Dark Game-Changing Mystery Thriller Series Desperately Needs Another Season

For one thing, we still have some questions after the end of Season 3. Where (and when) are Special Agent Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer-look-alike Carrie Page (Sheryl Lee) at the end of the series? Who even is Carrie Page–Laura, if she didn’t die? A Tulpa duplicate of Laura from the Black Lodge?

What is Judy’s deal? We know it’s an evil entity, but is it the devil? Something worse? And most importantly, Is it all about the bunny?

Only a Twin Peaks Season 4 can give us closure on any of the above mysteries. It wouldn’t, but it could. Knowing David Lynch, another visit to Twin Peaks wouldn’t turn up any concrete answers, just more questions. Despite that, and maybe even because of it, we still want a Season 4.

Twin Peaks is the very definition of “It’s about the Journey, not the destination.” Anyone familiar with David Lynch knows that there isn’t always a specific meaning behind his symbolism, just like anyone familiar with David Lynch’s work knows it’s fun to look for answers anyway.

On the surface, Twin Peaks is about an FBI agent trying to solve the murder of a prom queen in a small Washington town full of idiosyncrasies and quirky characters. Said agent really enjoys pie with his coffee, and one lady talks to a log.

It’s entirely acceptable to enjoy Twin Peaks at face value without ever digging deeper into many of the dream-like images and situations that David Lynch and Co-creator Mark Frost filled the show with over three seasons and a movie. Acceptable–but impossible. Part of the series’ charm is the relative ambiguity of its metaphors and the fact that they can make you feel things even if you don’t understand them, a tradition Twin Peaks Season 4 would likely continue.

You’re probably wondering at this point, “hey GFR, why do you want a Twin Peaks Season 4 so bad if you already know it won’t answer all of your questions from Season 3?” The answer is that we still want to have fun looking for the answers that we know aren’t actually there.

If that sounds like a contradiction or a paradox, that’s because, much like Twin Peaks itself, it is. Since its inception, Twin Peaks has been two distinctly different shows: a regular television murder mystery drama with all of the usual trappings of the genre and a supernatural thriller with weighty themes like the nature of good and evil set against purposely disturbing locales like the Black Lodge. If those two things seem to go together more like orange juice and mint toothpaste than chocolate and peanut butter, that’s by design.

A group of rogue supernatural agents living above a convenience store and wolfing down creamed corn couldn’t be more out of place next to dimwitted Deputy Andy (Harry Goaz), who is so dopey he feels like a rejected character from the Andy Griffith Show. In other words, Barney Fife shouldn’t exist in a world with benevolent giants and backward-talking dancers, and yet, somehow, it works.

It’s that juxtaposition of the mundane and, in some cases, downright corny with the bizarre and nightmarish that makes us want a Twin Peaks Season 4 so badly. There’s plenty of weird shit on TV and streaming, but most of it’s trying so hard to be cool and mysterious that it would never dare feature anything as silly as Michael Cera doing his best Marlon Brando impression circa 1953.

Meanwhile, David Lynch is 78 and lives off of a strict diet of coffee and cigarettes. We don’t want to be morbid, but if he doesn’t make Twin Peaks Season 4 soon, he may not get a chance to. Lynch has expressed publicly that he’s interested in revisiting Coop and Co., so there’s a good chance Season 4 will happen at some point. The question is, when?

We still need to know what the deal is with Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). Is Mr. C the father of Audrey’s sociopathic son Richard? Is Audrey still in a coma? What about–oh, who are we kidding?

Twin Peaks Season 4, if and when it happens, isn’t going to answer any of those questions, not concretely. It would, however, give us another chance to ponder those mysteries while watching even more bizarre events take place, which would, in turn, leave us with more mysteries and…

Look, Dave, just give us Twin Peaks Season 4 already, huh? The current television landscape has a coffee and pie-sized hole in it that only Agent Cooper can fill.