Monday, November 8, 2010

Twin Peaks

Years: 1990-1991
Seasons: 2
Episodes: 30
Created by: David Lynch and Mark Frost

Main Cast:

Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper
Michael Ontkean as Sheriff Harry S. Truman
Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson
Ray Wise as Leland Palmer
Richard Beymer as Benjamin Horne
Sherilynn Fenn as Audrey Horne
Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward
James Marshall as James Hurley
Dana Ashbrook as Bobby Briggs

Every once in awhile the planets line up in a certain way and something really strange becomes a national phenomenon. When this happens, The Singing Nun prevents Louie Louie from being a number one hit song, Tiny Tim’s wedding becomes one of the highest rated TV events of all time, and the director of Eraserhead has a show where housewives discuss how dancing midgets, bald giants, and a woman who speaks to a log are connected in the murder of a local high school girl. For one glorious moment in the early 90s, David Lynch became a mainstream success with his murder mystery show Twin Peaks, doing the impossible by bringing his art house stylings into middle America through prime time TV. In the process, he only compromised on one important point, but even that compromise helped create one of the most powerful and disturbing episodes in TV history. But more on that in a bit.

Twin Peaks has Lynch’s fingerprints all over it, but it wasn’t his alone. The co-creator was Mark Frost, a writer who previously wrote and directed several episodes of 80s phenomenon Hill Street Blues. Frost cowrote several episodes of Twin Peaks and even directed the season one finale, and it’s been suggested that Frost was responsible for keeping the show progressing in an orderly fashion, while Lynch packed on the stranger elements and imagery. As someone familiar with Lynch’s work, this makes perfect sense, since telling a story via traditional means has never seemed to hold much interest for Lynch.

The story behind the show is as simple as they get. A teen (Lara Palmer) living in the small town of Twin Peaks is found dead one day, and an FBI agent and the town sheriff get to work trying to solve the crime and find the killer. In the double-length pilot episode, we get introduced to pretty much every important figure in the show. The groundwork is also laid for some of the other, less interesting plot developments, such as the burning down of the sawmill and such. The FBI agent is Dale Cooper, who uses a number of unconventional means to try to find the killer. This includes throwing rocks at bottles and dream interpretation. While the investigation goes on, the rest of the town tries to cope with the murder, and everything from Lara’s dad jumping on her casket during the funeral to local “bad girl” Audrey trying to help Cooper out by going undercover at a whorehouse in Canada are part of the “moving on” process.



I know I’m in the minority by saying this, but the pilot episode blows. The acting in it is atrocious, and the interesting moments don’t help make it a more enjoyable experience. Some actors got better, but a couple (especially Andy and ugh, Bobby) stay bad throughout the show. It’s only when the series proper kicks off and Agent Cooper begins the investigation that the show turns great. There’s something about Cooper’s wide-eyed enthusiasm for pretty much everything that makes his character so entertaining to watch, and almost everyone else gets a moment to shine. Apparently, because TV viewers are impatient dickheads, the network demanded that Lynch reveal the killer sooner than he wanted. The problem here is that Lynch never intended on doing such a thing, and in fact stated that if he were to reveal the killer at all, it would be in the final episode of the series.

Let’s stop for a moment here and think about this for a minute. The network had a hit show on their hands, but viewers were starting to leave. In their infinite wisdom, they decided to switch its timeslot to Saturday night at 10, when hardly anyone watches TV in the first place. Then, instead of slowly building to the reveal, they forced the revelation seven episodes into the second season, effectively destroying a show that used the murder mystery as its reason for being. Before discussing that reveal episode, I’d like to state that Lynch was absolutely right for being pissed off about this, and if I wasn’t already so jaded by watching all these canceled shows, I’d say that I was shocked that they’d sabotage it so quickly. Also, if you have any intention of watching the show and would like to stay in the dark about who the killer is, stop reading now.



Throughout the show, references have been made to a certain man named “Bob,” though they have always been sorta cryptic and unclear. As it turns out, “Bob” is an evil spirit that lives in the woods, and he possessed the body of Lara Palmer’s father Leland and used him to rape and murder her and, in the reveal episode, murder her identical cousin Maddy as well. As lame as this sounds, it leads to one of the most shocking moments I’ve ever seen in a TV show, and an episode that counts as one of the best things Lynch has ever filmed. The entire episode, except for an awkward, unfunny diner scene, leads up to Benjamin Horn being arrested for Lara’s murder, and everyone meeting at the local bar The Roadhouse. Julie Cruise sings one of her strangely out-of-place atmospheric ballads and Cooper watches with the Log Lady. Suddenly Cooper gets a message from The Giant, who tells him “It is happening again.” The scene cuts to the Palmer residence, with Leland straightening his tie in the mirror and seeing Bob in the reflection. Maddy comes down and Leland runs at her, punching her in the face and strangling her. Lynch films it mostly in slow motion with Leland and Bob alternating, with his demonic laughter mixing with Maddy’s screams. The effect is extremely unsettling, and it’s something that really needs to be seen rather than described.

And then it all falls apart. Two episodes later Leland is arrested, dies, and the mystery is solved. Then what? Remember in Lost when the Oceanic Six got off the island, and the writers came up with the lamest possible bullshit imaginable just to get them back? This is what happens with the main premise of your show is yanked away. Twin Peaks WAS the Lara Palmer story, and without that, everything fell to pieces immediately. The show started relying on dumb humor, pushed Cooper to the background, and came up with some of the worst shit imaginable. The most boring character on the show (James) had several episodes dedicated to some bullshit plot outside of the town. Andy kept going on about his sperms, and decided to buddy up with some guy who fucked and possibly impregnated his girlfriend. Both Cooper and Audrey, instead of hooking up with each other, hooked up with some randomlove interests, played by Billy Zane and Heather Graham. I have seriously never seen less romantic chemistry than each of these characters had with their boring-ass love interests. The show got so fucking atrocious so fast that it actually took some doing for me to finish this goddamn thing.

The show did start to pick up near the end, and that is probably the most tragic thing about Twin Peaks. Cooper’s former partner Windom Earle turns up as an insane, chess-obsessed murderer. Even though his character was handled poorly, it was still better than what was going on beforehand. There’s a beauty pageant in Twin Peaks, and Earle kidnaps Cooper’s boring girlfriend. Everything culminates with Cooper going into the woods and once again turning up in the strange “red room,” where everyone talks strangely and nothing makes sense. Lara’s there. Bob’s there. Earle’s there. Bob apparently kills Earle and everything goes batshit insane until Cooper finally comes out. The episode ends with Cooper looking into the mirror and seeing Bob’s reflection after smashing his head into it. He starts laughing maniacally while asking “Where’s Annie?” The end.

If the show ended with the resolution of the Lara Palmer plot, it would be remembered as one of the greatest shows of all time. However, because of the network forcing a quick resolution and the writers having no idea what to do next, the show is now one of the most famous instances of jumping the shark in existence. That the show could reach the highs it did and then turn into a boring, unfunny piece of shit so quickly is pretty damn sad. I have no idea if the show’s quality would have held up had Lynch and Frost got what they wanted and left the murder of Lara unsolved until the very end. Finding out new things about how fucked up she was made the show great, and made her a fascinating character. As it is, everyone has moved on, and there will never be anymore stories in the town of Twin Peaks.

Recommended for: Lynch fans, fans of bizarre mysteries, adventurous TV viewers, midget acting aficionados, men who refer to their sperm as “sperms”, people who like logs.

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