The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.
Nancy is so devious she’ll stab anyone in the back – even her own sister – although there may be more to her than pure malignancy.
Sunday, March 5, 1989
Nancy, lover and assistant of French-Canadian crime boss Jean Renault, accompanies Jean to a plush bedroom in One-Eyed Jack’s, a rustic but swanky bordello. There they administer heroin to a delirious teenage girl, whom Jean plans to ransom. Nancy slinks around as others do most of the talking, butting in to slap the nebbishy Emory Battis’ forehead and mock her sister Blackie’s jealousy. Blackie, the madam of the bordello, threatens to back out of the deal if her sister doesn't leave; Jean sticks up for Nancy as she smirks.
Tuesday, March 7, 1989
Nancy drops in on Jean and Blackie and scowls at her sister as she leaves the room. She then encourages Jean to kill Blackie and they both laugh and kiss as he pulls out a knife hidden in Nancy’s boot. Later that night, Nancy runs into a black-clad man in a hallway; he grabs her arm and forces her to take him to Audrey. She watches as this man, the FBI agent from the video Jean showed earlier, hovers above the overdosed prisoner with concern. When Nancy tries to explain this wasn’t her idea, the agent barks at her. When she thinks he's distracted, she reaches for the boot-knife and nearly stabs him in the back but he wrestles the blade from her hand, and punches her in the stomach. She drops to the floor, unconscious.
Characters Julie interacts with onscreen…
Jean Renault
Nancy’s journey
Nancy probably has the most complete storyline of any character we’ve
encountered thus far – which isn’t to say it’s particularly complete,
or satisfying. In some ways, she seems sketchier than the more
peripheral characters I’ve already written about. Their specific jobs
give them purpose and the opportunity to develop bold, clear
personalities; Nancy has less of a chance to transcend cliché.
Most of her screentime is spent slinking around Jean, but her most
interesting work is in her final couple scenes with Cooper. There she
betrays a hint of humanity, though we can’t be sure if she’s just
playing him before going in for the kill. After all those grins and
glances, her concern by the bedside feels unexpectedly real and startling
– as if it’s Jean for whom she was putting on an act, not Cooper. Maybe she reaches for the knife in resentment: nobody, certainly not her sister, ever showed as much concern for her as Coop does for Audrey, a reminder that her role is to be the bad guy and she'd better follow through on it. Or perhaps (like Betty in Mulholland Drive) her performative self is more
convincing than her actual one. Nancy is allowed to blossom for a few
seconds of screentime, as a fleeting femme fatale and possibly even a
tragic figure, not merely a moll. But then she’s punched out of
the show and we never get to see further growth.
Actress: Galyn Görg
A prolific actress appearing in many eighties/nineties TV shows and
action films, Görg was also cast in Mark Frost’s debut feature
Storyville, shot not long after her episodes in Twin Peaks. In her interview with Graeme Larmour on Twin Peaks Archive she talks about learning a New Orleans accent for that political
thriller, as well as her development of Nancy's background: “She’s kinda
desperate – most of those characters have a desperate quality to them.
So I made a back story, I don’t remember the specifics, about her
having a really rough upbringing – maybe being abandoned by her mother
and being really needy, getting herself lost and hanging around with
people like Jean Renault.” (series pictured: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, aired 1996)
Episodes
Writers/Directors
Nancy is introduced as “Blackie’s younger, tougher sister” in a script
by Robert Engels, which also notes “a lascivious look” between her and
her lover after injecting Audrey. Her second appearance is written by
Barry Pullman. She is directed by Lesli Linka Glatter and Graeme
Clifford.
Statistics
Nancy is onscreen for roughly four minutes. She is in four scenes and
two episodes, taking place in two days (with a missing day in
between). She’s featured about equally in both episodes, but is
probably present for more action (not always onscreen) in episode 10,
when she arrives at the brothel. All of her scenes are set inside
One-Eyed Jack’s. She shares the most screentime with Jean.
Best Scene
Episode 12: Watching Cooper and Audrey, Nancy gets her only close-up and
humanizing moment before forcing us to question its sincerity.
Best Line
“You’re nothing but meat on a hook to these people.”
Additional Observations
• In the screenplay Cooper pulls a pistol on Nancy so she'll take him to Audrey. Onscreen, he merely grabs her arm (though he does have a gun at his side). This makes her refusal to yell for help more confusing, almost leading us to wonder if she wants, on some level, to free Audrey. But then why would she try to stab him? I suspect the director or actor thought Cooper would seem too unsympathetic if he pulled a gun on an unarmed woman, but it makes the scene much less convincing.
• Nancy is mentioned in a scene between Blackie and Jean, where the disgruntled big sister asks, “What’s she got that I don’t?” and nearly stabs him when he responds, “Something new.” (This is a change from the teleplay in which he smiles and says, “You do all right.”)
• Update 2018: This entry was written in 2017, before the third season, and did not need to be revised as Nancy did not re-appear. Only the description/intro at the top and the ranking were updated. Since the criteria for inclusion was changed (originally three scenes with dialogue, now ten minutes of screentime), she retroactively became a "bonus entry" rather than part of the full rankings. In the original character series, Nancy was ranked #77, between Heidi and Nicky.
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SHOWTIME: No, Görg is not on the cast list for 2017. This leaves us to wonder about Nancy’s fate. Considering Jean’s ruthlessness, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nancy’s failure to adequately guard Audrey led Jean to kill her. Perhaps he even planned to do this anyway, after using her as part of his plan. We see him back at One-Eyed Jack’s in a few episodes and she’s nowhere to be found. If this is what happened, then within two weeks of conceiving the ransom plan every single member of the conspiracy has been killed.
Next: "Little Nicky" Needleman
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Previous: Randy St. Croix
UPDATE 2023
To read advance entries every week...
(When the series resumes publicly, all new or revised entries will be published at least a month in advance for patrons.)
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