Twin Peaks is many things. But alas, since I've decided to limit myself to two or maybe three articles on the whole subject, and since I lack the patience to delve into its various depths1, I will focus mainly on what it says about the world as it was in the early 1990s, and as it has become more than twenty-five years later.
From this angle alone, Twin Peaks is a commentary on the contrast between two Americas. One: post-WWII America with its unfettered enthusiasm for life, which gave birth to the so-called American dream of family, of love and of intellectual and material wealth. The other: the post-modern America of the twenty-first century, the America from which darkness sprung, a darkness which continues to grow to this day. The whole plot of the Twin Peaks "series" emerges from this contrast2: the homecoming queen, along with the annoyingly good-guy FBI agent set out to confront forces of "evil" and their endless march to corrupt all that gives life meaning. Or in a more earthly interpretation: times changed, and in their changing, the good folks of Twin Peaks ran into that age-old problem of becoming unable to make sense of the things happening around and within them.
All this comes wrapped as a very unusual story, albeit quite usual among Lynchian stories. The contrast between the two Americas branches off into many other contrasts, of which I will remind mainly the contrast between what people thought the world would be, and what it has become. The self-satirical frame narrative "Invitation to Love" captures this antithesis perfectly: while everyone was busy escaping into dreams fed by the tubes, life started getting dirtier, more perverse and overall shittier, and the dream only served to perpetuate this process, to the point that distinguishing between the two planes was and is to this day a Sisyphean task. This is why the annoyingly chivalrous Cooper, who was at the end of the day but a child in this new world, failed, and how he himself got corrupted. Contrary to popular belief, the nightmarish surrealist imagery painted by Lynch serves as support for telling this story in a more meaningful manner, which is what I suppose most horror filmmakers have struggled and failed to achieve during these last few decades.
Twin Peaks being a TV show, there are also side stories. Some of them serve as pure comedic relief, such as for example the aforementioned frame story: as a sort of a mockery of the soap opera genre, but also as a means to depict whatever there was left of the enduring innocence of 1990 America -- this is, at least, how I see the story of Andy and Lucy. Unfortunately, and especially during the second season, most side stories are just filler material to appease the money people. Lynch did not especially like this, so at some point he got fed up and left the show, only to return and wrap it up in the most brutal way possible, as if the bosses from ABC were henceforth denied the right to even attempt to do something with it -- more for the lack of intellectual resources than what is understood today by "intellectual property rights". Fortunately, a third season was made possible twenty-five years later by Showtime's unexpected decision to let Lynch have things his way. Had Lynch lived through the 2020s, he might have had the chance to do a fourth season, but as things stand, I am satisfied3 that season three was the final word on this story.
Other than that I'll have to say that I love Twin Peaks. Each view makes me enjoy the deep and impeccable, and yet sometimes entirely raw and unsophisticated imagery more than the previous one. The music -- ah, the rock and roll combined with the atmospherics and the distressing jazz pieces, they're all quite beautiful and unlike Lynchian movies, they're arranged so that they fit perfectly within the TV format, although they do go into a more intentional movie-like note at key moments4. The actors are Lynch regulars for the most part, love them or hate them, and it's easy to see who Lynch and Frost had really wanted to give time to by their subsequent inclusion in the third season...
But more on that later, I suppose.
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And despite the fact that the vast majority of giga-analyses out there do a poor job of capturing these depths. In their defense, they do take a stab at it; I myself, to paraphrase Blaga, shan't venture to kill the mysteries that it brings forth. ↩
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Note that Lynch borrowed this theme from his first cinema hit, Blue Velvet. Retelling this story in the form of a TV show, along with Frost, was certainly an interesting endeavour, and one which makes the whole thing quite unique. I sincerely doubt that such a show could make it on the tubes nowadays, especially since Lynch isn't with us anymore and I know of no one else who'd be able to pull it off. ↩
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I mean... I'm not satisfied, but art isn't supposed to leave one entirely satisfied, wouldn't you think? On the contrary, it is meant to cause distress, and in doing so to leave the participant (participant, not merely "consumer") with more questions. Sometimes these questions come later than one would have expected; sometimes they never do, but either way, this is the, or at least one purpose of art: to change something in the entrenched worldview of the receiving side. ↩
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The Palmers' turntable is a perfect example of this technique of playing with sound to uncover... well, other contrasts. ↩