TV Obsessive
Red Letter Media
Johnny: For a YouTube channel with 1.25 million subscribers, Red Letter Media still manages to live on the fringes of mainstream popularity. While it is essentially a comedy channel where Mike Stoklasa, Jay Bauman, Rich Evans, and an assortment of guests discuss movies and TV while trying to make each other laugh, it’s genuinely a legitimate place for insightful critique and commentary (Stoklasa and Bauman are exceptional editors, and have made a few—poorly received, by their own admission—feature films).
While the channel is most known for the show Best of the Worst, where the guys watch awful B movies and then have lengthy roundtable discussions about them (mixing silly jokes with their knowledge of the movie making process), they also have their Siskel & Ebert style movie review show Half in the Bag, and the more understated Re:View, where two of them sit down in a sparse set and do deep dives into projects they hold a special affinity for.
Ever since Twin Peaks: The Return ended, fans of the channel (myself included) have pestered Bauman on Twitter to do a Re:View with fellow RLM regular Josh Davies. Bauman and Davies are big fans of David Lynch and have done episodes on Eraserhead and Fire Walk With Me in the past. Now, three years later, they’ve finally decided to sit down and unpack the epic season/18 hour movie.
This first entry (it’s part one of—I have to assume—many) dives right in, and they drift from one topic to another, frequently addressing things they will need to circle back to down the line. The Return is dense, and packed with so many moving parts, but their love of Lynch and the series shines through.
They touch on the plot, and how it feels like the town of Twin Peaks doesn’t factor in much in the beginning, and how that is by design. It’s all about Cooper’s odyssey back to Twin Peaks. The show is the journey.
I appreciated how they see the humanity in characters like Doris Truman, who initially comes off like a cartoonish nagging wife, until you understand that she’s a woman dealing with severe trauma. Or how Janey-E was at her wits end long before “Dougie” was returned to her from the casino. Both characters are an example of not judging a person based on first impressions. We’re all going through something in this world, and compassion and empathy are often in short supply.
They address the nostalgia of it all, and how the show addresses the passage of time, and how things change, and the many ways people get “stuck” where they are. It’s a classic dissection from true fans of the series, and well worth your time.
Red Letter Media is far and away my favorite YouTube channel, and they have been creating content for over a decade now, and its all worth your time. I often try to convert people into RLM fans, and struggle to find that one special bit of content that will create new fans of theirs. If this is your gateway to the magic that is Red Letter Media, then I’ve done my part.
Those are our recommendations this week! What are yours? Let us know in the comments! And don’t forget to head over and see what We’re Just Playing this week!
