Note: This article contains spoilers of both the original “Twin Peaks” and “Twin Peaks: The Return.”
After the new season of “Twin Peaks” was announced, it was gradually revealed that most of the original cast would return. Although familiar faces and locales connect David Lynch’s Showtime reboot to its two-season run on ABC, it has become abundantly clear over the course of five episodes that a lot has changed for these fictional weirdos in the last quarter-century. Agent Dale Cooper’s likeness has been split into three, the “real” Coop now a vegetative husk of his coffee-guzzling former self. Reflecting our current era, too, are Jerry Horne, now in the legal weed racket, and Dr. Jacoby, making his living broadcasting radical missives to an adoring online fanbase. Lynch offers some clues into the passage of time, but isn’t afraid to retread the past when the occasion calls.
One crucial element that made its way back to “Twin Peaks”—with some tweaks—is Angelo Badalamenti’s original score. While there are flashes of musical familiarity, this is a completely different show tonally, moving even slower than the original. Gone are the days when scene after scene was met with noir finger snaps, saxophone solos, and keyboards—equal parts saccharine and ominous, always over the top. For one thing, the revival is set all over the place: one second we’re looking at a mysterious glass box in a New York warehouse, the next we’re back in the Twin Peaks sheriff's station with Andy and Lucy. Now nearly a third of the way through the new season, let’s look at how the “Twin Peaks” soundscape has changed.
Strategic Nostalgia
It’s not “Twin Peaks” without Julee Cruise’s “Falling” setting the scene. Badalamenti and Lynch’s collaboration with Cruise wasn’t made for television initially, recorded about a year earlier for Cruise’s album. When Lynch showed Badalamenti an early cut of the show, Badalamenti was surprised to hear his dreamy, dramatic instrumental from “Falling” over the opening credits, thus becoming the “Twin Peaks Theme.” “Angelo, this is the title,” Lynch told the composer. “This is the identity of ‘Twin Peaks.’”
Used sparingly, the original series’ musical tropes carry enormous emotional heft in the new season. When Cooper smells some damn good joe in “Part 5,” he’s overcome with excitement as a reminiscent jazz drum solo suddenly fills the scene. “Laura Palmer’s Theme” plays in an otherwise quiet sheriff’s office scene when Bobby Briggs locks eyes with the famous portrait of his long-dead girlfriend and sobs uncontrollably. These cues show that, despite Lynch’s relentless pursuit of the unknown, familiar traumas and dormant passions play an important role in “Twin Peaks.”
Total Silence
With so much ground to cover, the new “Twin Peaks” is soundtracked in large part by complete silence. Scenes where new characters are introduced—Robert Forster as the new Sheriff Truman, Michael Cera as Wally Brando, or Matthew Lillard as a school principal questioned amid a murder investigation—are all ambient noise and dialogue. Occasionally, the quiet hum of synthesizer atmospheres will make their way into a scene, but these moments tend to fade back into vast stretches of quiet. The lack of sound is occasionally overwhelming. From the scene in “Part 3” where the good Dale Cooper appears back in the real world, there’s over 15 straight minutes without any music—just uncomfortable sonic stillness as the fake Dougie Jones shuffles obliviously from place to place.
But silence is a perfect device for the show’s return, which requires focus (and multiple re-watches, honestly) to keep track of about a dozen loosely intersecting plotlines in a single episode. Silence hangs over seemingly mundane scenes, like Sarah Palmer smoking a cigarette while watching a documentary where mountain lions bite into water buffalo. It underscores the absurdity of Dr. Jacoby spray-painting a bunch of shovels. It increases the tension and discomfort when Cooper tells a woman he’s going to kill her, and arguably more unsettlingly, when he makes sexual advances on a different woman right after that. It’s a smart move to keep it streamlined—none of these conversations or surreal incidents can afford to be romanticized by the show’s original soundtrack.
Late Nights at the Bang Bang Bar
For all their intensity, the new episodes end on a note of reprieve much of the time. After pulling viewers in multiple directions—from the Black Lodge to South Dakota to New York to Las Vegas—four out of the five new episodes culminate at the Twin Peaks roadhouse. At the premiere’s close, Chromatics unveil their Dear Tommy song “Shadow,” with Johnny Jewel’s glossy ambiance and Ruth Radelet’s soft vocals filling the iconic bar. Cutting away from FBI investigation scenes in episodes three and four, we see Cactus Blossoms singing their Everly Brothers throwback and Au Revoir Simone offering their gently propulsive indie pop.
As the show illustrates in “Part 5,” the Bang Bang Bar is not necessarily a feel-good location. While Dirty Beaches’ Alex Zhang Huntai, Riley Lynch (son of David), and Dean Hurley’s new band Trouble performs a jazz-rock tune called “Snake Eyes,” a man assaults a woman in a booth. There’s a heavy darkness to the place—it is, after all, the iconic spot where a giant man led Cooper to a grim realization.
Whether used for respite or tension, end credits at the roadhouse seem a likely place for those musical guests still to come. Though it’s unclear what they’ll be doing, Trent Reznor, Eddie Vedder, Sky Ferreira, and Sharon Van Etten are confirmed as guest stars throughout the 18-episode season. It’s also exciting to consider which of the many artists inspired by Lynch, Badalamenti, and “Twin Peaks” might land a surprise cameo on that stage, too.
Post-Lodge Psychedelia
One of the best sequences so far is also the trippiest. As Cooper is torn from the Black Lodge in “Part 3,” freefalling in the stars of some kind of middle space, the chaotic scene is soundtracked by whooshing gusts and terror-filled synths. When he makes contact with a woman who has no eyes, ethereal synthesizers eventually give way to more mysterious tones; loud clangs give Cooper the impression that he’s being chased. It’s a scene with reversed, distorted audio and pulsing electrical noise. There’s no footing—everything’s too psychedelic to be fully comprehended. But the audio offers the slightest bit of context, recalling soundscapes within the original show’s most intense sequences, like when Bob makes his first appearance by Laura Palmer’s bed.
Aggression + Bliss in Fast Cars
Music just sounds better in a fast car, right? Through blaring car stereos, we hear the show’s nostalgic bliss and violent undercurrents. In the fifth episode, when five dudes roll up in a black muscle car and scream “fuck off” at a kid, they’re blasting two songs from Uniform’s excellent new industrial metal record on Sacred Bones, Wake in Fright: “Tabloid” and “Habit.” In short order, a car explodes, killing three of them.
Later, we get a close-up on Amanda Seyfried’s face as her character Becky sits in the passenger seat of a car peeling out of a parking spot. The camera shoots down from a high angle, blocking out everything but her reaction. She’s so happy (and very high) as she hears the Paris Sisters’ sugary 1961 tune “I Love How You Love Me” blaring from the radio. Which means her relationship to the coked-out dude from Get Out, who’s driving, is going to end badly. This is “Twin Peaks”—relationships don’t tend to go well even under the best circumstances. In this moment, though, that doesn’t matter. It’s all sun and early ’60s AM-radio bliss.
