One of many refreshing left turns in the Twin Peaks revival is its disinterest in traditional television cliffhangers. Episodes end with dangling questions galore and turning points left up in the air, but David Lynch never gives us a hard cut to credits after a gunshot in the night. Instead he often goes out on a song, a “live” performance on stage in the long-standing Roadhouse. Like Mr. Rogers changing his shoes and jacket, the moment the neon bar sign hits the screen, you know the show is almost over. What young band in Lynch’s iTunes is playing this week?
Far from superfluous though, these scenes have two powerful effects on the series:
1) They ground the show in its slow, strange pace. They’re hallmarks of a story that’s in no rush. For an artist hooked on coffee, Lynch prefers to take his time and he asks the same of his audience. He expends his caffeine energy wandering and watching and eavesdropping. In these musical scenes, Lynch implicitly tells us how to watch Twin Peaks. Pause. Reflect. Contemplate. Imagine. Shut off the part of your brain that wants answers right now. Turn on the part that got excited by the question in the first place. (Let’s also note that stage performances of music are a constant thing in Lynch’s films, whether it’s a lady in the radiator singing about heaven, Isabella Rossellini singing torch songs in a nightclub, Nicolas Cage serenading Laura Dern with Elvis hits or Lynch’s unmade musical Ronnie Rocket about an electric-powered freak whose very body becomes a musical instrument).
2) The songs are heavy with thematic relevance. As someone who believes that Season 3 is THE conclusion to Twin Peaks and that we will see no more of this world or these characters on screen—if I’m wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time that Twin Peaks surprised me—The Chromatics’ hushed and swirly “Shadow” (the first song that we hear from the Roadhouse stage) is a big hint. Its lyrics are about a person who takes one last look at the past and then turns away forever, and it’s all but a signpost that says “End of the Road”.
The Cactus Blossoms’ “Missippippi” sneaks up alongside Agent Cooper’s complicated return to Earth with a song about someone who drowns themselves in the homey, familiar Mississippi River. It’s a song that’s dreamy in its own way, with painfully perfect Everly Brothers harmonies.
Sharon Van Etten’s “Tarifa” brings a weary sway and lyrics that suggest an amnesiac’s anthem as Cooper in the series drifts lost and broken in another man’s identity. Nine Inch Nails’ aloof psycho blues “She’s Gone Away” plays like another memorial for Laura Palmer, but dark and evil this time. Rebekah Del Rio’s “No Stars” (co-written by Lynch) is another song about how you can never go back to the past. It’s tempting sometimes, sure, but there’s no light there. It’s gone. It’s the wrong direction.
Even Eddie Vedder, whose music normally makes me break out in hives, comes up with a good one, the solo acoustic late night candle burn of “Out of Sand”. It’s one more take on things gone that can never be recovered. Vedder sounds sad about it, but then again, he always sounds sad. Can you imagine him sounding happy? I can’t. Me, I think the song is hopeful in a way. The past isn’t always perfect. Sometimes it’s full of demons, mistakes, ugliness, stupidity. Sometimes you don’t want to go back. There is no pipe dream. The fantasy is meaningless. The biggest tragedy: You have a lot less time left after you figured things out than you did when you were a young fool.
You can never go back. That’s one of many things that the new Twin Peaks is about. I never argue with people who hated it, especially when I get the sense that Lynch thwarted their 90s dreams and expectations. Twin Peaks Season 3 has hurt and angered some people like no movie or TV series that I can recall. To me, they’re just singing another sad song.
In the end, the world spins.