David Lynch’s debut Eraserhead was the greatest home movie ever made. Shot over five years in a disused stable block behind the American Film Institute where the director was living at the time, it was painstakingly constructed frame by frame by a group of committed friends – the very definition of a labour of love. Exactly 40 years later, Lynch has just completed his most personal project since. Twin Peaks: the Return may have had a starry cast, cutting-edge digital effects and an 18-hour run time. But at heart, it was just another home movie: the work of an artist coming full circle, incorporating everything he’s learned in four decades as a filmmaker back into the hands-on, DIY template he established with his first film.

At times, the Return resembled a checklist of familiar Lynchian motifs: hapless criminals, crusading lawmen, slinky femmes fatale, coffee, pie, alternate dimensions. Even the cast list reads like a reunion party: almost every lead had worked with Lynch before, and not just in the original Twin Peaks. Laura Dern starred in Blue Velvet and Inland Empire; Naomi Watts and Robert Forster appeared in Mulholland Drive; Balthazar Getty was in Lost Highway; Harry Dean Stanton was in Wild at Heart, The Straight Story and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. These weren’t just collaborators, they were lifelong friends.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Old pals popping in for a catch-up … Twin Peaks. Photograph: Showtime

Appearances from original Twin Peaks regulars often felt less like integral plot points and more like old pals popping in for a catch-up. Warren Frost (co-writer Mark Frost’s dad, now deceased) delivered his performance via Skype, while David Patrick Kelly as Jerry Horne wandered lonely in the woods, stoned out of his gourd and only interacted with other characters in his first and final scenes. Ben Horne and his daughter Audrey both had plotlines that went precisely nowhere, while Norma and Big Ed dropped in, rekindled their love then promptly dropped straight out again. Eraserhead veteran Catherine Coulson had four heartbreaking scenes as the Log Lady, all filmed shortly before her death from cancer. Her last appearance was perhaps the series’ most memorable moment, as Lynch broadcasted what was essentially an intimate eulogy to one of his closest friends.

The Return also delved back into the director’s creative back pages, and not just his screen work. What was the Evolution of the Arm (the stick-like sculpture brought in to replace wayward Peaks icon Michael J Anderson) if not a 3D representation of one of his more oblique artworks? The series incorporated acting roles or singing cameos from Chrysta Bell, Rebekah del Rio, Trent Reznor and Julee Cruise, all of whom have made music with Lynch over the years, alongside returning composer Angelo Badalamenti. Elements of earlier Lynch films and TV projects were constantly woven in: a castle in the sea like something from Dune, a sticky-bug creature straight out of Eraserhead. Agent Cooper’s multiple personalities nodded to the “psychogenic fugue” of Lost Highway, while the final episode’s abrupt left-turn on to an entirely new plane of existence closely mirrored the closing scenes of Mulholland Drive.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Straight out of Lost Highway … Dougie’s ‘psychogenic fugue’ state. Photograph: Suzanne Tenner/Showtime

But it was in this final hour that the Return made its most notable break from Lynch’s past, as Agent Cooper and his assistant/muse/lover Diane journeyed across dimensions to a place that felt uncomfortably like the “real” world (albeit one where motels change their faces and unearthly voices echo from thin air). The show had already staked its claim as the most socially conscious Lynch work to date, digging like Dr Amp right into the “shit” in which we find ourselves, nodding both to America’s increasing poverty problem and its propensity for violence: “the glow is dying”, reported the Log Lady in her final address. Not all of Lynch’s political insights worked – his own speech of acceptance to cross-dresser Denise Bryson was a bit awkward – but it was bracing to see this most inward-looking filmmaker embracing larger concerns.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest More unsettlingly earthbound than anything Lynch has attempted before … Twin Peaks. Photograph: Suzanne Tenner/Showtime

Still, the final episode went several steps further, feeling more unsettlingly earthbound than anything Lynch has attempted before. The town of Odessa, Texas was presented in stark terms, full of traffic and grime, a literal world away from the hazy nostalgia of Twin Peaks. Even the roads had lost their mystery – a set of eerie headlamps in the rearview mirror turned out not to be a gang of criminals, but just another car. The episode, and the series, culminated with a weary, ordinary-looking Agent Cooper leading Laura to the door of her own home, only to be confronted with the baffled face of Mary Reber, the woman who actually owns the Palmer house in Everett, Washington.

Was this Lynch bidding a final farewell to fiction? At 71, has he closed his own loop? This year’s heartwarming documentary David Lynch: The Art Life seemed to imply that he’s more of a homebody now, happy to potter around the studio with his toddling daughter and his paintbrushes. If Twin Peaks: the Return turns out to be the last David Lynch movie – and given his age and work rate that could well be the case – it’s hard to think of a more fitting swansong. Perhaps that title didn’t just refer to the town of Twin Peaks, or to Agent Cooper’s slow road back to sanity. It could also mark a return for its creator, setting aside the dense, violent, strangely comforting worlds he’s spent four decades creating and stepping back into some semblance of reality.