It’s been less than 24 hours since the airing of the first 2 episodes of the new Twin Peaks series (followed by parts 3 and 4 which are available on streaming services), and I’ve already watched all 4 episodes twice. What to say. Yes, I like it, but it’s definitely very far from what I was expecting — and I kinda love it for that. Frost and Lynch have not gone soft, and instead have amped up the weirdness and supernatural elements, to a degree we never saw in the original series. It’s definitely darker than the original show, more on par with the film (which I’ve said I don’t quite like), but it’s still adding more whimsy than we saw in the film — and I think that despite all the darkness, it works best because of the serialized form we’re offered (instead of in one concentrated 2-hour chunk). It’s a slow start, but Lynch has said that for him this is to be taken as 1 movie, separated in 18 parts, not episodes. I think it was good that they gave us 4 episodes right away, because it lets you take in more of what this series is going to offer — more than what you get from just the first 2 episodes. And I thought that the second viewing was even more interesting, but that’s maybe because I had so much pent up anticipation and excitement leading up to the premiere, that I was probably in shock while watching most of it, and so the re-watching let me take in everything better, with expectations already in check. What they are doing here is definitely ballsy — I can’t imagine what it must be like trying to watch this if you’ve never watched Twin Peaks before (never mind countless times like me), because this is the deepest dive yet we’ve seen into all of the supernatural mythology that has surrounded the series. In fact, it’s now the main focus (at least in these first 4 episodes). The best is that there’s just so much mystery going on that my wife and I have already had multiple discussions trying to dissect everything (we’ve both watched it twice together). I think they’ve managed to push the envelope just like they did back in 1990 with the original two seasons, instead of just playing nice and doing a retread of what those seasons were like, and that’s something I can definitely get behind.
