TWIN PEAKS Character Series pause (& accidental post) + upcoming podcasts & more (Late Summer status update)

As you may have noticed, the TWIN PEAKS Character Series paused a week ago with the Musicians of the Road House entry, an omnibus round-up on the cusp of the top thirty which seemed like a good place to take a break. However, as you likely also noticed, the series then (quite accidentally) resumed - and skipped an entry! - on Wednesday, with a high-profile character ranked #29. That post was supposed to have been re-scheduled to early October but somehow slipped through the cracks and received significant traffic after its accidental publication, despite not being featured on the home page, linked on my blogroll, or promoted on Twitter. Since #30 had been skipped, I obviously couln't leave #29 in place once I realized the mistake. I've reverted it to draft mode and scheduled the replacement for early October. Apologies to those who bookmarked or didn't finish reading it yet but the entry will be back (with a different URL).

As for other site business, I've been hard at work on upcoming podcasts, most of which have been advanced already for $5/month tier patrons (on Sunday I'll link all these previews as part of my monthly Patreon round-up): film reviews which will, in the fall, either be shared with the lower tier or go public. These include my long-delayed Episode 100 of the Patreon podcast as well as a bonus public miniseries for my Lost in the Movies feed (which I presumed to conclude in June). The public Lost in the Movies episodes will feature the most highly-ranked titles not yet covered by me on the 2022 Sight & Sound "Greatest Films of All Time" list. And depending how this work goes in the next few days, I can hopefully start work on Journey Through Twin Peaks soon. Look for another status update in a week (maybe a couple weeks) with more details, and thanks for hanging in there.

Musicians of the Road House (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #31)

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. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

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Providing a passage between past and present, plot and periphery, "reality" and dream, the Musicians offer a chorus to express a confused community.

*Link to Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #32)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

Today's linked entry is important for several reasons, including a structural one I'll discuss last. Maddy Ferguson is arguably the most crucial character we've covered so far, rivaled only by the Log Lady, Annie, and Windom Earle (even though Maddy is at times a cipher, as discussed in the link below). She's inarguably played by the most central performer yet, albeit as a repeat of #55 (Carrie Page) who was also played by Sheryl Lee as a Laura-adjacent character, in that case probably a direct offshoot of Laura herself. Although Maddy never appears in the third season and I did not update the entry published just over six years ago, it's worth adding a few addenda here. As noted, Lee now appears on the list three times rather than twice (which was already a record). My closing contemplation, of whether Maddy would return or Lee would show up in yet another incarnation, is certainly interesting to re-read with The Return behind us. Lee's work on TV (or "TV" these days, given streaming platforms) has continued on shows like the Facebook series Limetown following the bio I wrote for Maddy (the Laura entry will focus on Lee's films). And finally, while Maddy is not mentioned in Mark Frost's novel The Final Dossier, the book's conclusion depicts a timeline (townspeople's memories, even newspaper records) morphing before Agent Tammy Preston's very eyes, in which Laura vanishes rather than dies and Leland quietly kills himself a year later. This obviously implies a world where Maddy was never murdered and is likely alive and well in Missoula (or elsewhere). Maybe this is why the Maddy we see in the Red Room disappears?

Madeleine "Maddy" Ferguson (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #32)

We are now approaching an important turning point in the character series. Today's post is the very last time I'm linking to an old piece rather than publishing something new or revised. Back in early 2017, Maddy was ranked #23, followed only by the Major and the collective Spirits entries before I paused on the cusp of the top twenty. Another three characters, initially placed lower than Maddy on the list, have risen above her thanks to additional screentime in season three. The rest of the remaining entries, twenty-six in total, consist of entirely new material; these are individuals (if you can call, for example, Cooper or Diane "individuals") who I either didn't reach during the original line-up or who didn't exist until that summer's Showtime episodes.

Aside from questions of doppelgangers/tulpas, there is only one entirely new entry that deals with a group rather than an individual, and it's the next one. You may want to cue up a playlist to accompany Friday's entry...

Jerry Horne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #33)

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. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

• indicates passages added or revised since 2017, if you want to skip directly to fresh material; this is a revision of an earlier piece written before the third season.

• Jerry is defined by his appetites and enthusiasms, which is a good thing since his legal - and navigational - skills are more questionable.

*Link to Windom Earle (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #34)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

At this point, we're running low on characters limited to one storyline and section of the series. Of these characters, Windom pushes his limits more than most. His personal plot ends up touching on and tying together many others, like Miss Twin Peaks, Cooper's romance with Annie, and the Lodge lore. And while he doesn't actually appear until well into the second half of season two and disappears before season three (hence the permanence of the unrevised 2017 entry - see the link below), his importance is asserted quite early in the season and the consequences of his actions linger long after he's gone. In Mark Frost's novel The Final Dossier, Windom is mentioned briefly at the outset: Albert files a report on Leo's death and mocks Windom's use of non-deadly tarantulas while observing that the shooter who did kill him "set his feet Bureau style." Albert guesses that it was Windom (incorrectly, not knowing what happened to him in the Lodge). After that, Windom features prominently in a chapter named for him, as well as the subsequent chapter, "Back in Twin Peaks." Because most of these pages just reiterate what we learned on the series itself or in the Cooper-narrated book My Life, My Tapes (described in the entry below), I didn't think this warranted an update. However, Frost does re-arrange/streamline the account of what led to Caroline's murder and offer additional information about Windom's background, noting that he graduated from UPenn at just eighteen and that he and Caroline both worked on the Watergate investigation. Tammy Preston, narrating the book, observes that after Cooper chased him into the Lodge and then re-emerged with Annie, "Windom Earle was never seen again. No trace of him, dead or alive, ever turned up in those woods or elsewhere."

Some viewers detected a connection between the Cooper doppelganger's and Windom's metal briefcases, but for the most part they'd have to get their Earle fix elsewhere. The podcast Twin Peaks Unwrapped provided this in 2021 when they concluded their "Community Rewatch" series by staging the cut scenes from the Black Lodge with volunteer vocal performers - including Kenneth Welsh himself finally getting to read the original dialogue thirty years later! This would turn out to be his last hurrah. Like so many other cast and crew members, Welsh passed away in 2022 at eighty years old.

Windom Earle (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #34)

On Monday, an original series character who did return for season three will make his appearance...if he doesn't get lost on the way!

Janey-E Jones (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #35)

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. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

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Used to carrying the load for her family, Janey-E is tough on her husband until she slowly realizes that his presence now offers security and, more importantly, love.

*Link to Hank Jennings (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #36)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

Hank Jennings is one of the most important characters we've covered so far, husband to a bona fide series star and an all-purpose villain in his own right. He participates in at least a half-dozen storylines but his own plot ends in The Secret History of Twin Peaks, ensuring he wouldn't return for the third season. In a certain sense, he couldn't have returned and wouldn't belong in that world. Hank is uniquely a throwback type, connecting Peaks to more standard genre fare with his criminal conniving and representing the "Frost touch" both in general sensibility and personal connection (like writer Robert Engels, actor Warren Frost, and others, actor Chris Mulkey was part of the "Minnesota mafia" connected to co-creator Mark Frost). Hank is peripheral yet crucial to the earlier show, having nothing to do with the Laura Palmer case but connected to so many other subplots. He disappears in episode 23 along with several other prominent characters, but unlike Albert and Jerry (and much like Josie, one of his accomplices) he never shows up again. Below you can read my original entry from 2017, in which I describe why I've always enjoyed this character more than many viewers...

Hank Jennings (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #36)

The next entry flips this script in order to focus on a character entirely confined to The Return, whose history is with David Lynch rather than Mark Frost. See you Wednesday for that one...

July 2023 Patreon round-up including 4 TWIN PEAKS Character Series advances

(collage created by cowjumpedoverM in 2017)

Four full character entries were advanced for patrons this month, including three members of the above ensemble - characters who appeared in the first six episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return. That's a particularly broad clue but to narrow it down a little further, one of them is in fact - or at least, arguably - the top character introduced in that third season. There are several contenders for that title and I initially mixed up their screentime while sharing these, which required some re-arrangement. That's why #27 has yet to be previewed (it's almost complete at the time of this cross-post) despite carrying on to #26 and #25. That mix-up is also why I will pause the public schedule in a couple weeks; I want to ensure that patrons continue to stay a month ahead of that schedule. In addition to the Return-exclusive and Return/original series hybrid characters featured in July, I've finally shared an entry written way back in that summer of 2017, covering a character who last appeared in season two and was supposed to be next in line in my original character series (before I decided I was going to reboot the whole thing). After six years, it was a pleasure to take that entry out of draft mode limbo!

become a patron to discover their identities:

EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #29

EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #28

EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #26

EXCLUSIVE advance: TWIN PEAKS Character Series #25

Normally, I publish these cross-posts on Sundays at 8am and if I miss that mark I just share them the following week instead - there's typically no rush. However, this one I wanted to get by noon in order for it to be up-to-date. By the end of today or tomorrow, the August schedule will begin and I'll already have new posts ready for patrons. In addition to the paradoxically "belated advance" character #27, the month should continue with character previews which will pick up even more rapidly in September. My current, last-little-thread hope for landing an increasingly unlikely October 31 deadline (not just for this series, but all three big Peaks projects) is to run a public character entry every single day in October. In turn, that means patrons would be able to read about the top character - and all those in between - by September 30. We'll see; either way the month-ahead schedule will remain enforced.

All those considerations and possibilities are open to the $1/month tier; additionally, $5/month tier patrons have begun receiving advance entries for my other not-yet-public work. In July this included same-day previews of the Barbie/Oppenheimer review (you can read the original patron intros here and here), but many $5/month upcoming rewards will be more advanced (including material destined for the $1/month tier, but not the broader public). There will be rewards more exclusive on a long-term basis, including a follow-up essay about the Barbenheimer phenomenon which will remain behind that particular paywall. Summer is not over yet and August looks promising for approaching certain goals I'd like to hit by Labor Day - including the long-delayed Episode 100 main podcast finale.

Bradley and Rodney Mitchum (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #37)

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. A new character study will appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through mid-August before pausing again, although patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public. There will be spoilers.

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The Mitchums are rescued from their dour aggression by cherry pie, a $30 million check, and a remote control slap to the face, allowing their hearts of gold to shine.

*Link to Dick Tremayne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #38)

Visit the TWIN PEAKS Character Series directory for all entries as they are published or re-introduced.

As we climb the rankings in terms of screentime, fewer and fewer characters remain who only appear in the original series. There are quite a few others in the thirties, but most of them play a more central role in the narrative than does the foppish comic relief of Dick Tremayne (despite inadvertently triggering two of the most crucial plot developments - Bob's exit from Leland and Windom's kidnapping of Annie). He has no interactions with Cooper or Laura, existing in his own bubble off to the side which can make him exasperating, endearing, or a fascinating curiosity depending on one's sensibilities. At the same time, he becomes quite the busybody around the community. The following entry was written early in 2017 and has no reason to be revised after The Return. However, at the end of the piece I do mention the possibility that we'd meet Dick's son while noting that Michael Cera (whom most correctly suspected had been cast as Lucy's offspring) seemed a likelier fit for Andy. Maybe so, but many viewers did find themselves wondering about Dick given Wally Brando's self-important soliloquies and absurd fashion sense. Perhaps Mr. Tremayne played an indirect part in the third season after all?

Dick Tremayne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #38)

On Friday, we'll double up with a pair of characters best taken as a single unit - like Dick, they seem to arrive from a world far away from Twin Peaks' mystical core; unlike him, they have extensive interactions with our FBI agent protagonist, even if they know him by a different persona.