Not only how to be good, but why

To simply put it, audiences for sure, were not ready for the touchy, confrontational, and completely audacious themes the television series would introduce, and with that in mind, its not a shock at all as to why the show got axed, as perfectly represented here during the title sequence, and why Fire Walk With Me, upon release, was critically panned, swept under the rug, booed and became a centerpiece of financial disaster.

The first part in a proposed trilogy of films that would have helped to bring the series to a close, but instead, received we did a suicide note and self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head that killed all hope for anything new, until of course, the Frankenstein-resurrection twenty-five years later.

In today’s television landscape, the true, disturbing, touchy, nature of Laura Palmer’s murder that the show gives you only the tip of the iceberg of for sure would have been more accepted and critically discussed. But not to 1990 audiences of ABC, the most basic, sparse channel that anyone with an antenna and a box could have tuned in to.

With all the red-herrings presented, the world expected a friend, a lover, a psychiatrist or notorious trucker to be behind the murder of Laura Palmer, and instead, someone familiar, someone we should trust from day one of our being, turned out to be the one to commit such acts so twisted, so unspeakable, and so bold to touch upon on such a major network. And with that, the show, outside of its strong, devoted cult following, kind of fell under the cracks as time progressed. Despite the undisputed influence and impact of Twin Peaks, its popularity in the modern day isn’t as staggering as some of the other shows of the 90s, like Seinfeld, Friends, and The X Files. It was the biggest, most popular phenomenon in the world during that 1990 season, and with the ultimate reveal, cease, the hype did, stop talking about it, the audiences did, and just like that, an end, the dream of Twin Peaks came too. And it died an ever, harder death with the release of Fire Walk With Me, which brought all the very familiar, grim, twisted, dark themes to the forefront, in the most confrontational and unforgiving of ways possible.

There’s a very real, perverse, heartbreaking reality to the mythos of Twin Peaks. Despite the abstractions and the surrealism, I never get the impression that what I’m seeing is silly or farfetched. I don’t think any other work ever made could quite touch upon the touchy subjects of abuse and incest in such a way that well and truly puts you in the cold, cold, suffering shoes of that very victim, feeling the very horror she feels throughout, even if such emotions and such scenarios, you’ve never felt or been in yourself. There’s no other filmmaker like David Lynch who quite tapped into the nature of the never-ending battle between the purest good and the vilest of evils - where it comes from, how it develops, and how we overcome and fight back against it. Lynch not only shows you HOW to be good, he shows you WHY to be good, and he does that in both Blue Velvet and FWWM by doing just that - putting you, the audience member, well and truly in the shoes of one entering, navigating and fighting their way through the darkness…of futures past…