Twin Peaks, Episode 3.8: The Return, Part 8

Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8
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After a down-to-earth (relatively speaking) episode of “Twin Peaks: The Return,” the series heads off in its most aggressively eccentric direction yet with “Part 8.” Now out of prison, the Doppelganger is betrayed by his partner, Ray. Shot and seemingly dead, a group of spectrel lumberjacks appear and try to tear the spirit of BOB from the Bad Cooper's body... And then “Part 8” goes back in time, to 1945, New Mexico. In its own unforgettable way, “The Return” then provides an origin story for the entire “Twin Peaks” universe. The short version: The first nuclear bomb test in 1945 opened a rift between our world and the phantasmatic Black Lodge, the extra-dimensional forces of good and evil beginning their conflict and using Earth and its inhabitants as pawns.

Among the many things I had heard about “Twin Peaks: The Return,” before finally sitting down to watch the show, was that episode eight would absolutely blow your mind. And, no joke, this is an hour of television unlike anything else, even blowing pass “Peaks'” previous and considerable tendency towards weirdness. Most of “Part 8” is in black-and-white and features many stretches without any dialogue. Long scenes are devoted to particles dancing on-screen, spinning blurs of color, and liquid-like substances pulsating towards us. Many strange figures and entities, some of them familiar and some not so much, go about their mysterious business. This is before “Part 8” heads towards full-on surreal, and shockingly bloody, horror. It's mesmerizing.

Moreover, the episode answers a lot of questions... In “Peaks'” typically oblique manner anyway. “Part 8” explicitly links its malevolent beings from another place with the beginning of the Atomic Age. This isn't just Lynch and Frost indulging their loves of fifties nostalgia and conspiracy theories, respectively. “Twin Peaks” is, fundamentally, a story about the death of innocence: Laura Palmer's literal death and the death of the innocence inside her when she was first raped. By beginning its story with the first nuclear bomb detonation, “Twin Peaks” reveals itself as about the death of the innocence of our entire world. The bomb ended one era in Earth's history and began another.

Saying the pre-atomic age was innocent is, of course, incorrect. Yet there's no doubt that the start of the Cold War turned America into a very different place. It gave birth to the picket fences and suburban neighborhoods that “Peaks” celebrates and Lynch loves... But also a deeper age of paranoia and apocalyptic anxiety, the dark side of the same equation. “Part 8” of “The Return” links the origin of “Twin Peaks” with the origins of everything David Lynch has been talking about throughout his entire career. It connects the series' weird mythology with the historical metamorphosis of the American condition.

Moreover, “Part Eight” confirms something that's been long implied. Did you realize “Twin Peaks” is an alien invasion story? Maybe its entities aren't aliens from another planet but they are surely aliens nevertheless. Now we know why Project Blue Book is part of the show's conspiratorial DNA. The connection is unavoidable. “Part 8” recalls 1950s bug-eyed alien movies with its black-and-white photography and scenes of wholesome teens heading home after a date. It brings the Betty and Barney Hill Abduction – the origins of the modern fascination with extraterrestrials – to mind, when a married couple in their car is stopped on the road by the extra-dimensional lumberjacks. Now we know the gray-skinned female creature seen in the first episode, reappearing here, resembling a classical gray of UFOlogy was no mistake.

The Woodsman then descending on the town, gorily crushing the heads of whoever get in their way and planting an otherworldly seed, makes the “invasion” part of the alien invasion equation all the more explicit. Ultimately, the second half of “Part 8” is about a small town attacked by monsters. (Monsters, granted, that are like no other extraterrestrials to appear in pop culture.) The show even sets this scene in New Mexico, though quite a many miles away from Roswell and several years after the supposed flying saucer crash.

It all feels like it is coming together in these moments. And so to is the scene where a creature, that looks like both a frog and a giant bug, hatches from an egg and crawls into a sleeping girl's mouth. This is probably the moment in all of “Twin Peaks” that most resembles a typical horror movie. But it's something else too. It's an image of bodily invasion, of something forcing its way into somebody else's body. In other words, a symbolic rape, an assault, an unwanted entrance that changes a person forever. Is this the mythological origins of BOB? That remains to be seen but it's certainly another example of “Twin Peaks'” on-going fascination with the violation of safety, of the human body.

Through it all, David Lynch never sacrifices his particular approach to visuals and sound. “Part 8” is an unforgettable exercise in utterly dream-like horror. The sequence following the nuclear bomb exploding – of incredible music, flashing colors, and shifting particles – truly feels like the audience is traveling through a wormhole. The Woodsman blinking in and out of existence around a convenience store, or a monster floating in space and vomiting slime, is something else. The Woodsman speaking in distorted voices, repeating lines of dialogue, is a distinctly Lynchian approach to horror: The bizarre and the mundane combining to make something truly unnerving. Even the earlier scene, of Nine Inch Nails' long performance at the Road House, is an example of the director's complete mastery of sound design and visual construction.

“Part 8” of “The Return” really feels like “Twin Peaks” bringing together everything its always been obsessed with in an effortless manner, using its surreal atmosphere to blend divergent elements of the second half of the American 20th Century into a tantalizing whole. It's a culmination of twenty-five years of waiting and wondering. The hype was no lie. “Part 8” sees “The Return” elevated to a whole other level. It is one of the most mind-expanding things David Lynch has ever done, operating on several levels while also being an utterly captivating hour on its own. And it's all so typically “Peaks” too, with Carel Strucklyn, Laura Palmer, 1950s lounge aesthetic, and mysterious horses all putting in appearances too. In other words, if there was ever any doubt that “Twin Peaks” is one of the best TV shows of all time, let “Part 8” put that to rest. [9/10]