Twin Peaks wasn’t a series that was made to answer questions. The fever dream of a television program that lurched forth from David Lynch and Mark Frost’s minds in 1990 was a cult success, spawning the kind of enduring fandom most TV creators can only dream of. Now that the series is returning to Showtime on May 21 for a limited-run revival, fans can revisit the strange, evocative series once more. More importantly, they can finally find out if some of their decades-long questions about the idiosyncratic series will get answered.
Of course, this is the part where we warn you not to hold your breath—the series is built on the back of Lynch’s obsession with narrative mysteries. So obsessive is he that the public still doesn’t know any details about the revival, which is only days away; the only cast member who has read the entire script is lead actor Kyle MacLachlan (a.k.a. Special Agent Dale Cooper), who had to devour it all in one go while sitting in a room by himself.
Still, the rest of us are only human, up late at night wondering if Diane is real, or what the full story behind Killer Bob and Mike is. It all remains to be seen. For now, here are the most pressing questions we hope the revival addresses.
She’s a constant presence, yet we have no idea what she looks like. How many times have we seen Agent Cooper press a tape recorder to his face and ask Diane, his distant but loyal secretary, to do a number of tasks for him? Or just listen to him spew theories about the case he’s working on? So many times, in fact, that Simon & Schuster put together an audio file of all the times Cooper has recorded a message for her. Naturally, many fans of the series have theorized that Diane isn’t real, and is more or less a comforting figment of Cooper’s imagination. However, we know Lynch wants us to believe she’s real, because at certain points Cooper thanks her for completing said tasks, such as when she sends over a pair of earplugs at his request. She’s so vital that when he was shot at the end of Season 1 and thought he was dying, his “last” words were a message for her.
It would be nice to see the woman behind dozens of messages, an ever-present figure since the show’s inception. And while we’re on this topic—what’s her last name, anyway?
Here’s one that may never be resolved. Annie Blackburn, played by Heather Graham, was Norma Jennings’s sister, who becomes a Double R Diner waitress and falls in love with Agent Cooper. However, like Cooper’s other love, Audrey Horne, Annie’s last appearance in the series is mystifying and open-ended. We last see her in the hospital in a trance-like state, later telling Cooper in the Red Room that she’s still alive, while the Bob-possessed Agent Cooper doppelganger mockingly snickers “How’s Annie?” in the mirror. Graham, however, hasn’t been announced as one of the cast members returning to the series, so we may never get to see Annie Blackburn again.
One of the most enduring promises of the series came from its original finale, when Laura Palmer, sitting pretty in the Red Room, tells Cooper, “I’ll see you again in 25 years.” Lynch and Frost began kicking up ideas for the revival around 2012, according to Gary Levine, Showtime’s executive vice president of original programming, so it seems like the timing might have something to do with keeping up Palmer’s end of the bargain.
Though the premise of the show revolves around Laura’s death, she’s a major presence in the series all the same. Actress Sheryl Lee, who plays Laura, also worked double time: she played Laura’s identical cousin, Maddy Ferguson—who also gets murdered by Leland Palmer—as well. Now that those 25 years have passed, how much more could Lynch escalate the mystery surrounding the then-teen’s life?
To refresh your memory: at the end of the show, Horne is at the bank during an explosion, and it’s basically the last we see of her. The character was apparently supposed to appear in Fire Walk with Me, but due to a good bit of gossip from actress Sherilyn Fenn herself, was cut because Lynch was “mad” at her for trying to squeeze the movie into her busy schedule. Later, Mark Frost’s comprehensive book Secret History of Twin Peaks revealed that Horne somehow survived the blast and ended up in a coma. It sure seems like Lynch got over his tiff with Fenn, because she’s going to appear in the revival. But in what capacity is Horne returning? And has she been in a coma all these years?
Here’s one for the Fire Walk with Me fans: who’s Judy? All we know is that we’re not supposed to know anything about the mysterious character, who is mentioned only in the film and not the series. She’s mentioned briefly by Jeffries (played by David Bowie), who angrily tells Agent Cooper, “I’m not gonna talk about Judy. In fact, we’re not gonna talk about Judy at all; we’re gonna keep her out of it.”
The plot thickens toward the end of the prequel, when a monkey whispers the name “Judy,” once more pushing the audience to wonder about this mystery character. A couple of years ago, it seemed like we might get an answer to this, as Bowie was announced as one of the characters returning for the revival. Unfortunately, the iconic musician died last year. But perhaps Lynch will find a new way to still incorporate a revelation about Judy, a mystery that has haunted fans for years.
They were central to the series, but there’s still so much we don’t know about their backstories. Bob, or “Killer Bob,” was the show’s main creepy villain, a rapist and murderer who traps Cooper in the Black Lodge by the end of the series. Mike was his serial partner, who later turns on him after seeing the “face of God”—which, hey, while we’re at it, we’d love to know more about too. Biographical details about the two are slim—we learn minor bits and pieces from their own revelations and from the revelations of other characters, like when Leland Palmer says he recognizes Mike from his childhood. But will the revival tell us more? That’s tough to guess, namely because the actor who played Bob, Frank Silva, died in 1995. Lynch will have to find a new way to give viewers an update on the character all these years later. As you’ll recall, the last we saw of Bob in the show was him inhabiting a Cooper doppelganger and smashing his face in a mirror, laughing maniacally at his success.
The series finale ended on a mammoth cliffhanger, with Agent Cooper trapped in the hellish Black Lodge. The plot point was supposed to be a setup for a third season, but the show was ultimately canceled.
Considering Cooper’s centrality to the series, it stands to reason that he’ll eventually make it out (can you even imagine if the entirety of the revival is just Cooper dealing with a revolving door of nightmare people in the Lodge?). As the revival kicks off, ideally we’ll get an immediate answer on how Cooper gets out of there.
In the world of Twin Peaks, a number of things can be construed as red herrings. In Season 2, the random appearance of creamed corn and purported mysterious properties of the goopy substance seemed like one of those things. But then it wasn’t! Or . . . was it?
Creamed corn, it turns out, is the physical form of “garmonbozia” in the series, which means “pain and suffering.” We see it again and again in the show, but never learn the origin of the term, or why creamed corn, of all things, is the real world manifestation of it. What gives, David Lynch? As usual—we may never know.
