Twin Peaks Really Defined: A 4-Hour Video Essay Demystifies It All

I don’t learn about you, however my YouTube algo­rithms can act like a nag­ging good friend, sug­gest­ing a video for days till I last­ly give in. Such was the case with this video essay with the tan­ta­liz­ing title: “Twin Peaks ACTUALLY EXPLAINED (No, Actual­ly)”.

Initially, earlier than, dur­ing, and after 2017’s Twin Peaks The Return, the­o­ries had been as inescapable because the cat memes on the Twin Peaks Face­ebook teams. After the mind-blow­ing Episode 8, they went into over­drive, includ­ing the bonkers concept that the ultimate two episodes had been meant to be watched *over­laid* on every oth­er. And I excessive­mild­ed one in-depth jour­ney by way of the complete three many years of the Lynch/Frost cul­tur­al occasion for this very web site.

So after I last­ly clicked on the hyperlink I balked imme­di­ate­ly: 4 and a half hours? Are you child­ding me? (You could be say­ing the very factor to your­self now.) However identical to the nar­ra­tor says, bear with me. Over the week, I watched the complete factor in 30-minute seg­ments, not as a result of it was gru­el­ing, however as a result of time is pre­cious and there’s a lot to chew over. By the top, I used to be rec­om­mend­ing the video to pals solely to seek out a few of them had been already deep inside Twin Good’s analy­sis.

So right here we’re, with me excessive­ly encour­ag­ing you to take a position the time (professional­vid­ing you have got watched all three sea­sons of Twin Peaks and Hearth Stroll With Me), but additionally not need­i­ng to break a few of Twin Good’s the­o­ries, which he lays out like a execs­e­cu­tor, stroll­ing us by way of a gen­er­al the­o­ry of Lynch.

How­ev­er, I’ll make just a few factors:

• In 2019, we publish­ed a video by which Lynch explains each the Uni­fied Subject The­o­ry and Tran­scen­den­tal Med­i­ta­tion. There are a minimum of two main sequences that Twin Per­fect sug­gests mirror the Uni­fied Subject.
• Lynch’s obses­sion with elec­tric­i­ty and fireplace is essen­tial to the the­o­ry.
• The One-Armed Man’s quote “I imply it as it’s, because it sounds,” dou­bles as Lynch’s strategy: Twin Per­fect does a mas­ter­ful job present­ing many, many examination­ples the place Lynch is direct­ly clarify­ing his use of metaphor and sym­bol to us. Some­instances that’s straight into the cam­period.
• We now know why Sea­son Three fea­tured a three-minute shot of a person sweep­ing up peanuts from a bar flooring.
• I’ve all the time felt that The Return was an explo­ration of the dan­gers of nos­tal­gia, and this essay con­firmed it for me. There was some­factor miss­ing on the cen­ter of the Third Sea­son, certainly.
• Twin Per­fect reads all quotes from the direc­tor in a mock-Lynch voice. For some this may grate; for me it was A BEAUTIFUL THING (wig­gly fin­ger ges­ture).

Twin Per­fect places way more effort into this than most grad­u­ate stu­dents:

I’ve been work­ing on this video for 2 years, writ­ing and analysis­ing and edit­ing. I’ve been learn­ing and watch­ing and lis­ten­ing to each cre­ator inter­view and AMA, each DVD additional and fea­turette, each TV spe­cial, each fan the­o­ry, weblog, and pod­solid — any and all Twin Peaks-relat­ed posts I may discover — strive­ing to hone and pol­ish my script to be the most effective I assumed it may pos­si­bly be. I focus-grouped my video with peo­ple, chal­leng­ing them to poke as many holes in my argu­ments as they may in order that I may wager­ter illus­trate my concepts. I attempted my finest to cre­ate some­factor oth­ers would discover of val­ue, some­factor that may add to the ongo­ing mys­tery and spark new dis­cus­sions about my favourite sequence.

Are there some prob­lems with the the­o­ry? Certain. However for each “I don’t know, man,” I mentioned to myself, he imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed it up with some­factor spot on. I believe he deserves that MFA in Twin Peaks Stud­ies.

So brew up some sturdy cof­payment and minimize your­self a slice of cher­ry pie, and get caught in.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Directs a Mini-Sea­son of Twin Peaks within the Type of Japan­ese Cof­payment Com­mer­cials

David Lynch Attracts a Map of Twin Peaks (to Assist Pitch the Present to ABC)

Three Days in Twin Peaks: An In-Depth Jour­ney Via the Evoca­tive Loca­tions of David Lynch’s TV Sequence

Watch an Epic, 4‑Hour Video Essay on the Mak­ing & Mythol­o­gy of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks

Ted Mills is a free­lance author on the humanities., You can too fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills.