The Bob Bang Theory
A tongue-in-cheek but also painfully earnest look at pop culture and anything else that deserves to be ridiculed while at the same time regarded with the utmost respect. It is written by Matt Marrone and emailed to Stu Horvath, who adds any typos or factual errors that might appear within.
———
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #93. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
———
This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.
Everything changed with Part 8.
The show exploded off the screen. David Lynch trended worldwide on Twitter. A mushroom cloud in White Sands birthed Bob. Laura Palmer was reintroduced as a Christlike figure. A dark drifter asked for a light, crushed skulls with a single bare hand and knocked listeners unconscious with harrowing words beamed across a black-and-white world of 1950s radio.
This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.
Characters walked in and out of Hopper paintings; “Office at Night,” “New York Movie,” “Nighthawks,” “Gas.” We may have witnessed the White Lodge. The colors. The music. The fortress on a mountain, over a sea of purple, a single slit window. The bell. The Giant. His lady friend. The years ticking past. The spider toad. Young love. The DJ-spin of the woodsmen walking around the convenience store, smoke billing in and out. A horse whinnies in the blackness. The end.
This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.
I like to tell Twin Peaks newbies how incredible it was that the show aired on network television in the early ‘90s. I warn them that when they watch the first two seasons, they should keep that in mind – that nothing quite like it had come before, and would never come again to free TV.
Now, cable has upped the ante, I say in full television historian mode, and it might be tough to understand just how shocking Twin Peaks was for its time.
But never did I expect Lynch to do to cable TV in 2017 what he did to ABC in 1991. Part 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return – excuse me, Twin Peaks: Season 3 – turned Showtime on its ear. I was already all-in, ready for anything. And even I wasn’t ready for this.
And I’m not ready to hit my July 3 deadline for my Unwinnable column. Sorry, Stu.
Twin Peaks is giving me what I’ve always wanted: the chance to have my mind blown in real time, the way I only knew academically it did to others a quarter century ago.
This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.
I need time to watch and rewatch. And more episodes to come before this all ends again. Until then, I’ll be deep in the well, drinking full.
———
Matt Marrone is a senior MLB editor at ESPN.com. He has been Unwinnable’s reigning Rookie of the Year since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @thebigm.
