“LET’S ROCK!”

By Raymond Benson

Over the years since David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks first assaulted a television viewing audience way back in 1990, there have been numerous books published on the subject. From fiction tie-ins, like the best-selling The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (which was pseudonymously written by Lynch’s daughter, filmmaker/writer Jennifer Lynch) or The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (pseudonymously written by Scott Frost, brother of co-creator/co-writer Mark), to canonical fiction by Mark Frost himself. Then there are the many non-fiction studies and fan extravaganzas of Peaks—academic analyses in book form, a regular fanzine (Wrapped in Plastic), and more.

For a primetime television show that was canceled after two seasons, the cult phenomenon of Twin Peaks, like the character Laura Palmer, just didn’t want to completely die. Folks were still asking “Who killed Laura Palmer?” long after the answer had been revealed. Phrases like “Let’s rock!” and “That gum you like is going to come back in style” became codes for fans around the world.

In 1992, Lynch directed a prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which might have been the final nail in the coffin, despite annual pilgrimages by enthusiasts to the Washington State locations where the pilot and film were made, and continuing publications and online discussions and debates. Then, miraculously, in 2017, a little over twenty-five years later, a third season of Twin Peaks appeared on Showtime, an epic movie divided into eighteen hour-long episodes, directed by Lynch himself. This was alternatively titled Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series or Twin Peaks: The Return. For many fans of the filmmaker, this remarkable work of art has been called a summation of Lynch’s career. Eerily, at the end of the season two finale, the spectral form of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), sitting in the mysterious “Red Room,” tells Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), “I’ll see you again in twenty-five years.” And she did!

Now we have this highly readable and engaging tome by Scott Meslow, A Place Both Wonderful and Strange, which is a blow-by-blow history of the making of all the various cogs of Twin Peaks. Note that this is not one of those academic analysis books, a “what does it all mean?” type of work that dominates most of the non-fiction bibliography on Peaks. Nor is it a complete “episode guide” (something fans sorely need that hasn’t really been done yet). Instead, this is a behind-the-scenes account of how it all began, followed by the evolution (and de-evolution) of the various incarnations of Twin Peaks.

The book starts with David Lynch meeting Mark Frost, of course, and how they worked together for at least a year before the idea for the series, then called Northwest Passage, made it to a pitch-worthy level. We go through the jumping to different networks, finally landing at ABC for a development deal and the subsequent making of the glorious pilot episode. We learn how a European feature film was part of that deal and how a tagged-on “ending,” the footage of which was later used in an episode of the first season, was utilized for that purpose.

Meslow takes the reader through the various stages of seasons one and two and how the show was a huge success at first. But the author documents the network sabotaging the second season so that the series would ultimately fail. Why did they do that? The “talking heads” in the book—interviewees like co-producers/writers/directors Harley Peyton and Robert Engels, as well as Mark Frost himself—are candid in their speculative theories. (Sorry, Lynch did not participate in the creation of the book prior to his untimely death in early 2025.)

But as we know, Twin Peaks saw resurrection in two more lives in the feature film and the third season—and Meslow details these steps, all the way to the end.

Only at times does Meslow offer his own interpretation of some of the storylines, especially in The Return. But he acknowledges that it has always been both Lynch’s and Frost’s desire that the audience make up their own minds “what it all means.” Nevertheless, this turning back the red curtain to see the radical and unorthodox inner workings of Twin Peaks is fascinating.

Both wonderful and strange indeed. There was nothing like Twin Peaks in all its forms, and Meslow tallies how it changed television. Many imitations attempted to usurp its haunting power. There is a good argument to proclaim that much of today’s streaming content would not exist without the groundbreaking experiment that was Peaks.

Including an insightful Introduction by Harley Peyton, Scott Meslow’s history of the Twin Peaks sensation is a fan’s delight. Highly recommended.

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