The Secret History of Twin Peaks

[Dalai Cooper]

I'm at work now and I don't have the book with me so I can't check if I'm right, but I just had an idea on my way to work, that I think no one mentioned yet...

Who wrote the part of the book with the most continuity errors? The whole mess with Normas parents, the "moon" stamp on the postcard, the date of Josies death...

This is all in the dossier from Cooper on Andrew Packard. And according to the remarks he wrote it "after the case was solved and before he left town" and even the archivist wonders why he did this at all.

If he wrote this JUST before he left town, he might not have been the most reliable fellow. And maybe he had his own agenda for these changes - e.g. omitting a certain Annie from reality.

Yeah, there are glitches in other sections too (Nadines accident is mentioned in Hawks section) - but this might be the key to the puzzle...

I had the same thought!

I was taken aback at first by the changes to established events but they don't really bother me all that much. The change to the civil war plotline especially doesn't surprise me - it was always a little off-colour (to say the least!) that everyone would enable ben's delusion to the point of enacting a confederate victory, even if I do always chuckle at how it's presented! It makes sense that a) frost would gently correct the continuity to something more palatable or b) jacoby's account would self-servingly fudge those details (pick whichever option doesn't give you an ulcer). The only revision that bugs me is the Audrey note - the "selfish bitch" self-criticism doesn't sit well with me - so I'd be happy to disregard that part. It's a forgery!

The internal inconsistencies (plot holes, basically) bother me a lot more, tbh. The two sets of commentary are a neat device but make zero sense - as people here have said, frost forgets who knows what at various points, and TP should know everything, having reviewed the entire dossier! Which she has, btw - she says things like "chronologically speaking, this is one of the latest events the archivist references", &c. The idea that she has no clue about things revealed a few paragraphs later serves a narrative purpose, but is pretty dumb.

[ForKeeps]

Hey, y'all! What if Cooper never even entered the Lodge, never returned from it Bob-possessed/as a dark dopelganger and, hence, never smashed his head into the mirror? What if those are just irksome little details that we the silly ones are hung up on but really shouldn't be as they stand in the way of whatever grand narrative (this time around, it will finally be fo' real, yo, so rejoice!) they're cookin' up for us??

Right, because the importance of that is comparable to Norma's mother.


Personally I'm devastated as I was anticipating a HUGE MT Wentz storyline in Season 3.

[ForKeeps]

Did it specifically say Cooper left town? I listened on the audio and I did not hear that, but the implication was that Cooper is somehow missing.

The implication in the book was only that Cooper had suffered a similar "terrible" fate, like the other people on the list of agents TP found (save for Cole and Albert). Also that it was apparently terrible enough for the FBI to seal Cooper's post-Twin Peaks files such that TP doesn't have clearance to read them.

Ahh yes, now I remember. So I'm not quite sure Coop 'leaving town' can be verified except that he may have disappeared altogether from the face of the planet.

Nope, Cooper "leaving town" is mentioned specifically at least a couple of times, and I'm pretty sure it's mentioned by Agent Preston in the notes. As to when exactly that happened, and if/when he returned, and what happened in the meantime, obviously we'll have to wait a few more months to find out.

[Audrey Horne]

Yeah about Audrey's letter... ( mainly because that is all I really post about).... Wish the handwriting matched her letters to Cooper. And I did cringe a little at her writing style. But I do like the changes made of going back to her original dynamic with Ben... The series made the abrupt change in a way that didn't feel organic to me, most likely the casualty of the abandoned Cooper plot, so it never felt earned to me ...yet. And how did The Archivst get her letter... One would think Ben would keep that close or burn it, etc.

Pete shielding Audrey was everything. Loved that bit.

[ForKeeps]

Maybe you're right, but I'm pretty disappointed in the book. I've almost considered having my mother return it (it was a birthday present)

Jesus Christ, thanks for that, pal. That was honestly one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I... don't know why. But I'm happy to have made you laugh?

Well, consider the content of your posts in this thread and your behavior towards Frost on twitter and watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYrRqMHQY7o

And now imagine why it would be amusing that you had to have your mother return the book for you.

[FrightNight]

Hey, y'all! What if Cooper never even entered the Lodge, never returned from it Bob-possessed/as a dark dopelganger and, hence, never smashed his head into the mirror? What if those are just irksome little details that we the silly ones are hung up on but really shouldn't be as they stand in the way of whatever grand narrative (this time around, it will finally be fo' real, yo, so rejoice!) they're cookin' up for us??

Right, because the importance of that is comparable to Norma's mother.


Personally I'm devastated as I was anticipating a HUGE MT Wentz storyline in Season 3.

Seems to me you haven't read a few pages worth of discussion (some would say arguing) on the forum about the continuity glitches in the book (if that was indeed what they are). If you had, you'd be aware of what is in my eyes a perfectly valid standpoint made by a few of us black sheep of the fandom community, that what people deem primary : secondary, important : unimportant, big : small, central : peripheral etc., doesn't really matter when it comes to such things as canon, continuity, factualness etc. Namely, if you change a "small" thing, who's to say that a "large" one is safe? If you change one character's name, hey, why not another one's while you're at it? If you say a certain event didn't go down like we all clearly saw/heard it did with our own friggin' eye and ears in the series, what's keeping you from saying that another event went down exactly as the viewers remember it did? Etc. etc. etc. I'm speaking of author's mistakess, botchings and cockups, mind you, as consequences of laziness, slopiness or carelesness, not about deliberate storytelling techniques and narrative somersaults that are setting up some big, as of yet unrevealed mystery - Frost's latest tweet seems to point in the latter direction and has set my mind somewhat at ease.

But on the general basis, I'm stickin' to the comparison of mine that you mocked - if we can agree that Norma's mother, as introduced by S 2, was indeed Vivian, then we must also agree that Cooper wound up in the Black Lodge at the end of the series. If, however, we are willing to go along with Frost who's now telling us "Never mind Vivian, it's Ilsa you must be thinking of", then all bets are off when it comes to Cooper's adventures in the last episode and he might have been just polishing his tape recorder for 45 minutes, for all we know. Or should that be "know"?

[gonetocroatan]

Except that this revision in Norma's parentage could have the effect of writing Annie out of the history.

Quite right, good thinking! Is there a comprehensive-ish list of discrepancies anywhere? I'd be interested in sussing out in-universe motivations for the ones that seem intentional on Frost's part.

[LonelySoul]

Hey, y'all! What if Cooper never even entered the Lodge, never returned from it Bob-possessed/as a dark dopelganger and, hence, never smashed his head into the mirror? What if those are just irksome little details that we the silly ones are hung up on but really shouldn't be as they stand in the way of whatever grand narrative (this time around, it will finally be fo' real, yo, so rejoice!) they're cookin' up for us??

Right, because the importance of that is comparable to Norma's mother.


Personally I'm devastated as I was anticipating a HUGE MT Wentz storyline in Season 3.

To be fair, I think you're avoiding the point. Yes, we all agree that certain details are more important than others. However, the point is that if it's okay to scramble any details that have been canon for a quarter century, then it begs the question of what, exactly, is safe from retconning/changing.

[Harry S. Truman]

I Am very Happy because all this failures are intentional by frost.

It could not be otherwise someone as meticulous as frost from committing so many and some of them serious mistakes, it was very hard to believe.

We'll see the purpose or intent of all these failures, that any will that is clear.

Regarding the possibility that Cooper had disappeared, and if instead of disappearing, had simply traveled back in time and were making the rounds at other times having changed history?

I Have on my mind those photo of the shoot where show cooper with a strange clothes in the desert of Mojave.

[LonelySoul]

Jesus Christ, thanks for that, pal. That was honestly one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I... don't know why. But I'm happy to have made you laugh?

Well, consider the content of your posts in this thread and your behavior towards Frost on twitter and watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYrRqMHQY7o

And now imagine why it would be amusing that you had to have your mother return the book for you.

I withdraw my question.

And my mom did buy the book, so I would have no way of doing it myself since I'm not her.

Also, my mom was pretty bummed about the alleged gaffes as well. Kind of deflated her enthusiasm about reading it, but then again I haven't had the chance to update her (if she hasn't seen it already) on Frost's recent tweet and such.

[dkenny78]

Yeah about Audrey's letter... ( mainly because that is all I really post about).... Wish the handwriting matched her letters to Cooper. And I did cringe a little at her writing style. But I do like the changes made of going back to her original dynamic with Ben... The series made the abrupt change in a way that didn't feel organic to me, most likely the casualty of the abandoned Cooper plot, so it never felt earned to me ...yet. And how did The Archivst get her letter... One would think Ben would keep that close or burn it, etc.

I'm guessing they changed the status of the Ben/Audrey relationship and their positions on the Ghostwood development because it will inform their relationship in the new series. We know Audrey survived, but she was injured, perhaps quite grievously. If she was in an extended coma, lost the use of her legs, lost her pal Pete, etc., it's much more dramatic for all of this to have happened as a direct result of Ben's actions than as tied up in the very complex Ben/Catherine/Stop Ghostwood/Pine Weasel scheme. It could set up Audrey very effectively as Ben's vengeful business rival in Season 3, since we know Catherine is absent.

[ForKeeps]

if you change a "small" thing, who's to say that a "large" one is safe?

Anyone with common sense.

[FrightNight]

if you change a "small" thing, who's to say that a "large" one is safe?

Anyone with common sense.

That depends on what's your understanding of a "common sense". Mine certainly doesn't entail an author of the original work changing around stuff when he returns to the said work just because he feels like it or he simply didn't care enough to check his own work or didn't feel like it. And I'm not stating that's the case with Mark Frost, just so there won't be any misinterpreting.

[bowisneski]

I don't know about the rest of you , but I was happy to see that the bank employee who had just had a child ("It's a boy, it's a boy!") did not perish in the explosion!

That said, I've been trying to compile a list all of the post-finale reveals. This is what I've gathered so far,

- Pete, Dell Mibler and a third person (Andrew) were the sole casualties of the bank explosion. Audrey survived with critical injuries.
- Ben Horne survived his incident with Doc Hayward (there are mentions of him sitting at Audrey's bedside at the hospital)
- Cooper (or Dopplerganger Coop) apparently visited Major Briggs's home later on the same day as the "How's Annie' incident. Some time afterward, Cooper left town
- Hank was killed in prison in 1992
- Albert and Gordon are still alive and employed by the FBI in 2016
- Catherine sold the Mill land back to Ben (not sure if this is truly 'post-finale' or within the now-muddled timeline of the series)

So, maybe not truly the complete 'filling in of the gaps' novel we were hoping for, but we did get answers to some of the S2 finale cliffhangers. The big loose ends are Leo's fate and, of course, 'How's Annie'?

Am I missing anything?

In addition

-Jacoby had his license to practice psychiatry revoked and moved to Hawaii to work on his memoirs
-Neither Phillip Jefferies or Chet Desmond seem to have resurfaced
-Sam Stanley became an alcoholic and was placed on administrative leave and, as of Agent Preston's investigation, has not returned to active duty
-After the death of Dougie and the Miss Twin Peaks contest, Lana stayed in town for six months before dating Donald Trump(or some other "bizarrely coifed real estate mogul") and eventually marrying a hedge fund manager


And possible, but not known for sure at this juncture

-Depending on when Catherine selling the mill to Ben actually happened, Briggs may have continued his work on earlier sections of the dossier after typing M*A*Y*D*A*Y

[Driftwood]

The inconsistencies just seemed minor irritations to me until the end of the book. When the "archivist," Major Briggs, brings up Windom Earle, he just brings up the backstory given in the show. Former partner and mentor to coop, went nuts confined to a mental hospital etc, like he has no other knowledge of him. No mention of him coming to twin peaks, or being a part of project bluebook, not mention of being captured and tortured by him, no lodges, annie is apparently erased from existence, in fact Major Briggs seems to be completely unaware of what Truman and Coop are up to when they're out in the woods when Cooper disappears. According to the timeline in the book, Briggs disappears after lelands funeral, comes back, does some stuff at his research station and with milford, then looks for cooper by the events of the last episode. Definitely no mention of him being in the Double R and recieving a psychic message through Mrs. Palmer (who was accompanied by Dr. Jacoby who is apparently in hawaii already in the book??) I mean it's just baffling. These aren't little things. Why write a book on the "history" of twin peaks, line it up with all these historical details, then get the actual details from the show wrong. Are we just throwing out the entireity of season 2 now? I could get rewriting ed & nadine and norma's backstories a little, or expanding on them if that were all it was. The date for Jefferies reappearance isn't even correct! He comes back in 1988 at the moment chet disappears while investigating the banks case, not 1989. Granted originally as filmed he did come back in 1989 and the jefferies scene was meant to be a "meanwhile back the fbi" thing in the middle of laura's story. But that's not the way it was depicted in the final cut. And Jacoby's brother died in 1986 but he's only getting out to hawaii to spread his ashes or whatever in 1989 close to the time of the last episode even though he was leaving for hawaii between seasons? It's frustrating.