“Hello, Agent Cooper. I’ll see you again in 25 years.”

The words uttered by Sheryl Lee’s Laura Palmer in the cult TV series Twin Peaks are the words that open the show’s 2-hour long revival. In the trophy case at Twin Peaks High School, Laura Palmer’s homecoming photo, tiara and all, sits on display after all these years. The silence is filled with Angelo Badalamenti’s lush theme song, and just like that, we’re back.

27 years after its premiere and 25 years after the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the murder mystery/soap opera/psychological thriller has returned for an 18-part revival that is set to run until September. The revival features a cast of 217 people, both old and new, and focuses on “Agent Dale Cooper’s odyssey back to Twin Peaks,” according to David Nevins, president of TV channel Showtime.

After 25 years, Agent Cooper is still stuck in the Black Lodge, while his long-haired doppelgänger wreaks havoc with other criminals, displaying a lawlessness that will make your stomach turn and keep your eyes glued to the screen. In order for the good Dale to leave the Black Lodge, the bad Dale must return. Kyle MacLachlan’s portrayal of this doppelgänger shows his versatility as an actor, but ultimately makes us wonder if a certain evil entity has been lurking inside him this entire time…

While it is exciting to see all of the old faces and locales- the Great Northern Hotel, the bespectacled Dr. Jacoby, Ben and Jerry Horne and the Log Lady, the focus of the premiere is on the new characters, and where they fall into David Lynch’s age-old story made new. The premiere spends more time in New York City and suburban South Dakota than in Twin Peaks, where a college student watches a glass box for hours, waiting for something to happen, and a school principal is arrested for a brutal murder he may not have committed, or perhaps committed under the influence of a strong supernatural force. Either way, the new crowd has just as many secrets as the old, and David Lynch has already begun to interweave them, one episode in. 

The premiere of the Twin Peaks: The Return brings together both the old and new, and while they do not form a cohesive whole just yet, they will soon enough. Lost in a sea of questions darker than Cooper’s black coffee, there is still so much we do not yet know. But, like the owls, nothing is as it seems. Give it time, and the answers may become a little clearer. Meanwhile…