Twin Peaks has always been about ripples. We watched as a single event – the murder of a teenage girl, a small-town homecoming queen – sent out ripples of action and reaction through time and space. What we’re watching in The Return is a continuation of those ripples. A quarter of a century has passed and the aftershocks of Laura Palmer’s death are still tangible all over the town of Twin Peaks. Bobby Briggs, now a capable, confident officer of the law, still can’t see her photo without weeping. And Laura’s mother, Sarah Palmer has never recovered either. She is broken, frozen and haunted by the “goddamn bad story” that tore her world apart. Rather than fading out over time, the ripples have intensified into destructive waves of grief. Perhaps this escalation occurred because, as time passed, Laura’s ripples combined with other impacts on the surface of the town, most notably the sudden disappearance of Special Agent Dale Cooper 25 years ago. The Return reminds me of those...
