20 things you need to know about Twin Peaks Sea­son 3

Find­ing out that Twin Peaks was return­ing was like hav­ing the most beau­ti­ful dream and the most ter­ri­ble night­mare all at once. When David Lynch and Mark Frost’s end­less­ly strange, huge­ly influ­en­tial TV show was can­celled in 1991, it left a lot of ques­tions unan­swered. Today, fans every­where are still won­der­ing which loose ends will be tied up when sea­son three gets under­way on 22 May. The secre­cy sur­round­ing the project makes it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to decode, so to help sep­a­rate the facts from idle spec­u­la­tion, here’s a run­down of every­thing we know so far…

When the full cast list for sea­son three was released in April 2016, there were plen­ty of famil­iar names on the dock­et: Spe­cial Agent Dale Coop­er, Shelly, Nor­ma, Bob­by, James, Ed, Nadine, Andy, Hawk, Lucy, Sarah Palmer, Ben and Jer­ry Horne, as well as everyone’s favourite, Gor­don Cole. Even David Duchovny is back as DEA agent Denise Bryson.

There are some notable omis­sions though: Piper Lau­rie won’t be return­ing as Cather­ine Martell, and nei­ther will Lara Fly­nn Boyle as Don­na Hay­ward (the same goes for Moira Kel­ly, who played her in Fire Walk with Me), Cather­ine E Coul­son as the Log Lady, and, of course, David Bowie as Philip Jeffries.

Mark Frost is back as pro­duc­er and co-writer on all 18 episodes. It’s easy to track the orig­i­nal series’ decline when you look at which episodes were writ­ten by either Frost or Lynch, who were heav­i­ly involved for its first half but took a back­seat after they were pres­sured into reveal­ing Lau­ra Palmer’s killer. ​“It start­ed with us and we felt it was only right if it con­tin­ued with the two of us”, Frost told TV Line in 2014, ​“So we pledged right then and there that we were going to write it ourselves.”

Along with Frost, oth­er Twin Peaks crew mem­bers have returned. Duwayne Durham is back in the edit­ing chair with Lynch, after edit­ing the orig­i­nal series and direct­ing three episodes. Direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy Peter Dem­ing pre­vi­ous­ly worked with Lynch on Lost High­way and Mul­hol­land Drive.

This isn’t a remake or a jour­ney back into the ​’90s. The new sea­son is set 25 years after the first series, so the char­ac­ters have aged as much as the actors. Peg­gy Lip­ton (who plays Nor­ma) observed, ​“Some things have changed, but a lot hasn’t, a lot is still steady the way it was.” This is evi­dent in set images show­ing both Shelly and Nor­ma wear­ing their Dou­ble R Din­er uni­forms. This new sea­son is ​“not just an exer­cise in nos­tal­gia”, Frost told The Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald last year, ​“it’s an exer­cise in engag­ing with one of the most pow­er­ful themes in all of art, which is the ruth­less pas­sage of time.”

Twin Peaks’ can­cel­la­tion wasn’t just frus­trat­ing for fans because they enjoyed the show, but because they were robbed of a res­o­lu­tion to one of the most shock­ing cliff-hang­ers in tele­vi­sion his­to­ry. The last image we were left with was of a cack­ling Dale Coop­er, blood­ied from a self-inflict­ed wound. Even when Lynch revis­it­ed the world of Twin Peaks for his 1992 film Fire Walk with Me, he chose to make a pre­quel, with only oblique ref­er­ences to what hap­pened next.

It’s unclear whether a sat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion will be forth­com­ing in sea­son three, but the mys­te­ri­ous teasers released by Show­time ear­li­er this year did at least ref­er­ence the infa­mous ​“How’s Annie?” scene, and gave us a first look at an old­er Coop­er. ​“As we left, evil has estab­lished a beach­head in Twin Peaks through Agent Coop­er,” Kyle MacLach­lan has said of his char­ac­ter. What­ev­er has hap­pened in the 25 years since, it looks as though we’re about to find out.

The long-await­ed Twin Peaks revival is intend­ed as a one-off series that will reach a con­clu­sion. ​“It’s designed to be a close-end­ed, one-time event,” Show­time Pres­i­dent David Nevins told the audi­ence at a recent event held at the Tele­vi­sion Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion. Or, as Lynch put it, it will be ​“a fea­ture film in 18 parts.”

The series will be a mix of the strange asides famil­iar to fans of the show, as well as a cen­tral nar­ra­tive that will pay off by its end. ​“I think what we’ve learned is you’ve got­ta have a very strong cen­tral path through the woods,” co-cre­ator Mark Frost said in 2014. ​“It’s fine to have trib­u­taries and streams, and lit­tle byways, but ulti­mate­ly that path through the woods has to be very dark, clear and dangerous.”

When asked whether he would come back for a fourth sea­son, Lynch told the TCA, ​“Well, before I said I was nev­er going to revis­it it. And I did. So I nev­er say nev­er. But as of now there are no plans.” How­ev­er, Sher­i­lynn Fenn recent­ly recount­ed a con­ver­sa­tion on the pod­cast Twin Peaks Unwrapped that told a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Lynch appar­ent­ly told her ​“If they love it, I would do more.”

A glance at the cast list also reveals a few new­com­ers – some more sur­pris­ing than oth­ers. Among the many unknown actors there are quite a few big names, most­ly notably Jen­nifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Mon­i­ca Bel­luc­ci, Michael Cera and Aman­da Seyfried. In addi­tion, Lynch alum­ni Lau­ra Dern (Wild at Heart, Inland Empire), Nao­mi Watts (Mul­hol­land Dri­ve, Rab­bits), Balt­haz­ar Get­ty (Lost High­way), Patrick Fis­chler and Robert Forster (Mul­hol­land Dri­ve) are all set to appear at some point.

One of the most strik­ing things about the cast list is how many musi­cians are fea­tured on it – not on the sound­track but as actors. Lynch’s film­mak­ing has fre­quent­ly includ­ed live music, from Julee Cruise’s appear­ances in Twin Peaks to Rebekah Del Rio’s per­for­mance in Mul­hol­land Dri­ve. Sea­son three will fea­ture Eddie Ved­der, Sky Fer­reira, Sharon Van Etten and Trent Reznor, who pre­vi­ous­ly con­tributed to the Lost High­way sound­track.

That’s what David Nevins said at the Tele­vi­sion Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion. Twin Peaks’ return was ini­tial­ly going to be a nine-episode run. In a momen­tary dis­pute in 2015, Lynch dropped out of the pro­duc­tion, lead­ing to a series of videos of the cast appeal­ing for his return. When the direc­tor did decide to come back, it was announced that the num­ber of episodes would be dou­bling. Not only will Lynch direct all 18 episodes, but Nevins promis­es we will see the ​“uncut, unadul­ter­at­ed version”.

Among var­i­ous fleshed-out back­sto­ries, Mark Frost’s epis­to­lary book ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’ also con­tains a few juicy rev­e­la­tions. Chief among them is a news­pa­per clip­ping from the Twin Peaks Post, which reveals that in the after­math of the bank explo­sion at the end of sea­son two, ​“Miss Horne was found uncon­scious but alive in the rub­ble of the base­ment.” Audrey was in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, and was in a coma at the time of the article.

Know­ing Twin Peaks’ pen­chant for iden­ti­cal twin cousins and oth­er soap opera tropes, it’s pos­si­ble Audrey could emerge from her coma 25 years lat­er. Frost’s book also effec­tive­ly con­firms Pete’s death, stat­ing that he ​“may have been inten­tion­al­ly shield­ed by one of the vic­tims of the blast, Pete Martell, who was found lying on top of her.” Being the sole sur­vivor of the event makes sense for Audrey, see­ing as the actors who played the oth­er char­ac­ters in the bank (Jack Nance, Dan O’Herlihy and Ed Wright) have all since passed away.

Miguel Fer­rer died on 19 Jan­u­ary, 2017, aged 61. The actor por­trayed FBI Agent Albert Rosen­field in Twin Peaks, and was set to return for sea­son three. As it turns out, he had already wrapped film­ing before he fell ill, so this will be his last ever per­for­mance. War­ren Frost, who played Doc Hay­ward, also died this year. This too will be his final role after retir­ing from act­ing near­ly 20 years ago.

The last time we saw Hank Jen­nings, he was impris­oned and refused bail by his ex-wife Nor­ma. This lead to Nor­ma deliv­er­ing the clas­sic line, ​“I’d rather be his whore than your wife,” in an espe­cial­ly cathar­tic moment. Anoth­er rev­e­la­tion in Frost’s ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’ is that after being aban­doned by Nor­ma, Hank con­fessed to his many crimes and attempt­ed to repent. Three years into his sen­tence, he was stabbed by a dis­tant cousin of the Renaults as revenge for his betray­al of their family.

After the retired actor who por­trayed Sher­iff Har­ry Tru­man, Michael Ontkean, decid­ed not to return to the show, reports sug­gest that Robert Forster will replace him as either the same char­ac­ter or a new Sher­iff in town. Yet one par­tic­u­lar detail in ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’ may pro­vide a clue. The book diverts off-top­ic at one point to explain that Harry’s old­er broth­er Frank was the town’s Sher­iff before Har­ry. Giv­en the seem­ing­ly point­less addi­tion of the char­ac­ter in the book, and his absence dur­ing the time cov­ered by the orig­i­nal series, it seems like­ly that Forster will be por­tray­ing the broth­er return­ing to his old job.

In ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’, an FBI agent in the present day is tasked by Gor­don Cole to go through an unknown archivist’s doc­u­men­ta­tion of the town’s his­to­ry. In its final pages, the archivist is revealed to be none oth­er than Major Gar­land Brig­gs – Bobby’s father and cryp­tic gov­ern­ment offi­cial. It turns out Brig­gs was com­mis­sioned to watch over the town, a his­tor­i­cal­ly weird place that was once the scene of a UFO sighting.

At the end of his jour­nal, Brig­gs urgent­ly con­tacts Coop­er, who is recov­er­ing from the events of the series finale. After meet­ing with him, he notes that there was some­thing wrong with the FBI agent, before decid­ing to head to the government’s for­est-based lis­ten­ing post alone. The final mes­sage is ​‘MAY­DAY’, and all sub­se­quent files on him are with­held as ​‘many lev­els above top secret’. Don Davis, the actor who played Major Brig­gs, died in 2008. Pre­sum­ing his char­ac­ter is also deceased, the mys­tery of his death may be anoth­er plot thread fol­lowed in the new season.

Despite only mak­ing a hand­ful of appear­ances, the plot of the orig­i­nal series and Fire Walk with Me often revolved around Killer Bob, the demon­ic spir­it that inhab­it­ed Leland Palmer and tor­tured Lau­ra until her death. It’s a lit­tle sur­pris­ing, then, that the show is mov­ing on with­out him, even though Frank Sil­va, the set dec­o­ra­tor-turned-actor who played Bob, died back in 1995.

Even sur­pris­ing­ly, Twin Peaks will con­tin­ue with­out Michael J Ander­son, who played ​‘the man from anoth­er place’. Although the image of him danc­ing and talk­ing back­wards is the most icon­ic of the show, a now-delet­ed Face­book post by the actor posit­ed that nego­ti­a­tions were unsuc­cess­ful. Still, a char­ac­ter who says lines like, ​“When you see me again, it won’t be me” could remerge in a vari­ety of ways.

Despite the absence of their two most mem­o­rable hosts, it looks like the sur­re­al aspect of the show will not go unseen. Accord­ing to David Nevins, sea­son three will pro­vide a ​“deep­er explo­ration” of the Red Room, answer­ing ques­tions such as ​‘What is the Red Room?’ ​‘How does it work? and ​‘Where is Agent Cooper?’

There is one res­i­dent of the Black Lodge who we know will be appear­ing again. Carel Struy­ck­en, who played ​‘The Giant’, let it slip that he’ll be in sea­son three. In an inter­view with Dutch news­pa­per Het Finan­cieele Dag­blad, Struy­ck­en revealed, ​“I have less screen time than I had 25 years ago, but I’m impor­tant for the devel­op­ment of the story.”

At the TCA event, Lynch sur­prised every­one by con­firm­ing that ​“the sto­ry of Lau­ra Palmer’s last sev­en days is very, very impor­tant [to sea­son three].” Orig­i­nal­ly sub­ti­tled ​‘The Last Sev­en Days of Lau­ra Palmer’, Fire Walk with Me adds some intrigu­ing new ele­ments to the Twin Peaks sto­ry. First of all, the spir­i­tu­al forces are more than we ini­tial­ly thought – with the inclu­sion of The Jump­ing Man and oth­ers along­side Bob. In addi­tion, the film brought the non-lin­ear­i­ty of the show’s time­line to the fore, build­ing on Laura’s teas­ing ​“I’ll see you again in 25 years” line. You can read more about the pos­si­ble con­nec­tions between Fire Walk with Me and sea­son three here.

Sea­son two not only revealed that it was Leland who mur­dered Lau­ra, but then killed him off short­ly after­wards. We got to see both Lau­ra and Leland in the final episode’s ter­ri­fy­ing Red Room sequence, and then again in Fire Walk with Me. Yet both actors are on the cast list for sea­son three. Pre­sum­ably we’ll see their char­ac­ters in flash­back, or per­haps in the Black Lodge. Ray Wise, who plays Leland Palmer, recount­ed a con­ver­sa­tion he had with Lynch regard­ing the new series. ​“I said, ​‘If you do choose to revis­it it, don’t for­get me.’ And he said, ​‘Well Ray, you know, you’re dead. But per­haps we can work around that’.”

The set­ting is obvi­ous­ly impor­tant to the show. Its many secrets are baked right into its premise. How­ev­er, char­ac­ters have been known to stray beyond the town’s lim­its, although only on rare occa­sions and gen­er­al­ly off-cam­era. The new sea­son will not live by that rule, accord­ing to David Nevins. ​“It takes place all over the coun­try”, he told EW, ​“Twin Peaks is an impor­tant locus, but it’s not the only locus.”

Angela Badalamenti’s score for Twin Peaks is one of the best things about the show. The beau­ti­ful music is burned into the brains of fans of the show, and it real­ly couldn’t do with­out it. His return was announced in a recent teas­er, with the com­pos­er play­ing ​‘Lau­ra Palmer’s Theme’ over a shot of the woods.

“There isn’t real­ly a need to have every­body read the whole script”, Lynch told GQ, ​“Peo­ple get what they need.” That was the phi­los­o­phy on the set of Twin Peaks, where actors were hand­ed their scenes with lit­tle to no idea what was hap­pen­ing else­where. Giv­en the nature of inter­net fan­dom, it’s per­fect­ly under­stand­able that Lynch has tak­en extra pre­cau­tions in keep the show’s secrets just that.

“Peo­ple want to know right up until they know, and then they don’t care,” Lynch point­ed out in an inter­view with Enter­tain­ment Week­ly. ​“It’s real­ly beau­ti­ful when you go into anoth­er world not know­ing what you’re going to find.” With the mar­ket­ing bare­ly exceed­ing a few cast pho­tos and a video of Lynch eat­ing a dough­nut, we still have no idea where sea­son three will lead us, but we have a strong feel­ing it will be some­where won­der­ful and strange.

Twin Peaks Sea­son 3 pre­mieres on 22 May with a two-hour spe­cial episode.