Twin Peaks: The Return is the ultimate deconstruction of the eternal battle between good and evil. It's also a deconstruction of the reboot phenomenon, hitting all the nostalgia notes while simultaneously smashing the piano with a sledgehammer.
Our hero from the previous installment is reincarnated into a fantasy-like world where evil continually tries to destroy him but he's saved by a stream of deus ex machina bailouts, leaving him virtually indestructible. Despite this, he walks around dumbfounded like a stroke victim, or an idiot god. His wife is impossibly loving and his son blinks backwards. Is it all a lie? If so, is it still preferable to the truth? Was evil truly born from the first atomic bomb test? And why was Laura sent down to stop it when she is the only deus ex machina to not really do anything against Bob? What exactly was Evil Cooper's endgame? So many questions are posed and the answers can only come from us.
Lynch's America in 2017 is fractured, infected, diseased. Strange and negative vibes infect every character from main to bizarre one-off. Something is constantly WRONG. And as much as I wanted the finale to give some answers to this dare I say accurate portrayal of modern society, it doesn't. How do we beat Jowdeh? Is love enough, in the words of the late Garland Briggs?
Narratively it all comes down to Bob being destroyed by the magical Freddie who might as well have deus ex machina written on his forehead. His setup is intentionally silly. All the characters we love celebrate with sandwiches in the sheriff's office. Cooper's face is watermarked over the whole scene. "We live inside of a dream" he says, reminding us that none of this is real. Or is it? He looks for catharsis with his lost love Diane, but she cries as they make love and he is emotionless. She writes him a goodbye letter but in the morning they are Richard and Linda. Our hero will never be the same. He makes a final attempt to put to rest ghosts of the past, to dispel the evil that has haunted him for 25 years. Is it all about guilt? He finds a woman who looks like Laura but isn't. He takes her back to Laura's house in Twin Peaks, but new people live there who have names of known Lodge entities. Laura screams and everything goes black. The evils of the past can never be fully dispelled. Cooper is stuck forever in that moment when Laura's soul whispered a secret in his ear, one that we will never know. Laura doesn't live here anymore.
Even so there is hope. Dougie reunites with his family despite not being a real person. Big Ed finally reunites with Norma through nothing but his own patience. Maybe time heals all wounds and trying to literally change the past was a foolish decision. Will Laura ever rest in peace? Sarah tries to smash her photo but only the glass breaks, and the photo remains.
Our hero from the previous installment is reincarnated into a fantasy-like world where evil continually tries to destroy him but he's saved by a stream of deus ex machina bailouts, leaving him virtually indestructible. Despite this, he walks around dumbfounded like a stroke victim, or an idiot god. His wife is impossibly loving and his son blinks backwards. Is it all a lie? If so, is it still preferable to the truth? Was evil truly born from the first atomic bomb test? And why was Laura sent down to stop it when she is the only deus ex machina to not really do anything against Bob? What exactly was Evil Cooper's endgame? So many questions are posed and the answers can only come from us.
Lynch's America in 2017 is fractured, infected, diseased. Strange and negative vibes infect every character from main to bizarre one-off. Something is constantly WRONG. And as much as I wanted the finale to give some answers to this dare I say accurate portrayal of modern society, it doesn't. How do we beat Jowdeh? Is love enough, in the words of the late Garland Briggs?
Narratively it all comes down to Bob being destroyed by the magical Freddie who might as well have deus ex machina written on his forehead. His setup is intentionally silly. All the characters we love celebrate with sandwiches in the sheriff's office. Cooper's face is watermarked over the whole scene. "We live inside of a dream" he says, reminding us that none of this is real. Or is it? He looks for catharsis with his lost love Diane, but she cries as they make love and he is emotionless. She writes him a goodbye letter but in the morning they are Richard and Linda. Our hero will never be the same. He makes a final attempt to put to rest ghosts of the past, to dispel the evil that has haunted him for 25 years. Is it all about guilt? He finds a woman who looks like Laura but isn't. He takes her back to Laura's house in Twin Peaks, but new people live there who have names of known Lodge entities. Laura screams and everything goes black. The evils of the past can never be fully dispelled. Cooper is stuck forever in that moment when Laura's soul whispered a secret in his ear, one that we will never know. Laura doesn't live here anymore.
Even so there is hope. Dougie reunites with his family despite not being a real person. Big Ed finally reunites with Norma through nothing but his own patience. Maybe time heals all wounds and trying to literally change the past was a foolish decision. Will Laura ever rest in peace? Sarah tries to smash her photo but only the glass breaks, and the photo remains.