WARNING! SPOILERS!: Do not read this until you've watched the entire series of Twin Peaks! That includes the movie!
Fans of Twin Peaks got a nice long drink of water in 2017 in the form of Twin Peaks Season 3, AKA "The Return". This is after a very long 25 years of nothing. Sadly, the first run of Twin Peaks was cut short when the studio forced David Lynch into revealing Laura Palmer's killer. Lynch was of a mind that revealing the killer would break the spell and render the show powerless. He said that it was because of the Laura Palmer mystery that the show was so popular. The studio was not convinced because the public was DYING to know who the killer was.
Lo and behold, David Lynch was proven absolutely right and the show jumped the shark soon after the killer's reveal in the second season.
What follows is the 2/3rds of a season that lacked David Lynch, as he left the show. He had no idea how they were going to go from there and he was rightfully miffed that they singlehandedly ruined his show. After his departure, the writing became abysmal. Dialogue was stilted, scenes lacked any relevance and sideplots came and went like an obnoxious door to door salesman.
Thankfully, for the final episode of season 2, David Lynch came back and helped them make the arguably greatest episode of the original run. Beyond Life and Death was very well recieved and still represents some of David Lynch's best work.
Although it was cancelled, Lynch was able to make the movie, Fire Walk With Me, the very next year. While fairly well received, it lacked the answers and details that fans of the show were expecting. Not only was it a prequel but it also very scarcely featured Dale Cooper, a fan favorite character.
Fire Walk With Me was the last bit of Twin Peaks that fans received for 25 years, when Season 3 was announced. David Lynch brought the show back with co-creator Mark Frost in the form of "The Return".
I am not going to tell you that this was a perfect return to form, nor will I sit here and tell you that this is a worthless late sequel crash-grab. While this series had the potential to be either, it is truly of its own entity. The Return was rather divisive among fans, but with David Lynch on the project, it was bound to have his stamp of approval at the very least. Though, how good was it? It certainly isn't the epic conclusion we all hoped it would be, but it certainly was a ton better than Cooper bashing his head into a mirror while laughing at his BOB reflection.
To get sentimental for a moment, my father got me into Twin Peaks after its initial run a year later. He loved this show and considered it his favorite of all time. After this, he became a David Lynch fanatic. I did not get to watch The Return with him but before he died, we had watched Twin Peaks multiple times together using his VHS tapes he recorded from a Bravo marathon, including the movie he bought on tape. We celebrated the show and I am so happy he got to watch the third season for himself to get some closure. I write these Twin Peak articles for him.
Now, I am here to tell you what I liked and what I did not like about this new series. I hope to hear from you on what you liked and did not like and why my opinion is wrong. I love this series and there are somethings I am totally on board with and there are somethings that I find myself scratching my head and asking Mr. Lynch, "Ummm, why?"
What I liked!
Bobby discovering the case reviving the Laura Palmer case
Bobby Briggs, the man who literally killed a random dude who brought him a bag full of cocaine, is now a police officer. In the first season, he was interviewed as a suspect, but Agent Cooper very quickly wrote him off as innocent of the murder. In the Return, we see he joins a meeting in the conference room and is met with Laura Palmer's photo front and center. The emotional reaction he gives is worth of an award, because the weight of his tears can be felt as clear as a bell. All of the turmoil and the pain he went through during that time with his former girlfriend's murder is brought back for just a moment in this very gripping scene.
Andy and Lucy are still together
With so much divorce and turmoil going on between shows and seasons, it's really good to see that two seasons of tension between two characters actually paid off. With all of the love triangle sideplots and "Who's the father" decision making, we not only get to see the two lovebirds are still together and married, but we get to meet the child! He's 25 now and played by Michael Cera! This is one of those scenes that takes entirely too long, but it does give us a decent bit of closure on another part of their lives.
The Surrealistic Beauty
After all of these years, Lynch has truly retained his title as the Master of Dreams in filmmaking. While his movie projects are rather far in-between, he knows how to put together a great story, a great set of characters and he knows how to fool our minds and mesmerize us as an audience. The man truly never lost it and it's probably safe to say that he never will.
From Dale Cooper's escape from the Black Lodge to the strange shadow figures that stalk our characters from the darkness. These elements can range from subtle to absolute in-your-face intimacy, but either way, they are highlights of the entire series. We get to see so many more locations and new mythical characters, as well as the return of some.
Hawk
The Native American deputy of the original run is now a Deputy Chief and he is front and center in the scenes dealing with Twin Peak's police force. While it is no bueno that we did not get a return of Harry S Truman, we at least get a good bunch of scenes with Hawk. He is just as resourceful and sly as ever in these scenes. Not to mention, he's still a little strange in his reasoning from time to time. Still, he proves to be a great asset in the story and he is very entertaining to watch. It's great that this new season was able to do him some true justice and get him some proper screentime.
It's About Laura Palmer
It is clear that, once Laura's killer was found, the show lost its original identity to the point where, other than the end credits, we forget what it was about in the first place. Laura Palmer becomes a rather faceless entity. Throughout the second season, we forget she even existed in a haze of ill-gotten character studies and single serving detours in stories we no longer care about. It's more or less just trying to write like David Lynch but with a severe handicap in the fact that he left the show! The writers tried their best but Lynch was absolutely correct in his assessment that the show was nothing without the murder plot.
Without giving too much away, not only does The Return bring back Laura Palmer's storyline but it also does a bit of soul searching along the way. It was clear that David Lynch was crestfallen because of the series getting a black eye so early in its second season, so he wanted to make up for it in this one. Did he make up for it? I think so, but it is also an arguable point that has been raging on since its initial run in 2017. Again, I will not give away what this is all about, but know that Laura Palmer's story is revived and it's up to you to decide if it is worthy of being the true ending to Twin Peaks.
Closure
In the realm of Lynch, "closure" is a bit of a naughty word. David Lynch is of a mind that closure makes you forget about the story because what you know of it has ended and that's all you need to spend on it. He makes his projects much more cerebral and makes you want to keep thinking about the mystery long after you view it.
However, after 25 years of a cliffhanger, it is very good to know that Lynch had our backs the entire time. He was not going to make a new series if he was going the Hollywood route of putting old characters to new, tired storylines that go nowhere. David Lynch is far better than these hacks just looking to push messages and make a buck along the way. He almost didn't do it. In fact, he dropped out of the Return part way through its production, but then returned after Mark Frost advocated for him. It's so good at he did because as imperfect as this revival was, it could have been infinitely worse.
What I didn't like!
Scenes that last FOREVER!
Call it Lynch's M.O. if you must, but even he has been guilty of over using this little motif of his. There are scenes that drag on and on to the point of watching establishing shots for four to five minutes. Some of them are simply to re-introduce original cast members and some of them are to introduce new cast members that have a stake in the original seasons, and some of them are just... there! Sometimes, they are put to good effect, and sometimes they are just there to... set up intrigue and atmosphere? Either way, when you put it in a season that is eighteen episodes long, these long scenes can add up to some serious mileage. I know this is Lynch's sudden relief after a long winter of small projects, but there are some very poorly made decisions going on here.
Song Numbers at the Ends of Episodes
This was a bit jarring. There are certain episodes in this season that end at the Bang Bang Bar with performers playing music until the ending credits. This can start as early as five minutes before the end credits and it is just a sour note to go off of when we are in suspense as to what is going to happen next. The songs aren't bad and the musicians are clearly talented, but this only drags it further away from its original seasons. However, there is a performance from Nine Inch Nails, which forgives this whole thing entirely. My mistake, sorry Mr. and Mrs. Reznor.
Brain Dead Cooper
This was cute for the first five minutes, but when Dale Cooper escapes the Black Lodge, he was either affected by the 25 years of being in the Red Room or the escape addled his brain. This basically makes him act like a highly incompetent mental patient. He is unable to fully grasp verbal communication, needs help doing daily tasks and needs physical prompting in order to move anywhere. The gag was funny at first, but before the episode ends, watching him go through a casino really got a little old. I was hoping that this would be rectified within a couple of episodes but it goes on for several episodes! This really got old after a while. It really felt like David Lynch was dragging his feet on this one. It's good that we get some closure on Cooper escaping the Black Lodge, but this made it a tiny bit sour in the process.
The Black Lodge
The greatest thing about the Red Room from the original series is that it was always shrouded in mystery. The original series knew to keep this place in the shadows and only dealt with it in its own time. This gave it an air of surrealism that is unparalleled by any other show or even Lynch himself. So many fans fell in love with the show because of the little dancing man, Laura Palmer's screaming doppelganger and all of the backward/forward talking that gave it the dreamlike qualities we love.
The Return didn't seem to give The Black Lodge its original majesty. In fact, there are so many key elements missing from the lodge, that it's almost completely unrecognizable. It has the floor patterns and the curtains along with the statues. However, we see it at different angles now and the high definition camera shots sterilize the entire experience. It doesn't have that old fashioned feel we loved from the first one. It was clear that Lynch tried to add the effect in a different manner, but to me, it just falls flat. My next point explains:
There are two elements missing that made the original Black Lodge so recognizable. First off, Michael J Anderson and David Lynch clearly had a falling out somewhere along the way. The actor did not reprise his role and his absence is truly felt in The Return. He was a key element in the Waiting Room that defined the premise to its very core. Instead, he is replaced by a tree with a strange looking skull fruit on top of it.
Second off, the cryptic dialogue is severely lacking. This version of the Black Lodge explains entirely too much. A lot of the lines don't even sound like they were spoken backward during shooting. The tree just has a strange whispering voice while the One Armed Man, Mike, just walks around looking lost and saying things to Cooper.
The whole Black Lodge is not only seen entirely too much, but there is far too much exposition about it. As scarce as the information may seem, it still seems like entirely too much for something so iconically vague. Even Fire Walk With Me got this concept far better.
Dr. Lawence Jacoby's Political Blogs
There's an obvious reason why Jacoby's character was brought back and I am here to tell you that this could have been done better. Jacoby's part in the original run was middling at best to begin with. He was a pivital part in shining a light on Laura Palmer's secret life. Beyond that, there wasn't much to him. He had a heart attack and helped them find Jacque's killer for a scene or two but then he pretty much disappeared from the show as the writer's obviously didn't have much to do with him in Lynch's absence.
Now, he's a reclusive, obsessive patriot type who makes podcasts much akin to terrorist manifestos. We see him making shovels that play a role in the Return, but are subjected to mindless drivel in the process as he speaks to his fans (which includes Nadine Hurley). Did we really need to sit there and watch him spray paint his shovels gold? I'll let you decide, but you can probably imagine my thoughts on the matter.
Lack of Original Soundtrack
One of the most iconic things about the original Twin Peaks run is the soundtrack Angelo Badalamenti mostly composed. It is smooth, haunting, sometimes very jazzy in its demeanor. It is also one of the most enjoyable things to listen to, as it brings up every memory of the original series ever. Sadly, the only thing that The Return is consistant with from the original soundtrack was the beginning theme music. Beyond that, we get bits and pieces of the music throughout.
Part of me is okay with this, because the Return, as stated earlier, lacks the atmospheric elements through colorization and scene setting. The tone is different now as the scenes are better lit and they have more of an urban feel, instead of the small woodland town we know and love. Still, it would have been nice to have something of an extension of that music. I'm not saying the music had to be exactly the same but it would have been nice if more of an effort was made. Now, when the original music plays in the third season, it feels a little out of place.
BOB
Yeah, no one I've talked to liked this aspect either. It's almost like it didn't happen, eh?
The Ending
Yeah, we all saw this coming. Obviously, I'm not a huge fan of the sideplots going nowhere and some of the use of old characters, but David Lynch already knew that. It's pretty obvious that this is not the series he wanted to make in the first place. If the studio and people would have just listened to him in the first place, we wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. The Return was not meant to continue Twin Peaks, it was meant to end it. The end of this series pretty much tells you that the TV Show was ruined from season 2 and there is no going back from that. I would have liked to have seen a lot more of Laura Palmer's actress, Sheryl Lee but with how this series presents itself, there really wasn't any way around this.
We cannot save this show, especially with just another season. The show was never going to be saved and that's just something we need to accept. Lynch built us an entertaining show and gave us a few answers we've been looking for. Although, probably not in the way we wanted, it's at least something. We were never going to fully like this and we were never going to find full closure because that's just not the name of the game. All we can do is find our own happiness and make our own stories to enjoy for ourselves. Twin Peaks is over and there's no way to change that. David Lynch knew this going in and he decided to show us this fact for ourselves. There is one good thing that comes out of this, though. At least now, we can move on.
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