David Lynch’s dark-hearted prequel to the original show is ‘important’ for the new series – but how?

Text Alex Denney

The new season of Twin Peaks arrives in May, promising the “pure heroin” vision of series co-creator David Lynch. That snippet of info, courtesy of Showtime producer David Nevins, has been the cause of much rejoicing online – and yet, when Fire Walk With Me delivered on exactly that promise 25 years ago, fans were up in arms. Fierce, strange and hellishly dark, Lynch’s big-screen ‘prequel’ to his smash-hit show with Mark Frost was everything the lame-duck second half of the second season was not – and it was hated for it. The film was jeered at Cannes, and critics lined up to stick the boot in. Quentin Tarantino, perhaps confusing the director’s own career arc with that of Dale Cooper, used it to declare that Lynch had finally “disappeared... up his own ass.” His Back Lodge, if you will. Of course, with art that pokes and prods at the subconscious like Lynch’s, vicious reviews are one indication that you’re doing your job properly. And while it’s true the film suffers from some of the same problems in the director’s recent work (it’s long, indulgent and maddeningly obscure), there’s a bravery in its grim insistence on the show’s founding trauma that makes it impossible to dismiss. It is, put simply, the dark heart of the Twin Peaks dream. What’s more, Lynch indicated last month that the film would be “very much important” to the events of the new season, whose details are otherwise strictly under wraps. Perhaps, when the dust settles on the new episodes, Fire Walk With Me will come to be recognised as one of Lynch’s best and bravest films? In the meantime, it’s well worth revisiting the film – which will be available to watch on Showtime from tomorrow (March 1) – for clues about the new series. Here are five questions to ponder.

WHO IS JUDY?

There’s one name that seasoned Peaks-watchers will be watching out for when the show returns in the spring, and that is the mysterious ‘Judy’. Judy’s name is first evoked by David Bowie, in a bizarre cameo as a ‘long-lost’ FBI agent, Phillip Jeffries, who walks into Chief Gordon Cole’s office only to announce that he “doesn’t want to talk about Judy”. Which is weird, because it’s literally the first we’ve heard of her. The film declines to elaborate much on this elusive figure, save for one whispered utterance of her name near the end. By a capuchin monkey. There are, as ever, a bunch of theories floating around online as to Judy’s true identity. One explanation is that she is another victim of BOB, whose case was assigned to Jeffries just like Laura’s was to Agent Cooper, and Teresa Banks’s was to Agent Desmond in Fire Walk With Me. But a deleted scene from FWWM depicts Jeffries receiving a letter from Judy at a hotel in Buenos Aries, suggesting that Judy may still be alive, at least in an earlier draft of the film. Could Judy be a key figure in the new series? If so, Laura Dern could be a good bet to play her – the regular Lynch collaborator will apparently play a “pivotal” role in the show. But there are other, less earthly interpretations of Judy – here’s an essay that’ll make your head spin – and it’s worth noting that Lynch and Robert Engels, the film’s co-writer, envisioned a “whole other set of mythology” for inclusion in the film, though much of it was cut when Lynch realised it was too much for the story to bear. WHERE EXACTLY HAS CARL RODD BEEN?

As portrayed by the ever-wonderful Harry Dean Stanton, Carl Rodd is perhaps the most intriguing character in Deer Meadow, the cheerless one-horse town that acts as a dark mirror to Twin Peaks in Fire Walk With Me. The trailer-park owner delivers one of the film’s more enigmatic lines when, showing the FBI agents around Teresa Banks’s trailer, he sees an old lady with an apparently injured eye come to the door. Suddenly, he seems to take fright. “I’ve already... gone places,” he stammers. “I just wanna stay where I am.” What is he referring to? Does Rodd have some connection to the Lodges? Or is he merely, as Reddit user Prophit1970 suggests, an ex-con who’s been strongarmed into helping the local police to keep the truth about Banks’s murder from the FBI? According to this theory, the old lady was the trailer’s real tenant, but was booted out and physically assaulted by police, who moved some of the victim’s possessions in to make the agents believe it was hers. Plausible? Perhaps – we do know that the Sherriff’s deputy, killed later in the film by Bobby Briggs, was involved in a local drug ring, so maybe the cops were trying to cover their tracks. Then again, in Mark Frost’s book A Secret History of Twin Peaks, it’s remarked that Rodd went missing for a few days along with Margaret Lanterman (AKA the Log Lady) and one other unnamed person when he was a child, so that seems a likely – if still mysterious – bet.

WHO’S GOT THE RING?

One element seemingly linking the murders in Fire Walk With Me is a ring belonging to Teresa, which Laura briefly comes to possess during a dream involving Agent Cooper. The ring also plays a part in the disappearance of Agent Desmond, who is last seen picking it up from under a trailer – has he too fallen victim to BOB? Has he been spirited away to the Black Lodge (In the film’s original cut, he literally vanishes as soon as he touches it)? In A Secret History of Twin Peaks, the 19th-century explorer Meriwether Lewis – a genuine historical figure – is given the ring by the leader of a local Native American tribe before meeting a terrible end. The symbol etched on the ring refers to a place, ‘Owl Cave’, between the mountains overlooking Twin Peaks, though its symbolism – a diamond linking two upturned V signs – is obviously intended to suggest that the ring acts as a bridge between two worlds (“With this ring I thee wed,” says the ‘Man From Another Place’ in a scene from the film, underscoring its importance). But perhaps the most revealing bit of ring-related trivia comes with its appearance in an alternative ending shot for the film, where a nurse takes it from the comatose Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham). The scene didn’t make it into the final cut, but it seems like a fair bet that whoever has the ring in the new series is in for a bumpy ride. WHO IS THE JUMPING MAN?

Where to start with the Jumping Man? He’s another happy camper at the Black Lodge, unseen until Fire Walk With Me, who looks set to return in the new series. Played by Carlton Lee Russell, who was told by Lynch that the character was a “talisman come to life”, he seems to bear some relation to Mrs Chalfont’s grandson, another mask-sporting mystery character who tries to warn Laura of BOB’s true identity. Could he be a personification of the ring? And what does that even mean?