TV Rewind: Twin Peaks Epilogue
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
By Eric Hughes
March 19, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
When I got done with Twin Peaks about a month ago, I remember feeling a genuine sense of confusion. Season two of two, in particular, brought into the fray a slew of new stuff to chew on, and as each episode went by, things seemed to get more and more complicated.
To season two’s credit, however, about midway through it fleshed out a tangible villain, Windom Earle, who at minimum afforded the program some focus. He didn’t encompass total evil (Bob, whatever he might be, and despite less screen time, was still a central figure) but among men, we’ll say, Windom was the evil one.
And as season two continued forth, the show seemed to suggest to me that the mythology behind Laura Palmer (when she died, how she died, who killed her, and so on) didn’t matter so much anymore. Her killer’s identity was revealed in a rather anticlimactic way, and then her killer died, and then Windom assumed the role of the big bad. As if Laura’s story, more or less resolved, wrapped itself in a metaphoric bow, and Windom’s deadly chess game with Agent Cooper displaced it.
Around the time that transition set in, I came to the idea that the show had always intended, or at least had decided to intend, to be presented in chunks. (Think Heroes and its Volumes. That’s probably a fair comparison). The end of a “volume” on Twin Peaks wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of its storylines until then. What it would mean, however, is that what was important then wouldn’t necessarily be important now. There would be bigger issues to confront - like in the case of Windom Earle, a new villain.
And then, and I don’t think I’m spoiling here, the show was abruptly canceled. While I don’t have in front of me the time when ABC execs informed the Twin Peaks writers, what I can surmise is the writers were clearly given some notice because there was obvious intentionality in the final episodes to try and make sense of everything that came before. Not every storyline got touched up, but enough to suggest an end.
What saddened me most of all was that because Windom Earle was our bad guy at the time Twin Peaks had to conclude itself, his character became the bad guy that we were supposed to believe was the mastermind behind everything. He was, in a sense, the intended final villain.
The thing is, I can’t believe that. I’m pretty confident about my “volumes” theory, and in that sense, Windom would then be just the second of X number of villains. And yet, because he was the villain at the time Twin Peaks ended, he would have to be – reluctantly - that supposed mastermind.
Anyway, if Twin Peaks had its way, it wouldn’t have run just two seasons. So being annoyed by how things ended, from a writing standpoint, doesn’t seem to make sense here.
What I feel I have reason to be annoyed with, however, is the film that was released about a year after the airing of Twin Peaks’ final episode. Such a film, like any sequel, really, has time on the development end to marinate in the mythology that came before. I mean, if David Lynch felt shafted in ABC’s handling of his television show, then Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and its two-hour runtime (about the length of three Twin Peaks episodes) would be his chance to make some sense of that finale.
Remarkably, at least what I got out of it, Lynch spent very little time picking apart that hurried conclusion. That’s because Fire Walk With Me doesn’t pick up after “Episode 29.” It’s set before “Pilot”; before Laura Palmer’s body is discovered in the lake. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a prequel to Twin Peaks.
If there’s one thing I didn’t want Fire Walk With Me to be, it would be a prequel that failed to address “Episode 29” and what came after. And yet, Fire Walk With Me is a prequel that failed to address “Episode 29” and what came after.
I wouldn’t say, though, that I was totally in distress from the get go. Fire Walk With Me, actually, begins about a year before the events of “Pilot,” and addresses the agents and their ensuing investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks, who we knew from “Pilot” to be the young woman who was killed in much the same way as Laura Palmer in a different Washingtonian town.
In lieu of Agent Cooper, who’s reduced to something less than a supporting role, Fire Walk With Me introduces two new agents (Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland) who go about investigating Teresa Banks’ grisly demise. The parallels between the town Teresa died in and Twin Peaks, which we know from television, were enjoyable to me. That Isaak and Sutherland digest their findings up ‘til then, for instance, at a grimy diner was clearly a nod to fans. So much of Twin Peaks, more than you’d think, happened inside the Double R.
We eventually click ahead a year and the familiar Twin Peaks sign (and musical theme) kick in. Again, this was enjoyable. We get to see what our characters were doing prior to Laura Palmer’s death, including people I’d long forgotten about. Like Harold Smith, Laura’s meals on wheels friend, who ends up possessing Laura Palmer’s secret diary because, as we learn in Fire Walk With Me, she brought it to him one day through fear of Bob. Laura had entrusted Harold to hide it.
That it was enjoyable is one thing. But was it necessary? No, not really. That Harold Smith had Laura’s diary when we first met him in early season two didn’t make sense at the time - it made Harold seem shifty, I guess - but nevertheless it was the manner in which his character was introduced to us. Focusing on how he came to possess the diary would be like Fire Walk With Me reflecting on how Bobby decided to join the high school football team, or how Audrey came to own those shiny black shoes when we first meet her in “Pilot” stepping out of the car.
Harold Smith was on screen for all of a minute, so I don’t want to make it seem like the film lingered on him for long. My problem, then, with that “revelation” of the diary is symbolic of the problem I had with the film. The whole thing, to me, seemed like it focused on stuff that didn’t matter.
Were there people out there curious about how Laura Palmer died, and whether or not she figured out her killer’s identity before her death? I’m sure there were. (We do learn how Laura dies, and she does learn her killer’s identity). But commentary on that abrupt television finale, with Cooper entering the lodge, and then coming to be possessed by Bob in the final frames, seems wayyyy more important than anything else.
I seem… bitter. I do wonder, though, whether my opinion would be changed (or at least severely eased) if Laura had been a likeable character. Of course, on television she was dead to us by “Pilot,” so for her to be the lead character in Fire Walk With Me - let alone a character at all - was a big shift in Twin Peaks storytelling.
And yet Laura is selfish, cruel and angry. Granted, a madman who doesn’t exist in the physical world terrorizes her, she has nightmares where a bloodied Heather Graham is sleeping in her bed and her father wants her dead. So, you know, I’ll try and look past the fact that she’s skittish and a heavy cocaine user.
When I ended my Twin Peaks analyses the last time, I wrote that: “I still have so many questions.” This is still very true.