Axxon n, when I state that there is a minority of very vocal people on here who wanted such a back to basics approach, it is because that is exactly what they explicitly say that they wanted. And it does not apply to everyone that had grievances with the show, but were able to appreciate elements. I think it is a shame when someone like Brad, who clearly loves "Twin Peaks" every bit as much as I do, paints himself into a corner with extreme statements like there being "no plot and no protagonist", since clearly that is untrue (as a screenwriter by trade and education I would love to debate that with Brad, but that should probably in another thread), because those people miss the chance to enjoy The Return for what it is. And part of what it is, is to be frustrating and challenging by design. And so was the original "Twin Peaks" series. There is a lot of shared DNA between the Senor Droolcup scene and the Cole and the french woman scene. Twin Peaks is all about tearing down TV's narrative conventions, and putting them back together, permanently altered. That happened in the 90's and it happened again now.
My point was not so much to attack those nostalgic impulses, because we all had them going in. I am sure all of us had long mental lists of things we would like to have happened in The Return, and characters we would have liked to have seen (and yes I also think Piper Laurie is a giant missed opportunity). I wanted to bring attention to that the series anticipates fans having those desires f.ex. by playing around with 'how long can Cooper possibly stay Dougie'. From all previous series re-unions we know that it is just simply never the same. Trying to get back to the same formula 25 years after, to simply put a bow on thing,s would have felt hollow and artificial. While The Return impressed most fans but left around 20% less than satisfied, a "Fuller House" type approach, of getting the band back together and going through the motions, would have satisfied absolutely no one.
I also see a correlation between people that found the season hard to enjoy and navigate and people that did not read "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" in advance. That bit of transmedial storytelling was a great guide in terms of telling you what to pay special attention to on the series As Axxon also points out, we were also told that "The Odyssey" would be used as a narrative framework, and after the show ended, that we had not yet gotten to the end of that Odyssey structure, and that there was/is supposed to be more.