Note: This article contains spoilers of both the original “Twin Peaks” and “Twin Peaks: The Return.”

After the new season of “Twin Peaks” was announced, it was gradually revealed that most of the original cast would return. Although familiar faces and locales connect David Lynch’s Showtime reboot to its two-season run on ABC, it has become abundantly clear over the course of five episodes that a lot has changed for these fictional weirdos in the last quarter-century. Agent Dale Cooper’s likeness has been split into three, the “real” Coop now a vegetative husk of his coffee-guzzling former self. Reflecting our current era, too, are Jerry Horne, now in the legal weed racket, and Dr. Jacoby, making his living broadcasting radical missives to an adoring online fanbase. Lynch offers some clues into the passage of time, but isn’t afraid to retread the past when the occasion calls.

One crucial element that made its way back to “Twin Peaks”—with some tweaks—is Angelo Badalamenti’s original score. While there are flashes of musical familiarity, this is a completely different show tonally, moving even slower than the original. Gone are the days when scene after scene was met with noir finger snaps, saxophone solos, and keyboards—equal parts saccharine and ominous, always over the top. For one thing, the revival is set all over the place: one second we’re looking at a mysterious glass box in a New York warehouse, the next we’re back in the Twin Peaks sheriff's station with Andy and Lucy. Now nearly a third of the way through the new season, let’s look at how the “Twin Peaks” soundscape has changed.

Strategic Nostalgia

It’s not “Twin Peaks” without Julee Cruise’s “Falling” setting the scene. Badalamenti and Lynch’s collaboration with Cruise wasn’t made for television initially, recorded about a year earlier for Cruise’s album. When Lynch showed Badalamenti an early cut of the show, Badalamenti was surprised to hear his dreamy, dramatic instrumental from “Falling” over the opening credits, thus becoming the “Twin Peaks Theme.” “Angelo, this is the title,” Lynch told the composer. “This is the identity of ‘Twin Peaks.’”

Used sparingly, the original series’ musical tropes carry enormous emotional heft in the new season. When Cooper smells some damn good joe in “Part 5,” he’s overcome with excitement as a reminiscent jazz drum solo suddenly fills the scene. “Laura Palmer’s Theme” plays in an otherwise quiet sheriff’s office scene when Bobby Briggs locks eyes with the famous portrait of his long-dead girlfriend and sobs uncontrollably. These cues show that, despite Lynch’s relentless pursuit of the unknown, familiar traumas and dormant passions play an important role in “Twin Peaks.”

Total Silence

With so much ground to cover, the new “Twin Peaks” is soundtracked in large part by complete silence. Scenes where new characters are introduced—Robert Forster as the new Sheriff Truman, Michael Cera as Wally Brando, or Matthew Lillard as a school principal questioned amid a murder investigation—are all ambient noise and dialogue. Occasionally, the quiet hum of synthesizer atmospheres will make their way into a scene, but these moments tend to fade back into vast stretches of quiet. The lack of sound is occasionally overwhelming. From the scene in “Part 3” where the good Dale Cooper appears back in the real world, there’s over 15 straight minutes without any music—just uncomfortable sonic stillness as the fake Dougie Jones shuffles obliviously from place to place.