SPOILER CITY AHEAD
I mean it in the nicest way possible when I say that I LOVE the stories that I’ve read about people who threw retro parties for the May 21, 2017 premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return with cherry pie and coffee and cosplay—and then their soiree went sour when the show started and they got walloped with David Lynch’s art.
Some are “heartbroken”. Others are angry that they sat through this “trash”. With the fury of someone who just bought a ShamWow and discovered that it’s nothing like the infomercial, I’ve seen a few people say that the show should not even be called Twin Peaks (not only is it bad, but it’s false advertising! Buyer beware!). Another common criticism of these new episodes is that they have none of the warmth, joy and fizzy effervescence of the original series that circled around the investigation of a teenage girl who was raped and murdered by her own father.
These people are certainly entitled to their opinions. Also, controversy is the natural state for a series as unpredictable and weird as this one. It’s all good. It’s okay.
But one thread I keep noticing in the more passionate responses is that they seem to come from spurned “fans”. People with very specific expectations. People who wanted this series to neatly complete a sentence left unfinished since 1991. People who watched it like they were going to their high school reunion.
Everything from the past that we never thought would come back is coming back. Every old band, TV show and movie franchise. And they almost all butter their bread by servicing the old fans, in ways that range from clever to sad.
Except for Twin Peaks, thank God. Twenty-six years have passed. Things aren’t the same. Things CAN’T be the same. For these characters, for you, for me, and certainly not for series co-creator (and director of the entire new shebang) David Lynch. He’s an artist whose film work since Twin Peaks has been an Expressionist blood trail of broken-down narrative and abstract forms.
You’re not getting fan service out of the director of Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr. You’re just not.
Real artists don’t pay attention to their fans. Nor should they. Fans are typically conservative. They always want the old band to get back together. Fans love home and hearth. They fall for an artist and then want that old dream date again and again.
That David Lynch won’t play that game only makes me love him more. He’s a 71 year old smoker with a full head of hair, the energy to direct an 18-hour series and a lucrative career doing whatever the hell he wants, so clearly God loves him, too.
Four episodes into the new Twin Peaks series and I am beautifully lost. I love where this show is going. And I have no idea where it’s going. That’s why I love it. Everything that’s happened so far seems to come out of nowhere.
As an old Twin Peaks fan (started watching it in 1990, at a deeply impressionable age), all that I really wanted was that crazy complex mystery again. I wanted to be confused and cooking up crackpot theories in my head. That’s all that mattered. That feeling took precedence over all nostalgia.
And I’m pretty goddamn satisfied. This train ride looks to take us straight into September. You’ll see me there at every stop.
Just finished my second watch of the first four episodes. They’re just as amazing as the first time, maybe even more so.
A few observations:
Lynch has a curious tendency to cast musicians as FBI agents. Chris Isaak and David Bowie did it in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. And now Chrysta Bell here. They might have some acting credits, but they’re primarily musicians. Has me wondering if Eddie Vedder and Trent Reznor are going to be playing FBI men.
Gordon Cole has a picture of Franz Kafka hanging in his office.
This new series has a complex relationship to the original series. Lynch is not above commenting on that with a sledgehammer (the opening of Fire Walk With Me with a literal sledgehammer destroying a TV set), but there’s a strange blend of affection and alienation in the depiction of Lucy and Andy. They’re stuck in time. Neither have been promoted in their jobs in twenty-five years. In fact, they’ve been passed by (there’s a high-tech crew working in a back room and they’re the ones who give Robert Forster’s Sheriff Truman his most valuable information). Lucy is terrified of cellphones. They come off as mean-spirited parodies of old fans who are stuck in the cherry pie days… but then a funny thing happens. In ep. 4, a young, jerk-off cop (he’s even got a trendy beard) shows up and ridicules Lucy and Andy. He rolls his eyes at everything they say. He doesn’t understand The Log Lady. He’s WRONG. Truman dismisses him from the room and we don’t miss him.
I love the endings of these episodes. We’ve had three in a row so far that merely cut to the Roadhouse where a live band band is on stage. And that’s our send-off. CLIFFHANGER then CUT TO CREDITS is such a TV thing to do. I think Lynch wants to distance himself from that and end each episode (so far, at least) on an ethereal note no matter what just happened. I think he’s saying ENJOY THE MYSTERY. Sink into it like you would a good song.
The suspense isn’t killing you. The suspense is giving you life.