Twin Peaks sea­son 3 decoder: The Wiz­ard of Oz

This arti­cle con­tains spoil­ers for Twin Peaks sea­son 3 part 14. For max­i­mum enjoy­ment, we rec­om­mend read­ing after you’ve watched the show.

Part 14 of Twin Peaks: The Return was an episode of rev­e­la­tions (Janey‑E Jones is Diane’s half-sis­ter), gnarly twists (Andy was sucked up into the vor­tex and met the Giant/​Fireman in an alter­nate dimen­sion) and a tru­ly jaw-drop­ping ​‘WTF?!’ scene involv­ing clair­voy­ant alchie Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) and a misog­y­nist pig truck dri­ver. You do not get up Sarah Palmer’s grill if she did not invite you to her bar­be­cue, dude. Bad move.

David Lynch loves The Wiz­ard of Oz. In 1990’s Wild at Heart, he made what can be described as the loos­est – and most deranged – remake of the clas­sic MGM musi­cal; or at least used its febrile Tech­ni­col­or palette, crys­tal balls, hero nar­ra­tive, the Wicked Witch/​Miss Gulch and Glin­da the Good Witch as major sources of inspi­ra­tion. The lat­ter char­ac­ter turned up in Wild at Heart to dis­pense wis­dom to down­trod­den Sailor Rip­ley (Nico­las Cage) and was played by none oth­er than Sheryl Lee (Lau­ra Palmer/​Maddy Ferguson).

There have been numer­ous ref­er­ences to Wiz­ard of Oz through­out the his­to­ry of Twin Peaks. Audrey Horne (Sher­i­lynn Fenn) and her red shoes, Major ​‘Gar­land’ Brig­gs (Don S Davis), Fire Walk with Me’s mys­tery girl (nev­er seen but obsessed over since 1992) named ​‘Judy’ (who sent Spe­cial Agent Phillip Jef­fries over the rain­bow to the Black Lodge. He refus­es to talk about Judy, but we do learn she lives in Seat­tle). In sea­son two episode 17, Coop­er, hav­ing solved the Lau­ra Palmer mys­tery, intends to say good­bye to the Pacif­ic North­west moun­tain town.

Drop­ping by the sheriff’s depart­ment, Hawk (Michael Horse), Andy and Lucy (Kim­my Robert­son) are lined up to echo the scene in Wiz­ard, where Frank Morgan’s Great and Pow­er­ful Oz bestows gifts of brains, heart and courage to the Scare­crow, Tin Man and Lion. Ben Horne’s men­tal col­lapse (one of sea­son two’s most hat­ed sub­plots) fea­tured an exper­i­men­tal ther­a­py admin­is­tered by Dr Jaco­by (Russ Tam­blyn), where Audrey, Bob­by (Dana Ash­brook) and Ben (Richard Beymer) dress up in Con­fed­er­a­cy and Yan­kee sol­dier cos­tumes and re-enact the Bat­tle of Appomattox.

The Wiz­ard of Oz ref­er­ences con­tin­ued out­side the world of the show. A pro­mo­tion­al advert recre­at­ed Dorothy wak­ing up at home, hav­ing returned from her dream­like trip abroad; Coop (Kyle MacLach­lan) is in bed at the Great North­ern with the Man from Anoth­er Place (Michael Ander­son), Cather­ine Martell (Piper Lau­rie), Andy Bren­nan (Har­ry Goaz) and the Log Lady (Cather­ine Coul­son) gath­ered around him; Coop adver­tis­ing the show’s switch back to Thurs­day nights after it was shift­ed to a late night Sat­ur­day slot (the TV net­work kiss of death) and declar­ing ​“There’s no place like home” with cheesy élan.

Sea­son three has its fair share of Oz ref­er­ences, includ­ing Part 14’s trip to meet the Giant/​Fireman (Andy is shown a mon­tage of events through a win­dow, recall­ing the scene in Oz when Dorothy wit­ness­es Miss Gulch turn into the Wicked Witch) and Part 13’s arm-wrestling con­test at the Farm. When Bad Coop defeat­ed meat­head Ren­zo (Derek Mears), the crew auto­mat­i­cal­ly switched their alle­giance (as per house rules). As author Jez Con­nol­ly point­ed out, the Wicked Witch’s guards do the same thing after Dorothy (acci­den­tal­ly) reigned vic­to­ri­ous over the Wicked Witch in the cas­tle. But it’s anoth­er ref­er­ence in Part 14 which might yet con­tain Lynch’s most sub­tle and sub­lime nod yet to the Emer­ald City.

After Bob­by Brig­gs (Dana Ash­brook) reveals Jack Rab­bits Palace to his col­leagues (as per Major Brig­gs’ instruc­tions), high up on Blue Pine Moun­tain, it tran­spires that the ​‘palace’ is real­ly an old tree stump cov­ered in moss. Child­hood imag­i­na­tion and sto­ry­telling have turned it into the mag­i­cal ​‘palace’. As the cam­era push­es in, it cap­tures sun­light fil­ter­ing through the canopy. The well-timed lens flare caus­es the moss to glow momen­tar­i­ly, like the Emer­ald City.

It’s a spell­bind­ing moment and beau­ti­ful use of a light­ing effect which has plagued mod­ern cin­e­matog­ra­phy to the point of visu­al cliché. (It’s worth point­ing out that cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Peter Dem­ing also shot 2013’s Oz the Great and Pow­er­ful for Sam Rai­mi). Of course, that’s what makes Lynch such a mas­ter filmmaker.