Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and The Missing Pieces
With Season 3 of Twin Peaks quickly approaching, I’ve decided to reflect back on seasons 1 & 2 along with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the feature length deleted scenes compilation: Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces. Twin Peaks is my FAVORITE show of all time and I want to share with all of you my take on the show, my feelings then and now, and my theories as Season 3 plays out this year. These articles will be SPOILER heavy so if you’ve never seen the show, stop reading and watch it now.
The cancellation of Twin Peaks in the spring of 1991 was devastating to me. I tried to have faith that our fan effort would help ABC see their error. But things like that just didn’t happen and when a show died it usually stayed that way. Then not too long after there was an announcement that helped to ease my pain: David Lynch was going to make a Twin Peaks movie.
I was so excited! I couldn’t wait to see the continuation of the show. It couldn’t just end with Coop (Kyle MacLachlan) trapped in the Black Lodge and BOB (Frank Silva) running around free in Cooper’s body. My imagination ran wild with what could be next in this world. Would this be a true finale for the series or would it be the beginning of a series of films.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me debuted in May of 1992 at the Cannes Film Festival where it was met with resounding boos; but so what. Lynch’s previous film 1990’s Wild at Heart was also booed at Cannes before taking home the top prize, the prestigious Palme d’Or. Fire Walk with Me didn’t go on to win the award but I was sure that was simply because it was a movie for the fans. They were just not familiar with the series.
August 28th 1992, opening day: by this point I knew that the film was somewhat of a prequel but I also knew that it was in ways a continuation. I didn’t care as long it was Twin Peaks and it gave the series a proper ending. The day was excruciatingly long as I was going to go see it with my mom and brother and I had to wait all day for them to be available. We finally made it to the theater for the last show of the night around 9:30 or so. And then…the curtain wouldn’t open! It took half an hour to get the red curtains to work. Why was the theater trying to keep me from seeing the movie? I was both happy but still really annoyed when the curtain FINALLY opened.
The film opens with FBI agents Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) investigating the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) a year before the beginning of the series. I wasn’t interested in this or these characters I knew nothing about. I wanted to see Twin Peaks. This felt nothing like the show and it made me 
so angry. Watching it now I have a greater appreciation for these scenes and how they fit into the overall story. Also I’m a much bigger fan of Isaak now and I’m disappointed agent Desmond won’t be “reappearing” in the new season.
Deer Meadow feels like a dark reflection of Twin Peaks. You have the victim, Teresa Banks, who unlike homecoming queen Laura Palmer is a junkie-hooker-drifter. Hap’s Diner is dingy and dirty with an uninterested chain-smoking waitress (Sandra Kinder) serving weak coffee. And most importantly the Sheriff (Gary Bullock) and his deputies are resentful of the FBI’s presence. They refuse to work with them at all. Another aspect of this opening sequence, I missed out on through my anger, is the great performance of Harry Dean Stanton. I’m glad we’ll see him again in the new season.
I felt much better when the Twin Peaks theme began to play and we saw the sign. However that only lasted until Moira Kelly appeared as Donna. Now I think she was a good choice for the role but at the time I was so angry that the role had been recast. On the upside the movie was at least beginning to feel more like the show. Sheryl Lee gives such a good performance as Laura. She’s very good at switching between dark and good.
Really upset that the Double R looked so different but especially upset about Norma’s (Peggy Lipton) hair being so short. This is the week before Laura dies, Norma’s hair could not have grown out so quickly. Additionally Shelly’s (Mädchen Amick) and Laura’s shut-in friend Harold’s (Lenny von Dohlen) hair are also different. The hair bothers me much more than new Donna.
Donna follows Laura to the roadhouse where they meet a couple of guys. They enter a room with them where it appears a party is happening. Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz,) who we saw tending bar at the roadhouse, welcomes them to Canada. Is Canada in the back room of the roadhouse? Because of the way it’s cut, it feels like they got up from their table and went through a door into the back.
Bobby killed a guy! There is no mention of this in the series. No indication that Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) is carrying around this secret. However, the show only covers the month following so it is entirely possible for the body to have not yet been discovered. Maybe some aspects of Bobby’s behavior during the series are related to this secret. Hopefully the new season will address the fallout of the killing.
I hated the movie so much and felt so let down. Where were the other characters? The story of Laura’s final week was interesting but it was not what I wanted to see. Today I can say the film is better than I originally thought. But even still it’s not something I’ll ever really like. There’s just nothing that could possibly improve it or make it feel more like the show I love. Or is there?
As many people know there are a number of scenes featuring other characters from the show that were cut out of 
the movie. Several of these have been compiled into a feature length collection called Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces. Instantly The Missing Pieces makes Fire Walk with Me a much better film. Not only does it bring in more of the characters I missed in the film, but it also brings more of the quirkiness and humor back to it.
The fist fight between Agent Desmond and the Deer Meadow Sheriff felt more like it could have come from the show. I loved the scene of Coop standing in the doorway talking to Diane teasing us with prospect of finally getting to see her. The uninterrupted and complete scene of Agent Jeffries (David Bowie) reappearance is fantastic. It’s an especially good showcase for Albert (Miguel Ferrer) to just be Albert.
The scene of the Palmers at home as Leland (Ray Wise) tells them about the Norwegians coming is probably one of my favorite Twin Peaks scenes of the franchise. It’s just nice to see the three of them as a happy family.
The Missing Pieces gives us a couple more frustrating hair issues in the form of Mrs. Hayward”s (Mary Jo Deschanel) and Josie’s (Joan Chen) hair. I loved seeing Norma and Ed (Everett McGill) together in the truck. Theirs is the truest love on the show. Nice to see Laura and Donna did actually drive with those guys to Canada and it wasn’t just in the back room of the roadhouse. Dr. Jacoby’s (Russ Tamblyn) beard looks really fake and the dark parts are way too dark. Did he just dye those portions and by the following week they faded to a more natural look?
The scenes I’m most disappointed they cut out were the scenes showing us Annie (Heather Graham) out of the Black Lodge and now in the hospital. And the other is the continuation of the last scene of Season 2 featuring Harry (Michael Ontkean) and Doc Hayward (Warren Frost) rushing into the bathroom to check on Coop.
Everything I wanted to see in Fire Walk with Me is in The Missing Pieces. I would definitely watch a three plus hour version of the film with these scenes back in. In fact someone HAS cut the Pieces scenes back into a fan edited film called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – Teresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer. I haven’t watched it yet but I would like to check it out sometime.
I believe I may have liked this viewing more because of the new season. When I saw it originally it was the final act of Twin Peaks, never to be seen again. And I was so mad about what wasn’t in the film that I missed a lot of what was there. The story of Laura Palmer is a tragic one. To the town around her she’s perfect and everyone loves her. But the truth is she’s an empty shell just trying to feel something.
Join me here each week during the season for recaps and discussion of every episode. Twin Peaks airs Sundays at 9 pm on Showtime.
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Bobby killing a guy is mentioned in the series, James tells Donna that Laura told him so. It was unclear whether it was true or not as Laura was out of it, as we saw in the film. But it is confirmed in the film, making it quite a major thing to gloss over. It is worth noting also that the person he killed is Cliff Howard, the uncooperative deputy from Deer Meadow and resident of the Fat Trout Trailer Park. Bobby killed him in self defense during a drug deal turned sour. Whether this has ever been brought to light is especially pertinent in regards to Bobby’s status in the 2017 series.
I’m a fan of the film but I saw it before the series (I know) so had few of the objections that series fans did at the time. The new series is doing a great job tying up the loose threads from the series with the new ones introduced in the film.
Here’s hoping that the film and the much maligned latter part of the second series will be more enhanced and made more enjoyable for everyone by the end of this new run!