Recently watched second season...the other night watched FWWM again, and felt an eerie chill at the "repetition" of the phrase 'It smells like somethings burning!' (the encounter with the one armed man at the traffic lights)

Not sure why i posted this, it just was eerie..

It's seems kind of apt that the signal for BOB's or MIKE's emergence would be something so mundane as the scent of burning motor oil.  Their names are so simplistic and can't really give an impression of their mystery.  Outwardly, they seem so normalized.  They live above a convenience store.  MIKE inhabits a man who sells shoes of all things.  BOB is terrifying but really does look like someone you could encouter in everyday life.  We never get to see MIKE's true form, so we can only assume the same for him.

I don't know if the "fire" referred to in the movie and series is so much a physical flame as it is the sense of something dreadful burning its way through worlds.  An actual fire plays more literally in Wild At Heart than it does here.

felt an eerie chill at the "repetition" of the phrase 'It smells like somethings burning!'

Definitely feel the same! And there are more repetitions around FWWM which are fascinating in this way or another.

Sometimes they work backwards, for instance I had long forgotten some details of the pilot (even though I had seen it a few times but there was no way I could watch it again for many years), but I knew the film pretty well. And when I finally got to watching the pilot it was a thrill to recognize the exact description of the FWWM Sparkwood & 21 scene in James's words to Donna!

Cypher, I agree with your remarks about BOB, Mike, convenience store, and engine oil, too being as mundane as can be. That all seems very coherent. And yes, the fire here is not very literal... not very impressive-looking, either. I mean, burning of the engine oil is not a great flame which has a power to destroy or cleanse the world. It's just plain stink, isn't it?

From what I recall, that line doesn't fit. What is so odd about smelling burnt engine oil in that situation?

I think Laura detects the scent before her father starts gunning the engine to drown out MIKE.  By the end of the scene she isn't certain if what she's just experienced is something truly sinister or a case of road rage.  Leland covers his tracks by admitting he was home.  You can see Laura just desperately hoping that what she's suspecting isn't true.

Fire Walk With Me does warp the series, but there are still those visual or aural cues that we recognize.  Hints of the series' soundtrack will briefly appear.  Visually, there's the mystery of the recipient of the second half of the necklace, the safety deposit key placed in the diary, the interior of Harold Smith's home, the stoplight, the flashlight beams in the night, Laura hysterically handling the dirt that will later form the shrine in the train car in the drug deal sequence, the appearance of the pale horse, the Fleshworld adverts, Julee Cruise's singing revealing the interior thoughts of one or more people in the Roadhouse, Laura's prom queen photo in the school and her livingroom, the whirring ceiling fan, the dark at the top of the stairs, music in the air, Waldo the bird as the sole witness to the crime--- all recognizable landmarks from the series that seem even darker here.