Does Fire Walk with Me hold the key to Twin Peaks Sea­son 3?

Diane, despite its rep­u­ta­tion to the con­trary, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is no dis­as­ter. Fright­en­ing, sor­did and supreme­ly weird, the stand­out in David Lynch’s spin-off movie is Sheryl Lee’s heart-wrench­ing per­for­mance as Lau­ra Palmer. The actor cap­tured light­ning in a bottle.

Diane, the pre­quel turned the stom­achs of fair-weath­er view­ers. Dis­card­ing the show’s adorable quirk­i­ness almost entire­ly, the film’s tone is a bit like Agent Cooper’s cof­fee pref­er­ence: ​“Black as mid­night on a moon­less night.” Most of all, it’s unbear­ably sad.

Diane, at the annu­al Tele­vi­sion Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion event in Jan­u­ary, 2017, Lynch made a sur­prise and typ­i­cal­ly tight-lipped appear­ance along­side Lau­ra Dern, Kyle McLach­lan, Kim­my Robert­son and Mäd­chen Amick. He said that the last sev­en days of Lau­ra Palmer’s life will be very impor­tant to Sea­son 3. Maybe he’s just pulling our col­lec­tive leg. Remem­ber when he issued those hilar­i­ous Mul­hol­land Dri­ve ​‘clues’? Then again, maybe he isn’t. With that bomb­shell dropped, we’re going to have to revis­it the director’s most divi­sive film. What could these con­nec­tions be?

Diane, anoth­er scene-set­ter is co-cre­ator Mark Frost’s 2016 book, ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’. Its mod­ern-day plot fea­tures FBI Spe­cial Agent Tama­ra Pre­ston inves­ti­gat­ing the ori­gins of a secret dossier com­piled about the town, found in a lock­box recov­ered dur­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion at an active crime scene. Of course, Frost gives noth­ing away, but the nov­el enriched the mythol­o­gy and pro­vid­ed morsels of excit­ing new info ​‘for the fans™’, such as Audrey Horne’s sur­vival in the bank bomb blast and Major Gar­land Brig­gs recog­nis­ing Coop, post-return from the Red Room, like the owls in Ghost­wood Nation­al For­est, isn’t what he seemed.

Diane, regard­ing Fire Walk with Me, Annie Blackburn’s cameo is cru­cial. Audi­ences left dumb­found­ed and then irri­tat­ed by the final episode’s cliffhang­er – BOB pos­sess­ing Coop­er – received wel­come news: the Dale we know and love is in fact trapped in the lodge! Annie, appear­ing corpse-like in a time­line-blur­ring dream to Lau­ra, imparts a mes­sage before van­ish­ing: ​“My name is Annie. I’ve been with Dale and Lau­ra. The good Dale is in the lodge, and he can’t leave. Write it in your diary.”

Diane, before Lau­ra Palmer there was Tere­sa Banks (Pamela Gid­ley). Inves­ti­gat­ing the girl’s dis­ap­pear­ance and mur­der, two J Edgars named Chet Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stan­ley (Kiefer Suther­land). One of their boss’s ​‘Blue Rose’ cas­es (mean­ing: high­est lev­el top-secret, pos­si­bly super­nat­ur­al), Region­al Bureau Chief Gor­don Cole (played mem­o­rably by Lynch) ordered the pair to Deer Mead­ow, Wash­ing­ton, to col­lect the body and ques­tion the yokels. This may all turn out to be cru­cial in Sea­son 3. How so? Well, it’s do with the mys­te­ri­ous jade ring. Desmond dis­cov­ered the piece of jew­ellery at the Fat Trout Trail­er Park and van­ished with­out a trace. The ring’s eso­teric his­to­ry is detailed in Frost’s book quite exten­sive­ly, too.

Diane, the biggest head-scratch­er and fan obses­sion regard­ing Fire Walk with Me is the iden­ti­ty of ​‘Judy’. Who the hell is Judy? That’s the mil­lion-dol­lar ques­tion. Enter: David Bowie.

Diane, as Spe­cial Agent Phillip Jef­fries, Bowie’s cameo is right up there with Lynch’s most bat­shit crazy scenes. The long-lost fed dis­ap­peared on assign­ment in Bueno Aires two years pri­or, explain­ing to Coop, Cole and Albert Rosen­field (Miguel Fer­rer) – in what smacks of a‑dream-with­in-a-dream sequence – that he accessed the meet­ing place of the Black Lodge spir­its: the Man from Anoth­er Place, BOB, MIKE, the Chalfonts.

Diane, Jef­fries, wear­ing a beige suit, loud colour­ful shirt and red shoes (anoth­er nod to The Wiz­ard of Oz) trots – lit­er­al­ly trots – into Cole’s office and starts ram­bling. He looks at Coop­er quizzi­cal­ly, then pro­ceeds to detail, in a Deep South drawl, a report of sorts with a juicy caveat: ​“Well now, I’m not gonna talk about Judy. In fact, we’re not gonna talk about Judy at all. We’re gonna keep her out of it.” He points at Coop­er and exclaims, ​“Who do you think this is there?” Undoubt­ed­ly dra­mat­ic fore­shad­ow­ing regard­ing his colleague’s fate, if Jef­fries has infil­trat­ed the Black Lodge/​Red Room, he knows about Lau­ra and Dale (and what becomes of Agent Cooper).

Diane, is the iden­ti­ty of Judy revealed in Fire Walk with Me? After Laura’s mur­der in the aban­doned train car­riage and a scene in the Red Room fea­tur­ing Leland and BOB – at approx­i­mate­ly the two hour and eight min­utes mark – there’s a cut to a mon­key in close-up, who whis­pers the name ​‘Judy’. This is fol­lowed by a cut to the icon­ic image of Lau­ra, dead and wrapped in plas­tic. Is Lau­ra, in fact, the mys­te­ri­ous Judy?

Diane, Fire Walk with Me throws up many intrigu­ing ques­tions for Sea­son 3 to answer: the jade ring; Good Coop trapped in the Red Room for the last 25 years (heav­en knows what Bad Coop’s been up to in the real world); the evil spir­its and how they choose vic­tims; the sig­nif­i­cance of pow­er lines and elec­tric­i­ty; why their vic­tims’ sor­row and pain is con­sumed as creamed corn (known as ​‘gar­mon­bozia’); the Judy ques­tion; what exact­ly hap­pened to Chet Desmond and Phil Jef­fries; why were the spooky Chal­fonts (the grand­ma and grand­son) liv­ing in the trail­er park, and what of Lau­ra and Dale’s psy­chic link?