Twin Peaks: The Return Finale... Why?
"Through the darkness of future past,
"the magician longs to see,
"one chants out between two worlds,
"fire walk with me."
Ah, the Twin Peaks finale. It’s only been one day after the two-part season three closer, yet there are already countless fan theories, frustrated forum posts, and bewildered “initial reactions” on the web.
The journey of this new Twin Peaks revival has been a long one. Dale Cooper spent about 16 episodes to wake from a near-catatonic state, major character threads were seemingly abandoned, and a series notorious for a ruthless cliffhanger ending 26 years ago slammed another one right into the fans’ faces. The one question on everybody’s minds: what happened here?
David Lynch is a very mysterious filmmaker. His works stem from the sub-conscious, every frame he breathes onto the screen a sort of stream-of-consciousness vision. Or, in other words, a dream. Or a nightmare.
This is a man who vehemently refuses to offer any sort of explanation for his craft. Films like Eraserhead are given a single tagline; any questions past that are shot down almost immediately. He always says that, “[it means] different things to different people,” which is precisely what Twin Peaks (and the rest of his filmography) tries to do.
A mysterious being simply known as “Judy” is brought up both in the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as well as The Return. He/she is only mentioned, not seen, and is described as “an ultimate evil force…” something even darker than the Black Lodge.
In Chinese, Judy (jiāo dài) translates roughly to 交代 (to explain).
The ultimate fear- the evil of all evils- is explanation. Lynch’s life philosophies- to enjoy the current moment, to not dig too deep for meaning- are the core bases for the entire series.
So, who’s to blame for all the disappointment?
It’s not just the fans who are innocent, but Mr. Lynch himself as well. He never stated this would be as light as the original (even then, CBS’s iteration was largely out of his hands, especially in the second season), but he never said it would be darker, either. You can try to find a lone, single solution, but Lynch warns against it. That’s not to say the show is without meaning: with all of the silence, sounds, and visuals, there most definitely is. However, searching for the “one, definitive” answer is near impossible. Twin Peaks: The Return means different things to different people. You can love it, you can hate it, but it is what it is, and that will never change.