The Secret History of Twin Peaks
(SPOILERS) I never got around to reading The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, as I
think I rather unfairly dismissed it as little more than a cryptic cash-in. I also
managed to wrong-foot myself with this latest secret edition, a precursor to
forthcoming the third season, which I assumed would be something of a
gap-filler for the intervening 25 years, rather than an exploration of the
near-200 prior to the pilot. It has been suggested that the return of Twin Peaks will be tonally much closer
to Fire Walk with Me than the oft-whimsical
show itself. That may prove to be the case, but if so, it raises the question
of how that will balance with this volume. Because Fire Walk with Me was all David Lynch, whereas The Secret History of Twin Peaks is all Mark Frost.
More than that, it has the kind of
conspiratorial coherence – in terms of threading actual conspiracies rather
than loosely threading together the essences of a vague idea - that one might
have expected of The X-Files if it
could have been bothered to plan anything out in advance, or behind. Or if it
hadn’t been overseen by Chris Carter.
And somehow, it all appears to make sense,
almost as if Lynch and Frost always had this in mind, even though, as we know, the
former’s whacked out on whackedness. I mean, since there was no mention of UFOs
or Project Bluebook, or even a suggestion thereof, hitherto in Lynchdom, it was
a fair bet that Major Briggs’ strange fascination was all Frost. And, while “The owls are not what they seem” is just
the sort of thing Lynch would have dreamt up while drinking a hot cup of joe,
connecting it to masonry is definitely Frost’s thing.
And so, he joins an engrossing series of
dots from the Lewis and Clark expedition (masons), to the various forms of the Illuminati, to taking in
the disappearing giant skeletons in the Smithsonian (clearly designed to evoke
Carel Struycken’s Giant), to all manner of E.T.s and including Roswell, White
Sands, Area 51 (the alien focus not precluding their being interdimensional,
which is much more Peaksy), L Ron
Hubbard, Aleister Crowley (two lodges of black and white magicians), Timothy
Leary, ayahuasca, Watergate (Nixon was onto those UFOs, and even had a Grey in
his basement), Jack Parsons and the Babalon Working, Bohemian Grove, and
suddenly the child abuse at the centre of Twin
Peaks takes on a more overarching, ritualistic theme, bricks stacking
around the netherworld invading one man’s psyche.
What’s most impressive here is how fluid Frost’s
refashioning is. Positing itself as written by Major Briggs (although the FBI
annotator concludes it’s down to Coop at one point), The Secret History ends not long after the second season
cliffhanger, so maintaining an air of suspense over what happened next, and
offers very little insight into those we know from the show, such that it’s
almost a sop that there are accounts of trouble at mill, Josie Packard, and Big
Ed (the most we get of additional info is that Audrey survived the bank
explosion, which killed Andrew and Pete, also that “bad” Coop paid a call on Briggs
just before his journal ends, leaving the latter in an anxious state – as for
the absence of Annie from Season Three, she ain’t here either, although Frost
has apparently specified there are reasons for this).
Rather, it takes one of the least
interesting strands of the show, the feud between the Milford brothers, and
weaves a whole backstory regarding Douglas Milford (Tony Jay) and his
involvement in all manner of arcane activities, triggered, it seems, by an
encounter in the woods (such an event also later marked the Log Lady).
While Frost resists forming conclusions –
that would be tantamount to revealing who killed Laura Palmer – he weaves such
a compelling tapestry that, as stated, you’d almost believe they had all this
in mind from the outset. It’s so tight that the frequently saggy interludes of
Season Two are banished from the mind. Frost even makes time for Fire Walk with Me characters, from the
disappeared agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley to Carl Rodd and, most
enticingly, Phillip Jeffries.
There are also some very funny bits, such
as the mock-up of Dr Jacoby’s mind-expanding “The Eye of God: Sacred Psychology and the Aboriginal Mind” (so glad
Russ Tamblyn is making a return).
It’s quite possible, nay likely, that most
of what’s on offer here will be entirely tangential to the dozen-and-a-half
episodes arriving in a few months’ time, but it nevertheless provides a
fascinating underpinning of all things Twin
Peaks, one that expressly links the world of Lynch to the outside
conspirasphere. Because, let’s face it, the Project Bluebook part of the
original never exactly screamed for attention. Now, whatever connects the
lodges in the woods to whatever’s out there in the universe appears to have
been tagged as central. Oh, and leading us directly into the series, the
annotations are made by Agent Tamara Preston, who will be played by Amy Shiels.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.