This works a lot better in the context of the show than as a standalone clip. The humor in this episode is pure Zucker Brothers circa Naked Gun 22 1/2 (my favorite of their films) HILARIOUS mixed with Lynch's own attempts at humor like this one, which have NEVER worked.. I dunno. Whatever it is, it's working for me and it's fucking beautiful.

Or in another way, it kind of works like Bob Odenkirk's commercials in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. They're silly and it's Bob doing his Mr. Show commercial thing, but it doesn't translate as funny in the same way, and without any narrative the "commercials", which they release as promotional clips, are always contrived and over-the-top, but in the Breaking Bad universe they make sense. Now David Lynch's universe...

It is good, but only if you're a viewer of exquisite taste and discernment.

I'm just saying that this is the way Lynch's world works. This is a commercial that would air during Invitation to Love or some other weird mini-show, and not meant for consumption anywhere outside of that world. And in a world populated by ubiquitous rotary landline phones and smartphones, dot matrix printers and 3D ones that can print people, it fits in there somehow, kinda like gazorpazorpfuckingfield.

It's better in context, but still great. Amazing to see Nadine looking in.

When I submitted this, I was assuming you're all watching. Do what you have to do.

"The Return" took some time to draw me in, but now I feel like my expectations have been exceeded. Lynch plugs his WTF Eraserhead sensibility into a familiar structure that, as a fan of the old show, I can get my head around. This means that Lynch is taking me farther down that lost highway than I could ever go before, and it's... amazing. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I feel completely engaged. It's all just familiar enough.

Glad you're into it, JHM. I think you were still unsold on it back in the Wally Brando video.

Not that I'm keeping track, and not that EVERYONE MUST LOVE THIS, but I've been digging The Return so much that I would want everyone to give it a fair shake and not be turned off by its disjointedness and, as Louddetective says below, literal paint drying.

I was only one episode in at the time. Yeah, like I said, it took some time to draw me in.

By the way, did everybody get the joke with Wally Brando? He's clearly the son of Richard Tremaine, the foppish clerk who banged Lucy on a display bed in Horne's Department store, and not Andy.

I'm going to trust you all that this is better in context and give it a shot soon, but having not seen any of it yet this looks like something left on the cutting room floor from the second half of season 2. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Zircon, at least in my opinion, nothing in the Return has even come close to the horrible lame crap in season 2. This clip definitely works better with the context of seeing Jacoby in the last few episodes and not having any idea why the hell he's doing what he's doing; with just the payoff, here, I can see why it wouldn't be great.

Yeah Lynch is good at striking a balance between opposing forces, like the pretty picket fences and fresh cut grass that turns into gross bugs and lost ears, or populating a show with quirky characters to make the trifecta of incest rape and murder a little easier on the stomach. I was worried that a move from network TV to Showtime would make the show darker, and it is, but that just makes the humor that much funnier, even if it literally feels like you're watching paint drying at times.

Yeah, I feel you on all of this. To be honest, it's so totally bonkers to be watching something where you have absolutely no idea what is going to happen next that I don't even really mind the slowness of it (although, I do look forward to Coop's full recovery). It's so utterly outside the formula of every other piece of television I've seen in a million years that I can't get enough of it.

This is every David Lynch movie I've ever had a hard time sitting through, but the familiarity of the settings and characters makes it a lot more accessible. He's not meeting me halfway, but he doesn't have to. He's taking me with him this time. It's intoxicating.

That's right, Lynch does literally show us paint drying, on those shovels. If that's a deliberate reference to the expression, it's a great joke!

JHM, you're dead right. I liked Mulholland Drive, and parts of Lost Highway were cool but it was pretty hard to keep track of, but I feel like The Return takes all of the elements of those I liked best and synthesized it with, like you said, characters and situations I'm already invested in. I almost definitely would not have been that into the Purple Room sequence in episode 3 if it were in some movie, but it having the connection to TP made it totally captivating to me.