Woe to the ones who thought Twin Peaks would be easy. The show is nearly as long as every one of Lynch’s features put together. At this point I’ve read a lot of different interpretations and even the most plausible don’t hold up under scrutiny. There are so many unanswered questions and contradictions that the intention seems to have been to create a labyrinth. Twin Peaks season 3 is whatever’s in the blue box in Mulholland Dr. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any thematic purpose to the thing or that the plot is arbitrary. The plot unfolds in a more linear way than some have suggested. For the most part the show’s played straight. It’s full of mystery and atmosphere but it doesn’t get “pure heroin” weird until the last two episodes. Most people thought they were following it okay until Cooper’s head became superimposed over the screen. From the beginning, this season was a story about the story of Twin Peaks. Every episode begins with Laura Palmer’s homecoming photo, the same photo in the golden orb that is dreamed into existence by the Fireman. Fire Walk with Me asked us why Laura is important, and the new series answers this question. Because she represents something pure - the story, the idea - and the finale illustrates the incorruptibility of that purity. We desperately wanted Laura to be alive and happy and reunited with her mother. But Laura’s reality will never change. Her pain transcends our expectations for a happy ending because her pain is true to her character, and her pain is what birthed this mystery of Twin Peaks. Her pain is a bomb, and her scream at the end is the counter to the atomic explosion we see in Part 8. To make sense of the ending, look to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges called The Garden of Forking Paths. In it, a man sets out to accomplish two tasks - to write a novel, and to build a labyrinth so dense that every person who enters it will get lost. He dies before he can construct his labyrinth and he leaves behind a novel that nobody can understand. In the novel, a character dies in one chapter, and is alive in the next. It’s dismissed as the ramblings of a crazy man until someone realizes that the man did construct his labyrinth. The labyrinth is the novel. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Cooper wakes up by sticking a fork in an electrical socket. Had Judy trapped Laura/Carrie in some alternate universe? When Laura screams and the lights go out in the Palmer house, does that mean Laura has woken up from her dream? Will she be alive? If there is a season 4 (which is a little bit more likely than some may think it is), don’t expect these questions to be answered. The beauty of Twin Peaks is in its mystery.