‘Twin Peaks,’ “Pilot”

Written by: Mark Frost and David Lynch

Directed by: David Lynch

Original Air Date: April 8, 1990

Watch it On: Netflix

What It’s About: The sleepy town of Twin Peaks is shaken up when the body of their Homecoming Queen, Laura Palmer, is found by a local fisherman, washed up on a river bank. The ill-equipped authorities of the town have to call in the big guns — or gun, rather: an idiosyncratic FBI agent, Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), who jumps on the case, but gets distracted from time-to-time by the amount of trees and different breeds of rabbits Twin Peaks has to offer.

Why It’s So Good: Much like the rest of Lynch’s work, Twin Peaks is genre-defying. It has all of the characteristics of a melodramatic ’80s crime soap with horror-like sequences mixed in, but it also serves as one giant parody of soaps and crime mysteries, right down to the film noir-inspired touch. From the whir of the steel mill to the “bum-bum” start of the theme, Twin Peaks begins ominously, but adds a campy twist as soon as we enter the sheriff’s station. The oddities of this small town are revealed right away, when the quirky dispatcher, Lucy, is more distracted with which colored phone she’s going to transfer the emergency call than who is on the other end of the emergency call. Clearly not much excitement happens here. There’s only one sheriff, Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), and he needs the FBIs help in tracking down Laura’s killer, who is presumably involved in other murders of teenage girls.

What makes the pilot so perfect is the balance of comedy, drama, art, and score, all driving the slow-paced uncovering of the Laura’s murder. It’s hard not to giggle at the overacting of Grace Zabriske, playing Laura’s mourning mother, Sarah, who in the wake of learning her daughter has been murdered, begins to cry, scream, and then flop around the house. Special Agent Dale Cooper isn’t laugh-out-loud funny per se, but his time on screen is relatively cheery, though he takes his job very seriously and has untold amounts of wisdom of Twin Peaks even though he’s never stepped foot in the town before. Frost and Lynch make it very clear to us in the most tongue-in-cheek manner that this man was born to solve crimes. Beyond the murder, there’s drama unfolding at the steel mill, run by the beautiful Jocelyn Packard, who’s secretly seeing Sheriff Harry Truman. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have Lynch’s name on it if it wasn’t an art piece as well. There are a plethora of shots that can be compared to Blue Velvet specifically, another small-town exploration, but one stands out to me as particularly unsetting:

When Sarah Palmer discovers her daughter isn’t home, Lynch parks his camera at the foot of the stairs of their home and simply lets Sarah panic. The score looms in the background, the only thing in focus is the ceiling fan spinning above, as Sarah calls her daughter’s name again and again.

The Most Profound Moment: There’s something hauntingly beautiful about when Laura’s body is uncovered on the shore. It’s obviously a deeply sad moment for everyone involved, but the way the makeup department chose to sprinkle glitter in her hair and across her forehead drove home the fact that this girl, this Homecoming Queen, was too angelic for this humdrum town stuck in the middle of too many Dogwood forests.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!

Photos: Everett Collection