At the core of Twin Peaks is the eighth episode of the Return wherein through the ancient evil Judy, the evil Bob is birthed into the world. In the lineage of evil, something abstract here has continuity, the “Judy” entity which births it, but there is nothing old about Bob and there is nothing about Bob which is not entirely tolerated by the systems through which Bob operates. Bob does not transgress any systems he inhabits - where he inhabits is a neutral ground, the forces of the Black and White lodge both using as their field of battle and communication the systems of the FBI, cars, cell phones, the town, the woods, etc. These systems are remarkably tolerant and able to disperse actions committed on all parts of this equation of Black/White lodge balancing - the child of an ancient evil, birthed in the atomic bomb’s fire - and yet how much has he affected? How much of the narrative is irreplaceable? If one had never visited the town of Twin Peaks or known the proper people in Las Vegas, would they ever know that this spiritual battle against true evil had even taken place?
Since sometime in the 1960s when the first theorists on the left and right started proposing grand unfoldings of all America, fantasies of war abound on all sides of American politics, in an intensity stuck in a stagnant rising motion. Theatrical productions have occurred of replaying daily these visions - the militia movement stuck in endless repetitions of Ruby Ridge and Waco, the playback/zoom loops of all the gun show VHS tapes showing their own Truth of the matter. Socialists chant blood and fire with guillotine memes while Fascists masturbate themselves with each rereading of Siege, Atomwaffen and Socialist Rifle Association both gearing up for the proposed end - visions of marching troops, mass graves, artillery fire, crop burnings, cities crumbling, flags hung on concrete walls while cradling assault rifles to the tune of the Daily Shoah or Chapo Trap House, now broadcast from secret bunkers beneath headquarters where all your dreams come true.
The lesson Lynch comprehended like few else in Twin Peaks is the one that was taught in the “civil war” events of Anni di piombo. The systems we exist under today, the uncannily, advertisement-polished cars and phones of Twin Peaks are remarkably capable of absorbing and dispersing energies that once would have been unleashed in their pure form. The individual remains joined to the same forces - Bob’s relation to Judy, Dale’s relation to the White Lodge, but no war is allowed to take place on its own terms. Every niche group is lost and alone, dredging up long forgotten isms, bombings committed towards no one in particular, lone wolves firing upon vague enemies embodied in chosen crowds, it is here that the 2nd Civil War has already begun and will only escalate. As in Anni di piombo, there are no battlefields, no trenches, no aircraft - we do not live in a world where humans are any longer the dominant power capable of making such landscapes of our own creation. The fantasies of unfolding (apocalypse) are nothing more than just that - unfoldings, fantasies, ideological dioramas of the creator’s obscure little ideology. There will be no Day of the Rope, there will be no Revolution, such a thing would never be allowed. The civil war will take place, but only in the minds of the ones plugging into the parts of the machine setup for the individualist war making, the fantasies and dying thoughts of school shooters, the battlefields of the 21st century.
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