Here's How You Can Watch Every Season Of Twin Peaks
There are two kinds of people in this world — those who understand Twin Peaks and those who find Finnegans Wake by James Joyce more accessible.
The show earned a great deal of attention when it first premiered in 1990, with FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) investigating the murder of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the small town of Twin Peaks. It may sound like your average detective drama at first, but surreal and supernatural elements soon come into play that make this TV show unlike anything that has come before or after. Then again, that's pretty much what you have to get ready for when you watch anything by David Lynch.
The original run only lasted two seasons (plus the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me), but it's retained a sizable following over the years, culminating in a third season airing on Showtime back in 2017. Set 25 years after the second season's cliffhanger finale, season 3 (also known as Twin Peaks: The Return) gave fans precisely what they had been craving for decades (even if it did so in ways they didn't expect), and though a fourth season seems unlikely, at least we got to briefly revisit in this strange, wonderful world.
This isn't a show you can just jump into halfway through and expect to know what's going on. Even if you start from the beginning, you really have to pay attention to follow along with the twisted plot. However, all the seasons are out there for you to watch if you want to partake in Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost's signature brand of surrealist horror, but you may have to do a bit of jumping around.
The first two seasons of Twin Peaks are on several different platforms, not so much the third
Understanding Twin Peaks and watching the entire series have something in common — neither one is easy. You're going to need a few different streaming platforms if you want to see this story in its entirety without the aid of physical media, but luckily, we're here to guide you along the way.
You're in luck for the first two seasons that originally aired on ABC. You can watch all 30 episodes of the original Twin Peaks on Netflix, Hulu, or CBS All Access. If you decide to check it out on Netflix and like what you see, then you should definitely give the short film What Did Jack Do? a watch as well. It's only 17 minutes long and features David Lynch interrogating a monkey about a murder. It's odd, but if you're into Twin Peaks, then it should be a stroll through the park.
Your only option for streaming season 3 of Twin Peaks is Showtime. While the first two seasons made waves on basic network television back in the early '90s, the 18 chapters of The Return that debuted in 2017 brought an even more out-there, uncut vision that could only fit on a premium channel. That means the series has effectively been divided up, but if you don't want to pay for multiple streaming platforms, then you can always purchase the entire series on DVD or Blu-Ray. Of course, that still leaves you with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which can be streamed on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel — or again, you could purchase a physical copy.
It's great to see such an auteur-driven project find a persistent fanbase that still wants to dive into the series to this day. In the event you haven't checked out Twin Peaks yet, you may find yourself intrigued if you're a fan of shows like Lost, Broadchurch, and The X-Files.