Lost in the Movies: Twin Peaks on the Internet...in 1990 (an alt.tv.twin-peaks archive)

Twin Peaks on the Internet...in 1990 (an alt.tv.twin-peaks archive)


Online commentary from the original alt.tv.twinpeaks Usenet newsgroup (1990-93)

What if the internet had existed when Twin Peaks originally aired? Well...it did. Sort of. The average viewer did not have online access when the first episode aired on April 8, 1990, nor when Laura Palmer's killer was finally revealed on November 10, 1990, nor when the final episode aired as a Monday night movie-of-the-week on June 10, 1991, nor when the prequel film limped into theaters on August 28, 1992. Of course, the average viewer wasn't paying attention to Twin Peaks at all by those later points - so the following commentators are exceptional not only for their internet savvy, but for their enthusiastic devotion to David Lynch's and Mark Frost's unique world.

I'm not going to attempt to explain Usenet or newsgroups or the pre-World Wide Web internet because I don't really understand them myself. As far as I was aware, the "Information Superhighway" popped out of nowhere in the fall of 1995, when I entered jr. high. Yet since the late seventies, computer networks had been facilitating communication between people with (I believe) institutional access to the internet. Usenet (which is still available today) was among the most popular of these networks. Newsgroups conducted conversations on particular topics, and alt.tv.twin-peaks quickly became one of the most noted newsgroups. Episodes were immediately analyzed, theories were tossed about, and hoaxes were pulled by clever fans.

The newsgroup remains active today, nearly twenty-five years later, as a Google group with over 28,000 topics archived. Through keyword searches, I was able to bookmark many of the early posts, from the show's initial run. Then I made a completely subjective selection of 108 posts that seemed interesting and representative. Consider this a companion piece to my round-up of Twin Peaks media commentary this spring. I am endlessly fascinated by how new viewers react to the show as it unfolds, as well as how the show was received when it first aired, so for me this was pig heaven. (Also worth checking out is this thread I started for fans to share their memories of the original series run).

In 2016, fans from all over the world will share immediate reactions and attempt to make sense of the insensible via Twitter, Facebook, and all variety of internet forums, using phones, tablets, and other devices. Though their numbers will be greater, they will be not be the first do so. Here then, is a glimpse of the first generation of online Twin Peaks fans attempting to figure out who killed Laura Palmer, praising and complaining about the show's twists and turns, and reacting to Dick Tremayne's famous death scene (you'll see). The further we go, the more absorbing the commentary becomes: detailed psychological evaluations of the characters and situations, evocative first-hand accounts of the Fire Walk With Me shoot, even speculative predictions that Twin Peaks will return in 2014! "Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see," indeed...


4/8 - 4/12/90: PILOT - Agent Cooper arrives in town to investigate "Who killed Laura Palmer?" The ratings are very high and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Twin Peaks becomes a pop culture phenomenon. Episode 1 - We glimpse "Killer BOB" for the first time.


Nick Lubofsky, 4/17/90

Here's my theory:

The sheriff did it. Why? Because no one would ever suspect him. And just think of how good he'll look when he catches the `killer'. He's going to frame someone, I don't know who.

Remember how old the mayor is? That's right, he's going to retire, and guess who's going to run for mayor? That's right, the sheriff, who is a power-hungry sociopath.

You want to know how he did it? He started a cult that the town is going to blame the murder on. Many people know about the cult and are in it, but it's very secret. The only evidence thus far is the scene where Bobby and his best friend are `barking' at J. in the town prison. When Bobby started `barking', his friend joined in immediately indicating it's something they've done before. I maintain they do it at meetings of the cult.

The evil sheriff theory also explains why he is seducing the richest woman in Twin Peaks...

More developments on Friday when I have a completely different set of theories!


Charlie Hileman, 4/17/90

Didn't the FBI get their half in the railroad car, not by going through her belongings they found in her room at home? Perhaps you could say they were going through her belongings by investigating the clothes and blood in the railroad car.

By the way, somebody referred earlier to the European showing of Twin Peaks, and said the killer was revealed in their version. We too may have been given a glimpse of the real killer. In the last show, when Laura's best friend visited Laura's mother, the mother was crying out "I miss her so much", repeatedly, then she went into hallucinations, altering Laura's best friend's face and hair to become Laura (the most frightening moment for me), and then turning to see a blond haired young man staring at her from a low position; then she screamed. The apparition looked like a new character to me, with a LA hard-core rocker puff haircut and face (if you can imagine that). Perhaps that's the more typical TV character trying to nudge his way in.

I think the second episode was not near as good as the first. The commercials have come in full force now, and the pace of the scenes have been sacrificed in the process. On one hand it seems like they want to pack a lot of action in, to keep people's attention up. On the other hand, they have much more time than a typical movie, so the topics drift, creating a kind of soap opera feeling, many characters but no coherent plot or subplot (of course, it's the beginning). The second episode did not move near as well as the first. The commercials slice it all up even further. Lynch is fighting the medium.


4/19/90: Episode 2 - Cooper dreams of a Red Room in which he meets the Little Man.


Tom Neff, 4/20/90

(David M. Baggett) writes:
"The speech was not simply played backwards. If you'll go back and listen again, you'll see (hear?) that you can still make out the words. If each word had just been played backwards it would sound like complete gibberish. It sounds like they took each word and randomly reversed segments here and there. Not too many though."

No. What you do is

(a) have each actor record all his/her lines normally

(b) play them back reversed - sounds like gibberish

(c) have each actor LEARN that gibberish by heart! i.e., learn to make the right mouth noises to imitate his/her backwards speech

(d) record THAT

(e) play the result *in reverse*. The result is garbled squishy sounding "speech."

As a side effect, a lot of the physical action in the dream sequence, including (I suspect) the dancing, was reverse-filmed. The shots of Cooper were normal.

You notice how sick and sad and old and deflated Cooper looked in the dream sequence, as though they had given his face a layer of Bisquick batter. That's ERASERHEAD stuff, boys and girls. And this sequence was the most horrifically pure bit of Lynch "wrongness" I have seen since EH. He seems to have a hotline to the essence of nightmare. There are really two special Lynch "modes": one where you say "GACK! tee-hee! you are a sick pup Mister," and one where you say in a VERY small voice, "oh. oh no. stop that..."


4/26 - 5/4/90: Episodes 3 & 4 - Laura Palmer is buried, lookalike cousin Madeleine arrives,  and Cooper searches for the One-Armed Man and Killer BOB.


Paul Raveling, 5/4/90

Here's some feedback from my last call a couple nights ago (would have posted sooner, but I was out of town briefly...)

If you'd like to write to ABC, especially to express support for Twin Peaks, he suggested writing directly to the top. ABC's president is...

Bob Iger
2040 Avenue of the Stars
Century City, California 90067

He suggests that you definitely DO NOT put any mention of Twin Peaks on a letters' envelope. If they see that they forward the mail to the Twin Peaks folks and don't read it themselves.

Some quick answers to small questions...

1. The rumor that ABC has already renewed Peaks for 20 episodes (or any other #) is false.

2. The rumor that anyone else has committed to picking up Twin Peaks if ABC drops it is false.

3. They firmly believe though that ABC will continue it. They've proposed to do 26 episodes for next season.

4. They're temporarily more-or-less out of touch with David Lynch, who's doing post-production work on his new film ("Wild at Heart") near San Francisco.

5. Scott Frost has shown some of the alt.tv.twin-peaks messages that I've forwarded to Mark Frost; it seems Mark already at knew the newsgroup existed, but probably hadn't seen any of the messages on it. Mark is taking some time off, and is in New Orleans right now. I believe he'll be back by the end of next week, and perhaps he'll offer some comments on our USENET discussion then. I'd expect most of the people involved with the show to be taking as much time off as they can in May. If the expected renewal for next season comes through, they'll be busting a gut from June through next March.

A footnote about the Frost family in Twin Peaks...

Warren (Dr. Hayward) is the father of the other two, and has had a long career in acting. Most of his acting has been on the stage, but perhaps some may remember him from the film version of Slaughterhouse 5.

Mark [I trust everyone knows about Mark]

Scott is working on production, probably has a title of "production assistant" or something similar.

Next season he'll also be a writer, with responsibility for a TBD* number of episodes.

*TBD = to be determined. Anyone who's had the misfortune of writing MIL-spec specifications knows this one well...

BTW, Scott does a walk-on bit in episode [pilot+]5. His comment about that was that "it'll show why some people are paid to act and others aren't". I haven't talked to the other Frosts, but can testify that Scott is a bright guy with a good sense of humor.


Tom Neff, 5/9/90

It would make no sense for Albert to miss hair dye or bleach. Remember he was doing fiber analysis. He would have mentioned it. However nobody is checking MADELEINE'S hair are they. She could have spent the last year as a blonde and who'd know.

I don't give much credence to the idea of a bleached Madeleine lying on the slab being misidentified as Laura. But I am kind of intrigued at the thought of Madeleine impersonating her during the past year. It might explain why "Laura's changed," why she was involved with so many different guys, a number of things. I dunno.

Hey, can any of our trivia buffs tell us where that saw-grinding sequence in the opening credits was filmed?

Also -- if you think this isn't a yuppie fad -- I was walking home from the church last night and these three "suits" strolled by on their way to some UES meat market/watering hole or other; overheard them saying "Can you believe what I did last week -- forget to tape Twin Peaks" and the other two go "DAMN! you idiot" so he says "well I did watch it though..." and on into the night. Seniors may be tuning out, but thirtysomethings are glued to the set.


5/10/90: Episode 5 - Coop visits the Log Lady for clues and discovers a surprise waiting for him when he returns to his room.


Jeff Williamson, 5/11/90

On behalf of the Northwestern ISRC Twin Peaks View-Crew (that's Robert, Sabine, and me), I would like to convey a collective scream of anguish. David Lynch is a sadist.

"Diane, it's 11:00 pm on Wednesday. I've just returned to my room at the Great Northern Inn to find a nude Audrey Horne lying beneath the sheets in my bed. Further updates as events warrant."


Rich Rosen, 5/13/90

Talk like this has me thinking that maybe what we're really watching is a retelling of The Wicker Man. Audrey's romp in the hay with Cooper (if consummated) would tend to discredit this notion, but maybe she's trying to save him.

SPOILER (for the Wicker Man, not for TP):

(Watch me get slaughtered: The Wicker Man is about a policeman sent to an island community off the coast of Britain to solve a murder there, but the populations, led by Christopher Lee, is a pagan community who needs to sacrifice a virgin. He thinks that this is the fate that has befallen the murdered girl, but in reality it is the fate in store for him, he being a virgin. Someone PLEASE correct and fill in proper details, it's been a loooong time since I've seen this movie.)

There, now I've really embarrassed myself.


5/17/90: Episode 6 - Cooper & co. close in on Canadian bordello One-Eyed Jack's as Twin Peaks revs up for the season finale.


Kem Luther, 5/20/90:

No matter how this wraps up, we are surely going to see some post-mortem analysis about what made this so watchable. Let me jump in early, since my comments don't depend on who gets nailed for the murder.

(1) The initial impression from the pilot that everyone in town was eminently certifiable was unique. Standard evening TV casebooks say that quirky people are either funny or dangerous. Casting them as normals made them anti-normal, anti-soap. TP thus became strong social comment and intelligent viewing, since ordinary tube fare is neither. Did anyone else notice how much TP felt like a book instead of a TV program? The medium and the message were not aligned. It took a TV+VCR to see it correctly.

However, the series was destined to lose most of this edge-of- reality feeling, if for no other reason than it had to keep going, speaking from a little box, and protecting its market share. TV consumes all. If it is renewed as a series it will not be a victory for creativity; it will be a signal that another challenge to video mindlessness has been met and conquered. Let it die.

(2) The character of Dale Cooper was the show's highlight for me. It has been pointed out several times that he seems to have super- detective capabilities. This is not correct, if the word 'detective' is defined by the models of modern detectiveship. Conan Doyle launched the model with Holmes. The perfect sleuth is the perfectly rational person, applying logic to analytic observation. So Poirot, so Maigret, so Sam Spade, so all. A Clouseau is funny because he solves cases even though he is absolutely imperfect. But Cooper does not work within this model. His weapon is intuition and his method is receptivity. He believes that the crime solves itself, that all the solver has to do is to accept the revelation. When all the facts are collected, Holmes can follow the deductive thread. Cooper, however, assembles the evidence to evoke the dream. The solution to the crime is the interpretation of the dream. Lynch didn't invent this model. It is the work of Douglas Adams, as far as I can tell. Cooper is Dirk Gently. But Cooper is, I think, a more effective example of this model than Gently, perhaps because Gently is (to this point) confined to books, where the presuppositions of normality are not so strong as the visual medium.

If the TV mohguls are listening, how about bringing Cooper back in a series of Gently-style stories. The rest of Twin Peaks can be moved to the afternoon, where it (increasingly) belongs.


Dave Gross, 5/20/90

TWIN PEAKS HERE TO STAY
Network execs find coffee-and-donuts crew captures a difficult age group

On Wednesday, Americans may finally know who killed Laura Palmer and the "many secrets" she holds. But meanwhile, network executives are trying to discover the secrets of Twin Peaks' success -- and it's secret in tapping into a hard-to-hold age group at it's time slot.

While Twin Peaks has been losing the older crowd that tunes in for "Father Dowling Mysteries" in the preceding slot, they have made great gains in the 20-30something crowd and, to the suprise of network executives, even the 10-20 age groups.

"We now know that a mystery format -- if it has personalities that are interesting and somewhat quirky -- can succeed in both a children's and an adult market," said Mark McPherson, speaking at a news conference for the network.

McPherson is confident that he can keep the younger viewers despite the decision to show the season finale at 10:00 P.M. Wednesday night. "We believe that no parent is going to be able to keep a dedicated son or daughter from seeing the end of the mystery, no matter what the time."

Not only are executives confident that they can hold on to the younger set, but they feel that they can capture the older viewers who were alienated by the bizarre twists and turns of the plot, and by the lack of resolutions by show's end.

Bessie Clary, who has been in charge of coordinating the various directors of this season's episodes, will be in charge of the new direction Twin Peaks will be taking next season. "We envision a more encapsulated version of Twin Peaks -- with a single mystery being raised and solved each show. Of course the strange elements will still be there: Lucy's remarks and Cooper's personality -- but these will take backstage to a more easily digestible plot."

Early suggestions are that Twin Peaks will have a format very similar to Father Dowling Mysteries or Murder She Wrote but with just enough of the macabre touch initiated by David Lynch to maintain the interest of the younger viewers.

Is the network confident that they can keep the younger viewers watching? McPherson thinks so. "It's become a fad already. We think it will outlast the Simpsons. Never underestimate the power of a cult following with teens and pre-teens."

Rumors have even been flying that consultants from Caspary & Sklar (the company that handled the licensing of "Beetlejuice" models and action figures) have been contacted to discuss marketing a line of Peaks-related odds and ends.

Shelby Carpenter, vice-president of Caspary & Sklar, confirmed that they have been talking with the network, but declined to discuss what the discussions entailed.


Tom Neff, 5/21/90

Hey, these guys are in business to make money. What did you expect. Nor is an "encapsulated" format necessarily the kiss of death. Net users rave over shows like STAR TREK, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and THE AVENGERS, among a zillion others -- all with encapsulated formats. The 44-minute teledrama is a restrictive format but in the right hands it can be a refreshing opportunity to branch out in new directions each week. And of course two-parters are always possible.

Still, I'm disappointed ABC isn't heading toward some of the other possible formats, like a monthly two hour TVM or a miniseries. I think they may be mischaracterizing their audience just a bit. The "difficult segment" TP brought back to the tube does NOT want to sit through a conventional hour of crime drama week after week for a year. If they did, they'd be watching MacGyver already.

The "fad" nature of TP shouldn't be ignored. It's something to get excited about for a couple of months at a time, max. After that it starts to pall; the emotional and intellectual fervor is draining. If they did it as a mini twice a year, a wide spectrum of people might get as excited as hell, tape everything, trade notes, etc, just as we are now. If it goes weekly, only pre-converted tapehead fanatics will care, and it'll die after a season.

My personal decision hinges on Lynch. If he is involved at a level more detailed than executive producer or "created by," I will watch, but if he deserts the new format so will I.


5/21/90: ABC officially announces that Twin Peaks has been renewed for a second season.


Dave Gross, 5/22/90

"TWIN PEAKS HERE TO STAY
Network execs find coffee-and-donuts crew captures a difficult age group"

The above article was a hoax.

Forget it. It's not true. Ignore, please...

"Early suggestions are that Twin Peaks will have a format very similar to Father Dowling Mysteries or Murder She Wrote but with just enough of the macabre touch initiated by David Lynch to maintain the interest of the younger viewers."

But I did manage to cause widespread panic, now, didn't I?

"Rumors have even been flying that consultants from Caspary & Sklar (the company that handled the licensing of "Beetlejuice" models and action & figures) have been contacted to discuss marketing a line of Peaks-related odds and ends."

You even believed this... Jeez. Imagine little Dale Cooper and Leo Johnson action figures. Twin Peaks cereal... Sorry for frightening everyone so. I just thought that an exaggeration of all of our worst fears might provide a few laughs. I hope I didn't turn you all off to the next season...


Robert Steven Glickstein, 5/22/90

Diane, I've just arrived at the Great Western Hotel to investigate the murder of Dave Gross. It follows ten years almost to the day the murder of the young man who prematurely leaked the information that Darth Vader really *was* Luke's father...


Rich Rosen, 5/23/90

This is it, kids, the conclusion of the final episode of TP.

Ready?

OK...

Pete Martell wakes up to find himself in a dingy apartment in a monochromatic post-post-industrial world, with a strange noisemaking baby, and says "So, it was all a dream." Laura Palmer sings a song about heaven, and Pete looks around the room and finds Suzanne Pleshette sleeping next to him. And oh, yeah: Pete has a new haircut. Whadda ya think?


5/23/90: Episode 7 (season finale) - Someone shoots Cooper, amongst many other cliffhangers. The killer of Laura Palmer is not revealed.


Guest User, 5/24/90

Here's a theory, based on what me and a few friends worked out...

First: we think that Leland's was having an incestuous affair with Laura.

Second: We know that Laura had sex with THREE men the night she died - Leo, Jacques, and the third man, the killer.

Third: Leland has been degenerating as the series progressed - kind of like in Macbeth.

Fourth: Leland killed Jacques.

Fifth: As a lawyer, Leland may well have known the details of Teresa Banks' murder the year before, even down to the letter under the fingernail.

So: Leland was the third man to have sex with Laura the night of her death, and in fact was the one who killed her. He killed Jacques to eliminate one of the witnesses to the murder. And I'll bet he knew that Hank was going to get Leo (Leland's a lawyer, remember...maybe he defended hank in the first place, before he went to jail?)

This theory wraps up a few loose ends: the letter under the fingernail? If we assume that Leland knew about Teresa Banks, we can guess that he planted the "R" under Laura's fingernail to make it appear that there was a connection. Same for all the ritualistic stuff surrounding the killing.

Why did he do it? Several reasons. He was ashamed of what she'd become, he was afraid others might find out about her sordid secret life (and he might even be IMPLICATED HIMSELF in that sordid life, as a lawyer), and maybe he wanted to set up Leo and Jacques to be rid of them, for whatever reasons...

So, what do y'all think?


Chris’n’Vickie of Kansas City, 5/24/90

I'm seriously in need of a new David Lynch film. It's close & getting closer, but I want to be actually walking into the theater, sitting down, tensing up as the lights go off and the previews are over and the opening music starts and the titles flash/fade/float by and.......

We just had a nine-hour Twin Peaks marathon, watching everything on a 10 foot screen, leading up to the final episode of the season. We finished the first eight hours with 20 minutes to spare before the finale. After it was all over with I put on Julee Cruise and turned the channel to the Discovery channel where they were showing some nature film about Elks and there were lots of antlers and trees and brooks flowing and tall grasses blowing and Julee was singing "Falling......falling....." and it was the most wonderful thing in the universe and I really, really need a new David Lynch film (where's that copy of "Eraserhead"? and are there any video stores open so we can rent "Blue Velvet" and can we start again and do the whole Twin Peaks thing again? Yes now, why not? I don't care, Work? What's that? Oh, the thing you do to get paid so you can take care of silly little things like rent and food but they won't fire me and I'm quitting anyway and I want MORE DAVID LYNCH....!! As Leo "I used to be a jerk but now I'm a dead jerk" Johnson would say, "NOW".

(Get a grip Vickie)

Counting the seconds till September...

Vickie (one of Vickie'n'Chris)

ps: I never did get completely caught up with alt.tv.twin-peaks but still you people have given me a wealth of insight and thoughts about the whole thing. You are all truly amazing. I salute you.


Rich Rosen, 5/27/90

"I just figured they wanted to save time and get on to the stuff we hadn't heard. I may be wrong, but I think a lot of people have a tendence to overanalyze things. There doesn't have to be a covert meaning to everything that doesn't jibe with your version of reality." [MICHAEL MCDANIEL]

That's what I've grown to really "*like*" (read the word "*like*" with as much drooling snarling sracasm as you can muster up) about Twin Peaks. Here we have a very significant difference between the way Jacoby originally heard the tape and the way the (supposedly) same tape sounds when played back later by other people who have purloined it. Is this really significant? Will it actually ever matter to the course of the plot?

OF COURSE NOT!!!!!!!!!! It's a gaffe, a kluge, a fuckup, a stupid ineptoid klutzed up mucking about by people who really don't care whether they insert inconsistencies into the plot line that prompt anyone using their brain (who might be watching and expecting that a thinking person's program is being developed here) to say "Hmmmmmm...". Save your breath. Air is a precious resource. Don't bother. This is NOT a thinking person's show. This is a soap opera. Concocted by people who think they're parodying or redefining the "boundaries" and "limits" of soap opera by inserting clever little allusions to movies they like, and by utilizing quirky characters and "new-age" detective methodologies, and by inserting people watching a soap opera within the soap opera itself (is this genuinely original?), as if to say "Look at THIS interesting plot element: the characters in THIS soap opera are themselves hooked on a TV soap opera; isn't that funny, I mean, *imagine* people totally obsessed by a silly television pro... oh, hi there, audience, how's it goin'?".

But a soap opera nonetheless, and nonethemore.

Someone claimed that the people who dealt us this mess surely wouldn't jerk around millions of people with stupid leftover cliched soap opera tricks, or with poor plotting that leaves one thinking about how Indiana Jones' line in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ("I don't know, I'm making this up as I go along.") was actually reflective of what was going on in the minds of that film's creators, too. I do not see why making a film about a baby that looks like a sheep (and probably WAS a sheep) gives one a degree of infallibility and integrity comparable to a cross between the Pope and Mother Theresa. He and his little cronies are fucking with our minds, no less so than other slimy network and other media yoohoos. We came into this expecting (or at least hoping for) a sophisticated program that would give people who say "Oh, I *never* watch network TV" to come back into the fold (like good little sheep) and watch. The early episodes hinted at the fulfillment of that promise.

But in reality it was never a promise at all, it was a scam. Watching this show with the level of sophistication and interpretation and observation that the show LEADS you to think it deserves is actually detrimental to the appreciation of the program. Thinking is not a survival trait when it comes to watching Twin Peaks. It is just the opposite, it is an anti-survival trait, it leads you to be contemplating the meaning of log when a huge bear or wolf or a tractor trailer comes along and slimes you to pieces, because you should have been using your log-given senses to fend for your survival out in the wild instead of thinking about whether or not there were two Lydeckers or whether or not the stuffed toy duck sitting at the edge of the table in the scene where Maddy doesn't touch her cherry coke at the diner has any significance, or whether the very fact that Maddy doesn't touch her CHERRY C O K E is in and of itself significant. It doesn't matter. Really. Honestly. This show is best appreciated by NOT bothering to think about ANYTHING, by watching it JUST LIKE it was a common garden variety soap opera. For good reason: it *IS* a common garden variety soap opera, albeit a common garden variety soap opera with a log lady, a Zen detective, kinky sex in and out the wazoo hinted at and "brazenly" bared for all to see (at least as much as one can on TV), and a general quirkiness and atmosphere that LEADS us, the people who NEVER watch network TV and especially not those silly soap operas, to think that this is MORE than a common garden variety soap opera.

If the show is a parody, the thing being parodied is the audience, you and me, the people who look with disdain on shows like Dallas, Dynasty, and Wheel of Fortune, because WE have been shown to be no better than those who are hopelessly addicted to THOSE programs. We have been sucked in. Toyed with. Fucked with. And I, for one, have had enough. I am going cold turkey off of this ridiculous habit NOW. I mean, this show has messed up my life completely, controlling my schedule, my lifestyle, my conversation. Look at me right here in this newsgroup. I have never spent so much time slavishly reading and posting to the net in my entire life. (Well, maybe once, for about four years, but that doesn't count...)

So I've had it. In the words of Bobby's friend Mike (who isn't one-armed Mike, who isn't the one-armed man from the Fugitive, who isn't the killer, who isn't really important anyway), I'm outta here. Maybe if enough of us who feel the same way (and apparently there are more than a few of us) make our feelings known, we can show the network that we're mad as hell about this and we're not going to take it anymore. (Ohmygod, another movie reference!!!!) Maybe they'll realize that they can't mess with our minds that way indefinitely. Maybe they'll realize that these whimsified artistes who think they can fool us into believing that they've made something "serious" and interesting here can't get over on the American public ad infinitum. Maybe they'll realize that the very audience they had tried to sucker in is now wise to them and isn't going to bother watching their silly program next fall.

And maybe once they realize all that, when they rebroadcast the entire series over the summer, they'll use the version of the last episode that was intended to be used if the series was not going to be renewed for the fall, the one that reveals who actually killed Laura Palmer! Yeah!!!! ... I mean, like I really give a hoot...


Curtis E. Dyerson, 6/14/90

Laura Palmer is Still Dead

My opinion is that the murder mystery motivates my watching Twin Peaks. Many on the net share this opinion because the primary activity in alt.tv.twin-peaks is sifting clues and articulating "who killed Laura" theories. To fail to provide a clean resolution of the murder mystery that fits the clues to a tee would be a very callous way for Lynch to treat his detective minded audience. An arbitrary solution would mean the complete failure of Twin Peaks as a mystery. Sorry if I don`t see the "joke" in that. As you pointed out there seems to be no way for everything to fit together, but we'll see what turns out next Fall.

My opinion is that Twin Peaks was neither new nor outstanding TV. It was MTV (images and music) meets Dynasty (a sappy, melodramatic plot) with a dash of the Twilight Zone (contrived story and character twists). It was a tribute to the eighties, a decade dedicated to style over substance. The most fitting epitaph to Twin Peaks would be "Where's the beef?".


circa 9/14/90: The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, a spin-off book by Jennifer Lynch, is released


Ron Chrisley, 9/14/90

If you read the "Secret Diary" it will be clear that BOB is not Bobby Briggs.

He's either:

a) Satan (i.e., a supernaturtal evil force);

b) A personality of Laura's that manifests her masochism stemming from abuse as a litlle girl;

c) someone who has used psychic powers on her since she was a little girl.

Let's put it this way: BOB and Laura have "conversations" *in her diary*. She's not recording a conversation; rather, she writes a line or two, then BOB writes a line or two...

Anyway, the book is very disturbing; I do not recommend it unless you really have to know every clue possible.

One important charcater in the diary not mentioned in the show so far is a shut-in Botanist (whom Laura rapes) to whom Laura gives the diary before her death. Remeber, this is the "secret" diary of LP, not the one Cooper found...


Charles Allen, 9/17/90

An interesting idea, but I think that it is Ben Horne rather than Leland. She does mention throughout the book, that Ben has always liked her rather than his own daughter. "Each time there is a party or a get-together at the Great Northern, Benjamin puts me on his lap or knee and sings to me softly in my ear."(pg 13) Also,"I'm sixteen years old, I'm a cocaine addict, a prostitute who fucks her fathers employers..."(p 167)

These passages help my suspiscions, along with the fact that she does not seem to hold any thing or any secret against her father in her entries.

One question, who is Harold? This person is brought up at the end of the diary, and is also given the diary to hold, by Laura before she died. Have we seen someone called Harold? I don't recall.

CHAz


Jeff Bone, 9/26/90

du... sez:
"I go along with those who say that BOB is Laura's internal representation of some real person who molested her as a very young girl. (more about the idea of BOB as an image for someone else, etc.)"

I've been formulating basically the same theory since I finished reading the diary... I believe this is right on the money. But I don't believe that the image of BOB that Laura, Cooper, and Sarah see is some random image which Laura created to hide her molester's true identity from herself.

Rather, I believe that BOB is itself the dark force which infests Twin Peaks; the BOB image is that force's own representation of itself. Perhaps this force made and/or is making use of someone known to Laura (Leland?) to physically get around. Laura, being psychic/sensitive, "saw" BOB's own image of itself, and chose to believe that image rather than the physical image of the person molesting her.

Certainly, the name BOB means something; it's probably some clue to the identity of the body which the BOB force uses to move within the physical world. Laura knew the identity of that person, but hid that knowledge from herself, leaving herself with only the name BOB as a clue or reminder.

This makes sense in the context of the giant's comment: "Three have seen him, yes, but not his body... One only, known to you". Laura, Cooper, and Sarah all saw BOB's own image of itself; only one person on the show has seen the physical body of the molester in it's entirety; the giant's comment could be taken to mean that of the three who have seen BOB, only one of them seen his body and knows the identity of BOB's meat puppet.

Sounds like Sarah to me. I belive she knows of BOB, and she knows that BOB was making use of (Leland/Ben/Jerry in that order, take your pick) to move within the real world and, among other things, molest her daughter. If Leland is not in fact the meat puppet, then he almost certainly played some accomplice role in (at the least) the molestation of his daughter; hence, Sarah's "Don't ruin this too" comment at the funeral.

There are many clues that point to something like this. There are numerous allusions to a separation of the physical world and the spiritual world (the Flesh World magazine and the comment about the Spirit World at the Log Lady's cabin, etc.)... we know that Twin Peaks is "far from the world" (H.S.T.); perhaps, being far from the material world, it's just that much closer to the realm of the spirit.

Or not. I dunno, draw your own conclusions.


9/30/90: Episode 8 (season 2 premiere) - Cooper lies on the floor for the first 17 minutes of the show, visited by a senile room-service waiter and then a mythical giant. Laura's killer is not explicitly revealed but we do see BOB attack her in a flashback to the night of her murder.


Tom Neff, 10/1/90

* Audrey's not "praying" to Cooper, she's trying to send to him telepathically (tele-pathetically?). I guess it doesn't work, huh.

* If the public and the critics do get fed up with TWIN PEAKS, as I'm beginning to suspect they shortly will, it won't be over not being told who killed Laura Palmer -- it will be out of revulsion at watching a taut, quirky thriller denegerate into schlocky mysticism.

* If we locked Cooper into a closet and unleashed Philip Marlowe on this one, he'd rip aside the spiritual mumbo jumbo in two shakes and lean on the love angle: look for someone with the means, motive and opportunity. Donna would be facing the music by Episode Three. Let's see how long Cooper takes.

* Am I the only one who would like to call in Spenser and Hawk here? Jerk that sicko Jacoby's license and send in Susan Silverman to calm these kids down with glutinous psycho-babble while Spenser shakes down Ben Horne and Hawk blows away Hank, Leo, Bob and six or seven armed extras with that shiny cannon of his. Cut to copter shot of Pugent Sound and tough-yet-sensitively philosophical Urich voice-over, then roll credits.

* I know the cast has to get on with their lives between shooting seasons, but couldn't we have some semblance of continuity in a series whose action is still supposed to be taking place within days of the pilot? If Fenn, MacLachlan, Ontkean, Beymer, Zabriskie, Ashbrook, Davis, Lipton et al. can look so convincingly back in character, why must we endure these radical appearance changes from Sheryl Lee (whose Maddy now looks like a trailer park slattern), Ray Wise (you *can't* tell me that "Daddy, your hair turned white" wasn't pasted into the script - I've watched enough soaps), Jack Nance (have a nice time in St Barts, Jack?), or Lara Flynn Boyle (something is wrong - hope she has friends). I mean this was a second half drop in: people REMEMBER what the characters are supposed to look like.

* The interminable opening scene with the clueless old geezer hovering over the felled and bleeding Cooper is atrocious, nearly unwatchable! I haven't had so much fun with Lynch since ERASERHEAD, which I saw in 1978 and clearly remember one-third of the audience walking out on about ten minutes in. Go get em, tiger. Of course ABC isn't in the business of supporting 'cult classic' charity cases with 10 shares, but you don't really want to be doing this show three years from now anyway.

* Beware all second seasons.


Delia Cioffi, 10/7/90

In this and other posts, I DON'T understand why the only (or main) two options seem to be BOB as real person or BOB as visitor from another time or world. More correctly, BOB as *archetype* could account for his appearence to different individuals, *and* for both his consistencies and differences across various individuals' visions.

It is, I admit, a somewhat fine-grained distinction, but seeing BOB (and perhaps other "other-worldly" characters as well) as *psychological* constructs is more in keeping with Lynch's demonstrated style and sensibilities. It also allows these characters and forces to retain *both* their "real" and "mystic" qualities.


Gary Newell, 10/9/90

(Michael Kaye) writes:

"Don't reinterpret every new piece of evidence to insist that it proves this conclusion, when it does not. This is not well thought out. Other things about owls and BOB that aren't what they seem include that BOB appears as simply human in coops vision, but he is not. There's more to him, perhaps he's a demon, vampire, spirit, whatever. His powers *might* include invisibility, mind control, mind reading, jumping through portals that take him to and from strange"

Geezuz - take your own advice will ya? Maybe he's f*ckin Santa Claus too huh? My God - a few dreams/visions of a figure and suddenly he's the damn tooth fairy...... there hasn't been one piece of 'serious' evidence that there are super-natural beings in this show - only dreams, hallucinations and visions - how does this add up to mystical boogie men?????

gln


10/9/90: Episode 9 - The supernatural elements come to the fore as BOB attacks Maddy in a vision, Major Briggs reveals that deep space monitors have picked up a message for Cooper, and the strange Tremonts demonstrate a magic trick involving creamed corn. From now on, Twin Peaks airs on Saturday nights.


Michael Kaye, 10/10/90

Doc Hayward is the most terrifying, yet conceivable choice for BOB. I've eliminated out of hand all of the female characters for many reasons. Since we're talking about Jennifer Lynch I'll talk about this from a secret diary perspective. So don't give me a bad time about looking at the diary so much this article. :)

Interesting things about Doc Hayward include

1) He oversaw the birth of Laura Palmer, knew her as she grew up.

2) Laura Palmer practically worshipped him. He is portrayed as being the most wholly good character in Twin Peaks (Donna comes very close).

3) Dr. Hayward, along with Ben, press for the autopsy to be cut short.

4) (pg 357) "[the abortion doctor] shook my hand. The rubber glove reminded me of something, was it BOB?" --Laura (hey! Was Leland wearing a rubber glove when he offed Jacques?)

Anyway #2 is mentioned several times in the diary, and is the reason why I think of Doc Hayward is one of the most terrifying choices. The idea of such an aparently good man doing all the horrible things BOB does to Laura in the diary really makes me want to retch. Even more than the idea of her own father doing it to her.

Doc Hayward knew her and saw her regularly from birth... which fits with the idea of BOB. Ben, Leland, and Doc are the main people who fit this criterion offhand. (Ben favored Laura over her own Daughter, buys her a horse, sings to her, etc...). Jennifer Lynch knew the killer, said that studying the diary might reveal the killer, so I think the killer would have had more than a passing reference in the diary. (Truman for instance gets no serious mention beyond being contacted about Laura's lost cat, and saying "poor truman" referring to Josie's dark side. Yes I had to get that crack in about the truman theorists. :) Dr. Hayward still is an extreme dark horse candidate, and I would be utterly shocked if BOB was in him. Yeesh the thought is terrifying. I think Leland would have been just as surprising a choice to Jennifer as Dr. Hayward though.

uncle horny's BOB list: 1)leland 2) ben 3) dr. hayward


10/13/90: Episode 10 - Ronette awakens from her coma, Audrey is held hostage at One Eyed Jack's, and Leland says he met BOB as a child.


Christian Albrecht Hartleben, 10/14/90

Submit for your approval...

The one armed man sees the picture of Bob and needs his medication.

I suggest that seeing the picture induces a psychotic episode of some sort. My favorite working theory about Bob is that he is a representation of sexual abuse, and that in Twin Peaks, such a thing is represented by a very specific image and name. Bob is, forgive me, a job description, and different people have fulfilled the role for Leland (his Bob is now quite old), Laura (definately Leland, did you see him stroking Maddie and wishing things could be the way they were, and also probably Truman(even though no one believes me)).

In keeping with the dream from last season, I suggest that our favorite shoe salesman was also abused and became an abuser. But he turned and fought against Bob. Perhaps his medication is some sort of anti-psychotic (and please forgive and correct my lousy understanding of such terms). Without it, he perceives Bob as real. "No, but doesn't he kinda remind you of someone." and when Gerard sees Bob's picture at the station, both times he is with Truman. Truman had access to Ronette's room. When we first see him this week, he turns off Ronette's EKG. While Leland tells Truman and Cooper that he knows Bob, we can read a poster which says Sheriff (actually it says deputy sheriff, but i'll be damned, etc).

Chris "I still think Truman did it" Hartleben


Jan D. Wolter, 10/14/90

Well, you folks had me half convinced with the Laura is Maddie theory and the Leland is the killer theory. But to my thinking, this episode scotches both. Maddie tells us "Everybody thinks I'm Laura. But I'm not. I'm a different person altogether." Within the story there seems no more reason to believe\ her than there was before, but from the outside it sounds like the writers are eliminating that option. And with Leland guilty of Jacques' murder, I don't buy him as Laura's killer as well. I just can't believe that with so many fine potential villians running around, all the murders are going to be foisted off on Leland.

There's been a lot of people comparing Killer Bob's face with various TP characters. I think Harold Smith is the best match yet. Does Blackie's plan seem terribly confused to you? Why hook Audrie on drugs if they intend to kill her?

No supernatural at all this time. Personally I think we are looking for a double solution: a real killer with relatively mundane motives, and a parallel "supernatural" event with it's own reasons. I put "supernatural" in quotes because mostly what we've seen are visions and dreams. This psychic turmoil isn't the cause of things happening, but a reflection of the mundane events in Twin Peaks, like the birth of two-headed calfs and the appearance of comets before the fall of a medieval kingdom. I don't think there are any actual vampires, giants, dwarfs or space aliens knocking around twin peaks. Those are just manifestations of the disturbances on the spiritual plain caused by the mundane events in Twin Peaks. Of course, this requires some pretty horrific events, and a lot of people with guilty consciences. But it is a mistake to interpret visions and dreams too literally.

- Jan


Cisco’s Buddy, 10/14/90

(Greg Sandell) writes...
} What a disappointment! Twin Peaks is now just a Saturday night Gilligan's Island! They've taken a head-dive into total goofiness. A drama that was close to plausible but just kinky enough to gather a cult following is now casting that all aside in favor of a Laugh-In for the 90's. Blecch!

You know, you're right. I thought Ronette's screaming and carrying on in the hospital was absolutely hilarious. And when they pulled that "B" out from under her fingernail, I was rolling on the floor. Hooking Audrey on smack was a laugh-a-minute, and the scene of Donna in the cemetary pouring her heart out to Laura had me in stitches. And people thought I LOVE LUCY was funny.


Fiona Oceanstar, 10/18/90

I know that Dan the Crisper was mostly havin' fun when he wrote:
"Of course, on Opening Night (S1, E1), my first impression of Ronnette's appearance was that she resembled a Romero zombie, so maybe the undead motif is a go."

...but it *does* give me a decent jumping-off place for some psychiatric thoughts about Ronette.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initial caveat: the characters and plot of "Twin Peaks" don't have to be psychiatrically plausible (most TV isn't), NOR does my being a psychiatrist give me some kinda conduit to the truth about human behavior (!). These are just my impressions, informed (I hope) by medical knowledge and experience.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ronette's initial appearance, walking across the railroad bridge, was one of the first things about "Twin Peaks" that made me sit up and say, "Wow--this show may even be realistic!" Having seen lots of post-rape and post-trauma victims, I can vouch for her zombie-like expression, listless walk, and pale skin being consistent with a normal human response to an overwhelming psycho- logical (let alone physical) trauma. If she looks like she's on autopilot in that scene, that's because she *is*. It took considerable inner strength for her to get up and walk out like that. Many people in that situation might have died of exposure, just from being too psychologically blasted to find the will to move. But Ronette is young, and the young do have a strong sense of survival. My response, as a shrink, when I saw her walking across that bridge, was a) to be shocked by the trauma she'd obviously suffered, and b) to cheer for her--"All right! You can MAKE it!" Seriously.

Comments on subsequent developments in the Ronette story:

1) her "coma" -- A period of post-traumatic mutism, perhaps with some catatonic symptoms, might have made more sense. Given that she was able to walk to safety, one would need to invoke intracranial pathology to explain a true coma. Maybe she had a head injury and a slow subdural bleed in her brain? (who knows? who cares?)

2) her premorbid condition -- This is the jargon phrase for what she was like *before* the traumatic event. We know, from the fact of her picture in Flesh World, that she probably had a personality disorder, if not drug problems and home problems (incest victim?) to boot. Child sexual abuse is common 1 out of 6 females) and could well explain her promiscuity and low self-esteem.

3) her recovery -- I confess to not keeping track of the time sequence, but given that we don't know whether she had an intracranial injury, or was "just" catatonic, any timeline of recovery is plausible.

4) her vision of Bob -- Right on the money! Victims of trauma most definitely have frightening and accurate nightmares about what they experi- enced. These memories are so vivid that they are much more frightening than any normal nightmares, and they can break right into waking consciousness. Only with time (if ever) are these memories reduced in intensity, or altered. So, if TP is going to be psychiatrically consistent, Ronette's vision will be a very reliable "account" of what happened in the railroad car, at least as seen from *her* point of view. Of course we weren't told if she were intoxi- cated in any way (cocaine?) at the time; but as long as she wasn't psychotic or drugged-out at the time of the rape (no evidence for either, really) we *should* be able to trust her vision.

5) her "fits" --> Those scenes where she flails around and acts crazy closely resemble episodes of hysteria. They're not epileptic seizures or anything else due to brain damage. The fact that she is *that* hysterical, after having recovered a fair amount from the trauma, lends support to the idea that she wasn't too healthy beforehand.

I'm worried about this woman, frankly. So far the only good news is that she was able to walk away from the crime scene, and that she is being more responsive. I think she will continue to be pretty wacky, though-- wackier even than what you'd normally expect for post-traumatic stress disorder, which is quite a lot.

Where are her *parents*, anyway?

No comments on the blue-IV-bag episode, other than to say that it obviously won't help in her recovery.

Take-home lesson for TP-heads:

--I'm pretty sure we can trust her memories.

--Expect her to be unstable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

This should be the first in a series, if the feedback is positive.

Future installments: Leland, Andy,...

--Fiona Oceanstar


10/20/90: Episode 11 - Leland Palmer confesses to killing Jacques Renault, a suspect in his daughter's murder. A strange Japanese businessman, Mr. Tojamura, arrives in town.


Jigsaw, 10/24/90

My theory used to be that Laura Palmer's incestuous father killed her. Now that we know Bob did it, I still think her father did it and Bob is an image representing him. How about that for holding on to your convictions. Pretty desperate, huh?

me


10/27/90: Episode 12 - Cooper rescues Audrey from One Eyed Jack's while Donna and Maddy try to steal Laura's secret diary from a shut-in. Meanwhile, ABC has been advertising the upcoming killer's reveal on 11/10.


Cisco’s Buddy, 10/28/90

(Bob Kelley) writes...

"This is my greatest fear...what happens when WKLP is solved? I just read TV Guide's Cheers n Jeers and they are pushing for a solving. Twin Peaks will die if we find a killer for Laura Palmer. Just no way for Agent Cooper to stick around."

You know, I thought some about this, and I figured out the "solution" to this vexing problem. So what will keep Coop in Twin Peaks after the Laura murder is solved?

Nothing.

That's right, nothing.

But Cooper *is* the show, and MacLachlan's signed on for five years, right?

Consider:

(1) Laura was murdered on 23/24 February 1989.

(2) Episode #14 (11/10) will be the episode where the murderer is revealed.

(3) At the current one episode=one day rate, Episode #14 will happen on Thursday, 9 March 1989.

(4) Note that this will be almost exactly 20 months out of synch with the real world.

OK, so what happens?

Episode #14: It's 3/9/89. Murder is solved, everyone is happy, Coop goes back home. Life in Twin Peaks goes on. The sun rises and sets. The moon waxes and wanes. Seasons pass. The swallows return to Capistrano. Various of the conspiracies and whatnot sit on the back burner simmering.

Episode #15: It's now November 1990. That which was simmering has now come to a boil. Another crime is committed which necessitates an FBI agent on the scene. Cooper is familiar with the populace and region, so he's sent there. Or, perhaps, Coop is in TP on vacation, visiting his friends there when something happens that requires his assistance.

Like this current storyline, each "arc" could flow at a rate of one day per episode, with mucho tiempo passing in between arcs, allowing for Cooper to leave the town and come back when the next crime happens.

--

"Good thing you guys can't keep a secret."


Cisco’s Buddy, 11/1/90

} "Wake up! Mr. Tojimura IS Catherine Martell in disguise."

Go back to sleep. He isn't her.

} "Even the USA Today article hinted broadly at this."

Quote please.

} "I also see no prominent Adam's apple,"

Look again at the scene where Mr. T. is standing in the hotel lobby looking at Ben. It practically reaches out and grabs you by the lapels.

} "but even if I did, it could be a prosthetic job or an appliance..."

One that would fool Ben when he's standing right in front of Mr. T.? Make-up and prosthetics just isn't that good.


Joe Buck, 11/1/90

No, we know that a character in next week's show says "BOB requires a human host", and that's all we know. It could be the way it sounds, but I'm convinced that there will be a twist.

Here is one possible twist. I'm not claiming it's the solution Lynch will come up with, but I like it.

I think it's Leland, and that it's not as simple as the BOB entity possessing Leland.

Try this one on for size: there was a real BOB, in Leland's youth, who molested Leland. Like many abused children, Leland developed multiple personality syndrome, and BOB is one of the personalities. But the twist is that Leland has some kind of psychic power (which seems to run in the family) and the result is that BOB somehow takes on an independent existence in the "collective unconscious" of Twin Peaks. That is, Leland is a "strong sender" and his vision of the evil BOB can appear to the more "sensitive" characters, especially those close to him. The day-to-day Leland isn't aware of BOB; he may not have physically committed the murders, but he may have. However, he unconsciously feels guilty and therefore sends other images which are clues -- Cooper's dream, the giant, etc, are all projections from Leland's warped psychic mind.

Like many molested children, Leland/BOB is a molester. There can be several variants of this: Leland himself molests Laura, or the BOB vision seduces and corrupts Laura and Leland kills her to save her from BOB, or in anger at the evils BOB has inspired her to do. Evidence that it's Leland -- the speech made by BOB in Cooper's dream has been mentioned before -- "Catch you in my death bag (Jacques in a body bag) ... you may think I've gone insane (what everyone thinks about Leland), but I promise -- I'll kill again! (Leland kills Jacques)." Because Leland is unconsciously sending the clues, they are symbolic and indirect in nature rather than clear.

The One Armed Man is connected to the original BOB -- perhaps his son, and he also sees the visions of BOB, so he thinks that the ghost of his father is out possessing people to commit the murder. But his ideas about what BOB is are wrong -- Leland caused BOB and not the other way around.

There's been too much character development to have the solution be that an otherwise normal, random character were possessed by some demon, killed Laura, and has now forgotten all about it. Lynch and Frost seem to have gone to a lot of effort to have the show and the characters make sense on a psychological level -- the mental disturbances the characters exhibit, etc. I think that to find the solution, we need to look at this level, along with the added twist that the dream world is "real" in Twin Peaks, a kind of meatier Jungian collective unconscious.

Having Andy be the killer just doesn't seem consistent with this. There's just no connection with Laura, no "why". Yes, I know, "why" could be because the ghost of BOB thought it was a cute idea, but I just don't like it.


11/3/90: Episode 13 - The One-Armed Man reveals that he is inhabited by a spirit named MIKE, who says BOB is inhabiting someone at the Great Northern.


Laura Floom, 11/5/90

OK - I have not missed a single episode of TP. I love it as much as the next person. Of course sometimes I am rater tired when I watch it and my reception is not very good. BUT - every week I read these sort of bookkeeping entries on the net, and am I impressed. HOW DO YOU GUYS DO IT???????????

Tell me! Tell me! How many times are people watching TP? Do you take notes on every subject as you are watching?? Or, when a question comes up do you drag out each of the episodes, grab a yellow pad, some popcorn and start watching. Do you have a photographic memory. Do you have a social life? A photographic memory? Do you enjoy making the rest of us feel stupid?

Does anyone else share my frustartion?


Diarmuid Maguire, Hillard Pouncy, 11/10/90

Ben Horne did it. Here's the scoop.

1. Ben rests at the center of all the evil networks in town: prostitution, murder, fraud, arson, adultery, drugs, etc. Ben obviously takes great pleasure from his many vices. BOB feeds on pleasure or fear.

2. Fire walks with Ben. In the last episode (11/3) he drinks a toast to his office fire and there were a number of extreme closeups of Ben lighting his cigar. Not to forget the burning of the ledger scene with brother Jerry: "We have to burn something! - Where are those hickory sticks." Also, Ben was instrumental in having the mill burn down. If we look at the show as (at some level) a struggle between wood and fire, then Ben is on the side of fire - and therefore evil.

3. Our hypothesis is that the Great Northern Hotel is built on an ancient and sacred Indian site (we are way out on a limb here and we know it). The hotel's decorations are littered with totem poles, Northwest Indian paintings and a statue of an Indian chief in Coop's room. Also, remember in the first season that Ben's mad son wore an Indian headdress. Ben's desk sits in front of an Indian painting of an evil looking owl.

Originally, the Hotel's construction plus Ben's future plans for the Ghostwood Estate has aroused and continues to arouse an epic struggle among good and evil spirits from the Indian world. Was the Great Northern Hotel built forty years ago?

The giant and the dwarf are good spirits.

And BOB is no angel. In Northwest Indian culture, in fact, BOB is the bad spirit (read fire) that threatens the woods, who is called the BOOKWUS (see our previous posting on Northwest Indian culture). The BOOKWUS in Northwest Indian tradition looks like an evil owl - the one in Ben's office at the Great Northern. BTW the BOOKHOUSE boys' main job is to fight the BOOKWUS ("There is evil in the woods" sayeth the Judge). (It is ironic that Anglo culture takes on the name of an Indian entity, but transforms its mission from evil to good.)

4. The struggle among contending spirits, as in Greek Drama, has led mere mortals to commit acts that are both good and bad. Laura Palmer's murder was but one of these evil acts.

BOB tried to take over Laura's body and soul, but Laura tried to break free. He decided to kill her using his host from the Great Northern, Ben Horne.

5. This leaves the most delicious suspect, Leland Palmer, her dad, off the hook. He himself is evil. He has committed incest with Laura. He, too, has hosted BOB. He, too, walks with fire (he can flick matches with the best of them). But, he is ordinary evil, not THE evil. Like other previous hosts - one-armed man, Harold Smith, etc., he is a spent force. Ben Horne remains a vital force for evil in Twin Peaks.

6. The rest of the season will be dominated by various trials, mainly that of Ben Horne. This will give Lynch a priceless opportunity to put the log lady, Andy, One-Armed Man and Major Briggs on the witness stand in that frontier-like courtroom. Can you imagine some of the arguments - "an evil spirit made me do it."

Diarmuid Maguire Hillard Pouncy


Hardeep Johar, 11/10/90

Well, only a few hours more before the great revealation! So let me make an ass of myself with the following predictions:

1. Leland Palmer killed Laura Palmer. I'm not sure if he was BOB's host or not.

2. If BOB, the spirit, was the killer, then there is no way that he could have had more than one host. If he was in the habit of flitting around from host to host, then there is no point in discussing twin peaks. If BOB is not the killer, then it is ok for him to go flitting around from host to host.

3. Laura Palmer was not Leland's daughter.

4. The OAM, or Mike in OAM, is not the killer.

5. It looks as if BOB is the killer. The program description for next weeks episode (in the NYT) says that Cooper hunts for BOB with the help of Mike. So it looks as if BOB is the killer, and Mike is not.

6. I'm going to regret this posting.


11/10/90: Episode 14 - Tojamura is revealed as Catherine in disguise. Cooper arrests Ben for the murder of Laura. The real killer is revealed when he murders Maddy.


Ritual de lo Habitual, 11/11/90

Leland Leland Leland

It's official. Leland killed his daughter, Laura Palmer. Or, to be more precise, BOB, while possessing Leland, killed Laura.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see the "Andy-did-it" people explain *this* away...:) :)


Ryan D Mathews, 11/11/90

I won't waste a lot of bandwidth making comments that are probably going to be made a thousand times over. I'd just like to say... WAY TO GO, ALT.TV.TWIN-PEAKS!

I'd say that the grand majority of us believed that either BOB, Leland, or Ben Horne killed Laura Palmer. We were all "right"! Okay, so Ben Horne isn't guilty. He's far from innocent, as evidenced by his reaction, and it fooled Cooper.

Also: I sat back and laughed at all the idiots who were stupid enough to believe that Mr. Tojimura was (ha ha ha) Catherine Martell. That had to be the most ridiculous theory I've ever heard in my life! But, boy, am I eating crow now. I feel like the stupid one for being fooled by the disguise.

So, come on group! Let's give ourselves a collective pat on the back. (stretch, ugh) There.

I guess I can't resist a few comments:

-- I feel sorry for all the people who got "fed up" and quit. This episode brought back all the emotions of the pilot, IMHO.

-- Is Josie coming back, you ask? Is that $5 million "cashier's check" she holds onto a forgery, I ask back?

-- I got the feeling Maddie could see Leland as BOB.

-- I also feel that Lynch and Frost did an admirable job of "walking the line" between fantasy and reality. Yes, BOB, the supernatual entity, killed Laura, but so did Leland, the unsettled human being. This, like so much in Twin Peaks, can be taken both ways.

-- Do you think that Jennifer Lynch was right that a careful reading of the Secret Diary would reveal the killer? I finished the Diary with the conviction that Leland had abused Laura, but beyond that...

-- I still wanna know BOB's motive, both for Laura's murder and those of Sarah and Maddie.


Cisco’s Buddy, 11/11/90

I fully expect to have a mailbox full of I-told-you-so's all next week. I *still* think it's contrived as hell, and they'd better have a *damn* good explanation for how she set it all up, especially after Tojamura's bona fides checked out (unless, of course, Jerry's in on it :-)).

Still, I'm not one to deny admission when I'm wrong. I'm having crow for Sunday dinner.

I'll be vindicated, however, when it's revealed that it was Pete at the window, not Jonathan. :-)

--

"Good thing you guys can't keep a secret."


Mike Miller, 11/11/90

OK, first let me say I love twin peaks. So no hate mail please?

I really think its past time for them to get rid of the BOB plotline. I'm past tired of young women on being brutally murdered on the show. the 11/10 episode where Maddy is almost certainly killed had by far the most disturbing scene I've ever seen on TV. I havn't even been mildly freaked by anything else that has went on before. But watching Leland/BOB do his thing on Maddy was just a bit to much.

There seem to be plenty of other plots going, so why do they keep dragging this out?


Keith Miyake, 11/12/90

(Jym Dyer) writes:
"|T|he diary left me with the impression that Laura never saw Leland as BOB---or suppressed the possibility of it. Yet Maddy appears to have seen Leland fluctuate between BOB and Leland. Or perhaps only the viewers saw that . . ."

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the diary, but I remember a passage where Leland acts very strange at the dinner table, and Laura convinces herself that it was a dream. She says something like, "I didn't realize until now that it must have been a dream..." In either case, I got the impression that she was suppressing the Leland/BOB connection, if she ever saw it. You could read "I think BOB is a friend of my father's," in the same way. She uses BOB to deal with the fact that her father molests her.

Supernatural elements have always been a part of Twin Peaks. However, I have faith that they will not cross over a certain line. It will always have one foot in reality. Cooper can see visions, but he cannot, say, make objects levitate. Albert is free to make fun of him. The log speaks, but only through the log lady. We can always write that off as the ramblings of a spinster. OAM turns into Mike, but he uses a drug similar to one used to treat multiple personality disorder to suppress it. I would like to think of Leland/BOB as something which can be explained as multiple personality disorder. People see visions of BOB, so we, the viewers, know that BOB is something more than that. However, I think if BOB were able to hop from body to body, we'd have crossed that line. Cooper, Truman, and the rest would be on the hunt for a spirit that changes bodies more often than I change socks. First, as many people have pointed out, we'd have to forget about alibis. That weakens the whodunit. Second, what is Cooper going to tell Albert, Gordon, etc.? "We've caught the killer of Laura Palmer. Right now, it's inhabiting the body of this here ferret." Personal opinion, but I think this qualifies as crossing the line. If BOB could switch bodies easily, it would be difficult to continue the story without completely losing touch with reality. I suppose it could possibly work if it were very difficult for BOB to move to another body.

Still, I'd place my bets on BOB having been in Leland for a long time. The scene in the Roadhouse is yet another example of how they've managed to blur the distinction between the supernatural and the mundane with great effect. After Maddy is injured/killed, Cooper gets a message from the Giant, Donna crys, Bobby looks sad, and Senor Drool Cup consoles Cooper. With the exception of Cooper's vision, all of these events can be read in a more mundane way. Donna is crying because she is responsible for Harold Smith's death. Bobby looks sad because, well, is it a crime to look sad? Senor Drool Cup was probably apologizing for his inept behavior when Cooper was shot. The ambiguity of these events make them more believable, and hence more powerful. If SDC had gone up to Cooper and said, "I'm sorry she's dead," I wouldn't have felt nearly the impact that I did. I felt so sorry for SDC and his feelings of inadequacy and guilt. At the same time, I felt touched by his sensitivity to Cooper's dilemma, and the tragic events in the previous scene.

Why am I bringing all this up? I'd hate to lose this feeling of duality between the supernatural and the ordinary. It gives us a richer basis from which to draw up images.

-Sho


Rand P. Hall, 11/12/90

The second Leland looked into the mirror my (sleeping) two year old daughter sat bolt-upright in her crib and screamed ``NO! Don't do it!''

Talk about scaring the shit out of someone!


Joe Zitt, 11/13/90

(Michael Kaye) writes:
"I am amazed by the number of people I have talked to who say that BOB has given them nightmares. I am curious what exactly it is about BOB that seems to strike a chord in so many people? Why do so many people seem to be having nightmares?
The scene affected me a great deal too... My eyes were wide open in horror. The scene is very fresh in my memory. I'd like to see a discussion about the scene, and how it affected people."

It's only a TV show. It's only a goddamn TV show!"

IT'S ONLY A M(*^*^*F^&%ING TV SHOW. IT'S NOT REAL. IT'S NOT REAL.

Maybe if I repeat it enough I will believe that's true. I've been looking behind me lot at night to make sure BOB's not there. Things fade in and out of peripheral vision, and i wonder if they're owl clues.

At night I dream about BOB and the Ghostworld, and I hear the Giant mutter as I fall asleep.

The most sensible thing would be for me to stop watching Twin Peaks. Now. And give all my carefully made and cataloged tapes of it away. Yeah. Right.

I've got a feeling Twin Peaks is more intelligible and less scary than real Austin -- at least we can trust in Lynch/Frost to know what's going on.

That last episode from the death of my favorite character, Harold, to the probable deaths of Sarah and Maddy, was unwatchably horrible and brutal. I'll probably see it several times over the next week.

It's only a TV show. It's only a TV show. It's only a TV show.

Yeah. Right.

-- Joe Zitt


James M. Vincent, 11/14/90

On the subject of multiple BOB hosts:

In my view, this would render nearly any discussion of WKLP or WKTB or WKMF (or TP for that matter)totally pointless. And if BOB can have multiple hosts, why hasn't he destroyed Cooper or Phil Gerrard yet? They pose the greatest threat to him, if anyone actually does.

And I have never heard of a multiple personality disorder that managed to manifest in several physically seperate people if there is more than one host, but BOB is just some mental creation of Leland or Laura or Phil Gerrard.

Ratings:
Last I heard, the 11/10 episode won its slot, at least half-way through it.

Ending scene:
I, like nearly all of us here, have seen far worse. I was somewhat reminded of the end of LOOKING FOR MR.GOODBAR. I am struck, however, by the feeling of utter helplessness as it unfolds clearly before your eye. No dim lights, no suggestive shadows on the wall. That, and the knowledge that perhaps you don't have to be corrupted the way Laura was for BOB to strike at you anyway. The violence was pretty mild. The intensity of the scene and the handling of the follow-up at the roadhouse are what truly bring its impact. Remember what Cooper said about how death is not a faceless thing in Twin Peaks. Here, we were made to feel it, too.

-J


Liz Bonesteel, 11/15/90

I'll start by saying that I'm not going to absolutely defend the Ms. article; personally, I found that some of it went too far. But I am somewhat distressed that there are people who seem to be contending that there is no sexism at all on Twin Peaks. Our entire society is sexist; why should Twin Peaks be any different? I am not advocating, and shall not advocate, that Lynch/Frost change their vision simply to please me; art is art, and they are entitled to create their own vision and put it out in the world. I find the vision of Twin Peaks to be a powerful and thought-provoking one. I criticize because for me the essence of truly effective horror (and I think TP can be classified as horror - or is this another debate? ;-)) is an atmosphere that has enough identifiable with the world that I live in to affect my perceptions of my own existence. For me, the stereotypical gender roles presented on the show dull some of its effectiveness.

(Joe Buck) writes:
"the show deals extensively with the unconscious, but they aren't "gifted innocents"; they are very deliberately tapping into the unconscious."

I'm not so sure of that. David Lynch, from the interviews I've read, strikes me as just about anything but deliberate. He thinks "horrifying", comes up with an image, and presents it. I did not get the impression that he does a lot of thinking about *why* that image is horrifying. In this, I'll have to agree with the article.

"Get it: Twin Peaks is not socialist realism. It deals with the unconscious; the ones we have, not the ones we wish we had or think it would be politically correct to have."

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Are you saying that our collective unconscious is sexist? That we all take a prurient interest in violence against women (or simply those that are helpless)?

"Twin Peaks portrays violence against women; our culture contains violence against women."

Our culture also contains violence against men, children, the elderly, and people of non-white ethnic groups. Violence against women is a terrible social problem (why it has yet to be classified as a hate crime is beyond me), but I see it disproportionately represented on television.

In defense of Twin Peaks, it began well on this front. Yes, our victim was female; but we experienced the trauma of her death without actually having to watch her suffer and die. I still think one of the most powerful images the show has presented was in the pilot, when Sarah finds out *over the phone* that her daughter is dead. There was something incredibly poignant about that shot of the phone receiver, transmitting the sound of her sobs.

"I would prefer that violence be depicted as Twin Peaks does it, with all the horror that that violence really has, than in the sanitized form that the rest of the media portrays it in"

A point perhaps; but surely the scenes of violence have been some of the best photographed of the series. I watched Maddie's murder from beginning to end, absolutely enthralled, even as I was horrified. Is this any less reprehensible than the sanitized quasi-killings that populate shows like "Hunter" and "Miami Vice"?

"'Leading the bordello where all these high school girls have their after-school jobs is Blackie, a creature of smoothly amoral collarbones if ever there was one.' [-Ms.] Of course in real life there are no madams."

This is probably a fair shot. (I kind of liked Blackie, myself, at least until she turned out to be dependent on Jerry Horne; a truly nasty, unpleasant person.) But my understanding is that most pimps are men. I personally don't have any problems with the character of Blackie, but if she was meant to be a realistic character I'd be surprised. (I can't believe I'm arguing about "realistic" characters on Twin Peaks!)

"'Audrey is so sexually advanced that she's 18 going on 40.' [-Ms.] Say what? I can almost guarantee you that Audrey is a virgin."

I agree with this, too. Audrey is my favorite character. BUT she is stereotypical, in that she uses her sexual precocity (whether or not she is a virgin, she certainly knows what she's working with) as a weapon against men. I personally have encountered a number of men who have attributed to deliberate manipulation what is nothing but simple friendliness. In this, I see Audrey as a sort of fantasy character; if she is a virgin (and I believe she is), she is truly a madonna/ whore. She is also one of the most complex and well-developed characters on the show, so it's hard for me to criticize her with any heart. Jury's still out on Audrey. If she lets Coop turn her into mush, I will stop watching the show.

"'Is anyone vaguely in charge of herself, not a victim, crazy, and not corrupt?' [Ms.] Sure. Norma, Donna, Audrey (yes, I know she needed to be resued, but >then so did Cooper and Truman)."

Norma, yes. Donna roams off on her own, does something stupid, and then relies on James to get her out of it. Her life currently revolves around a man. As for Audrey - well, considering her family history (one thinks that her mother must have been somewhat allright, or she'd be a total loss), I can't really blame her for being confused; but since very early on everything she's done has been to gain the notice/approval of Cooper. She may be in control of her actions, but she's hardly in control of her life.

"But you see, Twin Peaks is about archetypes; Maddie gets to play an archetype, as do a number of the other characters. Ben is just as one-dimensional playing Corrupt Businessman."

Ben is your average corrupt businessman? You must have hit some reeeeeel bad folks out there, Joe! ;-)

"Seems to me we've seen quite a lot of Donna. I think part of the underdevelopment is that Lara Flynn Boyle's acting is kind of flat and wooden."

I'll agree with you there.

"'It is Peggy Lipton's Norma who must finally bear the burden of being the only adult woman in the series who is strong so far, nobody's fool, and only one man's victim.' [-Ms.] Oh, please. Catherine and Josie also fit into this category."

Catherine I'll have to see about. She certainly let a little afternoon delight cloud her perceptions (but then, I suppose, so has Harry). But Josie plays the little girl too much for me.

Here's a question: Don't men ever get pissed off at being portrayed as so vulnerable to the attentions of an attractive woman? I mean, for God's sake, it's as bad as those commercials where a guy can't even cope with putting a shirt in the laundry by himself. Is there any *man* out there who has been annoyed by images of men in Twin Peaks? (Harry, for example, pisses me off to no end.)

Stereotyping generally goes both ways.

Liz

I feel better than James Brown.

- Was (Not Was)


LB, 11/16/90

Please excuse any gaffes as this is my first post, and I'm suffering from some kind of gastrointestinal disorder so my brain is a little foggy. I also can't find my notes on confining distribution so please, any British viewers who do not want to find out what is currently happening, logoff.

I have read a few articles about possible child abuse. Since I have not been able to find a copy of the diary I have obtained this information from this net. However, no one seems to agree whether she was abused by her father or not.

From what I have read about child abuse, particurlarly incest, is that the child assumes very strong and creative denial systems that allow them to mentally survive the abuse. This fits with the comments that Laura felt that someone else was inside her. Individuals suffering from multiple person- ality often claim to have suffered severe child abuse. It would also not be surprising for Laura to provide her father, if he was abusing her, with another identity to protect her ego from the assaults. This is classic denial.

Also the possibility that Leland is suffering from multiple personality would fit. If he is, the projection of BOB could be Leland's vision of his other personality. Again, multiple personalities report different appear- ances for themselves. Therefore, when the OAM says only one has seen his face, it could be only Leland or maybe Leland is not aware of his multiple personalities and it is another of Leland's personalities.

I know this does not fit in with the obvious supernatural goings on, unless one agrees that psychic phenomenon is simply picking up on natural occuring events. If this is the case then the emotionally sensitive, could be atuned to Leland's psychic malfunctioning but unaware of the source. from.

Next subject that has attracted my attention, is the recent discussion about sexism, etc. I have not watched many of David Lynch's movies but I did see Blue Velvet and what struck me about that movie is that while the female character allowed herself to be abused, she was doing so to protect her son. As a mother I find that an admirable act, and I think most would.

Throughout the movie I saw her as a tragic, but still sometimes courageous, creature. I often think that what Lynch tries to convey is that women are taken advantage of, they are abused and it is time that both men and women stopped. Even if Lynch is a misogynist I think it is good that his work is shown so that both men and women can watch and say, God forbid I ever behave like that! By pretending it does not exist, allows it to fester.

Also someone mentioned about Twin Peaks appearing so idyllic and when its not. Again I think this is what Lynch tries to portray. That evil exists. It exists in all of us and that while some let it happen to them) ie. Shelley, Harold) others open their hearts to it at the first sign of its arrival (Ben, Josie because I think she accepted the offer in the first place), etc. Also by choosing Leland as a possible child molester is classic. No one wants to accept the possibility because he seems to be such a nice guy, he's a lawyer, etc. I think that's exactly what Lynch tries to tell people, that nice guys are not.

I think this also makes Cooper more human, because he fell into the trap that most people do, if it looks nice it is and therefore missed the evil that lurks beneath the surface.

As I said from the beginning this is my first post, and its probably way off base, but I like, several of the net users,would like to see a semi rational explanation to this. For one reason because it would then be more frightening, because then it could happen. If all it turns out to be is demented owls (please, no flames I agree they seem to be symbols of good), aliens, or possessed spirits, then we can all sit back and say great visuals but it was just a TV show. Instead of saying great visuals and you know the neighbour down the street has been behaving a bit odd these days, singing old 40's tunes.

Linda

I know God is a comedian, that's why my life is such a joke.


11/17/90 - 12/1/90: Episodes 15 & 16 - Leland's possession by BOB is made even more explicit, Maddy's body is discovered, and Cooper finally discovers who killed Laura Palmer. BOB confesses, leaves Leland's body, and Cooper guides a dying Leland "into the light."


Dan Parmenter (as Parmenter X), 12/2/90

I WAS RIGHT (was Re: The earliest impressions of 12/1, Diane.)

(GNUs not Usenet) writes:
"been posting here recently. The Leland Killed Laura folks were totally right, although I cannot remember a post which combined "Robertson" and "children of Bob"-- correct me if I am wrong."

Glad to. I noticed that "Robertson" could be interpreted as "son of Bob" way back when Leland first mentioned "Robertson". I posted it here. Of course, I also thought that the dwarf was at One-Eyed Jacks, so my track record is poor. But this time, I was right on the money.

Things I didn't like about 12-1's episode: For once, the show was starting to look like a mystery- everything fit nicely, Catherine's role in proving Ben's innocence, Leland's false information about Maddy, it would have been nice to see some actual police work instead of that nonsense with summoning the giant. The mysticism of the scene didn't bug me so much as the deus-ex-machina of it all. Of course this way, Catherine's even better off, since she can remain incognito, and not worry about testifying. Having her cake and eating it too.

Does anyone else feel like there's a lot of reverse engineering going on hee? That is to say, fitting the story around various Lynchian indulgences. I have a hard time believing that the goal of the "dancing dwarf" was to point to Leland as a killer. Also, the "golden ring" bit seemed similarly contrived. One gets the impression that Lynch throws in various odd stuff, and the rest of the writers and directors try to come up with reasonable explanations.

My totally random guess for Bob's next host? Audrey. Fits in nicely with that rumor we heard that she would soon meet a mysterious new man. Also seems "right" with regard to her rivalry with Laura for Ben Horne's affections. Leo would make an interesting choice too, since he seems "empty", and it would fit in perfectly with Cooper's rock throwing, which I believe, implicated Leo... All in all, I was happy with the episode - a lot was cleared up, now a new set of plots can begin in earnest with the starting off point of Bob's new host.

- Dan Parmenter


Joe Zitt, 12/3/90

(J. Eric Townsend) writes:
"They had the *perfect* chance to examine the horrible world of child abuse. It seemed to me that here we were going to have an indepth (if not Lynchian-quirky) examination of the sort of thing that goes on with families of abuse -- Leland/Maddie, Ben/Audrie, etc etc. Here was the sort of thing that never happens to "good people" -- child molestation, murder, drug abuse -- but that statistics show happens across the board, regardless of social class or location. This would be L/F's chance to show why it is that sooo many people are sooo fucked up."

Well, gee, J. Eric is upset because Twin Peaks turns out to be a supernatural thriller, rather than a show about a particular social problem. Sounds like tunnel vision to me... Once someone gets the idea that a thing is should be about his/her pet problem, everything gets viewed like from that view.

Next thing you know, we'll get posting that ST:TNG is crap becuase it hasn't covered AIDS, The Simpsons are a waste because they don't have any minority children in the family, and Finnegans Wake is a Bad Thing because it attacks our Mother Tongue. Don't worry, there's probably a nice alternate universe out there somewhere where TP follows your dictates, rather than those of Lynch/Frost.

Remember...

IT'S ONLY A TV SHOW
IT'S ONLY A TV SHOW
IT'S ONLY A TV SHOW...

...not a social service docudrama.

Joe Zitt


Ann Hodgins, 12/3/90

I was disappointed too. I know a number of people who believe in demons. And once people get that idea, all other explanations for bad behavior are discarded. People stop thinking. They stop using their imaginations and they stop facing facts about themselves and others.

To come so close to confronting family abuse and to opt for a supernatural explanation, that's a cop out to me.

However, if there needs to be some rapport between Bob and the person he choses as a host then perhaps the psychological and spiritual explanations can co-exist, at least for a while.

a.h.


Dennis Doubleday, 12/3/90

I don't agree with this at all. I think TWIN PEAKS addresses the issues you speak of, not at the literal level, but at a richer, symbolic level. The history of literature and film is replete with examples of supernatural beings or events that act as symbols for disturbing characteristics of humanity (for example, the works of Edgar Allan Poe or Jacques Tourneur's classic film, CURSE OF THE DEMON). For the characters in the story, the supernatural events are quite real; nevertheless, they represent real-world concerns. Another poster mentioned disappointment with the final, explanatory scene. I admit it was a letdown after the beauty of Leland's death scene (the sprinkler system idea was inspired--a symbolic cleansing of Leland's psyche, the extinguishing of the fire with which he has walked for 40 years). But there was one exchange in that scene that chillingly makes the connection between the literal and the symbolic level:

TRUMAN: I don't know, I've been in these woods for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this. I'm having a hard time believing this. (Not verbatim, but words to that effect).

COOPER: Harry, is it easier to believe that a man would rape and murder his daughter?

In the real world, the unspoken answer to the question is "Yes". And that is the horror of it.

TWIN PEAKS aspires to artistry--sometimes too self-conciously, no doubt. But there are moments when it achieves it. That's why I keep watching.


Tom Neff, 12/3/90

Haven't heard from the Andy-did-its in a while! How ya doing out there? :-)
* * *
I felt disappointed at the breakneck, so-the-butler-knew-all-along kind of 'wrapup' shoveled at us. Maybe it's a consequence of reading so much detailed speculation here, but at times Saturday night I felt like I should have a clipboard to check off lists of broken theories!
* * *
Given the big lapful of loose ends he was charged with tying up, I thought Tim Hunter did a creditable job of drawing us emotionally into the picture. If you've seen RIVER'S EDGE you know he has his own knack for establishing a creepy feeling. I don't think it works quite the same on the boob tube, but I was definitely 'with the program' during the Donna-dance and jail cell death scenes.
* * *
But let's give Ray Wise a standing O for his work these two seasons! He had a tough job and turned in one of the more memorable sustained performances in years. I agree with the person who wished him an Emmy nomination, somewhat to my own surprise. Doubt he'll get it though; it's tough when you leave early in the season.
* * *
The moment that really made me smile: Major Briggs arriving on cue with the Room Service Waiter. I love the character of the Major and I get a tremendous kick out of the strength Don Davis brings to him. On some level the Log Lady doesn't make much sense, but the Major is perfect at all levels. His utterly mysterious high-tech assignment ("Dad... what do you DO?" yields, with perfectly gentle equanimity, "Son, that's classified") somehow leaves him wide open to the world of spirit and fate. And he has visibly grown in two seasons, rather than merely flopping around like some of the younger people.
* * *
Maybe the problem with hiring these stylist wunderkind directors into series work is, indeed, finding a consistent tone. You'd love to see someone like Hunter direct more TV, but who do you team him with? It's a good thing anthologies and mini-series are there.
* * *
If that spoiler about Cooper and Truman saying goodbye is true, and if we sensibly assume MacLachlan outlasts Ontkean, then I'm not too shocked. Truman's importance in TWIN PEAKS has seldom been much more than symbolic from the word go; lately he has dwindled to near invisibility. Guess they've been writing him out gracefully. It's kind of a shame; I'll miss his face. He was wasted as a foil for Cooper's stoic Aquarianisms; I hope he gets lots of good work now.
* * *
If BOB moves into Leo, I don't know how he's going to spook his way around a spinal cord injury, but this isn't ST ELSEWHERE is it! :-) It sounds like a great hideout though: who would suspect a vegetable in a wheelchair?
* * *
By the way, can't they *find* any of the blue drug Gerard needs to suppress MIKE and stop dehydrating to death? Or are they deliberately withholding it for some reason? Will Bill Bennett do a guest shot? :-) Gerard didn't actually quite kick the bucket on 12/1, did he? I'm assuming not. On the other hand if he stays around, Cooper knows he has a weathervane for finding BOB's new host. (Unless, of course... nahhh)
* * *
Who shot Cooper? Does Cooper care? Do we just dump that one on Leland for grins, or is there someone else with a motive?
* * *
If BOB escapes into someone else and starts to kill again, won't someone have to do something stronger than arresting his latest human host? Seems like some serious exorcism is called for. We could get more mystical than any of us dreamed!


Gary Newell, 12/3/90

About a month ago, I read an article in the Sunday paper which dealt with a book that had been recently written. The book contained criticism of modern directors. The article was released by the Gannett news service and was in the living section of the paper (if your local rag subscribes to Gannett then you may have seen it or may be able to find it - I'm afraid I didn't save it and I cannot remember the title or author).

Anyway, the article went through a number of directors and Lynch was one of them. At the time, I knew there were a number of things about TP's that I didn't like but I thought that they were distinct and individual problems and hadn't really seen a connection, until I saw this criticism. What was said is that Lynch's work lacks and real plot development. It pointed out that Lynch's work is made up of separate scenes and dialogue that do nothing to further the plot and tend to become more and more bizarre - and then, in the final 5-10 minutes, the entire plot unfolds. I realized that this was true (in my opinion) of Blue Velvet and I began to think about TPs. It seems to me that this same problem runs through TPs as well. We see 30-40 minute 'chunks' of scenes that do very little plot development (if any at all) and then we see 5-10 minute segments (although not always at the end of any particular episode, but instead spread through the whole series), where the actual story is explained and developed and advanced.

The idea that the images become more and more bizarre also seems to be valid. I realize that some would claim this to be "atmosphere" but to what end? and how much "atmosphere development" does the show need? The scene with naval personnel bouncing rubber balls in the GN while a spastic one-armed man wiggles in his chair would seem an example of this in my opinion - what purpose did those people serve? Did it relate in anyway to the plot? How was it used as anything other than an attempt at a bizarre image? Now some might claim that they think that this is a very good thing (I enjoy the images, but only up to a point), however I think that it is a case of form over content - a show or a movie without a solid plot is still a show with little plot no matter how nicely packaged it is.

This lack of adequate plot development seems to show up in the episodes where the viewer is hit over the head with a barage of little facts all at once (the Leland did it episode and the last episode (why Leland did it) are good examples of this). It is as if they are saying "well, we really have to wrap this thing up - now what haven't we dealt with yet? We'll put all that stuff in the last 10 minutes and be done with it".

That is not to say that the show is without any merit. The unique and interesting images are often "worth the price of admission" so to speak, but the show could be better if it was more careful with its plot and less focussed on simply being bizarre. IMHO of course.....

gln


Doug Quarnstrom, 12/4/90

You know Gary, I agree partially with some of your points about Lynch. I have felt for a long time that his movies were style over substance, but I always get the impression while watching them that this is a man that is capable of directing a masterpiece. I think he needs to be coupled with a plot writer that understands his directing style.

I think that Lynch is still learning his trade and I hope that he matures so that his work can achieve his potential. In Lynch's movies, I get the feeling he is just being violent and strange for the sake of violence and strangeness, but I also feel that he has a real talent with images and mood and that he really has his finger on many of the dark sides of our culture and that some day he may create a truly brilliant piece of film.

I do not think he has done it yet, but I personally think that Twin Peaks is his best effort yet. I think there are things wrong with TP of course, but it is a very interesting TV show and I really look forward to seeing it. Some of it is incredibly drippy. I really wish Bob had nuked either James or Donna. Either one I can handle, but together they are really annoying.

As for the quick resolution and explanations, I get the FEELING that maybe the show was forced into something like that by the networks. Now, before you get annoyed, I am not defending Lynch. It is very possible that it is just Lynch's directing style. But I would have been happy to see the murder mystery go on until at least the end of the season, and I wish they had kept Leland around as Bob's host for awhile. But there have been indications of real public dissatisfaction with the show, and it would not suprise me if Lynch and Frost had to interrupt the normal 'flow' of the show to wrap up the Laura Palmer mystery in order to prop up the ratings. Also, I kind of liked the explanations even though they did seem pretty forced.

I think they did a pretty good job in the episode where they 'revealed the killer', but the last episode did not seem to be paced very well.

One thing that this show is good at is leaving LOTS of questions open from week to week. I think that the plot development in this show is pretty good. I think the Lynch and Frost DO know what is going to happen more or less. I think they were a little sloppy with the wrap up of Laura's murder. I look forward to the rest of the shows this season and hopefully next season. I hope they take their time resolving the Bob thing, because I really kind of like the plot.

The show's weeknesses are a certain bit of sappiness that may be intentional, but is still very annoying. The show does not treat the main characters very well. Cooper did almost nothing to figure out the Laura murder. It was all handed to him on a platter. There is no reason to think that Cooper is anything but a bumbling hack as an investigator. So far the show seems to have a weakness at handling resolutions. Almost nothing was resolved for a year and a half, and then we get a paragraph explaining why it was all obvious. I felt that the explanation made sense more or less, but the pacing felt very wrong. Of course there are more weaknesses, but I have typed too long....

Doug


Jamie Andrews, 12/4/90

I think you've got completely the wrong idea about this -- you're looking at it much too literally. BOB is a metaphor for the evil side of everyone's personality. Even if you don't believe in vampires, vampire stories can tell you lots about avarice, sex, obsession, compulsion... as many writers have shown over the years. _Twin Peaks_, the modern horror story cum soap opera, has a different focus and different plot devices. The idea, though, is similar.

I spent the weekend reading _The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer_, and there's no doubt in my mind that Jennifer Lynch, at least, is very aware of the symptoms of survivors of child abuse, and the process by which victims perpetuate the "evil" which they feel has become a part of them. The fact that it's represented as an evil spirit migrating from abuser to victim is just a literary device (but a very powerful one, IMHO).


Dan Prichett, 12/4/90

(Dennis Doubleday) writes:
"Another poster mentioned disappointment with the final, explanatory scene. I admit it was a letdown after the beauty of Leland's death scene (the sprinkler system idea was inspired--a symbolic cleansing of Leland's psyche, the extinguishing of the fire with which he has walked for 40 years). But there was one exchange in that scene that chillingly makes the connection between the literal and the symbolic level:
TRUMAN: I don't know, I've been in these woods for a long time, but I've never seen anything like this. I'm having a hard time believing this. (Not verbatim, but words to that effect).
COOPER: Harry, is it easier to believe that a man would rape and murder his daughter?
In the real world, the unspoken answer to the question is "Yes". And that is the horror of it."

Actually I believe in the current state of our society the answer would be "No". I am disappointed because we don't need another supernatural explanation as to why people abuse their children. We need the shocking truth presented that they do it because their parents did it to them, and their children will do it as well unless the cycle is broken.

We also don't need another explanation that makes the issues of abuse any less common than it really is. With 1/3 of the girls, and 1/7 of the boys (which is probably really 1/3 as well) being sexually abused by a family member before the age of 18, we have a crisis. Throw in physical and verbal abuse and probably 1 in 2 people grew up in dysfunctional families.

These problems touch every aspect of our society and no social group is exempt of its impact. Why do we need Killer Bob as a way to explain the crimes against children by their families? Because it is easier than admitting that Leland is severly dysfunctional for his own reasons and he will pass that dysfunction on forever if we don't address it. No, Killer Bob is a cop out to make Twin Peaks remain palatible to the American public.


Ann Hodgins, 12/5/90

I've been thinking about this too and feel that perhaps there are ways of looking at this as a positive thing. It is good that TP promotes the diary because I agree with you that it casts a lot of light on the effects of incest and abuse and the connection between that abuse and drug use/promiscuity.

There are parallels between BOB and real abusers. People who have studied child abuse say that their parents act as though their children are their possessions. They try to * possess* them. Control and dominance are the main motivations. TP shows that that is the 'spirit' of child abuse.

I found Leland's description of Bob's dream visits very similar to a child's vague memory of an attack. It is possible to see Leland and as a victim who becomes a victimizer.

But to see all these positive signs is a bit of a stretch right now. I hope that Twin Peaks does not degenerate into an owl hunt complete with exorcisms and stakes in the heart.

ann hodgins


Mike Cluff, 12/5/90


Give me plot or give me death! (was Re: Lynch - CRITICISM!!!)

(Doug Quarnstrom) writes...
"I think that Lynch is still learning his trade and I hope that he matures so that his work can achieve his potential."

Achieve his potential? I don't know, if I were a moviemaker and "Eraserhead" (or "Blue Velvet" for that matter) was my only film, I'd be able to die happily. Granted, Lynch could improve or diversify (couldn't we all?), and I do feel that Lynch is guilty of some of the criticisms Mr. Newell has proposed. However, I feel that he is much less guilty of these problems than are most filmmakers.

I also find these criticisms of the "plotlessness" of David Lynch to be interesting. To me, Twin Peaks has one of the most involved and convoluted plots of any TV show around. To most people, THIS has been the ultimate reason people have left the show. Thus, I think Lynch/Frost's strange "indulgences" (if you insist) are quite forgivable.

If you want plot, TP gives it to you. If you want tone, TP also gives it to you. If you want image, style OR substance, you got it. Granted, there's not an equal balance of all these ingredients, but so what? If your lasagna had precisely equal parts sauce, cheese, pasta, and meat, it wouldn't be very tasty, would it? (Strange analogy, I know, but think about it)


12/8/90: Episode 17 - Leland's wake gives way to comedic subplots and Cooper is suspended from the FBI while under investigation for a drug connection.


Ann Hodgins, 12/11/90

Wondering why I enjoyed the latest episode so very much I realized that it was an extremely, subtly pro-woman episode. It began with Sarah rejecting drugs so that she could face her life with all of herself. And later she is shown with other women, the doctor's wife and Audrey, drawing strength from them.

Stories of abused children often feature a mother disabled by drugs, in real life usually alcohol or prescription drugs, such as valium and sleeping pills. Trusted males, doctors and psychiatrists, pushed pills on to a generation of women who trusted them as Sarah trusted Leland.

It was nice to see a more enlightened psychiatrist, Jacobi, helping Nadine's recovery. And it was great to see how flexible and tolerant her husband Is with her. Again the story of a generation of women is hidden between those lines. Nadine is just a very extreme example of a common mistake: leaving highschool to make an impulsive marriage, finding herself dead ended in an empty life. This bizarre and comic plot line has a serious basis, which is the need to re-live critical points in a life in order to repair and correct them. There is a book of psychology called "It is never to late to have a happy childhood" meaning that in some respects it is possible to relive and correct past losses. In the same way it is never too late to have a happy adolescence, as Nadine will show. Audrey showed a lot of strength this episode. Her handling of Cooper was very strong yet loving and her connection with Bobby was a subversion of standard imagery: she was a strong little red riding hood (note the basket) totally in control of the big bad wolf (Bobby).'

And last but not least, Lucy, totally subverting the standard image of the abandoned and unwanted unwed mother. Standing up on a pedestal bringing the new light to her two ardent suitors below her. Well, need I say more.


Tom Neff, 12/11/90

(Gary Newell) writes:
"Also, I am surprised at the general positive response that this episode has received on the net so far. I thought that it was one of the weakest shows yet. The dialogue was pretty sad (the Donna whining was pathetic and Truman's "cooper is a saint" speech went a bit far for my tastes) and aside from the "holiday-like" spread at the funeral, the images didn't impress me as much. Frankly, I expected to see a number of "geez - this show is really going downhill fast" postings after this one - maybe they'll come later.......

No, I agree with Gary here. [mark your calendars :-)] Right now TP is in the absolute slough pond of dumb-TV disease. It's just about as bad as half a dozen other soapy series out there. If it stays like this it deserves to go away.

Frankly, I want another Lynch directed episode! Let's get something going here. And what about Lesli Linka Glatter. Right now it's like watching a fish video.

As to why there wasn't more negative response: it's not fun walking in here week after week and composing another "yuck, this was even WORSE" article! It's easier to stay away. On the other hand, as the show gets dumber and dumber its ratings are naturally inching upward, and even here on the net you get more people popping up out of their little holes and saying "Well I dont know about all thes others but to me this was one of the best episodes that have yet been shown so far" etc etc. Hey, chacon a son gout as we mumble around our brie and baguette...


12/15/90: Episode 18 - DEA Agent Denise Bryson arrives to investigate Cooper. Deputy Hawk introduces the mythology of the Black and White Lodges for the first time. This will be the last episode for a month as the show goes on holiday hiatus.


David Konerding (as Rafael Juarez), 12/15/90

I have struggled for a mere moment to attempt to put into words my feelings about this newest of episodes of Twin Peaks. It was like no other episode I've seen yet, in a disappointing way. Perhaps it was the total lack of spirtuality on Bob's part, and the total lack of interesting characterization on Cooper's, Audrey's or any other main character's part.

I _do_ feel however that we are being set up for two falls-- the lesser of the two being spiritual and obvious, as Hawk pointed out that there's a confrontation coming up; this one will be "resolved" through spirituality. Odd, though, that Lynch (or whomever is in control) makes this fall and related terror seem so insignificant compared to the many aspects of the latter fall-- all the parts of the "human" side of the Evil that Peakers do-- Andrew Packard is alive, Hank is, as usual, up to no good, Bobby might be getting in some trouble, Cooper's trouble with drugs, the mounties, and Denise-- are far worse than the spirits that inhabit the woods.

I feel that Cooper must confront and resolve the spiritual issue. It must be done with style, and must be reasonably in-depth.

However, the exceedingly annoying set-ups (Packard, drugs, the introduction of Denise, who must be reasonably important to garner such interest) have loomed weave upon woof (ooh, what impressive word-play!) of impossible situations-- for Lynch/Frost/Peyton to resolve these issues will require _totally_ amazing writing and directing, of which I believe not even those three are capable. Will there be a human scum<->spirit scum tie in? What does Bob have to do with all this, eh?


Robert Halonen, 12/16/90

Oh boy! I can't wait! Can we have a Twin Peaks Christmas Show? You know, I bet BOB would make a pretty awesome looking Santa, but perhaps we should give that job to Katherine, expert as she is at disguise; Santa might be a large personality stretch for BOB. Bob COULD play the Grinch, though. And, NADINE as Mrs. Claus, and Audrey as the head elf (Santa's Workshop would be quite a place)! Just fanatasizing...


Connie, 1/7/91

My thoughts on TPless Saturdays....

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So far I've coped, but it has been expensive.

This past Saturday, we went out in search of a life. Dinner, a movie and dancing (Chinese, Dances with Wolves and not-very-good music, if you're interested). Considerably more expensive than coffee and cherry pie in front of the tube.

The Saturday before I was forced to visit my in-laws since I lacked a suitable excuse. TP depression was not considered an adequate excuse. Six-hundred miles one-way and week in a large city. Even more expensive than the above.

The Saturday before that, I embarked on a holiday shopping frenzy. Considerably more money was spent than if I had left earlier in order to make the cherry pie in time for TP.

I'm so excited about this next Saturday, that I'm going to make both cherry pie AND chocolate bunnies. So there.

Connie


1/12/91: Episode 19 - Twin Peaks returns from its longest break since the summer. The mid-season subplots continue and Cooper discovers he was set up.


John Burns, 1/19/91

The more I watch Twin Peaks, the more I think that they really don't know what they're doing. Mark Frost's scripts have been the only really coherent ones. Every time Harley Peyton writes a script, the intellectual level of the show drops another notch.

For example: There was no indication of concrete supernatural activity at the beginning of the show. The theory that my cell of TP watchers had developed at the end of the first season was that Leland had abused Laura as a child, had descended into murder, and had finally killed his own daughter. One variant of this idea was that he had meant to kill Ronette instead (T=Teresa, R=Ronette). That version includes Leland's descent into madness and Laura's redemption (by trading her life for Ronette's). BOB was just a name for the dark side of Leland (or it could have been a name for his penis--maybe I should post this to alt.sex-- because Bobby calls his "pocket rocket" and Ben calls his "little Elvis". I know that's not exactly what they said on the show, but I think they were just trying to get those names by the censors).

Anyway. Notice that until the second season, we had no reason to believe that the one-armed man was really the Mike of the dream. In fact, his Bob wasn't the real BOB anyway, and why does Philip Gerard look like Mike, but Leland not like BOB? It just makes a lot more sense, fundamentally, to see Cooper's dream as symbolism instead of reality.

But that whole satisfying scenario fell apart. Suddenly we were supposed to believe that inhabiting spirits are controlling Leland and Mike. Why is this a better story? Cooper asked at the end, "Is it easier to believe that a man could rape and murder his own daughter?" Yes. That's a dark, disturbing, and REAL facet of humanity. Now, instead, Cooper and the BB's are just ghostbusters. Big whoop.

The show keeps bouncing downhill. The three episodes exposing Leland made an effort to convey the brutality of BOB, and did that well. But where do we go from here? Now supernatural hocus-pocus has distracted the show from real characterization. Lucy and Andy were sweet, confused morons--now they're facing Damien IV, not to mention Dick. (One friend of mine pointed out the appropriateness of his name--that's all he was, to Lucy. Now he's a major character?!) The sheriff's dept. is hypnotized by a witch. Major Briggs is now the Phantom Stranger. The circle of real human beings has contracted to Pete, Catherine, Ben, Norma, and Hank. Cooper and Denise are interesting, but flaky. James is trapped in a late-night movie. (By the way, was the wrecked car at the end of the BOB Escapes episode Evelyn's Jag? Maybe she's BOB, if Leo isn't.) One major villain, Jean Renault, is a caricature; the other, Windom Earle, is playing a supernatural role as the Dweller on the Threshold.

I expect that when they bet bored with the chess deal, there will be a tawdry literalization of the chess pieces as specific characters. BOB will rematerialize wherever it's convenient. Since Harry's character is a real person, I look for him to virtually disappear from the show as a force unless they can wreck him the way they did Albert. What I don't see is a way to phase out the specters enough to let the characters develop normally. Ed used to be such a great guy until he got upstaged by his implausible wife. Sorry for all the grumbling. At the beginning of the show, it was fun to take the show apart and figure out what was going on. As the show declines, it becomes more and more clear that nothing's going on, that the creators don't understand the show either. And so another attempt at quality television collapses collapses under the weight of its own potential.

John A. Burns "It'll cool off on you."


1/19/91: Episode 20 - Jean Renault is killed in a showdown with Cooper and the sheriff's department at Dead Dog Farm. Windom Earle kills a vagrant as part of his "chess game" with Agent Cooper.


Jon Webb, 1/22/91

I consider Jean Renault's speech to Cooper, just before he died, to be extremely significant. He said, before Cooper arrived in Twin Peaks, everything was quiet. Now that he is here, everything has changed. I think that this relates Renault's activities (which have been conventionally criminal) to the mystical things going on in Twin Peaks. I think that Cooper is driving events in Twin Peaks somehow; his spiritual force is perhaps activating the various evil things in the woods, and turning a quiet conflict between good and somnolent evil into an active confrontation. I think that this is why Cooper was not worried about the FBI investigation; he sees that he has a major role to play in this fight if he stays where he is.

I'm reminded somewhat of ``The Shining'' or ``Poltergeist'', where the young children's special psychic abilities activate or draw evil around them, which comes to threaten them. I think that is what is happening to Cooper. Bob left Leland, probably, because with Cooper around he could no longer conceal himself, or because he had to leave in order to be strong enough to fight against him later. Cooper's ministering to Leland as he died was probably a very good thing to do; he will be helped by it later.

All this suggests to me that Cooper is not getting out of Twin Peaks alive -- there's no way he could defeat Evil, as he certainly will, and then go back to being an FBI agent. He'll probably end up sacrificing himself, or transcending life, or being reborn, or something like that. And Truman will play the role of Ishmael.


Bob Kelley, 1/23/91

Hogwash!

Twin Peaks has reached a higher plain of excellence after the LP storyline. Instead of having a crowd of hip-sters out to catch the latest fad, we have moved to focused crowd of people who enjoy fine literature, philosophy, and intellect as well as visual, symbolic, and mythic reflection. I'm glad the chaff is outa here. Now we can return to excellence with out the continual wining of tv critics for instant gratification. Those with a 5 minute attention span, please watch Carol and Company. Those who wish to see fine television, we now have a top-notch show.

(DL is still Ex. Producer. Do we have to say that he is the only one with a brain and that no others are capable of producing or directing fine television? Judge the product and don't worship people, or you'll wind up with dictators...)


Rod Johnson, 1/28/91

(Jennifer Quirin) writes:
"Did the 26 Jan episode appear anywhere else out there, or has TP been cancelled? I turned on my TV tonight to the Pittsburgh ABC aff. to find a show about wrestlers! ACK!"

It was great! Cooper continued his search for property in Twin Peaks--he's now obsessed with living off the land and recycling. The scene where Andy got head stuck in the Clivus Multrum was great. Shelley and Leo made up; Leo seems to have mellowed considerably because of his trauma. Audrey seems to be falling into the clutches of some sort of pipe-smoking guru type who runs something called the Church of the S-somethingorother (we couldn't see the whole word), Donna pulled off a daring rescue of James--boy does he look silly in women's clothes!--and we get some insight into why Lucy's hair looks that way. The Wyndham Earle plot went nowhere--the shot we saw of him introducing himself in the previews turns out to be from a commercial for a used-car dealership!

Questions and thoughts:

--what the heck was Johnny Horne doing driving a *police car*??

--anyone notice that Leo seems to have one of those three-triangle symbols tatooed on his hand?

--the food fight between Pete, Doc and Ben was stupid--and where did they get the pie? There was no pie there at the beginning of the scene?

--I'm glad Dick is finally dead, though of *course* they had to mention that he had a twin brother. Sheesh.

--So Andrew Packard is a *diabetic*. . . hmmm. . .

--anyone notice the llama turned up again? Can Dr. Bob Lydecker be far behind?


Sanjiv Sarwate, 1/28/91

Yeah, it was a real thrill to see her again.

So, I was sort of surprised at the resolution of the James subplot. I mean, who would think that even someone as dumb as him would agree to play with fire? The way in which he took care of Evelyn, Jeffrey and the chauffeur was at the same time grotesque and fascinating, and utterly Lynch. It is a supreme pleasure to have him directing again. Such a pity it won't last.

Incidentally, did anyone else catch the subtle foreshadowing at the end of the episode? In the note that Audrey takes from her father's desk? I was able to freeze on the words on the paper. Using my computer to blow it up, I read the following:

hguorht eht krad fo erutuf tsap Eht naicigam sgnol ot ees Eno stnahc tuo neewteb owt sdlrow Erif, klaw htiw em. siht edopsipe reven deneppah Eseht elpoep era gnittihsllub uoy Txen edosipe si no yraurbef 2 No 19/91/1 ti dias "Ni Owt Skeew"

I'm not sure what the note means, but the suddenly serious expression on Audrey's face after she reads it leads me to suspect the worst. Any ideas?


Jespah (as Kathleen Hunt), 1/28/91

A lot of people seem to have missed the 1/26/91 episode, so I thought it might be helpful if I transcribed that key scene near the end. It went as follows:

**************************

Coop is standing in front of Sheriff's office, as the ambulance pulls away (with Dick's body inside).

The ambulance goes farther and farther away. Everyone but Coop goes back into the building.

Close-up of Coop, looking puzzled. The siren is not fading even though the ambulance is gone. The siren starts to slow and go lower and lower. Coop has clearly entered that strange Giant/dwarf time zone.

Overhead shot of Sheriff's department, bathed in red light. Cooper is standing alone. Then, a ground-level shot. A llama (alpaca?) is walking toward Cooper. As it passes him, suddenly the OAM is there.

The OAM says: You wonder about the threshold, beyond the fire. I tell you it is *NOT* there. There are many...in the woods...the old place, the *wild* *woods* with *wolves* [he emphasizes each word]. The house of Pan.

Cooper: Where in the woods?

OAM: In the wood there is a place. For a - long - time we have been there. It is a white house, in red trees. Only animals can travel there, only animals travel out. Birds can fly...

Cooper: Has Major Briggs been there?

OAM: Any who fly, any on four hooves, can come *if* they know the way. Oho, but those who choose to fly must be careful! [the OAM gives a choking laugh and looks up; there is a wailing sound; there is a sudden shower of small silver things, I couldn't see what they were -- all this just lasts a couple seconds] I know you want to come [approaches Coop, grabs him arm] but it is the core of the world! Be careful, or it may be your fatal vision. The transition is...difficult. When I came out, BOB... took over. I can no longer return.

The OAM then looks down, and there on the ground between the OAM's and Cooper's feet is a word made of sticks: "EKOJ" Cooper looks at the llama and, unexpectedly, it turns its head (its body still facing away] and looks at him. Coop takes a step toward the llama, but the OAM is still holding his arm and he says:

OAM: We need your help against the ravens.

Then Coop looks at the llama -- it has changed into a horse! He looks back toward the OAM, but the OAM is gone. He hears hooves for a moment and looks back toward the horse, but it too is gone. The red light fades, a puff of wind blows by, and we hear somebody laughing.

***********************

That's all. So what do you all think? Are Lynch/Frost leading into some sort of raven/owl/llama/horse war? I think Lynch is definitely leaning toward incorporating all those old myths and religions about animal gods into TP in some way. Maybe this place in the woods is where the old gods that are no longer worshipped go to retire, or something. I dunno. And what about that laughter?

I think the key part of that whole scene, though, is the word made of sticks. Jespah


Joseph C. Wang, 1/30/91

The 1/26 episode of Twin Peaks wasn't seen in the Boston area, but fortunately I have a friend with a VCR in a place where it shown. It would be interesting to track where it was and wasn't shown. Anyway.... (DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN 1/26).

MAJOR SPOILERS.....

In talking with people who have seen 1/26, my impression is that either one will think that it's the best Twin Peaks ever, or the worst Twin Peaks. No one I've talked to has had lukewarm reactions.

I think that a lot of the compliants the 1/26 wasn't "Twin Peaks" enough are misplaced. I see 1/26 as Lynch trying to parody comedy in much the same way he tries to parody soap operas in the rest of the show.

The pie fight scene was one of the best scenes to have appeared on Twin Peaks thus far. It seems that Lynch is not only a dramatic director of first rate (Maddy's death), but that he is also an excellent comedic director. Indeed, the rather poignant ending to that scene could almost be described as "tragic" relief, bringing the reader back down to reality and showing how low Ben has sunk.

(Did anyone notice the workman during the scene? Was he fixing "sprinklers" perhaps?)

I feel very sorry for people who missed the episode, because I doubt they'll be able to piece together what happened this week from next week's episode. I'm almost convinced that Lynch knew in advance that half of "Twin Peaks" viewers would miss this episode, and decided to use this as an opportunity to take some very bold risks and to experiment with the comedic side to the characters. At the same time, the plot in this episode reminds me a lot of "Candide" in that the ending leaves off roughly where the beginning was. As a result, viewers who miss 1/26, might not even notice when they see the next episode, and as a result they will be deprieved of some wonderful insights into our favorite cast of characters along with some belly laughs.

Anyway, try to get a copy of 1/26, you'll either love it or hate it.


Fred Cheng, 1/31/91

Okay, okay. Ha ha. I sincerely apologize for pooping on everyone's party, but it's time to tell people that this whole 1/26 thing is a big ruse. I'm not trying to be haughty or self-righteous about his sort of thing; it's just that there are *A LOT* of people out there who are really into Twin Peaks, and it's a big deal to them if they've missed an episode. It's time to stop freaking them out. I, for one, initially panicked when I thought that I had missed an episode of my favorite show.

So, I'm going out on a limb--flame away if you like--and saying that this whole business about a 1/26 episode is a big EKOJ! (ie. Joke -- someone posted a summary of the final scene of the supposed 1/26 episode, saying that the word "EKOJ" was written in sticks--clever).

Anyway, anyone out there who is truly disappointed about missing a 1/26 episode, take heart. Nothing was missed. To those who participated in the hoax--kudos for your cleverness. Ever thought of submitting a script to Lynch/Frost (some of that stuff was pretty good).

-Fred Cheng


2/2/91: Episode 21 - We finally meet Cooper's nemesis, Windom Earle.


Ann Hodgins, 2/3/91

There was something really *stupid* about this week's episode. There were times when I felt that it was all a bad dream. The only good thing about it was that they killed off some unpromising sub plots like the "Nicky is the Devil" storyline.

After defending Lynch for months against charges of sexism, I found myself actually so grossed out by the portrayal of women in this episode that I acually actually changed channels (knowing that the episode would be shown again 2 hours later on another station, mind you) because I suddenly just didn't think it was all worth it.

First off, there was the way Shelley reacted to Leo's attack. Why couldn't she get out the door? Was the lock mechanism supposed to be too mentally challenging for her? Do you *believe* that!

And the postures she adopted as Leo stood over her with the axe... For God's sake, why was she splayed out like that exposing her guts to whatever Leo chose to do to her?! Why wasn't she crouched to spring aside, hands protecting her head and body? Even though Shelley is not supposed to be super-bright, she does have instincts surely.

And later on, we are treated to the image of Lucy checking her lipstick after watching the major fall at her feet. This is totally unreal! No one on the face of the earth could be that cold and self-centred, and certainly not Lucy. Sure, her pregnancy is making her a bit self-absorbed and sometimes she seems unsympathetic, but don't ask me to accept that she would not be concerned if an aging men fell unconscious before her eyes!

Twin Peaks is always surreal but this episode was like a bad dream. And with the parade of vamps, mysogynist too.

Hope things improve.

ann h.


2/9/91 - 2/16/91: Episodes 22 & 23 - The mid-season subplots are concluded. Josie dies and her spirit is trapped in the wooden handle of a drawer. We see BOB & the Little Man for the first time since Leland has died. Meanwhile ABC announces that the show is going on (perhaps permanent) hiatus even though six episodes remain in the season. A group called COOP (Citizens Opposed to the Offing of Peaks) lobbies for the show's return, using alt.tv.twin-peaks as a base of operations.


Scott the Great, 2/19/91

Ah well, they have six more episodes to wrap things up. I have an idea which allows them to get some revenge. Introduce a sub-plot where "Invitation to Love" is cancelled and have Lucy lead a movement to get it back on the air. After all, it could even be a locally produced syndicated show. Then you could have even more parallel characters representing BOB Iger and crew. Oh well, it'd be a fitting end at least...

Scott


Jim Shaffer, 2/19/91

Could be. When the soap opera "The Edge Of Night" ended a few (?) years ago, the final few minutes were pretty odd. As I remember, someone noticed a criminal that everyone had thought left town walking down a street called Wonderland Lane. When she went to the police, everyone looked at her like she was crazy, because there was NO Wonderland Lane in town! So she led the police back to the scene, only to find that the whole street had vanished. Sitting there on the sidewalk was a little white rabbit... Now you KNOW that they wouldn't have put an impossible scene like that in if it hadn't been the very end of the series.

Of course, in Twin Peaks, impossible things happen all the time. Actually I think that BOB was planned all along (why else would Josie shoot Cooper?), but I have no idea why the LMFAP was there. Why would he show up immediately after BOB? Why didn't he even say anything? And the shot of Josie's face in the knob was pretty strange even for Twin Peaks.

I'm really upset that we won't find out what the White Lodge scenario was all about. It would be nice to have some confirmation or denial of the ET hypothesis. Maybe the show was pulled because it was getting too close to the truth?

(That was a joke. Taking it seriously would be hazardous to your health.)


Jeffrey Davis, 2/19/91

I saw a promo spot which featured the late Dougie's inamorata in the same role for Doogie Howzer. The possibilities are endless. TP characters proliferating like PODS through other shows...Lynch showing up as an undertaker for Peter Horton in 30something; BOB as date for Carla on Cheers; Nadine on Hollywood Squares -- WOWZERS...

Don't think of "Twin Peaks" as dead...think instead of the transmigration of souls.


Ann Hodgins, 2/23/91

The Gulf war has reached a turning point. The US seems determined to achieve a win over Iraq even at the cost of lives.

The US wants its people 100% behind them in a ground war. The do not want the peace movement to gain any momentum at this time.

Twin Peaks is now featuring a showdown between good and evil involving the military (Major Briggs) and mirrored in a war game, chess, which is a game that reflects military and political tactics.

Sooner or later people will draw parallels between the tv show that prompts so much discussion and the events in the gulf. The moral hero of Twin Peaks, agent Cooper, is seeking a stalemate in his conflict on the chess board and in real life. Cooper does not want to kill or utterly defeat his opponent. Instead, Cooper wants to stop his opponent with a minimum of blood shed. Cooper isn't going for a win. He just wants the war game to stop.

Is it possible that the abrupt elimination of this show, featuring this particular moral philosophy at this particular time could be political? Could the american network have received orders to pull the show until the Gulf war is over?


Rick Keir, 2/24/91

(Ann Hodgins) writes...
[a ludicrous conspiracy theory that ABC received orders from the US government to pull Twin Peaks, thereby preventing the peace movement from gaining ground]

Oh, how I long for a newsreader capable of killing articles by author, so that never again will I have to run into the crazed babblings of our Canadian conspiracy theorist, who is unable to distinguish between an entertaining TV show and the real world.


Ann Hodgins, 2/25/91

(Rick Keir, MACC) writes:
"Oh, how I long for a newsreader capable of killing articles by author, so that never again will I have to run into the crazed babblings of our Canadian conspiracy theorist, who is unable to distinguish between an entertaining TV show and the real world."

Somebody please help this man! I know that it is possible to kill files by author and I reply on that to separate me from my detractors.

The canadian conspiracy theorist.


3/8/91: ABC announces that Twin Peaks will return on 3/28. The final six episodes of the season will air on Thursdays rather than Saturdays.


Matt (ftp) Crowd, 3/14/91

Who killed Laura Palmer?

Does anyone know the answer to this question ?

matt.

ps. I do not read this newsgroup at all so please email.


Doug Krouse, 3/14/91

Since Matt doesn't read this group should we all send different answers? :-)


3/28 - 4/12/91: Episodes 24 - 26 - Cooper is restored to the FBI, meets love interest Annie Blackburn, and enters Owl Cave to discover a mysterious petroglyph alluding to the Lodges. ABC announces that it is pulling the show again after the next episode, and that the final two episodes will air back-to-back as a Monday movie-of-the-week in June.


Dan Parmenter, 4/12/91

If it is indeed true that TP has been cancelled, it will no doubt spark a fair amount of outcry and complaints and if such complaints are loud and voluminous enough, it may even get brought back.

But are we sure we want that?

Consider this: when Star Trek was cancelled after two seasons in the sixties, there was a letter-writing campaign to save the show. The show succeeded and we were promptly blessed with such fine entertainment as "Spock's Brain".

As a comic book reader, I've watched more than one series that I really loved go gradually downhill until a series that I once adored was just retreading the same things over and over and going nowhere.

After writing two of the finest novels in American literary history, Mark Twain followed this in later years with novels like "Tom Sawyer Detective" and "Tom Sawyer Abroad", which while not without interest, were far lesser novels and have generally faded into obscurity.

In the world of music there are countless bands who produced mediocre music in their later years by not knowing when to quit. They are certainly entitled to do so, but I vote with my wallet and have little patience to watch a dead horse being beaten. Arguably, The Beatles broke up at exactly the right time.

I firmly believe that Twin Peaks is one of the finest television shows in the history of the medium. Period.

I also have defended the series against detractors who went along with the standard wisdom that the show was only good in its first season, or even that only the first few episodes of the first season were any good. But I can sense that much of what the show had to say has been said, and been said beautifully. In other words, I'm starting to think that I'd like to see them quit while they're ahead and while I still love it.

The essence of the show for me has always been David Lynch and Mark Frost's vision. One of the things I fear most is that if the show went on, eventually they would take even more of a secondary role in the series than they have this season and eventually retreat to other new projects that interest them. Given their past record (or Lynch's at least), the TP cast will certainly not be wanting for work - indeed Lynch, like Woody Allen or Roger Corman almost seems to have a travelling cast that will always turn up in his films. In fact, I believe that with the exception of "The Elephant Man" Jack Nance has been in every one of Lynch's productions.

Now I could be totally wrong - the series could get renewed, Lynch and Frost could stick with it and stay interested, the cast could stay and grow, etc. And I admit, it is hard to imagine closing the book on the series forever. But it might not have to be that way either - I'd like to see more material like "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer" and the "Diane..." tape. I'd even like to see occasional TV movies or theatrical features. I simply am afraid that if the series went on, with 22 epsidoes a year, the high quality would be difficult to maintain. Even I have to admit that the second season really hasn't been as completely brilliant as the first. At this point I'm interested in seeing what else Lynch and Frost can do - things like their new sitcom, Lynch's "Ronnie Rocket", etc. Please don't flame me without thinking about this for a moment or two. - Dan


Daniel Mittleman, 4/13/91

Fiona, I have no idea what it is you are looking for, but here are some ideas I had yesterday..

I have this idea for a final scene, but only sketchy details of what might come before it.

Sketchy details:

It seems to me that Windom Earle will manage to create a situation for Cooper where Earle has the ability to unleash all of the forces of the Black Lodge on the world. Doing so would cause untold death and destruction. Cooper has the ability to stop Earle, but because of the situation Earle has created, doing so was cost the life of Annie. In the climax Cooper decides to save the world, Annie is killed, Cooper is a hero, but is left inconsolable and despondent.

Final scene:

We are just inside the doorway of Cooper's room at the Great Northern. We see Cooper in a profile view sitting in a wooden chair at his desk/dresser staring blankly into the mirror in front of him (not wholly unlike the opening scene with Josie). The room is dark and warm and woody. The camera angle slowly moves towards Cooper circling around behind him. Very haunting TP music picks up in the background. As the camera comes around behind Cooper we can see his reflection in the mirror. It is Bob smiling and laughing back out at him. The picture fades to black. "Lynch/Frost" appears on the screen.

This is all a brainstorm - additional comments and suggestions are welcome.


Jeff Davis, 4/17/91

One proviso. The Bob in the mirror should be Bob Iger.


Paul Raveling, 4/17/91

Scott Frost has been touring to promote his new book about Coop, but is back at home at the moment. Here are some points of interest from the phone call I just finished...

-- He confirms that Twin Peaks is doing great in the ratings -- in all parts of the world except the part serviced by ABC.

-- He expects the show to die. It seems unlikely that ABC will support it, and doesn't think anyone else will be willing to pick it up. Production cost is about $1.3 million per episode.

-- The final episode of the season (the one it looks like we'll see in June) was directed by Lynch. It sounded as if Lynch more or less chucked the script and winged it, coming out with a pretty wild episode.

-- The final episode will leave plot threads dangling.

-- Lynch would like to produce a Twin Peaks movie. This offers some great possibilities...

You know what the treatment of Peaks reminds me of? Star Trek. It didn't last long on its first pass, but it started a dynasty. Will we next have Twin Peaks, the Movie? Then Twin Peaks, The Next Generation?

------------------

Paul Raveling


4/18/91: Episode 27 - Cooper discovers that Windom is more concerned with entering the Black Lodge than getting revenge. We end with an image of BOB and the curtains from the Red Room.


Young Rob Jellinghaus, 4/19/91

Good old Paul Raveling posted a little while back and mentioned something like "Lynch directing last episode; he tossed the script and winged it, coming up with a pretty wild episode. Not all loose ends will be resolved."

There are lots of people on this list posting Their Ultimate Apo- calyptic Conclusions to Twin Peaks. (The "aleph" one was pretty good.) The problem with all of them is they are way too well thought out.

Look, Twin Peaks has never been known for its consistency or its willingness to explain everything. And if Lynch bagged the script for the last episode, I'm willing to bet my last cuppa joe that he's going to pull a big old fast one on us.

There will be lots of things he never finishes, there will be lots of mysteries left unexplained, there may even be a lot of stuff that just plain doesn't fit with the rest of the show at all!!!

And I predict that, as always, after the last episode about half the people on a.tv.t-p will be bitching about what a ripoff it was, and the other half will be sighing in perfect demented contentment, munching their donuts.

And then they'll proceed to try to explain it all... but the savor will have gone out of that game, since we'll never know any more. But we will be able to treasure some damn fine memories, and we'll always remember to smell those trees. Smell those Douglas firs. Have you given yourself a present today?

--

Rob Jellinghaus


Duane Day, 4/26/91

April 18th spoilers included below...

============================

I want to see Laura Palmer come through the White Lodge portal which corresponds to the Black Lodge portal BOB apparently came through. I then want to see her confront and ultimately destroy BOB. (Cooper could be injured from the struggle during which he defeats Windom, only to find himself apparently helpless in front of BOB, to be saved at the last minute by Laura. Homecoming queen _ex machina_.) Once Laura's finished with BOB, *then* she can win Miss Twin Peaks. Or maybe just *wake up*, having confronted and defeated her abuser in the dream world, and prepared to confront and defeat her real world abuser, too. Perhaps with the assistance of a newcomer to the town with whom she seems to share a bond for no known reason - one Dale Cooper...

Not that I think any of this will come to pass, mind you, but the "Laura kills BOB" part especially would be great. If the ending turns out to be one of those "it was all a dream" things, it would be great if the dream turned out to be Laura's rather than Cooper's (as some people have expected.) OR, remember that Laura and Cooper have had the same dream once already (in _The Secret Diary_, Laura describes having the same dream which Cooper has at the end of 1002.) Perhaps *the entire series* is such a shared dream, and the beautiful woman for whom Cooper has a genuine affection and to whom he finally gets to make love will be Laura.

This ending has the advantage of bringing back not only Sheryl Lee but also, perhaps, Ray Wise and even Grace Zabriskie. It has the disadvantage of rendering any future "Twin Peaks" projects somewhat moot.

(Speaking of Grace - if Laura doesn't destroy BOB, how about Sarah?) Ah well, six weeks four days and counting...


5/22/91: ABC announces its fall schedule. Twin Peaks is not on it.


Jeff Bone, 5/31/91

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but as of this morning Lynch/ Frost Productions is saying, I quote: "Twin Peaks is dead. It's dead."

They claim there will be no further attempt to find another network. They said there might *possibly* be a movie, but even that's just a remote possibility.

This is all straight from the L/FP spokesperson; I called this a.m. Basically, it sounds as if they've given up on it. Damn shame. It was the only intelligent thing on TV, IMHO.


Charles Blair, 6/10/91

Tonight you will see two hours of INVITATION TO LOVE with occasional glimpses of TWIN PEAKS on TV sets in the background. ``Flap-Flap-Flap'' --- the sound of David Lynch winging it


6/10/91: The Finale (Episodes 28 & 29) - The final two episodes are aired as a two-hour movie. In the first half, Annie is kidnapped by Windom Earle after winning Miss Twin Peaks. In the second half, the first episode directed by Lynch since the killer was revealed, Cooper enters the Black Lodge (which appears as the Red Room) where BOB takes Windom's soul, and Cooper's doppelganger races him out of the room. At the end of the episode, after seeming to escape the Lodge with Annie, Cooper sees BOB in the mirror and cackles, "How's Annie?"


Ron, 6/11/91

Well, what did you all expect?

1) I agree: AGGGGHHHH!

2) Audrey dead? Ben dead? Pete dead? ';-(

3) It was pretty obvious that BoB would end up in Our Hero- him being chased by the evil coop was pretty indicitive of that.

4) The showdown was boring- much of it, of course, made no sense- I am still thinking on how it countered what we knew from the series.

5) Well, so much for love being the answer- its not enough.

6) Actually, BoB coming back in Coop is kind of a dissappointment- for crying out loud, Lynch/Frost knew that the only people watching would be avid TP fans- I think we deserved a better ending.

7) Some things were obvious that they were shot >after< the cancellation papers went out- the bank blowing up with pete and audrey (it wouldn't have done that, well, maybe not, if it was continuing), and bens death.....

8) Well, Sheryl Lee fans- only another 24 years, 364.9 days left to see >her< again. ';-)

9) As my mom put it- 'well, back to the pablum of regular tv'.... Twin Peaks Is Dead! Long Live Peaks!

rON.

"It is only with the heart that one see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

p.s.- the owls still are not what they seem!


Morrison, 6/12/91

A 1-Line Review of the Final Episode…

Watching this episode was like watching TWIN PEAKS put a gun to its head and pull the trigger.


Fiona Oceanstar, 6/13/91

I thought y'all might be interested in what's happening recently on the POLITICS list, and I'd certainly love to hear *your* opinions on this interesting topic.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Forum for the Discussion of Politics" 11-JUN-1991 10:09:35.73
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 11:07:00 EDT
From: "In a night without day, on a road without end."
Subject: Lynch isn't fair

The rotten bastard. He's great, but I really want to scream at him.

On the down side, it was fairly obvious that Lynch had to cram a half-dozen episodes of material into two hours minus commercials (I hate commercials).

On the upside, I sure didn't expect the show to end that way, so I was surprised in a big way -- rare on modern TV. But why, oh why did Audrey have to engage in her first act of civil disobedience just *then*??

Not politics, true, but at least it's a new topic....

Actually, a discussion about the social factors involved in the roman-candle- like popularity of Twin Peaks might be very appropriate on this list, as I think that kind of information ties in closely with the way people live, view the world and, consequently, deal with political issues. Anybody wanna give it a try? If not I'll shut up.

Bill D.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 11 Jun 91 13:53:20 -0400
From: fi (Fiona Oceanstar)
Subject: re: Lynch isn't fair

A little bird sent me your posting to POLITICS. I'm not sure I want to join the list just in order to join this conversation--although my natural impulsivity has taken me into many such avenues, I admit-- but being an ardent "Twin Peaks" fan, I would like to comment on your "roman candle" observation.

I think there is indeed a parallel between how people lost interest in TP, and how they respond within the political arena, and that the parallel lies in the way we deal with information.

Understanding and appreciating TP demanded several things of the viewer:

--a long attention span, to keep focused on the evolving threads of the plot over multiple hiatuses of weeks to months in duration; --access to a reliable information source about upcoming changes in the schedule;

--frustration tolerance, and the ability to wait for gratification;

--a fairly good memory for details.

Some of these same skills are required for other TV shows, and for reading long books (fantasy trilogies, _War_and_Peace_), and for watching movie series such as "Star Wars," but TP seemed to raise the ante a bit--at least as judged by how many people dropped out of the running. I think that following political contests, acting according to political goals, and just plain being a "good citizen," are similarly challenging. You have to pay attention. You can't tune in from time to time, and expect to know what's going on. And then there are the other issues, which pertain more to the content of the information, rather than the process of keeping up with it: While it was not absolutely necessary (nothing is) to enjoying the show, a number of other emotional/cognitive skills were helpful. The ability to make sense of literary and pop-culture allusions. A healthy capacity for emotional investment in characters who might die violently before your very eyes (think of the impact of Robert Kennedy's death--how it soured many people on caring deeply about political figures). A sense of humor that includes the offbeat, the outre', and the disconcerting.

And so on. Obviously, more layers of enjoyment open up if the viewer has friends with whom they can share their enthusiasm for the topic, mailing lists or newsgroups (alt.tv.twin-peaks on USENET) where they can read and write about the show, and access to news about the stars, the writers, the directors, and most of all, their fellow TP-heads. And if they're willing to rent and view David Lynch's previous films, and catch "Wild at Heart" during its first run, and check out "Industrial Symphony #1," and track down Lynch's cartoon series ("The Angriest Dog in the World"). Not to mention reading Laura Palmer's diary, Coop's autobio- graphy, the second-season press kit, and the transcript of the European ending for the "Who Killed Laura Palmer" thread. And I won't even get into the T-shirts, coffee cups, and other paraphenalia--all of which enhance one's enjoyment, if taken in the right spirit. Heck--just going to the trouble to bake a cherry pie and brew up a good pot o' joe, could make a difference in one's pleasure in any one episode.

Enough already. I wrote an article on the TP phenomenon as experienced on USENET, if you're interested. It was in the March issue of the _Twin_Peaks_Gazette_, a publication that reveals much about the show's fans, if not so much about the masses who lost interest.

--Fiona Oceanstar

P.S. Feel free to post all or part of this to POLITICS, if it would help fuel the discussion. :-)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

How 'bout it, alt.tv.t-p-Heads? Are we better at politics for being good at "Twin Peaks"? What else could we say about the "social factors" (whatever that means) involved in the "roman-candle-like popularity" of the show? I know we've talked a lot about the need for intelligence in the viewer. But what else is there? A common love of donuts?

--Fi


Allisson Roome aka Allie, 6/13/91

(Darragh Nagle) writes:
" -- stuff deleted -- Laura Palmer's hand symbol looked like a symbol, similar to the pose in many Bhuddist paintings. Anyone know what it means?"

If my memory serves me correctly it's the classic possition taken by Shiva while doing his dance that destroys and thus remakes the world The fullfilment of the death and re-birth cycle. It's also symbolic of something that is in this world but not of this world. Idle speculation re: any sort of follow-up. My office-mate Gael and I were speculating about how the whole Coop or alter-Coop would get returned to their rightful places. I was reading in the _Access_Guide_to_Twin_Peaks_ about the Passion Play which occurs every 5 or so years, but be ready in April, at Glastonbury Grove. It's rumored to be produced by the Bookhouse Boys. Hmm, Passion Play (usually having to do with the death and resurection of Christ), Glastonbury the legendary burial place of King Arthur who sought the Holy Grail aka the Cup of Christ (Arthur, the Once and Future King, who goes away but will return at the times of greatest need and peril -- yet more death and re-birth symbolism) and not to mention the secret society (ala the Masonic Lodge) which is dedicated to keeping the good and rightious. Now if my time sense is correct the Miss Twin Peaks contest is in April -- just in time for an emer- gency reenactment of the Passion Play ... food for thought, eh?


Darragh Nagle, 6/13/91

(Found in the trash bin behind Lynch/Frost productions:)

The finale - Version 4

Bob is standing beside the entrance to the Black Lodge. Andy comes up to him with a cup of coffee. Andy trips, falls, spills the coffee onto Bob. Bob: I'm MELTING!!!!! MELTING!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh

Bob disappears into the oily puddle.

Andy: Well, I guess good always triumphs over evil!

Cooper walks up.

Coop: Good work Andy!

Coop pats andy on the back.

Andy: Agent Cooper, I found that evil murderer you asked me about, Windom Earle, so I put him in the jail cell for you.

Coop gives Andy the thumbs up sign.

Coop: Andy, you're allright!

Pete walks up.

Pete: Hi guys! Guess what? Audrey's getting married to that jet pilot fellow.

Coop: really?

Pete: Yep. I sure hope he takes her fishing from time to time, she's such a dear heart!

Andy: I'm sure they will make a lovely couple.

Coop: Yes, I'm sure they will. Marriage is both strange and wonderful.

Sherriff Truman walks up.

Truman: Well guys, I had to break up a little fight at Ed & Nadine's, but everything is back to normal now. Seems that Nadine is back to normal, and so Ed and Nadine can get on with their life now.

Andy: But what about Norma?

Truman: They're going to marry her too. She'll live with them.

Andy: Oh. (looks thoughtful)

Cut to Hayward living room. Ben Horne is in the living room with Doc Hayward and Mrs. Hayward. Donna walks in.

Donna: You!

Ben: Yes, Donna, I wanted to be good. I had to tell them. I'm actually James's father!

All: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Cut to the log lady's home:

Log Lady: Well, here goes!

She pours an oily substance all over the log. There is a little smoke, then a huge flash of light, and she is holding in her arms: The Log Man!!! (Try to get Arnold Schwartzenegger for this role!)

Log Man: Hi Honey, I'm home! (smiles)

Cut to the Double R:

Bobby and Shelley are leaning over the counter talking.

Bobby: Let's get married!

Shelley: Ok!

Bobby: But what about LEO?

Shelley: I got a judgement against him for divorce, by default, He never even showed up!!!

Bobby: Wow, Shelley, Wow!

Cut to TV set:

Chet: Jade, I'm so glad we came out of this okay!

Jade: Oh, Chet! But what happened with Emerald?

Chet: She and Montanna are opening up a diner in a faraway town, they won't bother us again!

Jade: Oh, Chet! (They embrace)

Camera pans back to reveal bedroom, and in the bed, Leo, with a cup of coffee and a piece of cherry pie, smiling, and next to Leo, Heidi! Heidi takes a bite from her donut.

Cut to The Great Northern Lobby:

The giant walks up to the desk.

Giant: If you tell me the price for a room, then can I believe you?

Clerk: Of course sir. This is a high class joint! Front!

Little man from another place walks up wearing bellboy's uniform. He grabs the giant's bag.

LMFAP: Waulk theeeeese waaaaaay! (smiles, rolls eyes around)

LMFAP starts walking to the beat of the jazz music, snapping his fingers with his free hand, dancing toward the room. The giant looks amazed, then starts following, doing the same dance.

Cut to the Sherriff's Department.

Lucy: Now that I've decided that you will be the father, we can start buying the wardrobe for the baby!

Andy: Lucy, will you marry me?

Lucy: Oh, Andy, yes!

Lucy and andy kiss over the counter, Hawk walks through, notices them, and shakes his head slightly while he continues walking.

Cut to the Double R:

Agent Cooper walks in.

Cooper: Norma! You're looking good! Nice to see you! Major Briggs, I have the most amazing things to tell you about the green butt skunk! Have you been fishing lately?

Annie: Well hello there!

Coop: Hi Annie. (pauses) Annie: I've been doing alot of thinking lately, and it has become clear to me that I've been focusing beyond the edges of the board too long, and that when a man can't picture the necessity for life as it should be and the beauty of a douglas fir or making love with a beautiful woman you feel genuine affection for, that the whole universe can be changed somehow.

Annie passes out, crashes to the floor.

Coop whips out pocket recorder.

Coop: Diane, what ever did happen to the balanced national budget?

Norma picks up Annie, starts reviving her.

Coop: How's Annie?

Norma: She'll be fine.

Coop: Good.

Coop joins Norma with Annie, Annie comes around

Coop: Annie, will you marry me?

Annie: Oh, yes! I accept!

Coop: (smiles) Then our adventures are just beginning! Come on everybody! There's going to be a group wedding at the roadhouse!

Briggs: Agent Cooper, there's been one thing I've been meaning to ask you.

Coop: Yes major, what is it?

Briggs: I've been wondering about this for a long time now, and so I have to ask you: Are cherry pies really enough?

Coop: Only if you get three pieces. With coffee.

Laura Palmer walks in.

Laura Palmer: Hi everybody, I'm back!

All: Where have you been?

Laura Palmer: I had the strangest dream, I dreamed I died. And you were there, and you, and you, and you! But, everything's fine now, so I'll be back in school on Monday.

Everybody smiles and nods approval.

Roll credits, background sun setting over Twin Peaks. An owl is seen flying out of town, it passes the camera view on its way out.


Barb Miller, 6/14/91

phy... writes:
"1) How can "love be enough"? {Put another way I believe "love is not enough" as has been mentioned often in postings here relates to the Yin/Yang like nature of the spiritual conflict/battles going on in TP.}"

The question is "enough for what?"

Since Major Briggs is the person who first said this, and there seems to be a strong consensus that, just as fear is what gives power to Bob and opens the door to the Black Lodge, love is what opens the door to the White Lodge (I'm not sure this was ever stated outright by anyone in the actual script), it may just be that Major Briggs' fear that "love is not enough" is a fear that love is not enough to bring one into the White Lodge. Perhaps if he believes that he reached the White Lodge, his greatest fear is that love is in fact not enough to reach it, and so he has deceived himself about having done so. Depending upon how much he has staked on his faith in the White Lodge, this could be a very great fear indeed.

For other people in the story (and larger world), it may be that love must be enough to overcome the fear that Bob feeds upon and that gives greater power to the Black Lodge, whether that Lodge be an actual entity or a psychological state.

"Does anyone think that the hateful/evil forces for any specific personality in the TP world will have to combine with the good side/forces to end in "victory" in the conflict?"

Bingo. Thank you for stating something that has been in the back of my mind for a while. The Jungian reading I've done makes me want to see the process of passing through the Black Lodge to get to the White Lodge as meeting one's shadow, the embodiment of all one's most shameful suppressed characteristics, and INTEGRATING them in order to let one's entire self operate consciously.

"On the surface of it I see the existence of Bob and the requirement for a "perfect courage" to be disproofs of such a thesis as the above."

Not necessarily. How about this: we suppress our evil side because we are afraid to think that we ourselves might be capable of terrible deeds (whatever we think those deeds are). But in order to stop living in such a way that we project our own shadow onto others but it continues to cause us to unconsciously act out our shadow side, we have to face the fact that there is this side of us, and have enough love and acceptance of ourselves as mere humans to acknowledge that there can be positive power to the tendencies we are suppressing, if we don't let them get out of hand.

Having gone out on this Jungian limb, I could further say that Bob, whose existence is limited to visions and the Black Lodge, could be the collective shadow of the entire community. Unless we each take responsibility for the part that our personal shadow plays in making Bob powerful, he will continue to destroy.

"But what is "perfect courage" anyway?"

I'm not sure the requirement is "perfect courage" so much as enough courage to see and acknowledge the worst in ourselves without letting it take over. This carries over into the requirement for love in the sense that we not only have to love and accept ourselves for what we are, but we also have to allow the people we love to be who they really are, rather than just projecting parts of ourselves onto them. In Cooper's case, this could mean allowing himself to see Annie not only as an innocent and vulnerable soul emerging into an exciting but cruel world (as he himself has been) and requiring his protection, but as a woman who might have power of her own. To acknowledge his dark side to her in the Black Lodge would take tremendous courage and faith in her love for him as a whole person rather than as a protector. If you haven't seen the finale, you haven't been puzzling as I have over the moment when WE asks Cooper to give him his soul in order to save Annie and Cooper says he will let WE have it. It seems like a very noble sacrifice, a symbol of great love for Annie. But Bob is right. Where does Windom Earle (or Cooper for that matter) get the power to decide what will happen to Annie in the Black Lodge? If the REAL Annie is there (not just Annie as she reflects the projections of Cooper, Windom Earle, and even the town, since she has been just been given the title of Miss Twin Peaks), she is having her own struggle to achieve wholeness. The only Annie that Cooper can give his soul in order to save is the image of Annie that he carries inside him. Perhaps that projection has to be allowed to die in order for Cooper to possess his entire self. Refusing to let that projection die could in fact be the same as giving up his soul.

So, in the final scene, when Cooper sees Bob in himself and starts to ask in that chilling voice: "How's Annie?", it underscores the fact that the Cooper we have known all along shares with Bob a view of women as beautiful and vulnerable souls. The difference has been that Bob has tried to destroy them and Cooper has tried to protect them. The trip to the Black Lodge has not changed that view for Cooper--he is still projecting his own anima onto Annie. But he has taken the first step toward integrating his shadow, although for the moment it appears it has not been particularly successful, and in fact he may be possessed by it. But it is to be hoped that he will one day be able to replace the question "How's Annie?" with "Who's Annie?".

Barb Miller


Paul Raveling, 6/14/91

Last night I phoned Scott Frost again, and got a couple fresh bits of into.

Probable good news (?):

Details are not final for the Twin Peaks movie, but the commitments to do it are quite close to being nailed down.

Probable bad news (IMHO):

Lynch wants the movie to be about the last 7 days of Laura Palmer's life. The threads left hanging in the last TV episode will probably hang forever -- and what sort of place is Peaks without Coop?

Also, they had been negotiating with foreign sources for funding to continue the TV series but did not secure the necessary support. Scott also said his book was doing particularly well in foreign markets, where the TV show has also been successful. Apparently it's drawn enough attention that the Australians have been interviewing him by telephone.

P.S.: He's about to wrap up a non-Peaks movie script and is looking for work... Anyone need a good script?


Barb Miller, 7/29/91

"Let's face it, Rocky, little tales like Audrey's utterly unoriginal love-affair/deflowering and other such God-awful cliches are simply a waste of time and an insult to the intelligence of _Twin Peaks_ viewers. Now, I very much enjoyed the Windom Earle/Black Lodge/White Lodge thread, because it was significant -- it was intelligent and compelling. Just tell me one intelligent thing about Audrey's love affair or Nadine's high school romance or Norma's mother, or any of the other insipid sub-plots."

I thought there were some very interesting things about Norma's mother. The parallel situations of both of them having married men who were basically liars and crooks put an interesting twist on the theme of the overly critical mother in that she looks down on what her daughter does but is unable to realize that she herself can make the same kinds of mistakes. In fact, it may well be that she is so demanding and fault-finding as a way of projecting her own fear of failure onto others, or at least of making a living at what she is able to do best. One may assume that Annie was also criticized just as thoroughly as she grew up, and since we get some tantalizing hints but not much actual information about what led to Annie's suicide attempt and decision to enter the convent, the view of their mother provides some helpful insight. It may well be that what she needed more than anything was exposure to a mother symbol (either the head of the convent, or the Virgin Mary) who was accepting and loving rather than a demanding perfectionist. This could have led to her being the only female character who seemed to have any real inner spiritual strength.

Beyond this, Norma's mother provides an interesting counterbalance to the other characters in Twin Peaks who are mothers. The other mothers that I recall are Laura's mother, Donna's mother, Audrey's mother, and Bobby Briggs' mother. [Of course, Lucy is a mother-to-be, but she probably doesn't really count yet. And I guess the grandmother of the Creamed Corn Kid must be somebody's mother.] Certainly Audrey's and Laura's lives are far more deeply affected by their fathers than by their mothers, who are basically too weak to provide a counteracting moral force (in Audrey's case) or adequate physical protection (in Laura's case). Bobby's mother seems like pretty much of a mouse as well. Between his father's remoteness and his mother's quiet accomodation to him, it doesn't surprise me that Bobby is as confused as he is about who he is, where he's going in life, and with whom he's going. Then there is Donna's mother, over whom the shadow of the past is being cast in an ambiguous way toward the end of the series, but all we know is that she was mixed up in some dark secret of Ben Horne's past. In addition, her confinement to a wheelchair causes her to always appear to be much smaller than the people around her. This pattern of mothers in the shadow of fathers (who are not always benevolent) contrasts with Norma's mother. Of course, Norma's mother's strength is not really portrayed positively here either, since it is more a strength of will than of love. Since she is a food critic, in fact, the term "devouring mother" would be very apropos here, since in eating at her daughter's diner and then giving her response based entirely upon her high food standards, without once noticing that Norma has provided a welcoming social environment in the town with coffee and pie to die for, Norma's mother is acting out the archetype of the mother who would swallow her children rather than let them be themselves. Of course, Norma, in telling off her mother, is getting excellent practice for telling off Hank, thus ridding herself of two negative forces in her life.

Furthermore, Norma herself seems to provide the closest thing to a positive mother figure of anyone, in her relationship with Shelly. We never see or even hear about Shelly's real parents, but when Leo escapes, Shelly goes to the diner because she feels safer there. This feeling of safety no doubt has something to do with the fact that the entire town gathers there, but Norma is responsible for providing the food which draws the community there and nourishes its body and soul.

Anyway, the preponderance of negative or weakened mother figures seems to me to be significant in evaluating the darkness of Twin Peaks. There are some very significant father figures in Twin Peaks, who wield tremendous power over their children's lives. But no really strong, positive mother figure who can nurture and protect the children. I think this has a lot to do with the darkness of the vision of Twin Peaks.

I hope that somewhere in all of this, I have managed to say something intelligent about Norma's mother, or at least why she seemed to me to be a worthwhile diversion. As for Nadine, well I haven't really figured her out yet. Her story was so bizarre, and yet so sad, that I don't think I would give her up, if only as comic relief [bear in mind that I realized early on I would have to make allowances for the generally limited range of options for female characters in the series]. Audrey's love affair happened so quickly that I could only conclude that it might have been a setup for some other development in the next season. I actually thought there was more of interest in the reverse mentor relationship between JJ and Ben Horne than in the love affair. It is almost as if JJ was some sort of hallucination from Ben's crazy period that took physical form when he came out of it.

"From the beginning, _Twin Peaks_ was an examination of a seemingly innocent small town, which actually serves to hide all forms of powerfully evil forces. The mystical nature, as well as the darkness protrayed in the first season, are the reasons I began and continued to watch _Twin Peaks_. I did not tune in to see another soap opera -- I tuned in to see a portrayal of good pitted against evil in a most unlikely Northwestern town."

But remember, one of the metaphors used in the first season was precisely that of the soap opera. Since it's already later than I had planned to stay up tonight, I won't charge down this path now, but I think that putting this story in an obscure American town and playing off what popular culture has caused our expectations of that town to be, requires that the mythic struggle's impact on ordinary lives has to be shown. And of course, since we're playing off popular culture here, the lives will be more like soap operas than like ordinary lives. I won't say I liked all the subplots either. In places where they didn't take themselves too seriously (Nadine, Lucy/Andy), I think they probably succeeded better than in places where there just wasn't enough humor (Evelyn Marsh), since the bizarre humor plays into the irony of the disclosure of our misplaced perceptions. But I am not willing to dismiss them too quickly, since many of them have interesting contributions to make to the whole picture.

Barb Miller


Chris’n’Vickie of Chicago, 8/15/91

There is still an active Twin Peaks Fan Club here in Chicago. We met the other night and one of the people there had just returned from a trip to Los Angeles and Snoqualmie. While in LA he was able to visit Lynch/Frost Productions. They were taken on a tour of the sets by the publicist. Latham had a video camera with him and brought bsack the most interesting footage of the sets, most of which are still intact. There are sets still up that you would have expected to be dismantled long ago. For instance, the cell where Leland died is still up, complete with the blood still on the door where he butted his head. It was fascinating to see the sets as they normally are. They appear much bigger on screen than they are. Lighting is all-important. Ben Horne's office looks huge, but is actually very small. The weasel was even still on the table behind Ben's desk. Many of the sets were very dark, the only light came from the overhead warehouse lights and did not reach into a lot of the sets. Nadine and Ed's house was dark, but you could see Nadine's shelves full of figureines. Latham said he saw the figurine with the eyepatch :-) In Shelly and Leo's house, Latham's friend looked for and found the bullet hole.

Coop's room at the Great Northern was dark, but Latham said that it was very small, on purpose. They built it originally knowing that the giant scenes were coming up. The room was smaller than normal to make the giant look even bigger. Latham said that the window was actually knee-high.

The Lodge set was uneventful, because the red curtains were taken down and just lying on the floor, not even folded up, just lying where they were taken down.

It was great seeing the mural outside of Ben's office. Latham's friend went out side, shut the doors and came back in re-creating the scene when Jerry first appears. I know, I know...

They saw James' bike just lying under a stairwell. The RR Diner is so tiny, half the size it appears on screen. The jukebox is filled with normal rock songs. I wanted to see a closeup of the ice cream cone, but didn't get my wish :-(

The publicist talked a little about Kyle and said that people there weren't too happy with him. When she started talking about Kyle, Latham turned off the video camera because he didn't feel comfortable. He didn't repeat muuch of what she said, just indicated that everyone is very unhappy and that negotiations are ongoing.

There was probably an hour of footage of them going through the sets. It was great!

They were fairly disappointed with Snoqualmie, but I can't imagine why. Even without TP, it's just got to be a great area. They filmed the falls, the "Sheriff's Station", the Great Northern, Ed's Gas Farm (which they were floored to see was a Kite shop!), the Mar T, which they said served terrible food, the spot where the intro was filmed (with the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign), the area where Donna and Laura had their picnic and a couple of other places I can't remember off hannd. It was all so fascinating, even though they said they didn't have that great of time in Wash. The real treat was of course, in LA, at Lynch/Frost. I can imagine. Anyone can go to Snoqualmie, but very few people can get into L/F. They don't give tours normally.

We're having a Twin Peaks picnic the weekend after Labor Day. The site is not completely set yet. I'll post it when I'm sure. Latham was very disappointed that filming was postponed. It's very possible they could have been extras, had the movie been in progress.

Damn!

Vickie

"I knew a man, he was very odd. He always thought that someone was following him. He'd talk of entities that didn't exist...or so I thought. His paranoia intrigued me so. I was sure he'd escaped from a loony bin. Every day it became clearer...he was right! Thanks be my lunatic, I know he's faring well. It's over now, they're off from out from under him. They can't hurt the madman, now they're hovering at my head. I must die to get them off from out from under me" "Off From Out From Under Me" (excerpt) Happy Rhodes


Barb Miller, 9/1/91

Just to see if I can get some talk going here, I would like to say something about the White Lodge/Black Lodge story that built up after the death of Leland. While I would not make a statement that "they should have ended the series after Leland's death", I do remember thinking when it became clear that they were going to focus on the Lodges that the show was in over its head, and for me that story never had the epic sense that a story like that has in some of the literature and mythology which has also treated it.

I realize I risk being flamed unmercifully, so I am trying to tread carefully here. I don't really have time to carefully analyze just why it might have fallen short for me, but a few possibilities include:

1. That there was not a single writer or perhaps even a strong individual creative vision by that time which could carry the theme through.

2. That Lynch's talent for showing quirky characters and bizarre everyday details of life fit much better into showing how all the members of a small town could be tied in with the death of its homecoming queen than into an epic and rather abstract story like the Lodges.

3. That it was never clear whether the Lodges were psychological (the confrontation of the Dream Souls), spiritual (concentrating on the Souls rather than the Dream), or moral (basic good/evil dichotomy), so it never could completely treat any of these.

4. (Discussed earlier on the net) That showing so much of Windom Earle to the audience in some way diminished his power, compared with BOB, who remained a mystery all the way through.

5. That I almost never watch TV so I am not able to really evaluate the medium realistically--there may have been things going on that I missed because I have more of a literary and psychological approach to things than is perhaps appropriate for TV.

6. That the subplots didn't fit in as well with the main Lodge story as the earlier subplots fit with the Laura Palmer story. (i.e. it was easier to see Harold Smith or One-Eyed Jack's in the context of "there is a dark and mysterious side to this seemingly idyllic small town" than to accept Little Nicky or Evelyn Marsh or Audrey's love affair as being intimately tied in with the Black Lodge or White Lodge) Anyway, I would very much like to hear what other people think of this. What did people particularly like about the Lodge story? I should hasten to point out that I watched Twin Peaks with interest through to the end, and I was very glad that they were even ATTEMPTING such a theme. But I'm trying to figure out why it is that I feel as though it never quite managed to live up to the theme's possibilities in the way that it brilliantly treated the murder.

Flame away..."Fire, walk with me."

Barb Miller


Craig Horman, 9/26/91

The Twin Peaks movie is being shot in the Seattle area now. I think shooting has been going on for a week or so and will continue until the first or second week of October. Yesterday I drove through North Bend (aka TP) and saw little activity, although there were a few studio trailers from Burbank and the "RR" sign was up at the Mar-T Cafe. Reliable sources indicated that shooting was happening at the Colonial Inn, in Fall City (neither a city nor near the falls, or course), so off I went.

At the Colonial Inn (aka the Roadhouse) the Bang-Bang neon sign was up and a small group of people were setting up lights and reflectors for a night shoot. A group of bikers, hired locally as extras, were standing around fretting about the dust on their bikes kicked up from all the machine activity. The generator truck, and other utility vehicles all had placards which read, "Lynch-Frost Productions, Twin Peaks / Fire Walk with Me" on their dashboards. Local police agencies were all represented (North Bend, King County (Seattle), and the Washington State Patrol).

Around 6, after an early dinner at the Colonial (which closed for the night because they needed to paper the windows), the Log Lady appeared. She wandered around the set briefly, in character and carrying her log, then disappeared into a trailer which was parked next to Big Ed's Gas truck.

A few hours passed, with Lynch-Frost vans racing around but seeming to do nothing at all. The bikers took photos of each other spread-eagled against the cop cars.

Around 8:30, a small group of people materialized from nowhere, and rushed from the road to the trailers. David Lynch, jauntily dressed in a blue blazer, chinos, and cap -- a 70s preppie hunting outfit -- followed by his minions, swept onto the set. Later, when his cap came off, his trademark Reaganesque hairdo was unmistakeable.

More activity. Its amazing how frantic yet controlled a film shoot can be. By this time, a crowd had gathered. Snippets of conversation from hardcore fans reached us in the now-chilly night air. Someone had seen David Bowie a few days before. "Kyle finished shooting yesterday and left town", said a woman with a disappointed leer -- she missed him by minutes but did get to see his personal chair. (Yes, they all have personalized, director's style chairs -- Lynch has not only a chair but a frilly stool). I was glad to see everyone was on a first-name basis with the cast and crew. David had "almost" autographed someone's Twin Peaks t-shirt, but fled when asked to explain Eraserhead. Bobby has already left town. Someone thought they saw Major Briggs, maybe. Laura's stunt double was seen, deep in the woods, driving a vintage car fast over backcountry roads.

A crew member tried to start a small portable generator. The engine sputtered and died, once, twice, three times. One of the bikers helpfully pointed out that "if it was a Harley it would have started by now." The bikers started to polish their bikes, just behind a cop car. One of the cops ambled over to them.

"They want a few dents in your bikes, guys, so I'm gonna back my car up into them," he said.

One of the bikers grabbed the cop by the scruff of the neck and made to spread-eagle him against the squad car. The cop grinned and twisted away, making a pretend grab for his holster.

9:30pm. The bikes are lined up in front of the Roadhouse. I flee for hot chocolate at the little market ("Fall City Convenience Mart, open 24 hours for all your shopping needs," says the woman behind the counter) and walk back around the corner to the roadhouse, making eye contact with a woman in hair curlers and a slightly frumpy housecoat. She's talking to the Log Lady and Lynch beneath a wooden awning at the roadhouse entrance. Yep, she's Laura Palmer. She practises striding up to the roadhouse, pantomimes a conversation with the Log Lady (who touches her face gently), and then walks up three steps into the building.

They disappear for another half-hour or so, while the crew shoos the crowd around the set like a gaggle of unwanted Canada geese ("Sorry, guys, I need you all to move thirty feet to the left. Ooops, now move fifty feet back. To the right, please, thirty feet"). We can tell shooting will start soon when Lynch and crew settle into their chairs, surrounded by cast and crew. Laura appears, sans curlers, wearing high-heeled leather boots that reach most of the way up her legs and a short dark coat. She hops into her car (a Studebaker?) and starts the engine. Lynch decides the white Comet should switch places with the black Mustang, so two crew members play parking valets for a few minutes. Then everyone yells, "Quiet!" Laura starts the car again and backs it up 10 feet. Cameras roll. Sound rolls. She drives forward ten feet, cuts the engine and lights and steps out gracefully. She walks the twenty feet to the roadhouse with great aplomb, but the big tan labrador who has been sitting with us in the crowd decides the moment is perfect to lope across the frame right behind Laura. We all try not to giggle, but fail.

"Cut," says Lynch. "Perfect."

We all laugh. A few crew people chase the dog around.

They set up the shot again. This time, a crew member holds the dog tight, lavishing it with attention. The set quiets, rolling begins, and Laura begins her brief walk to the roadhouse once again. The dog-tender, incredibly, releases the dog, and once again he crisscrosses her tracks in exactly the same place. We realize we've been duped, that the damned dog is actually in the cast, and the time he spent with us, in the crowd, he was just slumming. 11pm. Not prepared for the cold, I abandon the shooting. It will probably continue for another few hours. Next time, I'll find a day shoot.


Max Clarke, 2/23/92

Incidentally, before I get to my main topic, it should be noted what date it is today: Feb. 23...everybody know what that means? If not, I'll remind you at the end.

Anyway, I haven't read this group in ages. But a few months back, I posted my speculation about a follow-up (rather than FWWM, a prequel) to the last episode. Here, more or less, is what I said:

It's 2014, and David Lynch happens to be at loose ends, so he decides to follow up on the legendary cult TV show he did 2 1/2 decades ago. Our story opens in contemporary (2014) Twin Peaks. Many of the characters of the old show are still around, albeit older; many new and strange cast members are also present. Donna, Bobby, Leo, Shelly, James, etc. all have teenage kids now. What about Coop? There are several possibilities: he's been in an asylum for 25 years, having apparently gone mad shortly after the 1989 Miss Twin Peaks pageant; he's continued to serve as an FBI agent, but is sometimes possessed by Bob, and commits horrible crimes that he never remembers afterwards; or he's simply dis- appeared--maybe into the Waiting Room, one of the Lodges, or on an extended sojourn to Tibet.

Things have apparently settled down in TP, but now some strange forces again stir in the woods. The residents of the Ghostwood subdivision are reporting various bizarre incidents to the new police chief (let's see, who should it be...James? or to really go against expectations, as Lynch always does, Bobby?), who sends his deputy Harry Dale Moran (Lucy & Andy's kid) out to investigate. It seems that people are claiming to have been visited by the long-dead Laura Palmer. Soon Coop arrives on the scene...

Someone else can take it from there. (The whole point about 25 years refers to what Laura said to Coop in the last episode.) And if you don't already know, Feb. 23, 1989 was the date of Laura's death...

Feel free to embellish on this scenario; I'd love to see what other people can come up with!

--Max

***************************************************************
"That gum you like is going to come back in style."
--The Little Man From Another Place
***************************************************************
Max Clarke /o)\
"The Traveler" \(o/
***************************************************************


5/17- 5/31/92: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me premieres at the Cannes Film Festival, where it is booed. Its subsequent Japanese premiere is greeted with acclaim and box office success.


Bob Gray, 6/29/92

I was on holiday last week, and as I was passing a cinema I spotted a poster for the TP sequel.

A quick check of the timetable. The show started in ten minutes. So what did I do? Go in and see it, of course.

Right from the first notes of music any long term Peaks addict will find themself back in familiar territory, finding out about the first murder. Despite this it comes as quite a shock when after about half an hour a familiar signpost appears and the corresponding theme music plays. It is nearly as big a surprise to to have Laura Palmer actually walking and talking with other members of the cast.

Lynch had the problem of telling a story which we already know the outcome and a lot of the details of. He gets around this by telling the story from the point of view of the one person we have not really heard in the series. Laura.

The usual twists and turns and odd angles on people and events are all there, with some very cleverly done scenes distorting the entire interpretation of the earlier series. If you liked the original undiluted TP, you'll like this one too. And there are enough hooks to hang another sequel on, to let us know what happened to the other characters.

Bob.


8/28/92 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me debuts in the U.S. to poor reviews and lackluster box office.


Joe Zitt, 8/30/92

Well, I just got back from the movie. A few observations.

- Everybody on this newsgroup should see this movie. Now. Go. Don't bother logging off :-). It's exactly what many of us have been hoping for.

- Nobody who is not either on this group or a kindred spirit should see it. It will make absolutely no sense to anyone who hasn't watched the show and mulled it over in great detail.

- Remember back when we had the sneaky feeling that Lynch/Frost were reading this newsgroup and scripting based on what we were saying? Well, this even looks more like that than the series does. I get the feeling that they kept an eye on what kept us most interested and talking, and made sure to put it in the movie. The film was targeted very specifically at the fanatic audience, and they did their research seeing what fans wanted to be in it. Even more than the show, this had the careful feel where Everything Shown Is Significant. We now have a better feeling, for example, of what the ceiling fan was for: Leland/BOB switched it on when going to Laura so that Sarah wouldn't hear what he was doing.

- The most obvious thing not in the movie? The Black/White Lodge. My guess? That was not part of the original conception, and, like almost everything else after episode 2009, was tacked on to extend things. The movie got rid of the Plotburger Helper and got back in focus. (Actually, I think Annie mentioned the Lodge. That was a hook to what I think will be another movie, where they try to reintegrate the show.)

- So what does garmonbozia have to do with it? Is it corn, or is it pain and sorrow? Or both?

- Sheryl Lee had more range than I expected. She played Laura very differently than she played Maddy.

- Stuff for the next movie ("Twin Peaks: One Chance Out"?): What's with Jeffries? Where is Desmond? What about the Dopplegangers? Do we learn more about the BOB/Mike relationship? And... what about Naomi? :-):-):-)

-- "Go to an extreme and then retreat to a more useful position" -- Brian Eno


Sally A. Wilson, 8/31/92

Ciao,

Joe Zitt made a good point that the movie was like a Passion Play in that the viewers were expected to know the story prior to coming to the flick. That is similar to the Greek plays wherein the crowd already knew the stories of the gods, and the Greek heros prior to coming to the tragedies/comedies. If you see a classical Greek play today without knowing the backgrounds you would be completely lost. The play definitely was for Peak fans, who knew the characters, the stories, the themes, and motifs.

A end note: I just loved the beginning with the staticy (a real word?) television. I may be reading too much into it, but one one level I found it as a great inside joke: our televisions were dead, no TP on the air. Then the axe coming down, again a joke on how the show was killed, hacked to death by some yo-yo tv execs. But then.....the film starts and it might be off the air, but it ain't dead.

Sally--


Jeff Makey, 9/1/92

(George D Emmons) writes:
"1) Loved the girl in the beginning. The fact she was there did two things for me: One, I instantly respected Desmond for picking up on all those clues JUST LIKE THAT!"

There was no smiley in this posting, and no one else has said this either, so here goes: I just about died laughing at this scene! It was so obvious that Lynch, et al., were poking fun at us -- the rabid fans of Twin Peaks who spend hours analyzing every detail of the show. I really wish I had the movie on tape so I could freeze-frame it!!! :: Jeff Makey

Department of Tautological Pleonasms and Superfluous Redundancies


Scott J. Gorcey, 9/2/92

Sheryl Lee's "wretched" acting (Re: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me)

(Doug Quarnstrom) writes...
"Yeah, if you mean, by good acting, the regular descent into tear filled histrionics that are barely justified and not especially convincing. About half way through the movie I was hoping Leland would hurry up and kill her so she would stop crying all the time." 

"Regular" as compared to what? Barely justified? If being regularly raped by your father since the age of twelve, not to mentioned being bombarded by BOB's desire to take away your body and keep you prisoner in it for fifty or sixty years... Sure, I'd call that barely reason to cry once or twice... or be scared... or to lose your mind and go on coke binges to forget your pain (or do anything else that might lessen the pain)...

Sure, I see your point almost immediately.

As for convincing... Well... I guess it is pretty easy for us all to be familiar with what kind of person a victim of all the above would be like...

"On the whole, I thought her acting job was pretty wretched, and the only real reccommendation I could give is, 'go see the movie if you want to see Sheryl Lee's breasts'. Other than that, filming this movie was a pretty big mistake as it tries to embody the mystery of Larua P, and merely reduces her to a whiny and less than sympathetic little twit. It really may not be something Lynch could have changed. This series was driven and empowered by the very mysterious nature of Laura. They removed that."

A little more than half of TWIN PEAKS occured AFTER Laura's murder was solved... How does THAT embody her mystery? If you think Laura in FWWM was unsympathetic, I'd hate to be judged by you. Whiny? You'd whine a little if your father was molesting you.

What's the problem with a movie that isn't driven on the mystery of how she wound up dead, but driven by HOW she wound up dead? I thought FWWM was not only driving, but also intense and, incredibly, suspenseful. I think Lynch and Engles really turned our foreknowledge of the ending into a strength.

"And the teaser scenes in the series about the murder in the train car are FAR more effective dramatically than what they actually filmed for the movie."

For sheer effect, I think I'd have to actually agree with you here. Ronnette's flashbacks were goddamn scary, much more intense than what we saw in FWWM. But the FWWM train car scene (while one of the most faulty in the film, I think) put a new and wonderful twist on it -- how Laura BEATS BOB, how even though she dies, it's in dying that she wins. For Lynch, this is indeed a happy ending -- that is the gold in the FWWM version.

"I was disappointed."

I'm really sorry you feel that way, because I'm thrilled with FWWM... The explanations are shocking and interesting, the possibilities are open... and the "passion play" mythology -- I think shown for the first time to their potential (as the snippets we got of LMFAP and BOB and Red Room stuff in the series was way too few and far between).

You know something I just realized, Pierre Tremond and David Bowie, and a couple of other people in the above-the-convenience-store meeting were wearing OWL masks... I thought they were cute little witch masks... but I think they were stylized owls... Anybody else think this?

Scott


Hi ho Kermit the Frog here…, 9/14/92

OK, so the movie's been out for a couple of weeks, and everyone's put in their two cents' worth on what was right/wrong. Lots of little carps and kvetches. Things that were left out, things that should have been cut. Now it's time to ask all the wannabe-Lynches out there:

What would you have done differently?

We all know how much was left on the cutting-room floor for this movie.

What scenes would you rather have seen, and what do you think should still have been cut? Are there any extra scenes that weren't in the script that you would have liked to have seen?

Bear in mind the fact that the movie was already damn long at 2:10, and that for anything you add you'll probably have to cut something.

My personal ideas aren't that complicated. First up, I would DEFINITELY have put in one shot of Leland shoving the R under Laura's fingernail. Otherwise the T under Teresa's makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the movie.

Second, the entire half-hour before Laura appears would be cut TO THE BONE. The number of scenes could be counted on one hand. The TV smashed -- Teresa floating down the river -- Desmond and Stanley do the autopsy and find the T -- Coop says he feels the killer will strike again -- BANG into the Twin Peaks title sequence. Keep the movie focused on what it's about: Laura Palmer. None of this confusion about Cliff Howard. And no Philip Jeffries scene. Maybe splice a couple of shots from the Gathering of Owls in the convenience store into Laura's dream, to explain "garmonbozia", but that's it. All that stuff involving the FBI investigation really belonged in a completely separate movie. In fact, I'd love to see it explored to that depth. Just not here.

As for additions, I'd add a Meals On Wheels run, simply to introduce Harold Smith and the Tremonds. Otherwise they seem to just come out of nowhere.

At the end, I'd put in at least one scene to make it clear that Laura knows she is going to die -- maybe she writes that last diary entry and mails it to Harold. Make the thematic shape of the movie clearer that way.

The end result -- a slimmer, more focused film that could almost stand on its own. Anyone else want to come forward with their "improvements" to FWWM?


Peter Stoltz, 10/21/92

I have a somewhat less other-worldly idea about FWWM. (I mean this to be kind of in addition to the mystical, mythological views because I certainly believe that is the basis of Lynch's story). But as I watched the movie, it occured to me that someone who wasn't familiar with the Twin Peaks story might see it as a story about an abusive father and the effects this abuse has on his daughter, rather than about the lodge beings.

Like I said this is meant to be a parallel interpretation, not a complete explanation in itself. But I think that we can look at BOB as a side of Leland's personality, one he has pushed into his subconscious. Recall that he never remembers doing horrible things to Laura (at breakfast he can't understand why Laura is so upset the morning after he rapes her...and in the car after seeing the OAM he doesn't remember being home the previous week, at least not right away.)

And Laura also isn't consciously aware that it's her father that is raping her all these years. Her subconscious makes her see BOB rather than admit to herself that it is her father. But hiding this from herself becomes such a psychological burden that she turns to drugs and sex as an escape.

As the plot unfolds, Laura slowly comes to admit to herself that it IS her father that abuses her and as Leland (subconsciously, at least) comes to see that she knows this, he must either admit it to himself also, or kill her to keep from having to admit this to himself. He chooses the latter (until the 2nd season of the TV series, then he chooses the former).

I guess my point is that I saw the movie as much about the psychological effects of incest and abuse on both father and daughter as about the lodge creatures. I think Lynch wanted FWWM (in addition to helping develope the mythology behind TP) to be about a daughter's realization that her father abuses her, and the physical and psycological damage this causes to both, just told in a very imaginative and intricate manner.

I have never been a big fan of psychology. I never really believed in emotional trauma leading to psychological problems (like drug addiction or denial or schizophrenia). But FWWM was such a powerful testament to these things that I am now a firm believer.

Peter


Rich Haller, 10/25/92

Just as we construct our own interpretations of 'reality' '-) What follows was intended to be a comment on the posting which quotes Lynch as saying that anyone who who thinks he understands what is going on in TP is wrong, or words to that effect. The original disappeared from our rapidly recycling server before I could comment.

I think what Lynch means is that he doesn't originate this stuff in a self-conscious way, but rather intuitively. Someone has remarked that Lynch seems to have more access to his unconscious than most. I believe that it has also been said that he does not dream (what this probably means is that he may have reported that he has no memories of dreams. I doubt anyone has put him in a sleep lab and reported no REM, etc.). Think of TP in general and FWWM in particular as being created more like a dream than a novel, (I don't mean that it is supposed to be a dream, but that the process by which it is constructed is more like the way in which a dream comes to be than a something like Chinatown, comes to be).

If so, then what Lynch is saying is that not only we don't know what it all means, but in a real sense, he doesn't either. That he hasn't created a puzzle for us to solve a la Agatha Christie or James Joyce, but rather delivered something given to him by his muse that he doesn't fully understand himself. This is not to say that Lynch doesn't do any analysis or crafting of his work, but only that there are things in it that are there because they have to be, and these things don't always fit into a neat, linear plan for the whole work. If this analysis is correct, then he has more in common with someone like William Burroughs than someone like James Joyce.

-Rich Haller


Hi ho Kermit the Frog here…, 10/26/92

FWWM is alive and well in the dollar-house cinemas, and now it's just gotten to the college campus circuit. It appeared at the University of Maryland as a midnight movie this past weekend. There was a MUCH bigger audience for it than I've ever seen. The 300-seat theater was at least half full.

This is not necessarily a good thing.

Judging from the reactions of the audience, and talking to some people afterwards, few of these people had any experience with Twin Peaks at all before this movie. They "didn't get it". Not only that, but they thought it was a laff riot.

The air in the theater was filled with little whispered comments throughout the movie. "Who's he?" "He's the FBI agent". "I thought he just disappeared?" "No, this is a different one." "Then who's the dude coming out of the elevator?" "Another FBI agent." "Is this some kind of FBI movie, or what?" Et cetera.

If there were ever a re-edited version of the movie, I would strongly suggest that they somehow trim Laura's "gobble gobble gobble" line and the LMFAP's "This table is formica. Green is its color." They had the entire audience in hysterics and totally destroyed any grip on reality they had. (Then again, almost anything the LMFAP said was cause for much merriment.)

On the other hand... they did laugh in all the right places. And even better, they JUMPED in all the right places. Better still, they were laughing right after they jumped. It was that giddy sort of laughter that comes from having been given the shock of your life, and slowly settling back to earth.

One phrase I overheard from a woman after an appearance by BOB would really warm David Lynch's heart. "Oh Jeez. I feel like I've been through labor." Her voice was laughing and shaking at the same time. That's what Mr. Lynch has been trying for through all his movies.

On the whole, despite wanting to murder about half the audience (like the guy who told me afterwards that he'd hated everything by David Lynch he'd ever seen, but decided to come to this one just for a nice loud laugh), it was oddly successful. Why? Because afterwards, everyone was standing out in the theater hallway, talking about the film. A bunch of people even said that they were interested in seeing episodes of the series, either again or for the first time. And that's what makes this movie worthwhile.


Brad Morris, 1/7/93

I have seen Coopers blood stained shirt in person.

I spent some time in Lynch-Frost, saw Ed's motorcycle (gathering dust), etc.

I had a chat with Robert Engles, co-writer of FWWM.

Unfortunately, I did not keep up with TP as much as I should have. I followed very closely until Bob was revealed, then kind of lost interest.

My brother was a production assistant for On The Air. He is now production assistant for Sirens, which is being produced by Bob Engles.

I pumped Robert Engles for info, and got some pretty interesting responses. Of course, he said that David would be mad if he knew what I learned. David doesn't like to reveal anything about TP.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that by now Lynch/Frost is dead. We will probably not see any more Twin Peaks. Of course, for enough money, anything could happen.

Pretty interesting stuff. What I came to realize most of all was that there probably wasn't 1/100 of the thought put into Twin Peaks than there was thinking about the series on this news group.



No comments:

Search This Blog