It’s a commonly held belief that the second season of Twin Peaks, compared to the first season, is kinda trash. I mean, season one is pretty much perfect and the second block does trail off, gotta admit that much. But as someone who watched this show a while back and never finished it, only now forcing themselves to finish the whole bleedin’ thing… like everything about this show it’s more complicated than it initially appears.

Having done plenty of research on the topic (a few articles are way quicker to read than 22 episodes of sub-par telly), the idea seems to be that the second season starts off quite strongly but the ratings didn’t match what they did the first time out. So the studio got feisty and made them reveal the killer sooner than they intended to. That part of it certainly feels rushed, no doubt. Then as Lynch and Frost saw diminished influence the show hit a real trough after the Big Reveal, with the series even placed on hiatus as this was going on (to complement the offensive Saturday night timeslot they gave it, like anyone watches serial telly on a Saturday night that was gonna enjoy Twin Peaks – and in the pre-streaming/internet days if you missed a show then you missed it, hard luck). There was a revival in form towards the end but by then they knew they were making the last episodes of the show.

there’s a man...in a smiling bag

At least until now… but forget that for a second. Reading up on the tale, it’s a little insane that Twin Peaks – this subversive and hugely complex show – was ever such a smash hit in the first place but as tends to be the case with mass popularity, that stuff is fickle as hell. People wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer so they told them… and they stopped watching. It burned too brightly, it flew too close to the sun. Icarus, you silly bugger.

Plus, like, this was revolutionary stuff, blazing its own trail and making its own rules as it went. Not all of that is gonna work. The show was years ahead of its time. Perhaps there were lessons about sustaining a prestige piece of plot driven television that can only be learned through experience and Twin Peaks had to suffer a little for that. The studio decisions didn’t help, nor did the massive audiences – it was never meant to be that big. Coming back for a second season after the monument that was season one was like trying to craft that perfect second album, a notoriously tough act to follow.

Aside from the reasons why now, let’s talk about the what instead. Watching it through, there’s a clear change in tone. The pilot of season two is much funnier than the show had tried to be in the past. It was always funny but usually more with that weirdness at the forefront or as an incidental thing. Not like Leland Palmer singing mairzy dotes and deerzy dotes and blah de blah de blah de. I loved all the Leland moments of singing and dancing (even after, you know… spoilers). But they didn’t do that in the first season. They didn’t have James and the girls doing Chris Isaak impersonations either. Nothing wrong with all this but it’s different. People probably demanded more of the same (not that they’d be happy with that instead).

That’s early on though. Eventually that perpetual weirdness and whimsy loses its vibrancy and the show we’re watching takes another tonal shift where they try revive the plot driven stuff but do so in a way that doesn’t ring anywhere near as true as the Laura Palmer case – where a whole township was affected by this horrible crime, given all the weight it deserves, and as things go on we see bodies dropping with only Death Star Henchman consequences. If not bodies then comas recovered from or vegetable states instantly overcome. We’re still swimming in the same mystical waters but the river doesn’t seem so deep anymore.

the owls are not what they seem

My main issue with season two, however, is that they marginalise a lot of what made the first season so good. Specifically ‘who’ made the first season so good. Audrey Horne is kidnapped for like the first six episodes or something and even after she comes back her character is never the same. Pining for Coops, sure. But where’s the sleuthing in the bathroom Audrey? Where’s the sly and manipulative Audrey? And don’t even get me started on the well-publicised shift in Audrey’s romantic arc.

Side Note: Flying Lotus did remixed the theme tune the other day, get some.

Romantic comedies and fairy tales tend to have pretty specific endings. They all lived happily ever after. The reason for that is there’s a line you’ve gotta draw in the sand there. Drag the story out too long and you’ve gone past the kiss in the rain, past the blissful wedding, past the steamy honeymoon and you’re into the marital arguments. The dishes that didn’t get done and the toilet seats left up. Shelly and Bobby have a kinda funny dynamic like that in season two but with Leo in the state he is that narrative lacks its former urgency – until it suddenly finds it, stupidly.

As for Donna and James, melodramatic muppets that they are, that whole thing about James running away and finding himself in a bad 80s noir film was not the best, to keep it succinct. Ben Horne’s Civil War phase I didn’t hate but I think keeping it an obsession rather than a random period of insanity mighta been a little more tasteful. God, and what they do to Nadine’s character is actually embarrassing to watch.

But yeah, the whole ‘second season sucks’ thing is outta line. It’s still Twin Peaks, whether it hits the same heights or not, and a bad episode of this show is better than anything most TV series have ever touched. That established narrative feels bang on the money for me. The first few episodes of season two are indistinguishably as good, if a little brighter, as the initial eight. There are some dud scenes and some rushed storylines but up until It Happens Again the show continues along its stunning path.

without chemicals...he points

And then it drops. After the murder is solved things get odd for a stretch before finishing strong with a renewed emphasis on the vivid dreams and preternatural dramas, it’s just the small town business crap that struggles. Safe to say it got away there for a while. That whole Windom Earle thing? This is Twin Peaks not Silence of the Lambs, come on. And for a show that prides itself on non-conventional filmmaking, this shot here is possibly the dumbest three seconds they ever committed to tape.

Having said all that there are some great new characters in the second season. The Giant and the old fella who’s heard about Cooper but seems oblivious to the fact he’s speaking with a man who’s just been shot and is in dire need of medical help. That stuff is as inspired as the trippy stuff from the first eight eps. Harold Smith is a fascinating dude as well. It’s a shame they didn’t draw that one out longer because there was something about that reclusive, sympathetic, horticultural chap that really got at it. Whatever ‘it’ may be.

Instead though they introduce him then wrap him up a few episodes later and season two is full of people coming in and out like that. David Lynch as the hard-of-hearing Gordon Cole. Norma’s mum. The good ol’ boy state prosecutor (and his legal assistant). That’s all before they go adding love interests and all that too, just messing with the formula. We got to know all the characters in the first season before we got to know their quirks, as opposed to introducing people as those quirks and building from there.

Best New Characters in Season Two

Doddering Old Porter
Denise Bryson
The Giant
Gordon Cole
Harold Smith
Jean Renault
Mrs Treemond’s Son
Dick Tremaine
Mayor Dwayne Milford
The Ambitious Desk Girl at the Great Northern

But you know what? There are moments in season two where you have to roll your eyes but it never drags on. It never makes you wanna stop watching. The elements that make this thing unique are all still in there.

It’s easy to play the Auteur Theory on this because the word is that David Lynch, as control was wrestled away from him and Frost, became increasingly distant from the whole process – instead focussing his main attentions on his next film. Something must have still burned though, he still went on and made the Twin Peaks film which doubled down on a lot of the less popularist aspects of the show… which in hindsight sounds rather vindictive.

Fair play to him, Lynch went straight back to the murder for Fire Walk With Me, which was the ghost that lingered over the first season yet was pushed aside as season two went on. Safe to say season three, with 18 episodes all co-written by Lynch and Frost and directed exclusively by Lynch himself, will have a little more of that than they got away with in the old days. He’s coming back to do it right.

Rewatching Twin Peaks Ahead of the Reboot, Part IV

Best New Characters in Season Two

Rewatching Twin Peaks, Park I

Rewatching Twin Peaks, Park II

Rewatching Twin Peaks, Part III