With the election behind us (but oh, not really) and Christmas on the horizon, this seems like a good moment to pause, take stock, and look both forward and backward. I have some big projects coming up and others that I've just completed, which I'll get to in a moment.

First of all, now that they've been bumped off the front page, let me take one more opportunity to point you toward my Favorites series that wrapped up in early November (a great way to share it is to retweet my tweet-storm thread featuring a picture, link, and line for each one). It began way back in 2012 and hadn't even reached the halfway point this fall but I resolved to finally plow through it by posting an entry every day beginning in mid-September. The end result is a hundred entries on the films that move me, approached in as personal, casual, yet thoughtful a manner as I could manage. Hopefully, they encourage you to check out some the great films they cover. I've also posted a couple Fandor videos on older films (Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property and Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench) related to the new releases The Birth of a Nation and La La Land (and if you like them, please share them - the Boston one in particular has gotten a disappointing number of views, unfortunately). Incidentally, Fandor has adopted a cool new format which displays my previous work quite nicely. In November I also posted my first political commentary on this blog in years (mostly in the form of Election Night tweets) and shared a series of podcasts I've appeared on.

So what's upcoming? Having resumed my Favorites series and Fandor video essays after abandoning them in the spring, two endeavors remain. The first, my numerous YouTube/Vimeo series (including both my Citizen Kane study and the various ongoing series) will have to wait until 2017 to resume - I'm not ready to jump back in yet (although I did post one stray video there last month which I worked very hard on, for Ousmane Sembene's Black Girl). The second, my weekly TV coverage, is ready to return but in a slightly different format for the moment. Several months ago, I finished watching Jane Campion's short mystery series Top of the Lake, writing long reviews of each episode along the way (it's a viewing diary covering my reaction as it unfolds, unaware of what will happen next - just as with The Prisoner - whose concluding entry I'll also be posting soon - and True Detective). The introductory entry will go up on Wednesday, and then entries will go up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wrapping up inside December. Aside from Showtime's 2017 Twin Peaks, this will be the last time I cover individual episodes of a TV show in such depth. From now on, I intend to write shorter capsules, similar to the format of my Favorite series, as I'll be covering series with dozens, even hundreds of episodes in the coming years. I've already begun some of that work, but won't publish any given series until all the episodes have been completed. No more getting ahead of myself!

And before I get to the final item, just wanted to insert a little teaser: stay tuned for lots of Twin Peaks material in the new year. That kind of goes without saying, given the new episodes but even before that I am going to share a massive series of character studies I've been preparing for months, plus - hopefully - an episode guide I can publish concurrently with any rerun Showtime decides to air before the new premiere. As early as New Year's Day, I may be in a position to promise nonstop Twin Peaks content every single day as we count down to that relaunch.

Finally, some other business to take care of with this entry: I always like to link up to whatever else I'm doing online, including appearances on podcast. Usually this is something Twin Peaks- or occasionally film-related, but last month I actually called into a YouTube political podcast for a change. This political season I've become a big fan of The Benjamin Dixon Show, a left-wing live talk show (which I usually download to listen to on my phone as a podcast) that invitess listeners to call in with the "name, comment, and/or question." Ben's commentary is fantastic because he takes clear stands without falling into the "can't criticize my own side" trap. With that in mind, I called in to mention something that had been bugging me - the tendency of a handful of leftists to dismiss protests of Donald Trump by employing right-wing talking points. This ended up launching Ben into a great discussion of his own, about conspiracy theories (especially those involving George Soros) and the need to balance between having standards and taking available opportunities. Hopefully I can call again at some point - if anything, I'm only going to have more to say about politics in the coming months and years though I don't suspect a whole lot of it will find its way onto this blog (tune in on Twitter if that's your thing).

Here's the full show (if you want to jump to my comment at 33:13, follow this link)
Buckle up, and let's extract what relief - and contemplation, and action - we can in 2017, in all areas.

This week I launch my first viewing diary since The Prisoner. The first episode will be reviewed on Friday, and new entries will follow every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through the end of the year. Top of the Lake is a mystery set in the murky mountain town of Laketop, on South Island. The show stars Elisabeth Moss, whom I simultaneously began watching on Mad Men (at the pace I'm going, that particular viewing diary won't be published for years); here she plays an urban detective who joins a local police investigation in her rural hometown. Top of the Lake is co-written and co-directed by Jane Campion, whose Bright Star I reviewed in 2010 (I featured a couple of her short films in my #WatchlistScreenCaps exercise a few years later). I've yet to see most of her features but consider her work A Girl's Own Story one of the strongest short films of the eighties and also admire The Piano, so I was looking forward to this series going in.





Logistics turned out to be incredibly complicated. There are two versions of Top of the Lake available to American viewers. On DVD, the show follows the BBC structure of six episodes; streaming on Netflix, the show uses the Sundance Channel breakdown of seven episodes. The BBC episodes have titles and a single director for each episode (whereas the Sundance episodes often have two), suggesting that the production was organized around longer individual episodes and then the same material was divided up into shorter episodes to fill a longer run in America. So in other words, the British pilot has its ending chopped off and attached to the beginning of the second American episode. This shifts a bit more of the second episode's end to the beginning of the third episode and so on until the sixth American episode contains hardly any of the sixth British one, most of which has been shifted to a brand new "episode seven." Confused? I certainly was. Here's a picture:


At least I'm pretty sure that's what happened. If anyone has more details, please let me know in the comments below and I'll update the post accordingly.

I decided to stream the show on Netflix, and only discovered after three episodes that I was locked into a slightly skewed version of the series. Nonetheless, I don't regret it - this is likely the version that most of my readers will have seen so it makes sense to give it priority. Still, it does muddle discussion of the different directors' input, and occasionally disrupts the narrative flow (the end of the penultimate episode feels particularly abrupt). Still, the writers probably knew they would have to write for two different structures because even these cannibalized episodes tend to end in cliffhangers. It's a little embarrassing for me to go back and read my notes on the episodic structures now that I know more about their creation, but it is what it is. This is a viewing diary - sometimes I figure things out as I go.


I hope readers who've seen the show will enjoy re-visiting it, and if anyone watches along with this diary (either over the next several weeks, or coming back to these posts in coming months and years), I hope you'll comment and leave your own reflections and speculations on each entry. I will probably cover season two either live as it airs (it was shot last year in Hong Kong, with Nicole Kidman making an appearance) or catching up at a later date if it coincides with too much other activity on the blog. However, those will probably be shorter entries, in accordance with my new viewing diary format (a paragraph on the story and a paragraph on my own reflections). This diary for season one - which I wrote over the spring and summer - is more in-depth, with about five paragraphs each.

See you on Friday for "Paradise Sold".

Eight months ago I finished The Prisoner, a cult British show from 1967 - 68. I followed up my viewing diary by talking to a couple big fans but right around then my blogging activity came to a grinding halt (I never even published the second conversation until months later). I always hoped to share a concluding entry, less for my own thoughts (most of what I have to say on The Prisoner has been said) than for further input from Christopher Yohn. He designed the viewing order I used to watch these notoriously difficult-to-organize episodes, and below he explains his reasoning in detail.

I thank him and others who encouraged and aided this endeavor. This was only the second TV series I wrote about during a first viewing, an exciting, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach. The Prisoner itself was a delight, perfectly balancing thought-provoking and (surprisingly) light-hearted moments. Is that an appropriate description of a series with such a deeply engaged and uncompromising philosophical outlook? With its air of play and amusement, I think so - certainly the show's colorful aesthetic and zippy sixties style were quite refreshing to me last year. I know when I eventually return to the series it will nostalgically take me back to the winter and spring when I first watched, discussed, and eventually read (and listened to podcasts, and watched videos) about The Prisoner. It already seems quite long ago, across the much-bemoaned chasm that was 2016, but I remember it fondly.

I don't have anything deeper to say at the moment. Perhaps someday, when I inevitably try out a different viewing order, I will offer some more observations. Until then: Be se...

Well, I don't really need to say it again, do I?



The fact that viewers can even debate the viewing order of The Prisoner is one of the unique traits of this show. Most shows fit into an episodic or serial structure with little question about the order in which they should be watched. The only recent exceptions I can think of are shows that had an incomplete or different broadcast order than what was intended. One such case is Firefly, which had its complete order restored upon DVD release. Another is the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, which had many episodes created throughout the first few seasons intended to fit between earlier episodes and fill out story arcs. After the series ended an official chronological story order was released to make sense of it all. In the case of The Prisoner it seems like the show was produced mainly to be episodic as with most television of its time, yet details within episodes suggest at least the possibility of a serial-style order to tell a larger story. (Patrick McGoohan even said he initially wanted a short serial of only around seven episodes and that the rest may have been stretching the concept.) Those story clues and details along with the general mysteries of the show and its difficult production have driven fans to rearrange the episodes for decades.

Since it wasn’t actually produced as a serial, any alternate viewing order is completely subjective. It comes down to what kind of story you think The Prisoner is trying to tell (and there are plenty of different theories about that as well), but that puts us in the quandary pointed out perfectly by James Cooray Smith in a previous post: “...we have to make our own choices, but we can only do that once we've seen it all already. Someone else has to choose our first viewing order for us, unless we go into it genuinely randomly.”

The show tried to be several things at once and the final results are sometimes very contradictory. So, where do we start? There are a few “official” options: the actual production order, the Original UK Broadcast order (the most common), and following that was ITC’s suggested order for repeat and US broadcasts. There are also some higher profile fan orders such as the one used for A&E Home Video’s Region 1 DVDs, and from television and websites such as KTEH Public Television in California, the UK Sci-Fi Channel, and The AV Club. All of these can be found online (and most are collected on Wikipedia’s Prisoner episode page).

Considering these, and in the absence of anything truly definitive, if we want to diverge from the packaged orders how do we construct a satisfying viewing experience? We could try to figure out what the creators intended--many books and blogs have been written with that goal. We could decide that the purest order should follow the production, but there were many problems and much overlap throughout the process that prevent a clear sequence. The original broadcast order itself was shifted due to production issues while it was airing. And exactly whose idea was ITC’s "official" order--was anyone from Everyman Films even consulted?

Perhaps it does make more sense to have the "authentic” experience of watching it in the Original UK Broadcast order first and then deciding whether any episodes should be rearranged. That was how I first saw The Prisoner and, as flawed as that is, it was still effective enough to intrigue me beyond a single viewing--unlike most television. Despite inconsistencies in the details it generally succeeds in presenting a balanced blend of the different styles of episodes. The original broadcast order was probably the best they could do at the time. So maybe the disjointed nature of the story in that sequence is actually a good thing in that it might invite viewers to try to “fix” it.

Obviously I prefer my order over the others, but despite spending a lot of effort revising it over the years I don’t believe there really is any “correct” way to watch it. Honestly, there can't be. The show just wasn't made that way. This is one Prisoner puzzle that was unintentional, but I still think it is fun to try to solve. (That might actually say more about me than the show--or maybe that is completely in keeping with its spirit.) For my sequence I tried to piece together an evolving storyline on the literal level while remaining mindful of the larger allegory of the series as a whole. These are some of the story elements and recurring themes I used to do this:

Arrival
Dance of the Dead
Free For All
Checkmate
The Chimes of Big Ben

I don’t think there is an ideal second episode. It seems like there should be just one more follow-up to Arrival in which Number Six tries to get his bearings before the larger spectacle of events in Dance of the Dead and Free For All--the strange cabaret trial and the election campaign. (Then again, who ever accused this show of being subtle?) Throughout these five episodes there are many references to Six being “new” and he is obviously not yet familiar with Village customs and power structure, nor the lengths to which they will go to keep him. In all of them he is very determined to find a means of escape and/or getting a message out of The Village. They do a lot to establish the way The Village works for the audience as well.

Dance could be Six’s ritual initiation into the community. They’ve taken him away from the outside world in Arrival and now they are trying to take his notion of the outside world away from him. It is meant to be the death of his old life as he receives a theatrical death sentence costumed in his own clothes, as well as manufacturing evidence of his “death” for the outside world to discover in the form of the altered body from the beach.

There is also a lot of discussion about the rules and the duties of members of the community, and of The Village being democratic “in some ways”. So, I prefer Dance take place before Free For All where we actually witness interactions with the Town Council and the process of their so-called democratic elections. In Free For All Six states his intention to determine who are the “prisoners” and who are the “warders” and in Checkmate he puts this into action as he assembles a group of conspirators. His methods backfire, but his early attempts to escape almost come to fruition (he believes) in The Chimes of Big Ben.

In Chimes he is more aware of Village methods, less trusting of community activities, and very skeptical of the new Number Eight/Nadia. He’s been burned by putting his faith in a group of like-minded rebellious citizens in Checkmate so it takes more time for Nadia to earn his trust, but eventually she succeeds and they plan their escape. Being another Village set-up from the beginning, with Nadia’s participation as well as that of members of Six’s former agency, this doesn’t end well for him and this also ends the “beginning” of the series and Six’s constant attempts to plan a physical escape.

The Schizoid Man
The General
A. B. and C.
Many Happy Returns

(We covered this section a bit in our first discussion, especially the contradictions of certain plot details, so I’ll just cover the main story points of this sequence as they relate to my order.)

This group rounds out the first half of the series well for me. There is an escalation in The Village’s methods of interrogation without being too invasive (yet). In these four episodes Six has regrouped after previous setbacks and calmed down somewhat, and he no longer attempts escape except when an opportunity presents itself (The Schizoid Man and Many Happy Returns). He even begins to have some minor victories culminating in an actual “escape” by sea back to London.

In Schizoid, in order to test Six’s sense of identity, they use brainwashing capabilities only hinted at in Dance and implemented on him to a lesser degree in Free For All. In The General we see their ability to implant information in people’s minds on a mass scale as well as the supercomputer behind it, technology not seen but probably in use prior to this episode. We also see that there are still others, some in high-ranking positions, who are also trying to subvert The Village’s plans. And in A. B. and C. and Returns they try to learn more about Six’s resignation and the possibility of his selling out, first by invading his mind and dreams to see how he would react to specific associates from his past, then by actually letting him leave The Village to find out where he would go, what he would do, and with whom he would communicate.

I think Returns is the ideal mid-way point for the series. Despite getting away and contacting people he should be able to trust, he is still returned to The Village, a further demonstration to him about the futility of escape. From this point forward he does not attempt escape again until the end. And from this point forward Village methods against him become more insidious, strange, and extreme.

It’s Your Funeral
Living in Harmony
A Change of Mind
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Hammer Into Anvil
The Girl Who Was Death
Once Upon A Time / Fall Out

It’s Your Funeral, Living in Harmony, and A Change of Mind are about Six’s changing relationship with the community. He takes action to protect individuals and the community as a whole, even going so far as to save a Number Two’s life. The Village masters also test the degree to which Six may actually serve the community’s interests and under what circumstances or coercion.

Watched in this order, I think Six has been back from London for a while before the events of It’s Your Funeral. He’s had time to settle back in to Village life again and create new habits, maybe to give a false sense of routine to Village surveillance. (Funeral, Change, and Hammer all include references to Six’s “usual activities” such as using his forest gym and participating in those weird Kosho matches, activities not seen in earlier episodes.) In Funeral Number Two is only manipulating and hoping to discredit him, but not trying to break him--not a very big plan so soon after his return. From a production standpoint Funeral was very troubled and as a result is one of the weaker episodes in terms of a clear plot. The new Number Two’s plan to assassinate a retiring Two is so convoluted that I wonder whether that is even the goal. It seems foolishly arrogant to even risk involving Six in the scheme. Was the intent really to have an excuse to punish the community for the long-tolerated actions of “Jammers”, actions that Two manipulated in this case? Or was the actual goal to find out what Six would do--help the Jammers plant the bomb or help the citizens as a whole by exposing the plot? They’ve played the damsel-in-distress card with him a few times before and failed, but would Six actually help the old Number Two in order to protect the community he rejects from unjust reprisals?

Living in Harmony is a daring experiment for television of its time, one genre of program swapped for something totally different. While it reinterprets and restates the basic premise of the entire series in American Western form, Harmony is another episode about Six’s grasp on his identity and what it might take to convince or coerce him to serve The Village. That is why I think it should follow Funeral as an expansion of that theme. As a scheme, though, this is just a more involved virtual reality roleplay experiment similar to the A. B. and C. procedure.

A Change of Mind is an interesting exploration of how “individual” someone can really be and still function within a community, echoed later by Number Two’s words in Once Upon A Time: “The lone wolf belongs to the wilderness.” Change reveals Six’s precarious place among the other citizens and his reaction to being excluded from the very thing he wants to leave, as well as the threat of physical punishment by his fellow prisoners rather than warders. Six is especially prickly in Change, almost like he was in the very beginning. His confrontational and uncooperative behavior results in his being declared “Unmutual” and shunned. The Committee separates him socially from the rest of the community just as they intend to rehabilitate him by separating his “aggressive” frontal lobe from the rest of his brain. It is a trick orchestrated by Two to convince Six to be passive and cooperative, and for a while he is uncertain how far they will actually take it--after all, he saw what happened to his colleague Dutton in Dance. Six eventually figures out the ruse and tricks the Committee into turning against Two, declaring him Unmutual instead, and inciting a mob to attack him. This is a serious win for Six and also why I think it belongs later in the series.

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, Hammer Into Anvil, and The Girl Who Was Death are an odd bunch. Darling uses a classic sci-fi trope to work around an absent Patrick McGoohan. Hammer is a straightforward battle-of-wits spy story. Girl is a campy romp through 1960s England. But as different as these episodes are from each other I think they represent the final turn in Six’s struggle against The Village. After causing an actual uprising (however small) against a Number Two in Change, Six is finally forced to endure a strange and difficult challenge with heartbreaking connections to his past. He comes out of it maybe more determined than ever to see an end to his captors. This is followed by a focused breaking down of another Number Two. And Girl acts as a bizarre interlude before the finale.

The procedure in Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is one The Village had to work toward over time. After the events of all of the mind-bending episodes before this, they must be confident that Six should be able to handle the process with his mind intact. (I wonder whether they’ve tried this on anyone before. It would make sense to test it before putting their prized prisoner through it. Maybe that could even explain some of the characters with double-identities we see throughout the series.) Six’s connection to the scientist Seltzman, and the importance of the mind-swap project to The Village’s global agenda may also be one of the reasons for his capture to begin with.

Darling also suffered production challenges. McGoohan was unavailable due to filming Ice Station Zebra in the United States. And as good an actor as Nigel Stock is, he just doesn’t quite capture the force of Six’s personality. I rationalize that as being a side-effect of the intensity of the experiment, the regression of his memory, and the sadness of the circumstances. There is a melancholy and defeated tone to this episode, reinforced by the musical score. Six is like a ghost visiting his old life. He is put, disoriented, back into the “outside world” but cannot hold on to any part of it, just some tentative recognition from his alleged fiancé Janet. He’s out of The Village but still a prisoner inside The Colonel, the vessel for his mission. I think this should be placed later in the episode order due to the time reference of just over a year since Six’s disappearance, the extreme nature of the procedure, and Six not even trying to get away. He knows they’ll bring him back somehow and continue to hunt Seltzman anyway. In the end Seltzman puts things right for Six and finds a deadly means of escape, his secrets safe from The Village. After this cruel ordeal I think Six is ready for a fight.

Hammer Into Anvil begins with Six going to the aid of a Villager in distress and finding her driven to suicide by a sadistic Number Two. He vows vengeance for her death but Two won’t tolerate his impertinence, aggressively confronting him and putting him under even heavier surveillance. Six defeats Two by using his (now extensive) knowledge of Village procedures and Jammer tactics, and using Two’s own paranoia and fear of his masters against him, concluding with Two reporting himself for removal. This is an absolute victory for Six, one of the reasons I think it belongs later, and I think it sets up The Village’s desperate endgame, after one final detour for the audience.

The Girl Who Was Death is another subversion of viewer expectations like Harmony and Darling. Using elements from history, nursery rhymes, and fairy tales, it pokes fun at many spy adventure tropes, including a few references to McGoohan’s previous series, Danger Man. I think Six’s bedtime story can be interpreted any number of ways, but the simplistic plot is that Two believes Six may let his guard down and share some kind of information with Village children about his time as an agent. (Not the most ingenious plan they’ve had...) Obviously Six shares nothing, and merely tells them an altered bedtime story mocking the very things Two hopes to overhear. After the loss of the Seltzman project and the failures of so many Number Twos, The Village is out of options and there’s only one thing left to do about Number Six.

I think of this as the light-hearted episode before the heavy finale. It’s something I’ve seen a lot of shows do. Since Girl is so hard to place in the order anyway and could go just about anywhere, I think it works here just fine. Besides, it even gives us a typical spy thriller ending, blowing up the mad scientist and his lair/weapon in the end, which might be what a lot of people wanted from the show.
But story time is over.
Once upon a time...

I've been popping up here and there on Twin Peaks Unwrapped lately, and will link below, but first I want to share my most recent official "Lost in Twin Peaks" segment (the others were quicker excerpts and/or repeated highlights). In their first podcast of the new year, Ben and Bryon dipped into a conversation we had in the fall - which had not been published yet - about two memorable Twin Peaks documentaries on the blu-ray set: Secrets From Another Place, about the series, and Moving Through Time, about the film Fire Walk With Me. I talk about what they reveal and why I like them, as well as detouring into other subjects, like Windom Earle. Elsewhere in the episode, the hosts discuss the cast list and a trailer for the upcoming Showtime series, listener feedback, and speculation for 2017.





Back in December, Twin Peaks Unwrapped featured a quicker clip from that same conversation, this time about Between Two Worlds, the blu-ray feature in which Lynch interviews the actors who played the Palmer family - in character! (I've also discussed this subject with John Thorne.) And at the end of 2016, guest host Scott Ryan highlighted one of my previous conversations with Ben and Bryon. If you've never listened to Twin Peaks Unwrapped before (but are somehow reading this), this "best of" reel might be a good way to get acquainted with all of their work.

Meanwhile, a quick heads-up on the week to come, which should be a big one for me and all Twin Peaks fans. On Monday, January 9, Showtime is expected to make an announcement at the Television Critics Association (TCAs) about their lineup for 2017. With many Twin Peaks actors scheduled to appear, it is assumed that the premiere date of the new series will be revealed. Already, there have been clues: the website Welcome to Twin Peaks has highlighted a Showtime calendar in which May is devoted to a Twin Peaks theme, suggesting an airdate on or soon after Sunday, April 30. By the way, speaking of Welcome to Twin Peaks, a loooong-awaited guest post of mine may finally be going up there - but Pieter Dom, the tireless administrator of the site has a lot on his plate so if you want to see it please retweet or reply to this tweet (so far it seems to have worked in moving things along - hope it can go up before the TCA news takes over!).

Once the premiere date of new Twin Peaks is clear, I will schedule my character study series, possibly with the introduction as early as that very day. There are to be eighty-two individual entries, plus two prefaces that cover the most minor characters, and the aforementioned intro. Depending how much time I have, the scheduling could range from one entry each weekday to a more compressed format beginning with several entries every day until we get to the big names (the series will begin with the characters who have the least screentime - while still speaking in at least three scenes - and end with those who have the most a day or two before the new premiere). I also have a few straggling Twin Peaks posts which have been hanging around for years in some cases - the Sheryl Lee filmography, the aforementioned Welcome to Twin Peaks cross-post, a conversation with John Thorne about The Secret History of Twin Peaks. I suppose some of those may have to wait until the new series has already begun, to supplement my episode coverage.

Aside from the occasional video essay, Twin Peaks is going to pretty much take over Lost in the Movies this year. Only when this first season ends - presuming they've divided into two seasons as many suspect - will I begin post other material again.


Finally, one more cross-post...I called into The Benjamin Dixon Show, one of my favorite political programs, again the other night. You can jump right to my comment/question - about the recent smear campaign against Black Lives Matters and conservative perception of the left/liberal divide - or you can listen to the whole episode, which is definitely worthwhile:




While Twin Peaks will be at the forefront of 2017, beneath the surface I will be working on many other projects. This includes viewing diaries for other shows. I have a few episodes for the following already in my backlog, though I won't share any till the entire series is completed: The Kingdom, The X-Files, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Star Trek, Veronica Mars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wire, and Clone Wars. I hope to keep writing on film in some capacity, maybe a weekly entry called "Monday is for Movies" even as "Lost in the Movies" slowly comes to mean "Lost in Audiovisual Media (primarily Television)."

I also plan to finally resume/finish my Citizen Kane video series and do a few more entries for my various suspended video essay series on YouTube/Vimeo, so that I end up with five total in each category (3 1/2 Minute Review, Side by Side, Cinepoem, and Montage) - I have three for most so far. This will hopefully begin with an ambitious, probably multi-part study of The Big Chill and The Return of the Secaucus 7 in the larger context of sixties/baby boomer history and pop mythology - a subject that has only become more relevant as the aging generation, once a font of left-wing revolution, has elected authoritarian right-wingers across the board. And yes, I also plan to continue my own personal political journey in the coming year, reading, discussing, and hopefully finding ways to actively engage with the forces shaping society now and in the past.

In addition to all this, I am trying to make time for my own creative writing. I haven't made a short film since Class of 2002 three years ago (and that was my first such project in about six years), or even - truth be told - written a single usable page of a screenplay. That's not for lack of trying; I've spent countless hours filling journals with fragments of ideas, general story premises, character explorations, etc. But my energy just hasn't seemed to channel towards that type of totally original content for, well, over a decade much as I've wanted it too. You can't really force these things or, at any rate, you shouldn't. At the same time, I do wonder what role film - meaning film-(and TV-)watching, writing/posting about, and making - will play in my future.

In fact, rather than complete my thoughts here I realized the next few paragraphs deserve their own space. I'll publish them separately, following this, as a standalone status update, a moment of calm before the deluge of the coming weeks and months.

These were my concluding thoughts in the previous post, which was also a grabbag of links and announcements. I realized they probably deserved their own space. See that entry if you want to know what I'm up to this year and much of next. This "status update" is about what's further along the horizon.

"Movies" have been my primary interest and endeavor for a quarter-century now, since I was an eager first-grader in the fall of 1990, captivated by a combination of new releases at the cinema, my cousin's video collection, and movie books from the local library. At the heart of this was always the notion that I myself would become a filmmaker. That's a much more complicated story that perhaps I'll get into later - not that it's particularly interesting - but as I approach my mid-thirties, the idea of making a living from film is pretty much out the window and even pursuing it as a passion may be fading. That could be the necessary relaxation of pressure before a windfall...or it could simply be the turning of a page, one I've been stuck on for far too long. For the moment, I have other distractions to keep me active on the margins of the film world but they too will pass, eventually.

As I recently noted on Twitter, if it wasn't for Twin Peaks and video essays, I'm not sure what role - if any - film would have in my life anymore. I virtually never go to the movie theater and when I do it's primarily a social event, not an aesthetic pursuit. I don't keep up with new releases on DVD or streaming either, and I barely even watch classic movies these days. By coincidence, I have been reading film books in the past few weeks, but that's more sporadic than it used to be, and I don't keep track of film news at all. Any engagement I have is with particular titles - usually a TV series I'm writing about or a film that I can cover for Fandor or a personal video essay - not the bigger picture of "the cinema." My cinephilia has always waxed and waned, with lean years in which I focused on other subjects - the Civil War, politics and history, music - only for the pendulum to violently swing back as I devoted myself to my core interest once again. What may be different this time is that, if the dream of filmmaking really does disappear, I don't have a real reason to go back again.

For me, the axis of my passion for cinema has always been the faith that one way or another, I am or would be involved in creating it. If I'm not, I don't think I would want to indulge my enthusiasm as a viewer or commentator; it would feel too one-sided. Video essays can bridge that gap somewhat, but not permanently...unless they evolve into something else. Likewise if a cultural moment emerges where movies - or much more likely, a new form of "movies" (probably online, fragmented, and far more homemade) - become relevant again I could experience a renewed passion and inspiration. However, it feels like my own personal disenchantment with the magic of movies has been accompanied by a more generalized pop culture shift away from that form. So we'll see. (Incidentally, I also suspect that even if I do manage to burst my creative drought, it won't be accompanied by a renewed cinephilia; going forward, obsessing over movie culture may only be a distraction from attempting to contribute directly to it - creation and appreciation don't go hand-in-hand as often as presumed.)

Recently, I've been watching (and re-watching, but mostly for the first time) Kevin B. Lee's video essays. Dubbed "the godfather of the video essay," he pretty much invented its online incarnation nearly ten years ago in the spring of 2007. I plan to keep doing this, a little bit each day, not only with Kevin's work but other figures in the video essay world, immersing myself in the history of the still-developing form. It's been just long enough that revisiting these roots evokes a sense of nostalgia (even though in many cases I never watched the actual videos at the time). Devotion to movies, engagement with this exciting idea that they were bigger than individual titles, that we were only brushing a part of the elephant, carried me through some frustrating times and helped me focus and develop myself and allowed me to create a body of work I'm proud of. But it isn't really something I want to return to - it served its purpose. It can either become something new in the near future or it can settle into its place as an artifact of the past, something you enjoy lingering over when you discover it in a dusty attic but leave there after a few hours to return to the life you live now.

In mid-2018, Lost in the Movies will celebrate its 10th anniversary. At that point I will have created a pretty sizable backlog of TV viewing diaries so even if I wanted to throw in the towel on blogging at that point, I would probably have years of material to keep auto-publishing. However, the second (and I'd wager, truly final) season of Twin Peaks will probably have just ended. Maybe I'll even have had enough time to create concluding chapters for Journey Through Twin Peaks. Any other projects will have been caught up with. And by then I'll have experienced a year and a half (beginning this month) of penciling in time every week to attempt creative writing. In other words, I should know where I'm headed that summer, and I will let you know too. Until then, I have enough work to keep me busy, whether it ends up being a last burst or a first full flowering. Here's to 2017.

Yesterday was finally the day. In the afternoon, Showtime announced that Twin Peaks will premiere on Sunday, May 21. Almost exactly twenty-seven years earlier to that day (May 22, 1991), ABC cancelled the original series. They did so not with any sort of official statement, but simply by publishing a fall lineup from which Twin Peaks was unceremoniously absent. If it died with a whimper that spring, it will be reborn with a roar this time.

Last night, following the announcement, several actors appeared at the Television Critics Association event in Pasadena for a panel alongside surprise guest David Lynch. Less surprising? Lynch took questions but refused to provide any concrete answers, cheerfully deflecting some queries and responding to others with non sequiturs. Although with him you never can tell which non sequiturs may turn out to be crucial details.

For those just catching up now, here's roughly what we do know. David Lynch is directing every single episode, and has co-written the script for the entire series with Mark Frost (they created the original series together). They have assembled eighteen hours of material, and it's not entirely clear yet how that will be shown; we do know that on May 21, they will air two hours and that immediately afterwards, the next two hours will be available on Showtime streaming services (they will air on Showtime TV over the next two Sundays).

Can we even call the individual airings "episodes"? Both Lynch and Showtime CEO David Nevins (who also called the new series "the pure heroin vision of David Lynch") have described the series as more like a movie split up into chunks than a traditional TV show. Lynch shot this as one big film production - organized by location and other considerations - dividing it into episodes only afterwards in the editing room. It also doesn't look like the series will be divided into two seasons after all; I think it's just going to run straight through every week until it concludes around August.

Yesterday's event launches months of hype for Twin Peaks, a surreal situation for fans of a show that was nearly forgotten for so long. I will certainly be playing my part, hopefully able to contribute a sense of depth and novelty with my work. Though I considered assembling previous material into a kind of hybrid episode guide for classic Twin Peaks, leading up to the new premiere, I've decided to go a different route instead. And now that I know when that premiere will be I can lay out the schedule for my eighty-two Twin Peaks character studies and other material.

THIS & NEXT WEEK: I will publish additional Twin Peaks material from my backlog, including a Sheryl Lee filmography, a cross-posted intro for my Welcome to Twin Peaks guest post about Journey Through Twin Peaks videos, and a conversation with John Thorne about The Secret History of Twin Peaks. If any other appearances on Twin Peaks Unwrapped are published I will share those too.

MONDAY - FRIDAY FOR 17 WEEKS STARTING MONDAY, JANUARY 23: Five days a week for four months, I will post my Twin Peaks character study series. On January 23 I will publish the introduction, which will detail my approach (a consistent format applied to every character) and on January 24 and 25 I will follow up with two preludes, one surveying sixty bit parts from the series and film, the other counting down my top thirty "hidden" characters (i.e. those who figure memorably on the show but don't speak in at least three scenes). Then, on January 26, I will launch the series proper with my first entry on a very small character and build up until I reach the character with the most screentime on Friday, May 19.

RANDOM WEEKENDS BETWEEN JANUARY 28 & MAY 14: If I have anything else Twin Peaks-related to say or share during this time, I will post it on the weekend (probably a Sunday). This could include additional appearances on Twin Peaks podcasts or responses to other articles/statements/thinkpieces etc (you know they will be coming). And as we get closer to the premiere date, I expect to reach out to new viewers with introductions, correctives to common myths, rebuttals of certain talking points, and public-service announcements (like this one).

SATURDAY, MAY 20: I'm not sure what I will publish on this day, but I'm sure I will do something to set the stage for the premiere the next day. Perhaps I'll share something Sunday morning too.

SUNDAY, MAY 21 - GOING FORWARD: Immediately after the first episode airs, I will record my first, raw reactions. I will do this every week, expecting to publish this initial response within an hour of every episode's ending. These are less likely to be polished, cerebral analyses than stream-of-consciousness musings as I savor and digest what I just witnessed. I won't be talking to anyone or reading anything beforehand so these will just be my own real-time thoughts: a take fresh off the burner. However...

THE FOLLOWING WEEK & DURING EVERY WEEK THEREAFTER: ...some time before the next episode airs, I will probably publish a second response. This one will be more considered and organized, probably drawing on conversations I've had and other responses I've read/heard in the interim. This is the plan anyway. Maybe I'll find it's better to respond in the moment and leave it at that until the entire narrative has unfolded? I don't want to commit myself too tightly to any particular approach at this point, but that's my general plan.

AFTER AUGUST: This is the wild card because I initially anticipated another year before the second half (though the series was all shot together, I thought they'd split it in two during postproduction and postpone "another season" until the spring of 2018). This doesn't seem to be the case. Therefore, from August onward I have free reign to share any thoughts I have on the Twin Peaks phenomenon as a whole. I'm not sure what this means yet exactly - maybe I'll just be burnt out on Twin Peaks by then! - but I imagine it will climax/conclude with new chapters in my Journey Through Twin Peaks video series, grappling with the Showtime adventure and how it transforms the project as a whole and ties in to Lynch's other work, and what can be taken from it.

If you are new to this site, or even if you aren't, make sure to check out my previous work on Twin Peaks. I have gathered close to a hundred individual posts into a single directory which will be continually updated as I share new material:

Finally, here is a quick thread on David Lynch that I tweeted out yesterday, marveling at his unusual arc...

Lynch has definitely had one of the most interestingly unusual careers in Hollywood history.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

Midnight movie auteur at 31. Oscar-nominated prestige director at 34. Blockbuster sci-fi franchise helmer at 38 (but a bomb).

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

And then creates work so distinctive his name becomes adjective at 40. Network TV showrunner, media darling & pop culture sensation at 44.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

Humiliated, reviled, washed-up at 46, for his most radical, compassionate, subversive work in guise of a TV origin story spin-off.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

Tries & fails at TV again at 53, converts pilot footage into the most praised movie of the century at 55.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

He then uses that renewed cache to...film a 3-hour experimental home movie on mini-DV at 60, his most abrasive, hallucinatory work.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

And 10 years later, at 70, given free reign, by a major network in the "golden age of TV" to make an 18-hour avant-garde narrative...

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

...which will be promoted alongside spy shows and comedies. Incredible fluidity & juxtapositions...like something out of a David Lynch film.

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

And I haven't even mentioned his G-rated Disney picture. :)

— Joel Bocko (@LostInTheMovies) January 9, 2017

On February 1, my video essay series Journey Through Twin Peaks turns 2. Its audience continues to grow, and I've been greatly encouraged to hear back on a fairly consistent basis from viewers who have enjoyed it and want to share it. Today Welcome to Twin Peaks, Pieter Dom's excellent fan site, is sharing my guest post on the subject. In it, I decided to adopt the classic mystery format to introduce the videos to a new audience.

Here is the opening paragraph - make sure to head over to Welcome to Twin Peaks to read the rest:

"Twin Peaks is many things: a wacky, charming portrait of a small town, an alluring yet disturbing murder mystery, a spooky tale of supernatural forces, a deeply moving tragedy, and a profound spiritual and psychological exploration. Above all it is a feeling, a mood, an atmosphere, difficult to sum up in words. I created my video series Journey Through Twin Peaks to explore this wonderful and strange world, discovering how the magic works without losing it. As in any good mystery, we must begin by investigating the who, what, where, when and most importantly, WHY of Journey Through Twin Peaks...""

The piece also contains links to the videos in various formats.

Compiled several years ago as part of an abandoned project, this filmography represents almost every film and TV appearance made by Sheryl Lee, alongside brief contextual notes. Sheryl Lee is, far and away, most famous for her role as Laura Palmer, "the dead girl" in the TV series Twin Peaks (1990-91). More importantly, when the murder victim was resurrected for the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), Lee gave a performance that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with acclaimed David Lynch heroines Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive), Isabella Rossellini (Blue Velvet) or Laura Dern (Inland Empire).

But what of Lee's non-Laura roles? Probably due in part to the dismal critical and box-office reception of Fire Walk With Me, Lee's career never went in the direction of, say, a Lara Flynn Boyle (who notably snubbed Lynch's request to appear in the Twin Peaks prequel). Sticking to offbeat independent films rather than major studio productions may have reflected her own interests as well. At times this an obscure filmography - many of these movies never got the distribution they deserved - but it's often more interesting than a conventional Hollywood career. Lee's work is regularly committed, brave, and subtle; she remains one of the film industry's most underrated actresses and hopefully her appearance in the renewed Twin Peaks can elevate her profile even more.

In the meantime, here is (most of) her film/TV since the eighties. Further context for this post follows the lineup. The descriptions may be a tad spoiler-y here and there; I wanted to point out connections to Laura Palmer which sometimes entail plot twists. Avoiding any big plot giveaways except where noted, I'd still advise you to peruse the text at your own (slight) risk. Personally I think her most interesting work is in Backbeat, Homage, Bliss, and especially Mother Night (for more on that film, check out this fantastic episode of the Projection Booth podcast). In truth, however, she's consistently dedicated to all of her roles, sometimes more than the material deserves,other times ensuring that it lives up to its promise.


Liz in He's No Hero (1988), dir. Michael Davison • This is an educational film about teen pregnancy shot in Seattle - where Lee lived in the late eighties, mostly working in theater. Dramatic scenes are interspersed with a high school lecture; clips are now available on YouTube.
Laura Palmer in 7 episodes of Twin Peaks (1990-91), dir. David Lynch, Duwayne Dunham, Tina Rathborne, Caleb Deschanel, Mark Frost • To avoid the expense of flying an L.A. actress to Seattle just to play a corpse, Lynch and Frost cast an unknown local. This decision would radically alter not only Lee's career, but the arc of Twin Peaks.
Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson in 16 episodes of Twin Peaks (1990-91), dir. Tina Rathborne, Tim Hunter, Lesli Linka Glatter, Caleb Deschanel, Mark Frost, David Lynch, Todd Holland, Graeme Clifford • Deeply impressed with Lee's work, the writers created a recurring part for her, as Laura's "identical cousin" who investigates her death.
Good Witch in Wild at Heart (1990), dir. David Lynch • Suspended from the air in a Wizard of Oz costume, Lee's cameo marks her only non-Twin Peaks Lynch collaboration - no, that's not her at Club Silencio!
Patti Bailey in Love, Lies and Murder (1991), dir. Robert Markowitz • Lee met with the real Bailey before playing her in this TV movie about sexual abuse, murder, and family dysfunction. Fire Walk With Me actress Moira Kelly is her sister, and we see a picture of a white horse when she commits a murder. (Here's an article where Lee talks briefly about the role.)
Kate Lyons in 1 episode of Red Shoe Diaries (1992), dir. Michael Karbelnikoff • 
David Duchovney, who hosted the erotic HBO series, also appears within this particular episode as photographer Lyons' love interest.
Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), dir. David Lynch • Twenty-two years later, Lee shared a new poem and diary entry from the time of the production, documenting the intensity of her relationship with this character, and how it has haunted her ever since.
Tara in Jersey Girl (1992), dir. David Burton Morris • The villainess of this romantic comedy, Tara is a wealthy, professional Manhattanite competing with an Italian-American girl from New Jersey for the affection of Dermot Mulroney. The look of this character is probably why Lee had to wear a wig in Fire Walk With Me.
Astrid Kirchherr in Backbeat (1994), dir. Iain Softley • In her most celebrated role outside of Twin Peaks, Lee plays the German photographer who befriended the Beatles in 1960 Hamburg, becoming the lover of tragic painter/rocker Stuart Sutcliffe.
Catherine in 1 episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1994), dir. Chuck Bowman • Having lived with a Native American tribe since childhood, Catherine initially has trouble communicating with the white townspeople. Then she forges a connection with Dr. Quinn's love interest, much to the doctor's irritation.
Queen Guinevere in Guinevere (1994), dir. Jud Taylor • A highly revisionist take on the Guinevere legend, this Lifetime miniseries is based on Persia Woolley's novels.
Michelle in Don't Do It (1994), dir. Eugene Hess • A very, very nineties Gen-X indie romance, the film co-stars James Marshall and Heather Graham, who played James and Annie on Twin Peaks, plus - for further nineties Lynch connections - Lost Highway's Balthazar Getty and the sister of Patricia Arquette.
Lucy Samuel in Homage (1995), dir. Ross Kagan Marks • For several years after Twin Peaks, Lee was cast in straightforward roles that didn't have much to do with Laura Palmer. This film, in which she plays a TV star murdered by an obsessive fan (Frank Whaley) who is living with her mother (Blythe Danner) on the family farm, starts a new trend of more complex Laura-inflected characters.
Patty/Carol in Fall Time (1995), dir. Paul Warner • This fifties-set heist film features a clash between hardened pros (led by Mickey Rourke) and juvenile delinquents in over their head. Patty initially appears to be a horny civilian caught up in the crime, but as the name suggests (again evoking Twin Peaks doubling), there's more to her than that.
Mary Ingles in Follow the River (1995), dir. Martin Davidson • During the French and Indian War, Ingles escaped from her Shawnee captors and trekked through the woods back to her town. Lee depicts her with down-to-earth naturalness and larger-than-life fortitude.
Liza in Notes from Underground (1995), dir. Gary Walkow • As a vulnerable, abused prostitute (one very different yet nonetheless overlapping with Laura), Lee - and Henry Czerna - update Dostoevsky's classic to a nineties setting.
Helga Noth in Mother Night (1996), dir. Keith Gordon • In half of  a dual role, Lee plays the German wife of Howard W. Campbell, Jr. (Nick Nolte), a Nazi propagandist and American double agent. Glamorous, blonde...and dead, the connection to Laura is obvious...
Resi Noth in Mother Night (1996), dir. Keith Gordon • ...especially once Lee reappears as Helga's little sister, a down-to-earth brunette in her golden relative's shadow. This Vonnegut adaptation offers my second-favorite Lee role - poignant and genuinely funny.
Lois Archer in This World, Then the Fireworks (1997), dir. Michael Oblowitz • Co-starring with Twin Peaks alum Billy Zane, Lee plays a cop who gets entangled with a steamy menage a trois; again, though, Lois has secrets she hides from the audience and other characters.
Bathsheba in David (1997), dir. Robert Markowitz • In a made-for-TV Biblical epic co-starring Leonard Nimoy and Jonathan Pryce, Lee plays the infamous object of the king's desire, helpless to avoid his obsession. This was the fourth and last time Lee played a famous historical/mythological figure. It's also one of the first of many times she played a mother (aside from her work as a teen parent in Loves, Lies, and Murder).
Maria in Bliss (1997), dir. Lance Young • A newlywed experiencing sexual dysfunction pursues Tantric treatment with her husband (Craig Sheffer). This unlocks repressed traumas, directly linking up to Lee's work as Laura and leading to a powerful monologue at the film's climax.
Fiona in The Blood Oranges (1997), dir. Phillip Haas • As the spouse of a Meditarranean lothario who seduces his friend's ambivalent wife, this is one of the few times Lee feels slightly miscast (or perhaps misdirected); probably the other role would have been better for her.
Katrina in Vampires (1998), dir. John Carpenter • (spoilers) Prostitute-turned-vampire Katrina has little power in the story which is too bad - initially I expected her to be the villainous Master in disguise.
Dr. Sarah Church in 22 episodes of L.A. Doctors (1998-99), dir. Gary Fleder, Rick Bota, Joe Napolitano, Rick Rosenthal (other directors unlisted) • (spoilers not that it matters - this series is presently impossible to see) Lee's only role as a series lead lasted a full season but even if the show hadn't been cancelled she probably wouldn't have come back - the character dies in the finale.
Andy in Kiss the Sky (1998), dir. Roger Young • Two frustrated L.A. professionals (William Peterson and Gary Cole) escape to a Pacific island and fall in love with an Australian tourist. At times, the absorbing story teeters on the edge of explicitly MRA midlife crisis fantasy but Lee brings a warm humanity to the role, always evoking sympathy for Andy.
Sam Kingsley in Dante's View (1998), dir. Steven A. Adelson • The best thing this B crime movie has going for it is the re-pairing of Lee with her Twin Peaks mom, Grace Zabriskie, who plays an eccentric motel administrator.
Angelica Chaste in Angel's Dance (1999), dir. David L. Corley • Twisty and silly (but totally and cheerfully committed to its silliness), this crime comedy depicts a frumpy young woman transformed into a sleek killer to protect herself from a hitman (Kyle Chandler). Lee is paired with future Twin Peaks 2017 co-star Jim Belushi as the hitman's boss.
Eve Robbins in Hitched (2001), dir. Wesley Strick • In this black comedy, a jealous wife reports that her husband is missing, but the detective slowly discovers more is going on.
Elinore Murphy in Children on Their Birthdays (2002), dir. Mark Medoff • A muddled adaptation of Truman Capote's story (fans decried the changed ending) nonetheless features a touching performance by Lee as a young widow, which launches what might be called the "mother" phase of her career. A scene in which she dances tenderly with her son recalls, in a less sinister vein, the dancing motif of Twin Peaks.
Marlene McDillon Cadena in 6 episodes of Kingpin (2003), dir. Allen Coulter, Daniel Sackheim, James Hayman, Michael M. Robin, Peter O'Fallon • The wife of a drug lord, Marlene is herself addicted to cocaine and ends up in rehab.
Tina Hodges in 1 episode of Without a Trace (2003), dir. Tony Wharmby • The detectives begin to wonder how much the wife of a man who went missing after his high school reunion knows about his secret life.
Mary Alice Young in unaired pilot of Desperate Housewives (2004), dir. Charles MacDougall • Lee was originally cast as the narrator of Desperate Housewives who kills herself in the pilot episode and recites the rest from beyond the grave. However, after the series was picked up, the pilot was reshot and Lee was replaced by Brenda Strong (who played Jones in Twin Peaks).
Betsy Kinney in Paradise, Texas (2005), dir. Lorraine Senna • An over-the-hill actor clashes with the cast and crew of a low-budget indie shot in his hometown; Lee plays the mother of his child co-star who takes him to task for his behavior.
Elizabeth "Ellie" Harp in 9 episodes of One Tree Hill (2005-06), multiple directors • Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton) finally meets her deadbeat mom. In a Twin Peaks nod, death is associated with a vinyl record rotating in a playout groove.
Stephanie in 1 episode of House, M.D. (2006), dir. Daniel Sackheim • The mother of a boy who believes he has been attacked by aliens, Stephanie is frustrated with his lack of treatment; it's up to the cranky doctor to figure out the situation.
Wendy in The Secrets of Comfort House (2006), dir. Timothy Bond • In this Lifetime movie, a woman who shelters abused women becomes a murder suspect when other abusers turn up dead.
Ellen Garner in 1 episode of CSI: NY (2006), dir. David Von Ancken • The mother of a woman whose daughter was killed in a drunk-driving accident discovers a shocking twist after the crippled driver is murdered in her hospital bed.
Mary in pilot of Manchild (2007), dir. Stephen Gyllenhaal • Lee's brief appearance in Kevin Smith's adaptation of a British comedy (this American version was never picked up) is directed by a Twin Peaks director who hadn't gotten to work with Lee on that show.
Leslie Petrovsky in pilot episode of State of Mind (2007), dir. Michael M. Robin • Lee plays the Russian mother of a child in therapy. This short-lived dramedy was created by Amy Bloom and stars Lili Taylor as a psychiatrist undergoing a marital crisis.
Andrea Smithson/Andrea Darling in 12 episodes of Dirty Sexy Money (2007-08), multiple directors • (spoilers) On Bryan Singer's Arrested Development-style series, Lee plays a character facing death. All save one of Lee's recurring TV characters face similar fates - will Andrea get a miracle?
April in Winter's Bone (2010), dir. Debra Granik • Lee has a small but memorable role as the girlfriend of Jennifer Lawrence's missing dad. The film was a big success and she picked up several awards as part of the ensemble.
Janet Brooks in 1 episode of Lie to Me (2010), dir. James Hayman • Janet, the conniving wife of a governor, is drawn into a murder case and possible cover-up when a staffer is killed before a rally.
Dr. Donna Gooden in 1 episode (Twin Peaks tribute "Dual Spires") of Psych (2010), dir. Matt Shakman • In one of several clever twists, Dr. Gooden appears alongside dead teen Paula Merral (an anagram for "Laura Palmer"), wrapped in plastic by a lake. This loving tribute to Twin Peaks reunites dozens of cast members from the series.
Lucie Sliger in Texas Killing Fields (2011), dir. Ami Canaan Mann • This Southern crime flick anticipates True Detective in many ways, but was unfairly savaged by critics. Lee plays the mother of Chloe Grace Moretz.
Lacy Penderhalt in 1 episode of Perception (2012), dir. Deran Sarafian • In a goofy gimmick that nonetheless has shades of Lee's next, much more profound role, Lacy wakes up after years in a coma; she still thinks it's the eighties and that she's seventeen.
Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Between Two Worlds (2014), dir. David Lynch • And then, in this short feature from the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery blu-ray set, Lee plays another youthful spirit in a mature body, to eerier effect. Lynch interviews all three Palmers, some from beyond the grave.
May in White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), dir. Gregg Araki • Araki, a very vocal fan of Fire Walk With Me, cast Lee in a small role as the new girlfriend of Shailene Woodley's widowed dad.
Miriam in Jackie & Ryan (2014), dir. Ami Canaan Mann • Casting Lee as Katherine Heigl's mother (!) is a stretch; nonetheless it's nice to see Mann and Lee collaborate again in this charming, underrated romance.

Judy in The Makings of You (2014), dir. Matt Amato • Still making festival rounds, this atmospheric St. Louis drama features one of Lee's most promising roles, as a romantic lead. (Plus Grace Zabriskie plays her mom.)
Air in Rebirth (2016), dir. Karl Mueller • From the looks of the trailer, Lee plays a hippie-ish group leader in this thriller about a lifestyle-improvement cult gone mad.
Twin Peaks (2017), dir. David Lynch
•
Here's the big wild card. We presume Sheryl Lee will play Laura again - somehow, somewhere - but don't really know anything about her involvement with the new series...except that she definitely is involved.

Not pictured/Additional Titles: I couldn't find any footage or even stills of Sheryl Lee in The Can (circa 1980s - 1994) or much of her more recent work, including an episode of Rosewood (2016) and her appearance in Woody Allen's Cafe Society and Dead Ink Archive (2016). If any reader can provide or point me to relevant images, particularly actual screencaps (to fit the format), I will add them to the list so it can be both complete and illustrated.

A note on awards (contains spoilers for Twin Peaks): Commendably, the Independent Spirit Awards gave Lee a nomination for her work in Fire Walk With Me (Fairuza Balk won for Gas Food Lodging that year). She was also nominated, alongside a very competitive field including Rebecca DeMornay, Virginia Madson, Winona Ryder, Sharon Stone, Meryl Streep, and Sigourney Weaver, for a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. Lee was nominated for another Saturn as Best Supporting Actress in Vampires and for a Prism Award - honoring performances that raise awareness about drug addiction - for Kingpin.

As part of the Winter's Bone ensemble she received a nomination from the San Diego Film Critics Society and awards from the Detroit Film Critics Society and Gotham Independent Film Awards. She also won the "Spirit of Sundance" award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1995.

Lee's most unusual nomination was for "Best Death Scene: Prime Time" (yes, that is a real category!!) at the 1992 Soap Opera Digest Awards. The scene was from the second season Twin Peaks "killer's reveal" episode, when Maddy Ferguson is murdered. This is one of Lynch's most searing pieces of work, with an absolutely harrowing, devastating performance from Lee. It should be on any shortlist for most powerful TV sequences of all time...

...and it lost to this scene from Dallas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Several years ago, following my Fire Walk With Me discussion series with Tony Dayoub and the extensive coverage of my "David Lynch Month," I planned to hone in on an aspect of the film that I hadn't been able to explore in much depth: Sheryl Lee's remarkable performance. Back in 2008, when I first saw the film, I was blown away by her work - not just because it was so good, but because I'd heard so little about the actress outside of this context. I went on to watch one or two of her other films at this time (and, as it turned out, had already seen her in Backbeat during my Beatles craze several years earlier), but there didn't seem to be that much available at this time.

In 2014, as I set out to craft an in-depth analysis of her performance (which was never written), I thought it would be a good idea to supplement it with a filmography of her work. And in the six years since my first viewing of Fire Walk With Me, many more films had become available online. Between Netflix DVD, streaming, Amazon, and other resources I was able to find almost of all her films and TV appearances, selecting images to illustrate the filmography and viewing as many as I could. As it turned out, my attention eventually shifted to interviews with Twin Peaks authors and ultimately my video series Journey Through Twin Peaks (highlighted just yesterday on the popular fan site Welcome to Twin Peaks).

Through these endeavors, I was able to address Lee's contributions to the film. I never found the time to create either the standalone acting analysis nor the other performance pieces I hoped to compile into a series (Ruan Lingyu in The Goddess and Bing Crosby in The Country Girl were among others planned). Actually breaking down and describing the alchemy of a screen performance is tricky to begin with - especially when the tenor of the work feels more intuitive than technical. I still might pursue it someday, but for now my "Great Performances" series is one of many never-quite-begun projects over a decade of Lost in the Movies.

However, I'm glad that I've finally been able to publish this filmography. Hopefully I can update it with the two missing films or anything else I've overlooked.

Unfortunately, this past week Fandor Keyframe removed around a thousand video essays from their archive, including ten of my own (my most recent three remain). Yesterday and today I was able to upload all of the missing video essays to my own Vimeo channel. The Fandor videos remain locked in a "private" status, not deleted, so hopefully they will be restored someday. But the following uploads will remain regardless, so please watch, share, and bookmark these from now on (click on the title or the Vimeo insignia on the video to bookmark the source link).

Here are the videos, from newest to oldest. Learning to Look: Eye Contact in Satyajit Ray's THE BIG CITY is probably my favorite of the bunch, but I'm pleased with how all of them turned out.























You can see all of my video essays in this directory.

I have fixed all the links in my directories and original posts so that from now on if you want to explore my video work you won't be stumbling into any broken links. If you have a platform that shares video essays, please update your readers not just about these, but also for the dozens of other video essayists who are doing the same for their own projects. I will hopefully be able share those channels too a status update in a few weeks when the dust has settled and much of that great work has found new homes (or been reinstated - or both; things are confusing right now).

There are so many different ways to experience Twin Peaks. We might tour its locations, from the cozy red-and-white checkered comforts of the RR Diner to the majestic, vaguely magical woodsy decor of the Great Northern to the brooding, bittersweet musical milieu of the neon-soaked Road House. We can sample its various motifs: sipping hot coffee, savoring a flaky cherry pie, jolting at the hoot of an owl. Or we could delve into each genre in turn, spinning the wheel to land on the cheerful tone of wacky farce, the sleek style of midnight noir, or the visceral chill of creeping horror.

This written and illustrated web series - eighty-four entries in total, starting tomorrow - will focus on another aspect that is able to touch on all of the above. Character is how many viewers, probably a majority, develop a personal connection to the material they are watching. Despite its unique qualities - the eccentric setpieces, the prevailing ethereal mood - Twin Peaks has proven itself to be no exception. As often as they point to touchstones like the iconic Red Room or Angelo Badalamenti's ethereal score, fans will cite characters as the reason they keep coming back to Twin Peaks.

Who is your favorite? Agent Cooper, with his mixture of boyish enthusiasm and professional genius? Audrey Horne, slinking around corners with a diabolical grin? The Log Lady, speaking softly and carrying her big "stick"? Deputy Andy, crying when he finds a dead body; Big Ed, solid as a redwood while the one-eyed buzzsaw Nadine hovers nervously around his trunk; Gordon Cole, cheerfully shouting his way through the hearing world like a deaf version of Mr. Magoo; or (RIP) Agent Rosenfield, cynically ripping apart the small town's sentimental platitudes before revealing the heart on his own sleeve?

Twin Peaks characters have a cartoonish quality; even its straight men - Ed, Sheriff Truman - are outlined with stark simplicity. Brad Dukes, author of Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks, describes Cooper and the Log Lady as resembling Sesame Street characters in their appeal to him as a nine-year-old in 1990. Indeed, the ability to paint these figures in broad strokes perpetuated their images and endeared them to generations of fans. At the same time, Twin Peaks has a serious core and thirty episodes (plus a feature film, and a grabbag of deleted scenes) to flesh out the complexities within these broad sketches. And it makes the best of that potential, always delighting to reveal hidden sides of its citizens, leaving us uncertain about their demons and capabilities (especially in the show's first half, dominated by the question "Who killed Laura Palmer?" - maybe the show's most famous character, dead before the pilot begins).

For the next seventeen weeks, we will take a journey from Twin Peaks' most minor characters to its biggest star. Tomorrow and the day after I will combine many characters into short entries, first a rapid survey of sixty (dispatching them with an image and a sentence or two), and then a slightly longer countdown of thirty "hidden" characters (each gets a paragraph). On Thursday, the main work of the series will begin with the first standalone entry for a character. For inclusion in these standalone entries, my criterion was that a character "speak" in at least three scenes, though "speaking" might include singing, screaming, even giggling.

In a few cases (Invitation to Love and "Spirits of Twin Peaks") I combined several characters into a single category and measured their collective screentime. The "Spirits" entry will thus be one of the biggest, taking time to explore major manifestations of the town's psychosphere like Bob, the Man From Another Place, and the Giant, while also observing them all under the umbrellas of the show's mythology. I made this decision for several reasons. For one, these "characters" - however we interpret them - aren't really people (hosts like Phillip Gerard and, arguably, the room service waiter get their own entries, which will cover them both when they are and aren't possessed). For another, there are cases to be made that some of these spirits are actually "one and the same" as the giant says (is he referring to the waiter or the Little Man?).

Above all, these figures inhabit such a radically different realm than all the other characters on the show that I felt it made sense to observe them as their own independent phenomenon, rather than sprinkling them throughout the other entries (this also allowed me to save them for much later, giving the series a sense of building momentum). Don't worry, the treatment will still be extensive: it will just be all in one spot instead of diluted.

As for the rest of the ensemble, the first subject is onscreen for just two minutes and from there we will work our way up to someone who dominates nine of the show's thirty hours. Climbing up this mountain will require consistent tools day by day, so that we can explore each character in turn and then compare them to those we've already visited.

The following will be my approach every weekday until we reach the premiere of new Twin Peaks on May 21:


A one-line description of the character's personality will open each entry.

A Timeline of Events
The events of the series take place between Friday, February 24, 1989 and (probably) March 28, 1989. There are a few glimpses of earlier events - a video of Windom Earle or Laura Palmer, James Hurley's flashback of Laura - but for the most part everything occurs within this tight frame. The feature film is a prequel, focusing on the week before the show begins (Thursday, February 16 to the morning of Friday, February 24, 1989) as well as some events from a year earlier (February 1988). In this section, I will lay out the character's storyline chronologically, with a short entry for each day, not necessarily in the order the narrative was told but in the order it takes place. I will also be "starting" days at dawn rather than midnight (since it's hard to tell which nighttime scenes take place when). Sleep (usually) and sunrise, rather than the arbitrary stroke of twelve o'clock (which often occurs in the midst of unfolding action), will be my demarcation. If an event occurs in the early-morning hours of March 3, it will be discussed with the events of March 2 even if that's technically incorrect.

What does the character tell us about Twin Peaks the TV show and Twin Peaks the town? Do they cultivate a sitcom or soap opera vibe? Do they give us a tourist's or a long-time resident's perspective on the community? Do they offer us insight into Cooper, or the mystery of Laura, or the spiritual underbelly, or the criminal world? Each character is a piece in a larger puzzle.

Zooming in from their collective contribution, how does this character's arc function as a standalone element? Do they mostly cater to other characters, or do they learn and grow along the way? Are there obstacles they must overcome? Whether or not they change, does our perception of them change as we gain new insights into their experiences and desires?

Researching the cast, I discovered how many of them had fascinating careers and even more fascinating offscreen lives. For many, including those whom we might only know for their involvement with this series, Twin Peaks was just one tiny flourish on a colorful canvas.


Twin Peaks featured eight writers and fourteen directors. Who worked with this particular character? What unique contributions may they have made?

In this section, I'll provide the following for the dataheads out there: a rough count of screentime (estimated to the minute); number of scenes, episodes, and days they appear in; which location they appear in the most; which other character they appear with the most; even if they are among the top ten characters of a given episode! This is the nerdiest segment of the series, and in some ways the most fun for me to put together (it would have been virtually impossible in an era before digital files), although it's a pretty small part of the overall presentation.



• In a few bullet points, I'll collect any other stray notes; sometimes these will extend for many, many lines (just wait till we get to Phillip Jeffries).


SHOWTIME: I will report whether or not a character appears on the cast list for 2017 and offer some entirely meaningless speculation about what they may have been up to for twenty-five years.

So that's it. I look forward to following this format (at the time of this writing, I've already completed twenty entries, nearly a quarter of the total) which will provide a structure to both anchor and liberate me. I'm hoping I'll hear back from readers along the way too. What do you think of the characters; are there any details I missed; are you familiar with the actors' other work? In a series devoted to community, I hope we can continue to develop a community around this journey. See you tomorrow.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. This entry is a preface covering characters who won't get standalone treatment. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.

In a show as rich with character as Twin Peaks, many people (and some who aren't people at all) fly under Col. Riley's radar. These are characters you might not really notice till a second or third viewing, or whom you forget about until you rewatch years later. Yet once you do pick up on their presence, they become some of the most memorable figures on the show, however fleeting. Some actually are immediately recognizable from your very first visit to Twin Peaks, but don't quite fit in with other characters for a variety of reasons.

Ok, maybe "hidden" isn't exactly the right word - but I wasn't sure what else to go with (despite several interesting suggestions when I posed the question on Twitter). These aren't all "minor" characters, especially compared to some who get their own standalone entries. Nor are their appearances necessarily "brief" - some "appear" in loads of episodes. So "hidden" it is. Some are literally so, cloaked in background appearances or, at least in one case, never actually appearing at all. Others are "hidden" in a more figurative sense, cast in the shadow of more famous characters yet doing their part to fill out their little corners of the universe.

In truth, there is a quite simple criterion for who appears in this and yesterday's entry: these are characters who didn't speak in at least three scenes on Twin Peaks and therefore didn't qualify for their own individual character study. I had to draw the line somewhere. Yesterday, I very quickly covered sixty, but today I want to spend a little more time on the next thirty names. This is a subjective list: simply the ones I personally find most memorable and/or interesting, ranked according to my own whim.

Time for these thirty to come out of hiding.


What better beginning than a character whose face is literally hidden the entire time she's onscreen? Visiting his brother in jail, Jerry Horne conjures up a childhood memory when he notices the bunk beds in the cell. "Remember you on the top bunk, and me on the bottom, and Louise Dombrowski dancing on the hook rug with a flashlight?" Cue a strobe-y, very early nineties flashback, goosed by one of Angelo Badalamenti's most memorable themes, of a girl sashaying back and forth in her socks. I always assumed she was a babysitter, given her apparent age difference from the boys we see watching her, and the fact that she's in their house late at night. Shining a flashlight in their eyes, this dark silhouette leaves a strong impression on most Twin Peaks fans. Some find the scene too over-the-top (and long), but on my first viewing I considered it one of the last truly magical Peaks-ian moments before the show got a bit derailed. Incidentally, the crew member enlisted to play Louise is David Fincher's sister and the director who decided to turn a throwaway line from the script into an actual filmed sequence is Zooey Deschanel's dad.


Irene is a real estate agent who appears in a couple scenes with Agent Cooper after he considers settling down in Twin Peaks. Instead, with Irene's aid, Coop discovers a sleazy drug den called Dead Dog Farm. That association is probably part of what places Irene on this list - the oddly Lynchian property is one of my favorite locations in the often unsatisfying mid-season episodes, and Irene delivers a memorable (if rather obscure) soliloquy about the legend of the "Dead Dog." She's present as her potential client discovers cocaine in torn-up seat cushions; that's the last we see of her. Geri Keams is also one of the only Native American actors on a show set in a state with the heaviest Native population in the continental U.S. Michael Horse, who plays the only remaining Native character on Twin Peaks, linked her up with the production. Keams discusses her career on and offscreen (as an author and live performer) in this wonderful interview with Brad Dukes.


A sleazy parole officer visiting Norma Jennings on official business (her husband Hank is up for a hearing), Wilson tries to insinuate himself in her business. "You're quite a girl, Norma," he leers. "You must get all kinds of Romeos in here begging for favors. How do you keep them from your door?" Norma shuts this down quickly, by reminding him how her husband got in prison in the first place (without quite throwing him under the bus: "...expects to become a productive member of society real soon"). Wilson reappears in the following episode before Norma reunites with Hank and, as if reminded by Hank's intimidating presence how far he overstepped his bounds, tries to take back his come-ons the previous day. Twin Peaks is full of devious little hounddogs, and Wilson is one of the earliest. He also offers Norma her first opportunity, before Hank enters the picture, to stand her ground. Unfortunately, Hank is much better than Wilson at bullshitting. Oddly enough, Google reveals that twenty-three years after his appearance on the show, this very minor character's name was adopted for the protagonist of a series of young adult novels about the erotic adventures of an adolescent girl. Go figure.


Bernie's brothers, all of whom sport absurd French-Canadian accents (Bernie's may be the most ridiculous) are featured much more prominently in Twin Peaks. Oldest brother Jean is a primary villain of mid-season two and middle brother Jacques is a major suspect near the end of season one (with the actor reappearing in the prequel film and - this is really weird since the character is dead - apparently in season three). But the baby of the family is the first we meet, gagged and held prisoner by the Bookhouse Boys. He refuses to divulge any information about the family drug ring but his silence is not rewarded. The next time we see him, we don't really see him at all: Bernie has become a tightly bound corpse wrapped in canvas by Leo Johnson. Leo boasts that he warned the youngest Renault not to snitch and then, when he didn't, killed him anyway. Bernard is the first Renault to go but he won't be the last; one by one all of his siblings are systematically killed off. If it's any consolation, all of their killers fare pretty badly in the long run too.


This leader of the Norwegian business contingent is actually in three scenes, but only speaks in the second and third. Yet his best line is featured in the first scene, recounted by Ben Horne: "If you'll permit me, Sven, to repeat what you told me this morning after your run, 'My air sacs have never felt so good!'" Then again, it's pretty memorable when, encountering his potential business partner's daughter for the first time, he innocently asks, "Excuse me, is there something wrong, young pretty girl?" When she tells him about the recent brutal murder in this supposedly idyllic investment opportunity, Sven & co. storm of the Great Northern, abandoning the contract they were ready to sign for the Ghostwood Estates & Country Club. Ben tries to stop him and Sven gets off one last memorable zinger, when Ben tells him, "You're throwing away the deal of a lifetime": "Better that than throw a lifetime away!"Twin Peaks Archive has an interview with Stenseth which is worth reading to the end - the Lynch autograph anecdote is priceless.


Caroline's role in the show is an unusual one. It's hugely important to Cooper's development - she is the married woman he fell in love with years before he came to Twin Peaks, murdered by her psychotic husband who also happened to be Cooper's partner. Since she's dead, we might expect to never meet her but in fact we see her twice, three times if you include a photo in Cooper's wallet - but none of these appearances were in the drafts available online! Both Uli Edel and David Lynch may have conceived her cameos themselves after her photo shoot: Edel in a hazy, hovering flashback that appears over Cooper's head as he remembers her, and Lynch using her as some kind of ghostly presence in the Black Lodge in the series' final half hour. And can we even say that the woman we see in the Lodge is Caroline? She has the milky blue eyes that signify "doppelganger" and twice she is replaced by Annie in Cooper's (and our) eyes. We never really get to know Caroline but thanks to the directors' interventions she at least gets to be more of a presence than she would have been otherwise. Ten years ago, Mathers was interviewed by Twin Peaks Archive, and shared some fascinating anecdotes from the set of the last episode: "He wrote it in his head and let us know what he wanted us to say. To me, it was as if he was trying to find the right words to patch the holes in the boat so it wouldn't sink."


With his crackling voice and cryptic manner of speech, Jack is a purely Lynchian figure. He appears in a weird little room off to the side of Hap's Diner in the town of Deer Meadow, in the early section of the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me; a longer cut of his exchange with two FBI agents appears in the deleted scenes collection from the film, The Missing Pieces. Two little gags are embedded in this scene, both having to do with greetings. Jack tells the detectives that the woman who runs the diner is named "Irene, and it is night. Don't go any further with it." (This is a rather labored pun on the song "Goodnight, Irene" which gets extended a bit further in The Missing Pieces). Secondly, even more subtly, Jack wears a conventional printed nametag that reads, "Say 'Hello' to Jack" but he's crossed out "Hello" and replaced it with a grouchy "Goodbye." Goodbye, Jack. Goodnight, Irene. Anyone who appreciates Lynch's take on humorous hostility will treasure this guy for the half-minute or so he's onscreen.


Two men at the Roadhouse looking for a good time, Tommy and Buck are truckers according to the Fire Walk With Me screenplay. Technically, I could have gotten away with giving them their own character studies since they have a bit of dialogue in three scenes (including The Missing Pieces), but these all merge into one intense sequence so it felt like the duo belong here on this list instead. When we meet them, the men are approaching teenage prostitute Laura Palmer, arranged by bartender/pimp Jacques Renault, and when her demure friend demands to tag along, they seem eager to have her. Heading across the border to the sleazy Partyland club, Buck pairs off with Laura and later her friend Ronette, while Tommy focuses on Donna, drugging and nearly raping her before Laura intervenes. The two men mostly serve as foils for the teens' drama but they also feel like authentic characters with their own history and psychology, albeit not a very deep one (Rivers appears in Moving Through Time, the documentary about the making of Fire Walk With Me, and has a lot of interesting observations about the scene they shot). We quickly get the sense that Laura has known many, many Tommys and Bucks over the year and that - if it wasn't for Donna's incident and Laura's own impending death - they would probably remember this night far longer than her.


On the other hand, this prostitute is likely to remember her own encounter much longer than her john will. That's because it's her first night at One-Eyed Jack's and Ben Horne, the owner, makes a regular habit of going to bed with "the new girl" whenever one arrives (importantly, this scene sets the template for what we later learn happened with Laura during her short stay at Jack's, and what comes dangerously close to happening with Audrey when she hides behind a mask and her unsuspecting father pays a visit). The young woman does her best to appear sultry and inviting, but there's a certain nervousness and discomfort as well - many of the girls at Jack's, perhaps all, are teenagers trafficked from the perfume counter in Ben's legitimate business across the border. The Twin Peaks Rewatch podcast does a particularly great job dissecting the New Girl's complicated reaction to Ben. An enthusiastic Woods shared own her thoughts on the memorable scene in interviews with Brad Dukes and Twin Peaks Archive many years later.


We actually see Ms. Honeycutt twice in the annals of Twin Peaks. The first time, she's taking attendance in her homeroom on what appears to be an ordinary morning. From the way she interacts with her students (especially James with his odd "Yo!") we can see her affection for them. Then the cops arrive to pull her aside and whisper some bad news, and Margaret's devastated reaction speaks volumes. One of her students, Laura Palmer, died the night before. The second time we see the teacher her face is blurred (we only know it's her from the credits) - this now the day before that memorable incident, and Laura is still alive, but she's suffering immensely. This is one of the many ways Fire Walk With Me literally flips the script on the iconic pilot. Jones would appear a year later as the mother of a missing girl in Homeward Bound, directed by Twin Peaks editor Duwayne Dunham. In that case, thankfully, the tragedy is averted.


After Sheriff Truman, Dr. Shelvy is the second person Agent Cooper interacts with in Twin Peaks. As with the sheriff, their encounter flips our expectations - instead of an ordinary outsider initiated into the ways of an eccentric small town, it's the FBI Agent who is offbeat and the townspeople who seem normal, and deeply perplexed by his unusual ways (this dynamic, of course, will eventually be complicated). Dr. Shelvy is all business and a bit miffed by Cooper's insistence on investigating the patient's fingernails as well as his peculiar line of questioning. She also seems very concerned for the traumatized Ronette, even calling her "Ronnie" (suggesting that perhaps she knows her from the community). All in all, Dr. Shelvy is one of many characters (and the hospital one of many locations) to give the Twin Peaks pilot a more "realistic" air that will eventually become more cartoonish as the show continues. A few years ago, Twin Peaks Archiveinterviewed Pettiford-Wates (who later became a doctor herself, albeit a PhD rather than MD) in which she recalls working with Lynch, shares some of her other accomplishments, and admits that she gave up watching Twin Peaks soon after the pilot aired - it wasn't for her. She also shares an amusing story about arriving on set for the first time.


Sid makes a splash during her very brief appearance in a couple episodes as Judge Sternwood's legal assistant (and, it is occasionally implied, perhaps something more to the wizened old circuit judge). Cooper and Truman are certainly impressed with her physique and presence, and later by her skill in mixing up the legendary Yukon Sucker Punch (a fictional drink that fans have sought to make real). Sid nearly got her own character study - she is in three scenes, but as it turns out she has nothing to say in one of them (in "court," she's silently doubling as a stenographer). She also barely speaks in her other scenes; perhaps a lost opportunity, given the actress' own quick wit and fast repartee (evidenced in two Xena fanzine interviews, from 1999 and 2001, the second especially). Indeed, a lot about this character feels like a missed chance, with a sense that the writers are building her up for something that never pays off. (One first-time viewer, I think on the podcast Fire Talk With Me, even expected her to become a romantic rival to Audrey for Cooper's affections.) Nonetheless, Sid and her blue alcoholic concoctions have left an outsize impression on Twin Peaks viewers.


Here's another character with an image bigger than his several scenes, who also nearly earned a standalone entry. Joey has a decent role in the pilot, escorting Donna from the Roadhouse to a wooded rendezvous with James - even briefly arousing suspicion from Sheriff Truman ("Joey Paulson - that's a 'J'"). With his curly-haired ponytail and leather jacket, he strikes a typically Twin Peaks balance between eighties and fifties; we later learn he's one of the Bookhouse Boys when he appears alongside a bound-and-gagged Bernard Renault, and he hovers in the background when a drugged-up Audrey is returned from One-Eyed Jack's. But he has nothing to say after the pilot and is hardly in any scenes, eventually crowded out by other Bookhouse Boys like Cappy. In an interview with Brad Dukes, Vadset expresses regret that the character never went any further, and chats about the difference between working in the Seattle-area locations for the pilot and the reconstructed sets in southern California for the rest of the series.


We don't get much explicit religion in Twin Peaks, despite a whole lot of spirituality. Father Clarence, who delivers the eulogy at Laura's funeral, appears to be a Protestant minister. Indeed, the Twin Peaks All-Access Guide tells us the Palmers were Lutherans (in one of my favorite sections of that odd little book, we learn the religions of all many of the town's families - the Hurleys and Pulaskis are Catholics, the Hornes Episcopalians, and so on). In a very Laura-centric episodes, this man of the cloth offers a tender portrait of the dead girl, recalling her as an inquisitive, lively Sunday School student. But this warm image is immediately undercut by Laura's boyfriend who shouts out "We all knew she was in trouble!" We never get to find out how much of that trouble was known by Father Clarence. We do, however, reunite with him much later under happier circumstances (sort of): presiding over the wedding of Dougie Milford and Lana Budding. Once again the poor pastor is interrupted, this time by Dougie's brother who takes the usually ceremonial "speak now or forever hold your peace" as an invitation. We last glimpse Father Clarence grinning in the background of the reception. Unfortunately, he won't be able to appear in the new series; Applegate, a memorable character actor with parts in many notable films, died in a house fire in 2003.


Here's a bit character who may be a harbinger of things to come. The first time Donna visits this little house, she meets a Mrs. Tremond who is cryptic and bedridden. But when she brings Cooper to investigate, following the suicide of the Tremonds' neighbor, they discover a completely different woman: colorfully dressed, fully mobile, a grandma who looks like she's ready to jet off to Florida and back rather than kick the bucket. It's inexplicable, especially if we consider that Donna probably visited this house many times on her Meals on Wheels route. Later (or, within the story itself, earlier), in Fire Walk With Me, a similar routine is suggested when Cooper visits an abandoned lot in a trailer park and discovers that two families in a row lived there, both with the name Chalfont (he mentions the old woman had a grandson, suggesting they are the same "Tremonds" we met on the show). Confused yet? Ever since the new series was announced back in 2014, I've humored the idea that "alternative universes" (or the Lynchian equivalent thereof) may play a part in the story, and perhaps this lady, twenty-seven years beforehand, is our first nudge in that direction. A scene in which characters knock on a door and find that the "wrong" woman answers also reminds me of Mulholland Drive (a connection I'll return to in a few entries), a film that obviously plays with parallel realities itself.


When the Nadine Hurley storyline is already knee-deep in ridiculousness, Coach Wingate steps in to take it all the way. Like Wendy Robie and Gary Hershberger (who play Nadine and Mike), Taylor fully commits to the absurdity, recruiting Nadine when he witnesses her strength firsthand at the gym. Later he delivers a passionate speech about a football coach who overcame his racism thanks to the skill of a black athlete on his team, using this to justify his inclusion of Nadine on the wrestling squad. Taylor (who passed away quite young from a heart attack) has a lot of fun with the part, and appeared in many other TV shows as well (he was also a frequent singer of the national anthem at baseball games). But his greatest legacy was left on the stage rather than the screen. The actor originated the part of Audrey II in the classic off-Broadway production Little Shop of Horrors, sitting at the back of the stage near the puppeteers and providing the boisterous voice for the giant killer plant. He also co-wrote and led the ensemble of the long-running revue It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues, receiving a Tony nomination (very controversially, the cast's performance was cut last minute from the show, causing an uproar and leading to a make-up appearance on Dave Letterman though unfortunately the show never quite recovered from that snub).


As we learned from Mark Frost's recent book The Secret History of Twin Peaks, world-historical figures as prominent as Meriwether Lewis, Jack Parsons, and Richard Nixon have worn the iconic Owl Cave Ring (although David Lynch first introduced the ring to us in Fire Walk With Me, on the finger of a young unknown drifter named Teresa Banks). The last time we encounter the ring in the Twin Peaks narrative is in the section of The Missing Pieces that takes place after the series finale. An unnamed nurse lifts the ring from Annie Blackburn's finger, places it on her own, and admires herself in the hospital mirror. I don't think this will be the last time we see this totemic object. Unfortunately, Tinling (who reportedly had a small part on the Twin Peaks-lite show Northern Exposure) isn't on the cast list for the new series. Unless the part has been recast, the nurse's own fate will be met offscreen, and perhaps even left mysterious (after all, I don't think we'll ever find out how the hell it traveled from the President of the United States to a murder victim living in a trailer park in fifteen years). The scene with the nurse is also a relic of an earlier vision for Fire Walk With Me, in which the ring is presented as purely dangerous (only late in the production, or perhaps even in post-production, did Lynch reconceive its ambiguous role in Laura's salvation). Yet here it is now, remastered and remixed and included in the apparently canonical deleted scenes selection, amplified by Frost's own recent work. Even if only secondhand, I hope we get to find out where the ring led this nurse.


Of all the characters who only appear in the pilot, Principal Wolchezk is my personal favorite, and probably one of the most well-remembered one-off characters in the series. He plays an important narrative role, making the first public announcement of Laura's death and then breaking down into sobs - showing us just how much the beloved homecoming queen meant to the community. According to Evans, his big moment was supposed to be a filmed rehearsal, but he genuinely began weeping and Lynch liked it so much he used this take (the actor shares this story in an audio and written interview, alongside the anecdote that he was likely born in the very same hospital room as Lynch, a couple years later). Evans was a native Montanan with political ambitions who ended up in Vietnam and prison before turning to acting instead. He's had memorable walk-ons in Near Dark and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but this moment can stand with any of them, haunting the rest of the series and eventually the film in which we finally meet the girl who made her high school principal cry.


Toad is certainly the most beloved extra in Twin Peaks, a featured extra - often written directly into the script - but an extra nonetheless, with no dialogue save, perhaps, a mumbled ad lib off to the side. A trucker who adores Norma's food at the RR Diner, sometimes to her embarrassment (she and Hank hustle the messy eater off into the kitchen when a suspected restaurant critic arrives), Toad can't beat Pete in chess (but then, who can?) and he's apparently a poor tipper ("Thanks, Toad, I'll get this into my retirement fund ASAP."). We don't know much more than that, although the actor himself was as a production assistant on Twin Peaks who suffered a personal tragedy during the shooting (the season two premiere sports a closing dedication to Kevin Young, Jr., the actor's infant child who died around this time). Mya McBriar at Twin Peaks Fanatic recently paid tribute to Toad, one of the characters who best fits the "hidden" designation; you can probably gauge a viewer's investment in the series by whether or not they know, and smile, at his name.


Just outside the top ten, I want to pay tribute to another character who never speaks and who is onscreen far less than Toad or most other names on this list. Yet this unnamed trailer park denizen, described as "Curious Woman" in the closing credits of Fire Walk With Me, has inspired numerous legends and theories. For years, it was alleged that David Lynch himself played the part in drag. In fact the actress was a local whom Lynch was determined to work with (as she says in this interview with Glastonberry Grove, her car broke down and she called them to say "go on without me" but they sent an escort to pick her up instead). Who is the woman? Christian Hartleban, a repository of fascinating insight into (and speculation about) Twin Peaks, proposes that she's the actual inhabitant of the trailer presented as "Teresa's". He wonders if she was beaten and kicked out by the local sheriff's department so they could cover up the real crime scene in an attempt to mislead the FBI. This idea led me to wonder if this woman and Teresa switched trailers at one point, like Diane and her neighbor in Mulholland Drive. Nobody really knows what's up with the wounded lady, but more important is the eerie vibe she evokes, leading directly to Carl Rodd's thousand-yard stare and memorable statement about the places he's been and where he wants to stay.


And then there were ten. Donna Hayward's little sister Gerstein is the perfect person to initiate this final stretch: she's only in one scene but is memorably costumed and characterized, even receiving the rare honor (usually just afforded to Laura's portrait) of appearing under the closing credits, where she plays some barrelhouse piano. Witt was a Lynch favorite - six years earlier she was cast in a very memorable role in Dune, and three years after this episode aired she'd aged enough to play Crispin Glover's wife in a sketch on Lynch's HBO special Hotel Room (though she appears to be much younger on Twin Peaks, she's actually about fifteen). Furthermore, she has been cast in the new series, which is ironic since...well, we'll get to that in a moment. Gerstein contributes to the ethereal mood of this very unusual episode, setting the musical ambiance for the "Hayward Supper Club" (Witt was in fact a child prodigy) and accompanying Leland Palmer's manic performance of "Get Happy" before he collapses.


Harriet, Donna's other sibling, appears at the Supper Club with Gerstein to read a poem about Laura. But we meet her much earlier: in the pilot she promises (and fails) to cover for her big sister when Donna sneaks out to rendezvous with James. Harriet is struggling with a line in a poem (perhaps the one we'll later hear) before settling delightfully on "the full blossom of the evening." What's the deal with the Hayward girls? The family appears in many episodes of the series but in all except two, Donna is the only daughter we see. Various podcasts and blogs have come up with humorous theories about why (the Twin Peaks Podcast had the most elaborate and cheeky, involving - as I recall - Doc Hayward being a serial murderer and medical fraud). Last year, Lynch and Frost added an extra twist to the speculation when they revealed a massive cast list for the new show. It included both Wallenfels and Witt...but neither Lara Flynn Boyle nor Moira Kelly (who played Donna in Fire Walk With Me when Boyle was unavailable). Donna is one of the most important characters in Twin Peaks, but for whatever reason it looks like we won't be seeing her again, instead spending time with her barely-glimpsed but memorable sisters (who will now be in their forties). I know several Twin Peaks fans who wouldn't complain about that.


In a show replete with noir references, insurance salesman Herbert Neff is one of the most obvious. Not only does he engage in some very Double Indemnity innuendo with Catherine Martell, he is literally named after Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), the lead character of that classic 1944 film. Neff's role in the episode is brief - but boy, does Lowenthal play the heck out of it! Deceptively nebbishy, he quickly reveals a subtle intelligence and steely resolve; of all the bit parts in Twin Peaks, this is the one you could really see continuing on the series with all kinds of twists and turns in his character arc. Alas, it was not to be. But I like to imagine Neff kept playing a role in the story's events. Maybe he helped Catherine sneak away, planning her disguise after the mill fire. Perhaps, if we want to get really cynical in tracing Double Indemnity's narrative path, Neff had something to do with a certain safety deposit box, and decades later he is happily married to his sugar mamma. Or, if we allow a more charitable reading (and take the show's presentation of Eckhardt as the bank explosion's mastermind at face value) maybe Neff's noted "ambition" never paid off. I like to picture him, gray-haired, wrinkled, still waiting eagerly by the phone a quarter-century later, hoping that Catherine will call back for "anything".


We are definitely getting to the part of the list where the characters are up this high based on subjective more than objective criteria. Irene never fails to cracks me up - the unapologetically grouchy host of Hap's Diner (in Deer Meadow) is a hilariously Bizarro doppelganger of warm-hearted Norma in the RR, and her rumpled appearance further draws the contrast. The repartee between her and the FBI agents is priceless: "Do you ever take cocaine, Irene?""No, I do not! I never took cocaine or any other drug. I don't take drugs.""Nicotine's a drug. Caffeine's a drug.""Who's the towhead?" (Ok, it's much funnier in their deadpan delivery.) Despite Irene's occasional stonewalling of the detectives ("If you ask me, her death was what you might call...a freak accident"), she also passes on a vital clue. From Irene we first learn a new bit of Twin Peaks mythology: Teresa's left arm went numb before she died. We will later witness a similar phenomenon in Laura's dream, before she discovers Teresa's ring in her hand. So Irene does serve some purpose after all...though she doesn't serve much else. "You wanna hear about our specials? We don't have any."


This stylish, elegant employee of the notorious Horne's Department Store perfume counter is essentially Audrey's ticket to One-Eyed Jack's. Audrey spies from a closet as the smarmy Emory Battis compliments Jenny on her performance the previous weekend and offers her a small glass unicorn (reference to The Glass Menagerie?) and an invitation to return to the Canadian bordello. Jenny displays a cynical, savvy ability to play the game both in Emory's presence ("hey, as long as they're rich") and behind his back ("what do I want with a horned horse"). Later, a vaguely hesitant Jenny is tricked into providing Blackie's phone number. Sadly, we never get to see her at One-Eyed Jack's or anywhere else in Twin Peaks (although Lynch offered her a memorable, rather radically different part in Wild at Heart, dancing topless for the twisted Mr. Reindeer while he goes to the bathroom). Jenny's cool, sleek presence is missed but she makes a splash in her few scenes, elevating her near the top of this list. She's a personal favorite I'd love to see again in 2017 but sadly she's not on the cast list so it seems like we won't. Jenny will have to remain the slightly mysterious, aloof but clear-eyed girl of episode five in perpetuity.


One of the most memorable faces in Fire Walk With Me is a mystery onscreen and off (this is Cole's only film credit). Lil is introduced by FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (with whom the actress shares a - pseudonymous? - last name) as "my mother's sister girl" before she scurries up to the small group assembled on a Washington airfield to blink, dance, open and close her fist, and keep her hand in her pocket the whole time. She's clad head to toe in red except for a blue rose on her blouse, and she exhibits what Agent Chet Desmond calls "a sour look on her face." The result is hilarious and more than a bit maddening. Desmond later decodes her every gesture as a series of cryptic messages, telling him and his partner what to expect as they head into the hostile town of Deer Meadow to investigate a murder. It's also either Lynch telling us to pay close attention for clues in the rest of Fire Walk With Me...or teasing Twin Peaks' most ardent fans for their desire to turn every little throwaway gag into an essential piece of overanalyzed evidence. You decide. In the process of either codifying or mocking mystery, these two Coles create a new one...


Poor Dell Mibbler - he has only one scene in Twin Peaks before being blown to bits (if those glasses tossed through the air are any indication). Then again, it's one hell of a scene both in accomplishment (I'd probably place it on a personal top ten, largely thanks to this character's contribution) and duration (again, thanks to ponderous old Dell). Mibbler is the manager of the Twin Peaks Savings & Loan. We immediately get the sense that the place doesn't see much activity but this is going to be an unusually busy morning: Audrey shows up to stage a protest against the Ghostwood Development Plan on environmental grounds, and then one of the town's supposedly dead patriarchs - Andrew Packard - appears out of nowhere, confusing the already addled oldster. And then, of course, there's the bomb in the safety deposit box. Although Mibbler is described in the teleplay as merely "unctuous," Lynch had something more in mind, casting the fellow who played a similar part in Wild at Heart and allowing him to wander back and forth over the set for minutes at a time while the camera kept rolling. The character does have one more appearance in the larger narrative: a scene was shot between him, Pete, and Josie for Fire Walk With Me in which he demands a refund for an inexactly-measured piece of lumber. The scene has no place whatsoever in a dark horror film focused almost exclusively on Laura Palmer, but fortunately it found its way into The Missing Pieces collection a few years ago.


For the final three (technically, four) characters, we're going to depart from the human. Later in this series, I'll have a whole entry - one of my longest - devoted to a catch-all category: "The Spirits of Twin Peaks." There you'll find Bob, the Man From Another Place, the Giant, the Tremonds, and various other ethereal beings, including those who pop up for just a few seconds in Fire Walk With Me. It seemed right to combine all these characters into one entry, since some of them overlap and all may be manifestations of the same energy in different forms. Yet the angels feel different. Perhaps it's their historically specific look: unlike, say, a red-suited little man or a jean-jacketed demon, these angels are cloaked in the conventional Western garb that has been associated with angels for centuries: long, flowing white robes, feathery wings, a glow that evokes the halos of religious art. Perhaps it's that very Christian association, whereas the other spirits have a more pagan feel to them. Perhaps the purity of the angels distinguishes them from all the other ambiguous-to-evil spirits (although one could certainly make a case for the Giant as straightforwardly benevolent, even he has his skeptics). The angels are clearly harbingers of good, rescuing Ronette from her bonds and later visiting Laura in the Red Room to offer touching relief after she has died. For whatever reason, I've treated them separately and given them their own space. It's also worth pointing out that there are two angels in the film (they are sometimes wrongly described as a single entity). The one who appears in the train car is clearly the guardian for Ronette, whose prayer may summon her (though I have another theory). With long blonde hair, this angel looks a little like Laura - suggesting that maybe Laura has brought her into being and is, in a way, Ronette's savior. The other angel, Laura's guardian who appears in the Red Room, has shorter, curly hair and very strongly resembles the angel who disappeared from the picture hanging on Laura's bedroom wall (a production still, featuring the actress in costume against a painted background, essentially confirms that this is who this angel is supposed to be). I like to think that the angels can only be summoned on someone else's behalf by a compassionate companion; just as Laura brings the angel for Ronette, it must be Cooper who calls Laura's angel to watch over her. Essential reading: MacMillan, who plays Laura's angel, gave a phenomenal, heartfelt interview to Brad Dukes at Twin Peaks Archive a few years ago about how much the role meant to her, Lynch and actress Sheryl Lee.


Until tomorrow and the first official entry, we've reached the end of characters played by people - or at least visually played by people. Waldo the Myna bird does speak, and his voice is provided by the actress who plays Laura Palmer (whose words the gifted mimic is supposedly repeating). One of the most iconic presences in Twin Peaks, the bird is in three scenes on the show and one scene in the film: after witnessing Laura's kidnapping, he is discovered in Jacques Renault's cabin a few days later by Cooper and the sheriff's department after they've requisitioned his files from a local veterinarian. Waldo is too frightened, hungry, and tired to "talk" until a few moments before his death (shot from outside the sheriff's window by Leo Johnson, who fears he will be incriminated), but his final words are captured for posterity by Cooper's voice-activated tape recorder, doubling as an expression of both his and Laura's fear: "Leo, no!" With feathers and blood strewn all over the donuts displayed beneath his cage on the conference room table, Waldo has one of the most poignant, if slightly absurd, deaths in the whole series (it beats the giant pawn by about a mile). Apparently even Waldo "had a thing for Laura" so it's appropriate that in his dying moments, he's able to give her voice.


There are several Twin Peaks character we never meet who could justifiably make this list...Bob Lydecker, say, or Judy (nah, we'll keep her out of this), or even Diane Shapiro (Hawk's girlfriend, "Brandeis, PhD"). But it's another Diane who deserves this top spot, one of the most famous unseen characters in TV history. Her name is the first word Agent Cooper speaks on the show, addressing his tape recorder as he describes his approach to the town where he will spend the remainder of the series. Some fans theorize that she doesn't actually exist, at least not as a recipient of Cooper's tapes (she's either a completely imaginary figure or an ex-lover) or even that Coop has given his recorder a human nickname (think of it as the proto-Siri). However, most evidence - especially spin-off material like Cooper's autobiography - suggests that she is Cooper's assistant, who has transcribed and/or responded to his audio dispatches for years. Then again, we come closest to meeting Diane in The Missing Pieces, as Cooper does calisthenics in her office doorway and conducts a one-sided dialogue with her; somehow, we never hear her side of the conversation! So perhaps there's something to the "figment of his imagination" interpretation after all. Speculation has emerged that we'll finally meet Diane in the new series, that perhaps she'll even be played by Laura Dern (who was memorably Kyle MacLachlan's romantic partner in Blue Velvet, and real life too). That would be pretty good pay-off, but part of me hopes we never do get to see Diane. She's iconic just the way she is, one of Twin Peaks' many unique touches - truly a hidden character.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.

Julie is a woman who just wants to do her job, and is overwhelmed by the disasters big and small that befall her in a single day.



Friday, February 24, 1989
Julie is a concierge at the Great Northern Hotel, concerned with making her boss Ben Horne’s business run smoothly. Unfortunately, this is not her lucky day. Interrupting Ben’s meeting with Norwegian investors, Julie delivers an urgent message to Ben’s attorney Leland Palmer: his panicked wife is on the phone. Then the sheriff arrives at the hotel, also looking for Leland. Uh-oh. Later that afternoon, Julie is told to keep the bad news under wraps: the Norwegians must not discover that Leland’s daughter has died...but Ben’s bratty daughter Audrey has other ideas. She spills coffee all over Julie’s paperwork and while the hapless employee is distracted, Audrey walks in on the Norwegians. The next thing we know, they are storming out of the hotel in outrage, suitcases in hand. Obviously Audrey has done exactly what Julie herself was told not to do. Julie helplessly slams the front desk bell over and over, shouting, “The Norwegians are leaving! The Norwegians are leaving!” No kidding. I'm guessing this was Julie’s last day working for Ben Horne.

Julie has a normal job disrupted by an abnormal event and at least one eccentric character (the boss’ daughter). That said, her final scene has an absurdist tone, especially with her repetitive proclamations, suggesting that the town and the show may be more off-kilter than they initially seemed. Laura’s death is obviously a shocking event, but it’s also somewhat secondary to the business being conducted, despite its potential to disrupt said business. The instructions Julie receives imply that Ben may be amoral, selfish, and greedy, while her interaction with Audrey reveals the spoiled girl’s playful but destructive personality.

Julie is one of the few characters in these character studies to appear in only one episode. As such, her character doesn’t really develop or evolve over time, but she does have an arc. In her three scenes, she goes from professional to slightly flustered to completely panicked. This is one of many examples of how Laura’s death has thrown the town off-kilter, changing lives forever. That’s certainly the case if Julie loses her job, which her absence from future episodes suggests.

Like seemingly everyone involved with Twin Peaks, Caldwell has lived a fascinating life. Friends with Nico and Allen Ginsberg in the late sixties, before traveling around the country in a hippie van, she's resided everywhere from the Florida Keys to a “back-to-the-earth” cabin in Oregon. She got the part in Twin Peaks by talking about “barbed phlegm” with David Lynch in her audition, and eventually quit acting at a mass audition for a toilet-cleaning product: “I didn’t become an actress to perpetuate capitalism.” Now she lives in Turkey – about a year ago she posted this moving piece about Syrian refugees. These anecdotes, and much, much more were discovered through a Twin Peaks Archive interview– what an incredible resource that site is. (film pictured: On Adim - Ten Steps, c. 2012)


Caldwell only worked with David Lynch. In fact, when she auditioned for him, her role wasn’t even written (she read for a waitress part) so Lynch may have invented the part specifically for her. It’s unclear how much of a role Mark Frost had in this creation but it sounds like, at least at this stage, Lynch usually approached Frost with new ideas and worked them out with him, so Frost may have pitched in on the dialogue and scene conceptions.

Julie is onscreen for roughly two minutes (including the time we only hear her voice, shouting…). She is in three scenes in one episode, taking place in one day. All of her scenes are set in the Great Northern Hotel. She appears to share the most screentime with Audrey. Like a lot of other one-off professional characters, she’s in the pilot more than major players like Jacoby, Nadine, or the Log Lady.




• Julie looks a little nervous when she approaches Leland, as if she knows this is a bad idea but it has to be done.

• Immediately after sending Truman to Leland, Julie’s face shifts from confusion into a dawning comprehension that something terrible has happened.

• When “Bob” tells her to keep Laura’s death under wraps, Julie’s expression and “OK, Bob” reply (which Audrey instantly mimics) suggest a wise understanding of the unfortunate, rather callous necessity he advises. Julie is someone who knows her job and does it; she neither wastes time fretting over the ugly aspects nor attempting to justify them to herself – she feels this is a luxury she doesn't have.


SHOWTIME:No, Caldwell is not on the cast list for 2017. At any rate, she never even watched the Twin Peaks pilot until prodded by an interviewer twenty-three years later, and wasn’t much taken with it. As for the character, I think it’s safe to say she found employment elsewhere, hopefully somewhere much less stressful.