A Place Both Wonderful And Strange: Twin Peaks The Return

Never has a show impacted my psyche as much as Twin Peaks. As a teen, the odd, evil, eclectic, naughty, and quirky show on ABC challenged your moral and spiritual realm. When the show was confirmed to come back for 18 episodes, there was that flashback to what was, but knowing David Lynch, we were going to a place we had really never been. For me, I was hoping it would go the route of Trainspotting 2 in that we would be fulfilled in the mission but wouldn't be getting what we would expect. David Lynch has given us a gift of mind, body, and psyche, mixed with some electricity, nuclear detonations, and black coffee.

Looking back when Twin Peaks first aired, I had just lost my father. With the return, I had just lost my mother. It was odd timing indeed. And 1992 gave us the ABC Twin Peaks. Cable allowed David Lynch to go full throttle with better effects, nudity, swearing, and just all out Lynch. I thought I had it all figured out. Bob. Laura. Leyland. The Black Lodge. But no. 

Twin Peaks the Return offered up many visions and clues that, thankfully, due to some serious time in sensory deprivation, I can try to understand the workings of Mr. Lynch's storytelling. We didn't know which characters we would see again or what these new locations meant.

When we began episode 31, I admittedly teared up with those first bass notes from Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks theme song. But from there, to paraphrase Agent Cooper, it's been both wonderful and strange. We had new characters to learn, a history that was seemingly started when the first nuclear test happened, a beautiful and ongoing tribute to David Bowie's character Phillip Jeffries (even as a tea pot - see photo below), and the continued partnership of Gordon Cole and Albert Rosenfield. We became attached to Agent Cooper's new family, Janey - E and Sonny Jim. And the plot thickens as to what happened to Deputy Brigg's (RIGHT? I just needed to see that written out) ... sorry, what happened to Bobby Brigg's father, Col (Judy) Garland Briggs?

And Lynch has made us work for whatever is in store for these last two episodes. The seed, tulpa, the arm, Naido, and let's not forget bloody Mary herself, Sarah Palmer. 

And while we did not see a lot of our 1992 characters, the vibe of the show is not the Invitation to Love-esque show it was. We've seen happy lives being lived, and some new but old romances being re-kindled in Twin Peaks to our squealing delight. We have the absurdities of Doctor Jacobi, Nadine, and Jerry Horne. We have the evil of the smoking man, Mr. Cooper, and the Cohen Brothers meets Tarantino mixed with Lynch inspired Chantal and Hutch love birds come assassins. And then there was this:

 Audrey has been an enigma this entire series and it got even more mysterious in the last episode. Is she trapped? Is she a tulpa? And what is the power of the Road House?

With only two episodes left, there is fleeting time to decipher so many mysteries or to meet our old friends.  

Highlights

• Diane
• Conversations between Hawk and the Log Lady
• The Convenience Store and Philip Jeffries.
• The Blue Rose explained
• Audrey's purple dance
• The Music!!

Questions that remain 

• Judy?
• Is Audrey the sound trapped in the Great Northern?
•  Will Julee Cruise close out the show (appropriately)?
• Is Naido Diane? But still WHO IS JUDY?
• Do we every find out what is in the White Room?

We are like the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream, but who is the dreamer?