Twin Peaks (TV)
For 30 fascinating, frustrating episodes in 1990 and 1991, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s “Twin Peaks” was indispensable television. I don’t know this from watching it personally when it was originally on, but from the long shadow it formed over the medium after it had gone off the air. “The X-Files” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” are just a couple of its successors in the way they went about their business over their years on the air. Rewatching the series again before digging into the new run on Showtime (my thoughts of which will be added to this review after watching it), I was reminded of a lot of things I had forgotten in the 15 years since I first watched the show, after I started to dive into Lynch’s work after “Mulholland Drive,” but I was also reminded of how mesmerizing Lynch’s vision of the series could be at its most focused.
The unforgettable pilot starts out on a powerful moment, one that will cast a shadow over the entire series- the discovery of Laura Palmer’s body, wrapped in plastic, by Jack Nance’s Pete Martell. The town of Twin Peaks, Washington, is stunned, not the least being Laura’s parents, Leland (Ray Wise) and Sarah (Grace Zabriskie); Laura’s best friend, Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle); her boyfriend, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook); her and Donna’s friend, James (James Marshall), and pretty much everyone else in town. By the end of that first 90 minutes, directed by Lynch with conviction and compassion, we have met all of the major players in the melodrama to come, including FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), who has been tasked with investigating the murder. The first season, which was only eight episodes long after that pilot, is about exploring the complexities, and dark underbelly, of the town, a motif lifted from Lynch’s 1986 classic, “Blue Velvet.” In a lot of episodes, the mystery of Laura’s death, which opens up a dark side to her few knew or understood, is secondary to the the soap operas being played out in the lives of those still living. It’s fair to say that you’ve never seen a show quite like it, which is part of how it caught fire originally.
Most people agree that the first season (which was only 8 episodes long) was taut and brilliant television, while the second season (a full 22 episodes) was a disjointed, incoherent mess, and even as someone who appreciates much about the second season (or I did the first time I watched it, at least), it’s hard to argue with that. The mystery of “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was solved just before the halfway point of season two, at the insistence of the network who was growing impatient and trying to keep steady ratings. Apparently, neither Lynch nor Frost wanted to ever solve the mystery, and would rather have continued the series as exploring the characters and the lives within the town. Watching the series again, I wonder how well that would have worked, given how much emotional punch is removed from the series after Laura’s murder is solved. The show just appears to be spinning its wheels towards its inevitable cancellation as Cooper, who remains in town, is framed for drug trafficking after a sting that necessitated crossing into Canada to rescue Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) from a casino, and brothel, owned by her father (Richard Beymer). Part of the second season’s disjointed nature stems from Lynch going off to make “Wild at Heart” in the middle of it, but Frost and the rest of the writers and directors should have been able to stay the course in his absence. Of course, it could be that Lynch is so singular a mind, that no one could really continue on with his vision of a show like this, even with the mundane qualities it contains, without him there to guide them, and sustain it, but Frost bought into it, so maybe the show just wasn’t destined to stay on that long, allowing its status as a cult classic to build?
When Laura Palmer’s death is not the focal point of the action, it is the rest of the town’s job to pick up the slack, and to say there is a mixed bag of results with that is putting it mildly. There is a power struggle when it comes to the Packard logging mill, now run by Joan Chen’s Josie Packard, involving Catherine (Piper Laurie) and Pete Martell that holds some interest in the first season, but when the mill is burned down at the end of season one, seemingly killing Catherine, that plot goes off the rails considerably. The love triangle between Bobby, Shelly (Mädchen Amick) and her criminal husband, Leo (Eric DaRe) is strong in those first eight episodes, but when Leo is shot and lands in a coma, having Shelly and Bobby take care of him is absurd and causes the storyline to lose focus, and steam by the end of the second season. James and Donna are important emotional lynchpins to Laura’s murder arc, but drift aimlessly when it is discovered that Leland killed her, driven by supernatural spirits; an affair James gets caught up in with a wealthy, unhappy wife is not interesting, and shows James to be the empty vessel he is as a character. I could go through each arc and say the same thing, whether it’s about the misadventures of the Horne family in business or romance; Eddie and his one-eyed wife Nadine; Norma and her hitman husband, Hank, and throughout the entirety of the town. The further removed we get from Agent Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), the less interesting the stories get when separated from the original question, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” The only subplot that, arguably, holds up is that of an on-off relationship with Deputy Andy (Harry Goaz) and the receptionist, Lucy (Kimmy Robertson), but again, that story is in close conjunction to Coop and Harry. It makes one wonder just how Lynch would have structured “Mulholland Dr.” had it been picked up for series after the aborted pilot that he turned into his classic movie, and really makes me curious to dig into the new run of “Twin Peaks,” which Lynch entirely directed himself. Those thoughts will be included below.
Criticism of the storylines aside, “Twin Peaks” is still damn fine television, even if it feels like it lacks focus. The performances are all entertaining and fitting for the material, with MacLachlan and Ontkean keeping us grounded (and guest spots by Miguel Ferrer and Lynch himself as fellow FBI agents are hugely entertaining additions to the cast). Lynch and Frost utilize a cinematic visual style for the show that broke ground at the time, and pointed to what was to come in not just “The X-Files” and “Buffy” but the likes of “Dexter,” “Breaking Bad” and “Alias.” That part was vitally important for the surreal and supernatural nature of the story that Lynch made integral to the mystery of Laura Palmer, both her life and her death, something which Cooper is particularly attuned to. Those touches take center stage at not just the conclusion of the Palmer storyline, but the second season finale, which takes place largely in the “Red Room,” wherein Coop got some of the key clues to unlocking the identity of Laura’s killer. Propelling the series is the score by Lynch’s longtime composer, Angelo Badalamenti, whose moody, atmospheric themes are haunting to the ears. Those elements make the series an important piece of David Lynch’s creative world, and allowed it to build a reputation as one of the most original shows in television history.
