and how much this show experiments with time. and rhythm that there are many different ways you could construct this into various different episode organs. I, I, yeah.

I do not there's nothing about this show that suggests it had to be the way it is. But I love how it is. You know, that like, oh, we're getting like almost four months of twin peaks. And so much of this show also its weird thing was This is like

A different time in both cable television and streaming, where it felt like the future was more individual channels having their own streaming services and showtime wanted to get people to sign up for whatever it was called at the time. Showtime anytime, I think. I I'm just no I'm gonna have to poop again. You know you're gonna I just know it's gonna happen. This is what I'm saying though. You think certain plot threads are resolved and then they come back and you're like

Ashley Judd is still in this. That wasn't a one-off. And I love how But Jennifer Jason Lee might be gone. It's like I'm gonna go again and then can come back out and you're gonna be like, and what was Showtime branded as at this era like um yes I think it was called Showtime Anytime they're like on demand No what happened when you pooped last time was very twin peaks the return there was just two minutes of silence

Um it was like we were just quietly sweeping up the bang bang bar floor. And you're like, Is this the end of the episode? No, there's like two more scenes after this. The production lasted a hundred and forty days. What I was gonna say. Oh well When this premiered And people were like, oh, ratings aren't great. Showtime very quickly was like, we know this is the kind of thing that has obsessives who will sign up for our streaming service solely for this.

And they did. They're right. And they were like, oh, like four hundred thousand people or five hundred thousand people watched it. And then within a week showtime was like, hey, the like seven day was a million per episode. And also, by the way, the number of subscribers we got solely off of this was worth it to us.

I I don't yeah, and I don't care. I never care about people like t telling me premium television ratings. Right, I'm like it doesn't matter. Like they don't sell ads against This is the experimentation of like them being like, We're getting four months of Twin Peaks.

Like we're both trying to get people to sign up for the channel and sign up for the streaming service and whatever. Like this was a time where the business was in such flux that they were open to this kind of experimentation. Yeah. In a certain way. Um Also it just but it was funny what'cause this show came out. in the midst of like the sort of Game of Thrones era of T V. Yes. And so there was this whole kind of machinery online geared towards like episodic analysis.

Weekly podcasting theory, you know, sort of you came out of unspooling. Yes. Yes. Yes. And This should be a slap in the face. Try to write like and people were like Twin Peaks is back. We need to like get ready for this. And then this show was so resistant to that kind of immediate scrutiny. You want to watch three minutes of Russ Hamlin hinting shovels? Yes. So that will give you no answers until two episodes later, and the answer is just, oh, it's a grift?

David, this episode Don't act so surprised because it's a familiar friend. Okay. This episode's brought to you by Moobie. Yawn, just Comfortable. Secure. We love them. We are a global film company that champions great cinema, iconic directors, emerging auteurs. Always something new to discover with movie. Each and every film hand selected. So you can explore the best of cinema. Nothing more to say, I guess.

There's a new film coming to theaters. Yep. Movie theaters. February thirteenth. The first Nigerian film ever in official competition again. That's pretty wild. This is a film by Akinola Davis called My Father's Shadow. Is BAFTA nominated? Poetic, tender portrait of a father-son bond framed within the political landscape of 1993 Lagos in uh Nigeria.

is uh about a father and two young sons as they journey to uh into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, reckoning of their relationship. Uh, navigating the city that's in the middle of a democratic crisis, written by Real Life Brothers, Ekinola Davis Jr. and Wally Davis. Love it, brothers. Uh, co-wrote this groundbreaking feature debut, and you've got uh

Sofei Dorisu, oh from Slow Horses, I love him. I hope I'm spell is saying his name right. Um but he's a really good actor uh and he's the star. It's worth seeing. It's in theaters. It's great to go to a theater. It's in theaters. We love the movie put movies in theaters before ultimately ending up on their wonderful platform. Dang right. I'm just looking at some of the stuff they got right now. Die my love, of course.

Yeah. An important watch, a necessary watch for any blanky. Uh LaGraza. LaGrazia, the new Palo Sorentino movie, which I missed in theaters. Good moment to catch up with it. Uh the great Shall We Dance? Oh, the classic? The original. Oh my goodness. That's fun. Like a a restoration? Yeah, and look what they they got a collection called Heart Throb Nicholas Cage. It's young dreamy cage. Wow. Still dreamy to me. Hey.

You're very open hearted. Anyway, to stream the best of cinema, you can try movie free for thirty days at movie.com slash blankcheck. That's mubi.com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free. And then go see my father's shadow in theaters. Please. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Thank you, very kind.

Väng firar 70 år av resor som är svåra att släppa taget om. Och det gör vi med massor av erbjudanden som är omöjliga att motstånd. Skucka redan nu på wing.se. De bästa resorna försvinner först. Ving- semester.

140 days of shooting. Uh Lynch obviously did it all himself. He said it was exciting but extremely difficult. So that's about a six month. Shoot like five, yeah, I don't know. That's a lot. With weekends, it's exhausting and grueling, I think, and there's lots of day shoots and night shoots. You only have one day off a week, yada yada yada. But at the same time you know.

He loved doing it, I think, and it's kind of his opus in a way and Yeah, and it does feel like uh let let me like empty the tanks completely of everything I have in me right now, right? Um it doesn't feel like this is made with the intentionality of here is my final work. No, but he's you know uh Peter Deming, the D Pes a legend himself. A guy we've covered uh with a very diverse filmography on this show.

Like the Evil Dead movies, the Austin Powers movies, and Twin Streaks. And we've never done Scream, which is And Mulhollandra. Yeah. Um but like v wildly different looking films. It's like quietly a legend. He is. He's a fucking incredible DP. Um He says they shot it like a feature film, like you would go to a location and shoot all the action that took place at that location over the course of eighteen episodes. Right. That's not how you make TV on.

Um but actors didn't really know what was going on. They didn't have access to the entire script or anything like that. McLaughlin's really the only one who's sort of in on the big story. Everyone is basically everyone else just being given their pages. He is basically the big story. He is. He is. But obviously he's not in every scene. Like he's all over the place. Um but it must have been very strange to be say

um uh Russ Tamblin. No, not Russ Tamblin. Um Richard Baimer. Sure. Right? And, you know, it's like, Hey, what should I do? And it's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, show up. Um you and Ashley Judd are gonna like hear a weird noise. Yeah. And he's like, Oh, and how does this feed into anything? It's like, Well, we'll see you later, you know, anyway. Have a long conversation with your brother about weed over the phone. Um so yeah, exactly. Um

It's interesting. Carol s uh uh s struck in uh struck in the the giant, the fireman, as he's known in this, Larch. uh said that um he uh back in the day wait um w he he says like that the pace of Lynch's action was slower and Lynch was telling him to do everything slower. Yeah. But McLaughlin's like, but he was very efficient. We would do things in like one or two takes.

Uh yeah, it's pace of production versus pace of scenes. Yeah, I guess that's it. Right. Yeah. Jim Belushi at one point ad lib something. And I think this is f either you can either watch a clip of this or I've just read this before, but where Lynch there's a pause, they call cut and Lynch goes, Mr. Belushi, do I need to report you to the principal's office?'Cause he had like gone off script. Funny.

Very funny to think about it. Uh Lynch is very uninterested in like improv. Like he's like, No, no, no, do what you're you know, do what you're told. Yeah. Um They shot on digital, obviously. Um Lynch wanted Fisk to be the production designer, Jack Fisk. Yeah. Great Jack Fisk, but he was working on um the Revenant. Uh so he gave uh him Lynch uh his protege, Ruth Dejong, who later uh worked in Oppenheimer.

Uh uh a digital thing. It's wild to see this be the first major work he had done since Inland. Mm-hmm. Which looks, you know, bad on purpose. That is Lynch wanting the kind of roughest Whereas this is like 4K cameras that are really, you know, top of the line. It's like he's using digital photography to make things like unsettlingly clear. Yes. I watch this and I'm like, this is like uncomfortably focused.

You know, it feels like he's leaning into the digital of it in a way where it's like, Oh, it's become easy enough to have like a very quick production where images are this incredibly clean. Um, okay. Kyle McLaughlin. Mm-hmm. They get him on board. Phew. Thank God. Um and uh essentially l very much immediately lynches like you'll be playing essentially three characters. Uhhuh. Uh Dale, who we don't see too much of so far. Um Bad Cooper. Mm-hmm.

I don't know how you know, doppelganger, I don't know what you want to call him. Yeah. And uh yeah. Uh you know Yeah, Dougie, Mr. Jackpot's uh sort of the the finest creation of Twin Peaks the Rich. I'm I'm late to the party. I'm just gonna say what everyone's been telling me for years.

An astonishing performance. It's an incredible performance by Kyle McLaughlin. I was ready for this character to be funny and compelling. Yes. I you know, I'd seen a lot of images and heard people talk about it, and even still, I was not prepared. And I think the actual like technical craft of what McLaughlin's doing here There's so much stillness. Extraordinary. Yes. But also it's like you know

Craft. Cheese. I just like how he says just the last thing anyone says. And it's but it's pointy. Like I I say something to you and you're like something. But that's my point. It's like he's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And part of the big joke, so far at least from what I've seen, is that it's like if you look like him and you have the right haircut and the right suit.

people will inevitably start to project meaning onto it. This is the brilliant gag of Twin Peak Survey. There's a Chauncey Gardner esque thing. He said being there is something he looked at. He looked at Jeff Burgess and Starman, you know, like all of these performances we love. Right.

This is the most empty I have seen of anyone trying to play this sort of thing. Right. And you keep watching these scenes where he like doesn't know how to walk and is holding cups weirdly and whatever. Right. And every one of these scenes I'm like How is this scene not going to end with people having him institutionalized? How will he make it to the end of the scene without someone having a complete mental breakdown and snapping at him? And he just slowly brings everyone around to him?

despite genuinely seeming hollow. And sometimes causing real trouble. Truly. Yeah. Um, we'll talk about it. Uh we'll talk about anyway, Kama Coughlin involved. Obviously some guys, uh

who are in the show I think were just like, Yeah, of course I'll come back. People like Everett McGill, big ed. Uh he had basically retired from acting. But haven't gotten to him yet. That's a spoiler. Yes, he's in the show. I mean, you know it. Uh Lynch just had to call him. Probably the biggest missing name is Michael Onke as Harold Truman. Correct.

And then did say he was gonna come out and do the show. There was I think some suggestion of that, but didn't it's never been clear what happened. Uh uh Robert Forster, who was the original pick to play Sheriff Truman way back in the day, comes in. W I mean, just a performance that that I adore. him and Twin Peaks, he's just so fucking funny and good. This is perhaps a dumb thing to say. And maybe not dumb. But I I was just taken watching this by

I think part of its time dilation of the pandemic, right? That I feel like this show came out only three years ago and have felt that way for the last five years, even though it's now eight years since it aired, right? Yeah. And so this is just eight years shit happens, whatever. And the nature of using a lot of older actors.

It is astonishing how many people this is like their last project or one of their last projects. Mike Miguel Ferrer. Right. Uh Harry Dean Stanton died. Uh both like the the people who are legacy from original Twin Peaks and some of the new actors in this. This feels like this weird curtain call for so many people. And and a lot of them had died in between it being shot and it airing. Yeah. Like you have end credits uh uh in in honor of uh dedicated to for Colson, for Ferrer. Right. Yeah.

Um, then you have plenty of new faces. Matthew Lillard, you guys have already met. Yeah. Uh Michael Sarah is in uh these first seven episodes. Uh you might have referenced him before. Mm-hmm. Jennifer Jason Lee, Ashley Judd, Amanda Seyfried, Caleb Laundry Bag. There's a lot of people who make sense. Jimbo Lushi. Uh Belushi, Robert Neper is gonna show up. I'm not sure if you've seen him yet. Tom Sizemore, have you seen him? Uh I've seen Sizemore, uh Gel uh Gelman, Dalsmachian Gelman.

Yeah. Anyway, uh let's get into Twin Peaks. I am just But the list is pretty crazy for how many of these I feel like I knew were on it. While watching it, you cannot keep all those names in your head. Yeah. So someone will pop up and you'll be like, oh holy shit. And then you're like, Oh, Naomi Watts is one of the main characters. She's kinda one of the main characters. And then others, right, are just kinda popular. Yes. Including some, you know, uh, legacy characters. Yeah.

So we're starting off with uh Twin Peaks, Cooper in the Red Room. I'll see you in 25 years. Twenty-five years later. Yeah. Uh the giant comes and is basically like Off you go. Gives him some cryptic clues. Here we go. Richard and Linda. These are things that fans obsess over. Mm-hmm.

uh the number four thirty. Okay. Uh and then Cooper disappears. The things in this scene particular people obsess over? A anything in Twin Peaks the Return that is in the other world, in the Red Room or any other such, you know All the language is metaphorical and like symbolic and stuff. And so people try to understand like what does it mean? Because I think Mark Frost especially loves that kind of stuff. So what do you make of that?

opening. You we can't talk about. We can't because spoil the future episodes. I think it's mostly setting up the sort of finale of the show. Okay. Um and uh but yeah, so you know but just think about like Again, everyone's on their couch being like, okay. Yeah. And then the next scene I think is uh uh Dr. Jacoby, we love Dr. Jacoby, gets some shovels. Yeah. Moving on. You know, and then you're just you're saying like

But this is like shovels. Distant shot. Right, right, yes. The the car coming in. It's this immediate like this is not the the tone, the rhythm. The flow I was expecting for this show. And then is New York the third thing you see based on? And then we're in New York in one of the set pieces of Twin Peaks The Return that I love so much. Uh, there's a high rise. Yes. There's a weird glass box sticking out of the high rise. Yeah.

Um cameras on him. Ben Rosenfeld is there. Who just sits on a couch all day and stares at it and then every once in a while takes out the S D card from the camera, swaps it into Uh Madeline or it's not uh Zima. Yes. Uh famous from the nanny. Child actor, right from the nanny who is in

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

And then we cut over to uh the hotel. I'm just going through the episode. But also This is pretty easy. Right. The the multiple scenes you've talked about maybe take up thirty minutes. They're long. They're they're lingering. Long, slow cinema, basically. Yeah. Um so right, what do we have? We have Ben Horn. Mm-hmm.

kind of just rotting away at the at the Great Northern, right? You know, having like this sort of aimless conversation with Ashley Judd, who's playing his sort of, you know, assistant secretary, whatever. Yes. about a, you know, a refund. And you got you got Jerry Horn now with like a crazy white beard like Stomping around and basically talking about like

uh legalization of pot, how he's basically made a business off of this, is that right? I guess so. Jerry is one of the characters where I'm just like, I'm so exhausted by this. Sure. But also I'm like in these first seven episodes, way more Jerry. Lot of Jerry.

It's nice to be back in the hotel. It's the first time we're back in a location that's familiar. It's a little bit more relaxing, certainly. Yeah. Um

You got then we got Lucy. Here's Lucy. Thank God. Lucy's still behind the desk at the sheriff's department. We're being introduced to Truman. There's a different Truman. She still can't keep the Trumans apart. Yeah. I mean, uh unsurprisingly, maybe my favorite I think it comes in episode two or three, but her being so confused by cell phones still that it makes her literally like rocket out of her chair. That people can move around on the phone.

It seems the way they've run the sheriff department is there's like the original part and then there's like where they actually are doing real police work. Computer backstops. And those people are like so dismissive are like, Who are these legacy characters? Right. Um But but the like all the stuff in the police station feels the closest to the original show. It does, but it's the the change in energy from

Aunt Keen as kind of like Doogood or Harry Truman. Yes. To Forster, who's so good as like this kind of weary, like All right. You know, like a sort of like how he's being given like crazy news and he just kind of reacts very, very evenly. Yes. Uh it does kind of feel there it's just there is this sense that like Twin Peaks has gotten pretty nasty in a modern way.

Yeah. Like are a little depressing or something, right? Like that there's still a lot of like And all our original characters feel sort of like wistful dynasty. Kind of tired, right? You know, obviously they're older, you know. But like I think part of this is just that like uh Andy and Lucy are never gonna change.

And it looks like that. Their energy is so consistent. Right, even though they've physically changed a little bit or whatever. Uh Hawk is still Hawk is amazing in the return. He looks so good. At least I'm at feels like the second lead of Hawk. He has a lot of like Yes. It feels like he's screen. He's the other character that is like driving quote unquote story. And certainly just has like a lot of screen time. Feels like he's now the primary character within the police station now. Yeah.

Um and looks fucking unbelievable. He looks really cool. Yeah. And then we have um Mr. C We cut to it. with slowed down music. And I'm like Wait, is it Christmas already? The fuck is happening. This is incredible. Uh huh. Um yeah, I think that's how we should refer to the Doppelganger, right? They call'em Mr. C, right? Mr C He looks like Bob and Dale mashed up. Yeah. That's the idea. Right. It's like

It's kind it's a I think it's a brilliant job on him. Cause the wig is sort of bob esque. Right. He's got like the black eyes. Yes. So he's really like automatically unsettling looking. And then he talks in that kind of stilted way. Yeah. Uh that's you know also. Yeah, but it's their way of getting around.

prosthetically I don't want to say prosthetically, but I feel like they're maybe holding McLaughlin's face back a little bit. They're giving him a little tautness to make him have a little more of the grimace of Yeah. Or it's something that he's just doing his head. He might be clenching his jaw. I don't know. Just the way he's dressed too. He looks like a s a bad man. He looks like a real piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Slick back hair, sloppy stakes. And if he's hanging out with people there He does. That's I mean He's a sloppy stake guy. He's a slop he likes to slop him up. He slops him up. He slops'em up. Uh He's always like going to some you can change, it's never too late to change. Going to some shack where there's like Four.

like guys in wife beaters and stuff like in rocking chairs who are like howdy like he like knows every bizarre criminal in the world. Yes. Um I do just love this kind of thing. I I mean I uh Bing John Malkovich has a version of this. But like someone so badly wanting to take over another person's body, and then they get in there and they cannot help but morph that body into their own look.

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

Uh then we're back to the um the New York office and we um The two characters, uh Tracy and Sam, uh they uh Look, let's be honest, they have sex with each other. She shows up at the coffee, the guards are gone. He's like, This is an opportunity. She makes the entree. Uh and then uh nothing weird happens to them. They have sex and it's love. I don't even know who I'm working for. I don't know what to watch this box.

Right. Right. Apparently sometimes something happens. The last guy saw something happen, but he's not around anymore. Um, like the weirdness of this job. Um, I I will say This for me is the most unsettled I have been with any lunch scene nasty. To be clear so far. Slashed to pieces by a monster that uh like emerges in the box. And I don't know if it's just because I had no uh sense of this coming or even this.

plotline being anything in this show. But some of the other things that I feel like you and some of our guests have talked about as like imagery that has like primally haunted you forever. Right. Like the lady behind the diner in Mulholland and some of those things. Where I like watch them and I'm like, yeah, that is upsetting. This like actually kind of physically shook me. Um the actual projection itself.

And the length at which it stays and the eeriness of it like really kind of freaked me the fuck out. And then obviously the attack itself is so upsetting. Yeah. Uh it did immediately like recalibrate me to like, oh, this show has me on edge. Yeah, but it's also uh it is kind of a welcome to premium cable bitch moment where you're like

Uh right. This is like gory and like n sexual in a way that's a good thing. I do not to question Lynch's intent, but I do think it was a little bit weird to have a Chiron pop up of Freddie Krueger saying, Welcome to premium cable bit. I just think that's mashing in a whole different mythology. I don't know. I I really appreciated Robert Englund's uh work on the show. The effect of the monster. It's kind of like a

Humanoid faceless thing. Yeah. But there's something about it too that it feels like really crisp. Like just like how the whole series looks. I don't know why there's just something about it. There's something about the the special effects throughout this. Yeah, can we talk about it? Like he's really capturing his dream worlds in a way that he never really has had the access to the technology, maybe in the past. I feel like when this came out, I remember people

kinda clowning on the use of computer effects. Sure, because of course it's his own particular style. And a lot of it was in the framework of like uh you know, uh uh so baller that David Lynch will just like reuse like a basic one oh one assets and doesn't even give a shit, right? With this massive budget, he doesn't care about the effects looking realistic.

And then other people were like almost framing it as a Michael Mann watermark. Is he that checked out? Is he this lazy to this sort of stuff? I just like find We we have this conversation, I feel like it's come up. Several times now in our group text with the Doughboys. Okay. Where we'll just kick this question of like, is there any instance of scary CGI?

Is there any horror movie CGI is scary? When these modern horror movies have to deploy their CGI monster, it's usually a little underwhelming. Or even CGI augmentation of a monster. I think evocative imagery that has been created. But like has anything ever like truly scared us? in that way. And I'm like, all the CGI in this actually scares me. I agree. There's something weird about it feels like by not trying to go for like

the modern version of like really render it in that physical space and light it like this and whatever. It's like he's doing a digital version of like old optically printed effects where part of what's interesting is that it's like Surreal. Truly a layer on top of the image. Yeah. Yeah. And it's surreal and you're trying to position it, whatever. But like it also just feels like the the imagery is so much more uncanny because you're like, it's just weirder for there to just be this like.

green ghostwriter thing. moving across the screen. Or this like blur you can't make sense of. Right. Or just these images like morphing at this odd pace or any of that. Like anytime, even when it's just like red block on Patrick Fischler's screen, I'm like, that's fucking creepy. That scares me more than like pennywise having 8,000 T. You know? Even if those teeth look perfect.

I'm like, if that happened in real life, I'd be freaked out. It's that kind of weird, inexplicable thing of like, what? Pennywise is a good example where you're like, the scariest that character is is when Bill Skarsgard is giving a performance in makeup.

Uh,'cause his performance is effective. Right. I am less scared when then he then goes like ah and opens his mouth and like it is the perfect example because you're like the two things that are scariest in his performance where you're like, That's good CGI. Are him like uh sp walleyeing weird-shaped smile. And both of those are things he just does himself.

That look uncanny. Right. That he can just do with his face. Good for him. But anytime he like stretches into something more, I'm like, if I was younger, I think it would freak me out. It's nightmarish imagery. I mean, it doesn't scare me though. No, not so much. No.

Um are you scared by a creepy motel room where there's like a dead body that's headless? Yeah, by this point, I'm basically scared by everything that happens. I feel perpetually just kind of ill at ease. Yes. And part of it is just the like I don't know why we're seeing this scene now. You know, and and we talked about this in the firewalk with me episode, but like this.

style that I feel like Lynch has been like evolving further and further across his career. And this is the ultimate heightening of it, of like going against the basic principles of narrative editing of get in late, get out early. Where every scene, you're like, Why is this scene starting now? Why is this shot starting now? Even sometimes camera movements or like rack focuses or things like that. He's like weaponizing the way we're used to processing images.

And like putting importance on them, where sometimes a shot will start of like 30 seconds of something where you're like, why am I seeing this? What is this gonna pay off into? And then the camera just pans over and you're like, that was nothing. Now this scene is starting it's beginning. I

I'm also right. I'm really like I'm thinking about the first two episodes and remembering how unsettling they were as this ain't your daddy's twin peaks because it's like right, there is a lot of brutal violence. The thing we just mentioned, the corpse and then the l later on Mr. C killing being a few years. A lot of casual nudity. Yeah, there's a lot of sense. Right. Yeah. Um but then there's right, there's also just this kind of like

There's no center to it. No. When we f check in with the town, you're kinda like, Okay, are we sticking with the town? And then we're immediately like, No, we're going off to another location now. And the and the townspeople feel like a any of the stuff shot in the town feels weirdly kind of elusive and distant. Yeah.

I was saying outside of Andy and Lucy who still have their basic comedy energy, you you're like the show doesn't have the constant swelling Angelo score. It doesn't have the sort of like um uh overly emotional, like monologuing, spilling out, intrigue.

Right. Like these people just all feel kind of like slowed down. Right. You know? And it's also not that all of this weird stuff is happening in one place anymore. No, and I guess he's he's expanded it and it really is Such a great distillation of his, like, there's weird things happening right now somewhere in the world.

Yes. There's these unsettling people here. There's this weird mysterious box here. There's this crime happening here. And you don't know how it's all connected. It's so I'm I got so locked in basically as soon as Episode one ended. Um cer certain other things I want to touch on. Um, the log lady call, which I remember like the hush in the room when we all watched that because it was so clear that

uh Catherine Coulson was, you know, basically making this call from like a hospice. She certainly had, but like you're clear that like that she shot this in sort of her final weeks. Yes. Um Uh, where she's basically telling Hawk like something's missing, you have to find it. It's to do with your heritage. Okay. It's the closest thing these early episodes have to. like uh s like a plot line for fans to grab on to because everything else is it's like what's going on with the weird box.

W what what's the headless corpse? Yeah. And how does any of this relate to Right. Where's Cooper? Right. Even the the sort of subplots you can follow

as their own thing. It's unclear how it ties into anything else. Right. And then uh It takes six episodes to identify that the body is Briggs, I think. Yeah, it takes a while. So moving right moving on to episode two. Um You have uh Matt Matthew Lillard as Bill Hastings. Uh-huh. A a pretty incredible performance. I agree. I mean I uh of a very agitated person. And like Lillard is good casting, but left field cast.

I feel like he's been talking a lot recently about what a like lifeblood infusion um fucking five nights at Freddy's was to his career and being like I've never been this back. Like, you know, I've been sort of on the outskirts of the industry for a while. Right. I mean, like he, you know, notably he was directing stuff for a little bit.

He also, after Casey Kaseum died, has taken over Voice and Shaggy in all media. He's become the shit. Which he's talked about is like just the ultimate gift of like. a stable job in an unstable industry where there's always gonna be Scooby-Doo stuff done. But like every couple of years, he will pop up in a live action thing now as like an older character actor and fucking destroy. He is so good in the descendants. A movie I don't really dislike he's incredible in.

This is what I'm saying. More than ten years ago. Yeah. If you pop up in that, I'll be like, okay, so Lillard's back, right? Everyone's gonna get it. This was similar. Use of Lillard. And by his account, like now people are hiring him again a bunch for a movie that no one likes. Right. But was obviously successful. This guy has just kind of been an untapped resource for a bit. Um

So he's accused of this like murder of this corpse, but he doesn't know what's going on. Right. The murdered woman is a woman he was having an affair with, which is why he's kind of edgy when they're interrogating it. Right. Right. Uh or on edge at least. You can't tell like I mean it's it's Part of what's unsettling is like this guy is clearly hiding some secrets.

Is he lying about being a murderer or does he not understand what he's being accused of? Right. And the like watching him process all of that and like breakdown in real time and the reveal of the body is so upsetting. Where it's like, you know, this sort of it almost feels like the straight story scene of like so much wind up to getting through the door.

You know, with the next door neighboring complaints and the keys or whatever. What's it gonna be? And then you see this like rotting head of a woman in a bed. Oh, she's been there for a while. It's upsetting already. Right. And then you pull down the covers and you're like, Why is this head disembodied? lying on top of a clearly different body. Right. That is also like sliced open. Cool. I wouldn't say cool. I think it's good.

Think that's sad. That's uh that's what hotels should have. No, it's been watching. I don't know when you've been watching this show, Ben, but I've often been watching it uh at night right before I go to bed. And it certainly puts me in a headspace. Yeah. No, I've been watching it late and I Yeah. Yeah, it's terrifying. It's affected my dreams. It's made me feel very uneasy about it.

Yes. I think at the time there came a point where I would actually wait to watch this show at night. Right. Even though it was airing at ten o'clock. It feels right to watch it at night. It does. As much as it fucks with me, I'm like, yeah. Um, so uh we've got that going on. We've got Mr C with this sort of coterie of uh weirdos that he's uh gathered on some weird mission. We do have Patrick Fischler in a Las Vegas office.

who's like vaguely talking about like money changing hands. We don't really know what that is. Um we uh see um the red room again. Mm-hmm. Uh Mike is there. Older Laura is there. Mm-hmm. Uh is this the introduction of the evolution of the arm? Uh correct. Uh it's where it's where Laura reveals her opens her face up and there's kind of light inside of it. Yes. Uh another very creepy effect that is done.

At a level that could be done by like a 12 year old on their computer, you know? But you're like, it's more upsetting for that. We are indeed introduced to the arm, Michael J. Anderson's character, the man from another place, uh, who is now a tree with like a brain blob on top of it that sort of goes like Like that? It reminds me of his first piece of art.

Yes, it's got the installation pieces. Getting sicker when it's Michael J. Anderson uh was posting on Facebook at this time. Like he was really had begun, it seemed, a little loony. Yeah. Uh and he said that Lynn As many people uh his age uh were on Facebook at this time. Uh right. He said that Lynch screwed him over or whatever, who n you know, m money wise or whatever. I don't know. And apparently demanded more money than anyone else on the show. And Lynch

Right, probably Michael J. Anderson was probably thinking like I'm such an iconic image my person is, like you can't do without me and Lynch, of course, is like, What do you mean? You can just be a tree. Yes. I'll just have you be a tree now. Who cares? Um and so yeah, so he's there. Uh yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's any way to uh parse that. No, no, no, no. I was gonna say support this, but I do feel like what they do with the arm is fascinating and is also very effective, right?

I have to imagine a lot of the dialogue that would have gone to Michael J. Anderson had he agreed to do this is what they end up doing with Mike now. Mike is there sort of explaining stuff. If you have the evolution of the arm in this form saying all the dialogue, it will be too much. Right. You maybe need someone who's a little more grounded. And then you cut to the the weird tree arm for maximum impact. And then we kind of basically have like

The exit of Cooper. Uh huh. Right? Like uh there's a lot of sort of mysterious red room stuff that You know, you can sort of parse as you will. I don't know how to describe all this stuff. Um, but it's like But you do have like strong theories and all this stuff. Yeah, there's yes, you'll you'll watch the show and you'll see there's a logic to what happens in Twin Peaks the Return. I want to call ahead that I'm going to ask you at the end of us covering this show.

I mean'cause I feel like you've very often throughout me watching the show for the first time, alluded to there are answers to all of this. You can get down to like You can. I mean look, the simple fact of the matter is Yeah.

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

Yes. A Tolpa, uh to quote the empty man, th they use that word here too, like a sort of an artificial being created to basically have a vessel for good Coop to go back into Cooper kind of gets stuck there for much of this show. Like he is now Dougie, who is not a real person and to begin with, but is This perfect way for Lynch and Frost to make fun of right. Like

the modern American salary man in a way, right? Where he like he exists, he he has some sort of useless insurance job, exists, lives in this like subdivision and Has a gambling addiction and like a wife who's like, I hate you, you suck. Cheats on her with sex workers. And then he suddenly shows up and is like

Hello. Coffee. And she's like, You're my dream man. You rock. David, you're doing way too much. I know, exactly. It's like it's hard to do him on rate radio. Yeah. Um we we should we should reclaim this as a radio. This is should be on radio. I think twenty twenty five. Let's go on like ten wins podcast. Let's reach out to Z100, get a syndication deal, and exclusively refer to this. This is my foot down on AM. This is a radio show about filmographies.

They they love to hand out like three hour slots on all that stuff. Uh no, what I was going to say is I know uh a as you're saying there are sort of like in universe explanations of this. Yeah. Our last highway episode, as people I think can tell, was recorded uh way, way early.

Uh, that was the first one we recorded chronologically. So like even just that episode coming out, I'm like, oh, I would have talked about this movie differently having had we gone through no shade on that episode. I think it's so turned out great. But um just digging in more on Lynch career stuff that I wasn't digging in on at the time we recorded that episode. uh how much of lost highway came out of lynch being like completely confused by

Uh and this is so much of his whole filmography. The sort of like How can people be capable of this level of evil? How can that be contained within like a human psyche, a person, the ability to commit this kind of harm to other people? Sure. But that he was also, by all accounts, particularly fascinated by like OJ Simpson during the peak of the trial. Lost highway. Right, yeah, yeah. Right. Just being like out with his kids and being like, Hey, I'm OJ. I'm innocent.

And being like, how can you like murder your wife and then just kind of allegedly go for And just be like, I'm dropping my kids off at school. Hey. It's very good. It's their boost, right? And I do think in the way I talked about maybe in the Twin Peaks season two episode, the sort of manhuntery thing of

Like i if you live in this world, if you're investigating crimes, at what point does it start to break you? Have you just like let too much evil into your psyche, even if you are quote unquote the one doing good? Right. Um beyond the like inner narrative mythology, I do think there's something he's getting at here with the like splitting of the coop psyche of like what happens to you if you're just like looking at dead bodies all the fucking

Right. Like do you start to split into like does do you curdle? Do you go dead inside? Like do you just compartmentalize? There there is an allegorical level. I see what you're saying. I think there is also just this thing of like to Lynch and Frost, like the world's only gotten worse. Yeah. It feels like You know, kind of Boy Scouts like Cooper, who had their flaws, have been replaced by these kind of like amoral figures for the last twenty-five years. Like that's

You know, like you watch Twin Peaks in ninety two and you're like, Yeah, this is about a CD town. There's like Coke and there's sex work. And now it just feels like it's like it's not just fucking drugs and, you know, prostitution or whatever. Now it's just like Yeah, empty houses being sold to nobody by like faceless gangsters and like

looks quaint but underneath it has like all this weird darkness and drama. Right. And here's a guy who like looks like a fucking Dick Tracy drawing. Right. Yeah, showing up. Right. And acts coffee. Like beer cleaver. Right. Like that's all peop so many people clearly just wanted this show to be like him. drinking the coffee which happens and it is important to it, but not in the way they want it. I think it's a lot of people. The deconstruction of this kind of like one pure simple law man.

Who is unwavering and unaffected by the darkness, you know, and can always cut through it with like humanity and grace. All of his performances are incredible. Come McLaughlin rules. This is his master work. I was going to say I is like dividing this character into two extremes with like the middle gone. Like I'm a fan of his work in general, in particular his work with David Lynch. It is wild that there's such a long gap.

And a lot of it is, of course, like the bad fallout of Twin Peaks. Um this is the kind of thing I had no idea he was aware of. guy you call in for a specific kind of thing. Right. Like the way he's used in falling. There there is him as like smarmy politician sort of guy. There's him as like sort of like Goofy dad, there's him asked exactly like cartoon villain, but all of them do feel like a certain broad

weird bent on his square jawed like all American thing. Exactly. Um how can we fuck with that a little bit? We should call out that of course Kyle McLaughlin has reinvented himself in twenty twenty four as Mr Blockbuster, the king of the box office. Uh'cause he's an inside out too.

Um so Cooper is going go we we see this kind of series of dreamless, uh d dreamy things, right? You've got the weird kind of uh purple sea, which we see a few times, like this kind of odd void place. Uh he goes to this weird room, the ki this kind of like this dimly lit mansion room. There's this eyeless woman who's stuck by a fireplace. She'll come back.

Uh at one point you see by Garland Briggs. Don Davis has died, the actor who plays Garland Briggs at this point. And again, David Lynch is like, no problem. Just have his fucking face float by and go blue rose. Like there you go. So Garland Brake's still on the show. Um which is will be important. Uh and then uh we see him basically sort of try to enter the world again, we see Mr. C

like barf corn everywhere, right? Like while driving the car. Well, he's trying his hardest to hold it in. Exactly. As like he's getting like engulfed in this sort of fade out of the red curve. Right. Uh and he survives that. And so we see Cooper essentially get redirected over to the bot. Right. That's how yeah, you know, like that's that's how it ends up being. But we've already seen Dougie. We see Dougie with uh Jade, who's a sex worker who he's like in one of these empty houses with, right?

Across the street from Haley Gates as like an addict mother. Right. And uh he g he also barfs up corn garment closes. He barfs up a different thing. Dougie barf almost looks like a like a fucking rump roast or something. Right. And then he goes to the red room and gets turned into uh an orb. Yes. Which I love. Where they're like enough of you point

But there's a difference to like when when Mr C finally breaks down and pukes, it's like this endless stream of like this cream corn type. And then when the cops come to get him They're like, this is the worst smelling thing of all time. The one cop who gets it's like evil. It's despair. That's what the corn is, right? Two steps closer is then like almost like comatose. They mention that like

A few of the guys are now laid up in the hospital. They have to call them back up with gas masks. Whereas like Jade comes out from the bathroom and is like When'd you get a haircut? Why are you wearing this suit? Were you wearing a wig the whole time? And then it's like, Ooh, are you sick? It seems like what he puked up is a little bit foul, but it's not like No, it's not it's not the

milk of human evil or whatever that uh yes. No, yeah, yeah. He comes out of the electrical socket. Right. And right. So now we have him. in Mr. in Dougie Cooper's life. But now instead of being the douchebag that Dougie Cooper we assume was. And like a a doofy douchebag. Right. He's this sort of Trim, silent, black suited.

uh zombie kind of guy, you know, who just repeats what is said to him. Yes. And has really no reaction to anything until he drinks some sweet, sweet coffee. He has the literal look of authority. It's like Lynch Tapping into why he was so drawn to this guy in the first place. That's a big yeah, exactly. Right? Just the look. And there's something about like

Cam Glaucklin is so fascinating physically. And the other times we talked about him were decades earlier when he was much younger, right? And there was something about him like looking like a Kendall, looking like a Chester Gold drawing. Where it's like well he is literally like an illustration of what we think of as a manly man, but yet also is like so pretty and delicate. He does he is very pretty. Yes. Even today. And it is odd to

See him at an advanced age where you're just like, he looks like an aged boy in a way. Do you know what I'm saying? Like he doesn't look rugged now. He's not like grown into some like

Sean Connery has passed over into like his silver fox age. And I I obviously they're like dyeing his hair in this and making him look as sort of like natty as uh Cooper. But there is something about like he's aged incredibly well. Mm-hmm. And it there's something uncanny about just that face drooping only a little bit. You know, he doesn't have these deep lines. No. He looks good. But he looks old. Yeah. He's not he's never gonna be

pretty like he was as a young man. Yes. He's now become this like hot silver fox. Yeah. But that's sort of post this. What I'm saying, this is trying to go for a different look. It's going for the uncanniness of like Yeah. Um This is then when we have w we do have some interludes such as Uh Dr. Jacoby spray painting his uh spray painting his shovels. Yeah.

Uh we have the uh crazy uh drug addicted woman screaming one nine one one nine uh in randomly in a room, you know, where you're kinda like, what? Doesn't that happen in response to Does that start before the car explodes? Isn't it right after it's where they sleep together, Dougie and the sex worker. Right. He lives across the street and it's where Dougie's car is left parked.

Um then right. Right. And then he doesn't take his car because she drives him home because she can tell that he's No, Jade takes him to the casino. Oh yes. Call for help, give him the five dollars call for help. Yes. Uh and he uh starts just

He becomes Mr. Jackpot. He starts It's one of the funniest fucking things that's ever been on TV. He starts seeing glimpses of the city. Right. Will pop off next and then he gets all the money and he starts going hello So not to get too ahead of shit that I imagine is even gonna come more to the forefront across this, but it really feels like at least in these first seven episodes and like the

Hawk being front and center, sure, the casino, the stuff that's already happening at the end of season two, that like a a lot of the big uh uh sort of point of Twin Peaks as a grand media experiment is the like. We are a country built upon an Indian burial. Yeah, I think that's that I think that is a thing running through Twin Peaks. It's never like loudly screamed or anything.

Um, although you do right, you do have things like the log lady being like, It's to do with your heritage. Right. Um And and that's all of Hawk's stuff is him trying to like Andy being like Is it about coins? Like is it what's the connection here? But also that you have like the end of season two.

the last handful of episodes where they're starting to like lay things out more directly is coming back to Hawk being able to filter through like in my culture there's this notion of You know that suddenly these things in the show that have seemed really abstract are being reframed as like spiritual belief. within like Native American traditions. Right. Um, and then I I just feel like it's not coincidental that he is going to a casino, a thing that is largely owned by like

Native American groups at this point in time in the country, especially if you're outside of like Nevada, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and that he's being given like directed glimpses from the red room to direct him towards the money. I again right. It's not like someone screams this out loud. No. But it doesn't even it doesn't but no but I mean because like fundamentally the elemental stuff in Twin Peaks is that Bob is something you can just Think of in any way you want to think of sure.

And that's what's happening in Twin Peaks the Return is Bob is running rampant and there there's sort of a battle against Bob. It's an abstract battle for a lot of the time, right?'Cause it's all these threads coming together. But Mr C is the villain and he is Bob. Sure. And he is the thing we need to stop.

And then Agent Cooper slash Dougie is sort of our hero, but he's kind of a zombie. Yeah. Who's slowly is absorbing the world around him and the world is reacting to this like mirror he puts up, right? This kind of just like friendly, reflective thing. Um, Mr. Jackpot's, you know, as we're moving into episode four, like uh you know, the casino is freaking out about him'cause he's making all this money.

Uh and so they take him home and then here comes Naomi Watts just in full Mohan drive mode. Just like dialed all the way up. I feel like we've talked a lot about how the last ten years of Naomi Watts has been a disaster in a way that feels Like very unfair to her. She's just got like pretty blame roles. She'd catch a break. Yeah. And this is the only outlier. She's so fucking goodness, unsurprisingly, like

Lynch knows how to use her. That's the thing. Right. But she's in this so much and like watching it now years later, I'm just like, why is everyone else failing her? I think she's just I've said it before, like She's the fourth choice, you know, for a lot of these plum roles and she doesn't get them and instead she gets these kind of like okay roles, leading roles. She's had a handful of abjact disasters as well.

Not just like Book of Henry and stuff, but it's like Oh, like here's like a career lifeline, she's going to be the lead on the Game of Thrones spin off. And then they're like, Never mind, this one isn't happening. Pilot buried new show happening. There've been like a couple things like that where you're like, this almost feels cursed now. Although married Billy Crude up, hot couple. Sure, but didn't she

Uh, you know, have the l her uh relationship with Leaf Shriver for a long time and that fell apart. Yeah, no I'm saying on the rebound she married Billy Kernell. Sure, yeah. He's definitely never cheated on his wife, but uh Fucking nanny or whatever he did. I forget what he did. Claire Danes. Allegedly. Oh yeah, right. It was Claire Danes, right. Whatever. I can't care. It's all the celebrities. They're always cheating on each other. Who you know, who who can get excited anymore? Uh

At this point, I think it starts in late in episode three. Okay. We're bringing in Gordon Cole, played by David Lynch, who is one of the biggest characters in this show. I w I just I thought, why is he the funniest actor alive? Why is he funnier on screen than anybody? I know we've made he's very funny. A lot. Of hey out of his voice. Yes. Doing the impressions. Almost anything is funny in a David Lynch voice, but somehow his performance is funnier than David Lynch as a person is.

The idea of him, there is such an odd presence to how he performs as an actor beyond just the voice and everything, but especially at this age. where he has that like gravitas that everyone gets to the w in the later decades of their life. The weirdest thing to me about Cole in this series, and like a lot a lot of this storyline is always just gonna be Cole. And um you know, Miguel Ferrer. Uh Albert, obviously. And then Tamara Preston, who's this new character played by Krista Bell.

uh, who is this kind of stand in character. She she's, you know, whatever, the newbie. I feel like she's also Lynch being made fun of for like casting these gorgeous women and then like you know, like having a crush on them or whatever. Right.'Cause like that's what Gordon Cole is basically being criticized for with her presence. Right. Everyone's like, Gordon. She's just a good agent. Um but

Gordon especially throughout this show is kind of the exposition guy. Yeah. Uh the FBI agents are the ones who out loud the most will be like, here's what's going on.

Like we're on a hunt for Bob. Like we're we're uh you know, we're trying to figure out what Judy is. Like they're the ones that are sort of like talking about the mission. Well, also with Cooper like pulled apart into like these weird abstracted forms, he becomes the moral center of the show. He is, and that is very apparent. Early in season episode four, where he goes to see Denise, David Dacovny's character from Twin Peaks, season two. Uh the kind of character you might expect they'd go like

Well, we don't need to check in with everybody. Exactly. Maybe it's risky to try to revisit this like Lynch looking down the camera basically and like lecturing his audience. Not in a bad way, like like you know, just sort of incredibly moving direct moment. Of him saying, Fix your hearts or die. It took eight years for me to watch this show. I remember seeing someone post the night this episode aired with just the screen grab with the caption on of uh and I told them, Fix your hearts or die.

And just being like, wow, that is the best fucking way to put it. It is a line that has stuck with me just off of seeing a fucking screen grab right for a decade of like, Yeah, that's how I just think about all of this fucking shit now. Yeah. Of of people who refuse to change in a way that is tolerant of other people. Right. Who like insist on being fucking prejudiced out of habit.

Um yeah, it's just it's uh it's perfectly fascinating scene. And there's something to just the simplicity of Lynch as a performer for how bizarre and overstated he is. It is like it's him and Louie and it's him in the fucking Fable Mins where it's like Is anyone more effective just ha like basically staring down the barrel of the lens and saying the thing? Absolutely. Uh yeah. Just ki I mean the the ostensible point of that scene right again is like

Your mission if you choose to accept it is figure this out. Right. Mr. C, like who's this? But it's really right. This scene of Lynch being like your character. was a part of season two that I am not forgetting about and like I want to address that like you Like, you know, your identity is paramount. Like right. So I I mean, I think the coven's performance is very good. I loved it. In this scene in particular, but also like you watch season two.

comes on screen, you're like, is this gonna be a problem? For someone watching like me for the first time, decades later. And like, unlike a lot of performances of trans people until let's say the late 2010s. When those roles start to be played by actual trans people, there was a lot of like they are being played as if they are drag performers. Yeah, sure. Right? And everything's like there's not a real understanding of the actual what's going on. Right. Yeah.

And I do feel like Dekovny to his like best abilities, tries to play it like a real person. This is like a woman. I am not like overstating it. You know, I'm not sort of like doing yeah, the broad strokes. Yeah.

Lucy Truman, I'm trying to think what else. Um is this where Wally Brando shows up? Yes. Yeah. They set it up early that they named their son Wally Brando'cause he what is it? He was born right after Brando died. Born the same day as Marlon Brando, uh is what we know. Right. Um Just another scene that's just so fucking memorable. Yeah, here's the thing I want to talk about.

Uh appearance on Twin Peaks the Return, not to spoil it. Yes, he is uh he's coming in and out. Yeah. Um he has said that the way he got this part was that he went to one of David Lynch's transcendental meditation classes. And that afterwards he was like, I might have a part for you. I feel like a lot of directors in this age group.

When they are casting things and in interviews, people are like, so what made you want to work with this actor? You often get the sense of like, oh, they don't really watch stuff at this point. You will get the thing of like Paul Schrader being like, My financiers gave me a list of like ten people who I can get the movie made if I get one of them. And I watched their reels and I said, like, this guy feels like he could work. But he's not like watching every episode of Euphoria and going like

Oh, I should write a part. Sure. You know? Yeah, right. What's his name? Why am I forgetting tall guy's name? Jay Lordy. Thank you. Um similarly, I I know like uh uh vinyl. Uh when Ray Romano went into audition, casting was like, hey, just so you know, he doesn't know who you are.

And he was like, oh, he's never watched the show. And he's like, no, he's never heard of you existing. And he was like, how could I just like, without taking this personally, the show was big enough, long enough. Wouldn't he at least have heard the name? And he's like, he has no awareness.

But I feel like with these kinds of guys, oftentimes it's either the casting directors are just like, we have picked actors we think you would like and we'll put them in front of you. And the first time they're ever seeing that person perform is in that audition, or It is like they've been told that this name is bankable. Or you'll hear that they saw one weird I cast them because I saw them on the Tonight Show and I thought their interview was funny. Right. So when any of these like,

More current day actors show up who Lynch hasn't worked with before. In the Sarah case, I know it was that, right? Mm-hmm. Uh Some of them I'm like has to be able to do that. Might have. Did Amanda Seyfried like reach out to her reps? Did she like reach out to her reps and go, like anything to be in Twitch of Rip? Mamma Mia. I'll audition for anything, or was he like, I've

I've seen Red Riding Hood ten times. Ben, did you have something to say? Uh well I was gonna say also at the police station we see Bobby. Oh that's that's right. That's when that scene is. An incredible scene. I mean that we hear the the Lars theme, which is just such a hammer blow. Yeah. And like it's what people have been talking about my love of Dana Ashbrook and uh on I've noticed on like the Reddit and stuff. And it's like, yes, he has a particularly broad

But it's not like Dana Ashbrook, I look at him and I'm like, Wow, Hollywood like gave up on a big movie star here. I understand that his acting style as Bobby is very big. and like it's very well geared to this show. By the way, but it's so beautiful a very good career and has kept working consistently. Oh yeah. He's one of those guys where it's like it's not like he disappeared.

He works steadily, you know. Yes, he does feel like a perfect fit for this, and it does feel like he is one of these guys who is able to like have a foot in multiple spheres simultaneously. He knows how to play to like the bigness of Twin Peaks and the like emotional realism of Twin Peaks simultaneously. That scene is, I mean, it's not just that the score comes back in. But him sort of being surprised by how much it's he can still be emotionally affects. Yeah. And

Like and then trying to kinda cover it and be like, wow, it's just a blast from the past. Like he's embarrassed that it he broke that quickly. But it also feels like the show, like this like ball of light coming through a crack. Where it's like, Yeah, everyone sort of agreed to forget about that. As we talked about with Connor on s about season two.

if you think about how Twin Peaks actually moves quite slowly, like day by day. Yeah. Like the whole Cooper Laura thing is just a few months in their lives. And exactly and it's just like And then that was that and Cooper disappeared. And also like season two, once it solves Laura's mystery Stops invoking her a lot. Like if I were to throw out a major ding on season two, it's I think the most powerful thing about season peaks from the onset is.

There is something about her death that has shaken this entire town to its core. Right. It feels representative of like a cultural rot that they've all been ignoring and everyone is so haunted by it. And then once they solve her murder, it does feel like it's like, well, and on to other weird things in Twin Peaks. So like him being this affected seeing the photo again does feel like there's this reminder of like this is where this all

came together. You know? This is what it was all about, it's core. It's magnificent. Yeah. Um, some of the other things I want to mention, uh yeah, you sort of have uh Preston and Rosenfeld and and Cole going on their mission, but you also have Uh Dougie drinking coffee, doing the sort of like laughing where he has like the tie over his head. His connection with his son. His connection with Sonny Jimmy Jim. Uh his inability to know how to pee, so he has to be like shown how that works.

But you've also set up this thing as well. Again, Naomi Watts making scenes that make no sense make sense. Where she's like, Oh, I mean fine, I'll just take your penis out for you basically. Like like she's just this put upon housewife, like I love Lucy, having you be like, Ah, Rich, you know

Desi, don't you know how to pee? But also he's come home in a limo with this inexplicable bag full of money, a burlap sack full of money that Breck Gelman was loath to give him is like I'm gonna fucking I'm dead, right? Belushi and his guy come in and beat the shit out of him and fire him immediately. And she's like, Oh my God, amazing. We can get ourselves out of this jam. Right. This immediate setup of like he was in some financial hole. Everyone's been closing in on them.

He now has this like windfall of money. Everything can be corrected. The only problem is he doesn't know how to speak English. Right. Or go places. Or open a car door. Do anything. Let's say it. Do basically anything. But he drinks coffee and that does something. He loves the coffee. It's a reminder. Much as uh when they

someone acknowledges that he is an insurance agent, the word agent rings in his head. Right. It's like the the Cooper psyche is in there deep down waiting to be active. In episode five, which I'm moving to now, like there's that point where the um his boss is like here are some case files. And he's like case files. So again, it's like right, like yeah, that's something in FBI. Right.

Stop a shooting from the big thing. And that assassin, by the way, is really normal and not lynching at all. No. Like to have like a weird little wolverine of a man who's just like Did someone else guest direct to the scene?

Um episode five also has a scene that like so like I w I watched this show live and I had not really seen it since apart from eclipses because the show doesn't kind of pervasively exist in that form. Uh completely forgot about the scene with Candy Clark as Doris. Uh Sheriff Truman's wife who just comes and fucking harangues him about a leaky pipe in this like

black box theater monologue and the forester just completely impassive. Right. And then she leaves. This thing I've talked about a lot that like Lynch can pull off like no one else, which is have a scene with actors in wildly different performance styles. In a master shot. somehow feeling intentional. They are in opposite universe. It's like Truman seems just like burdened with sadness.

Yes. His brother we can Forster is just all honest presence. Like that's his whole fucking thing. The way they've written off Harry Truman is that he's clearly sick with something and Truman, you know, Sheriff Truman will just occasionally be like

Yeah, he's you know, he's still fighting. You know, but like we don't know what the um uh phone call scene where you only hear his side of it and he says, like, just promise me you're gonna beat this thing. Right. Which coming out of Forrester is like very emotional. Very moving.

But so like he's obviously like sad about that, but then he's just also it just feels like burdened by all the sadness of the town. Yes. And everyone, all these old characters like Ben Horn, when we see them, it's like, yeah, they just never got over. The time passed. Yes. But he's just still stuck there.

Like kind of and it's not like fun anymore. Much or you're Jacoby and you just went nuts and you just got gold shovels and you're doing your podcast. Figured it out. Right, right, right. The fucks are at it again. He's right. Yeah. That's an incredible sales pitch. Um No, I was just gonna say much like the the new agent. It does help to have Someone in the precinct who is on the side of the old people but wasn't on the case. in the original show. Not as like an entry point for new viewers.

But just to sort of reestablish things where characters can explain things to him, you know? Mm-hmm. That he has a little bit of a like one foot in, one foot out awareness of the history. Mm-hmm. Um and then that second Candy Clark scene is so devastating where she comes in even hotter.

But my dad's car isn't working and this and that. That guy is such a fucking good actor who was also incredible on Barry, who plays like the asshole new cop. Yeah, also is the one takes the cash buyout from the smoking guy, which we need to talk about in a second. my new most evil character in the world of Twin Peaks. Um yes. So uh the character you're talking about is um Richard. Yes. Pin in that for one second. But that scene of her chewing him out.

And then him just being like, what a fucking hag, what a ball and chain, whatever. And just the immediate like this thing that Lynch is so good at. is just like making these like desperate pleas for empathy. Yeah. In a weird way, in a non-corny way of just like, they are people. They are going through things. Everyone has their pains and their like suffering. Like their child killed himself. Uh this will haunt them forever. They're never gonna get over it. That's exactly it. Yeah.

Um so no one just like turns out some weird way. So Richard, the character you're referring to, played by Eamon Farron, not an actor. He's an Australian actor, but I don't really know him at all. He'd worked he was in Jennifer Lynch's movie Chained. Okay. Uh which I haven't seen. That's Jet David Lynch's talk. Quite a look. The craziest face. So obviously basically he is a bully face. He is the most evil character in Twin Peaks.

Yes. Uh Bob is obviously evil as well, but with Bob, you're like, this is a spirit. Like It's a little bit different. It's not like Bob's someone who right, like can go to a grocery store and be mean to someone. I mean it's like Richard Like even Jacques Bruneau Right. But right he doesn't feel spiritual. He just feels like a terrible person. You know, and even like um

uh uh uh w Papa Horn. Richard Horn Richard Ben Horn. Thank you. Uh Ben Horn um has the thing that is so terrifying of like he is able to put this veneer of like gentle sophistication, you know? Right. And class on top of that. Yes, a hundred percent. Right. And then Richard, it's like right. It's like pure like no Uh F the mask or facade or whatever. It's just like, what if there was the most evil piece of shit on earth? Just kind of walking around.

Right. And like And everything about him's awful. That that first like bar cigarette scene. Yes. Which starts with just under a smok no smoking sign, smoking. Right. This guy's such a dick and the staff is so pissed off at him. He pays off a cop. Then you see the girls at the booth next to him be kind of turned on by his bad boy attitude and he immediately pivots to just the most upsetting behavior. I will rape.

you like it's just not it's again it's just there's like a blunt naked like evil like to how he's talking. Where you are seeing behavior that is so bizarre. that you almost don't know how to process it. And like her friends sitting at the booth next to it who like kind of don't know how to react because they're like, wait, did this guy truly in 15 seconds pivot choking her? Right. He's got b and then you cut out of that scene. Right.

And it's so much more disturbing to not have resolution on that. Um you'll sort of get it. But But certainly I'm watching for several episodes after that point and they're not cutting back. The next time we see him, he's just in a truck and then he does something terrible. He runs over a boy with impunity and no remorse. I told him to move.

when he's like five blocks away. This is the only so like w again, when this show premieres, I see some people being like, gut, there's a lot of like sexual violence. There's like nastiness in this show that's like kind of too much.

I know Twin Peaks was about dark things, but like also basically the entire David Lynch project. Right. But like this is so explicit and intense. And someone like Richard, I think especially it's like, do I want to watch this every week? Like And I remember having that feeling a little bit with like Richard especially, where you're just like, I kind of wanna go to bed like

You know, Nelly bake a really good cake on Bake Off, like, you know, and make a couple, you know, funny jokes with Noel Fielding. Like, I'm not sure I want to watch, like, slab faced evil boy like running people over. Ben's fiance's on Bacoff? Yeah. Uh I can't believe this hasn't come up soon. I imagine later on the new season of uh Bacoff. Who is delightfully who incredibly delightful who plays the character? Who did they get in the cast? Um

She's a she's a human being, David. A really flesh and blood. No, I I think we've uh talked about a little bit the flip of how you felt by the end of our uh Yes. Yeah. Uh I have I have greatly enjoyed this uh Lynch uh experience and watching all of these things, both the rewatches and the things for the first time. I I will be pretty happy to move on from this.

It has been an oppressive headspace to stay in. Yeah, you're right. And I think the next couple of things we're doing are going to be lighter. Yeah. Not that there won't be intense stuff in them. There is. There's It's more commercial fair as well. Correct. Which is, by the way, conscious on our part. It's a little conscious. Strategic. Yeah. Yeah. Um but this is definitely I mean, yeah, I don't know. David Lynch's work makes me think about the worst parts of humanity a lot.

In a way that I don't think feels um Exploitative or like punishing for like effect. It's really him trying to reckon with these things. It's Narsty. I can't think of any better way to put it. It's Narcity. And that's what Kaya Decinema said when they called this the best film of the 2020s. So to give you some other things from episode five, I want to mention. Uh-huh. Uh more on Dr. Jacobi's podcast where he is Dr. Amp.

Feels like his two listeners are Jerry Horn out in the woods getting high and Nadine, who basically is just like in love with him. Silently loves it. We don't know how young she still is or isn't. Right. Or what uh year she thinks it is. Yeah. Ikea presenterar Ljud av förändring. ご視聴ありがとうございました Välkommen till Ikea.

We have uh these cuts to the Pentagon where Ernie Hudson plays like a colonel who's like mis dug you know, major brakes' fingerprints have just popped up and we have to figure it out. I need to pull the brakes for a second. I have This thought, every time they cut to Ernie Hudson sitting behind this desk. Just fucking just just like serving me dialogue on like a silver platter, right? Yes. And I feel this every time he shows up for fucking four steady moments in a new Ghostbusters movie.

Why is no one writing like the incredible late career part for Ernie Hudson? Get someone do it. This guy's here. He looks amazing. He looks unbelievable. He is like a classically trained, like titan of an actor. who is like beloved and he kind of shows up people are like, oh yeah, Ernie Hudson. Ernie Hudson. We love him. And and like speaks without a lot of bitterness about the fact that he's basically never been utilized to his full ability throughout his career.

And you're like, anyone writes like a media dramatic supporting part for Ernie Hudson in a TV show or a film is gonna look like a fucking genius. Like he has like a Robert Forster, Jackie Brown esque. You could f frame him in a way that would feel So you're saying the Frozen Empire didn't do this for you? It it tried. It got close. I I will say the one scene you you saw Frozen Empire. I did, yeah. There's the one scene with him and Aykroyd arguing about the running of the business.

That I'm like, just by the nature of Ernie Hudson being such a pro and Aykroyd so deeply believing this shit, of course, for like three minutes you're like, this movie feels like it's about something, even though it's nonsense. And it's just these two guys. Aykroyd thinks he's not acting. That he is in a real conversation with his good friend Winston Zeddamore.

Who he willed into existence and Ernie Hudson can just sell shit. And I'm looking at Ernie Hudson in this, who basically has to sit behind a desk and go, like, good reporting, thank you. Report back with more. And I'm like, this guy is so captivated. He is. Things with such gentle authority. It's the kind of stuff And he looks like ten zillion dollars. He certainly looks Do you know how old Ernie Hudson is now? He's like seventy-five and jacked. Really? Yeah, and not like weird old man jacked.

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

Yes. Would probably go. Yes. Like the assortment of cops in very in like Arizona and Vegas and Twin you know, where it's just like these great David Lynch character actors being like, Yeah, I don't know what's going on. You know, like that that probably all go.

But I love it. I love sitting in all that. No, and I do I'm repeating myself here, but I do love the thing of like when a new element or a new world or a new thread is introduced, you have no idea what kind of follow up or continuation you're gonna get and when.

Yes. So something like Jane Addams, you're like, I could see this being a character who's in this one episode a lot until they get the conclusive like findings they need from this autopsy. And instead that's like doled out across the biggest. Yeah, she's kind of in it a fair amount, but just in little bits, right. Um okay so some things that happen in uh the biggest thing that happened in season s in episode six is we meet Diane.

Uh played by Laura Dern, the uh person that uh Dale Cooper talked to on the on the recording, you know, on his tape. This whole you know, he's always addressing Diane. Here is Diane. This is the one card they play in that kind of Lega sequel way. Yes. If them, you know, where you're like

W not only are we showing you Diane, but she's played by like David Lynch's muse, Laura Dern. A real, like, how could you ever cast someone who is satisfying in the role of Diane? It's like that's the perfect way to go. It's the perfect one. Right. Yeah. Um, and she is um she's got a chip on her shoulder. Uh she does. Griffin just sent us a picture of her. Ben needs to see this. This is Ernie Hudson at the Frozen Empire premiere this spring. He is 78 years old.

Wow. Holy shit. Right? That's crazy. And that looks natural. That's not like stallone muscles. No, he's just in great great. It doesn't look like he's had work done. If he has, it's been very subtle and delicate. I don't think he has. I think he just looks good. I want to see like an Ernie Hudson like one man like fucking Broadway show with him melting down the house. Well, I don't know. This is my age inspiration right now, guys. I don't know. You just sent one to us?

This is the guy I wanna be when I'm old. Just the confidence of going to the premiere just wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Yep. And he's like I gotta show off the gun. David, who are we looking at? What is this photo you just sent us? Are you not aware of this? No, I don't know what that's So that's Frankie Valley. Oh Jesus Christ. And they've been big because he's still on tour, he's ninety.

Yeah. Right. And there are these videos of whatever, you know, where it's basically like these four young men doing the four season stuff. Where they're, you know, they're all in sync and they're singing and they're singing the old hits. And then he will come out looking this honestly, this picture looks pretty good. Moving like Dougie. He looks like a broken Chuck E. Cheese animatronic.

David, uh I it's like remember when there was those like Prince Philip, like the last ten years of his life when he was alive, but you would be like, What's that like dead body doing sitting next to the queen? Right. Who's where are the puppeteers hiding? Right. Are they just out of frame? And he's kind of like live

Sing it's kind of cle unclear what he's doing, but he's his mouth is moving to the Frankie Valley parts. David, what you just sent me is an upsetting image. The only thing that could make it more upsetting is to imagine the Frankie Valley voice coming out of it. That face with like baby That's basically what's going on. I I I'll show you a video at some point. It's never so weird. No, you should. It's really fun. This is the thing that happens. I just want people to know.

If we talk about an image on an episode that we feel like the other ones need to see, we send it to the blank check group text, which Marie is in, and then Marie will just respond with something like I can't wait to find out the context of it. Because she's not hearing the conversation. She'll hear it like a month from now when she listens to the edit.

And we send the things so that she knows to post them when the episode comes out, but we don't tee them up at all for her. So she just got Jack Derney Hudson. And Frankie Valley Facebook. But the whole thing was like these videos started going around, people were like, This is a elder abuse. So he had to then be like put out a statement being like no one's making me do this. I like

It's kinda sick. Doesn't look like you like doing it, but okay. When I hear about something like this that I've somehow missed, it makes me feel really proud that I'm in a good place with my control of the popped up on us. A lot of bad shit.

There's been a lot of like, you know this fucking thing. And I'm like, I don't know how, but I've actually maybe got my shit under control. Griffin, that's a great sign. Thank you. It's been a long process. Yeah. But I'm just like, I don't want to be engaging with most of this. Um so Yeah, so there's right. There's this in in part six is I would say one one of the m darkest episodes w where um Richard runs over the kid.

with impunity. You say run over, he runs through the kid. He kills his child, his mother's screaming. You know, it's I don't even really want to talk about it. But there's also what's his name is there. We should say Harrodine. Yes. Um Which is like them tying in a uh a fire walk with me only character for the first time. Yeah, that's true. Uh

I'm trying to think if there's more. But another person who's no longer with us, like Yeah. Yeah. He died the year this came out for sure. It's twenty seventeen. this show ends up being I not to repeat myself it's sort of like final bow for so many people. But yeah, yeah. And other upsetting stuff, that the the um, you know, um uh Truman's wife

Uh yeah. Like this is just kind of a dark episode. Diane's just like this sort of like Clearly kind of fucked up person who's really mad at them, so there's not like that like immediate satisfaction. You have laundry bag uh ending the worst job interview of all time where guys like your resume suck. Carry on. Caleb La Laundrie Jones, of course, is here. You dress both seem crazy five, I wonder. The baseline from Tush sucks. It feels like the anyway. Do you know so do you know who Becky is?

Who Becky is? That's uh Seyfried's character. Yes. She is uh a Mad Chinamchick. daughter. Right. She is Bobby and Shelley's daughter. I've gotten to the end of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.'Cause that's what I'm trying I in my sort of what right rewatch, I forget like when that information appears or whatever. Right. You're in change the laundry bag, then you see Amanda Seaford coming into the diner, asking her mom for money. She's stuck with this like you know, even worse version of the sort of toxic relationships we saw on the original show. Right. Right. Are they going to continue to be a part of the Yeah, they're they're they're popping in and out. Yeah.

I just feel like it the the shot I knew was the tilting her head back, to know him is to love him, kind of glow, staring at the sky coked up thing. Right, right. So when that came so quickly, I was like, is that the end of her stuff? I don't want you to spoil these things. I should stop asking questions. But she's she's around. Yeah, she's absolutely around. Episode seven, I want to think.

Uh uh just take a look at your right. So at this point, like Hawk finds Laura's diary um that's uh in the bathroom stall. Uh there's this sort of reference to Annie Blackburn, things like that. Yeah. Uh I guess the point is that these points parts of the diary which implicate Leland were hidden by Leland. in like one of his interrogation questions. Right. Right. Um but yeah, Hawk finds it through a series of like

uh uh Native American reappropriation symbolism. Right. Logos and coins and like these things that are like the cultural sort of commodification. of his people. um leads him straight to this uh yeah, these hidden pages. Um, Albert and Gordon work on Diane and basically convince her, like, can you go talk to Cooper? We found Cooper. He's in prison. Like

Like we need you to identify that this is Cooper. There's something off about Diane's like mega reluctant, but they make her do it. They go on the hostile to um to Albert especially. Yeah. Um, and then yeah, he's like, I have to go back with Cole. uh they really implore her. And then that scene is so upsetting where you just see immediately

Her o'clock that something's wrong. She's got this test in her mind of like when was the last time we saw each other? And even when he seemingly kind of answers correctly, uh She knows it's not him and she's very, very upset. She is the best. Uh, and then we have Cooper, just the way Cooper talks in his like creepy kind of like Hello, it's good to see you again. You know, like it's so cool. Especially when he's behind the glass.

But you also you already have the thing of him asking for his phone call and calling the number that makes the security system short circuit and then saying the Mr. Strawberry thing that clearly like terrifies the warden. Mm-hmm. You have this sense of like he has a plan for how to get out of here. Of course. Something about a strawberry. Mr. Strawberry. Yeah. Yeah. Um And uh so that's going along. But very shortly after the Diane conversation where she says like

There's something missing here. Yes. That's not the same person, then bad coupe. Mr. C makes his like very quiet escape. Right. Which is basically tells the guard to tell the warden he wants to talk about strawberry. goes in and says, like, I'm not gonna talk about it, but I'm gonna tell you what I'm not talking about. Right. And if you don't want me to talk about it more that's the other part, the fucking dog leg thing.

When they arrest him, they find the one dog leg in the car and they're like, What the fuck is this? And he's like, That dog leg wasn't coincidental. There's three other legs. They will be sent if you don't release me. And then he just drives away with his buddy. Right. Yeah. Pretty weird.

Uh in my opinion. No good. Um And what else do we have going on? This this is right. This is where Ike the Spike, the um is the assassin little assassin. Very normal assassin. Tries to kill um uh well does kill Dougie the other woman. He's given the two photos. Right. Yeah. Uh and Dougie stops him by like going into like muscle memory. Yeah. Uh at one point the tree pops out and is like squeeze his hand off. Yeah.

It's kinda cool. But you also have the thing when he's uh assassinating the first woman and going through all the other people in the office who are witnesses. Right. Where he like bends his assassin spike. Right. He's got his like What like what is it? Is it like a letter opener or like an ice pick? It's an ice pick. Yeah, it's like an ice pick, exactly. That's just like an innate wooden carved handle. Right, right, right.

We haven't talked about I guess that's all the big stuff, right? We haven't talked about like that most episodes end with a musical performance at the roadhouse that's kinda disconnected. Right. And does feel a little like David Lynch playlist like Here are some artists I like. I I think that kind of is it, but there is also just this thing of like We're seeing the townspeople, like we're seeing characters we know. We're also seeing characters we don't know who

turn out to not matter. Like sometimes we're just sort of like in on a conversation for a minute between some girlfriends. Mm-hmm. And we're like, Who are these people? And it's like, Don't worry about it. It's just like Twin Peaks kind of like chunders on, even though like But it's all part of the deliberate disorientation of it's like training you out of trying to make this show conform to normal television narrative expectations, right?

Like you need to stop looking at every single thing as a clue. There there's a certain part of me that thinks I mean part of it is just him. Evolving as an artist and and being interested in different things, right? Yeah. But there's the thing at the beginning of Fire Walk with Me where Lynch is.

literally like creating this like woman who does like a pantomime of clues that are meant to be like deciphered as to what the case is. The thing with his what is the interpretive dance woman. I love her. Right. That felt like him mocking people wanting to like solve Twin Peaks. Yes. If you just look at the clues, right. It's all there. Rather than this doing the mocking, it's like there are scenes in this that are in this just because I think they're interesting. Not all of this is like

building to a codex that you need to use to decipher it. No, it's not. Um I'm realizing something we haven't touched upon and we don't have to spend that much time, but just uh the money that Dougie owes. that whole little subplot where they're the two hitmen Who put a bomb under his car. Right. The kid explores it and you're like the kid's gonna blow up and then he doesn't. Instead it's like carjackers get exploded. And then Jeremy Davies.

Uh Jeremy Davies, one of our twitchiest actors, was Faraday on Lost and was in Saving Private Ryan and he's the one with the crazy hair who goes to meet her at the playground to get the money. Nice. Yeah. Just popping in. The Naomi Watts performance was just so good, but her fucking monologue.

Where she convinces these guys to accept her terms. Right. Again, just force of nature kind of stuff. And the same thing happens with the um investigators who come to check in on the exploded car at Dougie's office. Where she's able just talk these people down, but she's also able to like weirdly contextualize Dougie. You know? Yeah. Like he can say his two elusive things and people are like, what the fuck? And then she comes in, she's like, you don't understand what our life is like.

The other scene that is unbelievable. I mean, I shouldn't say the other scene. A scene we have not talked about that is unbelievable is Dougie coming into his boss with all the folders where he's done the doodles. And his boss is like, how am I supposed to make sense of this? And Dougie just repeats, make sense of this. And then he looks at it and this guy gives this fucking unbelievable performance, checking the notes back and it dawning on him like, oh my God, it all makes sense.

And it's a great lynching where he doesn't explain what has now become clear to him. He's just someone who I can't believe I would sit down and think about things. He drew a staircase moving from one line down to the other. Right. And now I see these things so clearly. Yeah. Yeah.

Um so yeah, I feel like I I so now that I've now that I've gone through these episodes. Before episode eight, we really are just completely grasping in the darkness. Yes. Like if you're if you're watching this show. You understand that Evil Cooper is out there, and you understand that good Cooper is kind of trapped in this body. You also are beginning to understand that the show is definitely not just going to be about.

Sheriffs and deputies and Twin Peaks solving mysteries. Yes. But you don't really know anything else about what the fuck is going on long term in this show. No. You ca I guess it's just like it's a lot of plot lines Mm-hmm. But even some of them you're like, I don't see where they're how they're tying into other stuff, right? You're just kind of like, I guess we're just The Fucking Las Vegas. Right. Like what's this gonna be? Yeah. And then that's

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

at the core of Twin Peaks. And it feels like Lynch and Frost doing that more than they do. Like it's kind of what you're talking about, but it's not really about like Native American, you know, sort of heritage or anything like that. It's a little bit of that.

You'll see. You haven't seen it. No, I haven't seen it. Do you know anything about it? I know it's the atomic bomb episode. Right. So you know that look, I I was I was uh unlike now when I am healthy and good and in control, I was way too online at the time that this show was airing. And so I just remember reading so many fucking tweets.

of like live watching and immediate responses. Mm-hmm. I was very fascinated by just watching people talk about the show. Right. Not in like a spoiler sense. I wasn't reading like full of uh people uh floundering trying to recap it. Yeah. But just the sort of like holy shit of like Wally Brando or whatever. Right. I remember that episode seeing the wave of people being like, David Lynch just like rewrote the rules of television.

This episode changes everything. Right. Not just within Twin Peaks, but like this medium. Yeah. Uh and I I feel like you've talked about this, but that uh This was a point in time where it felt like TV is in some transitional stage. Is it about to evolve into something?

much more interesting and it feels like we've gotten stuck in an absolute dead end of television. And it's partly because nobody actually gets to make T V like David Lynch got to make this. Yeah. Like most people aren't being given a true blank check by a network Of like, yeah, it can be as long as you want with as many people as you want. Yeah. Here's another thing. I was talking to uh my brother, James Newman, past and future guest.

about a prestige TV show he is watching that is similarly directed by one O'Tour filmmaker. Uh-huh. Uh and was complaining that he's like, this really just feels like he couldn't figure it out how to edit the script down to a movie. Like one episode ends because an hour is up and the next episode starts immediately where the last episode ends it. Right, right. And they're just credits tacked on to the beginning and end of every hour. Like the what are we even doing here?

And as much as he did not design these as like separate episodes in the scripting stage or the shooting stage, it sounds like. And as much as it's not like each episode resolves its own thematic concerns, each episode does in these first seven at least, and I know eight's gonna be very much its own thing. Sure. Each episode does feel like a piece. It's really well done in that way of

This doesn't just feel like a fucking It doesn't end abruptly. I think that's one the musical performances really help with that as well in sort of like decompressing you But there's like a editing and construction and and sort of rhythm and flow and m mood and tone of these things. Where I'm like, what I like about it is that it doesn't feel like he's trying to do a movie, as much as he maybe talks about it that way.

Right. You know, and I'm sure if you watch all eighteen hours straight through and you cut the credits out, maybe it plays differently. But I'm like, I think these things have inherent value as one hour chunk. I know the first four were aired as two two hour chunks, but like all of this, yeah. It works in whatever form. Trying to find some like the ratings.

I know that's kind of not that helpful there was the uh hyperlink to the deadline piece of the first episode not living up to expectations. Right. I mean it's like a funny article to read where they're like much higher expectations for the return of a cult legacy show. Debut for Twin Peaks. Yeah. Um okay, I have found that article. Okay.

Can you just find a point two in the demo? Any ratings list from that? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to look for here. Deadline's not exactly the most useful on this front. There's just not anyone that keeps like a clean database of this stuff. That's weird because in every other sense, the Nielsen ratings make perfect sense. That's another thing Conan talked about recently on an episode where he would be like

We realized like that the demo fluctuating for us would be like six people with Nielsen boxes at one in the morning, like just not turning their TV on that day. Like it was such the sample was so small. It is insane that for decades. The way television success was measured was they would just randomly write to certain people and be like, Congratulations, you've been selected to choose to receive a new box. And by the way, you have to keep a detailed diary of what you're watching and when.

and which member of your family is watching it. And then they'd get the reporting back from those people on honor system that they were reporting things accurately. And they would extrapolate from that. Well, if thirty percent of the families we sent boxes to are doing this, it probably means thirty percent of America is watching the same thing. How they did it. It's insane. Makes no sense. And now we have all of our television in a way that is very easy to track.

Like you can get hard ass data and all the companies are like, we're not really w it's we we I mean seconds watched over years. Uh all right. Maybe this is something. Just give me something. All I ask is like something broken websites? Jesus Christ.

Uh interactive TV ratings database. Help me out here. Please please help the man out. You know what? We're just doing the top ten shows of twenty seventeen right now. Great. I'll think of other things maybe if I can find them later. But uh Twin Peaks didn't crack this. Um, and I'm you know, it's kind of annoying what the number one show of twenty seventeen was. It's kind of annoying. Well,'cause it's just Sunday night football.

It's always annoying when it's just that. That's very annoying. But all right, but what's number two? Number two. Is it the big com the big bang theory? Okay. What's number three? Newer procedural drama. I think just recently ended its run. Blue bloods? No. That is not on the top ten. Is it an NCIS? No. Is it a Chicago? No. It's not part of a series. It's a it's a total standalone. Yeah. And it just ended. Yeah, it just ended at its seventh season. This is its first season.

Weird. It's not the good doctor. It is the good doctor. The good doctor. That was the number three show on TV. It was huge. Uh, he was a good doctor. Yeah. This is another fascinating thing. That show was huge. It obviously like, you know, its peak was early, but it stayed big. Mm-hmm. The financials of television are so fucked that the show ended season seven basically because they were like It is impossible for this show to stay profitable.

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

Speaking of and like every year just fucking ad sales money goes down. Anyway, go number four. Spinoff of a sitcom. Young Sheldon? Young Sheldon. Sheldon Burning. Also recently ended, correct? Uh yeah, finally did. Now there's a spin off that people think is problematic. Zygoat Sheldon. No, it's Sheldon's. Brother in law. Oh boy. I'm not kidding. It's su it's Sheldon's sister's first marriage. Georgie and Mandy's first marriage. Jesus. Okay. Uh number five. I have. Is it Blue Bloods? Nope. Is it

Is it in law uh and law and order? Nope. Is it mothership NCIS? It is mothership original brand NCIS. Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Which now they're doing a prequel show about young Mark Harmon. Yeah, great. Is it just uh N C I S origins, you're right. Yep. Uh starring Austin Stowell. Naval. They do naval crimes. It's a Jag spin-off. People forget that NCAS is a spin-off of the show Jag. I never forget that. I know you don't. I know you don't.

Um Jag, which was one of those shows when I was a kid where I was like, this is just like for for grown up. Yeah. Like like who are boring. Like that's what that show is. Two or three years on SNL where sketches kept making references to Kathryn Bell from Jag as like the hottest woman in the world. Like they used her as like placeholder hot woman. She was hot. Where I was a clearly one writer at SNL has a huge thing. Yeah.

Number six, uh big uh drama that was a big hit, big buzzy drama, network drama. Are you being facetious? No. Is it uh the good wife? No. Bigger than that. Way bigger. Yeah. Buzzy. And it's ended since? Yeah. Where was it in its life at this point? Uh it would have been I don't need hard numbers. Just give me kind of like this is the end of its first season, I think. Oh wow, so this was the start. Mm-hmm. It ran for six seasons. Is it how to get away with murder? No. Is it a Shonda? Nope.

It's not it doesn't tick it's not it within Chandalan. No. Well don't get angry at me. I think that's a fair question. It's not my fault you need to poop again. I don't actually went away. What a twist, much like Twin Peaks of Return. Sometimes you th are I feel guaranteed that a thread. All right. I don't even know why we're doing number six. We don't usually do that. We're going to eight this time.

Number six, it just ended. It was buzzy. This was season one. Yeah. Was it an Emmy player as well? Yeah. It won Emmy. What network was it on? NBC. It was the rare yes, yes. The rare network drama that actually was like an awards player. Bad show, I think, but lots of good acting and crying and stuff like that. Anytime I would just read a headline about like shocking twist in this week's This Is Us and I'd click the deadline for the explanation, I'm like

I swear to you, every twist on the show is you're introduced to a character and at the end of the episode they revealed that character is related to something else. I think what the show kept doing. Right. Yeah. Um that that man just loves the like oh well. Of course you're a bunch of uh disconnected characters that have nothing to do with each other. Twist. They're married. That's not a tweet. Number seven uh is a reality competition program. Uh it's not American Idol.

The voice No. No. Is it hm? Dancing with the Stars? Nope. Survivor? Nope. America's Got Talent. America's Got Talent. Okay. Kind of the one people forget about, but was obviously a big deal. It still is. And number eight is the only cable show on the top ten. The uh Walking Talk. Which was a phenomenon unlike any other uh in terms of right. It was a basic cable show that did network hit numbers. It was crazy. They still have like new off spinning. Yeah, now it's like walking dead.

The one time they went down this road at that point. If these three characters are there, what do they do? I don't they fucking fight zombies, bro. It's always the same shit. What do you think they do? They're like fine. They're dirty. They're fine Atlanta. Yeah. I think there's one that is Walking Dead, Colonel Darrell, Colin Paris. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Like it's literally becoming just kinda like these two characters.

But wasn't Fear the Walking Dead created for like eight seasons. Yeah. And I watched at least two of them. I was kind of into that show. Uh I mean had an incredible cast. Yeah, had fucking Kim Dickens and Coleman Domingo Ruben Blatters. Yes. Um Cliff Curtis? Uh that show was like day one, right? It was like this is like Boots on the Ground, the start.

Um that was taking you back to the start with new people, yes. Right. And then they did a show that was like Latchkey Kids in the Middle. Yeah, is that World Beyond? I think. And then now there's like Yeah. I don't know, man. There's one that was like a Negan spin-off, right? With uh Lauren Cohn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Yeah. There was one that was Daryl. That one's still going, I think. And then there's the one that's um, you know, Rick and Michonne. Right.

Uh doing their own kind of thing where they just like But they're all like now filling in different timeline games. I don't I don't I don't know. Like that's the the simple fact of the matter. Maybe Dossier I have no idea. Maybe Dossier for next episode, maybe JJ or something. Just to fill us in on the chronology of The Walking Dead and its seven spinoffs.

Um yeah, the other shows in the top ten are Another Day of America's Got Talent and uh Bull. Bull. Remember Bull? Bull. Is that still on? No, I think ended.

Bull had a lot of just ended. Just ended. Had a lot of lawsuits around it that it survived, but it finally ended. Yeah, it was certainly surrounded. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So There you go. Um, but yeah, that just crazy thing about the good doctor. We will uh be talking about look, the number one takeaway from this, our episode on the first.

seven chapters of Twin Peaks of Return is that it's crazy to think about the good doctor. Um what if a doctor was good? And Conan, you know, give it a rest, man. You've had a great career not joking. We love you, Conan. Come on the show, Conan. Make some friends. Maybe the podcast format's not how you're gonna make friends. Maybe go to a bar, bring a book with you, wait for someone to strike up a conversation. No, and say he's gotta talk to Jack White. Yeah, I bet that one's gonna bear fruit.

Well to respect. space in his life for you to be his friend. You've known Jack White for like twenty years. If you were gonna become friends, it would have happened by now. You've done a bunch of projects together and you're not going to be able to do that. It's so funny how it was initially him like, I'm talking to interesting people and now it's like, sorry, here you have a T V show. I mean Which is like obviously it's like a book TV. Right.

And interrogate are we actually friends? Right. And then after twenty episodes, it just became the WTF. Right. Two. WTF two. Yeah. To be fair, we both enjoy the show. I love it. I listen to it every week and it's really well done. Although, uh, can I can I throw out a complaint? It's a sloppy feed. Uh sure. It's one of those things where like so. But did you listen to the one word Tim and Jordan Schlansky at each other's throats for an hour? It's really funny.

'Cause there's Connor Bryan needs a friend, Conobry needs a fan. Then the the campfire ones. Yeah. Yeah. They had the carve ones, which then I guess basically kind of indirectly turn into flying. It's like the walking dad. It's like the walking dad. Uh join us next week for episode eight.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for helping to produce the show. AJ McKeon for editing and being our production coordinator. JJ Birch for our Research Leigh Montgomery and the Great American novel for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit, including our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features.

where we are finishing up our series on Andrew Lloyd Weber, leading up to a big end of year Cats Bash. Angelical ball. If you will. So check that out. Uh and as always, Ernie Hudson, 78, still looking hot as hell.