'Twin Peaks: The Return' is stylish, slow, self-indulgent

Twenty-seven years ago, Mark Frost and David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" (1990) began with a simple murder: popular high school student Laura Palmer found dead, wrapped in plastic. It ended with love affairs, cocaine trafficking, FBI intervention and a great, supernatural, evil presence in the small Washington town.

The hero of the story, FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), gets as far as he can in exposing not just Laura Palmer's killer, but the root of the evil that has plagued the town (accessed only though a parallel universe, the famous Black Lodge). But he doesn't get far enough. In 1991, ABC cancelled the show, leaving a painful cliffhanger of a second season finale. Twenty six years later, Lynch now picks up where he left off with "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2017), an 18-episode sequel which premiered May 21 on Showtime.

In the present-day series, Cooper's evil doppelgänger is still running around causing trouble on Earth and the real, good Cooper is stuck in the Black Lodge. Many favorite characters of the original "Twin Peaks" are here, doing what they do best. Norma and Shelly (Peggy Lipton and Mädchen Amick) run the Double R Diner. Andy and Lucy (Harry Goaz and Kimmy Robertson) are the darling couple of the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department, now run by Hawk (Michael Horse). FBI agents research strange activity from their base in Philadelphia. The Log Lady is still the seer of the town, although her actress Catherine E. Coulson passed away during filming. But there are also glaring absences, like Donna and former sheriff Harry S. Truman, who is present only off-screen as his character recovers from a terminal disease.

At first, the guiding storyline of "The Return" appears to be a murder, like that of the original show. There are actually two murders: a female apartment tenant's decapitated head is found placed above an unknown man's headless body. But as the show progresses, that plot point becomes almost irrelevant. Meanwhile, agent Cooper escapes the Black Lodge in mind but not body and is transported into the life of Dougie, a crooked insurance salesman living in Las Vegas with a son and a tyrannical wife (played by a favorite of Lynch, Naomi Watts). He is physically incapable, almost nonverbal and mentally stuck back in the Lodge. But his world of insurance fraud, casinos and threatening debt collectors magically falls into place around him.

Although a lot of old favorites make reappearances in "The Return," at least three new characters are introduced every episode. Some are prominent: Shelly's wayward daughter Becky (Amanda Seyfried); Ben Horne's drug-dealing, sociopathic grandson (Eamon Farren); and most surprising of all, the long-awaited appearance of Cooper's old secretary, Diane (another Lynch muse, Laura Dern). But for every interesting new character, there are five others who show up in only one episode, or even one scene, in confusing little vignettes. It certainly showcases Lynch's signature creativity, but makes the show's progression messier and messier as it goes on.

The pace of the entire show is painfully slow. People walk in slow motion, deliberate in silence and say "goodbye" before hanging up the phone. Although Cooper's original character in "Twin Peaks" was famously amusing (Who can forget his Tibetan stone-throwing ritual?), his scenes here are frustrating to the point of anger. Time and time again, his wife will demand him to come or go, and the once-dynamic Cooper will stand unresponsive for a minute or more. Lynch takes his time and finish his scene with silence, far after its events have transpired, before he cuts to another.

While his pace is unusual for television and sometimes welcomely artistic, it is more often frustrating and pointless to everyone except Lynch. He knows "The Return" is so highly anticipated it is perhaps his only chance to get such a self-indulgent art piece on the air, and he doesn't care about the audience's patience for it. It drives home a message, one that diehard Lynch fans have long accepted: "You are at my creative and directive mercy."

One of the strongest aspects of "The Return" is how Lynch plays with time and puts this show in dialogue with the original "Twin Peaks," as well as his other creations. Many star-crossed lovers of the original show are no longer together, although the men linger around their old sweethearts wistfully. Some scenes show characters dialing on a rotating phone, while others feature smartphones and Skype. Characters are no longer allowed to smoke wherever they want, a logistical blow to one of the defining features of the original show's aesthetic. Old missing clues glossed over in the original Laura Palmer case mysteriously resurface, although fans might recognize some of them from the masterful 1992 prequel film, "Fire Walk with Me."

Lynch unfolds "The Return" with his entire history in mind. One epic, stylized episode reveals Lynch's interpretation of the origins of human evil — it is bleak, shot in black-and-white and so abstract that it echoes his "Eraserhead" (1977) era more than "Twin Peaks" or any of his works in between. Singer Rebekah Del Rio, featured in the famous, haunting opera scene in "Mulholland Drive" (2001), has a welcome cameo in "The Return."

In one scene, FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole (played by Lynch himself), meets with his partner and a new hire, agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell). As the camera lingers on Preston's backside as she walks away from the duo, the stern-faced partner gives Cole a look, as if to say, "Aren't you a little old for this?" Cole, played by a man as well-known for his obsession for young, sensual women as he is for offbeat horror, shrugs: "I'm old school. You know that." Lynch knows that his love of sexuality, like his slow pace, might be tiresome to some viewers — he just doesn't care.

Ultimately, fans looking for a continuation of the original show will be disappointed. It is experimental, abstract and barely linear, meaning it has much more in common with Lynch's earlier films than the 1990 "Twin Peaks." But diehard fans will still appreciate the wry humor, the references and Angelo Badalamenti's masterful and iconic score. It is certainly worth it for "Twin Peaks" fans to give "The Return" a try — but they should be prepared to fast-forward through outer space montages and ambient noise. It is a work made for Lynch, not his audience.