Twin Peaks. Halftime Report.
We’ve reached the halfway stage of David Lynch’s 18-part Twin Peaks revival, and at this point we’re deep in the valley.
I’m not a massive fan of sleuthing around the work of David Lynch. While it’s fun to speculate about what X means or where Y is going, to overdo so takes away part of the enjoyment of what makes the American filmmaker’s work so engaging for me. So this isn’t that. Instead I’ll be reflecting upon the things I’ve enjoyed the most about the show so far.
Episode 8 of Twin Peaks, The Return, is not only a high point for the series itself, but for the television medium as a whole. It’s abstract, aesthetically dynamic and utterly, utterly engaging. It’s also a pitch perfect example of what happens when a producer, in this case Showtime, the television network financing the thing, give an artist like Lynch free reign. Other mediums could learn a thing or two from this too.
Part of the joy that comes in enabling a director like Lynch to indulge himself like this means that he’s free to run the gamut of his influences. Jacques Tati’s Playtime has come to mind on more than one occasion, especially in the office scenes surrounding Dougie Jones, while the series itself feels like some grande homage or tonal capper to Lynch’s entire oeuvre. There appears to be nods to pretty much everything, from Eraserhead to Dune.
One of my favourite things about great art is watching the opinions fall. From the-kind-of-understandable (Dougie) to the downright obscure (it’s too violent!), it’s been fun reading and listening to the responses to Twin Peaks, The Return. There’s surprisingly little in the way of fan service here. The closest Lynch comes to it is in Andy and Lucy, whose stilted performances stand at odds with how they came across in the original series. This actually feels more like a joke or commentary concerned with how awful fan service often turns out to be. Twin Peaks, The Return is all the more impressive for this expectation-bursting approach.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve posted a series of four-image stills on twitter and instagram following each episode. I’ll reprint them below.
