Twin Peaks is an American mystery horror drama television series created by Mark

Frost and David Lynch that premiered on April 8, 1990, on ABC. It was one of the top-
rated series of 1990, but declining ratings led to its cancellation after its second season in 1991.
It nonetheless gained a cult following and has been referenced in a wide variety of
media.[3][4][5][6] In subsequent years, Twin Peaks has often been listed among the greatest
television series of all time.[7][8][9][10][11]
The series follows an investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan)
into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the fictional suburban town
of Twin Peaks, Washington. The show's narrative draws on elements of detective fiction, but
its uncanny tone, supernatural elements, and campy, melodramatic portrayal of eccentric
characters also draw on American soap opera and horrortropes.[12][13][6][14] Like much of Lynch's
work, it is distinguished by surrealism, offbeat humor, and
distinctive cinematography.[15] The acclaimed score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti in
collaboration with Lynch.[16]
The series was followed by a 1992 feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, that serves as a
prequel to the series. Following a hiatus of over 25 years, the show returned in May 2017 with a
third season on Showtime, marketed as Twin Peaks: The Return. The season comprised 18
episodes written by Lynch and Frost, and was entirely directed by Lynch. Many original cast
members, including MacLachlan returned.

Contents

 1Plot
o 1.1Season 1
o 1.2Season 2
o 1.3Season 3: The Return
 2Cast
o 2.1Main cast
o 2.2Secondary cast
o 2.3Recurring cast
 3Production
o 3.1Development
o 3.2Casting
o 3.3Music
o 3.4Filming locations
o 3.5Filming
 4Response
o 4.1Critical acclaim
o 4.2Declining ratings
 5Influence
 6Merchandise
o 6.1Home media releases
o 6.2Books and audio
 7Theatrical film
 8References
 9Sources
 10External links

Plot[edit]
Main article: List of Twin Peaks episodes
 Originally aired

Season Episodes

First aired Last aired Network

1 8 April 8, 1990 May 23, 1990

ABC

2 22 September 30, 1990 June 10, 1991

Fire Walk with Me August 28, 1992 N/A

The Return 18 May 21, 2017 September 3, 2017 Showtime

Season 1[edit]

Season one of Twin Peaksfocuses on the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee,
pictured in 1990).

In 1989, the logger Pete Martell discovers a naked corpse wrapped in plastic on the bank of a
river outside the town of Twin Peaks, Washington. When Sheriff Harry S. Truman, his deputies,
and Dr. Will Hayward arrive, the body is identified as homecoming queen Laura Palmer. A badly
injured second girl, Ronette Pulaski, is discovered in a fugue state.
FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate. Cooper's initial examination of Laura's
body reveals a tiny typed letter "R" inserted under her fingernail. Cooper informs the community
that Laura's death matches the signature of a killer who murdered another girl in southwestern
Washington the previous year, and that evidence indicates the killer lives in Twin Peaks.
The authorities discover through Laura's diary that she has been living a double life. She was
cheating on her boyfriend, football captain Bobby Briggs, with biker James Hurley, and
prostituting herself with the help of truck driver Leo Johnson and drug dealer Jacques Renault.
Laura was also addicted to cocaine, which she obtained by coercing Bobby into doing business
with Jacques.
Laura's father, attorney Leland Palmer, suffers a nervous breakdown. Her best friend, Donna
Hayward, begins a relationship with James. With the help of Laura's cousin Maddy Ferguson,
Donna and James discover that Laura's psychiatrist, Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, was obsessed with
Laura, but he is proven innocent of the murder.
Hotelier Ben Horne, the richest man in Twin Peaks, plans to destroy the town's lumber mill along
with its owner Josie Packard, and murder his lover (Josie's sister-in-law), Catherine
Martell (Piper Laurie), so that he can purchase the land at a reduced price and complete a
development project, Ghostwood. Horne's sultry, troubled daughter, Audrey, becomes infatuated
with Cooper and spies for clues in an effort to gain his affections.
Cooper has a dream in which he is approached by a one-armed otherworldly being who calls
himself MIKE. MIKE says that Laura's murderer is a similar entity, Killer BOB, a feral, denim-clad
man with long gray hair. Cooper finds himself decades older with Laura and a dwarf in a red
business suit, who engages in coded dialogue with Cooper. The next morning, Cooper tells
Truman that, if he can decipher the dream, he will know who killed Laura.
Cooper and the sheriff's department find the one-armed man from Cooper's dream, a traveling
shoe salesman named Phillip Gerard. Gerard knows a Bob, the veterinarian who treats Renault's
pet bird. Cooper interprets these events to mean that Renault is the murderer, and with Truman's
help, tracks Renault to One-Eyed Jack's, a brothel owned by Horne across the border in Canada.
He lures Jacques Renault back onto U.S. soil to arrest him, but Renault is shot while trying to
escape and is hospitalized.
Leland, learning that Renault has been arrested, sneaks into the hospital and murders him. The
same night, Horne orders Leo to burn down the lumber mill with Catherine trapped inside and
has Leo gunned down by Hank Jennings to ensure Leo's silence. Cooper returns to his room
following Jacques's arrest and is shot by a masked gunman.

Season 2[edit]

After solving the murder of Laura Palmer, Kyle MacLachlan's (pictured here in 1991) character of Dale
Cooper stays in Twin Peaks to investigate further.

Lying hurt in his hotel room, Cooper has a vision in which a giant appears and reveals three
clues: "There is a man in a smiling bag"; "The owls are not what they seem"; and "Without
chemicals, he points." He takes Cooper's gold ring and explains that when Cooper understands
the three premonitions, his ring will be returned.
Leo Johnson survives his shooting but is brain-damaged. Catherine Martell disappears,
presumed killed in the mill fire. Leland Palmer, whose hair has turned white overnight, returns to
work but behaves erratically. Cooper deduces that the "man in the smiling bag" is the corpse of
Jacques Renault in a body bag.
MIKE is inhabiting the body of Phillip Gerard. His personality surfaces when Gerard forgoes the
use of a certain drug. MIKE reveals that he and BOB once collaborated in killing humans and
that BOB is similarly inhabiting a man in the town. Cooper and the sheriff's department use
MIKE, in control of Gerard's body, to help find BOB ("without chemicals, he points".)
Donna befriends an agoraphobic orchid grower named Harold Smith whom Laura entrusted with
a second, secret diary she kept. Harold catches Donna and Maddy attempting to steal the diary
from him and hangs himself in despair. Cooper and the sheriff's department take possession of
Laura's secret diary, and learn that BOB, a friend of her father's, had been sexually abusing her
since childhood and she used drugs to cope. They initially suspect that the killer is Ben Horne
and arrest him, but Leland Palmer is revealed to viewers to be BOB's host when he brutally kills
Maddy.
Cooper begins to doubt Horne's guilt, so he gathers all of his suspects in the belief that he will
receive a sign to help him identify the killer. The Giant appears and confirms that Leland is BOB's
host and Laura's and Maddy's killer, giving Cooper back his ring. Cooper and Truman take
Leland into custody. In control of Leland's body, BOB admits to a string of murders, before
forcing Leland to commit suicide. Leland, as he dies, is freed of BOB's influence and begs for
forgiveness. BOB's spirit disappears into the woods in the form of an owl and the lawmen wonder
if he will reappear.
Cooper is set to leave Twin Peaks when he is framed for drug trafficking by Jean Renault and is
suspended from the FBI. Renault holds Cooper responsible for the death of his brothers,
Jacques and Bernard. Jean Renault is killed in a shootout with police, and Cooper is cleared of
all charges.
Windom Earle, Cooper's former mentor and FBI partner, escapes from a mental institution and
comes to Twin Peaks. Cooper had previously been having an affair with Earle's wife, Caroline,
while she was under his protection as a witness to a federal crime. Earle murdered Caroline and
wounded Cooper. He now engages Cooper in a twisted game of chess where Earle murders
someone whenever a piece is captured.
Investigating BOB's origin and whereabouts with the help of Major Garland Briggs, Cooper learns
of the existence of the White Lodge and the Black Lodge, two extra-dimensional realms whose
entrances are somewhere in the woods surrounding Twin Peaks.
Catherine returns to town in yellowface, having survived the mill fire, and manipulates Ben Horne
into signing the Ghostwood project over to her. Andrew Packard, Josie's husband, is revealed to
be still alive. Josie Packard is revealed to be the person who shot Cooper at the end of the first
season. Andrew forces Josie to confront his business rival and her tormentor from Hong Kong,
the sinister Thomas Eckhardt. Josie kills Eckhardt but she mysteriously dies when Truman and
Cooper try to apprehend her.
Cooper falls in love with a new arrival in town, Annie Blackburn. Earle captures the brain-
damaged Leo for use as a henchman and abandons his chess game with Cooper. When Annie
wins the Miss Twin Peaks contest, Earle kidnaps her and takes her to the entrance to the Black
Lodge, whose power he seeks to use for himself.
Through a series of clues Cooper discovers the entrance to the Black Lodge, which turns out to
be the strange, red-curtained room from his dream. He is greeted by the Man From Another
Place, the Giant, and Laura Palmer, who each give Cooper cryptic messages. Searching for
Annie and Earle, Cooper encounters doppelgängers of various people, including Maddy
Ferguson and Leland Palmer. Cooper finds Earle, who demands Cooper's soul in exchange for
Annie's life. Cooper agrees but BOB appears and takes Earle's soul for himself. BOB then turns
to Cooper, who is chased through the lodge by a doppelgänger of himself.
Outside the lodge, Andrew Packard, Pete Martell and Audrey Horne are caught in an explosion
at a bank vault, a trap laid by the dead Eckhardt.
Cooper and Annie reappear in the woods, both injured. Annie is taken to hospital but Cooper
recovers in his room at the Great Northern Hotel. It becomes clear that the "Cooper" who
emerged from the Lodge is in fact his doppelgänger, under BOB's control. He smashes his head
into a bathroom mirror and laughs maniacally.
Season 3: The Return[edit]
Main article: Twin Peaks (season 3)

On October 6, 2014, it was announced that a limited series would air on Showtime. David
Lynch and Mark Frost wrote all the episodes, and Lynch directed. Frost emphasized that the new
episodes are not a remake or reboot but a continuation of the series. The episodes are set in the
present day, and the passage of 25 years is an important element in the plot.[17]
Most of the original cast returns, including Kyle MacLachlan, Mädchen Amick, Sherilyn
Fenn, Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, and several others. Additions include Jeremy Davies, Laura
Dern, Robert Forster, Tim Roth, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Amanda Seyfried, Matthew Lillard,
and Naomi Watts.[18]
The limited series began filming in September 2015[19] and was completed by April 2016.[18] It was
shot continuously from a single, long-shooting script before being edited into separate episodes.
The series premiered on May 21, 2017, and consists of 18 episodes.[20]

Cast[edit]
Main article: List of Twin Peaks characters

Main cast[edit]
 Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper
 Michael Ontkean as Sheriff Harry S. Truman
 Mädchen Amick as Shelly Johnson
 Dana Ashbrook as Bobby Briggs
 Richard Beymer as Benjamin Horne
 Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward
 Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne
 Warren Frost as Dr. Will Hayward
 Peggy Lipton as Norma Jennings
 James Marshall as James Hurley
 Everett McGill as Ed Hurley
 Jack Nance as Pete Martell
 Ray Wise as Leland Palmer
 Joan Chen as Jocelyn Packard
 Piper Laurie as Catherine Martell
 Kimmy Robertson as Lucy Moran
Secondary cast[edit]
 Eric Da Re as Leo Johnson
 Harry Goaz as Deputy Sheriff Andy Brennan
 Michael Horse as Deputy Sheriff Tommy "Hawk" Hill
 Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer and Madeline "Maddy" Ferguson
 Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Lawrence Jacoby
 Kenneth Welsh as Windom Earle
Recurring cast[edit]
 Wendy Robie as Nadine Hurley
 Don Davis as Major Garland Briggs
 Chris Mulkey as Hank Jennings
 Gary Hershberger as Mike Nelson
 Grace Zabriskie as Sarah Palmer
 Catherine E. Coulson as Margaret Lanterman / "The Log Lady"
 Ian Buchanan as Dick Tremayne
 Mary Jo Deschanel as Eileen Hayward
 Frank Silva as Killer BOB
 Al Strobel as Phillip Michael Gerard / MIKE / "The One-Armed Man"
 David Patrick Kelly as Jerry Horne
 Miguel Ferrer as Special Agent Albert Rosenfield
 John Boylan as Mayor Dwayne Milford
 Victoria Catlin as Blackie O'Reilly
 Charlotte Stewart as Betty Briggs
 David Lynch as Bureau Chief Gordon Cole
 Heather Graham as Annie Blackburn
 Robyn Lively as Lana Budding Milford
 Dan O'Herlihy as Andrew Packard
 Billy Zane as John Justice Wheeler
 Don Amendolia as Emory Battis
 James Booth as Ernie Niles
 Michael Parks as Jean Renault
 Carel Struycken as The Giant