Fall makes for a great setting. There’s something special about the thick foliage and heavy clouds as the backdrop for a mercurial town, especially when a story is set within the framework of genre. There’s a reason why so many TV shows – Widow’s Bay, Stranger Things, The X-Files, the list goes on – follow a cast of characters facing all manner of strange situations amidst their small-town daily lives.
No show did this with more originality than Twin Peaks. Developed by David Lynch and Mark Frost, Twin Peaks is about a murder investigation, at least on paper. While it only ran for two seasons on ABC in the ‘90s, the series proved to be so much more than its premise suggested thanks largely to Lynch’s mood-first style of storytelling. In 2017, he returned to the world he helped establish with Twin Peaks: The Return – completing his vision and cementing the series as a must-watch for cinephiles, regardless of genre preferences.
It’s now streaming for free on Pluto TV.
A never-ending series of mysteries
Twin Peaks begins with the murder of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the town’s sweetheart and homecoming queen, whose body is unexpectedly washed ashore, naked and wrapped in plastic. As the town’s residents mourn her loss, FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives to investigate. But he very quickly begins peeling back seemingly endless layers to a vast mystery involving awful parents, weird psychologists, and an evil supernatural force. With each episode, the town’s secrets deepen, and the show expands in scope, exploring all manner of characters and stories, from cheating teens to money laundering and trafficking schemes.
Despite being the name most closely associated with Twin Peaks, Lynch only directed six episodes out of its original 30-episode run. During the second season, network executives began to interfere, forcing Lynch and Frost to resolve Laura’s murder. It was the beginning of the end for the series, which was canceled shortly after.
“David always said, ‘We should never solve the mystery — this should go on forever,’” Frost told Variety in 2024. “And there’s a part of me that thinks he may well have been right.”
Lynch’s singular approach to storytelling
Lynch’s work is hard to explain and can’t be tied down to plot points. While Twin Peaks is about a quirky detective investigating a horrifying murder, it’s also about beautifully shot rooms and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest accompanied by Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting score. While Twin Peaks’ complex ideas are wonderful, so are its simplest moments, with Lynch creating room for coffee jokes, a slice of pie at a diner, and even a cameo of himself playing a very weird FBI agent.
A helpful way to understand Lynch’s work is to listen or read through some of his own words. In a 2017 interview with Variety, Lynch discussed the starting point of his projects. “It comes in a burst,” he said. “An idea comes in, and if you stop and think about it, it has sound, it has image, it has a mood, and it even has an indication of wardrobe, and knowing a character, or the way they speak, the words they say.”
While challenging, Twin Peaks rewards patient viewers who surrender to the experience, paying less attention to solving its mysteries and more to the subconscious world that’s been so carefully constructed. You may not come out understanding what happens; there might not even be an answer, but it’s pure cinematic expression – and the reason why no fictional small town has ever felt as strange or alive as this one.
Twin Peaks is available to stream for free on Pluto TV.