[Nic’s Flix] The Death and Rebirth of Twin Peaks Through David Lynch’s Fire Walk With Me

Section Editor Nic Chang looks back on the world of Twin Peaks to discuss how Fire Walk With Me transformed the show’s identity and its enduring legacy.

Warning: This article contains major spoilers of Twin Peaks (1990-1991) and Fire Walk With Me, and discusses sexual abuse.

When you hear Twin Peaks, you think about the cherry pie and those damn good cups of coffee. But it’s also when you think of the name Laura Palmer.

There lies part of the show’s heart: a small, rural town in the Pacific Northwest with its own quirks and charms, only for the discovery of Laura Palmer’s body, wrapped in plastic, to reveal a darker world of abuse, incest, prostitution, drug trading and evil in its most supernatural form. It wasn’t just a mystery that captivated the world, but a one-of-a-kind show so tonally specific and uncanny that millions became invested in these relatable, bizarre characters, their soap opera storylines and the romantic image they had of Laura.

But as Twin Peaks went on, most viewers wanted to know who Laura’s murderer was immediately. David Lynch, the co-creator of Twin Peaks, didn’t want to reveal the answer [1], but Mark Frost, the other co-creator, did, and the network, ABC, ultimately forced their hand. By unveiling the truth of Laura Palmer, the show lost a reason to keep watching, Lynch left to pursue other projects and viewership declined. Even though Lynch directed a memorable finale to renew any audience interest, the damage had been done and ABC pulled the plug.

So much of Twin Peaks’ mythology remained unresolved and even character fates were left up in the air. When Lynch planned to direct a trilogy of films surrounding Twin Peaks, there was the inevitable hype [2]. Enter Fire Walk With Me. In the leadup to its Cannes premiere, people walked in expecting a feature-length episode of Twin Peaks. What they got instead was a David Lynch film. And in turn, they got Laura Palmer’s final seven days, which transformed Twin Peaks’ identity forever.

In 1988, the body of teenage Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) floats down a river in Deer Meadows, Washington, wrapped in plastic. FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch) sends agents Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Shephard (Kiefer Sutherland) to investigate, where, in their autopsy of Teresa’s body, they discover a small piece of paper with the letter “T” inserted under her fingernail. The exact clue that would be found under one of Laura’s fingernails. However, the trail goes cold, Chester disappears and Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) predicts that a similar murder will take place.

One year later, we focus on Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the beloved homecoming queen of Twin Peaks. However, her radiant personality and infectious smile hide her darker demons, one of which includes Bob (Frank Silva), whom Laura claims has been having her since she was twelve. As she spirals further from her drug addiction, prostitution and turbulent relationship with her father, Leland (Ray Wise), she recognises that her next days will be her last and that she is heading towards a grisly fate.

What makes the first half-hour fascinating is how it can be potentially viewed as an episode of a Twin Peaks spin-off, blending Lynch’s trademark uncanny humour with surreal atmospherics, but he’s more interested in expanding the franchise mythology than merely catering to audience expectations. Even though the Deer Meadows investigation plays out as an intended narrative setup for Lynch’s Twin Peaks film trilogy, which never came to fruition, it gradually establishes an ominous sense of dread, one that would envelop Laura’s life.

When Fire Walk With Me introduces us to Laura, we hear the show’s cosy, instrumental theme of Julee Cruise’s “Falling”, but it doesn’t let us settle into the town’s rural comforts for long because it’s not the Twin Peaks we know. Some of your favourite characters may appear (like Dana Ashbrook’s Bobby or Mädchen Amick’s Shelly), but only in a reduced capacity, while others never do because they didn’t make a difference in Laura’s life (such as Sherilyn Fenn’s Audrey). We’re free from any preconceptions of Laura, because we’re viewing the story from her perspective. And it is a story about a girl in trouble. A girl who was always in trouble, and whom nobody knew. Those around her ignored her signs of suffering, while those that tried to help her almost got pulled into the evil surrounding Laura, and she had to push away her loved ones. Because they can’t be her at any cost.

This is not a Twin Peaks episode, but instead a horrifying story about trauma and the abuse that men enact against women. The most harrowing reminder in Laura’s story is that the pain never goes away. Try as you may, it stains your soul forever. Such horror is encapsulated through Laura’s monologue; her best friend Donna (Moira Kelly) gazes at the ceiling of her living room and asks if you’d fall faster or slower from a long distance. With Laura hopelessly staring into the distance, she responds that one would go, “Faster and faster… and for a long time, you wouldn’t feel anything. And then you’d burst into fire… forever. And the angels wouldn’t help you… because they’ve all gone away.” Sheryl Lee delivers these lines so tonelessly, with pure exhaustion in her eyes, that her answer is frighteningly believable. And even Donna’s mildly stunned reaction captures our own shock. How can one respond to that answer, especially when it sounds like she’s seemingly gone through it before?

The further Fire Walk With Me progresses with Laura’s story, the darker it gets in capturing the true fear emanating throughout her domestic life. Whenever she’s home, dread permeates the environment. She’s been a victim of Bob for years, and she takes precautions to keep him away, aware that he wants to be her. Tragically, she doesn’t know what we know: Bob is Leland’s host, and thus her murderer. The dramatic irony results in unbearable tension, especially when Leland’s behaviour becomes unpredictable. When he orders Laura over at the dinner table, checks her fingernails and accuses them of being dirty, we remember the fingernails of the victims, the scariest possible detail to recall. As he questions a horrified Laura over her romances, we are as helpless as Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) screaming for him to stop. It’s a dreadful scene among many that Laura experiences, but there is no release of tension. Only more of it where Laura lives constantly in fear, and without catharsis.

What makes this dramatic irony heartbreaking is how Laura focuses on the idea of Bob, trying to ignore the signs and just begging for it not to be her father. But Twin Peaks leaned on this when revealing Leland’s role as her murderer. Because it focused heavily on the mythology around Bob, it was easy to shift all the blame onto him and not Leland. Lynch turns this around to emphasise his role in how he destroyed Laura, where Fire Walk With Me becomes a deeply necessary companion film by digging into the horrors surrounding Laura.

Lynch’s storytelling doesn’t just turn away from the cosiness of Twin Peaks but it essentially transforms its tonal identity into pure surreal horror. Gone are the comforts of the cherry pie or the black coffee, and any nostalgia you have for these characters are bound to dissipate. The Laura you know disappeared. It’s just her, unable to escape her demons, but she’s fighting. Fighting through all the horrific visions, the inexplicably bizarre, supernatural encounters, and the never-ending sexual abuse, until comes the crushing epiphany: that she is always meant to die.

She fights, until she can’t do it anymore, and when she can’t, it ends in inevitable devastation, but instead of hopelessness, there is finally relief. After all the pain and sorrow, Fire Walk With Me recontextualises Laura’s death as an act of mercy, an escape from all those horrors. In the Lodge, she is free, allowed to see her angel and then transcend, with all those tears of sadness and joy remaining.

Through Fire Walk With Me, Lynch exposes the overwhelming darkness of Twin Peaks’ heart, but emphasises how it has always been Laura Palmer’s story, becoming a masterfully moving tribute to a girl whose life was cut tragically short. Someone who was beautiful but dying on the inside. Someone so flawed, but still so innocent. Her complexities are brought to life by Sheryl Lee, a gut-wrenching performance of an individual forced to fight through man-made horrors and act in situations no teenager should go through. Her terror is so palpable that her guttural screams sear themselves into her mind, and her innocence so believable that her emotional breakdowns are always heartbreaking. It’s the role of a lifetime that Lee was destined to play, and because she brings Laura to life, it’s how she helps reveal Twin Peaks as the tragic, horrifying story it’s always been underneath the soap opera tropes.

Fire Walk With Me isn’t a perfect film. With The Missing Pieces existing, the theatrical cut could benefit from adding further scenes surrounding Laura’s domestic life and other relationships (especially with Bobby) to strengthen the nuance. There’s a bit more compelling context that Fire Walk With Me doesn’t always capture. But as it stands, it not only completes Twin Peaks through Laura Palmer’s arc, but it transforms the show's meaning. Even when it died on network television, it was reborn through Fire Walk With Me, and finally became the Twin Peaks we remember to this day.

Endnotes:

[1] Ferrier, Aimee. “Why David Lynch Was Forced into Revealing Laura Palmer’s Killer in “Twin Peaks.”” Far Out, 22 May 2024, faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-lynch-forced-into-revealing-killer-twin-peaks/.

[2] Jackson, Matthew. “11 Fascinating Facts about Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.” Mental Floss, 2 June 2017, www.mentalfloss.com/article/501357/11-fascinating-facts-about-%E2%80%98twin-peaks-fire-walk-me%E2%80%99.