Twin Peaks: The Return (Episodes 9-13) with Fran Hoepfner

Blank check with Griffin and David

Blank Jack 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 Blank Jack

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 12:30.

Why is this happening?

I saw that gun go shooting out the window.

Fran Hofner 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.

It's kind of my favorite scene.

That scene is so intense.

Amazing.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, amazing.

You know what's kind of difficult?

What's up?

Finding quotes from individual chunks of

freezing 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 it.

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 uh 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.

So I'm done.

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 a lot of things?

Now, then again, Maggie did shoot Mr.

Burns.

What?

And

what's another like?

baby?

He was pointing at MS.

They thought it was Wayland Smithers because they were looking at it from the wrong direction, but he was doing MS.

Yes.

Maggie Simpson.

What's another like famous TV cliffhanger that's not who shot JR that I could sort of

because of course Maggie Simpson shot JR.

Yes, she did.

Try to steal candy from a baby and you pointed it at us.

Yeah.

What's another TV cliffhanger?

Who killed Laura Palmer?

I feel like that's a big

cliffhanger.

That's the premise of the show.

I'm talking about a classic TV cliffhanger where it's like, what's in the hatch?

Okay, guys, what's in the hatch?

Well, I was going to say we have to go back later.

Yeah.

We have to go back is probably the best end of season in Lost.

Like, that Lost Ever did.

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.

Right.

Like, more

reorientation.

Right.

You didn't know how that was going to manifest.

What's in the hatch isn't bad, is it?

But a lot of people at the time were kind of like, wait, they're just going to 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.

You know what was great?

The answer.

My favorite guy.

He's awesome.

Big D.

Lost.

I've been thinking a lot about Lost.

Nailed it.

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 haven't.

Lost is doing great.

I haven't done the rewatch.

Joe Robinson, when she was doing the Lost.

Lost rewatch.

Yeah.

I asked to come on only for Desmond episodes because Desmond's my guy.

So I re-watched only the Desmond arc, basically his solo episode.

Which is probably pretty great if you write it.

Which I thought it 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.

It's called Twin Pods Firecast with Me.

Today, we're covering episodes 9 through 13.

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 C 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.

If anything would just be like, well, if you live on an island now, you're going to want a golf course.

I guess.

Which it's 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 going to fuck it up.

Like it's getting thin.

Totally.

And then Twin Peaks of 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 like kind of crazy that Audrey only comes in in this block of episodes.

Yeah.

Audrey's, 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.

Yep.

I mean, like Buffy dying at the end of season five, but that 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

the best of both worlds, the classic cliffhanger of season three of Star Trek the Next Generation, where like Picard gets turned into a Borg.

Yes.

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, like, I assume he won't be anymore, but like, you know, that, that, you don't get that anymore.

Yeah.

Well, I think killing Angel and Buffy was more of a cliffhanger almost than killing Buffy.

Killing Angel in a huge fish.

Or when they banish him.

They banish him to a way.

Yeah, that's the thing.

They just kick him into the hellmouth.

And he comes back out and he starts a great detective agency.

And then nine episodes into that detective agency, he's like, I'm going to revamp the cast completely because this isn't working.

And then they made it better.

And then they made a way better show.

Yeah.

And then they revamp the cast one more time because Joss Whedon is a, you know the problematic manager and that that final season also rocks oh it's so good season five of angel it's like the greatest season of any tv so fucking good

that's but you you know about the muppet episode right that's edlund's episode i know but yeah you know about that bro of course it's 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 right a great question and you're just like well that would it work and then they're like watch it work.

And you're like, this works.

Yeah.

But it's more than that.

It's like, what if he started working for the villains?

And you're like, okay, that's a TV plot.

Yeah.

Right.

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 like a weird evil law firm show.

So fucking lost, right?

Our guest says 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.

um features editor oh wow new title yeah i was thinking about demoted yourself yeah i was thinking about demoting myself being like i got bought out or something yeah like a new tepex you could have like an evil publisher who you're always railing against like in the comments you could be like fran magazine would be producing more but 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 like

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

uh i i think part of the the conversation around lost and it being one of the first shows where it really felt like there was a provound 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 yes 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 on lost?

Yes, just fun shifts like that.

David, I want to take you to task.

Okay, what did I do?

You spoiled two things for me.

Okay.

You're saying that you're trying not to talk ahead about what hasn't happened.

I'm, and I'm sorry if I messed up.

What did I do?

The parentage, Audrey Horne.

Billy's the son's name?

No.

Yeah.

Richard Horne.

I'm sorry, Richard Horn.

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 the, 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 100% what David was talking about.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

I was an episode off.

It's another thing that would have rattled me to my core.

What, Dougie fucking?

And apparently fucking better than anyone while doing as little as possible.

But like, he's just, you know, he's just got his motion.

Why wouldn't Dougie fuck?

Because we

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.

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 poundtown

with his wife.

I guess it's more like Amy Watts gets her Dougie on.

Yeah.

Right.

Welcome, Fran.

Welcome, Fran.

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.

I guess initially we were thinking we would talk about wild at heart.

Yes.

And then you got mononucleosis.

Not to blow up your skin.

Oh, no, it's fine.

Everyone knows.

I got mononucleosis.

Acute 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 because there's kind of nothing they can do for you.

Correct.

They're like, well, you have it.

Right.

You have, 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 me.

16.

What's our, 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.

Uh, and I'd be like, No, and so they kept 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, uh, but it's a but you feel like a teenager, it's weird, yeah.

I got all like weak and sleepy, and you're just going, 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 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, yeah, by the mainstream media and your body, uh, I said to David, maybe let's have Fran do a Twin Peaks return.

Yeah.

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.

I have the five Eps left.

No, I know.

One and two.

Yes.

And then, right, all all the way up to here.

All the way up to here.

I watched Firewalk with me, and I watched about half the films.

Sure.

I'll do the rest.

Yeah, whatever.

No rush.

What are your general feelings on David Lynch?

How's that newly?

He's not really one of my guys.

But

I don't have like a greater intellectual reason to say that.

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 like 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 fond 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 Firewalk with me sort of brought me back really big.

And I, 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.

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 going to return and when is the show going to 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 is whole again and is 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 years to process secondhand, oh, I should not put any expectations onto this of 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 this show airing at the time was that I felt like I would come into the office days after an episode would air at people people

at Fran Magazine and my editorial staff would be just like expl trying to explain it to each other and it felt like when the adults are talking and Charlie Brown where it 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 going to 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

lush.

I love him so much.

Correct.

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.

2017.

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 cast to begin with three decades earlier.

Who else are you thinking of who's dead?

Kechner's still kicking.

Kechner, Kechner's kicking.

Forrester, dead.

Sizemore, dead.

Coulson, dead.

Right, Catherine Coulson?

Am I getting that right?

Yeah, I meant right.

Miguel.

Yeah, well, those are the left.

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 Antkina died, and then I was like, oh, he's just retired.

Yeah.

Which I respect, to be clear.

Yeah, absolutely.

He's not dead,

as far as I know.

I haven't checked in with him lately.

Hold on.

I'm going to do another dead count.

This is like I do 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?

Ellie Erming,

Jim Varney.

Those are the big two.

Well, but I'm not going to be able to do it.

The list is gone.

Rickles is.

Rickles is gone.

Estelle Harris Harris is gone.

When I say original, I'm going to go with this.

Is Rickles?

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.

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 soften it?

Because Estelle Harris was still alive, recorded New Dialogue for 4, 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.

Right.

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 going to be like AI voice.

That's my 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.

The Rickles fastball, the delivery.

You can get the voice.

Maybe they can't fool us, but

the executives, the shareholders might be tricked.

I'm hoping they retired, the two of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, that'd be, I mean, I think that'd only be fair.

Yes.

Anyway, Twin Peaks the Return.

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

move on?

Oh, the crazy one.

The crazy one.

Peggy Lipton passed away.

She did.

R.I.P.

Peggy.

Harry Dean Stanton passed away.

He did.

He was very old.

He's one of those guys.

He's 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 Posselwaite where this guy has only ever been the oldest man.

He's ever in any room whatsoever.

He's been born a bench.

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 100 years old, an alien or whatever.

The crazy episode.

Honestly, you look at young Marie Dean Stanton, he looks really old.

Yeah, he really does.

He does.

He was born old.

He's pretty old here.

He looks old.

Yep.

Yeah,

so episode 8, which we are drafting from, like, you know, we're moving off to talk about this

sequence of episodes, but episode 8 is a break in format, and it has a big nuclear bomb and a bug and...

Lots of crazy stuff.

It's 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.

Yeah.

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 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 trying to make sense of it and reckoning it with it being one of like 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.

Like, 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 cycles.

There is.

And they end, you know, with music and so on and so forth.

And like, 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 and not a movie to to me.

Yeah, and I also think Firewalk 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 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 no, 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 exactly storytelling.

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.

Well, I was going to 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 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.

Yeah.

Jesus, Madman.

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.

Right, I was gonna say the second he edits them as such.

The only right 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.

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.

Like, and and it's different.

I think more shows could benefit from having

a very famous person show up for two minutes and that's that.

Yeah, I mean, that would be cool.

Disclaimer is the Quran show?

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 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 Quran 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 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

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.

But 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.

You know, like, 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 Colin McLaughlin to come up.

And then instead, that plays over.

Big Ed eating like instant lunch, right?

Yeah.

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 as 18 hours rather than just like as if it were Netflix autoplay right right and then I'd be open to that being considered a movie right

yeah I agree okay we all agree great um but no you're no one's ever gonna 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 OJ documentary,

which was 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 role?

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 fuck myself.

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 movie.

Right.

But okay, Twin Peaks.

Ben, do you have anything you want to say before we begin discussing these episodes?

Did they hit you any particular way?

No.

Wow.

Great.

All right.

David, yes.

This episode is brought to you, The Listener.

by Mubi, 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.

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What?

The glove-to-hand pick.

Of course.

David Mussolini, Colin, son of the century.

It is, it looks

an exciting project, but it's really funny to be like, guys, Mussolini!

Here's what's funny about it, just to peel back the curtain for a second.

We get like messages that are like, hey, you guys good with this ad?

Yeah, here's the copy for the ad.

And as shorthand, it was texted to us as, you guys good with the Mussolini ad?

And I was like, Mussolini sponsoring the podcast?

What do you mean?

To be clear, we decry Il Duce Mussolini, Benito Mussolini, the terrible dictator of Italy.

But we celebrate Joe Wright and his newest project.

The filmmaker Joe Wright

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And I will say, not to sound like a

little nerd over here, but it is actually very interesting to consider Mussolini's rise to power in these times.

You know, he was sort of the original fascist, and the way that he sees power in Italy is,

unfortunately something we should probably have on our minds right now.

I don't know to be a loser, right?

He's not like me right now.

This is the kind of thing I say.

It's very, it's a very interesting part of history, and I feel like because you know, other World War II things became

whatever, the history channel's favorite thing, you don't hear quite as much about Mussolini's family.

Yes, no, you're right, unfortunately, sadly, tragically, frighteningly, he's not a hugely this is a hyper-relevant time, and this is a theatrical, hyper-visual tour deforest starring Luca Marionelli, Martin Eden himself.

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They start calling it a towering performance of puffed up vanity.

It features an era-bending score by Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers.

That's cool.

Imagine Techno Beat

scoring fascist rallies.

It just sounds kind of Joe Wrighty.

It does.

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You know, he won't just do a typical costume drama.

He likes to, you know, think about things in a different way.

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Guardian calls it, quote, a brilliantly performed portrait of a pathetic monster.

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This is heavy ad copy, guys.

Usually it's kind of like, eh, shorts.

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Financial Times.

Yeah.

No, it's Joe Wright,

one of the scarier people I ever interviewed.

I've told you that story, right?

He knows he's kind of a cool guy.

We bad as Maria.

He's certainly gotten interesting.

He's very interesting.

He's very interesting.

And he's made some great movies, and he's made some big swings that didn't totally connect.

Totally.

That's really interesting.

He actually is a blank check filmmaker, unlike a lot of some people get suggested.

You're like, sure,

it doesn't fit the model.

This one does.

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Okay, okay, I'll be very quiet.

Oh, I'm used to it.

Producer Ben is sleeping.

Oh,

Hazzy boy is

getting some

seasy

with multiple dashes.

What's he sleeping on?

He's sleeping on one of the new beds we got from Wayfair for the studio for our podcast naps.

But this is a big opportunity for us.

We get to do the first ad read for Wayfair on this podcast.

No, no, Griffin, you're clearly not listening to past recordings.

Ben did a Wayfair ad for us recently.

You listen to past recordings?

Yeah, sometimes.

That's psycho behavior.

It is.

Look.

He did that when we were sleeping?

Look, apparently, we need to talk about how when you hear the word game day,

you might not think Wayfair, but you should.

Because Wayfair is the best kept secret for incredible and affordable game day finds.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Absolutely.

And just try to, David, just, if you could please maintain that slightly quiet, we don't have to go full whisper.

I just want to remind you that Haas is sleeping.

I mostly just think of Wayfair as a website where you can get basically anything.

Yeah, of course, but Wayfair is also the ideal place to get game day essentials, bigger selection, curated collections, options for every budget/slash price point.

You want to make like a sort of man cake style?

Okay, fine.

Okay, all right.

Sorry.

You know, Wayfair

stuff gets delivered really fast, hassle-free, the delivery is free.

If you, for game day specifically, Griffin, you can think about things like recliners and TV stands, sure.

Or outdoor stuff like coolers and grills and patio heaters.

Like that's, you know, that's all the winter months.

David, you have like basically a football team worth of family at home.

You got a whole team to cheer up.

This is true.

You need cribs.

Your place must be lousy with cribs.

I do have fainting beds?

I have cribs.

Sconces?

Chaise lounges?

I'm low on sconces.

Maybe it's time to pick up a few.

That's the kind of thing that would make your home team cheer.

Look, I'm just going to say that Wayfair is your trusted destination for all things game day from coolers and grills to recliners and slow cookers shop save and score

david a day at wayfair.com that's w-a-y-f-a-ir-r.com wayfair every style every home david there's only one shame to this ad raid don't wake azzi there's only one shame to this ad raid That I didn't find out about this in time before I already purchased coolers, grills, folding chairs, patio heaters, recliners, barware, barware, slow cookers, sports-themed decor, merch for my favorite teams, and more.

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Cleveland Browns, of course.

Fonte Mack, no matter what.

Okay, that's the end of the app, right?

Part nine.

This is the chair is

the name of the episode, sort of they they all have these kind of pseudo names where did the episode titles come from because this is like my experience i think they're just quotes i mean they're they're they are titled

kid yeah yeah yeah yeah 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 right in a pre-dvd like streaming era where you weren't pulling titles yeah you know yeah yeah

um

they are technically just by letters and by numbers but they do all have these sort of pseudo titles but where were those titles were those only released for the first time on like okay?

I don't know when they were released.

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 nine.

This is the chair or whatever.

But I feel like on the episodes themselves, it just says part number, right?

It does.

Yeah.

So in this episode, do you guys want to tell me what happens?

Way to pass the buck, David.

Sim Roth is in the mix.

I'm okay.

All right, so it's like we're post-episode eight.

We've got the doppelganger is alive.

You know, Mr.

C has not died.

They stitch him up.

Right.

He gets stitched up by

Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Lee.

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 right.

This is where they're introduced.

Well, she seems to briefly in two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So two.

Right.

You know, it's kind of like getting LeBron James to play pickup basketball with you or whatever.

It's like, who's going to play like two criminal lowlives 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 be good.

Right.

And they are.

Yes.

Yes.

Like, because a lot of the character actors and the scumbags in this season.

are these faces you don't really know where you're like wow that guy is a really cool face and like that you know that guy's got crazy hair and i've never seen him before.

But this is kind of shorthand casting.

Right.

Where it's not just the look.

You're like, oh, I can like carry over and extrapolate from the history of other characters these people have played.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, so they're there.

And they, 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's Reffler kind of activating.

Right.

The dinner table, the conversation is lively.

Mr.

C sends this text message.

Right.

We're seeing that they're connected in some way.

And then, right, Dougie

has thwarted the attack, right?

From the crazy assassin, Ike the Spike.

Doug uses proper name.

Ike the Spike.

Thank you.

They're doing their ensuing investigation, Kechner and Eric Edelstein, and the third guy,

where they discover that Dougie has no history before 1997.

Right.

He

basically seems to have been invented out of whole cloth in 1997.

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?

Techner.

Right, right.

And

what's his name?

You know.

Eric Edelstein, Eric Edelstein.

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 Edelstein, what do I know him best from?

Greenroom?

Yeah, I like Green Room.

I forgot he's in that, though.

He's in Jurassic World?

Okay, he must get eaten by

Raptor or something.

I believe that's exactly what happened.

He maybe gets eaten by the

Irex.

I guess he's just done a ton.

He's a comedian guy?

Who is this kind of guy?

I just know this face.

He's been on Doughboy several times.

Wow.

That was a great Doughboys guess.

Right, that's right.

Okay, I knew 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 cartoon.

Oh, I thought you were saying on shark tank.

I was like, I didn't know there was a parent.

He's Mark Cuban's dad.

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 have a lot of people.

I have a new business opportunity, but I don't know

how 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.

Listeners have to promise not to take it.

You're saving it for the sharks.

Yeah, maybe I'll save it for the sharks.

It is really good, though.

Is it really?

Okay, if we don't you think all of our listeners promise not to steal copyright friend Hoffner.

Okay.

Okay.

Phil and I came up with this together.

There should be artisanal slime for adults.

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 texture.

You say it's made out of organic shit.

Who cares if it is or isn't?

It just nobody's checking.

This is a huge gap in the slime.

Bespoke slime for distracted adults who just want the new version of a fidget spinner or whatever.

I was going to say, 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 ad?

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?

Fran sold her slime business for that much money to uh Satan himself, Penske Media.

Wait, they're the same company?

Um, okay, that's a great, 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.

I'm just curious that if you don't.

The movies seem very loud and overstimulating.

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 stepped foot in a grocery store without seeing?

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.

And when she's not going to be able to do that, take a shift.

I mean, whenever she is in a grocery store.

I don't belong to the Parks Love co-op yet.

Who knows?

Maybe I will one day.

But whenever she goes in one, she loves it because she, you know, she's like, I want that.

Yeah.

Pointing at just name and just like us.

Bun and off.

Right, exactly.

But like, I was thinking of maybe showing her Ice Age.

Oh, sure.

Because that seems like

that's a pretty chill movie, right?

Like, there's not a lot of people talking about.

I thought it was like Wazamo.

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.

But it seems less manic to me than something like the Minions sort of world.

The first one's like rock-solid.

The first Ice Age.

Yes.

Yeah, because it's animals with a baby.

It's not profound art, but it is like rock-solid family entertainment.

I never thought they had a baby.

Scrat hit.

That's the weird thing.

The first one is just like three men and a baby with

Leary,

Romano, and Leguizamo.

Right.

And it's like, oh, we don't know what to do here.

And then the mammoth.

Right.

And the mammoth's kind of an Eeyore, and Leguizamo is kind of like, eh.

And Leary is like, geez, these guys.

And it's very much about like the uneasy balance between the humans and the animals in this time.

People

like the tabernut tiger is just occasionally.

He's like, 9-11 was fucked up, though.

And you're like, it was.

I completely agree with you, Dennis.

No, 2002, it had happened.

Yeah.

It was full.

Well, I just meant during the ice age.

Well, Fran is right.

No, well, that's true.

It's not future ice age.

No, no, but maybe he could just kind of break the fourth wall of the film.

It's going to be like 9-11 is going to happen and it's going to be bad.

Right.

Dennis Leary over here.

The first one is very much like the uneasy relationship between humans and animals.

And it feels like the

ice age is coming to an end rapidly.

And then the movies were hits and they were like, we're basically going to ignore that humans exist forever.

And every movie is us kicking the can on an extension event.

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.

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.

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 tickets for me.

But no, it's Lucy literally just toggling between two color options on a chair uh 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

um

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 uh yeah whenever they're sort of on their shit I'm sort of tuning out um 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,

this 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

actors over the years, is played by a new era 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 have forgotten existed i completely forgot i forgot he existed exactly yes um okay and then we have uh

they go to visit uh uh widow briggs yes bobby etc frank and hawk go to see uh

um her name is betty briggs of course yeah to be like your dead your husband seems to be dead and possibly involved with something.

We found out that

she gives them a shot.

I saw this in a dream.

I was told someday you'd come to speak to me.

Right.

And then gives 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, dude.

You could do that right now.

You could even leave messages in this podcast

for future

people

to try and understand.

You can foretell things.

It wasn't me.

That's really smart.

I'm going to go buy a shaggy record.

That's going to absolve him of everything.

He said 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,

right.

That's one clue.

State of California.

So, and what's and right.

The big twist, of course, is that Diane gets the creepy text message.

Yeah, we do also, right?

We We have the, that, that is where Jerry is talking to his foot still.

This is sort of an, 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.

Yeah, 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 that I'm talking about.

I was so happy to explode to see him come back.

You were happy to see him come back.

So dismayed, yeah, because I thought we were done.

Done with Lillard.

He's so fucking good.

He delights.

I'm just always so happy to see him.

Right, 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 was, you know, whatever.

He was having up the affair.

It was funny that it's like, yes, we were having an affair because of my blog.

Right, right.

Which doesn't really happen anymore, I feel.

You don't think there's blog affairs?

Not as, not with the gutting of media in our modern day.

In our modern day, this is what they took from us.

But right, but they, right.

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.

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.

Again?

Yeah, but I'm like, after descendants, like hearing people loved him on this.

There was a 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 in where they're like, I'm so desperate to hold into being, hold on to being number one in the call sheet that I hold on to that in increasingly worse and worse projects.

Where he's in like the direct-to-video Nim's Island sequel and shit.

And then he like called his reps and was like, I'm going to downscale.

I'm going to sell my house.

I'm going to move into a smaller home.

I'm going to 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 want to re-engage with what I like about acting.

Okay, but do you know who the star of Return to Nims Island was?

Isn't it Steve Irwin's daughter?

What What the hell is Nims Island?

Is this like Rats of Nim?

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 Jody Foster called Nim's Island.

And Gerard Butler.

Jerry Butler's in it.

Is he the villain or is he dad?

Nim's Island?

I think Nim's Island is a weird kind of like children's romancing the stone thing where she is a author who writes adventure books, but then she gets caught in a a real adventure, and Gerard Butler is the projection of her fictional character.

Like, he's like a fake Indiana Jones.

I'm not going to be a peanuts kind of parent sound.

It's weird.

What I'm saying is that, like, only seven years before this, Matthew Lillard was doing that.

Yeah.

But now is 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 that.

No, he seems like a lovely guy.

Right.

It's not like he has like a big crypto position that I don't know about, right?

Like, no, 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.

But like, Freddie Prince Jr.

has also complained about this.

Sir Michelle Geller has 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, shit.

They told freddie prince 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 hip 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 literally was like, that kind of like broke all of us.

That we 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 um but they were kind of over

right that's sort of the funny thing to think like not not so much liard because lillard's like you know you can always use a liard you could use him in twin peaks of return you could use him anywhere right sure but like freddie prins by 2004 2005 it's kind of like yeah no you're not gonna make a leap buddy, right?

You know, you're...

He was the one, and he had a similar thing to Lur, where then he like hard-pivoted to voiceover for a while, and now has started, like, acting on camera again.

But, like, the grudge is the same year as Scooby-Doo 2?

The grudge with Sarah Michelle Geller is, of course, have you seen The Grudge, Fran?

Scary?

No.

The same year, 2005.

The same scary.

This show's scary.

Yeah, this show is scary.

How are you?

Both.

You don't love scary things, although I know you've gotten much braver in recent years.

When I first met you and we first became friends, you were not brave.

No.

Like, and you had not really seen a lot 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

head violence.

The recurring head violence in episode eight.

Yeah.

It's the first episode where the two in the lab get all maimed and fucked up.

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.

Very.

it's also very

just bleak and energy and sort of, you know, even though 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 sedating.

Oh, the woman honking the woman.

And then things like that happen where like you're

like that's like an ecstatic.

You're getting me out of here.

Right.

Yeah.

But wait.

Nails on top.

How are you going to say girl?

I am starting.

It is starting to get to me living in Lynch World 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 what we're doing.

We're not.

Oh, that'll be so fun.

We're not

pulling me a liar on that.

That's such a good idea.

We will do Penny Marshall on the page.

Yeah, we'll do it one day, and that day is January 22nd.

No.

But we are pivoting to,

you know, more straightforwardly accessible work.

Yeah, we're offering

comedies or whatever.

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 Petricley.

Uh, talk about him.

I, well, I grew up watching The Warriors, yes, David Petrickelli, of course, uh, plays uh Jerry Horn, a sort of lesser character, but he is Luther in the Warriors.

He's the fuck, the Warriors come out and play, he's the fucking mood.

I never

realized that until this very moment.

I like walked 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 a lot.

And every time I see him in something, I'm like, that is, I can't.

It's the voice.

It's the voice.

I was lucky enough to see him in the recent Into the Woods

that they, the narrator.

And I, and that was another one where, like, halfway through, I was like, wait a minute.

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

anyone, including friends of the show, but I think that it could become a musical.

Sure.

Right.

Much.

For the time being, it's a concept album.

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 going to try to explode this as a cult thing?

Yeah.

And then I, because it was also like Rockstar being like, we're basically their blank check, it felt like, of using the Grand Theft Auto cachet 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's been,

you know, discussions of a possible remake.

Tony Scott, I know, wanted to do one or whatever, but like

David Ayre was sitting yeah and I think Neville Dean and Taylor at one point were or or one of those two 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 yes and I'm like what

the fuck are you talking about that they were like well we want to treat it like real gangs

and I'm like who gives a shit no they should all be in silly stuff they should get 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.

Yes.

But it's effective and it's fun.

Yes.

I don't know.

It's one of those things where I'm like, nah, don't, don't try to straight remake it.

Something like what Lynn is doing is more probably a cool way to comment at it from a new, you know, approach or whatever.

Or video game.

One day someone will make a great subway video game.

Okay.

Obviously, you've got stuff like Streets of Rage or whatever, where there's like a sub subway level you're battling through.

you mean an action-driven one versus like you're running the MBTA?

Well, that sounds fun too.

META management, those kinds of things exist where it's like, would you like to painstakingly pretend to like drive a subway car?

Yeah, you can do that.

Right, that game is called Your Dreams.

But like, like some sort of open-worldy game that's set in a subway system, right?

It's 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, yeah, look, we have everything.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

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 Skyferer scratching her arm.

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.

I'm not afraid to say it.

Wait, wait.

I'm ready for the new music.

What?

Wait, it's this episode?

Yes.

Yeah, because I wrote Sky Ferreira in all caps, question mark.

Scratch him.

Yeah.

Yes.

There's, I feel, is there something else in this episode that we're not referencing?

I don't know.

Probably scratch.

I like when Gordon and Diane have a cigarette.

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.

Or 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 would talk about, like this kind of made-up place, right?

Jack Darrell's palace.

Yeah, 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.

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.

Yeah.

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 I do think it's kind of different.

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 going to find anything, you know, satisfying.

It's not like, it's not like the lost stuff where there'd always be some new numbers to like punch into, like, you can't do that.

The two shows I just keep kind of like comparing this to in my own experience of being someone who was actively watching and engaged in the fucking feedback of it at the time and all of that shit.

There's like the lost thing where it's like, this is solvable.

Yeah.

Right.

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 lost that I love lost, but right, they would have things like there would be the map

that had been drawn on the lab on the, you know, in the station.

Like there was this

in the hatch, right?

That had all this

writing on it.

And people were like, what does this mean?

And then it turns out they were kind of like, Yeah, I mean, there's like three things in there that we'd thought about.

And there was 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 Lost is like, it's so much more fun to watch when you're not doing all

interior math and just letting everything

wash over you.

Yeah, 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, um, what's her name?

Jessica Perret, uh, her character, uh, Megan, of course, Megan, Megan, uh, uh, well, Draper, but Calvet, there we go, was wearing a shirt that famously, yeah, people thought, is she going to be Sharon Tate, right?

That Sharon Tate wore, yes, right, and then 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's gonna be all they're doing it their way and then two episodes in like draper torpedoes the whole thing right anytime you tried to game out where that show was going the show was like we're not interested in this show 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 like go to the movies all day and i'm constantly drunk yeah 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 like 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 had that prediction.

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 they got, you know.

That is like the post-loss 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 while.

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.

Too.

And maybe...

Saul, but I never watched Saul.

Where that feels more inherently baked into the structures that there's some like puzzle or mystery.

But Saul

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.

That's what Griffin's saying.

At the time, people were radars were kind of up more.

Yes.

Yeah.

David, what?

This episode of Blank Check with Griffin, David, a podcast about philographies.

is brought to you by booking.com.

Booking.y.

I mean, that's what I was about to say.

Booking.

Yeah.

From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S., booking.com

has the ideal stay for anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please.

God, I'm trying to think of anyone in my life, perhaps even in this room.

Ben, who's like, what's an example of someone I know who maybe has a very particular set of people bringing me in and there's only one other person in the room?

There is one other person in the room right now.

This is so rude.

I sleep easy.

I'm definitely not someone who insists on 800 thread count sheets.

No.

That's an example of a fussy person.

Look, people have different demands.

And you know what?

If you're traveling, that's your time to start making demands.

You know, you've got

a partner who's sleep light, rise early, or maybe, you know, like you want someone who wants a pool or wants a view or I don't know.

Maybe any kind of demand.

You're traveling and I need a room.

with some good soundproofing because I'm going to be doing some remote pod record.

Sure.

Maybe you're in Europe and you want to make sure that's very demanding to be in Europe.

You got air conditioning.

Well think of one person in particular, although it's really both of you.

Yes.

You gotta have air conditioning.

I need air conditioning if I'm in the North Pole.

Look, if I can find my perfect stay on Booking.com, anyone can.

Booking.com is definitely the easiest way to find exactly what you're looking for.

Like for me, a non-negotiable is I need a gorgeous bathroom for selfies.

You do.

You love love selfies.

As long as I got a good bathroom mirror for selfies, I'm happy with everything else.

Look,

again,

they're specifying like, oh, maybe you want a sauna or a hot top.

And I'm like, sounds good to me.

Yeah.

Please.

Can I check that for you?

You want one of those in the recordings, too.

That'd be great.

You want to start, you want to be.

I'll be in the sauna when we record.

I was going to say, you want to be the Dalton Trumbo, a podcast.

You want to be Splish Splash and what's going on.

You would look good if I had a sauna and a cold plunge.

And while recording, I'm on mic, but you just were going back.

I'm like, ha!

like, as I move to the

kinds of demands that booking.com, booking.

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Book today on the site or in the end.

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Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag, it's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes, when sponsors buy ad space on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

Right.

They love it to get a little bonus Ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But something very different is happening right now.

That's true.

We had a sponsor come in and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Macon Blair's remake of

reimagining, whatever.

Reboot of The Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're

excited to see it.

it, but Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks, it honks.

Yeah, it's so great.

Let me read you the cast list here in billing order as they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Tremblay is Toxie's son.

His stepson.

His stepson.

Okay.

Wade Goose.

Yes.

Great name.

Give us the takes.

We haven't heard of them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

yeah he's talking he plays it with so much heart yeah it's such a lovely performance bacon is in the pocket too man he's the bad guy he's the bad guy there's a lot of him shirtless okay looking like david david sizzling yep and then elijah wood plays like a dang-ass freak he certainly does he's having a lot of fun tell us some things you liked about the movie Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Truma.

Yes.

Yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxy and trauma movies on porches

with my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making Toxic Crusader jokes.

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested.

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Cineverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary they're playing with fire here yeah it's just it's something that means a lot to me and they knocked it out of the park okay it somehow really captured that sensibility that sense of humor even just that like lo-fi scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original toxy movies and they have like updated and in this way that it was just i was so pleased with it it's gooey

sufficiently gooey Tons of blood, tons of goo,

great action.

It's really fucking funny.

It just, it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version.

Cineverse last year released Terrifier 3 unrated.

Yeah.

Big risk for them there.

I feel like it's a very, very...

intense movie and one of the huge hit more interesting yeah theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years want to make that happen again here

tickets are on sale right now advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicavenger.com slash blank check to get your tickets.

Blank check one word.

In theaters August 29th.

Yep.

And Ben, it just says here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says summon the nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon the nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band

who are also mercenaries

and drive a van with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill.

And that's all I'll say.

Okay.

And they are the most dang-ass freaks of dang-ass freaks.

I'm excited to see it.

And your endorsement, I think, carries more weight than anyone else is in the world on this list.

Seriously, get your tickets now.

Go to toxicadvenger.com/slash blank check.

Do it, do it.

Episode 10.

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

many people.

He looked really familiar to me, though, but I can't place him.

Wait, which actor?

Richard.

Who is Richard?

Okay, so the actor's name is Eamon 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 movie.

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 watched The Witcher.

I watched The Witcher, but I couldn't.

I can't place him in that either.

Okay.

He's the guy who's like a huge piece of shit.

Yeah, evil army guy.

Yeah, he's not a good guy.

Oh, actually, maybe I do know who this is in Witcher.

A face like that, I think you're just rarely going to be cast as like Jim Nice Man.

I was going to say, well, he reminds me of the eye patch brother on House of Dragon a little bit, who also has such a great face, who is called Amon in that show.

Right.

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.

I will watch it.

I will tell you, that's a season of TV I finished watching, say, in like the last weekend of July of this year.

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 oh, you know who I remember?

Simon Russell Beale.

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 made it to thrones until then.

Wait, 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 that.

He's a ghost or whatever.

Right.

He's not right.

Whereas, 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 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 his grandmother's house.

Yeah.

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 Laundry Bag, and Amanda Safe Reed 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.

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.

Yeah.

People wrote a lot of weird fanfic about that guy.

Who was he in Prison Break?

Teabag.

Oh, of course.

He was one of those characters where they were like, yes, yes.

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?

My brother's always re-watching Prison Break.

I know there's some nasty allegations about Robert Newton.

There's some bad stars, but I do think 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 right.

That's the whole thing with him and then Bradley, who is played by Jim Belushi.

Yeah.

According to whom?

Where are you getting that at?

According to Wikipedia, but you know who was initially supposed to play this role?

John Belushi.

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 Belush would be interesting together.

Any combo is probably interesting.

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 like airy, you know, ridiculous comedy.

The first sequence is when

the girl tries to swan a fly and hits Rodney on the head.

Who live with them?

My favorite.

My favorite character.

Yes.

She's the best.

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.

Yeah.

And I feel like, you know, the further episodes we have with these guys, you know, with the

box with Dougie out and, 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.

Jackpots is the same guy who works at the insurance firm.

Right.

And Fischler has activated Seismore.

I know I'm getting ahead a little here, but I would have like

these five episodes really cover this sort of mini arc.

Right.

Like the wake of Mr.

Jackpots like bankrupting a casino kind of and pointing out this insurance fraud and like his disruptive energies.

Right.

Like what they do to this weird Vegas-y, you know, Arizona ecosystem.

Fischler is activating Seismore, 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 care of.

Right.

Can Sizemore point the mob towards Dougie so they take care of him themselves?

Or is Sizemore going to have to clean up the mess if they don't?

Right.

Yeah.

The common enemy.

Right.

And so they, Ike the Spike is the first attempt at that.

That doesn't work.

That's how they become aware of him.

Dougie, meanwhile, has like gone to the doctor, and the doctor's like, you're now the fittest, handsomest man in the world.

Yeah.

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.

What if a 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, like, who understands this reference, let me know.

Otherwise, don't get in touch.

I'm going to throw out a couple reasons you shouldn't do that.

I'm probably not going to do it.

I'm going to be honest.

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's, 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.

I keep drinking that garbage.

That's a form choice.

But I'm not happy about it, but I like eating it.

Of course.

I like Dr.

Well, I just love Ross.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How do you feel?

We haven't really asked you what you thought of like original Twin Peaks.

I know you found Firewalk with me very rattling and

good.

Yes.

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 guys I don't care about.

I like some of the more.

Give us a little bit of a who's your power ranking, who's on your shit list.

Who's on my power?

I like the kind of evil people in the show.

Okay, go ahead.

You know, so I like, you know, the Horn brothers.

And

I like, is it Ray?

Shelly's?

Not Shelly's.

Norma's like ex-husband.

Oh, no, Ray is

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.

That's the first American in the show.

Hank is who you're talking about.

Hank, 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.

uh i don't really care about james

i like james a lot i don't care about lucy and andy

uh your name in my favorites sorry yeah so you like the more open-hearted characters griffin the kind of sweetie pies you like both shrewmas i i do like i i think holistically across the entire twin peaks project

uh Dane Ashbrook is maybe the most impressive performance.

Totally.

Right.

I think like what McLaughlin is doing specifically on the return trumps that.

But then I also think like Ashbrook remains the second best performance on this.

Like 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 yeah yeah is in there well and he's got the knoxville silver hair that also like the second i see someone who's gone all gray i'm sort of moved one of the most incredible yeah why am 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.

I thought you had a lot of gray.

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 30s or whatever, and it was kind of always his look.

Yeah.

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 older roommate.

I had 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 stream, which I'm always like, it's crazy.

O-Roke, 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 that.

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 try to hit the halfway mark.

Yeah.

But he has like 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 great hair.

I mean, he has very much figured out this act of his life in that kind of gold bloomy way of right, like, you know, like, I am kind of at my best in my 60s all of a sudden.

Do you 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 shutdown.

Stop touching it up.

And then we restarted filming.

And I was like, fuck it.

What if if I just don't re-dye it?

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.

Yes.

That movie is amazing.

Yeah.

Rules.

So, okay, so right.

We have, right, Richard, episode 10 is a lot of Richard, not Richard, sorry.

No.

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

stealing her shit.

His grandmother, sorry, not his mother.

So you've got a lot of that.

You have Albert

goes on a date with Jane Addams.

That's fun.

Love.

Talk about gray-haired hotties.

Yeah, seriously.

Yes.

She's so good on The Idol.

I'm not lying, but we don't have to get it.

She was one of the late 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 that people kind of praised?

Yeah, I guess it must have been.

I'm looking at this cast list.

Yeah, Troy Savannah.

Oh, well, Divine.

Divine Joy Randolph.

Oh, that'll be good.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Well, she and Hank Azaria and Jane Adams are like her team.

Right, they're the managers who are like, stop fucking the weekend.

Yeah, they're like Rose Depp is like slow motion, smoking a cigarette or whatever she does.

I thought Troy Savannah was kind of good on it.

Okay.

I'll never watch it.

Yep, neither.

I definitely don't.

But

it lingers in the mind, like females.

But that's a very fun character, the Jane Adams medical examiner character.

Like, that's a great example of a swim Peaks the Return 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.

Right.

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.

LA, like, what were anyway?

Sorry, go on.

Yes.

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.

Right.

And they just talk about, like, you can find these quotes that I I cannot find right now of like Casting 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, um,

I don't know, there, there is this like weird profund 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 is that he shows up and he's like, I fucking hate this town.

Everyone's a bumpkin.

Everything's so slow.

And Cooper's like, I love it here.

It's regenerate, you know, it's re-energizing me.

And like, that's their kind of fundamental.

There is something to

I'm not saying it's a metatextual thing.

I think it's like the weird like nature of on-camera acting.

There is something that is being transferred from the amount of effort it takes Miguel Fair to just like stand at this point in his life and to like look at people that lends it like such a weight when so much of his performance is like standing and nodding.

Right.

You know, it is done with like such depth of like, this guy really wants to be here.

And these actions take take a lot out of him as minimal as they might seem.

Right.

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,

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 um right but that's why we should all go gray that's why you shouldn't fight it the other big thing in season into episode 10 right is like the sort of the chain of events of like patrick fischler tells tom sizemore you need to remove uh dougie right 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 meanwhile dougie'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?

I know who you're talking about.

Yes.

Smash.

Right.

I don't remember which episode it's introduced in, but he

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 the traditional way.

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 Mohamed Drive a long time.

All right, but so part of the.

That's Moby.

Oh, Moby's there?

I was.

I was wondering if it was.

I said that's Moby.

Yeah.

I can clock.

He's on the guitar over her shoulder.

He's the guitarist.

Yeah.

I never clocked that.

You've worked with Moby.

Should we not talk about that?

We can cut that out.

I've worked with Moby.

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 it by now.

It never came up sort of in discussion, but he has these big tattoos.

Right.

I was going to say.

Remember when Emma...

If you talk less to his face and more to his forearms, you might have gotten an answer.

Yeah, remember when Eminem, it's without me, I think, right?

Like, you know, he releases without David, you're looking at me,

and it's like, oh, Eminem's back.

He's uncorking like all his comic stuff, and he's like, and he fucking rags on Moby in this one.

For kind of like Gilga, Moby, like Eminem's, that's like the softest target imaginable.

Like, that's the best he could do.

Is nobody listens to techno?

Some of his targets are weird.

And like him drilling down on Chris Kirpatrick.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah.

And I'm like, is it just truly that it's a good rhyme?

It must be.

Yeah.

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, I was like, I don't think anyone's really worried about Moby like doing anything right now.

That's like when it's not on your corner.

When Eminem briefly announced he was retiring at like 33, you were like, yeah, after the Moby thing, maybe you do need a fucking breath.

It feels like the tank's a little empty.

Okay, so yeah.

And right.

Part 11, we've still got, we've got more of the Caleb Laundry bag

Amanda Safery drama.

It's like

these, all these Quimpeaks characters, or not, but like a lot of these Quinn Peaks characters have had kids who are just like disasters.

Right.

Right.

It's like,

you know,

Sharli and Bobby have Becky.

Right.

It's Becky and Richard and 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 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 Horne 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 like 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 Siefried, 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 constantly 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.

Striving for a greater sense of psychological realism than it or going like whole whole hog fantasy like history thing, but is no longer doing like Wantry Hill or like Everwood or 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.

Yeah.

I feel.

And some of those things were great because they were these like exaggerations, which now like our brains can't process.

Whereas like, I don't know, you see like a, I'm just, whatever my Twitter 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 Yeah back then than what they are now glee had almost a throwback element where they're like it felt like this they were always doing very special episodes and all that but just about more lurid stuff in a way right glee had this frankness to some of the very special episodes that was more contemporary sure it's not really a defensive glee which is not a show I ever loved.

You weren't a gleek?

I was not a gleek.

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 the sort of high-intensity realteen shit drama, but also it's like a silly musical with jokes and now it's euphoria, you know?

And now it's euphoria, which is just everyone all the time screaming like, this is happening today!

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 going to examine privilege head on.

Right.

And I'm like, what is the point?

But, right, the OC gossip girl era of aspirational shows where you're like, don't you want to 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.

You know what?

Twin Peak Season 1 reminds me of sometimes Veronica Mars, which was a great example.

Veronica Mars.

Fabby is very Logan Eccles.

Yes, Veronica Mars is 100%,

fuck, what's his name?

You know, Matchbox 20.

Rob Thomas.

Rob Thomas?

Rob Thomas.

I mean, a different guy, but he has the same name.

The creator of Veronica Mars.

Rob Thomas being like, right, can I make a kind of noir-y Twin Peak C teen show?

He succeeded for a while, kind of fell off the rails.

I think season three of Veronica Mars is really bad, but like

defending an uptick.

Well, no, four is there's only three seasons before the revival, yeah.

Why did I think of the movie?

Yeah,

it had a bunch of three is the one that ends with her signing up for the Academy, yeah, kicking the test, okay, where they kind of are trying to pivot to maybe a reboot-ish season four, and then it just got canceled.

It's the four I

wrote in my head, yeah, maybe.

Yeah,

um, and then Rivers, Riverdale,

uh, 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 Peaks 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 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.

Oh, 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?

The buzz was so good.

Sorry.

How was it?

I didn't watch it.

I didn't say that.

The Powerpuff Girl 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 felt like a cultural crash moment.

That happened.

We have to stop recruiting.

Right.

Yeah.

We must make something new.

Veronica Mars, God bless it.

Good show.

To be clear, I generally 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, whoa.

My interest jumped up 100%.

No, I don't know why.

He's the titular author.

Don Johnson.

But Don Johnson's the captain of the boat.

He's the captain of the boat.

I can see it.

I just put him in is Odyssey, though.

No, the boat is the Odyssey.

He's the doctor on the boat.

He's the doctor on the boat.

Oh, but that's such a good idea for a show.

It's like Phil Murphy.

Doctor House because he lived in a house.

They call this guy Dr.

Odyssey because he lives on the Odyssey.

Does that joke even make any sense?

Who else is on Doctor Odyssey?

No one laughed.

Apparently, Pippa Sue?

Philippa Sue?

Oh, her?

Okay.

And Don Johnson, as you might say, there's that clip going around of

Cape Berlamp 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, Cape Berlamp gets poisoned.

By Margaret Cho?

Smoothie.

On Dr.

Odyssey.

There'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?

Okay.

That sounds great.

I'll watch it.

I'll tune in tomorrow.

I also, I don't 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 motherfucker with a harmonica in her mouth.

That's one of the more

main things I have.

This is what I mean about broadcasting.

They're like, time to get the Vaseline.

They still have to fill those hours.

Yes.

And there's still actors who want to make money doing it and and so on.

And so 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 harmonicas getting stuck in mouths?

Dude, the two of you, Ben and David, know what Harmonica Girl looks like?

No.

Because it's like...

It's really crazy.

It's like killer clowns from outer space makeup.

Like it is so fun.

That looks good.

And Gina Torres is having like an intense emotional.

Well, she's breathing out through the harmonica.

And her friend is translating.

Like her friend can understand what she's saying through the harmonica, which is what's crazy.

Right.

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, you don't know what it happened.

You think, but you're like, eh, 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.

That's the head.

Head said 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 the kind of the guy you're grabbing on to.

He's steering the shit 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.

Right.

He sees this sort of very lynchian image of this crazy vortex.

Seemingly sees it for the first time.

And sort of yanks him out of the way, right?

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 Min scene maybe once every other week.

Oh, it's awesome.

I watch it all the time.

It is so compelling.

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 going to offer it to.

And then it was

fucking, what's his name?

Kushner's husband.

Mark Harris.

Mark Harris.

Mark Harris was the one,

according to Mark Harris, and I believe him, who suggested David Lynch initially.

And it was a brilliant suggestion.

He was like, you know, you should cast this forward.

And he he was like, I have someone in mind.

And he said, David Lynch.

And then Spielka's like, God fucking damn it.

Yes.

And Lynch was the one who had to be talked into it.

Right.

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 woodsman.

Oh, right.

No, but I'm saying the wound looks like the same kind of wound that the people in the room with with the glass box had.

Oh.

Oh.

Like the way the trajectory and the way that he was.

So maybe you're right.

But you're saying internally the logic is that the woodsmen are who have killed him?

No, I'm not sure that that's the same thing.

I mean, we see them encroaching.

Yes.

But

in the car.

That is how I always took it, is that we're seeing sort of an invisible version of that.

Right.

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, but 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 woodsmen?

Well, we talked about them a fair amount on episode eight.

Uh, okay, no, I'm not saying we can't talk about them.

All right, I'll listen to it.

Do you like their look?

Scary.

How do you feel about soot soot in general?

Uh, 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?

Don't you think that's what I'm doing?

You would probably annoy people by tracking soot all over wherever you went.

Yeah.

The pigpen of the skin.

Yeah.

On your skin.

Both.

Maintain his internal atmosphere without disrupting others.

You know what?

You're right.

Like, as much as Pigpen is filthy or whatever, he doesn't really mess with anyone.

This is a great question.

Does Pigpen get things dirty?

Does Pigpen 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.

He's wealthy.

Yeah.

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.

Afford a shower?

I mean, I think of the woodsmen 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 agents.

Yes, they're little agents of Bob or agents of bad things or whatever.

They're like minions.

Okay, I agree.

They are kind of like minions.

I also

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.

But you know,

you know, like, that's what 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 Rocket.

Yes.

And it's like, well, what's it about?

It's like, electricity.

Like, and like, that's what the woodsmen are.

Like, do they have like

a person, you know, like, 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.

Yeah.

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 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 that Matthew Leir is gone.

We salute his service.

Yeah, great work.

Right?

Yeah.

I said RAP.

Okay, so what else we got?

We got, yeah, we got a lot of this drama with Bobby and Shelly and Becky trying to figure out like, how do we, how do we solve Becky's problem husband and all this stuff

at the Devil R Diner?

We've got.

You have the scene with the woman in the car that we've talked about.

Oh, it's

a kid vomiting.

Yeah.

How about Hawk and Frank looking at the map together?

That's so fun.

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, 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

like calming like presence that I want to be.

I want to be in his presence as much as possible.

I like how no bullshit he is when, you know, Hawk is like, this represents electricity.

The corn represents sustenance.

And Frank's like,

okay.

You know, like, not like, well, come on, Hawk.

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 impose 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 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 block.

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 brought in sort of a cop who's bad this time.

We've 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.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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 Chad Broxford,

great, I don't know the actor, John Purricello.

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's one of the cops investigating the former partner, I want to say Kimmy Mutler's 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 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 like an older school of policing.

It's like an older school of television policing.

Right.

Like, Twin Peaks is airing at a time where like, you know, there is the modern cop show that is more hard-edged.

And here's like a drama with this sort of like throwback more innocent, 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's 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 Belouche being over.

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 like that's the best part is like they would have shot him dead and then found the check afterwards it's only because they decide to frisk him he was never gonna know to offer the check up right

uh and then it takes him to like out for drinks right yeah right and

the uh and and the woman who he

uh the the the slot addict uh linda porter yeah who's a great old lady lady actor.

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, but Chicago guy

inside 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 Jim Belushi and always like dramatic Jim Belushi.

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 Ghostwriter.

Yes, he is.

And it's one 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?

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 just

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, but I don't think he ever slotted neatly into like a comedic trope.

No, like, it's like, yes, like, okay, Jim Belushi is bad in canine.

I'm just kind of like, is Jim Belushi the problem here?

Or is the, you know, you know, we were.

The problems had taken root long before Jim Belushi started opening his face.

We were giving him our worst and he was not elevated.

Right.

He could never compare to his brother.

Well, there's obviously.

He would never be able to live up to if he was called Jim Chicago.

Well, it's an interesting thing.

And it 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 kind of 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

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 is another one.

The Oliver Stone movie.

He's incredibly good at.

God, I haven't seen that movie in a long time.

Incredible, James Woods.

Okay, we should wrap up on episode 11.

I just want to say one thing that we got to 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 it.

I love that and I'm going to have to integrate it.

It's a good bit.

So good.

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.

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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?

You know, here

begins with inducting Tammy, Agent Tammy Freston,

into the Blue Rose

Club, right?

Those sort of task force.

Yes.

Which is basically just Twin Peaks' X-Files.

It's like, right, it's like the FBI, if there's a case that's weird, it kind of gets secretly moved over to the Blue Rose people.

And they're former UFO people.

Right, right.

And

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.

Okay.

Now.

Really cooking with gas here, conversation.

What do you guys think?

Yeah, sure.

She's such a weird character to me.

I can't figure out.

What this is.

And she's introduced with everyone being like, David.

Yes.

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, I'm here too, like with a notebook.

Yes.

And

walking all sexy.

Right.

Yeah.

I have no read on her for that exact reason where I'm just like, what, 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 era?

Is that Taylor Swift?

She started doing it, I think, around the lover era.

Okay.

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.

2016.

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 interesting take it's an interesting take yeah

um 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 like watching tv yes but this is like our first

interaction with Sarah Palmer, right?

Like 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 Pinks?

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 in the worst direction.

There's no like 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 like unspeakable.

Yeah.

Right.

It's her and the woman honking the car where I'm just like, get me out of here.

Yeah.

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, the thing about

it is it 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 like being like, we're sticking with this.

Yeah.

Where you're like, I don't know if I ever want to 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 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.

I had to sit through and consider

in a real way right uh 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

the most evil 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.

But I really think Ben's plot line in the return, which is not,

you know, 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.

Yeah.

He's really bummed out, clearly.

Yeah.

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 don't think that's a kind of hollowness that tends to set him with guys like this, though, where like people who like are 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 H.

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 westside story cast is still alive sure yeah right right and part of it's probably that now he 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 bamer is still alive.

I don't know if it's that I always think that Westside's 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 all so 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.

Yeah.

It's George Shakaris.

George Shakaris is still with us at the age of 90.

Right.

Rita Moreno is 94.

She's 92.

Crushing it, obviously.

Boehmer's like 90.

Russ Tamblin is 89, and Boehmer is

86, a baby.

That's crazy.

That 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.

Math Crave.

But yes, I just think Ben's plot line is one of the cleverest uses of like the legacy impact of this show.

This is all I'm saying.

Should we talk about Audrey?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the

it's part

12 of 18, correct?

That Audrey comes in.

Audrey is suddenly introduced.

Sherilyn Fenn, big actress on the original show.

Humongous character.

Big character.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tied up in a lot of stuff.

She is married to one of the seven dwarfs

or whatever.

Like she's like stuck

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 billy

so so this is the whole thing with the audrey plot yeah it's insane we don't know what she's talking about Like she refers to Billy.

Billy, not to spoil, we never meet Billy.

Okay.

Like what we don't really know what that is.

Yeah.

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.

But I do feel like this is one of the more representational.

Like you have to like,

this isn't quite reality.

Yes.

I'm a little

confused.

By it.

At the moment.

We're all confused.

She also references calling Tina.

That's another character we never see or understand who it is.

Okay.

You know?

Right.

Tina's the woman.

Yeah.

You feel like you are.

It's disassociating watching this scene, like being like, I don't know.

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 Cheryl and 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 thing?

Yes.

I don't want to tell you.

Okay.

Well, then

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 really liked when he said he was so sleepy because I was like, I mean, 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 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

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.

Out of COVID.

Like, I think he had some kind of arthritic thing, like, that, it, that had, you know, he's slightly shorter.

He's like 5'5 or something.

Yeah.

But I don't think that.

is why like that that contributed to the West Nile thing.

Like he just, I don't know.

I don't really know much about about the west nile virus kill bill i'm sure he is yeah yes i don't know who he is

he is i want to say he's michael madson's like right-hand man when they're burying her

yeah no yes you're right yeah no real memory of that scene yeah i mean that's

the it's kind of the worst plotline in kill bill no i was gonna say that's my favorite moment

her escaping Yeah, I think it's the most triumphant part of Kill Bill.

I've seen Kill Bill Volume 1 20 times.

Yes.

And I think I've seen Volume 2 like twice.

They were both so seismic for me.

Right.

For some reason, I haven't

whatever wanted to.

I think two is more visceral in a way, or more, 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 screened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then 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 feel for the character of Audrey to act like this.

It's just because

it reminded me of

over the topness of season one.

Yes.

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, it feels still like it makes sense to me.

It doesn't feel completely random.

There's, yeah, there's a certain curdling, 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 going to 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 going to 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.

Yes.

And we don't hear her.

And he's like, what?

That's crazy.

Right.

And then it's like, I'm not going to 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

Cole.

You said Cole.

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 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 Dukovni's character.

Too many names.

There's a lot of names.

It's a lot lot of characters.

Yeah, the 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, like 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 10 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.

Correct.

Another installment of the strange, her being like, I have to go.

do this thing involving a bunch of names that you know i 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.

But also, two characters we haven't seen before having an argument about whether a guy they know is cheating on a woman they know.

It's 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

incredibly straightforward.

Well, weird, because I was expecting that at this point.

No, I just, I I really,

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 got to say.

Yes.

The episode, I I think, begins with the Mitchum brothers taking Cooper, Dougie, back to the office and like with lots of gifts, right?

And just being 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?

I did, and Fischler 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

winning them over, uh, essentially with punches and interesting ways and uh arm wrestling.

The big guy, Derek Mears, who, of course, was uh remake Jason Voorhees.

Uh, yes, uh, in the 20 2009, right?

Yes, in the Your Tits Are So fucking 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.

It's David's favorite quote that he sometimes misquotes.

That's the reason 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?

Like, because it came out on a Friday the 13th, I think.

Correct.

Do you know, do you track what I'm talking about so far?

In 2009, they remade, and there's a

C arm wrestling guy played Jason Vorsey.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The biggest Jason.

February 20th, Friday the 13th of February, okay.

2009.

I was going to say, if it came out February 20th, that's a huge fucking whiff.

They don't realize it until like, wait, like, fuck.

Wait, it was last Friday?

I want to 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 either who does.

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.

Because that movie has Patalecki, Ryhetti, Pana Baker.

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.

It was like, who can we pick up?

Who's around?

Yeah.

I have to say something about Ryan Hanson, but I'll save it.

That's fine.

There's an obscene sex scene.

It's 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.

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.

Sure.

Like, it's not a scene where you're like, oh, but they stumbled into this nonsense.

You're like, no, this is funny.

Like, this is good.

Anyway, Derek Mears is the villain.

And that wasn't he in

a swamp thing?

Yes, he was swamp thing.

I mean, he does.

He, because he is such a physically striking presence and he's a very skilled actor and he has like improv training.

Hell yeah.

Is 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 he's a guy you just introduce on screen and you're like, yeah, you wouldn't want to arm wrestle.

Yes.

That's the heavy.

Here are the stakes.

So yes, he's there and

he

Mr.

C kind of toys with them before destroying him

in the neutral position.

Yes.

powerhouse McLaughlin's, 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?

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 going to 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?

Uh, no, no, no.

And everyone's like, you need to chill the fuck out.

Right.

I don't know.

It'll come to me at some later point.

But I'm like, ready for it to just be like a clean snap.

Right.

Like he was humoring him.

Yeah.

And instead, he resets him back to square one and just goes neutral position.

And you're like, that's scarier.

Right.

That he's basically

totally controlled the whole time.

That he can place him on whatever degree he wants.

Yeah.

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 of this is right, exactly.

And essentially, it's just like this is a children's game.

Yes.

And then punches his face in.

Yes.

Nasty.

Yucky.

But funny.

It's silly.

Because all of these guys are scary as hell looking.

Well, it's just funny that they gather together.

Right, exactly.

In this teenage ninja turtles lair where they're just, I guess, waiting for a 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 is what you're thinking.

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 this ring, told me to put it on and to kill you.

Richard Horn shows up at this point.

He's sort of, you know, revealed to be kind of involved with all of this exactly.

Goon gang.

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.

He references Philip Jeffries.

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.

Bowie shows up in Firewalk with me.

Is there anything else that he pops up in?

No.

Well, that's true.

Yeah, that's what I hadn't seen and wondered if I maybe messed up not watching that that.

There's a little more of him.

Yeah.

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 of

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 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 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,

the other big thing, 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

to, or is it

no, no, no, it's in the scene scene with Amanda Siefried

where Shelly's new boyfriend shows up

where they're talking to her.

Yeah.

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.

Right.

Yeah.

But it's just so nice when Ed and Norma invite him to eat with them too.

Cause 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.

Yes.

And he.

Ooh, I was so mad to see him.

Right.

We'd also 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?

Right.

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 going to do this the way I want to do it or I'm not going to do it.

Yeah.

It is

the thing I think he thinks is quietly the most insidious thing in the world.

Yeah.

The people who, as Albert Brooks would say,

just

lower standards little by little.

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.

Yeah.

And I thought he was such an interesting actor in the 90s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I, I, yeah.

And then we have the right the little coda with Ed.

Yes.

Eating his

soup.

His soup.

Good 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.

Right.

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.

Right.

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 transform

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 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?

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.

Okay.

Who does the music for

this series?

Yep.

Italians Do It Better, sort of his like collective.

Just wanted to shout out

Johnny Jewel.

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.

The Mitchum Brothers paired with the three

dumb cops, the Arms.

No, No, the three

assistants, their three blonde assistants,

the show girls.

It's just

the Dougie sex scene and all of the Dougie stuff, the doctor, the conga line, all that stuff is fun.

I think once I grew to accept the cadence of the Dougie stuff and the sort of

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

him break reality and remake it.

You know what we didn't talk about?

Sunny Gyms gym set.

Yes.

Looks so fucking fun.

He's a pretty mini presence.

Yes.

But also, did you guys call that a gym?

I know that as a play set.

Gym set.

Jungle gym.

Jungle gym, sure.

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-install?

I think it does.

It must.

But also, it has like the classical music coming from

within it, right?

There's not like an external speaker system.

The speakers are seemingly coming.

It's coming from inside the slide.

Yes.

Seems awesome.

I just said that looks so fun.

Yeah.

I like that also, like, Naomi Watts has been so skeptical

of everything going on around Dougie.

And she has the moment of like, what's going on here?

And then is just like, I'm not going to fucking turn this down.

That's how that Jungle Gym set.

Yeah.

Sort of a return of Martin Gare kind of thing happening with these guys.

Yes.

You guys know that one?

Of course.

Let's also just, I know we, I forefronted it,

but

Dougie going full dolomite.

Yes.

Crazy sex, yes.

Right.

Bedrocking.

Right.

She, 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.

Well, this is exactly what happened in Return of Martin Gare.

Okay.

The new guy can really go for it.

It's kind of a Dave's thing.

And 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.

about.

And it's just like a storyline.

Like Downton Abbey did a Martin Gare storyline.

It's a storyline you could always do

of a married couple and the husband goes off, I think, to war or 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 Gareth.

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.

Well, that's what 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 interesting thing.

I love Dark Gear.

That's a great point.

That's the 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

child that when this stranger shows up, right?

Clearly, it's not their kid.

They want it to be the kids.

They wanted it so badly.

It'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're 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.

Human brain's crazy.

Look, on this show, we usually do a segment called the box office game, which is brought to you by our 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 or at the link in the description and use code blank check to get 10% off your three-month subscription.

Fran, you're a 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.

Joel!

Did you just want to beat the rush?

No, it just seemed like a good time of

day to see a movie.

Yeah, you could get some green or pink 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 going to say, unfortunately, today we're playing the ratings game because we're covering 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 not going to do five weeks.

That's what I'm saying.

So

let's pick a ratings thing.

I'm trying to find.

It's so annoying how

fussy this thing, like searching for ratings, are.

Great.

July 9th, 2017.

Okay.

How does this work?

Are you guessing what the.

That's a great question.

And much like Twin Peaks, the return of the show.

It's such a bad time to do this because it's the summer.

So there aren't even

hit network shows to bring up.

Sure.

It's like truly the random shit that plays.

But last time we did cable

ratings.

So I'm like, let's talk, let's do summer even though it's meaningless.

I'm trying.

Let's do this.

This is actually feeling like the Audrey Charlie scene of summer right now.

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.

Okay.

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.

Okay.

I can't tell you who was on it, but I can tell you it was a Celebrity Family Feud.

Give me the date and let me see if I can do a secondary search.

July 9th, 2017.

You guys would be good on there with Marie.

Oh, we'd kill it.

Yeah.

Family Feud is pretty fun.

Yeah.

I would be bad at the where you have to be on your own.

I like being in the group.

The 30 seconds on the clock, like that.

What?

It's just scary.

Sure.

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.

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, sure.

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 NBA 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'm just going to list people for you right now.

LaVon Bell, Tyrone Bogues,

Derek Brooks, Marshall Falk, Prince Fielder, Horace Grant,

DeAndre Hopkins, Robert Horry.

This is all over the place.

Pedro Martinez.

Oh, Pedro is there.

Amazing.

Gary Payton, Patrick Peterson.

I should have.

Harold 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,

well, what the fuck is this?

Exciting.

Another thing hosted by Steve Harvey.

Oh, great.

Not Miss Universe?

No.

This show appears to have lasted for

one year,

the summer of 2017.

It only aired in the 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 Darnest?

Darndest Things?

No.

Because that ran forever.

Yeah.

This was kind of a ripoff of another show hosted by Steve Harvey.

They took one Steve Harvey show.

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.

Yes.

Is it a Shark Tank ripoff?

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 rip-off.

Okay.

It's called Steve Harvey's Thunderdome.

Fuck that.

Thunderdome?

That's right.

Fuck.

That's right.

Number.

Was that number...

I don't even know what number we're on.

Great.

That was number.

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 Legendary game show been on forever.

Or at least is it usually a prime time show?

I don't fucking know.

Well, it's like Wheel of Fortune.

Yeah, it's not that famous, but you know.

It's been many franchised versions of this.

It's not Let's Make a Deal.

It's not a millionaire?

No.

Many franchise versions of this.

You have no fucking idea where it plays.

You seem really pantic

about it.

No, no, you guys are shooting too high.

It's just one of those games.

Pyramid?

How many dollars?

Million dollar pyramid?

It's $100,000.

Okay.

Started out as the $10,000 pyramid.

Now it's $100,000.

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.

Oh, man.

Okay.

Yeah.

Sure.

A rerun of your enthusiasm, ABC.

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 Finest Home Videos.

Yep.

Still crushing.

It is the one consistent we have found across the entire history of Twin Peaks throughout decades from

that America's Finest 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.

Yeah.

Must have been

afraid of this.

Oh my God.

It was hosted by Mario Lopez.

I just learned about Dealer No Deal Island.

Several reviewers called it one of the worst game shows ever made.

I love Dealer No Deal 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.

No, I have to pee.

And we've been going for a long time.

Okay.

Well, Well, I'm not complaining.

Fran.

What?

Our dear friend Blockbuster Fran Hoffman.

Okay, Fran.

Yeah, I'm fine.

Is there anything you'd like to plug?

I'll plug Fran magazine, of which

I'm actually the editor-in-chief.

Oh, my God.

Sorry to downplay that.

What a reveal.

I'm sorry to downplay my own role in that magazine.

The old gray lady.

It's at Sunstack.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The middle-aged gray lady.

Yeah, that's it.

And

Brightwall Dark Room, which I love to plug.

Yeah.

She's always doing good stuff.

You're always doing great stuff over there.

Yeah, I got to figure out what to write about next.

Maybe I'll write about

here

or 10 a.m.

Wicked.

Have you seen Here?

No, but I really want to.

See here.

I'm going to 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 with Mike.

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.

Jesus.

the blank check newsletter which uh marie uh barte is doing an incredible 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 of 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.

Yep.

But it will be out in the world at the time of this episode being released.

So maybe this will be a 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.

Possibly, it's an entirely AI album.

We'll see.

Who knows?

Let's say no.

No,

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,

none of that is 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.

Well, let's say, and as always, here is an exclusive first glimpse for your ears of Slow Christmas.

Town.

Flow

How

still

we

see.

my

tea

and

tree

land

skin

flower

sign

star