"Part 8" | |
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Twin Peaks episode | |
![]() The detonation of an atomic bomb as seen in the episode. | |
Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 8 |
Directed by | David Lynch |
Written by | David Lynch Mark Frost |
Featured music | Angelo Badalamenti, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Krzysztof Penderecki, Dean Hurley, David Lynch |
Cinematography by | Peter Deming |
Editing by | Duwayne Dunham |
Original air date | June 25, 2017 |
Running time | 58 minutes |
Guest appearances | |
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"Part 8", also known as "Gotta Light?", [1] is the eighth episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks . It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 8" was first broadcast on June 25, 2017, on Showtime, and was watched by an audience of 246,000 viewers in the United States. [2] The episode is composed of lengthy, surreal scenes, [3] with very little dialogue throughout, and was largely shot in black and white. It received critical acclaim.
Gotta light?
— Woodsman (used as a promotional tagline for the episode)
The small town of Twin Peaks, Washington, has been shocked by the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the attempted murder of her friend Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine). FBI special agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has been sent to the town to investigate [4] and has discovered that the killer was Laura's father, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), who acted while possessed by a demonic entity—Killer BOB (Frank Silva). [5] At the end of the original series, Cooper was trapped in the Black Lodge, an extra-dimensional place, by BOB, who let out Cooper's doppelgänger to use him as his physical access to the world. [6] Twenty-five years after those events, Cooper manages to escape the Lodge through a portal between worlds; during this process, he was supposed to replace the doppelgänger, but instead he takes the place of a second doppelgänger (known as Dougie Jones), fabricated by the first as a patsy for the exchange. Cooper's doppelgänger, exhausted from the process, crashes his car and passes out, allowing the police to capture him; [7] at the station, he uses the information in his possession to blackmail Warden Murphy (James Morrison) into releasing him and his partner, Ray Monroe (George Griffith). [8]
Monroe and Cooper's doppelgänger are traveling in a car Murphy prepared for their escape. Using his phone, the doppelgänger spots several trackers on the car, which he sends to a nearby truck to confuse the wardens. When the doppelgänger asks him whether he wants to go to "the farm", Ray responds affirmatively; when asked about Darya's fate, the doppelgänger lies and tells Ray that she's still alive, awaiting their call. On their way through, Ray stops to urinate; the doppelgänger uses this occasion to attempt to extort the information he was seeking from him, and, when he refuses to cooperate, tries to kill him, but the gun provided by Warden Murphy has had the firing pin removed and does not work.
Ray then shoots the doppelgänger twice, but as he is preparing to deliver his final hit, ghostly men (the "woodsmen") appear and begin to tear at the doppelgänger's body, revealing an orb that emerges from his wound with Killer BOB's grinning face within. Other ghostly figures run circles around Ray in a ritualistic manner, prompting Ray to flee, terrified; on his drive away, he sends Phillip Jeffries a message that the doppelgänger may have survived the attack. In the Roadhouse, an MC (JR Starr) introduces "the" Nine Inch Nails; the group performs their song "She's Gone Away". Later, the doppelgänger awakens where he lay, seemingly fully restored.
In 1945 New Mexico, the first atomic bomb is detonated. Woodsmen circle around and inside a building labeled "convenience store" that appears burnt out. Floating in a void, the Experiment (Erica Eynon), a white humanoid form, spews a stream of primordial/ectoplasmic fluid; among various ova in the fluid one darker globule has BOB's visage. Red and gold imagery follows like burning embers, a fireworks radiation of atomic energy. In an imposing windowless building atop a craggy outcrop amid a purple sea, Señorita Dido (Joy Nash) sits next to a metallic-bell shaped machine, listening to a phonograph. When the machine begins to buzz loudly, the Fireman (Carel Struycken) enters, inspects the machine, switches the siren off, then moves upstairs to a room like a small vintage movie theatre with a film projector. The Fireman watches as images from the detonation, the convenience store, and the Experiment sprouting BOB play on the screen. He then begins to levitate, light and tendrils of energy emanating from his head like a forming galaxy, as stars are projected onscreen. Señorita Dido enters, and the Fireman emits a golden crystal/light orb containing Laura Palmer's face; the orb floats down to her. After kissing the orb, she sends it to Earth (which appears on the screen) through a golden tube contraption emanating from the whirring luminaire ceiling.
In 1956 New Mexico, an unearthly amphibi-insectoid creature hatches from an egg on the bomb's explosion site and crawls through the desert. A boy (Xolo Maridueña) and a girl (Tikaeni Faircrest) pass a gas station as he walks her home from a date; the girl finds a face-up penny and contemplates the good luck it might bring. Two woodsmen manifest and descend on a rural road, stopping a couple's (Tad Griffith and Leslie Berger) car. One woodsman (Robert Broski), cigarette in hand, repeatedly asks them, "Got a light?", which prompts them to flee, terrified. Meanwhile, the young couple reaches the girl's home; they share a brief first kiss before she walks in and he departs elated. The Woodsman enters radio station KPJK. He asks the receptionist (Tracy Phillips) for a "light", then crushes her skull, killing her instantly; overpowering the disc jockey (Cullen Douglas) and dislodging The Platters single "My Prayer", he repeatedly broadcasts the words: "This is the water and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within." During the broadcast, numerous listeners fall unconscious, including the young girl, through whose room's open window the creature enters and climbs down her throat. The woodsman kills the disc jockey with another one-handed skull crush and leaves. As he walks into the desert, the neighing of a horse can be heard.
"Part 8", like the rest of the limited series, was written by Mark Frost and David Lynch. [9] Of the writing of this episode, Frost said:
The idea, obviously—or, well, not obviously—was that we'd never done anything close to what you might describe as a "Twin Peaks" origin story, [showing] where this pervasive sense of darkness and evil had come from. On the page, we wrote it in great detail. I think it was maybe 12, 15 pages. But as we were putting down the descriptions, I knew David was going to take that as the blueprint for something extraordinary. He ran with it and elevated it to a whole other level [...] the atomic explosion was probably half a page as written, but I knew that, in David's hands, it could run as long as 10 or 12 minutes, and it would be riveting. It was certainly a narrative departure from what we had done before. There was no question about that. But it needed to stand apart, and it needed to blow your mind. So mission accomplished. [10]
In his autobiography Room to Dream, Lynch called the insectoid creature a "frog-moth," and said the idea for it came from his travel in Europe with Jack Fisk during the mid-1960s:
[T]he frog-moth [...] came from Yugoslavia. When Jack and I were in Europe, we caught the Orient Express in Athens to take us back to Paris, so we're going up through Yugoslavia and it's really, really dark. At a certain point the train came to a stop and there was no station but we could see people getting off the train. [...] When I got off the train I stepped into this soft dust that was like eight inches deep and it was blowing, and out of the earth these huge moths, like frogs, were leaping up, and they'd fly and flip and go back down again. So that was the frog-moth—things just sort of show up in the world of "Twin Peaks." [11]
On May 9, 2018, a page from the episode's script was shown in a documentary about Dean Hurley, the series' sound designer. [12] The page (numbered 195) translates on-screen to the woodsman breaking inside the radio station: differently from the final cut, the spelling of the episode's titular line was "Got a light?" and the woodsman was supposed to "speak disturbing, atonal word-like mechanical sounds into the mic, going out over the air in a strange monotone", part of which composed the mantra that was performed in the final episode. The page does not resemble the script the cast members received. [13]
"Part 8" was directed by Lynch, who had also directed the rest of the limited series and six episodes of the original series—the "Pilot", "Episode 2", "Episode 8", "Episode 9", "Episode 14" and "Episode 29". [14] The scenes inside the Fireman's house were filmed inside the Tower Theatre in Los Angeles, a location Lynch had used in Mulholland Drive . On set, Lynch showed Joy Nash how to hold the Laura Palmer orb, kissing it and giving it "so much love" before letting it go; he also demonstrated to her how to walk through the theatre, with bouncing steps like a "little cherub." [15] The scenes at KPJK were filmed in a specially constructed set in New Mexico. Upon visiting the set for the first time, Lynch said that he had envisioned a simple set for one shot, but instead they had built an authentic radio station, which he joked could be on the air by the following week. [16]
Almost every episode of the 2017 Twin Peaks series features a live performance by a band at the Roadhouse. In this episode, American rock band Nine Inch Nails performed "She's Gone Away". Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor collaborated with Lynch on the soundtrack for Lost Highway , [17] and Lynch directed the video for the Nine Inch Nails song "Came Back Haunted". [18] Uniquely, the performance takes place during the episode, preceding the New Mexico scenes, rather than at its end. During the scene in which Monroe shoots Cooper's doppelgänger, a severely slowed-down recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is used. [19] The atomic bomb sequence is underscored by Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima . [20] Two original recordings were used in the course of the episode, during the scenes in the structure over the purple sea: "Slow '30s Room", a remixed excerpt of the seventh movement in Lynch and Dean Hurley's 2007 album The Air Is on Fire , and "The Fireman" by Angelo Badalamenti; both were eventually released on the September 2017 soundtrack album Twin Peaks: Limited Event Series Original Soundtrack . [21] The Platters' "My Prayer" is used in the final scene. [22] Coincidentally, one of the group's founding members is a singer named David Lynch. [23]
"Part 8" received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, the episode received a 100% rating with an average score of 8.67 out of 10 based on 23 reviews. The critical consensus reads, "'Part 8' adds yet another masterful chapter to Twin Peaks' return—and arguably one of the finest hours of creator David Lynch's incredible career." [24] Writing for IndieWire , Liz Shannon Miller gave the episode a "B", expressing disappointment at the "disturbingly retro" special effects in the opening sequence and calling the Trinity Nuclear Test sequence "beautiful nonsense", while calling the scenes with Señorita Dido and the Fireman "captivating". She called the episode "truly polarizing" and "one that challenges viewers to appreciate its beauty, even if we don't understand it. Wherever you land on it, there's one thing that can't be argued: You've never seen this before on television." [25]
The New York Times ' Noel Murray gave the episode a positive review, drawing favorable comparisons to the end sequence of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin , calling the episode "phenomenal". [22] In his recap for Entertainment Weekly , Jeff Jensen called Part 8 "a mesmerizing rush of pure-cut WTF." [20]
In her positive review of the episode, The A.V. Club's Emily L. Stephens gave the episode an "A", writing that she might not have been as impressed with it as a discrete experimental film but "both as a piece of Twin Peaks backstory and as an episode of television, 'The Return, Part 8' is as unexpected, as shocking, as thrilling as anything I've ever seen." [26] In a roundtable discussion on the website, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky described the episode as "one of the most artistically daring episodes in the history of American television." [27] Matt Zoller Seitz of Vulture declared "Part 8" as the best television episode of 2017, calling it "the single most impressive episode of television drama I've seen in... 20 years". [28]
The episode was nominated for several awards. Along with "Part 1" and "Part 15", the Art Directors Guild nominated it for the award for One-Hour Contemporary Single-Camera Series. [29] The Cinema Audio Society nominated it for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Movie or Mini-Series [30] and the Motion Picture Sound Editors nominated it for a Golden Reel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing. [31]
For the 70th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, the episode was nominated in the Limited Series categories for Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, Outstanding Sound Editing, and Outstanding Sound Mixing. [32]
Twin Peaks is an American mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. The show returned in 2017 for a third season on Showtime.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper is a fictional character who is the protagonist of the ABC and Showtime television series Twin Peaks, and plays a supporting role in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. He is portrayed in all his appearances by Kyle MacLachlan.
Laura Palmer is a fictional character in the Twin Peaks franchise and the primary focus of the series. She is portrayed by Sheryl Lee and was created by the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost. She first appears in the ABC original series Twin Peaks. A high school student whose death is the catalyst for the events of the series, Palmer is the protagonist in Lynch's prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), which depicts the final week of her life leading up to her murder. Laura also appears in the novels, Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and a variety of merchandise based on the series.
Bob is a fictional character in the ABC television series Twin Peaks, played by Frank Silva. He is an interdimensional entity who feeds on pain and sorrow. An inhabiting spirit, he possesses human beings and then commits acts of rape and murder in order to feast on the suffering of his victims. In the film Fire Walk With Me, this suffering is called "garmonbozia" and can manifest in the form of creamed corn.
Audrey Horne is a fictional character from the ABC television series Twin Peaks, played by Sherilyn Fenn. The character was created by David Lynch. She was introduced in the pilot. The daughter of Ben and Sylvia Horne, sister of Johnny Horne, her storylines focused on her infatuation with the series protagonist Dale Cooper, infiltrating the brothel/casino One Eyed Jacks and becoming an activist through civil disobedience.
Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson is a fictional character in the Twin Peaks franchise. She was created by the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost and portrayed by Sheryl Lee. Introduced in the fourth episode of the first season, Maddy is the older cousin of Laura Palmer who comes to Twin Peaks to help her aunt and uncle cope with the death of their daughter. Over the course of the series, Maddy forms a close friendship with Donna Hayward and James Hurley, Laura's closest friends, and assists them in their investigation into her death. Originally, she was not intended to be a part of the series but was created by David Lynch so that Lee could have a larger role in the series.
The Giant is a character from the television series Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. He is played by Carel Struycken.
FBI Special AgentPhillip Jeffries is a fictional character in the Twin Peaks franchise. He was created by series creator David Lynch and portrayed by David Bowie and voiced and dubbed by Nathan Frizzell in Twin Peaks: The Return. He first appeared in the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces, which extended his role from the film, and returns in the 2017 revival series.
The pilot episode, also known as "Northwest Passage", of the mystery television series Twin Peaks premiered on the ABC Network on Sunday, April 8, 1990. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, and directed by Lynch. The pilot follows the characters of Dale Cooper and Harry S. Truman as they investigate the death of popular high school student Laura Palmer; Cooper believes the murder has connections to a murder case that occurred a year earlier. In addition to setting the tone for the show, the episode sets up several character and story arcs and marked the appearance of several recurring characters. The episode received a strong Nielsen household rating compared to other season one episodes, and was well received by fans and critics alike. The original title for the series was Northwest Passage, but this was later changed.
"Episode 29", also known as "Beyond Life and Death", is the twenty-second and final episode of the second season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. Episode 29 served as the final episode of Twin Peaks for over 25 years, until Twin Peaks: The Return was aired in 2017. Upon its original airing in 1991, the episode was paired with episode 28 to form the second hour of what was then billed as a two-part series finale. The episode was written by the series co-creator Mark Frost, producer Harley Peyton and regular writer Robert Engels and was directed by series co-creator David Lynch, who rewrote parts of the script. It features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Richard Beymer and Kenneth Welsh; and guest stars Frank Silva as Killer Bob, Michael J. Anderson as The Man from Another Place, Carel Struycken as The Giant, and Heather Graham as Annie Blackburn.
"Episode 2", also known as "Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer", is the third episode of the first season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. The episode was written by series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, and directed by Lynch. It features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Ray Wise and Richard Beymer; and introduces Michael J. Anderson as The Man from Another Place, Miguel Ferrer as Albert Rosenfield and David Patrick Kelly as Jerry Horne.
"Episode 14", also known as "Lonely Souls", is the seventh episode of the second season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. The episode was written by series co-creator Mark Frost and directed by series co-creator David Lynch. It features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Ray Wise and Richard Beymer; and guest stars Frank Silva (uncredited) as Killer BOB, Hank Worden as The Waiter, Julee Cruise as Singer, and David Lynch as Gordon Cole.
"Episode 5", also known as "Cooper's Dreams", is the sixth episode of the first season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. The episode was written by series co-creator Mark Frost and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter. "Episode 5" features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean and Richard Beymer, with guest appearances by Chris Mulkey and David Patrick Kelly.
"Episode 7", also known as "The Last Evening", is the eighth and final episode of the first season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. Series co-creator Mark Frost wrote and directed the episode. It features series regulars Kyle MacLachlan, Piper Laurie and Eric Da Re, with guest appearances by Chris Mulkey and Walter Olkewicz.
The third season of Twin Peaks, also known as Twin Peaks: The Return and Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series, consists of 18 episodes and premiered on Showtime on May 21, 2017. Developed and written by creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, with Lynch directing, the season is a continuation of the 1990–1991 ABC series and its 1992 theatrical prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. An ensemble of returning and new cast members appear, led by original star Kyle MacLachlan.
"Part 1", also known as "My Log Has a Message for You", is the first episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 1" was first broadcast on Showtime along with Part 2 on May 21, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 506,000 viewers in the United States. In addition, the two episodes were shown as a feature at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where they received a standing ovation. The episode received critical acclaim.
"Part 18", also known as "What Is Your Name?", is the eightteenth and final episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks, and the finale of the show's revival. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 18" was first broadcast on Showtime, along with Part 17, on September 3, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 240,000 viewers in the United States. The episode received critical acclaim.
"Part 2", also known as "The Stars Turn and a Time Presents Itself", is the second episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 2" was first broadcast on Showtime, along with Part 1, on May 21, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 506,000 viewers in the United States. In addition, the two episodes were shown as a feature at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where they received a standing ovation. The episode received critical acclaim.
"Part 17", also known as "The Past Dictates the Future", is the seventeenth episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. It was written by series creator Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 17" was first broadcast on Showtime, along with Part 18, on September 3, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 254,000 viewers in the United States. It received widespread critical acclaim.
"Part 3", also known as "Call for Help", is the third episode of the third season of the American mystery television series Twin Peaks. It was written by series creator Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan. "Part 3" was first broadcast on Showtime's streaming service Showtime Anytime, along with Part 4, on May 21, 2017, immediately after the broadcast of the double premiere; it was eventually broadcast on Showtime on May 28, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 195,000 viewers in the United States. It received mainly positive reviews.