What can the tie-in books and cut scenes reveal about Twin Peaks? Stewart Gardiner takes his investigation to the edge of town to find out.
By Stewart Gardiner // I was thirteen years old when Twin Peaks aired. I wasn’t ready for it at that age and in fact only watched one episode during its original run. The pilot would have pulled me in regardless, but I only watched episode 16 for some reason. One of the finest episodes of the show and of television in general, it’s nevertheless a bad place to start. Secrets are out in the open. The question of “Who killed Laura Palmer?” is no longer a question. It didn’t matter in the long run however. Soon enough I would be searching the internet for the missing pieces of Twin Peaks. Much later I would be writing about them. Talk about future past.
Secret Diary
In my teens I rented a lot of movies from our local video store. Many of them were thrillers. Perusing new releases one day, Fire Walk With Me caught my eye. It was a lightning bolt of weird, dark and terrifying. Didn’t quite know why, but I loved it. My mind took a little while longer to acclimatize fully though. A few years later and I would disappear down the rabbit hole to Twin Peaks and the films of David Lynch.
I’ve never looked back. Even if I’d wanted to, it would have been impossible. I’ve seen too much. Lynch’s work speaks to me in ways that nothing else can get close to and Twin Peaks has a power over me.
I Am the Internet and I Sound Like This
As a prequel, one would have assumed that Fire Walk With Me would divulge secrets and close down mysteries. The opposite is true. The film’s future past structure not only protects it from narrative difficulties inherent in prequels, but allows for the mythology to expand out like ripples in a pool.
Oddly enough, I associate this film with my early internet usage. I was able to use the computer room at university in 1995 where you could go on this thing called the internet. Let’s just say that a dial-up connection and basic web pages that would take an hour to load were somewhat frustrating. I had good reason to persevere however. My major line of inquiry on the nascent information highway was to find out about missing and extended scenes from Fire Walk With Me.
The Fire Walk With Me scene where the long-lost Agent Phillip Jeffries (memorably played by David Bowie) re-appears in the Philadelphia FBI offices has always fascinated me. It’s as cryptic as anything in Lynch’s oeuvre and suggests mere fragments of a dream. As shot and edited it is dream logic perfection and adding to it would probably only dilute the magic. Nevertheless, like any great mystery, I wanted to find out more.
I don’t recall how I heard about the additional filmed material; I can only assume I found a reference online. However mysterious or mundane a manner I discovered the existence of this Holy Grail, it gave me my first internet quest. Sort of like Ready Player One for a Twin Peaks geek.
I eventually found (and loaded!) a version of the screenplay online and it did indeed have more Phillip Jeffries. Did it solve any mysteries though? Nope.
Nice Shirt
Flash forward to 2008 and I attended a David Lynch event at Glasgow Film Theatre. I psyched myself up to ask Lynch a question in the auditorium and it was obvious what that question would be. By this point there were clear and present rumors that the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me would actually see the light of day. So I asked and Mr Lynch replied that they were indeed working on them.
Lynch was overseeing the process. Not a case of just throwing them out there in an unfinished state. This was encouraging. I also got to nerd out more than ever before or since when I met David Lynch afterwards and he signed my Lynch on Lynch book. “Nice shirt,” he told me, referring to the Eraserhead t-shirt I was wearing. “I got it from your website,” was all I could manage. What do you say to David Lynch after all?
Missing Pieces
2014 finally saw the release of the deleted scenes. Edited together as part of the Twin Peaks: The Complete Mystery blu-ray set and called The Missing Pieces. What a marvelous dreamlike companion piece to Fire Walk With Me. It forms a ghost narrative which is only meaningful in relation to its parent feature. Unlike anything else out there.
David Lynch has stated that Fire Walk With Me is essential to understanding Twin Peaks season 3. Since The Missing Pieces elaborates on some key parts of the Twin Peaks movie, it is certainly worth further investigation. Mark Frost’s 2016 novel-as-dossier The Secret History of Twin Peaks doubles down on elements of Fire Walk With Me. It also links up with Jennifer Lynch’s The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, the first Twin Peaks tie-in book from 1990.
Above a Convenience Store
“I’ve been to one of their meetings,” Jeffries states to the assembled FBI agents, as if talking to himself. “It was above a convenience store. It was a dream. We live inside a dream.” The series established that Bob and Mike (the One-Armed Man) lived above a convenience store. Like Bob, Mike is a parasitical spirit who requires a human host to function on the human plane. Interestingly, Mike only appears as his human form even in the Lodge. Bob and Leland both appear in the Lodge at the conclusion of Fire Walk With Me.
The Man from Another Place may hold the key to this. His words to Cooper in Fire Walk With Me/The Missing Pieces are rather telling, if obscure:
Is it future? Or… Is it past? Do you know… Who I am? I am The Arm… And I…sound like this…
Mike gave up killing and cut off his left arm. Does the Man from Another Place represent that part of Mike? Although the Man from Another Place appears generally benevolent towards Cooper, there is danger about him and his purpose is unclear. You could say the same about the other denizens of the Lodge.
Harbingers of Reverse Speech
The version of the convenience store scene in The Missing Pieces is just as terrifying, if rather more linear than the film. The scene no longer infects the FBI offices scene; it is a separate entity. An “extradimensional” place viewed straight on, if you like. In The Missing Pieces, the Man from Another Place tantalizingly speaks of what the denizens of the Lodge actually are:
From pure air. We have descended from pure air.
Going up and down.
Intercourse between the two worlds.
With The Secret History of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost reveals that the native tribes of the Twin Peaks area were aware of these beings. The natives referred to them as a tribe of “white Indians” or “sky people.” There is also mention of giants. “I have found dozens of references in the 19th-century American press to the recovery of skeletons of men in burial mounds that are between seven and nine feet tall,” the Archivist of the dossier tells us. Obviously one thinks of the Lodge dweller known as the Giant. Does this suggest that they are mortal?
Vessels Within Vessels
It would seem accurate enough to say that Cooper becomes one of the denizens of the Lodge. He ages when he is in there. Laura Palmer tells an older Cooper that it was her father that killed her. This occurs 25 years later than the present of the story. I always assumed that the Man from Another Place, the Giant, Bob etc. were ageless spirits. Yet perhaps their true form is not human and therefore their appearances in the Lodge are but human vessels. This might help explain how season 3 will proceed without the actors who played Bob and the Man from Another Place.
The Giant appears to a young Andrew Packard in 1927 according to The Secret History and he also appears to Cooper on the show. One might assume that his appearance is roughly the same. Factor in future past and perhaps these beings can appear at any point along their own timeline. After all, Cooper appears to Laura as his younger and older self.
A Most Powerful Adversary
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer stands up as one of the boldest and most brilliant tie-in books of all time. It sits perfectly alongside Fire Walk With Me. “One of the artifacts of our dream was this book,” explains Mark Frost in his foreword to the 2011 edition of the diary. “Written by David’s young daughter, Jennifer. Fearlessly, like her dad. Another surprise at the time: it hit the top of the bestseller lists, something a so-called ‘TV spin-off’ book hadn’t done and wasn’t supposed to. Laura’s private story still casts its own feverish spell.”
Frost’s own Secret History book connects with the diary by presenting further backstory for Margaret, the Log Lady. Laura writes that the Log Lady told her that “sometimes people go camping and learn things they shouldn’t” and that “Owls are sometimes big.” The Secret History expands upon these comments. Margaret and two boys went missing in the woods. They returned with strange triangular markings behind their knees. Margaret asked a doctor if the owl was coming back. One of the boys was Carl Rodd, the Fat Trout Trailer Park manager from Fire Walk With Me. He can be seen in a season 3 teaser.
Laura’s struggle against Bob as detailed in the pages of her diary is a cosmic one. A classic case of good versus evil, with a teenage girl battling her most powerful adversary, who happens to be a malevolent spirit.
I believe when he comes to take me, I will either leave home and return harmed although satisfied by the brutal death of an enemy, or I will never return.
In death Laura has defeated Bob, but not vanquished him. Cooper must pick up where Laura left off.
Some Months Later
The epilogue of The Missing Pieces shows Fire Walk With Me’s future past moment from another angle. Annie Blackburn appears to Laura in the film to tell her that the “good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can’t leave. Write it in your diary.” In the restored scene she says these words from a hospital bed. The nurse attending her surely views it as the ravings of delirium. But perhaps she isn’t even listening to the words. Annie’s ring draws her attention. It is the same jade Owl Cave ring that Bob’s previous victims wore. The nurse takes the ring and puts it on, poses in front of the mirror like a Hollywood starlet. It is beyond ominous.
Lynch reportedly said that if the original run of the show had continued beyond season 2, then Annie’s message would have played a significant role. In this line of thinking Laura did indeed write the message in her diary. More missing pieces… One wonders if this will yet play into season 3.
No Place Like Home
In the Lodge Dale Cooper asks the Man from Another Place who has the ring. “Someone else…has it now,” the Man answers. The Secret History of Twin Peaks refers to events after the Laura Palmer case was closed and before Cooper left town. Which confirms that he actually left Twin Peaks. This suggests Bob/Cooper roams free and has done so for 25 years. A starting point for season 3 perhaps? Supposedly it takes place across the country and not just in the Twin Peaks area.
Trapped in the Lodge, Cooper must get out. He has work to do, people to save. “Where am I and how can I leave?” he asks during the epilogue of The Missing Pieces. The Man from Another Place’s answer is disturbingly final:
You are here…now there is…no place…to…go…BUT HOME!
Twin Peaks brings us home on May 21st 2017. Write it in your diary.