Why I'm Excited About The Return Of Twin Peaks

It'll probably be well over a year until we return to Twin Peaks but we will be returning to Twin Peaks, that's what is most important. David Lynch and Mark Frost simultaneously announced on Twitter a few days ago "That gum you like is going to come back in style" which thew everyone for a loop at the possibilities and finally later confirmed that a deal had been struck with Showtime to air nine new episodes completely written and directed by Lynch and Frost. Much has been written and Tweeted about this announcement in the last few days, everyone trying to outdo each other's favorite obscure lines from the show or make jokes about what life in Twin Peaks would look like in the present day. Within 24 hours, I'd read numerous pieces about how disappointed certain bloggers and TV writers already were about something that won't happen for a year and a half still and of which they've seen no footage of nor any details about. Some concerns I heard were that the numerous second-rate canonical pieces of Twin Peaks pop culture in the last 20 plus years were going to mean nothing if this new series continues where season 2 left off. Which is ridiculous because wherever Lynch and Frost want the series to go is where it should go. There is no reason to believe that this new season, which will apparently be a present day continuation of storylines we last saw at the end of season 2, in 1991, as opposed to the dreaded "reboot" or prequel of some sort, will be shoddy or uninteresting. The first season of Twin Peaks is extraordinarily original and interesting and David Lynch was on board completely, however, season 2 was plagued by network intervention, declining ratings, and the exit of Lynch as the head creative vision for the show. The mystery of the death of Laura Palmer was the biggest thing on television for a while but when the story was forced to stretch out and expand the world, it started to fall apart a little. It's still a wonderful watch but it gets a little strange. The hint of the darkness in the woods becomes a little too visible, a lot of quirky characters go completely off the deep end and there are aliens. Lynch came back to wrap it up when it got canceled and then did the prequel film Fire Walk With Me, which chronicled the final days of Laura Palmer and was not received well, but the legacy of the show still lives on and is remembered fondly.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that my lasting memory of the show since I first saw it about 10 years ago is that of Sherilyn Fenn as the Lolita Audrey Horne. Audrey is a bored, rich, curious and lovelorn teenager who has her eye on FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. She may or may not have actually cared that Laura Palmer was murdered but becomes interested in getting to the bottom of the mystery in order to win the heart of Cooper and make him realize that she is the woman of his dreams. One night, Cooper returns to his room and is greeted by a naked Audrey in his bed, beckoning him to join her. Cooper resists but it pretty much takes a pack of wolves to drag him away. In rewatching the series this week, I became interested in the battle for my affection between Audrey and Laura's best friend Donna Hayward. Donna is the kind of girl you take home to meet your parents but Audrey is fun. The image of Audrey changing out of her saddle shoes and putting on her red heels perfectly illustrates the dual nature of much of Twin Peaks. What seems wholesome on Sunday morning is dark, sexy and seductive on Saturday night. The tutor to a mentally-challenged kid is actually a cocaine addicted escort. Still, the array of wonderfully written and acted female characters in the show holds up. While most of the men (and some of the women) are duplicitous and evil, you can't help but be charmed by Lucy in the Sheriff's office or Norma in the Double R Diner or stunned by the image of Audrey in a little black dress humming to herself and shimmying her body to the tune of a song in her head. Even the more insidious characters like Catherine Martell or the flat-out insane characters like Nadine Hurley or the Log Lady are intensely interesting. Even by the end of season 1, a mere 8 episodes, every character is so fleshed out that you seem to know everything about them. Twin Peaks is a seemingly quaint town that instantly charms the newly arrived Cooper but is very quickly turned upside down and shaken when Laura dies, the secrets, lies and misdeeds becoming very evident and changing everyone's lives. This theme, that of an idyllic small town and the darkness that lurks below the surface and in the shadows, is a favorite for Lynch, most notably in Blue Velvet, also featuring Kyle MacLachlan. In addition, the episodic, serialized single-crime plot of Twin Peaks is, to yet again use the popular phrase, coming back in style. Incredibly popular and well-made shows like True Detective and Fargo this year and lesser shows like The Killing owe a debt of gratitude to Twin Peaks. The fact that Lynch at his peak would step down a notch and helm a television show is also something that is becoming vogue, with such illustrious directors as Stephen Soderbergh, Cary Fukunaga, and Alexander Payne creating shows for pioneering networks like FX and HBO. Twin Peaks is more of a soap opera than a crime drama but it excels at the latter while poking fun at the former. Mark Frost even directed all the scenes of the fictional soap that many of the residents watch on television entitled Invitation To Love, which slightly paralleled what was happening in Twin Peaks. It was a cheeky little homage to the genre disguised as a goofy way of furthering the plot that included backstabbing, murder and too many affairs to count. The murder mystery wasn't too shabby either and there was plenty of blood and mayhem to satisfy the most hardened procedural fan.

In retrospect, I might be more interested in the renewed love for Twin Peaks and the excuse to watch again and write about it. However, the fact that there will be new episodes set in present-day Twin Peaks is wonderful news and I will be counting down the days and scouring the internet for any news about the production. I'm not looking at this as a cash-grab for Lynch and Frost or a shameless attempt by Showtime to cash in on an already established brand name, I see it as an artist going back to a world he loved as much as us and being genuinely curious himself about what has happened since we've been gone. There was so many iconic, lasting, cool pop culture items that were spawned by Twin Peaks that just to see the red room again or hear the Angelo Badalamenti music once more will make it completely worth the wait. Diane, it's been a while but we're going to taste that heavenly coffee and pie once more real soon.