The Lesson in "Twin Peaks" (Season 2a)

As I have had occasion I have continued to explore “Twin Peaks” into the second season. About half way in we get to discover the answer to what most people apparently watched the show for, and viewership began to drop off. However, the solution to the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was clearly just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot of strange stuff going on in this little town, and it is clearly a supernatural struggle between evil and… well, at least humanity if not good.

When one looks back to the late Eighties and early Nineties, it is probably fair to recognize that audiences were not quite ready to explore these ideas and questions. It was not yet main stream to consider things like the supernatural, and even more “out there” the demonic. It was still a couple years before shows like “The X Files” would signal a change in society to where we would be interested in the spiritual again.

Another aspect that sets “Twin Peaks” apart from other shows that would follow is the David Lynch factor. It is simply weird. That and it has a certain definitive “New Age” leaning. What would become acceptable and discussed a couple years later would be a much more ambiguous approach to this subject matter. Even when we became open to spiritual topics, we have still not embraced any I’ve-figured-everything-out, religious approach.

You need to get people to consider and ultimately accept the strong possibility of things supernatural before you start helping them find the answers about said broader reality.