*Minor-Spoilers – Nothing Major*

 

So it has been 26 years (not including the prequel film; Fire Walk With Me) since we last saw Dale Cooper go through the red curtain and find himself trapped in the Black Lodge, to watch a Midget dance alongside a giant and a white horse, as his Doppelgänger was freed upon the world.
If that sentence doesn’t make sense to you, then you should probably stop reading this review, as Twin Peaks: The Return does not cater for newcomers to the show. If you have never seen the original 1990-1991 run of the TV series, or watched it later in life on video or DVD (like me, as I was about 5 when the TV show was cancelled), then this show is not for you. After watching the first three episodes of this season, I can honestly say that if I had not only just recently re-watched the show (last year in fact), then I would have no idea as to what is going on. In fact, I am still a little confused as to what is going on, but that is always the trouble with David Lynch, and especially with Twin Peaks as a whole. We are sometimes left doubting our own sanity after viewing.

So, just a brief recap of the show. Twin Peaks is about a small mountain town in the upper north west of America. A young girl’s body is found and the FBI send Special Agent Dale Cooper to investigate. The plot involves his investigation into her murder, as well as her friends as they try to uncover the truth themselves, but in the classic 90s teenage fashion of falling in love with one another and discovering that the girl’s life was a lot more shadier than she had portrayed; a simple premise. However, this is the mind of David Lynch, and it is clear that the man has suffered from terrible nightmares in his life, as his work is always leaving the view frightened, confused or otherwise unsure of what is going to happen next. The show is filled with suspence, mystery, comedy, horror, action and everything in-between.
It is eventually revealed that some strange forces are in place and there is a mysterious other world with its foot in the town. People are possessed by the mysterious Killer BOB, and a serial killer and former partner of Agent Cooper begins to get involved. The series was confusing as hell, to be honest. While I must admit I did really enjoy it, especially the first season and anything involving Ray Wise, a huge chunk of the series staggered around and felt as if it had no idea where it was going after they revealed who killed the girl and the crime was resolved. Once that was all said and done, it took nearly an entire season of pointless story-lines that no one really cared about and showed background characters in random situations before anything actually happened.
When the second season finally kicked in, it was far too late. By then the series had been cancelled, just as it was getting good, with the main story-line finally building up to a magnificent crescendo. Complete with an ending that left us eager to discover the answers. I had read that the producers told the writers to end the season on a cliffhanger, in hopes that enough unanswered questions would warrant them making a third season, but no luck… until now. It has been nearly three decades later, and those answers are finally… maybe going to be answered.

The show begins with a very short recap of Agent Cooper sitting in the Black Lodge with Laura Palmer (the original murder victim which sparked all the events of the previous two seasons into action) in a flashback of a section of a scene from one of the previous seasons’ episodes. In it she tells him that she will see him again, in 25 years. Which is a strange as it is now 25 years later (well 26 but they made this new season last year), and now the show is back on the air for this limited run of 18 episodes. If it was planned this way, then well done David and co.
After this scene it then cuts to a few shots of locations in the town in silence before zooming in on a picture of Laura Palmer and waiting a few moments until the words “Twin Peaks” appear and the classic theme tune kicks in. It was truly a brilliant moment. A moment which couldn’t help but bring a smile to my face.
The intro has been, sort of, updated. The music is the same but now we see shots of a waterfall beside the Great Northern Hotel, before a flicker of the red certain, and we are moving across the infamous carpet of the Black Lodge.
I won’t go into every scene, as that would take far too much time and it would be best to appreciate it for yourself. So instead I will discuss some of the key points.
After only a few scenes you can tell that this is completely different to anything else you might be watching on TV. I am not 100%, but I am pretty sure that David Lynch has not worked on any TV stuff, at least of his own, for many years. So you can tell that he has complete creative control over it.
The show feels old, but not in a bad way. I am not sure if he is using the same camera and film type as he did back in the early 90s, but it looks the same. If it was not for the fact that all of the returning cast members look old (some of them ageing better than others), then the series would look as if they were shot only a year or so apart. It is a really nice touch in my opinion, as it helps connect this to the original series.

There are a lot of moments in the first few episodes that I can only label as being ‘David Lynch’-esc, some of which you would never see in a television show of today. For example, there is a really long and drawn out scene at the beginning of the first episode where a young man is watching a glass box, before changing a camera, and then going out of the room to speak to a woman, and then going back inside to watch the glass box some more, all the while in complete silence. It felt long and dragged out, whilst a the same time making the audience curious as to what the hell is going on. Similar things happen throughout. There are also a lot of scenes where nothing really happens and then we never see that character again. We seen Dr. Jacoby (from the original series) receiving a parcel of shovels in episode one, then we never see anything of him again until episode three when he is spray painting them. Again at the end of episode two we see the return of a few major characters of the original series, but only for about a minute, and then we never see them again. Of course you can say that this is just laying the ground work for future story-lines, but most of the time the audience has no idea what is going on or even if half of this is relevant, given how the second season of Twin Peaks was.
This is what I mean when I say that this show is only for fans of the original series. It does not do any flashbacks or hand-holding to help people figure out what came before. The show expects you to have watched it and remember it, and thankfully I had just done that, which is probably why I am in the best place to write this review.
The scene involving the glass box does have an immensely terrifying pay-off, which leaves you confused and horrified, yet eager to see more of that particular aspect. This is something that this show does a lot, even in the original series. During a lot of the show, I found myself wanting to go back to another story-line to find out more.
This is probably why the season is 18 episodes (which in today’s world seems like a few too many), as the show does have a tendency to drag, which is something you have come to expect from Twin Peaks in the hopes that it all becomes clearer in the end.

An excellent scene from episode three is right at the very beginning where we see Agent Cooper in the other world and it plays exactly like something from a nightmare. Even the way the scene is filmed and keeps cutting back and forth, leaves you with the sense of uncertainty throughout. Although you have absolutely no idea what on earth is going on during the scene, it still feels you with dread and leaves your mind racing to find answers. This was especially the case for me as I read a lot into the lore of Twin Peaks, and so I was desperately trying to figure out what could everything mean, but I still came up empty. This is a clear sign that I am nowhere near in the same mindset as the creators.
The best parts of the original seasons were the moments that were unexplainable or out of the ordinary. Nobody cared about Laura Palmer’s friends trying to trick some odd fellow into getting Laura’s secret diary. What we wanted to see was more of the red room with the little fellow dancing, the backwards yet forwards talking, and the killer BOB stalking from mirrors and beside bedposts. I remember visions of giant white horses in the middle of the living room, and the messages to people through a woman and her log. That was what the audience wanted.
Given how the last season ended, as well as the build up to that moment, this season is in a prime position to give the people what they have been craving for.
So many scenes from the first three episodes are balancing on the boarder of insanity. You have the little fellow (who was revealed to be the severed arm of another character) who has now evolved into an electric tree with a brain over the course of the last 25 years. You have Agent Cooper chasing after a no eyed woman onto the roof of a box floating through space, as Major Briggs’ face flies past. And you have a third character played by Kyle MacLachlan (besides Agent Cooper and his doppelgänger), who is transported to the other world and turned into a golden bead (I still have no idea what that was all about).
So the season is not afraid to just go for it and really let us see into the strange hollowed skull of David Lynch; a world which is as scary as it is confusingly magical.

 

On the subject of Kyle MacLachlan, it does feel as if he has not aged a bit. It is clear that he has dyed his hair, but other than that the character of Agent Cooper looks exactly the same. We have yet to see Agent Cooper give the same charm that he has done in the previous season, but that is only because of how the story is, so it is nothing against the actor’s ability. We see Kyle play Cooper’s doppelgänger, who is a rather strange and dangerous person with a mullet as he is on a quest to stop himself from returning to the world he came from, whilst working with some criminals in a story-line that I was not sure what was really going on as I watched it, so this allows us to see Kyle’s acting ability.
Other than Kyle, the rest of the cast seem non-existent. The show has not really shown us enough of anyone to really see the actors in their parts. We have had snippets of lots of new characters in situations that must somehow relate to the plot we have yet to work out (one of which involves a man who is accused of murder which echoes the plot of the first season – a story-line I would really like to get back to), as well as showing us old characters living their current lives, leaving us wonder how they had gotten there since we last saw them.

Finally each episode ends showcasing a real band playing at the Twin Peaks’ Bang Bang Bar. At the end of the first episode I just thought it was a nice nod to the way the original pilot episode of the show ended, but it seems that we are in fact randomly being shown real life bands. It is a rather strange touch that does get carried across quite well. All of the songs so far have been enjoyable.

So, would I recommend Twin Peaks: The Return? Yes, but only for fans of the original series. If you have never seen it before, then you need to go back and watch it, but I am not sure if someone from today’s way of television shows could really get into it. When Twin Peaks was good, it was really good, but there was a lot of meandering around, especially with the beginning of season 2, but if you can push yourself through it, then it serves as an excellent backdrop to this season, one of which I am anxiously awaiting the next chance I can get to watch it again and find out more. I feel my mind desperate to find answers and wanting to read forums and blogs to discover other peoples’ theories on what exactly is happening, maybe it is too soon to really tell, but in time we will hopefully have the answers most people have been waiting for since 1991.

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