Twin Peaks is my favourite show of all time.

No…it’s more than that.

Twin Peaks struck my young consciousness like a thunderbolt. It smashed my mind apart like an asteroid dusting the dinosaurs. It plunged into the fertile ground of my creative spirit, birthing something fierce and strange and beautiful. And then it ended. Condemned to the void (or the Black Lodge?) with terrifying laughter, echoes of shattered glass, and questions that would surely haunt me for decades to come, if not lifetimes.

Well…that is, until now.

Twin Peaks is officially back. And I am seriously freaking the f@#$ out.

So, as I try to contain the gasping and trembling and squeals of supernatural glee? It’s time for a quick roundup of what went down with yesterday’s announcement. NOTE — any and all wide-eyed speculation is to be taken with girthy licks of salt (though based on very real set reports and caffeinated forum rumblings):

‘DIANE…I’M ENTERING THE TOWN OF TWIN PEAKS’

From Monday’s TCAs, we finally got an air-date — Season 3 of Twin Peaks will grace screens big and small (thanks to Showtime’s HBO-aping subscriber app) on May 21st. With this, we also learned some screening specifics:

The premiere will be 2 HOURS

Episodes 3 and 4 will be immediately available on Showtime’s streaming service

This means that the first episdoe, though having a ‘pilot’ length, will actually count as 2 eps together. Lynch hasn’t done this (an ep split) since the Season 2 finale aired on ABC nearly 26 years ago…

‘I’ll see you again in 25 years‘ wasn’t far off, Laura! In fact, this new season will air pretty much in the same window that the original series finished in 1991.

The show will have a prime Sunday night slot . This is music (in the air) to the ears of all Peaks fans, especially after ABC’s schedule schizophrenia killed Season 2’s momentum back in the day. Sunday night is truly ‘appointment television’.

2. ‘THERE IS A MAN IN A SMILING BAG’

Showtime exec David Nevins and David Lynch (the power of Davids compels you!) artfully dodged most of the questions from the press in attendance, but they were somewhat open about:

‘Season 3’ will be an 18 HOUR EVENT

It will play as a ‘limited series’, and not get split (like AMC did with Breaking Bad‘s last season, or HBO is doing with Game of Thrones)

get split (like AMC did with Breaking Bad‘s last season, or HBO is doing with Game of Thrones) Lynch and Frost wrote the script for the new series like a single giant movie . They are hard at work now figuring out the episode ‘breaks’, so it’s likely to be presented in an unorthodox run-time way.

. They are hard at work now figuring out the episode ‘breaks’, so it’s likely to be presented in an unorthodox run-time way. It will not be aired all at once for binge-watching a la Netflix. The creators want to create a sense of mounting mystery, and a return to ‘Must See TV’

3. ‘IT IS (NOT) HAPPENING AGAIN’

Through all of Lynch’s vagueness and mischievous fact-skirting, we may have learned more about what’s not going to happen:

This is a ‘closed-ended’ run. There are NO plans for a ‘Season 4’ of Twin Peaks. That said, Lynch admitted that he never expected to return 25 years later in the first place, so we have the doggedness of Mark Frost to thank for making our dreams ‘both wondrous and strange‘ come true.

There will be no traditional TRAILERS for the series. Part of Lynch’s agreement with Showtime hinged on control over marketing materials, and he doesn’t want to do anything that could spoil the story ‘like in so many campaigns today‘. Good on ‘im.

If reports are to be believed, we won’t be seeing cameos by Piper Laurie (Catherine), Joan Chen (Josie), Lara Flynn Boyle (Donna), Michael Ontkean (Sheriff Truman), Chris Isaac (Agent Chester Desmond), Heather Graham (Annie), crazy-maker Michael Anderson (Man From Another Place), along with several other living cast members.

Lynch also insists that David Bowie (FBI Agent Phillip Jeffries) passed before filming his scenes. He’s also hinted in the past to be squarely against CGI trickery to resurrect dead actors, so don’t expect to see Jack Nance (Pete), Don Davis (Major Briggs), Frank Silva (Killer Bob), or Princess fucking Leia (screw you, Rogue One)…with the possible exception of Catherine Coulsin (The Log Lady), who squeaked in some filming before her passing.

It appears we won’t be getting a ‘lot’ of time in Twin Peaks proper, at least in the beginning. With reports that only a third of shooting took place in and around the old locations, and with set leaks of Las Vegas and other new settings providing the bulk of the tale, it may take a while before Twin Peaks feels like…well…Twin Peaks again. Which kinda makes sense, considering that ‘The Good Dale’ isn’t exactly himself right now, is he?

4. ‘THE OWLS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM’

Still, the crowd in attendance were persistent enough to chip away at Lynch’s armour of secrecy! Here are some of the juicier morsels surrounding the Twin Peaks return that he let slip, along with a bit of ‘informed speculation’:

Speaking of Coop’ in relation to the narrative, Nevins and Lynch shared that the core of the narrative surrounds Agent Cooper’s ‘return to the town‘. I think this is a good thing. If Cooper’s ‘shadow self’ is currently in the driver’s seat and causing gleeful BOB-esque havoc — Vegas set reports confirmed a car full of cocaine and a dead dog’s leg! — then it stands to Peaksian reason that he’ll need to come back to the place where he ‘lost himself’ in order to recover his innocence and unify his psyche/spirit. This is why I love Jung 😀

If Cooper’s ‘shadow self’ is currently in the driver’s seat and causing gleeful BOB-esque havoc — Vegas set reports confirmed a car full of cocaine and a dead dog’s leg! — then it stands to Peaksian reason that he’ll need to come back to the place where he ‘lost himself’ in order to recover his innocence and unify his psyche/spirit. This is why I love Jung 😀 Lynch stressed that there will be an extremely ‘emotional journey‘ anchoring the story. This makes me giddy. When Lynch dives into emotional realms, we are always rewarded. Look at the most memorable moments from his work — all of The Elephant Man, Henry’s struggle in Eraserhead, the psychic breakdowns in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, the touching sadness of The Straight Story, Frank’s feral madness in Blue Velvet, the climax of Inland Empire, and Laura’s heart-wrenching fall in Fire Walk With Me — how can you NOT be encouraged by this?!

And about that long-maligned-yet-now-acclaimed prequel? According to Lynch himself, TWIN PEAKS: Fire Walk With Me — and the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life — ‘is very important to this‘. Frost, who co-wrote the Season 3 script and is producing the whole enchilada with Lynch, admitted as much in a Reddit AMA. He also jammed The Secret History of Twin Peaks tome that was released late last year with several nods to FWWM (the ring!), as well as some canon-twisting details that strongly imply some fractured timeline/multiverse territory. Which may go towards explaining…

— and the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life — ‘is important to this‘. Frost, who co-wrote the Season 3 script and is producing the whole enchilada with Lynch, admitted as much in a Reddit AMA. He also jammed The Secret History of Twin Peaks tome that was released late last year with several nods to FWWM (the ring!), as well as some canon-twisting details that strongly imply some fractured timeline/multiverse territory. Which may go towards explaining… THE WALKING DEAD: Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer, Maddy Ferguson) is back. Ray Wise (Leland Palmer) is back. Walter Olkewicz (Jaques Renault) is back. Even the first Harry Truman (Robert Forster, who turned down the role in the original series) is back under the Sheriff’s hat. I’m telling you right now, folks — something is happening.

5. ‘THIS MUST BE WHERE PIES GO WHEN THEY DIE’

Since the news dropped yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want from this ‘revisiting’. It’s not so much about ‘answers’, really. Too often, pulling back the curtain kills the living, breathing magic of a thing.

Instead, I’m hoping for a feeling.

For many of us, Twin Peaks was a life-changing stew of intrigue and dread. Of weirdness and absurdity. Of emotion and mystery. Of so many things human…and otherworldly.

That’s why it moved me back then. Why it changed me. And that’s probably why it’s been trapped in the Black Lodge of our collective soul and psyche for 25+ years.

But on May 21st at 9PM, the door will open once more.

And if there’s an epic Previously On bumper..?

I will literally piss myself.