Wrapped In Plastic: A Twin Peaks Rewatch - Part 1

I threatened it and no one shouted loud enough to say “no” so you’re going to get it. That’s just how things work around here, you lucky, lucky people. So here are my musings as I go along and rewatch Twin Peaks. I first watched this when I was barely a teenager and have rewatched it a couple of times over the years - probably each time it’s released on a new format (VHS first then DVD and now BluRay - next time will be direct cortical implant). These will be notes scribbled as I go along. It goes without saying that these will be spoilery notes as it goes along so, if you haven’t watched it before, why not take this as an opportunity to watch it then read my inane witterings afterwards? It’ll be like a commentary track only written down and by someone who has absolutely no insight to offer at all. There are plenty of people out there offering deep and intellectual studies on the philosophical nature of the series. This will not be one of them.

There are two different ways you could watch Twin Peaks - as it was broadcast/released (first and second season, prequel film Fire Walk With Me and finally the third season) or chronological order (prequel, first to third seasons). I’m going with broadcast order as the prequel film effectively spoils the first season and a half and also it leads more fluidly into the third season which picks up on a lot of stuff from the film.

Alright then, let’s kick off with the first few episodes - the feature length pilot and the first episode of the series proper

S00E00 - Pilot AKA Northwest Passage*
In Which:- The body of Laura Palmer is discovered wrapped in plastic in the supposedly sleepy town of Twin Peaks and FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives to investigate, beginning to uncover the dark side of the town.

- What’s striking about it is how good it still looks for a TV series that’s 30 years old. This is what happens when you draft in an established film director to take on TV - you get something that feels cinematic. We take that for granted in today’s TV world when huge budgets and film stars/directors are now commonplace but, at the time, there was a big divide between TV and film. TV was sneered at by the film industry so it was remarkable to get something that had a cinema aesthetic to it on the small screen.
- Kyle MacLachlan is a great lead - he’s got a natural charisma and plays what is often a dour role in this kind of murder mystery with a sort of cheerful naivete that feels pretty unusual - like a happy Sherlock Holmes. That combined with his immediate rapport with local Sheriff Harry S Truman (going against the cliched antagonism of the FBI agent coming in to the small town and butting heads with the locals) ia already start to give this a different feel.
- The ‘50s small town look and feel that Lynch was going for also means that, for the most part, the looks have aged well too. There’s a slight preponderance of 90s style lumberjack shirts but, other than that, it looks pretty timeless.
- What’s surprising about the pilot is how low key the oddity is to begin with and how few of the elements that people would come to associate with Twin Peaks are there. There’s a crying policeman and a brief appearance by the Log Lady (“Who’s the lady with the log?” / “We call her the Log Lady”) but for the most part, it’s a relatively straightforward murder mystrey so far. There was an extended ending shot to make this into a full feature film in case of not being picked up to series but most of that footage gets reused later on so I’ll come on to that then.
- Of the cast, only James with his omnipresent “puppy about to be kicked” expression is grating; the rest are all on good form.

First Appearances:- Almost the whole cast so too many to list here; I’ll highlight some people who come in later than you remember as we go along.
Cliffhanger:- While a gloved hand retrieves the buried half of Laura’s locket; Sarah Palmer screams at a vision she experiences…

S01E01 AKA Traces To Nowhere
In Which:- Cooper interrogates James while Leo Johnson and Dr Jacoby begin to reveal links to Laura.

- This is the point where it starts to get more like the Twin Peaks that people remember. Cooper’s obsession with coffee (“black as midnight on a moonless night”) and cherry pies begins to come forward and some Lynchian non-sequiturs start to ramp up (coffee tainted by a fish in the percolator).
- Cooper gets directly compared to Sherlock Holmes by Truman and there’s certainly a lot of Holmes about his almost supernatural powers of perception. The Cooper / Truman relationship also feels very natural at this point and we’re only to eps in.
- Some moments of odd broad comedy start to show up too - in particular the scene where everyone's talking to each other with a mouth full of donuts.
- James' hair still looks like a toilet brush.

Lynchian Weirdoes:- One-eyed Nadine and her manic drive to achieve a silent curtain runner**; The Log Lady and her log (“One day, my log will have something to say”)
First Appearances:- Killer BOB in one of Sarah’s visions***. A note here about Lynch’s way of working - he likes to incorporate happy accidents into what's going on; famously, BOB came about when set dresser Frank Silva’s reflection was accidentally captured while filming and Lynch just liked the look of it.
Cliffhanger:- Dr Jacoby is revealed to have taken the half necklace...

First couple of eps down, forty six to go...

*A note on episode titles - the series doesn’t have episode titles onscreen (and didn't have them when being written either)but there were given titles in Germany which were then translated back into English and have been used by CBS. This is the sort of nerdily useless fact you can expect around here…

** I’m English, I can't bring myself to use the word “drapes”

*** OK, technically you can very briefly see him in a mirror right at the end of the pilot if you freeze frame it but this is the first time you get a proper look at him so I'm counting it here.