5.0 out of 5 stars
Break the code, solve the crime, May 6, 2007
"Twin Peaks" was the ultimate cult TV show -- suspenseful, complex, hilariously written and with hidden layers that casual channel-flippers might not catch.
And though it's only eight episodes, the first season of David Lynch and Mark Frost's "Twin Peaks" is a brilliant piece of television, with a dozen subplots all somehow linked to the mysterious death of the beautiful, troubled Laura Palmer. Brilliant writing, quirky acting, and great cherry pie are all mixed up in the darkly eerie season.
For the record, it doesn't contain the pilot episode, where Laura is found "wrapped in plastic," and Special Agent Dale Cooper(Kyle McLachlan) is called in to investigate. Nope, the first season starts with the episode after that: Cooper continues to enjoy the comforts of the hotel, while continuing the investigation -- and getting some surprising results from the autopsy.
What's more, the question of who killed Laura is getting more complex, due to a bloody shirt, a drug deal, a secret affair and a heart necklace. People catch glimpses of a one-armed man and a grey-haired killer -- and Cooper has a prophetic dream with both men, as well as a red room, a double of Laura Palmer, and a tiny man who dances to jazz music.
While Cooper tries to sort out his evidence and dreams, he finds that Twin Peaks is not the small-town idyll he thought it was, and Laura Cooper was enmeshed in its darkness. There are secret love affairs, town crazies, drug smuggling, corporate devilry about a mill, and an evil presence that lurks in the woods nearby...
"Twin Peaks" is hard to even describe, because the plots were a perfect balance of the surreal and mundane. It starts off as a basic murder mystery that allows us to the see the underbelly of rural America. But starting in the second episode, it becomes something much, much more.
Lynch loads the storyline down with eerie symbolism, creepy visions and inscrutable (but important) lines ("Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see...."). But he and Frost also spun up some wonderfully quirky scenarios, such as Cooper throwing stones to determine who killed Laura, or his famous dream of a dancing midget and a strange Laura double, both talking in a weird "backwards" manner.
And the dialogue has that brilliace that most series cannot keep going for long ("Fellas, don't drink that coffee! You'd never guess... there was a fish in the percolator"). Considering how strange the characters are -- including Cooper -- it's not too surprising that it's crammed with quotables ("Black as midnight on a moonless night...." "Pretty black").
And the characters are VERY strange. Cooper himself is played with quirky brilliance by McLachlan -- he's a bright, lovable, friendly kind of guy who loves Tibetan mysticism, tape recorders and a "damn fine cup of coffee." He's not your average hard-nosed FBI agent.
And Cooper flanked by a number of talented actors playing two basic varieties of characters: the relatively normal ones with a slight quirk, such as abusive truckers, the sheriff, teen lovers, obnoxious FBI agents. And the REALLY strange ones, like the weird Log Lady, the one-armed man, the spacey Lolita, and the eerie spirits that haunt Twin Peaks.
Quirky and surreal TV is currently in vogue, but they all stem from the little town of "Twin Peaks," and the first season is an entrancing experience.
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