Blank Check with Griffin & David - Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 14-18) with Jane Schoenbrun

Episode Date: December 22, 2024

What year is it? Well, it’s 2024 - but not for long. It’s our last episode of the year! Director of this year’s I SAW THE TV GLOW Jane Schoenbrun joins us to talk about the conclusion of Twin Peaks: The Return, and, by default, the conclusion of our David Lynch series. In a show that intentionally defies the very concept of resolution, how do we put a bow on things? Well, we try! Shout out to Freddie and his glove. Oh, and Merry Christmas. Trauma is originary and unending. Stream I Saw The TV Glow on MAX Check out The Search for the Zone site The Box Office Game is Sponsored by Regal Cinemas: Sign up for Regal Unlimited today and get 20% 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 take a nap. What podcast is this? Sure. That's what you told me to do. I think that's what you should do. It doesn't matter.

We have to talk about the show. Hey, never say it doesn't matter. Never say it doesn't matter. Sometimes I think the opening quote we pick doesn't totally matter. I think it matters so much. Weird, I've never gotten that vibe from you that you think it doesn't matter. Just sometimes we spend 20 minutes, not 20 minutes, we've never spent 20 minutes. We've never spent 20 minutes. I think it matters. Beginnings are important. We're here with a

storyteller. Do you want to take it again? No, absolutely not. Beginnings are important, right? Sure. Well, it's actually all the beginning and end. Hear that, David? Those are the things people remember the most. The quotes and the end as always. That's the rule of storytelling. Yeah, how does TV Glob again? What's the first shot of TV Glob?

First shot of TV Glob is slow pan down that street to get the ice cream truck. Good opening. You need a good opening. Oh yeah. Yeah, the rest of it. Who cares? Yeah. People have already filed their letterbox review by that point.

They just get their phone out and they're like, four stars, pretty good. Yeah, right. They've taken out their phones. Yeah. They photographed the title card. They've logged it on Letterboxd. They've sang along.

They've sang along. And they've walked out after 30 minutes. The state of Mua going 2024 did you did anyone go to a wicked screening where people sang along I did not experience that I saw wicked of course in 40x where I think it physically Have you seen wicked Jane? I have not seen wicked yet But I literally have asked all of my friends to see Wicked with me and no one wants to go. So I'm gonna see Wicked alone. I think the people won't stop singing during Wicked shit

is a little bit of like, there are murders happening every two steps in New York City story, you know? Go ahead. I think there's an overstatement of how much this is like an epidemic. There's also like movies where you want the audience to be shouting at the movie.

You want rowdiness. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I think the mistake was not simultaneously releasing and a sing-along cut, which I just saw there now from Christmas day on. They're readying that.

That's what we'll be playing. 100%. Will there be a little broomstick that like touches all the words? I assume so. Right. That's what we'll be playing. 100%. Will there be a little broomstick that touches all the words? I assume so. Yeah. Or a grim word? What's the... Grimmery?

Grimmery. A little grimmery? This is stuff you don't know, J. You have an open-ended grimmery. I know very little about the plot of Wicked, and I'm so excited. Because I love lore. Oh, fuck. Then you will like it. You're gonna like it.

Because Wicked, the book especially, but the musical too is basically like I feel like there's more Opportunity to plumb this lore guys and make up our own lore and kind of put it on top You want shit explained and I am also a big fan of return to Oz Yeah, I assume you guys have seen oh, I love return to I think a movie We'd love to cover somehow I love Return to Oz. I think a movie we'd love to cover somehow. Soul directing credit. Soul directing credit,

but obviously we could do an Oz series on our Patreon. Series, which we pitched before, previously would have included Oz the Great and Powerful, which now we've covered through Raimi, but we could include Wickedness now. That's right, that's Sam Raimi, huh? Yeah, unfortunately. Have you seen Oz the Great and Powerful?

No, I can't say. How's the lore? The lore's bad. The lore is awful and unfortunate, because it should be all lore. That's part of the huge failure of that lore. That's another attempt to be like, let's explain why the Wicked Witch is the way she is. Right.

Coming from a completely different direction. Her tears hurt her face. Because she's allergic to water. Yeah. I mean, just like Bruce Willis in Glass. Exactly like Bruce Willis in Glass. Exactly like Bruce Willis in Glass. Does Glass ever address that Bruce Willis could hurt himself by crying? Does that come up? No, he's an emotional guy, David Dunn.

Yeah. I feel like you never see him sob, but he's often kind of like right there. But he can drink water, right? Well, they call out in the movie, you drink it too fast, you choke. Oh. Oh my God. Which is true. I mean it too fast, you choke. Oh. Oh my God. Which is true.

I mean, of anybody, I guess. I mean, how fast are we talking? Like a fire hose? Like, what do you mean? I think with him, we have to remember, spoilers, this man died in a puddle. I don't think, I think he could drink water pretty slowly and still make him choke. What's our podcast? 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 to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear

and sometimes they bounce, baby. Mm-hmm. We are concluding. Yep. Resolving. We're answering all questions. Sure. No mysteries unsolved at the end of this mini-series

about the films and TV of David Lynch called Twin Pods Firecast with me. Of course. Today we are covering the last five episodes of Twin Peaks The Return Sometimes called Twin Peaks a limited series never called. Twin Peaks Season 3. Well, no, this is the thing It's never called that. Okay. And I saw people on the Reddit asking why. And even like they announced they're doing a reissue of the Blu-ray and the wording on the box is very weird. People are like, why is it like this? Almost definitely contractual things about making it exist as its own piece of television

rather than a direct continuation of the first two seasons. An ABC show, sure. In a way that probably has to do with not carrying over certain people. I don't know. Someone was calling out a lot of these like, the Gilmore Girls Netflix season. These things. A year in the life. These many years later, produced for a different platform or network revivals that have a different

subtitle. Right. They get to be like, this is its own show. This is a show that is using the intellectual property. But it's a brand new television show. Correct, and we decide who gets carried along. In this case, kind of works. Yeah, I mean, this is the most, this is the case of like, yeah, it's Twin Peaks Season Three,

but unlike Seasons One and Two, you know, there's boobs. Which is the only difference, really. I'd say that's, I'm trying Peaks season three, but unlike seasons one and two, you know, there's boobs. Which is the only difference. I'd say that's... I'm trying to think. Butts, you do see butts, so maybe those are the two differences. It would just be funny if Lynch gave me an interview, he's like, there's tits! We get to have tits in Showtime. I was watching these episodes with friends and my roommate who had never seen Twin Peaks,

but actually that day had been like, I think I might start watching Twin Peaks. She came in and sat down and watched 17 and 18 with us. my roommate who had never seen Twin Peaks, but actually that day had been like, I think I might start watching Twin Peaks. Oh, wow. She came in and sat down and watched 17 and 18 with us. And she was like, is this what the old one is like? And what did you say? We were like, no, not really at all. Like the old one's like cozy.

Let's say our guest today, very excited. And talking about things our listeners ask about online, it wasn't even a suggestion, demand thing. I've started to see people be like, man, it'd be cool if they got Jane Schoenbrunn to do a Twin Peaks episode. Would be cool. Would be cool. And guess what? We fucking did it. Right under the wire.

It's happening right under the wire. Incredible filmmaker. I think a filmmaker you and I are constantly very excited by and talk about as like... Of course. Yes, I'm a huge fan. Yes. A very early booster.

Whatever. No, but I feel like you were talking up... No, I feel on the spot. They're like, hey, Jane, here's your blank check. And I'm like, it actually says $50 on this check. You've written a number here. Yeah. Jane Schoenbrod, filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow, one of my favorite movies of the year.

We're all going to the World's Fair. And Twin Peaks, the return mega fan, is that fair to say? I often describe Twin Peaks The Return as the highlight of my adult life pre-transition. I think when we last spoke, we definitely discussed The Return briefly. I know it's on your site and sound top 10 as well, right? I think so.

Yeah. Pretty sure. Let me find it. So, you know, I knew you were a fan. I'm trying to be in discourse, you know? Yes. It's not my 10 favorite films on my site and sound, but you try to say like, hey, you guys check this out. You had a really cool speed racer. Is it TV or is it movie?

Well, it's a provocative conversation. Well, give me the full time. Oh, sure. Messages of the Afternoon, which rocks, if people have never seen that. You know, is it TV, is it short film or is it feature film? Who cares? A lot of these are movies that I want to be released officially on Blu-ray. See, this is a strong go.

This is a chess move. This was a chess move. Where is the Friends House? A Karastami movie that I love. The Queen's Tree Sun I've never seen. There you go. Victor Arice. It's not really available. Is it Arice or Arice? I think it. There you go, because it's not really available.

Is it a Rieche or a Rieche? I think it's a Rieche. Yeah, it's a Rieche movie. Heinz, how do you say, how do you pronounce it? Hyenas? Hyenas, the animal. Yeah, totally fucked up, the Gregorak movie. Which at the time was not really.

Oh, and now it is. At least by criterion. Welcome to the Terror Drone, which I've never seen. Check it out. You would love to check that out. Early Saffron Burrows. What happened to Saffron Burrows? Great question.

Great, okay, well, you guys figure it out. Let's pin that for later. A movie I am going to assume, oh, August in the Water, I do not know that movie. That one you guys have to see. It's this like very quiet Japanese coming of age sci-fi movie. With the greatest like weird synth soundtrack from the 90s. Oh, and it's on YouTube. Yeah, it's very much not available in anything but terrible quality.

Wow, fantastic. And then Speed Racer, which we've covered on this show, one of my favorite movies. Uncle Boonmee, a wonderful movie. Yeah, how could you not? Come on. And then Twin Peaks The Return. Heard of it?

Yeah. Yeah, we've been covering it on this show. I'm just, I'm like, I'm scrubbing through the last episode because there was something as I was finishing the series where I was like, that would be a good opening quote. And I like drafted it in my head and I forgot it. What was it? I don't know, we're gonna find out. Or we won't.

It'll be unresolved. Like certain plot threads at the end of Twin Peaks The Return. So, Jane, David Lynch, what is your relationship with this filmmaker beyond Twin Peaks The Return, just in general? Oh, I... Let me see. I mean, Twin Peaks, I think, kicked it off. I remember my parents would always talk about Blue Velvet as like the worst kind of movie you could see.

Not in a like, don't watch it, but just in a like, you know, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Right, the most upsetting thing. Blue Velvet is another level. So I think it held, from the earliest moment, it held sort of a mystique. Which let's just say, I'm sure we said this to some degree in the episode.

That movie is upsetting and intense. It is wild to read the statements from the time it came out when people were just like, this is a new low. This never should have happened. This should be illegal. There should be cops standing by the fucking ticket booth. And you watch it now and you're like, I don't know if just like our culture's degraded so much,

but I find like most episodes of SVU more upsetting than Blue Velvet. Uh, or maybe in content more upsetting, but maybe not like, you know... Emotionally, psychologically, yeah. Right, you know, Lynch will cut deeper. That's a great snapshot of that, of like your parents who probably saw it in theaters

at the time and were just like, I can't believe that happened. This will ruin people. That's a great snapshot of that, of like your parents who probably saw it in theaters at the time and were just like, I can't believe that happened. This will ruin people. So that sort of loomed in the video store. And then I started watching Twin Peaks in early middle school. It had already aired, but on VHS. And also I couldn't find, I remember very clearly going to the Museum of Television in California, in LA, where pre-TVO, pre-DVD really, you could sit at a console and they had an archive and you could request episodes

and you got two hours. We've ever talked about the Museum of Television and Radio, which is now the Paley Center. That's right. But was so big in my childhood as well as like this compulsive obsessive. They had like everything. Yeah, it was like, I remember thinking for like months

about what TV shows I would spend my two hours on. Was there a time limit? Right, like it was like- You had two hours. In the booth? Yeah. Yeah. They would give you whatever you wanted. You'd go to like an ancient PC that looked like the war games computer that had this like terrible interface and you'd search through their archives and it was like oh now I can finally catch like

The three episodes of freaks and geeks I missed when they aired Literally before the DVD came out or like pull up like any random Johnny Carson Right anyone like I want Johnny Carson from 1983, January 2nd. Right, but like get a life. I feel like I had to watch through multiple visits, the Museum of Television and Radio. I grew up on the East Coast, so this was really, it was like family vacation.

Yeah. And just like leave me here, please. Yes. But I remember watching Twin Peaks there. I bought a Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me T-shirt in sixth grade from Generation Records on Thompson. Yeah, great record store. What was on the shirt? I got bullied for it.

It kind of had like... Because they were like, oh, come on, that movie was booted can. What are you doing? Exactly. We expected some resolution. That's what the bully Rob said. I think just for being idiosyncratic, you know? What was on the shirt?

It kind of had like Japanese bootleg tour poster energy. That's cool. I remember, I think Cooper was on there. Yeah, it kind of had like a confused vibe to it. Yeah. And then the other childhood David Lynch thing for me was my friend Ari's parents took me and him when we were 12 to see Mulholland Drive-In Theaters. Oh wow.

And I remember, like there's this specific vibe and sometimes I'll re-watch these movies now and be like, oh, like I remember watching that movie just kind of being like there's something that I'm not understanding and it makes me like feel bad and when I go back and watch it I'm always like oh it was sex. That you sure. Like there's something here that's just like not really like I don't understand yes what why. I mean not to like just blow you up but I think part of What has like I saw the TV glow I think is like a masterpiece and has really stuck with me all year and I think part of what reverberate so strongly and I know David had a similar reaction to it

But it's like we're both people who also grew up like obsessively with our sense of self tied to this stuff that we watched obsessively, needed to read in, to speculate on, socialize around, and that feeling of like, why does stuff stick with you? What is it saying in you that sometimes takes like years to resolve? And without spoiling it for people who haven't seen it, there is a moment at the end of your film

where the main character, the Justice Smith character, rewatches this thing that was so big in their childhood that I was like blown away by, where I just went like, this is such like an intense, I think fairly universal phenomenon in some form or another that I had never seen really acknowledged, let alone captured and depicted.

But it's interesting to me that Twin Peaks was something that you watched in that sort of age. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then over and over again, and really did have, like, recurring dreams about it coming back. Yeah. And I remember, like, when they announced,

the day they announced the reboot, being just like, I was working, I was like 24, 25, probably, and working at this nonprofit. I remember just like falling to my knees, you know? Was it full triumph or was there any part of you that was concerned? Oh, it was both triumph.

Okay, you had full? Because it had been, Inland Empire came out when I was in college, you know, and by around then, I sort of like found David Lynch as an adult. Right. And just like, when I rewatched Mahalan Jaya for the first time as an adult, I like rewatched it four more times in like a weekend.

Oh yeah? I watched Lost Highway. I had this like incredible viewing of after my 30th birthday party, like 2 a.m. And I was like, I wanna watch Lost Highway right now. So you just toss it on. That is a good time to watch Lost Highway. Turn out all the lights.

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

Yeah. Yeah. There's this, yes, this soup of stuff and stuff that has its own integrity, but stuff that like if you catch it at the right age and it activates something in your brain, lives in a very large way, but if you were to revisit as an adult, perhaps some of it plays differently. You know? Yeah, but we all, like, long for it. We long for it.

And I guess this is the thesis of the movie, right? Is that, like, we long for the way it felt? We don't actually long for it. Yes, which I think is, like, one of the very profound things you get in the film. But, and I'm someone who's obsessively, regularly re-watching things that, like, stuck in my craw as a child to be like, what was it?

What was the thing? Why did this stick with me? And it's always an interesting thing to watch it through different prisms, especially if you're resigned to not getting the same feeling out of it and you're almost watching it as an archeological expedition to sort of dig through yourself.

But this is that rare kind of thing of like, you can, to sort of dig through yourself. But this is that rare kind of thing of like, you can watch this at a young age, it can impact you in that way, and then you can revisit it as an adult and be like, oh my god, it's better than I thought it was. I understand it more now. I'm more invested in it. And it feels to me like one of, if not the, like fundamental sort of starting point for the return is like engaging with this idea.

Yes. It's not season three. It's David Lynch in conversation with the memory of his filmography and of Twin Peaks. Yeah. We were talking right before recording about sequels that seem to hate the audience or at least seem to be in conflict

with what people are expecting it will be. Yes. Right, based on love of the first thing, the previous thing, whatever. Right. And this isn't quite that, but there is that sense of like, he's not doing the thing, right?

Like even when you get like a stretch like, within these episodes, the sort of like resolution of Big Ed. Oh, talk about it. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Where it's like, this is the kind of thing that I'm... A moment that feels a little more like, okay, love long-time fans of Twin Peaks. You get like 10 minutes...

Then he cuts to a gas station flickering for like 15 minutes. You get like 10 minutes that feel like probably what a lot of Twin Peaks fans wanted to see. I've been waiting 30 years to know if Big Ed is going to figure it out with, you know, Peggy Lipton. Norma? Norma, sorry. Yes.

And those moments in this show are few and far between. Correct. And I feel like basically from the beginning of the show, he's teaching you this is not going to be that. And yet, I'd never watched it before. Doing it for the podcast has been my first watch. Oh, wow. These last five episodes, there's a run there, I would say maybe the two...

17, 16, 15? Where it feels like the show is starting to deliver what certain fans would have hoped for. It gives you a version of what you might want. It's like, this is coming together. I am the FBI. And imagine if it ended with episode 17. Like, that's...

It would have been terrible. ...would have been bad, but would be... That's probably what some people thought was going to happen. I think so. I was watching it. Someone punch Bob! He's gone! Right. And Cooper's like, you know, big thumbs up, and everyone gets together.

And it's like, yay! It's fascinating, because it does feel like he's doing it, and he's doing it well. The fireman's plan worked! But I think what's fascinating, like watching these five episodes again, and just thinking about the relationship to spaces, you know, we're jumping between all of these different

spaces and they almost exist in literal different universes. Like you have to sort of travel through portals to get from Rancho Rosa to the sheriff's office. It's like, and maybe most overtly with Audrey there at the end, you know, to me it feels less like he's less interested in like, should I subvert your expectations or should I like give you what you want? And he's more interested in like This we all have this shared memory of like 25 years ago watching this thing, right? Let's explore like what that like down to the last line of the series, right?

It's like like let's explore that phenomenon. Well, and I think he's it to your point I mean the last line of the series is actually I think to your point, he is not strategically gaming out, like, what should I give them and what should I withhold? I think the show is just driven by, what do I feel like doing? Right? Probably. At the same time, Duggee is hard to, like,

grow in there without, like, kind of, a little bit of a troll energy. Totally. Yes. Yes. No, you're right. You're right. But it's like, I do get a sense of just like, he kind of wants to see Big Ed and Norma get together unencumbered. He's putting that in there not out of some sense of like, I owe them this, I owe it to the actors or to the audience.

There are other things that it just feels like he just doesn't really care about. You know, when you hear these stories about certain cast members, Joan Chan in particular, who's like, I really wanted to come back and he just told me he couldn't find a way to fit me into the story. And I'm like, he fit anything into the story that he wanted to. I don't find that. Come on, David. There were doorknobs in almost every scene.

She just had me wave. I just had her wave in one of them. But, you know, whether that was But whether that was based on past relationships, whatever, it's like he's putting in what he wants to put in. Well, and isn't there some story about Audrey Horne, the actor, Sherilyn Finn, like asking for her shit to be rewritten

and he rewrote it as like that whole plot line that ended up in there? I didn't know that. That makes a lot of sense. shit to be rewritten and he rewrote it as like that whole plot line that ended up in there. I didn't know that. That makes a lot of sense. Because I will say that remains the element of this season of television that I am most perplexed by. I love it.

And I was looking for some sort of explanation as to how we got there. And even though like Audrey dancing, you know, to her theme, felt like, okay, now we're getting somewhere where I'm going to understand why he's using her in the show in this way. Here's this like weird emotional her like literally dancing with her own legacy as a character on the show. And then she's just fucking gone. That's her resolution. Well, she she snaps into herself and then we see her in a pseudo white void with with like the same. That's true. And that shot is framed, I think, very similarly to a famous shot from Sunset Boulevard. and then we see her in a pseudo white void with the same. That's true.

And that shot is framed, I think, very similarly to a famous shot from Sunset Boulevard. One of Lynch's most enduring inspirations is Sunset Boulevard. But also that guy, I love Audrey's husband. What's his name? Oh, incredible. God, he drives me crazy.

Who has now passed away. He had. Clark Middleton? Yeah, that's right. Charlie's the character. Yes. Taking off my coat, all right, Audrey. I love the Audrey Plotline so much.

I'm experiencing, so my whole experience of The Return is so rooted, right? And just like week to week, cracking my knuckles, sitting down, like what's it gonna be? And experiencing things like that, where I've already been thrown for so many loops and then two thirds of the way, and he's like,

let's check in with Audrey. And you're like, oh, Audrey, sure, sure. And it's just like, they're arguing about characters. We never meet. They say so many names, we're like, am I supposed to know who that is? And his cadence is so magnificent, like, you know, wherever he was found.

But also, it feels like they spend three episodes, maybe sustained, like, frozen know, wherever he was found. But also, it feels like they spent three episodes maybe sustained, like, frozen in time. Right? Where we keep talking to them in the same conversation, being like, I swear I'm gonna walk out this door. Oh, it's very Baketian. Yes, and you're like, other things, like, days are progressing outside of this. There is plot in this show. There is, right. There is actual movement. We come back to them and they're stuck here being like,

don't pick up that phone. But yes, I mean, right, the implicated... The question, I think what you're saying is correct, that there was another Audrey plot initially intended, and the Cherylin Fenn objected. But no one knows what the original plot was, right? I think that's never really been figured out.

But this makes sense as Lynch going like, well, okay, I'm gonna make something else. And like this, how contained it is makes sense. It's sort of like, well, if I'm gonna rewrite it, I'll give you this little sort of play that you do. And she does not interact with. No, she's in an institution.

The names that she is saying in this long extended sort of meaningless conversation about people that we don't actually know, those names are also used by a lot of the people at the Roadhouse. Like who we also don't know. Right, where we'll check in with their drama. And I think this kind of mirrors the myriad FBI agents who we meet throughout the series who, like, don't actually end it. It's almost, it's like there's, like, the core of the show, which is, like, what we remember, nostalgia. And then there's just these, like, doppelganger versions of it,

like, on the fringes. The Roadhouse stuff is particularly interesting to me. Not that I was expecting some kind of traditional resolution, but like all these little snippets of like Charlene Yee and Jane Levy and like Sky Ferreira and these like- I wish she said Jane Lynch. I wish Jane Lynch would be good at this. Jane Lynch is a sassy like Twin Peaks High School

would be fine. Yeah. But these like very upsetting sort of, like, fragments, devoid of context of just, like, people in very odd situations that are never revisited. I always just get this sense that, like, Twin Peaks is a very sad, fraught place now. And probably was then, too.

But, like, now, you know, we only catch glimpses of it. The Sheriff's Office, they're always discussing a lot of like tragic, terrible stuff. There's a lot of drug running happening. Right. You know, Frank Truman seems real. I love him to death. I would vote him for president, although, I mean, maybe I don't want to know

all of his views, but like, I love him. But he seems very like weary and beaten down and kind of like, you know. In a way that is, to some degree, like reflection of what has happened to a lot of small towns in know. In a way that is, to some degree, like reflection of what has happened to a lot of small towns in America. Sure, yes. You know, I think that I think Lynch has,

like, a lot of fondness for and has had to watch sort of, like, erode culturally over decades. People are under a lot of stress these days. Is that what... People are under a lot of stress, Bradley. It's my favorite line in the series. It's delivered so beautifully. The fact that they are around for the finale, Trust Bradley. It's my favorite line in the series. It's delivered so beautifully.

The fact that they are around for the finale, like it's just one of the many, many, many decisions that Lynch and Mark Frost obviously made, where I'm like, there's no reason for them to tag along, but it's so great that they're there. ["The New York Times"] Griffin, oh wait, no, this is me. I'm just doing a solo ad read.

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very much and one last time, mo mo mo, merry movies. So okay, but Twin Peaks The Return is announced and then you watch it. How did you feel at the time? You were watching it week by week? Jane. I was on set,

I was producing a movie called Change For Life. Oh yeah. Great movie. Yeah, wonderful film. Aaron Sch, yeah. Oh, great movie. Yeah. Wonderful film. Aaron Schimberg. Aaron's movie. In what is the capital of Pennsylvania? Harrisburg.

We were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where beers were $2. Oh, yeah. And karaoke was abundant. That I wouldn't have predicted. And my friend Dan Carbone, who also shot We're All Going to the World's Fair and is a wonderful filmmaker.

He had made this movie called Hydra Smiling Faces. We were both Twin Peaks heads. This was a very important thing. We were staying at like a Comfort Inn off the highway. And... Did they have show time? They did not have show time. And...

Sounds like an uncomfort. But we would eat dinner every night at this... And I was like literally calling local movie theaters, being like, will you do a screening for us? Oh, wow. Of the first two episodes when they are, and no one said yes. And there's this Indian place that we hosted a lot of crew dinners at, and I like talked to the woman who ran it.

We were like putting her kid through fucking college, you know? And she bought Showtime so that we could watch it. And you were like, if we come here on Sunday nights, you'll let us control the TV. But like for whatever, maybe she was just lying to me. The cable package like didn't kick in until the next month, so that didn't work either. Okay.

And so we like sat in a hotel room and we, this was like a while ago, and so like cell phone data plans were not commonly unlimited. And so we all had these like like cell phone data plans were not commonly unlimited and so we all had these like limited cell phone plans and we like literally we like mobile hotspotted. You like chained your various cell phone plans. Yeah we all bled like we drained our cell phone plans like and somebody like hooked it up to the hotel TV somehow and this was how we watched it and everyone was just like

huh. Right it's like, eh. Right. It's like, I love the beginning of the show, but it is definitely not like anything you would have expected to happen. And then the ending, I'll never forget the last two episodes I watched right near here at the draft house, they did like a secret screening of it. Oh wow.

Okay. Forget who organized it, but I weaseled my way into it and we literally all sat in a theater at the draft house and they simulcast those two episodes live as they aired. They aired back to back, right. And there was still waiter service. Hell yeah. And it was actually, I remember it looking,

when you blow something up that isn't the best resolution to a screen like that, it like looked a little off. Yeah, janky. And I just remember like when it ended, the waitress was like hanging out, waiting for everyone to leave, and everyone was just kind of like sitting in their seats. Needed some process, yeah.

She was like, you guys seem upset. And that ended, yeah, I mean, that ending haunted me for months. I know, I think The Sopranos is the only other TV show where I had that experience, where the ending was both immediately shocking to me and then, like, months of rumination for me. But this is very different, obviously. Whereas The Sopranos, I had the reaction that literally everyone had,

which is, is my TV broken? It's such a boring reaction, but literally everyone had the same reaction. Whereas this, I was rattled. Like very, very rattled. Truly rattled, yeah. And not unhappy because I had no expectations of this show. I wasn't watching it being like, fucking Cooper had better marry Audrey.

I have no idea what I would be wanting from the end of this show. But the absolute ending freaks me out to this day, and I think it's amazing, and I think lots of things about it, but the shots of the forest at night with Laura's just screaming over it, that is the thing that freaked me out the most, watching at home in my dark room with no one else,

because my wife was like, I have no, every time she would check in with us, she would just be like, what the fuck is this? And I'd be like, well, it's Twin Peaks, but it's also very different. And she'd be like, okay, I'm going. You know, like, you know the- They've retitled it,

technically can't be season three, because they don't want the CBS executives. Experiences as a teenager, where maybe your parents check in with something you really love, at a moment that it's quite unwatchable. And they're like, ugh. And you're like, no, no, no, just come back, come back.

I'm gonna explain the X-Files to you in a way that makes sense. Like that would be my wife would like check in and it would be the guy in the prison with the giant pole with his face going, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr It had not be considered watchable television. I'm like, no, it's really, really good. See, what's interesting to me as someone who had not watched any of Twin Peaks, but has so many friends who are so obsessive and spends, is way too online,

the amount of stuff I got through cultural osmosis before finally watching all of this show and the things where I was like, yeah, this I'd gotten. And the amount of stuff that I felt like wasn't represented to me, that was surprising. And I think part of going into the return was just knowing like, well, this whole thing's legacy is that like it upended all expectations

and it sort of rewrites the rules of television. So the only thing I know to expect is to not expect anything and to not go in with any assumptions. So I'm less rattled by how much this show is not delivering the obvious sort of Twin Peaks legacy season, because I'm going in knowing that. And then even still, I got kind of tricked

in this final run of episodes of like, holy shit, like Cooper's doing fucking Avengers Endgame. He's going back and he's fixing it. Cooper's getting the Infinity Stones. Right, everyone's together. He and Diane are in love. fixing it. Cooper's getting the infinity stones! Right, everyone's together. He and Diane are in love. Like, I was just like, oh my god, Lynch is doing it. And I was like, part of me was suppressing this memory of just remembering everyone.

People at the time being like, what? Not only did he not answer most of the unresolved questions from the first two seasons in the movie, but he actually created new questions that he also hasn't answered. And I'm watching it and I'm like, he's actually gonna fucking tie everything together. Maybe the unresolved stuff is that we never go back to fucking Sky Ferreira, but like I can live with that.

And then somewhere across episode 18, basically from the start, where I'm just like, oh right, he's... There's something else that will happen here. Now I'm trying to think of the Avengers thing where he like stops, you know, Ray Wise from killing Jacques Renaud. Like, he's hopping through the whole show. Like, he's being awkwardly CGI'd into every single...

When it cuts back to Jack Nance... Hands off, Renaud! We need his evidence! When he starts reusing the original series footage in that way, I was just kind of like, I can't believe he's doing this. This feels like the kind of thing that he would avoid. No, I think that's a big part of that second to last episode is like how artificial that kind of narrative resolution is. Right, you're getting it.

Cooper's face is superimposed over. Right. This is a dream that we are having. We'll get to that. Freddy uses his green glove. We're gonna... Well, we have to talk about Freddy. We're gonna talk about Freddy for half an hour.

Listeners, it might surprise you to hear that I am all in on Freddy. That Freddy is so my kind of shit. Freddy was also a fan favorite in my home. What if the Artful Dodger had a green glove that could punch so good? I'll just make my little glovey, ain't it? I mean, you're doing the voice. That's what I'm saying. I was like, what does he sound like?

And I'm like, oh, it sounds like he's singing consider yourself. The whole thing with Jake Wardle, that actor, who I don't really know, is that when he's in the show, you're like, oh, this is someone doing the most exaggerated kind of cockney East End accent, right? This can't be real. And you realize, you know, that's just what he sounds like.

It must be what David Lynch loved about him. He has 20 minute YouTube videos that are all UK accents, where he shows off that he knows all the regional accents. And then I went to his website and it has this Endorsement I'll pull up so I can read it verbatim, but David Lynch being like I love these crazy voices he does That sounds like that sounds right there's a rugby player named Jake Wardle which talks with actor Jake Wardle's SEO But where's this you have that rugby player wishes he could punch anyone.

Yeah. The David Lynch quote is, Having seen his internet video of him doing many incredible accents, his talent and naturalness really impressed me. Jake was perfect for Freddie. You see a thousand people on the internet, but I knew Jake could do this. He's super smart and he's like Harry Dean.

He's just a natural. Hey, sure. Highest praise imaginable. He's just like Harry Dean. He's just like Harry Dean. You see a thousand people on the internet? I'm like, is David Lynch watching Accent News? 100% surfing the internet.

Superhighway. Sean Baker's on TikTok looking for like hot new sex workers for his next movie and David Lynch is on there searching like hilarious cogs. One thousand impressions in one minute guys. Yeah. Hopefully this is not a betrayal of trusted information but someone who knows someone who works with David Lynch told me recently like I was like have you heard anything about his health and everything and they're like you know he's like bummed that he, you know, he feels like he has to stay at home, but he's like fairly happy and he just watches body cam footage on YouTube all day. And I was like, that's the least surprising thing I've ever heard.

And he was like, when people come over, he's like, you won't believe this video I saw. We should all be so lucky. Yeah, I mean, he can do whatever he wants, obviously. Also, he should make a fucking body cam movie. Well, it's also like I remember, I think part of the gravitas of Twin Peaks beyond The Return, beyond like, oh, I have 25 years of sort of like subconscious emotional attachment to this as an idea. Also like, oh, this is like probably the filmmaker of my life. And this maybe is

the last thing he's ever going to do. And he probably understood that while he was making it. But then it's lovely to remember that like after this, he made a Netflix short film where he talks to a monkey for 20 minutes. Where he like gives a monkey the business. I actually think the monkey is giving him the business. You're right. They're kind of, you know what, they're kind of antagonizing each other. the business. I actually think the monkey is giving him the business. They're kind of, you know what, they're kind of antagonizing each other.

Tete a tet. Yes. It's for real. And he's done like a, right? Hasn't he done a bunch of little short films on the Internet that I've never watched, you know, about like bugs and bees and stuff? Like, he did a bunch of weather reports.

Obviously, he did. Didn't he do a music video? Yes, some of the music videos we watched, I feel like were post-return. Right. Yeah. Yeah, the bug stuff I now I'm remembering, it's on YouTube, you can watch it.

It's just like him standing by a tree where there's like a bug and he's like talking about what the bug is doing. He just did that recent album with Krista Bell. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I'm gonna take us through these episodes a little bit. So part 14, if you guys can cast your memory back all the way there.

Sure. Is the, I had a Monica cast your memory back all the way there. Sure. Is the, I had a Monica Bellucci dream episode. Oh my God. But is- David. Go ahead. That was the quote I wanted to use. You just reminded me.

There you go. It was when I was watching that episode. It was longer ago, so I was like, why can't I pull this? It wasn't a last episode thing. But I had another podcast about Monica Bellucci. Um, that is, that is the funniest line in the entirety of Twin Peaks. Sure. Mostly because it's delivered by him.

It becomes funnier when you cut to the dream and you're like, oh, he got Bellucci. Right. But also that the reaction from the other agents in Monica Bellucci. That's the thing. It feels like- That Gordon is so horny and they're all so annoyed with Gordon for being horny, like, as part of his crime process.

As a threat. But I'm like, that is somehow, in a certain way, it feels like the most vulnerable thing David Lynch has put in any of his work. The admission that it's like, another dream about a booksemy star of European cinema. Well, I think also they had some, like, French money and needed to shoot something in Paris.

Is that for real? I believe that. I think that's right. Because that's actually shot in Paris. Right. Oh, no, it's absolutely there in some cafe. Or maybe he just wanted to go hang out with Monica Bellucci. This is what I would do if I was in my 70s with showtime money. And he must have seen Monica Bellucci when she emerges as an actress, like, you know, like, and been like, I never got to make a movie with this person.

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

That's basically all that's going on here, I think. Right. And the Monica Bellucci thing is so, it's so funny to me, his choice, in a series where we have so many hyper-famous people show up as like surprise new characters to introduce her as herself in a dream. Ha ha ha. Because this is the episode, I guess, where,

is this the episode where Andy gets summoned to the fireman's house, right? Yes. You know, the other... the zone, the other world. Mm-hmm. Right? And discovers... Discoveres the woman in the woods. The woman at Nido, the woman... The eyeless woman in the woods.

Mm-hmm. Right? That's the main stuff that happens, but I get... What else? Well, this is also the episode that introduces Freddie. Uh, Freddie's lore. Freddie's backstory. Freddie's long monologue about his magic glove. Go ahead. Sarah Palmer, right, at the end of the episode. Uh, it reveals that she has a face behind her face

and kills someone at a bar. She diggy-chins a man? That scene rocks so fucking hard. Yeah, I think this whole episode's incredible. This is like top to bottom exceptional shit. Yes. That's my very astute criticism. Uh-huh, that it's exceptional.

My intellectual analysis is this top to bottom really good shit. That's kind of the last major thing that Sarah Palmer does, right? I was thinking, because when I was watching these episodes through, I was like, oh, is this the last time we see this person? But we see her smashing the picture and sort of like crawling around her screen. But another thing that fucking tricked me is I'm just like, Oh my God, he's going to bring like new Laura Palmer to like a point of resolution with her mother and then the ultimate rug pull of just like, I'm never giving you that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, what's your take on Sarah Palmer in Toompeek's The Return? Open question, but I was asking Jane. They're very kind of you. Thank you, David. I remember this like nerd message board conversation

while it was airing after episode eight, right? Where it's like, is that girl Sarah Palmer? And even if it's not, I feel like it's an association that is invited timeline-wise, right? Mark Frost has sort of nodded to like, yeah, that's what we're going for. And just this like, if the show is this like post-nuclear origin story of like American innocence or something, like that bug crawling into her mouth is like equivalent to the rot

of her, you know, life that she's like a monster now. As evil superpower. And the thing we see in her face beyond being like incredible David Lynch CGI, I love his CGI. Because it looks terrible. Um... But then as we talked about in episode eight, you're like, this is some of the best CGI I've ever... Sometimes immaculate, often terrible. I mean, but this look is unbeatably...

Oh, yeah. Right, both. Yes, but I think he knows it's both. Oh, totally. It's just, it's what's fascinating about episode eight and our guests on that kind of route lift throughout the theory that it's like... He's giving you purposefully janky, incredibly artificial, unsettling kind of like,

this feels like a technical error CGI. Even the cell phone screens. For most of it, in a way that makes the stuff in episode eight feel more real, when in your mind you don't question its reality because you're like, well I know what CGI looks like in this show. Yeah, I think like emotionally,

just like Sarah Palmer as like, demon, it like tracks emotionally, right? I think it's like an interesting, interesting space to leave that character in. Especially, right, if you're going to do a thing that's like, okay, what's everyone doing almost 30 years later?

Yeah. Sarah Palmer's still alive? Yeah, she would be this like festering demon. I remember being like very excited to see what like Ray Wise was gonna do in Twin Peaks The Return before it aired, cause Leland is just like such a figure. Absolutely.

And he's like not really in there. Nope, I mean we see him in the red room. He's got 10 incredible seconds. Yep, I mean he's got a great face. I'd love to see his face always. And he's sort of like, when we do see him, you know, he's like, fine, Laura. He's like this, like, he's like the tragic version of him.

Right. Whereas like Sarah Palmer as this like person who like lived through it and is still there freaking out in the supermarket is like, got more of the Bob style rot inside of her now. But the rot is the big thing. I mean I feel like as much as Twin Peaks as a project at large is about anything it feels to me like it is about the way those things fester right? The way darkness and pain lives inside of people

and how it gets there and what it does to us psychologically and physically and all of that whether It is the kind of darkness that causes you to inflict pain onto other people or is the byproduct pain inflicted on to you? And there is this I feel like how would I put this? Situations like the The Palmer family right in real life when these stories blow up in the news and there are these horrible tragedies, these terrors happening within families. Unspoken abuse.

Totally. In the home, right. I feel like so often the line of questioning goes straight to like, and the wife was just there? She was in the house? This was going on for years? How did she not notice this was happening under her nose? How did she not stop it? They're sort of this

There almost becomes I don't want to say a shifting of blame But this like extension of culpability to like how is this possible this the mother failed her? you know like the father was the one inflicting the damage but the mother is the one who in a certain way is harder to get your head around. And I don't think that Sarah Palmer is unsympathetically portrayed in the original series, but in the plottiness of the original series, it's a lot easier to just be like, so this is a woman who just gets sort of hopped out

of her mind and then imagines a horse and then stuff happens and she's oblivious to it. And there's something about settling in the reality of, as you said, like, who would this woman be 30 years later? She would be a fucking mess. Like, once things came to the surface and she was no longer able to deny what had happened and just had to live with that for decades and outlive the rest of her family, she would just be not a functional person in one way or another. Yeah.

But there is also, because I feel like even between Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me, there's a reassessment of the, maybe not a rewriting, but it feels like Lynch is pulling back some of the genre metaphor. I think we see, right? Don't we kind of see her aware of it in Fire Walk with Me? Leiland is basically drugging her and she's willingly taking the drugs. I think there's an implication that she knows what's going on in the home. I think he's sort of trying to reckon with both sides of it realistically. Right? And then there is the expressionistic side of it of her turning into a monster who can rip people's chins off. But it is like there is a degree of complicity that eats at her and there's

a degree of like genuine victimization that eats at her and both there's a degree of genuine victimization that eats at her. And both of these things have created someone who is just incapable of existing with other people or existing with a framed photo in her house. It is all just this sort of negative energy festering inside of her that's looking for any release. What do you make of her smashing up the picture in the later episode, in part 17? Because that's when we're... That's when... Has Laura been sort of plucked out at that point,

and we're sort of trying to reckon with that? I don't, yeah. I never quite... I haven't really ever figured that out. Not that I need to. Look, I've lived with this for like fucking 12 hours, right? But my read on it in the moment is it's like her attacking the representation of like her life collapsing. Laura, Laura's prom picture.

Yeah, like not Laura as a person, but like Laura's prom picture, which is this image that has been like constantly repeated throughout the show as the sort of like tragic beauty, it is a perfect snapshot of that moment. But the, I guess like, and I haven't really thought about this either, but like smashing up that picture right before like history is about to get rewritten to like remove her from that home with the, I think there is like an implication, right? Because when she takes off her mask,

the thing we see inside of her head is the monster from that machine in New York City at the beginning of the series that comes through. Right, the sort of... Which is like a Judy-adjacent thing. Jowdy, Judy thing. It's like... Again, the jokey, sort of, avengers. It's like, again, the jokey, like, sort of avengers the idea of like,

oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we had Bob meet Judy. Judy makes Bob look like shit. Bob came out of Judy. Judy barfed Bob one time when there was a nuclear explosion. But Judy's been around since fucking ancient, it's like X-Men Apocalypse, where they're like, oh, Magneto, oh, he's like a radical mutant. Well what about the mutant from the pyramids?

Did you ever consider there was a mutant there? What would he be like? I don't know, five, six, blue. He touched TVs a lot. Right. Sorry. No, I think you're right. Yes, yes, it's some version of that demon.

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

Yeah, the last part of episode eight. Right, that is represented in this very odd way, but does start to like fill in this notion that it's not like Sarah Palmer was this like oblivious woman who married a monster and then her life went to hell and all this horrible thing, you know, this damage stemmed out of it. Uh, there's shit that's been going on to Sarah Palmer since she was a small child, whether

you literally interpret it as like a bug went in her mouth, right? Weird people in the sky decided that she would be the vessel for pure good to fight pure evil or whatever. There is this degree of like now cosmic level of you are being used by people for other ends and to other means it's also funny that the right the You know Avengers of Twin Peaks the return is the fireman older right Briggs is floating head Uh-huh just sort of yeah Bob in the bubble Michael J. Anderson replaced by a tree. A tree with a brain on it.

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

Do you imagine if this show ended Avengers Endgame style with the end credit curtain call of everybody to try and fit music and then the signatures over the teak? LAUGHS Anyway, Freddy, the other thing I want to discuss from episode 14, do you guys have Freddy thoughts? I remember watching the scene in relative bafflement at the time. And James is a character that doesn't have much to do in the return.

We're happy he's there. Exactly. It's sort of a sweet thing. I like James a lot. I like James too. He looks great. Am I wrong in thinking that this is the... Look, we've obviously watched this show fairly spread out due to record scheduling and such.

Am I wrong in thinking that this is the first scene where you identify that he's a security guard? I think so. I feel like their job is seen him. He's at the Roadhouse, but he's usually wearing like a leather jacket He's he's performing he's coming in and street clothes Looking sexy. I don't know that he's looking so sexy. Wow. Okay. So my take is Jane is disagreeing my take that Bobby's looking sexy. Bobby looks incredible. My favorite character of the... Yes.

My favorite performance of the returning... I mean, apart from Kamala Klocklin's, you know, unbelievable multi-character work, I guess. But like, yes, Bobby's super sexy. You don't think so? You don't think James is working? I feel like there's a line early on, right, where isn't somebody like James had a motorcycle accident and he hasn't been quite right since then?

Poor James. We talked about this in other episodes, but do you know, Jane, that like he was part of a huge lawsuit against an acne medication that he said fucked up his face and lost him work and spent years in like David Lynch like testified on his behalf and people? There is this degree, it's a lot less tragically kind of like sexy than a motorcycle accident, that the James Dean kind of thing. But there was this feeling of like this guy's...

Accutane, he's sued Accutane. Yeah. It seems like he, like James in the original series, right, is like such a James Dean figure. And here he's more like a townie. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas Bobby's arc is more surprising, I guess.

Like that this is where Bobby ended up, but then just really tracks and he is very, he looks great with it. He'd be Johnny Knoxville, you know. He went silver and it worked perfectly for him. 100%. ["The Star- of the Year"] Ah.

Okay, great, the door to hell didn't ring. What's up? That's a weird sigh of relief. See, I was sighing but more in wistful memories, thinking back to all my favorite moments of 2024. You were sighing. A year of great moments. Yeah.

Let's talk about some of them. The Minions Return. Oh, thank God. Thank God the Minions Return. But Gru Rose. Gru Rose. Venom had his last dance. As far as we know. Wasn't Gru rising two minions movies ago? Okay, is that right? I think so. I think this was just straight-up Despicable Me 4. Oh, you're right. That's right. Right, but you're okay. This is embarrassing. Look, these are our

but you're okay, I take it back. This is embarrassing. Look, these are our fondest memories of 2024 and we can't even keep them straight. Well, you know, I'd say probably because I'm looking ahead to my plans in 2025. This is the reason why. Look, maybe one of our listeners is thinking about getting engaged.

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Minions the Rise of Gru is 2020. Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, sorry. Okay. David? Yes. I got great news. What's up? And it's kinda, it's of, look, sometimes you take great news for granted.

Like great news, David, you're alive. Yeah, great news. Love to hear it. There's oxygen in your lungs. Woo! The sun is in the sky. Okay. And this episode is brought to you by MUBI.

Ah, Curated Streaming Service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. But it's important to step back and really appreciate how lucky we are. Okay. To have our episode sponsored by MUBI. We love MUBI. We love them. It's a great service. Each and every film is hand selected on there.

You can stream the best of cinema anytime, anywhere. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. And sometimes you can walk out of your house, step, step, step, step, step, into a movie theater. That's a projector sound. Or if it's a digital projector.

Popcorn! Grrr. At this movie theater, the popcorn is sold by like a guy from like a baseball, like a baseball. Yeah, yeah, pop. Popcorn, like guys are watching a movie. He's like, this is my thing. Peanuts.

People come to this theater for me to do baseball popcorn sales, but in a movie theater. And all of that experience is brought to you by movie. No, it's not, but what is brought to you by movie is sometimes films that they put up on the big screens. Just what we like. We like that movie is holistically involved in movie culture.

And yeah, and they've been putting out a lot of interesting movies in recent times. Every year they've been stepping up their game. It's really exciting. Their new film, which is in theaters, US theaters on November 8th is Bird, the new film from Andrea Arnold. Now they phrase it here as the long awaited return to fiction filmmaking. It's been eight years.

And the last film she made, scripted feature length film, she made, was your favorite film of that year? 2016 Blanky, David Simms winner, American Honey, best picture for me. Yeah. Great movie. She also made Fish Tank, which I feel like a lot of people have seen. She made Red Road, she made Wuthering Heights, and her new movie is Bird.

It's a tender and compelling and beautifully surprising coming of age fable about life in the fringes of contemporary society kind of her strong suit That's absolutely right. Yes. She finds very interesting ways to explore right communities You might not see on film as often, you know, what's another thing? I love about movie They in their copy for the first time have answered for me definitively How to pronounce the name of the star. Go ahead. This film with its buzzy cast features

Barry Keown. That's right. Don't say the G. We know from Saltburn or I mean- Franz Rogowski. Ben Spanche's of insurance. Oh, sure. Anyway, but yes, and then you've got

Arthouse favorite, Franz Rogowski. Yes. Fringe Rogowski from Passages and Transit. Andine. Great movies. One of my favorite movies of the last couple of years. And then plus a revelatory central performance from a newcomer, Nikaia Adams. Another thing, Andrew Arnold has quite a track record.

Right, latest in a series of notable debut performances from Arnold, you got a canon of formidable female characters vying for freedom from oppressive systems. You know, you had Red Road, of course, you had Kate Dickey. Oh no, sorry, well yeah, Red Road was Kate Dickey. That wasn't a discovery. No, that wasn't, but in Fish Tank, you had Katie Jarvis, and in American Honey,

you had Sasha Lynn. And she's still, you know And she's still crushing it, seeing Sasha Lynn all over the place. Look, New York Times called it a beautifully shot, delicately moving coming-of-age story. Little White Lies said it's a magical, energetic Marvel from one of the UK's finest filmmakers, and David wouldn't know anything about that.

But she's the best, and the movie is really, really worth seeing. And it's really great to have a new Andrea Arnold movie out there. And it's in theaters. Here's what you can do. You can go to Mubi dot com slash bird for showtimes and tickets, see if it's playing anywhere near you. And additionally, you want to stream some great films at home. You can try MubBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check that's m-u-b-i dot-com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free and bird will

Eventually end up there bird bird But yeah, Freddie Freddie Yeah He's a boy from the East End of London who had an epiphany in an alley and met the fireman aka the giant and the Fireman told him to put on a big glove and he's never been able to take it off. If anyone tries, they essentially die because he's super strong. Right. Any questions?

No, perfect. No notes. I love it. I agree. It feels like a kind of a wild baffling thing to devote this much time to this late, but I was fully locked in. It was a concept that I believe Lynch had had for Jack Nance at some point. Interesting. Okay. Like, he's had the concept of the magic arm. It feels like a real, like, running rocket kind of thing. Right. Yeah.

What do you... Yeah, what do you say about Freddy? Just tension, right? But like, it's like the Mark Frost-David Lynch eternal tension that is playing out in funny ways in The Return, where I just always imagine Mark Frost being like, right, and like the green glove, maybe like the fireman summoned it and it's going to like knock Bob out at the right moment. David Lynch is like, sure, sure, sure.

Like can we get this Irish guy? There's an interview with Mark Frost where they asked him about like, some people were confused that Bob is defeated by a random character we basically meet for the first time by punching. And Mark Frost is like, yeah, it's called a deus ex machina. Like, it's clearly, they were just like, we wanted to resolve that, but we wanted to resolve it in this particular way. It's fun. It's very fun.

I love introducing a character this late and having a character basically announced, I have been sent here to resolve this show. Right, right. I've never really met any of you and have no relationship with any of you. I know James a little bit. If he was set up in episode two, maybe I would hate it because I'd just be like,

God, he's going to end up punching the guy. The fact that he's introduced so late makes it work for me. The other thing that I noticed for the first time, this watch through is that they're working at the Great Northern. Yes. They're both security guards there. And James goes down at the end of that whole sequence

to like check the boiler room, which is the same space that Cooper goes to. To like. To crossover. Right, like to fight Windermerell or whoever. No, no, no, to in episode whoever. No, no, no, to, um, in episode 17. Oh, right, right, right. It's like where he and, and it's like where he says goodbye to David Lynch.

Um, right, right, right, right. Um, so I guess... And like even when James... When James goes down there, it like, the show slows down a little bit to like give the space some power. Guy did not track that. I should, well, I'm gonna have to rewatch Twin Peaks The Return again.

I'm taking us to episode 15. Okay. Which begins with the moment you already referenced, Nadine, totin' the shovel. You know, reprogrammed by podcasting. Happy as a clam. Right. Yeah. Just walking up to Ed and being like,

I have been a huge pain in your ass, and you really should marry Norma. We should have resolved this decades ago. It would be funny if she said, she's a mega babe, like Norma's great, like I'm a lot. She's basically saying that. Yeah, she is basically saying that.

And Ed goes over to the Double R Diner, and it's a 10, 15 minute chunk, 10 minute chunk, basically, right? Like, it's the only, is it the only, like, classic Twin Peaks story that really gets resolved? It kind of feels like it. Are there any others? Log Lady, arguably. Sure. I mean, we see, see like codas for characters like that.

Yeah. But that feels like the only pure emotional resolution. Like a dangling thread that we never got to pick up. This is, one of the things I was surprised by watching the show for the first time, watching the first season in particular is how much of it is kind of just traditional prime time soap opera, that it is truly caught up in like purely emotional, interpersonal,

dramatic, interweaving plot lines. And that's the shit he's not largely concerned with. We're turning to revisiting, resolving, even commenting upon in this. We dip in with new soapy storylines like Caleb Landry Jones or Amanda Safries. But those are things that also don't resolve within the show. They do not? No, no. I think you're right that that's the only classical original Twin Peaks thing that gets that kind of like emotional bow tying. Yeah.

It's wonderful. It's wonderful and very satisfying and beautifully acted. I mean... And that song. I love, you know, Ever McGill so much. And he was one of the many original Twin Peaks cast members who had basically retired. Right. He wasn't really working anymore.

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

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

and Sherilyn Fenn can yell at her husband. Right, or right, or Everett can have a plotline that's just like him yelling in a convenience store one time and they're like anyway, so or I mean I love Ben Horne in The Return, but Ben Horne's plotline being like him sitting sadly behind a desk being like I feel like I hear a noise and Ashley Judd's like, yeah, kind of. He's like You know, he's not saying out loud, but I feel like he's just sitting there being like, I feel like I hear a noise. And Ashley Judd's like, yeah, kind of. He's like, you know, he's not saying out loud, but I feel like he's just sitting there being like, am I shitty? Was I like an evil villain?

And now I just stuck here? Like, I don't know. So that's nice. Do we think that Nadine was healed by the podcast? By Mr. Yeah, seems like it. Look, we all know the podcasts are unilaterally a positive force for culture. She's like dug her shit out. Like, the shovel worked.

She dug her shit out, but also it's like, you know, she was engaging in like the marketplace of ideas. Sure. She was activated. Podcasts have never led to the wrong people being elected president. They're good! She was having a parasocial relationship. Yes. And those are positive. And they always lead to real relationships. Yup. Absolutely.

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

It meets him in this one and then Richard Horne very quickly gets axed in the next one. Which is another, nothing about Twin Peaks The Return is bad. Everything is good. And I'm glad everything happened. But it is interesting that we're subjected to Richard Horne, a very, very tough character to look at and interact with the behavior of.

Yeah, a pus level pox upon the world, yes. And you're like, what is this? You know, what's going on? Who is this? And then you realize like, okay, this is like, Mr. C basically like raped Audrey Horne like when she was comatose, right? After the bomb went off at the end of Twin Peaks Season Two

and created this monster. Right, I mean, this is like one of the darkest things. Yeah, it's awful. And then it's like, well, what's, well then why is he in the show apart from to like run kids over and be evil? It's like, he's just another Dougie. He's another thing the doppelganger can use to avoid death.

Like a decoy. Right, another sort of like... And that's all he does and then he dies. It's sort of satisfying when Richard Horn is exploded. Yeah. But I don't know, I mean, is there anything about Richard Horn I'm not grasping or like what do you think Lynch wanted to achieve with that character apart from freaking me out?

It almost seems like, um... It's been 12 years since I've watched The Wire, but remember when there was, what was his name, the bad guy towards the end of The Wire? Marlo Stanfield? Yeah, Marlo Stanfield. Where it's basically like, what if there was Avon Marksdale with no charisma, it was just terrifying. I think maybe, especially when Richard Horn first appears,

he's sort of like, his sociopathy is like very reminiscent of a classic like Lynch sociopathy, but he's just this like... Yeah, it's just like charmless. Right, completely uncharismatic with this terrifying face. I mean, I love him. That almost feels like... It almost feels like a no country for old men kind of like in the same way that he's commenting on what would happen to a town like Twin

Peaks over time that even if in the 90s it felt a little Mayberry the like small town he was presenting and out of time these are the exact kind of towns that have that have come upon hard times right and are under a lot of stress and like the version of evil that exists now isn't even charismatic. It's like Chad. Right. Right. That this is like an evil predator in a way. You know? Like, and it's not even disguised in anything.

Right. Like, it's the evil is completely naked in Richard, where it's like there's lots of evil and twin peaks lots of characters that are suffused and he doesn't feel supernatural. No he's just telling people and running over children. He's neither Bob nor Leland Palmer right? Like there are people who feel like they exist purely as supernatural forces and there are people who have like deep darkness within them and are like putting on a show on top of it. And here's just this awful kid who just walks through the world, runs through the world, drives through the world, doing horrible things and continuing basically unabetted until like a greater evil explodes him.

I was gonna say something that I hesitate to say out loud because it is a criticism of when Peaks the Return. Okay, go ahead, go ahead. I don't really... I don't really like Evil Cooper. Oh, well, that's a major criticism, I would say. Like, you don't like his vibe? Like...

I don't think it really lands. Like, I like a lot of his scenes. I especially like him in the prison when they come to interview him and his voice is weird. Do you like the arm wrestling fight with the Goon Kratta? I love the arm wrestling. That's pretty fun. But I remember that scene in the hotel room early on, right?

Where he shoots the lady who's... He's brutalizing that woman, you know, and it's like classic Lynch stuff. And... And, I mean, he kind of resolves, like he just gets shot, and then that's it for, you know, Bob comes out of his belly, and it's like... And I know, I imagine that it's like David Lynch giving Kyle McLaughlin, like, a very clear direction to, like, be a little bit, like, vacant in the performance, right? Like, the performance is very, like...

It's like both pastiche, but also kind of just, like, blank. Duggee and Mr. C are both kind of, like, hollow performances in an interesting way. Right, and obviously Duggee's very funny, and, like, the way the world works around Duggee is very funny. The most interesting he is as Mr. C is the prison definitely is just spooky. But in the episode 17, I think, when he shows up to the sheriff's office and

is kind of mimicking being normal, it's like Sheriff Truman, you know. It's interesting. It's a little interesting to see him make a little bit of effort to pretend not to be a scary psychopath. But I just think like Cooper in the mirror, and maybe I'm like expecting something, which is a bad thing to do with this, right? But Cooper in the mirror at the end of season two, Bob laughing, there's like a psychosis

that's like entered the equation that is just sort of like... Not there with Mr. C. Not there with Mr. C. Mr. C's just bad. Mr. C's just bad, but he's like not even bad in a way that like... And I like... Mr. C's just bad, but he's like not even bad in a way that like... He's bad in this like more mythical way

than Richard Horn is bad, but not in a more like interesting way. Okay, so this leads to a question for me. There's the scene, I think it comes in the following episode perhaps? 15? Uh... Maybe episode 16. Um. Where Diane gives the whole explanation of being sexually assaulted by Mr. C. Yes, that's in episode 16. But then that turns out to be a tulpa? Yes, that is the Diane we've dealt with for the whole show is a tulpa, is a creation. But she is telling the story because so much of our

time with this Diane is like what was the falling out between her and Cooper? Why is she so hostile to Cooper? And there is a part of me as a viewer that is still, as much as I'm trying to disabuse myself of this, processing some of these things like traditional television storytelling and going like, what's the backstory reveal going to be? And you're ready for it to be some kind of like TV drama betrayal and not Laura Dern giving a very sobering five-minute monologue recounting a sexual assault by a beloved character, right?

I know it's Mr. C and it's not Dale Cooper, but even just in her playing that scene is deeply, deeply upsetting. And you're like, oh, this is like a more harrowing thing than you're even kind of led to expect from this reality. And then almost immediately she's dissolved. She zaps into non-existence. Well, they shoot her. Yeah.

And then she goes to the red room and she says, I know fuck you. When she's told she's manufactured and she turns into a seed. Yes. when she's told she's manufactured, and she turns into a, you know, seed. Yes, but that coming very close to the kind of, like, very quiet, passive reveal that, um... Uh, what's his name? Richard Horn?

Richard Horn is the son. Yes. Uh, is also, uh, the result of Mr. C... Sure. ...sexually assaulting Audrey, does make it feel like, oh, in the immediate aftermath of that moment in the Mirror at the end of season two,

does he go on like a maniacal spree of evil? That seems like, yeah. And he like builds up a criminal network. Right. Right. And not just like kind of funny evil, like arm wrestling, but like raping the most beloved women in the world of Twin Peaks. One of whom might be in a coma. Right. Right. To this day.

Right. And what we're getting now by jumping this many years ahead, just from the nature of when the show actually started filming, is this guy almost like running on fumes. Like there is something kind of like bored and checked out by this guy who is like... Well, no, he's just creating Rube Goldberg machines so he can't be zapped by another zone or whatever. But I think there's even the implication, right? Because all of this is sort of thrown into some new equation by Cooper in 18, right?

Who seems to be this fusion of all Coopers. We'll talk about it. Absolutely. And there's this like... Watching it this time and thinking about like, okay, we get this kind of convoluted story about how Cooper and David Bowie and Gordon Cole launched this plan like, you know, 25 years ago, and it was all leading towards capturing Judy. That like, there's almost this feeling that like, Mr. C is part of the plan. Like, Mr. C isn't even a...

Right, it's a... Like an antagonist. I meant to, you know, it's the Joker. I was supposed to go to jail. That was part of the plan, yes. And that like, I imagine there's something that's being said, right, about like the... the myth of Agent Cooper.

Right, which I think is what the finale is about. Mm-hmm. But I still don't think it's a very interesting performance or character. That's fair. I mean, so I feel like what you're saying also is like, when Bob is in Leland, right? Like Leland, classic Leland from Twin Peaks. Like that's such a fascinating, like, wrestling between, you know, this horrible darkness and this real person and Ray Weiss is so good

and the mania is so interesting. And right, like Mr. C is just like, yeah, what if Bob was in, in like a Golem body, basically? He doesn't even seem like Bob. Right. I mean, no, because Bob, you know... Bob's drooling everywhere. And Bob is, as the kids say now, serving cunt, right? Like, Bob is so showing. Are the kids saying that now?

I don't know. Theatrical, right? Are your children saying that now? Bob has crazy monologues, you know, talking about his death bag. Death bag, yeah. But I'm like, if David Lynch and Mark Frost... Where's Mr. She's like, hello. How are you? He squishes someone's head and then like moves on.

If David Lynch and Mark Frost had made season three in 1991 or whatever, is that what we would have gotten? I believe that they've said on the record that it would have turned out that they were all aliens. Hell yeah. And creamed corn is the food that they eat to survive. There was definitely lots of plans for UFO stuff. Like it was gonna be X-Files before X-Files. Because that's all the implications at the end of season two of like,

yeah, Garland Briggs has been tracking UFOs from a weird station and there's a lot of stuff going on. They definitely had a Evil Cooper plan, certainly. It was not gonna open with whatever season three of Twin Peaks in 1992 of like, Evil Cooper is gone and we're back to regular Twin Peaks. There was gonna be an arc for evil Cooper. I'm saying if that had happened at the time, do we think they would have given us the version of,

oh, this is really Bob in Cooper's body. That seems like that's who it is more, what even where's Annie as a line is like there's so much more color in it. Totally. I think. It's an amazing line. But there's something that like is carried holistically across the show, which is this kind of sad hollowing out of everything and everyone.

Sure. And even the warmest scenes on the show, the scenes that are kind of satisfying as like, oh, look, it's our old friends having a conversation again in a location we remember. The way that Lynch is playing with time in the show, that he is like leaving these odd pauses in and stretching scenes out beyond their natural or kind of expected rhythms,

does make everything just feel kind of odd and off in a way where to a certain degree, like, we have these new characters and these new environments that are being established that are inexplicable. And every time we go back to sort of legacy stuff, it feels like they're almost stuck in like a historical reenactment mode. You know? Like, here are these older people showing up wearing the same costumes in the same spaces. Same hairstyles. Kind of doing a version of what they were doing before, but yet he's not trying to get them to fully,

I don't know, hit the same target. There's something to me, I mean, I'm still processing all of this. This is all very new for me. And I understand where you're coming from, but there's something I find kind of more profound and upsetting in the fact that like, Mr. C is just kind of boring and shitty.

Yeah. Yeah, he's boring and shitty. That it's like we missed out on the period of him being a fun supervillain and now he's just an awful guy, like a kind of awful boring guy. He's lived so long as like a supernatural force possessing a body of good that now he's just settled into some routine. Other things that happened in part 15 that I wanted to mention.

The insane sort of snippet scene between Caleb Blanchard Jones and Alicia Witt. Right. It's incredible. Sort of resolving a story there, but also leaving a lot open to you. Have we seen Gersten, Alicia Witt's character, in any other episode? Yeah, you see her briefly, like, hiding on a staircase. Yeah, that's right. Like, a few episodes prior.

But, like, obviously she's in Twin Peaks as a young actor. Because she knows David Lynch from Doom. And she plays the piano in that scene is also kind of Anything you guys want to say about that? I mean it perhaps a dumb podcast statement, but Watching this I was like, oh this must have been the thing that made Oz Perkins hire her for long legs Which I think is an extraordinary performance or you and I like Alicia a lot and talk about her a lot. Major crush. Formative crush for you. Sibyl.

Long legs. I was like, I genuinely had no idea she had this in her. She's never shown this before. Oh, and then you're seeing this. And I'm seeing this, I'm like, oh, this is the one other time she's shown this. It's like great writing. Yeah, it is. It is.

What does he say about like bluebirds or something? Yeah. writing. Yeah, it is. It is. What does he say about like bluebirds or something? Yeah, it's also that magic thing that this show can do where it's like we're just gonna give you right this kind of little master class Almost just sort of floating in space and you can watch it and experience it and then move on and there's sort of this implication of like he has murdered Amanda Seyfried, right? And now is- Going to kill himself, probably. Yeah. Yeah. And just like that that all kind of wraps up as this,

another one of these like half satisfying, if that much echoes of like another dead blonde girl, you know, is- Right. I mean, that's a very good point. And one that is not even shown on screen, is never sort of like referenced again. That it's an implication that like the cycle is starring again. There is another death in this town that is probably going to shake people to their core. And the most like memorable moment of that whole plotline,

I think, is like Amanda Seyfried's close-up in the car, right? Like after she does a dr— Like just like that's David Lynch, just like look at beauty. Yes. And I feel, yeah, that is like an image people, you know, like post all the time, like the recall so fondly. It's also like beauty engaging with beauty.

Like it's like a beautiful face looking at the wonder of the sky, listening to a perfect pop song. Like it is this moment of purity in the life of someone who already is like trapped in cycles of hell. Other things, the death of poor, poor Patrick Fischler in Vegas where he gets shot and explode, like there's a dummy of him

that just like explodes. Yeah. It's very cool. You have Hooper watching Sunset Boulevard and hearing the name Gordon Cole and, you know, jamming a fork into a socket. That's sort of the conclusion of whatever. He's doing it. Duggee Cooper.

It unlocked in him. He's ready to come back. Where I guess you feel like you're like, yay, like, finally, we're gonna get some, yeah, he'll be back. Now the show can start 16 hours later, I think to some people, yeah. Oh, and of course, farewell to the log, but to Margaret. This is incredible. Unbelievable, yeah. Which I watch both times, just hushed tone,

kind of like, which I watch both times like just hushed tone kind of like, you know, it's yeah it's beautifully performed but also just like You know, I don't know. It's I love it when Twin Peaks is like purely emotional in that way Do you remember this thing that the New York Times tried to push that did not take? Where they would record, like, prominent elderly figures delivering their own kind of eulogy that they would post as video after they died. No, but that's awesome. And the first one they did was, David, what's the name of the humorist who had the lawsuit

for coming to America? Art Buchwald. Art Buchwald. The famous Washington Post political satirist and humorist. Thank you. So they posted this video on the New York Times site that was like, I'm Art Buckwald and I just died. And I saw it on the local news and they interviewed one of the New York Times editors and he's

like, I mean, that immediately goes down in history as one of the greatest leads in the history of newspapers. And I was like, you're calling your own shot to a major degree, right? And they only did a couple of them and felt like it didn't stick with the public and they abandoned it. But he was stating it as like, this is a thing we're doing and we're going to stockpile them in that way rather than just running some obituary we've have saved for years, filed away, we get to let people speak in their own voice. And I think part of the notion was the profundity of someone recording something that they know will only be heard after they are gone.

And I feel like the Log Lady scenes have that feeling to them where it's like, I mean, he's presumably doing one day of stockpiling five or six scenes. I think she was like a day or two away from passing away. Totally. It's like her final days of life, she's on like oxygen and she's delivering like scenes that will be distributed across 18 episodes, but almost definitely will outlive her. And I think that's what you're saying the weird effect of how sacred this final goodbye feels is that you know it is being

delivered by someone who knows that this message will outlive them? Yeah. No, it almost feels like I shouldn't watch it. Right? Like, it's like this is too sort of intimate and private. Right. Versus I'm Art Buchwald and I just died felt jokey. But it's also like the show, right? Like, so many of these episodes end with an in memoriam. So much of the cast passed away like right after they released it. We keep talking about this. It's very... There's something very haunted about it and a lot of it is, look, he had an older cast for a network show to begin with

and he waited many decades to return. But it's also elegiac for David Lynch. Yeah, no, it's... Absolutely. It's, um, I think there is this feeling that even after two films, I'm like, making films is fucking tiring. When I'm 70, or like you have to find ways to like make it your life. If it's just, if it's separate from your life, your life is going

to have this weird hole in it. Well, this is like so much of the fucking David Lynch thing is this whole life being designed around creativity. And him basically being like, I am monastic in like designing the entire structure of every day of my life around developing work, creating work at the expense of perhaps all other areas of my life. But it feels so, I mean, he seems well loved by at least some of the people he collaborates with. Absolutely. And it doesn't seem like he has regrets about it, but you watch those sort of longer form interviews with the documentaries about him and he is just sort of like, these are the decisions I've made.

This is how I have to, it is monastic in a way where it's like, I feel a higher calling to a thing. These are the sacrifices I have to make. I'm happy with them. But I do think when you're staring down the barrel of like, is this one of the final things I get to make of this size and your whole life has been devoted to making things like this, it is a very bittersweet experience.

Yeah, I mean, in that sex scene in episode 18 is just like... It's so... I mean, talk about sort of a funereal or, you know, like... Yeah, it feels like a death ritual. It's also, I mean... Which is, that's how I fuck. Always. If you're not fucking like a death ritual,

you're not fucking. If you're not fucking like a death ritual, you're not fucking. We're summoning a portal right now and it ate to somewhere good, my friend. I call it Le Grandmoire, Le Poutinemoire. You're not giving it your all. I'm going to make you call me a different name and a different reality in a letter in the morning. And then vanish, yes. David?

David? AG1. And then vanish, yes. Yeah. David? David! AG1. You go for it. This is you take the ball and run. You're the AG1 boy here. Now let me say this. They sponsored us years ago.

I got the free sample. I got hooked. I signed up. I get the shipments every month. Yep. They have, excitingly, come back to the show. They're back. They sent me a new welcome kit. Yeah, I was like, I don't need the welcome kit I already got the monthly coming in. I gifted the welcome kit my sister now She's in possibly the most meaningful gift I could give to a family member who is stuck with the same

Temperament and digestive system that I have and it's a beautiful kit I hadn't you know, I've been in on a G1 and so long temperament and digestive system that I have. And it's a beautiful kit. I hadn't, you know, I've been in on AJ1 in so long, I forgot the quality of the kit because you get a one month supply, you get a dropper, you get a tub and a scoop and a shaker. You get everything you need and it's a lovely big green box. And maybe I'm jumping ahead here because let me just say,

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Reduce bloating and keep you regular it does it's damnedest to keep me regular You noticed any less less gas and bloating? Yeah you regular? It does. It's damnedest to keep me regular. You noticed any less gas and bloating? Yeah, I noticed that. Okay. I hope you notice it as well. Do you feel your digestion improves? Someone has to spend a lot of time around me. Do I feel my digestion improves?

Infinitely. Okay, well. Look, the greatest endorsement I give for AG1 is I know it works, because when I don't take it, things go sideways real quick. And I will say, I've had a lot of listeners and friends of the show in person come up to me and go, hey, do you mean what you say about AG1? I listen to those ads. I know sometimes you talk out of

both sides of your mouth because that product sounds pretty good. And I go, I swear by it. And I think AG1 can tell, I don't want to brag, I think they can tell that I mean it when I speak of my love of this product because they sent me a little surprise shipment recently that I texted to you guys They sent me an AG one ball cap. Oh, that's wonderful Griffin. It's just such great news. So start with a Incredible news I get to walk around town wearing a G want to top my head waltzing with pride My favorite company so start with a do you want to notice the difference for yourself? It's a great first step to investing in your health and that's why I'm so excited to be partnering with them.

I'm so excited, but Griffin is very, very excited. If you see me walking down these streets with a pep in my step and a certain relief in my stomach and you go, Griffin, what happened? What made you feel so good and sprightly? I'll just point to the top of my chapeau where it says AG1. Try AG1 and get a free bottle of vitamin D3K2

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Well, I think it's a great question. Bring the show to a halt. All right, Creek. Hello. Hi. What's up? Pretty worried, anxious, overwhelmed. You should probably give me a name Hooper dr. Hooper. Okay. Hello. Dr. Hooper. How are you doing? Oh, you're anxious and overwhelmed. Why are you anxious and overwhelmed? Well, usually I'm hunting a big game fish sharks

Barracuda. Oh Okay, you're Hooper from Jaws. Yes. Okay, so that's the character that you are and that's who you are That's who I am. You're Richard Dreyfuss's character Hooper. Correct. Hooper. Yes, and you're anxious Yes, okay cool. I think you met one of my friends recently in an ad read possibly. I don't keep track. Listen Usually I'm anxious about the sharks. Yeah, their teeth their jaws if you will right now I'm anxious about finding the perfect gift. Oh Well, it's overwhelming easier to handle. I know it can be overwhelming, but I have found the perfect spot. You have found the perfect spot?

Yes, for timeless gifts made from premium materials, you gotta check out Quince. Now I am for real a bit of a Quince addict. I'm gonna tell you, Hooper, I, you know, we get our little promo code. I can see the truth in your eyes. Yeah, we can get our little promo code as host of the show for the advertisers that we work with and we get a little

bit of freedom go get yourself a pair of pants try a nice walk around the house see if you like them I'm kind of locked keyed in with quints your quenna a lot of quints stuff guys have you guys done quints I got this really nice like kind of cashmere long shirt really warm warm. One of those experiences where, like, in the middle of the day I was like, I feel great. Why do I? Oh, this shirt is really, really soft and nice. That's what I was going to say. It's so soft.

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Okay, well in the sense you're lying. I was looking to get a gift for myself But oh, okay. Well, I need to change my wardrobe. Yeah. Well, that's the thing right now It's 90% Canadian tuxedo 10% wet suit. You're also soaking wet. Yeah, you've got to stop. That's why I got to wear the wet suit. Stop going in the cage. Because the denim doesn't play well in water. Look, I want to wrap this ad up, but I do want to tell you that no matter what your-

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When they go to the boiler room underneath the the bing bang and you have this sort of like three shot of now real Diane Cooper back in his body and agent Cole it does feel like as much as there are many many pivotal collaborators has had, even just the onscreen collaborators, there does feel, it feels like there's something about like, at the end of the day, it kind of comes down to these three. You know, like Lynch putting himself onscreen with two of his greatest like leads he ever found, and these people who felt like avatars for him to a certain degree, and also were the younger stars

that he developed, because a lot of his older analogs are gone now. It does feel like he's looking back on everything, and having the two of them have this incredibly tender, sad, sensitive love scene feels like part of that as well. Where the same song plays, right? Isn't it the same song from the radio in episode eight? Yes. That's this 1950s childhood hope. But like compare it to the way that like Laura Dern has sex in Wild at Heart.

You know? And it's like a wildly different thing. Like that is like playing under like guitar riffs. And it's like hallucinatory, like camera lingering on her body stuff. Not an exploitative way, but it's like very like a static shit. And here is just like the thing you actually rarely see in movies, I find, is like two people having sex in the dark. Yeah, but I mean, it's a well, let's talk about the sex scene in a second.

First, in part 16, okay, Cooper comes back. Cooper, real Cooper, I am the FBI Cooper. We also have the explosion of Richard Horne, which we talked about. Satisfying and yet also baffling, I would say, just as a sort of like, oh, okay. I'm happy to see him gone. Sure.

Sure. Cherry Horne watching from the distance. Yeah, yeah, having a weird time. We finally have the disposal of poor Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Lee getting murdered by a random Polish guy. Yeah, I love this guy. Just like fuck you.

Basically just in like a parking disagreement. I guess so. I don't know what I'm supposed to think if there's anything deeper going on there. You also have the FBI watching being like, should we intervene? What? It feels like shitty people are just getting rid if there's anything deeper going on there. You also have the FBI watching, being like, -"Should we intervene?" -"What?" It feels like shitty people are just getting rid of each other,

so what's the conflict here? There's poor neighborhoods. People are under a lot of stress. That's another character we never go back to, is the Haley Gates with the small child. Oh, so good. There's some moment, like some scenes in this show reminded me of Breaking Bad to the point where I was like,

was David Lynch watching Breaking Bad? And was just kind of like... That reminded me of Breaking Bad to the point where I was like, was David Lynch watching Breaking Bad? And it was just kind of like... That neighborhood feels very Breaking Bad. Right, because it's sort of post-recession. The scene with the guy from Lost Highway where he does the coin in the air and stays in the air. That scene always felt very Breaking Bad coded to me.

I'm like, I wonder if David Lynch was just like... Maybe he thought it was awesome, yeah. And the way that scene is just this extended mishap feels very like post-Cohen Brothers, you know? Right. Yeah, we never see Haley Gates again. I remember I read an interview with Mark Frost where someone was like, what was going on with that? And he was like, I just say the people in another world talk backwards.

She's saying like, one, one, nine. And I was like, I love it that they just think about this stuff. Yeah. People with a foot in another world. Sure. I think that's how he's putting it. Yeah. Yeah. That's where we get people under a lot of stress. Right. Yep. Yep.

God, I love those guys. But yeah, Miss Cooper's back bids farewell to Janie E and Sunny Jim. Says, don't worry, you're gonna get a great Dougie Jones sent to you essentially in the mail. They recognize that he is not their husband and father. Right.

Diane Tulpa is destroyed after the monologue we discussed. And then it's turned into a seed. Great stuff. And I guess we've talked about a lot of this stuff already. Audrey does her dance. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I think that's great. I mean, I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great.

I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great.

I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great. I think that's great didn't want to spoil anything. And also because I think you can do whatever you want with Twin Peaks The Return.

And it isn't a thing where I'm like, I've solved the show. Can you give us your read on the Audrey thing? Can you unpack it a little more? She gets blown up in the finale of season two. Everyone forgets that plot line because it's bizarre. It's incredible, though. It's awesome, but a safe deposit box blows her up, I guess.

And so I guess the implication is she's never recovered and that she was assaulted and had a baby in hospital, I guess and so I guess the right the implication is she's never recovered and that she was assaulted and had a baby In hospital I guess in like, you know, but like that and that's Richard horn, but all of this is in evil mind Yeah, it's a representation of what's happened to her. I guess right? I mean, that's the simplest way to think about it But I think there's probably unbelievably bleak Sure, it'll be yeah a little That's unbelievably bleak. Sure, it's a little bleak.

Yeah, a little? But the scene in the Roadhouse touches other characters, who we see elsewhere, right? Like, it feels to me like this, like, layered, you know, like each space is its own, like, memory, you know, its own dream of another space. And I think she's like, she touches the rest of the show just enough for it not to quite work.

That it's this like own separate unreality, right? And it speaks to how Audrey in Twin Peaks is in the high school, but not really friends with any of those characters and quickly moves beyond that storyline. And is often in her own weird storyline. Like with One-Eyed Jax or the bank or whatever. You know, like where she's kind of doing her own thing. Girl bossing to make the Lodger better business.

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

Yeah, I don't know. There's just like something in David Lynch's gaze on her here in general, but especially during that dance that I find affecting and upsetting in a way. The way that she's not Audrey anymore. I think you said something that's affect earlier in the record, but that it's like her dancing to her own theme song is an acknowledgement of like, we can't go back. This wrestling with the sort of nostalgia

and the legacy of the show, where it's like, it's this character almost tortured by the fact that she can't be original Audrey anymore. It would be funny if she danced to Sharp Dressed Man instead. They were just like, because they danced to Sharp Dressed Man. In my constant crusade to get Ben to like ZZ Top. ZZ Top's in to fix the return. They call it out, don't they? They go like...

Yeah. And now, Sharp Dressed Man. People are like, this song rules. Ben should like this. Why doesn't Ben like them? Is this also... And it's right after Eddie Vedder plays. Yes. But under a fake name. He's playing a character, right? He's playing as his birth name. Oh, interesting. I think so.

Richard Severus III or something like that. Edward Louis Severus III. Oh, yeah. That was a good name change. Yeah. He figured it out. Part 17 is right, is the satisfying conclusion in a way to Twin Peaks The Return. Gordon lays out to everybody like, I figured it out. Part 17 is right, is the satisfying conclusion

in a way to Twin Peaks The Return. Gordon lays out to everybody like, so I've been on the tail of a mythological evil force named Jodie, Judy, whatever, for the last 25 years. He's like, okay, it's episode 17, we've got some stuff to tell you. Hey, Albert, I've been hiding something. I guess I owe you guys.

Jeffreys was in league with me, possibly, you know, Cooper was sort of involved too. And so that's really what we've been working on. And now Cooper is back and we're gonna go to Twin Peaks Sheriff Department, like where he's going to like finally have this big showdown and they have a big showdown because the... I guess it's like Mr. C, the doppelganger, he's trying to use the portal to go somewhere else, right? This is what's totally... And the fireman kind of like pulls some levers

and Garland Briggs' head wobbles a bit. And he's like, no, you get sent to Twin Peaks instead. But he, wasn't he kind of already in Twin Peaks? That's what I don't because like Richard is there. And then he like enters a portal. Yes. Yeah. He goes, I think he goes to like the portal that we saw earlier up in a portal. Yes. I think he goes to like the portal that we saw earlier up in the mountains.

Yes. But I think he's trying to go somewhere else, right? And he gets sent to Twin Peaks. That's right, he's a little like what? When he gets to the sheriff's department. And you know, he is shot triumphantly by Lucy who figures out how cell phones work and that there are two Coopers.

And the woodsmen come to do their little... I'm doing the woodsman. But I guess Bob comes out. The orb comes out. I don't know what's supposed to be different at this point. Maybe it's just time for no more Mr. C. Like, Bob's just gotta go somewhere else. Well, the other thing that's different is that real Cooper is there. So I guess that's part of it, right?

Like Bob is no longer able to like, heal in his body. I remember being sort of like, cause I was watching it this time to watch sort of like, how they get from one space to another. And it is really strange that like Cooper, Evil Cooper gets to Twin Peaks. Right, all the way there.

Then has to go to an alternate dimension to get to the Sheriff's Station. But it almost feels like that... It's like the whole series, you know, they've been trying to get to Twin Peaks, they've been trying to return. And now, like, finally, we've reached the point in the narrative where, like, both of them can combine in some sense.

Well, the other key difference is that one punch man is in the room this time. Yeah. Freddie. Freddie is there and he, uh... I mean, I think, again, the visual effects here are awesome. Yeah, they're so cool. So cool. Angry Bob Sphere is awesome. He should be put in, like, a Marvel versus Capcom film.

He could just be him. Like, uh, the description of Bob is very good. Twin Peaks versus Capcom. Yeah, that sounds great. You kidding me? You could someone like turned into a tulpa, right? You could have like a tulpa spell. Honestly, like Twin Peaks continue.

Like if you reboot, if I rebooted Twin Peaks, the internet would be very mad at me. But if Twin Peaks was rebooted by Nintendo as a series of tennis, cart, fighting. Super Twin Peaks fight. Golf. People would be ecstatic. Twin Peaks party jammer. Birdo and Shy Guy, these would be great. I mean, like the little jumping man basically is a Shy Guy. Ike the Spike?

Ike the Spike. I miss Ike the Spike. There's that story we've heard about how, I feel like this is like public, but all the sort of licensing out of The Sopranos, the video game, the slot machines, and all this shit where the cast was like, isn't this gonna diminish the show? And David Chase was like, none of this touches the show. The show is the show.

If the show stays good, I don't care if we're fucking making money off the side on like slot machines. Right. 100%. I do kind of wish David Lynch would be like, you know what? Open game like everyone do what you want with Twin Peaks now. I finished my statement The rights are now open. He made those Japanese coffee ads. Yeah Yeah, he should do that. Twin Peaks emoji. It would be a great pinball Hmm return. Is there definitely the return especially for your ball just sort of disappears.

Yeah. And then it ends up in a different pinball machine, like two down. The machine shoots coins in your eye. The little screen starts just showing an 8-bit broom sweeping for 14 minutes. Or it opens its face and it just screams cunt at you. Yeah. You're, dare I say it, you're serving cunt in this episode. I am.

Wow, look, that's the British. David's from the UK. He can say it. I just felt uncomfortable saying it. It is, I do reflect on the fact that like that's a word I would say in front of like my friend's parents in high school, because it's such an innocuous word. Yeah. It's a constant one of jerk.

Anyway, it's saying we then get say in front of like my friends' parents in high school because it's such an innocuous word. Yeah, it's a con, someone a jerk. Anyway, it's saying, we then get what I think is just, it's so awesome, the explosion of Bob, but then like, right, the almost parody of like, bring in the girls from the Vegas casino, bring in everyone, everyone, let's do a curtain call. I was gonna say, it's like a Wizard of Oz, like saying goodbye to all the friends you've made along the way.

Yeah. But superimposed over this like lovely farewell is Cooper's face. It's like a Wizard of Oz saying goodbye to all the friends you've made along the way. But superimposed over this lovely farewell is Cooper's face. And he is, we're just this impression of like, we're in a dream, right? And he is the dream. This is one way it could work out maybe for Cooper to perceive it this way.

And then it dissolves to him and we stay with him, right? Eventually, superimposed Cooper. We live inside a dream. Becomes like the only Cooper. Right. That's when we go into the furnace room and then he goes to see Mike and they do the fire walk with me chant. It's very obviously not young Laura Palmer in certain shots. Right, right.

I mean, because we're getting real footage and then once she breaks out of the conversation, then it's, but this is the shit I love. Like, the constant ongoing conversation about like the proper technology for de-aging and are we on the cusp of it and whatever. And people trying to crack this note of like, how do you successfully digitally de-age actors

and keep them at the perfect age in their perfect projects? And I'm like, I accept this. I don't bump on this at all. There was the moment where I clock, oh, we've gone from vintage 1992 footage to new footage, but he's keeping her far enough away from the camera. He's putting a lot of makeup on her. He's putting a wig on her.

I get what this means. Like I'm not fucking struggling. And there genuinely is this moment in Fire Walk with me where she kind of like looks off screen and just kind of like gasps and it's taken advantage of here to be like she saw Cooper. Yes. I totally buy it. Me too.

I totally buy that that was the plan. It feels upsetting to have the eras in conversation with each other. It is. It's very, very jarring. It cuts from that footage now in black and white, put in a sort of a language that's more of the return, and then we cut to the reverse of it, and it's just Cooper at his current age watching. It feels wrong. And those shots of the woods and just her screaming,

I mean, she's got the most, it takes me right to Blair Witch, which I always associate with woods and screaming, right? The scariest shit in Blair Witch is just her screaming. Well, and she hears, we hear that sound, which plays throughout the series, and it's like David Lynch was fascinated by a slowed down slot machine sound. Right. Right. Mr. Jack Potts.

Yeah, wow. We hear it, yeah, we hear it a lot in the casino and like we hear, like he hears that sound and he turns around and she's getting whisked away and it's sort of like a, sorry. But the other thing is it feels like he's re-edited this footage to match the weird unnatural tempo of the return. Like, now this old footage from the 90s has the sort of, like, too much dead air, uh, out of rhythm response time shit. That feels weird that he's able to, like,

fuck with old, frozen footage in that way. It's a violation, which I think is the point. Yes. Is that what Cooper does in his supreme arrogance in a way, is he's like, great, I defeated Bob, now I will also save Laura Palmer. I can do anything. I... He has, it seems, some sort of mastery of the Red Room and like the crossing between worlds he didn't before.

Because there's that moment where he kind of points at the curtain and it starts flapping when he's in the Red Room, where you're like, oh, he's like... He knows the rules of this place now. Because in the finale of season two when he's running around the red room, he's just like running through curtains and looks confused. And now it's like, yeah, no, he's like evolved into it. And so he can fix everything. And obviously, like, that's what part 18 is, is like, he has obviously fixed nothing. Or he has created a new reality, or a new dream, or, I mean, let's talk about it.

Like, let's... So he makes Laura's body disappear. Yes. Well, he plucks her out, he makes her not die. Exactly. Jack Nance never discovers her. Leland ends up in the Red Room much earlier, basically, like, protecting everyone else from his damage. And then, rather than just accept that he's like I have to find this universe's version of

Sarah Palmer and Laura Palmer, both of them, and like reunite them to heal the wounds and it doesn't fucking work. He can't get resolution. There's so much going on. There's, yes. I mean, I don't know what you think, Jane, but yes, right? Generally, yes, yes. Generally, it's sort of like, I mean, it's just so gutting, this feeling that like this poor woman

is being tortured again. Yes. This woman who's a new person, Carrie, right? That's her name. Like, look, let's talk. Like part 18, I just, right, I wanna progress exactly through it, right? We've got first the one fan service, the lovely bit,

the creation of the new Dougie Jones, just walking in, greeted with open arms. But it is, I think it's important that we see Dougie in that episode, right? Because I feel like Dougie is very transparently like meditation, David Lynch being like, this is the only sane way to live. Yes. I mean, it is...

It is the thing I find... Big slow thumbs up, yeah. So fascinating about David Lynch in a larger way is like, here's this man who is like intensely spiritual and like spends his time trying to reckon with like the primal forces of the universe and existence and like the sort of perversion of the world and all of this. And then simultaneously he's like, you know what makes me happy? A poster of a cat. Soda pop. You know, like these like very artificial commercial creations and this

sort of like packaged idea of like domestic bliss are things that he approaches with zero cynicism. Like he's like, this is genuinely what makes life worth living. A bag of Cheetos. A Jim said. Right. Like he's, he's simultaneously in conversation with, like, the absolute, like, darkness and the absolute light and also all of the, like, man-made distractions away from both of those things. I remember while it was airing a friend's read on Twin Peaks, and I think she was dealing with this in her real life, but she was like, to me, this is a show about Alzheimer's.

This is a show about like memory being lost. And so like Dougie as that, like a character living in like this kind of eternal presence. And having a loved one who kind of isn't themselves anymore. And just like loving it, you know? Just like doing great. Like putting that against end of episode, what year is this hunched over, sort of like seemingly... addled by time, confused Cooper is...

Well, that's a consciousness, that's a prison shit. You're like, Dougie's got it fucking figured out. And there's something, like, so in the last two episodes, Cooper is kind of the Cooper we know, I guess. He's got this swagger to him. But in this episode he's off, especially after they cross the they cross after the sex The really really hot normal sex that they have but the after they cross like when he goes to see Carrie And she's just got a dead body in her house He's just like Violence of the diner scene when he's also say the violence of the diner scene.

When he confronts the guys in the diner, right, he's like this kind of sick cowboy all of a sudden. He's not like Cooper at all. Right, he's lost his like... Folksy charm. He's like a fusion. He's like a more realistic Mr. C. Right, right, or it's like, right,

Mr. C is still part of him. Right, it's like Dougie, Cooper, and Mr. C all in him as this sort of like... While he's like basically cosplaying as vintage Halloween costume Agent Cooper. The FBI. The other... One thing I noticed this time that I hadn't noticed before is when he first comes out of the Red Room at the beginning of this episode,

he is like arriving at, I believe, right? Like the place that he entered it at the end of season two. Right, right. Which we haven't seen that much in this series. Like with that weird little like puddle thing in front of it, like the tree that kind of has a puddle in it, you know what I'm talking about? Or like the little campfire thing

with the stones around it. The Boston Burklow ground around it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the tree, sorry, the arm, the brain tree. It says, like, is this the story of the little girl who went down by the lane? Which feels kind of mocking to me, right? Of like...

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

And he's like, yeah, but what about Laura Palmer? And it's like, why can't you shake this, like, innocent that you never got to rescue, even though she was dead before you even arrived? Well, he goes to this kind of cowboy diner, right? Yep, which is called, of course, Edith Judy's. Right. And he is, minus foxy charm, very kind of, like, bizarrely and intensely interrogating this waitress about where's the other waitress,

in a way that is unnerving everybody in the room. I was like, oh, is the thing now that he's getting some transmission of another crime that is going to happen, he is trying to prevent in this sort of like, can I get ahead of the it is happening again? Am I now like committed to this infinite loop of being like, well, I live in darkness and my whole life is trying to prevent these tragedies right before they happen. I couldn't figure out where it was going. Then you have, I think kind of importantly, he does not seem to enjoy his coffee. She serves him coffee, he takes a sip, he has no response.

Then he sees this woman, right? You're like, oh, I want to see Cooper take these guys down, but you want to see him take it down and like... He it down and like gentlemen, you know, what are we doing here? Yes. Yeah, that's no way to treat a lady And instead it's like upsetting and he's putting guns in a fire He's like stuff away the bullets might explode and I'm like you're gonna like fucking like burn this diner to the ground Then he's driving there with all this purpose and then when he goes to the door It is so upsetting cuz you're like, why are you poking this right? There's this feeling of like shouldn't a happy ending here be Just knowing that you prevented the crime from happening. What more do you need to meddle with? Sort of in its way, right? Like the meta the meta

Extrapolation is that it's like a like a disavowal of the entire idea of the re... Why do we need more Twin Peaks? Right. But then as you said, when he walks in, there's a dead body. There's a dead body. She's rattled, she's clearly in the midst of some insane personal drama, and he's like, yeah, yeah, Laura Palmer, Twin Peaks, Washington, want to come with me? And she's coming with him because she's like, well, I have to escape whatever the fuck this is. She literally says, like, I'm in a bit of a bind, and it would be better for me to escape with an FBI agent.

Will I need a jacket? Like, it's like, yeah, you'll need a jacket. I was already planning on getting out of Dodge. Right. Shit, neither of them address this body? No. No. I mean, what, you don't have a dead body on one of your couches? No, of course I do, but I'm just saying that's not an admission of guilt.

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

Who probably, I guess, has to deal with people being like, hey, did Laura Palmer get molested? She seems lovely. She seems great. Not get like Twin Peaks tourists showing up. We were doing George Lucas talk show in Seattle earlier this year, before David Lynch had won our March Madness,

before I had seen any Twin Peaks. And Connor and Patrick went to the house. They wanted to go to Tweety's. They wanted to do all the sort of landmark stuff. And they were saying this woman bought the house, had never seen Twin Peaks. Then had to start dealing with people coming to the house. And now has turned her home into like 50% Twin Peaks museum.

Now is obsessed with Twin Peaks. Now like kind of lives in Twin Peaks by design. She closes the series out. She does? What a way to go. Yeah. I didn't put together that. I just remember watching. I really, I will never forget it. Like, just watching this on my couch alone. And you're, like, checking the clock.

Right, exactly. There's, like, five minutes left. Yeah, like, and it's truly right. What's happening is just Cooper being like, "'Eh? Laura? Like, is just Cooper being like, eh, Laura? Like, is this sparking anything? Like, do you know Sarah, by the way? Like, you know.

She's like talking to a husband who is hidden behind the door, and she's like, let me ask him quickly. But she is dropping Twin Peaks lore. She mentions that she bought it from Miss Chalfant, the old lady, the creepy old lady from Twin Peaks. I don't know how else to describe it. Right, this lady.

Yeah, we all know and love her. We love her. So it's true. There's some like breadcrumb, I guess, for fans to think about there. Well, and then she hears, right, like there is some implication of like this world as like a sinister mirage or something because Laura hears her name whispered and... And screams as Cheryl Lee is, you know, the best in the world at doing. What year is it? I mean, like, there's this read that I've read,

you know, I've sort of plumbed around, like, Reddit and, you know, things like that, and my darker days, you know. And, like, this read that, like, it's like, we're in Laura's dream now, right? And she's created this sort of cover in the dream. And he's, like, waking her up, right? And that's why she's screaming. Like, he's messing with it too much.

That's how much it takes is about coping mechanisms. Right. And, like, that's one way. But, like, yeah, the sort of indictment of Cooper as the White Knight strikes me as sort of a crucial thing for the finale of The Return. Well, and, like, the idea that Fire Walk with Me is, you know, maybe my favorite film. Um, and that film is like, is all Cheryl Lee.

Like her performance in that film is incredible and devastating. And it almost, it feels like there is this like ugliness in, you know, like in Why My Parents Didn't Want Me Watching, Blue Velvet, because there is this like very deep ugliness in, you know, like in why my parents didn't want me watching Blue Velvet, because there is this very deep ugliness that David Lynch talks about as this, seeing that naked woman on the street and the bugs under the ground. Never forget it. And right, there's this sort of origin story of deep trauma rot at the heart of this like 1950s American dream that seems to be like very

crucial to the filmography but like nowhere is this like rendered in more just like ugly, devastating and like empathetic just close terms than with Cheryl Lee in Fire Walk with Me. And her performance in this episode is incredible as well. It is. But she goes to heaven at the end of Fire Walk with me. Yeah, she gets a release. She like lets her ascend and then here's Cooper to like rip her back out. Exactly. Right. Buffy vibes again. Buffy went to heaven. It's true. Spoiler alert for season five of Buffy. I mean, it's...

Where do you stand on Matrix Resur resurrections? Oh, I love matrix We're in a safe space smart normal. So right we we love that movie But that's a movie that has I think when a lot of people still I see to this day go like that is this like incredibly Cynical movie about someone acknowledging. I'm basically being Brother's making me do this to make a movie defensively to hold onto the rights. And I'm like, that is such a passionate, personal, empathetic movie. But that is also about like, examining the cultural weirdness of us wanting these actors

to stay in these characters, in these places, retelling the same stories. Like, what are we looking for here? And there's some of that in, I think, this ending of like, you wanted resolution at Twin Peaks Like Laura Palmer was in a good place. Yeah, why do you want more from her? And there's also this yeah that like Perhaps if this is David Lynch making a final like he's like, okay

How do I what how do I close it out besides the monkey? He's like the pursuit of resolution. Yeah. The pursuit even of like unpacking something from your past creatively will ultimately just lead you back to originary trauma. Yeah. You know? Yes. Yes. I think that's beautifully said.

I do too. It rattled me at the time. The Merovingian should be involved now that you're thinking. That should have happened. Yes. Like maybe Cooper's like, I need to cross to this other world. The Merovingian is like, very well. Well, first you must eat my magic cake or whatever. But like so upsetting that this show ends on credits playing over still image of Laura whispering into Cooper's ear when like most of this season has ended over concert footage,

or Ed, sadly, eating an instant lunch at his desk. But this is closer to the language of the original series, where it's like credits playing over prom photo of Lore. And it's like, now this is the new cursed image that has replaced it, that is frozen in time forever. Quite cursed. Fun to revisit? Oh my God, yeah, I is frozen in time forever. Quite cursed. Fun to revisit? Oh my god, yeah, I had such a great time.

Griffin, you've watched Twin Peaks The Return. Mm-hmm. Uh, like the... C+. C-minus cinema score, but no, I liked it a tremendous amount. I don't know, it's been, I've said this, but it's just the Lynch headspace living in it for months. Not the only thing I'm watching,

but like it being the overriding world I'm living in because of this being my career now, my job, chained to the old Plink check desk. I'm like a little relieved, especially because this is so challenging, the return in particular, and is like really kind of litigating his whole body of works, themes and ideas and images and everything in a way that can like sometimes feel very punishing by design. I think the thing that was so exciting about it at the time was like someone being given that canvas, you know, and like 18 hours on television to like break,

like I just look at it and I'm like, oh my God, like the way that this is subverting narrative structure, but on such a grand scale that we usually only see. TV is just so conservative. By design, it has to be. There's a status quo you have to obey. But even knowing what people are going to be wanting week to week, and knowing that the episode before the end

is some kind of emotional resolution and then the last one does a different thing. Just seeing David Lynch explode these notions, or not even explode it, because it just feels like he took it and ripped it apart until each of the threads were their own island that kind of saw the other one but didn't quite it's just like I don't know it's like a ball that I

And I think many other filmmakers are just like that would be a fun ball to run with further down court Yeah, I mean I feel like it's a thing that you and I complain about a lot you even more than me about how frustrated we are with this notion that like streaming and the legitimacy, the legitimizing of television as an art form, as a storytelling form, has created some like golden age where now we're no longer shackled to the structures and expectations of broadcast television and people can really branch out and do other shit. As long as she has a B-level Marvel character. This is the fucking thing.

You're just like... You watch this and you're like... It's been almost 10 years since this aired and everything still feels conservative. It just feels conservative in like different clothing. There is as much of a like notion, a very kind of, limited notion of how TV can function. We just changed what that is, but most TV shows still fit into like one of three boxes at most. And when you're, you know, watching something like this

where you really are, I think to your point, Jane, like exploding the notion of storytelling and structure and episodic narratives and all of this. And then you're like, and what do we like get on the other end of this? Like other filmmakers take a lot of money from big streaming companies and make like a 10 hour movie. And I'm like, this is neither fish nor foul.

You're just making something that is like trying to, I don't know. Well, in a funny way, like a lot of those, a lot of the best shows like have a lot, I think in common with this, it's just Twin Peaks Return pushed it way farther. Something like The Sopranos was constantly about subverting. The Sopranos is the Calvin and Hobbes of,

where Calvin and Hobbes is like Bill Watterson eventually being like, I fucking hate that I have to do four panels. Yeah. Can I do something else? It's like, not really, man. It goes in the newspaper. David Chase is kind of doing that in The Sopranos, but it can't go all the way. But, you know, if it does in some pretty adventurous way,

he's like, all right, so, like, Michael and Perry are at least gonna die in ten minutes in, and then, like, Tony's gonna go do drugs and vag... Like, that's, like, a radical departure from... It's one or the other for The Supremes. Sorry. And, you know, but also things like the test stream, where that feels like David Chase being like...

to all the fans of the show who are like, who's whacking who? He's just like, fuck you. Here's Annette Benning. Tony's gonna talk to Annette Benning in his dream. And say, are you Annette Benning? And she's gonna go, yeah, I am. Or the Lauren Bacall episode.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in Sopranos that feels very violently angry at its audience in the best way. I don't know, The Return doesn't feel that way, but it does feel, this feels sort of violently angry at resolutions a little bit. And confrontational about like form and narrative. Yes, yes. And like obviously Twin Peaks is a show that had a resolution foisted on it a little bit by its network, right? Like you have to tell us who killed Sarah Laura Palmer. Like what are you talking about? And he's like, you didn't want that. And you don't want this either.

Cooper thinks he wants it, but you don't want this. That's a really good point. The part of him fighting against the expectations and structures is like, we did the show where we did what everyone asked us to do. And you all got mad. Everyone got through. It made everyone a happy simulantist. I hate to do those big meta reads because I'm like,

it's not just him grousing about network nodes, but like, you know, resolutions are unsatisfying is a thing you can think about. And maybe like dishonest. Is there something like inherently dishonest about like putting things all in a neat resolve space, which is movies don't really do? And I do. I remember thinking,

because when this aired in the aftermath of unpacking the ending for myself, I was very much working on World's Fair. And I remember really thinking just a lot less about the ending contextually and more like the end, like what the ending left me with, right? Like the ending leftually and more like the how the end like what the ending left me with right like like the ending left me on a hook that I was basically like having dreams about for two months

trying to like wrestle and come to my own sort of peace with and it's like a wonderful way to I've ended two movies this way you know it's a wonderful way to end the movie because when the tv show ends with like all of the plot lines getting satisfyingly like settled, you just, you're like, okay, that was fun. What's the next TV show? Doesn't really leave you with... Yes, no questions. Right, exactly. It's ending with questions rather than ending with answers. Which are, I think, in this case, quite generative to a lot of the things that he is preoccupied with.

I agree with that. God bless. Do you wanna play the ratings game, Griffin? Yeah. I just noticed, I've looked up the, we usually do a box office game, which is harder to do with a TV that aired on Showtime. But the USA Today article about cable ratings

in September 2017 notes rudely that Showtime's Twin Peaks The Returns sputtered out with a typically low 240,000. It sucked. Yeah. Now, because we're covering TV, of course we're doing the ratings game this week, but I should mention that it is brought to us by our friends at Regal. Regal Unlimited, of course, is the all-you-can-launch movie subscription pass that pays for itself

in just two visits, and for this month only, an unprecedented 20% off your first three months use code blank check in the Regal app or the link included in the episode description. The number one cable show it seems. Well, alright, this is boring. This is the problem with TV ratings Griffin. Well look, here's the thing.

For the fourth week in a row playing the ratings game, I think hands us longing for the box office game, which of course would be brought to you by our friends at Regal. In absentia, they are presenting to you the ratings game, but the point here is, God, isn't it great to go out to movie theaters to say sign up for Regal Unlimited, use promo code check and see arguably an unlimited number of movies? Sure at least one a day. Yeah. I'm gonna remove from the ratings game all news, sports.

This is cable ratings. Oh, I think this makes it more interesting. All news, sports, and like wrestling, which is sort of a sport. Yeah. To be clear, no offense to wrestling. So the number one cable broadcast that week, Griffin, was a soap opera on Oprah's network, OWN,

that is created by Tyler Perry. Brown, no, what's the show called? It ran for 196 episodes. Did he have a show called Brown Sugar? Am I misremembering that? That was a show on OWN. I'm not sure if it was a Tyler Perry show. Yeah, okay.

What is this thing called? It's not called like the haves and have nots, right? What's it called? It is called The Haves and the Have Nots. Okay, I got it. It was somewhere there deep in my subconscious. Tika Sumter was the star of this, but a lot of big actors, like Danielle Dedweiler, who's probably gonna get an Oscar nomination this year.

It was in my film. The most talented actor I've ever met in my life. One of those, like, you know, sort of like, nobody writes about this stuff in, like, whatever, mainstream TV criticism that much, because, partly because it's just like a torrent of soap opera episodes, right this stuff in like, whatever, mainstream TV criticism that much, partly because it's just like a torrent of soap opera episodes, right, it's like five a week or whatever.

But that is the highest rated scripted thing that I can find. Number two is a rerun of a sitcom, Griffin. Number two is a rerun of a sitcom on Cable's A Big Bang Theory. It's The Big Bang Theory. Right, that was a thing I remember getting a lot of ink at that time, was that Big Bang re-airing on Prime Time on TBS

would get bigger ratings than most things airing on network television. And number three is a crime-riller TV series that I believe continues to be ongoing... Interesting. ...in new forms. They're always opening new chapters of this. I think I got it. Please. Dexter? Not Dexter, although that is another one.

That one is messing with things so much, where they're doing a new Dexter, where they're like, ignore the finale of the last Dexter thing we did, we know you didn't like it. They're addressing the original sin now, finally. Is that, I don't know, I don't know. Okay, but it is something. It's one of those long running hit shows

that people don't talk about too much. But it's not like Lever of those like long-running hit shows that people don't talk about too much, but it's not like leverage Am I am I on the right? I can't remember what leverage is so I said Timothy Hutton were there like robbing shit Oh, yeah, they were robbing. Yeah, but I feel like that was a cry about premium cable. It's on premium cable There's a new book recently. Oh, it's power power power. Yeah, there are many books. They got a whole shelf now. Power. Number four. I'm fucking, no, I'm out of scripted stuff.

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

It's a reality show. Is it about home restoration? No, it's about people who live in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina that are taught basic wilderness survival skills is on the History Channel. Ben? No idea. It's called Mountain Men. It's been running for 12 years.

Okay. Not familiar. He teaches you stuff. If you say so. And then another one is about fishing people. You must know that one. Either of you. Anyone.

The reality show on Discovery Channel about fishing. Bass Masters? No. No? Don't say it like that. No. That was a reasonable guess. Sure. About fishing. I don't even know if that's a real show. I no that was a reasonable guess sure Fishing I don't even know if that's a real time. I think that was a video game. Yeah, you're probably right It's isn't that the thing that's at like the bar

Yeah, ours have it. Yeah, okay. It's about fishing people. It's called fisherman. Oh, oh, Alaska Okay, it's called crab fisherman in Alaska. It's called deadliest catch Y'all don't know deadliest catch. Yeah, no, of course. Been running for 20 years. There's 351 episodes of Deadliest Catch. Anyway, apparently one of the guys died. Yeah, everything's a bummer. It's just crazy to think about this indelible, important piece of culture that was voted

like the greatest cinema of the decade by Cagliari Cinema or whatever, right? Like, in all the shit. And then Twin Peaks The Return is airing at the same time. I assume you were talking about Deadliest Pitch. But then you look it up, right? And like the ratings news is like, show time is like fart of a revival.

Absolutely right at the bed. Twin Peaks The Return, nobody cared about that. But them also saying like a leaky 240,000 viewers. But it's real. And you're like, isn't that bigger than most network shows now? I remember after Sundown's doing But it's real. And you're like, isn't that bigger than most network shows now? I don't know. I remember after Sundown doing what is called the Water Bottle Tour after my first film,

where you meet all of these people. General meetings, development. And at this time... Oh, they're all giving you water bottles? Is that the idea? Yeah. Like, take a shirt time branded. Although thankfully, this was...

I was at home because it was the pandemic. Oh, sure. So it's just a lot of water bottle Zoom meetings. Yeah. It's called the Brita Pitcher Tour. Yeah. It's called the Keeping Good Boundaries by Not Leaving the House Tour. We're all in it together.

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

that was unsatisfying was a failure. Yeah, what is it good to say? Two Dexter's ago. Yeah. Because there have been obviously... Murphy Brown, that didn't really hit when they brought Murphy Brown back. Right, that's the thing. Like the X-Files.

Right, the X-Files Eleven great yeah people lost interest and it's like Twin Peaks the return is like reinventing forms and right is like, you know We'll be discussed for a generation in there Anyway, like I will be what I find even more aggravating than what you're describing are the people in those same positions Who are like, oh my god, I love Twin Peaks, The Return. It reinvented the form. Obviously, I can't make anything like that. Like, my dad used to always invoke

the young development exec who has a framed Cassavetes poster and is like, that guy's my fucking hero. Anyway, who am I rooting for in your script? Do you have a Lynch list? Yeah. We have to rank David Lynch. Jane, if you off the dome want to rank David Lynch. Oh, happy to rank. Happy to rank. Let me do a little work on my phone.

Yeah. I mean, this feels a little... Very hard to rank David Lynch because almost all of his work is meaningful to me. Yes. So I feel a little silly saying that one is better than the other, but you know, such is the norm. So I feel a little silly saying that one is better than the other, but you know... Did you guys watch the, uh... I think, unavailable except for DVD Industrial Symphony? Oh, yes.

Yes, we covered that on Patreon as part of our David Lynch sort of, you know, shorts and ephemera. I love that. I'm not gonna put it on my list. You look like I've seen almost everything now in the... I feel like there's just always more weird shit. Yes. I mean, this feels just always more weird shit. Yes. I mean, this feels like a very fungible list. Like even as I'm looking at it right now, I'm questioning it, but I'm just going to... Are you including Twin Peaks as one entity?

Twin Peaks the return Fire Walk with me in the original series is separate? I am putting Twin Peaks purely as the movie. I am solely ranking the movies, but I guess you could also say in that spot, I put Twin Peaks as a total project, maybe, I don't know. David, you go first. Okay, number one, Mulholland Drive, basically my favorite movie ever made.

Number two, Twin Peaks The Return, if that's a game. Oh, so you're putting it in there, okay. Number three, Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. I'm not gonna count the others, the other Twin Peakses. Because those are directed by lots of people and they're a little different. Twin Peaks The Return, I debate away on is it a movie, is it a TV show?

At least he directed the entire thing and it's very much his. Number four, Lost Highway. Wow, you have it high. To my slight surprise. Number five, The Straight Story. Number six, Lost Highway. Wow, you have it high. It's my slight surprise. Yeah. Number five, The Straight Story. Number six, Eraserhead. Mm-hmm.

Number seven, Blue Velvet. Mm-hmm. Number eight, The Elephant Man. But no offense to any of these things. Yeah, we got a little bit of flippin' going on. Yeah, which is good. Number nine, Inland Empire. Mm-hmm.

Number 10, Wild at Heart, which is probably the first thing where I'm just kind of like, I love Wild at Heart, but it doesn't speak to me maybe in quite the same way. And number 11, Dune, which I adore. And that's the worst thing he ever directed. Yeah. I guess. No, I agree with you. And I came out fairly positive on Dune, watching it this time.

What are you laughing at? Ben sent us a website I forgot about, but I do remember at the time, which is the sort of GeoCities, Matthew Lillard, search for the zone website. Oh, yeah. Oh, was this like as a promotional thing? Right.

Oh, that's cool. It has some fun stuff. I'll include it in the episode description. Yes, like the blog that that character was creating in search of the other's world. Okay, here's my list. It feels very fun to me. I will be vacationing in the zone in 2025, just to announce.

I'll be going to the purple sea. You'll travel there? I wanna hang out where the Gar zone in 2025 just to announce. I'll be going to the purple sea. You'll travel there? Want to hang out with Garland Briggs floating head? Ben, write a note to check live show venues in the zone See if we can get him to do one of those if he's already going there. Okay, go ahead Graeme. Okay, there's a fungible list I feel like I've changed it three times in the last 10 minutes and perhaps right whatever I have number one elephant man Yeah, that's your favorite. It's my favorite. I also feel like even though to certain degrees It's like the Lynch movie that other people could have directed the things that he did that no other filmmaker would have done and the fact that it is kind of like

Simultaneously a more conventional narrative for him will also being more experimental than anyone else would make that movie. It's also just a movie that devastates me emotionally. Number two, Mulholland Drive. Number three, Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. Number four, Eraserhead. Number five, The Straight Story. Number six, Blue Velvet. Number seven, Wild at Heart.

Eight, Inland Empire. Nine, Lost Highway, 10, Dune. That's where I landed. Lost highway lower for you. I'm gonna count down. Do it. Yeah, do it. 10 Dune. Wow.

With apologies, not in the Elephant Man. Okay, no, that's fair. Never really lit up for me. Yeah, it just really lights up for me. Eight Wild at Heart, seven straight stories, six Eraserhead,, Inland Empire. Oh wait, hmm. I've got, I didn't actually write numbers here

and I have five things left to list, so. 11 through six, so far. Uh, Blue Velvet, number five. Uh, Lost Highway went number four. Twin Peaks the Return, number three. Mulholland Drive, number two. Fire Walk with Me, number one. Yeah. I'll say this Me number one. Yeah.

I'll say this for Lost Highway. I verbalized my problem with the trade-in value on Bill Pullman for Balthazar Getty in the second half of that movie. We also recorded that one like months ahead because of Lowry's availability. So that was the one I watched before I was fully emerged and I hadn't seen it before.

It's the one I've been most eager to rewatch now at the end of this series, even if I may begin to take a little bit of a break. It's very fun to rewatch that. That one, see it on film if you can. That is a great movie to sit and watch in a theater. It'll pop up as a screening, I will absolutely jump on that.

I'd like to rank, out of all the episodes we did for our Lynch series, not from a quality standpoint, as far as the conversation, but from a production standpoint, Fire Walk with Me, number one worst episode. I would agree with that. Jane, to be clear, we had the filmmaker Akasha Stevenson on, who was great.

Akasha Stevenson, yeah. Very patient. Yeah, was in New Orleans and was taken to some sort of like... Ghouls' lair of a rental studio. To Zoom with us. We had a kind of catastrophic dual podcast studio collapse. Yeah, it was bad. We had a fucking nightmare. Yeah, we did.

So, sorry about that one. Yeah, anyway. It still turned out great. Yeah, we did. So sorry about that one. Yeah, anyway. It still turned out great. Yeah, hey, and you know what? A lot of credit there to AJ and the whole Blank Shack team doing a lot of massaging. Yeah, because this is our Christmas episode.

Yeah. Merry Christmas everybody. Merry Christmas. Trauma is originary and unending. And hey, perfectly said. Jane, is there anything you want to plug into our series? I watched the Polar Express last night for the first time. Talk about trauma is entering on end.

Please go on. Well, I didn't know it was animated actually when I started watching it. Jane, excuse me. It's not. It's a very original art form that Robert Zemeckis wants you to know is not animation. It's sort of motion captured perhaps? Hot, hot. We got it. Yeah. I loved it. I mean, I love that I'm gonna watch that again,

and I can't wait to watch his Christmas Carol next. That one is putrid, but I... Yeah, I think that might be the most boring movie ever made. I will say, I will confess that I've been watching the movie a lot, because my daughter found it. You sent us a video on Thanksgiving morning of your daughter watching it, and I said, I can't believe you would do this to yourself.

You're ready to, like, have to watch Polar Express 17 times knowing your daughter's viewing habits. And your response was, I don't give a shit, I'm not David Ehrlich. True. I would watch that movie 20 times happily. Is it growing on you? It's growing on me a lot.

It's so nightmarish and interesting. And there's no real plot. There's just, like like these set pieces, but kind of classical Zemeckis impressions of set pieces. Ben put it on at his holiday party last weekend. Unmute. And I will admit I was a little transfixed. It's transfixing.

And then there's choices like the kids will now interact with a bunch of weird puppets that yell at them, puppeteered by Tom Hanks playing the hobo who hates Christmas and lives on top of the train. And you're like, well, this is different. Like, this is something unusual. Can you remind me, the rule about the hot chocolate, it's fine if you let it settle to room temperature.

Never, ever let it cool. No. Hot, hot. It's just so weird that the conductor spins the whole movie to room temperature. Never, ever let it cool. No. Hot, hot. It's just so weird that the conductor spends the whole movie being like, you kids better fucking stay in line and not mess around. Hot! And then there's one moment where he's like,

hey, you kids wanna drink or anything? And they're like, yeah. And he's like, great, bring in the hot chocolate dancers. Yeah, I loved it. I loved that film. Fantastic. Okay, so you're plugging the Polar Express. Love it. Yeah, that's my main thing right now.

And hey, David, what were you gonna say? I was just gonna thank Jane for joining us. And I wanna plug I Saw the TV. One of my favorite films of 2024. Check it out. Is it on Mac? It's on Mac. It's on Mac, you can take it to the Macs.

Here's the thing I wanna say. We're recording this pretty close to release because of your availability, Jane, and a pleasant, unexpected surprise gift in that regard is we are recording this on Wednesday, December 18th. And David, do you know what else happened on December 18th in history? I don't. A man named Steven Spielberg was born.

Oh, happy birthday, Steve. I didn't know it was your birthday. Why today? The day we are recording our final David Lynch episode and our final episode of 2024. I don't see the correlation. Is the birth of a man who we will be covering right at the start of 2025. But a man who also cast David Lynch in what might end up being his final on-screen appearance.

Very true. And maybe the greatest movie performance in history. Steven Spielberg, we are finally settling the balance of the first half of his career starting January 2025. We are covering dual Bruce Shindler's List.

That's right. From full spectrum. From dual to Shindler's List. Darn it, Spielberg. And on Patreon, we're going to be doing a bunch of different varied kinds of bonus episodes. Yeah. Amazing stories, Twilight Zone segment, Night Gallery.

Columbo, Murder by the Book. Poltergeist? We are not. We went back and forth on whether or not it felt rude. To Tobe Hooper. To Tobe Hooper, and also there was enough sort of like pure Spielberg ephemera, especially since it's taken us so long to do the early career.

We were like, let's cover the early non-movie stuff. You seem disappointed that we're not covering Poltergeist. Do you love Poltergeist? I do love, I mean, come on, of course I love Poltergeist. You know what? Yeah. That's some good goo. I was going to say the original TV Glo movie in a lot of ways.

The TV does Glo. The TV does Glo. One day 24 sent us The first draft of the pulse poster for TV glow. I was like, oh wait, isn't that poltergeist though? I mean little bit Yeah, yep So stay tuned for that. Yeah, I want to shout out here at the end of the episode Something I'm gonna try start doing Where each mini series is built out a Spotify playlist featuring songs from each soundtrack.

Well, certainly a lot of options in the David Lynch filmography. Absolutely. A man who loves his use of music. What inspired me. He has so many incredible pop songs that he uses in his movies as well as great scores. So there'll be a link to that in the description.

And hey, speaking of great music, I know you plugged it in earlier episodes, but Slow Christmas Volume 4 is still out there on the interwebs. Check it out. Yeah. Do you know about this, Jane? No. I have now for five years in a row, it's become an annual tradition. I put out a holiday compilation album where I get various different artists

to do either original covers of holiday songs, but it got to be slow. Slow core? Slow, slow core. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Some good stuff. Yeah.

Check that out. And I don't know if you had an at and as always lined up. Oh, I do. All right. Is there something you want to say? Not necessarily. It's just more we had a get Eva Anderson was a previous guest. She had promised that she would provide a voice message that was related to the return.

Okay. So I thought that might be a nice thing that we could play at the end of the episode. Can we play it here? Do we have her? I sure do. Hey guys, Eva Anderson here. So a couple months ago, I was talking to my coworker, Juliana,

about weird jobs we had. And she was talking about working on a, like a History Channel documentary as a PA. And she said they had a really bad Abraham Lincoln impersonator. Bad in that he looked great but he did not know the Gettysburg Address and she had to make cue cards of it and hold them up for him. It's a funny story.

And I was like, who is, which impersonator was it? Because there's a couple in LA and we dug around and finally found his name and his IMDB page, his name's Robert Borowski. He's an LA area Abraham Lincoln. Some of his credits include Pee-wee's Big Holiday, the movie written by Paul Rust. He played Abraham Lincoln. Something called Abe and Trump Being Frank

in which he played Abraham Lincoln and the upcoming Infinitely Dense and Trip to the, in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and the upcoming infinitely dense and trip to the moon, where he's playing Abraham Lincoln. But buried in the middle of his credits was... Twin Peaks one episode, The Woodsman. He's the God of like guy. So now, none of you will ever be able to unsee The Woodsman's Abraham Lincoln beard,

that he didn't change at all, he just painted it black. It's delightful. It makes me so happy. And I hope you guys are having a spooky Twin Peaks The Return record. Okay, bye. Thank you, Eva. And we forgot to mention that there are cobwebs and bats flying all around this record. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that Eva for sending that in. Farewell to David Lynch. Remember when we did season one with Eva that fails like 17 years ago? Right, right, right. But thank you for the pie and the coffee Eva and the voicemail.

Thank you, Jane, for being here. Thanks for having me. And as always, before I came up, I was on the phone with Ben Hosley at Blank Check. He told me they are onto something from the podcast indicating two friends. And last night I had another Monica Bellucci dream. Yeah, good job. That's what you wanted. That's what I wanted to do.