Ep. No. 44 Twin Peaks: The Return Rewatch Wrap-up

2022 was something of an experiment for Karl and Jubel, and we believe it was a resounding success. We’ve always talked about wanting to incorporate more interviews into the mix, so we did five consecutive interview episodes exploring Twin Peaks: The Return. We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to John Thorne, Rob King, John Bernardy, Lindsay Stamhuis, and Adam Stewart for their generosity, patience, and insights.

To paraphrase some version of Dale Cooper towards the end of the series, “we hope to see each and every one of them again.”

This episode is something of a wrap-up on the rewatch and discussions of the past year, and it’s particularly tangent heavy. For example, we bring up the topic of Hauntology, which we explored a bit with Adam, and then we drifted off to other things. This is due in part to the fact that while we had questions written down that we wanted to ask each other, we decided in the moment that a loose discussion would be more fun, and yield some unexpected results.

The other reason was that Jubel was in the midst of a really gnarly head cold, so keeping himself on track was an exercise in futility. Our hope is that the magic of editing has at least made the conversation listenable!

Counter Esperanto Podcast: Tangents About Twin Peaks: The Return Part 4

This is the next in our series of revisits of Twin Peaks: The Return. This time we are happy today to have with us author, teacher, and co-host of The Bicks Podcast (Formerly Bickering Peaks), Lindsay Stamhuis. We begin by covering Parts 13-16, but we branch out and talk about the series as a whole.

Lindsay, Karl and Jubel cover a great deal of ground in this one. Since this sequence of Parts carries the bulk of the tragic and perplexing arc (or is it tragic?) of Audrey Horne, we thought it fitting to bring Lindsay on at this point, since she has written about Audrey several times on the 25 Years Later Site, and our hosts are excited to delve into that particular corner of strangeness.

In Part 16, we finally see the return of our Cooper! Or is he “our Cooper”? Who is it that wakes up in that hospital bed, and how much of him remains? We get into one of the central themes of The Return, which is essentially a deconstruction of the hero myth itself. For all his charm, competence, and heroism, Special Agent Dale Cooper is a complex figure, and true to much in David Lynch, there is a dark side squirming under the surface.

Counter Esperanto Podcast: Tangents About Twin Peaks: The Return Part 3

We are happy to begin our next exploration into the Return with John Bernardy: journalist, Twin Peaks master-theorist, and host of Blue Rose Task Force podcast, which I believe is the first of its kind, being a holistic podcast that looks at the entirety of Twin Peaks including production details.

John, Karl and Jubel start off discussing Twin Peaks: The Return Parts 9-12, but soon branch off into other vistas of strangeness. They discuss the troubling saga of the Hornes, their favorite new characters and bits, the secret hidden inside Diane and Sarah Palmer’s favorite beverages, and the strange, open-endedness of the whole story. 

Our guest John brings his extensive production knowledge to bear on these details, and elucidates his “Moebius Strip” diagram, which he says is the key to one of the major themes of the Return, exemplified by Dr. Jacoby/Amp’s golden shovel.

So fix your hearts, shovel your way out of the sh*t, and have a listen!

Counter Esperanto Podcast: Tangents About Twin Peaks: The Return Part 2

Greetings Listeners! We continue our series of guest-packed Twin Peaks: The Return re-watch discussions with author, scholar, and all-around lovely gent Rob E. King!

Rob E. King is an associate librarian at Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library and a doctoral student in English at Texas Tech University. He has contributed to 25YL, Blue Rose Magazine, Twin Peaks Unwrapped podcast and published in New American Notes Online and the West Texas Historical Review. 

Rob is also co-editor with Christine Self and Robert Weaver of a book of essays titled David Lynch and the American West: Essays on Regionalism and Indigeneity in Twin Peaks and the Films.

We begin our discussion with classic Weird writer (and creator of Conan the Barbarian) Robert E. Howard, discuss regionalism in that author’s writings, and bring it around to Twin Peaks, discussing the importance of the Las Vegas bits, Jerry’s Odyssey,  the role of electricity and telecommunication, and much more.

Counter Esperanto Podcast: Tangents About Twin Peaks: The Return Part 1

Greetings listeners! This week we are excited to have on, as our first guest in a five-part retrospective of Twin Peaks: The Return, none other than John Thorne, author and co-creator of the Wrapped in Plastic magazine, and more recently Blue Rose magazine, and co-host of In Our House Now Podcast: An Inquiry Into Twin Peaks.

John, Jubel and Karl have a free-wheeling discussion which was ostensibly supposed to be about Parts 1-4, but who are we kidding? We talked about it all: What’s really happening in those Audrey scenes? Who’s dream is this, anyway? Who’s reflected in the rear-view mirror of Jade’s Jeep? And is Evan Williams whiskey a new mystical substance? We’re not promising answers, but we have a lot of hunches.