In a fitting reflection of the times, Twin Peaks: The Return was originally expected to air on Showtime in 2016. The same year as the cosmic glitch called Trump’s election to president occurred. There is an undeniable appropriateness to this, as the reboot (eventually released in 2017) seemed to acknowledge the inferno–no, purgatory–of a perpetual battle between good and evil in which it always appears that the latter is the victor in the scenario. No matter how diligently and indefatigably the forces of good try to win out, even in playing an unbelievable long game in the hope of a success. Alas, whatever “shrewd” strategies they (namely certain members of the FBI and certain residents of Twin Peaks) think they’ve come up with to outwit the ubiquitous “Judy”–the Mother of All Evil, in this instance–none of it will ever prove to topple her dominance. Her sheer hard-on for the ultimate beacon of beneficence in the series, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee).
Laura’s predilections to be pushed and pulled in the divergent directional paths of good and evil are a key hallmark of the show. On the one hand, she is a virginal-looking prom queen who does things out of the kindness of her heart, like volunteering for Meals on Wheels. On the other, she’s a prostituting cokehead. An even split of the tendencies we all bear within each of us to either choose the “straight and narrow” or be tempted by the proverbial devil. This is a deliberate choice on David Lynch and Mark Frost’s part, obviously, for Laura is the foil of everyone–of humanity itself, in all of its beauty and nefariousness. Subscribing to one aspect is almost impossible for most, which is where the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde bisection comes into play.
With regard to the world of Twin Peaks, it isn’t a bisection or a split personality phenomenon, so much as the literal existence of two versions of you. The “real” you and the doppelgänger you (or maybe the doppelgänger you is what’s real, depending on how you look at it). Ergo the existence of a Black Lodge and a White Lodge (and yes, there are most definitely some racist undertones to the fact that black is bad and white is not). It is in the Black that one is allowed to transcend the bounds of space and time in order to get a second chance at battling “Judy” by attempting to save both Cooper and Laura, two extreme sources of light and purity in the universe.
In terms of being a metaphor for what’s going on right now, Judy has never been more relevant. The invisible hand pulling the strings behind everything that occurs in the season (not to mention what has happened in seasons one, two and the prequel movie, Fire Walk With Me, as well as being responsible for evil since the dawn of the atomic era–for one can assume this is, in Lynch’s mind, when the penchant for true modern atrocity was really formed, even though the genocide of six million Jews was taking place well before 1945). It is Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie, via archive footage and as a teapot–or, more specifically, an orb emanating from the spout of a kettle) who seems most acquainted with Judy and her capabilities. Indeed, Jeffries already appeared to be extremely versed in the mind fuck of time travel, parallel universes and alternate realities in the loop as he points to Cooper accusatorily one afternoon at the Bureau in 1989, and demands of Gordon Cole (Lynch), “Who do you think this is there?”
The suggestion that Cooper is not who (or what) he seems, or that there is already another version of him off in a separate timeline before we as an audience have seen him get stuck in the Black Lodge (going by the chronology of the prequel being viewed as “before Cooper ever arrived in Twin Peaks”), is chilling. And it also speaks to the inherent duality within each of us, the good and the evil bifurcating to perform their own separate aims. Which one of them ends up winning out is often a matter of whose arrogance gets the better of them first. Surprisingly, it is as though “good” is the mechanism that always seems to get ahead of itself before realizing that “evil” has pulled a tortoise maneuver on the hare of the situation.
Lynch’s distinct knack for rendering the so-called “tranquility” of a small town into an undeniable nexus of sin and subterfuge stems in part from his casting choices. Unlike, say, Woody Allen, Lynch is called out less (if ever) about his predilection for using primarily white faces in his oeuvre. After all, said oeuvre speaks almost entirely to the specific fucked up’ness of White America. The Anywhere, USAs of the overall horrifying territory that, even still, people believe are untainted by the “vileness” of the outside world, a.k.a. the dirty dealings of the cities. In fact, in Twin Peaks’ first episode of season three, “My Log Has A Message For You,” New York Shitty is the place where one of the initial most sinister incidents transpire as a security guard, Sam (Benjamin Rosenfield), watches over a mysterious transparent box that eventually unleashes some genderless entity called The Experiment on him as he’s seizing an opportunity to have sex with his girlfriend, Tracey (Madeline Zima), while on the job. After being slaughtered alive, it’s clear that the “Blue Rose” cases are back, with the Black Lodge version of Cooper still out in the world doing the bidding of his “Mother,” Judy–for it is BOB, still inside of him, that was begat of the former.
As the incredible narrative interweaves the storylines of characters both familiar and new, the buildup to the haunting denouement is what most resonates in the timeline we all find ourselves in now. Every outcome, every version feels as though it were always somehow doomed to reach an abominable end. This coming to blows, this freak show. And however it does climax, one can’t help but intuit that the evil in this world will have still gained the upper hand. In the case of Twin Peaks, the moment a white girl screams in terror, that’s when it’s all over for everyone.
