“Exception must be made for the exceptional.”

That line is how Nigel Andrews’ began his Financial Times critical review of Hayao Miyazaki’s film Spirited Away. Channeling that same mantra we will be breaking a few rules here. This site is about reviewing films that have been seen in theaters, and the subject matter of this review falls into neither of those categories. It is not new, it is not a film, it is rarely ever screened in theaters at all, and yet it is such a profound piece of art that it must be discussed.

David Lynch’s Twin Peaks began as an oddball buddy cop show with mysterious and mystical forces surrounding the titular town. As the series developed over its short lived two seasons it broke the mold in a multitude of ways, not just for network television, but for linear story telling writ large. Lynch would go on to push boundaries in every single one of his films, from the snaking story beats of Mulholland Drive, to the quaint and quiet plot of Disney’s Straight Story. Lynch was never one to play by the rules, and when time came to return to his most popular piece of fiction he did not change his pattern in terms of being strange and unsettling.

Twin Peaks: The Return aired on Showtime on May 21st of 2017, a full twenty six years after the orignal program had been unceremoniously cancelled. And even still nearly every major player that was able came in to reprise their roles, and many new players joined the team, as we take a look to see how the death of Laura Palmer has changed the town. In the original concept the show never sets one foot outside the Twin Peaks area. As characters leave the town they also leave the frame, only to return to the latter after returning to the former. So it’s a shock when we see a title card in the first episode of this new continuation announcing the location of “New York City” less than five minutes into the runtime. And as episode after episode plays you’re left with an ominous feeling. This will not be the glorified reunion that we have grown accustomed to in modern film and television. The world has been broken by the evil forces that murdered Laura Palmer, so we don’t get to feel safe and comforted by our favorite gumshoe gulping down hot black coffee and waxing poetic about pie.

The main protagonist of the series for a bulk of it, or at least the one character with the most agency is former FBI Director Gordon Cole, portrayed by none other than Director David Lynch himself. Cole has the firmest grasp on the happenings inside and outside of Twin Peaks, and even he has only a fraction of an understanding. The show flat out refuses to explain itself, much like David Lynch’s continued response anytime anyone would ask him what his films “mean”. He would regularly tell people “a film should stand on its own.” The author is dead, long live the film. We do not require authorial intent to navigate these waters, it belongs to the audience now that it’s in the world, and it’s our job to make sense of it. Cole’s desperation for understanding mirrors our own desire, and that point of view is coming from Director Lynch himself, he understands his work just as much as Cole does, just as much as we do.

The show does do some explaining, albeit in a roundabout way after Episode 8, quite possibly the most experimental episode of a television show ever created. Through a largely dialogue void hour we flash back to see how these evil beings came to enter our world. Episode 8 (referred to as “Got a light?”) is a murky vision of the past and of the future, of the way that technology has come to haunt humanity, of the horrors that have been instilled by the atomic age and how evil continues to exist even as good people rage against it. Much of the lore surrounding Twin Peaks was created by Mark Frost, even as Lynch directs every episode of The Return, Frost developed the deep well of mythos that Frost and Lynch tease at that’s lying just under the surface of every episode. Episode 8 is as close to a glossary for the beings that exist throughout the world of Twin Peaks as we’re ever likely to get, and what a way to write a glossary indeed.

Twin Peaks: The Return is just as much about Lynch’s entire body of work as it is wrestling with its own past. Frequent Lynch collaborators step into the world, Naomi Watts, Laura Dern, Patrick Fischler and more reuniting with Director Lynch, tipping their hats at his past body of work. All Lynch works are in symphony with one another, all dealing with dreams, the quaintness of small town America, and the seedy underbelly of the perfect worlds that are displayed. Twin Peaks: The Return is no different as it wrestles with a town still reeling from the murder of a high school prom queen twenty six years later. While the murder was eventually solved (at the behest of the network who demanded that Frost and Lynch deviate from their plan to never tell us who killed Laura Palmer) these people have never really recovered, their trauma still haunts them.

As little as I’ve discussed him here is a good example of how much agency the main character Special Agent Dale Cooper of the FBI has in Twin Peaks: The Return. He’s in every episode to be sure, the first billed regardless of how much screen time he has in each one hour block. But his character is shattered, not a whole person, and seemingly unable to tap into who he really is. Kyle MacLachlin’s performance at each beat he’s on screen is a career one, portraying every bit of range, from deadbeat adulterer, to evil force moving through the world, to just enough of a person to be seemingly unable to speak or move without direction. David Lynch originally cast MacLachlin as Paul Atreides in his 1984 version of Dune, and has continued to work with him throughout the years. He could not have found a better collaborator to instill the pluckiness of what America could and should mean to people. An analogue for Lynch himself throughout much of his body of work. Agent Cooper regularly says things like “That’s just crackerjack” and “Damn good coffee!”, in the original he has a wholesomeness that outshines the darkness surrounding the town. Making him wait in the wings is a brave bit of story telling as Lynch launches the plot of The Return into unexpected directions.

To critique Twin Peaks: The Return is to critique who David Lynch was as a filmmaker, as an artist unmatched in style and skill. Every frame oozes the director, each choice a choice that only he could have made. At no point does it feel like a focus group was pulled in, or a studio exec gave a note, at least not a note that was listened to. To have created something this unique, while also being true to yourself, and telling an unimaginably compelling story is to be among the greatest directors of our, or any time. Twin Peaks: The Return is truly staggering throughout, and the gutpunch it leaves you with as the final credits roll is not one I am likely to ever forget.

6/5