This Twin Peaks explainer is good—it’s also 4 1/2 hours long

By Randall Colburn | October 29, 2019 | 8:31pm

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This Twin Peaks explainer is good—it’s also 4 1/2 hours long

Photo: ABC Photo Archives

Nobody’s hurting for Twin Peaks explainers. Want to know what happened at the end of The Return? There’s an article for that. A video for that. A book for that. There’s also plenty of people who will tell you to stop looking for clues entirely, to accept the series as an aesthetic or emotional experience rather than a narrative one.

But then there’s this:

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This is a four-and-a-half-hour video from YouTube channel Twin Perfect that is extremely, perhaps hubristically confident in the answer it provides to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s masterwork, which returned in 2017 after being off the air for 26 years. The Return, one of the most dazzling and enigmatic experiences ever put to film, has continued to ignite discussions years later, and this video—all four-and-a-half hours of it—could be your answer to lording over them.

Or maybe not.

Right up top, host Rosseter not only steers away those who’ve never seen the series, but also those who have. Why? Because, as any Lynch fans know, the director hates explaining away his work. As the host puts it, Lynch refuses to use words to elaborate upon his stories, as it could “diminish our ability to explore the idea on our own emotional terms.” He adds, “We should feel his work for ourselves.” If you want to maintain that connection to Lynch’s work, this is not the video for you.

“What I’m about to share with you will take most, if not all, of the mystery out of the show,” declares Rosseter, who posits that “the answer has been hiding in plain sight and it will permanently alter the way you view Twin Peaks.” He also says he’ll make some “claims you might not want to accept,” but seems sure that you’ll come around to them, so long as you stick around for the video’s duration.

Of course, an opening such as that is unlikely to deter any curious fan, and we can confirm that the evidence is certainly compelling. We won’t, however, spoil it. Besides, to summarize this thing would take longer than it does to watch the video.

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