Blank Check with Griffin & David - Twin Peaks: The Return (Eps 9-13) with Fran Hoepfner

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Dougie gets it on (or, more accurately, Naomi Watts gets HER Dougie on), guest Fran Hoepfner pitches her artisanal slime for adults (don’t steal the idea), and we relitigate LOST for the hundredth time in this penultimate episode of our Twin Peaks: The Return coverage. Can adults get mono? Why is it so hard for Lucy and Andy to buy a chair? THAT is the Audrey Horne plot? Will someone please have sympathy for David Sims, who isn’t going gray yet and desperately wants a cool subway-themed videogame? Listen to Slow Xmas 4 wherever you get music! 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 Blake Jack? I should take a nap. What are you doing? We're trying to record a podcast! We're already late! We're late for the podcast! It's way past 1230! Why is this happening?

I saw that gun go shooting out the window! Fran Hoffner is joining us! We haven't seen her in a long while. We're late. We got five episodes to go. Please, we have to record the podcast. She's sick. Is that Naomi Watts?

No, this is the woman in the car. Oh yeah, right. Oh, of course, of course. Right, oh God. Kind of my favorite scene. That scene is so intense. It's amazing. Oh God. Yeah, yeah, no, amazing. Oh, God. Kind of my favorite scene. That scene is so intense. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. No, amazing.

You know what's kind of difficult? What? Finding quotes from individual chunks of Twin Peaks 3. Breaking his season into like four parts and then being like, I gotta find a quote for one of these episodes. You didn't have to. You could have begun the episode with like, I can't find a quote

because of the specific format of this. Here's the problem. We've been doing this show so fucking long that I've done that move four times now, probably. The novelty of weird, I couldn't find a quote is now overplayed. So I had to do that thing that was exciting, that was riveting. It was fantastic.

And it reminded me that I watched these episodes a little bit ago, because of course, why didn't I recognize that a little bit? What? When did you watch them? I don't know. Like, you know, a few weeks back. David's gesturing with his head like it's in the corner. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't watched the next chunk. Okay. I haven't either.

And I haven't seen... This is my first time watching this. Really? Okay, we're in the same place. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was worried about not being caught, like fully caught up. No, we've been both for Griffin and Ben's sake, but also for listeners who are maybe also watching for the first time, you know, mindful of like not talking about what's going to happen.

Now, can I say, there are two things- Now then again, Maggie did shoot Mr. Burns. What? And what's another like... Try to steal candy from a baby and he was pointing at M&S. They thought it was Waylon Smithers because they were looking at it from the wrong direction, but he was doing M&S. Maggie Simpson. What's another like famous TV cliffhanger that's not who shot JR that I could sort of... Well, because of course Maggie Simpson shot JR that I could sort of?

Well, because of course Maggie Simpson shot JR. Yes, she did. He tried to steal candy from her baby and he pointed it at him. Shot that motherfucker. Yeah. What's another TV cliffhanger? Who killed Laura Palmer? I feel like that's a big kind of famous.

But no, but that wasn't a cliffhanger. That's the premise of the show. Okay. Cliffhanger? I'm talking about a classic TV cliffhanger where it's like, okay guys. What's in the hatch? Well, I was going to say we have to go back later." We have to go back is probably the best end of season,

like, that Lost ever did. But that's kind of an interesting one because it's less a cliffhanger and more being like, holy shit, that's where the show is going next. Like, it was a prom or something. Like, a reorientation. Right, you didn't know how that was gonna manifest? What's in the hatch isn't bad as a,

but a lot of people at the time were kind of like, wait, they're just gonna open the door and we don't even, like, all the whole season of them waiting to open this fucking door and then we don't know what's in there? I thought it was great. Me too, I loved it. And you know what was great? The answer, my favorite guy.

He's awesome. Big D. Lost fucking. I've been thinking a lot about Lost. Nailed. Both because I've been watching this and I think about that time of my life But also lost is holding up, you know, I have losses doing great. I haven't done the rewatch Joe Robinson when she was doing The last rewatch. Yeah, I asked to come on only for Desmond episodes because Desmond's my guy So I've rewatched only the Desmond episodes, because Desmond's my guy. So I rewatched only the Desmond arc,

basically his solo episode. Which is probably pretty great if you, right? Which I thought it like interesting and also felt very evocative during lockdown to watch the Desmond arc. And he's my main guy. But I've been tempted to go back and watch all of it. Look, it's been coming up a lot

in our watch through of Twin Peaks, because this of course is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers. They're given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion products they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini series on the films of David Lynch, but also his TV shows. Uh, it's called Twin Pods Firecast with me.

Today, we're covering episodes nine through 13? Uh, that's correct. Of Twin Peaks The Return. And Lost has been coming up a lot as when you watch a thing like this, you're forced to like compare it to all the other great failures and successes of the kind of like shows that keep you on tender hooks. Spin out their mythology, raise questions, answer them or not. These things that become cultural phenomenons and how they sustain themselves. Yeah and I think Lost also had that thing especially in later seasons where the sea storyline

for an episode would be something extremely mundane. Yes. Of like, we're going to set up a library on the island or like the golf course thing. And there would be these almost little like soapy kind of storylines that had nothing to do with the greater mystery of anything, would just be like, well, if you live on an island now,

you're going to want a golf course, I guess. Which is fascinating because at the time, that was a thing that people would point to, of like, they don't know where they're doing, the show's gonna fuck it up. Like it's getting thin. Totally. And then Twin Peaks The Return is David Lynch being like, what if I really didn't resolve the things that you guys cared about?

What if I didn't even spend that much time on the things that you previously associate with the show? It's a kind of crazy that Audrey only comes in in this block of episodes. Yeah. Audrey's part in Twin Peaks, The Return, is a real curveball in general, I would say. I'm already trying to wrap my head around it, and I cannot guess what's to come.

Now, can I take you to task, David? You can do whatever you want, but I was just looking at some, like, cliffhangers. Yeah. I mean, like, Buffy dying at the end of season five, but that is... What kind of spoilers? Well, sorry. But that kind of felt like...

You know, one of those things where you're like, well, I mean, it's coming back, so I assume they'll figure that out. You know, like, it's a little different from, like... Unresolved question. The best of both worlds, the classic cliffhanger of season three, Star Trek The Next Generation, where, like, Picard gets turned into a Borg. And they're like... To be continued. And you are truly like,

I have to wait four months to find out. I mean, again, you're like, I assume he won't be anymore, but, like, you know, that, that, you don't get that anymore. Yeah. I think killing Angel and Buffy was more of a cliffhanger, almost, than killing Buffy. Killing Angel. Or when they banish him. They banish him to whatever.

That's the thing, they just kick him into the hell mouth or he comes back out and he starts a great detective agency and then nine episodes into that detective agency, he's like, you know, revamp the cast completely because this isn't working. And then, then they made a good show. And then they made a way better show. Yeah. And'm gonna revamp the cast completely because this isn't working. And then they made a good show. And then they made a way better show. Yeah, and then they revamped the cast one more time

because Joss Whedon is a problematic manager. And that final season also rocks. Oh, it's so good. Season five of Angel of Grief. It's like the greatest season of any TV. It's so fucking good. But you know about the Muppet episode, right? That's Edlin's episode.

I know, but you know about that, right? Of course. Small Time. So fucking good. Yeah. But did he... I think he wrote and directed that? He definitely wrote it. Yeah. You know, what if we took this vampire show and made it Boston Legal is a great question.

And you're just like, well, that wouldn't work. And then you're like, watch it work. And you're like, this works. But like, it's more than that. It's like, what if he started working for the villains? And you're like, OK, that's a TV plot. Yeah. Like, oh, the villains of this show the whole time,

and now he's like, now you got to work for him. But the villains in Angel are an evil law firm. So they managed to turn it into a weird evil law firm show. So fucking Lost, right? Our guest today is Fran Hoffner. I already cited in the quote. Thank today is Fran Hoffner. I already cited in the... He did direct it too, yes. In the quote, thank you. Fran Hoffner, Fran Magazine.

That's right. Features editor. Oh wow, new title. Yeah, I was thinking about... You demoted yourself? Yeah, I was thinking about demoting myself. Being like, I got bought out or something. You sold to Penske.

You could have like an evil publisher who you're always railing against. In the comments you could be like, Fran Magazine would be producing more, but for evil EIC or like, yeah. Obsessed with clicks, yeah. My brother, who's like a founding member, is always sending me editorial notes. Because he's a founding member. Yeah, he's like, you haven't talked about WWE at all.

And I'm like, well, I don't know anything about that. He's like, well, the readers are interested in that. I'm hearing on the wind. Yeah. I don't know anything about that. He's like, well, the readers are interested in that. I'm hearing on the wind. Yeah. I think part of the conversation around Lost and it being one of the first shows where it really felt like there was a profound discussion

happening between the internet and the makers of the show. Right? And people sort of felt empowered that they were like, we're being heard and recognized. I think the long tail of that, a thing that now is pervasive, especially in like streaming shows and sort of like shorter seasons spaced out and whatever,

is like we need to maintain the sense that we know where this is going from the beginning. And what I miss is the sloppiness of TV being like, fuck, something in the chaos of us just needing to produce 22 episodes in nine month stretches with only three months off causes people to sometimes just be like, fuck, what if this is a legal show now?

Yeah. We don't care about it seeming like this was our plan the whole time. Yeah, or like what if they go back to the 70s? Right. On Lost. Yes, just fun shifts like that. David, I want to take your test. Okay, what did I do?

You spoiled two things for me. Okay. You're saying that you're trying not to talk ahead. I am. What hasn't happened. I'm and I'm sorry if I messed up. What did I do? The parentage, Audrey Horn. Billy's the son's name? No. Yeah, Richard Horn. I'm sorry, Richard Horn is. Yes, I referred to him with his last name, forgetting that of course that is sort of a spoiler. Yes. Yes. I think we cut it out of its episode,

but you ruined that for me. But here's the bigger one. I would say it's not important really who he is, but it is sort of, I guess. Can't say. Can't say that, I mean, the moment was stolen from me. I didn't get to experience it Here's the bigger one that I find more offensive in our last episode. I raised the philosophical question does Dougie fuck

Yeah, and you said of course we see Dougie fuck and I was talking about a future episode How I think I'd remember that if that happened and then when the sex scene happens in this I'm like This is what hundred percent what David was talking about. Yeah, I'm sorry, I was an episode off or whatever. It's another thing that would've rattled me to my core. What, Dougie fucking? And apparently fucking better than anyone will do in as little as possible. But like, he's just, you know, he's just got his mojo.

Why wouldn't Dougie fuck? Cause we, I had to. Well, cause he doesn't, barely knows how to like put his pants on. Right. And I was like, there's no direct implication. I was reading that they're sleeping together. So I was like, let's fill in the space here.

And David was like, of course, we've seen him fuck already. Right. Right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I spoiled for you that Dougie does get that thing on. Yeah. He does, you know, whatever, go to Pound Town with his wife. It's more like Emmy Watts gets her dougie on.

Yeah. Right. Welcome, Fran. Welcome, Fran. Thank you. How are you doing? Oh, I'm pretty good. Long ago.

I'm happy to be here. Long ago. I asked you if you wanted to talk about Twin Peaks on Show this show on show. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess initially we were thinking we were talking about wild at heart Yes, and then you got mononucleosis. I got my no, it's fine. Everyone knows I got mononucleosis a cute mono Yeah, adorable mono Sometimes that's what I used to call it when I had it. It sucks, doesn't it?

It's really bad. Yeah. Because there's kind of nothing they can do for you. Correct. They're like, well, you have it. Right. Right. This is just like run out the clock.

Yeah. And I've told this story, but I'm older than the usual person who gets mono. And so they refused to test- 16? What's the age within Canon? Oh I think I'm 26 now. Right 26. But they were like you're too old for mono so they didn't want to test me I had to like beg them to test me for mono. The mono test came back positive on the like doctor online portal but then they called me to

confirm it. When they called me to confirm it they said and just checking your age is 13 years old and And I'd be like, no. And so they said like adult mono, which also really made me laugh, though they're no different, I believe. Yeah, I mean, I think I got it when I was 20, 22? I think that's, I know most people who had it had it in like college.

Yeah, they treated me like I was geriatric. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a, you feel like I was geriatric. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a, you feel like a teenager. It's weird. Yeah, I got all like weak and sleepy and... And you're just going like, shut, mom, shut up! Yeah. My, well, my lymph nodes got really huge.

I couldn't wear, I couldn't wear my glasses because my lymph nodes behind my ears got so big. Yeah. That my glasses didn't fit anymore. It was just all this stupid stuff. And so I just slept for all of July and I had no voice when I was first supposed to come on. Because of the sore throat. So I couldn't speak. I was silenced. Right. So then I... rudely by the mainstream media and your body. I said to David, maybe let's have Fran do a Twin Peaks return so that. So that gives more time for recovery. I did not know you had not watched it.

No, I mean, Lynch was a huge blind spot for me. Everything that I've watched leading up to this has been the first time I've seen it. Yeah. At heart. That's true. So you've watched all of Twin Peaks, seasons one, two, and three, right? No. No, she said she hasn't watched. I have the five EPs left.

No, I know. One and two. Yes. And then, right, all the way up to here. All the way up to here. I watched Fire Walk with me and I watched about half the films. Sure. I'll do the rest. Yeah, whenever. No rush.

What are your general feelings on David Lynch? How's that been? Newly. He's not really one of my guys. But, and I'll be, and I don't have like a greater intellectual reason to say that. He like, I had sort of put off getting into his stuff because it just never felt like it was going to be for me. And I think the stuff that I've really gravitated towards in watching has been his most ostensibly quote unquote normal stuff. Like Elephant Man is probably my favorite thing.

It's my favorite that I've watched, but that's because it's austere and it reminds me of other stuff that I know that I like. But the more that I get into Twin Peaks, the more I think about Lost, which is a fun time in my life. And I think I had into Twin Peaks, the more I think about lost, which is a fun time in my life. And I think I had this thing of like, I really loved season one of Twin Peaks.

Season two, I think like a lot of people, I had a lot of fatigue and annoyance with. I liked the sort of first chunk and then when it goes off, it really lost me. And then it only very kind of got me back. And then I really was feeling very down on Lynch and then watching Fire Walk with me sort of brought me back really big and I loved that. And so The Return, I feel so completely like baffled by it and I think it's appealing to both all the things that I liked about original Twin Peaks while also indulging in all the things of his stuff that doesn't really work for me.

Interesting. Interests me, yeah. I definitely, like, there's a, there's an odd thing. I mean, you've talked about David and I remember seeing this kind of scuttlebutt online of like people's, some people's impatience with like, when is Good Coop gonna return and when is the show gonna like actually start? The realization of... It's this the whole time.

Right. Oh, so it's not, this isn't just some like preamble to us getting to Cooper's hole again and just solving crimes in Twin Peaks. It's like, no, no, no, the journey is the entire season. Like, and that's the story being told here, right? Like, no one told you that in advance, so when it was happening, there was a lot of confusion. And yeah, we've talked about it, you know, it was crazy. I find it helpful that I'm watching this knowing that,

like, having yours to process secondhand, oh, I should not put any expectations onto this of what I think it's gonna be, and try to take it for what it is what I think it's going to be, and try to take it for what it is. I do definitely still at this point, episode 13, like three quarters of the way through it, feel like I don't really have any holistic handle.

No, I feel like I have no handle on it whatsoever, but it's frustrating me less and exciting me more. And my memory of the show airing at the time was that I felt like I would come into the office days after an episode would air. And people would- At Fran Magazine. At Fran Magazine, and my editorial staff would be just like trying to explain it to each other.

And it felt like when the adults are talking and Charlie Brown, where it's just like, I couldn't process it out of context, but even now, I think having someone try to explain it to me would not make sense and I'm watching it. Well, I'm gonna try anyway. Yeah, well, it's just sort of much more experiential than I realized and much less looking at actors

who I once saw young and now they're old. But I always love that. I keep talking about it. I'm always a sucker for that. Jim DeLuci. Well, it's that. I'm always a sucker for that. Jibulushi. It's crazy. Well, I love him so much. Yes. But it's also crazy how many people are dead in this cast now.

Yeah, sure. I mean, we're coming up on, I mean, it's seven years ago, this show now, right? Yeah, but you have a handful of actors who died before it released, where this is like their final statement, and then just a lot of people. And some of it is just

obviously like This was a show that had an older supporting cast to begin with three decades early. Who else you thinking of who's dead? Kekner's still kicking. Kekner's kicking Forrester dead. Sizemore dead. Colson dead, right? Catherine Colson. Am I getting that right? Yeah, yeah, I. I meant, right. Miguel. Yeah, well those are the people who died before the show came out.

Yes. But Sizemore, of course, we lost him recently. I got really scared that Michael Antquina died. And then I was like, oh, he's just retired. Yeah. Which I respect, to be clear. Yeah, absolutely. He's not dead. Uh, as far as I know.

Haven't checked in with him lately. Hold on, I'm gonna do another dead count. This is like, I do a, every, like once a month I check in and I'm like, let's take stock of how many original Toy Story cast members are dead. I want to have the active list. And I feel like I need to do the same with Twin Peaks now. Do you need to do that with Toy Story? Is that like?

Arlie Armin, Jim Varney. Those are the big two. Well, but I'm saying the list is growing. We still got Wally Shawley Ermey, Jim Varney. Those are the big two. Well, but I'm saying the list is growing. We still got Wally Shaw, we lost Rickles. Rickles is gone, Estelle Harris is gone. When I say original, I mean...

Is Rickles? Ratzenberg. Ratzenberg is with us. Ned Beatty's gone. Well, sure, well, it's Toy Story 3. I mean, he's not coming back. But I'm sort of like, for Toy Story 5. Oh, I'm sorry, that doesn't count.

No, I'm saying like, for Toy Story 5. Sure. Will there be no Mr. Potato Head? It's a great question. Like what, yeah, do they start to kind of soft-try these characters? Because Estelle Harris was still alive recording New Dialogue for Four, right? Yeah. Rickles, they scrapped the movie and started over so late that Rickles had never started

recording. So they constructed his performance out of leftover takes of things he had done for like the theme parks and commercials and shit. And in that movie, he just kind of makes, like, interjections from the side. Right. I'm always scared now that it's all just gonna be, like, AI voice stuff, which makes me sad and depresses me. Especially with something like that, where you're like...

With the voices, they can kind of get away with it. But I'm like, Rickles, the curveball, you can't fake that, right? Or the fastball, let's say.'m like, Rickles, the curveball, you can't fake that, right? Or the fastball, let's say. The Rickles fastball, the delivery. You can get the voice, but it's like... Maybe they can't fool us, but... The executives, the shareholders, might be tricked.

I'm hoping they retire, the two of them. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be... I mean, I think that'd only be fair. Yes. Anyway, Twin Peaks, the return. Okay, I'm looking at the list. I'm trying to identify other people who have passed away.

Go on, David. What did you make of episode eight, Fran, before we... Peggy Lipton. Oh, the crazy one. The crazy one, yes. Peggy Lipton passed away. She did, RIP Peggy. Harry Dean Stanton passed away.

He did, he was very old. He's one of those guys. He was pretty young. He read young on screen. He looked. For the last 40 years, he seemed as young as anyone. Well, not to disagree with you guys, but he's one of those guys like Pete Possilweight

where this guy has only ever been the oldest man who's ever in any room whatsoever. When you see him young, you're like, you know, you see him young and you're like, that's just a different person. That's not Harry Dean Stanton. Yeah. Like the Harry Dean Stanton I know

was a hundred years old in Alien or whatever. The crazy episode. Honestly, you look at young Harry Dean Stanton, he looks really old. Yeah, he really does. He was born old. He's pretty old here, he looks old. Yep.

Yeah, so episode eight, which we are drafting from, like, you know, we're moving off of, to talk about this sequence of episodes, but episode eight is a break in format, and it has a big nuclear bomb and a bug and lots of crazy stuff. But a less complete break than I had been led to believe. It has 20 minutes of functioning like an almost normal

episode before it then hard pivots. That's true. I was ready for it to be complete end-to-end standalone. Yeah. Yeah. I like thinking and drawing conclusions based on sort of visual evidence. So I just love to be shown a bunch of stuff and be like, go think about it. Think about what this is.

So you were locked in on that one. Yeah, totally. And I almost would prefer more of just sort of watching things come to life without back and forth dialogue a lot of the time, I think. But I remember that this is it's the only episode of this I remember when it aired in real time, just because I felt like everyone I knew was going completely insane. It's trying to make sense of it and reckoning with it being one of the great modern episodes of television. But it's certainly not like anything I've ever seen,

quote unquote, on TV. I'm sure you guys are getting into the weeds about, is this a movie or is it a TV show? I so fundamentally think it is not. A movie? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you. For me to accept that argument,

he would need to re-edit it into one 18-hour work Like I just I think even though the show does not have some strict like Episode format that it conforms to every time I'm like there is a shape to the hour cycle There is and they end you know with it with music and so on and so forth right? That alone just makes it feel like he is aware of like this is intended to be seen in one hour blocks and that alone makes it a TV show, not a movie to me. Yeah, and I also think Fire Walk with Me actually does really feel like a movie, even though it has these like two parts.

Yes. But that feels much more largely cinematic in form and shape. Yes, I think, I mean, for one, I think the whole is it a movie, you know, it becomes this exhausting debate that where you're kind of like, you know, why are we fighting about this when we could just be talking about it, right? You know, but I initially was very not into the, you know, it's a big long movie thing because I was like, that just feels insulting or sort of, you know, disdainful of the television format, which is a great storytelling format. There's something backhanded to this notion of like,

this is so good that it doesn't deserve to be called TV. And I'm like, that's rude to TV, and also TV has its own power. Well, I was gonna say, watching this is making me nostalgic for when TV felt really good. And... Absolutely. I didn't watch this at the time of airing, but I watched what I felt like was the other really big Watching this is making me nostalgic for when TV felt really good. And... Absolutely.

I didn't watch this at the time of airing, but I watched what I felt like was the other really big 2017 thing, correct me if I'm wrong, which was The Leftovers, ended that year. Which felt, to me, quite seismic and like, something that has not really been replicated. What year does Mad Men end? Mad Men probably ends around then too.

Mad Men ended 2015. Okay. Jesus, Mad Men ended in... To me. Mad Men ended 2015. Okay. Yeah. Jesus, Mad Men ended in the 90s. To me, Breaking Bad and The Leftovers. Breaking Bad, to me, is like kind of the last of the quote unquote golden age of TV. Not that it ended sooner than Mad Men. It was like 2013. 2013 or whatever. But like, and then like stuff like The Leftovers and Halt and Catch

Fire and stuff, which is amazing, feels like somewhat like where it's like it was a little less ubiquitous. There was more TV at that point, so the zone was more flooded. People weren't talking about like focusing on like a show at a time. During that like real boom time, it really felt like it's like Mad Men. We're all sitting down on Sunday night and watching Mad Men. That doesn't happen anymore at all. No. Right? Yeah.

But I feel like, I cut you off a little bit, but the whole thing about the way in which he wrote this and shot this, leading some argument to the idea that it's a little bit more of a movie than TV, I'm like, that's negated by then how he packages it. Even if creatively it came out in a burst as sort of like one big thing, rather than being written or shot as intentional episodes, the second he edits them as such.

The only argument I eventually sort of understood that distinguishes it a little bit right is that he did kind of make it as this one big chunk, and he kind of cut it up later, and he, you know, broke a lot of the rules of TV, uh... We talked about it already, you know, how actors are used, right, where it's like they might drop in for like one second in an episode, that's crazy. You know, like, so yeah, it's a little different, but I still think, yeah, fundamentally,

this is episodic television, we watched it weekly, I watched it weekly, it was a great way to experience it, because it's a great way to experience good TV. Yeah. And it's different. I think more shows could benefit from having And that's fine. a very famous person show up for two minutes, and that's that.

Yeah, that would be cool. Rules. Disclaimer is the Quarantro. Is that what it's called? That's right. Yeah, so I was talking to my brother about it, who was very frustrated watching it. I have not watched it. I've heard. I know almost nothing about that Yeah. So I was talking to my brother about it, who was very frustrated watching it. I have not watched it.

I've heard... I know almost nothing about that show. I've heard a lot of frustration about it. Or like sort of gotten waves of, you know, hearing bad vibes. Yes. And that's a thing where Quirán was like, I kind of think of it more as a six hour movie. I had originally tried to adapt this book as a movie and then it became a TV show, but I really think of it as a movie and I've thought about recutting it as a movie.

All that sort of stuff, right? And my brother James's big complaint was he was like, episodes just end, and then the next episode starts at the immediate following scene. And it really just feels like he made a six-hour movie, put credits... Which is, I hate that. ...at the hour mark. And I'm like,

well, that feels sloppier to me of a guy kind of trying to avoid what television is as a format. And that's the worst thing about the bloaty, you know, post-Golden Age streaming era of TV, where these people were like, I want to make this movie. And they're like, no. And they're like, could it just be a bloated television show? And they're like, of course, yes, please, we'd love that.

But we talked about in episode eight that when they like cut to the Nine Inch Nails performance at like minute 15, you're like, oh, interesting. They're fucking with the format that I've gotten used to. And then even episode 13 of this has the musical performance, you're waiting for starring Kyle McLaughlin to come up, and then instead that plays over Big Ed eating like instant lunch, right?

That alone is like, he's owning the medium of, this is being watched in one hour increments, and I'm playing with your expectations of what happens in that one hour and like playing with trying to force patterns upon it and understanding upon it and all of that, which says to me it is intended to be watched this way. And I'm like, if Lynch wanted to do a like 17 hour marathon,

18 hour marathon screening of this show, I'd imagine he'd be like, let me recut it. So it plays 18 hours rather than just, like, as if it were Netflix autoplay. Right. And then I'd be open to that being considered a movie. Right. Yeah.

I agree. OK, we all agree. Great. But no, no one's ever going to, well, I shouldn't say ever. But like, I don't think anyone's really ever gonna sit down and watch this in a movie theater. No. So, you know, can't that kind of be

the most important conversation here? Like, even the fucking Made in America thing, the O.J. documentary, which was a television show, but was treated as a movie and released as a movie and won an Oscar and all that stuff. But also felt like a breaking point conversationally where it's like, do we need to redefine the rules? But that did screen in cinemas.

You could go see it. And I heard that worked very well as an experience. Yes. So, you know, maybe I should just go welcome myself. But I think if you were to see an 18-hour screening of this, you'd be like, yeah, it's a weird experience watching 18 episodes of television in a movie theater. It wouldn't feel like I watched an 18-hour screening of this, you'd be like, yeah, it's a weird experience watching 18 episodes of television in a movie theater. It wouldn't feel like I watched an 18-hour movie.

But okay, Twin Peaks, Ben, do you have anything you wanna say before we begin discussing these episodes? Did they hit you any particular way? No! Wow, all right. ["The Gryphon Rhapsody"] Gryphon, oh wait, no, this is me, I'm just doing a solo ad read. All right. Griffin, oh wait, no, this is me. I'm just doing a solo ad read. Listen, uh, this time of year people are saying, uh, ho ho ho, merry Christmas or ha ha ha

Happy Hanukkah or happy holidays. I guess it works for both. But what I want to encourage people to say is mo mo mo Merry movies. Yeah, because this is blank check with griffin david we love movies and we are so excited that our friends at regal are continuing to support the show because if you sign up for regal unlimited which of course is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits that's one glycid, one No-Sonic-Furatu? One double feature you've paid for your visit. You see any standard 2D movie, anytime, with no blackout dates or restrictions, and with Regal Unlimited, you won't just save money on tickets, you'll also save on snacks! Eating!

So you can go, MoMoMo, Merry Movies! You're still saying the MoMoMo Merry Movovies thing but you have snacks in your mouth. The point is, members get 10% off of all non-alcoholic concession items. So if you're planning to see two movies this month, Regal Unlimited just makes sense. Here's what you do. You sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the description and use code blank check.

Now I know what you're saying. Oh god I've heard a lot of Regal ads before. I get it. I know what he's offering. Oh God, I've heard a lot of Regal ads before. I get it. I know what he's offering. 10% off your three months subscription. Wrong. Holiday special. 20% off if you use code blank check.

This is unprecedented. 20% off. Now I'm trying to answer your questions before you ask them. What if you already have a subscription? What if you're not a, what if you don't live in an area with a lot of regals? Here's the thing to think about. You got anyone in your life who loves movies? You looking for a gift? Regal unlimited subscription 20% off code blank check. And I want to say this as well. We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes

to evolve our strategy with advertising on this show, to both hopefully make a more enjoyable listening experience for all of you and to keep everyone happy and paid at Blank Check Productions. And a big part of that is us being really excited about partnerships like our friends at Regal that feel very on topic of what we do on this podcast and feels like a great opportunity to encourage people to take up an offer to go see movies. A thing I imagine a lot of our listeners really want to do. So if you're looking for a way to say thanks and show support for the podcast this would be a really helpful thing to do. Thank you very much.

And one last time, mo mo mo, merry movies. Part nine. This is the chair is the name of the episode, sort of. They all have these kinds of pseudo names. Where did the episode titles come from? Because this is like my experience of being like... I think they're just quotes. I mean, they're titled as part A, part nine.

A Simpsons-obsessed kid, where the episodes had no title within the episode, and then you'd read like the fucking compendium guide, and you'd be like, that's what it's called? In a pre-DVD streaming era where you weren't pulling titles? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are technically just by Yeah, you know, yeah. Yeah They are technically just by letters by numbers, but they do all have these sort of pseudo Where were those titles were those only released for the first time on like, okay I don't know when they were released. TV Guide. Yeah on the on the

Fucking disc menus. Are they on the disc menus? You can tell me I think they are I think it says part 9, this is the chair, whatever. But I feel like on the episodes themselves, it just says part number, right? It does. Yeah. Yeah. So in this episode, do you guys want to tell me what happens? Way to pass the buck, David.

Tim Roth is in the mix. I'm looking at it. All right. So it's like we're're post-episode eight. Uh, we've got the Doppelganger is alive. You know, Mr. C has not died. They stitch him up. Right, he gets stitched up by, um...

Tim Roth and, uh, Jennifer Jason Lee. Mm-hmm. What do we think of them? Hutch and Chantel. Have we talked about them yet on this podcast? They're kind of new, right? I don't believe so. Yeah, right. This is where they're introduced. Well, we met at Chantel. Well, we met briefly in two. Yeah. Yeah, episode two, right. You know, it's kind of like getting LeBron James to play

pickup basketball with you wherever. It's like, who's going to play like two criminal lowlifes for me? It's like, can we just get Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Lee, right? Where it's like, well, yeah, they've done that a million times. It's like, yeah, but they'll Roth and Jennifer Jason Lee? Right? Where it's like, well, yeah, they've done that a million times. It's like, yeah, but they'll be good. Right? Yes, yes. Like, because a lot of the character actors in the scumbags in this season

are these faces you don't really know, where you're like, wow, that guy has a really cool face. And like, you know, that guy's got crazy hair and I've never seen him before. But this is kind of shorthand casting, where it's not just the look. You're like, oh, I can carry over and extrapolate from the history of other characters these people have played.

Yeah. But yeah, so they're there. And they're around for... You know, for the whole rest of the season, they're sort of popping in and out. Like, this is not like one-off. The other big thing, I guess. It's the text message. Is the text message. Patrick Fischler kind of activating.

Right. The dinner table, the conversation is lively. Mr. C sends this text message. All right. We're seeing that they're connected in some way. And then Dougie has thwarted the attack, right? From the crazy assassin, Ike the Spike. I use his proper name. Ike the Spike. Thank you.

They're doing their ensuing investigation, Keckner and Eric Edelstein and the third guy, where they discover that Dougie has no history before, like 1997. Right. He basically seems to have been invented out of whole cloth in 1997. Right. Um, he basically seems to have been invented out of whole cloth in 1997. And, uh...

These brothers seem like they have fun. Oh, totally. I kind of, like, I'm an only child, and this, I was like, man, I wish I had some goofy brothers. Wait, which brothers are you talking about? Keckner. Right, right, and, uh, what's his name? Um, you know...

Eric Edelstein. Eric Edelstein. And then Larry Clark is around there too, right, and what's his name? Eric Edelscene. Eric Edelscene, and then Larry Clark is around there too, right, he's the other one? Yeah, not kids Larry Clark. No, thank you for clarifying. Eric Edelscene, what do I know him best from? Green Room. Yeah, I like Green Room, I forgot he's in that though.

He's in Jurassic World, okay, he must get eaten by a raptor or something. I believe that's exactly what happened. Maybe he gets eaten by the I-Rex. I guess he's just on a... He's a comedian guy? Who is this? I just know this face. He's been on Doughboy several times. He's a great Doughboy's guest. Right, that's right. Okay, I knew I knew the name.

He's been on the Jurassic Zone. Okay. He's I knew the name He's the voice of one of the wee bear bears, I think he's also now daddy shark on the baby shark cartoon show There's a baby shark shark tank. I was like, I didn't know there's a parent He's all he's Mark Cuban's dad. They'll they'll be They'll be negotiating they'll be negotiating a deal and then I'll cut to a giant cartoon shark in a tank going I approve. Yeah, they should have that. He's like the banker on Deal or No Deal.

Yeah. Jesus, I hope my daughter never finds out about this. That was the panic that set into your eyes when I told you there was a baby shark cartoon show. What's your business opportunity? I don't want someone to steal it. People listeners have to promise not to take it. Saving it for the sharks.

Yeah, maybe I'll save it for the sharks. It is really good though. Is it really what okay? If we don't you think all of our listeners promise not to steal copyright Fran Hoffman Okay, okay Phil and I came up with this together. There should be artisanal slime for adults and it should and it should be like how adult flavors are now like Yuzu, Huckleberry. So you're saying high-end scents? High-end scents, maybe organic textures. You say it's made out of organic shit, who cares if it is or isn't? Nobody's checking. This is a huge gap in the slime market. Bespoke slime for distracted adults who

just want the new version of a fidget spinner or whatever. I was gonna say, it's like how we- Yeah, but it has to be elevated. We went from fidget toys to like more mature fidget toys so adults didn't feel embarrassed to be using fidget toys. We need the slime equivalent of that basically. That feels like something TikTok would show me ads for and I would be like, why the fuck am I on this app? And then we read an article a year from now

and everyone's angry and they're like, Fran made how much off of this? It could be good, right? Fran sold her slime business for that much money to Satan himself? Penske Media? Wait, they're the same company? Okay, that's a great call.

We got on that by Eric Edelstein being in the Baby Shark show, which my daughter must never learn about. Because we've escaped Baby Shark. And you escaped Minions, right? I haven't yet gotten there. I'm worried that's just so overstimulating. Like, those movies seem very loud and overstimulated to me. To you or to her?

To me, she hasn't seen them yet. I'm just like, I feel like that's a lot. I'm just like, when would a child learn about the Minions if they haven't seen the movie? The second she sees one, there will be questions. I have no doubt. How has she, like, stepped foot be questions. I have no doubt. How has she like stepped foot in a grocery store

without seeing one? I mean, she hasn't stepped foot in a ton of grocery stores is I guess the answer. Must be nice. I mean, I'm not sending her out to do the weekly shop. She doesn't take a shift? I mean, whenever she is in a grocery store... Park Slope Co-op?

I don't belong to the Park Slope Co-op yet. Who knows? Maybe I will one day. But whenever she goes and when she loves it, cause she, you know, she's like, I want that. Yeah. Pointing at, just name an item. She's just like us. Banana.

Right, exactly. Like banana. But like, I was thinking of maybe showing her Ice Age. Oh sure. Cause that seems like, that's a pretty chill movie, right? Like there's not a lot of parallel. I thought that was like Wasamo. Well, I'm not talking quality wise. movie, right? Like there's not a lot of parallel. I thought that it was chill. Like Wasamo.

Well I'm not talking quality wise, I'm just talking like it's about a bunch of animals. No I'm just saying I can't speak to the manicness of three, four, five. Oh sure, sure, sure. But it seems less manic to me than something like the Minions sort of world. First one's like rock solid. The first Ice Age.

Yes. Yeah cause it's animals with a baby. It's not profound art but it's like rock solid family entertainment. They're animals. I forgot they had a baby. It's not profound art, but it's like rock solid Entertainment a baby scrap hit remembering. That's the weird thing The first one is just like three men and a baby with with Leary Romano and like was ammo right? It's like oh, we don't know what to do here And then the right the mammoth is kind of an Eeyore and was almost kind of like and Leary is like jeez

He's these guys and it's very much about like the uneasy Balance between the humans and the animals in this time People if he was like the table to tiger is just occasionally like 9-eleven was fucked up though And you're like it was yeah, I completely agree with you Dennis. No 2002 and it happened. Yeah, it was why I just meant during the ice age Well Fran is right. Well, that's true. It's not future ice age No, but maybe he could just kind of break the fourth wall. He could be like, 9-11 is gonna happen. And it's gonna be bad.

Right. You know, Dennis Leary over here. The first one is very much like the uneasy relationship between humans and animals, and it feels like the Ice Ages coming to an end rapidly, and then the movies were hits and they were like, we're basically gonna ignore that humans exist forever. And every movie is us kicking the can on an extension of that.

Yes. We're just keeping it in the Ice Age, baby. Right. Ice Ice baby. So, okay. So you have the fun cops. The cops are cute. The... Are they supposed to be brothers?

They are brothers. They are, okay. And we have a sequence, right, where Andy and Lucy are looking at chairs. The, um... Are they supposed to be brothers? They are brothers. They are. Okay. And, um... We have a sequence right where Andy and Lucy are looking at chairs. Occasional kind of interludes, I think, with them. Just maybe out of some respect for the audience that doesn't just want, like, Las Vegas murderers and like...

I think this hits for me. But, you know, it's Lucy literally just toggling between two color options on a chair And then them having a bit of a fight over it. I really turned on them in season two Interesting in what way just that storyline is so drawn out the such that the kid. Yeah the paternity stuff Wally I love Wally you love Wally when he came back in the return? Yeah, and was weird, as many characters are in the show. But yeah, whenever they're sort of on their shit, I'm sort of tuning out. But I know what it's like to try to buy a chair,

and it's hard. I did think it was capturing a very specific modern phenomenon of endlessly toggling back between two options on a website and not knowing which to pull the trigger on. Yeah, so much of this- The analysis paralysis of like- So much of this feels like much more engaged

with how weird technology is than the original and what we can and can't do with a computer or a phone. Right. And sometimes it's just, it's crazy you can do this. Look at two different chairs. Yeah, yeah. It's also like that thing of you write out a word a bunch of times and suddenly it feels like you're spelling the word wrong.

Anyway, you know what I'm talking about. We have a brief check in with Johnny. Johnny Horn, who has been played by various, you know, actors over the years, has played by a new character here, but has this become this kind of, like, he's wearing this protective gear and like, whatever, you know, he's, his condition has only deteriorated further. Uh-huh. He's running, he runs around his mom.

It's just a weird check in with a character you might've forgotten existed. I completely forgot about. I forgot he existed. Exactly. Yes. Um, okay. And then we have... They go to visit widow Briggs.

Yes, Bobby, et cetera. Frank and Hawk go to see, her name is Betty Briggs, of course. Yeah, to be like, your husband seems to be dead and possibly involved with something. We found the body. She gives them this. I saw this in a dream. I was told someday you'd come to speak to me.

Right, right, right. Classic brick shit. And then give them this cylinder hidden in the back of a chair. It's so cool. I kind of wish I had secrets I could hide for people to eventually discover. You can do that. That's within your power. You can do that right now.

You could even leave messages in this podcast for future, like, people to try and understand. You can foretell things. It wasn't me. That's really smart. I'm gonna go buy a Shaggy record. That's gonna absolve him of everything. He set it on the record. Now they can't pin anything on him.

It would just be funny. I mean, you're literally someone who buries things canonically. Yeah. So like people would start to be like, did Ben bury something else and like we haven't found it yet? And like, if I analyze everything he ever said, will I, you know, figure out what it is? Yeah. I definitely didn't do any kind of burial in California. Well.

Okay. All right. That's one clue. State of California. ["Skyfall"] So, and what's the, and right, the big twist of course is that Diane gets the creepy text message. Yeah, we do also, right? We have the, that is where Jerry is talking to his foot still. This is sort of in, this episode doesn't have a lot of action, I feel like it's mostly spooling

things up again, right? I think it's important to point out that William Hastings is revealed to be an alternate dimension blogger. Blogger, blogger. Yes, right. That's the thing. We have sort of the resolution to some extent of William Hastings, who is the Matthew Lillard character who is, who dies during this...

Set of episodes. His head explodes. I was so happy to see him come back. You were happy to see him come back? And then so dismayed, yeah, because I thought we were done. Done with Lillard. He's so fucking good. He delights me.

I'm just always so happy to see him pop out. So this is where he's being interrogated, and he's basically like, Yeah, look, man, I'm a blogger. There's weird shit going on. I didn't know what I was opening up here. It was funny that it's like, yes, we were having an affair because of my blog. Which doesn't really happen anymore, I feel.

You don't think there's blog affairs? Not with the gutting of media in our modern day. This is what they took from us. But right, but they are the string leading to Briggs. That's basically their purpose in the overall story. Yes. That they kind of encountered the Major in some way when they were investigating the zone, right?

This like alternate dimension that he vanished into. I read a really good profile on Lillard recently. I know we talked about him a lot in the first chunk of episodes on Return. Uh-huh. And I was saying like my confusion about how it felt like he had this early 2010s, like he's starting to get back out there in interesting supporting parts, and then it didn't totally stick. And then now it feels like it is weirdly sticking post Five Nights at Freddy's.

Right. He's in that. He's hot again. Ken? Yeah. But I'm like after Descendants, like hearing people loved him on this. There was the moment where he was in like trouble with the curve and like, he was in a couple other things where you're like, are people starting to value Lillard

again? And he basically said that in the early 2010s he like hit a wall was like really cynical and angry about like that his movie star status had not maintained and was in that position that a lot of people get him where they're like I'm so desperate to hold into being hold on to being number one on the call sheet that I hold on to that increasingly worse and worse projects, where he's in like the direct to video

Nims Island sequel and shit. And then he like called his reps and was like, I'm gonna downscale, I'm gonna sell my house, I'm gonna move into a smaller home, I'm gonna like change my lifestyle, I want to be an actor. Your job is to find me good parts to do. I don't care about my status, I wanna like reengage with what I like about acting.

Okay, but do you know who the star of Return to Nym's Island was? Isn't it Steve Irwin's daughter? What the hell is Nym's Island? Is this like Rats of Nym? Exactly. This is the fucking direct-to-video sequel on a movie you don't even remember existed, the original. The original was a 2008 children's adventure starring Abigail Breslin and Jodie Foster, called Nymims Island.

And Gerard Butler. Jerry Butler's in it. Is he the villain or is he a dad? Nims Island? I think Nims Island is a weird kind of like children's romancing the stone thing, where she is an author who writes adventure books, but then she gets caught in a real adventure, and Gerard Butler is the projection of her fictional character.

Like he's like a fake Indiana Jones. I'm getting peanuts kind of parents sound. What's going on? It's weird. What I'm saying is that like only seven years before this, Matthew Lillard was doing that. Yeah. But now he's doing good.

I hope he's doing good. I mean, I only want happiness for him, right? He's not like a, he hasn't done something. No, he seems like a lovely guy. Right, it's not like he has like a. I mean, I only want happiness for him ready He's not like a he hasn't done something a lovely guy Right. Yeah, like a big crypto position that I don't know about right like no this piece was really good I love his work, but he was just sort of like talking about the feeling of like I'll make this a short sidebar Uh-huh, but like pretty Prince Jr. Is also complained about this sir Michelle Geller is also complained about this.

The first Scooby-Doo movie was so fucking big. Was one of the most successful movies Warner Brothers had had up until that point. It's a movie you love to talk about. And then they immediately greenlit a sequel and then went to the cast and was like, fuck you. And they tried to cut everyone's salary. Whoa, sure.

They told Freddie Prinze to take like a major pay cut. Like everyone was sort of like, why are you treating us like shit? You seem to have some resentment for a hit movie and then they dumped the sequel in March and it didn't totally bomb but it certainly was like way off from the first one and then we're like weird this didn't work I guess you guys are old news and kind of blame the failure on all of them but like and Matthew Little was like that kind of like broke all of us like had a hit where we were like oh I guess we're all gonna keep doing Scooby movies and that will be able to like bankroll our weirder projects on the side and immediately Warner Brothers was like seemed weirdly resentful of us but they were kind of over.

Right? That's sort of the funny thing to think, like, not so much Lillard. Because Lillard's like, you know, you can always use a Lillard. You could use him in Twin Peaks of Return. You could use him anywhere, right? Sure. But like, Freddie Prinze, by 2004, 2005, it's kind of like, yeah, no, you're not going to make the leap, buddy, right?

You know, you're, you're, you're... He was the one, and he had a similar thing to Lure, where then he like hard pivoted to voiceover for a while, and now he started like acting on camera again. But like, The Grudge is the same year as Scooby-Doo 2? The Grudge with Sherri Michelle Geller is, of course... Have you seen The Grudge, Fran? Scary. No.

The same year, 2004. Yeah, it's scary. This show's scary. Yeah, this show's scary. How are you... Both. You don't love scary things, although I know you've gotten much braver in recent years. Right. When I first met you and we first became friends, you were not brave. No. And you had not really seen a lot of horror or mega sort of violent, scary things. Yeah. Right? You would mostly avoid it. Yeah. I'm braver. of horror or mega sort of violent, scary things, right? You would mostly avoid it. Yeah.

I'm braver. How is this? It's yucky. I wish I sort of agreed with this sort of central violent conceit that if someone's head goes sort of squish and crunch, it's like maybe funny or something. Right.

Mostly I'm just like, ew, every time. But... You're talking specifically with Lillard mode or sort of the recurring... maybe funny or something. Mostly I'm just like, ew, every time. But... You're talking specifically with Lillard mode or sort of the recurring head violence? The recurring head violence in episode eight. Sort of in that it's the first episode where the two in the lab get all maimed and fucked up.

Yeah, with the cube. Yeah, the sort of like similar types of violence in this sort of wear me down, don't scare me so much. But I do think this show in general is quite unnerving. I am. And it's also very just bleak in energy and sort of, you know, even when it's being funny, it's just like when you're visiting with Twin Peaks again and you're happy to see your friends,

there's also just this mood in the town that's really like sedate and kind of... Well, the woman honking. and you're happy to see your friends, there's also just this mood in the town that's really sedate and kind of... Well, the woman honking. The woman honking, that scene is like... And then things like that happen where you're like... That's like an ecstatic moment. I'm like, get me out of here.

Right, yeah, it's nails on chocolate. But wait, why were you gonna say Gertrude Mina? No, no, no, I am starting, it is starting to get to me living in Lynchworld for months, and this isn't the first time I've said this. Look, we're pivoting out soon. Yeah, we're going on to Penny Marshall next, and that's gonna be... We're not! Oh that's gonna be our next. We're not!

Oh, that'd be so fun. We're not! You're calling me a liar on this? That's such a good idea. We will do Penny Marshall on this show one day. I'm proud of it, and David approved of it. Yeah, we'll do it one day, and that day is January 23. No! But we are pivoting to, you know,

more straightforwardly accessible work. Yeah, we're offering our listeners a penny for their thoughts. If you will. Winky winky. So, okay, so yeah, Jerry sees his foot, it's not his, but yes, I guess. I love David Patrick Kelly. Talk about him. Well, I grew up watching The Warriors.

Yes, David Patrick Kelly, of course, plays Jerry Horn, a sort of lesser character. But he is Luther in The Warriors. What the fuck? Warriors come out and play. He's the bottle guy. Dude, I never realized that until this very moment. That's crazy. I locked into season one because I was like, Warriors.

He's got an incredibly distinctive face, and yet he's able to change his appearance around it a lot. And every time I see him in something, I'm like, that is him. It's the voice. It's the voice. I was lucky enough to see him in the recent Into the Woods. Who did you play?

The narrator. Or what's the name? And that was another one where like halfway through, I was like, wait a minute. Yes, he's always a wait a minute guy for me. And I love him. I wish there was a little more of him in this. Yes.

You excited for The Warriors musical? It's a concept album. Oh, it's a concept album. Yeah. I think it'll, I mean... I'm curious about it. I don't want to speak for anyone, including friends of the show.

I think that it could become a musical. Sure. For the time being, it's a concept album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like, I mean, I don't want to give Hollywood any more ideas for free, but I was always surprised that Warriors wasn't something that sort of ballooned into, I know that's like there's the movie and there's like the video game.

That was the moment where it felt like, are they gonna try to explode this as a cult thing? And then I, cause it was also like Rockstar being like, were basically their blank check, it felt like of using the Grand Theft Auto cache to be like, this is our dream project. And it felt like the game did not explain. Am I wrong about this, David? No, you're not wrong. And beyond that, it was kind of a logical thing, right? Like, if you're looking for...

Like, it makes so much... What surprises me is that it's never been remade. I know there have been... Yeah. You know, discussions of a possible remake there have been, you know, discussions of a possible remake. Tony Scott, I know, wanted to do one or whatever. But like, it's...

David Ayer said he was kind of... Yeah, I think Neville Dean and Taylor at one point were, or one of those two. The thing that kept on coming out about the versions that those people were working on was that the twist was to make it more grounded. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? That they were like, well, we want to treat it like real gangs, not the cartoony shit.

I'm like, who gives a shit? No, they should all be in silly stuff. They should get silly. With fun weapons. It should feel, I mean, I think that movie is good because it feels like a video game. Yeah. To some, it's like now you're in this level, now you're in that level. And that's a structure in movies I think we've run away from

a little bit. But it's effective. And it's fun. Yes. I don't know. It's one of those things where I'm like, no, don't try to straight remake it. Something like what Lynn is doing

is more probably a cool way to comment it from a new approach or whatever, or video game. One day someone will make a great subway video game. Obviously, you've got stuff like Streets of Rage or whatever, where there's like a subway level you're battling through. But like... You mean an action-driven one versus like you're running the MTA. Well, that sounds fun too. MTA management.

Those kinds of things exist where it's like, would you like to painstakingly pretend to drive a subway car? Yeah, you can do that. Right, that game is called Your Dreams? But like some sort of open-worldy game that's set in a subway system, right? Sure, like a virtual sandwich artist simulator kind of game. Kind of a cool idea, right?

Someone get on that. Sure. I mean, it's cool in video games when there is a subway system. Like Grand Theft Auto, I think when it had the New York set games especially, they would have a subway that you could like use. But it's more like sort of them being like,

yes, look, we have everything. Right, yeah, exactly. Like in Alien Isolation, there's a big subway system-ish, like between the space station's like parts. It's always cool to get on the subway. This episode ends with a Skyfarer scratching her armpit a lot. I was about to say, she'll do this, but she won't put out a new album? Well, I mean, come on.

Sort of pandering with a joke like that. You're not afraid to say it? I'm ready for the new music. Wait, it's this episode? Yeah, because I wrote Sky Ferreira in all caps, question mark. Scratch him. Yes. Is there something else in this episode

that we're not referencing? I don't know. Probably not. I like when Gordon and Diane have a cigarette. Uh, yes. You know, so, right. But we have this kind of inkling that Diane is not on the level and is somewhat connected, right, to these unsavory elements in Vegas and all that.

But we don't really know what's going on yet. Right? Yes. Okay. I guess, do we want to talk about the thing in the chair, Bobby smashing it? The cylinder. Yeah, the cylinder.

And it referencing Jack Rabbit's palace. It has the slips of paper in it. Yeah. Yep. That's all important little details. Right, which is like a place that he and his dad Palace. Palace and... Oh right, it has the slips of paper in it. Yeah. Yup. That's all important little details. Right, which is like a place that he and his dad would talk about, like this kind of made up place, right? Yeah, the Jax.

Yeah. I am very much watching this trying not to put more or less importance on any element that is introduced to me. You know, like I don't know if it's just the way I've now trained my brain to process this, but I feel like I'm now veering wildly in the opposite direction of maybe how people watched it at the time, where I'm like, I think if I'm trying to look for specific answers or clean resolutions to things, it will frustrate

me. So I'm just taking every scene as it is. Yeah, no, that's fine. Especially after the last episode. I think the way you watch The Return, especially the first time around, is to do exactly that. And then later, right, if you want to be like, you know, let me cast my brain back, or let me sift through things and be like,

oh, I guess that did connect to that and that, and it did sort of resolve. Like, there are things that kind of resolve. Or things that are explanatory in the background. That yeah, they do pay off. It's not like this is a show that just throws a bunch of info out there and it's like, anyway, life's meaningless. But then it is kind of a show that does that.

I do think it's kind of do. But I also think if you're like looking at all the numbers on those little pieces of paper in the cylinder, you're not gonna find anything satisfying. It's not like the lost stuff where there'd always be some new numbers to punch into. Like, you can't do that. The two shows I just keep kind of comparing this to,

in my own experience of being someone who is actively watching and engaged in the fucking feedback of it at the time and all of that shit, there's the lost thing where it's like, this is solvable. There are seed? They're like seeding clues and maybe not all of this is going to work, but like anything they're putting in is towards some like fixed end. But God bless that was wrong. I mean, the thing about loss that I love loss, but right, they would have things like there would be the map. Uh, the, they had been drawn on the lat on the, uh, you know, in the station. Like there was this...

In the hatch. In the hatch, right. They had all this writing on it. People were like, what does this mean? And it turns out they were kind of like, yeah, there's like three things in there that we'd thought about. And then there's a bunch of other shit where we were like, yeah, that sort of has the vibe of the kind of mysteries we've been doing. And maybe we fill it in or maybe we don't. Well, and everyone I know who goes back to watch Loss is like it's so much more fun to watch when you're not doing all the interior math and just letting it wash over you.

But I also like I think about Mad Men and the experience of watching that show and that having long gaps between seasons and it being a show that felt very elusive and like the level of theorizing of shit where people were like, I think I solved it. Like, what's her name? Jessica Perret, her character. Megan? Of course, Megan. Megan... Well, Draper, but Calvett. There we go. Was wearing a shirt that famously...

Yeah, people thought, is she gonna be Sharon Tate? Right, the Sharon Tate war, yes. Right, and they were like, and this with the Beatles, and it's Helter Skelter. So are they trying to tell us that she's going to get murdered or like a season would end with something like, Oh, the foundation of the new agency, the like Sterling Cooper Draper price. And you're like, wow. So the next season is going to be all they're doing it their way. And then two episodes in like Draper torpedoes, the whole thing. Anytime you tried to game

out where that show was going, the show was like, we're not interested in this shit. No, my favorite thing about Mad Men, right, is that people keep being like, who I need for my new firm or my spin-off is Don Draper, and then they hire him, and he's like, so I just go to the movies all day and I'm constantly drunk, and I'm not very nice to work with,

and they're like, what the fuck? And he's like, I've always been like this. And these cycles repeat themselves, and things that feel like meaningless elements become huge and things that feel like they're huge tee-ups for the future of the show immediately are abandoned in a way that feels like accurate to life to me. I had a friend who was convinced that the opening credits of Mad Men of A Man Falling, you know,

were like, they're like, that's the end of the show. Don will kill himself. So many people have that prediction. And I was like, I don't think so, man. I don're like that's the end of the show. Don will kill himself And I was like, I don't think so man I don't think that was what they were I think they were just kind of going for a vibe with whatever graphics God, you know That is like the post-law shit and then I think more and more shows are trying to do that Right in the wake of loss and I think like Twin Peaks starts that to a certain extent But the success of loss to be able to sustain that for a way and to a certain extent, but the success of Lost to be able to sustain that for a way.

And to a certain degree, it's like broken people's brains. Yeah. Well, I think Breaking Bad had that kind of puzzly stuff. Yes. Two. And maybe Saul, but I never watched Saul. Where that feels more inherently baked into the structure is that there's some, like, puzzle or mystery. But Saul, right, had promise of that, but it turned out, Saul was kind of doing a different thing.

It had the, whereas I never got the sense that Mad Men actually had. No, it didn't. But that's what Griffin's saying. At the time, people's radars were kind of up more. Yes. Yeah. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Ah.

Okay, great, the door 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 Year of great moments. Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about some of them the minions returned. Oh, thank God Thank God the minions are true Rose grew Rose Venom had his last dance as 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. That 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, that's 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. You're trying to make a memory that will stay put. People say put a ring on it, right? If you put a ring on it, you're not going to forget it. You're not going to forget which Minions movie you saw if you put a ring on it. If you're going to take that moment to step.

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Well, right now you can go to bluenile.com and use code blank check for $50 off your purchase of $500 or more. That's $50 off with code of $500 or more. episode is brought to you by MUBI. MUBI! We love it! It's a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. There is always something new to discover with MUBI. Each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime anywhere.

Here's what I really love about MUBI. What? David, they're invested in the culture. They don't just advertise on podcasts. And they don't just stream movies. They put things in theaters. They publish magazines and they put out checks notes here. Podcasts?

That's what I'm saying. They are putting their money where their mouth is by covering, well, on their award-winning movie podcast. The movie podcast is starting a new season, season seven. Box Office Poison. It's gonna tell the story of six films that were notorious financial disasters but have come to be celebrated as visionary.

That's visionary, I'm just saying you're fancy. Yeah, no, it was very fancy. It's based on the- Yeah, Tim Roby. Yeah, well, why don't you go ahead and say it. Why, they were mutuals on Twitter. Tim Roby, the film critic for the telegraph in the UK He wrote a book called box office poison. So we got host

Rico gagliano using his research to help research. Yeah to tell some wild stories about these films And they're rising they're falling their rise. What are the movies? Well, it's a good list It's some movies we've covered on this show and some favorite of ours that we have not covered Sorcerer we will cover one day babe pig in the city. We have covered sylvia scarlet We're not sure about that the hud sucker proxy will probably cover one of my all-time favorite movies I know synecdoche, New York a mutual favorite. I think we'll get there and speed racer covered it guests include master cinematographer Roger Deakins Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell that'll do legendary screenwriter Wallen Green okay SFX pioneer John Gata love that guy critic and podcaster Corina Longworth good friend of the show has a future

guest movie star Rebecca Hall still my heart yeah UK comic genius Jamie Dimitriou he's all over the place and Tim Tim Roby himself. Very good. Six episodes released weekly on Thursdays from November 14th until December 19th. And don't forget to stream great movies on MUBI. Yeah like Andrew Harold's Bird coming soon to their streaming service. Flap, flap. Now they 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.

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 it's done with its buzzy cast features Barry Hewitt that's right don't say the G we know from salt burn yes I mean friends are gals keys of insurance, but yes, and then you've got Arthouse favorite, Franz Rogowski. Yes. Franz Rogowski from Passages and Transit.

On Dean. Great movie. 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, Red Road, of course, you had Kate Dickey. Mm. Oh, no, sorry. Well, yeah, Red Road was Kate Dickey. That was a discovery. No, that was it.

But in Fish Tank, you had Katie Jarvis. And in American Honey, you had. Sasha Lane. And she Honey you had Sasha Lynn and she's still you know she's still crushing it seeing Sasha Lynn all over the place. 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. 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. Bird is coming soon to streaming exclusively on movie. Additionally, you want to stream some great films at home, you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check that's mubi.com slash blank check for a month of great cinema for free and bird will Eventually end up there bird bird Episode 10, uh, so we've got Richard being insane Richard. Sorry to spoil horn Right harassing Miriam who's the woman who saw him commit murder.

Yeah, I'd say it goes beyond harassing. Yeah, being very, very, very scary. Richard, probably the most evil character in Twin Peaks. Thoughts, Fran? I agree. I looked up this actor the other day. I don't think I've seen him in anything else. He looked really familiar to me, though.

But I can't place him. Wait, which actor? Who plays Richard? Amon. Wait, which actor? Richard. Amon. OK, so the actor's name is Amon Farron. He's an Australian actor? Yeah. I mean, he's also in Jennifer Lynch's movie, Chained,

which I've never seen, but maybe that's the connection here. I don't know, like, where they really found this guy. He has the most amazing face in the world. I was going to say, it's one of these things where like... He's in The Witcher, but I feel like none of you guys watch The Witcher. I watch The Witcher, but I couldn't... Okay, well, he's in it. I can't place him in that either.

Okay. He's the guy who's like... A huge piece of shit? He's like the evil... Yeah, evil army guy. Yeah, he's not a good character. Oh, actually, maybe I do know who this is in Witcher. A face like that, I think you're just rarely gonna be cast as like, Jim Nice Man.

I was gonna say. Yeah, well he reminds me of the eyepatch brother on House of Dragon a little bit, who also has such a great face, who is called Aiman in that show, but not in life. I didn't watch season two of that show because I know it involves so much baby murder and I was like, I'm not ready for this right now.

That's fine, I will tell you, that's a season of TV I finished watching, say in like the last weekend of July of this year. And it's gone. I can't tell you a single thing that happened this season or how it ended. So maybe don't. Yeah, maybe I won't.

I don't know. Oh, but you know who I remember? Simon Russell Beal. Yeah, I love him. Well, he's in the mix. Yeah, no, I know. He's right. He's wearing robes and stuff.

Amazing he didn't made it to Thrones until then. Griffin, what do you want to say? I was going to say, he has such an inherently evil face. And I don't want to make this sound like a statement about the actor. And I admittedly haven't seen him in other stuff, right? But like, Frank Silva, you know, all the stories of Lynch just seeing him on set and being like,

wait a second, if you made this face, and your look is so specific and whatever. And he's doing kind of like a scary haunted house, like, ah! And you're like, yeah, I get it within the language of it. If that guy does that, it reads as like scary evil, right? But it feels like he's kind of playing like scary evil in quotes, which makes sense,

because he's like more of a force than he is a guy. He's a ghost or whatever, right? He's not, right, where's, yes, go on. This guy just looking at anything, I'm like, this is the most evil motherfucker who has ever lived. Absolutely. Just him neutral, before he even starts doing shit. And then when he throttles into like, kicking through a trailer door, it then becomes that much scarier. And I, like, I assume he is a lovely, well-adjusted man and has much range as an

actor and can play other things. But I see him in this and I'm like, they, they, like, conjured him through the depths of hell. When do we find out that he's a horn? It's not initially, right? No, not at all. It's when he goes to, uh, his grandmother's house, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And then he goes to Ben and you realize like that's the connection. I don't want to say anything more because now I'm afraid of spoiling like sort of his origins or whatever. But yes, initially you're just like, who's this? And he's kind of just this like ball of lightning like that is like the worst thing in the world just tearing through town. You've also got to check in with Caleb Landry-Jones, Caleb Laundrybag, and Amanda Seyfried in the trailer park run by Harry Dean Stanton. Things are also going bad for them. This is like the

bad vibes time. But Harry plays a little song. Yeah. He's playing the guitar. Which I love to see. It's so great. He's really like, I'm surprised how good of a singer he is. Right. So you got the Mitchum brothers. Rodney and Bradley. Played by Robert Neffer. You know, a TV character actor, right? I mean, how would you describe Neffer? Obviously most famous for Prison Break. People wrote a lot of weird fanfic about that guy.

Who was he in Prison Break? Teabag. Oh, of course. It was one of those characters where they were like, he's a recurring villain, He's like a pedophile He's like the nastiest villain in Prison Break and immediately the viewers of like this 8 p.m. Fox show were like more of him Put him all over this show. What what my brother's always rewatching Prison Break I know there's there's some nasty allegations about Robert. There's some bad

But I do think like both in terms of his public persona and the roles he plays it is that sort of Just like immediate this guy's bad news Kind of thing. That's his vibe. Is that fair to say? Uh-huh And he so he's in the show and you write you that's the whole thing with him and then Bradley who is played by Jim Belushi Who according to whom? Where are you getting that info? According to Wikipedia,

but you know who was initially supposed to play this role? John Belushi. Ha ha. Paul Giamatti was supposed to play one of the two missions. I'm actually not sure which, but you think it would probably be the Belushi one because it feels like Belushi is more of a stand-in, you know, because it's like kind of one skinny, mean guy and one big kind of doofy guy.

Yeah, but Motts and Belushi would be interesting together. Any combo is probably interesting. Yeah. But I love the presentation of these guys as like Vegas heavies, right? You know, like scary guys who you don't want to see at your door. But then all of the stuff we have with them is the goofiest, most airy, you know, ridiculous comedy. First, the first sequence is when the girl tries to swat a fly and hits Rodney in the head.

Who live with them. And they're all like screaming. My favorite character. She's the best. Candy. She just, there's something about those moments where they're speaking to her and that recurring like comedy bit they do where she's just kind of spaced out.

It's so funny. And I feel like, you know, the further episodes we have with these guys, you know, with the box with Dougie out in the, you know, in the later episodes, it's just fucking hilarious. This is one of the few things that feels like it's setting itself up in a very clear, propulsive narrative way, which is like the threads are being pulled together that Mr. Jackpotts is the same guy who works at the insurance firm and Fishler has activated Sizemore. I know I'm getting ahead a little here. No, whatever.

It's fine. These five episodes really covered this sort of mini-arc. Right. Like the wake of Mr. Jackpot's like, bankrupting a casino kind of and pointing out this insurance fraud, like his disruptive energies, like what they do to this weird Vegas-y Arizona ecosystem. That Fishler is activating Sizemore, who clearly already was kind of in on his own scam with them But also strongly dislikes Dougie. Yeah. That there's this sort of like

Propulsive Dougie needs to be assassinated. Yes. Dougie needs to be taken out. Right. Can Sizemore point the mob towards Dougie so they take care of him themselves, or is Sizemore gonna have to clean up the mess if they don't? Right.

Yeah, the common enemy. Right, and so Ike the Spike is the first attempt at that. That doesn't work. That's how they become aware of him. Dougie, meanwhile, has gone to the doctor, and the doctor's like, you're now the fittest, handsomest man in the world. Your old chart says you're a piece of shit.

Not sure what's going on there. Naomi Watts, I prescribe you fucking him tonight. man in the world. Your old chart says you're a piece of shit. Not sure what's going on there. Naomi Watts, I prescribe you fucking him tonight. Exactly. I guess you got to go home and break a bed, Dolomite style, right? Like just have Dolomite sex. They do have, David, that's a very good way of putting it. Yeah. God. They fucking human tornado.

What if I like joined a dating app and my thing was like, I want to have Dolomite sex. Anyone like, you know what I mean? Anyone who understands this reference, let me know. Otherwise, don't get in touch. I'm going to throw out a couple of reasons you shouldn't do that. I'm probably not going to do it. I'm going to be honest with you. Probably. Oh boy.

So they have sex. We have another episode of Dr. Amp. I forget what he's yelling about this time. Do you like Dr. Amp? Yeah, he's like good Alex Jones. Yeah. Like people are like, who's the left, you know, Joe Rogan? Is it Dr. Amp?

It's Dr. Amp, where he's like, there's too much sugar and everything's poison, which I basically agree with, though I like eating the poison, to be clear. Of course, but that's a choice. That's an informed choice. Exactly. But I'm not happy about it, but I like eating it. Of course. I like Dr. Amp. well, I just love Ross.

Yeah. Yeah, how do you feel? We haven't really asked you what you thought of like original Twin Peaks. I know you found Fire Walk with me very rattling and good, I think to your surprise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, to a lot of people's surprise

when they get around to that movie, they realize it's amazing. Yeah. Original Twin Peaks? Yeah. I just have my guys I like, my realize it's amazing. Yeah. Original Twin Peaks? Yeah. Just have my guys I like, my guys I don't care about. I like some of the more... Give us a little bit of a who's your power rank

and who's on your shit list. Who's on my power? I like the kind of evil people in the show. Okay, go ahead. So I like the Horn brothers. And is it Ray? Shelly's, not Shelly's, Norma's like ex-husband. Oh no, Ray is-

Ray's the other guy in this. The guy with Mr. C who tries to kill him and fails. You're talking, what is that guy's name? I forget, but I love that guy. I love Bobby. I mean, I think the arc of Bobby from original Twin Peaks to The Return is like so profoundly beautiful. Agreed.

And Hank is who you're talking about. Hank. Hank. I love Hank. Chris Mulkey. He's just one of those guys who are like, oh, I know Chris Mulkey and he's in a lot of Twin Peaks, but he's the 18th most important character. So I forget, you know, what he does. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. And I like Audrey. I don't really care about James. I Like James a lot. I don't care about Lucy and Andy Your name and my favorites. Sorry. Yeah

So you like the more open-hearted characters Griffin the kind of sweetie pies. Although I do like I think Holistically across the entire Twin Peaks project, Dana Ashbrook is maybe the most impressive performance. Totally. Right? I think what McLaughlin is doing specifically on the return trumps that, but then I also think Ashbrook remains

the second best performance on this. I think, I don't know, we've talked about it before, but it's just kind of astounding the range he has to be able to play all the different sides of what Lynch wants, whereas it feels like a lot of characters or actors only land on one side. Like, the fact that he is the character who's shared on both of our lists,

when we maybe show preferences to different sides of Twin Peaks, is like, he's kind of the only character that feels like he can adjust and adapt to any type of scene he's in. Well, and I think Lynch is kind of interested in the perpetuation of a certain kind of, dare I say, male violence, which comes up again and again in this work and other stuff.

And with Bobby, it feels like he's exploring why someone might become violent and also what can save them from this violence, because he's such a dynamic and horrible character upon introduction, and then you start to get into the weeds of like what his life is like and what he's motivated by and this sort of disaffected youth culture thing that he comes to represent.

I absolutely love him. I wish there was more of him in The Return, but there's sort of just enough also to maintain something. It's so high impact whenever he is in there. Well, and he's got the Knoxville silver hair that also like, second I see someone who's gone all gray, I'm sort of moved. One of the most incredible.

Yeah, why am I not going gray? What's going on with my fucking hair? I don't know, you seem too calm. You should try to find more things to get stressed out about in your life. I'm getting a lot of grays. My dad went gray very young. I'd love to go gray.

My dad was like one of those guys, went gray in like his early thirties or whatever and it was kind of always his look. And so I was always like, I bet that happens to me. And instead, yeah, I'm always stressed out. You hear me on this show, heard me melting down about talking about subway games just now.

Where's my gray hair? I have a little in the beard. A little, yeah. Just a little bit. I had an old roommate... Again, no sympathy for Sims. Doesn't have a subway game, doesn't have gray hair, no one cares.

I have a friend who, an old roommate who had the streak, the like, Bride of Frankenstein's streak, which I'm always like, it's crazy. A rogue, sure. Yeah. No, I'm a friend who, an old roommate who had the streak, the like, bride of Frankenstein's streak, which I'm always like, it's crazy. Oh, rogue, sure. Yeah. No, I'm a big fan. I think gray hair rules. Yeah.

And I think like, not to speak ill of the late Tom Sizemore, someone who had a sterling reputation and never did anything bad. Right, I mean, this show is filled with people where you're like, just don't scroll too far on their Wikipedia page. Kind of just try, kind of just try to hit the halfway mark.

Yeah, but he has such unnaturally dyed hair in this. And I would say it doesn't feel like it doesn't fit for the character he's playing. But I'm just like, when you're looking at him existing in a show with a lot of people who have embraced their age, you're like, all of them look better. Yeah, I understand why McLaughlin's hair is dyed because he's sort of unstuck,

but I do think he's also quite striking looking now with all the gray hair. I mean, he has very much figured out this act of his life in that kind of gold-bloomy way of, like, you know, like, I am kind of at my best in my sixties all of a sudden. But I do think that's the case for almost everyone. As you said, like, it is...

Let's talk about Knoxville for half a second here. A great example Right like Jackass would probably fit on Twin Peaks, too He would be good. Yeah forever starts filming with him with the dyed hair and then he said that it was just like Pandemic filming shut down stop touching it up and then we restarted filming and I was like fuck it What if I just don't read diet and all of us are just like, yeah, this is amazing. This is exactly how you should look.

I mean, Forever is so good in part because it's about like the aging body and what the body can handle. That movie's amazing. Yeah, rules. Um, so, okay, so right, we have, right, Richard, episode 10 is a lot of Richard, not Richard, sorry. No, uh, yeah, it is Richard.

Tearing through, right, so first him harassing Mir Richard, sorry. Yeah, it is Richard. Yeah, Richard. Tearing through, right, so first him harassing Miriam, then him going to his mother's house, knocking Johnny to the floor, basically, trying to stealing her shit, his grandmother, sorry, not his mother. So you got a lot of that.

You have Albert gets, goes on a date with Jane Adams. Uh-huh. That's fun. Love. Love. Talk about Grey hair. Yeah, seriously. Yes.

Um, she's so good on The Idol. I'm not lying, but, uh, we don't have to get into that. She was one of the better parts of The Idol, right? I do remember at the time people were like, yeah, you know, Jane Addams is fun and there's someone else that's kind of fun on it, right? Azaria. Who? Hank Azaria.

Oh, Hank, oh, he's in it? Yeah. Is that who I'm thinking of, the people kind of praise? Yeah, I guess it must have been. I'm looking at this cast list. Yeah, Troye Sivan. Oh, well, Divine, Divine Joy Randolph. Oh, well, she good. Oh, yeah, sure. Well, Randolph. Oh, well, is she good? Oh, yeah.

Sure. Well, she and Hank Azaria and Jane Addams are like her team. Right, they're the managers who are like, stop fucking The Weeknd. Yeah, they're like- Lily Rose Depp is like slow motion smoking a cigarette or whatever she does. I thought Troy Savan was kind of good on it. Okay. I'll never watch it.

Definitely don't. But it lingers in the mind, like few else. But that's a very fun character, the Jane Addams medical examiner character. Like, that's a great example of a from Peaks of the Returned character where you're like, this is literally just a dusting of cinnamon, right? Like, it's not pivotal to anything, but we have found a great role for a great actor here.

She's in it a lot. She is. And Miguel is just so good. I just think, even in the original episodes, one of my favorites, I always love in any kind of weird or supernatural shit, the one character who's like, this is so weird, this is so stupid, who's just the obvious cynic. I think it's just always appealing and he's so good at it. And I'm so moved by him because he's no longer alive.

Yes. And he's just one of my favorite characters in the show generally. I'm trying to see if I can find the quote about it. But he was very sick by this point. He was also a regular on one of the NCIS shows, maybe New Orleans. Really? LA. Just will always make me laugh.

But like shot, I want to say. Just LA? Like what were, anyway, sorry, go on. He shot his final episode like a week before he passed away. He was one of those guys who insisted on like still working until the very end because he needed to like not, to feel like he was still, you know, engaged with something. And they just talk about like, you can find these quotes that I cannot find right now of Like cast and crew from NCIS LA where they just kept on trying to like write around him and be like let's lighten his workload

Because he's not doing well And he was just like no I got to do this and would come in and was just like the consummate fucking pro and would give His all and like nail it in one take and then he'd like step off and they'd be like he is in such an astonishing amount of pain right now and it is one of those things of like there is such an innate I don't know there there is this like weird perfunct humanity to this character who is not given a ton of like emotionality and it's obviously like even more weight now that we've like lost him but like then yeah Albert is a workaholic Yes, he's not Empathetic the whole original clash that he has with Cooper

Yes that he shows up and he's like I fucking hate this town. Everyone's a bumpkin everything so slow and Cooper's like I love it Here it's regenerate, you know, it's reenergizing me and like that's their kind of fundamental There is something to, I'm not saying it's a meta-textual thing. I think it's the weird nature of on-camera acting. There is something that is being transferred from the amount of effort it takes Miguel Ferrer to just stand at this point in his life

and to look at people that lends it such a weight when so much of his performance is like standing and nodding. You know, it is done with like such depth of like this guy really wants to be here and these actions take a lot out of him as minimal as they might seem. It lends some sense of import.

And I don't think this is, I guess I don't know where it goes any more than you do, but seeing that character start to come around. Right, start to open up a little bit. He's never gonna sort of be like, I assume like full force sort of believer kook, but even these little kind of come like realization moments feel quite moving, all considered too.

Yeah, it's creative. Because that's what aging is also. Yeah, that's, yeah. Right, but the other. And that's why we should all go gray. That's why you is also. Yeah. Yeah. Right, but the other... And that's why we should all go gray. That's why you shouldn't fight it. The other big thing in episode 10, right, is the sort of the chain of events of like Patrick Fischler

tells Tom Sizemore, you need to remove Dougie. And so Tom Sizemore tries to convince the Mitchum brothers, like, he's your problem. Yes. Like, you know, to try and like, you know, solve the problem for him, right? Uh, we also in the... But meanwhile, Duggie's boss, the boxer, what's his name? I'm realizing like 40% of these Twin Peaks episodes is me just going,

what's his name again? Yeah, I know who you're talking about. Yes. Bash. Right. I don't remember which episode it's introduced in, but he like gives credit to Dougie through his weird doodlings, pointing his attention to the thread of where the money is going, which would have ruined the company if they had not taken insurance policy out against

the insurance policy. So actually, thanks to Dougie, everyone has ended up in trouble. Everyone's in great shape. Right. No one's in trouble, but you have this sort of tension of like, well, knowing Dougie cannot really string together a sentence, will he be able to explain this to Jim Belushi in time to not be shot? Because Jim Belushi doesn't seem like a patient person.

No. Yes. End of the episode is Rebecca Del Rio performing, of course, from Mohan Drava. Long time. Alright, but so part 11. With Moby. Oh, Moby's there? I was, I was wondering if it was him.

I said that's Moby. Yeah. I can, I clocked Moby. He's playing guitar over his shoulder. He's a guitarist. Huh. Yeah, I never clocked that. You've worked with Moby.

Should we not talk about that? We can cut that out. You've worked with Moby? Should we not talk about it? Yeah, we shouldn't talk about it, but I worked with Moby on something. Interesting. Was he nice? Yeah, he was nice. He was pretty, yeah, he was nice.

Cool. Is he a vegan? I would have heard about him by now. It never came up in discussion, but he has these big tattoos. Right, I was going to say- Oh, remember when Eminem- If you talked less to his face and more to his forearms, you might've gotten an answer. Yeah.

Remember when M&M, it's without me, I think, right? Like, you know, he releases without me. David, you're looking at me? And it's like, oh, M&M's back. He's uncorking all his comic stuff, and he's like, and he fucking rags on Moby in this one. For doing yoga? Moby?

Like, M&M's, that's like the softest target imaginable. Like, that's the best he can do is nobody listens to techno. Some of his targets are weird. And like, him drilling down on Chris Kirkpatrick. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. And I'm like, is it just truly that it's a good rhyme? It probably was. It must be. I just remember, like, there's like an attack on Moby

in the music video, like a fake Moby. And it just felt like even to teen me in 2004 in the music video, like a fake Moby. And it just felt like even to teen me in 2004, I was like, I don't think anyone's really worried about Moby doing anything right now. He's not on your corner. When Eminem briefly announced he was retiring at 33, you were like, yeah, after the Moby thing, maybe you do need a fucking free... It feels like the tank's a little empty.

Okay. So yeah. It feels like the tank's a little empty. Okay, so yeah, in part 11, we've still got more of the Caleb Laundry Bag Amanda Seyfried drama. It's like all these Quinn Peaks characters, or not, but a lot of these Quinn Peaks characters have had kids who are just like disasters. It's like, you know... Shelley and Bobby have Becky. Right. It's Becky and you know... Shelly and Bobby have Becky. Right. It's Becky and Richard and it's like, it's just, but it's like...

Well, you start the episode out, in the 90s, they were all these troubled teens or whatever, but... But they're like soap opera troubled teens versus these being like bad people. They're perpetuating all the worst parts of their parents. Right. Or their grandparents even. I feel like Richard Horn is more of a Richard Boehmer.

Because the Twin Peaks teens are like Greece, rebel without a cause teens. Right, right. They're troubled teens of a prior youth. And now all these teens, 20-somethings, whatever they are, it's like this nasty, modern, kind of depraved, you know, listless youth, like with no jobs and no prospects,

and they're like living and stealing from each other and like on drugs, and it's like... It just feels more like real or in your face, even though in Twin Peaks, a lot of the same problems are, you know, being presented in soapier ways. The Bobby Shelley conversation with Amanda Seyfried where they're like trying to put like a wall down and be like, you have to fucking stop it with this guy and she's alternating constant

between like I love him and I hate him don't worry I never want to talk to him again feels like yes not this like heightened dramatic version of a like doomed romance it is like oh this is like a pretty uncomfortable look at someone caught in an abusive relationship with a dangerous person. Some of that just feels like a different way in which we talk about young people on TV now though, also. Like we don't really have those kind of like soapy characters anymore.

And I think the concept even of like a CW teen show is very different now. Striving for a greater sense of psychological realism than it... Or going like whole, whole hog fantasy, like history thing, but it's no longer doing like One Tree Hill or like Everwood or whatever. How much of that do you think is like a fear of the quote unquote insensitive portrayal? That like a lot of those types of shows were baked around these big dramatic arcs of things that are treated, not like insensitively,

but are treated broadly, versus now people wanting to be like, it's like a real snapshot of what these things are like. Even in the sort of broadest versions of those shows, people want credit for this is an accurate representation. Yeah, I think it's less about sensitivity and more just like, people's imaginations are so much smaller and are not willing, and everyone takes everything so literally, I feel.

And some of those things were great because they were these exaggerations, which now our brains can't process. Whereas, I don't know, you see like a, I'm just, whatever my Twitter feed is now, I'm always seeing old clips from Glee, and people are like, this is crazy, this was on the air. And it felt a little crazy at the time, but it was way closer to what shows were like back then than what they are now.

Glee had almost a throwback element with it. It felt like they were always doing very special episodes and all that, but just about more lurid stuff. Glee had this frankness to some of the very special episodes that was more contemporary. It's not really a defensive Glee, which is not a show I ever loved. You weren't a Gleeke?

I was not a Gleeke. But it did, you know, for a minute there, it was basically like, can we do like, Friday Night Lights with songs, right? Like, can we have this sort of high intensity, real teen shit drama, but also it's like a silly musical with jokes and Jane Lynch is there. And now it's Euphoria, which is just everyone all the time screaming like, this is happening to me! Like, and you're just like, can you all shut up? Like, be quiet.

Like, thinking of shit like the fucking Max Gossip Girl reboot and the creators coming out and being like, don't worry, we're really gonna examine privilege head on. Right. And I'm like, what is the point? Mm-hmm. But, right, the OC Gossip Girl era of aspirational shows where you're like, don't you wanna be part of this world

but also explore the dark side Yes, now that's whatever and can't be done in a way that doesn't feel corny what you know what Twin Peaks season one reminds Me of sometimes Veronica Mars, which was a great example Bobby is very Logan Echols. Yes, Veronica Mars is a hundred percent Fuck what's his name? You know matchbox 20 Rob Thomas Rob Thomas. I mean a different guy, but he what's his name? Uh, you know, Matchbox 20. Rob Thomas. Rob Thomas. I mean, a different guy, but he has the same name. Uh, the creator of Veronica Mars.

Uh, Rob Thomas being like, right, can I make a kind of noir-y, twin-peeksy teen show? Mm-hmm. He succeeded for a while, kind of fell off the rails of, you know, I think season three of Veronica Mars is really bad, but like, defensive. I've heard before being an uptick.

Well, no, four is... There's only three seasons before the revival, yeah. Why did I think... And then the movie. It had a bunch of... Three is the one that ends with her signing up for the Academy, taking the test? Where they kind of are trying to pivot to maybe a reboot-ish season four, and then it just got canceled. Maybe if I said four was an uptick, it's the four I wrote in my head.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And then Riverdale, which I never watched much of, that felt like where I'm like, okay, we're making copies of copies at this point. Because Riverdale is like, what if Archie was Twin Peaks? And you're like, what if? And they're like, by episode three,

they're like, Archie has magic powers. And I'm like, okay, well, you've kind of gone beyond Twin Beaks at this point. But that's the thing. There's also the weird effect of that being like, can you only get away with that level of like, operatic storytelling if you're couching it in the sort of like, irony of, isn't it funny we're doing this with Archie?

Yeah. I mean, I've... Yes. I feel like I've referenced this before and I was talking about this with someone recently and it caused me to like pull back up the file. But there was the fully buried announced shot and never released Diablo Cody Powerpuff Girl show for CW that was very much them trying to do the same thing. I thought you were going to talk about the Heathers that got canceled also.

No, I didn't ever watch that. Oh, you didn't want to? about the Heathers that got canceled also. No, I didn't ever watch that. Oh, you didn't want to? The buzz was so good. Sorry. How was it? I didn't watch it. I didn't see it.

Oh, yeah. The Powerpuff Girls show felt like an absolute breaking point of them being like, it somehow became euphoria level shit in Powerpuff Girls and trying to make the like Electricity off the tension of you think these characters are innocent. We're making them do insane like ecstatic things And that that felt like a cultural crash moment that we have to stop rebooting right? Yeah, we must make something new Veronica Mars. it. Good show. To be clear, I genuinely love Veronica Mars.

That was new. Yes, it was using old tropes or whatever, like all new, you know, stuff. Do that again. Yeah. Come on. Chop chop. Yeah, Ben, do that again. Oh, I'm seeing here that broadcast television is dead. So unfortunately. No, it's kind of back though. Is it? Doctor Odyssey. Should I watch that? What is that? It's so cool. What if you were a doctor on a boat? Joshua Jackson? Whoa, whoa, whoa. My interest jumped up 100%. Did you not know? No, I don't know anything right now. He's the titular Odyssey. Don Johnson!

But Don Johnson's the captain of the boat. I can see it. His name is Odyssey though? No, the boat is the Odyssey. He's the Doctor on the boat. Fuck. Oh, but that's such a good idea for a show. Oh, God, but it's Ryan Murphy. It's always him. It's like how they call him Doctor House because he lived in a house. They call this guy Doctor Odyssey because he lives on the Odyssey.

Does that joke even make any sense? I liked it. Fran, who else is on Doctor Odyssey? No one laughed. Apparently Pippa Sue. Phillipa Sue. Love her. Oh, okay. And Don Johnson as you there's that clip going around of Capri Lamp being poisoned by a smoothie made by Margaret Cho and that's like one of many things that dr. Odyssey has to deal with wait that happens on dr. Odyssey. Yeah, Capri Lamp gets poisoned by Margaret Cho Smoothie on dr.'s something in the smoothie.

What's in there? I don't know. I think it's making her break out in hives. Is it? Yeah. OK. That sounds great. I'll watch it.

I'll tune in tomorrow. I also, I don't watch any of the like, 911 Lone Star spin-offs, but my parents watch all those. I see clips occasionally from Twitter. Yes, me too. But if you want to know where any lost alumni is, they've shown up on that show. It's just all lost alumni.

I feel like I saw a clip of Gina Torres yelling at a young girl who had a harmonica. With a harmonica in her mouth, yeah. That's one of the most insane things I have ever seen. This is what I mean about broadcast TV. They're like, time to get the Vaseline. They still have to fill those hours, and there's still actors who want to make money

doing it and so on. That's why I'm like, maybe it's back. It's like just stealth back, but nobody's talking about it really. And then once in a while people will be like, do you know, there's like harmonica is getting stuck in mouths. Dude, the two of you, Ben and David know what harmonica girl looks like. No. Cause it's like, it's really crazy.

It's like killer clowns from outer space makeup. Like it is so fun. That's, that looks good. And Gina it is so fun. That looks good. And Gina Taurus is having like an intense emotional conversation. Well she's breathing out through the harmonica. Her friend is translating. Like her friend can understand what she's saying

through the harmonica, which is what's crazy. Her friend is going like, she's saying that her mouth hurts. And then there's all these people in the replies on Twitter being like, this would never happen. Yeah. Yeah, that would happen. You think, but you're like, I don't believe you. On Twin Peaks, to get us back to that, Hastings, Matthew Lillard, right, takes everyone to

see like to the forest, right? It's like the woods. Yeah. And he's like, so I saw Major Briggs here. I saw his head. Just the head. Right? Cooper. Yeah. And he's like, so I saw Major Briggs here. I saw his head. Mm-hmm. Just the head. Right?

Heads of Cooper. Yeah. Yeah, and it said Cooper. And this is where Gordon Cole, played by David Lynch, do you enjoy that character frame? You know, in original, no. In The Return, yes. I kind of agree with you. In original, you're kind of like, he's having fun, but this is a little much.

Yeah. And then in this season, in The Return, he's such a... You really need him. Like, he's kind of the guy you're grabbing onto. He's steering the ship more. Yeah. Yeah, so I really like him in The Return, yeah. And he sees a spiral in the sky.

A vortex. That's right. He sees this sort of very lynchian image of this crazy vortex. And Albert seemingly sees it for the first time. And sort of very lynchian image of this crazy vortex. An album. Seemingly sees it for the first time. And sort of yanks him out of the way. Right, yes.

It would be scary if you saw that for real. Yeah. He's good at acting. David Lynch. Yeah. He is, kind of. I mean, I watched the fucking fable mince scene maybe once every other week. Oh, it's awesome.

I watch it all the time. It is so compelling. It's so good. Yeah. It's so good. Yeah. It's one of those things where you're like, that anyone had any other idea for this scene is unimaginable to me. Like this was always meant to exist.

I feel like Spielberg hasn't said who it was, but that he had someone else he was gonna offer it to. Uh-huh. And then it was, fucking what's his name? Christian's husband. Mark Harris? Mark Harris is the one, according to Mark Harris,

and I believe him, who suggested David Lynch initially, and it was a brilliant suggestion. Right, he was like, you know you should cast as Ford, and he was like, I have someone in mind, and he said David Lynch, and then Sewell O'Crosse was like, God fucking damn it. Yes, and Lynch was the one who had to be talked into it, because everyone else was like, that makes so much sense.

Yeah. But yes. And then after they see this vortex, Matthew Lillard comes down with a terrible case of head explosion. Yes. Yes. It looks like he was killed by the same thing that killed the- The woodsman.

Oh, right. No, but I'm saying the wound looks like the same kind of wound that the people in the room with the glass box had. Oh. Oh. Interesting. Like the way, the trajectory and of wound that the people in the room with the glass box had. Oh. Oh. Like the way the trajectory and the way that he was like cut. But you're saying internally the logic is that the woodsmen are who have killed him? No, I'm not sure that that is true. I mean, we see them encroaching. Yes. But that is how I obviously took it is that we're seeing sort of an invisible version of that. Like, you know, like where we've seen the woodsman

in episode eight, essentially crush people. We're basically seeing that again, except this time we don't see the woodsman, and that's how it would look to most people, is someone's head just mysteriously going splat. What do you guys make of the woodsman? Well, we talked about them a fair amount on episode eight. No, I'm not saying we can't talked about them a fair amount on episode eight.

No, I'm not saying we can't talk about them anymore. Alright, I'll listen to it. Do you like their look? Scary. How do you feel about soot? Soot? In general. As far as like a look.

Not crazy about it. Really? Yeah. Kind of dirty, no? ? Wow. I mean, because I'm toying with the idea of introducing soot into my day to day.

Don't you think you'd get uncomfortable, though? You would probably annoy people by tracking soot all over wherever you went. That's true. The pig pen effect. On what? Yeah. On your skin? The pig pen always seems to kind of... Both. Maintain his internal atmosphere without disrupting others. You know what? You're right.

Like, as much as Pig Pen is filthy or whatever, he doesn't really mess with anyone. This is a great question. Does Pig Pen... Get things dirty. Does Pig Pen leave residue on his surroundings? I don't know. He's a great character. Or is he a self-contained... Well, he's a rich character. He is a rich... But that's the whole thing with Peanuts,

where you're like, this six-year-old that Charles Schultz came up with is a rich character. Yes. Times at 40. Yeah. He's wealthy. Yeah, he's rich as balls. He's kind of got that like trust fund kid thing where he's like, I don't know, I don't have money for ramen, but he's like really, he's loaded.

He's like, oh, I can't afford a shower. You're like, afford a shower? I mean, I think of the woodsman as like, agents or creatures of the Black Lodge or the other world, right? Like, they're malevolent, but they also don't feel like they have much of a personality. They just kind of like, they're little... Like, servants.

Yes, they're little agents of Bob or agents of bad things or whatever. Yeah, they're like minions. Okay, I agree. They are kind of like minions. I also think... Dirty little minions. In the really, you know, in the really Lynchy way that would kind of just sound annoying when I say it,

so I'm going to say it anyway, they're kind of just like electricity. Okay, David, you can't stay there. You gotta keep talking. But you know, like that's what Lynch is often just sort of doing where he's like, you know, electricity! And you Lynch is often just sort of doing where he's like, you know, electricity. And you're like, what do you mean? He's like, that's all I have for you on like what's creating a force or, you know, what's

driving the plot forward or whatever, you know, and like how he always wanted to make that movie. Jesus, Ronnie Rockett. Yes. And it's like, well, what's it about? It's like electricity. Like, and like that's what the woodsmen are. Do they have, like... A person, you know, are they like,

I want to kill Matthew Lillard now because he's been revealing our secrets? No, it's just kind of like, Lillard opened up energy from this other dimension, and it's just kind of rushing at him and he can't take it anymore, and it's the end of him. But also, so much of this show is like, these forces are unleashed because of the man-made and technology and like the disruption of nature,

you know? Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about the leftovers does that crazy flashback to like cave people. And I was thinking about how this doesn't go, need to go that far back to explore a certain kind of modern evil that it's actually pretty recent Yes, yes, and otherwise completely unchangeable. Yeah, what's important is the Matthew Lerner just gone And I salute his service. Yeah, great work, right? Yeah, I said RIP

Okay, so what else we got we got? Yeah, we got a lot of this drama with Bobby and Shelley and Becky trying to figure out, like, how do we solve Becky's problem husband and all this stuff? At the Double R Diner, we've got... You have the scene with the woman in the car that we talked about. Oh, it's so scary. And the kid vomiting. Yeah. How about Hawk and Frank looking at the map together? Looking at the map together.

That's so fun. The weird symbols. I feel like these episodes, the scenes start becoming really like... Overwhelming. Yeah, they just play for a really long time in a way that I, now that I'm getting used to the rhythm of the show, I'm really enjoying

how long and luxurious they're just going on forever, it feels like. Does anyone else start clicking in at this point with that? Yes. I also find Frank such a calming presence that I want to be in his presence as much as possible. I like how no bullshit he is when Hawk is like, this represents electricity, the corn represents sustenance. and Frank's like, okay. You know, like not like, wow, come on, Hawk. Or you know, like just the disarming acceptance

of both Truman brothers is always very nice for me. But back to, I mean, this point of like the natural versus the man-made or like man's trying to oppose its will upon the natural order and whatever. Like Hawk, as the show goes on, having more and more of the answers and those answers coming from a sense of passed down tradition of a culture that was perhaps more attuned,

that wasn't fighting against things, but was able to like coexist with an understanding. And now you have like people like Matthew Lillard, who's like trying to break the barrier, like, breach the membrane, and then, as a result, gets his fucking head blown off. Okay, gets exploded. Right, has people's fucking exquisite,

corpsing bodies across each other and everything. Have you guys talked much about Chad? I think it's interesting that he brought in sort of a cop who's bad this time. We sort of touched on it, that there's our old friends at the sheriff's department, who we love to see. And then there's this other element, this other office basically of like regular ass shit cops

who are somewhat malevolent and cynical. And hate to hear about the old days and like have any empathy for, you know, whatever happened back with Laura Palmer or whatever, anything like that. And, yeah, Chad is another great... Chad Broxford, great. I don't know the actor, John Piricello.

He was on the last season of Barry as well and was, like, incredibly good. Who was he in that? I did watch that. He plays one of the cops investigating the former partner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to say his girlfriend. It's him and like Sarah Burns. Yeah.

He's just a great kind of shifty guy. Yes. I don't know. What do you think, Fran? He's awesome. I like that we have the separation between the cops of yesteryear and the ones of today. Right. And feels like it's like, I don't know, addressing something a little more modern about the justice

system without having to be like acknowledging what police do. I don't know. Even in the 90s, like Twin Peaks was depicting a like Mayberry police department. Completely. Like it's not just that it was an older school of policing, it's an older school of television policing. Twin Peaks is airing at a time where there is the modern cop show that is more hard edged,

and here's a drama with this sort of throwback, more innocent, benevolent cop force. Yeah. And now you're not getting the shield level, edgy, benevolent cop force. Yeah. And now you're not getting like, you know, like the shield level, like edgy pay cable cop, you're getting just like the kind of like worst cynical, mundane, arrogant, ineffectual. Yeah. I like that there were dispatcher, we get that scene of just her taking all

the 911 calls and just being like, what's your location? What's your location? As if to say that like, while these guys were spiraling about Laura Palmer, there were just a bunch of other people having to deal with everything else. Yes. Episode 11 ends with the showdown in the desert, basically.

Yes, I'm trying to think if there's anything else. Right, but the big set piece is the Mitchum brothers taking Dougie to the desert and realizing he is not their enemy, essentially. With the mirroring of a dream that allows him to slow things down and investigate more thoroughly, find the pie in the box, find the check, which was just on his person. That's the best part is they would have shot him dead and then found the check afterwards. It's only because they decide to frisk him he was never going to know to

offer the check up right and then it takes them to like out for drinks right yeah and the and and the woman who he the the slot addict Linda Porter who's a great old lady actor yeah she's so good. I love her. She's always funny. I feel like she's in, you know, a billion shows and movies as an old lady. But this is why you cast Belushi, because he can do the turn from, like, hulking and a little intimidating to, like, doggy!

Like, so well. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, Fran, like, Chicago guy is a secret in the bag for him. Of course. I was like, that's a classic Midwestern attitude. He's a real pierogi. I basically never like funny jimbaloo shee

and always like dramatic jimbaloo shee. I would agree with that. Like, it's not even like, oh, he's been good a surprising number of times. I'm like, I think, like, he's incredible in Thief. He's great in this. He's great in The Ghost Rider. And his fucking scene where you're like, who the hell is that?

I feel like anytime he shows up in this kind of role, you're like, well, why? And, you know... Why doesn't this happen more often? Sure. He talks about that he always intended to be a dramatic actor and that when he went to comedy, like, John was disappointed, and then after John's death, people were like, can you be the new Belushi?

There is something that kind of makes sense... of, like, what didn't totally click with him comedically is maybe a reflection of him... slightly being pushed into a slot. Well, is the problem with comedy Belushi exactly that? That he was essentially being put into fairly lackluster comedy projects? Fairly is even chastisement.

Right, out of a sort of like, well, we need somebody. Yeah. The big guys don't want to do this. Right. But you kind of have an, and like, because it's like, is Jim Belushi unfunny? No, he's fine. He's good-humored, I think. Right, but I don't think he ever slotted neatly into a comedic trope.

No, it's like, okay, Jim Belushi's bad in K9. I'm just kind of like, is Jim Belushi the problem here? Or was the, you know, the problems had taken root long before Jim Belushi started opening his mouth. We were giving him our worst and he was not elevating. Right, right. He could never compare to his brother. Yes. He would never be able to live up to it. If he was called Jim Chicago. Well, it's an interesting name.

And he was just like, okay, there's a big guy who has a mustache sometimes and sometimes doesn't, and he plays like a guy who's like kinda like a cup of coffee and he's like, hey. And I might then be just like, yeah, I love that guy. That Chicago character actor guy, I love that guy. The fact that he's called Jim Belushi, if he was even called Ralph Belushi, then it's another J.

Yeah. Is really working against him to the point that you're like, did someone spell John's name wrong? Oh no, John had already died and this movie stars Jim Belushi. Like, it's like the experience of watching a Jim Belushi movie. Salvador's another one. Uh. The Oliver Stone movie. Like, it's like the experience of watching a Jim Belushi movie. Salvador's another one. Uh... The Oliver Stone movie. He's incredibly good at it.

God, I haven't seen that movie in a long time. Incredible, uh, James Woods. Okay, we should wrap up on episode 11. I just want to say one thing we gotta call out. That's a really good bit that I think might even become a classic bit for me and my rotation of classic bits is when they keep having Dougie do a toast and he just keeps reaching for the glass. I love that and I'm gonna have to integrate that.

It's a good bit. Dougie's got great bits. But yes, this ends with a musical performance of Piano Man at the Bar rather than Roadhouse. Yes, which is great. piano man at the bar rather than a roadhouse. Uh, yes. Uh, uh, which is great. David. Yes. What are you laughing about? I'm sorry.

I know this is unprofessional because we're supposed to be doing an ad read right now. Sure. Okay. It's just, it's just so funny how the people we love the most are often the hardest to shop for. David, I just find that so funny. I mean, you know, it's it's a classic problem. So it's very relatable. Yeah.

Yeah. But luckily, there's one gift that everyone on your list is sure to enjoy and I gotta I gotta curve my laughing long enough to tell you what that gift is David. Uh-huh. An Aura digital picture frame. God, I'm just thinking about the people I love the most and how hard it is to shop for them. But it was named number one by Wirecutter, Aura frames. And they make it incredibly easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone. Yeah, to the frame. To the frame. It goes right to the frame. And when you give an Aura Frame as a gift, you can personalize it and preload it with a thoughtful message and photos using the Aura app, making it an ideal present for long distance loved ones.

It's a gift so special they use it every day. And I'm just thinking about those loved ones, the ones I I love the most and how hard it is to shop for them I mean if you're you're you're like, you know, you're relating to people it's something everyone feels and that's the root of great comedy It's great comedy is a truth and comedy for the high and not the catch-up You're buying a picture frame for a parent and a law something like that And just you can put on a bunch of great photos right away so that when they plug it in they're seeing a lot of nice memories. And that isn't funny. No, I've actually gotten very serious checkout. That's A U R A frames.com promo code check. This deal is exclusive to listeners.

So get yours now in time for the holidays, terms and conditions apply. ["Ding Dong"] Ding dong. Ding dong, ding dong. Ding dong. What if we ding dong, ding dong. What if we don't answer the door? Well, I think it will.

It's a great question. Bring the show to a halt, David. 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 Richard Dreyfuss is character Hooper correct Hooper. Yes, and you're anxious. Yes. Okay, cool I think you met one 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 got to check out quince now. I am for real. Hmm a bit of a quince addict. I'm gonna tell you Cooper I We you know, we get our little promo code truth in your eyes Yeah, we can get our little promo code as host of the show Yeah, the advertisers that we work with and we get a little bit of free and oh go get yourself a pair of pants. I'm trying nice walk around the house see if you like them I'm kind of locked keyed in with quints. I'm getting a lot of

quints stuff guys have you guys done quints? I got this really nice like kind of cashmere long shirt really 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. What an enthusiastic ad-review. I really like Quince. With incredible personal experience. I'm talking, of course, about their iconic Mongolian catfish. What is your start at $50? They got fleece sweatpants.

That's a major upgrade to any sweat pant you might have, Hooper. OK, can I be honest? Uh-huh. I said I came in here, I was anxious so overwhelmed trying to find the perfect gift It's not true. Okay. Well in a 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 a look That's why I gotta wear the wits stop going in the cage 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 yours denim socks

No matter what you're working looking for all these items are priced 50 to 80 percent less than some of their brands because they Partner directly with the top factories they cut out the cost of the middle man Those sammies get passed on right over to you and they only work with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices. Sounds perfect. Get yourself some quince. I'm gonna call to action if you don't mind, Mr. Hooper. Please, absolutely. Uh, yes. Sure. Gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag.

Go to quince.com slash check for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash check. To get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash check. You get free shipping and 365 day returns. Coins.com slash check. All right, part 12, yes. Part 12 is kind of the Diane episode, right? Where there's like more probing into what is going on with her. So what do we have?

Here begins with inducting Tammy, agent Tammy Preston, into the Blue Rose Club, right? Those are long- Task force. Yes. Which is basically just Twin Peaks' X-Files. Uh-huh. It's like, right, so the FBI, if there's a case that's weird, it kind of gets secretly

moved over to the Blue Rose people who are trying to... And their former UFO people. Right. Right. And they have, they ask her and she says, let's rock, which is, of course, you know, classic catchphrase from Twin Peaks. What do you guys think? Great? Good. OK. Now... I'm really cooking with gas here conversationally. What do you guys think?

Yeah, sure. She's such a weird character to me. I can't figure out what this is. Well, in fact, she's introduced with everyone being like, David, you're so horny, you know, introducing this character, like on screen they're saying that. Right. And then she spends the whole show being like, David, you're so horny, you know, introducing this character, like on screen they're saying that. And then she spends the whole show being like, I'm here too, like with a notebook. And walking all sexy.

Right. Yeah. I have no read on her for that exact reason where I'm just like, what are we doing here if you've like called out from the very beginning how this looks. Yeah, but yeah, sure. It's beyond me. She's not making anything worse. No, no. But neutral, neutral. Here's my thought about Diane. Go ahead.

She's got the Taylor Swift nails. Please elaborate on that. All different colors. Is that a Taylor Swift nail? She started doing it, I think, around the lover era. And it's consistently sort of what her nails look like. She keeps her nails very short, because she has to play guitar. And they're usually all different colors. So I do wonder, you know, this is pre-lover.

Twin Peaks the return. I was going to say, what Taylor era are we in around 2016, 2017? Well, we're post-reputation pre-lover, which is when she starts to do those nails. So you're saying that Taylor Swift was ripping off Diane from Twin Peaks when she did that? It's an interesting take, it's an interesting take, yeah. My two cents, I just always think that, I'm like, she's got the Swift nails.

So we also early on, and we'll talk more about Diane, pretty much, we've seen Sarah Palmer watching watching TV, but this is like our first interaction with Sarah Palmer, right? Like talking to people. She's yelling about jerky at the supermarket and basically just kind of being like, remember how I had a really spooky awful vibe in the original Twin Peaks?

Like that was fucking Barney the dinosaur compared to like what I'm like now. She's not doing great. Right, I have just like festered in the original Twin Peaks. That was fucking Barney the dinosaur compared to what I'm like now. She's not doing great. Right, I have just like festered in the worst direction. There's no horse to distract her anymore. And I think the best way to think about her is like, yeah, whatever poison has been in her since she was a kid, because she's the kid in episode eight,

is sort of is what's widely assumed, who the creature crawls into the mouth of, has just become unspeakable. Yeah. Right? It's her and the woman honking the car where I has just become, like, unspeakable. Yeah. It's her and the woman honking the car, where I'm just like, get me out of here. Like, I wish I wasn't watching this. And the sort of reintroduction of her watching the lions...

kill that animal is, like, maybe the worst thing I've seen in this where I was like, maybe I can't get through it. The thing about Twin Peaks, the return, is it can be so funny, it can be so delightful, and then it can have sequences like that, or like Richard Horn running over a kid, and then the show not just cutting away from it,

but being like, we're sticking with this. Where you're like, I don't know if I ever wanna watch more of this. So, Phil was saying, he's like, my memory of watching that at the time was that it was mostly all really nice. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? But he was saying, he's like, my memory of watching that at the time was that it was mostly all really nice. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? But he was like, he had remembered all the like, he's like, oh, Harry Dean Stanton stuff is so great. Yeah.

And seeing Dern in there is so great and Dougie is so great. And then it's like, well, yeah, but then every other scene is like the worst thing I've ever. Tremendous amount of suffering. Yeah, had to sit through and consider in a real way. Right.

We have, right, the next thing is, right, Frank sitting down with Richard, I'm sorry, with Ben, and being like, so FYI, Richard is... Your grandson is a homicidal maniac, like... And Ben being like, ah, fuck, yeah. Ben is so evil in the first season, and now when he's even modestly inconvenienced,

I'm like, leave him alone. He's suffered enough. That, but I really think Ben's plot line in The Return, which is not, you know, that not a lot is happening with him, he doesn't really get punished for the terrible, terrible things he does in Twin Peaks. You know, was he ever kind of brought to justice

for like running drug smuggling and prostitution rings and like abusing young women probably? And it's like, no, he's just still there. He's really bummed out, clearly. There's this kind of ambient, like, depression or evil around him to the point that he can almost hear it and is like asking Ashley Judd if she hears it too. I think that's a kind of hollowness

that tends to set in with guys like this, though, where like people who like... Like you're just tends to set in with guys like this though, where people who like... They're just still alive. Right, in like middle age, they get some electricity with what they're, from the crimes they're able to commit and the power they're able to accrue.

And then it's like decades later, it's like, okay, so I got away with it. Right. What do I fucking do now? Yeah, but there's nothing to be gained from getting away with it. You just rot an inch. Yes.

And I just love it. I just love that that's sort of what the show does with him. And of course, that, yes, I mean, Richard is like the ultimate, you know, punishment for him in a way of like, you've only begotten, like, pure evil. There's something for me that still does not compute about how many, how much of the original West Side Story cast is still alive. Sure.

Yeah. Right? And part of it's probably the Nowley Wood died very young, but like knowing the cast members who died in between the original series and this and the people who died in between this and now and the fact that like Richard Boehmer's still alive. I don't know if it's that I always think that West Side Story is older than it is, although it's certainly not new.

It's pretty old. And part of it was that the actors were also young in it. Right. But it is like a lot of them have lived very long, robust lives. Yeah, they're bolstered by being in a really good movie. That's, it gave them lifeblood. It's George Charis. George Charis is still with us at the age of 90.

Right. Rena Moreno is 94? 92. 92. Crushing it, obviously. Boehmer is like 90. Russ Tamblyn is 89 and Boehmer is 86, a baby. That's crazy.

It is crazy. How old was he in the movie? I'm going to have to do some math here. He would have been about 21, 22. Mathcrave. Um, but yes, I just think Ben's plot line is one of the cleverest uses of, like, the legacy impact of this show. The zombie thing. Should we talk about Audrey?

Yeah. Yeah. So the, it's part 12 of 18, correct? That Audrey comes in. Audrey is suddenly introduced. Sherrilyn Fenn, big actress on the original show. Humongous character. Big character. Yeah. Tied up in a lot of stuff.

She is married to one of the seven dwarfs or whatever. Like she's like stuck with this small bald kind of accountant guy. And he's sleepy. And he's sleepy. Played by... Go ahead. No, I was gonna say, they seem to have like a terrible marriage of convenience where there has been no passion between them in like decades. And he's like, why are you mad at me? And she's like openly kind of taunting him with, who is Billy?

Do we know who Billy is? She keeps saying, I'm in love with Billy. I'm fucking Billy. So this is the whole thing with the Audrey Plotline. It's fucking insane. We don't know what she's talking about. Like she refers to Billy, Billy, not to spoil, we never meet Billy.

Like we don't really know what that is. We don't really understand who Charlie is. Yeah. Like, we know that he's her accountant and that they got married for some reason. Uh-huh. But I don't want to get too much into Audrey's total arc on this show. Uh-huh. But I do feel like this is one of the more representational, like you have to like, this

isn't quite reality. Yeah. I'm a little confused by it. At the very least. We were all confused. Why are we dismal? She also references calling Tina, that's another character we like never see

or understand who it is. Okay. You know? Right, Tina's the woman there, yeah. You feel like you are, it's disassociating watching this scene, like being like, I don't, have we seen Audrey before and I forgot about it?

Have we seen this character Charlie before and I forgot about it? What is this connected to? Also her performance style is wildly different. Like this just feels like an almost unrecognizable character other than the fact that she still looks like Sherrilyn Fenn. Yes. You know, it's not just like circumstantial

or like behavioral It's like I don't understand how this is the same person outside of like I'm doing the math in my head of Are we supposed to fill in the gaps of there has been some sort of like? Horn family like power-causing inner soul rot. Yeah Yes, I don't want to tell you. Okay, well then, this is a fruitful conversation. I don't really want to get into it, but like, I want to know what you guys thought of the scene. I really didn't know what to make of it. Same.

I really liked when he said he was so sleepy, because I was like, this was me earlier this year. My brother and I would send pictures of Charlie to each other all the time. Yeah. Because there's just something like, imagine one day you woke up and you were just married to this sort of small man who's bald and his glasses and sits behind a desk and you're just like ranting like an insane person to him and he's just like, you know, like it feels like some kind of like little Kafka story or whatever.

Yes. I think he's giving like great... The guy's name is Clark Middleton. He is sadly dead. He died... Oh, really? He died, I think, of the West Nile virus. It's something very strange. He died during 2020 of the West Nile virus.

Yes, that is why. I think he had some kind of arthritic thing, like that had, you know, he's slightly shorter, he's like 5'5 or something. But I don't think that is why, like, that contributed to the West Nile thing. Like, he just, I don't know. I don't really know much about the West Nile virus.

He's in Kill Bill. He is. I don't know who he is. He is, I want to say he's Michael Madsen's, like, right-hand man when they're burying her. Yeah. Yes, you're right. Yeah, no real're burying her. Yeah. Yes, you're right. Yeah, no real memory of that scene. Yeah, I mean, that's...

It's kind of the worst plot line in Kill Bill. No, I was gonna say that's my favorite moment. Is it? Her escaping. Yeah. I think it's the most triumphant part of Kill Bill. I've seen Kill Bill Volume One 20 times. And I think I've seen Volume Two like twice.

They were both so seismic for me. For some reason I haven't, whatever, wanted to, I think Two is more visceral in a way, or it's more emotional. It's way more emotional. And that's why I wanted to visit it last night. And there's this like masterwork of narrative construction around the Bud segment that kind of feels like

I don't know a downswing and then I think has this like incredible Cathartic payoff right? Yeah, I mean it's amazing and I like the movie a lot. Yeah, I've never seen the whole bloody affair I haven't either. Yeah, it's not it's not I feel like it's rarely Viewable, but it is it exists. It does it has been it exists. It does, it has been screened, yeah. Yeah. Ben, were you about to say something? The Audrey scene, yes. Thoughts on the Audrey scene. It's like...

bad theater. That's the thing. It's one of the only scenes in the show so far where I'm like, is this just not working? Not like there is a deliberate sense of like unusualness that is being cultivated that is out of touch with reality. But I'm like, is this scene actually failing at what it's trying to do?

Or do I just not understand what it's trying to do? But it doesn't feel like necessarily out of left field for the character of Audrey to act like this. It's just a show. Because it reminded me of her over the topness of season one, like, referencing all of these men, and you have to come to the bar with me and be my company. And I don't know, it just feels still like it makes sense

to me. It doesn't feel completely random. There's a certain curling, but it is bizarre when, I don't, the show has held her back for this long, you know? And it's like, oh, this is the first time we're gonna see this character in like decades. Exactly, one of the last legacy characters to show up. Right, and then the couple episodes leading up to this

are connecting like, okay, that's her son. That's, right, the whole family's coming in, and you're like, man, they've been holding back on Audrey, this is gonna be meaningful. And then you have this 10-minute scene that feels interminable, where I can't quite get what's going on. And you're, like, caught in this loop,

where you're just like, can someone explain to me what's going on? And instead, she's just having this circular conversation with this, like, stone wall of a person. Who then takes a phone call, and we don't hear the conversation. And he's like, what? That's crazy. And then it's like, I'm not gonna tell you what I heard. Which, let's say, like, right before this,

if not immediately before this, but in the, you know, the chunks before this, in this very episode, you have Cooper and Berenice Merlot, someone who I was so convinced was going to be a major star and I feel like has weirdly kind of disappeared. She's gorgeous. She's also just incredible. But this like kind of extended weird David Lynch comedy routine of like behavior being drawn out in a sort of inexplicable way, which then goes

into Alfred and I said Cooper. Jane Addams. Yeah, I said Cooper. Yeah. You said Cole. You said call. Um, they're sort of like check in on each other and what's going on with Denise. They've been tracking her phone. They saw the Vegas text and whatever, but that conversation is going on with these like protracted silences where it's a very hard to read the energy of what's

going on, but it all feels within Lynch's power. You meant Diane, not Denise. I'm sorry. It's fine. It's fine. Denise is David Dacombe's character. There are too many names.

There's a lot of names. There's a lot of characters. Yeah, this show has a lot of characters. I want to say that. The Audrey stuff almost felt like a scene from Invitation to Love, when you would get those little snippets earlier on. And it has that kind of almost classic soap opera scene. But then the longer it goes on, the more increasingly upsetting

and unnerving it gets. And it makes me grateful that I was going to power through all of this over the summer when I was sick. And then people told me specifically not to watch The Return. It might make your brain go crazy. My brain was going crazy. Something you want to indulge, you

don't want to give to a feverish brain. Yeah, because I'd go insane. I think so. Yeah. But this scene goes on for, like, over ten minutes? Yes. And has no resolution. Inscrutable, right, has no resolution. And then I feel like the next time we see her is in the following episode

where it's basically, it feels like another installment of this conversation. Correct, another installment of the strange, her being like, I have to go do this thing involving a bunch of names that, you know, we don't know who I'm talking about, Tina, Billy. Yeah. And she just starts to break down and he's like, do you want to end that story? And she's like, what story? The little girl who lived down the lane?

And then again, it's just like, okay, and cut to the roadhouse and we'll have a musical performance, chromatics and then also two characters we haven't seen before having an argument about whether a guy they know is cheating on a woman they know so weird anyway there will be more on this is the only thing i will say okay but it's not going to be like uh incredibly straightforward well weird because i was expecting that at this point no i just i really uh i'm I'm feeling a little on edge about this. And if it's, I reserve judgment until I see the end.

Yes. Okay, episode 13, I will say, I would call the arm wrestling episode. Yes. Right, that's the best way to describe this one. This is Heavy on Mr. C. It's basically him going to like a goon lair, right? The music is really crazy at the start of this episode,

I gotta say. Yes, the episode I think begins with the Mitchum brothers taking Cooper, Dougie back to the office and like with lots of gifts, right? And just be happy, right. And they're like doing like a conga line in the office. It's so fun. And then Sizemore realizes like I'm fucked. Right. And Fishler puts the screws in and is like, conga line in the office. Yes, it's so fun. And then Sizemore realizes like, I'm fucked.

Right. And Fishler puts the screws in and is like, you have to resolve this today. Yeah. You have one day to kill Dougie. But then yeah, it's the Goon Village, the Goon Warehouse or whatever. And it's just Mr. C,

it's winning them over, essentially with punches and arm wrestling. That's an interesting way to describe it. The big guy, Derek Mears, who of course was, uh, re-make Jason Voorhees? Uh, yes. Uh, in the 2009, right? Yes, in the Your Tits Are So Fuckin' Juicy movie. I want to... Look, you set it up so I have to now find...

What? I now have to find the exact line. Sorry, Fran. It's David's favorite quote that he sometimes misquotes. That's the reason I wanted to... So in the remake of Friday the 13th that came out in 2009, largely I think just because there was a Friday the 13th they found to be a good release date. Yes.

Right? Because it came out on a Friday the 13th, found to be a good release date. Yes, right like it because it came out on a Friday the 13th I correct. Do you know do you track what I'm talking about so far in 2009? They remade and there's a sexy arm wrestling guy played Jason Vorse. He's the biggest Jason February 22 Friday the 13th of February. Okay, I was gonna say if it came out February 20th, that's a huge fucking whiff They don't realize it until like, wait, they're like, fuck. Wait, it was last Friday? I wanna say it's, I forget the actors, I'm sorry to the actors.

Juliana Gill. Juliana Gill, okay, I don't remember the guy. I don't know who it is. It's not Ben Feldman, he's in it. I saw Ben Feldman at a restaurant once. How's he doing? Handsome. What was he eating?

Chinese food. Cause that movie has Padalecki, Rye-Heddy, Panabaker. It's got all these CW stars in it. Ryan Hansen's in it. Like it's just like, it just like scooped through like the WB and CW and Fox, where it was like, who can we pick up? Who's around?

I have to say something about Ryan Hansen, but I'll save it. That's fine. There's an obscene sex scene, obscene in a perfectly fun, dumb slasher movie way, where he's filming her with a digital camera. While she rides him? Yes, while she is on top of him,

and he says, your tits are fucking just dot dot dot so juicy, dude. That's how he says it. It's amazing. That's awesome. It's one of the great line readings in horror cinema. Yeah. And she says, you really know how to give a girl a compliment. It's a very funny, it's an objectively funny scene.

Like it's not a scene where you're like, oh, but they stumbled into this nonsense. Like, no, this is funny. Like, this is good. Anyway, Derek Mears is the villain in that. Wasn't he in a swamp thing? Yes, he was swamp thing. I mean, he does, because he is such a physically striking presence and he's a very skilled actor and he has like improv training. Oh, yeah

It's very funny. I feel like was on community. Maybe plays kick puncher. Oh, yeah, that's right He does right and I love that joke in the community. Yes But ends up doing a lot of creature stuff Yeah prosthetic stuff, but as a guy you just introduce on screen and you're like, yeah, you wouldn't want to arm wrestle this guy. Yeah, it's the heavy. Here are the stakes. So he, yes, he's there and he, uh, mistress, he kind of toys with them before destroying

him in the neutral position. Yes. Uh, powerhouse McLaughlin stuff. It's unbelievable. It's all in his face. Yes. That you just, you do believe, like, this is the strongest being in the world or whatever.

It's all his face. There's also, I'm watching this. I know he's like the supernatural evil and he's capable of doing, like, inhuman things, right? Yeah. So it's like Derek Mears is beating him. And I've seen so many versions of this scene where I'm like

Oh, what's gonna happen next is that he flips him over and his arm breaks, right? Right? Like there's some other movie I'm thinking of where a guy gets powered up and he starts breaking people's arms. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, no, no, and everyone's like you need to chill the fuck out. Right? I don't know come to me at some later point But I'm like ready for to just be like a clean snap, like he was humoring him. And instead he resets him back to square one and just goes neutral position. And you're like, that's scarier that he's basically admitting that he can place him on whatever degree he wants. And then like lets him once again get him close and then goes back to neutral position and then starts scolding him Yes, how much this is right exactly and essentially it's just like this is a children's game. Yes

Then punches his face in yes Nasty yucky, but so silly because all these guys are scary as hell looking Well, it's funny that they just gather together right exactly in this like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lair Where they're just I guess waiting for a phone call to be like hey someone needs a large man Go to this place. Yeah, right And is it the fly does the fly have a scene where he fucking arm wrestles a guy and clean snaps his arm off? Yes, the Fly has an arm wrestling scene. Absolutely. Yes. That's right I was just like there's some sci-fi movie that has this sort of setup where someone's body is Transforming and they go in to try to like get revenge on jocks, right? Yeah, right

This is where the sort of the Mr. C gets all the information of like someone gave me ring, told me to put it on and to kill you. Um, Richard Horn shows up at this point. He's sort of, you know, revealed to be kind of involved with all of this. Exactly. And then Mr. C kills Ray, who's made it this far somehow, but is finally dead. But gets his like interrogation he wants, puts the ring on him, sends his dead body to the lodge.

Yes. Yeah. And I feel like that's the big thing that happens in this episode. He references Philip Jefferies. He does. The David Bowie character, of course, who we don't see in this show.

You'll sort of see a version of him at a certain point, but is sort of driving the campaign against Mr. C from beyond. Is... Bowie shows up in Fire Walk with me. Is there anything else that he pops up in? No. Of supplications. Well, that's true, which was part of Fire Walk.

That's what I hadn't seen. Yes. I wondered if I maybe messed up not watching that before this. There's a little more of him. Okay. But, I mean, he notoriously did not... Was supposed to be a bigger part in the movie. And then tour schedule shit happened, and he only shot a little bit.

He was used to even less of it. Yes, he wasn't very satisfied with his performance. Didn't like the accent he did. Yeah. And I think was considering coming back for this, but then he was sick and he died and like, whatever. There's sort of workarounds for that. Yeah.

Okay. But I think his passing happened pretty late in their planning. Yes, I think so. Anyway, they sort of figure it out. But he's basically implied to just sort of be from beyond a force working against Mr. C, who's maybe for a long time been trying to figure out how to defeat Bob. We... What are the other big things? You know, Bobby going to see Ed and Norma at the diner.

Got some Ed stuff. I mean, it's another Dana Ashbrook moment that kind of kills me of his reaction. Mm-hmm. Uh, to... Or is it, um... No, no, no. It's in the scene with Amanda Seyfried. Right. Where Shelley's new boyfriend shows up. Right, where they're talking to her.

Right, and he just like beautifully plays like in real human emotions within a heightened show the sort of sense of, oh, he fucked this up somewhere along the way. He's not jealous of this guy or angry at her, he's angry at himself, and he's like sort of just wistful and broken about all of this. Yeah. But it's just so nice when Ed and Norma invite him to eat with them too.

Because that's the thing of like being in a town with these people for your whole lives is like eventually you run out of people to eat with. But then Ed has the sort of mirror of that moment when Norma's new franchising boyfriend shows up. Yeah. Yes. Ooh, I was so mad to see him. Right, we'll just call it Norma's double R.

Yeah. And let's lower the ingredients. Walter Lawford is this character. Like this show, or let me say, this character I feel like is the embodiment of Lynch's notion of the truest evil. Right. Like this feels like a fucking executive note guy. I'm just like, look, we love your thing. Of course it's great if the pies are fantastic and delicious.

What if they kind of suck though? And she's like, no, the pies have to be good. And he's like, of course. And I totally get that. But what if they're a little bit shitty? I just feel like, especially knowing that the show almost doesn't happen because Lynch is fighting back and forth with Showtime people on like, I'm gonna do this the way I want to do it or I'm not gonna do it.

It is the thing I think he thinks is quietly the most insidious thing in the world. The people who, as Albert Brooks would say, just... Lower. Lower standards, a little bilateral. Yeah. The musical performance in this episode is James Hurley. A lovely, lovely moment. Let's say, bit of a one-hit wonder. He's still just playing this one song. Just you.

Yeah. That's his song. Nice to see him though, because he doesn't do much in The Return. When he's introduced early, I was ready for him to be a bigger part, especially since, you know, I feel like we talked about in our season one episode, but his career kind of got, like, diverted. And I thought he was such an interesting actor in the 90s. Yeah. No, I... Yeah.

And then we have the little coda with Ed. Yes. Eating his... His soup. His soup. Yeah. Also Nadine, Jacoby. Oh, right. They finally talk. Yes. Right. She's still got her drape shop. Silent drapes. Yep. Run silent, run drapes. And she just loves him. Yeah. And says, I remember seeing you in a supermarket during a storm or something like that. She dropped a potato. But this is like, this entire plot line is the kind of thing that you're like, this could be like covered in three scenes

in one episode and be like, and that's our like check-in with the two of them. And instead it's like been spread out across 13 episodes in the most like drawn-out way. It is so fascinating which things he chooses to serialize and which things he chooses to encapsulate in like one moment and never revisit. Right, because it's like we have like four different scenes of her watching him silently. We do. And looking like transfixed.

While he's like, the fucks are at it again for like a while. That comes after like five episodes' worth of scenes of him just painting shovels. But then again, the fucks are at it again. The fucks are at it. He's not wrong. He's spitting. I wrote, he's spitting.

We could use someone like him. The liberal Joe Rogan. Yeah. But we are still in WTF mode, I would say, at this point. Right? Like very little. We're locking the gates. Yes, but very little has been answered satisfactorily in any way for new viewers, right?

And we're two-thirds of the way into the show at this point. So that's an interesting way to do it. Sure. Fran. Do you have any other things that you wrote down that we haven't touched on? I love Johnny Jewell. Who does the music for the series.

Yep. Italians Do It Better, sort of his, like, collective. Just wanted to shout out Johnny Jewell. I thought these were some of the funniest. If not, I think this is maybe the funniest block of episodes. The Mitchum Brothers are so great. All that stuff is awesome. If not, I think this is maybe the funniest block of episodes. The Mitchum Brothers are so great. All that stuff is awesome.

The Mitchum Brothers paired with the three... The dumb cops, the armed wrestling. No, the three, like, assistants. Their three blonde assistants. The showgirls. The showgirls. It's just... The showwomen.

The dougie sex scene and all the dougie stuff. The doctor, the conga line, all that stuff is fun. I think once I grew to accept, like, the cadence of the Dougie stuff, and the sort of, you know, tacit acceptance of like, oh, this is what it is. It's not like, yeah, preamble or prologue to something else. This is the destination. But also watching the universe start to curve

around and towards Dougie. Right, him break reality and remake it, yes. You know what we didn't talk about? Sunny Gyms gym set. Looks so fucking fun. One of his many presents, yes. But also, did you guys call that a, I know that as a play set.

Gym set. Jungle gym. Jungle gym, Jungle gym? Sure. Yeah. This is sort of a gym shoes, running shoes type of thing. Yeah, it's like a backyard playground. Does it come with a spotlight?

Well, no, it's got like light piping. No, but I'm saying there's a moving spotlight. Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. Do you think that came pre-installed? I think it does. It must. But also it has like the classical music coming from within it.

There's not an external speaker system. The speakers are seemingly coming from... Coming from inside the slide? Yes. Seems awesome. I just said that looks so fun. Yeah. I like that also, like, Amy Watts has been so skeptical of everything going on around Dougie. And she has the moment of what's going on around Duggee. And she has the moment of like, what's going on here? And then is just like, I'm not gonna fucking turn this down.

That Jungle Gym set. Sort of a return of Martin Gare kind of thing happening with these guys. You guys know that one? Of course. Let's also, I know I forefronted it, but Dougie going full Dolomite. Yes. Crazy sex, yes. Right. Bedrockin'.

Right. He like, she reaches completion while he seemingly, while he just lies there motionless with a goofy grin on his face. Yeah, maybe he's, you know, packing. Well, yeah, but he would have been packing before. Yeah, but the vibe's for bad. Well, this is exactly what happened in Return of Martin Gere. The new guy can really go for it.

It's kind of a Dave situation. Then do you know about this? I do not. It's this, like, middle-ages court case, an early example of a court case that eventually became like a book and a movie about... And it's just like a storyline. Like, Downton Abbey did a Martin Gair storyline.

Like, it's a storyline you could always do. Of a married couple, and the husband goes off, I think, to war, go do something, and then a different guy comes back, and is like, I'm your husband. Bandaged up or something. It's like, the war has changed me, but I am Martin Gair. He's like a changeling husband.

And back in the Middle Ages, the wife or whatever was just like, okay, sounds good. And they, I think didn't have kids. And then suddenly they did have kids. And then this new husband basically got into like a property dispute with someone else. And there was this big case about that. And then midway through that case,

the original guy came back and was like, wait a minute, that's my wife. And her whole thing is that her testimony was like, I didn't know. I didn't know it was a different guy. I thought it was the same guy. And people have long sort of tried to be like, was she lying?

They didn't have pictures back then. They didn't have pictures, they didn't have mirrors. She hadn't seen him in eight years. Would you know it's the guy? But that's also the imposter. That whole thing where it's like, when you're dealing with the trauma of thinking you've lost someone, will your brain do more to justify things in order to not have to live with the tragedy?

Well, there's that famous instance of the French couple. Well, no, no, that's the French kid who scammed the American couple. Oh, I'm sorry, yes. The Imposter. Yes, that's what I'm talking about, The Imposter. That's another example of where they were just so Missing their their child that when this stranger shows up right clearly is not their kid We wanted to be the kid so they wanted it so badly

That's a lot of like everyone refuses people are like Dougie you sure are acting strange No one is like Dougie you seem like a dog You feel like a malfunctioning robot, you know? Like people take 10 seconds of being a little bit disarmed by his behavior before they go like, wait a second, are you the smartest, best fucker of all time? Yeah. Cuban brain's crazy.

Look, on this show, we usually do a segment called the box office game, which is brought to you by your friends at regal Regal unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits and Hey, you can sign up now in the regal app right the link in the description you use code blank check to get 10% off your three months subscription Fran you're famous regal clown. I'm a regal, clown, card-carrying member. I'll be there Friday.

To see what? To see Wicked at 10 a.m. Hey. Oh! Did you just wanna beat the rush? No, it just seemed like a good time of, it's probably my favorite time of day to see a movie. Yeah, you could get some green coffee.

To supercharge. I think I'm most generous artistically earlier in the day interesting Do you want me to find specific TV ratings? Yeah, well, I'm gonna say unfortunately today We're playing the ratings game because recovering TV shows unless we want to play the box-office game for this I was thinking of that but I don't know it's five weekends Well, we're gonna do that's what I'm saying. So let's pick a ratings thing. I'm trying to find, it's so annoying how like fussy this thing, like searching for ratings are.

Great. July 9th, 2017. Okay. How does this work? Are you guessing with the- It's a great question. And much like Twin Peaks, The Return, you might not get satisfying answers. It's such a bad time to do this because it's the summer

So there aren't even like, you know hit network shows to bring up. Sure. It's like truly the random shit But last but last time we did cable I know rating so I'm like, let's tie Let's do summer even though it's meaningless. I'm trying let's do do the chaos. This is actually feeling like the Audrey Charlie scene. Of summer network ratings, I'm saying. Let's lean into the weirdness. Well I have network ratings. Okay, so here's number one that night was a rerun of a news show on CBS. Perfect.

I'm serious. 60 minutes? 60 minutes. Got a 7.4. Huge. Then number two. Okay. I thought this was fun, a game show, but a celebrity version.

It was a celebrity version of a game show. Huh. Was it a new game show? No, this is a long running game show. Long running. Yeah. It's had a few hosts over the years. Its current host is probably the most iconic.

Its current host is probably the most iconic. A summer celebrity edition. It is Celebrity Family Feud? That's right. I can't tell you who was on it, but I can tell you it was a Celebrity Family Feud. Give me the date, let me see if I can do a secondary search here. July 9th, 2017. You guys would be good on there with Marie.

Oh, we'd kill it. Yeah, Family Feud is pretty fun. I would be bad at the where you have to be on your own. I like being in the group 30 seconds on the clock like that anxiety we get to that what's just scary Number three was the big reality show of the summer I feel like I never am aware of what's going on, but it's always there. Is it a bachelor? No Hmm, that's a prime. That's a, you know, in season.

This one's always on in the summertime. Big Brother? Big Brother. Yeah. It's like, that just happens every year. I've never heard anyone talk about it. You know, Survivor, I have friends who watch Survivor, Bachelor, you know, like, I never hear about Big Brother.

But it just, every year we lock 20 people in a house and film them, I guess. You said it was July 9th, 2017? Yeah. Yeah, So the family feud episode was MLB legends versus MBA legends and NFL stars versus NFL legends. Great. That sounds a little complicated. It does. I recognize zero of the names. Give me some of the MLB legends. I can't differentiate who's who. I just gonna list people for you right now Lavonne Bell Tyrone Bogues Darrell Derek Brooks Marshall Falk Prince Fielder Horace grant Deandre Hopkins

Robert Horry this is all over the place Pedro Martinez. Oh Pedro was there amazing Gary Payton Patrick Peterson I should have herald Reynolds Ozzie Smith. I know Ozzie Smith. There you go. Yeah. The Wiz. James Worthy. Yeah. Cool. Probably pretty good. Number four. Let me just do the math here was, okay. Another, what the fuck is this? Exciting.

Another thing hosted by Steve Harvey. Oh, great. Not Miss Universe? No. Hmm. This show appears to have lasted for one year, the summer of 2017. It only aired in the summer of 2017. Not a game show format, variety format. It was not exactly it.

It was a competition show. Is it Kids Say the Darndest Thing? No, because that ran forever. Yeah. This was kind of a rip off of another show hosted by Steve Harvey. They took one Steve Harvey show and then- No, no, no, no.

Steve Harvey is hosting this show. Are there kids involved though? Can you give us a hint about the show it ripped off? You love it. I love it? Is it a Shark Tank rip off? Correct. Is it called?

You'll never guess. If you don't know the name, you'll never guess. The name does not suggest Shark Tank Ripoff. Okay. It's called Steve Harvey's Thunderdome. Fuck that. Thunderdome? Fuck that.

That's right. Number, was that number, I don't even know what number we're on. Great. That was number three. I thought that was four. Was that? I thought that was three. Yeah. Number four is another game show

that aired on ABC in this game show night. Legendary game show, it's been on forever. Legendary game show, been on forever. Or at least. Is it usually a prime time show? I don't fucking know. It's like Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, it's not that famous, but you know.

There's been many franchise versions of this. It's not let's make a deal, it's not. Millionaire? No. many franchise versions of this. It's not let's make a deal it's not a million. No many franchise versions of this you have no fucking idea where it plays you seem really dancing about it. Dancing with the stars? No no you guys are shooting too high it's just one of those pyramid. How many how many dollars? A million dollar pyramid. It's a hundred thousand. It started out as the ten thousand dollar pyramid and now it's a hundred. Michael Strahan out as the ten thousand dollar pyramid. I know it's a hundred Michael Strahan now It is yeah, I'm not sure who hosted it back in 2017. Yeah, but currently I believe it's hosted by Michael Strahan and

Yeah, looks like yeah, it would have been him then too. Okay, and number five is Okay, yeah sure Oh, man. Okay. Yeah. Sure. David, just try to find your enthusiasm a little bit. Well, it's a little boring. ABC really owns this night with, you know, this kind of programming. Okay. It's a rerun of an ABC compilation show. America's Fine Sone Videos?

Yep. Still crushing. It is the one consistent we have found across the entire history of Twin Peaks throughout decades, Fran. Oh, yeah. Is that America's Vice Home Videos is unkillable. Yep, just keeps going. The only other thing I want to point out in this list is that CBS ran something called Candy Crush. Was that just like a Candy Crush game show?

Must have been. Must have. Oh my god, it was hosted by Mario Lopez. I just learned about Deal or No Deal Island. Several reviewers called it one of the worst game shows ever made I Love you so much, and I think dealer no deal island is an affront to God. I just think it's so funny We can put island on anything. Yeah, do they just play the game on an island? No, but I don't know what else they do, but that's part of it

But I think there's like an additional aspect of some sort of survivory outlast. All right, now I have to pee. And we've been going for a long time. Okay, well- I'm not complaining. Fran. What? Our dear friend, blockbuster Fran Hoffman. You okay, Fran?

Yeah, I'm fine. Is there anything you'd like to plug? I'll plug Fran Magazine, which- Yes, everyone subscribe. I'm actually the editor in chief. Oh my god. I'm sorry actually the editor-in-chief. Oh my god. I'm sorry to downplay.

What a reveal. I'm sorry to downplay my own role in that magazine. The Old Grey Lady. It's at Subsec. Fran Magazine. Yeah. The Middle-Aged Grey Lady. Yeah, that's it.

And Brightwell Darkroom, which I love to plug. She's always doing good stuff. You're always doing great stuff over there. Yeah, I gotta figure out what to write about next Maybe I'll write about here. Oh here or 10 a.m. Wicked. Have you seen here? No, but I really want to see here. I'm gonna see it I don't like it, but I do want to know what Fran thinks. I have a story about it, but I'll tell it It's a it's a firmly off mic story. Yeah, okay

And hey while you're signing up for Fran Magazine on Substack, also check out the checkbook, the blank check newsletter, and Jesus, the blank check newsletter, which Marie Barty is doing a cripple job with. And Ben, I think you want to say something. Like a lot of the episodes, not all the episodes, but a lot of the episodes at Twin Peaks. It ends with a song. Oh! And it's that time of the year again.

Jingle, jingle. That's my contribution. Time to slow things down. Yes, that's right. Another slow Christmas is upon us. We're recording this in advance. I can say now, currently in this moment, I'm not exactly sure what the album is going to be. Exciting. Good.

But it will be out in the world at the time of this episode being released. So maybe this will be less collab heavy and more like Ben back in the lab? Are we thinking? No, it's just kind of more will people get stuff to me in time? You're always putting out a lot of feelers and then there's a frantic rush of like, what's making it in by the deadline? Pretty much.

Possibility it's an entirely AI album. We'll see. Who knows? Let's say no. No, yeah, let's not say that. It won't be an AI album. Ben is not doing any, what's the thing everyone got mad about back in the day?

Many different, the Ben F.T. Ben F.T.'s none of that, it's all jokes. Yeah. The end of the episode here, it's all jokes. Yeah. The end of the episode here, I figured I'd like to just play a little sample of one of the songs that I can confirm will be on the album. Great call. Well, let's say... And as always, here is an exclusive first glimpse for your ears of Slow Christmas. Oh, little town of Ben-Fleur How still we sing in thine Above the mighty and treacherous The silent sky Go by