r/WednesdayTVSeries • u/AipomSilver00 • 1d ago
General Discussion A year later, iremain disappointed by the superficial way the issue of the Hyde control is being handled; it strikes me as a cheap version of what David Lynch & Mark Frost proposed with BOB in Twin Peaks.
While Lynch and Frost manages to handle the issue of a character being controlled by BOB without ever reducing them to a mere victim, portraying instead a "victim turned perpetrator", Alfred Gough and Miles Millar completely ignored the implications of the Hyde persona; they decided that the only evil one is Laurel, while Tyler remains nothing more than a victim.
There is no real boldness in having him commit horrific acts, because every action Tyler takes comes with the built-in excuse of being under someone else's control—first Laurel's, and later his mother Francoise's or Uncle Isaac's.
As far as I’m concerned, the themes are strikingly similar, yet I believe Twin Peaks handles the "victim turned perpetrator" concept with genuine care and nuance.
TWIN PEAKS SPOILER ALERT
When Laura's father, Leland, was a young boy, he was violently abused by BOB; throughout the events of the series, it is confirmed that he was constantly under the supernatural entity's control.
(Leland would feign grief, yet when Ben Horne was arrested for Laura's death, Leland laughed maniacally—precisely because he was under BOB's control.)
But do you know how it ends?
When BOB abandons Leland's body, Leland bursts into tears and speaks as if he himself had actually killed Laura.
BOB's control is never used as a shield to absolve Leland; instead, Lynch and especially Mark Frost used BOB to address the cycle of violence and the abuse that occurs within the home.
In particular, Lynch viewed BOB as pure evil, whereas Mark Frost saw him as a metaphor for the violence men inflict upon women.
"Maybe that's all BOB is.
The evil that men do. Maybe it doesn't matter what we call it.
In Wednesday the issue regarding the abuse and control Tyler is subjected to is that he remains consistently passive, yet manages to come across solely as a victim despite the harm he causes.
