Re-Animating the Television of Exhaustion: Belated Temporality in Twin Peaks: The Return

• In Event: David Lynch and American Empire

Abstract

The original two seasons of Twin Peaks aired during what may be considered the apotheosis of American economic, military, and cultural hegemony. Despite the recession of 1990-1, the United States’ status as premier global superpower was unchecked, and American institutions of mass culture (network television, Hollywood movie studies, major record labels) enjoyed enormous audiences both domestically and globally. The first two seasons of Twin Peaks, then, could both enjoy enormous cultural relevance by reflecting upon, parodying, and subverting “universal” American cultural forms: the cop show, the soap opera, the Hollywood thriller. When the third season of Twin Peaks appeared in 2017, it confronted a radically different cultural, economic and political landscape in which all forms of American power had been diminished. This paper argues that The Return utilizes both belatedness and exhaustion as tropes through which to navigate a newly fragmented American empire. Rather than wallowing in those affective registers, I argue that Lynch effectively utilizes them as a platform for critique of twenty-first century American culture. Simultaneously, Lynch interrogates the expectations for novelty and virtuosity that accompanied the “peak television” era of the early 2010s, creating a series that both acknowledges the exhaustion of the form and transforms it into something new, akin to how John Barth described the work of Jorge Luis Borges in his essay “The Literature of Exhaustion” (1967): “a lively, relevant metaphysical vision, slyly employed against itself precisely to make new and original literature.” Twin Peaks: The Return does more than parody and subvert American mass culture. Instead, it arrives belatedly to find that culture is already a corpse, and then explores the ways it can be reanimated to multiple ends. Why, in 2017, did supposedly savvy American television audiences still want to cheer for Dale Cooper, an archetype of American law and order and an avatar for the police state? The Return reflects upon and even celebrates the hunger for symbols of American cultural hegemony while also revealing their exhaustion and impotence.

Author

• Mark Bresnan, Colorado State University