Mysteries In May: Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me (1992)

I never watched Twin Peaks when it originally aired. As I noted in my Five Cool Things column, I do remember seeing some magazine spread that talked about the show, detailed what we knew (at that time) about the central mystery, and gave some details on the various characters inside the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington.

The series was massively popular at the time, and the question of Who Killed Laura Palmer? was a cultural phenomenon. But then the popularity waned, and it was cancelled after two seasons.

My assumption was that they did not solve the mystery in those two seasons, which is why they made a movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Many years after the original airing, my wife and I borrowed the series on VHS tape from the local library. They only lent it out one tape at a time. I think we watched the first two tapes, but it could have been three or even four. We definitely did not finish the first season. But then the next tape was not available, and we got distracted and never returned. I thought about it often, but Twin Peaks is the sort of series you really want to watch straight through, and eventually, enough time had passed that we knew we needed to start it all over again.

Weirdly, my wife at some point watched Fire Walk With Me. Again, my assumption was that the movie solved the murder mystery, and since I hadn’t finished the series, I did not partake.

Recently, we finished the original series, and I finally caught up with the movie.

For those of you who know nothing about Twin Peaks, I think I can say, without really spoiling anything, that they do solve the murder of Laura Palmer somewhere in the middle of Season Two.

For those of you who know even less about the series, Twin Peaks is a television series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, which ran on ABC for two seasons in 1990-1991.

The fictional town of Twin Peaks is an idyllic small American town with picturesque views of the Rocky Mountains. As the series begins, Laura Palmer, the beautiful Homecoming Queen and apparent darling of the town, is found brutally murdered, lying naked in the river.

FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is sent to investigate. While the town is seemingly as American as Apple Pie and as idyllic as those snow-covered mountains, Agent Cooper will soon discover a dark underbelly to Twin Peaks. And Laura Palmer likewise is found to harbor dark secrets, including drug use and promiscuity.

The series is relatively light-hearted, treating most of the characters as quirky and mysterious rather than lecherous monsters. It is very much an entertaining small-town murder mystery, albeit one with periodic turns into surreal horror.

The series doesn’t judge Laura Palmer’s darker side; it doesn’t blame her murder on her various indiscretions. But it doesn’t absolve her of them either. It seems very much a part of Lynch’s obsession with revealing the darkness behind bucolic settings (see Blue Velvet for more).

And now, we finally arrive at Fire Walk With Me. If Twin Peaks: The Original Series was all about answering the question “Who Killed Laura Palmer?”, then Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me attempted to answer “Who Was Laura Palmer?” Which makes it not really a mystery, but as it does answer some of the lingering questions of the series (though not nearly all of them) I’m allowing into my Mysteries in May series.

Since she is dead before the original series begins, we only know her through the memories of others and the clues Agent Cooper finds. Her friends and family members remember her fondly, with rose colored glasses. She was the homecoming queen, a good girl, a saint. But then her drug use and promiscuity are revealed. She’s shown to have worked at a cat house and sold cocaine. The assumption is that she was just a stereotypical “bad” girl, rebelling against her white picket fence home life.

Fire Walk With Me plunges us into who she really was.

But first, there is some business about another murder. The film begins with two FBI agents (portrayed by Keifer Sutherland and Chris Isaak) investigating a murder very similar to that of Laura Palmer, which occurred sometime before Laura’s death. But just as we’re starting to get invested in that case, one of the agents disappears.

Back at FBI headquarters, several agents (including Agent Cooper) are discussing the matter when Agent Jeffries (David Bowie), who had been missing for many years, suddenly enters and tells them a wild tale involving spirits and a Red Lodge (something that would feature prominently in the original series). And then he disappears.

We then move on to the last days of Laura Palmer, and that initial mystery is just left hanging. Apparently, David Lynch shot a lot more footage dealing with that first mystery, plus hours of footage around Laura Palmer, but cut it for the final movie. He has since gone back and compiled many of the cut pieces into something of its own, semi-coherent movie entitled Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces. I have yet to watch that, but it is on my Criterion Collection Blu-ray.

In the original series, Laura Palmer was a mystery to be solved. We learn about her, but she’s never anything more than a murdered corpse. Fire Walk With Me lets us know her as a living, breathing person.

In the series, she was a “bad girl” who pretended to be good. But in the film, she’s a tragic figure. We learn that she endured years of abuse and trauma. The drugs, the sex weren’t a good girl acting out, but a young woman who has systematically been abused trying to cope.

Obviously, we know Laura Palmer is going to be murdered, but the character seems to know she’s living out her final day as well. It is a staggering, heartbreaking performance by Sheryl Lee.

It is a difficult movie. Lynch infuses it with his surrealistic, nightmarish horror. Add to that the very real trauma Laura is experiencing, and it is a tough watch at times. But also beautiful, powerful, and brilliant.

I highly recommend it, but only after you’ve seen the original series and are braced for this to be something completely different.