My question is prompted by hearing that the Second Season is coming out on DVD. I could perhaps find the answer to my below question on the 'Net somewhere, but I’d probably end up accidentally reading spoilers and I don’t want to risk that.
My wife and I never watched Twin Peaks when it was on TV. We watched the pilot and Season One on DVD. At the time, we didn’t realise that by the end of Season One the major plot arc is utterly unresolved, so we were left hanging in a big way.
This was years ago. Now, to follow Season Two, we are probably going to have to work our way through the pilot and all of Season One again, in order to get ourselves back into it and follow Season Two properly. But no way are we going to invest that time and effort only to be left hanging again.
What (without spoilers) is the dope? Are we going to get some sort of closure if we watch through to the end of Season Two, or is it going to be coitus interruptus again?
Yes and no; the Laura Palmer murder mystery is solved about halfway through Season 2, but then some new questions are raised and things get weirder. A new arc arises (the white lodge vs. the black lodge), and it ends on the mother of all cliffhangers, which was never resolved because the show was cancelled.
It’s definitely worth watching though. The last episode of season 2 has a few of the scariest moments ever filmed for television.
Sigh, it could’ve gone on and on. At the end of of the last episode of Season Two I was dying for a Season Three. It ends on a cliffhanger, so be warned and be prepared for frustration.
However, I wasn’t one of those people who were into it because it was trendy, then got bored with it when it didn’t do exactly what I thought it should do (very common at the time). I was a die-hard and nearly every bit of it was fascinating to me. Those bits that didn’t have James Hurley in it, anyway.
The character of James Hurley is often disliked, but I see it differently. I view many elements of Twin Peaks as sarcastically parodying the soap operas which were so popular at the time, and James is one of them. I think his character is supposed to be one-dimensional, and something of a joke. All the other players on the show have a great deal of depth, and Lynch is too smart to have made James boring and cheesy for no reason. His scenes, while bland, make everything else on the show seem more surreal by comparison.
Also, I think the seemingly pointless detour that his storyline takes towards the end of Season 2, when he leaves Twin Peaks, is meant to reflect the overall pointlessness of his character. (It’s also basically half the plot of Lost Highway. Does Lynch have a fantasy about being a mechanic who sleeps with his boss’s wife?)
Yes, I should have said (as Frylock does) that my expectations from David Lynch don’t extend to every loose end being tied off in a bow. I was however hoping that there was at least some explanation of major elements.
Calling the ending of Season 2 a cliffhanger is a bit of a stretch.
Yes, there could have been a 3rd season, but I think the story is wrapped up quite nicely.
However, you should take great care to NOT watch Fire Walk with Me until you have seen the complete series.
It basically is the prequel to the series and deals with the last 24 hours in the life of Laura Palmer, so it does spoil the show if you watch it.
Off the top of my head, the cliffhangers or unresolved storylines from S2 include:
Will Dale escape the Black Lodge?
What will happen to Leo?
Who survived the explosion at the bank?
Who is the father of Lucy’s baby?
I’m not saying I was unhappy with the seaon finale or anything but it’s not a stretch at all to say that it had cliffhangers.
Oops, sorry about that, I went off searching for an old TP thread and didn’t notice the mis-tag until after the edit window closed. If someone wants to flag down a passing Mod and ask them to repair it?
From that earlier TP thread, cliffhangers and unresolved storylines:
Did Audrey survive the explosion at the bank? (I was in an AOL interview room with Sherilyn Fenn and she said the plan was yes, but it’s not canon)
Did the others in the bank vault survive the explosion? (IIRC, Pete, Catherine and Andrew were there)
Who’s really Donna’s father?
Did Leo survive the death trap?
Will Ben Horn survive the injuries inflicted by Dr Heywood?
Who’s the real father of Lucy’s baby? (and would she ever give birth on the show, since each episode was one day and a full-term pregnancy would take over ten seasons)
What will be the fate of Ghostwood Estates?
What’s the secret of the Owl Cave?
If the owls are not what they seem, what are they?
I know a lot of people have these questions, but I didn’t.
I thought everything we could know for sure was answered.
Sure, there are mysteries left, but hey, it’s Twin Peaks.
Did Audrey survive the explosion at the bank? (I was in an AOL interview room with Sherilyn Fenn and she said the plan was yes, but it’s not canon)
No.
Did the others in the bank vault survive the explosion? (IIRC, Pete, Catherine and Andrew were there)
No.
Who’s really Donna’s father?
We’ll never know for sure.
Did Leo survive the death trap?
No.
Will Ben Horn survive the injuries inflicted by Dr Heywood?
No.
Who’s the real father of Lucy’s baby? (and would she ever give birth on the show, since each episode was one day and a full-term pregnancy would take over ten seasons)
We’ll never know for sure.
What will be the fate of Ghostwood Estates?
We’ll never know for sure.
What’s the secret of the Owl Cave?
We’ll never know for sure.
If the owls are not what they seem, what are they?
We’ll never know for sure.
If you look at it like that the last episode was absolutely amazing.
So many things got concluded that other shows never wrap up.
The only problem is that when people hear about the possible existence of a third season and all the interviews saying there was going to be one.
I never knew there was going to be another season, so I think it wraps it up almost perfectly.
Well I mean sure, it’s easy enough to say “we’ll never know for sure” because obviously absent some bizarre warping in the space-time conituum there won’t be any more Twin Peaks, but that’s not really my point. As for the things you say “no” to, there’s no way for you to know that’s accurate. If you choose to think that, that’s fine, but it doesn’t change that objectively those things were left as open questions.
You are misunderstanding me.
These were my conclusions when I first saw the show, because I knew it was the last episode.
I had never heard of a third season.
Taking that into consideration you would automatically get these conclusions.
They might not be the conclusions the writers wanted or we would like, but it are the ones we were offered (in the shown series).
The show seemed to have about run its course, getting progressively weirder and almost narcissistic towards the end. About time they stuck a fork in it. It would’ve been far better as a self-contained and complete miniseries, even if (David Lynch being David Lynch) there were still some loose threads and unanswered questions.
That said, I thought the end of S2 was a
tragedy, no more and no less. The thought of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, devoted in his own offbeat way to law, order and public service, being possessed by the villainous BOB, and very likely to hurt or even kill those he’d come to care for in the secretive little town of Twin Peaks, actually left me deeply saddened.