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

Episode Date: December 1, 2024

It is happening again - we’re covering TV! Or is it an 18-part movie? Much to ponder. We’re heading back to the Pacific Northwest (and Vegas…and New York…and the Red Room…and outer space?) in our first of four episodes covering Showtime’s 2017 series “Twin Peaks: The Return.” So far, we’ve got tulpas, Caleb Laundry Bag, three distinct versions of Dale Cooper, Dr. Jacobi’s gold shovels, Michael Cera doing a bad Marlon Brando impression, creamed corn barf, Matthew Lillard, a cryptic final message from the Log Lady, and a whole slew of David Lynch’s favorite contemporary indie bands. Suffice it to say - we’re hooked! The Box Office Game is Sponsored by Regal Cinemas: Sign up for Regal Unlimited today and get 10% off your 3 month subscription when using code BLANKCHECK Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank check with Griffin and David Blank check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show? Is Plague Check? I should do it now. Highways and byways of my days on the road. My shadow is always with me. Sometimes ahead. Sometimes behind. Sometimes to the left.

Sometimes to the right. Except on cloudy days. Or at the podcast. I fucked up. I said the word podcast too early and then I decided I didn't wanna not finish the monologue. Well, you could just do it twice. I mean, there's no rules.

I did do one retake in the middle of it. Get ready, I'm doing it again. Nah, let's just keep, I wanna get right into this. My family, my two friends. What's your voice here? Cause it's not quite Sarah as Wally Brando, right? I'd love to hear your Sarah as Wally Brando. No, I'm not doing it.

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. Maybe that. I think so, right? Sure, sure. Kind of like soft spoken actor. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. I think that's what it is. You're kind of like, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, like soft spoken actor, right. Doing an ad read, yeah. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of. I think that's what it is.

All right, all right, thank you. That cleared that up. The whole time you were doing it, I was like, I know he's doing Wally Branda, but who does this sound like? Okay, so now that we cleared up, I could do the quote from the beginning. No, absolutely not. My family, my two friends.

I have crisscrossed this great audio landscape of ours several times. I hold the map of it here in my heart, next to the joyful memories of the carefree days I spent as a young boy here in your beautiful town of Blinkchek. From Shyamalan to Cameron to Bigelow, I think about David and his friend Griffin, the first friends to ever host a podcast. How about that?

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you. The Caucasian's 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? How do I think Conan is yes? 58 61 well okay, okay, sometimes. I just think he's even older than that just because he's such a lifelong presence Yeah for me, but he started 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 27 when he gets the show maybe? Yeah, I mean he was a young man. And everyone was like, who's this young? And no one's ever talked about this,

but he kinda like almost got canceled. That's not true. And everyone was like, who's this young? And no one's ever talked about this, but he kind of like almost got canceled earlier. That's not true. The show was really skating on thin ice for a while. 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 O'Brien so much. I'm turning into a show every week.

He never talks about this. The man is a totemic figure in my like comedy history. But I swear to God, sometimes I just want to be on his back and be like, Conan, you're doing good! It worked out! I'm sorry about 1993 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. Me too, he's being handed, it's not uninteresting, like, and it was crazy that he got that job and that he made the show he made and blah blah blah.

What is astonishing to me is how often his guests are like, wait, really? What? And they're not doing the bit. They're 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 15th anniversary primetime special and Mr. T comes out with a big gold chain of a seven on it and goes like Conan I'm here to give you this as a prize. And he is like Mr. T thank you very much but we've actually been on the air for 15 years and he goes yeah but only seven of them are funny. That's a good joke. Incredible joke has stuck with me forever. That'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. He did that with Shatner, Vagoda, Mr. T. Chuck Norris. Mr. T is a perfect example of a celebrity that should have like a haunted house devoted to great call Great and I just went to the Fallon. We went to Jimmy Fallon's tonight mares

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 that tonight show sometimes it seems totally unrelated Do you like do a little fully? It's the final statement from her At any point no no no no how long is it ten minutes a robust ten minutes? How much for ten minutes? $43 I think all in.

Okay. Per person. Sure. And this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography. It's directors who have massive success

early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. I know I say things like this a lot But this is a miniseries on the films of David Lynch and his TV shows sure it's called or at least one of them It's called twin pods fire cast with me today We are kick-starting a four-episode run on twin peaks the return Which is one of the greatest blank checks in history. 100% almost by, like, mistake, it feels like.

Like someone was like, oh sure, you want to make a new Twin Peaks, I'll let you do that. And it's like, and it's going to cost how much? And you need how much more? 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 there's excitement and then suddenly the announcement is, it's not happening. David Lynch in Showtime couldn't agree. The budget arguments, it's not happening. And then suddenly it's back on happening twice as long, twice as expensive, and twice as

weird as anyone expected. The fact that it came so close to getting pulled from reality and then ended up this insane. Yes, it is a miracle. It is a miraculous piece of content, I would call it, a piece of content. 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. Ep, episodes one through seven.

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

Yes. And it is possibly the last thing David Lynch will ever make. Quite possibly. I'm not saying it definitely, but you know, because he's been kind of, you know, like, yeah. But here's here's bigger point I want 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

and we're doing it by splitting it up, which we've never done before but it it felt essential because Twin Peaks, the return is very long, and does have sort of somewhat distinct movements to it, especially one particular episode, episode eight, which we are giving its own episode next week. Apart from that, I think the way it was made, it is just this sort of giant document that got cut up.

It's not like he was sitting down being like, I'm gonna write a Sawyer episode. I'm gonna write a Hurley episode. Maybe you should have tried. He could have put Sawyer in this. 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's 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 cons. The sixth Sawyer episode where he's like, 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 and 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. I'm morally conflicted Twin Peaks the return what aired on Showtime in 2017 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, watch it for the benefit No, watched it for the first time. Ben and Griffin are watching it for the first time. They have only watched up to seven, eight being such a huge thing, its own episode, I was like, I dare not watch one ahead yet. I wanna be able to talk about up until this exact point in this episode without future knowledge.

That's fine. So here we are. 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. I think it is good television. So good.

It is. I mean, I've heard such a breathless praise about this thing. It's gotten more breathless praise than almost anything in recent memory. Yeah, truly almost anything. I mean, I'd forgotten that Kaiei de Cinema declared this the best movie of the decade. They did. And everyone was normal about that declaration. Yes.

Yes. Because I don't think it's totally fair to count something that is over 1,000 minutes long. And was aired in episodes on television. This is what I was going to say. This is just this big fight that people keep having. We'll talk about this more, 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 broadcasted television episodes,

even if he did not like write it and shoot it as such. And Mark Rouse to be clear. Yes. What surprised me is, I'm focusing on Lynch just because he was the director. He directed every episode. Yeah. What surprised me is how much it does feel like the episodes have their own thing. And I'm sure episode eight and some of the other episodes are going to be even more so, that feeling.

As much as this does, in a lot lot of ways this feels very similar to 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 Paranoid Agent has like, you know, it's sort of a focus on a single character every time.

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

That's a good point. Right? Yes, it's a pretty drastic thing right away... to be doing that. It's immediately, like, it took me a moment to figure out why I felt so jumbled by that. Guys, I gotta pee. I'm sorry.

I'm realizing this immediately. I can't hold it. This episode's going 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. And we're back.

I have to say, I followed your lead, I also went to the bathroom. Here's my first thing to say. That was no pee. No, it was no pee. You're right. I have to, I have to. I mean, I appreciate you 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 mean, I appreciate you putting that on me. 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 P. The disorienting thing about watching this show, and knowing it's also 18 hours, which so few modern shows are. That's true. Networked procedurals and sitcoms are Most shows most of that do not go more than 12 episodes and they're not you know Especially shows where the episodes are an hour long yes Yeah, and especially anything that's prestige your cable II or whatever it is

You know I guess walking dead still was doing long seasons for all but whatever even walking to his ass now doesn't he series yes But they even, Walking Dead has ads and stuff. Now does miniseries, yes. You watch this show, or I do, and something happens, 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 gonna show up? Suddenly a big movie star enters, and you're like, so are they majors that the only scene they're in you have these like Notions these like plot lines that like cut out abruptly that are inserted inserted episodes Don't come back in that episode and you're like, I don't know if that was just a complete one-off self-contained idea Sometimes or if that will return in three episodes-off, self-contained idea. Sometimes. Or if that will return in three episodes.

Sometimes. I'm guessing it's a balance of both. It's a bit of a balance of both. And also, imagine the experience of fans, Twin Peaks. I keep trying to put myself in this headspace. Their show is back 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 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 is so dense with kind of like... Sort of theories and symbols that you can pick out and overanalyze, that it worked out okay, but I'm on the Twin Peaks Reddit and you'll always see new fans posting or people watching currently posting. Like, hey, I just finished my first watch through of seasons one and two and I started season three.

Is it a way, is this what it is? Where's Dale? Where's, you know, and you're like, and you see the fans being like, yeah, you know, get used to it, yeah. But 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 like-

Vases. Vases. There's not a lot of vases in it. If I have to ding it for anything. I can't remember, there might be a few. Versus the sort of like cultural memification of Twin Peaks, the amount of like soap opera small town intrigue of just like, oh, this thing is 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 ABC, the original run Twin Peaks. Yes. They're cutting from one thing to another. It's like important in some way, right? Even if it's like one of the goofier plot lines You were like this is an arc. They're building this will just have like a character for example stand up and go I'm sorry. I need to pee and then it turns out. It's a poop, and then you're like what was the meaning of that? Let me open the dossier yes because JJ did make one, just one. Okay. Lazy.

Probably told him that that's what he should do. David Lynch made 18 hours of Twin Peaks The Return and you made one dossier? Just more to give a sense of the 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. nothing. Marketing gave up nothing. That at David Lynch's insistence... Carl McLaughlin's in it.

Right. That's about it. There was the poster, the It's Happening Again poster, I remember, but that there were like no images, no like trailers or commercials that use actual footage, that like tuning in for the first time, people had no idea what it was 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. And there could be, like, a giant press release of, like, a huge list of names, some from the show, some, like, a Naomi Watts or whatever. But the poster was just like, Dale Cooper now, right, over the trees. And then the other one was just the classic Laura Palmer picture. I remember watching the first two episodes were broadcast back to back. And were three and four the same? Yes.

And I think it premiered at Cannes? Interesting. Right? Is that right? You tell me. You got the DOS in front of you, my friend. I will tell you. Soon.

Maybe not. Two episodes were screened at the Cannes Film Festival, maybe not premiere. And when does the actual premiere happen? May 21st, 2017, which does line up again. Oh, so it's right up, okay. And I remember Karen Hahn and Emma Stefanski came over, and my brother Joey, and we all watched it together. Passing future gifts.

Kind of shrieking, but it's also kind of like, not the show to watch in the way of like like I can't wait to see all my buddies again You know, like we were kind of like what? Immediately as like in a statement way of like this is not just picking up Twin Peaks again, right? We're not just like do do do and it starts with Characters and the theme and whatever it's like immediately different But okay, let me open the dossier. Please, Craig.

So Inland Empire comes out 2006. Made like 250 million domestic? Yeah, right, got 40 Oscar nominations. And post that Lynch is not like doggedly pursuing making another movie, but in 2010 supposedly he did find an idea for a new film and had a script called Antelope Don't Run No More. 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 Groucho glasses and he's like I know about the fucking electric we're not doing doing that he puts the old script in the microwave And it's like this is hot off the printer Finished writing it He shopped it around a little bit. Okay, it's apparently set mostly in Los Angeles It braids some threads from Mulholland driving inland Empire into a narrative fantasia that incorporates space aliens Talking animals in a beleaguered musician named Pinky. Sounds pretty Lynchy.

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. Even in 2024, in an interview with Sight and Sound, Lynch said, maybe one day, but then that was sort of the same time that he was like, but I have emphysema and I don't know if I'm going to do anything anymore. And everyone was like, David Lynch retires. And he was like, I don't retire.

I love cigarettes. Lighten them up. Puff, puff, puff, 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 erratic 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 exhibitions. He lets that David Lynch, the art life documentary is filmed around the time. He released crazy clown time.

But I feel like he's sort of opening up the process of like, here are all my philosophies on creativity. It did feel like he was starting to like pivot into old master, let me share the text. Right, like he appears on the Cleveland show, for example. Right, the kind of things. Do you know that he was a regular cast member on every episode of the Cleveland show?

He's the bartender. Well, of course I do, because I watch the Cleveland show every week. Religiously. Yeah, one of my favorite shows in television. He is also on Louie, he's incredible on Louie. An incredible performance. Very, very interesting 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. He also worked on a Duran Duran concert documentary. I don't think I knew that.

I think I knew that. 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 Durand-Duran thing on our music and shorts episode.

Okay, why don't you cover it and I'll eat your shorts. Whoa. This is insane. Post-Poop Sims is wild. But... Cama Coughlin, many years after Twin Peaks, would check in with Lynch, kind of be like, -"What do you think?" -"Yeah."

At one point, there's talk of making me become a comic book. Back when it was hot to do, like, a sequel comic books, Boppy did that. Yes, the Season 8. Yeah. That was, it was sort of kick-started by, do you have the name of the writer there? Matt Haley. Right.

They were gonna finally put out the like complete box set. Cause season two had been out of circulation for so long and it was gonna include the missing pieces. Yes, it was gonna be part of the box set. And Lynch nixed it. And he made this pitch. Right. Cause I think Frost and some of the people were on board

and then Lynch nixed it. Lynch nixing it feels like the first instance of maybe him thinking he has something more to say. Because if you look at the quotes up until that point and from after. He's like, it's done, I'm not doing it. Dead is a doornail, we'll never come back. And like the second someone else,

and the pitch on the comic book was, I want to get all the notes on what you think season three would have been and try to recreate it I'm not looking to make my own thing 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 Not rude really good on your point and then apparently around 2012, right after Christmas, David had lunch with Mark Frost at Musso & Franks,

an LA institution. Bob's big boy probably closed for the night or something. Yeah. And... Well, he'd already eaten there five times that day. They start chatting peaks. And they keep it under their hats, but Mark starts coming for lunch to Lynch's painting studio,

and they would sort of write together. And Frost, you know, basically was like, Laura's saying, I'll see you again in 25 years. That's where we start, right? Exactly. Yeah. If we're gonna do it, now's the time to do it. Right. And we have this're going to 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? And yeah, I mean, Lynch's big thing is like, I have to be involved in writing and directing every single one. I don't want to have it be like it was when it was broadcast TV. And so they start to co-write the screenplay over Skype. Wild. 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 entirely over Skype. Entirely. At a time where that was not as much of a thing now Yeah, you know 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 Supposedly they did write it as a gigantic document, one big document, one source says 335 pages, another says 500 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. Yeah. I just wonder's more the latter. Okay, yeah.

I just wonder if there's a version of this that is like each plot thread as like 20 continuous pages. Like untangling it all. Lynch does say he sees it as a film. Which is part of the reason people are like, it's a film. Mark Frost, I think cares less about that distinction. He says one thing that really Frost interested him was to explore what happened to a town over 25 years

and the people and how they change. Yeah, okay, duh. Yeah, it does feel a little secondary, a little tertiary to where this ended up. But one thing that they were very interested in, which is 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. Is the post-recession kind of meltdown that left behind these kind of like ghost towns? Interesting. Right, like, because that's so much of this movie... Jesus, Twin Peaks The Return, whatever you want to call it. It's set in those weird like Phoenix and Vegas like subdivisions

where it's just these empty abandoned houses, post-Great Recession stuff. Does that become even more textual as it goes on? I guess, yeah, I guess now I'm trying to put myself in where you guys are. It's just a big part of the show. Because I hadn't been picking up on that. Anyway, we can talk about it more. In the same way.

David Nevins, who runs Showtime at the time, hears wind of this and basically sits down and begs them. Twin Peaks, the original is of course owned by CBS Television, who also is the parent company of Showtime. Right. And obviously on Showtime, you can do what you want. There's no content restrictions really. They love booms on Showtime. Yes. It's one of their favorite things.

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

I wasn't offered enough money to do this in the way I wanted it to be done, but it's pretty much dead. Kind of canning public negotiation. Right. Showtime's like, we're very saddened to read this, but we love the world of Twin Peaks and we hope we can bring it back. I think the big clash it seems was Showtime being like, can this please be episodic television

and David Lynch being like, no, I want to make a basically 18-hour feature film, so you're gonna have to pay for, like, a feature film crew every single day... Yes. ...of this gigantic shoot, including, like, lighting machines, standby painters, special effects technicians. Like, basically, like, not going by the way

television is produced. No, and it even manifests in ways, like, on the absolute, like, back end of the thing. I mean, I feel like you talked about this in another episode, but actors on TV shows get paid per episode. So if he's shooting something like this, and someone shoots three days, but those three days end up being split,

that footage across nine episodes, you're paying them, like there's a lot of weird accounting at two points of like how much you're paying them weekly to film, 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, it is technically to the accountants, episodic.

Right, and I think, by the way, that extends into like, most positions. Yeah. I mean, I've had versions of this before where you, like, shoot two scenes and then they end up putting one in another episode and they have to pay you twice. And it's, like, a nice bonus. He's basically designed a production where all of it's 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, because the original announcements nine, then they have this falling out and then the renegotiation is Nevin's basically comes to him and is like, what can we do? And Lynch is like, I don't know, it might be more episodes. I, you know, and being 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. 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 made it conservatively, like, or whatever. It's not like he went crazy.

But they didn't announce 18 at that point, right? So this is my question is almost, and maybe there is no answer for this, is it like, I've written a bunch of shit, you're giving me the sum of money, I'm gonna figure out how to shoot it, and then afterwards I will figure out how many episodes it ends up.

I think that's exactly what happened. Because you could totally see, based on certain scenes playing out at different lengths than they do, and how much this show experiments with time and rhythm, that there are many different ways you could construct this into various different episode orders. I... I... Yes. 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. There also might be a point where all the extra cost from him making it this weird way ends up evening out if it starts to be divided across a long enough number of episodes. You know, that like, oh, we're getting like almost four months of Twin Peaks. And so much of this show also, its weird thing was this is like a different time in both cable television and streaming, where it felt like the future was more individual channels

having their own streaming services, and Showtime wanting to get people to sign up for whatever was called the time, Showtime anytime, I think. I just know I'm gonna have to poop again. You know you're gonna have to. 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. I love how Jennifer Jason Lee might be gone I took I'm gonna go again Yeah, and then you can come back out and you're gonna be like and what was Showtime branded as at this era like yes I think it was called show 10 anytime. They're like on demand No, what happened when you poop last time was very Twin Peaks the return. There was just two minutes of silence

It was like we were just quietly sweeping up the bang bang bar floor, and you're like, is this the end of the episode? No, there's like two more scenes after this. The production lasted 140 days. What I was gonna say. Oh, what were you gonna say? When this premiered and people were like, 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 400,000 people or 500,000 people watched it. And then within a week showtime was like, hey, the like seven day was a million per episode. And also, by the way, the number of subscribers we got solely off of this was worth it to us. I don't. Yeah.? I don't care. Yeah, and I don't care. I never care about people telling me premium television ratings.

That's right. I'm like, it doesn't matter. They don't sell ads against this stuff. This is the experimentation of them being like, we're getting four months of Twin Peaks coming out weekly. We're both trying to get people to sign up for the channel and sign up for the streaming service and whatever like this was A time where the business was in such flux that they were open to this kind of experimentation

Yeah in a certain way Also it just but it was funny what because this show came out in The midst of like the sort of Game of Thrones era of TV Yes, and so there was this whole kind of machinery online geared towards like episodic analysis, weekly podcasting. The kind of industry that- Theory, you know, sort of unspooling. Yes, yes.

And I saw it 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 So that will give you no answers until two episodes later and the answer is just oh it's a grift David yes, we are so thrilled That this episode is brought to you by our friends at Regal Cinemas.

Regal! The movies! The movies! Theaters! The kings of movies. The kings. The crown is atop their head. Yep. When it comes to theatrical exhibition. Yeah, you probably have a Regal somewhere near you. They're all over this beautiful country of ours. They're all over and and here's the thing in particular. That's great Regal unlimited Okay, because regal unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits You can see any standard 2d movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions and with regal unlimited You won't just save money on tickets. You also save on snacks. You get money off the snacks it's true. Members get 10% off all non-alcoholic concession items. You just open your app to see the movie you want to see. Heck, you pick your ticket your seat and then you go see it for free.

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I'm just gonna go. Can we talk about some things happening in the world of movie theaters this November? Yeah, what do we got? 2024, Year of Our Lord. You saw Conclave. Yeah. It's a rollicking good time. We had a lot of fun. Yeah, what do we got? 2024, Year of Our Lord. You saw Conclave? Yeah. It's a rollicking good time.

Yeah. We had a lot of fun. Fun, glossy, Gornov thriller. Yeah. As our friend John Hodgman said, a great movie about doors. That was his line. I give him full credit.

And a movie with an incredibly normal ending you need to see for yourself. Is that fair to say? Absolutely. It's a movie that gets a great response from a crowd going through the sort of rollercoaster arc of what is But November has lots of big movies Griff sure You've seen wicked I have seen right or two lots of fun. Denzel Washington having a ball. He's in it I hear you kind of just disappears into the tapestry

Moana to write like it. This is like, you know, Thanksgiving's approaching. There's all kinds of big stuff to see. Yeah. We're gonna get wicked. We're gonna get glicked. Yeah. Is that how it's said? I see it typed out.

People talk about getting glicked. Oh, cause it's like Gladiator 2. It's just not very clean. Yeah. Look, maybe you're someone who wants to catch Robert Zemeckis is here in its final days, playing in theaters. And you're like, I pay full ticket price to see this movie.

Why don't you sign up for Regal Unlimited and just use one of your slots on that. Covered it on our podcast. If you want to catch up with it, it's a perfect use of Regal Unlimited. Now listen. Enora going wide. That's true.

Spreading across this great country, a film we both love. When you join Regal Crown Club, which is free to join. That's the free membership program you can upgrade to Unlimited on top of that. Right, if you you join Regal Crown Club, which is free to join. That's the free membership program you can upgrade to unlimited on top of that. Right, if you're in Regal Crown Club, you're gonna get concession upgrades, you're gonna get movie tickets and exclusive prizes and stuff. You get discounts on certain days,

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and spend your points on some fun or whatever it is, a free concession item entirely. You can also go to their website. Yeah. And spend your points on some fun promotional movie memorabilia. Yeah. They'll throw weird stuff up there. I certainly got a lot of our avatar cup toppers. They also have sweepstakes you can join with points. A lot of posters. All this stuff is very exciting.

Yeah. On its own. It is. But if you sign up now and use the code blankcheck, That's us. That's us. You will get 10% off your three month subscription. So not only do you already get this great deal,

you get 10% off it and you get to support the show. Yeah. It's win, win, win. Now, go to the Regal app and click the unlimited banner. Follow the instructions there to sign up and enter the promo code blank check when prompted to receive your discount. Just to tell you how it works. Yeah.

We're making it as simple as we can. And boy, once you've done the sign up, does it make life a lot easier for regular theater goers like us. Yes. Can't wait to see Red 1 and 40X. 140 days of shooting. 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. It's a lot. It's exhausting. 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 it does feel like, let me like empty the tanks completely of everything I have in me right now, right? It doesn't feel like this is made with the intentionality of here is my final work. No, but he's, you know, Peter Deming, the DP.

Yes, a legend. A DP, a legend himself. A guy we've covered with a very diverse filmography on this show who shot, like, the Evil Dead movies, the Austin Powers movies. Wow, that's right. And we've never done Scream, which is... And Mulholland Drive, yeah. But, like, wildly different-looking films is, like, quietly a legend.

He is. He's a fucking incredible DP. Um, he says they shot, like, a legend. He is. He's a fucking incredible DP. He says they shot it like a feature film, like you would go to a location and shoot all the action that took place at that location over the course of 18 episodes. Right? It's like, that's not how you make TV, obviously. But actors didn't really know what was going on. They didn't have access to the entire script

or anything like that. McLaughlin's really the only one who's sort of in on the big story. Everyone is basically, everyone else is just given their pages. He is basically the big story. He is, he is. But obviously he's not in every scene. He's all over the place. But it must have been very strange to be, say, Russ Tamblyn. No, not Russ Tamblyn.

Richard Boehmer. Sure. Right? And it's like, hey, what should I do? And it's like, yeah, no, not Ross Tamblyn, Richard Boehmer. Sure. And it's like, hey, what should I do? And it's like, yeah, yeah, show up. You and Ashley Judd are gonna hear a weird noise. And he's like, oh, and how does this feed into anything? He's like, well, we'll see you later. Anyway.

Have a long conversation with your brother about weed over the phone. So, yeah, exactly. It's interesting. Carol Struchin, the giant, the fireman, this is known in this, Lurch, said that he, back in the day, he says that the pace of Lynch's action was slower

and Lynch was telling him to do everything slower. But McLaughlin's like, but he was very efficient. We would do things in like one or two takes. Yeah, it's pace of production versus pace of scenes. Yeah, I guess that's it, right. Jim Belushi at one point adlibbed something. And I think this is either, you can either watch a clip of this or I've just read this before, but anyway, where Lynch, there's a pause, they call cut,

and Lynch goes, Mr. Belchi, 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. Lynch is very uninterested in like improv. Like he's like, no, no, do what you're told. They shot on digital, obviously.

Lynch wanted Fisk to be the production designer, Jack Fisk, a great Jack Fisk, but he was working on The Revenant. So he gave him, Lynch, his protege Ruth DeJong, who later worked in Oppenheimer. Very cool. A digital thing. It's wild to see this be the first major work he had done since Inland. Which looks, you know, bad on purpose. That is Lynch wanting the kind of roughest...

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

Thank God. And essentially very much immediately, Lynch is like, you'll be playing essentially three characters. Dale, who we don't see too much of so far. Bad Cooper. I don't know how, you know, Doppelganger, whatever you want to call him. Yeah. And, you know. Dougie. Yeah, Dougie, Mr. Jackpot's, uh, sort of the finest creation of Twin Peaks The Rich. I'm late to the party.

I'm just going to say what everyone's been telling me for years. An astonishing performance. It's an incredible performance by Kyle MacLachlan. I was ready for this character to be funny and compelling. Yes. You know, I'd seen a lot of images and heard people talk about it, and even so, I was not prepared. And I think the actual, like, technical craft

of what McLaughlin's doing here There's so much stillness. is extraordinary. Yes. But also it's like, you know. Craft. Craft. Geez.

I just like how he says just the last thing anyone says. And it's put at the point. Oh, right, like I say something to you and you're like something But that's my point. It's like he's right. Yeah Playing head-empty no thoughts, right? Yeah, 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 in the right suit People will inevitably start to project meaning onto it.

This is the brilliant gag of Trimpeak's The Return of the Sharks. There's a Chauncey Gardner-esque thing. He said being there is something he looked at. He looked at Jeff Bridges in Starman. Yes, all of these performances we love. Guys who are head empty. Right. This is the most empty I have seen of anyone trying to play this sort of thing.

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

Truly, yeah. We'll talk about it. Anyway, Kamala Clarklin involved, obviously. Some guys who are in the show, I think, were just like, yeah, of course I'll come back. People like Everett McGill, big Ed, he had basically retired from acting. Haven't gotten to him yet, that's a spoiler.

Yes, he's in the show. I mean, you know. God damn it. Lynch just had to call him. Probably the biggest missing name is Michael Onkeen, as Harry Truman. Who also was fully retired, had not acted in a while. Correct. And then did say he was gonna come out and do the show.

There was, I think, some suggestion of that, but it didn't happen. It's never been clear what happened. Robert Forrester, who was the original pick to play Sheriff Truman way back in the day, comes in, I mean, just a performance that I adore. Him and Twin Peaks, he's just so fucking funny and good. This is perhaps a dumb thing to say.

Maybe not dumb, but I was just taken watching this by, I think part of its time dilation of the pandemic, right? That I feel like this show came out only three years ago and have felt that way for the last five years, even though it's now eight years since it aired, right? And so this is 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.

Catherine Colson, Mike Miguel Ferrer, Harry Dean Stanton died after doing this. Both the people who are legacy from original Twin Peaks and some of the new actors in this, this feels like this weird curtain call for so many people. And a lot of them had died in between it being shot and it airing. Like you have end credits in honor of, dedicated to, for Colson, for Ferrer.

Yeah. Then you have plenty of new faces. of dedicated to Ferg Kolson, Fer Ferrer. Right. Yeah. Right. Then you have plenty of new faces. Matthew Lillard, you guys have already met. Yeah. Michael Cera is in these first seven episodes. You might have referenced him before.

Jennifer Jason Lee, Ashley Judd, Amanda Seyfried, Caleb Laundrybag. There's a lot of people who make sense. Jimbo Lushy. Belushi, Robert Nepper is going to show up. There's a lot of people who make sense. Jimbo Lushy. Belushi. Robert Nepper is gonna show up. I'm not sure if you've seen him yet. Tom Sizemore, have you seen him? I've seen Sizemore, Gellman, Dalsmatian.

Gellman. Yeah. Anyway, let's get into Twin Peaks. I am just gonna- 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 some 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 kind of one of the main characters. And then others, right, are just kind of popping in. Very brief, yes. Including some, you know, legacy characters. Yeah.

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

The number 430. Okay. And then Cooper disappears. The things in this scene particular people obsess over? Anything in Twin Peaks The Return that is in the other world, in the Red Room or any other such, you know, all the language is metaphorical and like symbolic and stuff, and so people try to understand,

like, what does it mean? Because I think Mark Frost especially loves that kind of stuff. So what do you make of that opening? We can't talk about it. We can't? Because it'll spoil the future episodes for me? I think it's mostly setting up the sort of finale of the show. Okay.

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... Dr. Jacoby. We love Dr. Jacoby, get some shovels. Yes. Moving on.

And then you're just, you're like, okay. But this like really slow. Jacoby has shovels. I don't remember who's in Twin Peaks. Distant shot. Right, yes. The car coming in. It's this immediate like, this is not the tone,

the rhythm, the rhythm, the flow I was expecting for this show. And then is New York the third thing you see basically? And then we're in New York in one of the set pieces of Twin Peaks The Return that I love so much. There's a high rise. There's a weird glass box sticking out of the high rise.

Yes. Ben Rosenfeld is in his room. Ben Rosenfeld is there. He just sits on a couch all day and stares at it. And then every once in a while takes out the SD card from the camera, puts it in a case, swaps in a new one. Madeline, it's not, yes, it's Madeline Zima. Yes.

Famous. From The Nanny. Child actor, right, from The Nanny, who is in California, she's around. Comes 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 as a crush on this guy, the rules are very clear. No one else is allowed in. You're like, what the fuck is this? As I said, just immediately being in New York City, all new characters, things that feel totally unrelated is very

jarring. Very jarring. And then we cut over to the hotel. I'm just going through the episode. But also, the multiple scenes you've talked about maybe take up 30 minutes. They're long. They're all long, slow cinema basically, yes. So right, what do we have?

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

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 Truemans apart. Yeah. I mean, unsurprisingly, maybe my favorite bit, I think it comes in episode two or three, but

her being so confused by cell phones still, that it makes her literally like rocket out of her chair. It seems like the way- That people can move around on the phone. Yes. 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. There's like computers and stuff.

And those people are like so dismissive, are like, who are these legacy characters? Right. But like all the stuff in the police station feels the closest to the original show. It does, but the change in energy from Aunt Keen as kind of like Do-gooder Harry Truman, to Forrester who's so good, as like this kind of weary,

like, all right, you know, like it's sort of like how he's being given like crazy news and he just kind of reacts very, very evenly. Yes. It does kind of feel, there is this sense that like Twin Peaks has gotten pretty nasty in a modern way. Yeah.

Like a little depressing or something, right? Like that there's still a lot of like grimy stuff going on. And all our kind of original characters feel sort of like wistful dinosaurs. Kind of tired, right? You know, obviously they're older, you know. But like I think part of this is just that like Andy and Lucy are never gonna change. That their energy is so consistent. Right, even though they've physically changed a little bit or whatever.

Yes. Hawk is still, Hawk is amazing in the return. He looks so good. At least at the point I'm at, feels like the second lead of the show. He has a lot of action. Yes. He feels like he's the other character

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

And then we have Mr. C. We cut to a driving scene with slowed down music. And I'm like, wait, what? Is it Christmas already? The fuck is happening? This is incredible. Uh-huh. Yeah, I think that's how we should refer

to the doppelganger, right? They call him Mr. C, right? He looks like Bob and Dale mashed up. Yeah, that's the idea. It's like, it's kind of, I think it's a brilliant job on him. Because the wig is sort of Bob-esque, right? He's got like the black eyes. Yes.

So he's really like automatically unsettling looking. And then he talks in that kind of stilted way. Yes. Uh, that's, you know, also... I know there's the later scene where they start to like truly superimpose Bob's face over him. They do that a couple more times. Yeah, but I also way of getting around it. But I also feel like they're doing something

like prosthetically, I don't wanna say prosthetically, but I feel like they're like pulling McLaughlin's face back a little bit. They're giving him a little tautness to make him have a little more of the grimace of Bob, or it's something that he's just doing himself physically. He might be clenching his jaw, I don't know. Just the way he's dressed too.

He looks like a bad man. He looks like a real piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Slick back hair, sloppy stage. And if he's hanging out with people, they're... He does. I mean, he's a sloppy state guy.

He likes to slop him up. He slops him up. He slops him up. 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, and wife beaters and stuff in rocking chairs. Who are like, how are they?

He knows every bizarre criminal in the world. Yes. I do just love this kind of thing. I mean, Bing John Malkovich has a version of this. But 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 Then we're back to the, um, the New York office. And we, um, the two characters, 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. And then, uh, nothing weird happens to them. They have sex and it's lovely.

He starts to explain like what he's doing here. I don't even know who I'm working for. I don't know what this is. You have to watch this box. Right. Apparently sometimes something happens. The last guy saw something happen, but he's not around anymore. Like the weirdness of this job. I will say, this for me is the most unsettled I have been with any Lynch scene. In anything we have watched so far. It's pretty nasty to be clear,

they get slashed to pieces by a monster that like emerges in the box. And I don't know if it's just because I had no sense of this coming or even this plot line being anything in the show. But some of the other things that I feel like you and some of our guests have talked about as like imagery that has like primally haunted you forever. 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. It's nasty. 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. It did immediately like recalibrate me to like, Oh, this show has been on edge. Yeah. But it's also, it is kind of a welcome to premium cable bitch moment where you're like, right, this is like gory and like sexual in a way that it couldn't be. I do not to question Lynch's intent, but I do think it was a little bit weird to have

a Chiron pop up of Freddy Krueger saying welcome to premium cable bitch. I just think that's mashing in a whole different mythology. I don't know. I really appreciated Robert Englund's 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.

The whole thing is just too clear. I don't know why, there's just something about it. There's something about the special effects throughout this. Yeah, can we talk about the special effects for a second? I can't really put my finger on it, but it feels like he's really capturing his dream world 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 kind of 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,

so baller that David Lynch will just like reuse like a basic 101 assets and doesn't even give a shit, right? With this massive budget, he doesn't care about the effects looking realistic. And then other people were like, almost framing it as a Michael Mann watermark. Is he that checked out? Is he this lazy to this sort of stuff? I just like find We have this conversation. I feel like it's come up

Several times now in our group text with the doughboys Where we'll just kick this question of like is there any instance of scary CGI? Is there any horror movie right usually when I 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. There is, I think, evocative imagery that has been created, but has anything ever truly scared us in that way? And I'm like, all the CGI in this actually scares me. I agree and it's 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. We're part of what's interesting is that it's like Truly a layer on top of the image, and it's surreal and you're trying to position it whatever, but like, it also just feels like 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 Fishler screen I'm like that's fucking creepy that scares me more than like Pennywise having 8,000 teeth, you know Even if those teeth look perfect. I'm like if that happened in real life, I'd be freaked out. Because it's that kind of weird, inexplicable thing of like, what? Pennywise is a good example where you're like, the scariest that character is, is when Bill Skarsgård is giving a performance in makeup, because his performance is effective.

I am less scared when he then goes like, ah, and opens his mouth. 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 walleyeing and his weird-shaped smile. And both of those are things he just does himself that look uncanny, that he can just do with his face. Good for him. But anytime he like stretches into something more, I'm like, who gives a shit? Look, if I was younger, I think it would freak me out. It's nightmarish imagery.

It doesn't scare me though. No, not so much. No. 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. And part of it is just the like, I don't know why we're seeing this scene now, you know?

And we talked about this in the Fire Walk with Me episode, but like this style that I feel like Lynch has been, like evolving further and further across his career, and this is the ultimate heightening of it, of 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 rack focuses or things like that. He's 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 going to 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'm also right. I'm really like, I'm thinking about the first two episodes remembering how unsettling they were. Yeah 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 that later on Mr. C. Killing a lot of Yeah, there's a lot of sex

Yeah, yeah, but then there's right there's also just this kind of like It's a great current lynch, right? But then there's, right, there's also just this kind of like, there's no center to it. When we check in with the town, you're kind of like, okay, are we sticking with the town? And then we're immediately like, no, we're going off to another location now. And the townspeople feel like,

any of the stuff shot in the town feels weirdly kind of elusive and distant. I was saying outside of Andy and Lucy, who still have their basic comedy energy, you're like the show doesn't have the constant swelling Angelo score. It doesn't have the sort of like overly emotional like monologuing spilling out intrigue. Like these people just all feel kind of like slowed down, you know?

And it's also not that all of this weird stuff is happening in one place anymore. No, and I don't- 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. 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 got so locked in basically as soon as episode one ended. Pete Slauson Certain other things I want to touch on. The Log Lady call, which I remember like the hush in the room when we all watched that because it was so clear that Catherine Colson was, you know, basically making this call from a hospice. She certainly had, but like you're clear that like, she shot this in sort of her final weeks. Yes.

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, a plot line for fans to grab on to. Because everything else is, it's like, what's going on with the weird box? What's the headless corpse?

Yeah. And... How does any of this relate to... Right, where's Cooper? Right. Even the sort of subplots you can follow as their own thing, it's unclear how it ties into anything else. Right. And then... 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, you have Matthew Lillard as Bill Hastings. A pretty incredible performance. I agree. I mean, I... Of a very agitated person. And like, Lillard is good casting, but left field casting.

I feel like he's been talking a lot recently about what a like, lifeblood infusion 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 Kasem died, has taken over voicing Shaggy in all media. Right, he's become the Shaggy.

Which he's talked about as, like, just the ultimate gift of, like, a stable job in an unstable industry, where there's always going to be Scooby-Doo stuff done. But like, every couple of years, he will pop up in a 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 like, but he's incredible in. But that's a lot. This is what I'm saying. More than 10 years ago, yeah.

He'll pop up in that and I'll be like, okay, so Lillard's back, right? Everyone's gonna use that. And this was similar. We're like, great, perfect use of Lillard. And by his account, like now people are hiring him again, a bunch, for a movie that no one likes, but was obviously successful. This guy has just kind of been an untapped resource for a bit now. 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 him Right or on edge at least you can't tell like I mean it's it's part of what's unsettling is like This guy is clearly hiding some secret Is he lying about being a murderer or does he not understand what he's being accused of? Right and the like watching him process all of that and like break down in real time and the reveal of the body is so him process all of that and like break down in real time and the reveal of the body is so upsetting where it's like, you know, this sort of, it almost feels like the straight story scene of like so much wind up to getting through the door, you know, with the next door neighbor and the complaints and the keys and whatever.

What's it going to be? What's it going to 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. Eye missing. Right. and then you see this rotting head of a woman in a bed. Oh, she's been there for a while. It's upsetting already. Eye-missing. 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 that is also sliced open? Cool. I wouldn't say cool. I think it's good. I think that's what motels should have. No, it's very, very weird. I don't know when you've been watching this show, Ben,

but I've often been watching it at night or before I go to bed. And it certainly puts me in a head space. Yeah, no, I've been watching it late at night. Yeah, it's terrifying. It's affected my dreams. It's made me feel very uneasy. Yes.

I think at the time there came a point where I would actually wait to watch this show. In the morning. Right, even though I was airing it 10 o'clock or whatever. But here's the thing, it feels right to watch it at night. As much as it fucks with me, I'm like, yeah. So we've got that going on. We've got Mr. C with this sort of coterie of weirdos

that he's gathered on some weird mission. We do have Patrick Fischler in a Las Vegas office, who's like vaguely talking about like money changing hands. We don't really know what that is. We see the Red Room again. Mike is there. Older Laura is there. Is this the introduction of the evolution of the arm? Correct. It's where Laura reveals her... opens her face up and there's kind of light inside of it.

Yes. Another very creepy effect that is done at a level that could be done by, like, a 12-year-old on their computer, you know? But you're like, it's more upsetting for that reason. We are indeed introduced to the arm, Michael J. Anderson's character, the man from another place, who is now a tree with like a brain blob on top of it that sort of goes like,

vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, like that. It reminds me of his first piece of art. Yes, it looks like the installation piece. Getting sicker or whatever. Michael J. Anderson was posting on Facebook at this time. Like, he was really had gone, it seemed a little loony. Yeah.

And he said that Lynch... As many people his age were on Facebook at this time. Uh, right. He said that Lynch screwed him over or whatever. Who, you know, 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 am such an iconic image, my person is. Like, you can't do without me and Lynch, of course, is like, what do you mean? You can just be a tree. Yes. I'll just have you be a tree now. Who cares? And so, yeah, so he's there. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if there's any way to 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 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 weird tree arm for maximum impact. And then we kind of basically have, like, the exit of Cooper. Uh-huh. Right?

Yes. Like, there's a lot of sort of mysterious Red Room stuff that, you know, you can sort of parse as you will. I don't know how to describe all this stuff. But it's like... But you do have don't know how to describe all this stuff, but it's like. But you do have like strong theories and all this stuff? Yeah, there's, yes, you'll watch the show and you'll see there's a logic to what happens

in Two Peaks the Return. I want to call ahead that I'm going to ask you at the end of us covering this show. Sure. I mean. Because 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 as 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 tulpa, to quote the empty man, 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. Right. And so Cooper kind of gets stuck there for much of this show. Like he is now Dougie, who is not a real person to begin with, but is this perfect way for Lynch and Frost to make fun of, right, like, the modern American salary man in a way, where if you're like, he exists,

he has some sort of useless insurance job, exists, lives in this, like, subdivision and... It has a gambling addiction. 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. You're she's like, you're my dream man. You've rocked I know exactly. It's like it's hard to do him on great radio. Yeah

We should we should reclaim this as a radio This is should be on radio. I think 2025 let's go on like 10 10 podcast. Let's reach out to Z 100, get a syndication deal and exclusively refer to this. This is AM, no AM. AM. I'm putting my foot down on AM. This is a radio show about filmographies.

They love to hand out like three hour slots on radios, right? Yeah, exactly. They like variable running times and all that stuff. David? Yes? What are you laughing about? I'm sorry. I know this is unprofessional, because we're supposed to be doing an ad read right now.

Sure, okay. It's just, it's just so funny how the people we love the most are often the hardest to shop for. David, I just find that so funny. I mean, you know, it's it's a classic problem. So it's very relatable. Yeah. Yeah. But luckily, there's one gift that everyone on your list is sure to enjoy. And I got I got to curb my laughing long enough to tell you what that gift is, David.

Uh huh. An Aura digital picture frame. Oh, god, I'm just thinking about the people I love the most and how hard it is to shop for them. But it was named number one by Wirecutter, Aura Frames. And they make it incredibly easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone. Yeah, to the frame. To the frame, it goes right to the frame.

And when you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it and preload it with a thoughtful message and photos using the or app making it an ideal present for long-distance loved ones Right. It's a gift. So special they use it every day I mean here you're like, you know, you're relating to people. It's something everyone feels. It's very relatable. That's the root of great comedy. It's great comedy.

It's truth and comedy. But yeah, you can just basically, you're buying a picture frame for a parent, it's awesome, something like that. And just, you can put on a bunch of great photos right away, so that when they plug it in, they're seeing a lot of nice memories. And that isn't funny.

That's no laughing matter. No, I'm actually, I've gotten very serious now. That's very touching and meaningful. For a limited time, visit AuraFrames.com and get $45 off Aura's best-selling Carver Mat Frames by using promo code check at checkout. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so don't miss out.

Terms and conditions apply. No, what I was going to say is I know as you're saying there are sort of like in-universe explanations of this. Yeah. Our Lost Highway episode as people I think can tell was recorded Way way early That was the first one we recorded chronologically. So like even just that episode coming out. I'm like, oh, I would have talked about this movie Differently having sure had we gone through no shade on that episode the good episode turned out great But just digging in more on Lynch career stuff that I wasn't digging in on at the time we recorded that episode. How much of Lost Highway came out of Lynch

being like completely confused by, and this is so much of his whole filmography, this 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? But that he was also, by all accounts, particularly fascinated by like O.J. Simpson during the

peak of the trial. Right, Lost Highway, right, for sure. Just being like out with his kids and being like, hey, I'm O.J., I'm innocent. And being like, how can you like murder your wife and then just kind of, allegedly, go forth and just be like, I'm dropping my kids off at school. Hey, it's very disturbing. It's the Jews, right? And I do think in the way I talked about maybe in the Twin Peaks season two episode, the

sort of manhuntery thing of like, if you live in this world, if you're investigating crimes, at what point does it start to break you? Have you just like let too much evil into your psyche? Even if you are quote-unquote the one doing good Beyond the like inner narrative mythology I do think there's something he's getting at here with the like splitting of the coop psyche of like what happens to you if You're just like looking at dead bodies all the fucking time, right? Like do you start to split into like, do you curdle?

Do you go dead inside? Like, do you just compartmentalize? There is an allegorical level to this. I see what you're saying. I think there's also just this thing of like, to Lynch and Frost, like, the world's only gotten worse. 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 25 years. Like that's, you know, like you watch Twin Peaks in 92 and you're like, yeah, this is about a seedy town. There's like coke and there's sex work. And now it just feels like it's like, it's not just 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, yes, the, the sort of feeling of like here's this town that looks quaint, but underneath that has like all this weird darkness

and drama. And here's a guy who like looks like a fucking Dick Tracy drawing, right? Showing up, right? And like beer, right cleaver. Right. And 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 him, but not in the way they want it. But, right, the deconstruction of this kind of like one pure, simple lawman who is unwavering and unaffected by the darkness, you know? and can always cut through it with like humanity and grace. I like everything you're saying. All of his performances are incredible.

Comic Glocklin rules. He rules. This is his master work. I was going to say. He's like dividing this character into two extremes with like the middle gone. I'm a fan of his work in general, in particular his work with David Lynch.

It is wild that there's such a long gap, and a lot of it is, of course, like the bad fallout of Twin Peaks. This is the kind of thing I had no idea he was aware of doing. Same. Well, that's because he's now become this guy you call in for a specific kind of thing, right? Like the way he's used in fallout. Yeah, and there are a couple of variations on it.

There is him as like smarmy politician sort of guy There's him as like sort of like goofy dad There's him as exactly like cartoon villain, but all of them do feel like a certain broad Weird bent on his square jaw like all American exactly exactly how can we fuck with that a little bit? We should call out that of course Kyle McLaughlin has reinvented himself in 2024 as Mr. Blockbuster, the king of the box office. Because he's an inside out too. He's Riley's dad. He's the star of the biggest film.

So Cooper is going, we see this kind of series of dreamless, dreamy things, right? You've got the weird kind of purple sea, which we see a few times, like this kind of odd void place. He goes to this weird room, this kind of like this dimly lit mansion room. There's this eyeless woman who's stuck by a fireplace. She'll come back. At one point you see Garland Briggs, Don Davis has died. The actor plays Garland Briggs at this point.

And again, David Lynch is like, no problem, just have his fucking face float by and go, blue rose. Like, there you go, so Garland Briggs still in the show, which is, will be important. And then we see him basically sort of try to enter the world again. We see Mr. C like barf corn everywhere, right? Like, while driving the car.

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 curtains. You're gonna be sucked back, right. And he survives that. And so we see Cooper essentially get redirected over to the box. Right? That's how, yeah, you know. Right? That's how it ends up being.

But we've already seen Dougie... We see Dougie with Jade, who's a sex worker, who he's in one of these empty houses with, right? Across the street from Haley Gates as an addict mother. Right. And he also barfs up corn, garam mbosia. Well, he barfs up a different thing. Dougie barfs up almost looks like a fucking rump roast or something. Right, and then he goes to the Red Room

and gets turned into an orb. Yes. Which I love. Where they're like, enough of you, boink. But there's a difference to like when Mr. C finally breaks down and pukes, it's like this endless stream of like this cream corn type thing. It's corn.

Yeah, carbon bosia. 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. Because it's like evil. It's despair. That's what the corn is. 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 had to call him back up with gas masks Whereas like Jade comes out from the bathroom and is like when you get a haircut Why are you wearing this suit? Were you wearing a wig the whole time and then it's like, oh, 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...

Yes, no, yeah, he comes out of the electrical socket. Right. And right, so now we have him in Mr. Dougie Cooper's life. But now instead of being the douchebag that Dougie Cooper, we assume, was... And like a doofy douchebag. Right, he's this sort of trim, silent, black-suited, 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. But 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. I think that's the big, yeah, exactly. Right, just the look. and there's something about like Come Glocklin is so fascinating physically and the other times we talked about him were decades earlier when he was much younger, right?

Mm-hmm And there was something about him like looking like a Ken doll looking like a Chester Gold drawing where it's like well He is literally like an illustration of what we think of as a manly man, but yet also is like so pretty and delicate. 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 obviously they're, like, dyeing his hair in this and making him look as sort of, like, natty as Cooper. But there is something about, like, he's aged incredibly well. And there's something uncanny about just that face drooping

only a little bit. You know, he doesn't have these deep lines. No, he looks good. But he looks old. He's never gonna be pretty like he was as a young man. He's now become this like hot silver fox. But that's sort of post this. What I'm saying, this is trying to go for a different look.

It is, no, it is. It's going for the uncanniness of like... Yeah. Um, this is then when we have, we do have some interludes such as Dr. D'Acobie spray painting his, spray painting his shovels. We have the crazy drug addicted woman screaming one nine,1-9, randomly in a room, you know, where you're kind of like, what? Doesn't that happen in response to,

does that start before the car explodes? Isn't it right after? That's what I'm saying, yeah. 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. Yes, so then, right.

Right, and then he... 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. And then of course call for help. Give him the five dollars call for help. Yes. And he starts just he becomes Mr. Jackpot. He starts. It's one of the funniest fucking things ever been on TV.

He starts seeing glimpses of basically the Red Room above machines. 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 going to come more to the forefront across this, but it really feels like at least in these first seven episodes and like the Hawk being front and center, the casino, the stuff that's already happening at the end of season two, that like a lot of the big... sort of point of Twin Peaks as a grand media experiment

is the like, we are a country built upon an Indian burial. Yeah, I think that is a thing running through Twin Peaks. It's never like, loudly screamed or anything. Although you do have things like the log lady being like, it's to do with your heritage. Right. And that's all of Hawk's stuff, is him trying to like, Andy being like, is it about coins? Like, what's the connection here?

But also that you have like 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 beliefs within like Native American traditions. Right. And then I just feel like it's not coincidental that he is going to a casino, a thing that is largely owned by like Native American groups at this point in time in the country, especially

if you're outside of like Nevada, right? And that he's being given like Directed glimpses from the red room 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 know but I mean, it's like that 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. And that's what's happening in Twin Peaks The Return is Bob is running rampant and there's sort of a battle against Bob. It's an abstract battle for a lot of the time, right?

Because it's all these threads coming together. But Mr. C is the villain and he is Bob. And he is the thing we need to stop. And then Agent Cooper slash Dougie is sort of our hero, but he's kind of a zombie who slowly is absorbing the world around him and the world is reacting to this mirror he puts up, right? This kind of just friendly, reflective thing. Mr. Jackpot's, as we're moving into you know, the casino is freaking out about him

because he's making all this money. And so they take him home and then here comes Naomi Watts, just in full Mohan Drive mode. Just like dialed all the way up. I feel like we've talked a lot about how the last 10 years of Naomi Watts has been a disaster in a way that feels like very unfair to her. She's just gotten pretty lame roles.

Why can't she catch a break? 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 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 abject disasters as well though. 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 Barry new show happening there been like a couple things like that where you're like this almost feels cursed now although married Billy Crudup hot couple

Sure, but didn't she? You know have her relationship with leap shriver for a long time and that fell apart Yeah, and I'm saying on the rebound she married Billy Crudup. Sure. Yeah, he's definitely never cheated on his wife Uh, you know, I have her relationship with Leif Schreiber for a long time and that fell apart. Yeah, and I'm saying on the rebound she married Billy Crudup. Yeah, sure. He's definitely never cheated on his wife with a fucking nanny or whatever he did. I forget what he did. Claire Danes! Allegedly.

Oh, yeah, right, it was Claire Danes, right, yeah. Whatever. I can't care. This is almost like- Who cares? All the celebrities, they're always cheating on each other. Who, you know, who can get excited anymore? It's like plot lines from Twin Peaks. Who's been fucking who? At this point, I think it starts in late in episode three. We're bringing in Gordon Cole, played by David Lynch, who is one of the biggest characters in this show.

Watching this, I just, I thought, why is he the funniest actor alive? Why is he funnier on screen than anybody? I know we've made- He's very funny. A lot of hay out of- His voice. Yes, doing the impressions,

almost anything is funny in a David Lynch voice, but somehow his performance is funnier than David Lynch as a person is, the idea of him, there is such an odd presence to how he performs as an actor beyond just the voice and everything, but especially at this age where he has that like gravitas that everyone gets to in the later decades of their life. The weirdest thing to me about Cole in this series and like a lot of this storyline is always just gonna be Cole and you know, Miguel Ferrer.

Another actor who was passed away by the time the show aired. Albert obviously, and then Tamara Preston, who's this new character played by Krista Bell, who is this kind of standard character. She's, you know, whatever, the newbie. I feel like she's also Lynch being made fun of for, like, casting these gorgeous women and then, like, you know, like, having a crush on them or whatever. Right?

Because, like, that's what Gordon Cole is basically being criticized for with her presence. Everyone's like, Gordon. She's just a good agent. Um, but Gordon especially throughout the show is kind of the exposition guy. Uh, the FBI agents are the ones who out loud the most will be, Gordon especially, throughout the show, is kind of the exposition guy. Yeah. 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 trying to figure out what Judy is. Like, they're the ones that are sort of like, talking about the mission. 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... The Denise scene. ...episode four, where he goes to see Denise, David Duchovny's character from Twin Peaks, season two. Uh... That kind of character you might expect they'd go like, -"Whew, we got away with that." -"We don't need to check in with everybody exactly."

And instead it's like... 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 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, 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 people who refuse to change in a way that is tolerant of other people right who like insist on being fucking prejudice out of habit

Yeah, it's a... It's perfectly stated. It's a fascinating scene. Exactly. 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 and the fucking Fablemans where it's like, is anyone more effective just hap...

Like, basically staring down the barrel of the lens and saying the thing. Absolutely. Um, uh, yeah, just kind of, I mean, 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?

I mean, I think the Covidean'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 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. Everything is like- There's not a real understanding of the actual what's going on.

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

Lucy Truman. I'm trying to think what else. Is this where Wally Brando shows up? Yes. Yeah. They set it up early. They named their son Wally Brando because he, what is it? He was born right after Brando died. Born the same day as Marlon Brando, is what we know. Right. Born the same day as Marlon Brando is what we know.

Right. Just another scene that's just so fucking memorable. Yeah, here's the thing I wanna talk about. This is Michael Cera's only appearance on Twin Peaks The Return, not to spoil anything. That was my assumption. Yes, he's coming in and out. Yeah, he has said that the way he got this part

was that he went to one of David Lynch's Transcendental Meditation Sure 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 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. Sure. You know? Yeah, right. What's his name? Why am I forgetting tall guy's name? Joe Elordi. Thank you.

Similarly, I know like, Vinyl, when Ray Romano went into audition, casting was like, hey, just so you know, he doesn't know who you are. And he was like, oh, he's never watched the show. And he's like, no, he's never heard of you existing. And he was like, how could I'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 seen Eppers in 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. So when any of these 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

Some of them I'm like has he seen Amanda Seyfried in anything might have did Amanda Seyfried like reach out I'm watching TV or going to the movies. I'm sure he does it sometimes Did she like reach out to her reps and go like anything to be in? All audition for anything or was he like I've seen Red Riding Hood 10 times. Ben, did you have something to say? Well, I was gonna say also at the police station, we see Bobby. Oh, that's right.

That's when that scene is. An incredible scene. And it's the first time that we hear the theme song again. Which is just such a hammer blow. And like it's what people have been talking about, my love of Dana Ashbrook, and I've noticed on like the Reddit and stuff. And it's like, yes, he has a particularly broad thing. It's not like Dana Ashbrook, I look at him and I'm like,

wow, Hollywood like gave up on a big movie star here. I understand that his acting style as Bobby is very big, and like, it's very well geared to this show. But it's so beautiful. By the way, he has had 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. Does lots of TV. Yes, he does feel like a perfect fit for this and it does feel like he is one of these guys who is able to 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 still be emotional effects. Yeah. And... And then trying to kind of cover it and be like, wow, it's just a blast from the past. Like, he's embarrassed that he broke that quickly. But it also feels like the show, like this, like,

vault of light coming through a crack, where it's like, yeah, everyone sort of agreed to forget about that. As we talked about with Connor about season two, if you think about how Twin Peaks actually moves quite Slowly like day by day. Yeah, like the whole Cooper Laura thing It's just a few months in their lives and that's 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 write 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. 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 scene, the photo again, does feel like there's this reminder of like, this is where this all came together, you know? This is what it was all about at its core. It's magnificent. Yeah. Some of the other things I want to mention, yeah, you sort of have Preston and Rosenfeld and Cole going on their mission, but you also have Dougie drinking coffee, doing the sort of like laughing where he has like the tie over his head. His connection with his son.

His connection with Sonny Jim. Sonny Jim. His son. 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 where he is- Again, Naomi Watts making scenes that make no sense, make sense. Incredible. Which is like, oh, I mean, fine, I'll just take your penis out for you, basically.

Like, she's just this put upon housewife. Like I love Lucy. Haven't you been like, oh, Richie, 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 Brett Gellman was loathe to give him, is like, I'm gonna fucking... I'm dead. Right? Belushi and his guy come in and beat the shit out of him and fire him immediately.

And she's like, oh my God, amazing, we can get ourselves out of this jam. 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 for him. He loves the coffee. It's a reminder. Much as when they, someone acknowledges that he is an insurance agent the word agent rings in his head, right?

It's like the Cooper psyche is in there deep down waiting to be activated in episode 5 Which I'm moving to now like there's that point where the his boss is like here are some case files in a case file So again, it's like right like yeah That's something enough for you when he stops the assassin and suddenly it's like, he has the muscle memory of how to, like, stop a shooting from happening. And that assassin, by the way, is really normal. And not lynching at all. Like to have like a weird little wolverine of a man who's just like, -"Wah!" Like... -"Did someone else guest-direct this thing?"

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

in this like black box theater monologue and forced her just completely impassive. And then she leaves. This thing I've talked about a lot, that 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. It feels so intentional. They are in opposite universes.

It's like Truman seems just burdened with sadness. Yes. Forster is just all on his presence. That's his whole fucking thing. Because it's like Truman seems just like burdened with sadness. His brother, we feel... Forster is just all on his 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, Sheriff Truman will just occasionally be like, yeah, he's, you know, he's still fighting you.

But you have the 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 Forster is like very emotionally. 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 it. The time pass. Yes. But he's just still stuck there,

like kinda, and it's not like fun anymore. Or you're Jacoby and you just went nuts and you just got gold shovels and you're doing your podcast. Wait, nuts, figured it out. Right, right, right, the fucks are at it again. He's right. Yeah, that's an incredible sales pitch.

No, I was just gonna say, much like the new agent, it does help to have someone in the precinct who is on the side of the old people but wasn't on the case in the original show. Not as like an entry point for new viewers, but just to sort of reestablish things where characters can explain things to him, you know? That he has a little bit of a like one foot in,

one foot out awareness of the history. And then that second Candy Clark scene is so devastating, that he has a little bit of a like one foot in, one foot out awareness of the history. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 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 is also incredible on Barry, who plays like the asshole new cop.

He is so awful. 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 the character you're talking about is, um, Richard. Yes. Pinned 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 they're like sufferings like their child killed himself This will haunt them forever. They're never gonna get over. That's exactly it. Yeah This will haunt them forever. They're never gonna get over that's exactly it. Yeah

So no one just like turns out some weird way. So Richard the character you're referring to played by Eamonn Farron not an actor He's an Australian actor. I don't really know him at all. He'd worked. He was in Jennifer Lynch's movie chained Which I haven't seen he's got David Lynch's daughter. The craziest face. So obviously basically he is a bully face He is the most evil character, I think, in Twin Peaks. Yeah. Bob is obviously evil as well. 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 Brunot. Right. That's an evil businessman. I get it. But right. Like even Jacques Brunot. Right. It's like, that's an evil businessman. I get it.

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

of like gentle sophistication, you know? And class on top of like horrible behavior. Yes, 100%, right, and then Richard, it's like, right, it's like pure, like no 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 everything about him's awful. That first bar cigarette scene, which starts with just like-

He's under a 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 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 and how he's talked about that Lynch is so good at capturing of like

These moments in life where reality just suddenly changed where you are seeing behavior That is so bizarre that you almost don't know how to process it right and like her friends sitting at the booth next to it who like kind of don't know how to react because they're like, wait, did this guy truly in 15 seconds... Did he say that? Like, he's choking her?

He's got... And then you cut out of that scene. And it's so much more disturbing to not have resolution on that. You'll sort of get it, but... But certainly, I'm watching 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.

Yes, and yells, I told him to move when he's like five blocks away. This is the only, so like, again, when this show premieres, I see some people being like, there's a lot of sexual violence, there's nastiness in this show that's kind of too much. I know Twin Peaks was about dark things, but like- Also basically the entire David Lynch project.

Right, but this is so explicit and intense. And someone like Richard, I think especially, it's like, do I wanna watch this every week? And I remember having that feeling a little bit with Richard especially, where you're just like, I kind of want to go to bed, like having watched, Nellie bake a really good cake on Bake Off, like, and make a couple funny jokes with Noel Fielding.

Like, I'm not sure I want to watch like a slab faced evil boy like running people over. Prince Fiance's on Bake Off? Yeah. I can't believe this hasn't come up sooner. I'm actually a little offended. There's a character on the new season of Bake Off. Who is delightful?

Who plays the character? Who did they get in the cast? She's a human being, David. A real flesh and blood. No, I think we've talked about a little bit the flip of how you felt by the end of our work. Yes. Yeah.

I have I have greatly enjoyed this Lynch experience and watching all of these things, both the rewatches and the things for the first time. I 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 things we're doing are going to be lighter. Yeah. Not that there won't be intense stuff in them.

Oh, there is. But it's more commercial fare as well. Correct. Which was, by the way, conscious on our part. It was a little conscious. Strategic. Yeah. But this is definitely, I mean, yeah, I don't know.

David Lynch's work makes me think about the worst parts of humanity a lot. In a way that I don't think feels Exploitative or like punishing for like effect. It's really him trying to reckon with these things. It's it's nasty I can't think of any better way to put it is nasty And that's what Cuyahoga cinema said when they called this the best film of the 2020s So to give you some other things from episode five I wanna mention. Uh-huh. More on Dr. D'Cobbi'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 long she still is or isn't. Right, or what year she thinks it is. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Dragon Ball Legends,

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Are you ready? Download Dragon Ball Legends today, available for free on both iOS and Android devices. We have these cuts to the Pentagon, where Ernie Hudson plays like a Colonel who's like You know major breaks his 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? Someone do it! He's here! He looks amazing. He looks unbelievable. He is like a classically trained like titan of an actor who is like beloved. beloved. And he's on shows that people are like,

-"Oh, yeah, Ernie Hudson." -"Ernie Hudson." We love him. 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 meaty, 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 is gonna look like a fucking genius. He has a Robert Forster, Jackie Brown-esque, you could frame him in a way that would feel... So you're saying that Frozen Empire didn't do this for you? It tried, it got close. I will say the one scene, you saw Frozen Empire. I did, yeah. There's the one scene with him and Ackroyd

arguing about the running of the business That I'm like just by the nature of Ernie Hudson being such a pro and ackroyd so deeply believing this shit course for like Three minutes you're like this movie feels like it's about something even though it's nonsense And it's just these two guys ackroyd thinks he's not acting right he is in a real conversation with his good friend Winston Zettelmore, 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 captivating. He is. He just speaks with such gentle authority. It's the kind of stuff that... And he looks like ten zillion dollars. He is. He just speaks with such gentle authority. It's the kind of stuff that... And he looks like ten zillion dollars. He certainly looks...

Do you know how old Ernie Hudson is now? He's like 70 or something. He's like 75 and jacked. Really? Yeah, and not like weird old man jacked. Like just he looks... He's just in great shape. He's incredible.

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

Yes. Like the assortment of cops in like Arizona and Vegas and where it's just like these great David Lynch character actors being like, yeah, I don't know. What's going on? You know, where it's just like, these great David Lynch character actors being like, I don't know what's going on. You know, like, that'd 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 episodes. Yeah, she's kind of in it a fair amount, but just in little bits, right. Okay, so some things that happen in... The biggest thing that happened in seasons... In episode six is we meet Diane, played by Laura Dern, the person that Dale Cooper talked to on the recording, you know, on his tape. He's always addressing Diane.

Here is Diane. This is the one card they play in that kind of legacy-quel way. Yes. If them, you know, where you're like, not only are we showing you Diane, but she's played by, like, David Lynch's muse, Laura Dern. 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 do it. 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. Ben needs to see this. This is Ernie Hudson at the Frozen Empire Prayer 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, great shape. 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 don't think he has I don't be good I want to see like an Ernie Henson 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. I'm gonna send one now This is the guy I wanna be when I'm older. Also, Ben, just the confidence of going to the premiere just wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Yep.

And he's like, I gotta show off the guy. David, who are we looking at? What is this photo you just sent us? Are you not aware of this? No, I don't know what this is. So that's Frankie Valli. Oh, Jesus Christ. And there have been, because he's still on tour, he's 90.

Yeah. Right? And there are these videos of whatever, you know, where it's basically like these four young men doing the Four Seasons 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, I... It's like, remember when there was Cheese animatronic. David, 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, lip-syncing. It's kind of unclear what he's doing. 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. Sherry, baby! I'll show you a video of it. It's so weird. Never! Don't! Never! No, you should. It's really weird. Never. Don't. Never. No, you should. It's really funny. 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. What's this now? 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 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 jacked Ernie Hudson

And Frankie Valley face, but the whole thing was like these videos circling around people are like this is an elder abuse So he had to then be like put out a statement being like no one's making me do this. I like 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 You are your control of your doing really well. I've been missing a lot of bad shit Yeah, 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 Griffin, that's a great sign. Thank you.

It's been a long process, but I'm just like, I don't want to be engaging with most of this. Sherry! Sherry, bye, bye! Yeah, so there's, right, there's this, in part six is, I would say, one of the darkest episodes where Richard runs over the kid with impunity. You say run over, he runs through the kid kills It's a child mother 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 hurry Dean Harry Dean yes

Which is like them tying in a Fire walk with me only character for the first time yeah, that's true 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. That's it's just it is crazy How much this show ends up being I'd not to repeat myself? Well, don't sort of like final bow for so many people. But yeah, yeah and upsetting stuff, that the, you know, Truman's wife, yeah, like this is just kind of a dark episode. Diane's just like this sort of like

clearly kind of fucked up person who's really mad at them, so there's not like that immediate satisfaction. Which is the episode that introduces Stafried and Laundry Bagged. You have Laundry Bagged ending the worst job interview of all time where a guy's like, your resume sucks. Carry on. Caleb Laundry Jones, of course, is who you're talking about.

You're a piece of shit. You dress poorly, you seem crazy. They show up in episode five, I want to say. The baseline from Tush sucks. It feels like the... Anyway, that's a reference to five. Do you know who Becky is? Who Becky is? That's Seyfried's character.

Yes, she is Madge and Amchik's daughter. Right, she is Bobby and Shelley's daughter. I've gotten to the end of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's what I'm trying to... I, in my sort of rewatch, I forget like when that information appears or whatever. You're in... She works at the diner. You're in... She's in the laundry bag, then you see Amanda Seyfried 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 show? Yeah, they're popping in and out. Yeah.

I just feel like the shot I knew was the tilting her head back to know him is to love him, kind of glow, staring at the sky, coked up thing. 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. No, I'm not spoiling. But she's around. Yeah, she's absolutely around.

Episode seven, I want to think, just take a look here. Right. Seven I want to think Just take a look at your right. So at this point like Hawk finds Laura's diary That's in the bathroom stall There's this sort of reference to Annie Blackburn things like that Yeah, 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 seasons Old seasons of Twin Peaks. Right. Right.

But yeah, Hawk finds it through a series of like Native American reappropriation symbolism. Right. Logos and coins and like these things that are like the cultural sort of commodification of his people leads him straight to this. Yeah. These hidden pages. Right. Albert and Gordon work on Diane and basically convince her, like, can you go talk to Cooper? We found Cooper, he's in prison, like, we need you to identify that this is Cooper.

There's something off about him. Right. Diane's, like, mega reluctant, but they make her do it, they go on the plane. Right. Well, she's very hostile to... To Albert Albert especially. Yes. And then, yeah, he's like,

I have to go back with Cole. They really implore her. And then that scene is so upsetting where you just see immediately her clock that something's wrong. She's got this test in her mind of like, when was the last time we saw each other? And even when he seemingly kind of answers correctly...

She knows it's not him and she's very, very upset. Dern is the best. She is the best. And then we have Cooper, just the way Cooper talks in his like creepy kind of like, hello, it's good to see you again. You know, like it's so cool. And pitch down it sounds like in post, especially when he's behind the glass. But you also, you already have the thing of him asking for his phone call and calling the

number that makes the security system short-circuit and then saying the mr. strawberry thing that clearly like terrifies the warden you have this sense of like he has a plan for how to get out of here yeah of course something about a strawberry. Mr. Strawberry. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's going along. But very shortly after the Diane conversation where she says like, there's something missing here.

That's not the same person. Then Bad Coop, Mr. C makes his like very quiet escape, right? Which is basically tells the guard to tell the warden He wants to talk about strawberry goes in and says like I'm not gonna talk about it But I'm gonna tell you what I'm not talking about 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 right find the one dog leg in the car And they're like what the fuck is this and he's like that 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.

Sent to other people who know about you or whatever. They will be sent if you don't release me. And then he just drives away with his buddy. Right. Pretty weird, in my opinion. No good. And what else do we have going on? This is right, this is where Ike the Spike,

the strange little assassin, very normal assassin, tries to kill Dougie. Well, does kill the other woman, given the two photos. Right, and Dougie stops him by going into muscle memory. At one point the tree pops out and is like squeeze his hand off. Yes. Kind of cool. But you also have the thing when he's assessing 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? It's an ice pick? Yeah, it's like an ice pick. Exactly. That's just like a tool of... An innate wooden carved handle. Right, right, right. Um, yeah. Uh, 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. It's kind of disconnected. Right. And does feel a little like David Lynch playlist, like, here are some artists I like! I think that kind of is it, but there is also just this thing of like, we're seeing the townspeople, like we're seeing characters we know,

we're also seeing characters we don't know who turn out to not matter. Like sometimes we're just sort of like in on a conversation for a minute between some girlfriends, and we're like, who are these people? And it's like, don't worry about it. It's actually like we're just sort of like in on a conversation for a minute between some girlfriends and we're like, who are these people? And it's like, don't worry about it. It's just like Twin Peaks kind of like chunders on even though like through all these years of past.

But it's all part of I think 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 to normal television narrative expectations, right? Like you need to stop looking at every single thing as a clue. There's a certain part of me that thinks, I mean part of it is just him evolving as an artist and being interested in different things, right?

But there's the thing at the beginning of Fire Walk with me where Lynch is literally creating this woman who does a pantomime of clues that are meant to be deciphered as to what the case is. The thing with his... Yeah, the interpretive dance woman. I love her. Right.

That felt like him mocking people wanting to solve Twin Peaks. Yes. And needing to overanalyze every piece. 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 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. I'm realizing something we haven't touched upon and we don't have to spend that much time, but just the money that Dougie owes, that whole little subplot where they're the two hitmen who put a bomb under his car. The kid explores it and you're like, the kid's going to blow up and then he doesn't. Instead it's like carjackers get exploded.

And then... Jeremy Davies. Who's that? 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. Just poppin' 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 investigators who come to check in on the exploded car at Dougie's office, where she's able to just talk these people down, but she's also able to, like, weirdly contextualize Dougie.

You know? But he can say his two elusive things, people are like, what the fuck? And then she comes in and 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. It's a great lynching. What happens over and over again, right?

He doesn't explain what has now become clear to him. Yeah, but he's like, this is a stunt. He's just someone who makes you sit down and think about things. He drew a staircase moving from one line down to the other. And now I see these things so clearly. Yeah. So yeah, I feel like I said, 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 can, I guess it's just like, it's a lot of plot lines. Mm-hmm. But 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 checking in. The fucking Las Vegas stuff. Right, like what's this gonna be? What is it? You're just kinda like, I guess we're just checking in. The fucking Las Vegas stuff. Right, like, what's this gonna be?

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. It's like a mission statement episode about this season and this show.

Okay. And like Bob and like what's 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 bit of that. You'll see. You 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 was unlike now when I'm healthy

and good and in control. I was way too online at the time that this show was airing. And so I just remember reading so many fucking tweets of like live watching and immediate responses. I was very fascinated by just watching people talk about the show. Not in like a spoiler sense. live watching and immediate responses. I was very fascinated by just watching people talk about the show. Not in like a spoiler sense. I wasn't reading like full people floundering trying to recap it. But just the sort of like, holy shit of like Wally Brando or whatever.

I remember that episode seeing the wave of people being like, David Lynch just like rewrote the rules of television. This episode changes everything. Not just within Twin Peaks, but this medium. Yeah. And I feel like you've talked about this, but that this was a point in time where it felt like TV is in some transitional stage. Is it about to evolve into something much more interesting?

And it feels like we've gotten stuck in an absolute dead end of television. And it's partly because nobody actually gets to make TV 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 my brother, James Newman, past and future guest, about a prestige TV show he is watching that is similarly directed by one auteur filmmaker. And was complaining that he's like, this really just feels like he couldn't figure out how to edit the script down to a movie.

Like one episode ends because an hour is up and the next episode starts immediately where the last episode ended. And there are just credits tacked on to the beginning and end of every hour. 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,

I know eight's gonna be very much its own thing. 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, and sort of like decompressing you. But there's an intentionality of editing and construction,

and sort of rhythm and flow and mood and tone of these things where I'm like, what I like about it is that it doesn't feel like he's trying to do a movie, as much as he maybe talks about it that way. You know what, I'm sure if you watch all 18 hours straight through and you cut the credits out, maybe it plays differently.

But I'm like, I think these things have inherent value as one hour chunks. I know the first four were aired as two two hour chunks, but like all of this. Yeah, it works in whatever form. Trying to find something like the ratings. I know that's kind of not that helpful. I did see on Wikipedia, there was the 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 whole legacy show. Soft debut for Twin Peaks. Yeah. Okay, I have found that article. Okay. Can you just find?

Got 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 a clean database of this stuff. That's weird because in every other sense, the Nielsen ratings make perfect sense. Are flawless. It's another thing Conan talked about recently on an episode where he would be like, we realize

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 were just randomly write to certain people and be like, congratulations, you've been selected to choose to receive a new box. And by the way, you have to keep a detailed diary of what you're watching and when and which member of your family is watching it.

And then they'd get the reporting back from those people on honor system that they were reporting things accurately and they would extrapolate from that. Well, if 30% of the families we sent boxes to are doing this, it probably means 30% of America is watching the same thing. That's 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 really Seconds watched over years All right, maybe this is something just give, just give me something. All I ask for is something. These, like, broken websites. Jesus Christ. Interactive TV ratings database.

Help me out here. Please, please help the man out. You know what, we're just doing the top 10 shows of 2017 right now. Great, okay. I'll think of other things maybe if I can find them later. But Twin Peaks didn't crack this, sadly. And you know, it's kind of annoying what the number one show of 2017 was. It's kind of annoying? Well, because 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 Bang Theory? Long-running sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. Okay, what's number three? Newer procedural drama. I think just recently ended its room 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 it's a total standalone. Yeah, and it just ended. Yeah, it just ended. It's seven season. This is its first season We're it's not the good doctor. It is the good doctor. Good doctor. That was the number three show on TV. It was huge. 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. The financials of television are so fucked that the show ended at season seven basically because they were like it is impossible for their

show to stay profitable. Right. Like the old systems in place of how much actors get raises, the longer shows go on, and when they have to renegotiate contracts, they're now at like a perfect sort of bottleneck of the show is so successful that they can't argue that there isn't room to give them raises. But also if they give them raises, the show no longer makes money because the value of a show is so disperse now. Speaking of. And like every year just fucking ad sales money goes down.

Anyway go on. Number four, spin-off of a sitcom. Young Sheldon? Young Sheldon! Sheldon Burnout. Also recently in the correct. Yeah, finally did. Now there's a spin-off that people think is problematic maybe?

Zygote Sheldon? No, it's Sheldon's brother-in-law I'm not kidding. It's it's Sheldon's sister's first George E and Mandy's first marriage. Yes, Jesus. Okay number five Give me something big running show procedural you already mentioned I have is the blue bloods. No Is it is it law and law? Nope. Fuck. Is it N 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. Good. Yeah, great. Is it just NCIS Origins, you're right. Yep.

Starring Austin Stowell. It's naval. They do naval crimes. It's a JAG spin-off. People forget that NCIS is a spin-off of the show JAG. I never forget that. I know you don't. I know you don't.

JAG. JAG, which was one of those shows when I was a kid where I was like, this is just like for grownups. Yeah. Like who are boring. Like that's what that show is. There was like a run of like two or three years on SNL where sketches kept making references to Catherine Bell

from JAG as like the hottest woman in the world. Like they used her as like placeholder hot woman. Where I was a clearly one writer at SNL has a huge thing. This keeps coming up. Number six, big drama that was a big hit, big buzzy drama, network drama. Are you being facetious? This keeps coming up number six big Drama that was a big hit big buzzy drama network drama. Are you being facetious? No, is it the good wife? No Bigger than that. Yeah way bigger. Yeah, buzzy and it's ended since yeah, where was it in its life at this point? It would have been I don't need hard numbers. Just kind of like this is the end of its first season, I think. Oh wow, so this was the start.

It ran for six seasons. Is it How to Get Away with Murder? Is it Ashonda? It's not within Shondaland? 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, it went away. What a twist, much like Twin Peaks of Return.

Sometimes you feel guaranteed that a thread All right, come on 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's. 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. 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 this

show is you're introduced to a character and at the end of the episode they revealed that character is related to something else. I think what the show kept doing. Or was a different character at a different age. Right. Yeah. That man just loves the, like, oh, well, of course you're a bunch of disconnected characters that have nothing to do with each other.

Twist. They're married. That's not a twist. You're just telling us stuff in the wrong order. Number seven is a reality competition program. It's not American Idol. The Voice. No.

No. Is it, hmm, Dancing with the Stars? Nope. Survivor? Nope. 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. Walking Dead. Correct. Which was a phenomenon unlike any other in terms of, right, it was a basic cable show on the top 10 walking that correct which was a phenomenon unlike any other In terms of right. It was a basic cable show that did network hit numbers. Yep. It's crazy They still have like new off spin. 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 dirty. They're fine. Yes. I think there's one that is Walking Dead, colon, Darryl, colon Paris. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Like it's literally becoming just kind of like these two characters. But wasn't Fear the Walking Dead created as like eight seasons? Yeah. And I watched at least two of them. I was kind of into that show. I mean, had an't fear The Walking Dead created as like... That went for eight seasons. I know. Yeah. And I watched at least two of them. I was kind of into that show. I mean, it had an incredible cast.

Yeah, fucking Kim Dickens and... Coleman Domingo. Ruben Blattis. Yes. Cliff Curtis? That show was like day one, right? It was like, this is like Boots on the Ground, the start. Am I wrong?

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... I don't know, man. There was one that was like a Negan spin-off, right? With Lauren Cohn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. There was one that was Daryl. That one's still going, I think. And then there's the one that's, you know, Rick and Michonne doing their own kind of thing where they just like, fuck. But they're all like now filling in different timeline.

I don't know. Like, that's the simple fact of the matter. I have no idea. Maybe dossier for next episode. Maybe JJ. Just to fill us in on the chronology of The Walking Dead and its seven spin-offs. Yeah, the other shows in the top 10 are Another Day of America's Got Talent and Bull. Bull. Remember Bull? Bull. Is that so long? 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. And no, not just, it was certainly surrounded. No, not just. It ended in 2022. Okay. Yeah.

So there you go. There you go. But yeah, just crazy to think about the good doctor. We will be talking about... Look, the number one takeaway from this, our episode on the first seven chapters of Twin Peaks of the Return, is that it's crazy to think about the good doctor. What if a doctor was good? And Conan, you know, give it a rest, man. You've had a great career. We love you. 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, but that one's gonna bear fruit Look Conan Al Pacino is old he doesn't have space in his life for you to be his friend You've known Jack White for like 20 years if you were gonna become friends it would have happened by now You've done a bunch of projects together and you're not friends. It's so funny It was initially him like I'm talking to interesting people and now

it's like, sorry, here you have a TV show. Well, no. Obviously it's like I booked these shows. The premise originally was, do I have friends who aren't in show business and are show business friends real? I'm going to have people on who I have a history with and interrogate, are we actually friends? And then after 20 episodes, it just became the WTF. Right, two.

WTF2. Yeah. To be clear, We both enjoy this I love it. I listen to it every week and it's really well done. Although can I can I throw out a complaint? It's a sloppy feed Sure, it's one of those things Basically now composed of four different shows Slansky at each other's throats for an hour. It's really funny. Yeah, it's great.

But I'm also like having a hard time keeping track of like, yeah. Because there's Conan Bryan needs a friend, Conan Bryan needs a fan. Then the campfire ones. Yeah. Yeah. The car view ones, which then I guess basically kind of indirectly turn into flying the wall. It's like The Walking Dead. It's like the walking dead. It's like the walking dead.

Join us next week for episode eight of Twin Peaks The Return of the King. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Bardi 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 Webber leading up to a big end of year cat's bash, a Jellicle Ball, if you will. So check that out. And as always, Ernie Hudson, 78, still looking hot as hell.