“WHERE PIES GO WHEN THEY DIE”

By Raymond Benson

Unless you’re too young to remember it, you’ll recall that Twin Peaks was a short-lived phenomenon on television in the year 1990. The frenzy lasted into 1991 but sadly fizzled out quickly due to the network’s (ABC) futzing around with time slots, days-of-the-week for airing, and unexplained hiatuses. What began as the number one show on television for several months somehow derailed during its underrated second season and lost its viewership. The program was cancelled, leaving the fans of the series with an unresolved cliffhanger that haunts us to this day.

David Lynch and Mark Frost were the men behind Twin Peaks. At the time, in the late 80s, Lynch was just coming off the success of his 1986 feature film, Blue Velvet, when he teamed up with TV veteran Frost to create a PG-rated show that explored many of the same themes as Velvet—only for a television audience. The fictional town of Twin Peaks, in Washington state, is gorgeous (those beautiful Douglas firs!), has a diner that serves the best pies in the world, and a seemingly “normal” population of families and mill workers. However, like in Blue Velvet, a dark underbelly exists beneath the safe exterior, one that is supernatural and evil.

The thrust of the show’s first season and half of the second season was solving the mystery of “who killed Laura Palmer?” Once that storyline was resolved, it was clear that the writers and creators weren’t sure where to go from there. The episodes did falter a bit mid-second-season, but for my money, they found their footing in the last quarter with the new storyline involving master criminal Windom Earle. The show was just building to a new dramatic peak (no pun intended) when the axe fell.

Lynch bounced back quickly, though, and made a feature film, released in 1992, entitled Twin Peaks—Fire Walk With Me. Not many people liked it, including the die-hard fans of the show (who had, in Star Trek fashion, begun letter-writing campaigns to the network with pleas to renew the show). What was wrong with the feature film? It lacked the quirky humor and most of the eccentric characters from the TV show and instead focused on the very sordid and tragic story of Laura Palmer’s final week of life before her murder. It also didn’t address the cliffhanger ending of the series—or did it? At any rate, the movie failed, and the Twin Peaks phenomenon was over.

However, the aforementioned die-hard fans formed fan clubs, an annual pilgrimage to the show’s locations in Washington state, and the cult grew over the last twenty-four years. It is now generally recognized that Twin Peaks was way ahead of its time and that it was the catalyst for the “episodic” television dramas that came after it—Northern Exposure, The X-Files, and pretty much everything else we watch today on cable channels. Twin Peaks showed the networks that audiences would stick with a storyline that developed over many episodes. It was a new way of doing things on television. The show was also groundbreaking in that it dared to take viewers into surrealistic territory—something that hadn’t been done since, say, 1968’s mini-series of The Prisoner. Twin Peaks also began the cult of water-cooler discussions the next day at work. “What did that mean?” “Who was that dancing dwarf?” “I think so-and-so killed Laura.” “No, I think whozit did.” And so on.

As the years went by, several releases of the show on VHS and later DVD exacerbated the confusion because the two-hour pilot episode (1:34 without commercials) was owned by a different company and was never issued in America. People were buying the two seasons without seeing the all-important, foundation-laying pilot (and still the best “episode” of the entire story). This was rectified in 2007 with the “Definitive Gold Box” DVD release that contained both complete seasons, remastered with bonus material (but not Fire Walk With Me). Additionally, over the years, it was learned that Lynch’s initial cut of Fire Walk With Me was nearly four hours long and it did contain scenes with the other characters from the town. The director had been forced to cut the movie down to a manageable 2:15 by contract, so he decided to just focus on Laura’s story. Fans have been howling for these “missing pieces” to be released, but the rights were tied up in legal and financial complexities.

Finally, we now have it all. These “missing pieces” have been assembled, remastered, and edited by Lynch himself to create a somewhat “new” Twin Peaks movie (called, of course, “The Missing Pieces”). This Holy Grail for Peaks fans, along with the gorgeously restored and digitally remastered Fire Walk With Me (first Blu-ray release in the USA) and the two television seasons with pilot, now comprise Twin Peaks—The Entire Mystery, a lavish box set that begs to be devoured with several slices of pie and some of that “damned good coffee.”

Watching “The Missing Pieces” emphasizes how much better Fire Walk With Me would have been had Lynch been allowed to release the longer version. It would have felt more like the television series. There are sequences that help explain a lot about the ending of the show, too. While Lynch elected to remain vague about FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper’s fate in the Black Lodge and his earthly body’s possession by BOB the Killer, there are clues in the “Missing Pieces” that at the very least address the situation.

The theatrical cut of Fire Walk With Me needs to be critically reassessed as well, now that we’ve seen many more David Lynch films of its ilk (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire). It works best if you think of the picture as a horror film—which it is—and a very disturbing one at that. Sheryl Lee delivers a courageous and brilliant performance as Laura, far surpassing anything she did on the television series.

As for the two seasons of the show, Kyle MacLachlan is a revelation as Agent Cooper—this was the role the actor was born to play. Other standouts in the cast are Michael Ontkean, Ray Wise, Grace Zabriskie, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, James Marshall, Dana Ashbrook, Madchen Amick, Eric Da Re, Everett McGill, and Jack Nance.

Other extras in the box set include new video interviews between Lynch and the Palmer family (Leland, Sarah, and Laura), and then the actors who portrayed them (Wise, Zabriskie, and Lee). Very effective stuff. There is a new Fire Walk With Me making-of documentary, a couple of documentaries ported over from the 2007 Gold box, the Blu-ray version of the “international” pilot, and some new collages of “atmospheres” from the show that combine imagery and music into short, themed vignettes.

Now, twenty-five years later, Twin Peaks—The Entire Mystery serves as a reminder that Lynch and Frost’s show was even more brilliant than it was first suggested, and that it needs to be rediscovered and re-evaluated. There is much to savor.

Don’t forget the pie and coffee.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON AND SAVE $16!