Threnody to the victims of beautiful nonsense

Twin Peaks: The Return is David Lynch's swansong. He returns to helm the show in complete control (for the first time) as (co)writer, director, actor, sound designer and overall-visionary, honoring the promise Laura Palmer made to Agent Cooper in the Red Room to meet in 25 years. 

The Return shares very little of the original's comforting, gold-hued atmosphere. The cheery sunshine of middle America, the campy tone, the goofy cast of ensemble characters embodying the nostalgia of good ol' days is gone for good. No clues-in-dreams anymore; no coffee-and-cherry-pie-stuffing, cleancut FBI agent Cooper channeling his subconscious to solve murder mysteries anymore; no idealized small-town-goodness with its cosy eccentricity to compensate for the evil-lurking-underneath anymore. In fact, there's very little of Twin Peaks at all, with most action taking place elsewhere in Vegas, Buckhorn, NYC etc. There are remnants of humor but mostly of the dark variety; the mood is haunted and sombre, the atmosphere oppressive and the ambience, grim. 

With Showtime, one can see the long rope Lynch gets to channel his (demented) imagination to concrete form, and indulge in it he sure does. This full control reveals Lynch at the peak of his powers and he uses the medium for expression the way few others have. The mysteries deepen, the symbols multiply, the interdimensional portals reveal their operations, the Red Room and the radio-wave tiles reassert their primacy. The camerawork is exquisite with dizzying, looping, linear, static long takes, as the need may be. (Over two minutes of static frame featuring floor cleaning in Part 7 is a case in point.) Almost all of the original cast reappears and so do Lynch's long time favorites who missed out in the first series. Laura Dern as Diane, Naomi Watts, the blob and the black and white mise en scène from Eraserhead, all make their dutiful appearance in The Return much like Lynch showing off his vintage car collection to the delight of us viewers.

Free from studio constraints, the Return shows Lynch in top form, a sui generis force of nature who knew no equal. In particular, Part 8 ('Gotta Light') shows Lynch at his creative best, a truly original beast finally unshackled from the leash, relishing his long lost freedom to howl at the moon. It's easy to sympathize with those who claim it to be the greatest episode in long form TV ever aired. A surreal sequence of abstract visuals, droning soundscapes, and slow-motion horror, Part 8 stands as the crown jewel of experimental television, a standalone masterpiece that redefines what an episode can be, much in the same way 2001: A Space Odyssey rewrote the rules of filmmaking back in the day.

My first encounter with Lynch was in college with Mulholland Drive, which in my juvenile obstinacy I disliked intensely. Over time, however, I've come to reassess not just the film but Lynch's entire ouevre and he strikes me as among the few (along with the great Cormac McCarthy) who took the existence of the Evil with full seriousness. Twin Peaks: The Return remains the fullest expression of his wild and surreal vision, giving a glimpse of an artist at the pinnacle of his creative self, milking the subconscious dreamworld, rendering symbolic imagery laden with cosmic horror into visual motifs which will last much longer than his corporeal self. Gone too soon. Gone too soon.