Fandom Overview: Twin Peaks
*sigh* So, there have been visiting relatives, and formatting issues, and now I appear to have lost portions of this overview, but I should be able to recover or rewrite them soon. In the meantime... Done! Please enjoy this...
Welcome to Twin Peaks
She’s dead. Wrapped in plastic.
-Pete Martell
Before Lost, Veronica Mars, or The X-Files, there was Twin Peaks. The brainchild of television writer/editor Mark Frost and film director/screenwriter David Lynch, the series was like nothing else on the air at the time: a mix of murder mystery, soap opera, slapstick, surrealism, science fiction, and horror that celebrated and subverted genre clichés. The music and cinematography were distinctive. The scripts were packed with references and non sequiturs. The cast was a mix of Lynch regulars, newcomers, and veterans emerging from “Where Are They Now?” obscurity. If ever a show was made to attract a cult following, it was this one.
Twin Peaks debuted in 1990 on ABC to incredible media coverage and strong ratings. For a while, it seemed like everyone in the country was asking, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Unfortunately, the show lost momentum in the second season - Lynch and Frost were preoccupied with other projects, and the premature revelation of the murderer’s identity (at the network’s insistence) left writers scrambling to fill the gap. Many fans would argue that the series was rallying toward the end, but it was too little, too late. Although a write-in campaign spearheaded by an organization called Citizens Opposing the Offing of Peaks, or C.O.O.P, persuaded the network to air all of the completed episodes, it couldn’t save the show from the ax.
Fortunately, it’s not in the nature of fandom to let a little thing like cancellation stop it.
The Story
The Series • The Books • Fire Walk with Me
The People
FBI • Police
Palmer • Briggs • Hayward • Horne • Hurley
Jennings • Johnson • Packard & Martell
Other Notable Figures • Assorted Entities
The Place
The ’Ships
Resources
The Story
It’s about secrets.
-David Lynch
The Twin Peaks canon proper consists of the television show and a theatrical film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (FWWM). There are also three tie-in books, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and Welcome to Twin Peaks: Access Guide to the Town.
The Series
The televised portion of the Twin Peaks ’verse encompasses a feature-length pilot, the seven-episode first season, and a second season consisting of a two-hour premiere and 21 episodes. Each episode covers approximately one day and, with one exception, each immediately follows the previous installment. In other words, the show takes about thirty-one hours to depict events taking place from February 24 to March 27, 1989.
Note: I’ve decided that the best way to give newcomers some idea of the show’s story, sensibility, and mise-en-scène is with a full recap of the pilot. Also, because Lynch and Frost agreed to make a self-contained version of the pilot for theatrical distribution in Europe in exchange for foreign financing, it has two endings: one that leads directly into the rest of the series, and another which is an AU but includes footage that was incorporated into episodes of the show.
An Additional Note: I am attemtping not to spoil major points of the show, such as Who Killed Laura Palmer (WKLP) or the events of the first and second seasons’ finales, for those unfamiliar with them. Please refrain from discussing such matters in your comments. Thank you.
The Pilot
Act One
Just after dawn, Pete Martell finds a corpse on the shore of Black Lake, near the Packard Sawmill. He calls the police and tells Sheriff Harry S. Truman what’s happened, once dispatcher Lucy Moran has specified which telephone the sheriff should pick up (“I’m going to transfer it to the phone on the table by the red chair. The red chair against the wall. The little table with the lamp on it. The lamp that we moved from the corner? The black phone, not the brown phone...”). Truman, Deputy Andy Brennan, and Dr. Will Hayward respond to the call and are shocked to discover that the dead girl is Laura Palmer.
Around this time, Laura’s mother, Sarah, realizes her daughter is missing and starts making phone calls. She speaks to the mother of Laura’s boyfriend, Bobby Briggs, and contacts her husband, Leland, at the Great Northern Hotel, where he is helping Ben Horne pitch a real-estate project called the Ghostwood Country Club and Estates to Norwegian investors, even though some of the land required is occupied by the Packard Sawmill. While the Palmers are talking, Sheriff Truman arrives and informs Leland of Laura’s death; Sarah overhears and starts screaming.
Act Two
Bobby Briggs has skipped football practice to have breakfast at the Double R Diner and canoodle with waitress Shelly Johnson, with whom he’s having an affair. They cancel their pre-homeroom romp when they spot her husband Leo’s truck outside her home.
At Twin Peaks High School, Donna Hayward smiles at Audrey Horne (who is sneaking a cigarette and exchanging her saddle shoes for red heels) and James Hurley (who remarks, “Nice day for a picnic”). Bobby Briggs arrives and is called to the principal’s office for questioning by the police. Soon afterward, the principal announces Laura’s death over the PA system and closes school for the day; Donna and James are stunned and grieved, while Audrey looks thoughtful.
Act Three
Sarah Palmer finally stops screaming when Dr. Hayward gives her a tranquilizer. As Sheriff Truman gently questions her about her daughter’s movements the night before, they’re interrupted by Deputy Hawk’s search of Laura’s bedroom - which yields a locked diary and a loaded video recorder - and the news that an employee of the Packard Sawmill has reported his teenaged daughter, Ronette Pulaski, missing.
Josie Packard, who owns the mill, gives her employees the day off over the objections of her manager and sister-in-law, Catherine Martell, who fires the first person she sees. Meanwhile, Ronette is found badly hurt just over the state line.
Back in town, James Hurley rides his motorcycle to the Gas Farm, a service station owned and operated by his uncle, Ed, and asks him to hold a message for Donna Hurley.
Enter FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who delivers a spectacular ninety-second monologue about his journey to Twin Peaks and the case thus far en route to meeting Sheriff Truman at the hospital. The lawmen establish a rapport - which takes about ten seconds (“Sheriff, what kind of fantastic trees have you got growing around here? Big, majestic…” “Douglas firs”) - and proceed to Ronette’s bed, where Cooper examines her left hand. On their way to the morgue they encounter the One-Armed Man, who shares their elevator, and Dr. Jacoby, who asks for and is denied permission to join them. In a squirm-inducing scene, Cooper extracts a small square of paper printed with the letter R from beneath the nail of Laura’s ring finger while the morgue’s fluorescent lights flicker wildly.
Act Four
Donna Hayward is waiting for Ed Hurley at the Gas Farm when he returns from picking up new drapes for his wife, Nadine. Ed gives Donna the note James left, which asks her to meet him at the Roadhouse later, just as her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, Mike, arrives and demands that she come with him to support Bobby Briggs, Mike’s best friend.
At the sheriff’s station, Cooper breaks the lock on Laura Palmer’s diary and reads aloud the last entry, which includes the phrase, “Nervous about meeting J tonight.” He finds a bag containing white particles and a safe-deposit box key taped to one page, and correctly predicts that the powder will prove to be cocaine.
A search of the woods around town has uncovered the primary crime scene, a derelict train car. Andy Brennan sobs as he describes the scene to Lucy Moran, who tries to console him.
Cooper questions Bobby Briggs and plays Laura’s videotape, which shows her wearing a golden heart pendant as she picnics with Donna Hayward. Bobby denies any wrongdoing and disavows all knowledge of the tape, though when Cooper asks if Laura might have been seeing someone whose name begins with a J he clearly has his suspicions.
Act Five
In the Great Northern, after Audrey Horne hears an employee warn the concierge that the Norwegians must not find out about Laura Palmer’s death before the Ghostwood deal is signed, she strolls into the conference room where the prospective investors are reviewing the project and mopes dramatically until one of them asks, “Is there something wrong, young pretty girl?”
Back at the station, while Agent Cooper questions Donna Hayward (who claims the tape was shot by a female hiker), Lucy Moran overhears Bobby Briggs tell Mike that they have a score to settle with a biker. However, when Lucy tells Cooper he already knows, having spotted a clue in the video: a close-up of Laura’s eye showing the reflection of a motorcycle.
Inside the train car where Laura Palmer and Ronette Pulaski were tortured, Cooper and Truman find bloody rags and puddles, a dirt mound topped by a gold pendant in the shape of half a broken heart, and a scrap of paper on which FIRE WALK WITH ME is written in blood.
Elsewhere, Audrey giggles as the spooked Norwegians flee the Great Northern, while James Hurley broods over the other half of the broken-heart charm.
Act Six
A subdued Audrey Horne listens to her mentally handicapped brother, Johnny, grieve for Laura Palmer, his tutor, by banging his head against a dollhouse.
In a room with a mounted deer’s head lying on a table (bank employee: “Oh. It fell down”), Cooper and Truman look inside Laura Palmer’s safe-deposit box, which contains over ten thousand dollars and a copy of Fleshworld, a swingers magazine, with a circled picture of Ronette Pulaski on one page.
At the Johnson home, Leo does some detective work of his own: after finding butts from two types of cigarette in an ashtray, he tells Shelly, “If I ever see two different brands of cigarettes in this house again I'm going to snap your neck like a twig.”
Night falls. Big Ed Hurley, watching Nadine frantically open and close her new drapes, gets a phone call from Norma Jennings and agrees to see her.
As many of the locals assemble for an emergency meeting, Truman, on stage next to Cooper, points out Josie Packard, Ben Horne, Catherine Martell, and the Log Lady (who flicks the lights off and on to persuade the crowd it’s time to start). After opening remarks by the doddering mayor (“Is this thing on?!?”) and Sheriff Truman, Cooper announces that Laura Palmer is the second victim of the person who, the previous year, murdered a woman named Teresa Banks. He warns that the killer may be someone local and suggests a curfew for the younger townsfolk.
Act Seven
Donna Hayward overhears her father discussing the gold heart found at the crime scene, then breaks the curfew to meet James Hurley at the Roadhouse. Cooper and Truman are on stakeout outside, while inside, Big Ed is sharing a booth with Norma Jennings. Unfortunately, Bobby and Mike, who have been looking for Donna, get to the Roadhouse first and confront her when she arrives. Ed tries to break it up but is gut-punched by Bobby, and a fight erupts. Truman calls for backup and loses track of Donna, who has slipped away with a friend of James.
Act Eight
As Cooper and Truman search for Donna, she meets James in a clearing. Agonized reminiscences of Laura lead to their first kiss and mutual declarations of love. Donna urges James to dispose of his half of the heart pendant, but he refuses and they bury it instead. As he’s taking her home they’re pulled over by Cooper and Truman, and James ends up in a jail cell not far from Bobby and Mike, who bark threateningly. Donna, on the other hand, is forgiven by her father for sneaking out.
After a stop at the police station’s nightly spread of coffee and donuts, Cooper leaves to check into the Great Northern while Truman pays a visit to his lover, Josie Packard (prompting a phone call from Catherine Martell to Ben Horne).
In the Palmer house, Sarah has a vision of...
The American Ending
...a gloved hand uncovering the buried half of her daughter’s golden heart.
The European Ending
...Killer Bob crouched at the foot of Laura’s bed.
Cooper is awakened by a phone call from the One-Armed Man, who asks to meet with him at the hospital. Immediately afterward, Lucy Moran calls Cooper with the news that Sarah Palmer has claimed to have seen her daughter’s killer and offered to work with a sketch artist. Cooper asks Lucy to tell Sheriff Truman to meet him at the hospital with the drawing.
At the morgue, the One-Armed Man tells Cooper and Truman about his connection to Killer Bob, and confirms that the sketch based on Sarah Palmer’s description resembles Bob. He leads Cooper and Truman to the hospital’s basement, where they find Bob crouched over a ring of candles around another dirt mound. Bob confesses to killing Teresa Banks and Laura Palmer before being shot by the One-Armed Man, who collapses. A wind blows the candles out and darkness descends.
The words TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER appear over a shot of an older, gray-haired Agent Cooper in the Red Room, sitting with the Man from Another Place and a smiling woman who looks like Laura Palmer. As music plays, the woman gives Cooper a kiss and whispers in his ear while the little man dances.
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Season One
The central story is the authorities’ search for Laura Palmer’s killer. It’s alternately aided and obstructed by the efforts of Donna Hayward, James Hurley, and Laura’s lookalike cousin Maddy Ferguson (who feel they owe it to Laura’s memory), and Audrey Horne (who sees it as a way of getting closer to Agent Cooper). There are other developments:
This episode, written by David Lynch and Mark Frost and directed by Lynch, was a crucial turning point for the show. Milestones include:
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Season Two
The second season can be divided into three arcs: the resolution of the Laura Palmer case, Cooper’s suspension from the FBI during a joint DEA-RCMP investigation into some stolen cocaine and One-Eyed Jack’s, and the deadly game between the reinstated Cooper and Windom Earle.
Other story lines include:
This Frost-scripted, Lynch-directed episode closes with a stunning tour de force of acting, music, and cinematography. Agent Cooper, at the Log Lady’s urging, goes to the Roadhouse, where Julee Cruise (who performs many songs used in the show) sings while Bobby Briggs sits at the bar and James Hurley and Donna Hayward share a booth and discuss the results of their search for Laura’s killer. The music falls silent as Cooper has a vision of the spotlit Giant, who says, “It is happening again.” At this point, WKLP is revealed when the murderer kills on screen. After the death (which always leaves me cringing with horror and pity), we cut back to the Roadhouse, and the music fades in as the Giant disappears. It seems as if an intuitive sense of the new tragedy permeates the room: Bobby looks lost and grieved, and James attempts to comfort a sobbing Donna as she mouths along with Julee Cruise, “Love, don’t go away / Come back this way / Come back and stay forever...” The final image is a close-up of Agent Cooper which slowly dissolves into the walls of the Red Room.
Be warned: the series ended on a number of cliffhangers, one of which causes me the occasional sleepless night to this day.
▲▲
Fire Walk with Me
The film begins with the dispatch of FBI agents Chester Desmond (Chris Issak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) to investigate the murder of Teresa Banks, which Gordon Cole has designated a “blue rose” case. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Cole, Dale Cooper, and Albert Rosenfield are visited by Philip Jeffries (David Bowie), an agent who has been missing for two years. Jeffries raves over static-filled images of BOB, the Man from Another Place, and other entities contemplating a creamed corn-like substance called garmonbozia (later identified in a subtitle as “pain and sorrow”) and performing strange acts in a dingy room, then vanishes just as news arrives that Agent Desmond has disappeared. The prelude ends with Cooper reporting his failure to find either Teresa’s murderer or Agent Desmond, and expressing his belief that the killer will strike again.
The rest of the movie is set during the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life. Although in the series Laura is the subject/object of others’ desires, memories, and theories, in the film she is finally a character in her own right, albeit one fighting for her sanity and her soul against enemies both mundane and uncanny.
FWWM was widely disliked at first. Many fans were disappointed that the cliffhangers of the series finale were not resolved, while viewers unfamiliar with the show tended to be bored, bewildered, or repulsed. New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby wrote, “It’s not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.” However, the film’s reputation has grown over the years. It is difficult watch, since it focuses on the saddest and most frightening elements of the series, but there are many moving and beautiful scenes. It’s also the first David Lynch movie to employ the skewed chronology of Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and INLAND EMPIRE, since lines spoken by Annie Blackburne to Laura Palmer in a dream sequence make FWWM a sequel as well as a prequel to the television show.
▲▲
The Books
The Secret Diary and the Autobiography are contradicted by screen canon (most often in matters of chronology), but both books contain a lot of interesting pre-series information about their narrators.
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, “as seen by Jennifer Lynch” (David Lynch’s daughter), begins on Laura’s twelfth birthday and ends shortly before her death. Until the release of FWWM, this book was a fan’s only way of getting into Laura’s head. It explores her drug use and sexual history (including encounters with Josie Packard and the madam of One-Eyed Jack’s) in much greater detail than would have been possible on television.
The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes, “as heard by Scott Frost” (Mark Frost’s brother) consists of transcribed tape-recordings Cooper made from the age of thirteen to the eve of his departure for Twin Peaks. Among other things, Cooper discusses his disastrous history with women (they tend to go crazy and/or die), his partnerships with Windom Earle and Dennis Bryson, and his pursuit of a serial killer in the gay community of San Francisco (“Diane, have been propositioned five times in the last hour. Not one fit the profile, though several were exceptional dancers”).
Welcome to Twin Peaks: Access Guide to the Town: although created through a collaboration between a real guidebook publisher and some of the series’ writers, this book is riddled with errors and inconsistencies.
The People
Twin Peaks had a huge cast - there are fifteen “starring” credits in the title sequence, and five more plus a fluctuating number of guest stars listed at the start of each episode - so you may want to refill your coffee mug before we start.
Note: The writers were inconsistent when spelling some names.
I have followed the “Twin Peaks Directory”
of the season one DVDs where possible.
▲▲
FBI
Special Agent Dale Bartholomew “Coop” Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan)
The “Freudian/Jungian/Holmesian detective” dispatched to investigate Laura Palmer’s murder is both the epitome and antithesis of a straight-arrow FBI agent. He’s a caffeine addict, a sharpshooter, and a Tibet-obsessed yogi guided by intuition and psychic phenomena as much as observation and deduction. His tape-recorded case notes make him sound like a Dadaist descendant of Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday (“Diane, I’m holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies”). Cooper appreciates the good things in life, whether it’s a slice of pie or Audrey Horne’s smile, but has learned the hard way to place duty above all else.
Agent Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer)
This forensics genius autopsies Laura Palmer and processes the evidence of later crimes. The quickness of his brain is matched only by the sharpness of his tongue - “I have traveled thousands of miles and apparently several centuries to this forgotten sinkhole in order to perform a series of tests. Now I do not ask you to understand these tests. I’m not a cruel man. I just ask you to get the hell out of my way so that I can finish my work” - and his dedication to justice.
Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch)
During his first visit to Twin Peaks, Cooper and Rosenfield’s supervisor apologetically yells, “HEARING’S GONE. LONG STORY.” He often addresses people with redundancies, absurdities, and embarrassing disclosures, but he’s shrewd and supportive of his men.
Diane
The assistant or secretary to whom Cooper addresses his tapes.
▲▲
Police
Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean)
Agent Cooper makes the sheriff “feel a bit like Dr. Watson,” but Truman is no mere sidekick. This archetypal Old West lawman gracefully shoulders the burdens of his day job and protects his town off the clock as the chief of the Bookhouse Boys. While he acknowledges that the secret society he currently heads was founded to combat “a sort of evil…Something very, very strange in these old woods…a darkness, a presence,” the down-to-earth Truman is disconcerted by the supernatural aspects of recent events in Twin Peaks.
Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill (Michael Horse)
Adept at tracking and surveillance, deadly with guns and knives, and well-versed in local lore, the Native American deputy and Bookhouse Boy puts his skills and knowledge to good use.
Deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz)
This gangling, clumsy, easily flustered, and softhearted deputy is often used for comic relief, but when standing up to a bullying outsider or disarming a dangerous suspect he rises to the occasion.
Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson)
The sheriff station’s receptionist/dispatcher sounds like a loopy blonde, but she’s nurturing, curious, industrious, and detail-oriented.
▲▲
Palmer
Leland Palmer (Ray Wise)
In the days following his daughter’s death, this attorney, a “well known, well liked, well respected member of [the] community,” vacillates between grief, hysteria, and a furious desire to see his daughter’s killer brought to justice. He’s prone to outbursts of song and dance.
Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie)
Laura once said that her chain-smoking mother was “kind of spooky. She used to see things, she had these dreams.” These mediumistic episodes failed to warn Sarah of her child’s fate, which leaves the bereaved mother howling with grief, but they do yield clues to the killer’s identity.
Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)
At first glance, Leland and Sarah’s daughter was the archetypal all-American dream girl: homecoming queen, part-time salesgirl and tutor, and co-founder of the local Meals on Wheels program. However, the search for Laura’s murderer reveals many secrets, including cocaine addiction, pornography, and prostitution. Laura inherited her mother’s clairvoyance and has spoken with Agent Cooper in dreams.
▲▲
Briggs
Major Garland Briggs, USAF (Don S. Davis)
A “deeply weird” martinet with surprising depths.
Robert “Bobby” Briggs (Dana Ashbrook)
The drug-dealing captain of the football team has a bad temper and a tendency to get in over his head, but can be tender with those he loves.
▲▲
Hayward
Will “Doc” Hayward, M.D. (Warren Frost)
This kindly physician is the patriarch of what appears to be the only happy family in town. “Doc” is usually a genial, compassionate man, but his temper is formidable.
Donna Marie Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle [series]/Moira Kelly [FWWM])
The eldest Hayward sister was Laura Palmer’s best friend. As she explores Laura’s dark side, the weepy Nancy Drew wannabe becomes overtly sexual and alienated.
▲▲
Horne
Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer)
This “slimy rat bastard americanus” neglects his family to pursue money, power, and sex. In the second season he tries to redeem himself, with mixed results.
Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn)
The Great Northern’s resident vixen likes provoking her father, Ben; getting her way; dancing to the music in her head; and Agent Cooper.
▲▲
Hurley
“Big” Ed Hurley (Everett McGill)
The lanky proprietor of Big Ed’s Gas Farm is a Bookhouse Boy and a surrogate father to his nephew, James.
Nadine Hurley, née Butler (Wendy Robie)
One-eyed, physically strong, and subject to mood swings and memory problems, Nadine is obsessed with inventing and patenting a noiseless drape runner.
James Hurley (James Marshall)
This sensitive biker and Bookhouse Boy has a weakness for women who bring him nothing but trouble.
▲▲
Jennings
Henry “Hank” Jennings (Chris Mulkey)
A Bookhouse Boy gone bad, ex-con Hank switches easily between charm and violence, and reacts badly to intrusions on his turf.
Norma Jennings, née Blackburne(?) (Peggy Lipton)
The warm-hearted proprietress of the Double R Diner tries to help others even while her own problems weigh her down.
▲▲
Johnson
Leo Johnson (Eric Da Re)
A long-distance trucker, drug-runner, thug for hire, and abusive husband, “Leo’s one of those guys you keep on a list and keep your eyes on.”
Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick)
This eleventh-grade dropout tells boss Norma Jennings, “I’ve got one man too many in my life, and I’m married to him.”
▲▲
Packard & Martell
Jocelyn “Josie” Packard (Joan Chen)
The beautiful and malaprop-prone widow who owns the Packard Sawmill is surrounded by dangerous secrets.
Pete Martell (Jack Nance)
When not exchanging barbs with wife Catherine, this drawling ex-lumberjack enjoys fishing and chess.
Catherine Martell, née Packard (Piper Laurie)
The formidable and vindictive manager of the Packard Sawmill is unhappily married to Pete Martell and gleefully complicit with Ben Horne.
▲▲
Other Notable Figures
Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley)
The first known victim of Laura Palmer’s murderer was a waitress and prostitute. In FWWM it’s revealed that she occasionally turned tricks with Laura.
Mary Sue Annie Blackburne (Heather Graham)
This Heisenberg-quoting ex-nun with scarred wrists falls from the sky - actually, she’s Norman Jennings’s little sister, freshly returned from a convent - and steals the heart of Agent Cooper, who calls her “a completely original human being.”
Dennis/Denise Bryson (David Duchovny)
When the DEA takes an interest in Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper looks forward to seeing Agent Bryson, “a good man…no nonsense,” unaware that his friend now prefers to be known as Denise.
Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh)
Agent Cooper’s brilliant and deranged ex-mentor conducts a campaign of surveillance, disguise, intimidation, torture, and murder in season two.
Madeleine “Maddy” Ferguson (Sheryl Lee)
Laura Palmer’s near-identical cousin was close to Laura (“I could feel her thoughts”) and people often project their feelings for the dead girl onto her.
Philip Michael Gerard, the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel)
This one-armed shoe salesman is “host” to MIKE but tries to prevent these episodes with a pharmaceutical cocktail.
Lawrence Jacoby, M.D. (Russ Tamblyn)
The practice of the quirky psychiatrist encompasses secret sessions with Laura Palmer, counseling for the Briggs family, couples therapy with the Hurleys, and house calls at the Great Northern.
Margaret Lanterman, the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson)
An irascible widow attuned to the preternatural, Margaret attributes her insights to the Ponderosa pine log she carries. Her proclamations include premonitions (“We don’t know what will happen, or when, but there are owls in the Roadhouse”) and an account of Laura Palmer’s movements in the woods on the night of her death.
Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine)
The survivor of a brutal attack by Laura palmer’s killer, she is primarily a device to bring the case under the FBI’s jurisdiction and spends most of the series comatose.
Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz)
A French-Canadian bartender, drug-runner, and card dealer known to associate with Leo Johnson.
Waldo
This pet mynah perched on and pecked Laura Palmer shortly before her death. He repeats phrases from the night of the murder.
▲▲
Assorted Entities
BOB, AKA Killer Bob (Frank Silva)
Laura Palmer’s nemesis takes the form of a man with FIRE WALK WITH ME tattooed on his left shoulder and long, gray hair. He taunts Agent Cooper, “You may think I’ve gone insane, but I promise I will kill again.” His manifestations are accompanied by a smell reminiscent of scorched engine oil.
MIKE (Al Strobel)
The being that speaks through Gerard has “…been touched by the devilish one. A tattoo on the left shoulder…‘Thru the darkness / of Future Past / the magician longs to see / one chants out / between two worlds / Fire - walk with me.’* Oh, but then I saw the face of God and was purified. I took off the arm, but remained close to this vessel, inhabiting from time to time for one single purpose…to stop him!” (i.e. BOB).
* I have quoted the poem as it appears in Images, a book about David Lynch’s work in painting, sculpture, photography, and film.
The Man from Another Place, AKA the Little Man (Michael J. Anderson)
A small, red-clad figure seen most often in Red Room, he frequently dances and makes cryptic statements like, “Where we’re from, the birds sing a pretty song and there’s always music in the air.”
The Giant (Carel Struycken)
This tall, soft-spoken, bow-tie-wearing apparition gives Agent Cooper hints: “There is a man in a smiling bag,” “The owls are not what they seem,” and “Without chemicals he points.”
The Place
Twin Peaks is different, a long way from the world.
-Sheriff Harry S. Truman
The sets and locations of Twin Peaks are practically characters in their own right. Here are some key places.
The Book House
The book-filled coffeehouse and bar is a favorite hangout of the local bikers, and for “going on twenty years now” has served as the headquarters of the secret society currently known as the Bookhouse Boys. The room in the back can be used for interrogations or as a quiet place to recover from a binge.
The Great Northern
Situated near scenic Whitetail Falls, this hotel is the Horne family’s flagship and home. Guests enjoy “clean, reasonably priced” accommodations ranging from single-occupancy rooms to suites, fine dining in the Timber Room, and round-the-clock room service. It is a popular venue for conventions, receptions, and fund-raisers.
One-Eyed Jack’s
The amenities of this semiprivate club - located 5.2 miles away from town, just over the US-Canadian border - include games of chance and the companionship of the exotically costumed 52 Pick-Up Girls, some of whom are recruits from the perfume counter of Horne’s department store.
The Roadhouse
Despite the red neon sign over the entrance that reads THE BANG BANG BAR, everyone calls this dance hall the Roadhouse. It is often used for civic events, such as hearings by the local circuit judge and the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant. Agent Cooper sees the Giant here on three occasions.
Glastonberry Grove
Approximately half a mile from the site of Laura Palmer’s murder is a circle of twelve sycamore trees surrounding a small, stone-lined pool of black liquid. Deputy Hawk finds pages from Laura’s diary and a bloodstained rag at the grove while tracking the killer’s spoor away from the crime scene. Agent Cooper notes that its name evokes King Arthur’s resting place, Glastonbury.
The Red Room, AKA the Waiting Room
This red-draped chamber with distinctive black-and-white zigzag flooring is the setting for encounters between Agent Cooper, the Man from Another Place, and others - including the dead. The normal laws of physics do not apply here: speech is distorted (except for Cooper’s), causality and entropy seem to operate differently (if at all), people and objects appear and vanish, and multiple bodies can occupy a space simultaneously.
The ’Ships
The show featured a huge number of romantic and/or sexual relationships. Aside from the marriages, pairings include Laura Palmer/Bobby Briggs, Bobby/Shelly Johnson, Laura/Leo Johnson/Ronette Pulaski/Jacques Renault, Laura/James Hurley, James/Donna Hayward, Ed Hurley/Norma Jennings, Ben Horne/Catherine Martell, Harry Truman/Josie Packard, Andy Brennan/Lucy Moran, and Dale Cooper/Annie Blackburne.
Fortunately, the fandom is too small to have generated cutesy portmanteau names for its pairings.
The Het
In Twin Peaks fanfic, there’s really only one het pairing that matters: Dale Cooper/Audrey Horne. According to rumor, the show’s writers intended to pair these characters but Kyle MacLachlan argued that the FBI agent would never pursue a relationship with a high-school girl who was part of an investigation, no matter how tempting. Nonetheless, many fanfic authors have chosen to consummate the relationship.
Harry/Josie is mentioned often, but usually as a prelude or contrast to...
The Slash
...which makes up a fair proportion of the existing online fanfic. Cooper/Truman and Cooper/Rosenfield are the most frequent pairings, but I’ve also seen Truman/Rosenfield and Truman/Hawk; however, Cooper is the most likely to be slashed in crossovers.
Femme slash is less common but does exist. It usually features Laura Palmer (who is arguably bi in screen canon and definitely bi if you accept book canon) or Audrey Horne (who manages a convincing flirtation with the madam of One-Eyed Jack’s, and is more likely to be slashed in crossovers).
Resources
Merchandise
Video
For many years Twin Peaks was only available through videotapes of mediocre picture and sound quality or re-runs on the Bravo network. Furthermore, the American version of the pilot was never available on VHS in the States; instead, fans could buy the European version, which was touted as a “SPECIAL HOME VIDEO EDITION OF THE SERIES PREMIERE!” that “Contains Footage Not Broadcast!”
In 2001, Artisan released an excellent DVD set of season one (now discontinued, and the region 1 version lacks the pilot). A year later New Line Home Video put out a FWWM DVD, and thereby became the subject of an ongoing fan campaign for the release of the many scenes that were cut from the film’s final edit. A region 1 DVD of the American pilot also became available that year; strangely, there has been no (legal) region 1 DVD release of the European version. Since then, it’s been a long wait for the season two DVDs; as of December 21, 2006, the latest word was that they will come out April 10, 2007.
ETA: Season two was released as scheduled. A few months later, Paramount Home Video released a boxset of the entire series known as the Definitive Gold Box Edition, which includes both versions of the pilot; deleted scenes; the opening monologue and a sketch from Kyle MacLachlan’s appearance on Saturday Night Live; documentaries about the show, the annual Twin Peaks festival, and David Lynch; and publicity material and ads, including Twin Peaks-themed Georgia Coffee commercials that Lynch made for Japanese television.
Books
Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, edited by David Lavery, is a fantastic collection of scholarly essays, including some interesting meditations on the nature of television drama, fandom, and gender issues. The appendices are especially helpful to fans: they include rosters of the cast, writers, and directors; a calendar showing what happened on each day within the show; and scene by scene synopses of the film and every episode.
Twin Peaks: Behind the Scenes, by Mark Altman, is an unauthorized quickie tie-in that’s unattractively laid out and riddled with typos, but it has many entertaining anecdotes from cast and crew.
Online
LiveJournal
twinpeaks is a community for fans of Twin Peaks. Members discuss theories, post artwork, share rumors and news, and indulge in a certain amount of squeeage.
twinpeaks_icons and davidlynch are exactly what their names imply, communities devoted to Twin Peaks iconage and series co-creator David Lynch, respectively.
_twinpeaksfic was created in 2005 to encourage fanfic. So far it’s been pretty slow, but hopefully things will pick up after the release of the season two DVDs in April 2007. Sadly, tp_femslash has even less traffic.
Websites
Twin Peaks Online is a no-frills site with a lot of content, including some fanfiction.
Glastonberry Grove is more whimsically designed and may have even more content than Twin Peaks Online (but no fanfiction).
LynchNet.com is probably the best place for news concerning David Lynch, including the long-awaited DVD release of season two, and it has an excellent section devoted to Twin Peaks.
The Twin Peaks Brewing Co. has a ridiculous number of screencaps from season one and FWWM. It also has some multimedia content and coffee recipes. The link takes you to the welcome page; click on the graphic to enter.
There used to be an amateur fan site, cheekily named The Official Twin Peaks Web Site, with good episode synopses and some great screen captures, but it seems to have vanished. I post the link in the hope that it has merely gone on hiatus or relocated.
Bienvenue à Twin Peaks, as you may have guessed from the name, is a French fan site. It’s the best source I’ve found for images from the pilot and season two.
There is a surprisingly good Wikipedia entry about the show.
I highly recommend the snarkalicious episode synopses at Television Without Pity.
Fanfiction
Although there was fair amount of Twin Peaks fanfic in ’zines during the early nineties, very little of it has made its way to the internet. Most of the stories that are online are slash and/or crossovers.
The only Twin Peaks archive that I know of is The Bookhouse Boys Archive, which is mostly slash.
I found some stories at Twin Peaks Online, Witness List (an archive of slash featuring characters in law enforcement), Yuletide, and Silverlake.
If you’re feeling brave, there’s always the Pit of Voles, though not all of the Twin Peaks stories there are listed in the show index.
Welcome to Twin Peaks
She’s dead. Wrapped in plastic.
-Pete Martell
Before Lost, Veronica Mars, or The X-Files, there was Twin Peaks. The brainchild of television writer/editor Mark Frost and film director/screenwriter David Lynch, the series was like nothing else on the air at the time: a mix of murder mystery, soap opera, slapstick, surrealism, science fiction, and horror that celebrated and subverted genre clichés. The music and cinematography were distinctive. The scripts were packed with references and non sequiturs. The cast was a mix of Lynch regulars, newcomers, and veterans emerging from “Where Are They Now?” obscurity. If ever a show was made to attract a cult following, it was this one.
Twin Peaks debuted in 1990 on ABC to incredible media coverage and strong ratings. For a while, it seemed like everyone in the country was asking, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Unfortunately, the show lost momentum in the second season - Lynch and Frost were preoccupied with other projects, and the premature revelation of the murderer’s identity (at the network’s insistence) left writers scrambling to fill the gap. Many fans would argue that the series was rallying toward the end, but it was too little, too late. Although a write-in campaign spearheaded by an organization called Citizens Opposing the Offing of Peaks, or C.O.O.P, persuaded the network to air all of the completed episodes, it couldn’t save the show from the ax.
Fortunately, it’s not in the nature of fandom to let a little thing like cancellation stop it.
The Story
The Series • The Books • Fire Walk with Me
The People
FBI • Police
Palmer • Briggs • Hayward • Horne • Hurley
Jennings • Johnson • Packard & Martell
Other Notable Figures • Assorted Entities
The Place
The ’Ships
Resources
The Story
It’s about secrets.
-David Lynch
The Twin Peaks canon proper consists of the television show and a theatrical film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (FWWM). There are also three tie-in books, The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and Welcome to Twin Peaks: Access Guide to the Town.
The Series
The televised portion of the Twin Peaks ’verse encompasses a feature-length pilot, the seven-episode first season, and a second season consisting of a two-hour premiere and 21 episodes. Each episode covers approximately one day and, with one exception, each immediately follows the previous installment. In other words, the show takes about thirty-one hours to depict events taking place from February 24 to March 27, 1989.
Note: I’ve decided that the best way to give newcomers some idea of the show’s story, sensibility, and mise-en-scène is with a full recap of the pilot. Also, because Lynch and Frost agreed to make a self-contained version of the pilot for theatrical distribution in Europe in exchange for foreign financing, it has two endings: one that leads directly into the rest of the series, and another which is an AU but includes footage that was incorporated into episodes of the show.
An Additional Note: I am attemtping not to spoil major points of the show, such as Who Killed Laura Palmer (WKLP) or the events of the first and second seasons’ finales, for those unfamiliar with them. Please refrain from discussing such matters in your comments. Thank you.
The Pilot
Act One
Just after dawn, Pete Martell finds a corpse on the shore of Black Lake, near the Packard Sawmill. He calls the police and tells Sheriff Harry S. Truman what’s happened, once dispatcher Lucy Moran has specified which telephone the sheriff should pick up (“I’m going to transfer it to the phone on the table by the red chair. The red chair against the wall. The little table with the lamp on it. The lamp that we moved from the corner? The black phone, not the brown phone...”). Truman, Deputy Andy Brennan, and Dr. Will Hayward respond to the call and are shocked to discover that the dead girl is Laura Palmer.
Around this time, Laura’s mother, Sarah, realizes her daughter is missing and starts making phone calls. She speaks to the mother of Laura’s boyfriend, Bobby Briggs, and contacts her husband, Leland, at the Great Northern Hotel, where he is helping Ben Horne pitch a real-estate project called the Ghostwood Country Club and Estates to Norwegian investors, even though some of the land required is occupied by the Packard Sawmill. While the Palmers are talking, Sheriff Truman arrives and informs Leland of Laura’s death; Sarah overhears and starts screaming.
Act Two
Bobby Briggs has skipped football practice to have breakfast at the Double R Diner and canoodle with waitress Shelly Johnson, with whom he’s having an affair. They cancel their pre-homeroom romp when they spot her husband Leo’s truck outside her home.
At Twin Peaks High School, Donna Hayward smiles at Audrey Horne (who is sneaking a cigarette and exchanging her saddle shoes for red heels) and James Hurley (who remarks, “Nice day for a picnic”). Bobby Briggs arrives and is called to the principal’s office for questioning by the police. Soon afterward, the principal announces Laura’s death over the PA system and closes school for the day; Donna and James are stunned and grieved, while Audrey looks thoughtful.
Act Three
Sarah Palmer finally stops screaming when Dr. Hayward gives her a tranquilizer. As Sheriff Truman gently questions her about her daughter’s movements the night before, they’re interrupted by Deputy Hawk’s search of Laura’s bedroom - which yields a locked diary and a loaded video recorder - and the news that an employee of the Packard Sawmill has reported his teenaged daughter, Ronette Pulaski, missing.
Josie Packard, who owns the mill, gives her employees the day off over the objections of her manager and sister-in-law, Catherine Martell, who fires the first person she sees. Meanwhile, Ronette is found badly hurt just over the state line.
Back in town, James Hurley rides his motorcycle to the Gas Farm, a service station owned and operated by his uncle, Ed, and asks him to hold a message for Donna Hurley.
Enter FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who delivers a spectacular ninety-second monologue about his journey to Twin Peaks and the case thus far en route to meeting Sheriff Truman at the hospital. The lawmen establish a rapport - which takes about ten seconds (“Sheriff, what kind of fantastic trees have you got growing around here? Big, majestic…” “Douglas firs”) - and proceed to Ronette’s bed, where Cooper examines her left hand. On their way to the morgue they encounter the One-Armed Man, who shares their elevator, and Dr. Jacoby, who asks for and is denied permission to join them. In a squirm-inducing scene, Cooper extracts a small square of paper printed with the letter R from beneath the nail of Laura’s ring finger while the morgue’s fluorescent lights flicker wildly.
Act Four
Donna Hayward is waiting for Ed Hurley at the Gas Farm when he returns from picking up new drapes for his wife, Nadine. Ed gives Donna the note James left, which asks her to meet him at the Roadhouse later, just as her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, Mike, arrives and demands that she come with him to support Bobby Briggs, Mike’s best friend.
At the sheriff’s station, Cooper breaks the lock on Laura Palmer’s diary and reads aloud the last entry, which includes the phrase, “Nervous about meeting J tonight.” He finds a bag containing white particles and a safe-deposit box key taped to one page, and correctly predicts that the powder will prove to be cocaine.
A search of the woods around town has uncovered the primary crime scene, a derelict train car. Andy Brennan sobs as he describes the scene to Lucy Moran, who tries to console him.
Cooper questions Bobby Briggs and plays Laura’s videotape, which shows her wearing a golden heart pendant as she picnics with Donna Hayward. Bobby denies any wrongdoing and disavows all knowledge of the tape, though when Cooper asks if Laura might have been seeing someone whose name begins with a J he clearly has his suspicions.
Act Five
In the Great Northern, after Audrey Horne hears an employee warn the concierge that the Norwegians must not find out about Laura Palmer’s death before the Ghostwood deal is signed, she strolls into the conference room where the prospective investors are reviewing the project and mopes dramatically until one of them asks, “Is there something wrong, young pretty girl?”
Back at the station, while Agent Cooper questions Donna Hayward (who claims the tape was shot by a female hiker), Lucy Moran overhears Bobby Briggs tell Mike that they have a score to settle with a biker. However, when Lucy tells Cooper he already knows, having spotted a clue in the video: a close-up of Laura’s eye showing the reflection of a motorcycle.
Inside the train car where Laura Palmer and Ronette Pulaski were tortured, Cooper and Truman find bloody rags and puddles, a dirt mound topped by a gold pendant in the shape of half a broken heart, and a scrap of paper on which FIRE WALK WITH ME is written in blood.
Elsewhere, Audrey giggles as the spooked Norwegians flee the Great Northern, while James Hurley broods over the other half of the broken-heart charm.
Act Six
A subdued Audrey Horne listens to her mentally handicapped brother, Johnny, grieve for Laura Palmer, his tutor, by banging his head against a dollhouse.
In a room with a mounted deer’s head lying on a table (bank employee: “Oh. It fell down”), Cooper and Truman look inside Laura Palmer’s safe-deposit box, which contains over ten thousand dollars and a copy of Fleshworld, a swingers magazine, with a circled picture of Ronette Pulaski on one page.
At the Johnson home, Leo does some detective work of his own: after finding butts from two types of cigarette in an ashtray, he tells Shelly, “If I ever see two different brands of cigarettes in this house again I'm going to snap your neck like a twig.”
Night falls. Big Ed Hurley, watching Nadine frantically open and close her new drapes, gets a phone call from Norma Jennings and agrees to see her.
As many of the locals assemble for an emergency meeting, Truman, on stage next to Cooper, points out Josie Packard, Ben Horne, Catherine Martell, and the Log Lady (who flicks the lights off and on to persuade the crowd it’s time to start). After opening remarks by the doddering mayor (“Is this thing on?!?”) and Sheriff Truman, Cooper announces that Laura Palmer is the second victim of the person who, the previous year, murdered a woman named Teresa Banks. He warns that the killer may be someone local and suggests a curfew for the younger townsfolk.
Act Seven
Donna Hayward overhears her father discussing the gold heart found at the crime scene, then breaks the curfew to meet James Hurley at the Roadhouse. Cooper and Truman are on stakeout outside, while inside, Big Ed is sharing a booth with Norma Jennings. Unfortunately, Bobby and Mike, who have been looking for Donna, get to the Roadhouse first and confront her when she arrives. Ed tries to break it up but is gut-punched by Bobby, and a fight erupts. Truman calls for backup and loses track of Donna, who has slipped away with a friend of James.
Act Eight
As Cooper and Truman search for Donna, she meets James in a clearing. Agonized reminiscences of Laura lead to their first kiss and mutual declarations of love. Donna urges James to dispose of his half of the heart pendant, but he refuses and they bury it instead. As he’s taking her home they’re pulled over by Cooper and Truman, and James ends up in a jail cell not far from Bobby and Mike, who bark threateningly. Donna, on the other hand, is forgiven by her father for sneaking out.
After a stop at the police station’s nightly spread of coffee and donuts, Cooper leaves to check into the Great Northern while Truman pays a visit to his lover, Josie Packard (prompting a phone call from Catherine Martell to Ben Horne).
In the Palmer house, Sarah has a vision of...
The American Ending
...a gloved hand uncovering the buried half of her daughter’s golden heart.
The European Ending
...Killer Bob crouched at the foot of Laura’s bed.
Cooper is awakened by a phone call from the One-Armed Man, who asks to meet with him at the hospital. Immediately afterward, Lucy Moran calls Cooper with the news that Sarah Palmer has claimed to have seen her daughter’s killer and offered to work with a sketch artist. Cooper asks Lucy to tell Sheriff Truman to meet him at the hospital with the drawing.
At the morgue, the One-Armed Man tells Cooper and Truman about his connection to Killer Bob, and confirms that the sketch based on Sarah Palmer’s description resembles Bob. He leads Cooper and Truman to the hospital’s basement, where they find Bob crouched over a ring of candles around another dirt mound. Bob confesses to killing Teresa Banks and Laura Palmer before being shot by the One-Armed Man, who collapses. A wind blows the candles out and darkness descends.
The words TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER appear over a shot of an older, gray-haired Agent Cooper in the Red Room, sitting with the Man from Another Place and a smiling woman who looks like Laura Palmer. As music plays, the woman gives Cooper a kiss and whispers in his ear while the little man dances.
▲▲
Season One
The central story is the authorities’ search for Laura Palmer’s killer. It’s alternately aided and obstructed by the efforts of Donna Hayward, James Hurley, and Laura’s lookalike cousin Maddy Ferguson (who feel they owe it to Laura’s memory), and Audrey Horne (who sees it as a way of getting closer to Agent Cooper). There are other developments:
- The search for Jacques Renault, a key figure in the local cocaine traffic and a person of interest in the Laura Palmer case, leads to the Canadian casino/brothel One Eyed Jack’s.
- Bobby Briggs schemes against Leo Johnson (who is a double threat, since Bobby is sleeping with his wife, Shelly, and owes him the $10,000 that was in Laura’s safety deposit box) and James Hurley (for seeing Laura behind his back).
- Josie Packard asks Harry Truman to protect her from Ben Horne and Catherine Martell, whom she accuses of plotting to destroy the Packard Sawmill in order to advance the Ghostwoods project.
- Deputy Andy Brennan is confused by Lucy Moran, who is running hot and cold.
- The Horne brothers woo a high-spirited group of prospective investors from Iceland.
- A newly paroled Hank Jennings gets back in touch with family, friends, and foes.
This episode, written by David Lynch and Mark Frost and directed by Lynch, was a crucial turning point for the show. Milestones include:
- The first visit to One Eyed Jack’s.
- Agent Cooper demonstrates the Tibetan Method, “a deductive technique involving mind/body coordination operating hand-in-hand with the deepest level of intuition”-as Sheriff Truman reads aloud each name from a list of people and explains their connection to Laura Palmer, Cooper selects a rock from a bucket held by an oven-mitted Hawk and attempts to break a bottle exactly sixty-and-a-half feet away, while Andy Brennan observes from a spot near the target and Lucy records the results.
- Agent Albert Rosenfield arrives and immediately sets a land-speed record for snark.
- Leland Palmer makes his debut as a dancer.
- Agent Cooper falls asleep in his hotel room and dreams the bonus footage from the European version of the pilot. If LiveJournal had existed, it would have been awash in “OMGWTFdwarf” icons.
▲▲
Season Two
The second season can be divided into three arcs: the resolution of the Laura Palmer case, Cooper’s suspension from the FBI during a joint DEA-RCMP investigation into some stolen cocaine and One-Eyed Jack’s, and the deadly game between the reinstated Cooper and Windom Earle.
Other story lines include:
- the ongoing struggle over Ghostwood
- a love triangle between Andy, Lucy, and the menswear manager of Horne’s department store
- Ben Horne’s pursuit of goodness
- Nadine Hurley’s reversion to adolescence
- revelations about Josie Packard’s past
- James Hurley’s entanglement with a femme fatale
- a food critic’s visit to Twin Peaks
- the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant
This Frost-scripted, Lynch-directed episode closes with a stunning tour de force of acting, music, and cinematography. Agent Cooper, at the Log Lady’s urging, goes to the Roadhouse, where Julee Cruise (who performs many songs used in the show) sings while Bobby Briggs sits at the bar and James Hurley and Donna Hayward share a booth and discuss the results of their search for Laura’s killer. The music falls silent as Cooper has a vision of the spotlit Giant, who says, “It is happening again.” At this point, WKLP is revealed when the murderer kills on screen. After the death (which always leaves me cringing with horror and pity), we cut back to the Roadhouse, and the music fades in as the Giant disappears. It seems as if an intuitive sense of the new tragedy permeates the room: Bobby looks lost and grieved, and James attempts to comfort a sobbing Donna as she mouths along with Julee Cruise, “Love, don’t go away / Come back this way / Come back and stay forever...” The final image is a close-up of Agent Cooper which slowly dissolves into the walls of the Red Room.
Be warned: the series ended on a number of cliffhangers, one of which causes me the occasional sleepless night to this day.
▲▲
Fire Walk with Me
The film begins with the dispatch of FBI agents Chester Desmond (Chris Issak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) to investigate the murder of Teresa Banks, which Gordon Cole has designated a “blue rose” case. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Cole, Dale Cooper, and Albert Rosenfield are visited by Philip Jeffries (David Bowie), an agent who has been missing for two years. Jeffries raves over static-filled images of BOB, the Man from Another Place, and other entities contemplating a creamed corn-like substance called garmonbozia (later identified in a subtitle as “pain and sorrow”) and performing strange acts in a dingy room, then vanishes just as news arrives that Agent Desmond has disappeared. The prelude ends with Cooper reporting his failure to find either Teresa’s murderer or Agent Desmond, and expressing his belief that the killer will strike again.
The rest of the movie is set during the last seven days of Laura Palmer’s life. Although in the series Laura is the subject/object of others’ desires, memories, and theories, in the film she is finally a character in her own right, albeit one fighting for her sanity and her soul against enemies both mundane and uncanny.
FWWM was widely disliked at first. Many fans were disappointed that the cliffhangers of the series finale were not resolved, while viewers unfamiliar with the show tended to be bored, bewildered, or repulsed. New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby wrote, “It’s not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.” However, the film’s reputation has grown over the years. It is difficult watch, since it focuses on the saddest and most frightening elements of the series, but there are many moving and beautiful scenes. It’s also the first David Lynch movie to employ the skewed chronology of Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and INLAND EMPIRE, since lines spoken by Annie Blackburne to Laura Palmer in a dream sequence make FWWM a sequel as well as a prequel to the television show.
▲▲
The Books
The Secret Diary and the Autobiography are contradicted by screen canon (most often in matters of chronology), but both books contain a lot of interesting pre-series information about their narrators.
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, “as seen by Jennifer Lynch” (David Lynch’s daughter), begins on Laura’s twelfth birthday and ends shortly before her death. Until the release of FWWM, this book was a fan’s only way of getting into Laura’s head. It explores her drug use and sexual history (including encounters with Josie Packard and the madam of One-Eyed Jack’s) in much greater detail than would have been possible on television.
The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes, “as heard by Scott Frost” (Mark Frost’s brother) consists of transcribed tape-recordings Cooper made from the age of thirteen to the eve of his departure for Twin Peaks. Among other things, Cooper discusses his disastrous history with women (they tend to go crazy and/or die), his partnerships with Windom Earle and Dennis Bryson, and his pursuit of a serial killer in the gay community of San Francisco (“Diane, have been propositioned five times in the last hour. Not one fit the profile, though several were exceptional dancers”).
Welcome to Twin Peaks: Access Guide to the Town: although created through a collaboration between a real guidebook publisher and some of the series’ writers, this book is riddled with errors and inconsistencies.
The People
Twin Peaks had a huge cast - there are fifteen “starring” credits in the title sequence, and five more plus a fluctuating number of guest stars listed at the start of each episode - so you may want to refill your coffee mug before we start.
Note: The writers were inconsistent when spelling some names.
I have followed the “Twin Peaks Directory”
of the season one DVDs where possible.
▲▲
FBI
Special Agent Dale Bartholomew “Coop” Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan)
The “Freudian/Jungian/Holmesian detective” dispatched to investigate Laura Palmer’s murder is both the epitome and antithesis of a straight-arrow FBI agent. He’s a caffeine addict, a sharpshooter, and a Tibet-obsessed yogi guided by intuition and psychic phenomena as much as observation and deduction. His tape-recorded case notes make him sound like a Dadaist descendant of Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday (“Diane, I’m holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies”). Cooper appreciates the good things in life, whether it’s a slice of pie or Audrey Horne’s smile, but has learned the hard way to place duty above all else.
Agent Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer)
This forensics genius autopsies Laura Palmer and processes the evidence of later crimes. The quickness of his brain is matched only by the sharpness of his tongue - “I have traveled thousands of miles and apparently several centuries to this forgotten sinkhole in order to perform a series of tests. Now I do not ask you to understand these tests. I’m not a cruel man. I just ask you to get the hell out of my way so that I can finish my work” - and his dedication to justice.
Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch)
During his first visit to Twin Peaks, Cooper and Rosenfield’s supervisor apologetically yells, “HEARING’S GONE. LONG STORY.” He often addresses people with redundancies, absurdities, and embarrassing disclosures, but he’s shrewd and supportive of his men.
Diane
The assistant or secretary to whom Cooper addresses his tapes.
▲▲
Police
Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean)
Agent Cooper makes the sheriff “feel a bit like Dr. Watson,” but Truman is no mere sidekick. This archetypal Old West lawman gracefully shoulders the burdens of his day job and protects his town off the clock as the chief of the Bookhouse Boys. While he acknowledges that the secret society he currently heads was founded to combat “a sort of evil…Something very, very strange in these old woods…a darkness, a presence,” the down-to-earth Truman is disconcerted by the supernatural aspects of recent events in Twin Peaks.
Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill (Michael Horse)
Adept at tracking and surveillance, deadly with guns and knives, and well-versed in local lore, the Native American deputy and Bookhouse Boy puts his skills and knowledge to good use.
Deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz)
This gangling, clumsy, easily flustered, and softhearted deputy is often used for comic relief, but when standing up to a bullying outsider or disarming a dangerous suspect he rises to the occasion.
Lucy Moran (Kimmy Robertson)
The sheriff station’s receptionist/dispatcher sounds like a loopy blonde, but she’s nurturing, curious, industrious, and detail-oriented.
▲▲
Palmer
Leland Palmer (Ray Wise)
In the days following his daughter’s death, this attorney, a “well known, well liked, well respected member of [the] community,” vacillates between grief, hysteria, and a furious desire to see his daughter’s killer brought to justice. He’s prone to outbursts of song and dance.
Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie)
Laura once said that her chain-smoking mother was “kind of spooky. She used to see things, she had these dreams.” These mediumistic episodes failed to warn Sarah of her child’s fate, which leaves the bereaved mother howling with grief, but they do yield clues to the killer’s identity.
Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)
At first glance, Leland and Sarah’s daughter was the archetypal all-American dream girl: homecoming queen, part-time salesgirl and tutor, and co-founder of the local Meals on Wheels program. However, the search for Laura’s murderer reveals many secrets, including cocaine addiction, pornography, and prostitution. Laura inherited her mother’s clairvoyance and has spoken with Agent Cooper in dreams.
▲▲
Briggs
Major Garland Briggs, USAF (Don S. Davis)
A “deeply weird” martinet with surprising depths.
Robert “Bobby” Briggs (Dana Ashbrook)
The drug-dealing captain of the football team has a bad temper and a tendency to get in over his head, but can be tender with those he loves.
▲▲
Hayward
Will “Doc” Hayward, M.D. (Warren Frost)
This kindly physician is the patriarch of what appears to be the only happy family in town. “Doc” is usually a genial, compassionate man, but his temper is formidable.
Donna Marie Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle [series]/Moira Kelly [FWWM])
The eldest Hayward sister was Laura Palmer’s best friend. As she explores Laura’s dark side, the weepy Nancy Drew wannabe becomes overtly sexual and alienated.
▲▲
Horne
Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer)
This “slimy rat bastard americanus” neglects his family to pursue money, power, and sex. In the second season he tries to redeem himself, with mixed results.
Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn)
The Great Northern’s resident vixen likes provoking her father, Ben; getting her way; dancing to the music in her head; and Agent Cooper.
▲▲
Hurley
“Big” Ed Hurley (Everett McGill)
The lanky proprietor of Big Ed’s Gas Farm is a Bookhouse Boy and a surrogate father to his nephew, James.
Nadine Hurley, née Butler (Wendy Robie)
One-eyed, physically strong, and subject to mood swings and memory problems, Nadine is obsessed with inventing and patenting a noiseless drape runner.
James Hurley (James Marshall)
This sensitive biker and Bookhouse Boy has a weakness for women who bring him nothing but trouble.
▲▲
Jennings
Henry “Hank” Jennings (Chris Mulkey)
A Bookhouse Boy gone bad, ex-con Hank switches easily between charm and violence, and reacts badly to intrusions on his turf.
Norma Jennings, née Blackburne(?) (Peggy Lipton)
The warm-hearted proprietress of the Double R Diner tries to help others even while her own problems weigh her down.
▲▲
Johnson
Leo Johnson (Eric Da Re)
A long-distance trucker, drug-runner, thug for hire, and abusive husband, “Leo’s one of those guys you keep on a list and keep your eyes on.”
Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick)
This eleventh-grade dropout tells boss Norma Jennings, “I’ve got one man too many in my life, and I’m married to him.”
▲▲
Packard & Martell
Jocelyn “Josie” Packard (Joan Chen)
The beautiful and malaprop-prone widow who owns the Packard Sawmill is surrounded by dangerous secrets.
Pete Martell (Jack Nance)
When not exchanging barbs with wife Catherine, this drawling ex-lumberjack enjoys fishing and chess.
Catherine Martell, née Packard (Piper Laurie)
The formidable and vindictive manager of the Packard Sawmill is unhappily married to Pete Martell and gleefully complicit with Ben Horne.
▲▲
Other Notable Figures
Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley)
The first known victim of Laura Palmer’s murderer was a waitress and prostitute. In FWWM it’s revealed that she occasionally turned tricks with Laura.
Mary Sue Annie Blackburne (Heather Graham)
This Heisenberg-quoting ex-nun with scarred wrists falls from the sky - actually, she’s Norman Jennings’s little sister, freshly returned from a convent - and steals the heart of Agent Cooper, who calls her “a completely original human being.”
Dennis/Denise Bryson (David Duchovny)
When the DEA takes an interest in Twin Peaks, Agent Cooper looks forward to seeing Agent Bryson, “a good man…no nonsense,” unaware that his friend now prefers to be known as Denise.
Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh)
Agent Cooper’s brilliant and deranged ex-mentor conducts a campaign of surveillance, disguise, intimidation, torture, and murder in season two.
Madeleine “Maddy” Ferguson (Sheryl Lee)
Laura Palmer’s near-identical cousin was close to Laura (“I could feel her thoughts”) and people often project their feelings for the dead girl onto her.
Philip Michael Gerard, the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel)
This one-armed shoe salesman is “host” to MIKE but tries to prevent these episodes with a pharmaceutical cocktail.
Lawrence Jacoby, M.D. (Russ Tamblyn)
The practice of the quirky psychiatrist encompasses secret sessions with Laura Palmer, counseling for the Briggs family, couples therapy with the Hurleys, and house calls at the Great Northern.
Margaret Lanterman, the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson)
An irascible widow attuned to the preternatural, Margaret attributes her insights to the Ponderosa pine log she carries. Her proclamations include premonitions (“We don’t know what will happen, or when, but there are owls in the Roadhouse”) and an account of Laura Palmer’s movements in the woods on the night of her death.
Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine)
The survivor of a brutal attack by Laura palmer’s killer, she is primarily a device to bring the case under the FBI’s jurisdiction and spends most of the series comatose.
Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz)
A French-Canadian bartender, drug-runner, and card dealer known to associate with Leo Johnson.
Waldo
This pet mynah perched on and pecked Laura Palmer shortly before her death. He repeats phrases from the night of the murder.
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Assorted Entities
BOB, AKA Killer Bob (Frank Silva)
Laura Palmer’s nemesis takes the form of a man with FIRE WALK WITH ME tattooed on his left shoulder and long, gray hair. He taunts Agent Cooper, “You may think I’ve gone insane, but I promise I will kill again.” His manifestations are accompanied by a smell reminiscent of scorched engine oil.
MIKE (Al Strobel)
The being that speaks through Gerard has “…been touched by the devilish one. A tattoo on the left shoulder…‘Thru the darkness / of Future Past / the magician longs to see / one chants out / between two worlds / Fire - walk with me.’* Oh, but then I saw the face of God and was purified. I took off the arm, but remained close to this vessel, inhabiting from time to time for one single purpose…to stop him!” (i.e. BOB).
* I have quoted the poem as it appears in Images, a book about David Lynch’s work in painting, sculpture, photography, and film.
The Man from Another Place, AKA the Little Man (Michael J. Anderson)
A small, red-clad figure seen most often in Red Room, he frequently dances and makes cryptic statements like, “Where we’re from, the birds sing a pretty song and there’s always music in the air.”
The Giant (Carel Struycken)
This tall, soft-spoken, bow-tie-wearing apparition gives Agent Cooper hints: “There is a man in a smiling bag,” “The owls are not what they seem,” and “Without chemicals he points.”
The Place
Twin Peaks is different, a long way from the world.
-Sheriff Harry S. Truman
The sets and locations of Twin Peaks are practically characters in their own right. Here are some key places.
The Book House
The book-filled coffeehouse and bar is a favorite hangout of the local bikers, and for “going on twenty years now” has served as the headquarters of the secret society currently known as the Bookhouse Boys. The room in the back can be used for interrogations or as a quiet place to recover from a binge.
The Great Northern
Situated near scenic Whitetail Falls, this hotel is the Horne family’s flagship and home. Guests enjoy “clean, reasonably priced” accommodations ranging from single-occupancy rooms to suites, fine dining in the Timber Room, and round-the-clock room service. It is a popular venue for conventions, receptions, and fund-raisers.
One-Eyed Jack’s
The amenities of this semiprivate club - located 5.2 miles away from town, just over the US-Canadian border - include games of chance and the companionship of the exotically costumed 52 Pick-Up Girls, some of whom are recruits from the perfume counter of Horne’s department store.
The Roadhouse
Despite the red neon sign over the entrance that reads THE BANG BANG BAR, everyone calls this dance hall the Roadhouse. It is often used for civic events, such as hearings by the local circuit judge and the Miss Twin Peaks Pageant. Agent Cooper sees the Giant here on three occasions.
Glastonberry Grove
Approximately half a mile from the site of Laura Palmer’s murder is a circle of twelve sycamore trees surrounding a small, stone-lined pool of black liquid. Deputy Hawk finds pages from Laura’s diary and a bloodstained rag at the grove while tracking the killer’s spoor away from the crime scene. Agent Cooper notes that its name evokes King Arthur’s resting place, Glastonbury.
The Red Room, AKA the Waiting Room
This red-draped chamber with distinctive black-and-white zigzag flooring is the setting for encounters between Agent Cooper, the Man from Another Place, and others - including the dead. The normal laws of physics do not apply here: speech is distorted (except for Cooper’s), causality and entropy seem to operate differently (if at all), people and objects appear and vanish, and multiple bodies can occupy a space simultaneously.
The ’Ships
The show featured a huge number of romantic and/or sexual relationships. Aside from the marriages, pairings include Laura Palmer/Bobby Briggs, Bobby/Shelly Johnson, Laura/Leo Johnson/Ronette Pulaski/Jacques Renault, Laura/James Hurley, James/Donna Hayward, Ed Hurley/Norma Jennings, Ben Horne/Catherine Martell, Harry Truman/Josie Packard, Andy Brennan/Lucy Moran, and Dale Cooper/Annie Blackburne.
Fortunately, the fandom is too small to have generated cutesy portmanteau names for its pairings.
The Het
In Twin Peaks fanfic, there’s really only one het pairing that matters: Dale Cooper/Audrey Horne. According to rumor, the show’s writers intended to pair these characters but Kyle MacLachlan argued that the FBI agent would never pursue a relationship with a high-school girl who was part of an investigation, no matter how tempting. Nonetheless, many fanfic authors have chosen to consummate the relationship.
Harry/Josie is mentioned often, but usually as a prelude or contrast to...
The Slash
...which makes up a fair proportion of the existing online fanfic. Cooper/Truman and Cooper/Rosenfield are the most frequent pairings, but I’ve also seen Truman/Rosenfield and Truman/Hawk; however, Cooper is the most likely to be slashed in crossovers.
Femme slash is less common but does exist. It usually features Laura Palmer (who is arguably bi in screen canon and definitely bi if you accept book canon) or Audrey Horne (who manages a convincing flirtation with the madam of One-Eyed Jack’s, and is more likely to be slashed in crossovers).
Resources
Merchandise
Video
For many years Twin Peaks was only available through videotapes of mediocre picture and sound quality or re-runs on the Bravo network. Furthermore, the American version of the pilot was never available on VHS in the States; instead, fans could buy the European version, which was touted as a “SPECIAL HOME VIDEO EDITION OF THE SERIES PREMIERE!” that “Contains Footage Not Broadcast!”
In 2001, Artisan released an excellent DVD set of season one (now discontinued, and the region 1 version lacks the pilot). A year later New Line Home Video put out a FWWM DVD, and thereby became the subject of an ongoing fan campaign for the release of the many scenes that were cut from the film’s final edit. A region 1 DVD of the American pilot also became available that year; strangely, there has been no (legal) region 1 DVD release of the European version. Since then, it’s been a long wait for the season two DVDs; as of December 21, 2006, the latest word was that they will come out April 10, 2007.
ETA: Season two was released as scheduled. A few months later, Paramount Home Video released a boxset of the entire series known as the Definitive Gold Box Edition, which includes both versions of the pilot; deleted scenes; the opening monologue and a sketch from Kyle MacLachlan’s appearance on Saturday Night Live; documentaries about the show, the annual Twin Peaks festival, and David Lynch; and publicity material and ads, including Twin Peaks-themed Georgia Coffee commercials that Lynch made for Japanese television.
Books
Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks, edited by David Lavery, is a fantastic collection of scholarly essays, including some interesting meditations on the nature of television drama, fandom, and gender issues. The appendices are especially helpful to fans: they include rosters of the cast, writers, and directors; a calendar showing what happened on each day within the show; and scene by scene synopses of the film and every episode.
Twin Peaks: Behind the Scenes, by Mark Altman, is an unauthorized quickie tie-in that’s unattractively laid out and riddled with typos, but it has many entertaining anecdotes from cast and crew.
Online
LiveJournal
twinpeaks is a community for fans of Twin Peaks. Members discuss theories, post artwork, share rumors and news, and indulge in a certain amount of squeeage.
twinpeaks_icons and davidlynch are exactly what their names imply, communities devoted to Twin Peaks iconage and series co-creator David Lynch, respectively.
_twinpeaksfic was created in 2005 to encourage fanfic. So far it’s been pretty slow, but hopefully things will pick up after the release of the season two DVDs in April 2007. Sadly, tp_femslash has even less traffic.
Websites
Twin Peaks Online is a no-frills site with a lot of content, including some fanfiction.
Glastonberry Grove is more whimsically designed and may have even more content than Twin Peaks Online (but no fanfiction).
LynchNet.com is probably the best place for news concerning David Lynch, including the long-awaited DVD release of season two, and it has an excellent section devoted to Twin Peaks.
The Twin Peaks Brewing Co. has a ridiculous number of screencaps from season one and FWWM. It also has some multimedia content and coffee recipes. The link takes you to the welcome page; click on the graphic to enter.
There used to be an amateur fan site, cheekily named The Official Twin Peaks Web Site, with good episode synopses and some great screen captures, but it seems to have vanished. I post the link in the hope that it has merely gone on hiatus or relocated.
Bienvenue à Twin Peaks, as you may have guessed from the name, is a French fan site. It’s the best source I’ve found for images from the pilot and season two.
There is a surprisingly good Wikipedia entry about the show.
I highly recommend the snarkalicious episode synopses at Television Without Pity.
Fanfiction
Although there was fair amount of Twin Peaks fanfic in ’zines during the early nineties, very little of it has made its way to the internet. Most of the stories that are online are slash and/or crossovers.
The only Twin Peaks archive that I know of is The Bookhouse Boys Archive, which is mostly slash.
I found some stories at Twin Peaks Online, Witness List (an archive of slash featuring characters in law enforcement), Yuletide, and Silverlake.
If you’re feeling brave, there’s always the Pit of Voles, though not all of the Twin Peaks stories there are listed in the show index.