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penniesforthestorm · 7 years

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On ‘Twin Peaks’, Part 2

“It Is Happening Again...”

NOTICE: Welcome to Part 2 of my Twin Peaks appreciation! Again, I have tried to avoid concrete spoilers, but if you’re new to the series, the less you know going in, the better. For other fans, welcome.

Over Memorial Day weekend of 2017, it happened. Defying massive skepticism, the unavailability of certain key cast members, and twenty-five years of theories and criticism, David Lynch premiered some of his most confounding and formally audacious work to date, less a season of TV than an eighteen-hour film. It's difficult to know where to start when talking about The Return, because its narrative strands cross and loop and converge in baffling ways. The original series had a relatively straight time-structure—even Fire Walk With Me fits fairly neatly into the scheme of things. The Return discards all that, taking us from a starless void navigated by a woman with sewn-shut eyes, to Las Vegas and New York, to the Trinity nuclear test.

At times, it seemed like Lynch was waving a giant middle finger at our collective nostalgia. You want Dale Cooper? Here's 'Mr. C.' (McLachlan), the man who emerged from the Black Lodge a quarter-century ago, a snake-eyed, soft-spoken, pitiless crook. Here's 'Dougie Jones' (McLachlan again), a pleasant-enough sort who is nonetheless cheating on his wife with a sex worker. And here, finally, is anti-Cooper (also McLachlan)—dressed in the familiar black suit, with that swoop of dark hair now shot through with silver, utterly unable to navigate the world around him, repeating whatever is said to him in a dreamlike, stilted monotone.

Then again, there were callbacks to the original series that felt like blessings. Deputy 'Hawk' Hill (Michael Horse), gentle as always, talking late into the night with Margaret Lanterman, a.k.a. the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson). Her face and voice ravaged by illness, she seemed desperate to impart her final oracles to a sympathetic ear. (Coulson was in fact suffering from cancer at the time, and succumbed shortly after her scenes were filmed). There was the radiant Shelley Briggs (née Johnson) at the Roadhouse with her girlfriends, defending the lovelorn James Hurley. And best of all, on the primary case, we got ebullient FBI director Gordon Cole (David Lynch) and the curmudgeonly Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer), cracking wise but full of almost brotherly concern for one another.

Even more pointedly than the original series, The Return grounded its nightmare vision in the quotidian world. A house in a subdivision occupied by a strung-out young woman yelling the same three digits with incantatory force. Another sad-eyed blonde (Amanda Seyfried) in a turbulent relationship with an abusive, sniveling meth-head (Caleb Landry Jones). The handsome, menacing Richard (Eamon Farren), summoning an underage girl to his table at the Roadhouse and then nearly choking her just for kicks. (That scene in particular gave me chills—I've been in situations like that, where it all seems like a joke until it suddenly, clearly isn't.) In the original series, the rot was concealed under a façade of small-town hygge; in The Return, there is no façade left.

The most exciting kind of show, for me, is one where absolutely anything could happen (frequently, these have been 'genre' shows: Hannibal, Vikings, the UK series Misfits). Going into each episode of The Return, while I certainly had predictions, I never felt like I knew how this hour would unfold. This is a world where the camera lingers for two minutes on a man sweeping sawdust, as "Green Onions" plays in the background. A girl home from a first date sits up in her bedroom, listening to "My Prayer" by The Platters, only to have the broadcast interrupted by a dreadful, sonorous voice speaking a mysterious litany that puts everyone who hears it into a deep sleep. Cars drive down two-lane highways in the darkness, with no signposts and no landmarks. The stage at the Roadhouse is occupied by acts ranging from "The" Nine Inch Nails, to boys with pompadours who sing like Hank Williams formed a trio with the Everlys.

You'll notice, if you're still with me (you trooper, you), that I have not yet mentioned Audrey Horne. In some ways, among the show's die-hard fans, Audrey's mythos loomed even larger than Laura's. Audrey, the brunette in saddle shoes and sweater sets, who shared a lineage with sirens like Lauren Bacall and Rosalind Russell—spunky dames who didn't take any guff, but would melt for the right man. Audrey, last seen chained to a bank vault, shortly before a bomb went off. Yes, I loved her, and was desperate for any hint of her fate. Without venturing any further into spoiler territory than I have already, let me just say I still am.

Yes, sometimes, The Return is downright frustrating. I was along for the ride, but there were a few moments when I considered getting out of the car and, at the very least, taking a breather. But, as with most things, my patience would be rewarded. I wouldn't trade the shenanigans of the Mitcham brothers (plus Candie, the vaguely extraterrestrial showgirl), or the thrill of the twofold reveal of Laura Dern's character, or the fiercely maternal protectiveness of Janey-E Jones (Naomi Watts) for anything. Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton) plaintively singing "Red River Valley" in his relocated trailer court… Albert finding a kindred spirit in a sardonic small-town medical examiner (Jane Addams)… The adorable British lad, Freddie Sykes (Jake Wardle), who becomes a kind of Sir Gawain of the Green Gardening Glove… all these things, and many more, kept winning me back.

Of all the filmmakers working today, Lynch has performed some of the most radical tests of the potential of film as a vehicle for storytelling. Visually, yes, with those vibrant reds and blues, the rich earth tones, and the stark black-and-white of Episode 8. Aurally, with Angelo Badalamenti’s otherworldly music. And perhaps most importantly, psychologically—using our common cultural knowledge and our love of film itself to deepen the context of what we’re seeing. (For an irreverent example, see Albert grumbling, “Fuck you, Gene Kelly!” as he makes his way through a freezing downpour.)

And Laura? Well, as the Log Lady so poignantly put it, "Laura is the one." In the end, it all came back to her. In thinking about her character over the course of my acquaintance with the show, I'm reminded of another doomed beauty: Miranda in Picnic at Hanging Rock, who likewise disappears into a realm beyond ours. Like Laura, Miranda seems somehow aware of her fate—indeed, one interpretation that could apply to both girls is that they offered themselves as a sacrifice to the darkness. But that doesn't make their demise any easier to comprehend. Seeing Sheryl Lee let loose her bone-rattling scream for one last time, on the street in front of the house that was, and was not, the Palmer's, hearing the echo of Sarah Palmer call her daughter's name across years and dimensions… I mean, a few minutes later, I was leaning against my kitchen cabinets, sobbing. We were left with so many questions. Can you ever really know a person? How do you save someone who doesn't believe they're worth saving?

Oh, and what *was* Jerry Horne smoking?

Did Nadine really mean what she said this time?

Just how did that danged fish get in the percolator?

#tv review #Long Reads #twin peaks

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