3 out of 5

Directed by: David Lynch

I have nothing new to add to the conversation.

Analyzed; deconstructed: plenty of better-informed reviewers have made their stabs at this, re: Twin Peaks 2017 mega-series follow up, The Return.  They’ve made connections I never would have thought of, and proven (collectively) to have a recollection of minutiae that zoomed past me.  There’s nothing newish for me to toss on to that pile.  But, for my own reviewing credibility, I plow forward: The Return is undeniably its own beast; not something that can be lumped in, review-wise, under Twin Peaks the show or Twin Peaks the movie prior reviews.  Loved it, hated it, ambivalent toward it, it was billed as an event and it was – which is certainly rare enough nowadays – for creators / a director to return to a property 25 years on, to add to said property, to fully write and direct that property, and to get it presented in all its bloated, un-studio-cut glory (or a relative adjective): this was a weird happenstance for any era, and proved to be a weird 18 hours of TV.

That at times, I hated.

A recent review of the series’ completion made mention of an auteur with a similarly evasive sense of filmmaking as David Lynch: Takashi Miike.  It was not a connection I had considered before, but I get the gist of the comparison, as Miike movies frequently feature a coda that seems staunchly in contrast to previously established logic or themes.  I love Miike, and it’s taken me years to come to terms with this maneuver, and how it affects my response to his films.  Twin Peaks: The Return may be seen to feature a similar move, and, in general, Lynch’s embrasure of free-wheeling logic in his projects the same.  But I think it’s quite different.  It’s a difference that ultimately makes The Return the ultimate capper to the series’ previous iterations, but it’s also a difference that makes me only ever like Lynch.  Analyzation and deconstructions included, a Lynch joint is a very inclusive experience, and there’s perhaps no better example of this than this show; his obsession with the immutable dirty heart ‘neath glad-handed tidings has been a motivator for many of his projects, but I’ve never felt that there’s a statement being made or a question posed.  Rather, Lynch pursues an image or images expressing this obsession, and lets a story unravel around those.  How effective this is at casting a spell upon you, as a viewer, will of course vary.  While cool, indie-film-viewing teenage me might claim otherwise, it’s never exactly struck the right chord with me.  I find David Lynch’s work interesting, and valuable, but the process and effect is so internalized that it’s hard to edge the experience above three stars.

Lynch and Frost make an effective team because Lynch can weld his dream-visions to Frost’s conspiracy-theory mythos, and any fun conspiracy is essentially an eternal rabbit hole of justifications.  Which works great for Twin Peaks ceaseless world of nightmares and dreams.

‘Ceaseless’ is where The Return gets to unveil its genius, and though I don’t envy thinking of rewatching interminable cuts of silence, this is part of an admirable Lynch effect: watching his work isn’t always directly satisfying, but when you consider it as a whole, you get it.  You respect it.  But goddamn it, it’s like a dare to watch some of these sequences.

The plot is as Showtime summarized it: Agent Cooper’s return to Twin Peaks.  But given where Coop ended up 25 years ago, this was never going to be an easy or typical return.  And combined with the show’s tagline – it’s happening again – and the haunting image of corrupted goodness, Laura Palmer, the m.o. of the 18 eps of playful, outre filmmaking can be surmised: that the symbology of Twin Peaks (that is, Lynch’s obsessions) are eternal.  While the “roots” of the badness are given something of an origin (via the most undeniably cracked out trippy hour of television ever), it’s always existed, and it always will exist.  We never left Twin Peaks, or perhaps we can never escape.

Which makes this sound much more ominous than it is, because that human condition is very much determined by the person.  So we cycle around the residents of Peaks and we do actually see some happy endings.  But we also see some unhappy ones.  And all of the nonsense in between that we use to guide us on our various ways.

While other Lynch projects have, I believe, distilled this concept more concisely (Lost Highway), seeing it played out in extended form is a trip, and allows a seasoned filmmaker to do the most extended version of world-building around these ideas as possible.  I am comfortable saying no one else could have done this.

I didn’t exactly like the trip, and I wouldn’t outwardly recommend it.  This particular breed of genius doesn’t do much for me, it’s true, but I have no qualms applying that term, and 18 hours later… Yeah, I’m glad I made the journey.