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'Twin Peaks' returns (with spoilers)

t’s been not quite 27 years since Mark Frost and David Lynch introduced "Twin Peaks" to ABC viewers. It returned on Sunday, on Showtime.

"Twin Peaks" is back, on Showtime,  with Agent Cooper, the Log Lady, and a lot of open-ended questions.
"Twin Peaks" is back, on Showtime, with Agent Cooper, the Log Lady, and a lot of open-ended questions.Read moreCourtesy Showtime

Spoiler alert: This post may, inadvertently or not, contain information about Sunday's Showtime premiere of Twin Peaks.

It's happening again. And no one should be able to say they didn't know what they were getting into this time.

There's a glass box, and our mission (should we choose to accept it) is to keep a careful eye on it, in case something appears inside it during these 18 episodes.

No one said anything about explanations.

It's been not quite 27 years since Mark Frost and David Lynch introduced Twin Peaks to ABC viewers with a two-hour episode (with commercials) that led millions to think it might be a particularly stylish murder mystery.

We know better now, and so Sunday's premium-cable return didn't wait to bring on the disjointed crazy, beginning with a scene between the Giant (Carel Struycken) and Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) that included the following bit of dialogue:

Giant: "Remember 430. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone."

Agent Cooper: "I understand."

So he's the one.

Coop, I'm afraid, is still possessed after all these years, which means that beyond the red curtains that seem to keep him so beautifully preserved, we'll likely be seeing a lot of Bad Hair MacLachlan doing Bad Things

There were plenty of ooh and ah moments in the episode, the most emotional being the return of the Log Lady, played by Catherine E. Coulson, in a scene filmed before her 2015 death from cancer.

At times, the premiere felt like a surreal high school reunion. Some characters had gotten old; others, such as sheriff's office receptionist Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson), seemed barely to have aged, though she now has a grown son.

Time's definitely passed. People drink lattes now. And that little girl from The Nanny (Madeline Zima) is old enough to have sex on television.

What's really changed, though, is television (thanks, in part, to Twin Peaks). On Sunday, Lynch's vision competed with HBO's The Leftovers and Starz's American Gods, two other shows that aren't afraid to leave their viewers guessing, as well as a legion of less challenging options that might not have existed in 1990.

Is what's playing in this glass box compelling enough to keep you guessing for 16 more episodes?

I can't begin to explain this season of The Leftovers, but it's a show I've loved from the beginning, and I'll be with it right until its end on June 4. I've never quite felt that emotional connection to Twin Peaks.

But I'm curious: What did you think of Sunday's premiere? And if you're planning to keep watching, what is the thing that will keep you going?