Mr. Reindeer
White Lodge
- Apr 13, 2022
- 924
- 2,014
The ending of Episode 27 was a subject of some conversation years ago on the dugpa boards, specifically as to the mystery of when it was shot (and by whom), and it’s something I still think about periodically, so I figured I’d bring it up again. There are a few interesting things here.
Starting with the sequence as scripted:
The gist of the idea is there, but it’s obviously somewhat different from what ended up onscreen. For one thing, Josie was dropped, and the ominous series of (mostly stock) shots of iconic town locations was added.
More interestingly, neither this script nor the Episode 29 script has any mention of a pool of oil being present in Glastonbury Grove (and the Ronette scene with the jar of scorched oil is also not present in the Episode 29 script). Although this script does mention a patch of scorched earth (seemingly caused by Bob’s flashy disappearance and not present before that), to me, the pool of oil feels like something added by Lynch during production of Episode 29. So that’s arguably one point for the Episode 27 sequence having been possibly reshot later, maybe by Lynch during production of Episode 29.
Another interesting point is that the fallen branches placed around the pool seem to be identically positioned to the way they are in Episode 29. It seems unlikely that the continuity would have been so spot-on if the scenes were shot weeks apart, since the location is in a public park. (Contrast this with Glastonbury Grove in FWWM, which was clearly shot at a different time.)
But most intriguingly of all, the fact that the Red Room is seen in the oil pool seems to directly presage Episode 29…but, at the time Episode 27 was shot, the plans for Episode 29 seemingly hardly involved the Red Room at all (in the script, only one brief scene is set in the Red Room, and the Black Lodge is depicted as a constantly-shifting series of backdrops as opposed to one fixed space; this was of course changed by Lynch when he came to shoot E29). It certainly appears in E27 that the curtains were projected onto the pool on-set (as opposed to being added as an optical effect later), based on the way the light plays off the pool and the surrounding circle of “snow.” So, the question is: how could Stephen Gyllenhaal have known that the Red Room would figure prominently in Episode 29 when Lynch himself likely hadn’t even decided that yet?
All of this leads me to think it’s likely that the scene was reshot during production of Episode 29, and makes me wonder whether they would have brought Gyllenhaal back or (more likely) if Lynch would just have shot it himself.
But the weirdness doesn’t quite end there, either. The most famous unscripted addition to Episode 27 (which Gyllenhaal has taken credit for) is the “trembling hands” motif. Interestingly, Gyllenhaal appears to take the ending scene of Bob’s disembodied arm (which WAS scripted) and extrapolate from that to create this added bit of mythology that Bob is seemingly momentarily controlling people’s hands like puppets.
I’ll get back to that in a second. But first, it’s important to point out that there was definitely one scene from Episode 27 that was reshot weeks after production on the episode had wrapped—and in fact may have been the last thing ever shot for the original TP show. The Bobby/Shelly scene (originally set in the Roadhouse, as seen in the Blu Ray deleted scenes) apparently was felt to strike the wrong tone, so it was rescripted and reshot as a Double R scene. The script for this reshoot is dated March 12, nearly a month after the latest prior rewrite of the E27 script, and likely after Lynch had finished shooting Episode 29 (which I believe was shot in very early March, based on the clapperboard seen in the Outtakes reel on the Blu Ray).
What’s fascinating about this is that the reshoot of the Bobby/Shelly scene is where we get the stocking-capped woman with the shaking hand! So, presumably, in Gyllenhaal’s original cut of the episode, it was only Cooper and Pete with shaking hands, and whoever did this reshoot added the beat with this extra (thus honoring the classic storytelling “rule of threes”).
Curious to hear others’ thoughts on all this.
Starting with the sequence as scripted:
The gist of the idea is there, but it’s obviously somewhat different from what ended up onscreen. For one thing, Josie was dropped, and the ominous series of (mostly stock) shots of iconic town locations was added.
More interestingly, neither this script nor the Episode 29 script has any mention of a pool of oil being present in Glastonbury Grove (and the Ronette scene with the jar of scorched oil is also not present in the Episode 29 script). Although this script does mention a patch of scorched earth (seemingly caused by Bob’s flashy disappearance and not present before that), to me, the pool of oil feels like something added by Lynch during production of Episode 29. So that’s arguably one point for the Episode 27 sequence having been possibly reshot later, maybe by Lynch during production of Episode 29.
Another interesting point is that the fallen branches placed around the pool seem to be identically positioned to the way they are in Episode 29. It seems unlikely that the continuity would have been so spot-on if the scenes were shot weeks apart, since the location is in a public park. (Contrast this with Glastonbury Grove in FWWM, which was clearly shot at a different time.)
But most intriguingly of all, the fact that the Red Room is seen in the oil pool seems to directly presage Episode 29…but, at the time Episode 27 was shot, the plans for Episode 29 seemingly hardly involved the Red Room at all (in the script, only one brief scene is set in the Red Room, and the Black Lodge is depicted as a constantly-shifting series of backdrops as opposed to one fixed space; this was of course changed by Lynch when he came to shoot E29). It certainly appears in E27 that the curtains were projected onto the pool on-set (as opposed to being added as an optical effect later), based on the way the light plays off the pool and the surrounding circle of “snow.” So, the question is: how could Stephen Gyllenhaal have known that the Red Room would figure prominently in Episode 29 when Lynch himself likely hadn’t even decided that yet?
All of this leads me to think it’s likely that the scene was reshot during production of Episode 29, and makes me wonder whether they would have brought Gyllenhaal back or (more likely) if Lynch would just have shot it himself.
But the weirdness doesn’t quite end there, either. The most famous unscripted addition to Episode 27 (which Gyllenhaal has taken credit for) is the “trembling hands” motif. Interestingly, Gyllenhaal appears to take the ending scene of Bob’s disembodied arm (which WAS scripted) and extrapolate from that to create this added bit of mythology that Bob is seemingly momentarily controlling people’s hands like puppets.
I’ll get back to that in a second. But first, it’s important to point out that there was definitely one scene from Episode 27 that was reshot weeks after production on the episode had wrapped—and in fact may have been the last thing ever shot for the original TP show. The Bobby/Shelly scene (originally set in the Roadhouse, as seen in the Blu Ray deleted scenes) apparently was felt to strike the wrong tone, so it was rescripted and reshot as a Double R scene. The script for this reshoot is dated March 12, nearly a month after the latest prior rewrite of the E27 script, and likely after Lynch had finished shooting Episode 29 (which I believe was shot in very early March, based on the clapperboard seen in the Outtakes reel on the Blu Ray).
What’s fascinating about this is that the reshoot of the Bobby/Shelly scene is where we get the stocking-capped woman with the shaking hand! So, presumably, in Gyllenhaal’s original cut of the episode, it was only Cooper and Pete with shaking hands, and whoever did this reshoot added the beat with this extra (thus honoring the classic storytelling “rule of threes”).
Curious to hear others’ thoughts on all this.
