Twin Peaks: The Return - A Critique of Nostalgia 

Support ScreenPrism on Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=7792695 Subscribe to keep up with our latest videos, and let us know what you want to see next!

Laura's scream and the shutting off of the lights in the end of part 18 is one of the scariest things I've seen. It may not be the intention, but it is

Unmurdering Laura was the gutsiest move in tv history.

That Gordon Cole "What the hell?" is pure meme material

Love the use of the "what the hell" meme

The murder of Laura Palmer was never supposed to be solved. Damn it feels good to hear Lynch say it. I felt this while I was first watching the show, I felt something shift and the show change when Laura's murderer was revealed. Can't believe how frustrating it must have been for Lynch and his team when the studio pressured them into changing the storyline. They killed the concept.

The finale obliterated me emotionally.

This season was like an anti-nostalgia middle finger that got more insane with every episode. And I loved it!

The original series was one of my dad's favourite series, at first I didn't get it, but he forced me to watch it a second time and ooooh my, it was worth it.

Cooper didnt return to the night before Laura was killed, he returned to THE night Laura was killed.

Twin Peaks is not your typical tv show

Ugh that look on Cooper's face when he asks, "What year is this?" followed by Laura's signature scream sends pure uncertainty, fear and ultimately chills through my body. Then the theme "Dark Space Low" as the credits roll with a sad and confused Cooper back in the Lodge is fucking soul crushing. What a trip.

I'm still not sure it wasn't all about the bunny...

I think this is a great video on a great show, but I disagree on Cooper's return. I think it is horrifying. There is a parallel between it and Mulholland Drive. When Cooper is back with his new friends in a Jet and on his way to Twin Peaks, I get a sense of deja vu. It feels like when Betty is in the Taxi with her grandparents after winning the jitterbug contest and getting a ticket to Hollywood. There is a sappy sense of uncomfortably prolonged happiness that begins to make the viewer uncomfortable. Like a dream, the dreamer often is aware when a dream is going to turn into a nightmare. I do not think that it is a coincidence that the show got much darker after the red herring(or golden shovel) of Cooper waking up.

The Return was so fantastic. I feel sorry for everybody that gave up on it after only a few episodes because Lynch/Frost didn't immediately pander to what everyone wanted.

The Return was unlike anything else, and I loved it

Is true we want the same thing but life is change.

As a Twin Peaks fan, I didn't need the Return. And going into it, you knew it wasn't going to be the same. Every single episode was worth the wait! 👍

That scream is the only thing that brought me back to Twin Peaks. Laura's horror is the soul of this series and alot of people seem to have forgotten that this is what the original series was about. That's what made it so good. People like to forget misery and just ravel in mystery instead.

Fantastic video SP. The love and respect for Peaks shines through in both your videos on it.

Very insightful video! What keeps me coming back to the show is finding those golden eggs, or mysteries. I've all but forgotten other shows that either give everything away or resolve conflicts in a way to please audiences. This show really demands your attention and rewards it with some of the best experiences and feelings you won't soon forget.

The more I think and read about Twin Peaks: The Return, the more I appreciate it. Thanks for reminding me to think about it.

This is mind-blowing 🤯 the final just gets a totally new meaning 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 thank for this

Bring on more Twin Peaks!

David Lynch has done a very strange and wonderful thing with Twin Peaks. The scene where Dale Cooper says "I AM the FBI" is art of the highest form. Talking about 'payoff', gosh darn sweet Jesus, that takes the cake.

Great look at the show, feel the exact same way. This channel is top tier!

Great job!👍 Glad i've seen this one after forcing myself to FINALLY revisit Twin Peaks 3. Just didn't want to ruin all the delightsome memories previous seasons had given me. However.. Now i have some new, freshly squeezed memories to tear down and i'm glad to have it.

no piece of film has ever given me such an empty sinking feeling than part 18, and for that it's utterly perfect

Thank you!

Man that final 10 seconds or so still makes all my hairs stand up on end. Perfect original show, perfect reboot examining what a reboot is and why we want them. Lynch is a fucking genius. 100% insane but a genius no doubt.

Thank you for your excellent upload.

Wow what a great video, well done!

This is the greatest season of any television series that I have ever experienced and currently stands as my all-time favourite work from David Lynch. If this season does not clean-sweep EVERY awards show this season, I'm going to be absolutely furious. Kyle MacLachlan deserves Best Actor for this role too. He literally has SEVEN DIFFERENT VERSIONS to this one character that he's playing throughout: (1) the Dale Cooper we all know from the original series (fully realized in Part 16), (2) the discombobulated "Dougie Coop" that we had for most of the season (up to the end of Part 15), (3) the first Dougie Jones (the "this is weird" version), (4) the second Dougie Jones (the one we saw briefly in Part 17, when he's reunited with Sonny Jim and Janey-E), (5) the altered Dale Cooper a.k.a. Richard (who noticeably changes when passing through the alternate dimension with Diane in Part 17), (6) the "dream-version" of Cooper (his face being super-imposed on the screen during Part 17, he also shows up during Gordon's Monica Bellucci dream) and, last but not least, (7) Cooper's doppelganger/Mr. C. I don't see many actors being able to pull off such a complex, multi-faceted role as Cooper during The Return, but Kyle MacLachlan does it masterfully, and he deserves HUGE kudos for that IMO. Seriously, watching him go from playing the most evil son of a bitch in the world (Mr. C) to being the most wholehearted character of all-time (Dougie Coop) was so exhilarating. This season gave me a brand-new appreciation for Kyle MacLachlan (and I already loved the guy after the first-two seasons of Twin Peaks). I really, really hope to see him cast in more movies and shows after this incredible effort (hell, it's wonderful to see Laura Dern starring in another Blockbuster, alike Jurassic Park, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi about to come out). I adore this season and, as much as I'd love to see a fourth season (if anything, just to see more of the original Cooper we had back briefly during Parts 16-17), I have no quarrels with this being the final curtain for Twin Peaks. Thank you so very much for this out-fucking-standing series, David Lynch. You truly are the master.

I couldn’t wrap my head around this one and fought to continue watching. It the end I was at a complete loss as to what I watched.

06:45 even if Cooper saved Laura's life, she was still missing so we may think that he came to Twin Peaks to investigate her missing situation, not her death.

Fantastic video. Well done.

So many movies and shows from my youth are being revived and mostly it's been great. But I was struck by how different this new Twin Peaks was and was actually grateful that Lynch did not just pander to fans. This is in stark contrast to The Force Awakens, another continuation from my childhood that was just a re-hash of the older films. If Disney and JJ Abrams had done Twin Peaks, Cooper would have been back by episode 3 in time to solve another murder in Twin Peaks, this time a teenage boy wrapped in plastic.

Can’t go home again. The return was trying to remind us that Twin Peaks is dead.

I'm a recent joiner of the TP party, so I had my experience of the seasons and FWWM without the breaks in time. Not only did I love it all, I've gone from a Lynch skeptic to an appreciator.

This is one of the best analysis videos about the show. Good job, well done :)

fantastic essay.

Great video, thanks

Spot on. Cooper did still visit Twin Peaks though he visited to investigate her disappearance.

Excellent analysis! I was so pleased with the return. When I first heard it announced I was so concerned because nearly every other revival has been so terrible, but 5 minutes into the first episode I was kicking myself for ever doubting David Lynch. I really, really hope he does more television. Streaming tv is the new place for art house cinema and he did such a fantastic job with this.

3 years of sorrow. I can go now. Thank you.

Great analysis.

Great analysis

There are moments in the show that couldn't exist without the original, but at the same time, these new moments now stand on their own in this iteration, because David Lynch wasn't afraid to make something different and challenging out of the mold. I loved the new characters, as much as the old. For the most part, I think it was a pretty satisfactory revival, return, and perhaps a final goodbye. The mystery is now eternal, looped, and self aware.

Excellent look back at 'The Return' and adds perspective

One thing I like about the the return is that there's no common consensus regarding it's quality.

So good. Bravo.

One of the best videos on the Return I’ve seen. Well done!

Twin Peaks The Retrun is a gift that keeps on giving and this video is testament to that. There are so many ways one can deconstruct and discern meaning for themselves.

Great job.

I think most people were looking for a clear cut ending and were expecting something along the lines of a typical Hollywood style ending. I've not seen all of Lynch's films, most but not all (haven't watched Dune or The Straight Story) - and the one thing you never get is a typical happy ending. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire are all very dream like and nightmareish in some instances - Fire Walk With Me gave us the happy Laura ending, she's smiling with her angel shining down and Cooper by her side in the red room. The Return changes all of that because instead of leaving the past where it should be, we change the past and that leads us into an uncertain future. That's pretty much the message I take away from The Return - you can't change anything, appreciate it for what it is or was, wishing that you could change something has the potential to do more harm to a person that just carrying on with it.

I feared that a modernised Twin Peaks wouldn't be as good ... but how wrong was I :)

perfectly put!

This video was one of the most plausible and comprehensible analyses of the return that I’ve seen - thanks!

I remember watching the original. I was way too young to be watching something like that, but I absolutely loved it.

This is excellent thank you

wait, what year is this?

Very intelligent analysis.

Awesome video!

What an excellent analysis. I’m so glad they didn’t just give us fan service. I became even more obsessed with the show this new season.

That was great!

Great video

Amazing video.

...great review! thx...

Thank you for this video. It expressed what has been knocking around my brain since season 3 ended.

My favorite Tv show!

Keep this Lynch stuff coming!

fantastic analysis. your videos are always so clear, well-spoken and nicely visual.

Thank you and thanks to the comments. I'm never watching The Return now.

Season one and two were difficult but really intriguing, slow and rewarding, off putting due to being a mix of being a soap opera but also a crime thriller with the supernatural. Season 3 felt like a test wether or not you were a true fan. It was painful, excruciatingly so because you kept having to put your faith in it that it would pay off. And it DID!

Great Critique!

great take

So the scene where Bobby cries in part 4? This video reads that as a deferred payoff, a bit of nostalgia that Twin Peaks had earned by this point. To me, it was intolerably saccharine, and I think that was the point. Bobby is crying, and the music *finally* comes back into what has been a mostly quiet show to this point, but it felt so embarrassingly out of place to me. To me, in that moment, Lynch was saying, "Here it is. This is what you thought you wanted. Doesn't work anymore, does it?" From that moment on, I finally gave up on what I wanted out of Season 3, and just let it be what it was. So I totally agree with this this video's thesis that Lynch didn't care about revival at all. I just got there in a different way.

The Return just killed Twin Peaks for me. When I heard that they are going to continue the series after 25 years I was hyped - finally some closure I thought. But what did we get? A season that is, as some fans put it, "pure Lynch". I guess that is fine for those who wanted a series called "Twin Peaks: The Return" to be nothing but pure Lynch, but those who wanted a series called "Twin Peaks: The Return" to be anything like the original series were sorely disappointed. Before watching the new series I actually re-watched all of the original series to get in the right mood for Twin Peaks - what a shame that there was zero payoff for that effort...

this video needs to give Mark Frost some credit

Like the origonal show's ending this third season of Twin Peaks ended with a major WTF ending with nothing really resolved! Just David Lynch's unfailing artistic ablity to drag the veiwer on with a "nostalgic carrot" dangling over our heads, and when the scene drags on too long and we turn away David smacks us with the carrot!

That was a very good video. Man, that ending still gives me chills.

that final scream after hearing mrs palmer call for laura made up for all the long drawn out dougie scenes.

Beautifully edited analysis of a series that people will talk about in years and years to come. I think with this you were as close to the core of Twin Peaks as you can get. It's a series that knows it's a series and comments on that frequently.

Good job.

I also think "The Return" expanded the cosmos, or mythology, of the "Twin Peaks" world, often taking leave of it to show what lies beneath it, or informs it. The vision is ultimately a bleak one, sort of based in the old Greek notion of fate, which Aristotle later called "eidos." The idea being that things contain a certain internal form, call it information, which cannot be altered through personal will, but which eventually unfold in their natural, unalterable course. I saw the ritualistic aspect of "The Return," with things like the golden ball, to be Cooper's attempt to roll back Laura's murder through occultic means, which he never fully accomplishes. Nothing can actually stop that murder because there is a certain unalterable fate to the town of Twin Peaks, which is only understood by taking leave of it, then returning.

Profound insights! 🌹🥰☀️😎

I was afraid to start the series out of fear that the nostalgia would be painful, so I was pleasantly surprised on that count....but I definitely missed narrative formality. The new series, in trying to make the story bigger, actually made it smaller....by turning Laura Palmer into a magical girl, for one thing. And GOD DAMN IT I was ready to smash my laptop by the time Lynch was done with Chauncey Avant-Gardiner....

i've just been watching the godfather part 1 and 2, i think vito and michael needs a special breakdown on how they run their intelligence with michael being more vicious than his predecessor... its a worth video and many people will like it ! :)

Good video review. :-)

Can I just say, the Twin Peaks parody episode of Psych is one of the greatest things ever?

A lot of that is very on point, and while I agree with most of it, THE #1 reason why this return, or "revival", is so important to the fans, me being one of them, is, without a doubt closure. The original series ending on so many cliffhangers, not the least of which was the fate of Cooper, that to finally get a window back into that world gave hope there would FINALLY be closure. And while some questions were answered, many more were posed, and THERE in lies the genius of David Lynch and Mark Frost. A++

Bobby Briggs seeing Laura's picture and getting all misty about it read to me like kind of a parody of the show's first couple of episodes. Laura's murder kicks off the series, so it takes a few episodes for everyone to stop crying.

I just started the video and I'm already hype af 🙌🌲🌲🍒☕💀

The Return's episode 8 was stunning.

Good insights. Had Lynch given viewers something very like what he already had made, we would've been disappointed; and we would've been disappointed if he'd done something completely different. Instead, he walked the fine line between familiar and completely unheard of stuff, and that was the right thing to do. As with most things Lynchian, I enjoy the ride and the view and the sounds; but I can't get bogged down analyzing everything or seeking meanings ... life's too brief! LOL

Bravo 👏🏻

I'm so fucking over the obsession with nostalgia these days. TP season 3 and Blade Runner 2049 were the only ones that were actually be able to do revivals right.

just something i've been wondering about. when cooper is back in 89 and laura sees him in the forest, then she screams. why did she scream in the original scene? that scene is from fire walk with me right?

Massive respect for the Psych reference.

Lynch says Dune was his biggest mistake. But I have to think the finish to season 1 of Twin Peaks and much of season 2 was even more colossal. I think he wanted to make all that right with 2-3 Twin Peaks films. But because Fire Walk With Me flopped so badly, he couldn't. But by embracing digital and the new media, he worked hard to make season 3 a triumph. I think it was in the sense that he got a long miniseries with a large budget. I don't think it worked as anything but an extravagant visual shaggy dog story though.