Twin Peaks sea­son 3 decoder: The Black Dahlia

This arti­cle con­tains spoil­ers for Twin Peaks sea­son 3 part 11. For max­i­mum enjoy­ment, we rec­om­mend read­ing after you’ve watched the show.

On 15 Jan­u­ary, 1947, the muti­lat­ed body of 22-year-old Eliz­a­beth Short was found on a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neigh­bour­hood of Los Ange­les. Bisect­ed, drained of blood, her mouth slashed from ear to ear, giv­ing the vic­tim a hideous Jok­er-like grin, Miss Short became a true crime icon. The mur­der­er was nev­er captured.

Twin Peaks co-cre­ator David Lynch has long been fas­ci­nat­ed by this unsolved mur­der case and even pro­vid­ed a blurb for what is con­sid­ered to be the best book on the sub­ject, John Gilmore’s ​‘Sev­ered’. ​“The most sat­is­fy­ing and dis­turb­ing con­clu­sion to the Black Dahlia case. After read­ing ​‘Sev­ered’, I feel as if I tru­ly know Eliz­a­beth Short and her killer,” reads the quote embla­zoned on the front cov­er boast­ed. ​‘Sev­ered’, it turns out, is most­ly fried baloney, but like James Ellroy’s acclaimed 1987 nov­el on the sub­ject, it makes for a crack­ing story.

Short’s des­per­ate life in LA (both real and fic­tion­alised) pro­vid­ed Lynch with inspi­ra­tion for sev­er­al of his films as well as Twin Peaks. Some­times the ref­er­ences are oblique, such as the scene in Blue Vel­vet, where Jef­frey Beau­mont (Kyle McLach­lan) takes a short­cut in his neigh­bour­hood and finds a human ear in scrubland.

In Mul­hol­land Dri­ve, Lynch draws cer­tain par­al­lels between doomed Diane Sawyer/​Betty Elms (Nao­mi Watts) and Miss Short. He named Watts’ alter-ego in her hon­our (Eliz­a­beth was known to friends and fam­i­ly as ​‘Bet­ty’). In Short, Diane/​Betty arrives in Hol­ly­wood look­ing for the stars but finds only the gut­ter. Mul­hol­land Dri­ve is one of the great films about the sav­age nature of the Amer­i­can movie-mak­ing busi­ness and the Black Dahlia is the poster girl for Hollywood’s ​‘chew ​‘em up, spit ​‘em out’ cal­lous­ness. She is a cau­tion­ary tale.

Enig­mat­ic Lau­ra Palmer, a mys­tery girl full of secrets, is an Dahlia-like fig­ure: beau­ti­ful and trou­bled. There are strong hints of the Dahlia in Ronette Pulas­ki (Phoebe Augus­tine), too. Laura’s high-school acquain­tance, like Short a work­ing-class girl, also got caught up in the shadier side of the Pacif­ic North­west moun­tain town. Ronette lived through the encounter in the train car with Leland (Ray Wise), freed by an angel, who van­ished the bind­ings tied by Mr Palmer. Lau­ra did not receive the same divine intervention.

Part of Short’s biog­ra­phy (the line between fic­tion and real­i­ty is very blurred) involved a sup­posed pros­ti­tu­tion ring and mak­ing porno films for sleaze­bags with stu­dio asso­ci­a­tions (pro­duc­ers or agents). The infa­mous cast­ing couch was a place where corn-fed Iowa girls and Miss Alaba­mas could be plucked for whore­dom. Movie-obsessed Short might well have fall­en vic­tim to such lies and bro­ken promis­es. In Twin Peaks, Emory Bat­tis (Don Amen­dola) used Horne’s depart­ment store’s per­fume counter (Lau­ra and Ronette worked there) to pro­cure teenagers for the One Eyed Jacks casino.

Anoth­er grotesque avenue for male deprav­i­ty in Twin Peaks is Flesh World, a wank mag which fea­tured adver­tise­ments for the girls’ ser­vices. It is ulti­mate­ly unknown how steeped in the LA under­bel­ly Short actu­al­ly was, but the mythol­o­gy paint­ed her as a bright-eyed dream­er and pleas­ant girl with a dual life involved in vice and crim­i­nal­i­ty (just like Lau­ra and Ronette). Dual­i­ty is a major Lynchi­an trope and recur­ring theme.

In sea­son three part 11, Lynch again pays homage to Short, this time with the dis­cov­ery of Ruth Davenport’s body in the vacant lot where Bill Hast­ings (Matthew Lil­lard) and Ruth met Major Gar­land Brig­gs. After Gor­don Cole (Lynch) is stopped from enter­ing a vor­tex in the sky by Albert Rosen­field (Miguel Fer­rer), Ruth’s decap­i­tat­ed remains are found, par­tial­ly obscured by long grass, rot­ting and in bizarre pose (like the Dahlia, but less extreme).

In part one, Bill’s lover’s head is placed next to Major Brig­gs’ corpse, in bed, stink­ing up the apart­ment. Where­as that sur­re­al image hints at the Black Dahlia in a super-obscure way, part 11’s ref­er­ence is prac­ti­cal­ly scream­ing Short’s name in neon lights. Short died 70 years ago, but her cul­tur­al lega­cy lives on Twin Peaks and work of David Lynch.