First time Twin Peaks watcher. I was a ways into the post-Lynch episodes and staring at my monitor almost saying out loud, "Just cut this entire plotline". I skipped ahead to episode 21 and immediately was sad that I missed what had happened because even without David Lynch directing (I know he didn't direct much of the show regardless) I felt that the show had definitely recovered and felt like Twin Peaks again.
So I went back and started about halfway through Mister Cooper's edited episode 13. I definitely noted that I wasn't actively angry at the show anymore but it still wasn't peak Peaks.
Episode 14 felt a little slow with all the random citizens having so much plot to do but I started getting back into it and the random plotlines did start to feel a little meatier than soap opera writing. I still hate Amnesia Nadine being a subplot at all, was hoping she'd be gone, but only one short scene so not too bad. I also think that you could just cut the entire James storyline and keep it to shots of him riding his bike and sending the letter. The Josie plot coming to a head felt like the first BIG Twin Peaks is back moment.
Ep 15 The show feels back on track. Like a lesser episode from the peak Lynch Frost days. Still not a fan of Nadine but they're mercifully short scenes. This version of the show really preserves the depressive post ep 9 feeling without letting it slip into meaningless filler. Which is why I think I prefer having an edited down s2 second half instead of a brutal cutting of ep 9 to 22 with as few scenes as possible. Cooper is settling in as a local so cutting this more relaxed arc out completely would probably mess with the overall feeling of the show.
Ep 19 Overall it's been pretty seamless. What's really interesting is that the way Leo and Windom Earle only have three scenes together in this version makes you imagine what went on between them that whole stretch. The way Leo tells the Major to save Shelley becomes another tension tool pointed at the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant. And the way it's edited makes it seem like Earle is just talking to Leo's motionless corpse which makes Earle quite threatening and mad.
So here at the end I guess I'd say that I still hate Nadine's whole amnesia storyline and you could probably edit it out (I haven't watched Return though so I could be wrong and it gets referenced a lot), but that's about it as far as the bad stuff goes. One thing to note is that Nadine has always been mentally unstable so even if you cut the entire amnesia arc you still understand her character perfectly. The season overall hits a lull after episode 9 but this edit has made it feel like a natural downbeat part of the story instead of filler.
Watched the final unedited episode of season 2. The single edit (other than cutting Nadine's amnesia) I would suggest is to take out the shot of Leo struggling with the string in his mouth. Although not explicit, I had the sense from the last time Windom Earle talked to him that he was already dead and just slumped against the wall. So editing this out of the final episode would be good. As is you don't have context in this edit for what is happening with the string, so just cutting it would work the best.
