Twin Peaks - The Complete Second Season (1990)

I'm enjoying the hell out of the second season of David Lynch's short-lived but history-making TV series "Twin Peaks." I'm starting to wonder if this show set the pattern for the cinematic TV show of the 21st century. Before there were HBO series like "The Sopranos" and "Deadwood," there was "Twin Peaks." It broke the mold and showed, really for the first time, that TV could be a form of cinema. The first season was only seven episodes. In the much longer second season, Lynch and his partner Mark Frost, dig more deeply into the theme of possession. It's not just Laura Palmer's father who is possessed. Laura herself appears to have suffered recurring episodes of it. Laura's best friend Donna (played by Lara Flynn Boyle) changes so radically from Season 1 to Season 2 that she almost seems to be possessed by Laura. Her whole personality changes. The One-Armed Man and Nadine (who wears an eye patch) also experience something like possession. I'm at about the midway point through the season, when Leland is taken over by the evil spirit once again and attacks his niece. That sequence is vintage Lynch, reminiscent of his toughest and most ethereal stuff in films like "Blue Velvet." The cross-cutting between the attack scene and Agent Cooper's second visitation by the Giant was a sublime feat of editing. Here's a perfect example of the power of editing in modern cinema. Sometimes it's not just the footage but the way footage is edited that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. That is one of the most sorrowful cinematic sequences I've ever seen. It also represents one of Lynch's greatest uses of music ever. POSTSCRIPT (added couple weeks later): I wrote this review too soon. The first five or so episodes of Season 2 are fantastic, but then the show goes off a cliff. The last 10 episodes of the season are atrocious, some of the worst television I've ever seen. I completely understand now why the show was cancelled. As soon as the Laura Palmer mystery is solved, the writers had no idea where to go with the show. Almost everything they try fails, including the unwatchably ridiculous sequences where Nadine (eye-patch lady) disappears into a fantasy of being a teenager in the 1950s. The Windam Earle storyline, which becomes the big mystery after the Palmer murder is solved, is also a complete dog. Everything is boring. I must hereby bring down the rating of Season 2 from an 8 to a 5.