Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return

Antonio Sanna

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030047979
• eBook ISBN: 9783030047986
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Film & Video
• Index: Social Sciences

This edited collection offers an interdisciplinary study of Twin Peaks: The Return, the third season of a TV program that has attracted the attention (and appreciation) of spectators, fans, and critics for over two decades. The book takes readers into several distinct areas and addresses the different approaches and the range of topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural, and the personal. The eighteen chapters constituting the volume are academic in their approach to the subject and in their methodology, whether they apply a historical, psychoanalytical, film studies, or gender studies perspective to the text under examination.

The variety and range of perspectives in these aforementioned chapters reflect the belief that a study of the full complexity of Twin Peaks: The Return, as well as a timely assessment of the critical importance of the program, requires both an interdisciplinary perspective and the fusion of different intellectual approaches across genres. The chapters demonstrate a collective awareness of the TV series as a fundamental milestone in contemporary culture.

Part IThe Real World: History, Technology and Fandom

© The Author(s) 2019

Antonio Sanna (ed.)Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Returnhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04798-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Entering the World of Twin Peaks

Antonio Sanna¹

(1)

Sassari, Italy

Antonio Sanna

End Abstract

In the September 1989 issue of Conisseur magazine, Twin Peaks was prophetically defined as ‘The Series That Will Change TV Forever’ (qtd. in Lim 2015, p. 91). Previously TV series were mainly family, doctor, law and detective shows. Twin Peaks introduced audiences to unpredictable plotlines and unconventional characters, and endowed the story with subversive themes (such as incest and deformity), eerie environments and settings (often characterized by the dichotomy of nature and society) and humorous sequences alternated with moments of horror . The success of the program and its cult following has been instrumental, as many critics have pointed out, to the advent of the present ‘Golden-Age of Television.’ Contemporary series such as the X-Files (1993–2002, 2016–), American Gothic (1995–1996), Millennium (1996–1999), Queer as Folk (2000–2005), Carnivale (2003–2005), The L Word (2004–2009), Lost (2004–2010), Rome (2005–2007), Dexter (2006–2013), True Blood (2008–2014), The Vampire Diaries (2009–), American Horror Story (2011–), Game of Thrones (2011–) and Hannibal (2013–2015) are all indebted to Twin Peaks in terms of both their contents and visual aesthetics (Angelini and Booy 2010, pp. 23–24; Clark 2013, pp. 9–12; Jowett and Abbott 2013, p. 46; Wheatley 2006, p. 162).

Twin Peaks was born out of the combined efforts of David Lynch and Mark Frost . Lynch had previously directed the films Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and had already gained the reputation of an eccentric artist. Indeed, all of his films (especially, those released after the TV series) are generally characterized by extreme, provocative and brutal images, incidental dialogue, the juxtaposition of the mundane with the macabre and the bizarre , the use of horror techniques and the denaturalization of the parameters of time and space (Braziel 2004, p. 108). Typical thematic concerns of Lynch’s oeuvre include: the lack of order in an individual’s life and psyche, the exploration of identity crises and the effects of trauma and the uncanny . Such themes are often expressed through nonrepresentational images and encrypted narratives which do not necessarily present a clear, explanatory and final resolution or a linear narrative following Hollywood’s conventional criteria. On the other hand, Mark Frost was an expert screenwriter, who had previously worked on TV on shows such as Hill Street Blues (1981–1987). His typical cerebral storytelling coupled with the quixotic visionary work of Lynch thus offered an opportunity for the creation of a unique product which would immediately capture the attention and interest of millions and created a resilient fan community that still thrives in the present day (Dukes 2014, p. 7).

The story of Twin Peaks is focused on FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper’s (Kyle MacLachlan ) investigation on the murder of seventeen-year-old homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). The murder upsets the entire community of Twin Peaks, a small town in Northwest America, near the border with Canada. The local community is formed by mundane and simple as much as mysterious and bizarre characters (interpreted by a cast of convincing actors and actresses ranging in age from teenagers to elderly professionals), who all live secret, double lives. The righteous, honorable and self-confident Cooper is ‘the moral compass of the series and the ideal outsider to engage with the dark secrets’ (Dukes 2014, p. 68) of Twin Peaks. During his investigation, which blends deductive reasoning with intuitions and inspiration from dreams, he discovers that the woods around the town are inhabited by a timeless evil that manifests its presence through the actions of evil spirits. One of the spirits, called BOB (Frank Silva), has taken possession of Laura’s father, Leland (Ray Wise), and has (allegedly) forced him to abuse and kill his own daughter. Some of the defining characteristics of the series are established in the pilot, such as the nostalgic references to the fifties and the repetition of the frames of certain artifacts, urban locations and natural landscapes (the exteriors of the town’s most important buildings, the oscillating ceiling fan in the Palmers’s house, the pine branches fluttering in the wind and the suspended traffic light). Tragedy and absurdist comedy are frequently juxtaposed. Simultaneously, the mundane is invaded by the ominous and the supernatural . The narrative thus exemplifies the concept of the fantastic elaborated by Tzvetan Todorov, as Diane Stevenson has argued (1995, p. 70), because it alternates its events between the realms of the ordinary and the supernatural .

The series premiered on April 8, 1990 on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) . The pilot was watched by over 34 million viewers and a first season of the show was instantly confirmed. Season One , which aired from 12 April 1990 to 23 May 1990, consisted of eight episodes (including the pilot) and concluded with a series of cliffhangers that left the fates of many characters in suspense. Due to its quirky characters, quotable dialogue and enticing plotlines, Twin Peaks was an instant success, and the catchphrase ‘Who killed Laura Palmer?’ has reverberated ever since. During the four-month hiatus between the first two seasons, the public curiosity and interest in the show was further augmented by the production of some merchandise, including the publication of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer and ‘Diane …’ The Twin Peaks Tapes of Agent Cooper (both 1990). Laura’s diary, written by Jennifer Chamber Lynch (daughter of the director), chronicles the girl’s painful history of abuse since she was twelve, her dark dreams, her slow descent into darkness and her ‘two very different lives’ (1992, p. 78) as a perfect daughter and a cocaine-addict prostitute. The diary also contains several poems that express clearly Laura’s silent requests for help (‘When I call out / No one can hear me / When I whisper, he thinks the message / Is for him only’ [Lynch 1992, p. 14]). Cooper’s tapes, written by Scott Frost and recorded by actor Kyle MacLachlan , provided fans of the program with a glimpse on the FBI agent’s past and his intimate relationship with Diane, the off-camera secretary he confides his thoughts to via a tape recorder. Such a backstory was further elaborated upon in Scott Frost’s book The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes (1991)—a collection of transcripts from the agent’s audio tapes that traces the character’s education and his love for the FBI—and was paired to Lynch,’ Frost’ and Richard Saul Wurman’s Welcome to Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town (1991)—a volume on the local history and touristic attractions of the fictional town which parodies real guidebooks.

The 21 episodes constituting Season Two were aired from 30 September 1990 to 10 June 1991. Airing was discontinuous because, after the revelation of Laura Palmer’s killer (which was forced on Lynch and Frost by ABC’s executives) and the precedence given to unremarkable subplots in the central episodes of the season, ratings dropped dramatically. Also, the program’s timeslot was moved six times to less congenial hours and days of the week, which contributed to ABC’s decision to suspend the series (in spite of the fact that the program earned fourteen Emmy nominations and won the Best Drama Series award at the Golden Globes in January 1991). After a written campaign by C.O.O.P. (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks), ABC allowed the final six episodes to be broadcast, before deciding to definitely cancel the series. The last episode of Season Two , directed by Lynch, concludes with an extended and complex sequence that is open to contradictory interpretations and leaves many plotlines unresolved. Indeed, ‘Episode 29’ ends puzzlingly at the peak of its mystery, with the hero being apparently duplicated into two physically separate entities (the ‘Good Dale’ being imprisoned in the Black Lodge and the ‘Evil Dale’ being unleashed in Twin Peaks).

The first two seasons of Twin Peaks have been considered as a monumental example of postmodern intertextuality and parody . The series is an amalgam of genres as different as drama, sitcom, horror , thriller, science fiction, film noir and crime procedural. Nevertheless, part of the allure of Twin Peaks (and its subsequent mythology) is due also to the fact that the series (whose staff included a total of eight writers and fourteen directors) was a work in progress: its plotlines and characters were in fact subjected to frequent changes and revisions even during filming according to the exigencies of the program’s staff or of ABC’s executives. On the other hand, in spite of the number of different writers and directors of the episodes, the series reveals a certain consistency in its dark aesthetics and otherworldly contents, although it is undeniable that the six episodes directed by David Lynch are markedly characterized by the director’s typical hallucinogenic, dreamy/nightmarish and otherworldly style. Common to the majority of the episodes are the leisurely pace and the use of many slow scenes, which contribute to the creation of an atmosphere that is uncanny and uncomfortable. A fundamental attraction of the series is constituted also by the soundtrack, composed by Angelo Badalamenti (and, in part, by Lynch himself), which certainly helps to create a dreamy and haunting atmosphere with its experiments with styles as different as classical music, blues and jazz.

Particularly interesting is the show’s depiction of the two opposite spiritual realms known as the ‘Black Lodge ’ and the ‘White Lodge ,’ where evil spirits and angels are respectively said to dwell. According to the fictional universe of Twin Peaks the evil spirits can inhabit the bodies of those weak humans who are unable to resist them and feed on their ‘garmonbozia ,’ a term that is explicitly glossed as ‘pain and sorrow.’ The entrances to the two domains are triggered respectively by fear and love. Many critics have investigated the depiction of such spiritual realms ¹ and have identified their origin in a series of texts that include the writings of the Theosophical Society and the Order of the Golden Dawn. ² The Black and the White Lodges are also mentioned in the volumes Moonchild (by Aleister Crowley, 1917), The Devil’s Guard (by Talbot Mundy, 1926) and Psychic Self-Defense (by Dion Fortune, 1935). Similarly, many critical readings of the program have focused on the figure of BOB, the evil spirit who commits nefarious crimes in the provincial town. BOB has been interpreted as a representation of ‘the dominance of phallic power’ in patriarchal society (Nochimson 1997, p. 88), a personificat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. The Real World: History, Technology and Fandom
• Part II. In the Lodges: Subjectivity and (Un)Realism
• Part III. Into the Psyche: Trauma, Dreams and Music
• Back Matter