One of the best TV shows ever made ended its original run 35 years ago today, but the frustrating cliffhanger ending of David Lynch’s iconic mystery thriller series wouldn’t be resolved for another quarter of a century. Since David Lynch’s feature film debut Eraserhead was first released, the late director has consistently confounded both casual film fans and movie critics alike. Although his haunting movies have a unique quality that is endlessly imitated by other TV and film directors, his works are devoid of any clear answers or straightforward interpretations.
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This was never more obvious than when David Lynch and Mark Frost’s ABC drama show Twin Peaks became a mainstream phenomenon upon release. Many viewers expected this atypical mix of cop show, teen drama, and supernatural horror to have a clear end to its knotty, byzantine plot. Although Twin Peaks influenced ‘90s TV classics like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show itself had a far stranger, more ambiguous storyline than either of those later hits.
Twin Peaks Season 2’s Finale Originally Aired On June 10, 1991
As the title implies, Twin Peaks was about the entire titular town’s inhabitants, not just the murdered teenager Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper, the FBI agent tasked with solving her murder. As the show’s story unfolded, Twin Peaks focused on local teens like Laura’s troubled boyfriends Bobby and James and the flirtatious Audrey Horne, but also on an assortment of oddballs like the scheming mill owner Catherine Martell, Laura’s grieving father Leland, her shady psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, and Audrey’s odious father Benjamin Horne.
The sprawling storytelling of the series meant that, even compared to later Netflix shows like Dark and Stranger Things, Twin Peaks was always likely to leave some plot threads dangling. However, few viewers were prepared for just how far off the rails the series went in its second season. After revealing Laura Palmer’s murderer in episode 14, “Lonely Souls,” Twin Peaks wrapped up this plot by episode 16, “Arbitrary Law.”
By episode 29, “Beyond Life and Death,” the series had fallen apart at the seams, with its storyline skewing off in countless bizarre, barely connected directions. However, the season 2 finale did manage to bring things back together for a hell of a final twist. The closing moments of the episode saw the heroic Dale possessed by the demonic spirit that led Leland to kill Laura, and the show closed on his maniacal laughter.
Twin Peaks: The Return Was Worth The 25-Year Wait
For two and a half decades, viewers had no idea what happened to Dale, Major Briggs, Audrey, and the rest of season 2’s surviving characters. Then, long after Twin Peaks inspired some of the Second Golden Age of Television’s best shows, the series returned for a limited series in 2017. Twin Peaks: The Return was less of a conventional show and more of an 18-hour movie that reunited the original cast for a mind-bending return to the eponymous town.
To say that Twin Peaks: The Return wasn’t a classic crowdpleaser would be putting it mildly. The show was often molasses-slow, with bizarre tonal jumps, and featured a brutally dark and dour atmosphere absent from the original series. However, this Twin Peaks revival did finally answer the mysteries left unresolved by season 2’s ending.
