'Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier' Does What 'The Return' Didn't

This article discusses several plot elements of the original Twin Peaks television series, the 2016 book The Secret History of Twin Peaks, as well as this summer's Showtime mini-series, Twin Peaks: The Return.

Twin Peaks — the show and the cultural phenomenon around it — began life as the co-creation of two starkly different men: filmmaker David Lynch and writer Mark Frost.

Let's begin with a sweeping, simplistic and grossly unfair generalization: David Lynch is an artist. Mark Frost is a storyteller.

Certainly there is story in Lynch's art and art in Frost's storytelling. But their essential difference is one of kind, not quality.

Lynch delights in combining arresting, often absurd visuals (a giant teapot communicating via steam numerals and symbols!) and uncanny soundscapes (the low, electric crackle of ozone). He is a director in such close touch with his subconscious that it bleeds into every shot; he often lets it guide where and how he places his