Author: Frank Mengarelli

Let’s discuss Showtime’s finest “original” programming and David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cataclysmic finale of the TWIN PEAKS saga. First things first, will we get another season or a standalone film that is akin to FIRE WALK WITH ME? Probably not, no. Sure, stranger things have happened, but it’s more than likely we will not get another visual TWIN PEAKS story, and may not even get another film from Lynch himself. This very well could be it for both Peaks and Lynch.

What does the final season mean? What does it answer in the twenty-five-year absence? What happened to Cooper at the end? Honestly, none of that really matters, does it? The more diehard fans of both Lynch and his seminal series with Mark Frost, are not looking for answers, one could say that they are just seeking more unfulfilled questions that will keep them returning to the Peaks canon over a series of years, if not decades.

One thing is apparently clear from THE RETURN. Lynch’s obsession with dreams and a parallel reality which is all rolled into lifelong inspiration, THE WIZARD OF OZ. OZ deals very much in dreams, a parallel reality, and one’s journey back home or at the very least the center of their own reality. There are a plethora of motifs and nods to the film within the series.

THE RETURN isn’t very much like the original series, aside from a string of arcs from beloved characters. What truly perpetuates the main narrative is FIRE WALK WITH ME, which is even more of an important component of the mythology of TWIN PEAKS than ever.

David Bowie’s brief cameo as time traveling Blue Rose Task Force Special Agent Phillip Jeffries became the great and powerful Oz of THE RETURN. He spoke in a method of half riddles, through puffs of steam coming from a percolator.  Sadly, David Bowie was not able to start and complete his scheduled scenes, so instead actor Nathan Frizzell was cast as the voice of Jeffries, and even overdubbed Jeffries’ dialogue from FIRE WALK WITH ME and THE MISSING PIECES. Regardless of the lack of David Bowie, Lynch was able to bring him back into the spotlight, not only in the foreground of the new series but also as the pop culture icon that he had always been.

Without diving into the Lynchian mathematics that is near impossible to solve within THE RETURN, the series ends itself exactly where it began. Cooper is in the Lodge, speaking with Mike and with Laura Palmer whispering in his ear. What does that all mean? It means that Cooper is looped inside of his own dream, within the Black Lodge, and with this reveal, it certainly calls the entire run of this season into question, and makes us ask ourselves what is the reality of the show? Is the reality we saw outside the Black Lodge a tangible reality, a parallel reality, or is it fictitious and all conjured up within Dale Cooper’s head as his sits in the Black Lodge?

David Lynch and Mark Frost brought the season back to where it began and left the audience with a bigger question than what was originally asked. They not only created the finest television event of the year but possibly ever. They have crafted an alluring, taut, and downright haunting story that has no end.