the map of owl cave as depicted on twin peaks

twin peaks

a zpires shrine

synopsis

Twin Peaks is a surreal mystery drama with soap opera and horror influences by Mark Frost and David Lynch that debuted in 1990. It was cancelled after its second season in 1991, but it was brought back for a third season in 2017. Between the second and third seasons, Lynch released a feature-length film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me: a prologue that depicts Laura's story through her final days.

The story follows the investigation of the murder of high-school girl Laura Palmer led by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in the city of Twin Peaks, Washington. The details of Laura's life are pieced together while the town festers in the filth and strangeness of its underbelly. After the reveal of Laura's killer, the show redirects its focus to a serial killer that terrorizes the town in his attempts to exact revenge against Agent Cooper. The third season pivots away from the town of Twin Peaks and follows previous story threads 25 years into the future.

It's our favorite TV show. It's weird and messy and dramatic. Devastating, gut-wrenching, but with moments of great levity and joy. We highly recommend it—as long as one heeds the content warnings.

content warning

A lot of bad things happen to people in this show. Violence of all kinds is depicted: domestic violence, sexual violence, violence against minors, torture, murder. Drugs and addiction feature throughout. It is not for the faint of heart.

We will hide and label potentially triggering content as it comes up.

cast

Anyway...

Casting the show was done by Johanna Ray. David Lynch has a few actors who he regularly works with, so she already had a few names in mind. Jack Nance had worked with Lynch since Eraserhead (1977), Lynch's debut feature-length film, and Kyle MacLachlan was first cast in Dune (1984) and appeared later as the lead in Blue Velvet (1986). Then, to keep it simple, Ray also hired her nephew Eric DaRe and Mark Frost's father Warren Frost.

But not everything was nepotism. Sheryl Lee was just a local actress who could convincingly play a dead high school student.

The most famous casting decision of Twin Peaks is the casting of Frank Silva in the role of BOB. Silva had originally been hired as a prop master and set decorator, but Lynch discovered he was also an actor. They tested a scene and Lynch ended up really liking it. Then, instead of redoing the shot, Lynch kept in a moment where Silva had accidentally been caught on camera while filming another scene.

As we mentioned above, there are soap opera influences. For example, there are many, many characters. There's way more than these; these are just our favorites.

1. Spoilers

and Maddy Ferguson. Lee impressed Lynch and Frost enough that she earned her way into a recurring role in the main series.

We have a strange fascination with Richard Beymer's performance as Benjamin Horne. Whenever Ben's on screen, he's doing or saying something ridiculous, but Beymer takes it seriously. One of the most devastating scenes in the whole series is so emotionally visceral because of his overwhelming silence.

Maddy (from our system, no relation) gets like. Not cute aggression, because he's not cute, but when he's on screen she just wants to grab him and shake him by the neck.

Richard Beymer facts

  • Richard Beymer played Tony in West Side Story (1961). He didn't like his performance. (source)
  • He participated in Freedom Summer, an initiative to register Black voters in Mississippi in 1964, and made a movie about it. (source)
  • Richard Beymer isn't just an actor and singer: he's also a photographer. He took some fantastic photos while filming the finale episode of the second season of Twin Peaks. Check them out here and here.
  • He's also a writer, painter, and sculptor.
  • Born in Iowa, he moved to Hollywood, but now he lives in Iowa again. Here's an Iowa magazine article about his 2010 film "The Passing of a Saint."

some of our favorite characters

Laura Palmer

At the time of her death, people knew her as the homecoming queen dating the quarterback, Bobby Briggs. She got good grades, tutored a disabled boy, and even started a Meals on Wheels program to feed people who can't leave their homes. She loved her best friend Donna and her cousin Maddy. (archived video link)

But, she's full of secrets.

She was just doing her fucking best, okay? Kindness is hard when cruelty follows you around. Friendship is hard to maintain when the nightmares swallow you up at night. Love may not be enough sometimes.

Warnings: drugs, sexual violence

She was cheating on Bobby with her friend James, a biker. She had a serious cocaine habit. She worked for Leo Johnson and Jacques Renault by having sex with men. And...

A man named BOB visited her at night. (archived video link)

FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper

Cooper... Cooper...

Agent Cooper arrives in Twin Peaks and instantly falls in love with the town as he embarks on his quest to catch Laura's killer. Prone to strange methodology and reliance on dream logic, Cooper has a reputation that makes him perfect for cases that potentially hint at the supernatural. (archived video link)

Tragic backstory

Before Laura's case, Dale had an incident where he fell in love with a witness who was being protected. When she was attacked, he wasn't able to protect her and she died. Now, he considers himself a lone wolf who can't let anyone get too close, or danger will follow them, too.

There's a book The Autobiography of F.B.I. Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes that is... exactly what it says it is. It consists of transcripts of various tape recordings he'd taken over the course of his life. Check out the Books section below for a link to the whole thing.

Like most media that came out between season 2 and Fire Walk With Me, there's quite a few pieces that aren't considered "canon." The canon for the show is inconsistent in general.

Audrey Horne

She's Audrey Horne, and she gets what she wants.

Daughter of Benjamin Horne, Audrey is a student at Twin Peaks High School. She was in the same class as Laura, and Laura tutored her intellectually disabled brother Johnny. Attention-starved and creative, she uses her charms and ambition to achieve her goals, which include undermining her father and doing undercover field detective work. (archived video link)

Spoilers for Season 2: How Lynch Did Her Dirty

The moment that Audrey discovers that there are women FBI Agents is the the moment that she learns that she's saved Cooper's life. Revelation dawns on her face like the whole world has opened up for her. Her future is staring at her. She seizes that moment: boldly kisses Cooper in front of a stranger.

And then they never really talk to each other again.

Because the studio execs mandated that Cooper and Audrey couldn't have a romance, the writers did the lazy thing and gave them new romantic interests as soon as possible. Audrey gets a generic boyfriend, and Cooper gets a new girlfriend.

What sucks is that even though they couldn't be together romantically, the writers decided the two characters should barely speak to each other. There's even a scene where someone tells Audrey Cooper is looking for her and she's like, "Hm? Sorry I'm not available." Like! What!? Audrey wanted to be like Agent Cooper! She wanted to solve crimes! Let her solve crimes! It's so frustrating!!

Their relationship, their special relationship, stops meaning anything to either character. After the promise of a new beginning, where Audrey commits herself to doing good, in being an action hero, in solving problems, she just... twists away to go be a businesswoman. WHY!?!?!?!?

And, why a businesswoman? Audrey's relationship with Ben was *real* rocky before she decides, yeah, he's a role model I should aspire to be like. It's just so disappointing. Audrey deserved better.

Spoilers for Season 3: How Lynch Did Her Dirty

Audrey's amazing. Everyone loves Audrey. Fantastic character, fantastic actress. She's Audrey Horne, she gets what she wants. Three cheers for Audrey.

So when the Return started airing, everyone was eager to see what happened to her. It's revealed she escaped with her life after the bank exploded and that she had a child, but after that?? Lynch keeps us on edge for so many episodes until Audrey finally appears.

And then her scenes are repetitive and nonsensical. Her only scene partner is a man we don't know. Without any context for her current situation, the viewer is left grasping at anything they can to find meaning.

Then she gets to the roadhouse—phew—and has That Scene and then she's all of a sudden in a white padded room??? AND THEN WE NEVER HEAR FROM HER AGAIN?? HELLO??? What the fuck. Was it a dream? Was she just ~crazy~? Where was she? How did she feel about her child, her father, about Agent Cooper? We don't get anything.

What the fuck. It's horrible. We can't believe Lynch did this.

We're SLOWLY re-writing the Return. One of the major differences will be that we will follow Agent Horne instead of Tammy.

Follow us here for when we finally start posting it.

Twin Peaks Sheriff Harry S. Truman

Dale has his head in the clouds, and Harry has his feet solidly on the ground.

Harry guards the secrets of Twin Peaks. He's lived there his whole life and has seen its many faces. His histories with other characters run deep. The show is genuinely a character study of a town, and Harry is its primary protector. His relationship with Cooper blossoms over the course of the series. His relationship with Albert? Well... (archived video link 1) (archived video link 2)

Michael Ontkean's Disappearance

Ontkean did not return for the Return. It's never been publicly confirmed why Ontkean dropped out. Initial talks had gone well, but something changed, apparently. A huge shame. Harry is such a great character, and he would have helped make the whole show feel more Twin Peaks, not United States.

To make up for the absence, they decided Harry was very sick. His brother Frank Truman is the Sheriff instead. On the phone, he tells Harry, "beat this thing." Presumably some sort of cancer. Very sad.

Frank Truman is a cardboard cutout of a character. Nothing about him was particularly interesting, but he did play the straight man in one of the most comedic scenes of the season.

Donna Hayward

Donna, Madonna, there's always mañana~

Donna Hayward is the good girl. She's Laura's best friend who caught glimpses of her sordid affairs while trying to maintain a normal life outside of the dark influences. The scene in the pilot where she intuits that Laura is dead and starts crying is iconic and beautiful. (archived video link)

Bobby Briggs

Bobby's called the captain of the football team, but he literally never plays football once ever. In actuality, he's in over his head in some shady business. He loved Laura, but he has another object of affection, one with a husband who would kill them both if he ever found out. (archived video link)

He's a little unpredictable. (archived video link)

Thoughts on the "captain of the football team"

Here are the evidences of the fact that Bobby plays football at all:

  • Sarah Palmer calls the school and the coach tells her that Bobby hasn't been to practice in weeks
  • Cooper calls him the captain of the football team in his first interrogation

So like. There's no Way he's a captain if he's missed practice that many times. Like they'd straight up just pick a new captain. So why is Cooper calling him that? Other thought: maybe Cooper is joking, maybe he's just trying to sort of pin down the kind of tropes we should be expecting from Bobby.

Because Bobby is not your captain-of-the-football-team trope-y guy.

Shelly Johnson

Someone's gotta make sure she's okay. Unfortunately, Shelly's life when the show starts is pretty bad. She's married to the abusive Leo Johnson, and they barely make ends meet between her job as a waitress at the Double R Diner and his job of... crime.

She's also one of the most beautiful girls in the world. Truly. Look at her. Mädchen Amick is a gorgeous lady, and everyone knows it. There's a lot of beautiful ladies in Twin Peaks, but she's a stand-out for sure.

Benjamin Horne

-spits in your fireplace-

Imagine it. You're watching the pilot of a strange new show, and what sounds like a rather reasonable man addresses a sleazy businessman and the first thing he does is spit in the fireplace. Disgusting. And you're supposed to take him seriously? He's got a lot of screen time because he owns the Great Northern hotel, Horne's department store, and... well, gotta watch to find that one out. Evil, evil man. (archived video link)