TWIN PEAKS, Season II and FIRE WALK WITH ME Deciphered

First and foremost, Mark Frost was absent from the set, declaring that if Lynch wanted to end his adventure with Twin Peaks on his own terms, he wouldn’t stand in his way. Additionally, Frost believed that it was too soon to return to the fictional town, as the dust from the downfall of the second season had not yet settled. Some of Frost’s comments also reflected his frustration that the Twin Peaks audience tended to attribute all of the show’s merits to Lynch, while its failures and shortcomings were often blamed on Frost. Unfortunately, this bitter reflection holds a lot of truth. Without Frost and his writing skills, Twin Peaks would never have existed. This is something that is too often overlooked.

Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn also did not return to the film. The absence of both actresses was reportedly due to their involvement in other projects. However, years later, their absence doesn’t seem so clear-cut. According to some sources, Boyle was swept up in the wave of criticism directed at Lynch after the premiere of Wild at Heart and began to see him as a misogynist, unworthy of her acting attention. As for Fenn, she admitted years later that she didn’t return to Twin Peaks because she was disappointed with the level of quality presented in the second season of the series. She felt somewhat betrayed by Lynch, who distanced himself from the production, and didn’t believe the film could recapture the energy that had accompanied her during the production of the first season. It was no secret that the drop in viewership and the general chaos on the set of the final episodes led to conflicts and misunderstandings among the cast and crew. Still, what Fenn says may not necessarily be true. The actress is known for making many controversial statements about the series, many of which have been debunked by other cast members. Moira Kelly ultimately replaced Boyle as Donna, and Audrey (Fenn’s character) was removed from the script.

After making several necessary changes to the script, primarily due to difficulties in assembling the cast, Lynch was able to proceed with the film. Although Mark Frost was not by his side, Ron Garcia, the cinematographer responsible for creating the visual atmosphere of the pilot episode, returned as the cameraman. While the original production of Twin Peaks was plagued by cold weather, which hindered work in the forested areas of Washington State, the film faced the opposite problem. The production was plagued by extremely hot weather, which was unusual for that region of America. However, Garcia and Lynch chose to ignore the weather, rarely mitigating the effects of the sun with equipment. The cinematographer and director decided to use the unusual weather to emphasize the contrast between the atmosphere in Twin Peaks before and after Laura Palmer’s death.

In terms of production, things moved quickly. Filming began on September 5, 1991, in Snoqualmie, Washington (the same locations used for most of the series), and ended on October 31. After the first round of editing, the film was about six hours long, but Lynch knew the final cut had to be around 120 minutes. That’s exactly what happened. The final version of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me runs for 134 minutes. Some of the deleted scenes ended up on DVD special editions as bonus features, while others remained in archives. In 1992, though, no one was thinking about that. Lynch once again took his film under his arm and headed to Cannes. This time, however, it was a completely different place for him.

His previous visit to the French Riviera had been a string of incredible experiences and successes. Every Thursday, near the Festival Palace, screenings of the first season of Twin Peaks were held, which was a huge hit on ABC. During these events, people devoured cherry pie and sipped coffee. Lynch himself enjoyed the company of Isabella Rossellini, who introduced him to the customs of Europe’s film elite. In 1991, his relationship with the daughter of the famous Italian director ended. His former partner had long blamed Lynch—his eccentricity, extreme individualism, and inability to sacrifice part of his independence for the sake of a loved one—for the breakup. In 1992, Lynch arrived in Cannes with his editor, Mary Sweeney, who was already pregnant with his son. Wild at Heart had received mixed reviews in France, sparking many discussions—a good sign for the festival. After the screening of Fire Walk with Me, however, Lynch was literally booed. The press and his industry colleagues were not on his side. Quentin Tarantino, who had previously praised Lynch’s talent, even said that with Fire Walk with Me, Lynch went so far up his own ass that he has no desire to watch any more of his films until he finds his way out. Lynch returned from Cannes not as a victor but defeated.

Following the official release of Fire Walk with Me, it also failed to garner enthusiasm from critics and audiences. The American press almost unanimously declared the film a creative failure, and it didn’t generate much interest in Europe either. Occasionally, reviews appeared that recognized the film as a masterpiece, but these were in the minority. With a budget of about $10 million, it grossed only $4.2 million in the U.S. However, the Japanese once again saved the day, remaining loyal to Twin Peaks until the end. In Japan, the film became a huge hit and immediately achieved cult status.

She Wasn’t Fooling Anyone, She Was Hurt and She Was Hurt Bad

In 1992, Lynch painted a piece titled She Wasn’t Fooling Anyone, She Was Hurt and She Was Hurt Bad. Like most of his works from that period, it depicts barely visible figures submerged in various shades of black and gray. I See Myself shows a person drifting in the dark, looking at something resembling a mirror and seeing a black, disturbing figure on the other side. Ants in my House, Suddenly My House Became a Tree of Sores, She Was Crying Just Outside the House, and the earlier Shadow of a Twisted Hand Across My House (1988) all focus on depicting the home as a place where something has gone terribly wrong—a space that suddenly stops evoking safety and begins to induce fear. The worst part, however, is that we don’t know what the threat is. In Lynch’s paintings, night almost always prevails around the houses.

Fire Walk with Me captures this atmosphere of entrapment and inevitable downfall. The Palmer home is no longer a safe haven; the darkness has infiltrated it, and the monsters that came with it demand a victim. The saddest thing of all is that from the very beginning, we know that Laura has no chance against the entities from the Black Lodge. With each passing minute, she sinks deeper into the night. Her fate is sealed. I believe this is one of the reasons why Fire Walk with Me was criticized, even by fans of the Twin Peaks universe. Apart from the half-hour prologue focusing on the FBI investigation into Teresa Banks’ disappearance, which stylistically doesn’t quite fit the rest of the film, the feature version of Twin Peaks is almost entirely devoid of the characteristic humor from the TV series. There are no delicious cherry pies, no tables full of donuts, no hot coffee, no absurd, funny banter between the characters. Instead, Lynch presents a relentless portrayal of the downfall of a young, lost girl crying out for help, who in no way deserves the fate that befalls her. It’s a convincing and deeply sad vision.

All the oddities and sudden appearances of random characters, which many commentators saw as weaknesses in the script and a desire to shock viewers cheaply, are actually an integral part of the nightmare. Their unclear identities and the inability to place them within a logical structure of the film is a deliberate and consistent move that underscores the fact that no one, absolutely no one, knows what lurks in the darkness that has entered Twin Peaks. We know, or rather subconsciously feel—because no one explicitly points it out—that the Red Room characters are evil, that something has crawled out of the woods and is hunting Laura. But neither she nor we can name it. BOB is merely a projection—a personification that allows Laura to write about her nightmares in her diary. The true evil has no name, and this is what’s most terrifying in Fire Walk with Me and in the entirety of Twin Peaks.

There’s a perfect scene in Fire Walk with Me, utterly ruined in foreign versions of the film. Laura and Donna, in a desperate attempt to save her friend, sneak into the secret part of the Roadhouse. The violently pulsing lights put both the characters and the audience into a trance. Around them, scantily clad women writhe, almost everyone is on drugs, and their voices are barely audible over the deafening music. In the original version of the film, nothing is done to remedy this. For the entire, over five-minute scene, the audience hears no dialogue. We see only the movement of lips and observe the lewd game played between the schoolgirls and the adult men who give them drugs. Foreign versions typically add subtitles or voiceovers to reveal the content of the conversations between the characters, but that completely defeats the purpose. The silent hell of the Roadhouse is the essence of Fire Walk with Me. It’s like a story within a story. Once you cross the threshold of the house, you have only a short moment to turn back. If you decide to venture into the night, you must know that in Lynch’s world, returns are nearly impossible. With each step, your voice grows weaker. Eventually, even a scream becomes a faint whisper, and by then, it’s too late for rescue.

This reflection can be applied to several aspects of Fire Walk with Me, which demonstrates the film’s complexity and ability to be analyzed on multiple levels. On one hand, it functions as a personal vision of addiction. It ties drug problems to family issues, particularly sexual abuse. There’s nothing stopping the viewer from interpreting it independently of the Twin Peaks mythology, seeing all the surreal visions as the result of drug use or as Laura’s tormented mind coping with being raped by her father. On the other hand, following the logic of the television series, one could accept the existence of the Black Lodge as fact. In this case, however, one must consider whether the Lodge is merely a crutch for Lynch—a way to name and, in a sense, tame the evil that eludes his understanding. Paradoxically, it’s much easier to cope with the thought that everything is BOB’s fault and his army of owls. How else can one come to terms with the idea that a father is raping and murdering his underage daughter if we reject the existence of evil forces lurking in the evergreen Douglas firs?