#twin peaks fun fact series

[okuberlik]

Your Twin Peaks fun fact of the day

Day #12

Lots of actors in Twin Peaks have some sort of connection to each other, to others actors, or had worked with Lynch before Twin Peaks.

Here are some examples:

If you've paid attention to the credits in the opening you'll see the name Warren Frost. He played Will Hayward, Donna's father, and was Mark Frost's, one of the creators of Twin Peaks, father.

There's also Stephen Gyllenhaal who directed episode 27 who is Jake and Maggie's Gyllenhaal father.

There's also some Twin Peaks actors whose children are now famous. Such as Peggy Lipton, who played Norma Jennings, her daughter is actress Rashida Jones, her father is legendary music producer Quincy Jones. Mary Jo Deschanel, who played Eileen Hayward, is the wife of Caleb Deschanel, who directed three Twin Peaks episodes. Their daughters are Zooey and Emily Deschanel. There's also Russ Tamblyn, who played Dr. Jacoby, he' the father of Amber Tamblyn.

Eric Da Re, who played Leo Johnson, is the son of Twin Peaks casting director Johanna Ray.

Robyn Lively, who played Lana Budding Mildford, is the half-sister of Blake Lively.

Miguel Ferrer, who played Agent Rosenfield, was the cousin of Goerge Clooney.

Jack Nance, who played Pete Martell, collaborated with Lynch in Eraserhead when he played the lead role and had minor roles in Dune and Blue Velvet. Kyle MacLachlan, who played Agent Cooper, played the lead roles in Dune and Blue Velvet. Frank Silva, who played Bob, worked on the set of Dune, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, Catherine Coulson, who played the Log Lady, did assistant camera work on the set of Eraserhead. Everett McGill, who played Big Ed, Grace Zabriskie, who played Sarah Palmer and Charlotte Stewart, who played Betty Briggs, also had small roles in Lynch's early work.

Catherine Coulson was married to Jack Nance.

Richard Beymer, who played Benjamin Horne, and Russ Tamblyn both starred together in West Side Story.

#It's crazy how they are all connected #twin peaks fun fact series #twin peaks fire walk with me #twin peaks #david lynch #mark frost #agent cooper #kyle maclachlan #audrey horne #sherilyn fenn #laura palmer #sheryl lee #sheriff truman #micheal ontkean #donna hayward #lara flynn boyle #shelly johnson #madchen amick #bobby briggs #dana ashbrook

[esshee]

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐓𝐎𝐒 — HQ!!

✩ featuring. miya atsumu and miya osamu

✩ warnings. platonic, reader is childhood friends with atsumu and osamu

✩ a/n. compliant with my series inarizaki memories but can be read as a standalone

hq!! m.list ⋮ series m.list

as childhood friends with the miya twins, you have an abundance of pictures of both the trivial and milestone moments in your lives.

your moms are basically best friends

like they share so many pictures and stories of your little trio and take a sort of sadistic motherly joy in showing off the most embarrassing ones to your friends whenever they come over

(aran, suna, and ginjima have definitely seen them)

fun fact: in a lot of photos, you’re usually in the middle of the twins

if you stood next to only one of them, the other would always without fail whine

atsumu had the brightest smile but would have like a streak of dirt on his face and scrapes/bruises on his knees and elbows from horsing around

osamu was juuuuust a bit better than his twin in these photos but definitely had dirt and grass stains on his knees and clothes

there’s one pic of the three of you crying and hugging each other in second grade because you got lost in kobe and the twins were scared you were lost forever

your mom couldn’t help but snap a pic before she comforted fetus you

y’all were so cute and made her temporarily forget how worried and scared she was

another is of the three of you at the beach: you and osamu were burying atsumu in the sand with only his head sticking up

(you both did a smashing job as both of your parents had to help get atsumu out)

there’s also a photo of you guys at your peak pokemon phase with you wearing a bulbasaur tee, atsumu in a charmander one, and osamu in a squirtle one

you were firmly holding onto a pikachu plush (the twins had been ridiculously jealous and whined to their parents until they each got one too)

there are plenty other cute photos from volleyball games, school trips, vacations, and activities like strawberry picking

all of your important milestones (like graduation or something) are photographed with the three of you in them

it’s just tradition by now to take a pic with just your little trio

© 𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐞. all rights reserved. do not plagiarize, share, repost, or translate my works.

#꒰ 글 — from.essie ꒱ #꒰ 글 : 낮✧ ꒱ #꒰ 글 ꒱ — inarizaki memories #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader #miya osamu x reader #osamu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu fluff

[ideahat-universe]

Good Design, Bad Design: ARG edition!

Don't worry, it's just a framing device. Lets talk about a Good ARG and a Bad ARG.

Good Design

Shipwrecked 64 is one of the better examples of a ARG done extremely well but what really sets it apart in my mind is the fact that it's a real game.

A lot of indie games make game play a means to an end, most of it benefits more from being watched than played.

A meta of overcharging people to play chapters of a game where each chapter is a little under 2 hours and the game play is just put key in keyhole and run from thing has really crippled the entertainment the genre can offer.

Not so for Shipwrecked 64. You're expected to learn and even write down many things to find the answers needed to progress.

Learn a little bit about music, remember numbers and colors when they appear to you, watch the videos that show up, Read the notes made by stumbler, utilize a fan made cipher to decode Beaver-scratch (or decode the method yourself!), dabbled in the phonetic alphabet, oh and a bit of some googling.

The game can be a punishing experience for streamers who expect to knock this game out in an afternoon. Because of that though it can be fun to play blind. In fact it's very fun to play blind and the scares are edited fairly well as the the jump part of scare utilizes a very surreal screen tearing effect, meanwhile the game tries to come up with ways to sneak up on you to make the jumps really sudden.

It's very good. Sure Poppy's Playtime is a more cinematic experience, and the latest Freddy Game wasn't that bad either but there's something about a really well rounded experience that lives beyond its expectations.

UrbanSpook is. Well, UrbanSpook is a TV dinner.

Let me explain.

A few months ago I mentioned Who's Lila which was also a really well done ARG and meta mystery story which was born from Twin Perfect's reading on what Twin Peaks was supposed to be about.

The idea is that Twin Peaks was a response to how throwaway and artless television was becoming and specifically how murder stories were just a cavalcade of dead bodies and killers with nothing else to care about.

The metaphor used in Twin Peaks? TV Dinners. Whenever bad people were indulging in base desires they were eating TV dinners or other meals that lacked substance.

Yeah, I think you know where I'm going with this. UrbanSpook comes out the gate with a framing device for a gallery of artwork but the framing is bare bones and the artwork only satiates the desire to see gore. The artwork is good but in creating a story it is not judged as a series of images and is instead judged as a story.

As a story we don't know who the killer is, how they kill, why they kill (why they have to kill people to make paintings). We don't know the victims beyond them being dead, when they died, and how they died. We don't know who is primarily responsible for investigating the killings (as it is not uncommon for a specific person to be tasked with bringing a serial killer to justice).

We know about as much as you might learn in a B movie. Which brings me to what I believe UrbanSpook is. UrbanSpook is a no budget ARG Splatterpunk horror.

People come in expecting some kind of lip-service to pathos because at the end of the day people love character, not kills; and in almost every good horror story you get characterization of everyone as well as a strong theme beyond "We like violence, yes we do."

BUT in a B-movie or a cheap slasher film you want gore, you want some blood thrown around, you want TV Dinners.

I imagine though that the budget of UrbanSpook is quite limited so rather than make a completely animated venture he went for the Mandela Catalog effect.

And maybe it's a good gambit. With money he could make a better production but he's getting a Serbian film style reception which does hurt and lashing out on Twitter isn't great PR but that's beyond the art and really everyone is terrible on Twitter.

UrbanSpook isn't bad because it dares to do things that are audacious and repugnant, because the horror genre has gladly housed such films since the creation of film as a genre.

What UrbanSpook does bad is telling a story and while morally Horror can do whatever it wants, artistically there is a good design for a horror story and a bad design for a horror story and this is

Bad Design

#fandom #controversy #horror #shipwrecked 64 #urbanspook #Youtube

[understandableparadox]

saitama as a hero of no means, all ability.

I believe that hero's can be sorted on to a spectrum of a twin axis, that being the access of Means and No means and Ability and No ability.

superman and batman for instance while they are not having Sloppy Vigilante Makeout seshs, are polar opposites of the ability to no ability spectrum but nearly on the same level of means. come at me all you want but if you have artic real-estate that you can Reasonably call a fortress, i do not give a singular shit if you have a 9-5 and a new york apartment, you are a 1 percenter.

in fact you may find that their are vary few heros that will peak Below the no means chart. few but not none. for instance we have the incredible hulk and some instances of spiderman. both of whom live on the access of No Means and All Abilities. as their source of heroics does not come from what they have but What They Can Do.

They cannot afford to pay for someones cancer, but they can make sure their last days are ones they can depart with.

they cannot afford an anti weapon but they can Punch the thing until it stops moveing.

now what does this have to do with saitma?

to me, saitama is the ultimate example of a hero of No means that is beyond ability. They can "Do" everything but they are still bound by the rules of society in the fact that their unlimited power means jack shit when it comes to budget.

throughout the series he is utterly broke, living in a shitty run down apartment in what is essentially hyperdeath ally constantly needing to find coupons and deals to fill his fridge. he is a broke collage student that dresses up to play hero, a job he is objectively bad at then clocks out and wallows in what is essentially a barely kept together depression nest until the big thing shows up and he has to punch it.

to be more succint

saitama as a charecter cannot develop any sort of success that may translate into better financial or societal means for himself.

why?

Because its fun.

Actully why?

because as a character he is someone that represents what a hero should be. heroics as a civic duty, a volunteer duty. the nobility in the degradation that saitama wallows in allows him to be a true hero amongst influencers and somewhat overpowered wannabes.

#anime #saitama

[draconicsparkle]

Hello and welcome! Name is Kira! You can call me that or Draconic or Sparkle or whatever you want really. Been having a swell time creating fics. Mostly Danganronpa and Rain Code. Also a huge fan of Pokémon and several other franchises. Feel free to send asks or messages! I am happy to chat with people!

Here is a masterpost of all my works. Cause I realized that it’s a bit cluttered here without it. This should make things easy to navigate.

I do hope this helps!

Btw, some are only on ao3. I shall put links to those as well in case people wanna check those out.

Enjoy!!!

Pic by @noodleartz

Danganronpa Fics

The Peak of Hope : God au where Hajime gets possessed by a god Izuru. Complete

Wings and Scales : Dragon au where Nagito is a dragon and Hajime is his caretaker. Complete

Hajime’s Cats : A fluffy episodic fic of Hajime and his cats Izuru and kitten Nagito. Complete

Differing Heights and Rationalities : Borrower au with borrower Nagito and human Hajime and Izuru. Complete

Sunshine and Shadows : Spirit au with human Hajime rescuing light spirit Nagito. Complete

Childhood : Prequel to Sunshine and Shadows. Would highly recommend reading SAS first as this contains heavy spoilers to the ending of it. Complete

Sweets From Alice’s : Size changing gt fic. Episodic in nature. Complete

Naga Nagito Drabbles : Au created by @tortadecereji; Another series of episodic chapters with Hajime interacting with Naga Nagito. Big or small, but mostly big. Complete.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Nagizuru Au : Au created by @karugoround; Where Nagito became Izuru and Hajime serves as his caretaker. Complete

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 (Birthday Special)

Lost Souls : A Pokémon/Danganronpa crossover fic where Hajime and Nagito need to work together to help a lost Pokémon return home. Complete

Children of the Cosmic God : Eldritch horror Izuru adopts orphaned Hajime and Nagito. The two must make a difficult choice when they come of age. Still ongoing

One Shot

Parenting in the Apocalypse

Eternal Happiness? I Found It!

Octopath Traveler Fics

Little Thief : Octopath Traveler g/t fic. Complete

Short Stories : Octopath Traveler 2 gt one shots. Complete

The Hound and His Little Lamb : Octopath Traveler 2 knightlight fic. Complete

Rain Code Fics

The Masks I Wear : Rain Code sibling fic. Complete

Family’s Friends : Sequel to the The Masks I Wear. Complete

The Offer of a Lifetime : Part 3 of the Twin Detectives series. Complete

Our Differences : Part 4 and finale of the Twin Detectives Series. Complete

Take Care : Part 5 extra bit to the Twin Detectives Series. Sickfic. Complete

He Who Defies Death : Post canon au where Makoto receives the Book of Death. Still ongoing

Transparent : Viviakou fic where Vivia is a ghost haunting the house that Yakou and Yuma move into. Complete

Safe In The Nocturne : Yakou Fathero adopts Yuma fic. Still ongoing

The Dragons and Their Detective : An au where the Master Detectives are dragons. Complete

One of the Flock : Sequel to The Dragons and Their Detective. Complete

Which On Is It? : Kokolight vampire au oneshot. Complete

Feed : Prequel to Which One Is It? Complete

Blood Bond : Kokolight vampire au where Yakou learns a fun fact about vampire bats. Complete

There’s a Bat in the Agency! : Vampire Au where bat Yuma is discovered by the NDA. Complete

Artificial Mind, Artificial Heart : Rain Code au where Makoto is an artificial intelligence program learning to be human. Still ongoing

Going For The Throat : One shot where Yomi does something to make Makoto angry. He suffers the consequences. Complete.

#fanfic #fanart #asks

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

Like yeah I could watch twin peaks the return but I’m not going to at least not for a long time because the original show tells such a concentrated story that I don’t necessarily want to dilute it with shit that goes beyond what the original story tells. The fact the original series is so short and contained allows you to leave with questions it allows you to come up with your own theories and ideas on what happened and on what could happen and I think it is more fun that way. Sometimes I don’t want to know what happened to my tv friends sometimes I want to have to theorize about it.

#the whiscash administration

[lydia-too-late]

GET TO KNOW THE AUTHOR

name: I go by some variety of "Lydia" in most online spaces, but my actual name is Michelle. Nice to meet you!

pronouns: she/her

preference  of  communication: Any, really. I'm fairly (read: brand) new to the RP side of Tumblr, and current-era Tumblr in general, so I'm still figuring out how business is conducted. Messages, email, discord. I'm around and happy to chatter.

name  of  most  active muse(s): Tula, for sure. She's been the framework around which I'm learning VtM, and I love it. She's also the one who's been the slowest and most deliberately developed, and I think it's paid off well. I have another, Grace Letts, who's lingering around, having made the jump from another story concept to WoD, but she's probably a Mage (!!!), and it's gonna be a minute before I'm ready for MtA. 

experience/how  long  (months/years?): The is the part where you realize that I'm rather old. 😂 (If the millennial emoji usage doesn't give it away first.) I first discovered RP on AOL in the late 90s. That's also where I first learned about VtM, but really just the general lore (Ventrue are business! Toreador are art sluts! Sabbat are the bad guys!). I've taken long stretches of time away, often years, but it's an itch I always return to. I usually lean more toward the writing/story side of things, but I'm down to try almost anything.

platforms  you’ve  used: Mostly play-by-post writing sites. Discord.

best  experience:  Teaming up with @silkenred! They are the creative partner I've been looking for since the day I started this journey. Working together on our story has renewed my interest in writing, roleplaying, and everything WoD. They are one of my favorite people on the planet. Fun Fact: When I met them, they were writing a series of haunted infomercials for a Twin Peaks-inspired group RP, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever read. 😂

rp  pet  peeves  /  dealbreakers: Writing with partners who treat my character like their narrative sidekick. No. I'm not interested in playing plot support to your superstar. (Unless it's a really specific, well-communicated situation.) In a partnership our characters carry equal importance: I'll make yours look good, but I expect the same consideration in return.

fluff,  angst,  or  smut: All of the above? All at once? 😳 In all seriousness: I love some angst, with fluff to keep it from being a complete slog, and smut can be delightful if done right, but it isn't essential. 

plots  or  memes: I'm not really sure what this means exactly, in an rp context as either/or, but I'm pro-plots and pro-memes!

long  or  short  replies: My major project right now is a co-authored story, and the replies we send each other are generally between 750-1500 words. (In the past 15 months, we've written just over 100k words together! And guys, silkenred writes GOOD words.) But I think there's a lot of fun and merit in shorter, more casual formats as well.

best  time  to  write: Morning! Like, 7am-9am or so. It's generally a quiet time in my household, and easier to focus before the rest of the day smashes through.

are  you  like  your  muse(s): There are definitely elements of Tula, mostly emotional, that I've pulled from my own experiences, or things I've observed in those around me. Grace, the aforementioned eventual-mage, probably has life experiences that more specifically line up (thematically, at least) with my life. She's younger, though, and dresses better, and she's more likely to punch someone. She also sees ghosts.

tagged by: stolen from @gorbalsvampire (thank you!)  tagging: @silkenred, along with anyone who reads this and would like to partake!

#personal #tula #silk #writing #wod

[mogai-headcanons]

What’s rusty lake? Sounds neat!

STIMS SO HARD INFODUMP TIME

rusty lake is the name of the developers of and world depicted in the cube escape games, rusty lake hotel/roots/paradise, samsara room, and the white door! they're point-and-click adventure/escape puzzle games with very surreal/creepy vibes, following stories that are all connected by the titular rusty lake. they're apparently pretty heavily inspired by twin peaks, but i've personally never watched twin peaks, so i can't speak to that.

the cube escape games came out first, and they largely follow detective dale vandermeer, who's investigating the mysterious death of an unnamed (at first, later you find out her name is laura vanderboom) woman in the 1970s. he becomes obsessed with trying to figure out who she is and how she died, unable to think about anything else, and eventually finds himself drawn to the lake to get to the root of the weird/paranormal shit he's seen. when there, he ends up trapped within his memories, observed and sometimes aided by the mysterious 'enlightened' half-animal characters that currently populate the lake area.

some cube escape games are not part of this story directly - for example, cube escape: arles has you play as vincent van gogh in his bedroom in arles - but they all tie back to the central themes of the entire rusty lake series, namely the corruption of one's soul (which is typically shown to happen through the extraction of memories into the titular cubes, but can also occur due to death or immense suffering in life).

the most recent cube escape game actually had a live-action short film attached, which was incredible! they actually set up the room that the game takes place in and filmed dale doing the puzzles and holy shit it was so fun.

rusty lake hotel, roots, and paradise are prequels to the cube escape games, taking place over about 200 years and telling the stories of laura's ancestors and the lake in general.

in hotel, you play as the partially human version of laura's pet parrot (harvey) working at a lavish hotel on an island in rusty lake, which currently has five half-animal guests. you do individual 'escape rooms' in each of their hotel rooms, one per night, in order to serve the remaining guests a perfect meal the next day.

in roots, you follow the growth of the vanderboom family tree across 75 years and watch all the weird happenings within the family's lives (odd magic, alchemy, the search for immortality, murder plots, etc.), much of which is caused by the fact that the vanderbooms live near rusty lake.

in paradise, you follow the eilander family in 1796, who live on a small island in rusty lake that has been cursed to endure ten plagues after the death of the player character's mom, which you stop through odd rituals. the end of this game has a twist that heavily links it back to the cube escape games (i had to put my phone down and full-body stim when it happened kfjdgldk).

the white door is considered a spinoff and has a very different look from the rest of the games. it follows bob, laura's ex-boyfriend, as he's undergoing an odd mental health treatment in the same year she died. he has severe memory loss and begins to remember things as you play through the game.

samsara room was actually the first game the rusty lake developers made, but it was rereleased to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the series, and i didn't play it until the rerelease, which added plot connections to the games that came after its original release. it's a weird, time-traveling puzzle experience that a lot of fans theorize follows the recently-dead soul of a character from the series (i won't spoil who) as they are pondering on what they might want to become in their next life.

i played all of the games on my iphone, where the majority of them are free (i think the only ones that aren't are hotel, roots, paradise, and white door, all of which are under $5), and you can also play them on other mobile platforms and through steam! i highly highly reccomend not only playing them once, but doing a few playthroughs - i first played them in a random order after seeing on on the appstore, then played them in order of release, then played them in chronological order of events using a timeline guide i found on reddit, and i've also played them two or three more times just for fun in whatever order i pleased.

it can be difficult to fully understand the story with just one playthrough (or even with a few), and even though the series has been a special interest of mine for five years, i still benefit a lot from watching lore breakdowns and reading fan theories. the confusing nature honestly doesn't detract from the experience at all, as you're often meant to be confused until you learn something in a later game, and the series isn't over yet, so not everything is known. there's a new game coming this fall, actually!

tl;dr: the rusty lake games are surreal, point-and-click, escape room-style games full of mystery and intriguing themes of life and death. if you like mystery/puzzle games and can handle creepy themes and the occasional jumpscare, you should absolutely play them!

#long post #death ment #rusty lake

[theskoomacat]

I wrote "i'm not obsessed with anything atm" in that ask game and then lost myself completely in Remedy content not even a day later. clown behavior

Anyway Max Manpaynes 1 and 2 were ok, ppl say 3 was also okay but it's too far from other Remedy stuff so i'm not dissecting it. So here's the easter eggs from MP1 and 2 for people who haven't played them (reverse easter eggs rather because the stuff they were referencing did not not exist yet. what's first, an easter egg or an easter chicken?)

(at this point i realized that i've lost all my screencaps to a power outage. aye killing meself.)

The biggest most obvious thing were the TV shows. I guess the one thing you can trust Remedy to do is to put a fictional TV show in their game. Address Unknown was a wild ride. In MP1 the show is an obvious reference to Twin Peaks, it features the main character, a mental hospital patient, witnessing his double conversing with a backwards-speaking pink flamingo in a place with red drapes.

In MP2 this story evolves: we learn that the main character is tormented by his evil serial killer double, John Mirra, who frames mc for his murders. (hmmm sounds familiar)

(The fact that Sam does "acting" for all the series is the icing on the cake. draw Scratch like this challenge)

He is forced to look for Mirra, following the trail of his murder scenes into an alternate Noir York City, because Mirra has kidnapped his gf. He gets put into that mental institution from MP1's episode and is forced to kill his doctor self-defense and flee. He laments that through killing he has become John Mirra himself - maybe he has been Mirra the entire time. The series ends with him receiving a phone call from himself. (Naturally, the entire series is heavily focused on the concept of mirrors, including citing a poem by the poet Pool on the same topic).

Watching all this made it all click for me because I have seen but have not processed a snippet of an interview with Sam Lake where he said that he enjoyed Twin Peaks season 3: The Return (hello??) that also featured an evil double plot and the mc returning from another dimension after many years. The only thing that is different is that afai remember, evil Cooper was not Cooper himself - unlike how it happens in Address Unknown and Alan Wake 2. So it's extremely fun to see that after 20 years Sam has managed to turn these doodles on the margins into an entire AAA game, love it for him.

Another pretty fun meta moment when Max get heavily drugged:

(There is another note that tells him that he is a computer game character, to his dismay, but I like it less.) I know it was just a typical 4th wall-breaking joke back then but in the context of AW this becomes way cooler.

Other minor stuff that made me go leo_dicaprio_pointing.png:

665 and 667, the neighbors of the beast, are used as codes in both games.

one of the characters seemingly gets shot in the head in the first game, and in MP2 this conversation happens: "I saw you take a bullet to the head." "Maybe it's still there. Keeps me focused." - kind of taking a note of this for AW3.

MP1 constantly references the American Dream, the first part is called that as well - in contrast with the American Nightmare.

The whole thing with "Odin" - no real connection with AW but just fun to see Remedy putting heavy scandinavian mythology symbolism in the game unprompted.

man i can't remember more without the screencaps, this is so tragic. Nightingale was mentioned but iirc with no hidden meaning. here you go.

Anyway, I hope I have at least managed to enlighten the people who haven't heard of Address Unknown because in the context of AW2 this stuff is bonkers

#if i actually review the games: they really were fine! #i can see why MP1's become a classic; and the sequel was a direct improvement didn't drop a single ball #although i personally liked MP2's level design less it was too confusing #and it's too bad there was less graphic novel stuff in it. this boring cutscene could have been a comic page! #i certainly liked FEAR less - and it came out years after MP1 #but. still it seems no early 2000s action shooter will manage to replace half life in my heart #remedy entertainment #alan wake 2 spoilers #max payne #my commentary

[okuberlik]

Your Twin Peaks fun fact of the day

Day #5

Many of the characters names in Twin Peaks weren't chosen just because.

Several characters are named after film noir figures, here are some examples:

Madeleine Ferguson, Laura's cousin, shares her first name with Kim Novak's character in Vertigo and her surname with James Stewart character in that same movie. Curiously enough, the movie surrounds a dead blonde and her brunette doppelgänger.

There's an insurance agent on Twin Peaks named Walter Neff, which plays homage to Fred MacMurray's character in Double Indemnity.

Also, the vet Dr. Lydecker and Waldo the bird both pay tribute to Clifton Webb's character in Laura.

And Gordon Cole, whose name is a reference to Bert Moorhouse character in Sunset Boulevard, one of David Lynch's favorite movie and biggest inspiration.

But it's not just film noir references. For instance, Dale Cooper's, whose middle name is Bartholomew, initials are the same ones as D. B. Cooper the famous hijacker who parachuted from a plane in Washington with stolen cashed and disappeared out of the blue.

And last but not least, Harry Truman's name is a reference to the Harry Truman who refused to leave his lodge during the eruption of Mount St. Helens.

#this is amazing #twin peaks #twin peaks fire walk with me #twin peaks fun fact series #agent cooper #audrey horne #laura palmer #sheriff truman #donna hayward #bobby briggs #shelly johnson #james hurley #maddy ferguson #kyle maclachlan #sherilyn fenn #sheryl lee #micheal ontkean #lara flynn boyle #dana ashbrook #madchen amick #james marshall #david lynch #mark frost #cooper x audrey

[crazy-loca-blog]

I just finished binge reading Roommates with Benefits. Of course, I need to share a few opinions on it because I hate keeping these things to myself. There are some spoilers, but I don't think they'll actually ruin the experience if you haven't played it yet:

I had a really hard time going through Chapter 1. No kidding, it took me like 5 attempts to finally read it and finish it to move on to Chapter 2.

In general, there is A LOT of sexual tension between the MC and the LI *pretends to be shocked*. Every single dialog between them includes some flirtation, and I must admit that, if you follow the game, the flirting becomes quite tolerable. The narration is cringey AF though! I hate it.

The situations in the story are completely ridiculous. Everything since the very first scene makes no sense. The peak moment was Chapter 6. It was so stupid and unrealistic that I couldn't stop laughing, mostly because I ended up being so trapped in this non-sense that I just gave up and decided to join the fun.

Honorable mention goes to Chapter 4, because that's been the only moment (so far) where you get to know a different side of the LI and I'll always appreciate that type of scenes. Unfortunately, it's paywalled.

As per the MC, she's trying too hard to get rid of her goody-two-shoes image, and even though attending to parties and livin' la vida loca may be fun for the plot, she only does it to impress the LI. That's a HUGE red flag. It makes me feel uncomfortable because NO WOMAN SHOULD EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT. Period.

Don't even make me talk about the default outfit. I hate it. In my country, that's most definitely a school uniform. The only opportunity to get rid of it is in Chapter 5, and by paying diamonds, it sucks.

Even though our MC's best friend is absolutely right on her POV, I kind of dislike her! It's hard for me to understand how they became besties in the first place, and it's not necessarily because the MC is changing. Also, it's clear that she doesn't like the LI, but the way she approached them the very first time was way too much for me.

Overall, the book is so unrealistic it becomes a joke. Sometimes, it even feels like TNA all over again, but without the twins, at a university setting, and with A LOT more mutual flirting (and this is super important to me because of how uncomfortable TNA made me feel for not reciprocating Sam's feelings). In fact, they changed the "desire" points for "chemistry" points. HOWEVER... it's far from being the worst book in the app. In fact, I'm beginning to think this book may actually become a series.

#playchoices #choices stories you play #roommates with benefits

[adultswim2021]

Assy McGee #20: “Squirrels” | July 07, 2008 - 12:30AM | S02E14

Assy ends tonight. In this one, Assy breaks up an underground Squirrel Fighting Ring after getting over his intense fear of squirrels. He in fact conquers his fears to such an extent that the climax of the episode (and the series, as it turns out) is him squaring off with a giant, genetically modified squirrel. 

On the way we get a hunting trip where Assy browbeats Sanchez into drinking duck piss, a shirtless chief, covered in tats, and a few things that actually made me laugh a little. Assy somberly telling Sanchez “I love killing birds,” the dumb exchange between Sanchez and the Chief after Sanchez sees a framed photo of him playing Twister with Gerald Ford: (Sanchez: “Is that you with President Ford?” Chief: “Yeah, that’s me!”), the part where Assy is so spooked at the sight of the squirrel carcasses in the flophouse that his buttcheeks begin quivering. It probably doesn’t sound incredible, but there’s more than usual to like in this episode. 

I did not watch Assy McGee season two at all when it premiered (I think; if I contradicted something I already said, go with the other thing). In 2008, I was probably still a touch adverse to comedy involving squirrels. There was a rotating list of nouns that whenever I heard them used in supposed-to-be-funny dialogue or visuals it would set me off. I called them “stock absurdities”, and they’d force me to sit on my hands and scowl in response. I probably arrogantly dressed down many children who were simply trying to have a fun time online.

Now that I’m a 40 year old man (in a few weeks, yikes), I can admit I was a bit of a handful who took his own posts way too seriously. I probably wasn't even all that funny. But at the time, maaaaybe I had a point? It seemed like people could very easily garner laughs by just mentioning monkeys, squirrels, cheese, pirates, ninjas, or robots. I’m sure I’ve harped on this already on this blog, so I’ll stop, abruptly. 

This concludes my coverage of Assy McGee, which should not have had 20 episodes. I did just do a quick-and-dirty list of my top ten. If you are good at math, you’ll realize that this is half of the series. Some of these aren’t that good, but had enough memorable jokes that they made the cut. I’m not sure how to rank these, but I’ll tell you the strongest episode on the list is “The Flirty Black Man”, and the weakest is “Irish Wake”: 

S01E01: Murder by the Docks

S01E02: The Flirty Black Man

S01E04: Busted

S01E06: Conviction

S02E02: Pharmassy

S02E03: Mile High Mayhem

S02E06: Irish Wake

S02E07: Vowel Play

S02E08: Hands Up

S02E14: Squirrels

As you can see, Assy joins Twin Peaks in the pantheon of shows where season two falls off dramatically, but comes back strong towards the end. "strong", I says. RIP Assy. For better or for worse, I was the only one who truly understood you.

MAIL BAG

Do you think you could beat a kangaroo in a fight should it come to that (your allowed to lie) also the kangaroo is dressed up as space ghost

I would have serious trouble fighting my hero Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but, no, those things are vicious and I am not strong at all and I'm also very scared all the time. It would be a little comforting if the kangaroo delivered the monologue from the end of "Banjo", but I just found out that kangaroos can't speak English, which is sobering to say the least.

EPHEMERA CORNER

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #assy mcgee #Youtube

[ideahat-universe]

It's still Halloween right?

Lets talk about Twin Peaks inspired stuff. There's this game called "Who's Lila?" that gets it. Twin Peaks inspired quite a lot of people to create very weird and off beat stories about small town America but almost none of them, even the complete ripoffs really get what's going on with it. I mean to be fair, it was only a few years ago that someone made a really huge video breaking down what Twin Peaks was actually about with references and sources galore. Without that you could be like Jay Bauman and just consider the existence of the series of a fun novelty that is barely worth thinking about.

Almost treating a highly influential show as if it were some shlock that you watched for an internet retrospective.

So what do people get wrong? Well, the whole point of Twin Peaks was that the murder is the hook but the town itself is what causes you to stay. It's not that Laura Palmer's death doesn't matter, in fact it's the opposite. Laura Palmer's death is so substantial that you don't want to move onto to the next murder, you want to get to know the world that Laura left behind and who Laura was when she was alive.

David Lynch hated the fast food style murder mysteries were being written and wanted to make the ultimate anti murder mystery.

And, he failed. But not because he's a hack fraud writer. Both fans of the show and the producers wanted a resolution to the murder case. Once they did that Laura could be discarded mentally and the show declined. He made Fire Walk With Me to reignite value in knowing and caring about Laura Palmer but David Lynch is a moon man that doesn't want to spell things out even when it would benefit him greatly to do that maybe like once? Ya know. If it would save his entire franchise?

But no. After many years a season 3 is made but it's just Lynch killing his franchise as a way to curse those who were just too ungrateful and blind to see his vision.

Twin Peaks inspired media make the same mistake but without even knowing what David Lynch really wanted from the show so you get weird quirky middle America stories that either have a weird mystery cult or goes from one murder to many murders (and in the case of Deadly Premonition it's both).

And it's not all bad. In fact most of these things are good. Gravity Falls is probably the best show to ever do the face value aspect of Twin Peaks right.

But only Who's Lila has managed to capture the meta of Twin Peaks and what David Lynch was trying to do with it.

A user named Flawed Peacock has made a 7 hour video breaking down the game (oddly enough about as long as the video breaking down Twin Peaks) but you can play it for yourself if you like ARGs (and you have to if you want to figure out everything for yourself). But if you just want me to tell you now....

Who Lila is, is a meta question. Lila is a character whose motivations and actions and all the stuff that feels like Twin Peaks is in the game, but WHO LILA IS, is just an idea. The game morphs from the story about a murder to it really being about how a memetic idea is created and takes on a life of its own and exists only in our minds.

Lila exists as long as we think of them, they are an idea that feeds off of people's interest in what it is. Once you stop thinking of Lila, Lila exists a little less but idea's never die so Lila not only exists perpetually in the game but in the real world as well because all it takes is reading the word "Lila". Thinking about Twin Peaks inspired media, maybe even seeing the psone graphics or the art design or the sound design. Maybe just seeing this face

Or thinking of a murder mystery, or the demon Lilith makes you think of Lila and just like that Lila is back.

A demon is in your mind absorbing your thoughts and even though you played the game and you watched the 7 hour break down of the game and you are writing an article on Tumblr about Lila, you can't get rid of Lila.

And this is why Who's Lila is the best Twin Peaks inspired story to exist yet because all David Lynch was trying to do was sanctify the art of film media through the death of Laura Palmer, Laura Palmer was his Lila and the audience was supposed to keep asking who Laura Palmer is but they didn't care. They just wanted to find out who the murderer was and move onto the next case, but no one who plays Who's Lila will be moving onto another case. Sure, once you do absolutely everything, you can come to a conclusion you can settle with but by that point Lila is pretty well cemented into you. She's not a jumping off point for throw away content. It's the heart of the world her story takes place in.

Perhaps now that I understand and have seen this stratagem in action, I too can make a true Twin Peaks meta story....

#video games #twin peaks #fandom #youtube #mystery

[fatalism-and-villainy]

I've been watching Twin Peaks for awhile in my quest to consume the Hannibal Cinematic Universe (i.e. stuff that served as an inspiration for the show in some capacity). I was sick this week and speed-watched the rest of season 2 I had left.

I'm probably in the small minority here, but I actually got more hooked on season 2 than season 1. No, most of it wasn't exactly "good" - the fact that they were grasping for subplots to pad out the rest of the season was pretty apparent - but for some reason I was still more engaged. Aside from "The Skill to Catch a Killer," most of season 1 just kind of failed to land for me - in honestly similar ways to season 2, but I failed to see the former as some kind of masterpiece that the latter fell short of.

I actually think that even though I'd excise parts of it, I enjoyed the Cooper/Annie romance more than most people - when you take out Cooper marveling over her ~childlike wonder~, they have kind of a cute neurodivergent for neurodivergent vibe going on. And I liked the character and I'm frustrated there's not more exploration into her in the revival. The finale was also great - the extended black lodge sequence was just a masterpiece in horror in the way I expect from Lynch - where the scariness comes from how surreal and wrong it all feels.

But yeah, in general, I don't think I love the show much. Possibly Lynch just makes better films than TV, because even in season 1, the subplots felt a bit too extended and stretched too thin. Also it suffered from my bugbear with TV, which is that it felt like a precursor to the bingeable Netflix limited series - that is, it wasn't nearly episodic enough. Hannibal has been my gold standard for a show with an overall arc in which every episode feels contained and like its own artistic statement, and this show fell waaaay short of that. Very ahead of its time (derogatory). I was always curious what Mulholland Drive might look like as a TV series, as Lynch originally planned, but watching this show made me grateful that his wings were clipped in that regard.

Speaking of which - I watched Fire Walk with Me with my best friend, and that film, I absolutely adored. My best friend agreed and said, as the credits were rolling, "That was better than... all of Twin Peaks," and I completely agree. I'm kind of shocked that it was poorly reviewed at the time, because it's one of Lynch's best films for me, right up there with Mulholland Drive. It helps that I was prepared for it to be not a deep dive into the lore, but a character study of Laura Palmer, and in that it's absolutely wonderful. (Though the smattering of cosmic horror and weirdness is also fun and gives it some unique flavour.) Sheryl Lee is absolutely mesmerizing in the main role - her body language and expressiveness is just beautiful and unlike anything I've ever seen.

And the movie honestly made me care about Laura in a way that the characters weeping over her in the show's pilot never did. I was intrigued by the narrative mechanism of a dead girl as the gaping hole in the middle of the narrative, but frankly the way it was done in the show didn't inspire me at all - the premise of a tragic dead girl who was desired by all but understood by none had just been done so many times, and the show, imo, didn't comment on it in a compelling way, narratively or stylistically. But this film, on the other hand, really sold me the narrative of Laura - constrained by forces beyond her control, but still her own distinct person rather than just a symbol; doomed by the narrative but so much more than her death. And the visuals and soundscape of the film just beautifully capture the creepy tension that's so often present in Lynch's work, but also this profound and inescapable melancholy. It's an incredibly visceral movie, but absolutely worth watching.

Right now, I'm three episodes in with The Return (season 3), and I'm... not sure I'm liking that any more than the original show.

I was never sold on the mundane subplots and folksy interludes of the original show, so I was excited for more of a straight-up horror story. But I'm not sure I'm sold on what they're doing with the revival? I think, despite the enthusiastic reviews, that it is falling victim to 21st century TV revival bad habits. My best friend also watched these first few episodes with me, and he commented that Lynch was getting a little carried away with modern special effects technology, and honestly I agree. The Red Room is a great horror setpiece partly BECAUSE of how understated and low-budget it is. It's not elaborate! It's simple design that's rendered uncanny through how familiar its surface-level trappings are to us. Extended sequences of Cooper floating through space and getting engulfed in purple smoke and taken into a weird purple dimension honestly just... feel like they're trying too hard to be out there.

That said, there was a really cool sequence that really relied on visual glitchiness and the stop-motion effect in a way that really mounted the tension in that eerie Lynchian way, and reminded me a lot of the sequences in Inland Empire. One thing I really love about Lynch is the way he explores the concept of simulation, and the horror of cinema itself, and that sequence really captured that feeling for me. So I am interested in what else he does with this series, and in terms of where the plot is heading.

But honestly another problem I'm having with it is that - although I found the more mundane character subplots and soap opera antics of the town in the original series to be tedious - I think that not confining the revival largely to the town itself is a mistake. This revival is making me realize that I actually liked how small stakes the horror story of the original Twin Peaks was - yes, there's an entire eldritch dimension lying alongside the town, but the stakes are mostly confined to how this affects the town and its people. I don't care for the way this revival is stretched out over basically the entire country - it feels, again, like it's falling victim to the 21st century need to make the stakes consistently bigger and bigger, because clearly that's the only way to make people care. The original run of the series was honestly refreshing in that regard, in a way that I didn't even realize as I was watching it. The seemingly larger scale of season 3 just makes it feel kind of emotionally cold to me. As I said, I'm curious about what's going to happen, but I'm not sure I'm going to be very emotionally invested.

Also, as an aside, I don't love the amount of naked women we see alongside clothed men. The big discussion on Lynch is always how much he toes the line between the male gaze and the women's subjectivity being molded via their awareness of, and intentional self-presentation towards, the male gaze. It's a tension that produces an interesting campy effect. But I don't see any of that kind of self-awareness here - the naked women just feel like set dressing, and it's uncomfortable.

#as you can see i have extensive thoughts but #if nothing else let this post be an impassioned recommendation of Fire Walk with Me #alpha watches twin peaks #alpha's watchlog #queue

[shenanigans-and-imagines]

So, my clumsy self hurt my knee, had to have a surgery and currently walks like na elderly penguin. However, I have had time to watch The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch And Rebels in a really short time... which is one positive thing to come out of it. I was wondering, since I love hearing your thoughts, what do you think were the strengths and weaknesses of each show?

Hey sorry I'm late to a reply. You sent it pretty late and I wanted to be fully awake to respond. Let's just jump right in.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008-2020)

General Thoughts: This is probably my favorite piece of Star Wars media besides the Original Trilogy. It made me actually care about the prequels and understand what they were trying to accomplish. I love most of the episodes, which is saying something considering the length of the series. If I was going to get anybody introduced to Star Wars I would start with the Original Trilogy, maybe show them the prequel for context and then immediately get them onto The Clone Wars.

Strengths: As an anthology series, we really get to explore the world of Star Wars in a way we were unable to in the movies. We are allowed time to really get to know Anakin and Obi Wan while at the same time expanding the cast to encompass all the Jedi at their peak. It adds humanity to the all but faceless clones in the movies and adds an extra layer of tragedy to the series that the prequels tried, but mostly failed to impart.

Weakness: As an anthology series, there are some episodes that really do miss. This is the one I believe varies in quality the most and while I don't mind it so much, I can see it bothering others. Also, it does take a while to get going and the animation in the first season is really rough. It takes until season 2 to properly find its footing, but if you can stick it out until they I still high recommend it to everyone.

Star Wars: Rebels (2014-2018)

General Thoughts: A solid, fun kid's show for the Star Wars universe. We love seeing a found family.

Strengths: Having the focus on a small core ensemble is a nice change of pace from the anthology structure of The Clone Wars. It also gives us a better sense of how the rebel cells at this point are working on their own with barely any communication between them. It gives a nice sense of tension when they do meet somebody new to know if they're a friend on an ally.

The characters are what sell it though. As I said, we love a found family and I'm a sucker for any crew that will do anything for each other.

Weaknesses: I hate the animation style, I'm just going to put that out there. I am not a fan of the redesigns of the characters we knew from The Clone Wars and even the characters specifically made for the show and rather lack luster.

But I think the real problem with the show is Ezra. Now don't get me wrong, I like Ezra fine. He's got a good arc. He's can get annoying, but its understandable given where he started vs. where he's going. HOWEVER, I think it was a mistake forcing him to be in every episode of the series. He honestly is pretty bland when you get right down to it. We've seen his arc a million times, meanwhile Kanan is right there with a much more interesting and complicated history along side Hera. Not to mention everything happening with Maul and Obi Wan in "The Twin Suns". That really should have been solely focused on the two of them since it wasn't Ezra's fight at all. But, we had to take time away to cut back to him since he's the main character. Just little things like that take away from the over all quality.

I also do think it was a mistake to bring in Thrawn as a threat in such a kid centered show. Having the target audience be younger isn't a bad thing, but Thrawn is a tactician first who's whole deal is being a magnificent bastard. The fact the Ghost crew is able to get away so frequently speak more poorly of him than well of them.

The Bad Batch (2021- )

General Thoughts: This is the one I haven't actually finished. I watched a few episodes and while there was nothing wrong with it necessarily, it didn't hold my interest.

Strengths: God! The animation is so good in this. I really cannot emphasis how I much I love the animation. I would pay so much money for the crew to go back and reanimate the earlier seasons of The Clone Wars with this quality. Chef's kiss, seriously.

Also, I'm not going to deny that Omega is cute and I will never, ever get tired of that adopted Dad trope. It is too good.

Weaknesses: I just think its boring. It's fairly predictable with it's characters who are over all rather bland. This is baby's Dirty Dozen. If you have seen really any other war movie, you've seen these characters and no exactly what they're about. It's a shame too because I am really curious about the clones and the fall out of Order 66 from their perspective. The issue is, Rex is right there! There are other clones that we know who aren't genetically altered we can focus on and who we know better.

Maybe it gets better later, but ultimately I keep thinking about a better version of this show.

#star wars #the clone wars #rebel #the bad batch #star wars: the clone wars #star wars: rebels #star wars: the bad batch

[autolenaphilia]

"The cultivation of evil for the sake of evil": About Windom Earle from Twin Peaks

Windom Earle is an underrated character, and far from being part of the bad of that part of the series, the character almost single-handedly saves the second half of season 2 of Twin Peaks. There are spoilers up to the end of season 2 of course.

First, he is just a fun character to watch. His actor Kenneth Welsh plays him with such delightful flamboyance and drive, like he wants to make every second of screentime as interesting as possible.

Earle is the kind of villain that has such fun in doing evil that the audience can’t help but have fun alongside him. Everything he does is theatrical in an entertaining way, from donning disguises including a horse at one point, to putting a guy in a giant papier-maché chess piece and killing him.

I’ve seen people criticize his antics for being over-the-top and ridiculous, but they’re clearly meant to be that, and such things have been part of Twin Peaks since the start. He might be a cartoonish villain, but Twin Peaks has always had something of the cartoon within it, like Andy running into a loose plankLooney Tunes style. Ultimately, Earle’s actions are all just so much fun that I can’t complain.

I also like the trope of the hero’s evil counterpart or nemesis, and Earle makes a fine Moriarty to Cooper’s Holmes. And like Holmes and Moriarty, he feels like what would happen if Cooper used his eccentric intelligence on the side of evil instead of good. Earle was like Cooper an FBI agent, and was in fact his former partner and mentor in the FBI, the man who according to Cooper taught him everything.

And Earle as a character seems partly responsible for even more aspects of Cooper’s personality. Earle’s murder of his wife Caroline haunts Cooper, who clearly holds himself partly responsible for falling in love with Caroline and being lax with guarding her. And this failure seems to have amplified the white knight syndrome of Cooper’s personality. He responds to the pervasive violence against women in our society by wanting to be the male hero who always saves the damsel in distress, and this character trait leads him to disaster in the season 2 finale, which we will talk about later.

Most importantly, Windom Earle while being fun drives the plot forward. That wasn’t true of a lot of side-plots in the post- Laura Palmer mystery Twin Peaks.He provides a threat and suspense that had been lacking. Cooper being stripped of his FBI status after he solved the mystery, and getting it back to deal with Earle feels almost symbolic of how the show lost its footing and then regained it with Earle.

And he provides a lead-in for the main mystery of the show, that of the Black and White Lodges. Earle’s deepest motivation is his search for the Black Lodge. It is actually the lynchpin of Earle’s personality. He might at first seem unrelated to the broader mythology of the show, but he is actually intimately connected to it. His search for it brings the mystery of the Black Lodge to the show’s forefront, bringing back to the sense of mystery that was partially lost earlier when Laura Palmer’s murder was solved.

In episode 27, Briggs finds a video-tape of a younger Earle, in which Earle is talking about the “these evil sorcerers, dugpas… they cultivate evil for the sake of evil, nothing else. They express themselves in darkness for darkness, without leavening motive.. This ardent purity allows them to access a secret place where the cultivation of evil proceeds in an exponential fashion, and with it, the furtherance of evil’s resulting power”. This place is The Black Lodge, and Earle believes he can enter it and utilize its power. This is his true motivation, evil and power in itself.

You might accuse this of being a simplistic motivation, but that is how evil works in Twin Peaks. It is that simple. Causing suffering is the whole point of the actions of Bob and the other Black Lodge creatures. They feed on pain and suffering, which they call “garmonbozia”.

Earle is entirely human, not possessed or anything, but he wants to be like Bob and the Black lodge beings, have their power, so he acts like them in the belief that will give him access to the Lodge and allow him to wield its power. He wants to cause suffering out of sheer sadistic glee, “cultivate evil for the sake of evil”. His attempt to get revenge on Cooper is senseless, but causing Cooper pain is the point in itself.

This makes normal people think he is insane and he gets consequently locked up in a mental asylum for years when his crimes are revealed. But as Cooper says, he probably feigned that insanity. And sure, killing people just for fun, “without leavening motive” is not healthy behaviour, but he is not delusional. He is right about the place of supernatural evil called the Black Lodge existing. Not that he is completely right, more on that later.

So Earle actually subverts the “crazy serial killer” trope. The chess gimmick he has at first is a serial killer fiction cliché, but it is clear that it is a ruse. He used to play chess with Cooper when they were partners in the FBI, and Cooper was the inferior player, so after escaping the asylum, he starts playing a correspondence chess game with Cooper. He then kills a person for each piece Cooper loses in the game. But it is clearly a mindgame to exploit Cooper’s white knight syndrome rather than a genuinely held obsession. He wants to make Cooper feel guilty and suffer by giving him the feeling that he can prevent the murders by being a better chess player.

But when Cooper cheats by getting help from Pete Martell (Pete being very good at chess is another thing I love, because it’s a fun subversion of his lumberjack persona), Earle just gets angry for a bit and kills people anyway, mocking his old gimmick by putting his first victim after that in a papier-maché chess piece. The chess thing wasn’t some “insane obsession” for him, just another mindgame. There is a subtly funny scene in episode 27 where he even pushes his chess pieces unceremoniously to the floor to make some space on the table, because chess doesn’t interest him at all any more.

The final episode of season 2 brings Earle’s arc to a satisfying close. He finds the Black Lodge, and kidnaps Cooper’s girlfriend Annie and brings her there. This lures perennial white knight Cooper into the Lodge in the quest to save Annie, resulting in him making a pivotal mistake. He is trapped there by the end of the episode, and remains there for 25 years until season 3. Earle thus does defeat Cooper in a way.

Yet he is utterly mistaken that he would be able to wield the power of the Black Lodge for himself. He tries to take Cooper’s soul, but it doesn’t work. Bob turns up to explain that no, Earle can’t take Cooper’s soul. Instead Bob takes Earle’s soul. It’s the perfect ending for Earle, who while being very fun, is ultimately utterly selfish, evil and arrogant man. And having this arrogance be shown up by an actual Black Lodge creature who then destroys him is great poetic justice.

This essay sadly turned out more topical than I imagined at first, as Kenneth Welsh passed away recently. He did a lot of acting and gained an extensive resumé, but Windom Earle is probably his most famous role. And that performance alone is enough to secure his legacy. Windom Earle is a great villain, and a force that reversed the show’s decline rather than furthered it. And it was Welsh’s acting skills that gave this character life. He will be missed.

#Twin Peaks #my writings #windom earle #kenneth welsh #seriously he is great