#7 - Twin Peaks: The Return
Aired 2017 on Showtime
Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch
Currently streaming on Showtime
For a brief introduction to this countdown, click here.
The original run of Twin Peaks in the early nineties was very much of its time. The majority of popular culture came from original creations and portrayed an earnestness consistent with the era. Twin Peaks was certainly original as it turned its initial whodunit premise on its side by becoming a goofy pastiche of Americana with a touch of the supernatural. And while it's easy to confuse its quirkiness for irony, the show never strayed far from its very human heart. The heightened performances, the wide swath of characters, and the swelling score all served first and foremost to paint a picture of a town wrecked with grief over the loss of one of their own.
In the same vein, Twin Peaks: The Return is also very much of its time. As late capitalism collapses in on itself, the overly-corporate entertainment industry has short-circuited, thus birthing near-infinite jokers, spidermen, and hyper-realistic lion kings. But just as remake culture has given way to the banal, it's also allowed for moments of sublime reckoning. In that regard, Twin Peaks is the gold standard. For as much as the show revels in the moments we giddily spend with our most beloved characters, it also undercuts every instance of that and makes it clear that you can't go back home again.
But Twin Peaks: The Return is not merely a meta commentary on its own existence. It's an uproarious comedy. It's a reflection on the genesis of a particularly American strain of evil. And a near-spiritual treatise on the eternal recurrence of human nature. I often complement shows by saying that they contain multitudes but Twin Peaks is actually multitudes. And one of the side effects of these multitudes was the realization of perhaps the greatest volume of critical thought surrounding any single season of television. Matt Zoller Seitz wrote about both standout episodes and the show as a whole. Others focused on specific themes or other specific themes. And others detailed every single theme. Not many people actually watched Twin Peaks: The Return, but everyone who did went out and started a blog.
I embarked on this countdown for many reasons, but mainly I wanted to challenge myself to write about the series I love in a manner both comprehensive and authoritative. By this standard, Twin Peaks is the most daunting show on the list. Not only is there an exhaustive compendium of critical thought on the series but there's also a built-in set of obsessive fans that spent 25 years in the Black Lodge waiting for this. I'm not one of those people and I don't feel inadequate when I say I will never catch up to them. In that light I will say it was one of the best things of the decade and move on.
Me being me, I still want to make one quick point. When The Return was originally announced there was some consternation even among the most devoted of fans. Some of that was sequel fatigue and as mentioned earlier I think that fear was clearly and notably alleviated. But there was also a large contingent of observers that feared the expanded length (18 hour-long episodes) was another case of modern drama's tendency towards quantity over quality. While I fully acknowledge that spending 18 hours going down every Lynchian rabbit hole may not be for everyone, I think the series more than justified its length. Indeed, that it had so much room to work with might have actually been its biggest asset. The time spent with old characters, the introduction of new ones, and the entirely original creations (The Roadhouse, Episode 8, etc...) all served a larger story whose richness would have been nearly impossible to recreate otherwise. I guess the lesson is that when one of the world's most famous directors announces he's re-animating one of his most beloved creations, we should probably trust him.
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