‘Brings Back Some Memories’: Textual and metatextual experiences of nostalgia in Twin Peaks: The Return
“When you see me again, it won’t be me,” the entity called The Arm warns in the second season finale of Twin Peaks, the cult 1990s TV series co-created by screenwriter Mark Frost and filmmaker David Lynch. This cryptic statement was borne out by the long-awaited revival of the series Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), which adopted a darker tone, more opaque storytelling techniques, and a sterner aesthetic than the original series. This, coupled with the narrative withholding of iconic elements from the series, qualified the return promised by the season’s title. Consequently, Twin Peaks’ third season has been framed as a critique or a “refutation” [i] of nostalgia. However, it can be argued that The Return uses audience expectations and memories to trigger nostalgia in its viewers and exploit this feeling as a springboard to engage in a critical reexamination of their perception of the original series. The […]