‘Make sense of it’: Cult and complex TV fandoms, post-Truth discourse and an excess of meaning in Twin Peaks: Season 3

Abstract

The excess of mystery and ‘meaning’ in Twin Peaks: Season 3 (2017) reflects the post-truth ontological dissonance of information overload, tantalising the thirst for answers that dominates digital communication. Combining its clues and codes with payoffs for ‘long-term fan investments’ (Hills, 2020: 197) situates the series between two modes of fan participation: the curative puzzle-solving of complex ‘Quality TV’, and cult television’s ‘hyperdiegesis’. Season 3 is complex cult television, encouraging forensic and creative engagement. Replicating the polarisation of contemporary discourse while simultaneously promoting algorithmic literacy informs Mark Frost’s politicised vision for Twin Peaks, and David Lynch’s aesthetic experiments amplify this.