Referenced By / Twin Peaks

...well, this looks familiar.

Considered one of the most influential TV shows in the history of the medium, Twin Peaks has inspired many an allusion and/or parody.

The elements that are referenced and parodied most often are: the quirky-yet-eerie small town setting, the murder victim, the tagline ("Who killed Laura Palmer?"), owls not being what they seem, the town limits sign, the Log Lady, and the iconic Black Lodge visions.

---

Anime & Manga

• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: The part's Starter Villain, Anjuro "Angelo" Katagiri, is named after the composer of Twin Peaks, Angelo Badalamenti.
• Vol. 4 (and ep. 15-16) of Monster features a dancing dwarf in a colorful suit, called "The Baby."
• Soul Eater has a recurring character called the Little Ogre, who takes up residence in Soul's heart in the image of the Black Lodge. He's even introduced dancing, not unlike The Man From Another Place/The Arm.

Film — Live-Action

• Clueless:
  Cher: I'm having a Twin Peaks experience!
• Good Luck Chuck: in one scene Chuck's little friend and his blonde girlfriend (resembling Laura Palmer) speak and move in backward motion.
• Titanic: Rose's line "I'd rather be his whore than your wife!" is taken verbatim from the show.
• Us: another film which involves characters descending into an otherworld with a heavy emphasis on the colour red, and encountering sadistic and violent doppelgangers of themselves who speak in dissonant tones. The only entrance we see to the subterranean world of the Tethered is in an (appropriative) Native-American themed house of mirrors based on taking a "Spirit Quest", and early on the main character wanders in and is shocked by the cry of an animatronic owl.

Literature

• In My Dark Vanessa, Vanessa spends two weeks camped in her apartment, binging Twin Peaks and then rewatching certain episodes again and again. Sometimes Bridget watches with her, but always leaves during the violent, horrifying parts.

Live-Action TV

• Not only is Eerie, Indiana a kid-friendly version of Peaks — one of the characters says he's "not the Log Lady" after arming himself with a big stick.
• The Eric Andre Show has several during its second season, such as the change to red curtains and the statue from the Black Lodge. At one point Eric empties two whole mags of ammunition into Hannibal mid-monologue, looks straight at the camera, and asks "Who killed Hannibal?", after which it segues into a parody of the Twin Peaks intro.
• Fargo is influenced at several points, despite being more Midwest than Northwest. Notably:
  • In series 1, while interviewing Lester Nygaard about the murder of his wife, the reluctant police chief's conversation drifts towards the gum they both liked as children.
  • Later, while visiting a diner in Bemidji, the serial killer Lorne Malvo is offered a cup of coffee and a slice of cherry pie, the latter of which he refuses.
  • Ray Wise himself (Leland Palmer) appears in S3 in the recurring role of Paul Marrane. In episode 8, he appears in a liminal space in the middle of a forest, which takes the form of a bowling alley - but when this is pointed out he asks "Is that how you see it?". He offers cryptic clues to the character of Nikki Swango, and later seems to be involved in punishing the villainous Yuri Gurka. These interactions are all mildly flavoured around the Black Lodge.
• On Friends, Rachel attempts the cherry stem trick, to little success.
• Walter Bishop of Fringe receives a pair of glasses with a red and a blue lenses from an old friend of his in Washington state. That friend's name? Dr. Jacoby.
  • Fringe's second season featured an episode called "Northwest Passage", which had been the original title for Twin Peaks and its pilot. In this episode, Peter finds himself in Washington, eating pie at the local diner, traveling through Snoqualmie, and working with a local sheriff when a girl goes missing.
• The Good Place: the Good Plance has candies that allow people to feel certain things after eating them. one is called "Understand the meaning of Twin Peaks".
• The Haunting of Hill House (2018): departing from the plot of the original book, Mike Flanagan's version begins with the death of Eleanor "Nell" Vance (neé Crane), the innocent youngest child of the Crain family, and subsequent episodes are dedicated to deciphering what led to her apparent suicide and whether or not it was suicide at all. Lo and behold, she was in fact murdered by one of her parents, oblivious to the harm they commited while under the influence of a supernatural force.
  • The malevolent heart of Hill House (the series and the house) is the "Red Room", significant for its bright red door and the way those inside stop functioning in linear time and space, living out a pleasant fantasy while it slowly kills them. In the scenes where the characters get a glimpse of the Red Room as it actually is, the walls are covered in black mould.
• The American version of The Killing, set in the Pacific Northwest, was marketed under the tagline "Who killed Rosie Larsen?"
• Referenced in Mystery Science Theater 3000 on multiple occasions.
  The owl footage is not what it seems.
• Despite being very different in terms of tone and plot, Northern Exposure was often compared to Twin Peaks due to its northern locale and quirky characters. The season 1 episode "Russian Flu" decided to run with the comparison, featuring shots of the Snoqualmie waterfall, Badalamenti-like music, donuts and cherry pie, and even a lady with a log.
• In Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Parker's parents have a heated 30-second debate over the dancing dwarf, and Haley theorizes that Lynch makes the show as he goes along.
• Pretty Little Liars (whose plot centered on the disappearance of a high school girl) had an Agent Cooper investigating the crime.
• The Psych episode "Dual Spires" is an extended homage to Twin Peaks, featuring a quirky locale, a similar (albeit non-supernatural) plot, and a variety of Twin Peaks alumni in supporting roles.
  • The victim's name (Paula Merral) is an anagram of Laura Palmer, and Julee Christie performs the theme song in the opening credits.
• Riverdale has been marketed as Twin Peaks meets My So-Called Life, going as far having Twin Peaks' own Madchen Amick star as Alice Cooper, who, in a deliberate Shout-Out, is seen cutting into a cherry pie.
• The opening of Sense8 features a neon sign reading "Twin Peaks" (which is the name of a bar in The Castro) when showing San Francisco among its montage of world cities.
• Sesame Street did an episode-long parody called "Twin Beaks", which featured characters such as Agent Cookie and David Finch.
• On season 1 of Skam, Noora's Halloween costume and Instagram username are of the Log Lady from Twin Peaks.
• The killer in Too Many Cooks has BOB's hair and penchant for denim, as well as a similar name ("Bill").
• Torchwood: the episode "Children of the Earth: Day One" features a 'for sale' sign listing "Frost" and "Lynch" as the estate agents.
• On season 2 of True Detective Ray Velcoro is shot by a masked gunman; as he lies bleeding, he has a vision of a place called The Beyond — paralleling Cooper's situation and dreams in the 2nd season premiere.
• The first season of Veronica Mars saw its title character uncover the seedy underbelly of a seemingly wholesome town during her investigation into the murder of her best friend, a well-liked blonde teenager — all the while having dream sequences leading to the solution. (And yes, "Who killed Lilly Kane?" was used as a marketing headline).
• The premise of Twin Peaks ("outsider from FBI investigates mystery in small quirky town, discovers supernatural underbelly") has been adopted by Wayward Pines, which also copies the naming logic behind its title. This was actually a misdirection, as the promotion for the series made it look like a Twin Peaks clone, when actually it has far more in common with The Prisoner (1967).
• In an episode of The X-Files, a picture of Laura Palmer’s corpse is seen hanging behind Scully’s chair.
• In the Season 2 opening credits of Yellowjackets, Token Evil Teammate Misty is shown cackling with laughter in what looks like the Red Room, in a reference to BOB.

Music

• Amanda Palmer 's first solo album is titled Who Killed Amanda Palmer?
• The Anthrax song "Black Lodge".
• The Bastille song "Laura Palmer".
• Ben Frost's "Leo Needs a New Pair of Shoes".
• The Breakfast song "Diane", with its references to diners and the repeat of "fire walk with me". Weirdly enough, per Word of God, the plot concerns the Norma-Ed-Hank Love Triangle, rather than Agent Cooper's secretary Diane.
• The chorus to "Trepidation" by Camp Cope has the line "Sometimes my arms bend back".
• Camper Van Beethoven's "That Gum You Like Is Back In Style".
• Former Das Racist member Kool A.D. references the series in "Eroika":
  Girls love me 'cause I act like Garfield;
  Watchin' Twin Peaks, look, I'm Laura Palmer.
• The Front Bottoms' album Talon of the Hawk is named after a knife (depicted on the cover) that frontman Brian Sella had, which was named after Deputy Hawk.
• The music video for Lonely Soup Day's "Line of Sight" was shot in a number of iconic Peaks locations and features similar characters, coffee, pie, creamed corn, bird masks, and reversed backwards speech.
• Lord Huron are self-proclaimed David Lynch fans; their recording studio is even modeled after the Black Lodge. While lacking in overt references, their album Strange Trails has songs whose plots tie into the Twin Peaks mythology, notably "Meet Me in the Woods".
• Moby samples Laura Palmer's Theme in "Go".
• Mount Eerie samples Laura Palmer's Theme in "Between Two Mysteries" and name-drops Twin Peaks (the mountains) in the lyrics.
• The title of Night Time, My Time (album & song) by Sky Ferreira are taken from a line Laura says in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and the album's Title Track lyrically echoes Laura Palmer's struggles. (To make things even better, Ferreira had a cameo on the show's third season.)
• The music video for Speedy Ortiz's "My Dead Girl" channels the visuals of Twin Peaks (such as the One-Eyed Jack's neon sign and, of course, the Red Room), as well as other Lynch works like Mulholland Dr. and Blue Velvet.
• Stars of the Lid have sampled Twin Peaks dialogue in "Gasfarming" and have written an instrumental piece called "Music for Twin Peaks Episode 30" (which, at that point, did not exist).
• Weird Al name-drops Twin Peaks when listing various shows in "I Can't Watch This" (adding: wish they lynch those donut eatin freaks!")

Podcasts

• Aside from obviously having the same opening premise (a stranger with professional qualifications comes to a little American town to investigate, only to find it has a dark underbelly of secrets and otherworldliness), Welcome to Night Vale also makes deliberate tribute in revealing - in episode #33, "Cassette" - that the name of the narrator/main character, "The Voice of Night Vale", is Cecil Gershwin Palmer.

Video Games

• Alan Wake:
  • The setting of Bright Falls is eerily similar to Twin Peaks: both are small and seemingly quiet logging towns in Washington, both are named after local natural phenomena, and both are home to dark supernatural forces. Certain locations (the Oh Deer Diner, the Cauldron Lake Lodge, the sheriff's department) are identical in layout to their Twin Peaks counterparts. To top it off, the town stands near a mountain called Mirror Peak ("mirror" being a synonym to "twin").
  • The Lamp Lady is an Expy of Log Lady, down to the character design.
  • In one of the game's last scenes, Alan Wake is confronted by his evil Doppelgänger, who plans to replace him; this is the fate that befell Agent Cooper.
  • The infamous scene of BOB crawling over furniture to get at the viewer is recreated in-game with a patient at the Cauldron Lake Lodge.
  • There is a "Damn Good Cup of Coffee" achievement, which the player gets after collecting 25 coffee thermoses.
  • An oddball agent by the name of Cooper is mentioned and said to be attending a class on transcendental meditation (which David Lynch is a fan of).
  • Also mentioned: a secret society of Bookhouse Boys (and girl).
  • Agent Nightingale makes micro-cassette recordings, just like Agent Cooper.
• Borderlands 2: one of Pyro Pete's first lines is "Fire walk with me."
• The Darkside Detective: The protagonist is a detective investigating spooky goings-on in a town called Twin Lakes. At one point he echoes Agent Cooper's views on the importance of a fine cup of coffee.
  • The sequel, The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark, includes a homage to a surreal moment from the episode "The Condemned Woman".
• Day of the Tentacle: the famous line "Damn good coffee!" line is said.
• Deadly Premonition is a game-long Twin Peaks Shout-Out. Specific references:
  • Agent Francis York Morgan shares many of Cooper's quirks, including his appreciation of good coffee, his trust in his strange dreams and his monologuing habits (though Cooper records tapes for his secretary named Diane and York speaks to Zach).
  • Anna Graham is a Laura Palmer Expy — a beautiful blonde high schooler involved in the town's dark trades, whose murder jump-starts the plot and drags her best friend into investigation. In addition, Anna's name is a reference to the Twin Peaks character Annie, played by Heather Graham.
  • Morgan experiences nightmares of a red parallel dimension, wherein he receives cryptic clues.
  • Sigourney, the Pot Lady, is a comedic Expy of Margaret Lanterman, the Log Lady.
  • Substances are hidden in the gas tank of a motorcycle.
  • Much like in Alan Wake, above, key Twin Peaks locations are replicated in appearance and layout: the hotel, the sheriff's department, and the diner (which is named the A & G Diner, similarly to the RR Diner).
  • A picture of Snoqualmie Falls from the opening credits of Twin Peaks hangs at the hotel.
• Fortnite features a higher-level location called Twine Peaks.
• Ghostly Matter: the Dream Land visited near the end of the game is based on the Red Room's aesthetics.
• Grand Theft Auto V, of all games, has a Twin Peaks Easter egg: in Tongva Valley there is an owl statue with a sign that says "TWO HOOTS FALLS" in front of a small waterfall. The waterfall is reminiscent of the one seen in the intro of each Twin Peaks episode and the owl is an homage to the mysterious owl appearances in the series.
  • There is also a mission called "Who Killed Leonora Johnson?" — a play on the famous tagline and Leo Johnson's name.
• In Hi-Fi RUSH, Chai is stuck in a dream world that his friends help break him out of by snapping their fingers, just like Cooper does after his first encounter with the Man from Another Place. During this, the Team Pet 808 performs the Man's signature dance.
• In the epilogue to INFRA, if you completed Rob's side task in Turnip Hill, when tasting the coffee produced by the machine he makes you, Mark will note that it's "damn good coffee".
• Ion Fury includes the Black Lodge as a secret area, even including a corridor leading to another Black Lodge, "Episode 29"-style. In another level, an advert for a coffee shop touts its wares as "damn good coffee! ...and hot!"
• Kathy Rain:
  • The game's general plot and settings have allusions (including a Sheriff named Truman) to the show and the final stretch of the game draws heavily from some of the weirder aspects of the show, especially the Season 2 finale. In addition, quite a bit of the soundtrack is overtly inspired by some of the more of Angelo Badalamenti's more synth-driven pieces from the show's soundtrack.
  • A more direct one comes when Kathy examines a stuffed owl:
    Kathy: Contrary to popular belief, I don't believe the owls are more than they seem.
• Life Is Strange:
  • The license plate on Chloe's truck reads TWNPKS.
  • The doctor the Prescotts hired to help Nathan was named "Dr. Jacoby".
  • "Fire walk with me" is written in the bathroom in the Two Whales.
  • Rachel Amber is an Expy of Laura Palmer; they even share the same birthday, July 22nd.
    • A white doe symbolizes the spirit of Rachel, where a white horse was used for Laura.
  • One of the endings features a shot remarkably similar to the ''Twin Peaks'' intro◊.
  • The prequel, Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, begins with Chloe visiting a concert of a band named Firewalk.
• Mass Effect 2: When Shepard and Liara chase the Tala Vasir to a sleazy casino on Illium during the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC, a large screen displays an asari stripper dancing in what is clearly the Black Lodge. Made all the more amusing by a volus taking the place of the Little Man From Another Place and a krogan statue (complete with assault rifle) in place of the Venus di Milo.
• Max Payne has the Show Within a Show, Address Unknown, featured in both the first and second game, which features amongst other things the protagonist having an Evil Doppelgänger who lives inside a red room, and having visions of a flamingo who speaks backwards.
• Mizzurna Falls is basically a Spiritual Adaptation of Twin Peaks, albeit a version with markedly less surrealism and more focus on the teenaged characters.
• Night in the Woods:
  • The entire premise of the game is the balance between small-town community values and a disturbing underbelly of crime and ancient supernatural goings-on.
  • The name of the setting, "Possum Springs", follows the naming convention of "Twin Peaks" and its' tributes.
  • Diner food - including but not limited to donuts - is particularly notable as the heroes' go-to food source.
  • The main character, Mae, is just out of her teens and her friendship group is still rocked by the disappearance of their mutual childhood friend Casey - who turns out to have been murdered.
  • The tone of the game shifts from "young woman becoming reacquainted with her friends and hometown" to "supernatural mystery" upon the discovery, early-on, of a tattooed severed arm just outside of the diner.
  • Mae, the viewpoint character, is 'haunted' by a mysterious killer who she sees abducting a child in the night. This killer seems capable of appearing and disappearing at will, and who targets people going through intense suffering - such as teenagers and drug addicts.
  • Mae's best friend Gregg, like James, is a mentally troubled young man who wears a leather jacket and rides around on a (non-motorised) bike. Unlike James, he's already in a stable, loving relationship.
  • At one point while they are attempting to investigate the historical society Gregg is attacked by an owl.
  • During her attempts to investigate the spooky underbelly of Possum Springs, Mae frequently dreams of an otherworld where she is given vague hints about life after death and the greater meaning/lack thereof of the universe. There is no concrete confirmation whether she is truly travelling between dimensions or suffering an extreme hallucination.
  • The resolution of the game is that murders have been happening in the town at the whims of a cult worshipping a being named "The Black Goat".
  • Mae is visited at several crucial moments - including when she is injured and possibly close to death - by the Janitor, a mysterious, tall, bald figure who speaks in cryptic aphorisms but is also simultaneously a nonchalant blue-collar worker about town (like the Giant/Waiter).
  • Like Laura Palmer, Mae Borowski is shown to be a fully-developed character, neither 'good' nor 'bad' - attempting to process her trauma and anxiety with the limited tools she is afforded.
  • Mid-way through the game Mae meets the "Three Weird Teens", a trio of bespectacled goths who speak in synchronised patterns. Like the Log Lady, they hint at knowing the future and give Mae cryptic messages which, surprisingly, come true.
• Persona:
  • The concept of the Velvet Room ("between dream and reality, mind and matter") is similar to that of the Black Lodge, and the one seen in Persona 4 has the exact same floor and curtains as the Red Room, except blue.
• Unbelievably, Postal 4 has a few.
  • The transitional cutscene between Wednesday and Thursday lays it on heavy, featuring the Postal Dude heading off to a lodge in the mountains, seen off by a desk concierge whose hut windows seem to have the Black Lodge chevrons in their reflection, and to cap it all off, the tram ride up is soundtracked by a Suspiciously Similar Song to "Falling". If that wasn't obvious enough, the "Edensin" sticker on the back of the tram that outright uses the Twin Peaks logo's font and color scheme will be.
  • When the Dude wakes up on Thursday, the lodge turns out to be less Great Northern and more The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it notably has a basement that outright apes the decor and partial layout of the Black Lodge.
• A graffiti reading "the owls are not what they seem" appears in ''Rusty Lake: Paradise''.
• On The Secret World, lore on the village of Iazmaciune, Transylvania opens with the line "the owls are not what they seem."
• The creators of Silent Hill list the works of David Lynch as a major inspiration.
  • The titular Silent Hill has supernatural realms like Twin Peaks does, and both towns have immense amounts of fog. Said fog is a plot point in Silent Hill.
  • The Otherworld is similar to the Black Lodge, and the dynamic between Mary and Maria in Silent Hill 2 is nearly identical to the one between Laura and Maddy in Twin Peaks.
  • A suitcase full of shoes is found in a motel room; drugs are hidden in the gas tank of a motorcycle; an overturned chair with one wheel spinning is seen in a hospital corridor.
  • Akira Yamaoka, the main composer on all the mainline Silent Hill games, directly cited Angelo Badalamenti's work in Twin Peaks as one of his main influences on the soundtracks.
• In Spiritfarer, offering Gwen a cup of coffee, her favorite food item, she proclaims it to be "a damn fine cup of coffee."
• Thimbleweed Park: the entire setup is a deliberate Affectionate Parody of Twin Peaks, but there are a few specific references. For example, if the player tries to get Delores to pick up more than one log, she says "I'm not some kind of log lady." Also, when you try to order cherry pie from the diner is Sandy will say that the last pie was eaten by some tall guy from the city who ate it with his coffee.
• We Happy Few features a locale styled after the Black Lodge.
• In Whispers of a Machine, if the Player Character Vera interact with the police station's coffee machine, it serves her a cup, and after taking a sip she comments that it is "a damn good coffee".

Western Animation

• The show's Signature Scene — Cooper's dream sequence in the Red Room — has been the subject of many an animated homage. Outside of Gravity Falls and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (which get their entries below), notable instances include:
  • in the Adventure Time episode "Who Would Win", Finn receives guidance from a mysterious entity in a zigzag-patterned dreamspace;
  • Regular Show;
  • All Hail King Julien TV spinoff, with Mort replacing the Arm. Lampshaded to hilarious effect.
    King Julien: Mort? WHY ARE YOU TALKING BACKWARDS?!
• Animaniacs (2020) referenced the show during their song about reboots.
• The Darkwing Duck episode "Twin Beaks" was a Shout-Out/Affectionate Parody of Twin Peaks, complete with a body "wrapped in plastic", an intuitive investigator (Launchpad), and the cows being not what they seem.
• In the The Dragon Prince episode "Old Wounds", one setting of Viren's fever dream resembles the Red Room, including people talking backwards, Opeli playing the Log Lady and The Chrysalis Child as the Man from Another Place dancing to Creepy Jazz Music.
• Gravedale High: in one of the episodes, the kids go to Thin Peaks park, which turns out to a heavily forested area. The music playing over the scenes is similar to that of the Twin Peaks theme.
• The premise of Twin Peaks ("outsider investigates mystery in small quirky town in the Pacific Northwest, discovers supernatural underbelly") has been adopted by Gravity Falls, which also copies the naming logic behind its title. In deliberate nods to Twin Peaks, the show featured a club similar to the Red Room, as well as a voice cameo by Kyle Maclachlan.
  • "Stan is not what he seems".
  • There are certain parallels between Bill Cipher and BOB, and showrunner Alex Hirsch originally wanted David Lynch to voice Bill. When that fell through, he voiced him himself — in his best David Lynch impression.
  • The season 1 episode "Dreamscaperers" ends with a slow pan over a waterfall, in the style of the classic Twin Peaks opening.
• The Homestar Runner Halloween Episode "Haunted Photo Booth" features Strong Bad dressed as BOB. In an Easter Egg, he even gets to chant "How's Annie?" before it leads up to Homsar dressed as the Man from Another Place, who says "I was raised by a cup of coffee." backwards.
  • In another Halloween short, Marzipan dresses up as the Log Lady.
  • The 150th Strong Bad Email "alternate universe" has an Easter Egg taking place in the Black Lodge with Homestar himself speaking backwards for a little bit.
  • The short DNA Evidence features two of these. One is in the opening titles where a jazzy tune similar to Twin Peaks' opening theme is played, and the ending reveals Strong Sad has been spying on everyone by peeking through a window, hiding on the roof of Bubs' Concession Stand and behind some cleaning supplies, much like how BOB was created when Frank Silva wandered on set a few times while the pilot was being filmed.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Scooby has prophetic dreams where he finds himself in the Red Room with a small dancing man (who was even voiced by the same actor who played The Man From Another Place!) Similarly to Twin Peaks, the Red Room traps "the better parts" of the people who visit.
• The Simpsons
  • In "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two", Chief Wiggum has a dream in which Lisa talks backwards and drops clues as to who the identity of the culprit.
  • "Lisa's Sax" features Homer watching TV, where a man dances with a horse. "That's damn good coffee you've got here in Twin Peaks—and damn good cherry pie," a voiceover says. Homer, staring at the TV with fascination, says, "Brilliant. Heh heh heh. (I have absolutely no idea what's going on.)"

---