I went through Lynch's complete filmography a few years ago and discovered that I have mixed feelings about his work. His best work - "Blue Velvet," "Mulholland Drive," and the original Twin Peaks + FWWM - is incredible, but the rest varies from "good" to "kind of awful," in my opinion.
With that said, I finally caught up on the new series (including tonight's masterful episode), and I now feel confident in declaring this season one of the two or three best things he's ever done. It's at once familiar and strange, and possibly the weirdest, most avant-garde thing ever made for television (though don't quote me on that - I'm admittedly a lot more knowledgeable about film than TV.)
It's alternately - and sometimes simultaneously - bizarre, terrifying, hilarious, and moving. That weird tonal mishmash has always been an element of Lynch's work, but I've rarely seen it executed so well as here. I'm amazed by his ability to create a mood of pure nightmarish horror in just a few minutes of screen time - and then leave me busting a gut in the very next scene.
It's not the Twin Peaks of the early 90s, and it never could be - but for me it's doing everything I could have hoped for, and more.