A place both wonderful and strange

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This article was published 17/06/2017 (3219 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Twenty-seven years ago, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks turned television on its head. For two seasons on ABC, the surreal, soapy crime drama invited viewers into the bizarre world of Twin Peaks, Wash., a town filled with oddballs and haunted by unspoken evil.

A quick recap: when high school sweetheart Laura Palmer is found murdered, FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, is called in to investigate. The intuitive coffee- and pie-loving G-man is often seen recording messages on a dictaphone to an unseen woman named Diane (“Diane, I’m holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies.”)

Cooper soon uncovers nothing is what it seems, not Laura’s reputation as town good girl, not her clandestine biker boyfriend James Hurley (James Marshall) nor her bizarre psychiatrist Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), nor the classified work being done by Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis),

After the show revealed who the killer was — Laura’s father Leland (Ray Wise), inhabited by an evil entity called BOB — viewership dramatically declined. Director/writer Lynch left the helm and the show declined somewhat into silliness, though fans fondly recall it and poke through it, as well as the reviled film prequel, Fire Walk With Me, for clues to the wider Twin Peaks mythology.

Lynch returned for the finale; a chilling episode that saw BOB take over Cooper’s body, leaving a version of him trapped in the Red Room, a scarlet-curtained extradimensional space.

The original was a unique mixture of melodrama and supernatural horror, goofy moments undercut by disturbing scenes. Twin Peaks: The Return (on The Movie Network and Crave TV) is like nothing else on TV, although it could be argued that, even on cable, its weirdness is only possible because of the doors the original opened.

Filled with doppelganger Coopers and star cameos (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ernie Hudson, Tom Sizemore), this 25-years-later sequel is baffling, brilliant, frustrating and fascinating — classic Lynch, in other words.

After six episodes of the 18-episode run, three of the Free Press’s most devout Lynch-heads got together over a damn fine cup of coffee to talk all things Twin Peaks.

Rob Williams: So let’s start with this: Is it worth revisiting Twin Peaks?

Jill Wilson: I would say emphatically yes. I am super-enjoying this, although it is not what I expected and it’s extremely difficult to follow and I don’t know if it’s ever going to resolve any of the questions it’s posing.

Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson: I agree. I think it’s a total continuation of where David Lynch’s work has been going, from Mulhullond Dr. through to Inland Empire. Things were becoming less and less linear.

Yet at the same time, I feel like there are things happening in sequential order, more so than in his last two or three movies.

Rob: I’m really enjoying the ride we’re being taken on. It’s slow at times, frustratingly so, but I think that’s his plan. In the original series, people stopped watching after Laura’s killer was revealed.

With this one, maybe he’s like, “You know what? You guys didn’t want a resolution the first time? I’m going to drag this out for a bit.”

Jill: I know the viewership of this series has already started to drop off. But if anything, I’m becoming more intrigued because there’s so much unspooling.

Every week he introduces a new character and I’m like “Oh, I love that guy” or “That’s a David Lynch regular.”

This week (with the arrival of Lynch mainstays Harry Dean Stanton and Laura Dern) was a banner week.

Ben: It was like a meeting of all of his movies in one episode. Kyle MacLachlan is doing such an amazing job.

He’s started off this new series as Cooper in the Red Room. And then we’ve got this evil Cooper, Mr. C., who is just creepy as hell. And then you’ve got this childlike Cooper who has sort of escaped the Red Room into this other body, Dougie Jones, which apparently was a mistake, and he’s wandering around like a child in a totally endearing way. He’s cute.

But there are some things you want resolved and I think that’s how he keeps you around. Cooper’s not just going to snap out of it…

Jill: Which I’m loving!

Ben: Yes, it’s great, but you see him touch a cop’s badge and you think, “This is it! This is going to be his breakout moment.” And then it isn’t.

Jill: It’s such a testament to an actor — it’s like in the current season of Fargo, when Ewan McGregor is playing two brothers and even when they’re in a scene together, you’re not thinking, “Oh, tricky, how did they do that?” because they’re two different people.

It’s the same thing with Kyle MacLachlan in this: he is three different people and they’re all completely separate to me.

Rob: I watched the original series again a couple of months ago. The last episode is filled with cliffhangers and Lynch resolves none of them. He doesn’t deal with the Audrey Horne thing (the character played by Sherilyn Fenn chained herself to a bank, which then blew up; Fenn is listed in IMDb as appearing in the new series, however).

The only kind of throwback is Cooper coming out of the Red Room and Laura Palmer saying “I’ll see you in 25 years.” Dr. Hayward hit his head and we don’t know who Donna Hayward’s (Lara Flynn Boyle) father is.

Ben: Is Joan Chen still stuck in a doorknob?

Rob: She is! She has to be.

Ben: Only David Lynch would make you ask a question like that.

Rob: There’s about six different plot threads going on (in the new series) and I think they’ll all link together at some point, but maybe not.

Jill: By Episode 6, I had already totally forgotten about the Matthew Lillard character in Episode 1 being accused of murdering that woman in South Dakota — whose head was possibly attached to Major Briggs’ body.

I hope we go back to that, because that’s your more standard thriller fare that’s easier to follow, but…

Ben: Who the hell knows? We may never return. There are just so many threads. Dr. Jacoby is back…

Rob: Yes, and other people have just popped up. Like James Hurley is just drinking a beer at the roadhouse. That’s it. That’s all he’s done so far.

Ben: You wonder how many of them were just brought back in for a cameo walk-on, where the audience applauds whenever they appear, like Fonzie on a sitcom.

And in this most recent episode, obviously, there was a very important character who was introduced who had not ever been in the original series but was such a big part of it.

Rob: Should we say who it is? Yes? So there is a Diane.

Ben: We see Miguel Ferrer, RIP, who plays FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield, walk into a bar and say “Diane.” And you’re like…

Jill: Aaaaahhhh!

Ben: This is it, the moment you’ve been waiting for, and she turns around and it’s Laura Dern, who’s such a classic Lynch woman, from Inland Empire, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet.

But that’s all you see of her. How long till we find out what role she will play?

Rob: Another Lynchian thing that happened in this episode was he amped up the violence.

There is usually one ultra-violent scene per movie, but with this episode, we got the tragic death of a child and the super-violent ice-pick murder by a small bald muscular man.

Jill: And it wasn’t just a stabbing; there was a swirling around in the wound. It was hard to watch.

Rob: Because Lynch has such freedom in the new cable universe that we live in, he can do what he wants, so it’s not just as quirky and fun as the original — sometimes he’s being weird for the sake of being weird.

“You know what? I’m a surrealist and I’m gonna do what I want. Follow me!”

Ben: I’ve always wondered what the writing process is between Mark Frost and David Lynch.

Does Lynch come with his ideas and then Frost is like, “OK, now we have to shape this into something that makes sense?”

Jill: “Let’s take the horrible bile your psyche has spewed up and make it into a TV show.”

Rob: I would love to see one of those scripts: “Cooper walks up ladder with woman with no eyes. Woman flies into space. Cooper stands stunned.”

Ben: “Cooper is sucked out of a box and comes out of an electrical outlet, next to a pile of evil puke.” What was that, Episode 3?

Jill: I thought it happened early on to remind us: “Don’t forget, I’m a weirdo and you’re in for weird stuff.”

It’s also interesting to me that there’s no attempt to make the surreal stuff high-tech. It looks about as good as it would have in 1990, very cheesy, like a student art film from the ‘80s.

Rob: I picture Lynch building those little models at home, painting them.

Ben: I feel like he’s more interested in the scene, the setting, the colours, in the overall picture than he is on the details: “How are we going to picture Cooper flying through space? Let’s just jiggle the camera really fast.”

Or when Dougie Jones goes into the Red Room and his head turns black and pops out and there’s a little gold marble.

I mean, even talking about this in a round-table context… how do we even explain to someone that the third Kyle MacLachlan got sucked the other way into the room and then he turns into a marble that the one-armed man puts into his pocket?

Jill: Speaking of explaining, I have not watched Fire Walk With Me since it was in theatres and I feel like I’m missing some important callbacks.

There are portions set in South America — where David Bowie’s character in the film, Agent Phillip Jeffries, was — and I don’t remember any of that.

Rob: Bowie’s character just walks through the screen in the movie. I don’t think he even has a line.

Jill: But David Lynch, as FBI Chief Gordon Cole, mentions him in an early episode, as does evil Cooper.

Rob: He (Lynch) looks like he hasn’t aged a day.

Jill: That brings me to something I can’t stop thinking about when I watch it. I don’t know if it’s intentional or just a factor of it being 25 years later, but there seems to be some attempt to deal with mortality.

It’s filled with people who are literally dying, in real life. The Log Lady (Catherine Coulson) is dying. You can tell that Miguel Ferrer, who died of cancer in January 2017, is sick; he looks like he’s being eaten up from the inside. Also, everyone looks so freakin’ old.

Lynch has to have known that was going to happen; to me it feels like he wants to address it somehow, because he’s getting old too.

Kyle MacLachlan, when he turns to the side, his neck is all wrinkly. Which is as it should be, because he’s however old he is, but it looks exactly the same as it did when they made him look 25 years older 25 years ago.

It’s such a weird thing to wrap your head around. And it’s a show that was filled with so many beautiful young people and now you’re like, “Yeesh. Do I look like that too?”

Ben: Have you seen Lara Flynn Boyle lately?

Jill: And then at the end, the episodes are all “In Memory Of…” They’re dropping like flies.

Ben: Even Naomi Watts, who I think of as a newer Lynch star, was in Mulholland Dr. 16 years ago. But I would like to talk about how amazing she is.

Rob: That scene when she’s confronting the loan sharks?

Ben: MacLachlan as Dougie-turned-Cooper has this showy role, where he wanders around, sucking on his disposable coffee cup, not knowing how elevators work and being delighted by clap-on/clap-off light switches.

But as Dougie’s wife, she seems like the most genuine, I don’t want to say “normal,” but human person in the show.

Rob: I wasn’t sure if Lynch was going to make the show accessible for newcomers to step in, but it seems like knowing the backstory is important.

Jill: I don’t think you could enjoy watching this without knowledge of the original, because I’m even finding my lack of familiarity with Fire Walk With Me is hampering my understanding.

 

(Discussion ensues about a green ring that figures in both the movie and The Return, and magic vomit/creamed corn called “garmonbozia.”)

 

Jill: You don’t need to know about (the creamed corn), but you having reminded me of it adds another layer.

Rob: I think partially he’s giving a treat to people who did stick with the original: “This is an inside joke for you guys. Thanks for sticking around.”

Jill: I’m finding myself more interested in the stuff that’s not set in Twin Peaks right now, which I never thought would be the case.

Rob: I wonder if it’s all going to tie back though, because Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) in Twin Peaks just found those pages, which I think are the ripped pages from Laura’s diary that were missing.

Ben: Of all the old characters, Hawk has the most oppurtunity for an interesting storyline.

Rob: Can we talk about the fact it seems like Lynch is also putting together some kind of compilation album? Every episode ends with a live band playing at the bar — it’s shot really nicely and it sounds great (he does the sound design).

Is he just like “I’ve got this time on TV, I’m going to show off bands I like?” ‘Cause in the original, there were theories — the band stage was a device for the giant to appear, for Cooper to get messages, for a broader purpose.

Jill: But it’s the same kind of dreamy music and all the leather-jacketed hoods at the roadhouse are just swaying back and forth…

Rob: What keeps you coming back?

Ben: For people who are fans of the original, it’s a fun return, but even more so if you’re a David Lynch fan. If you’ve come through the movies and you get to this, it makes more sense in terms of his development as an artist.

After they revealed who killed Laura, when it sort of went off the rails, you could, say, remember the episode where they had the wine-tasting to save the ferrets (pine weasels).

With this series, it’s harder to look back and say what came in which episode. Maybe it’s because Lynch feels like he has more control over the timing or the pace.

Jill: I just read a piece that said it’s like watching TV with someone else who’s changing the channel. They haven’t necessarily switched it at a part where you wanted to stop watching and they switch to something that’s not that interesting, or community television.

But I still think David Lynch has a fascinating brain and I would always check out anything that he did.

Rob: He has a plan in his head and he’s going to follow it through for the whole 18 episodes.

 

Ben.MacPhee-Sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca
Rob.Williams@freepress.mb.ca
Jill.Wilson@freepress.mb.ca