What Do I Need to Know About “Twin Peaks” Before Watching “The Return”?

It is happening again.

Have you spotted those ‘Missing’ posters around town asking if you’ve seen “Laura Palmer”, a girl who “disappeared 25 years ago”?

If you’ve been left puzzled by this PR campaign, be warned: Things are only going to get more puzzling.

Yes, it is happening again. The unsettling posters herald a new season of Twin Peaks, David Lynch and Mark Frost’s iconic (and very, very odd), TV show from the early 1990s.

Today, the long-awaited third season, called The Return, begins airing on Showtime in the U.S, and besides its original cast, it includes hundreds of new additions, including Laura Dern, Michael Cera, Naomi Watts and Sky Ferreira.

(All 18 episodes will be available to stream in Australia via Stan, yet this isn’t a Netflix, drop-them-all-at-once scenario; Lynch, who directed every ep, has insisted they be drip fed to us week by week.)

Fanatics and obsessives have spent the 26 years since the Season Two finale wondering where the story will lead next. But what if you’ve never actually seen Twin Peaks before? Can you join in the fun too?

Below you’ll find answers to your pressing questions, as well as the information you'll need before watching Episode One of The Return. Grab a damn fine cup of coffee and settle in.

Okay, so, umm, what is Twin Peaks?

Twin Peaks ran from 1990 to 1991, and kicked off with a pilot/TV movie that was viewed by more than 34 million viewers in the United States alone. It opened with the body of a young woman, later revealed to be complicated high-schooler Laura Palmer (Sherly Lee), washing up by a riverbank, wrapped in plastic, in the Washington town of Twin Peaks.

Its inciting mystery would go on to inspire programs as diverse as Lost, The Killing, The Leftovers, The X-Files, Desperate Housewives, True Detective, Veronica Mars and, most recently, Riverdale.

Yet none have matched the strangeness of Twin Peaks, nor equalled its roster of idiosyncratic characters, led by FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan), who visits Twin Peaks to solve the murder using hypnosis, his subconscious, and an assortment of donuts, only to fall in love with the small town and its inhabitants.

For its unique eccentricities, we can thank the perplexing David Lynch, who used the show to magnify his film obsessions (1950s-era innocence; the realm of the nightmarish) and to play with the conventions of television soap operas. Lynch turned his setting’s small-town charm inside out by uncovering a dark underbelly where all-too-human evils (sexual assault, corruption, domestic violence) danced with supernatural ones. But, it was also really funny and sexy and sweet?

So, it’s one of the greatest shows ever made?

It certainly is! Well, much of it is, anyway. The show famously alienated viewers when it failed to solve the riddle of Laura Palmer’s murder in the Season Two premiere; studio bosses demanded Lynch and Frost drag out the reveal when Season One became a surprise success.

Season Two’s reputation is soiled, but its first nine instalments are basically as strong as anything in Season One, right up until the revelation of Laura’s killer. (No spoilers here.) What follows is a tedious stretch—partly due to Lynch losing interest—though the show ends with one of the all-time great finales.

If I watch the Season Two finale, will I be ready for The Return?

Uh… The new season hasn’t been shared with critics, so we can’t say for sure.

There’s at least one cliff-hanger from the finale that needs resolving in this new set of episodes (the others were answered in Frost’s book The Secret History of Twin Peaks).

At the end of the show—and yes, spoilers ahoy—Cooper enters the extra-terrestrial Black Lodge, where all of Twin Peaks’ supernatural killers hang. It’s suggested in the final scene that when Cooper returns from the Lodge, his body has been inhabited by BOB, the malevolent evil responsible for the death of Laura Palmer. During his time in the Lodge, Laura Palmer tells the “good” Cooper she’ll see him again in 25 years. Well, time’s up. Surely a resolution to Cooper’s possession is on the horizon.

Wait, wasn’t there a Twin Peaks movie? Shouldn’t that have answered that question?

Not really! Fire Walk With Me, directed by Lynch and released after the show finished its run, was met with boos at its Cannes debut. Many were disappointed that it left Twin Peaks' lingering mysteries unanswered; it instead acted as a prequel, taking place over the final days of Laura’s life.

However, Lynch has said that fans should bone up on FWWM before starting The Return. Perhaps that’s because the film explicitly states that the “good Cooper” is trapped in the backwards-speaking confines of the Black Lodge. Perhaps it needs a rewatch because it introduces the concept of “Garmonbozia”, a creamed corn-type food that BOB and his buddies eat, and which represents the “pain and sorrow” of their victims. Or maybe it's because Fire Walk With Me introduces some new cops (played by Chris Isaac and Kiefer Sutherland) who get sucked into their own weird murder investigation, with no resolution offered there either.

But, you should just watch FWWM because it’s a masterful, underappreciated and hugely powerful descent into Laura Palmer’s personal hell, albeit devoid of the comic flourishes and gentle sweetness that counteracted the horror of the series. If you’re going to follow the Twin Peaks rabbit hole, you shouldn’t avoid this compelling detour.

I'm still lost.

Try this then.

Will it still be okay if I start with The Return?

Very hard to say! It probably won’t hurt to dip your toe into the introductory episodes of The Return this evening, but fair warning: David Lynch is an even more experimental and alienating filmmaker than he was 27 years ago, and Showtime CEO David Nevins has said Lynch has ”evolved to an even more extreme version of himself”.

If you find The Return off-putting and inexplicable to begin with, rest assured that’s all part of the fun. If you’re instantly sucked in, stop everything and binge-watch the previous seasons and movie. Then, let Lynch do his work. Just don’t try and solve it via Reddit or Twitter. This isn’t gonna be Westworld. David Lynch operates from his gut and his subconscious. Twin Peaks may not always make sense, and its mysteries may not lock into perfect place; however, if it plays like his best films (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway), it’ll feel right, and it’ll stay with you for a long time.

Or, maybe it won’t! We’ll find out soon enough.

Photo: Showtime