On Thanksgiving Day, I finished watching the entire series of Twin Peaks for the fourth time. I don't dig much TV in general, but Twin Peaks is special for me. Ever since I watched the credits roll on the final episode, the show has haunted me. It haunts me still. So there's something to give thanks for.
    It occurs to me, now's a pretty damn good time for television fans. Sure, it may be hard to believe sometimes, considering that half the world's population has their own reality show now. But with the lowest common denominator more than adequately provided for by footage of itself, niche audiences seeking more interesting, original fare are surprisingly finding themselves catered to as well. Maybe we can thank the internet for giving viewing audiences a voice beyond Nielsen ratings, or perhaps we can thank DVD and DVR for making longer, more elaborate storylines easier to digest on one's own time. Hey, maybe we can even thank reality TV for antagonizing scripted dramas into being better just to survive. I don't know, I'm no TV scholar. What I do know is that we most certainly can and most certainly should thank Twin Peaks for its part in making TV better.
    All together now: "Thank you, Twin Peaks."
    Thank you for elevating the artistic and technical standards for TV to the level of film. Thank you for sneaking the surreal and horrific into unsuspecting homes under the guise of quaint, small-town drama. And thank you most of all for being that rare kind of show that haunts you relentlessly long after viewing.
    For those who aren't familiar with Twin Peaks, the show was created by David Lynch and Mark Frost and followed Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) as they investigated the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the titular town of Twin Peaks. As her secrets are gradually uncovered, the veneer of innocence is scraped away from the seemingly idyllic town and the hidden dramas of its residents take center stage. Also: backwards talking/dancing midget dreams, the Log Lady, Tibet, ultimate evil in the form of an owl and some damn fine coffee and pie. Suffice it to say that any attempt at summing up the series does it a disservice.
    It's easy to take it for granted now, but Twin Peaks took everything people knew about what you could do in a TV drama, murdered it, wrapped it in plastic and tossed it over a waterfall. Although there's no denying that the show is basically a soap opera with all the usual tropes (and I do mean ALL the usual tropes - within two seasons there are more comas and cases of amnesia than any one hospital's ever had to deal with), the injection of strange, subversive elements combined with artful, film-quality execution puts it on a wholly different level. The better episodes are practically art films unto themselves. When the show originally aired, the only other place you were going to find art on TV was for sale on QVC.
    Granted, when the show originally aired, I was still in grade school and not quite sophisticated enough to appreciate anything that didn't involve ninja turtles or ghostbusting. My parents watched the show every week they could though and taped it when they couldn't. (In fact, for most of my life Twin Peaks was just the show sharing the same VHS tape as the '80's remake of The Blob.) I do have vague memories of watching the show as a child, crouched next to the couch in the doorway of the darkened living room so Mom and Dad wouldn't know I was still up. I still recall seeing trees in the wind, coffee at all hours, rows upon rows of jelly donuts, and especially the photograph of the late Laura Palmer, smiling sweetly behind the end credit roll.
    (Strangely the most vivid memories I have of watching the show as a child are of the bizarre, eerily-shoddy digital effects that began cropping up in the lesser episodes of the second season. I don't know if there's a right way to show a woman becoming a drawer-pull, but even little nose-picking baby Jared could've told you they didn't find it in Twin Peaks.)
    It wasn't until well after the 2001 release of the first season on DVD that I got to truly experience the show. By this time I was about as fanatical about David Lynch as I had been about ninja turtles, and having already devoured his entire filmography up to that point I was practically salivating when I started the first episode. Not only was I instantly hooked, I was also instantly infuriated by the exclusion of the feature-length pilot from the DVD set. My frustration was alleviated by the fact that every episode in that set was classic and self-contained enough to appreciate outside of the context of the series. When the second season set came out I tore through it, hesitating only when I came upon the nadir of the show's run, an episode directed by Diane Keaton of all people. (I don't have any proof of this but I'm pretty sure this is the episode that got Twin Peaks canceled. All together now: "Thank you, Diane Keaton. Thanks a load.")
    See, apparently Lynch and Frost were heavily involved in the first season but not so much the second. So while the first season and the first chunk of episodes from the second are phenomenal, the show gradually started devolving into normal TV. The first sign of trouble was when Laura Palmer's murder got solved. I'm of the opinion that wrapping up that mystery didn't have to destroy the entire dramatic momentum of the show but that's really just speculation because good lord did it destroy the entire dramatic momentum of the show. It's not so bad at first because you figure they're just going to ease you into the next major plot line and also David Duchovny shows up in drag looking like a slightly more attractive Jennifer Anniston, but as soon as Foxy Mulder vanishes and Cooper trades his signature suit for various shades of plaid the show just becomes a mediocre soap opera that occasionally tries being weird for weirdness sake. Problem is, there's weird, there's Lynch-weird, and then there's Diane-Keaton-trying-to-act-like-Lynch-weird. It's like when you have this crazy uncle you really dig and always have a good time with, but then he takes off to direct Wild at Heart and your excruciatingly normal aunt tries to make you feel better by acting weird and it only makes you hate him for leaving you with her. (It's okay Diane Keaton, I'm sure you tried your best.)
    But! After reaching rock-bottom with Keaton's episode and spending the next episode kicking the dirt to make sure we can't get any lower (culminating with a regular cast member becoming a drawer-pull in a manner that offended me just as much as an adult as it did as a child) I guess Lynch and Frost couldn't help but notice that their baby had wandered astray. Lynch, who had guest-starred previously as Cooper's boss at the bureau, Gordon Cole, returns to Twin Peaks, puts Cooper back in his suit and then proceeds to kiss the prettiest girl on the show (which is Shelly, played by Mädchen Amick, who also has the coolest name of all the actors on the show. Thank you for just being, Mädchen Amick.). So they make it pretty clear that the viewer is back in good hands and that Lynch also has good taste in women.
    BUT! Just as the series gets good again, just as it starts engaging you like that first season did, just as you're reminded why you cared about all these characters in the first place... the finale happens. And I don't know if a series has ever gone out in such a gut-wrenching, heart-crushing manner before.
    When I finished watching the last episode of Twin Peaks, I was downright shaken. I couldn't stop thinking about it. For a week I was in a state somewhere between mourning and shock.
    I could not. Stop. Thinking about it.
    When they finally got around to announcing a comprehensive DVD set of the whole series that included the pilot, I pre-ordered it immediately. (This is the Twin Peaks Gold Box set and it's a must-have for all they packed into it. You can get it from our Amazon store below at an obscenely low price.) As soon as it arrived I watched the pilot and, sure enough, it was brilliant. So I put on the next episode. And the next. And within a week I'd made my way back around to that last episode again.
    And again it crushed me.
    Part of this is due to how the last few episodes seem to tell the story of how the show itself met its bitter end. Cooper falls in love with the new girl in town (Annie Blackburn, played by Heather Graham - one of many unexpected familiar faces in the second season) and finds himself distracted as his former partner and current nemesis Windom Earle draws together his master plan. It's almost like Lynch and Frost admitting that they themselves had been distracted, allowing evil to spread its roots and take hold of Twin Peaks. It's like watching a rose bloom, growing lovelier every day, but knowing that underneath there's a disease slowly rotting away the stem and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
In the last episode, Coop enters the Black Lodge and confronts ultimate evil. This episode might be my favorite Lynch work of all time. The doppelganger motif is at the forefront and the way that idea is reflected from the Black Lodge all the way to the deja vu at the Double R Diner is breathtaking. The episode was clearly designed to help save the series from cancellation, as damn near every single scene sets up its own nerve-wracking cliffhanger. But the series wasn't saved. The last shot of the series kicks you off the cliff and leaves you falling. That's the feeling you get in the end, the feeling that you're falling and the bottom's never coming.
    Every time I get through this series I'm left with that feeling. And I can't help but try to continue the story of Twin Peaks in my own head, the only place I'll likely see it live on. I still pray that Lynch will pick up the series again, perhaps twenty-five years later (as suggested by Coop's first dream in the show), but he seems content to let it rest in peace. What peace, though? Lynch followed the series' cancelation with a prequel movie, the nearly overwhelmingly dark yet engaging Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which hinted at some sort of bittersweet resolution, but it also ended with a night-vision shot of a monkey saying "Judy," so again I ask you, what peace? I know I've had none of it, as I've probably written more episodes continuing the story in my own head than ever were actually produced. The temptation to spit out a fifty-page treatment right now as proof is only mitigated by my unwillingness to spoil too much of the series for those who've yet to experience it. The primary goal of this writing is to get you to watch it for yourself and let you carry on the story in your own mind, in your own way.
    In the end, I'm grateful that I can always revisit Twin Peaks. There'll always be wind in the trees, fresh pie and some damn fine coffee. But the Good Dale is still in the lodge and, as thankful as I am for the feeling, it still haunts me.

Labels: film/tv