It may be August, but my mind is already three steps ahead to fall/Halloween/spoopy season. Give me sweaters! Give me apple cider! Give me scary stories to tell in the dark!
Maybe the reason I’m feeling so autumnal is that I recently finished watching Twin Peaks, which (spoiler alert) is the first item on this month’s media log. It’s certainly part of my inspiration for Hot Girl Halloween (more on that later).
A short list of things I enjoyed this month that I didn’t have time to take a deeper dive into:
The news that Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse of the dearly departed Gimlet podcast The Nod are re-launching their original podcast For Colored Nerds this fall! The Nod was one of the best and most unique podcasts I used to have in my rotation—one episode would give me the thorny story of the Hairstons, a family descended from slaveowners and former slaves, and the next episode would analyze White Chicks’ legacy in the pop culture pantheon. They had the range, is what I’m saying.
Madeline’s Madeline (film, 2018). A movie that reminds you never to trust theatre people. Available on Kanopy or Hulu.
The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (made-for-tv-movie, 2004). If you want something like The Mummy (1999), National Treasure, or The Da Vinci Code, but you also want it to be sillier and have a smaller budget, have I got the movie for you. That may sound like a backhanded compliment, but the limitations are part of the charm. Available on Kanopy.
Twin Peaks/Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me/Twin Peaks: The Return (television series, 1990-1991; film, 1992; limited event television series, 2017)
Boy, that’s a mouthful.
It’s hard to know where to begin with Twin Peaks. In a weird way, I feel like I’ve known Twin Peaks all my life, even though I truly had never seen a scene from it until this year. And that’s because a lot of my most treasured and formative television experiences were formed in the image of Twin Peaks.
Diane, it’s September 22, 2004. On ABC, an intriguing new drama series called Lost airs its first episode. On UPN, a teen neo-noir called Veronica Mars airs its first episode. I am a burgeoning young nerd who spends a lot of time on Fanfiction.net and LiveJournal, and these are the first two TV shows whose fandom I get to be a part of in real time. While I was busy unraveling the mystery of the Dharma Initiative and smoke monsters, I knew nothing of the mystery of the Black Lodge and doppelgangers. While Kristen Bell’s voiceover asked, “Who killed Lilly Kane?”, I didn’t know that “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was the original version of that question.
Twin Peaks was a genre-bending television series that aired on ABC from 1990 to 1991. Co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, it was a genuine mainstream phenomenon in its first season that was subsequently cancelled after its second season, when ratings and critical reception were both low. It had a simple hook: an FBI agent from the big city comes to the quirky small town to solve the murder of the homecoming queen, a murder that reveals the dark underbelly to this folksy corner of the Pacific Northwest. Things get…well, more complicated from there.
While a lot of people would probably call Twin Peaks a cult classic because of its supernatural elements and bizarre cast of characters, I think that its obvious and pervasive influence on television in general means it’s not a cult classic. To me, a cult classic is something that you and a select group of others appreciate. To find a reference to it is exciting because it is rare. Twin Peaks references are not rare! And neither are the television trends it kicked off. Trends that include:
Hiring film directors to make your television show look like a film. That is to say, more artistically unique and striking.
Serializing your dramas around some specific mystery, one that could last a whole season or the whole series.
This one is my conjecture, but I can’t help but feel that Special Agent Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer probably helped usher in a certain number of shows about the FBI stopping serial killers/being good guys and crime shows exploiting Missing White Woman syndrome.
Before I continue with the history of Twin Peaks, I just want to give a shout out to my other favorite shows that wouldn’t exist without it: Riverdale, Bates Motel, and surprisingly, Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated.
Season Two of Twin Peaks ends on a cliffhanger. What follows next is David Lynch’s misunderstood masterpiece, a 1992 film called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Trigger Warning: This film, and consequently my writing about it, may be triggering for survivors of sexual or gendered violence. Also, Spoiler Warning for the central question of the show: Who Killed Laura Palmer?
People who expected Fire Walk With Me to answer Season Two’s cliffhanger were very disappointed, because Fire Walk With Me is mostly a prequel to the events of the Twin Peaks television show. It covers the last days of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) up until her murder at the hands of her father, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), and the demonic spirit that possesses him, BOB (Frank Silva).
When Leland is revealed as the killer in Season Two, and furthermore revealed to have been possessed by a supernatural entity for a great deal of his life, local law enforcement is dumbfounded. Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) asks, “Is it easier to believe a man would rape and murder his daughter?” While it may not be easier to believe, it’s a lot more likely. The citizens of Twin Peaks (and the show itself) diminish Leland’s culpability. Fire Walk With Me restores it.
For all the strange backwards-talking and owl premonitions, Fire Walk With Me makes clear that the story of Laura Palmer is a story about incest and abuse. Sure, Leland’s still possessed by BOB, but what does that matter to Laura? Alternate dimensions and demons are scary, but the real horror is what can be done to us by the people we love.
This story is why Twin Peaks is successful to me. It’s the type of story I am drawn to repeatedly: cosmic entities and demonic sprits as a metaphor for truly awful things. It’s why I’m drawn to Stephen King’s It and Robert Askins’ Hand to God.
As for Twin Peaks: The Return…I’m still processing. It’s definitely about the horrors of aging and misplaced nostalgia. Also, maybe about the rape of the natural world and nuclear weapons. Check it out if you’re so inclined.
Link Roundup (spoilers abound)
“From ‘Riverdale’ to ‘X-Files': 14 Shows We Wouldn’t Have Without ‘Twin Peaks’”, Carli Velocci writing for The Wrap
“Twin Peaks May Be Returning, but the Teen Noir It Created Never Left”, Eric Thrum writing for Esquire
“Watch ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’ and You’ll Know What the Show Was Really About: Incest and Rape”, Michael Nordine writing for IndieWire
“Twin Peaks Revisited: ‘Fire Walk With Me’”, Eric Diaz writing for Nerdist
“Damn Good Style: A ‘Twin Peaks’ Costume Retrospective”, Emma Fraser writing for Observer (there’s that Hot Girl Halloween inspo)
Nestflix (2021, meta streaming platform)
Onto something a little more feel-good.
Are you someone who spends hours thinking about the movie within a movie? For example, remember the beginning of Tropic Thunder? Before the film starts proper, there are several trailers for fake movies starring the fictional actors played by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. Satan’s Alley, an obvious Oscar-bait mirror universe Brokeback Mountain, haunts my dreams more than a decade later. If you are like me, plagued by fictional movies, then you will spend hours exploring the new website Nestflix.
What I like most about Nestflix is that it works on both the diegetic and non-diegetic levels. The site creator, Lynn Fisher, has taken care to make the movie descriptions sound real and compelling, and her attention to detail as to what information streaming platforms display is spot-on.
At the same time, you can browse the website by looking up the real movies that featured the fake ones. Each entry has a helpful “As seen in” credit as well.
To say much more would spoil the fun of looking for yourself to see what’s there! But to keep to the Twin Peaks theme: yes, there is an entry for the sporadically seen daytime soap-within-a-nighttime soap, Invitation to Love.
Link Roundup:
“Nestflix is like Netflix, but for your favorite fake movies and shows within movies and shows”, Nick Romano writing for Entertainment Weekly
“The Real Story Behind Nestflix, the Place for Fake Movies and Shows”, Chandra Steele writing for PC Mag
Announcing a Bonus Issue: What Matthew Lillard Means to Me
This is the last thing about Twin Peaks, I swear.
One of the delights of watching Twin Peaks: The Return was the appearance of one Matthew Lillard in a small role.
This got me thinking about how much I am drawn to (and surprisingly intertwined with) this actor, and so instead of including a third item in the August media log, I am going to write a bonus newsletter all about Matthew Lillard and what he means to me. Stay tuned!