FWWM The Missing Pieces

[Cappy]

I really wish we could have gotten a Missing Piece giving us a glimpse of Laura tutoring Josie in English.

They were both living double lives to differing extents, so perhaps behind closed doors they dropped their respective facades with each other?

 

[AXX°N N.]

I get the sense that Ontkean dropped out very late when they were gearing up for shooting, and doing a massive structural rewrite would have been too big a burden. They could give Truman’s scenes to Hawk, sure, but then what to do with Hawk’s already substantial arc? To some extent I guess you could combine the two roles into one, but there are also scenes where the two have to interact to get out plot information, so those would have to be completely changed.

Good points all around. Hawk has so many scenes on his own that I wasn't even thinking of the interactions he has with Frank. Just thinking about the scenes following the Briggs breadcrumb trail, something would be lost in terms of an ensemble, like the fun of seeing Bobby's colleagues become a gaggle of flummoxed bystanders in the scene where he uncovers the note from the cylinder.

 

[LateReg]

This has always bugged me. As mentioned, Frost's books kind of correct it. In-unviverse the department was a family matter with Harry & Frank's father being the prior Sheriff.

I always assumed Lynch & Frost had written the part so dead-set with Ontkean in mind that they didn't want to shift everything over to Hawk, even though in-universe Hawk would be a more natural candidate to take up the reigns.

I can't really think of anything that would cause a snag being shifted over to Hawk, though--except, I suppose, the Doris scenes. Hawk & Diane Shapiro, PHD are a power couple after all.

I know this is obvious, but there's the richness of the doubling there. The True-men brothers. The very odd/off first Lucy scene with the insurance salesman that hangs over everything and I feel is important in ways that are hard to define with the whole "Which one? It could make a difference!"

Also, I think the pathos in the scenes where Frank is speaking to his brother...not only pathos, but also a strange type of suspense where we are hopeful we will hear Harry's voice eventually, but then never do (the silence is a profoundly moving choice, for me)...a lot of richness throughout by doubling up the Trumans.

 

[AXX°N N.]

Frank Truman…just sounds like some guy’s name. The quirkiness is gone.

I always took it as a pun. He's a True Man who is Frank, as in honest and direct. Margaret's "true men" punning extending also to first names.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Getting back to TMP, I think the sheriff’s station scene there is a nice little glimpse into what Ontkean might have done with the material in The Return.

 

[Jordan Cole]

The window scene is actually in the film. What TMP adds is the creepy shot of him walking up the path, seeming to robotically look straight at Laura, and then continue on into the house.

Woh, I thought BOTH were in the film. That's not in the film!? I always think of that scene. Like one of my favorite shots in the whole thing.

 

[Jordan Cole]

It's a short scene for certain. But I love the exchange between Stanley and Cooper.

That scene was short enough, too bad Lynch couldn't squeeze it into the film. Cooper's reaction to Stanley would have added some gravitas to the episode in season 1 when Cooper explains to not give the forensics to Stanley, but to Albert, since Albert has a bit more on the ball.

You could see why it was cut, but you'd think they'd use as much Cooper as they were able to get!

 

[Jordan Cole]

Oh yeah, that cutaway is perfectly creepy. The quick shot of Mike laughing as he runs away, as well.

I know the script says he's laughing, but I've never been able to really see that. I always thought he was grimacing or wincing.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

I know the script says he's laughing, but I've never been able to really see that. I always thought he was grimacing or wincing.

Oh man. We’re gonna have another smile-related debate already.

If this isn’t a happy camper, I don’t know what is (sorry for the crappy quality of a phone photo taken off my TV):


But it does feel pretty out of context/jarring due to the way the scene is edited. Again, because stuff was cut, it feels choppy to me. But in a way, the arbitrariness of his expression when his actions otherwise seem benevolent makes the shot even more effective and eerie to me. Like we’re suddenly getting a glimpse behind the curtain of his true intentions. It’s very creepy and unnerving.

 

[Jordan Cole]

Yeah, I honestly can't wrap my head around it. The expression almost seemed kind of like madness to me, or like when something is so horrible you're just losing your shit. But I have read the script and it definitely says he's laughing. And it also cuts to the Little Man/The Arm, who I believe is the one possessing Gerard (I basically call them both Mike...and yes I've seen huge debates/fights break out over this subject...), and he seems to be freaking out, and also laughing but looks terrified too. A lot of ambiguous expressions.

So yeah, at the end when they feed off of Leland's pain and suffering, I think that's a bit of a "reveal" or "twist" to those paying attention, that BOB isn't the only one that feeds off evil here, and that we're more fucked than we realize.

It DOES seem that somewhere between FWWM and season 2 of Twin Peaks, Mike perhaps goes more on the side of the (literal) angels. Perhaps Leland's garmonbozia was just TOO fucked up.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Yeah, I honestly can't wrap my head around it. The expression almost seemed kind of like madness to me, or like when something is so horrible you're just losing your shit. But I have read the script and it definitely says he's laughing. And it also cuts to the Little Man/The Arm, who I believe is the one possessing Gerard (I basically call them both Mike), and he seems to be freaking out, and also laughing but looks terrified too. A lot of ambiguous expressions.

I think this sort of goes to the idea that both MfAP and Mike WANT Bob out there committing atrocities so they can gather garmonbozia, as we see at the end of the film. They just want him doing it on their terms. I think the ring is a part of that, so Mike is happy once he’s managed to give Laura that tool. Idk, that’s my working theory, based on what we see.

Mike claims in the main series that he’s reformed, but at the very least, it seems to be more…complicated than that, based on what we see in the Red Room in FWWM. He presents himself as the good guy and an ally, but it doesn’t seem to be as simple as that.

EDIT: I think you edited your post while I was replying, so we’re both kind of on the same page.

 

[eyeboogers]

I was also inspired to rewatch The Missing Pieces by this thread, but my cat got so freaked out by the sound design alone during the convenience store scene that I had to stop watching. Everything sound wise in this film, from Badalament's strongest score to the sound design to the original choices such as having the dialogue near inaudible in the pink room scene, needs to be celebrated more and mentioned more often.

 

[Cappy]

I think this sort of goes to the idea that both MfAP and Mike WANT Bob out there committing atrocities so they can gather garmonbozia, as we see at the end of the film. They just want him doing it on their terms. I think the ring is a part of that, so Mike is happy once he’s managed to give Laura that tool. Idk, that’s my working theory, based on what we see.

Was there a time BOB was ever out there not giving the “garmonbozia” to MIKE?

I know Teresa Banks had the green ring at one point, but we never see evidence of her in the Red Room, so possibly the ring was removed shortly before she was killed… assuming that all garmonbozia-ed persons get sent to the Red Room. (The fact that Cooper mostly only sees people in the Red Room that he recognizes might speak to the notion that the Lodge is a more subjective space, but that is another post)

I think there is a line in Coop’s dream where MIKE says something about killing with BOB — taken literally it conjures up images of Leland Palmer and Philip Gerard having a very “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” existence in the 70s and 80s.

Sorry if this post is a bit of a ramble. The Lodge mechanics and the MIKE/BOB interaction can be a lot to untangle!

 

[Sparky]

I’ve seen many people talk about TMP as superlative or simply an excuse to include more characters from the show, but I don’t often see anyone speaking about how each scene set in TP, when placed where it would in the film, is usually thematically parallel in some way to that day in Laura’s life. I.E. the “two-by-four” scene occurring on the day Bobby and Laura find out the coke “is not what they ordered.”

We can argue about how effective the result is but there’s a very real attempt to execute an “as above so below” approach to the film with these scenes or TP in general that we wouldn’t really get to see executed until season 3.

 

[Jordan Cole]

I’ve seen many people talk about TMP as superlative or simply an excuse to include more characters from the show, but I don’t often see anyone speaking about how each scene set in TP, when placed where it would in the film, is usually thematically parallel in some way to that day in Laura’s life. I.E. the “two-by-four” scene occurring on the day Bobby and Laura find out the coke “is not what they ordered.”

We can argue about how effective the result is but there’s a very real attempt to execute an “as above so below” approach to the film with these scenes or TP in general that we wouldn’t really get to see executed until season 3.

That's great. I also think the idea of doing a prequel movie to a tv show that had run its course is pretty out there for the time. I think a lot of those scenes were Lynch genuinely wanting to set stuff up that you see in the pilot, and what a neat idea that would be. When editing I think he realized oh, this could just be a movie, not one long setup.

 

[Dom]

That's great. I also think the idea of doing a prequel movie to a tv show that had run its course is pretty out there for the time. I think a lot of those scenes were Lynch genuinely wanting to set stuff up that you see in the pilot, and what a neat idea that would be. When editing I think he realized oh, this could just be a movie, not one long setup.

Allegedly there were supposed to be three films, with Bowie being the lead in the second film (for all I know, this has all been debunked!) so there's material in TMP that could potentially have been used in the next two films before any of the actors became noticeably too much older. That scene with Cooper talking to Diane, for example, could have added Laura Dern as Diane for a flashback in the hypothetical 1996 film, for example. I'd love to visit the parallel universe where CIBY2000 honoured their contract and FWWM didn't get an unwarranted kicking to see what a 1994 and 1996 Twin Peaks film would look like!!

The Missing Pieces always make me wonder about the potential sequels, but also alternate scenarios such as the network telling Lynch he had an additional six episodes to wrap things up definitively!

What's striking to me, though, is how well - stripped of TMP - FWWM stands alone. I've watched that film many times and, although I watched the series, so it will inform me, I've never felt an urgent need to see any of the series before watching it.

I actually find myself thinking what other series might have been like if they'd taken a FWWM approach to their parent series. Imagine the first X-Files movie being a prequel set mainly in the 1950s and 1960s dealing with a covert unit investigating and covering up the supernatural and alien life, being pestered by Special Agent Arthur Dales, Mulder's sister's abduction and Mulder being shown taking on The X-Files, with the ending being Scully getting sent to debunk his work, while revealing hitherto unknown secrets about Scully's own past.

The most interesting thing for me was where Philip Jefferies went. We now know he returned to Buenos Aires 1987, but what happened to him after that? I know The Return showed him long after, but when Laura was murdered in 1989, what was he up to? There's a whole story to be told there. In what way does he end up ceasing to be human and end up in that giant kettle?

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Was there a time BOB was ever out there not giving the “garmonbozia” to MIKE?

Certainly when he killed Maddie, right? Mike was hunting for him at that point, so Bob seems to have been rogue.

I know Teresa Banks had the green ring at one point, but we never see evidence of her in the Red Room, so possibly the ring was removed shortly before she was killed… assuming that all garmonbozia-ed persons get sent to the Red Room. (The fact that Cooper mostly only sees people in the Red Room that he recognizes might speak to the notion that the Lodge is a more subjective space, but that is another post)

One interesting thing is that in The Return, those who die wearing the ring go corporeally to the Red Room (Ray, Mr. C). However, those whose garmonbozia is harvested remain on Earth as corpses (Teresa, Laura). That is assuming that Teresa was still wearing the ring when she died (which I believe she was). I do think Teresa’s soul probably was in the Red Room somewhere, although we never saw her, and I agree with your assessment that Cooper’s experience of the Red Room was subjective to him.

I also think, as I said, that the ring is on some level a mechanism for the spirits to control Bob. As MfAP says, “With this ring, I thee wed.” I certainly don’t think that’s its only function, but one of them. I don’t think Bob would have shared if Mike hadn’t given Laura the ring. And we also see in The Return that the ring needs to put on Mr. C when he dies, I believe in order to ensure Bob’s return to the Lodge along with Mr. C.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Assuming Mike saw the face of God (The Fireman?) and Laura is "the one," what if he smiles because he managed to slip her the ring and keep her from Bob?

 

[Jordan Cole]

Assuming Mike saw the face of God (The Fireman?) and Laura is "the one," what if he smiles because he managed to slip her the ring and keep her from Bob?

That's a great theory...BUT:

The smile is so deranged that I just don't know if any explanation can really match up to it...but we can say OK, that's just how the guy smiles. But the script gives him a pretty horrible reason to laugh. (Not that things can't be changed after the script is written.)

In the script:

Gerard leans in to take a look and steps back laughing. he yells out
for Bob to hear.

GERARD (continued)
THAT'S HIS OWN DAUGHTER YOU'RE
KILLING.

He continues to laugh and runs away from the train car.

 

[MasterMastermnd]

Yeah, many of our interpretations of Peaks were altered by The Return, which is what led to some of the initial criticism back on dugpa. I think it's interesting to consider the extent to which Lynch's concept of the film changed *after* the scripting process, and how that might affect his direction of things he'd written. Iirc it's been talked about how the process of collaborating with Sheryl Lee and others had a direct effect on the course the film took during production.

I should also say my interpretation is that perhaps MIKE himself is an expression of duality. Maybe he's split off between an essence of evil via his creation by Judy, encapsulated by The Arm, and an essence of good essentially turned by The Fireman