Great points.
"I think we're on the same page that this story has no resonance if Leland was somehow an innocent bystander, and really did tearfully repent on his deathbed after realizing what he'd done."
Yes (to the first part - we'll get to the second). Many people have pointed out that this is a very questionable way to deal with incest, but quite apart from that it just isn't as compelling as drama: a conflicted character is going to be more interesting than, as you put it, "an innocent bystander." That's just the nature of narrative.
"But FWWM seems to retcon Leland's death sequence, effectively arguing that when Leland was dying and appeared to only then remember killing Laura, that was all an act meant to fvck with Cooper."
I think Leland was being (somewhat) sincere in that he really, really represses his dark side (which is not necessarily "equivalent" to Bob but rather something that works in cahoots with Bob, much like evil Cooper in the finale). I don't believe the blank memory works the way he says it does, but I also think he's half-convinced himself that it does. Which seems to be the way repression often works - on some level, people know but they have all kind of mental tricks to keep themselves distracted from fully knowing. (Though I'm certainly not a psychiatrist, so I may be wrong about that.) I think you see this clearly when Leland is in the car with Laura and she starts asking him if he was home; he denies it, and when forced to admit it turns on her and says "Where are you?" with the subtext "Don't break the rules of our little game here...this isn't something we talk about." Such a sad moment.
But I don't think Leland is being malicious in the jail cell with Coop (even aside from the fact that, as written at the time, it really needs to be ret-conned to fit in with FWWM). I think he's clinging to that last fragment of delusion that got him through life, even as he has to admit to himself and them that he did, indeed, kill Laura.
"I would argue that most Lynch movies don't really work this way, and that the more surreal elements are instead usually straight psychodrama."
That's what I'm not sure about (especially with Lost Highway; Mulholland Drive works almost perfectly with the "dream/flashback" structure though increasingly I do wonder if Lynch was going for something that straightforward). Part of the problem with these readings is a slippery slope...if we start to leave out certain aspects at what point do we choose what to keep (i.e. if he doesn't really see the Mystery Man and his wife wasn't in pornography, how do we even know he really killed anybody at all?). What are the elements that belong to reality and what to illusion, if the whole thing occurs inside someone's head? There's also the corollary to this: if the works are psychodramatic allegories, do we even need to establish a separate "reality" from what happens onscreen? Isn't the reality that these fantastical occurences are pointing back to our own reality, rather than a character's? It's a complicated idea, so hopefully I'm not being too confusing in presenting it.
Anyway, I'd recommend Martha Nochimson's book David Lynch Swerves, which reads Lynch's second-stage works through the prism of quantum mechanics (which Lynch apparently has an amateur enthusiasm for) and the Vedic scriptures (which seem to form the bedrock of his spiritual beliefs). Though I don't agree with all of her interpretations (the Mulholland Drive one particularly doesn't gibe with the feeling I get from that movie), her reading of Inland Empire is by far the best I've seen. What I like about her and other similar readings is that they link the mythology and psychology so that they are really two sides of the same coin: a larger spiritual reality in which these specific stories play a part. It makes the mythological elements feel less like they are distracting from the human aspect and more like they are amplifying it (which is what good mythology should do anyway).
"But Twin Peaks is a strange beast, because it's one of maybe two major works (along with Dune) that Lynch didn't have full creative control over."
This is both what fascinates and frustrates me about the series. It's amazing to see these different, even contradictory impulses, play out against - and inform - one another. And it's very revealing that when Lynch took back the reigns, in the final episode, FWWM, and all the little additions he's made since then (the Log Lady intros, the Missing Pieces, Between Two Worlds) he managed to pull the story back in line with his vision while still respecting the previous material: his ret-cons almost always obey the logic of what came before.
"I'm curious to see how they continue the series, given that Lynch will be much more firmly in the drivers' seat with the new episodes."
He will - but he'll also be in his most full collaboration with Mark Frost since, arguably, the pilot. I am VERY curious to see how they make room for their differing takes on the mythology. And I actually like much of Frost's mythos quite a bit (the only area where I feel he majorly missteps is in emphasizing Leland's "possession"). The whole fear vs. love thing I think is a very compelling lens through which to view the Twin Peaks saga and I'd bet that was Frost (though it's certainly in accord with Lynch's previous works and overall philosophy). The big difference, and this is something Nochimson also emphasized in her first book, The Passion of David Lynch, is that Frost tends to view the supernatural as "out-there" and threatening, with rationality and an effective counterpoint while Lynch seems to embrace and want to go into the darkness (which he still recognizes as dangerous) as has more distrust of rationality. Considering how interesting it is to parse out and reconcile what the two brought to the original Twin Peaks, it's going to be even more so in this case.
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