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"She's dead... Wrapped in plastic."

"Through the darkness of future past,
the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds...
'fire, walk with me.'"
Philip Michael Gerard

Twin Peaks is a Genre-Busting television series created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. Starting out as a hybrid Crime Time Soap/Detective Drama, premiering on April 8, 1990 as a Midseason Replacement on ABC, it quickly took off for parts unknown with a pervasive supernatural element. The series eventually revealed itself to be an Occult Detective story with very surreal elements that smacked of off-kilter Magic Realism. Basically, it had a little bit of everything.

The story takes place in Twin Peaks, Washington, a sleepy rural slice of Americana where everyone seems to know everyone. Eccentric FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is called to the town after Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) — a high school senior and homecoming queen — is discovered dead and wrapped in plastic.

Cooper teams up with Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), the town's trusty (though skeptical) Sheriff, as they investigate the murder, which Cooper believes may be linked to an unknown serial killer he has been tracking for years. It quickly becomes apparent that everyone in Twin Peaks has their own secrets to hide, and Laura's shocking death may be the powderkeg to bring it all out into the open. Meanwhile, Cooper finds himself visited by enigmatic dreams and visions which he believes may be the key to finding the true culprit.

The eight-episode first season of Twin Peaks was a surprise ratings success — to the point of denting the competing goliath that was Cheers — and it was renewed for twenty-two more episodes. This ended up causing numerous problems, mainly because the showrunners had never really expected or intended for the show to run that long; they were also forced by ABC to conclusively answer certain key mysteries in the middle of the season, undercutting the narrative of the show. To justify Cooper remaining in Twin Peaks, an old foe from his past arrives in town to menace him in cryptic ways, and this storyline eventually dovetails with Laura's death. The 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me functions as both a prequel and a sequel, though infamously does not resolve any of the plot lines left hanging in the series.

As the series was a huge ratings draw for a time, it naturally influenced and inspired future works across all media to a degree that can still be felt to this day. Aside from being the first live-action TV series to have feature film-quality production, it also paved the way for shows like The Sopranos (which stole its dream sequences), Carnivàle (whose own showrunners/creators drew heavily on the mystical Manichaean themes and crypto-Masonic imagery that were Mark Frost's signatures in Twin Peaks) and The X-Files (which also featured FBI agents investigating paranormal cases). It also had a notable influence on the animated series Gravity Falls in terms of setting and focus on both mysteries and supernatural elements. As far as video games influenced by Twin Peaks go, they range from the obvious like Mizzurna Falls, Deadly Premonition, Silent Hill, Alan Wake, and Thimbleweed Park to the less so like Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, Lone Survivor, Max Payne 2, Life Is Strange, Disco Elysium, and even The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

The existing series finally saw a Blu-ray boxset release in mid-2014, which contains an exclusive 90-minute compilation of Deleted Scenes from Fire Walk with Me edited together (by Lynch himself) into a quasi-film called The Missing Pieces. Fire Walk with Me (and The Missing Pieces) would also be released separately by The Criterion Collection.

After years of rumors of a return, a sequel series titled Twin Peaks: The Return premiered on Showtime in 2017. As referenced in a cryptic line from the first season, we return to Twin Peaks 25 years later. Lynch and Frost returned as showrunners along with a large section of the original cast. The resulting season majorly ups the surrealism factor of the story and provides a final resolution (such as it is) to the series. Following The Return, both Lynch and Frost have expressed interest in possibly making a fourth season at some point, but Lynch also stated that it will be at least a while before he gets around to that decision, although he has hinted that the Sequel Gap won't be as drastic this time around.

Character tropes go on to the Characters Sheet.


"I've got to find out what kind of tropes these are—they're really something..."

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    0-D 
  • The '80s: Although both the series and Fire Walk With Me were released during the 90s, and done in a style filled with visual reference to The '50s, both are set during the tail end of the 1980s.
  • '80s Hair: Mullets and perms, as far as the eye can seenote . Averted with Audrey, who has a very '90s haircut.
  • Aborted Arc: The plotline about Cooper being investigated for his conduct during the raid on One-Eyed Jack's and being framed by a corrupt Mountie for stealing a bunch of cocaine is rather unceremoniously dropped once Windom Earle shows up. After that point, the only indication he's still technically under investigation and suspended is the interesting plaid shirts that replace his black suit, and he's reinstated in a couple lines of dialogue, without the actual investigating agent or the Mountie ever appearing again.
  • Abusive Parents: Played solemnly for tragedy and terror, mixed in with a lot of Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil. Makes all the movie all the more horrifying when Laura can never tell when she is talking to her "real" father or to BOB.
  • Actor Allusion:
  • Alien Geometries: At least the way Cooper experiences it, the Black Lodge is made up of large square rooms bordered by red drapes, and a short length of similarly draped hallway connecting the rooms. If you keep going back and forth between what seems like the same two rooms, you will end up in different places.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed when Shelly reminisces about how cool Leo seemed when she was in high school, with his leather jacket and cool car
  • Alone with the Psycho: Maddy's final scene.
    • Right after the above, Donna when she drops a letter off with Leland and overhears the phone call the Maddy never made it home
  • Ambiguous Situation: Most of the accepted lore about the supernatural elements of the series is pieced together from the scripts, the extra material, the canon spinoff books and audio media, and a great deal of in-universe hearsay, with most of it being inferred by fans at best. The ending of season two, in particular, is incredibly ambiguous, save for the fact it's clearly dark and unhappy.
  • Another Dimension: Two of them — the White Lodge and the Black Lodge. You don't want to go to the second one. Notably, the series never clarifies any visually or tonally identifiable difference, or exactly which one we're seeing at any given time.
  • Anti-Hero: Bobby, Shelly, MIKE, Jacoby (kind of) and Laura Palmer.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: For an FBI agent who relies heavily on dreams and visions as part of his investigative technique and decides which of several leads in a case to pursue by tossing rocks at a glass bottle until it smashes, Cooper is remarkably reluctant to ask the Log Lady's log about what it knows about the case.
    • To a certain extent, this applies to Sheriff Truman as well. Despite being a part of a secret society that is sworn to protect Twin Peaks from an unknowable, eldritch evil lurking in the woods outside of town, he seems fairly skeptical of Cooper's dream-based reasoning.
  • Arch-Enemy: Windom Earle to Dale Cooper.
  • Arc Welding: The Return makes sense of many of the unresolved plot points from the first two seasons... Well, it makes sense in same the way that any David Lynch work can.
  • Arc Words:
    • In the original run: "Fire walk with me." To a lesser extent, "the owls are not what they seem".
    • In The Return: "We live inside a dream."
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Ladies and gentlemen, Laura Palmer is dead. Jacques Renault is dead. Ronette Pulaski and Leo Johnson are both in comas. Waldo the bird is dead."
  • Artistic License – Law: There are several points in the show, notably when the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department search Jacques Renault's house, that police work is overtly simplified for the purpose of storytelling. There is little to no talk of search or arrest warrants in the first season of the show, which makes sense, since having to follow those rules would completely derail the dramatic flow of the show. This gets a possible lampshade later on when it is revealed that the local judge travels around in a Winnebago from city to city in his district to hold court, so Leland Palmer's arraignment and Leo Johnson's competency hearing all have to be jammed into one day of hearings.
  • Artistic License – Religion: In the last episode, Ben Horne, displaying the pile of religious scriptures he means to study, following "the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita" by picking up another single volume which he identifies as "the Talmud." The Talmud would, at a minimum, take up a trunk.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Hinted to happen to Laura at the end of The Movie.
  • Ascended Extra: Ascended Actor, anyway. Sheryl Lee was originally cast to play Laura's corpse and limited flashbacks, but Lynch liked her so much he created the character of Maddy for her, feeding into BOB's modus operandi as revealed by the movie.
    • BOB is perhaps the ultimate example of this, being an Ascended Stagehand. Frank Silva received the role of BOB after a filming error by series creator, David Lynch in the pilot. Lynch liked the scene with Silva in the pilot, and decided to make him into a recurring character.
  • As Long as There Is Evil: Invoked by Albert when trying to explain the existence of BOB.
  • Asshole Victim: Leo Johnson
  • Astral Checkerboard Decor: The chevron floor pattern in the Red Room fits the spirit of the trope.
  • The Atoner: MIKE claims to be this, but it's really difficult to say.
  • Back for the Finale: The Log Lady, Ronette Pulaski, Maddy and Laura, Leland and Sarah Palmer all appear in the final episode after significant absences.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Implied by the Bolivian Army Ending of the second season.
    • Confirmed based on "The Return." When we pick back up with the series, Cooper has been trapped in the Black Lodge for 25 years while BOB runs slipshod in Cooper's body in reality. When it comes time for them to switch places, BOB has created another double of Cooper named Dougie Jones that Cooper goes into instead of his real body, and thus he acts childish and has amnesia to boot.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Windom Earle's quest to find the Black Lodge goes poorly for him.
  • Becoming the Mask:
    • Ben Horne starts a campaign of saving the pine weasel as a way to derail Catherine's real estate plans. Somewhere along the way he actually starts to care, and this leads to extensive soul-searching on his part.
    • Denise Bryson realizes she is transgender after an undercover operation that required her to cross-dress.
  • Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The Secret History of Twin Peaks introduces American history from the days of Lewis and Clark and even well before as a conflict between figures who are proxies for the White and Black Lodges, shown as a long-running hidden battle between good and evil which includes such figures as Lewis and Clark, Aaron Burr, Richard Nixon, and L. Ron Hubbard. Many of these historical figures are Not on the Side you'd expect they'd be.
  • Betty and Veronica: Present (and played with) a lot in fitting with the show's faux-1950's, Soap Opera aesthetic:
    • Zig-zagged and gender inverted with the Laura, Bobby, James love triangle. At first, it seems like Bobby, the high school quarterback from a good family is the Betty while James, the Book Dumb, Troubled, but Cute biker from the wrong side of the tracks would be the Veronica, particularly in the first few episodes when it seems like James could have killed her. However, Bobby later is revealed to be involved in all sorts of criminal dealings and has a bit of an attitude problem himself, while James is a sweet, good guy. It's further subverted when it's revealed that both of them were too tame for Laura and that Bobby struggled to be the bad boy Laura wanted.
    • James himself is torn between the wild, Good Bad Girl Laura (Veronica) and her more wholesome and restrained friend Donna (Betty).
    • And of course, Agent Cooper is torn between the seductive Fille Fatale Audrey and the former nun Annie.
  • Black Comedy: Windom Earle is a FUNNY guy, even if he is a complete psychopath. It also helps that most of the humor is at Leo's expense. The sequel season plays around with even more Black Comedy elements, such as Out with a Bang at the hands of something that looks like The Greys and a clumsy, mentally addled tenant stumbling on a grim but almost comically exaggerated murder scene in her neighbor's apartment.
  • "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Bobby Briggs prefers "business proposition".
  • Black Screen of Death: The Secret History of Twin Peaks uses a text-based version of a Discretion Shot: Briggs recounts how he goes to approach Cooper on his return from the Lodge, and never writes another word or is ever heard from again.
  • Blessed with Suck: Only two kinds of people can see BOB's true face, and thereby have the power to stop his savagery - the gifted and the damned. One of the series' main remaining mysteries is which category Cooper falls into.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Black Lodge, who are strict about their own world's rules but clearly have just a slightly different set of values than everyone else.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: "How's Annie?"
    • And then to the sequel season: "What year is it?"
  • Book Ends: An exchange takes place between Bobby, Shelley and a German waitress in the diner in the pilot episode, which is repeated almost verbatim in the final episode.
  • Bronson Canyon and Caves: The Owl Cave scenes, in the second season, are shot in one of the Bronson caves. They make sure never show to us the more famous exterior of the cave, however, as it would look incongruously arid and rocky for the Pacific Northwest.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Some of Agent Cooper's investigation methods are unique to say the least. Surprisingly this is tolerated and even factored into serious case work by the officers of the Twin Peaks sheriff's department, who have probably never seen an FBI agent before and don't know any better.
  • Captain's Log: Agent Cooper's tape recorder messages for Diane.
  • Casting Gag:
    • Lynch originally wanted Robert Forster to play Sheriff Harry Truman, but Forster was unavailable at the time due to other commitments, so the role went to Michael Ontkean instead. By the time of the Return, Ontkean had retired from acting and therefore declined to return as Harry, so instead Forster was cast to play Harry's brother, Frank Truman.
    • James Belushi previously starred as a Film Noir-style protagonist in Wild Palms, one of the first series to capitalize on Twin Peaks' popularity. Some critics considered Belushi to be a bad fit for this role. 24 years later, Twin Peaks itself cast Belushi as a seemingly tough gangster who's a big goofball on the inside, which is a better use of his talents as a comedic actor.
  • Catchphrase:
    • "Harry, you're all right."
    • "Damn good coffee."
    • "Diane..."
    • Major Briggs: "That's classified."
  • Celebrity Paradox: One of the bands featured in Season 3, Trouble, has David Lynch's son and Dean Hurley, a sound designer for the show, as members.
  • Characterization Marches On: Cooper is noticeably more standoffish and reserved in the pilot episode than in every subsequent episode. Granted, he's meeting everyone in the town for the first time, but he's already become much more friendly and gregarious by the following episode, which takes place the next day. It also makes sense for him to try and get as much information as he can while the case is still a little warm, given how much harder the location and that era's technology would make things.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Andy's shooting lessons come handy when Jacques Renault attempts to shoot Sheriff Harry S. Truman.
  • The Chessmaster: Windom Earle is a rather literal example of this trope. He determines his victims through a game of chess played against Cooper, and even at one point dresses a victim as a giant chess piece before shooting him with a crossbow. By contrast, Pete Martell, who is even better at chess, but lacks the ambition or the capacity for cruelty to really be this trope.
  • Child by Rape: The orphaned boy Little Nicky was conceived from a rape and his mother died in childbirth.
    • Implied in the case of Richard Horne, the illegitimate son of Audrey Horne and the doppelganger Cooper.
  • The Church: With a few exceptions such as Deputy Hawk, most of Twin Peaks' locals are unambiguously Christian with funerals and weddings conducted by Laura's ex-Sunday school teacher, a clergyman whose polite manner evokes The Vicar of British rural settings. The only overtly devout or obsessively religious member of the community, however, is the mystically-inclined Jesuit Catholic Major Briggs.
  • Cliffhanger: Both original seasons ended this way. In Season 1, the final scene ended with Cooper being shot by an unknown assailant, while Season 2 ended with half the cast killed in an explosion while Cooper got trapped in the Black Lodge, with BOB possessing his body and laughing maniacally in triumph.
  • Cliffhanger Copout: Episode Three in the first season ends with Agent Cooper having a dream from which he learns who killed Laura Palmer. Cooper immediately wakes up from the dream to call up Sheriff Truman to tell him that he knows who the murderer is but teases that the answer could "wait 'till morning." Come the next episode, taking place that following morning, Cooper recaps all the events from the dream that ended with Laura Palmer whispering the name of her killer in his ear. Then, once he's asked who the killer is, Cooper nonchalantly responds "I don't remember."
  • Cloudcuckoolander:
    • Agent Cooper, who talks to a tape recorder while hanging upside-down by his boots in his room. His superior, Gordon Cole — played by the real Cloudcuckoolander of the series, David Lynch himself — was obviously an influence.
      Cole: COOPER, TODAY YOU REMIND ME OF A SMALL MEXICAN CHIHUAHUA.
    • On the Twin Peaks side, Margaret (the Log Lady), the source for at least one of the page quotes and the following:
      "Wait for the tea! The fish aren't running!"
    • Nadine, though played for a kind of awkward tragedy.
    • To a lesser extent, Audrey, especially in the earlier episodes.
  • Cloudcuckooland: The FBI, judging by the agents that we see.
  • Color Motif: More day-to-day scenes usually involve some variant of brown or beige. Green hints at deception and illusion - Twin Peaks' outward face is represented by its green logo and sign, and the Lodge Ring is green. Not to mention Dougie's jacket and the green glow that hovers over Dougie's coworker's face as Cooper, in the form of Dougie calls his bluff. Red usually turns up suggesting danger and sexuality, most obviously in the curtains of One Eyed Jacks and the Black Lodge, as well as the glimpse of the Black Lodge in the casino and the red door of Dougie's house.... not to mention the existence of a dangerous, psychotic gangster named Red. You can't trust blue either, which seems to be associated with BOB - he wears denim, is often cloaked in blue light, and in the movie, a possessed Leland laments the appearance of MIKE, BOB's nemesis, "out of the blue".
    • Water Is Blue, and almost always associated with death.
    • Teresa Banks and Laura Palmer's murders were "Blue Rose Cases".
    • Major Garland Briggs goes around everywhere in his blue dress uniform, and formerly worked on Project Blue Book.
    • "Questions in a World of Blue" is the song Laura cries to shortly before her demise at the hands of BOB.
  • Companion Cube: Margaret's log, which arguably allows her to communicate with her dead husband, who now inhabits the Black Lodge and is probably Jurgen Prochnow.
  • Concealment Equals Cover: Averted in the third season. Two criminals are trying to escape from an altercation with another criminal by rushing off in their van. He sprays the van with bullets from a machine pistol and they both end up dying.
  • Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" doubles down on this including the Fantasy Kitchen Sink the series already had, including everything from UFO's to Meriwether Lewis's death and nuclear waste on Twin Peaks. To make things worst, it is left unclear how much any conspiracy group interacts with the others and how much each side knows. For instance, the FBI seems to quite a lot about the mystical elements, while the USAF knows about alien life.
  • Consulting Mister Puppet: The Log Lady.
  • Cool Car: Leo's red muscle car. It helped win him Shelly's affections when she was in high school.
  • Crazy People Play Chess: Windom Earle. When he's not killing people and stuffing their corpses, he enjoys a good chess game. Averted with Pete Martell, who is the best chess player around and is a perfectly sane and kindly old fella.
  • Creator Cameo: Cooper's superior, Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole, is played — very loudly — by David Lynch.
    • Local newscaster Cyril Ponds, who appears briefly on a tv screen in the first season and reappears in the Return is played by co-creator Mark Frost.
  • Creator Provincialism: Maddy Ferguson is from Missoula, Montana, where David Lynch was born.
  • Criminal Mind Games: The Windom Earle arc. Interestingly, the most elaborate and traditionally Serial Killer-esque aspect of his mind games (the chess game, in which he kills a victim for everyone of Cooper's pieces he takes) is actually just a diversion from his real goal.
  • Cryptic Conversation/Word-Salad Horror: Cooper's encounters with the Grotesque Gallery.
    The Man From Another Place: She's my cousin. But doesn't she look almost exactly like Laura Palmer?
    Cooper: But she is Laura Palmer. Are you Laura Palmer?
    Not-Laura: I feel like I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back.
    The Man: She's filled with secrets.
  • Creepy Child: Mrs. Chalfont's grandson is creepy in the TV series.
    • Even more so in the movie.
    • Those familiar with David Lynch might find the grandson creepy (or alternately, hilarious) because he looks and acts identical to him, right down to the voice inflections and mannerisms. Which makes sense, as he's played by Lynch's son Austin.
  • Creepy Jazz Music: Jazz is always the soundtrack of the Black Lodge, a location that is nothing if not sinister. The last episode of Season 2 takes this up to eleven with an extended scene of Jimmy Scott singing a jazzy ballad that is incredibly unnerving.
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: Played straight with the Log Lady and several other characters. Averted by Cooper in that everyone takes his far-out theories seriously anyway (except for Albert, the only person who actually does have good reason to believe him).
  • Cult Soundtrack: Angelo Badalamenti's jazzy, synth-driven soundtrack has become iconic in its own right, influencing many subsequent musicians to copy its sound, especially in the indie rock scene.
  • Cutting the Knot: When confronted with a puzzle box that opens to reveal more puzzle boxes (in the vein of a Matryoshka doll), Catherine, Pete, and Andrew all try their hands at solving it. The first box is opened by accident (Pete dropped it), the second is opened by inputting a code, and the third is opened because Andrew got tired of the charade and smashed it open with a rolling pin. The final box is opened by the same character getting similarly frustrated and shooting it.
    • When Truman gives Cooper Laura's diary in the first episode, Truman repeatedly mentions that they need to find the key to open the diary. Cooper responds by successfully prying the diary open with his bare hands.
  • Dance of Despair: Mr. Palmer dances multiple times throughout the series when dealing with the loss of his daughter, Laura, often calling out her name. He performs the same dance as he murders his niece, Maddy Ferguson. The dance serves as a clue to Agent Cooper that Mr. Palmer killed Laura because it mirrors the dances the dwarf performed in his dream.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: The inhabitants of the Black Lodge could not by any stretch of the imagination be called good (they eat pain and suffering, after all) but some of them do help Cooper with his investigation on numerous occasions.
  • Deadly Prank: Windom Earle does this sort of thing a lot.
  • Deconstruction: A woman backstabbing her mentally ill lover? She's trying to obtain her best friend's diary to present it to police. Instead of being a pure black and white, with bad people doing bad things with bad intention and good people doing good things with good intention, bad people do good things for bad reasons, good people do bad things for good reasons, bad people do bad things for good reasons, and the full spectrum of morality exists. There are truly good characters, flawed characters with good intentions, redeemable characters with bad intentions, and evil demonic beings. Not to mention that the Magic Realism prevalent in many soap operas is turned on its head: the supernatural elements generally include incredibly horrifying eldritch abominations and other surrealist elements.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The White Lodge appears in this color palette, to distinguish itself from the more colorful Black Lodge. Confoundingly, a prologue sequence set in the in-universe version of the "real" world also appears in the same Deliberately Monochrome filter.
  • Demonic Possession: Leland and finally Cooper. In all likelihood, Agent Jeffries as well.
    • And to a smallish degree, Laura. Or at least something's in there.
    • By contrast, Gerard and the old bellhop, who are inhabited by much more benevolent spirits. Maybe.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Johnny Horne, Audrey's brother, appears in a few early episodes before disappearing until a late season 2 cameo.
    • Ditto for Sylvia Horne who appears in the first three episodes then only subverts Chuck Cunningham Syndrome by appearing in the last episode.
  • Denser and Wackier: Season 1 of Twin Peaks had quirky elements throughout, yet despite being a creation of David Lynch, it was a relatively straight forward murder mystery in both narrative and presentation, though with a couple of dark supernatural twists. Season 2 begins to lean more into Lynchian surrealism, kickstarted with a 5 minute long Overly Long Gag involving a senile old man completely oblivious to the fact that Cooper is bleeding out on the floor next to him (he thinks he's just lying on the ground for the fun of it). Season 2 is also where the more supernatural elements begin to really come into play.
  • Depraved Bisexual:
    • Josie Packard and Blackie O'Reilly are confirmed as this in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, and there is heavy hinting for Blackie in the show as well. Although Josie, at least, is a pretty complicated character, and her apparent bisexuality is never played for any particular discomfort or associated with her moral failings.
    • Leo Johnson's Fleshworld ad.
  • Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Cooper understands his dream in episode 2 is significant. It takes some time, however, before he realizes its characters are extra-dimensional monsters who feed on human suffering.
  • Disguised in Drag
    • It's fairly obvious (and not at all odd, considering the show) that the stout Japanese businessman with the impressive moustache is really a woman but it's not obvious that she's Catherine Martell.
    • Dennis/Denise Bryson, being of Ambiguous Gender Identity, can pull off the sleek DEA agent look as well as the sultry waitress look without breaking a sweat. In fact, this is how she initially discovered her different feelings, during an undercover operation that required her to dress as a woman.
  • Disposable Sex Worker: Averted - the main plot arc is the investigation of who killed Laura Palmer, and Laura Palmer is one of the most developed and fleshed-out characters in the show despite being both a sex worker and a Posthumous Character (she later serves as the protagonist of The Movie). Nor is Ronette Pulaski treated as any less human because of her profession.
  • Distressed Damsel: Many, but above all Laura.
  • The Ditz: Lucy and Andy.
  • Does Not Know Her Own Strength: Nadine, after returning from the hospital (after attempting suicide).
  • The Dog Bites Back: Parodied when Leo gets hold of the remote control for his shock collar... and points it at Windom Earle like a weapon, without realising that he's still wearing the shock collar himself. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Donut Mess with a Cop: "A policeman's dream!"
  • Double-Meaning Title: Twin Peaks is the name of the town, which is located between two mountains: Blue Pine Mountain and White Tail Mountain. In addition, there are many Doppelgangers throughout the series be it through Uncanny Family Resemblance, such as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson, or through supernatural means, such as Agent Cooper and his Black Lodge clone.
  • Double Standard: Rape, Divine on Mortal: Maybe. BOB's fellow Lodge creatures don't always seem to care that he's been raping and murdering young women left and right. Just that he won't front them any of the suffering he takes from his victims. On the other hand, MIKE claims to have "seen the face of God" and become The Atoner, but then, he could be lying. MIKE's motivation is one of the greatest mysteries of the show.
  • Downer Ending: For 25 years, the season two finale. Half the cast is dead and Cooper's soul is trapped in the Black Lodge while BOB makes use of his possessed body. It was not the intended finale, and the uncut version of Fire Walk With Me was meant to offer a bit more closure, though if anything it made things even more unclear. Released to the public on the blu-ray set, it gives a few more tantalizing minutes after the end of the season finale, but the Downer Ending remained essentially unresolved until season three came along.
  • The Dragon: Hank, first to Mr. Horne and later to Jean Renault.
    • Also, Leo to Windom Earle.
      • Jonathan, and later Miss Jones, to Thomas Eckhardt.
  • Dragon Lady: Josie.
  • Dragon Their Feet: Miss Jones carries out Thomas Eckhardt's order to assassinate Sheriff Truman despite Eckhardt's death.
  • Dr. Jerk: Albert.
  • Dreaming the Truth
  • Dream Sequence: Cooper's is a famous example.
  • Driving Question: The Laura Palmer case.
  • Drone of Dread:
    • In episode 6 of the first season, during the scene of the conversation with the Log Lady at her house, a low rumbling drone is heard in the soundtrack.
    • Near the end of season two, a droning tone fills the air as some characters have uncontrollable spasms. Exactly what it implies is never made clear.
  • Drugs Are Bad: A heavily implied (but not quite anvilicious) aesop. While drugs are indeed a major part of Laura's downfall, her drug use doesn't exactly lead to her problems so much as result from them.
  • Duality Motif: Used extensively throughout the original series and The Return. Among other things, the town is called Twin Peaks, there are two different pairs of characters named Mike and Bob, and there are two characters played by Sheryl Lee, both of whom are murdered by a possessed Leland ("It is happening again"). The Return extends this, with the main plot revolving around two different Coopers walking on Earth.
  • Due to the Dead: Donna is noticeably uncomfortable when Audrey confronts her about Laura's past, as she sees posthumously keeping up her end of their friendship as an obligation to Never Speak Ill of the Dead.
  • Dying as Yourself: Leland Palmer
  • Dysfunction Junction: Laura was the prom queen and overall darling of the town. She was also heavily into cocaine and BDSM prostitution. Plus, you know, she's being repeatedly raped by her demonically-possessed father.

    E-H 

  • Early-Installment Weirdness: Particularly the character of Cooper. In the pilot, he was as likely to (excessively, to the point of momentary obsession) express dislike and pickiness as he was to express liking, seemed to largely lack self-awareness, and his social manner was weird to the point of being somewhat creepy. He later became the perfect role-model of social grace, and less prone to childlike wonder at the sight of snowshoe rabbits. Also, whatever the conflict was between James and Bobby seems to vanish, along with the other bikers and random bar fights.
  • Easily Forgiven: After learning that her father not only ran One-Eyed Jack's, but actively funneled his teenage employees into it and slept with Laura (which was at best taking advantage of a deeply troubled girl young enough to be his daughter), Audrey has one conversation with him about it and that's enough (although she still goes through his desk for Agent Cooper). He spends the back half of season 2 trying to learn to be good and rebuild his relationship with Audrey, which she allows.
  • Eccentric Townsfolk: Everyone in Twin Peaks is weird in someway ranging from the fact Nadine is an amateur inventor with super strength to the Log Lady. Oddly, one of the compliments the show frequently got was that by including all these peculiarities, they actually felt more like real people than many more mundane dramas.
  • Eldritch Location: The Black and White Lodges are the clearest example. Also applies to the convenience store in The Return - it's pitch-dark and decaying, infested with Woodsmen, is Bigger on the Inside and has a staircase that leads back outside in a different location entirely.
  • Enemy Within: BOB to Leland, and later Cooper.
  • Energy Beings: It's implied that BOB and other Black Lodge inhabitants can travel through electric wires when they're not possessing people.
  • Even the Rats Won't Touch It: The food at the local hospital looks (and smells) downright disgusting.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Windom Earle has been seeking the Black Lodge for decades in order to harness its evil power for his own ends. He doesn't last a day in the place before overstepping his welcome and suffering a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Evil Tastes Good: Averted. If you didn't already find creamed corn disturbing, you will now.
  • Evil Twin: Of Agent Cooper, and possibly the Man From Another Place and Laura, within the Black Lodge.
    The Man From Another Place: The next time you see me, I won't be me.
    The Man From Another Place: (the next time they meet) Doppelganger! Doppelganger!
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Leland Palmer's hair turns white in the first episode of the second season, at which point he ceases to be paralyzed by grief.
    "God, I feel like singing! Come on, everybody, and just get happy!"
  • Eyepatch of Power: Nadine. Good old casually-600-pound-pressing Nadine.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Averted due to Executive Meddling. Lynch wanted to take as long as possible to solve the murder.
  • The Fair Folk: The residents of the Black Lodge. Okay, so they're not really "fairies", but they still fit the bill.
  • Faking the Dead: Catherine Martell and her brother, Andrew Packard.
  • Fantasy Americana: One of the defining examples, with a sleepy Washington town being the epicenter of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, and the surrounding forest being an Enchanted Forest, host to a menagerie of terrifying spirits who would give the worst of The Fair Folk a run for their money. The Return expands the scope to include the rest of the United States, most prominently Las Vegas and South Dakota.
  • Fantasy Pantheon: Though this is never commented on by the townsfolk of Twin Peaks or the law enforcement and visitors who show up there, the Lodge creatures are functionally a pantheon of evil deities for the purposes of the series' narrative, with some of their wilder and more sinister escapades resembling existing mythological stories about gods and titans at their worst moments. Although their actual status may be somewhere between demons and The Fair Folk.
  • Fatal Family Photo: A security guard at the Twin Peaks bank discovers that his wife has just given birth to a boy seconds before a massive explosion apparently kills everyone.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Being possessed by BOB. Being raped by BOB. Being trapped in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years that could either go back in time, forward in time, or completely nonlinearly, and may not even equate to human world time.
  • Femme Fatale / Fille Fatale: Audrey Horne is on the border, since she's 18.
  • Fetishes Are Weird: The corrupt businessman Benjamin Horne and his mistress and partner in crime Catherine Martell have a relationship in the vein of Power Dynamics Kink that involves him kissing her feet and her replying to his compliments with sarcastic quips. Exaggerated when he's accused of murder and arrested, and she visits him in jail. She takes off her shoe, and he kisses her foot, pleading her to confirm his alibi.
  • Final Exam Finale: Everybody comes Back for the Finale, including the dead characters and characters still in town who'd not been seen for ages. The show asks you to remember Jacoby describing a smell like scorched engine oil, what Hawk said about the Dweller on the Threshold, and that Ronette Pulaski and Sarah Palmer ever existed. Of course, Cooper's still in the Black Lodge, everybody's in mortal peril, and the last shot of the second season is BOB in Cooper's body laughing about the turn of fortune... for 25 years.
  • Foiler Footage: The scene of Maddy's murder, which reveals who killed Laura Palmer, was filmed twice with both Leland, the real killer, and Ben Horne, the red herring, to confuse anyone who might be tempted to leak. At the script stage, no less than three versions of the scene were reportedly distributed, with the third having Dr. Jacoby as a second red herring candidate.
  • Food Porn: Coffee, pie and donuts.
  • Foreshadowing: There's a lot in Cooper's first mystical dream.
    • BOB's line "You may think I've gone insane, but I promise I will kill again". Who is the only person at this stage who appears actually insane as opposed to just odd? Leland.
    • "She's my cousin. But doesn't she look exactly like Laura Palmer?" referring to Maddy. Also, in a way, Laura herself could be considered The Man From Another Place's cousin, since BOB is possessing her father, BOB is the "familiar" of MIKE, and The Man split off from MIKE like Athena from Zeus.
    • It also references "Carrie", if that's even her actual name in the third season. Who Cooper/Richard assumes is Laura. Is he wrong? This prophetic Cryptic Conversation is the only clue.
    • Cooper is asked about Waldo and says he doesn't like birds. The primary antagonist, which spinoff audio media implies he had previous and very negative encounters with, takes the form of an owl.
    • "I think I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back".... also references a major plot element in the third season: the shape of Judy's horns/antennae, and bent-back arms.
    • A bit of a stretch, but the fact that the third season of the show is taking place 25 years after the events of the finale, both in real life and in the show, seems to indicate Cooper's first meeting with The Man From Another Place to be this.
  • Foot Focus: After successfully completing a complicated gambit, Catherine reveals her identity to Ben Horne by showing him her pedicured foot.
  • The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Phillip Gerard's interrogation at the Sheriff's station.
    MIKE: This is his true face, but few can see it: the gifted... [he turns to look directly at the camera] and the damned.
  • Freakier Than Fiction: The most insane and improbable things mentioned in The Secret of History of Twin Peaks are things that actually happened. Whereas things like people catching a glance of The Giant in the woods and the soul of the Log Lady's husband being trapped in her log are pretty benign and dull by comparison.
  • From Bad to Worse: The series starts with the relatively mundane murder of Laura Palmer, but by its end has become a full-blown Cosmic Horror Story.
  • Gainax Ending: The ending for the "International Version" of the pilot episode. It ended up being heavily edited and recontextualized for Cooper's dream at the end of the second episode.
  • Gambit Pileup: The show definitely trends towards this, especially regarding the real estate deals. At times, it feels like half of the town is constantly working to ruin or destroy someone else.
  • Gambit Roulette: Catherine's machinations to get control of the real estate are helped by heaps of luck; there's even an "Everything is going exactly as we planned..." line midway through season 2.
  • Genre-Busting: It's a deconstructive surrealist paranormal Psychological Horror Police Procedural Crime Time Soap with comedy, drama, and teen angst.
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: The long-lost Philip Jeffries, disappeared crime-fighting hero, appears to have experienced this. He briefly reappears in The Movie barely able to string two coherent words together and raving madly about canned corn, before suddenly disappearing again. In reality, he's been trapped in the Black Lodge so long that he's "gone native" and can only speak in the Lodge creatures' prophetic style of Cryptic Conversation, in addition to fearfully recognizing Cooper's future (or past) role.
    • A more overt example crops up in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me in the form of the residents of the Deer Meadow trailer park. As explained by The Secret History of Twin Peaks, they've, uhh... seen some things in their time.
  • Godzilla Threshold: When BOB finds another victim, everyone begs Cooper to use any of his kooky methods that they previously disparaged in order to catch the killer.
  • Good Is Not Nice: While the closest the series comes to this trope is Albert Rosenfield and Audrey's confrontational personalities, The Secret History of Twin Peaks involves a long-running portrayal of good guys aligned with the White Lodge, a roster including some notoriously corrupt, dishonest, or unstable public figures.
  • Government Agency of Fiction: The FBI in the Twin Peaks universe often deals heavily in supernatural cases. These more often than not tend to be just a little more dangerous than the usual kind of work. The movie implies that FBI code for these cases is "Blue Rose".
  • Government Conspiracy: Dale Cooper is a strong believer in conspiracy theories. Given his own experience...
    • Major Briggs is sort of a part of one. In one scene, he gives Cooper a piece of very sensitive information and apologizes for not being able to tell him any more. Cooper responds that, as a fellow employee of the federal government, he understands completely.
    • The Secret History of Twin Peaks alludes to both positive and negative aspects of a broader secret conflict between factions of spiritual darkness and spiritual light stretching throughout history. Richard Nixon is portrayed by the book's compiler Major Briggs as a mad if well-meaning leader in the good guys' faction, engaging various characters from his trusted circle in covert diplomacy/contact with alien races.
  • Green Aesop: More of a peripheral subtext than a focal point of the series, aside from Audrey's advocacy for environmental conservation. Dealt with more explicitly in The Secret History of Twin Peaks, which alludes to the idea of settlers and their descendants interfering with the environment as a partial cause of some of the more malevolent (super?)natural weirdness that plagues Twin Peaks.
  • Grotesque Gallery: Lodge inhabitants include The Man From Another Place (a dwarf, who is actually a severed arm in human form), The Giant (a ... giant, obviously), a one-armed man, and a singer played by Jimmy Scott (who suffered from Kallmann Syndrome).
  • Guardian Angel: In The Movie, Laura keeps a painting of one in her room for protection. When it disappears, things get really bad.
  • Handicapped Badass: An unassuming example in the form of friendly Cloud Cuckoolander Gordon Cole, who is apparently in charge of a large amount of dangerous Paranormal Investigation.
  • Hannibal Lecture: Jean Renault gives Cooper one.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: A buffet lunch of in-universe examples after watching The Movie or reading the Laura Palmer's diary spinoff book.
    • Most prominently Leland's wacky self-expression in the first and early second season: The Reveal in season 2 shows that he's forcing the most extreme types of positive expressions on himself - to the point of becoming borderline insane - trying to fight off being completely overtaken by BOB and losing his humanity. The Movie takes this a step further and reveals that he's trying to keep BOB not only from possessing him, but from leeching on to his despair and feeding on his suffering. It fails.
    • MIKE tells the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department that BOB can only be seen in his real form by The Gifted and The Damned. So which is Cooper?
  • Heel–Face Turn: Ben Horne becomes a nice guy toward the end of season 2 (see We Want Our Jerk Back!).
    • Leo Johnson is an irredeemable, abusive control freak toward Shelly in Season 1, but suffers much of the same abuse at the hands of Windom Earle in Season 2. His Heel–Face Turn begins when he is reluctant in assisting Windom Earle kill an innocent victim, then sets fellow captive, Major Garland Briggs free and asks him to keep Shelly safe. Bear in mind Leo previously tried to immolate Shelly at the end of Season 1.
  • Held Gaze: Audrey and Cooper share one near the end of episode 208.
  • Hero of Another Story: Doug Milford, retroactively, thanks to The Secret History of Twin Peaks.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold:
    • Audrey Horne. At first sight she seems to be a spoiled troublemaker who aspires to be a femme fatale (often successfully), but with time it is revealed that she's actually an lonely innocent with good intentions.
    Director Todd Holland on Audrey's character: "She's one of my favorite characters because you thought she was such a big slut and she's probably the most moralistic person in Twin Peaks and that's all tremendous fun. The ones like her father feign morality and are incredibly treacherous, but they carry on a good business front."
    • Albert Rosenfield is an obvious Jerkass, but eventually reveals a great love for the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and he mellows out.
  • Hidden Villain
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Laura. And Audrey invokes this when she tries to get into the business for investigative purposes, but doesn't stay long enough to do any actual hooking.
  • Hormone-Addled Teenager: Laura Palmer's peers. And she herself, but with a bit of extra baggage.
  • Horrifying the Horror: MIKE does this.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Whatever else the inhabitants of the Black Lodge are, they are all surely this — even the seemingly more benevolent ones, such as the Giant. As of The Return, at least one of them isn't even remotely "humanoid" anymore.
  • Humans Are Bastards: While Cooper believes everyone around him has an inherent goodness that it's his moral duty to bring out, The Doppelganger sees things the opposite way and makes it his mission to bring out peoples' pettiness with the most murderous and tragic possible consequences.

    I-L 

  • Idiot Ball: Happens sometimes towards the end of the series with both Harry and Cooper. The greatest offender, however, is Major Briggs, whose first decision, immediately after establishing that a murderous psychopath is hiding out in the forest, is to take a casual relaxing walk in the forest on the way home. Harry and Cooper think it's a great idea.
    • The entire investigative team. They deduce from the first episode that Laura's death was part of a string of killings including Theresa Banks and was to have included Ronette Pulaski and yet they make absolutely no efforts to connect the three girls, and aside from a brief talk with Ronette's parents, they completely ignore anything to do with her. No attempts are made to talk with her friends or any other relatives, this in comparison to the efforts they go to investigating Laura Palmer's life. Essentially they just decide that Laura was the primary target of the attack since she was the one that died.
    • Also, when Windom Earle is murdering people, they make no apparent effort to find him, instead being content to keep on receiving clues from him and making chess moves. Even when they learn that he is based in the woods near Twin Peaks, they make no effort to search the woods for him.
  • I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:
  • I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: In Episode 4, Andy drops his gun and it goes off by accident. In the next episode, Bobby gives a braggadocio-filled impression of how he'd handle being caught having an affair while waving a gun around with his finger on the trigger.
  • I Just Want to Be You: Donna to Laura in the movie. After briefly snapping out of her nihilistic haze, Laura has to quickly set Donna straight that trying to be like her will come to no good.
  • I'll Take Two Beers Too: A non-verbal example when the Hornes are hosting a reception for the Icelanders. Catherine and Pete enter the reception and Catherine takes two glasses of champagne from a waiter, downs the first in one gulp, then promptly walks off with the second one.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills:
    • Agent Cooper. He fires six shots at the range, leaving four bullet holes on the target.
    Cooper: I put four through the eyes and two through the nostrils.
    • After fumbling his gun and one session on the firing range, Deputy Andy Brennan drops Jacque Renault with one shot.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Lana Budding Milford is described as entrancingly beautiful by everyone who sees her.
  • Informed Small Town: Twin Peaks itself is perhaps best described as an inverse example. was originally intended to have just over five thousand residents, but an extra digit was added at the network's request to make it bigger, while nothing else was changed to reflect such a size. A town of over fifty thousand would certainly have more than one high school, much larger police force, and it would definitely lack the "everyone knows everyone" atmosphere shown in the series.
  • Innocence Lost: Laura, in the most tragic way possible.
  • Insane Troll Logic: An out-of-universe one which Sherilyn Fenn noted in interviews that they officially broke up Agent Cooper and Audrey (even though they never got together officially) because Audrey was too young for him. However, as a quirk of Dawson Casting, they had Agent Cooper's love interest replaced by Heather Graham who was playing older than Audrey but younger than Sherilyn Fenn.
    • An in-universe one where Jean Renault blames Agent Cooper for the death of his brothers, despite the fact they were killed as part of the drug trade and Laura Palmer investigation respectively.
  • Interim Villain: In Season 2, Wyndom Earle served as this, until BOB, the original Big Bad, returned. This may be more Hijacked by Ganon, though since Wyndom Earle remains one of the show's iconic villains.
    • Jean Renault and Warren Eckhardt may be more traditional examples.
  • Invisible Backup Band: James' song he sings while playing guitar in the episode "Coma" has bass and percussion come out of nowhere halfway through.
  • Is This Thing On?: Played painfully straight with the town's mayor in the pilot and later on in the second season.
  • It Makes Sense in Context
    • Surprisingly, yes. The prophetic dream that Agent Cooper has in the second episode is full of surreal imagery, but everything eventually comes to make sense.
      • "You may think I've gone insane, but I promise I will kill again," foreshadows Leland Palmer's death scene, specifically that he wasn't insane, his inhabiting spirit was.
      • The shadow that passes behind the curtain is supposed to be an Ominous Owl.
      • "That gum you like is going to come back in style," will be said to the killer while Cooper's in earshot, triggering his memory of Laura telling him who killed her.
      • "She's my cousin. But doesn't she look almost exactly like Laura Palmer?" foreshadows Maddy and her fate, as well as hinting at the Demonic Possession that links the Man From Another Place to Laura.
      • "I feel like I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back" references Laura Living a Double Life as a bondage prostitute.
    • Outside of the dream, other seeming nonsense makes a bit more sense when considered in full context than it may initially seem.
  • It Makes As Much Sense In Context
  • Japandering: This Georgia is damn fine coffee!
  • Jerk Jock: Bobby Briggs and Mike Nelson, although they both mature a lot by the end of the series.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Albert defines this. After an amazing speech in which Albert's heart of gold becomes apparent, he and Sheriff Truman — formerly bitter enemies — become close friends and even hug one another in a later episode.
    • Bobby Briggs, initially a whiny Jerk Jock who's barely any less abusive to Shelley than her husband (and also killed a guy in a coke deal gone bad), becomes a not-too-bad guy by the end of the show.
  • Jurisdiction Friction: Averted right off the bat in the pilot episode when Agent Cooper specifically asks Sheriff Truman if he is going to have any trouble with this. Played straight with the very crooked Deer Meadow jurisdiction in Fire Walk With Me, though, who learn the hard way not to give Chris Isaak any trouble.
  • Just Friends: Audrey and Cooper, to the ire of both David Lynch and the Fan-Preferred Couple crowd.
    Audrey: But don't you like me?
    Cooper: I like you very much. You're beautiful, intelligent, desirable. Everything a man wants in his life. But what you need right now, more than anything, is a friend. Someone who will listen.
  • Large Ham:
    • Ben Horne's always been the kind of person who likes to hear himself speak, but he gets especially in the early second season when he begins to lose his composure as things start to fall apart for him. It begins around the time he gets falsely accused of murdering Laura Palmer and is forced to spend jail time, but he's probably at his most hammy when he goes completely off the rails and thinks he's General Robert E. Lee.
  • Latex Perfection: Catherine Martell, disguised as a mysterious Japanese businessman after Faking the Dead.
  • Left Hanging: For 25 years, there was no resolution to any of the plotlines in the series, having been left on a cliffhanger.
  • Left the Background Music On: Happens quite frequently.
    • The first episode has Audrey doing this, much to her father's dismay.
    • She does it again with the jukebox at the diner in the second episode.
    "God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?"
    • This happens on a radio (which is immediately changed) in Season 2 Episode 2.
    • In another season two episode, some melancholy flute music plays over an establishing shot of the abandoned house Windom Earle is occupying, which turns out to be... Windom Earle himself playing the flute. It sounds kind of silly, but it's in fact a pretty eerie moment since he's doing it while waiting for Leo Johnson to come to so he can torture him.
  • Leitmotif: "Laura Palmer's Theme" and later (in the second season) "Audrey's Prayer" are repeatedly used as love themes. Some characters (Hank Jennings or Windom Earle, for example) have their own themes as well.
  • LGBT Awakening: DEA Agent Denise Bryson realized she was transgender while on an undercover operation that involved dressing in women's clothing.
  • Limited Lyrics Song: James' song "Just You" consits of "Just you/And I/Together Forever/In love" repeated over and over again.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: The little trailer park trailer that isn't there today. And the convenience store that apparently the Lodge creatures once lived above.
  • Love Dodecahedron: And how. It's easier to name the characters who aren't a part of it. To put it simply, nearly everyone in town has at least two lovers, which leads to a lot of sharing.
  • Love Makes You Crazy: Windom. Freaking. Earle.

    M-P 
  • Magic Realism: Though it increasingly starts to resemble straight-up horror or fantasy as the series goes on.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: After Cooper gets shot, he simply lies on the floor patiently without screaming in pain and even signs the note provided by the waiter.
  • Master of Disguise: Windom Earle, master of the Wig Moustache Accent. In fairness, most of the people he's trying to fool have never met him and have no reason to be on their guard.
  • Master of Your Domain: Agent Cooper.
    • His throwing-rocks-at-a-bottle-to-determine-leads method is described as an exercise of mind-and-body cohesion. He's already determined what the answer is subconsciously, throwing the rock just lets his body dig it out of his mind, and because he's got the best aim in the FBI, he'll hit the rock once his body becomes attuned to what his mind already knows.
    • Later, he survives being shot three times at point blank range without going into shock simply by keeping fear from his mind.
  • Mirror Monster: BOB, perhaps the most iconic example of this in television history.
  • Missing Child: The disappearance and murder of Laura Palmer, and the subsequent disintegration of her parents' lives.
  • Missing White Woman Syndrome: All of BOB's victims are white women (not counting Jacques, whose murder BOB may have had nothing to do with), although this may be simple statistics; rural Washington is a pretty white place.
    • Played with in how BOB's victims are treated. Ronette Pulaski is a young pretty white woman who suffers the same rape and torture as Laura did and even goes to the same school. However, her attack barely seems to affect anyone but her parents. The root of this may be that her parents are clearly much less well-off than Laura's. Teresa Banks got it even worse, being also young, white and pretty, but her complete lack of any social connections and standing would have caused her violent death to pass by entirely unnoticed, if not for certain details attracting the FBI's attention.
  • Monochrome Casting: Every recurring character is white except Josie Packard and Deputy Hawk. In the entire course of the series, very few non-white people even have lines, usually only appearing as extras at the Great Northern, as well as a couple of black school teachers at the local high school: with the only other exceptions being an Asian gangster and an unnamed dark-skinned employee of Ben Horne. The predominantly White Anglo-Saxon Protestant demographics aren't entirely inaccurate to the locale, but Twin Peaks is still a noticeably white place.
  • Mood Whiplash: The series changes from serious crime drama to lighthearted comedy to surreal horror extremely frequently, especially at the beginning of the second season.
  • Murderers Are Rapists
  • Must Have Caffeine: Agent Cooper's catch phrase is "Damn good coffee." Indeed, all the cops seem to love coffee and donuts.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Audrey.
  • Mundane Horror: Donna delivers a meal to an old lady Mrs. Tremond and her grandson. They say cryptic things, the grandson, who is "studying magic", makes creamed corn disappear from the tray, and the whole scene has a very unsettling feel. Next time Donna comes to visit them, they are not there, and a completely different person lives here.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Both Laura and Leland experience these moments... though in the second case, it's for a pretty good reason. Ben as well, albeit in a much more Narm-filled fashion.
  • Myth Arc: The investigation of Laura Palmer's murder, though there quickly turns out to be much, much more going on than just that.
  • Narnia Time: Time in the Black Lodge is a somewhat more Mind Screw-worthy take on the idea.
  • Never Found the Body: Catherine Martell.
  • The '90s: While the show is mostly done in a Retraux style meant to evoke The '50s, the 90s style is still very evident in the clothing styles and technology.
  • No Dead Body Poops: The aversion is mentioned, but not depicted.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Maddy's demise.
  • No Indoor Voice: REGIONAL BUREAU CHIEF GORDON COLE, AS PLAYED BY DAVID LYNCH HIMSELF. AND HE'S CALLING YOU FROM ORRRRRRRRRRR-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-GONNNNNNNNNN!
  • No Medication for Me: Forced on Phillip Michael Gerard to force a transformation into MIKE, his "inhabiting spirit." Inverted by Windom Earle, who uses haloperidol to mimic the symptoms of schizophrenia, first to get out of a jail sentence, then later to drug his captives.
  • Noodle Incident: What exactly did happen to Cooper in Pittsburgh?
    • Explained in tie-in material considered canon by the creators. He and Windom Earle's wife fell in love. Windom murdered Caroline and attacked Cooper.
  • Not Himself: This seems to be the case with Leland Palmer due to his daughter's sudden and tragic murder. In fact, his entire life has been a case of this as he's been off-again-on-again possessed by BOB since late childhood. His murder of Jacques Renault allows BOB complete control over his body until his death.
  • Obvious Villain, Secret Villain: A very disturbingly meta example throughout Season 1 and some of Season 2. The murdered Laura Palmer's mother, Sarah, repeatedly sees visions of an evil long-haired man, BOB in Laura's bedroom, who - as revealed in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - repeatedly raped Laura from childhood and eventually killed her. But BOB is also possessing and influencing Laura's father and Sarah's husband, Leland; he is Laura's earthly killer and her rapist, and even worse, it isn't all BOB's influence.
  • Occult Detective: The natural result of Agent Cooper becoming aware of the town's less-than-normal qualities. Of course, he started out using such investigative techniques as throwing rocks at a bottle while listening to the list of suspects to determine which leads to follow, which he learned from the Dalai Lama in a dream. Keep in mind, given what we find out in The Movie, Cooper had already foreseen Laura's death and Gordon Cole likely informed him beforehand that he was working on a Blue Rose case. Which means the rules are, to put it mildly, just a little different.
  • Odd Friendship: Well, most of the town's residents and the agents dispatched there are odd, to say the least, but the trope is best exemplified by Albert and Truman later in season 2.
  • Old Cop, Young Cop: Windom Earle and Dale Cooper might have been this before Earle went insane.
  • Ominous Owl: They are the eyes of BOB. Maybe. In any case, they are not what they seem.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two Bobs (Bobby Briggs and the spirit BOB), three Mikes (Mike Nelson, the spirit MIKE and Mike Boyd), two Dougies (Milford and Jones), two Phillips (Gerard and Jeffries), two Richards (Tremayne and Horne), two Johns (Horne and Wheeler), and even two Toads (a regular and an employee at the Double R).
  • Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Played with. In the pilot, several of the more sympathetic characters who indeed did not kill Laura do not call their lawyers when being interrogated by Cooper and Truman. However, while Bobby Briggs is at least initially one of the less sympathetic characters and could be viewed as a "bad guy", he did not kill Laura either - and yet his family's lawyer is present at his interrogation.
    • Double Subverted by Fire Walk With Me, by Retcon to the above. Bobby killed a drug dealer two days before Laura's murder, and has every reason to believe he's going to prison.
  • Out with a Bang: Mayor Doug Milford, in the "wedding night" variant.
  • Overly Long Gag: The Season 2 opening with the wounded Cooper trying in vain to get the elderly and apparently senile hotel waiter to realize that he has been seriously injured and needs medical attention. Even when Cooper realizes that it is a fool's errand and decides to just go with the flow and humor the waiter, the scene just keeps on going, eventually totaling just under a whopping five minutes.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Bookhouse Boys are supposedly dedicated to battling "the evil in the woods," but they seem to be mostly just a social club. Even when Demonic Possession and unexplained disappearances start happening right in front of them they don't seem to make the connection.
  • Place Beyond Time: The Black Lodge, where Cooper winds up stuck for at least 25 years while still communicating with himself and others through their dreams at various points in time — including before Laura Palmer's murder, which brought him to Twin Peaks in the first place.
  • Power Dynamics Kink: The relationship between Benjamin Horne and Catherine Martell has a shade of this, involving him kissing her feet and her replying to his compliments with sarcastic quips. Exaggerated when he's accused of murder and arrested, and she visits him in the jail. She takes off her shoe, and he kisses her foot, pleading her to confirm his alibi.
  • Powerful People Are Subs: The manager of Horne's Department Store, who secretly recruits underage girls into prostitution/drug rings, turns out to enjoy being bound and gagged.
  • Powers That Be: The White Lodge is meant to be a force for good that counterpoints the Black Lodge. The Giant, for example, sincerely gives Agent Cooper clues to solving Laura Palmer's murder and flat-out tells him Leland did it in the episode which reveals him as the killer. He also warns him of BOB who frequently takes the form of an owl.
  • Prayer Is a Last Resort: Annie in the season 2 finale, Ronette Pulaski in Fire Walk With Me. In both cases it basically works.
  • Psychic Powers: Cooper has a dream of the future when something significant is about to happen, a trait played up further in The Movie. Also may explain his way of intuitively figuring things out in seconds when he is introduced in the series.
  • Put on a Bus: James. After being betrayed by a girl again he decides to go on the road, but promises to eventually come back to Donna. He does... 25 years later.

    Q-T 
  • Rape as Backstory:
    • All but stated for Leland, who seems to have been abused as a child by BOB, who was likely in the form of someone who lived near (or...in) the Palmers' lake house. Laura faced the same fate of abuse at the hands of BOB, but allowed herself to be killed rather than go on to be possessed.
    • The "Cooper's Diary" book suggests that Cooper was also sexually abused by BOB (he came into his room) as a child.
  • Rape as Drama: Throughout the series.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Part of what makes BOB so frightening.
  • Rasputinian Death: Leo Johnson. He survives being shot twice, two axe battles with Bobby Briggs (one of them being right after awakening from a coma from said gunshot), survives being out in the woods with no water, gets electrocuted by Windom Earle on a number of occasions, then finally it is implied Leo met his fate at the hands (fangs?) of a venomous spider.

  • Real Men Take It Black: Detective Dale Cooper is a talented, experienced FBI agent who always takes his coffee black.
  • Reckless Gun Usage
    • Andy drops his pistol and has an accidental discharge, causing Cooper and Truman to assign him extra shooting practice.
    • Bobby and Shelly have a love scene in the final episode of the first season that involves some breathtakingly stupid messing around with a pistol, including Bobby inserting it barrel first into her cleavage with his finger on the trigger. It's played not as deliberate risk-taking, but as if they're both completely blind to the danger.
  • Recursive Acronym: Beware Of BOB.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Laura Palmer's death.
    • Also Leland Palmer's death.
  • Redemption in the Rain: Leland Palmer's death. Sort of. It's actually a sprinkler.
  • Redheads Are Ravishing: While there's quite a few red-haired women on the show. The male cast practically drools over Lana like she's Jessica Rabbit. Pete Martel is also a loving faithful husband and huge simp for Catherine despite the hell she puts him through.
  • Red Herring: During the investigation into Laura Palmer's death, the big money for her killer was Leo Johnson. Talk show host Phil Donahue, who devoted an entire hour to Twin Peaks wasn't buying any. He described Leo Johnson as "the biggest Red Herring since Nikita Khrushchev". And of course, turns out he was right.
    • Agent Cooper describes Red Herring as his least favorite kind of fish.
  • Red Herring Twist
  • The Reveal: Numerous.
  • Revealing Continuity Lapse:
    • In one episode, Cooper is in the Black Lodge and drinking a cup of coffee. Between shots, the coffee turns from liquid to solid and back again with no possible explanation. This serves to add a bit of Surreal Horror and underline the Black Lodge's status as an Eldritch Location.
    • In the final episode of The Return, Cooper meets up with someone who seems to be an amnesiac, alternate version of Laura. He takes her to her parents' house in Twin Peaks, sure that this will jog her memory. When they get there, they find that it is occupied by the Chalfont/Tremond family, and no one has ever heard of the Palmers. Cooper is incredibly confused, and this implies that something is incredibly off about the world he's in.
  • Revival: "I'll see you in 25 years." The Movie came out in 1992, season three will begin in 2017.
  • Rule of Cool: Try not to think about how a roadhouse in a nowhere Washington town can get such cool bands to play every night.
  • Rule of Symbolism: Moderately downplayed in the series except during the Lodge sequences and the scenes discussing BOB, but The Movie has this in spades with images of angels and hellfire. Of course some of what seems like it *could be* symbolism (like the disappearing horse) is most likely just David Lynch screwing around.
  • Scarily Competent Tracker: Cooper and Hawk.
  • Scenery Porn: Twin Peaks has some truly beautiful cinematography. The opening also gives you a good first look at some of the breathtaking nature scenery you're going to see in the show.
  • Schmuck Bait: Thomas Eckhardt leaves his enemies a tantalizing series of puzzle boxes that lead them to a safety deposit box booby-trapped with high explosives.
  • Sense Freak:
    • Special Agent Dale "Damn fine coffee, damn good cherry pie" Cooper.
    • Gordon Cole is a strange example. He's deaf as a post, goes around with his very old fashioned hearing aids cranked up to maximum, and has No Indoor Voice. But when he meets Shelly Johnson towards the end of the series, he's shocked to discover he can hear her voice with perfect clarity, becomes obsessed with it, and immediately falls in love with her.
  • Serial Killer:
    • BOB.
    • Windom Earle.
  • Series Continuity Error: Despite being at least 90 percent canon, The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer include a few of these that should be immediately noticeable by any fan with a good memory. Possibly done intentionally.
  • Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Laura angsts over having this attitude in ''The
Secret Diary of Laura Palmer''.
  • Sex Signals Death: Three of BOB's victims include Teresa Banks, Laura Palmer, and Ronette Pulaski (the latter of whom survives), all of whom were sex workers.
  • Shout-Out: Many.
    • Laura Palmer is named after to the titular character from the Gene Tierney film Laura while her cousin, Madeleine Ferguson, is named after the two main characters from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo - a movie that also revolved around doubles.
    • Waldo the parrot and his vet, Dr. Lydecker, are collectively named after a major character in Laura, Waldo Lydecker.
    • Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole is named after a minor character in Sunset Boulevard, one of Lynch's favorite films. This allusion becomes significant in The Return.
    • James the moody, misunderstood biker is likely named for James Dean, while glamourous rich girl Audrey Horne shares a fair bit with another famous Audrey H.
    • The Hayward family, and Donna in particular, are likely named for classic actress Susan Hayward.
    • Philip Michael Gerard is named for the Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist on The Fugitive, which also featured a mysterious One-Armed Man.
    • It's acknowledged in-universe that Sheriff Harry S Truman shares a name with the 33rd President of the United States. Notably, Sheriff Truman has a mounted stag's head over his desk and a plaque reading "The Buck Stopped Here", a variant on a famous line attributed to his presidential namesake.
    • Dale Cooper's middle name is given as Bartholomew, which makes him D.B. Cooper.
    • The season 2 finale features Doppelganger Dale Cooper chasing the real one which is a clear inspiration from a similar scene in Mario Bava's Kill Baby Kill.
  • A Side Order of Romance: Near the end of Season 2, Gordon Cole visits the Double R for the first time and falls in love with Shelly on sight, bombastically declares his love for her, and even gets her to kiss him. Bobby is none too pleased to see her kissing a much older man at work.
  • Sinister Shades: Thomas Eckhardt's reappearance as he's watching the fireplace with sunglasses on in Episode 21
  • Smug Snake: Ben and Jerry, especially in the first season.
  • Soap Within a Show: Invitation to Love, complete with Stylistic Suck and Plot Parallel.
  • Some of My Best Friends Are X: Played for laughs:
    Gwen: God, how you must hate us white people after all we've done to you.
    Hawk: Some of my best friends are white people.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Petty criminals like Leo Johnson and Jacques Renault eventually give way to more effective and dangerous men like Hank Jennings and Jean Renault.
    • Subverted in the second season finale, where the more recently-introduced Windom Earle stands no chance at all against original Big Bad BOB.
    • Possibly played straight in The Return (it's hard to say) when BOB himself is revealed to have been brought to Earth - and possibly even given birth to - by the entity known as The Experiment, which features in some of that series' most frightening scenes.
  • Spell My Name With An S: BOB — all caps.
    • Not to be confused with "BOB!".
  • Spot the Imposter: Cole is quick to note that the Doppelganger doesn't greet him with Cooper's usual style after playing along and noting Albert's reactions.
  • Spy Speak: In-universe, the FBI uses a visual variant of this (seen in the form of Lil the dancing girl) and it is implied they utilize the phrase "Blue Rose" as a code for cases that may involve the supernatural or other bizarre phenomena. Also arguably one interpretation of Gordon Cole's bizarre Word Salad one-liners.
  • Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Nadine is very persistent in her attraction to Mike even after he has made it perfectly clear that he is not interested in her, even forcing a kiss on him in the diner in one episode (and the show makes it very clear that she is much stronger than him physically). Presumably their relationship would not have been Played for Laughs if it had been an exceptionally strong thirty-five-year-old man lusting after an eighteen-year-old woman still in high school.
  • Stylistic Suck: From what little we see of it, Invitation to Love, the soap opera everyone in Twin Peaks apparently watches, is fairly ridiculous. Considering the fact that it mirrors some events of the show, it may be a case of Self-Deprecating Humor.
  • Sudden Name Change: Mrs. Tremond and her grandson are the same characters as Mrs. Chalfont and her grandson, with no explanation as to whether the name change is at all meaningful.
  • Supernatural Hotspot Town: Twin Peaks may seem like just a quirky small rural town in the Pacific Northwest, but it is the epicenter of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, surrounded by an Enchanted Forest.
  • Surreal Horror: It's a David Lynch project, this comes with the territory.
  • Suburban Gothic: In The Return, the bulk of the series is set in mundane suburbs in various cities, and all of them are a front for either criminal activity or the extradimensional horror from the Black Lodge.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
    • In general, efforts by the teenage characters to investigate just put them in danger and complicate things, because they're children who have no training or experience, and who don't fully understand what they're dealing with. When Audrey does manage to help (by stealing some surveillance photographs Bobby takes for her father), she notably has a home turf advantage and does not put herself in direct danger.
    • Bobby and Shelly's attempt to commit insurance fraud with a brain-damaged Leo fails miserably. It is not nearly as simple as they think it's going to be and the money ends up actually being used as intended. Let's just say there's a reason that most workers' compensation fraud is perpetuated either by the employer, or by the worker in question, not by outside parties.
  • Switching To GEICO: In the surreal Black Lodge:
    "I've got good news. That gum you like is going to come back in style."
  • Talking through Technique: Windom Earle engages Cooper in a chess game via newspaper, in which for every one of Cooper's pieces Earle takes he will claim another victim. Cooper seeks Pete Martell's help in playing a stalemate game, losing as few pieces as possible. As Earle once played a game of chess with Cooper every day for three years he is intimately familiar with Cooper's playstyle, and so when reading one of Cooper's early moves he instantly recognizes it as out of character for Cooper, and hence surmises that Cooper is receiving outside help and that he is trying to play to a stalemate.
  • Terrifying Pet Store Rat: The "deadly" tarantulas Windom Earle suspends in a cage over Leo's head are the docile and harmless red-legged tarantulas that are commonly kept as pets (they seldom bite and when they do, the bite isn't dangerous in any way).
  • These Gloves Are Made for Killin': Leland Palmer puts on a pair of latex gloves after drugging Sarah. He then attacks and murders Madeleine Ferguson.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich:
    • Maddy joins Donna and James at the RR Diner and requests a Vanilla Coke, which James fetches for her. After engaging in some dialogue, they all depart with Maddy's full soda glass left untouched, the wrapper not even taken off the straw beside it.
    • Cooper and the local law enforcement visit the Log Lady, who insists that they all sit down for tea and cookies. She then insists that they wait for the tea to steep before touching the cookies. Once they start asking her questions, the whole tea arrangement is forgotten.
  • They Walk Among Us: Pain-eating spirits with day-to-day names who can take human form through Demonic Possession.
  • Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: BOB.
  • To Hell and Back: Cooper in the second series finale. The Black Lodge may not be Hell itself, but neither is it pleasant. But did he really come back??? As The Return reveals, he didn't, but something else did.
  • Toilet Horror: The horror-filled reveal at the end of the series finale takes place in a bathroom. After emerging from the Black Lodge, Cooper goes in the bathroom and creepily repeats "How's Annie?" into the mirror, laughing maniacally and giving a Nightmare Face, revealing that he is an Evil Doppelgänger come to wreak havoc on the world.
  • Tom the Dark Lord: Killer BOB.
  • Tone Shift:
    • Although the series constantly vacillated back and forth between police procedural, soap opera parody, slapstick and Magical Realism, the horror and supernatural elements of the series really start to come to the fore from the start of the second season. As the AV Club put it: "It's as if Frost and Lynch decided to ditch the noir for nightmares."
    • Really played up in The Movie, wherein we go from the series' quirky and tongue-in-cheek character-driven comedy (played up in even some of the more serious episodes' B-plots) to jarring, abrasive sequences of nightmarish orgies, a brutal murder portrayed in grisly detail, flashing footage of screaming animals, and a lifetime of child abuse and rape by someone who may or may not always be himself.
  • Town with a Dark Secret: The corrupt businessman who pretty much runs Twin Peaks is secretly funding a brothel and casino beyond the Canadian border. The town darling is a prostitute and drug addict in her spare time. Did we mention that the town also contains hidden access to the home of some really weird creatures that speak almost only in riddles?
  • Tricked into Another Jurisdiction: Cooper and the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department suspect Jacques Renault may be an accessory to Laura Palmer's murder, but they cannot arrest him as he is working in One-Eyed Jack's, a casino over the Canadian border. Cooper goes undercover in One-Eyed Jack's and poses as a drug lord, luring Renault back to the US with the promise of a lucrative job. The sheriff and deputies immediately arrest him.
  • Turn in Your Badge: Season 2, episode 10.

    U-Z 

  • The Unfought: James Hurley and Bobby Briggs, after three episodes of build up, lunge at each other during Laura's funeral and are quickly pulled apart. And after this they just quietly forget about each other.
  • Villainous Rescue:
  • Wanting Is Better Than Having: Lampshaded by Mädchen Amick when discussing fan reaction to the solving of the central mystery:
    "As much as I heard, everywhere I went, 'Who killed Laura Palmer?', I don't think anybody was very happy to find out who it was. They liked to want to know, not necessarily to know."
  • Walking Spoiler: The Doppelganger in the new series.
  • Weirdness Censor: Many of the residents of Twin Peaks are unfazed by the strange goings on in their town. This is justified as most are simply too absorbed in their own matters to care. For example, Nadine excitedly mentions to a stranger that she finally figured out how to make quiet drape-runners by using cotton balls. During this explanation, she nonchalantly mentions she figured it out while waiting for her husband to be released from intensive care, not elaborating on how he got there. The others are members of the Bookhouse Boys and are already accustomed to the paranormal nature of the town. Subsequently they accept Agent Cooper's strange methods at face value, as his unorthodox tactics appear practical to them.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: A female example involving Norma and her mother in the second season.
  • We Want Our Jerk Back!: Several characters react to Ben Horne's trauma-induced Heel–Face Turn in this fashion.
  • Wham Episode:
    • The final one, and several others along the way, including Maddy's death at the hands of Laura's killer. Basically, whenever The Giant shows up you know it's going to be one of these.
      It is happening. Again.
    • And of course, the first season finale. Audrey is captured at "One-Eyed Jack's", Nadine tries to commit suicide, Leland murders the newly captured Jacques Renault in the hospital, Leo tries to kill Bobby but is shot by Hank, the mill burns down with Catherine and Shelly inside as Pete rushes to the rescue and Cooper is shot in his hotel room by an unknown assailant.
    • Mark Frost has talked about how he really wasn't sure the show would get a second season, so he packed every conceivable cliffhanger he could into the first season finale (to the point that it almost became a parody) in the hopes that someone would say, "Okay, I have to know what happens next."
  • Wham Line:
  • Wham Shot: There are two involving BOB appearing in place of character's reflection.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: In-Universe, Albert suggests this explanation for the events of the series that he would otherwise be unlikely to believe, thus playing heavily to the perspectives of the audience and perhaps acting as a parody of some of Lynch's fans and critics in an ironically symbolic manner. It's all sort of subverted in the last episode, though...
  • White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Twin Peaks is a town whose residents are majority upper-middle class white people with Anglo-American names who attend some kind of mainline protestant church. The series has a lot of fun subverting stereotypes of WASP wholesomeness with troubled backstories and Eccentric Townsfolk of varying degrees of discomfiting. Notably, the Native American Deputy Hawk is one of the very few locals deeply attuned to the somewhat intimidating natural truths of the town and its surroundings.
  • Wholesome Crossdresser: FBI Agent Dennis Denise Bryson.
  • Wig, Dress, Accent: Windom Earle uses several of these to get around Twin Peaks.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: Due to the extremely ambiguous nature of Word of God (we're talking about David Lynch here after all), much of what is accepted as canon online (especially on this page) is based on some of the more probable and believable examples of Wild Mass Guessing as to what's going on in the series. Even that isn't exactly saying much...
  • Wild Wilderness: The setting has a creepy lodge in the middle of the woods that may or may not be there and no one seems to notice it.
  • Writer on Board: While the series doesn't carry any specific ideology with it besides the notion of a spiritual struggle between good and evil (occasionally flavored by David Lynch's interest in eastern mysticism and Mark Frost's interest in western mysticism), Naomi Watts' character gets a rant in very in line with some of Mark Frosts' political views.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Early viewers of the series thought they were getting a straightforward mystery/soap opera, albeit a quirky one. It's actually incredibly dark fantasy/supernatural horror, and no, it's not the Genre Shift a less observant viewer might mistake it for. Albert, the series' most overtly Wrong Genre Savvy character, exists as a parody of the more reactionary of these viewers.
  • Yellowface: An in-universe example: Catherine Martell disguising herself as Mr. Tojamura.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!: Josie Packard falls victim to a type two-B. Or maybe her soul is just trapped inside the knob of a dresser drawer.
    • Wyndom Earle tries this on Cooper, but it doesn't work.
  • Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: Most of the younger characters in Twin Peaks are downright stupid.

     The Return 
  • Alien Invasion: Seemingly what the Puppeteer Parasite in New Mexico is doing, aided by the Woodsmen.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: It's In the Blood for Shelly and her daughter. It may have even led Shelly to dumping her husband when he reformed.
  • Alternate Universe: It's strongly hinted in the finale that there is another universe where Laura Palmer survived under another name, but the Lodge spirits are going out of their way to ensure that the two realities don't meet.
  • Ambiguous Situation: This is a series David Lynch was involved in, so it's kind of packed with these. Among others:
    • We're left unsure if Audrey Horne is sick, deranged, in a coma, or just in an alternate dimension. All of these are entirely possible in the series' universe. The Final Dossier eventually clears this up, and indicates that the unhappy marriage to Charlie was real and not All Just a Dream.
    • Are Richard and Linda in episode 18 Richard Horne and the disabled Linda mentioned by Carl? Or, as the series implies, are they the new personalities/characters of Cooper and Diane? And what accounts for the darker, Anti-Hero version of Cooper we see in the finale?
    • What's going on with the alternate universe? In The Final Dossier, it's revealed that the FBI's Blue Rose task force is aware that the entire narrative of what happens in Twin Peaks has been tweaked, although they may not be aware Cooper was responsible. But why do they remember what happened in the original timeline while not one living resident of Twin Peaks does?
  • Anachronic Order: While never outright called attention to, the various plotlines don't line up cocurrently.
    • Diane receives a text from Mr. C in Episode 12, while Mr. C is shown sending the text in Episode 15.
    • While having dinner with Ed and Norma in Episode 13, Bobby reveals that he received some items from his father "today", events that were depicted in Episode 9.
    • Jerry Horne's plotline depicts him lost in the woods with high out of his mind, either for several days or one day spread out across episodes.
    • Audrey's desperate search for her lover Billy in the second half of the show appears to take place over one night further complicated by the wider issue of telling time in her storyline.
  • And Here He Comes Now: In Episode 17, Cole mentions that they should heard by then from their dear friend Dale Cooper. Cue the phone ringing with Agent Headly reporting they have found Dougie Jones in Vegas.
  • And I Must Scream: The first episode reveals that Agent Cooper is still trapped in the Black Lodge twenty-five years later while BOB has been gallivanting around in his body torturing, murdering and pitting people against each other to feed off of their suffering. What's worse is that, at times, he is also able to see these things happening but is powerless to do anything about it.
  • Animal Motifs: There's lots of imagery related to horses, mostly in connection with evil and death.
    • The pale horse that appeared in the Palmers' living room reappears in the Black Lodge in the first episode.
    • The Woodsman's incantation mentions horses and a horse is heard in the distance when he exits the radio station.
    • Carrie/ Laura has a horse figurine in her living room.
    • In The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, Laura is given a pony for her twelfth birthday.
  • Anor
  • Arc Number: Lots:
    • 8 resembles a parabola, the symbol for infinity and is also connected to Judy, and the shape also alludes to the duality of the Black and White lodge.
    • The number 430 is mentioned in a few different contexts - first as the exact time of day that Andy busts a criminal operation, then as the amount of miles it will take Cooper and Diane to get to their destination.
    • 253 crops up a few times, most often as the time 2:53. The arm states, "253 time and time again."
  • Arc Symbol: A black circle with two antenna-like appendages on top, first seen on the playing card Mr. C carries with him and later on the old native map that Hawk has. It stands for great evil, specifically representing the face of Judy, the being who gave birth to BOB. Hawk tells Truman You Do Not Want To Know when he asks about it.
  • Artificial Human: A few people were "manufactured" seemingly by BOB and set loose onto the world for a variety of purposes. Dougie Jones was one and so was the woman they believed to be Diane Evans. When they return to the black lodge they're reduced to a small golden ball. Tammy calls one a Tulpa upon discovering that it wasn't human.
  • Artistic License - Government/Criminal Justice: The Secret History and Final Dossier spinoff books feature investigative reports written with a level of editorializing that would never fly in real life from the employees of a criminal justice agency. Justifiable in-universe, as Cole's team are a group of intuitive renegades who speak from the heart and can implicitly get away with expressing more personal opinions than would be realistically acceptable.
  • Artistic License – Gun Safety: In Episode 18, Cooper waves his gun around the diner in dangerous ways that an FBI agent would know to avoid. May be justified if the theory of this Cooper being a Composite Character of Dougie and the two Coopers holds true.
  • Artistic License – History: In The Final Dossier, Sarah Palmer's father is stated to have been an employee of the Department of Defense at the time of her birth in 1943 and during the Trinity nuclear test in 1945. However, the Department of Defense did not actually exist until a few years later - meaning that he would have worked for its predecessor agency, the War Department.
  • Ascended Extra: Gordon Cole has a bigger role than in the previous run (where he appear in four episodes and his voice was heard in two others).
  • As Himself: All the bands that play at the Roadhouse, with the exception of James Hurley. And then, in possibly one of the strangest instances of this ever, Monica Bellucci in Cole's prophetic dream in Part 14.
  • Asshole Victim:
    • A few of Mr. C's victims, including Bill Hastings' wife, Richard Horne, Ray, and Renzo. There's also the borderline rapist bar patron who gets his throat ripped out by an apparently possessed Sarah Palmer.
    • Ray is revealed as an informant for the FBI, calling his 'asshole' status into question as a possible deep-cover act.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Ray's gang used to appoint the best arm wrestler as their leader. Evil Cooper takes them over after literally crushing Renzo in an arm wrestling match.
  • Atomic Hate: The first nuclear detonation was the catalyst that allowed BOB and the Woodsmen to enter our world.
  • Back for the Finale: None other than Laura Palmer herself.
    • In addition, the very last musical guest featured on the show is Julee Cruise, who hadn't appeared on the show since early Season 2.
  • Badass Boast: Combined wonderfully with He's Back!.
    Cooper: I am the FBI.
  • Badass Bystander: The accountant who ends up gunning down Hutch and Chantal in a firefight after they park their car in his driveway.
  • Bearer of Bad News: Sheriff Truman feels uncomfortable telling Benjamin Horne that his grandson Richard was the one who ran over and killed the little boy.
  • Big Bad: "Mr. C", Agent Cooper's doppelganger from the Black Lodge, serves as the main antagonist for this series. In theory he's part of a Big Bad Duumvirate with BOB, as his body contains BOB's spirit, but Mr. C is the active threat while BOB is content to sit back and feast on the garmonbozia he harvests.
  • Bittersweet Ending: This is the fate of those Twin Peaks residents who didn't get an Earn Your Happy Ending or Downer Ending:
    • Bobby Briggs has cleaned up his life and become a respected Sheriff's Deputy. He also has a daughter he loves. Sadly, his relationship with Shelly did not survive the ensuing years.
    • Norma Jennings is still operating her diner 25 years later with no sign of Big Ed in her life but still financially stable and seemingly happy. Eventually, she separates from her business partner at the same time as Ed separates from Nadine, and Ed and Norma finally marry.
    • Benjamin Horne has a monster of a grandson but has reformed and become a respectable human being.
    • Jerry Horne is living as The Stoner but with three times as much profit from his legal pot business as his millionaire brother.
    • Doctor Jacobi has given up his life as a psychiatrist to sell gold-painted shovels and serve as a late night Alex Jones EXPY. He seems satisfied with his life despite the complete ludicrousness of it.
    • The good (maybe) Cooper returns, but has abandoned some of his former pure personality by the end of the series and shows aspects of his evil doppelganger emerging.
    • Laura is still alive in some form, but has lived in fear and on the run, unaware of her role as The Chosen One. Just when it seems like Cooper is about to save her and take her to live out the rest of her life, it's revealed that the Tremonds/Chalfonts have been warping reality by eliminating her family from existence. Maybe - the hints that her family still might exist actually make things much, much worse.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: Just as The Movie is Darker and Edgier than the original series in thematic content and emotional impact, The Return is Darker and Edgier in tone than the original series in terms of the graphic content portrayed: including, among other things, a graphic, slasher flick style death by sex at the hands of a mysterious alien creature, a brutal ice pick murder by a dwarf of course, The Woodsmen making people's heads explode, and the kind of crime scene sequence that would make David Fincher wince.
  • Book Ends:
    • The two canon spinoff books for The Return, The Secret History of Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier. Both involve collections of thoughts and annotations by Tammy on the events of both series and wrap up a few plot points while also raising some new questions.
    • Both the original series' beginning and The Return's conclusion involve Dale Cooper arriving in the town of Twin Peaks.
  • Brick Joke: Remember the chocolate bunny in season 1 that Coop was holding? Lucy reveals - to her apparent horror - that she ate it sometime before season 3.
  • Brown Note Being: The Return has the Woodsmen, evil beings from the Black Lodge (Another Dimension, that's malicious). Their creepy, distorted speech puts people to sleep. When they appear, everything turns black and white to signal how reality distorts around them.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Happens repeatedly to different Lodge-connected characters, and it never ends well.
    • This happens repeatedly with Evil Cooper at the hands of his criminal associates. In his first appearance he's threatened with a shotgun by one of Ray's hillbilly bodyguards, and easily manages to disarm and knock out the man while barely flinching. Later, Renzo and his gang try to threaten and cajole him, and it ends with Cooper caving Renzo's face in with one punch and cowing the rest of the gang into obedience.
    • A drunk trucker tries hitting on Sarah Palmer and then threatening her when she brushes him off. Unfortunately for him, she's now host to some kind of demonic spirit, and she ends up tearing his throat out.
    • A gang of rednecks threatens to kill Cooper/Richard in the final episode, and he disarms and subdues all three of them in quick succession.
  • Came Back Wrong: Agent Cooper is perhaps the ultimate example of this as not only did he first come back with Bob possessing him but also later comes back as an Empty Shell.
  • Captain Obvious: Gordon Cole's deadpan delivery of "He's dead!" after staring at the exploded head of Bill Hastings.
  • Character Development:
    • Ben Horne has abandoned the majority of his Jerkass tendencies and made a complete Heel–Face Turn. The Secret History of Twin Peaks says this was in part due to the events of the original series and his daughter's coma.
    • Bobby has become a responsible adult, police officer, and good father with seemingly none of his earlier bad habits remaining.
  • Character Shilling:
    • In the second episode Shelly gushes about how cool James is. This seems to be part of her characterization that she likes bad boys.
    • There's an early scene where Gordon must defend recruiting Tammy by talking about what a great agent she is.
  • Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Exaggerated and possibly parodied in episode 15. How do Ed and Norma end up together after decades of pining for each other? Nadine gives Ed his blessing to be with Norma. Shortly after, Norma ends her relationship with her business partner over a disagreement in the business then immediately Ed proposes to her and they kiss.
  • Cliffhanger Cop Out: Averted big time. From the very first episode we see that the aftermath of having Cooper's BOB-possessed Doppelganger run free for twenty-five years has been taken to its logical conclusion.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: A few characters indulge in this now that the show has greater freedom with its content, most notably Richard Horne.
  • Comically Cross-Eyed: A cross-eyed mook in Episode 13 provides some comic relief in the otherwise tense confrontation between Evil Cooper and Ray's gang.
  • Continuity Snarl: According to Mark Frost the inconsistencies between the books and the show, the original series and the movie are intentional. The ending of The Return and The Final Dosier book heavily imply that a Cosmic Retcon is in effect.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: Probably the one of the most extreme examples, after 25 years in the lodge Cooper has learned to predict the future, make fabricated tulpas, open the curtains of the waiting room by the shake of his hand, willfully travel to another dimensions and becoming somewhat of a Reality Warper himself, yet at the end he is confused, and utterly defeated by the sheer mindscrew of the unfolded events which may or may not be his fault.. His final line reads as he had a plan that just fell apart because of being ignorant on ALL the rules that were in play.
  • Country Matters:
    • The drunk trucker in Episode 14 insults Sarah Palmer with the line "It's a free cunt-ry."
    • Richard Horne calls his own grandmother this, while also beating her senseless for money. Did we mention that he's a real swell guy?
  • Criminal Mind Games: Cooper's BOB controlled Doppelganger has evolved significantly from the crude, demonic thrill killer he was in the original series by The Return, and goes out of his way to toy with his victims/food before killing them, including some of his own minions. Justifiable as BOB gets to know the victims of his possession and is using Cooper's more measured character traits and more complex thought process as a vehicle for his actions.
  • Cursed with Awesome: The White Lodge gave Freddie Super-Strength that lands him in jail when he gets in a fight, and as part of the deal must wear a non-removable gardening glove because his hand will begin gushing blood if he removes it. Luckily it pays off when he uses his gloved punching hand to defeat the series' Big Bad.
  • Darker and Edgier: The third season and by lightyears of distance. While the original show had its nightmarish and violent moments, it was obvious that ABC at the time (c. 1990) was VERY restrictive with all the heavy subject matter the show dealt with (rape, murder, incest, vicious sexual violence, drug-addiction, etc). And the original series featured a lot of goofy offbeat humour, adorable quirky characters, fun pieces of music and soap-opera romance that made you forget about all the dark content at the core of the show. These themes were treated more explicitly and unrestricted in the film, anyway. And now, 25 years later, being a limited series in nothing less than the adults-only network Showtime, Lynch and Frost do not skimp on disturbing content; grisly imagery, f-bombs, on-screen gruesome deaths, gore, nudity, and dark-as-midnight-on-a-moonless-night atmosphere. With almost no musical score, the third season so far can be placed among Lynch's most unsettling works ever. Which is saying a lot.
  • Death of a Child: In The Return part 6, Richard Horne commits a hit and run on a little boy in front of his mother.
  • Deconstruction: Of TV show revivals and the general precedence of nostalgia within western media of The New '10s. The series makes it abundantly clear in the first episode that even though this show is a continuation of the first two seasons, it is not going to be the same Twin Peaks from twenty-five years ago. Many of the original cast have moved on from their lives or dramatically changed in some way, for better and for worse, and often in a way that deliberately denies nostalgia. For example, Bobby has transitioned from the bad boy archetype into a straightlaced and gentle Nice Guy cop with almost none of his original persona remaining. This also affects the storytelling of the season. The Return chooses to tell its own story for large portions of the runtime rather than ruminate on the past, and the most important parts of the narrative actually happen outside of the titular town. Overall, the show seems to delight in both deliberately denying any nostalgia the audience could have and playing with audience expectations as to what Twin Peaks is actually about. After all, people change a lot in twenty-five years, so why should Twin Peaks be the same town you remember it being, and why should Twin Peaks be the same show you remember it being?
  • Deliberately Monochrome: All of the scenes set in the White Lodge and the convenience store. All of the segments of Episode 8 that take place during the past are colored this way as well.
  • Demoted to Extra: Many recurring and even main characters from the original run only appear in bit parts in "The Return". Notably, James Hurley has only one silent cameo in the first half of the season.
  • Distant Finale: One of the most triumphant examples in television history as the show was revived twenty-five years later with the story going on with only minor interruptions.
  • Double-Meaning Title: The Return is the return of the show after 25 years, but Cooper's attempts to return himself to the outside world and BOB to the Lodge are a big part of the plot.
  • Downer Ending: This is the fate of those Twin Peaks residents who didn't get an Earn Your Happy Ending or Bittersweet Ending:
    • Sheriff Truman is terminally ill from stomach cancer. A Downplayed Trope as he's lived a decent life by all accounts.
    • Major Briggs was murdered by Doppel Coop not long after the series. His headless body continually turns up across the country due to his connection to the Lodges.
    • Sarah Palmer lives alone in her home and spends all of her time drinking and watching nature documentaries (understandable, given what we found out about her) and is possibly possessed by a demon that lives in a mysterious black void behind her face.
    • Shelly is working the same job she did 25 years ago with a daughter trapped in the same abusive marriage she was. She divorced the Heel–Face Turn Bobby Briggs to continue dating losers.
    • Audrey survived the bank explosion, but is now trapped in an unhappy marriage and traumatized by the events involving Ghostwood. To make matters worse, she's potentially the mother of Richard Horne, a sexually-abusive criminal now in trouble for killing a little boy. Oh, and the worst part of it all? It's heavily implied most if not all of her experiences since the season 2 finale set in the 1990s are All Just a Dream.
    • The series itself apparently ends with Dale Cooper trapped in alternate universe, unable to save Laura or restore things as they once were and slowly losing his sense of identity.
  • Dramatic Irony: In the last episode, Coop seems to think that reuniting Laura with her mother Sarah will be the end of all their troubles. We, the audience, know that Sarah has been possessed by JUDY, but Coop doesn't.
  • Drone of Dread: Much of the soundtrack consists of this. There's even a brief, eerie drone right before the opening theme now. Sound designer Dean Hurley even released all the show's drone pieces as a separate soundtrack album for the show.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: William Hastings after being dragged into the plot and helping Gordon uncover some mysteries related to Cooper, meets an abrupt and violent end by one of the Woodsmen.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending:
    • This is the fate of those residents who didn't get a Bittersweet Ending or Downer Ending:
      • Nadine's silent drape business, Run Silent, Run Drapes, is an apparent success and in business 25 years after its creation.
      • Lucy and Andy despite their relationship issues in the original series have been stably married for the past 25 years.
      • Gordon Cole is the Deputy Director of the FBI.
      • Denise Bryson has transitioned, overcoming what Gordon Cole called a "wild and confused time", and become the Chief of Staff for the FBI.
      • A Downplayed Trope example with Tommy "Hawk" Hill as he's now Deputy Chief of the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department—which seems close to his original rank. The only reason it qualifies is the Sheriff's Department is now much, much larger.
      • Ed and Norma finally get together, with Nadine's blessing.
    • With regards to the series itself, BOB is finally destroyed, and Dougie is brought back to reunite with Janey-E and Sonny Jim. Meanwhile, the real Cooper goes back in time to prevent Laura Palmer's death. However, the final episode serves as an epilogue which comes across as a Gainax Ending beyond this point.
  • The Echoer: When Deputy Broxford is put in the holding cells, there's a drunk there who repeats everything he says. He also repeats the chirping noises Naido makes. The combination is almost enough to drive Broxford insane.
  • Eldritch Abomination: While the denizens of the Black Lodge are mostly various flavors of Humanoid Abomination, JUDY and, to a lesser degree, the new form of the Arm stand out as being truly Lovecraftian.
  • Eldritch Location: On top of the good old Black Lodge, we finally get to see the White Lodge, which appears to be a Raygun Gothic lighthouse situated above an alien sea, and an old gas station inhabited by the Woodsmen that somehow connects to a motel which houses the current form of Philip Jeffries.
  • Elephant in the Living Room: In the last episode Carrie Page has dead man shot in the head in hers and neither she nor Cooper talk about it.
  • Every Episode Ending: Almost every episode has ended with a different indie band performing at the roadhouse in Twin Peaks while the credits roll.
  • Evil Smells Bad: Garmonbozia smells absolutely horrible to normal humans, and is apparently incredibly toxic as well, since just few seconds inhaling fumes from it was enough to require hospitalization. Though the toxicity may have been caused by it stewing inside Mr. C for years, and does not apply to regular garmonbozia.
  • Evil Tower of Ominousness: Inverted with the White Lodge, whose denizens dwell in a giant, ominous tower perched above an alien sea, but are the most purely good spiritual beings in the series' mythos.
  • Fanservice:
    • David Lynch includes quite a bit of it in this series that make use of Showtime's allowance of nudity. Mostly it is of the very beautiful female cast but the women in the audience also get a few moments like Dougie Jones' doctor's appointment where he's shirtless. Kyle MacLachlan is ripped for a man his age (or in general).
    • Agent Tammy Preston's Supermodel Strut is put on display in a few situations.
  • Foreshadowing: Gordon Cole has a humongous portrait of a nuclear explosion in his office, which we see several episodes before we learn in Episode 8 that the Trinity detonation was somehow responsible for the birth of BOB.
  • Gainax Ending: Part 18, aside from the bit mentioned under Earn Your Happy Ending above (which does provide a conclusion for the main plot in a coherent way). It outdoes even the original series and the Trope Namer in mind screwiness, and is possibly the most extreme example ever aired on American television. Cooper and Diane apparently travel to an alternate universe through the power lines. They stop at a motel and have sex before she mysteriously disappears in the morning, Cooper finds a letter written by a Linda addressing a man named Richard, and then he drives to Odessa, Texas, looking for Laura Palmer. He finds her, but she is a completely different person named Carrie Page, and is preparing to leave town after having apparently killed a man. He takes her up to Twin Peaks to see her mother, believing this to be the key to the mystery, only to learn that another family, the Tremonds, live there, and the house was previously owned by the Chalfonts. Cooper desperately questions what year it is and Carrie/Laura stares up at the house before she hears someone (most likely Sarah) calling out Laura's name. She screams, and all the lights in the house and on the street go out. Roll credits. Given that this is a David Lynch work, it's not too surprising to see his story end on a weird note, although at the very least it plays out like a Sequel Hook for another potential season more than anything.
  • Generation Xerox: Shelly's daughter Rebecca Burnett is essentially her original series incarnation.
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Subverted: We don't get to see Bill Hastings' head explode on-screen, but we get a good long look at what it looks like afterwards.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: JUDY, an enormously powerful entity from the Black Lodge that evidently created BOB and is currently possessing Sarah Palmer.
  • Green Aesop: The Return implies that a nuclear test explosion that destroyed part of the southwestern wilderness attracted an infestation of Lodge creatures and Woodsmen who saw ample feeding ground for garmonbozia.
  • Groin Attack: In Episode 18, Richard disables one of the cowboys by kicking him in the nuts.
  • Hate Sink: A few characters stand out as particularly loathsome, even in comparison to the actual demons on the show.
    • Richard Horne is the sociopathic son of Audrey and a sleazy drug dealer. Richard establishes himself as a prick by threatening a girl with rape in public. Later after accidentally running over a child, Richard attempts to brutally murder a witness and bribes a cop into deleting evidence. He then brutalises and robs his own grandmother before calling her the c-word. Richard also displays indifference when his boss gets killed by Cooper's doppleganger.
    • Chad Broxford is a corrupt, thuggish deputy in the Twin Peaks Police Department. He initially distinguishes himself by making fun of the suicide of Sheriff Frank Truman's son, and is later revealed to be involved in a plethora of criminal operations around town, including Red's drug trafficking ring. Near the end of the series, he even tries to kill his coworkers when he gets found out.
    • Steven Burnett also qualifies, being a deadbeat drug addict and domestic abuser.
  • Have You Told Anyone Else?: Richard Horne asks Miriam, who identified him during his hit-and-run, if she had told anyone else besides writing to the Sheriff. She says no. Bad idea.
  • Homage:
    • The nuclear explosion in Part 8, with its abstract visuals and terrifying modern classical soundtrack, appears to be one to Stanley Kubrick, particularly the Star Gate sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick and Lynch were fans of each other.
    • The climactic scene of Part 17, in which Cooper's face is superimposed over the screen as he thanks everyone else in the police station, is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, which Lynch has stated is one of his favorite films.
    • In Blues Brothers, John Belushi plays one of two Fat and Skinny mildly criminal suit-wearing orphanage brothers with a heart of gold. In Twin Peaks, his brother James Belushi plays one of two Fat and Skinny mildly criminal suit-wearing orphanage brothers with a heart of gold.
  • Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Jade the hooker who Dougie was with before he's taken back to the Lodge. Even beyond her business relationship with Dougie she still takes the time to give catatonic Cooper (whom she mistakes for as Dougie having a stroke) a ride and when she finds the key to the Great Northern that he dropped she takes the time to send it back to the hotel rather than tossing it.
  • The Immodest Orgasm: Janey-E screams in ecstasy while making love to her husband which disturbs her little son enough in his bed to perform a Catapult Nightmare.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: The Mitchum Brothers beating up the Pit Boss was a Kick the Dog moment but the odds of hitting 30 jackpots simultaneously are so astronomically unlikely, it had to be a case of Too Dumb to Live to believe that Cooper wasn't cheating. Which he was, just with the help of the Lodge spirits. Any respectable Pit Boss would have kicked him out of the casino after his third jackpot. Which they're allowed to even if they can't prove he was cheating.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Even moreso than the original series, adding shady organized crime rings, government conspiracies, aliens, and a straight up God of Evil into the mix.
  • Last Episode, New Character: Carrie Page a waitress who looks like Laura Palmer and might actually be her under a new identity.
  • Last Note Nightmare: A rare narrative example of this. In the final two episodes of the series, BOB is destroyed, the real Diane returns and reunites with Cooper, a new doppelganger is created to provide for Janey-E and Sonny Jim, and Cooper apparently finds Laura Palmer alive and living under a new identity, "Carrie". However, when they go to the house where Laura's mother lives, "Carrie" hears Sarah Palmer calling her name and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. End series.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: It was more or less confirmed by Lynch and Frost that The Return would have a good bit of this, in no small part due to a changed up cast and more creative control on the part of David Lynch. And with the Tone Shift from the original series' mystery and The Movie's tragedy into outright morbid and abrasive surrealism along with grimmer Black Comedy replacing the first two seasons' folksy charm, does it ever.
    • Within the story itself, BOB has switched from the personification of evil in its most chaotic form to a more calculating type of Big Bad, though an explanation can be chalked up to the personality of who he's possessing.
    • While the original series had a limited setting in both its number of major characters and physical scope, The Return has a great deal of fun with its characters and varied settings.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Cooper finally breaks out of his Empty Shell state in Part 16, he immediately contacts MIKE, who responds with an exasperated "Finally!"
  • Leave the Camera Running: A favorite technique of Lynch's, it's used more than ever in The Return. Special mentions:
    • A long extended sequence of Dr. Jacoby spray painting shovels.
    • Several minutes of watching the roadhouse janitor sweep the floor.
    • Gordon Cole's French girlfriend/escort drawing out her exit of the room to ludicrous levels while Albert glares in impatience.
  • Left Hanging: As of the series' end, BOB is defeated and the situations with Dougie and the Doppelganger are resolved, but several mysteries remain:
    • We still have no idea where Audrey is when she wakes up from her existential dream. Eventually addressed in The Final Dossier: she is in an asylum as viewers had speculated prior. However, her marriage to Charlie did exist - we just don't know if what we saw of it was her daily life or an anxiety dream.
    • We have no idea how Beverly Page's marital strife is resolved, nor whether Ben Horne chooses to act on his attraction to her.
    • Is Cooper as "Richard", slowly losing his individuality in the new dimension he created?
    • What's going on with Linda's state-provided wheelchair, and will Carl Rodd be able to look out for his trailer park residents in their time of need?
    • The stories of the characters introduced in Every Episode Ending at the Roadhouse are never followed up on. Of course, it's also possible that several of their sequences could be All Just a Dream.
    • And what exactly is going on with Red, the designer drug trade (and its apparent zombie-like effects on the town of Twin Peaks), and will the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department be able to put a stop to it?
    • Further, what's to become of Shelly's relationship with drug runner Red while co-parenting with the local deputy assigned to the drug trade.
    • What becomes of the Gersten/Steven/Becky Love Triangle? What did Steven do that he was so distraught over in his final scene? And did he kill himself or not?
    • Most importantly, how does the main twist at the end resolve? Does Laura/ "Carrie" awaken to her possible true identity, and if so does she get past the Tremonds/Chalfonts and let herself be destroyed by JUDY? Or is she doomed to go on living while Judy survives, unable to fulfill her Heroic Sacrifice? Does she even need or want to?
  • The Legions of Hell: The Woodsmen, bizarre entities from the Black Lodge that assume the form of hobos covered in soot.
  • The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: In Episode 15 we see the Woodsmen's convenience store disappear at the clearing after Evil Cooper has left the place.
  • Look Both Ways: The poor little boy crossing paths with Richard Horne's truck.
  • Loss of Identity: Cooper's predicament for most of the series. When he escapes the Lodge, he's essentially severely mentally handicapped, barely capable of taking care of himself and only able to repeat things that people say to him, and furthermore is living the life of Dougie Jones, an identical copy of him created as part of BOB's plan to avoid being returned to the Black Lodge. However, certain things he sees seem to jog his memory somewhat, such as a cup of black coffee, a policeman's badge, a statue of a cowboy, the American flag, and finally the name of his former superior, Gordon Cole, spoken on a television. This final one causes him to electrocute himself and somehow bring all his memory back.
  • Madness Mantra: The woodman's haunting incantation in Episode 8, repeated over 10 times in less than four minutes.
    "This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within."
  • May–December Romance: Gordon Cole's M.O. After hitting on a 18ish Shelly in the original series, he's now set his sights on women apparently in their 20s and 30s, played by the 70-year-old David Lynch. He does seem to make an exception for Monica Bellucci though.
  • Mind Screw: It should really go without saying at this point, but The Return manages to be even weirder than the original series by a considerable degree. Some critics have commented that it bears a closer resemblance to Inland Empire and Mulholland Dr. than it does the original show.
  • Mind Screwdriver: The continuation explains a great deal of what was going on with the supernatural elements in the first two seasons, but still manages to open up even more questions.
  • Monochrome Casting: Hawk is now the only non-white major character in the show, with Josie Packard gone and Colonel Davis playing only a minor role in the events of the series.
  • Monochrome Past:
    • In Episode 8, most of the scenes set in 1945 and 1956 are shown in black & white.
    • Episode 17 has footage of the original Twin Peaks series from 25 years back which are shown colorless.
  • Multiple Gunshot Death: Hutch gets riddled with bullets from the Badass Bystander accountant in Episode 16.
  • Mythology Gag: For David Lynch's filmography.
    • Eraserhead:
      • The creature seen coming out of the first Dougie tulpa, as the tulpa is disintegrated, bears a strong resemblance to the early form of the child as seen in the opening sequence of Eraserhead. It doesn't get very much screen time.
      • Garland Briggs is decapitated just like Henry Spencer is, not to mention that his disembodied head appears in outer space in a rather surreal sequence.
      • The Arm's new form is similar to the tree Henry keeps near his bed.
      • Like Henry, Gordon Cole owns a picture of an atomic bomb explosion although Cole's copy is much greater in size.
    • The Elephant Man: The deformed prisoner with the slurred voice.
    • "Dune (1984)":
      • Baron Vladimir Harkonnen engages in depravity that is reminiscent of BOB's as both rape and kill to get their rocks off. Additionally both characters can fly away and are defeated by a character with supernatural abilities.
      • Agent Phillip Jefferies is a Mechanical Abomination much like the Guild Navigators.
      • Dale Cooper and Paul Attreides have similar zen-like demeanors that make them almost impervious to fear. Both also survive assassination attempts, are betrayed by a close confidant and go on to live either a double life or with a different culture for a significant length of time before their respective valiant returns.
    • Blue Velvet: Becky being dependent on a man who abuses her and keeps her hooked on drugs is similar to Dorothy Vallens' treatment by Frank Booth. Cooper's doppelganger, Richard Horne and local drug dealer Red likewise have shades of Frank, as seen by their choice of leather jackets.
    • Wild at Heart: Wally Brando isn't a million miles away from Nicolas Cage's portrayal of Sailor. Senorita Dido is also a thinly-veiled homage to Glinda, which is appropriate considering her one appearance reveals she's connected to Laura Palmer, both characters being played by Sheryl Lee. The outlaw couple aspect of Sailor and Lula is also repeated with Gary and Chantal.
    • Lost Highway: The parallel dimension in the final episode is accessed via driving down a long road.
    • The Straight Story: All of the returning characters, while not quite as elderly as Alvin and Lyle Straight, have clearly aged with some of them, such as the Log Lady and Harry Truman, suffering from cancer due to the mortality of old age. On a meta note, the returning characters seek to resolve past conflicts that were Left Hanging in the original run of Twin Peaks.
    • Mulholland Dr.: The woodsmen who inhabit the convenience store are similar to the homeless person who lurks behind the Winkie's diner. Most of Las Vegas mimics the way Lynch depicted Hollywood in the same film, with an implied crime family pulling the strings, blonde women in bright pink costumes and residents played by Naomi Watts and Patrick Fischler.
    • Inland Empire:
      • Jack Rabbit's Palace is an allusion to Jack Rabbit, one of the characters from the film. In Inland Empire, Jack mentions a secret opening in a discussion with another character; likewise in The Return, Jack Rabbit's Palace is Garland Briggs' secret portal to the White Lodge.
      • Laura Dern has a similar role here as she plays two versions of the same character, one of whom is fake while the other is real.
      • Sarah Palmer revealing her true face, complete with a Slasher Smile, to a shocked trucker is reminiscent of the scene in which The Phantom shifts his face into Nightmare Faces in front of the fearful Nikki.
    • Multiple Films:
  • Negative Space Wedgie: The Trinity explosion apparently created one that allowed evil forces into this world.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Final Dossier indicates that Lana Milford had a relationship with none other than Donald Trump.
  • Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Averted. From what little we can see of the grey creature, presumably JUDY, that mauls Tracey and Sam, appears to have female breasts with visible nipples.
  • Non-Protagonist Resolver: Evil Cooper is killed by side character Lucy and BOB gets defeated with a few KO punches from secondary character Freddie's magical punching glove gifted to him by the White Lodge.
  • Not Himself: The story is centered around three versions of Cooper: There's Doppel Coop who is BOB and another Black Lodge spirit riding around in the original's body like Fast and the Furious villains. There's actual Coop who is an Empty Shell with no personality and seeming possible brain damage from 25 years in the Black Lodge. Then there's Dougie Jones who is another clone of Cooper and a sleazy insurance salesman. In the last few episodes, original-flavor Coop, determined, kind-hearted, and capable, finally returns and sets many things right... but in the finale yet another variation appears. He believes he is Cooper, and tries to help Laura. But he is inexplicably referred to as "Richard," deals with problems much more ruthlessly than Cooper ever did, and frequently seems confused and out of his depth.
  • Not Staying for Breakfast: The next morning after Dale and Diane had sex in Episode 18, she is gone but left a note.
  • Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Episode 8 ends with one of the Woodsmen walking off from the radio station into the distance.
  • Offscreen Breakup:
    • Episode 11 confirms that Shelly's daughter Becky is also Bobby's but they are now separated and Shelly is dating someone else.
    • By implication Audrey and Jack since the former is now unhappily married to a man named Charlie.
  • Oh, Crap!: In Episode 13, this is Ray's response after Coop's doppelganger defeats Ranzo in an arm wrestling and kills him in one punch to become the new gang leader.
  • Only Sane Man: Albert, who always appears very annoyed that he's stuck in a David Lynch show with a bunch of David Lynch characters.
  • One Phone Call: In Episode 4, Gordon Cole requests local police to give Coop's doppelganger his phone call in jail.
  • One-Sided Arm-Wrestling: Evil Cooper seems like an underdog in the arm wrestling contest against an enormous gang leader, but it turns out the one-sidedness goes the other way. As a Black Lodge entity, the Doppelganger does not even react to the pain (though he does feel it), and has superhuman strength that dwarfs his opponent's. He spends most of the match toying with the guy before breaking his arm and smashing his face in.
  • One-Winged Angel: An appropriately strange variant. Both times Evil Cooper is killed, the Woodsmen materialize to extract BOB's essence from him, which appears as a floating orb of black slime with BOB's face visible in it. In the penultimate episode, BOB attacks and nearly kills Freddie in this form before being destroyed.
  • Orphean Rescue: In the penultimate episode, Cooper travels backwards in time to try and save Laura Palmer's life, apparently by leading her to the White Lodge. He appears to her in the forest and takes her by the hand, leading her deeper into the woods. However, just as in the original Orpheus myth, he turns around to discover that she has disappeared. After this, the forest echoes with her disembodied scream. Exactly what happens there is extremely ambiguous, but he did apparently save Laura's life. Just not in the way he intended.
  • Out-of-Character Alert: Evil Cooper refuses an offer of coffee from the Twin Peaks constabulary, immediately tipping all of his old friends off that something is wrong with him.
  • Out with a Bang: In Episode 1, while having sex Sam Colby and Tracey are murdered by something from the Black Lodge that looks like one of The Greys.
  • Paranormal Gambling Advantage: After Agent Cooper returns from the Black Lodge into the material world, he wanders into a casino and sees supernatural omens indicating which slot machine is primed for a super-jackpot. It's a bit unclear if it's simply foresight or if the machines are being deliberately reprogrammed by his friends from the other side, since he ends up winning about 50 times in a row. More realistically, the casino's owners immediately fire the manager because he didn't kick him out before he walked off with millions of dollars and later attempt to murder Cooper. Even if they can't prove he's cheating, the odds of his winning streak are so unbelievable that they damn well know he did.
  • Paranormal Mundane Item: Freddie Sykes' green gardening glove which gives him superhuman strength.
  • The Patient Has Left the Building: Defied by Cooper. When he awakes from his coma, he request the doc to check his vital signs to prove that he is ready to leave the hospital, which he does with official approval five minutes later.
  • Pet the Dog: The show establishes that the Mitchum Brothers are okay when Bradley firmly states that they can't fire Candy because "she'll have no place to go!"
  • Pillow Silencer: In episode 2, Evil Cooper murders a girl this way when he finds out she tried to double-cross him with her partner. First he knocks her unconscious and then places a pillow on her face and reaches with his revolver underneath to shoot her in the temple.
  • Police Code for Everything: In Episode 1, the cop mentions a "possible 1054" with regards to the lock they needed to crack. The neighbor misunderstands and corrects him that the address is actually 1349.
  • Psychosexual Horror: In the series, as well as the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the main mystery is the murder of all-American high school girl Laura Palmer, in the quaint little town of Twin Peaks. As FBI Agent Cooper delves further into the mystery and Laura's life, the viewer is shown a dark image of her: she still is the typical blonde Homecoming Queen, but has been sexually abused by her father since early adolescence, and turns to drug addiction and sexual encounters as a result of the abuse. While her father is the one who abused her, he was under the influence of a diabolical entity named BOB — yes, with capital letters — and there is some doubt whether his actions were due to BOB's full possession, or if BOB influenced some hidden, dark part of Mr. Palmer to come to the forefront. Worse still, Palmer, possessed by BOB, raped and killed his own daughter — the death that initiates the original series.
  • Questionable Consent: In Episode 10, Janey-E has sex with Agent Cooper, whom she believes to be her husband. He's barely responsive to anything said to people but they have apparently mind-blowing sex despite it.
  • Rape as Backstory:
    • Diane, or at the very least her tulpa.
    • Very possible for Audrey and her son.
  • Raygun Gothic: The Giant and Señorita Dido live in a giant, otherworldly tower with this sort of aesthetic.
  • Real-Person Cameo: The owner of the Palmer house at the end is played by the real owner of the house.
  • Red Herring: In the first episode, the Fireman tells Cooper to remember "Richard and Linda". At first, one may suspect that Richard Horne would be important. Similarly, an early episode mentions a Linda that lives in the New Fat Trout Trailer Park, which is hinted to be an important location as Agent Desmond's last known location was at the original Fat Trout in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. However, the final episode reveals that "Richard and Linda" refer to the new identities Cooper and Diane would take in the new timeline.
  • Retraux: The final segment of Part 8 mimics 50's sci-fi B-movies. In the same episode, the White Lodge has a 1920's art deco feel that hearkens back to classic silent films like those of Fritz Lang.
  • Revenge of the Sequel: "The Return" has this stock title feeling to it.
  • Scare Chord: The epic nuclear explosion montage in Episode 8 is accompanied by a collage of scare chords.
  • Sequel Hook: One of the biggest problems with Season 2 was the increasingly flimsy justifications for keeping Cooper in Twin Peaks after he solved Laura's murder. "The Return"'s unresolved storyline about designer drug smuggling provides a handy reason for the FBI to open another investigation if a fourth season is ever produced.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Cooper tries to do this in the last two episodes regarding Laura's murder, but things don't go as planned.
  • Short-Distance Phone Call: In Episode 4, Frank Truman calls Lucy from his mobile while walking into her office which gives her a good fright because she doesn't understand how cell phones work.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Lampshaded at one point when Cooper watches a portion of Sunset Boulevard, in which there is a character who is also named Gordon Cole. Upon recognizing Gordon Cole's name, Cooper starts regaining his memories.
    • Gordon has a portrait of Franz Kafka in his office. Lynch is an admitted devotee of Kafka.
    • In the same office sequence, Gordon Cole also whistles the intro to the Rammstein song "Engel". David Lynch has stated that he is an admirer of the band and featured one of their songs on the Cult Soundtrack for Lost Highway.
    • The name of Nadine's store Run Silent, Run Drapes is a play on the film Run Silent, Run Deep.
  • Silent Whisper: At the White Lodge in Episode 18, Laura whispers something in Cooper's ears, but we never know exactly what.
  • Sinister Southwest: The show has a substantial amount of Surreal Horror-filled screen time in the American Southwest, away from The Other Rainforest setting of the first two seasons. Throughout the show, portals to other dimensions from which eldritch entities emerge crop up in the middle of the desert, where they menace innocent rural townsfolk, including in Episode 8 where the story's Big Bad, Judy, a malevolent demon/Eldrich Abomination, is introduced to the word as a result of nuclear testing in a small New Mexico town. There's also a subplot set in Las Vegas involving an insurance executive who's heavily embroiled in organized crime.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance:
    • The scene where psychotic hitman, Ike the Spike, goes on a bloody homicidal rampage in an office building and stabs multiple workers with an ice pick is accompained by a cheerful low-fi beat song.
    • The sex scene between Dale and Diane in Episode 18 is accompanied by an eerie soundtrack.
  • Standard Office Setting: Dougie Jones works in the high-end variety of this setting, in a glass-walled, leather-chaired, skyscraper office in which employees mostly seem to have serious meetings in plush conference rooms and hand each other manila envelopes. Most scenes in this setting involve Dougie having absurd difficulties in the elevator while getting coffee, or both.
  • Stock Desert Interstate: The Return involves road-tripping through the American West, and as such there are plenty of shots of the empty road in the desert. The last episode especially has much of it taking place in old-fashioned diners and motels or the episode is set in a car traveling through the desert. A frequent visual motif is an old-fashioned gas-station, which is a portal to Another Dimension that hops around, appearing both in the remote desert and along the roadsides.
  • Stockholm Syndrome: An unnerving example - Audrey keeps a portrait of Cooper on prominent display in spite of having been forced on by his evil doppelganger while she was in a coma and being the mother of his illegitimate child.
  • Stylistic Suck: A lot of the special effects look very weird and hokey (finding a clear origin in Lynch's film Inland Empire, which has similarly bad special effects), but somehow the suckiness makes them even more batshit terrifying. Special mention has to go to the black orb containing BOB's soul, which contains a pretty obvious CGI rendering of Frank Silva's face - but it's still absolutely terrifying. It's easy to tell which ones are supposed to look good and which aren't when you get to Episode 8, where the atomic explosion looks good.
  • Swirly Energy Thingy: Two of them show up in the series, with one leading to the Black Lodge, and the other to the White.
  • Tone Shift: The Return switches the original show's quirky, soap opera atmosphere out for a dry, disjointed, and often darkly comic style consistent with mid-career David Lynch films like Mulholland Dr. and Lost Highway.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Even in his barely conscious form of Dougie Jones, Cooper still loves coffee and cherry pie.
  • Traveling at the Speed of Plot: For the climax of Episode 17, everyone of importance is transported to the Twin Peaks sheriff station by cinematic trickery.
  • Tricked-Out Shoes: In Episode 17, Chad Broxford breaks himself out of his prison cell by using a key which he had hidden inside the sole of his right shoe.
  • Trunk Shot: When the police search William Hastings' car in Episode 1.
  • Uncanny Valley Makeup: Harry Goaz is clearly wearing a fat suit that gives him a large pot belly, but everything else about him is just as skinny as before, which makes his body proportions look off. Most likely this is very deliberate.
  • The Unfought: Cooper and his Doppelganger never confront each other due to the latter being gunned down by Lucy before Copper arrives. Applies to Cooper and BOB too since it's Freddy Sykes that gets to take down the Big Bad.
  • Verbal Backspace: When Cooper informs Janey-E he has to leave Vegas for Twin Peaks, he first talks about Dougie in the third person but then corrects himself in order not to sound suspicious.
    Cooper: Dougie... I mean...I will be back.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Of Dougie Jones vomiting on the floor in Episode 3.
  • Weirdness Censor: Nobody is capable of recognizing Dougie Jones' odd behavior. His wife Janey-E suspects him of having had a stroke but after the doctor confirmed his well-being she puts up with him being a Blank Slate like everyone else does. Possibly justified in that there are vague mentions the original Dougie appeared to have some kind of mental condition which caused him to have some kind of episodes of odd behavior or being non-responsive.
  • We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: The uncanny sepia tone Christmas family photo Lucy keeps in her office at the sheriff's department, which just gets worse the more one studies it. Lucy and Andy's heads are obviously pasted on to bodies that don't seem to belong to the photograph, but not as awkwardly as with Wally Brando, which is just Michael Cera's adult face pasted onto a child's head that is much too small for the actual clipping. He is clutching a toy motorcycle that also doesn't belong to the photo. The fact it gets a prominent full-screen shot rather than being an embarassing background detail points to everything here being deliberate.
  • Wham Line: Episode 18
    Cooper: What Year is This?
    • The woman who now owns the Palmer house saying that she bought it from a Mrs. Chalfont, and that her own name is Alice Tremond, counts as this. The Chalfonts and Tremonds had never been mentioned at all during The Return, but their penchant for swapping identities goes a long way towards explaining the world that Cooper/Richard and Laura/Carrie find themselves living in.
  • Wham Shot: Episode 16 abruptly ends with Audrey running towards the camera after a fight breaks out at the roadhouse begging Charlie to get her out of there, and then immediately to her in an all white room in white clothes looking into a mirror in confusion.
    • After several episodes of Sarah Palmer slipping into alcoholism and madness in a downward spiral that has gone on for the past twenty-five years, we're treated to a jarring shot of her screaming as she tries to destroy Laura's portrait.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: A lot of the side characters show up for literally one scene and then are never seen again. Wally Brando is an example, as are all of the townspeople that show up at the roadhouse.
  • What Year Is This?: Literally the final line spoken by Cooper (or is he Richard now?)
  • World of Mysteries: While the first two seasons were weird but more-or-less comprehensible Paranormal Investigation series, this one took the weirdness up to eleven. Let's see: we have obscure mafia plots involving Cooper's evil doppelganger, a sinister Eldritch Abomination called Judy represented by a black symbol of a circle with two "horns", a number of otherworldly locations and characters including the Convenience Store, The Dutchman's, and an alternate world where Laura Palmer is still alive and works as a waitress in a cafe called "Judy's"... There is a possibility of a fourth season, so some of that may be resolved, but knowing Lynch, it is more likely to get even worse.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: In episode 18, Cooper tries to use his access to the Black Lodge to save Laura before her death. While he does alter the exact sequence of events, it's strongly implied that it doesn't work.... at least as he intended.
    • Addressed further in The Final Dossier. In the alternate timeline, Laura mysteriously disappears, but the effect is no less traumatic, and many of the same people who died tragically in the original timeline also die in the new one.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Cooper tries to take Carrie / Laura back to her home, but it's not hers.

"What year is this?"

Alternative Title(s): Twin Peaks The Return

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Leland Attacks Maddy

Leland Palmer puts on latex gloves before he attacks and murders Madeleine Ferguson.

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5 (8 votes)

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Main / TheseGlovesAreMadeForKillin

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