Greetings, everyone.

How universally do we think the Keaton episode (#22, using the Lynch/Frost numbering system) wins the award for "worst TP ep ever"?  Cause I agree that it has some of the worst direction (i.e., some of the most "hey I'm cool cause I'm doing weird stuff like Lynch!" directing). 

HOWEVER...

Let's all turn back the clock one ep further to 21, written by Scott Frost.  While it doesnt have the horrendous direction of its successor, it has what I hold to be the worst script/dialogue of any ep.  To refresh our memories, this is the ep where Little Nicky's life story gets told, Lana seduces Mayor Milford at gunpoint in the Sheriff's Station, Major Briggs says he can be found "in the shadows" if needed, and Pete is informed of Andrew's escape from his supposed demise.

Now, there are some good things in this ep too, like Leo's awakening and discovery of Earle... but even these things are really mismanaged in my opinion.  Leo's attack on Shelly and Bobby is probably the highpoint, but the knife-to-the-calf thing should have had a little more OOMPH.  I think we can attribute the goodies in this ep to the fact that Frost/Lynch and others had given the various ep writers a schematic of sorts of what was to happen in each ep and left them to fill in the gaps.  What I guess I'm saying is that all the gaps left for Scott Frost in ep 21 were subsequently filled full of doo-doo.  :)

So what it appears I'm asking is... which is worse, 21 or 22?  A sort of implied question, then:  given either crappy directing or crappy scripting and/or dialogue, which makes for a more crappy overall episode? 

My vote is for 21.  But which do you guys think deserves the Golden Turd Award?  Perhaps another I haven't mentioned?

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Nadine's throw was 17.  It's trash, I agree.  On the bright side, however, I felt that Nadine's antics usually kept season 2 from getting bogged down in its own soap opera excesses.  :)

robo, I agree that some things make 21 more watchable, like the Earle intro and maybe even the 2-second David Warner intro.  But like I said, those are things that the writer had given to him at the outset by the timeline Lynch/Frost/Peyton/Engels had set up.  I guess I'm just wanting to poop on Scott Frost's script.  :)  Ah well... I suppose it doesnt matter in terms of overall episode experience.

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okay, the questionable episodes for most people fall within the range of 17-22...so I am goonna try to break it down (finished watching it on Saturday, by the way)....

episode 17 - love it!!

episode 18 & 19 are weaker because that is the genesis of the poor plotline, Little Nicky Evelyn,..however, there is enough other good stuff to make them not so bad...but the stuff with Coop, Jean Renault and Briggs' disappearance keep them interesting...

episode 20 - love it!! all kinds of good stuff happenin' in this one.

episode 21 & 22...I agree that episode 21 is the wekaer written of the two, but Keaton does do some irritating things directorially, but her episode was much better written (penned by Peyton and Engels)and we also saw the end of Evelyn and Malcolm. which was an added bonus...Shoot, I can't picke one, I guess 21 would be the worst out of those 6. Damn, Geoff you do present a sound argument...     

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

I actually like 17 and 18 more than 15 and 16. I've always been disappointed in how 15 and 16 resolve everything. 17 and 18 are like a brand new season - the show changes gears and they work well but there's no new direction in the show until episode 25 at which point it's back on track.

I agree that it was really nice seeing the two worst subplots end in Ep 22 but it seemed like both of these had more airtime in this episode than in any other. Ep 22 also really digs it in by opening with Evelyn - that's like blasphemy! 

I would divide the series into these five sections:

1. Pilot plus first season - perfect - everything fits together

2. First 7 episodes of season 2 (up until the killer is "revealed") - excellent

3. Episodes 15 and 16 - disappointing resolution for everything that's come before

4. Episodes 17-24 - All Change! Starts off well but gets progressively worse until it hits the nadir in episode 21 or 22, recovers a little after the two poor subplots are resolved.

5. Episode 25 to the end (#29) - excellent - the show is back on track

Jesus, having to decide which is worse out of 21 & 22 is like deciding if you'd like to be stabbed repeatedly in the balls or in the ass. Either way, it sucks a whole lot.

Yeah, there's not much you can feasibly do with really bad writing. We see that all the time with movies, where there's an obviously sh*tty script that the actors do their best to overcome but there's nothing they can do for it. But sometimes good acting and good direction can overcome rotten writing. But that wouldn't be the case with ep 21. I mean, it's just some truly horrible dialogue and while I've acted my fair share of bad scripts, I think I would be too embarrassed to be able to film even one scene of that ep.

Then there's really bad directing. And I don't know if there is anything you can do about bad directing. I mean, at the end of the day you have horrible camera angles, yucky lighting, cardboard actors, stupid blocking, etc. I pity the person who had to edit that mess together. They were probably drinking heavily just to get through it.

I remember Kimmy Robertson was asked once about the various directors that handled the series aside from Lynch, more specifically aiming at the really muddy parts of season 2, and Kimmy made a comment about how some people think if you tilt the camera or have someone hold a silly prop then they're automatically doing very Lynchian work, and what a load of crap that actually is. First thing I thought when I read that was "DAMN YOU, KEATON!"

~ Amanda

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

That god damn trailer's more popular than Uncle's Day in a whorehouse!

The whole beauty pageant angle is tough to watch and I can only imagine how much cajoling had to go on behind the scenes to get the actresses to go through the motions. 

The character who seems to suffer the most from a watered-down effect (though for no fault of Sherilyn Fenn's) during the second season is Audrey.  Either the writers were unsure of where to take her or they felt she was too unruly, but whatever the case, her character gets lost in the shuffle.  It's disheartening to see such a weird, unwieldly girl turn into Gidget.

Got up early, found something's missing/ My only name/ No one else sees but I got stuck/ And soon forever came

I understand why everyone hates these episodes, but I personally think episode 16 and 28 are much worse. It's strange how Diane Keaton is so universally hated when hardly anyone bashes Tim Hunter for the abysmal direction of episode 28.

And what's the deal with Barry Pullman and Mr. Pinkle? Did he have carte blanche to introduce silly characters that were to only appear in his own episodes? That's a good indication the writers were given too much freedom, if you ask me.

"What credit card do you want to put that on?"
"Caash, prease."

I haven't seen it in a little while. I'll probably see it in a day or two with a friend (we're at ep 15 now), so I might comment more then, but here are some thoughts:

- The writing is weak, in my view. There are some good things, like Hawk reassuring Cooper that he's on the right path. But on the whole it's just not very good. "Bob" speaking from the cell with maniacal grinning and saying "I have a thing for knives" and "I guess I sorta did. Kinda."? Not good.

- The cop-out. I think this is the most unsatisfactory solution to the storyline I could think of. Bob is just a spirit and he can leave his victims at will. That makes it a purely sci-fi yarn with none of the implications the story really has. It's interesting that in FWWM - the final word, so to speak - you never really know when Leland is Leland or when he's Bob. Laura often sees him as Bob, but then again his lines about "dirt way under this fingernail" makes you doubt how clear the lines really are. And the murder scene makes this even less obvious "I always thought you knew it was me". The more concrete Bob gets, the less powerful he is as a metaphor, in my opinion. And in episode 16, they make Bob so concrete he loses all power. The "where is Bob now" is the typical ending you expect in a cheap b-movie. Its only objective is being a cliff-hanger.

- The directing is also a big problem, though. When I see Ray Wise going insane in his cell, I'm just thinking is this the same actor who gave me shivers when he confessed Jacques's murder? I don't think Tim Hunter really had much of a way with the actors. Episode 28 has similar problems. I can imagine liking this episode a lot more with a different director - Todd Holland did a great job with the confession scene in his earlier episode, he could have done some nice things.

Or come to think of it, this is the one episode Lynch himself really should have directed. It's extremely important in the storyline. Later on he scrapped Frost, Peyton and Engels' ideas for the Black Lodge in episode 29 and inserted his own brilliance there instead. I have an idea the line "I guess I sorta did. Kinda" wouldn't have survived a Lynch-directed shooting.  

"What credit card do you want to put that on?"
"Caash, prease."

But there's a reason why Lucy's story got mixed with BOB/Leland's arrest. That's Dick Tremayne's presence in the sheriff station, he activated the sprinklers that caused Leland's death.

I also would like to know why some people don't like episode 16. I think it beats all episodes afterwards (except the last one, Lynch directing really makes all the difference) :)

"You know, Agent Desmond, I figure this whole office, furniture included, is worth 27,000 dollars"

Okay, so I watched 15-17 last night (along with the end of 14 again). I have to agree with many of the criticisms of 16. Ray was a little bit too over the top in the confession scene, though that part where he turns around and reminds Cooper of Pittsburgh... The way Coop turns pale and takes a step back? Very creepy, and a nice little bridge to the Windom storyline. The reoccurance of the "gum you like" line, as well as the "Fire" poem, seemed pretty forced, but I was fine with the rest of the Roadhouse scene. "Someone is missing...", and all that.

Now, that scene with Leland in Cooper's lap with the sprinklers on... you have to be made of stone not to be moved by that. Hell, even Albert was moved by that.

Now, onto 17. I know I said earlier that the episode sickened me, but I was misremembering, it's really just the "Nadine at cheerleading tryouts" scene. The rest of it is just fine, which just makes that particular scene all the more incongruous. I mean, that slow-motion backflip... the episode became a '60s beach movie all of the sudden!

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Maybe that's why I love that scene? I love Annette Funicello and the whole beach movie vibe. The hilarious dance Toni Basil and others do in this clip from Beach Ball is one of the funniest things I've ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wunX-nXrcWY

"What credit card do you want to put that on?"
"Caash, prease."

I'm not sure I agree on the last part. I wasn't moved by that at all when I saw it. The scene is very problematic to me since it puts water-tight lids between Bob and Leland. The later scene where Cooper says "Is it easier to believe a man would rape and murder his own daughter?" I unfortunately have to say a big yes. It happens every day. And I think Fire Walk with Me has a much more sophisticated and meaningful way of dealing with this. Since Leland turns out to be the killer, incest and child molestation became a theme of Twin Peaks - and episode 16 jumps over the entire problem. Critic Lisa Kennedy said: "... Laura Palmer is hailed as this year's breakthrough dead girl. 'My father killed me,' she says, but Cooper still gets the last word." The feminist fanzine "A Color and Activity Book" affiliated with Bikini Kill and the Olympia scene reprinted Kennedy's article under the header "FUCK TWIN PEAKS" (Greil Marcus reprints this in his new book). In a way, I agree. Thankfully, Twin Peaks is better than that particular episode.

"What credit card do you want to put that on?"
"Caash, prease."

So I watched the "worst" episodes tonight (ending with Keaton's ep), and I emerged unscathed. After watching them, I believe that, at least to this point, there was no completely worthless episode. Just a lot of terrible or boring plotlines.

The Keaton episode was pretty craptastic, I'll agree, but I still liked the Earle-related scenes (except when he turns into a poor man's Peter Sellers). In addition to the director's ridiculous "stylistic" touches, I think the episode suffers from the amount of time it spends on Evelyn and her homicidal, incestous tendencies (which are far less interesting than you-know-who's).
In the plus column: I thought the scene between Big Ed and Norma was quite touching. Albert and Harry's bear hug is so over-the-top it makes me giggle. Also, the episode was not written by Scott Frost.

So, unless the worse is yet to come (cue arrival of Heather Graham), I'm still pretty okay with the creative plateau of Twin Peaks. (see what I did there?)

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Scott Frost wrote the one before the Keaton ep... or were you making a funny? Sorry if the humor was lost on me. :)

Incedentally... do you guys thing Malcolm and Evelynn really were sibs? Cause even though she says they really aren't at the end of 21, I still enjoy thinking otherwise.

I was making a funny. The episode was not written by Frost, which is a plus.

As for the Mal and Evie thing, yeah, I like to think they were siblings. Why? Because we needed some angle for why Evelyn was so torn about following this guy's orders in that last scene. He didn't seem to have anything over her, so what was fueling her dilemma? "I love James and don't want to kill him, and yet... Malcolm makes a pretty good argument, too!"?

Also, it would be the only interesting twist in the entire plot. 

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agreed. and agent cooper looked dead sexy with all that wet hair hanging in his face...

it's pileated, isn't it?