Rather than attempt to recapture its former glory, Twin Peaks: The Return did something totally new.
Twin Peaks: The Returnis a failure.
That is, if were talking about it as a revival of an iconic series from the early nineties.
were left out in the cold.
A few exceptions aside,The Returndefiantly declined to provide closure up until its very last minute.
The Returnis one of the most fascinating, groundbreaking works of art to have ever aired on television.
Twin Peaks, both new and old, makes hypocritical bullshitters out of us all.
It was my argument that theTwin Peaksexperience was more about how it made you feel than anything else.
Trying to tease full logical sense out of it was pointless.
Why have I read numerousReturnfan theories (Cooper is stuck doing the same thing over and over forever!
Everythings cool, Coopers already won!)?
Nevertheless, I resist their claim!
The ending puts the journey in a new light.
The destination is connected to the journey.
Characters we followed nearly the whole series were unceremoniously shot.
Storylines with no apparent connection to anything else were introduced and never revisited.
Information wed already learned would be repeated.
New characters and plots were introduced well over halfway into the entire series run.
To be clear,I enjoyed the finale quite a lot.It was a really cool Lynch film.
But theres no denying it was a major downer forTwin Peaksfans.
It sucks how few of them got any closure.
Hell, some barely got any development.
Take Shelly, for example.
Young Shelley had an abusive husband she was terrified of.
She was having an affair with Bobby.
She had hopes of a better life and viewed Norma as a mother figure.
There are developments about middle-aged Shelly too, broadly speaking.
She and Bobby have a daughter who she cares for and is worried about.
She fell out with Bobby, though we dont know why.
Shes happy for Norma and Ed.
I think that about covers it.
(I recognize there are exceptions.
In fairness, the show was really Kyle MacLachlans.
The focus was Cooper.
Some new characters were developed fairly well.
Im surprised how much I ended up knowing about the Mitchum Brothers by the end.
I dont doubt this is at least partially true.
Its just that his idea of what constitutes the world ofTwin Peaksdoesnt match up with anyone elses.
It doesnt seem to be the characters, who are relegated to the background.
Its not the town itself as most ofThe Returnwas spent outside of it.
Maybe he just means the surreal stuff?
But…thats sort of all Lynchs film work already.
So, again, why was this calledTwin Peaks?
The premiere dared you to continue watching.
Added to all of this, it subverted reboots.
In a sense, this madeThe Returna true successor to the originalTwin Peaksafter all.
Or would it have felt stale and sad?
ButThe Returnmostly cured me of these expectations, too.
First, they find Dougie/Coop a breath of levity in an otherwise somber production.
This morphs into a hope and/or assumption that Coop will soon stop being Dougie.
This quickly escalates to frustration that the Dougie plot is still going.
Finally, theres acceptance that Dougie is here to stay.
Also, its not as though the show totally avoided beingTwin Peakseither.
The Double R was having its soul sucked out by franchising.
Audreys dance was performed in her mind and interrupted by an act of violence.
Unavoidably, all the returning characters were markedly older.
If thats your assessment, I honestly cant dismiss it as invalid.
The thing is, Im not sure how deliberate all this subversion was.
Sure, Lynch can get pretty meta.
However, theres always an odd genuineness to the man.
Maybe hes the secret meta mastermind behind everything, toying with fans hopes and dreams.
The simpler explanation may be that theres no point, in Lynchs mind, to retreading old ground.
Lynch is a true artist and an artist must always challenge himself to create something new.
Theyre less of an artist and more of an assembly line.
Lynch recently said he wouldnt rule out another season and that makes perfect sense for him.
Why would he rule out another season if hes free to create anything within it?
If I get any, itll be by happenstance.
I still want to know whats going on with Audrey, though.
