I've heard for years about the beauty of Twin Peaks, and it's been on a million "Great Shows Cancelled Too Soon" lists, so I figured it was high time I watched this gem. Thanks to the power of Netflix and other instant streaming services, people are now flocking to the wonder that is this small Washington town. Why not join the bandwagon when it's already gathered it's second wind. I figured I'd give a basic overview and my thoughts and feelings on the show, now that I've gotten through it. Season One
Season One starts off strong, with a 90 minute episode that gives you a pretty good overview of the initial elements at play. Laura Palmer, high school prom queen/small town darling, has been found dead. We follow FBI Agent Cooper as he works his way through the case and falls in love with the small town of Twin Peaks.
There are numerous twists and turns in the case, as well as odd supernatural elements at play. At 8 episodes including the 90 minute pilot, it's a tight season that, while not having figured out who killed Laura Palmer, gives you a full look into the crazy seedy underbelly that seems nearly impossible to exist in such a small, nice town. Nothing is what it seems, there is a duality to everything. There are numerous moments from this season that bled into pop culture, including Agent Cooper's love of coffee ("Damn fine coffee!") and cherry pie, as well as the spectacular soundtrack and music cues, the allure and oddity of Audrey Horne and the uniqueness of the story that could only come through the mind of David Lynch. Before Twin Peaks, I have a hard time believing there was a show centered around the death of a character, starting in episode one. It spawned a lot of ideas and there are still shows around now that are working around similar premises (AMC's The Killing, for example."
Though as much as I enjoy the first season and understand how important it is culturally, it's not without faults. The show is a co-creation between David Lynch and Mark Frost. Lynch being...Lynch and Mark Frost being your award-winning drama show runner. The show is at it's best when it combines both elements, but sometimes too far one way or the other. When it's too David Lynch-like, it's still enjoyable, but leaves you with more questions than answers, whereas when it's too Mark Frost, it plays out more like a soap opera. The first season has a lot of time devoted to people crying over the death of Laura Palmer, or other problems. It seems a little forced at times, but still, the first season is excellent overall.
Season Two
Season two opens with another 90 minute episode, however, the season is ridiculously large, in comparison, clocking in at 22 episodes. The problem I have with the second season is already right in front of you. You go, "They can't possibly stretch out who killed Laura Palmer for two seasons, containing 30 episodes" and they didn't. The first 10 episodes of Season two pick up right where season one left off and fill in the remaining gaps into the question of "Who killed Laura Palmer?." The problem then becomes...what do you do with a show that has 12 remaining episodes when the main storyline has been resolved. And the result is...it's about half and half, quality-wise. Apparently at the time of Season 2 both David Lynch and Mark Frost were off promoting other shows and left Twin Peaks to the rest of the show's team to work on. It takes until episode 14-15 to really pick back up in the main plot, so that means episodes 11-13 are all just kind of meandering pieces that focus on the side-stories, some of which were good, some aren't. Then between episodes 17-22 we really get back on the boat with the main plot and it's great tv and is totally worth watching...but the season really drags. After season two I totally understand both why the show was cancelled and also why everyone wanted more. The world of Twin Peaks is a fun and quirky weirdness that served as a great vehicle for odd stories. It has a lot of charm, totally not surprised it's such a cult classic. Agent Cooper and Audrey Horne are easily the best characters in the show, but Ray Wise's Leland Palmer really picks up in the second season too and ended up being super enjoyable.
Spoilers
In the end, I quite enjoyed where the show was going at the end of the second season, but the directions it took to get there weren't as such. The characters I didn't like the most were Nadine, Josie, Bobby and James. I never did enjoy Nadine's character, I was hoping at the end of season one that she would die. That would have been an interesting fold to Ed and Norma's relationship. However, in the second season they knock her memory back to high school and give her even more ridiculous strength. I hated the storyline every time it was on screen, and it was just too much. The resolve doesn't even make sense. In every scene teenage-brained Nadine has with Mike, the boy she is in love with, he rejects her over and time. Then one day she just says that they shared a magical night together and now they're in love and she leaves Ed so Ed can be with Norma. So he rejected her right up until they realized they needed to resolve the Ed and Norma relationship somehow.
Josie was another problem character for me because she has a ridiculous amount of plot twists that I don't think the character can handle. It was just revelation after revelation with her and they stopped being enjoyable in the second season, with the exception of her being the shooter of Cooper, as that was a mystery from the first season. Bobby was a character I didn't enjoy purely based on how insensitive he was at all times. They try and paint him as a jerk, but one that has good intentions, but he really just comes off as an ass. In the first episode when he finds out Laura is dead he's not sad or anything, just mad. When Leo becomes a vegetable he instead tries to collect the insurance money and essentially bails on it when they realize they'll get no money to take care of Leo. Even though Leo was a giant dickhole, it was still hard for me to see Bobby flagrantly abuse vegetable Leo. Though on the whole, I enjoyed the character of Leo because of how interesting of a turn it was. Dickhole character who you root for to die in the first season becomes a vegetable in the second season and you feel sorry for him based on how Bobby (and sometimes Shelly) treat him.
My last big character gripe was James Hurley. Everything he did was melodramatic to the max. For the first season it looked like he was about to cry at any second, and his relationship with Donna and every scene about it is laughable. His storyline with Evelyn also went nowhere and felt like just a reason to keep James involved in the show even though he no longer had any relevance, other than showing that none of these high school kids go to school other than Nadine, the 35 year old woman who thinks she's in high school.
Other than that, Ben Horne's civil war sub-plot felt like a show trying to figure out what to do when the guy who was a primary villain no longer has any real power...so they make him have a psychotic break and he comes out of it Wizard of Oz style. That storyline, James' with Evelyn and Lucy's My Two Dad's situation with Dick and Andy trying to figure out who would be a better dad just go nowhere and serve no purpose other than storyline filler while the writers buy time to figure out what to do next. In my opinion, the second season of Twin Peaks should have ended in the 11th episode. Leland Palmer has been convicted of Laura's death and has himself died, so the main mystery is solved, and Agent Cooper gets his badge revoked. The next season would then allow them to cut the fluff and start up around where episode 15 takes off and we could then get Cooper being Truman's right hand man and start the hunt for Windam Earle. Of course, this is hindsight you get after the show has been cancelled over 20 years.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I think the show is totally worth watching, but the middle episodes of season two are easily watched in the background, while doing something else. The first season is must-watch television, despite a few hang-ups here and there, and the first half of season two and the last 7-8 episodes are nearly as good as the first season, with just as many oddities and interesting storytelling ideas to give you. I'm definitely glad I finally caved and checked out Twin Peaks, I feel a little bit more cultured for it.
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