The return of Twin Peaks

“If THAT doesn’t work, there’s a sternness in his eye that I’ve seen come out”.

A little bit over one year. But as we’ve seen in the past, nearly everything that was popular – even for just a while – can mount a comeback.

After the original “Twin Peaks” solved the mystery of Laura Palmer’s killer early in its second season, ratings collapsed. She’s also still got the hots for Agent Cooper, which is unfortunate, considering he’s possessed. Partly, that’s because the show wasn’t hatched in the cable and streaming boom; while it’s returning on Showtime, it originally ran on ABC, with commercials and standards and practices. Most importantly: how is Annie?

In Twin Peaks, David Lynch features both behind and in front of the camera.

But they didn’t reward that active viewing with an ending, or, more accurately, a sense of an ending.

No. I love all of them equally.

“All I keep saying is it’s the mystery of the woods and it’s the same kind of thing that gets a fairy tale going on”. There were no opportunities for that.

“I wasn’t the same person that I was 25-plus years ago, obviously, and this wasn’t Cooper as he was then”. But I did think about the characters and the world. As Twin Peaks returns, we should consider why the show now seems so relevant, even vital – why we’re all so excited for it, decades after the original’s harrowing, deeply disturbing final shot.

Besides, where else are you gonna see Sting, Patrick Stewart, Max von Sydow, Jürgen Prochnow, Virginia Madsen, José Ferrer, Sean Young, Linda Hunt and Paul “Bluto” Smith in the same film?

The last time special agent Dale Cooper was on our TV screens, he wasn’t in the best of places.

Twin Peaks was based around the investigation into the murder of school girl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee).

It was around this time that Lynch hooked up with Emmy-nominated writer Hill Street Blues writer Mark Frost for a Marilyn Monroe biopic at Warner Bros. Most of the principal cast is back, as are Lynch and Frost. There are a lot of holy places up here, a lot of sacred places. And I’m very excited to be putting that out. It just touches something in the psyche.

Flying Lotus popped past Seattle’s Upstream festival at the weekend, and during a livecast he built his own version of the theme from Twin Peaks.

In a world plagued by spoiler-dropping trailers, the return of “Twin Peaks” Sunday is quietly sneaking around the outskirts of YouTube, dropping only the vaguest of hints about plot lines and characters. They will be joined by such newcomers as Jim Belushi, Michael Cera, Richard Chamberlain, Laura Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Vedder and Naomi Watts. In reality, “discuss” might be too strong of a word.

Twin Peaks isn’t a real town but numerous show’s locations can be found between Fall City and North Bend, off highway 90 east of Seattle. I certainly was not interested in watching Lynch’s followup movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, especially since it recast certain familiar characters. I have said it’s nearly as if Twin Peaks never stopped. The point was to transport the audience to a “Twin Peaks”-addled state of mind, where those viewers would be constantly challenged, provoked, amused and confounded”. We’ll catch up on what’s happened after these 25 years. It’s not Count Arthur at his best (creator Steve Delaney is on tour at the minute, if you want to glimpse the peaks of comic genius Arthur can reach), but, as I’ve said before, any Count Arthur is better than none.

“I feel like it’s going to be something that’s as unexpected and compelling as the original was when it was first broadcast – in a different way, of course”, he continues.

Guys – I mean, esteemed men and women overseeing the production of Riverdale – you totally were ripping off Twin Peaks. Those fans will be tuning in to Showtime on May 21 for the premiere episode of the Season 3. Stay tuned to THR.com/TwinPeaks for continuing coverage of the series.