When I first wrote my Twin Peaks review, I stated that, “for many people, including me, turning on the show Twin Peaks is like willingly slipping into a dream.” Now, as I try to revisit this statement, I sit and stare at my computer with an indescribable feeling, one I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel again. It’s been almost a year since I last watched the show, and I find it incredibly difficult to write about.

Beyond all the idiosyncrasies in the presentation of the show, I see the light and darkness alike present in the connections and characters. The show immediately starts with the discovery of Laura Palmer’s dead body, and the brutality of her death clearly haunts each character in their own way throughout the series. Yet, many find that they rise above it. In this, Twin Peaks seems to depict nothing less than the human condition. Yes, it is a story about trauma, abuse, and death - easily the stuff of soap operas or snuff films - but I think that the true substance is in its depiction of its characters trying to stay above it all.

Twin Peaks is one of the most important pieces of media that I have ever seen. Due to how successful it is in achieving its complexities and ambitions, it’s quite difficult to approach my thoughts on this project. Yet, I doubt that I would be able to do justice to any of these strengths. It was hard for me to believe that any media could be this good beforehand, and I remember telling myself that I didn’t love any movie individually. That’s clearly not the case anymore, and I have this show to thank almost entirely for that. Whether or not I remember, rewatch, or even like it, Twin Peaks is entirely ingrained into my identity. I could do my best to explain how the direction, writing, music, performances, sound design and so on contributed to this utter subsumption of self, but it wouldn’t really help. Only the sights and sound committed to the screen by Frost and Lynch can have that effect.

I remember watching the docking scene from the film Interstellar a couple years after it came out. Nolan’s movies had such obviously strong visuals and sounds that seeing it all play out alerted me to the fact that these two aspects could go as well together as they do. Lynch adds a layer of smoothness to the idea of simply combining visuals and sounds, as he undertones his scenes with deep emotions. Originally, I wrote about the ‘flashlight hook rug dance’ flashback and the love song cover scene. The most impressive moment to me, though, is after Laura’s doppelgänger is murdered. The music swells and the immense sadness felt by everyone - on screen and off - shows the value of the connections between the characters, and maybe even the people that the audience knows. Nolan creates resonant moments with mountainous visuals and booming sounds, whereas Lynch does so in a subtler way. They are equally great. At the end of the day, I can’t see any movie reaching its full potential without using music.

When thinking back on Twin Peaks, I feel little need to discuss the negatives of the show. For something as perfect for me personally as Twin Peaks is, there is a certain futility to breaking down the greatest aspects of it, as that’s what the critics are for. I was initially planning on revising my original review of the show in which I dove into more technical elements of it, but ended up soliloquizing on what it meant for me personally. I have come to the conclusion that writing about anything else in retrospect on some of these aspects is pointless.