It's hard to criticize the work of David Lynch under the best of circumstances. His mix of genres, notable film noir and surrealism is unique in the creative world. He takes chances and for that at least, the new season of Twin Peaks, 25 years after the last one, is something to watch, appreciate but not really to understand.
In many ways this is a followup to his film "Fire Come Walk with Me" over the TV show as he seems to be following the ideas presented in that film. He doesn't forget the TV show, not by a long shot and there is plenty (maybe too much) fan service in this Showtime special event series. He is David Lynch and could have avoided following up on our favourites from the past, but instead goes full in and because of that his affection for the material shows through and his desire to include the fates of actors who died in real life over the preceding ¼ century is truly touching.
The story of this new series explore the identities of doppelgäners, the most notable is that of agent Dale Cooper who is trying to return to the corporale world while his evil twin is loose and causing violence and havoc. There is a third version of Copper, Dougie Jones who we spend the most time with, who has the real Cooper trapped inside him. This show has entire episodes of just flat out bizarre imagery and odd story lines and goes in and out of colour and black and white, traversing dimensions and timelines. It does this without any exposition to explain any of it. You are truly on your own but Lynch has enough "real" plot to keep you going if you just get completely lost in the more out there segments.
Overall this is a worthy successor to Lynch's maybe best known work and Showtime should be commended for (eventually) giving him free reign over it. It's not without its flaws though. I don't buy the relationship between Cooper and Diane who we finally meet in the flesh and some of the returning characters don't add much to the new story. Some of those nostalgic bits are the most heartwarming so it's difficult to argue they shouldn't be included. Dale Cooper is not the same person we saw in the original which makes sense, but he is a sombre much less fun version of himself. All those quirks about the Dali lama and his free form investigating techniques are gone which is a shame. This lacks much of the humour that helped us through the horror of the shows first 2 seasons.
The series ends in a way which I'm sure is exactly at Lynch intended, but as an audience member, it falls short of satisfying. Maybe after 25 years of suffering, I feel the residents of Twin Peaks merited something a little more upbeat. I was happy to see this on air and happier to see it was done without compromise but I doubt I'll got back to it like I do the first 2 seasons.
2 comments:
Never seen Twin Peaks, though it was always something I thought I was supposed to see. I think I've only seen one Lynch movie ever and I HATED it (Eraserhead). Might be that the series is worth watching now, partially because I don't have to wait 25 years.
Twin Peak and Lynch in general is not for everyone. The original series was out there and still is but is easier to grasp since so many there crazy tings have come along. The new series is pretty surreal, so you have to be prepared for that and not to expect explanations for.. well... anything. Some of the violence is pretty shocking, sometimes because of the gore sometimes because of the context.
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