With “Twin Peaks: The Return” having come and gone, the world needs more David Lynch content. To celebrate the filmmaker’s 74th birthday, it seems Netflix heard everyone’s pleas, as the streaming platform released a new short film by Lynch titled “What Did Jack Do?” which clocks in at 17 minutes and has as crazy and enticing a logline as you’d expect from David Lynch: “A detective investigates a monkey who is suspected of murder.”
The black-and-white short has Lynch portray a slightly more restrained version of his “Twin Peaks” character Gordon Cole, and he is seen at a train station’s diner interrogating a monkey in a tiny suit (the monkey does talk). It’s a surreal, and oddly enthralling short that even breaks into song at one point. Of course, this won’t sound so surprising since it comes from one of the minds behind turning David Bowie’s character in “Twin Peaks” into a giant tea kettle.
Rumors that Lynch was planning on working with Netflix on a new project have circulated since at least 2018, where meetings between the director and executives from the streaming service were reported, but nothing had come from the meetings, until now. “What Did Jack Do?” was filmed back in 2016 at screened at Lynch’s Festival of Disruption in New York City in 2018 as well as some other festivals, but this is the first time the short has been widely available. Maybe this will be the beginning of a new partnership, but in the meantime, you can still enjoy the weird antics of tiny little Jack the talking monkey.