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Twin Peaks 2017 review: A twisted, triumphant return

From Digital Spy

More than 25 years after Twin Peaks fans were left very much hanging by master of the mis-step, David Lynch, comes the longest-awaited TV return in history. (Sort of) picking up the same narrative, with (some of) the same cast, this type of comeback after quarter of a century is unprecedented.

The double-episode opener was simulcast at 2am GMT this morning (May 22) on Showtime in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK, but is waiting on Sky On Demand for those who didn't brave the all-nighter (and is getting a prime-time showing, too).

So, was it worth the wait?

Absolutely.

First, a health warning. Twin Peaks: The Return is very, very different from Twin Peaks. This is no nostalgia trip reunion tour that only brings the old gang back together to play the hits. Far from it.

More than even Fire Walk With Me, this third season feels much more like later Lynch than a 1990 throwback. Think Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. Like those movies, there's effing and jeffing, boobs, bums, and blood.

Soundtrack extraordinaire Angelo Badalamenti returns for the score, but it's striking how little he's actually used. There are no pretty songs and music is rarely in the air. Instead of those jazzy drum brush frills and quizzical synth lines it's nearly all stark, suffocating silence or an oppressive, industrial hum.

Is it worth tuning in if you've not watched Twin Peaks before? It wouldn't be recommended, but you could probably get away with it. There's so much going on, and so much new stuff going on, that this could just about work as the pilot for a brand new series, albeit a somewhat mysterious one.

Photo credit: Showtime
Photo credit: Showtime

While we pick up on the frayed ends left behind, there are so many new threads interweaving that even the most dedicated old-school Peakies will feel almost as much in the dark for much of the two-part opener as the most fresh-to-it newcomers.

That 200+ strong cast list? We've met quite a few of them now but have still barely scratched the surface. When Lynch got cold feet about the return, insisting he needed more time to tell his story, it was easy to think that he was just holding out for more money. Two hours in, it actually feels like 18 episodes may not even be enough for something this broad in scope with this many players.

But first… a Spoiler warning.

From now on, we're discussing plot details of episodes 1 and 2, so if you want to go in cold…

TURN AWAY NOW!

Is it future... or is it past?

We start at the beginning. A flashback of that nameless student running past the window after hearing of Laura Palmer's murder. Then Cooper in the Red Room, with Laura telling him she will see him in 25 years. Douglas Firs. Twin Peaks High School. Laura's homecoming picture. Waterfalls and that theme.

A black and white scene in the lodge with the Giant (Carel Struycken) and our present-day Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) hooks us straight back to a place both wonderful and strange – but also dark and terrifying.

The question of what happened to Dale Cooper is answered with surprising haste. To his friends in Twin Peaks, he's been missing for the last 24 years. He's grown his hair long, bought a bad shirt and a leather jacket. He's invested in some fast cars, and has developed a nasty taste for violence, icky chat-up lines and murder.

We later find that, with time served perhaps, the "Good Dale" can now leave the Lodge where he's been trapped. There's a catch, though. The Arm (who, in Michael J Anderson's absence has now "evolved" from a besuited dwarf into a brain on a tree, sparkling with electricity... do keep up), reminds Coop that you don't get something for nothing.

Photo credit: Showtime
Photo credit: Showtime

"Do you remember. Your doppelgänger? He must come back in before you can go out," the brain-on-a-tree crackles. Back in the real world, Evil Coop has other ideas. "Tomorrow I'm supposed to be pulled back in what they call the Black Lodge. But I've got a plan for that one."

Despite the occasional suspect choice of FX, it's utterly stunning. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Albert Rosenfield gets to town, because, seeing what we see in the Red Room and beyond, any metaphorical interpretation or plausible deniability of the otherworldly doesn't seem feasible.

We get glimpses of some other returning characters that begin to fill in the gaps. Dr Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) is living out in the woods. Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) is still at The Great Northern, his brother Jerry (David Patrick Kelly) now a pot-dealing wannabeatnik, chomping down sweet and sour, salty, crunchy, banana bread and jam laced with hydroponic weed.

Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) and Andy (Harry Goaz) are still ditzy and still together. The Log Lady (Catherine E Coulson) has Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) on the phone, passing on a message, urging him to the Lodge. "Something is missing and you have to find it. It has to do with Special Agent Dale Cooper. "

Photo credit: Showtime
Photo credit: Showtime

Laura Palmer's mother Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) is at home, still grieving, still smoking, now watching horrific nature documentaries. And at the end of it all, in a rare bright scene, we're back at The Roadhouse, Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick) making eyes at James Hurley (James Marshall) as Chromatics play us out.

But much of these opening two episodes takes place away from Twin Peaks. In the skyscrapers of New York City, an unnamed man watches a seemingly-empty glass cube monitored by cameras for hours on end. He succumbs to the affections of a visitor named Tracy. Something in the cube isn't a fan of the hook-up, and they meet a gory end.

Over in Buckhorn, South Dakota a woman named Ruth Davenport is found dead in her apartment. Well, her head is. Resting on the pillow atop someone else's body. The suspect is local school principle Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard), whose prints are all over the place.

The old and new threads come together – just about – towards the end of the two-parter with both Coopers involved. Bill's wife Phyllis, who perhaps has set up her husband, is shot dead by Evil Coop. Meanwhile, in a brief astral projection away from the Lodge, the Good Dale somehow enters that glass cube in NYC just about the time Tracy and her bland beau are getting sliced and diced.

Recent cinematic returns have taken different paths on the comeback trail. T2 Trainspotting was little more than an exercise in nostalgia, albeit a successful one. A remix that hit all the right notes. Star Wars: The Force Awakens more impressively pulled off a clever handover from the old to the new, if the jury's still out on Alien: Covenant.

At least in its opening two episodes, Twin Peaks has done more. It has successfully melded the past world of Twin Peaks with the future to make a truly modern, cinematic, 21st century TV show. Whether it can keep this up for the full season we're now excitingly finding out, but for now Twin Peaks has made a twisted, triumphant return.

Twin Peaks: The Return is available on Sky On Demand


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