Subverting Nostalgia in Twin Peaks: The Return - Resistance and the Television Revival

Sammanfattning: Twin Peaks (2017), also known as Twin Peaks: The Return, has a problematic relationship to its predecessor Twin Peaks (1990-1991). In this thesis, I argue that The Return represents the past by undermining a sense of pacifying nostalgia, instead highlighting the incongruity of its ostensible return. By performing a textual analysis of the series’ representations of the past in its visuals and narrative, as well as its portrayal of returning characters, I argue for a reading of The Return as being resistant in its depiction of nostalgia, a theory developed by Vera Dika. By also discussing nostalgia in The Return in broader terms of serial television in general, and the ‘revival’ genre in particular, I position The Return as a metafictionally situated revival text.