“I’ll see you again in 25 years”: doppelganging nostalgia & Twin Peaks: The Return

ABSTRACT

Airing 25 years after its initial run, Twin Peaks’ television revival complexified nostalgic fulfillment through its subversive treatment of narrative, character, and temporality. Nowhere was nostalgic attachment challenged more than in The Return’s treatment of original series protagonist Special Agent Dale Cooper and his two doppelgangers. Through an analysis of the three representations of Cooper in The Return, we argue that the series’ resistant treatment of nostalgia demonstrates a critical mode of theorizing nostalgia as containing inherent multiplicity and duplicitousness. Thus, we argue for a theorizing of nostalgia itself as doppelganger.

KEYWORDS:

• Nostalgia
• television
• Americana
• memory
• Twin Peaks