Sunday Mix Tape Numer 412

At the very least, I’m keeping busy. Last week was another when I was out most nights. Yes, this leaves little time for ye olde Swan Fungus, but at least I’m enjoying myself! If I was sitting on my couch night after night WOOSH-ing blog posts out into the ether it’d likely be because I had nothing better to do. I have things to do now! I do things! I swear!

Why are you all looking at me like that?

I saw IT on Friday night and I liked it. For me, watching the miniseries was a memorable childhood experience. Mostly because I was subject to it at a way-too-young age by older kids and as a result I didn’t sleep for weeks. If I had any criticism of the remake it would be that maybe it relied to heavily on horror gags and jump scares. The music also felt a little off at times. Other than that? I enjoyed it! Last night a buddy had a film premier down the street so I attended that and went out for some celebratory drinks afterwards. Today was the fist day of the NFL season and I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Oh. Did you guys watch Twin Peaks: The Return? I was chatting about the finale with Podcast/Narrator Jack the other day and asked for his interpretation of the final scene(s). I don’t think he’ll mind my publishing his thoughts here so I’ll share ’em with you. If you haven’t watched The Return yet, don’t read the following paragraph.

SPOILER ALERT FOR TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN

“I think the last episode may not be about bringing an amnestic Laura home, but rather an amnestic Sarah. What does the Arm tree hint at earlier in the episode? That something we’re ABOUT TO see is actually ‘the story of the little girl who lived down the lane’? Slowly: a lane could be any street, though technically a lane is a ‘narrow way’, big enough for only one car, I’ve even read. The girl from Ep.8 who swallows that creature seemed to live in such a remote place, with a dirt road that feels like a fitting match for ‘down the lane’. If the girl is a young Sarah Palmer, the final episode can be read like this: in Odessa, Sarah lives at house #1516 (the 5 and 6 recall 1956, when the creature went in the girl), and the foreboding #6 electricity pole is in front. Carrie’s demeanor at the door with Cooper visibly changes when he says–not ‘Laura’–but ‘Sarah’. Perhaps she reacts as if a little of Sarah has woken up. Notice she’s much more dopey or loopy for the remainder of the episode. And in her house we next see the most obvious association with Sarah: a white horse, via a statuette on her mantel. This recalls not only the white horse Sarah has seen before (before BOB killed Maddy), but also ‘the horse is the white of the eye’ that the Woodsman chanted about in Ep.8 in The Return. And Carrie is wearing a chain with a horseshoe on it, so another Sarah/horse reference. A supplemental note about the mantel is that next to the horse appears to be a small globe, recalling the view of the Earth we had when the Laura orb was transported in Ep. 8. IF Carrie is Sarah–at least who we’ve been shown to be Sarah in The Return season anyway–then what can we conclude about Sarah? We’ve seen her kill someone with some malevolent supernatural power. If she’s been possessed by the Experiment-or-Judy-as-Sarah, how can we read the final sequence if she has possessed Laura and manufactured the facade Carrie over her? An optimistic reading would be that Laura is freed of the possession when Cooper asks what year it is and/or when she remembers Sarah yelling ‘Laura’, then she screams, and her consciousness (or the scream itself–note, it is the first time that Carrie vocalizes anything in front of the house outside of the car) causes the house’s evil presence to be extinguished (‘and dark within’ from the Woodsman comes to mind). A somewhat more pessimistic reading, though, is also visible: Laura doesn’t remember her mother calling her name—she actually HEARS it. In the house, upstairs. In the pilot episode, the exact call comes from Sarah in the house when she’s searching for Laura upstairs before her daughter’s body is found on the beach (the scene is also seen in slow motion at the start of the famous Cooper dream sequence a couple of episodes later). The Sarah scene originally occurred in the morning, though. In the final sequence, perhaps Laura emerges and screams as a primal reaction to the impossibility/falsity of an event (Sarah calling) that she somehow knows is out of place, let alone her mother actually being upstairs. Or that hearing her mother reminds Laura that, in the proper timeline, she’s possessed by evil. And so the house, a big BOX, that Cooper and Laura are STARING at, reacts. Either its sudden darkness is a signal of its evil being vanquished by Laura’s presence and/or voice (or a combination of Laura AND Cooper’s presence and/or voice)…or a signal of an unhappy ending: of the house going dark so it can manifest something to attack them. There’s not enough for a definitive reading. Name of My Theory: ‘WHAT THEORY?!?’ Anyway, I’m amused by a freed Laura willing the house’s evil (and the evil hold over Sarah in some timeline) to just suddenly extinguish. ; ) ”