Did Twin Peaks end? [Spoilers]

[shakespeherian]

So I feel like, whenever the subject of Twin Peaks or finales comes up, I inevitably hear two completely different assertions: That this show had the most frustrating cancelled-while-cliffhanging ending of all time, or that this show had the greatest and darkest ending of all time. I realize that the show got cancelled, but I'm still curious: do you feel like it provided enough closure at the end, or do you feel stuck holding the bag?

[owtytrof]

I'm long overdue to re-watch TP. Seriously, I bought the Gold Box set when it was released, opened it to look at the goodies, and have yet to actually watch the series again, and it had been years before that.

With that said, I recall being pretty unhappy not knowing Coop's true fate or what was going to happen outside of the lodges, in the "real world" post-series.

[shakespeherian]

I should have included this above, but have you seen Fire Walk With Me?

[cortex]

Just rewatched the whole run recently, though I haven't rewatched FWWM yet.

And...the ending is a mess, mostly, is the feeling I had and have still. It's stuck halfway between being a huge cliffhanger setup for a third season and being a hell of an amiguous dark series finale, and that halfway thing makes neither really work well.

Lynch (seemingly) killing off two major, likeable characters in the bank for no particular is a big abrupt move toward Okay, It's Over; canceling out all the developments in the Nadine arc (and implicitly dragging Ed back into loyalty to the troubled mess of that marriage) without leaving any sort of point of intrigue there feels pretty gloomy too; it doesn't feel like a cliffhanger so much as heartbreak.

And yet there's a ton of loose ends, and the core ambiguity of Cooper's tainted return from the Black Lodge is totally unsatisfying because the nature of that whole situation is murky even for Lynch. A third season where we got to see folks around Cooper try to figure out what's up with him, and Cooper himself struggle with his new literal demons, could have been really interesting but with it being seemingly a foregone conclusion that there would be no new season, it's a hell of an unexplored mindfuck.

That said, I think the closing scene with Coop is pretty brilliant as dark, unsatisfying mindfuck endings go. He's such an unassailable, fundamentally good (if not totally morally pristine) character that it was genuinely shocking to have that be Lynch's conclusion. Any other sort of dark turn would have been less gutting than the corruption of Special Agent Dale Cooper.

Whole thing is up on Netflix Instant right now, fwiw.

[shakespeherian]

The reason I ask about FWWM is because there's a scene (I don't think this is spoilery? BUT MAYBE) wherein Heather Graham's Annie character appears in Laura's bed, with blood on her face, and tells her, 'My name is Annie. I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary.'

Being as FWWM is a prequel to the series and yet Annie is pretty clearly talking about the state of things at the end of the series, it seems like Lynch is trying to do something w/r/t closure or understanding or something about what's going on at the end of the show re: doppelgangers and so forth.

The bank explosion always seemed, to me, like Lynch thought that the writers who'd taken over for him during his absence from the show had really screwed the pooch and he just wanted to kill their dumb storylines.

[Ms Harriet Vane]

I'm with Cortex, it doesn't feel quite like it works as either type of ending.

I cried at the ending, just the bit with Cooper. More of a shock reaction than anything else, and I pretended I wasn't leaking so my friend wouldn't ask me about it. But to end Cooper there, with no chance to fight back? That's terrible.

The bank explosion - meh. Ed roped back into being with Nadine - tragic, even though I like Nadine as a character.

I've seen FWWM, but can't remember much about it at all. It seems to have just slid right out of my brain. I blame Lynch for that, he probably did it on purpose.

[artw]

Heh. Poor old Mark Frost really isn't getting much of a look in here, is he?