Lost in Twin Peaks rewatch patron podcast begins • True Detective season 3 viewing diary • Twin Peaks Unwrapped film and episode rankings • "Twin Peaks Cinema" and "Twin Peaks Reflections" patron podcasts begin • summer of Veronica Mars viewing diary, seasons 2 - 4 • Martha Nochimson's Television Rewired interview • Mad Men seasons 2 - 3 viewing diary • "Unseen" series begins, popular films from 2015 - 18 • "Seven American Generations"
Chapter 33: Paving a New Path (January - May 2019)
JANUARY
Preparing for 2019 on Patreon, although I'd simplify again in a month.
Keeping track of my ongoing activities with Patreon journals over a month
To my surprise, a new True Detective emerged in the depths of winter - so my viewing diary resumes to cover this Arkansas mystery
I introduce my Lost in Twin Peaks podcast to patrons with an episode on the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me
The two detectives begin to notice some odd details in the disappearance of two children, and we follow their investigation across three timelines
My last weekly Patreon update includes a new video intro for 2019
Nic Pizzolatto's directorial debut builds the show to a dramatic mid-season climax as suspicion settles on a few individuals
FEBRUARY
My most massively packed podcast episode ever, anchored by an interview with the Wrapped in Plastic editor, a guide to the past ten years of video essays, full reviews of two Richard Linklater films, a dozen or so film capsules, #100 - 90 of my favorite movies, and jumping into politics at the start of 2019
Perhaps the best episode of the season begins with explosive action and ends with an emotional conversation
Unlike past episode sixes, this season propels the plot forward - all the way to the pink rooms...
Moving toward its finale with muted maturity, this episode reveals the act that haunted its heroes for decades
The show's comeback season concludes in mellow fashion, ending not so much with a bang or whimper as with a sigh
MARCH
In the midst of a new U.S./Venezuela crisis, I review a once-prominent, now all-but-invisible documentary about the 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez
In which the podcast hosts, another guest, and I determine the auteur's top film through "March Madness"-style brackets (seriously!); as they say, you won't believe what happens next...
After a couple years of making vague promises, I lay out the clear steps needed to reach new Twin Peaks videos and keep updating the progress of these projects
APRIL
In which Thorne and I come together for one more follow-up podcast, exploring his theory of season 3 shaped by the protagonist's perception
MAY
In my last completely random "Twin Peaks Reflections" for the Patreon podcast, I gather books on my favorite show and its creator
Chapter 34: Neptune's Orbit (June - September 2019)
JUNE
With new episodes looming in late July, I decided to resume my coverage of the teen mystery show and shared over a hundred screenshots to kick off
Every one of my Veronica Mars episode reviews gathered into a directory that would continue to grow through the early summer
Everything has calmed down for Veronica, if not so much Neptune as a whole...until a bus ride back from a school trip
Veronica is surrounded by memories of a recent disaster, even as she begins to suspect the official stories and wonder if anything in Neptune really happens by accident
Spying on a stepmom for a classmate, Veronica uncovers a much more sprawling mystery
A light episode finds Veronica working for a jealous fiancee, forcing her to confront her own trust issues
Veronica visits a local TV psychic to help a friend and reveal (she thinks) a fraud
Dumping a couple major threads of the season, the episode veers in a radically new direction by resurrecting (sort of) an old character
A small mystery expands into a major revelation as Veronica becomes an undercover babysitter
An episode featuring a pirate radio mystery and a shocking kidnapping may be most memorable for introducing the Fitzpatrick gang, Neptune’s Irish hoodlums seemingly transplanted from another time and place
Mothers and babies abound as Veronica looks into her own family's past and discovers a friend's future
Christmas in Neptune brings jury duty, missing tapes, and a tragic loss before 2005 gives way to 2006
Exactly halfway through the season, the series springs a high-stakes kidnapping plot that dramatically changes the lives of several characters
Veronica bugs both a church and a nightclub to help her friends Wallace and Weevil
The school carnival takes over an episode as Veronica traces stolen cash through a series of suspects
How I’ll cover Twin Peaks on my main podcast: comparing it to various films and connecting a particular chapter to different locations, characters, story threads, and a related season 3 episode/Lynch film/Peaks spin-off month to month
While Veronica navigates pizza robberies and high school blackmail, Keith defends a celebrity suspect
As Veronica chases a runaway bride, Logan finds the most ruthless way to intimidate a fake witness
Veronica tours a college and encounters a surprise returning character and a couple very 00s surprise guest stars
Weaving together several down-to-earth stories as it builds to one of the biggest moments in a season that balances personal drama with sprawling social intrigue
In a dark visual twist on the Magic School Bus, Veronica revisits her dead classmates in dreams
A simple search for the hit-and-run killer of a dog exposes gang warfare, a multimillion dollar heist, and possibly the perpetrator of a shocking mass murder
JULY
Approaching the end of her high school years, Veronica is kept busy by the janitor's violent breakdown and an unexpected reconciliation at her "alterna-prom"
With a shocking expose of a public official and the verdict for Lilly’s killer, season 2 races toward its conclusion
Graduating from high school in the season finale, Veronica dreams of a pleasant, mild alternate reality before being plunged into the darkest mystery resolution of the whole show
Veronica heads off to college while her father gets embroiled in a noir-ish double cross
Veronica investigates a sorority, her father treks through the desert, and her friends re-enact the infamous Prisoner sociology experiment
Weevil tries his hand at Mars Investigstions while Veronica helps a football star (played by Armie Hammer as a proto-Winklevoss)
While Veronica is unexpectedly hired to exculpate a fraternity, Logan runs into trouble with a long-lost brother
Robbed at a Halloween party, Veronica must decide if she trusts Weevil - even while helping him to clear his name
The Neptune Grand hosts several romantic liaisons that don't involve but do affect Veronica - both personally and professionally
Veronica feels betrayed by her father, boyfriend, and mentor while trying to find a girl's suspiciously missing partner and provide an alibi for a fellow student in police custody
The series gets its second celebrity heiress stunt casting; guess who plays the kidnapped Hearst College namesake heiress with a notorious seventies history?
On the night of a big party, Veronica discovers and confronts Hearst College's serial rapist
An animal-rights subplot distracts Veronica while a recent high-profile death at the school reveals itself as the new ongoing murder mystery
As Veronica helps a classmate reconnect with a lost love, the show both toys with and subverts tropes about sex work
Veronica plunges into the abortion debate with a new case; meanwhile, long before Frozen, a Kristen Bell character is haunted by a winter wonderland that damages her relationships
With one killer still at large, Veronica has to investigate the death of another school official; meanwhile Logan is forced to make a pint-size friend
A two-episode arc ends as one death is resolved, before one of the original characters departs in a sudden, shocking manner
Veronica solves her last ongoing investigation of the original series...and then she solves it again
The show tackles prowar jingoism and Islamophobia in one of its most awkward attempts at political commentary
Paul Rudd guest stars as a washed-up indie musician from the nineties, whom Veronica and Piz must team up to help
Veronica is asked to reunite a father and his former child soldier son, separated by war in Uganda
While trying to vindicate Weevil after unfair accusations, Veronica finds herself exposed in a scandalous viral video
Thrust by personal humiliation back into the Kane household, a secret society, and her father's political scandal, Veronica reaches the end of the original series - and I step back to see the big picture of the show
Years after fleeing Neptune, Veronica returns to help a friend, attend a reunion, and - of course - solve a murder
Now in her thirties and a full-time private eye, Veronica is drawn into the aftermath of a bombing by a girl who reminds her of herself
Several investigations into the Sea Sprite bomb are launched simultaneously, with a variety of motives
The episode begins with a simple mugging and ends with a massive explosion; Veronica nabs the bomber earlier than expected...or does she?
With Leo back in town for the FBI, Veronica embarks on a playful stakeout and reacquaints herself with a number of familiar faces
A logger is abducted by aliens in my first "Twin Peaks cinema" selection, alongside some sketches of Missing Pieces-related phenomena and preview of an author interview
Two very different suspects emerge to the Mars family's discomfort; one befriends Veronica while the other befriends Keith
The identity of the bomber is revealed (sort of) but not yet to Veronica, who struggles with relationship issues
AUGUST
Encircling a prime suspect in the woods, Veronica and Keith become targets themselves
The bomb plot resolves, as does Veronica's romantic quandary, but the last half of the season finale heads in an unexpected direction
Beginning one of my big steps toward new Journey videos earlier than expected, I radically remake the site behind the scenes
After our conversation five years earlier, I return to interview one of my favorite Lynch scholars in podcast form, exploring season three and other televisual topics
The Unwrapped podcast gang continues its ranking with the first season as we judge some very close contests between great episodes
I decide to organize all the series I've been reviewing over the past decade, as the new site premiere approaches
Three seasons of the neo-noir HBO sensation, ranging from Louisiana to California to Arkansas, are gathered in one spot
Thorton Wilder's homey little New England village is pondered in relation to Twin Peaks, while Laura Palmer is considered alongside John Merrick
The surrealist British spy classic, which I covered in 2015, earns its illustrated directory
Following my first season coverage of the meth melodrama in 2018, the time comes to line 'em up with room for more to come
A diary I stand on the precipice of renewing, Mad Men's first season gets a page that will soon see ongoing updates
The nineties Fox hit, which I obsessed with at nine but didn't begin watching until my thirties, is organized here - just a first season thus far
Finally, the last of my 2018 season one (so far) episode guides, to the acclaimed zeros cops-and-drug-dealers series, is linked in its own post
SEPTEMBER
Plugging one last gap before I re-launch, this time for my 2010 microseries - twelve films, three each from different sixties national cinemas
Chapter 35: Dawn of a New Frontier (September 2019 - March 2020)
And with that, after months of work, my new site design is unveiled; the blog format is replaced by dedicated pages for various topics, approaches, and other miscellany briefly described here
The series shifts from Thanksgiving 1960 to Valentine's Day 1962 as a new season kicks off
Charting my course for at least three months (six, as it turned out) with viewing diaries, podcasts, and reviews carrying the load on Mondays and Wednesdays
Pete's family tragedy yields both a moral crisis and a business opportunity
A new series - reviewing one of the most popular films of a given year that I haven't seen before - starts with the Marvel blockbuster that doubles as sociopolitical phenomenon
Brutally cutting comedian Jimmy Barrett and his seductive wife Bobbie present problems for Don, and a dinner with them and Betty only complicates the matter
My third "Twin Peaks Cinema" entry centers a film from the Twin Peaks era with a very Lynchian interest in doubles; meanwhile I round up the last batch of eleven from my "Favorites" series
As the title suggests, this episode employs a clever format spanning three weeks and three characters' ongoing stories
OCTOBER
For the month marked by Halloween, I focus on horror films and spooky thrillers, starting with this Norwegian tale of sixteenth-century witch trials
Don weathers a crisis with Bobbie while Peggy flashes back to her own unresolved crisis from the end of last season
Before it became a twenty-first century cinematic masterpiece, Mulholland Drive was an abandoned nineties TV pilot, now only available via fuzzy 4:3 VHS dubs on YouTube - what are the differences?
In one of the series' most schematically themed episodes, Peggy struggles as the only woman in her position at Sterling Cooper
This biopic of the Frankenstein author spurred thoughts about the Romantic vs. Enlightenment eras as well as the nature of the biopic genre
Every invitation backfires as Don climbs socially and Jimmy begins to drive a wedge between the Drapers
I finally watch one of the decade's masterpieces, inspiring one of my longest "Unseen" reviews to dissect the style, theme, and historic context of Jordan Peele's racially-charged horror film
After seeding doubts in person, Jimmy's Utz ad provides the final push Betty needs to confront Don and set off a separation
My Halloween run of reviews closes with this classic of German Expressionism, whose connections to David Lynch's storytelling structures I find particularly fascinating
NOVEMBER
Duck's drinking habit finally takes him down; meanwhile, the rest of the office grieves Marilyn Monroe
My Favorites reading series concludes with a French New Wave classic, as I also ask: what in the world do Fellini's Roman escapade and Lynch's TV prequel have in common?
Family issues run through this episode as sixties America begins to shake off the order and obligations of the fifties
This musical stirs memories of a moment already passed - personally (my move from California) and politically (the shock of Trump's election)
One of my favorite episodes of Mad Men takes a Polanski/Fowleresque turn as Don abandons a business trip to fall in with a strange family in southern California
With special guests who conducted a deep dive into Mark Frost's work, we dig into the only Peaks episode that Frost directed
Don visits an old friend in California who reminds him of his early Draper days, and helps him to re-consider his future
A Lynch film steps into the "Twin Peaks Cinema" slot; how do its double characters, its plot mechanics (pun intended), and its mid-nineties Lynch style connect to or contrast with the original series, prequel, and follow-up?
DECEMBER
The Cuban Missile Crisis none-too-subtly pairs with the Drapers' marital (and maternal) moment of truth
Inside a preteen girl's mind, her personified emotions navigate the collapse of her familiar childhood frames of reference - and how does this relate to the world of 2015?
A new season begins on a minor key as Don and Sal spend a revealing night in Baltimore
A fan of the much-maligned second season subplots joins us to rank twenty-two episodes in one of my most fun Unwrapped guest appearances
Betty's father slips further into cognitive decline and Don must make a decision
Bursting at the seams with era-defining collages and generational headshots, I illustrate a guide to which generation is which, when their milestones unfolded, and how they experienced various moments in living American history
Larger images and attributions fill a differently-ordered line-up of the illustrations for my big generational post
Peggy gets stoned at the office while Roger holds a party at a country club
At year's/decade's end, I unveil the full line-up for my new Unseen series, which will look even further back (over a century)
Eugene's reminiscences - of World War I and more - form a requiem
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