Subject: Love and Death and stuff...
From: walsh@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Edward E Walsh)
Date: 1991-06-12, 16:48
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

SPOILERS follow...

I like to see Twin Peaks as an extended riff on the conflicts of
love, especially the way love fragments into desire, violence, and
fear.  After all, at the heart of the TP story is a tale of childhood
sexual abuse--a father's seduction and murder of a beloved and
seductive daughter.

Other Twin Peaks romances share the illicit and/or violent elements
of the Leland/Laura relationship--Leo and Shelly's sadomasochistic
marriage; Hank and Norma's similarly twisted marriage; the
"accidental" shooting during Ed and Nadine's honeymoon (they got
married, remember, because Norma cheated on Ed); Shelly's adultery
with Bobby; Ed's adultery with Norma; and of course Cooper's adultery
with Caroline, and Caroline's murder by Windom.

Then there are all those ominous hints about past romances--whatever
horrible events drove Annie to the convent, for example.  And let's
not forget demonic Little Nicky and his parents.  Characters' passion
for Laura, too, leads to violent death--e.g. Maddy, and poor Harold.

I keep expecting someone to start singing "You Always Hurt the One
You Love," or (more cinematically appropriate) "Love Kills" (from
Queen's soundtrack for "Metropolis").

The second season seems to have devoted itself to spreading this
theme around with occult imagery.  What I think we're seeing in these
latest episodes is Lynch's typical heaping up of any gruesome
allusions that seem to fit the theme, like he's building some massive
gothic fugue or Wagnerian opera.  So he hauls out Greek mythology
with all the unseemly romantic and family relationships of its gods
and goddesses (I love the image of the dismembered Venus in the
hallway); and he throws in Arthurian legend (recall Arthur's
illegitimacy, and Sir Launcelot's adulterous affair with Arthur's
wife Guinivere; I picture Windom Earle as an Arthur gone mad, and
Cooper as the well-meaning but tragically flawed Launcelot); and he
throws in Stanley Kubrick movies like "The Shining," where a
murderous father is chasing his wife and son (shouting "Redrum") down
empty hallways, driven by adulterous spectres from the past.

The result is one big vat of symbolic stew, tasty but incoherent.

The lodges thing, IMHO, seems to say that in the real world these
conflicting aspects of love are mixed together, making love both
blissful and hellish, but in the occult world souls divide, sides are
taken, as first the "dark side" (a la Star Wars) of a soul drops out
in the Black Lodge, then the good moves toward the light of the White
Lodge.

The planets symbolize this split; when the two conjoin one can pass
between this world (where life, because of love and passion, is
constantly conjoining opposites) and the otherworld (whatever it is).
So I like the idea proposed that the checkerboard tile indicates that
Black and White Lodges are overlapping.

Or something like that...who the hell knows, anyway?  In the end, I
think the plot and symbolism of TP are incidental; sometimes they
work, sometimes they don't.  If you want plot you're better off with
afternoon soaps.  What you really have to savor in Twin Peaks are the
brilliant characterizations and powerful moods.  The bank scene was
pure genius.

BTW, Marvin Kitman, in a New York Newsday column Monday trashing TP,
said, "For you die-hards, incidentally, there's a 'Twin Peaks: The
Movie' coming along.  My sources say it goes back to the early glory
days of Laura Palmer live."  That should complicate matters.:)

Sorry if this is too long...or obvious...

/Ned                         | "Don't let yourself be hurt this time."
walsh@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |       --Falling