Laura Palmer kept her promise. In the Season 2 finale “Beyond Life or Death,” Twin Peaks’ tragic, troubled prom queen — memorably portrayed by Sheryl Lee in the series and its masterful spinoff, Fire Walk With Me — tells Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), “I’ll see you in 25 years.” And indeed, if you fudge the details a little (FWWM came out in 1992, so that counts), the show returned 25 years later with Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017.
The revival tripled down on co-creator David Lynch’s dark, cryptic style, raising more questions than it answered and splitting fans into two groups: Those who liked Twin Peaks for its soap-opera aspects, and those who appreciated it as an auteur work. But the coffee-and-pie set shouldn’t have been surprised: All the signs were there on June 10, 1991, when Lynch and Mark Frost reopened, and then closed, the door to the nightmare dimension known as the Black Lodge.
