* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Is the Man From Another place [[spoiler:legitimately trying to stop BOB to prevent a catastrophe from happening, or is he an evil spirit attempting to take control of BOB for his own purposes?]] Due to the show's cancellation, we may never know for sure.
* AssPull: Season 2, episode 9. See JumpingTheShark
* BaseBreaker: Annie Blackburn. While she isn't without her fans, she still gets flack from [[FanPreferredCouple Cooper/Audrey]] shippers.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Season 2 episode 8 has a flashback of Ben and Jerry remembering a girl dancing around with a flashlight in their room as children. It's wordless, 4 frames per second, and goes on for over a minute. Hold on, Ben & Jerry?... [[LateToThePunchline Oh lord.]]
** The singing scene with James, Donna and Maddy. Helped heaping them all onto the [[TheScrappy scrappy heap]] if they weren't there already.
** As [[MindScrew bizarre]] as the dream from "Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer" was, every element of it ends up returning and being important to the plot -- with the exception of that shadow that passes behind the curtain.
* TheChrisCarterEffect
* CommitmentAnxiety
* CompleteMonster: BOB. [[spoiler:The rape and murder of Laura Palmer is just the tip of the iceberg, as he's a demonic entity who [[TheHeartless feeds on the fear and pain]] he inflicts through DemonicPossession of hapless people. Also doesn't help that he's a CompleteMonster and an EldritchAbomination rolled into one.]]
** Windom Earle. It's really something when his actions actually make you feel bad for [[spoiler:[[DomesticAbuser Leo Johnson]]]].
* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The entire soundtrack, really. Good thing too, because most of it consists of a few tracks played over and over in each episode, and if it weren't so good it would drive people crazy. Now has [[AwesomeMusic/TwinPeaks it's own page]].
* CultClassic
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Audrey is one of, if probably not THE most popular character aside from ol' Coop.
** Gordon Cole, Albert Rosnefield, and Maddie Ferguson all have pretty big fanbases despite not appearing that much.
* FanPreferredCouple: The Cooper and Audrey pairing was preferred not only by fans, but by Lynch himself; explicit references were written out of the script at Kyle [=MacLachlan=]'s objection to their relationship. Both were later given other (and fan-reviled) love interests in the second season.
** It's rumoured that the decision not to move forward with the Cooper and Audrey romance was down to Lara Flynn Boyle (who was involved with Kyle at the time). It was confirmed by the producer-writer Robert Engels.
* HolyShitQuotient: Extremely high.
* [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Japanese Love Twin Peaks]]: While ''Twin Peaks'' is more along the lines of a [[CultClassic Cult Classic]] in the U.S., it was VERY popular when it aired in Japan. It even influenced the creators of [[TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening a popular Nintendo game you may have heard of]].
** Lynch even filmed a series of Japanese coffee commercials, starring Agent Cooper and the rest of the gang. Can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A_-FHsPwfQ&feature=related here]]
** DeadlyPremonition is pretty much a spiritual adaptation.
* JerkassWoobie: [[spoiler:Leo arguably becomes this over the course of his captivity in Windom Earle's cabin, during which he comes to understand firsthand the sort of horrifying abuse he inflicted upon Shelly. See RedemptionEqualsDeath below.]]
* JumpingTheShark: Episode 9 of the second season. To elaborate, [[spoiler:this is the episode where they solve the entire Laura Palmer case. In one day. It opens with a conversation leading to Coop acting extremely and blatantly OutOfCharacter and telling the police to "Give (him) twenty-four hours to solve this case," and [[AssPull they solve the whole case]] by a {{Retcon}} of Cooper's dream earlier on, along with a note in Laura's diary that simply reads "My father killed me."]]
* MemeticMutation: "She's dead... wrapped in plastic."
** [[OwlBeDamned "The Owls are not what they seem."]]
*** ''TwinPeaks'' is [[Memes/TVTropes currently a running joke]] on the TVTropesFora, where it is regularly mentioned among anime. (The reason for this is that someone once recommended this in an anime recommendations thread where the original poster didn't explicitly ask for anime.)
* NightmareFuel: And TheMovie, ''Fire Walk with Me'', is even ''scarier'' than the series, which is to be expected because it's about the final days of Laura Palmer. BOB is at his most terrifying, the Black Lodge is even more disturbing, and if you're faint of heart, it's probably a good idea to close your eyes during the scene where Laura climbs on top of Harold Smith and says "Fire...Walk...With...Me. '''''ME!!!'''''" Seriously.
* OneSceneWonder: Loads of these in the movie. DavidBowie shows up for all of a minute as Agent Jeffries (whose role in the shooting script was slightly larger), Harry Dean Stanton as a bizarre trailer park landlord, etc.
* ReplacementScrappy: Annie Blackburn, who was wheeled in out of nowhere purely to supplant Audrey as Cooper's love interest.
** [[TwoWordsObviousTrope Three words:]] John. Justice. Wheeler.
* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: Almost. After spending Season One as a weak-willed pawn being manipulated by Catherine and Ben Horne before running crying to Sheriff Truman, it is revealed that Josie [[spoiler: has secretly been working with Ben to frame Catherine for the mill fire, and also had a hand in her husband's death, which gave her the mill in the first place.]] Then, in the following season, it is discovered that Josie did all this at the behest of another person, turning her back into the easily manipulated victim. One step forwards, two steps back.
* RomanticPlotTumor: Several. Primarily to blame for the general consensus that the second season would've been much better if it had been half as long.
* TheScrappy: James Hurley (for being monumentally stupid, even by the standards of Twin Peaks teenagers) and Josie Packard (for being a hysterical victim and nothing else); take your pick. Or Nadine. Don't forget Annie and John Justice Wheeler, especially if you're a [[FanPreferredCouple Cooper/Audrey]] fan.
** Lana Budding Milford also gets a lot of flack.
** Arguably the series' biggest Scrappy is Evelyn Marsh, who served no purpose to the main storyline and was probably only added to [[spoiler:[[PutOnABus write James off the show]]]].
* SeasonalRot: It is generally agreed that the series loses focus after the main story arc is resolved in episode 8 of season 2. A new, related story arc emerges in the rest of the second season, but much of it suffers from having been neglected by Lynch and left to less competent writers and directors, causing [[DependingOnTheWriter a vast drop in quality and major inconsistencies in characterization]]. Kyle [=MacLachlan=] became impatient with Lynch's non-involvement and even cast member Kimmy Robertson admits to having stopped watching due to SeasonalRot.
* SignatureScene: The Red Room scene at the end of the third episode.
* TearJerker: The last scene of ''Fire Walk With Me''.
** Don't forget [[spoiler:Leland's death]].
* TooGoodToLast
* UncannyValley: Just about everything about the Black Lodge.
* VillainDecay: Ben.
* {{Wangst}}: Done intentionally with Leland in season 1.
* WhatAnIdiot: Laura is a tragic example, Andy is a comic one, and Maddy, James and Bobby are just dumb.
* TheWoobie: A good chunk of the characters, actually.
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