As great as Twin Peaks season 3 was, it failed to bring the story of Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer to a definitive end, leaving room for season 4. Debuting on ABC in 1990, Twin Peaks has truly always been a TV show unlike any other. This is no doubt mostly due to the influence of surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, Twin Peaks' co-creator and executive producer. Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost instilled the town of Twin Peaks and its characters with an off-kilter sensibility, and willingness to indulge in the odd.
As wonderfully strange as the two original seasons of Twin Peaks could often get, many fan of the series weren't quite ready for what Lynch had in store for them with Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017. While an artistic triumph and a captivating exercise in moody surrealism, The Return carried with it an even weirder, darker bent than the original show, and those looking to simply reconnect with their old favorite characters and see Dale Cooper talk about damn fine cups of coffee didn't always know what to make of what Lynch was now giving them.
Still, the overall opinion of Twin Peaks season 3 was overwhelmingly positive, even from many fans who at first felt adrift in this new take on the series. The Return's finale ended on a note both confusing and intriguing, and now is not the time to make fans wait another 25 years to find out what happens next.
Why Twin Peaks’ Story Isn’t Complete Without Season 4
Twin Peaks season 3's finale sees FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) now finally back at full strength in the real world, and after a time-traveling attempt to prevent Laura Palmer's (Sheryl Lee) murder ends in her disappearing with a scream, Cooper heads to Odessa, Texas. While there, he meets a waitress named Carrie Page, a woman identical to Laura. He convinces Carrie to accompany him to Twin Peaks and return to the Palmer home, only to find someone he's never met living there, and the episode to end with Carrie replicating Laura's scream, followed by darkness.
While there are many interpretations of what exactly that ending is supposed to signify, quite a few fans believe it means that Cooper and Laura are trapped in some kind of repeating loop in which Cooper attempts to save some version of Laura, only for the task to never truly be accomplished. That's interesting, but dramatically, it's not very satisfying. Fans who've stuck with Twin Peaks for the past 30 years need to receive some kind of closure on the characters of Cooper and Laura, even if that closure is presented in the usual Lynchian way.
Cooper and Laura's ultimate fates aren't the only ones up in the air either. It's still not remotely clear what happened to Audrey Horne. Is she in a coma? Locked in a mental institution? Trapped in a Lodge like Cooper once was? We don't know. And what became of Donna, such an important character on the original run of Twin Peaks? The real-life reason for her absence may be that actress Lara Flynn Boyle didn't want to come back, but that doesn't preclude giving her some kind of onscreen ending. And those characters are far from the only ones that could use further closure. It's time for Twin Peaks season 4 to happen, and this time, Lynch shouldn't wait 25 years.