Turns Out, TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN Is Filled With Nods To Old David Lynch Projects

This is really cool.

By Aug. 15, 2017

In what will come as a shocking revelation to absolutely no one, the Birth.Movies.Death. crew is full-on obsessed with Showtime's Twin Peaks: The Return. Oh, we may play it cool out here in public, but behind the scenes, away from prying eyes? We're as hopelessly addicted (and, yes, sometimes prone to theorizing) as the rest of you. 

And so, yesterday, when a friend of the site tipped me off about a certain Twitter account that was digging very deep into Twin Peaks: The Return, I of course dropped what I was doing to investigate. What I discovered was the feed of Twitter user @ramontorrente, who has spent the last few months cataloguing some of New Peaks' most striking images...and comparing them to earlier David Lynch works.

What he's found is pretty cool, so I invited Ramón to select his top ten favorite 1:1 comparisons and to provide a little bit of commentary for each. Some are more convincing than others, but I think you'll agree that there are some striking similarities here, and that Ramón has definitely identified some recurring Lynch motifs in The Return.

Here are Ramón's favorites, in no particular order, along with his notes:

Ramón says: "Meet Señorita Dido. She comes from some of Lynch's oldest drawings. Even the furniture's the same!"

For this one, Ramón adds: "Boxes. There are so many boxes in Lynch's work, going all the way back to the beginning of his career. Influenced directly by Francis Bacon. A cubed space presented as the limits to ideas, imagination."

Ramón notes: "Flying naked women. Just as it sounds! Many naked, floating women appear throughout Lynch's work. Some are seen here, but there are many more."

Ramón notes: "Floating figure (not women). The flying 'Fireman' from The Return, Part 8 is a visual that pops up in much of Lynch's art."

Ramón: "Yes, vomit. Puking people. Lynch has been incorporating this imagery into his work for 50 years now."

Ramón: "Insects and women. And, specifically, the idea of an insect going inside the mouth of a woman. Really."

Ramón: "This weird device or machine pops up somewhat frequently, as well." 

Ramón: "Here we see Andy holding a strange, somewhat familiar object!"

Ramón: "A familiar, violet mountain."

Ramón: "And, finally: a satellite shaped liked Boise, Idaho."

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If you like what Ramón's done above, I highly recommend swinging by his Twitter feed and checking out some of the other lines he's been able to draw between Lynch projects. Does it all mean anything, beyond the obvious? I suspect not, but it's still really cool to see how Lynch has used some of his own drawings as the inspiration for some of The Return's most striking moments (I'm particulary fond of that bizarre gadget Andy's seen holding in the White Lodge).

What do you folks think? Pretty neat, eh?

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