In the early 1990’s, David Lynch and Mark Frost gave Twin Peaks to the world and it became a landmark television series. It was weird and proud of that. It was violent and confusing at times, but it was absolutely unforgettable. After 25 years off the air, the series has been brought back to life by Showtime. Lynch and Frost have been given full reign to do what they want with their story and what we saw last night was the beginning of an 18-hour saga that will hopefully tie a nice bow on the show. Whether that means that everything will be resolved is another story – this is David Lynch, after all. For good and bad, the first two parts of Twin Peaks: The Return are fully Lynch and Twin Peaks. Note: there will be spoilers throughout.
1. Things Don’t Always Have To Change and That’s Good
Twin Peaks: The Return kept its classic theme music composed by Angelo Badalamenti and that’s just the beginning of what feels familiar. Along with that beautiful music we get to see Lucy, Andy and Hawk, all very unchanged, as is Margaret and her log. At the end of the episode, we even get to see Shelly and James still kind of the same despite being older. Ben and Jerry Horne are still kooky brothers with too much money and time on their hands and Dr. Jacoby, despite living in the woods now, is still just as wacky. Twin Peaks itself, the little bit we get to see, doesn’t look much changed either. This is what small towns are like. The people who live there their whole lives don’t live in the past, but things tend to not change too much on a surface level. Beginning things like this helped ease viewers into this in a nice way because honestly, this isn’t the place to start this show. The third season is usually not the place to start any show so this isn’t a criticism. I appreciated getting to see these familiar faces again.
2. BOB + Cooper = BOOP
After 25 years, we know what happened to Dale Cooper after that second season cliffhanger. Dale Cooper never escaped the Black Lodge and has been in there for 25 years. Killer Bob took over Coop’s body and has become a violent drifter/con man/hitman who dresses like Michael Madsen. He’s got a crew that he obviously doesn’t trust and he’s trying to get his ducks in a row before he’s pulled back into the Black Lodge. This time is coming fast but he claims to have a plan. What’s really interesting is that Dale Cooper hasn’t been seen since the finale. According to Hawk, he went missing and no one knows what’s happened to him. He’s an F.B.I. agent so I can see why this is a really weird place to take it. No one can find an agent that was involved in a case like this? However, I can say without a doubt that I would not have wanted to sit through a show where Bob was trying to fit in within Twin Peaks as Dale Cooper. That would be very un-Bob like and kind of annoying as a plot point. Bob is dangerous, scary and immature in his constant chasing of thrills and highs through violence and rule-breaking.
3. Welcome To The Black Lodge
This is where Twin Peaks: The Return gets really weird and actually very scary. In what’s absolutely the best thing about having a cable TV budget, these scenes are shot beautifully with the kind of effects and music that will crawl under your skin and make you very uneasy. In the Black Lodge, Dale Cooper is awakened by both Laura Palmer, Mike, The Giant, and The Arm. He’s been there for 25 years and it’s time for him to leave but there’s a catch – he can’t leave until Bob comes back. It’s very hard to describe these scenes because they are really something to behold. Returning are the abstract statements, the warped voices and the unsure sense of place and time. Dale Cooper is in the midst of an odyssey. He’s had time and his life stolen from him like all of Bob’s other victims but he has a chance to fight, unlike the other victims. He has a chance to put an end to this if he can just wrap his head around it all. It’s interesting to watch Dale Cooper in these scenes because it lacks urgency. He is bewildered instead of visually angry or determined. He’s existing in this, and in a piece of something bigger, and he realizes this. There are a lot of weird things happening here but that’s the biggest takeaway and what makes the entire thing so fascinating to watch.
Continued below4. New Faces
Twin Peaks: The Return features a massive cast and we got to see a great deal of that since much of these first two parts featured entire plots taking place outside of Twin Peaks. In South Dakota, we followed a duo of police officers, a state police detective, and a local detective investigates the murder of a librarian in a small town not too unlike Twin Peaks. This murder led them to the town’s high school principal, William Hastings (played by Matthew Lillard!). He and his wife had a lot of shades of the Palmers as they weren’t as happy on the inside as they looked on the outside. William’s confusion about the events that led him to prison is very reminiscent of what happened with Leland Palmer so it’s obvious this has Bob’s fingerprints all over it. To what end? That’s unclear but the balance between these new characters and the center piece seemingly being Bob is done very well. However, no one is really around long enough to force you to feel any way about them. Cooper Bob’s partners are all taken out by the end of this and we don’t get to know the law enforcement in the South Dakota enough to care about them just yet.
5. Dangling Threads & Restraint
The biggest thing with Twin Peaks: The Return is whether or not any of this will make any sense. Lynch has been very vocal about this entire thing being a full experience that’s broken into parts. These first two parts get weird but I could explain the general sense of what’s happening here in logical steps even if the underlying things are confusing and theoretical. These first two parts are told in a very Lynchian way through very Lynch/Frost dialogue that is short, to the point but still abstract. The Black Lodge stuff gets as weird as this duo can get and this is where I think things can go off the rails. It’s effective and creepy but it does get close to the edge. You can’t connect all these events just yet and while I don’t expect this to be an easy trip, I’d like it to go somewhere. I’d like to see Lynch have some restraint in telling this story and not allow this to become controversial among fans the way Fire Walk With Me became.
What did you think of the first two parts of Twin Peaks: The Return? Was it everything you wanted it to be? Let me know in the comments below.
