10 things to know about Twin Peaks

It’s been aptly described as “one of the most talkedabout, but least-watched, TV experiments of the early ‘90s,” whose “eerie, nonlinear visual and narrative quality left many initially intrigued viewers wondering ‘what’s going on here?’ — just Peaks before they changed channels.”

Twin gave the public something to talk about with its 1990-91 ABC run, followed by a 1992 feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

It’s still being talked about a quarter-century later as Showtime launched an 18-episode limitedseries followup.

The original Twin Peaks centered on (and tormented viewers with) the question “Who killed Laura Palmer?” after the body of this 17-yearold homecoming queen was discovered wrapped in plastic on the bank of a river outside the hamlet of Twin Peaks, Washington.

FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper was dispatched to investigate Laura’s killing as well as that of another Washington girl the previous year who seemingly was murdered by the same person.

Few details about the new Twin Peaks have been disclosed by Showtime, but the return of three key figures assures, for better or worse, more of the same titillating weirdness: cocreators David Lynch and Mark Frost, and, one among many returning cast members, square-jawed leading man Kyle MacLachlan, back as Agent Cooper.

As with so many things in Twin Peaks, little about Laura was quite what it seemed. Turned out she had been living a double life as the girl next door and a cocaine-addicted prostitute.

Laura’s killer was eventually revealed to be her father, Leland, who had sexually abused her for years while possessed by a malevolent entity named Killer BOB.

In the best tradition of soap operas, Laura had an identical “twin” — in this case, her cousin Madeleine (portrayed, as was Laura, by Sheryl Lee) — who was also murdered by Leland/BOB (Ray Wise).

Twin Peaks, and hence Twin Peaks, was populated by numerous bizarre figures, such as the Log Lady (who was never seen without a log cradled in her arms) and Nadine (the shrill, eye-patched wife of gas station owner Ed who had a fixation on living-room drapes), and by campy tropes, such as Agent Cooper’s delight over cherry pie and “damn fine coffee,” and his affliction with weird revelatory dreams about dancing dwarfs and towering giants.