My mom got me into Twin Peaks. She would always tell me how incredible the show was but what a let down fire walk with me was. We rewatched the old episodes as they were re airing on bravo with the log lady intros. My mom has been gone over 5 years at this point but that show will always make me think of her. It was very weird watching the return and not being able to discuss it with her. She was wrong though. Fire walk with me rules.
Twin Peaks debuted while I was in college, the perfect time to have my perceptions transformed by David Lynch and Mark Frost's television masterpiece. In the bland network TV landscape of 1990, Twin Peaks was unlike anything I'd ever seen before in terms of storytelling, visuals, music, and characters. Lynch and Frost truly created a place both wonderful and strange, one that grabbed me from Pete Martell's words "She's dead...wrapped in plastic" in the pilot, then bonded with my very soul with Dale Cooper's surreal dream sequence in the third episode of the first season.
Thirty years, three seasons and a feature film later, I'm still an obsessed Peaks Freak that continues to find something endearing or shocking in repeated viewings. For the past three years, my longtime friend Xan Sprouse and I have been the hosts of Ghostwood: The Twin Peaks Podcast for the Southgate Media Group, and our lively discussions keep giving me new insights in ways I never expect and I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Meanwhile... I have the sudden urge to go watch some more Twin Peaks...
I watched Twin Peaks when it first aired, I was twelve but my mom thought I would like it. I only knew 2 other people who had seen it. In college I found the VHS box set and made everyone I knew watch it, and Fire Walk with Me. Nowadays all of my oldest and closest friends have seen it and we can always find new things to discuss about it. I always had a secret hope that it would one day comeback and The Return felt like a gift from the universe. Twin Peaks shaped my tastes, my friends and my life, so much so that I started my own podcast just to discuss the works of David Lynch (and Jane Austen but that’s a different story). I couldn’t be more happy that it exists in the world.
Seeing the pilot for the first time I remember just how fascinated I was by it all. I was hooked immediately. Not just by the compelling central mystery of identifying Laura Palmer’s killer, but just as much by the many interesting residents of Twin Peaks. They were quirky, emotional, wonderful, and strange; and Agent Cooper’s passion and excitement was truly contagious. I was seven years old when I first saw the pilot, on VHS recordings made by my parents not intended for my viewing. I watched it several times that year but it would not be until the release of the Gold Box DVD set many years later that I recall finally seeing it again, after purchasing the season 1 dvd set that on release excluded the pilot.
When this set was released I finally learned the identify of Laura Palmer’s killer, was equal parts transfixed and horrified by the conclusion of season 2 and Fire Walk With Me, and then began the long wait for season 3. I did give up hope somewhere along the way and thought there was certainly no chance for a continuation. But season 3 came at a perfect moment and I consider it a gift.
More than anything else I’m grateful for the people I’ve met and the friendships I feel lucky to have made through the Twin Peaks community. Many of these individuals I did not meet until the excitement surrounding season 3, and for that I’m forever thankful. These friends are some of the most creative and kind people I have ever met and knowing them has brought a great amount of joy to my life.
What do you think?