The endings of Twin Peaks

[LostInTheMovies]

I was thinking recently about different spots where the show could have ended. For me this is less about moments of narrative conclusion (though there's usually an element of that there) than dramatic effect. For example, ep. 7 or 16 - where many viewers DO stop watching - don't really work as endings for me at all. Some more open moments do. This started as a response to somebody commenting on my own blog, but I'll simplify it here.

1. THE PILOT - Perverse, I know, and it would need a more emphatic ending (and I don't mean the Bob-in-the-basement-did-it of the Euro version), but there's something pleasing about an open-ended TV movie that introduces us to a town and a mysterious murder but leaves us in limbo forevermore, imagining what might have gone on in the shadows.

2. EPISODE 14 - The important information would have been revealed, with many open questions remaining, and this would have marked Twin Peaks as a powerful, poignant tragedy. I think if the show was a new miniseries being written for cable in the mid-teens, this IS how it would end.

3. EPISODE 29 - There's a chilling symmetry and logic in leaving us on this gutpunch. It's one of the reasons the show has stayed so vital to a small but devoted community for several decades since. It almost feels like there's no other way the story *could* end although apparently, now there is!

4. FIRE WALK WITH ME - This is the "2001" ending. You close on the Star Child in the cosmos, transcending the physical trappings of the narrative to offer a deeply resonant spirituality. This is the most poetic conclusion to the narrative, which makes me slightly nervous for what's to come. You don't flash back to earth after the Star Child.

5. TWIN PEAKS 2017 - And yet, here we are! I "predict" (dangerous word) an ending that is both open and final, containing everything we *need* to know, poignant but not exactly tragic. We'll see.

[laughingpinecone]

Ep14 as a counterproposal to the usual "why didn't it end on ep16" my good sir you're a genius, it's perfect.

I couldn't agree more with all of this - even the pilot really is a micro-cosmos of its own that lets the immagination soar.
"Bob did it" squashes it but I do like how the final red room placement subverts that sense of closure. On its own, it makes one wonder what mysterious paths our protagonist may have trodden for twenty-five years, still searching for Laura's shadow, and what kind of metaphysical hell did he end up in to finally meet her. Tis the stuff daydreams are made of! So I wonder if that coda would still work without the previous 15 minutes.

And three times they've told us that this is how this story ends: the good Dale is in the Lodge and he can't leave. Yet now the curtains part...

[Audrey Horne]

For some reason I think Peaks is perfect right through episode 15. Not that I think 15 is a brilliant episode but I like how it ends very much. And it keeps the excitement of possibilities of where this is going to go. And for me 16 squanders all those possibilities. I love the bookend of two Lauras wrapped in plastic... Ying yang, blonde, brunette. We have the danger of a new girl being murdered, "Audrey, I want to to go to your room and lock the door!" With the reveal of Leland as murderer, we have more ying yang of father/daughter dynamics that we now retroactively examine. Leland is now both Dr. Hayward and Ben Horne. Audrey's near miss with her father and fever dream of drowning "Daddy, can you catch me, can you find me" is reevaluated to echoing Laura's and then reinforced to Cooper, "All I ever really wanted was for him to love me." There's just so many call backs of making you see the Laura, Leland dynamic through the other characters.

And we have the reinforcement of so many strong staples of early Peaks in the last two scenes. Cooper dictating to Diane alongside cherry pie, then the first call back to Season One's almost daily Cooper/Audrey meetings, and then police surrounding a girl wrapped in plastic. All those moments took place in daytime, now they've been subverted with nighttime and a more sinister, deadly tone with the clock ticking. To me, it was very exciting.

[dronerstone]

It has probably been said a gazillion times before, but I find the Euro Pilot ending mindwrenchingly absurd (not in the "usual" Twin Peaks way of the word absurd though).

[Agent Earle]

For some reason I think Peaks is perfect right through episode 15. Not that I think 15 is a brilliant episode but I like how it ends very much. And it keeps the excitement of possibilities of where this is going to go. And for me 16 squanders all those possibilities. I love the bookend of two Lauras wrapped in plastic... Ying yang, blonde, brunette. We have the danger of a new girl being murdered, "Audrey, I want to to go to your room and lock the door!" With the reveal of Leland as murderer, we have more ying yang of father/daughter dynamics that we now retroactively examine. Leland is now both Dr. Hayward and Ben Horne. Audrey's near miss with her father and fever dream of drowning "Daddy, can you catch me, can you find me" is reevaluated to echoing Laura's and then reinforced to Cooper, "All I ever really wanted was for him to love me." There's just so many call backs of making you see the Laura, Leland dynamic through the other characters.

And we have the reinforcement of so many strong staples of early Peaks in the last two scenes. Cooper dictating to Diane alongside cherry pie, then the first call back to Season One's almost daily Cooper/Audrey meetings, and then police surrounding a girl wrapped in plastic. All those moments took place in daytime, now they've been subverted with nighttime and a more sinister, deadly tone with the clock ticking. To me, it was very exciting.

I agree this episode is among the absolute top TP episodes and a definite contender for my favorite episode. Plus it contains the excellent, excellent, excellent scene of Ben and Jerry Horne dreamily reminiscing about the magical but oh-so-hopelessly-lost boyhood moment - "Louise Dombrowski dancing on the hook rug with the flashlight..." It's when I saw that scene that I knew Ben couldn't be the killer!

[Audrey Horne]

Ha... The episode before when Leland killed Maddy didn't convince you?

I'm pretty sure I never thought Ben was the killer. I think I only thought it was Donna or Truman for the majority of the first season, with Leland at the beginning of the second season. I thought it had to be someone in the opening credits or else it was a cheat, and it had to be one of the predominant "good" guys... I had read enough Agatha Christie and seen plenty of Murder She Wrote. I think I was really into it being Truman when I was little because then Cooper would take over as Sheriff or something, and it would be the ultimate surprise... Before all the father, daughter motifs came spilling in.

[N. Needleman]

I never thought it was Ben.

My mother said from the beginning she thought it was Leland. She did not elaborate to me as a little kid but simply said his reaction at the funeral was "too much" - years later I asked her if that meant she'd thought he'd been molesting Laura, but she couldn't recall. Ray Wise and his eyes always scared me as a kid, so I pretty much suspected Leland as well, without really internalizing the darker ramifications of that until a little later. I also thought about Dr. Jacoby - but that was mostly because I was fascinated by his glasses.

[kitty666cats]

A good friend of mine guessed it was Leland a few minutes into the very first episode I showed him (either the pilot or the first non-pilot episode, forget what I put on). Anyone else on here had Leland as their first guess? I saw FWWM before the series so I couldn't ever say who I would have thought

[Driftwood]

2. EPISODE 14 - The important information would have been revealed, with many open questions remaining, and this would have marked Twin Peaks as a powerful, poignant tragedy. I think if the show was a new miniseries being written for cable in the mid-teens, this IS how it would end.

The ending to this episode is untouchable. perfect. I usually skip from here to the finale. I used to include 15 and 16 in the "good" episodes but they're a little goofy to me now. I think it's interesting that the european cut of the pilot is almost basically the same general story as watching from the regular pilot up to episode 14 then skipping to the finale, just a more condensed version. the finale is too good for me to ever just stop at 14 though. it's a nice bonus to the "good" episodes kind of the way the missing pieces are to fwwm now.

speaking of which it drives me nuts that none of these extended cuts of fire walk with me out there just stick the convinence store scene unedited from the missing pieces into the rest of the movie, they all want to add in the music from the movie version of the scene which was going for a completely different feel.

[Agent Earle]

Ha... The episode before when Leland killed Maddy didn't convince you?

I'm pretty sure I never thought Ben was the killer. I think I only thought it was Donna or Truman for the majority of the first season, with Leland at the beginning of the second season. I thought it had to be someone in the opening credits or else it was a cheat, and it had to be one of the predominant "good" guys... I had read enough Agatha Christie and seen plenty of Murder She Wrote. I think I was really into it being Truman when I was little because then Cooper would take over as Sheriff or something, and it would be the ultimate surprise... Before all the father, daughter motifs came spilling in.

Wow, what a lapsus I've managed there! Long nights and two and a half years worth of waiting for S3 will do things to you

Regarding the identity of the killer, of all the bizarro theories I heard back when the show was airing, the top spot goes to the one that claimed Laura Palmer was not killed at all and that she's now going about disguised as her cousin. Don't ask me who (of the characters) supposedly concocted this scheme and to what end, 'cause I erased it from memory long ago.
My guesswork wasn't nearly as original - I stuck to Leo in S1 and moved on to Harold Smith in S2. How Bob, whose hair-raising glimpses we caught increasingly as the series progressed, was supposed to figure into all of it's the thing that bugged me the most.

Murder She Wrote - that's a helluva tool to aid one in deciphering the mysteries of Twin Peaks

[Agent Earle]

Oh, and my mom thought, for reasons of external similarity, that Leland was dressing into Julee Cruise if you can believe it! Or was it the other way around? Anyhow, she could never explain what he'd/she'd gain from that poppycock.

[Agent Earle]

The ending to this episode is untouchable. perfect. I usually skip from here to the finale. I used to include 15 and 16 in the "good" episodes but they're a little goofy to me now.

Those three episodes constitute the holy trinity of quality Twin Peaks for me.

[Rainwater]

I saw FWWM before the series so I couldn't ever say who I would have thought

What did you think of it? I mean, I guess you must've liked it, since you went on to watch the show, but how puzzling was it? And how weird was the transition to the Pilot?
Sometimes I wish I'd seen the movie first. I think some of it, especially the more surreal parts, might be even better out of context.

[Audrey Horne]

Regarding the identity of the killer, of all the bizarro theories I heard back when the show was airing, the top spot goes to the one that claimed Laura Palmer was not killed at all and that she's now going about disguised as her cousin. Don't ask me who (of the characters) supposedly concocted this scheme and to what end, 'cause I erased it from memory long ago.
My guesswork wasn't nearly as original - I stuck to Leo in S1 and moved on to Harold Smith in S2. How Bob, whose hair-raising glimpses we caught increasingly as the series progressed, was supposed to figure into all of it's the thing that bugged me the most.

Murder She Wrote - that's a helluva tool to aid one in deciphering the mysteries of Twin Peaks

The Laura is alive theory had a lot of legs and was covered in a bunch of articles. I was hoping it was not true - but you had Laura that Peaks was obviously so inspired by (picture of Laura hunt haunts the detective) where it turns out she is not dead, obsessed over by Waldo Lydecker. And Maddy Fergueson is the combo of Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo where, well .... I already ruined Laura, I'll leave Vertigo alone. I remember in the season premiere of the second season when Sheryl Lee removes and breaks her glasses, I thought 'Oh no, she IS Laura and Lynch is actually revealing it out of the blue like this.'

[N. Needleman]

Yeah, the Laura/Maddy switch theory was everywhere at that time and had a lot of basis in those films.