last night I finished rewatching Twin Peaks: The Return. I’d like to say that means I can move on with my life, but my desire to write something about it requires that I rewatch it. that won’t happen for at least a few weeks, because I do want to move on with my own creative work, and watching Twin Peaks at night was taking up the time I want to use for writing. also I’ll be purchasing the television collection on Blu-Ray so that I don’t have to depend on the Paramount+ subscription I’m leeching off to watch, and I won’t, ahem, return to Twin Peaks until then.
I’ll have more to say about Twin Peaks later, probably in a newsletter. in the meantime, one sequence of scenes, in Part 13 (“Whose Story is That, Charlie?”), has rattled around in my head for the past week or so. they’re scenes that are easy to overlook, because they’re all centered around secondary characters, inhabitants of Twin Peaks, their lives having taken them in directions all too logical, but nonetheless surprising, twenty-five years after the events of the original series.
(I’m not usually one to care much about “spoilers,” but Twin Peaks unfolds such a wondrous mystery that I would feel guilty if I were to ruin someone’s experience of watching it without any preconceived notions. so, even though the following reveals little in terms of the saga’s “primary” story, be forewarned that ahead lie descriptions of plot points.)
first, we see Norma meet with a man named Walter, who is her business partner in an expanded Double R franchise chain. she’s apparently romantically involved with Walter as well; she brushes off Ed, despite their obvious yet still furtive love for one another, to meet with him. Norma and Walter’s discussion reveals that there are now five Double R locations, and three of them are performing extremely well. but one of the locations that isn’t turning a profit is Norma’s, the original diner. we learn that this is partly a result of Norma’s insistence on doing things her way, with all natural, local, organic ingredients, making her famous pies too expensive to earn profits. she is resolute in this decision, to Walter’s consternation. additionally, she refuses to heed Walter’s advice about changing the name to “Norma’s Double R,” which he says performs better according to whatever market research he’s done. Norma is unconvinced, preferring the classic name, betraying a sincere humility. the two fail to compromise, and Walter changes the subject to confirm that they’ll be having dinner that evening. Norma smiles and agrees. (for the sake of rounding out this scene’s significance, it’s worth noting that a few episodes later, Norma sells her shares in the other locations to Walter, effectively ending their business partnership, and, as the ensuing scene suggests, their romantic involvement.)
next, we see Dr. Jacoby. in the world that The Return depicts, Jacoby broadcasts a radio/YouTube program under the pseudonym Dr. Amp, whom I’ve seen described as a “low level Alex Jones,” a raving paranoid who asks every day at “seven o’clock!—do you know where your freedom is?” before decrying that “THE FUCKS ARE AT IT AGAIN!” schoolmarmy lib types find it easy to write off this version of Jacoby as a “conspiracy theorist,” a characterization that in some ways stems from the same school of interpretation of The Return I’m implicitly making here, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, I quite like Dr. Amp’s rants, even if he is something of a reactionary grifter. the content of Amp’s broadcasts aside, one of his biggest fans is Ed’s wife Nadine. in this scene, at night, Jacoby walks by Nadine’s store, where she sells her trademark silent drape runners. hanging in the window, behind the silently opening and closing drapes, is a shovel painted gold—a product Jacoby sells as part of his call for people to “shovel your way out of the shit!” delighted to see his own merchandise in the wild, he knocks on the door, and his enthusiasm is eclipsed by Nadine’s own at seeing her virtual guru in the flesh. their interaction is strange, given that they know each other IRL but haven’t seen each other in years, with Nadine expressing ardent appreciation for what Jacoby’s broadcasts have meant to her. Jacoby is genuinely touched by the outpouring of praise, as any artist who encounters someone that seems to really internalize their art might. but then the scene lingers a few beats longer, with some mild discomfort arising from the collision between Nadine’s fanaticism and Jacoby’s creative efforts, suggesting that the good doctor doesn’t know what to do with the kind of appreciation he hopes to inspire.
the final scene in this triptych shows us Sarah Palmer. this is the second time we watch Sarah sitting in her home, drinking lazily mixed Bloody Maries, smoking cigarettes, and watching television. on the television is an old boxing match, black and white. as the scene drags on, it turns out that what’s playing is actually only a 30 second clip of a boxing match, looped over and over and over. how it’s looped isn’t explained, nor is why Sarah would be watching a boxing match at all, let alone such a particular section of a boxing match, endlessly. she pours the last of her vodka into a glass and splashes in some Bloody Mary mix, drinks it, and within a few moments is trying to pour another, but grows frustrated at the emptiness of the liquor bottle. the announcer continues repeating the same commentary. these scenes of Sarah in the Palmer living room are among the most disconcerting of the series. in the previous one, she’s watching a nature documentary of panthers mauling a gazelle, but otherwise she’s doing the exact same thing as always: drinking and smoking cigarettes.
if we understand Twin Peaks to be, in one aspect, about television, about the audience’s relationship to what’s broadcast into our homes; if we understand, as I like to, great art to always in some way be commenting on its own creation, and on the nature of the artistic process generally; with these interpretative lenses, this particular sequence of scenes very clearly expresses the complicated ambivalence of Mark Frost & David Lynch towards their creation. no doubt they have abundant love for Twin Peaks, or else they would not have signed on to produce 18 more hours of it. but the disturbing pathos of Sarah Palmer, obviously trapped by the trauma visited upon her decades ago, hints at the danger awaiting those who, unable to move on with their lives, insist on revisiting, on a loop, while sitting on their couch, story lines long since past. but even if Sarah is one of The Return‘s most frightening characters, the audience can’t help but pity her. contrast this pity with what we feel for scuzzbag Walter, who privileges financial concerns and pandering to the audience in his dealings with our beloved Double R. Norma’s insistence on doing things the way she wants to seems a not-so-subtle dig at the network pressures that interfered with Frost & Lynch’s vision for the show’s original run—which famously led to an early revelation of the show’s central mystery, precipitating an aimless and confused stretch of episodes through the show’s second season.
sandwiched between is Jacoby’s interaction with Nadine, who by all accounts is the “perfect” audience member who takes to heart Jacoby’s call for self-reliance and spiritual growth. Jacoby relishes the validation, but then doesn’t know what to do when faced with Nadine’s fanatical smile. and what artist ever does?
I promise I won’t post about Twin Peaks for at least a few weeks.
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