Is it the future
When the next season of Twin Peaks was announced as a thing that will definitely happen I… didn’t know how to react. So I rewatched the original and Fire Walk with Me (and The Missing Pieces). And I knew that the first Season is still an amazing achievement, with the Pilot being a fantastic thriller, a slowly unfolding other side of a seemingly normal quiet city. I knew that the second season was a slow descent into pointless mediocrity, with ridiculous Moriarty-like villains and nonsensical events, but which ended on the, probably, most infamous cliffhanger in history. And I knew that Fire Walk with Me was a fantastic and horrifying movie, a true evolution of the ideas with the other side of the town, of people being shown in all its ugly abusive and horrifying glory.
And then I knew that the only way the continuation can work is if it goes further down and away.
And it does.
Meanwhile
There was one thing I was afraid of and it was justified. The length. 18 episodes don’t feel like they should be 18. Even without altering the uneasy long takes Lynch so masterfully inserts or taking out the songs at the end of each episode (this would be harder, though), it feels like the third season/The Returns/2017 could be shorter and be better from it. Not much shorter – it has a lot of things. A lot disjointed, discarded half-thoughts, surreal ideas and strange scenes. But ones worth being there. But some are there for seemingly little reason or just too long.
But oh how much there is. Drink full and descend. Some of it is shameless fan service. Some of it a reshoot of ideas discarded or not fully realized in Fire Walk with Me. But a lot of it new. New and very very appealing in it’s unpleasantness. New Twin peaks doesn’t just have the other side of people as something to contrast with. It’s the new normal. The minimalist, mundane darkness of everything around, contrasted with charm, beauty and kindness, sometimes found in most unexpected places. New Twin Peaks is not a charming ride with unforgettable characters, a thrilling scary adventure. It’s the waiting of one and not being entirely sure you want it anymore.
Old Twin Peaks aesthetic vs New Twin Peaks aesthetic pic.twitter.com/faJsyPjVKx
— J Rosenfield (@J_Rosenfield) August 5, 2017
Or is it past?
And I feel like this will be something that a lot of people don’t want. By now, we even have a game that perfectly captures the feel and ideas of the original series and even some of the movie, while being very different. But the new season isn’t same, but very different. It’s just very different. It starts slow, pics up the pace and then leaves you at… not a cliffhanger as much as lots and lots of questions. For the series of 18 episodes it feels a bit too long, yet still as if something essential was cut from it. Which, I feel, was intended. I feel like, instead of following it as is or as a psychological portrait of abuse and deep traumas, it’s a dream.
We are like the dreamer.