There’s a distressing moment in David Lynch’s much-anticipated return to Twin Peaks that perfectly personifies the dread confusion at the dark heart of this iconic TV series.

New character Bill Hastings, played with palpable panic by Scream star Matthew Lillard, is a high school head teacher incarcerated on suspicion of committing a brutal murder he says he witnessed in a dream.

“Please, tell me what’s going on,” he begs the police.

But when it comes to this cherry pie slice of small-town American gothic that changed the nature of serial television, it’s beyond doubt better for the audience when we have no clue.

Over 27 years ago, studio meddling infamously forced the early revelation of the series’ core mystery – who killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer?

Prompting a ratings nosedive then, now an unfettered Lynch is in no hurry to define the new nature of the beast.

Torchlight on trees, the static hum of electricity, a red light by train tracks: they all mark the thin line between the evil dead and us, their unwitting prey.

His nightmare vision is as deliciously disturbing as ever, turning the mundane into the macabre.

That includes a star turn from Mulholland Drive lead Naomi Watts, whose bizarre connection to Kyle McLachlan’s FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper deepens the mystery of what’s going on with him.

The last time we saw Cooper, he was trapped in the purgatorial netherworld that is the Red Room – never before had thick drapes and a black and white-patterned floor held such primordial menace – while his evil doppelganger returned to our world.

As such, McLachlan gets to cut loose with long dark hair and a leather jacket as the new vehicle for the malevolent BOB, a demonic spirit on a sick serial killing spree that stretches beyond the boundaries of Twin Peaks.

Brace yourself for dismembered bodies used like Lego and victims shot in the eyeball.

Elsewhere, an unnamed young man stands sentry over a glass box surrounded by cameras and told to watch for what might appear.

That leads to the single most terrifying vision of the new series so far.

Lillard’s head master languishes in Buckhorn, South Dakota and there are dubious deals going down over on the western seaboard too.

The expanded remit allows the slowly unfurling series a grander scope, but fans of the original will be plenty happy with returning faces too.

Kimmy Robertson’s high-pitched Sheriff’s secretary, Lucy, is as blissfully ditzy as ever.

The late Catherin E Coulson’s Log Lady has oblique guidance for Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) as he searches those accursed woods where so much sacrificial blood has been spilled.

And the still baby-faced James (James Marshall) gazes longingly at Mädchen Amick’s similarly well-preserved Shelly, as electro outfit the Chromatics play moodily in the neon-lit Bang Bang Bar.

But most haunting of all is the otherworld Palmer, played with immaculate grace by a returning Sheryl Lee.

“Do you recognise me?” she asks the imprisoned good Cooper with pain in her eyes.

“Are you Laura Palmer?” he replies, and she responds. “I feel like I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back.”

Diving headlong into this surreal experience once more requires no arm-bending.

The first four episodes of Twin Peaks are available to stream on Stan now.