Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)

Twin Peaks: The Return | 5/5

Written by Noah Dietz: 11/18/2025

Finally: 7 days, 18 episodes, and 12 pages of notes later, I’ve finished watching Twin Peaks: The Return.

I preemptively bought the Z to A Blu-Ray set about halfway through watching Season Two back in April. I got to watch Fire Walk With Me on the big screen in September, and finally here in November I experienced the revival. I think I needed to space things out like that and allow the whole story to sit with me. Just to allow myself the time to actually appreciate each piece as it came up rather than cramming the entire show into my head, just to have it all fall out again as soon as it’s finished.

via Showtime

To start it off, I’m happy to say I’m a huge fan. While the original run had a couple bad episodes (perhaps a large portion of season two), I don’t think there’s a single thing I’d have left out of The Return. I loved the surreal episodes, I loved the more story-based ones, and I loved getting to see what everyone got up to over the past 25 years. Somehow we have time to breathe in our scenes and appreciate what’s going on, while also having the story stay dialed into a laser focus. Entire episodes are devoted to abstract imagery that gives, in equal measures, clear answers and obtuse clues to the world we exist in. Outside of that, 30 percent of any given episode does nothing to directly further the story, yet adds immense depth and breadth to what we know of the world as it turns. For me, it’s that 30 percent where the show really manages to give itself plenty of room to stick the landing.

I thought it was great to see little glimpses into the lives and workings of so many of the people on Twin Peaks. All the storylines that just pop in to let us know what’s going on out here in the world, existing as set dressing for the rest of what we’re dealing with and adding a level of depth that you wouldn’t expect to get with 18 episodes, yet here we are. It can be heartbreaking to see what’s become of some of our favorites from the original run. Shelly has fallen in with another drug dealer, with her own daughter living the life that she worked so hard to try to escape. Harry Truman has succumbed to an illness, never to be seen again on screen. Sarah Palmer never recovered from the loss of her daughter, falling into a haze of alcohol and television. We’re given infinite glimpses into the private and intimate moments of people’s lives, both good and bad. Bobby Briggs has finally turned his life around, and any scenes involving him inevitably made my heart ache for what he had lost when his father suddenly vanished from his life. I’m given every single thing I could have ever asked for in terms of learning about these different characters, and I’m given the good with the bad like an adult. There’s no sugarcoating what’s happened, and there’s no softening of any blows. Good and bad are all shown in a clear light, and for that I’m incredibly grateful. There’s so much here to love, and I do.

via Showtime

Initially I wasn’t sure how to sit with the ending, to be completely honest, but I think I’m pleased. Nothing could have lived up to what I built up in my head, and the ending is what I should have expected. Why would Lynch wrap up his mystery box show with a bow? He didn’t with Season Two; he famously hated giving clean closure to his stories, so why would he do that with The Return? I got a lot of my questions answered, and I was given more to chew on. It’s exactly what I had claimed I wanted while watching it live; why should I be surprised that the man delivered on it?

It’s actually devastating that so much of the conversation around the show from “fans” drifts toward the tired and inaccurate “wow, that was so crazy bro, nobody knows what’s going on, it’s completely indiscernible!" style statements. There’s so much here, and it’s not that hard to at least grasp the basic point of what we’re given, in my opinion. But hey, there’s always good and bad interpretations of art. I know I would have landed in that camp even just five or so years ago, and it’s been an intentional choice I’ve been able to make to move away from that. It’s fully a credit to my friends pushing me toward David Lynch and this show specifically that helped me to reach that point.

I wish I could rewatch the entire thing immediately, I could see Twin Peaks turning into a yearly watch for me, at some level. I feel incredibly fulfilled by having finished the show, and I wish life would give me more time to allow myself to be consumed by this as much as I’d like. A truly singular show, and one that I’ll treasure for a very long time.