This recap/review of Twin Peaks is written with the expectation that everyone who reads this and comments below will have seen the episode already. Thus, if you've yet to see the episode in question, DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER. SPOILERS!
PLOT: Twenty-five years after the murder of Laura Palmer, another murder somehow ties into the ongoing evil in Twin Peaks.
REVIEW: Just before jumping into this new, re-launch of “Twin Peaks”, I revisited the last two episodes of the original run, as well as TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, in order to re-familiarize myself with David Lynch/Mark Frost’s peculiar world. This wound-up being a good idea, as right from the get-go, the show picks up where S2 left off, which saw Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) now seemingly possessed by the evil Bob, while the good Dale was trapped in the Black Lodge.
The first new piece of footage we see has Cooper in the Lodge still (in b&w), speaking to the Giant (Carel Struycken), before cutting to New York, where a young man is shown watching a giant glass box, with cameras on it at all times. He can’t even bring in the young woman (Madeline Zima) who brings him coffee every night. What’s the deal with the box? It seems to be a kind of portal or something, and it’s not long before the young man breaks the rules against visitors, brings the girl in, and starts to fool around with her – leading to a kind of beast appearing in it, who rips them both to shreds. What does it have to do with the “Twin Peaks” universe? Who knows, except that by less than halfway through the episode, it’s clear Lynch is no longer bound by the rules of network TV, opting for nudity, gore and even some F-bombs in episode two.
It all ties into a murder involving a put-upon school principal (Matthew Lillard) and a decapitated body, with the head and the corpse belonging to two separate people. By the time we get back to Twin Peaks, it’s not obvious exactly how this ties in, but the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson) seems to know something, warning Hawk (Michael Horse) that “something is missing and you have to find it.”.
In the second hour, it starts to come together a bit when Lillard’s wife is murdered by the new evil Cooper, who’s rocking long hair, and bad attitude – seemingly now working as a kind of backwoods bad guy. He’s after some piece of info related to Lillard’s character. It’s eventually revealed that his escape from the Black Lodge was only temporary, and now he’s supposed to be pulled back in. The good Cooper can only escape if the bad one comes back in. By the end of the episode, Coop is deposited by an electric tree with a face, in the glass box in New York, just before the other two are killed, but he still seems stuck. Still with me? Yeah, thought not.
Fact is, there’s a whole lot to unpack after the first two episodes. I have no idea where any of it is going, but hey – that’s Lynch for you. Is Laura (Sheryl Lee) still stuck in the Black Lodge? Doesn’t that contradict the ending of FIRE WALK WITH ME, which seemed to give Laura some measure of peace? Is that actually Laura at all? It’s Lynch, so it’s all a mystery. Even though it’s been ten years since INLAND EMPIRE, he’s still very much in possession of his distinct voice, with a modern spin, including high gloss digital photography.
Many of the old favorites show up here and there, like Shelly (Madchen Amick) and James (James Marshall), who still hang out at the Bang-Bang roadhouse (anyone spot Jacques tending bar?), and Ben (Richard Beymer) and Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly), who are still exactly like they were when we left them. But, nostalgia is not Lynch’s thing here – rather it’s another wild, mind-bending ride, with lots of visceral scares as well as the odd moment of beauty, such as the closing musical number by The Chromatics.
Overall, it’s a whole lot to digest, but as an unabashed Lynch fan, I enjoyed the heck out of it. I really have no idea what’s going on, but it’s still early – although to be fair by the end of the entire series I still may have no clue – that’s just Lynch. It’s really all about the ride, and it’s…interesting. It’s fun, in a David Lynch-ian kind of way, but who would expect anything less.