Twin Peaks sea­son 3 decoder: Audrey’s Dance

This arti­cle con­tains spoil­ers for Twin Peaks sea­son 3 part 16. For max­i­mum enjoy­ment, we rec­om­mend read­ing after you’ve watched the show.

It is with­out shad­ow of a doubt one of the most famous moments in Twin Peaks his­to­ry. In the Dou­ble R din­er, Audrey Horne (Sher­i­lynn Fenn) is sat at the counter dis­cussing the new J Edgar in town with Don­na Hay­ward (Lara Fly­nn Boyle). The music play­ing on the juke­box (com­posed by Ange­lo Badala­men­ti) has a deep affect on her. ​“God, I love this music,” she tells Don­na, adding, ​“Isn’t it too dreamy?” She gets up and slow­ly dances (more like sway­ing), lost in the beau­ti­ful­ly woozy melody. This scene, arriv­ing ear­ly in sea­son one, is the pre­cise moment view­ers fell in love with Audrey Horne.

The character’s pecu­liar cameo-style appear­ances in Twin Peaks sea­son three have led to all kinds of the­o­ries. Is she in an asy­lum? Is Twin Peaks a fig­ment of her imag­i­na­tion? Is she trapped in the Black Lodge? Is she the dream­er who dreams and lives inside the dream? Part 16’s final shot, which shows Audrey look­ing very con­fused in a white room, hair tied back and with no make-up, came as a shock twist, even if fans fig­ured some­thing wasn’t quite right in the state of Wash­ing­ton. ​“What? What? What? …” Audrey asks, star­ing at her freaked out reflec­tion, a quin­tes­sen­tial Lynchi­an moment of one real­i­ty shat­ter­ing into anoth­er. The close-up shot is accom­pa­nied by the sound of a surg­ing elec­tric cur­rent (nev­er a good sign in the world of Twin Peaks). Elec­tric­i­ty sug­gests the Black Lodge spir­its at work.

David Lynch and Mark Frost have con­sis­tent­ly teased Audrey’s return. Frost’s 2016 book ​‘The Secret His­to­ry of Twin Peaks’ con­firmed she had sur­vived the bomb blast in the bank vault, but it’s look­ing clear now her life since that fate­ful day in 1989 (in the show’s time­line) hasn’t been a very nice one.

Hav­ing final­ly made it to the Road­house with Char­lie (Clark Mid­dle­ton), Audrey sips a Mar­ti­ni at the bar and toasts her beloved Bil­ly (who we all sus­pect is the freak locked up in the sheriff’s jail, drib­bling black flu­id and tor­ment­ing crooked cop Chad). After this week’s musi­cal act, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Ved­der leaves the stage, the Road­house mas­ter of cer­e­monies clears the floor and calls up Audrey to relive her clas­sic moment from sea­son one, this time it’s an extend­ed freestyle vari­a­tion, with the use of jump cuts hint­ing at the unre­al­i­ty of it all. Just when it seems Lynch is throw­ing us a nos­tal­gic bone to chew on, he goes and pulls the rug from under our feet.

The first thing to say about the scene is the MC explic­it­ly calls the act ​‘Audrey’s Dance’. Using the title of Badalamenti’s com­po­si­tion brings a fris­son of post­mod­ernist self-ref­er­enc­ing to the moment. As some wisen­heimer teen in a 1990s slash­er movie might say, it’s all total­ly meta. It’s also intrigu­ing because it sug­gests Audrey not only remem­bers danc­ing in the Dou­ble R some 25 years ago, but that it’s a cher­ished mem­o­ry. Then a fight breaks out, the act is wrecked and the night­mar­ish twist revealed. It’s one hell of a cliffhang­er to lead into parts 17 and 18.

With Agent Coop­er (Kyle MacLach­lan) final­ly awake from his Dougie Jones body prison, en route to Twin Peaks, thanks to the Mitchum broth­ers’ pri­vate jet, the show­down com­ing with Bad Coop promis­es to be spectacular.