a german postcard sent in 1949 u_______u
I adore twin peaks because people talk about how opaque it is but like windom earle asked major briggs his greatest fear and the answer was "the possibility that love is not enough" and that's it that's the show. Love wasn't enough.
Not only that love wasn't enough, but that it was what fed the darkness in the woods.
Love is not enough, you have to break the cycle. Fix your hearts or die.
Twin Peaks is a show that tells you exactly what it's about like every three episodes but people don't see it because there's a horse in the living room.
Twin Peaks is a show that features the main dead character dead-eyed in the afterlife screaming the world "doppelganger" and features her identical cousin dying an identical death at the hands of the same killer; the dead main character's two boyfriends have two different girlfriends, one of whom is perfect and prim and has a family with a dark secret at the center of it that has been kept quiet and is slowly poisoning the relationships in the house, and one whose husband has isolated her in the woods where she's kept in line with the constant threat of (sexual)violence and people look at this and go "what is that show even about there's a weird giant, it's impenetrable."
Twin Peaks is a show about the toxicity and continual inward pull of domestic violence but because it's presented like a soap opera with a jazz soundtrack and has a cast of exclusively the most beautiful people alive in 1991 that gets overlooked in favor of the drama of which of the extremely beautiful people are going to end up abusing one another.
I think the comedy but also the tenderness and gentle connection contained within Twin Peaks is the vehicle that makes the horror so effective and so real.
You will engage with Twin Peaks' raw sincerity or you will never understand it.
People who go on and on about it being a 'soap opera parody' need to take a step back and reevaluate that take. Are you feeling embarrassed? Because the cast is reacting to trauma in ways you've never seen in visual media? Are you trying to put some kind of academic shield between yourself and the inherent messiness of human emotions? The undignified nature of extreme sufffering?
Well you should stop because you're starting to sound like twin perfect.
So many things that try to be Twin Peaks fall flat on their face because they mistake their own uncomfortableness with the show's content for some kind of ingrained detachment. Not only are many unwilling to meet the show where it bluntly discusses sexual violence and the role a community plays its perpetuation, they’re also afraid of the sincerity with which it’s approached.
Disco Elysium is my favorite Twin Peaks-like because it understands this. It fully embraces the embarrassing absurdity of existence and suffering in that existence. It is so sincere and so genuine. It fucking gets it!
I think that another work that just gets Twin Peaks is Urasawa's Monster.
Absolutely!
I have been in the woods again. Lost. But I have been led. I think I am a very bad person.
Twin Peaks + Where Did You Sleep Last Night
