"What do you fear most in the world?" "The possibility that love is not enough."

It's disturbing to me that I haven't managed to post anything about Twin Peaks yet. I finished watching it in mid-March, and yet I still can't really sum up how I feel about everything, at least not without spoiling possible things for other people. But I'll give it my best shot now, and we'll see how it goes, yes?

Twin Peaks is one of those things where I had such a preconceived idea of it in my brain already that the actual thing was somewhat marred by my expectations of it. By this, I don't mean it was bad in any way (my constant tweets about it should probably prove the opposite) but that from what I knew about Twin Peaks, I was so strongly expecting things to be supernatural all the time, that I missed a lot of the great things about it that really had nothing to do with the dark forces that were admittedly also present. This was especially true after Laura Palmer's murder was solved (sorry, we all know that the premise of the whole series was that Laura Palmer's been murdered, and Trey from Sex and the City [or, rather, Agent Dale Cooper] has to come to Twin Peaks and solve it, right?) where there were all sorts of strange and freaky things happening, and I found those things so much more interesting than the other things that were happening (which involved long established characters) that I tuned out on practically everything else. Big mistake.

But. Putting aside the problem of solving Laura Palmer's murder for a moment (and we will get back to it), the fact is that, according to Wikipedia, the Palmer case was really just an excuse to make a tv programme, and that the real momentum of the show is with the dark and odd lives of all the other characters, almost all of whom have literally nothing to do with Laura Palmer's murder. Now, because of all my preconceptions, I got pretty frustrated with the first series, not wholly because it was a really good mystery to mull over and all, but there were all these characters who it seemed clear to me hadn't murdered Laura, and I was just like 'GET TO THE POINT DAMMIT!' And this is why I don't really read mystery or crime books!

The other thing is that there really wasn't anything supernatural about Twin Peaks in the first season, other than the dream in the red room that I feel like everyone knows about, and was one of the main reasons for my belief that Twin Peaks was going to be all supernatural, all the time. All the backwards talking and the dead girl and the dancing dwarf, it's very very disorienting and just plain freaky. This is something that's returned to quite a lot after the revealing of Laura's killer (I'm obviously not going to tell you who it is, but let's just say it's a doozie! You're going to love it!) and a bit during as well, plus there's a giant who helps with the whole enterprise and then disappears, sadly (I liked that dude!) But still, the normal stuff (although normal is a really really loose term with the residents of this town...) always far far outweighs the supernatural, and that's not what I was expecting, and so I wasn't always fully paying attention to the normal stuff. For shame!

But really, knowing what I do now about it, I look back at all the tangent storylines and I'm just like 'well that one was actually really sweet' and 'oh I love them!' although I have to admit that I did always hate Josie... But the funny things and the sweet things and the just plain odd things (log lady! She's so awesome, you guys have no idea... unless you do!) are really what made the programme what it was, and the supernatural things, really, can just suck it. Well, not really. But the thing is, after solving Laura Palmer's murder, there was this whole thing about the White Lodge and the Black Lodge, and I had some very definite ideas about what should happen with them and, quite frankly, my ideas were better than what actually did happen (imho, of course! Although the cliffhanger at the end of the series is second to none, I have to say). But anyway, when this was disappointing, I of course wished that I had spent more time focusing on the other characters, and their messed up 'ordinary' lives.

Speaking of the disappointment... Here's something that's been said before. But allow me to add my opinion. Laura Palmer's murder gets solved about halfway through the second season. This is about the biggest mistake that's been made in tv history. Because, as I've said, the mystery over Laura's death was like the glue that held together the stories of everyone in the town. Once that was gone, everything got very very confused, and there wasn't really a clear story anymore. Firstly they had to invent a premise for Cooper having to stay in Twin Peaks, which is always just really annoying (although it did introduce David Duchovny in drag, so god bless it, I say) and there were just too many things going on with no unifying theme to tie them all together. And the big supernatural whatsit was pretty related to Laura's death, only it wasn't explained very well and that whole thing just became sort of confused, much as I was intrigued by it (but that only kind of because I thought I was supposed to be...) and yeah. It's kind of a big mess, with some massive flashes of brilliance (the title quote comes from one of these 'confused' episodes) but, really, they should never have solved the murder. Or at least not until the end of season 2.

Having lodged my complaints and criticised my own viewing of it, would it be wrong to now say that I just generally love love LOVE Twin Peaks? I do. In spite of its flaws, it truly is one of the best TV series I've seen, most of which is down to Kyle Maclachlan being adorable and hilarious and just plain weird, in a really good way! I'd only ever seen him as Trey from Sex and the City before Twin Peaks, and I never ever thought I'd find him attractive ever (the dude just does whatever his mum tells him! I mean, come on!) but as Cooper he's so endearing that I am just insanely in love with him. I'm so jealous of Heather Graham, who gets to be his pretend girlfriend for a bit (another annoying thing, because his girlfriend should have been this other girl who was in it from the start but Maclachlan wouldn't pretend to get with her for some bullshit reason) that it's just ridiculous.

So, basically. Twin Peaks, watch it! Even though I've been almost wholly negative about it, it's mainly aimed at myself rather than the programme, and it's just an example of hurting the ones you love. Because, in case I hadn't made this clear, I really really love Twin Peaks. So, get onto Netflix, slip back into the nineties and enjoy some good old fashioned detective work mixed with a fair bit of weirdness. You're very welcome.