[3.4/10] Giving this another shot in light of the revival, but yeesh, this is rough. I originally gave this a 1/10, and while I'm content to upgrade it to "bad" on rewatch it's still pretty awful. Kyle McLachlan is a revelation, but he's really the only thing this episode has going for it. The dialogue and the acting are all so so bad. And my god, the score. It couldn't be cheesier if David Lynch were literally smashing the audience's faces into a vat of queso while it played. The murder mystery is convoluted right out of the gate, and the cryptic hints here and there come off forced rather than mysterious. Everyone is an exaggerated archetype, and none of the characters are compelling short of Agent Cooper (with the sheriff, Ed, and his paramour being serviceable but no great shakes). The young actors in particular are uniformly terrible (what is with the two punk kids barking at Blue Steel in the other cell) and the whole thing is just hokey as hell. There's also scores of blunt exposition and informed attributes that go over like a lead balloon.
But the worst part is that it's also a slog, with interminable, poorly-paced scenes and dull interludes. If ever there were a show that could do with some better editing, this is it. Hard to see, even on a rewatch, why this show is so lauded.
