I just finished Twin Peaks: the Return, which is one of the names i found out there for the third season of Twin Peaks which came out 25 years after the first two.

I wasn’t the hugest Twin Peaks fan in the world, but i watched it and I liked it. I liked the sincerity of the characters. I found Audrey to be incredibly sexy. I liked the music. And it all looks a little like Vancouver being filmed in the “Pacific Northwest”. I was never really obsessed about the meaning of everything, and what it all meant, and found most of it better to take at face value, and then let it stew wherever.

With that, I will share my thoughts about the Return.

I really liked it, and I liked it a lot better than the original first two seasons. I felt grateful to be able to watch it, and grateful that something like it exists. It seemed to have very little bullshit lowest common denominator stuff that you just sort of have to put up with in movies/TV shows. There was stuff to put up with, but their purpose seemed to be to have us- the viewer- put up with them.

I want to avoid speaking about grandiose themes, but I liked the constant contrast in characters with positive and negative attributes. I usually hate seeing such things, but it showed vulnerability, helplessness and desolation very well I thought.

I also liked how very rarely people acted surprised at the surprising things people said, and I remember only once someone saying “what the fuck is going on here?” when it really could’ve been an appropriate response to most of what people said. It felt like a weird utopia that whenever anyone said anything, the usual response was a thoughtful pause, and then carefully chosen sincere words. It’s not realistic, but would be nice.

The young FBI woman who was new to Gordon’s team was very sexy. I thought way too much about Gordon’s body language with her, and if he would be an old skeez or not. I loved the scene with Gordon enjoying the company of a French woman. I loved just about everything about Gordon. I loved how he asked for people’s names, and then thanked them sincerely. I like how many people asked for people’s names. It seems like a nice thing to do, yeah? To personalize someone. Not realistic, but hey, it’s fantasy.

I love how the Casino brothers started out so menacing, and ending up being comedic, and their final “what is going on” or whatever was more of an audience-like remark. I loved their three server girls or whatever.

I read stuff about the show online after finishing it, and it mentioned how Twin Peaks has decayed in many ways and no one was happy, and honestly I hadn’t noticed that when watching it. I just thought everyone has their shit, and life is tough. Seemed realistic. I’m probably not getting the great metaphor on the decay of the American dream.

I almost felt it made me feel dirty for my nostalgia, but it also delivered and made me feel happy inside. The few seconds where Cooper acted like the Cooper of old warmed my heart, even if I felt laughed at while my heart was getting warmed.

Regarding “what does it all mean?”, I don’t know. I was happy to go along with the alternative reality, and not understanding how it worked. I craved the happy ending where everyone laughed at the Sheriff’s station as the camera pans to the nature and music and credit come.

When “Cooper” said at the very end “what year is it”, I felt like I was being made fun of, because that was what I couldn’t stop being fixated on. Was this a flashback? Was this happening now? Are these real people? As much as I pretended otherwise, I was trying to get it, and couldn’t get past “what year is it”. In the red curtain world, they also mentioned some line about the past and the future.

Maybe it is as simple as mocking people who are trying to get it, and who want more. Maybe the suits made him put that ending in for potential sequels.

Whatever. It was good. I’m glad I watched it. The end.