Twin Peaks, Washington is a fictional town that serves as the primary setting of thetelevision seriesTwin Peaks, created byMark Frost andDavid Lynch, and the associated filmsTwin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) andTwin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (shot 1991, released 2014).
As established in the original series, the town of Twin Peaks lies "five miles south of theCanadian border, and twelve miles west of the [Washington-Idaho] state line." According to the now-iconic sign in the television show, the fictional town has a population of 51201—the final "1" having been painted on by an unknown figure to make the town seem much larger than its "actual" size. The forest surrounding Twin Peaks has "portals" toextradimensional locations called the "Black Lodge" and the "White Lodge".
The established setting would place Twin Peaks within theSalmo-Priest Wilderness near the small town ofMetaline Falls, 100 miles due north ofSpokane.[1]
Most of the show's exteriorstock footage andestablishing shots was shot in the Washington towns ofSnoqualmie,North Bend, andFall City, all around 25–30 miles fromSeattle.[citation needed]
The Double R Diner is owned and managed byNorma Jennings (Peggy Lipton).[2] Norma employs two waitresses:Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick) andHeidi (Andrea Hays).[2]
In seasons one and two,FBI Special AgentDale Cooper stays in The Great Northern Hotel.[4][5][6][7][8] The hotel is owned byBen Horne, a businessman who also owns the local department store. In the first two seasons, much of Ben's time is devoted to building Ghostwood, a new country club and residential estate that is intended to replace the Packard Sawmill. Ben's attorneyLeland Palmer assists him with the Ghostwood project; the death of Leland's daughterLaura Palmer is the catalyst for the series.[9]
The Black Lodge is anextradimensional place that seems to include, primarily, the "Red Room" first seen byAgent Cooper in a dream early in the series. As events in the series unfold, it becomes apparent that the characters from the Red Room, the Black Lodge, and the White Lodge, are connected.
At first, it is revealed that there is a mysterious dark presence in the woods that the town's Bookhouse Boys have been combatting for generations. Although they do not know what it is,Native American policemanDeputy Hawk says that the Black Lodge is from the mythology of his people, describing it as:
The shadow-self of the White Lodge. The legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it 'theDweller on the Threshold' ... But it is said, if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.
During the second season,Windom Earle relates a story about the White Lodge:
Once upon a time, there was a place of great goodness, called the White Lodge. Gentle fawns gamboled there amidst happy, laughing spirits. The sounds of innocence and joy filled the air. And when it rained, it rained sweet nectar that infused one's heart with a desire to live life in truth and beauty. Generally speaking, a ghastly place, reeking of virtue's sour smell. Engorged with the whispered prayers of kneeling mothers, mewling newborns, and fools, young and old, compelled to do good without reason ... But, I am happy to point out that our story does not end in this wretched place of saccharine excess. For there's another place, its opposite: a place of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare enter this frightful maw. The spirits there care not for good deeds or priestly invocations, they're as likely to rip the flesh from your bone as greet you with a happy "good day". And if harnessed, these spirits in this hidden land of unmuffled screams and broken hearts would offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the Earth itself to his liking.
As the Black and White Lodges become more prominent in the story,Major Briggs claims that during one or more of his disappearances, he had visited the White Lodge and goes on to offer advice regarding it.
Although the Red Room began exclusively as a location within AgentDale Cooper's dreams, the inhabitants began appearing in other locations in the town, inciting other elements in the plot, to the point where the Red Room and White/Black Lodge stories became one. After discovering a mysterious map in Owl Cave, it becomes evident to Earle and Cooper—both independently and with different motivations for wanting to visit it—that the entrance to the Black Lodge is located in Ghostwood Forest which surrounds the town of Twin Peaks, at a pool of a substance that smells like scorchedengine oil and surrounded by 12 youngsycamore trees. This area is known as Glastonbury Grove.
It is said that the key to gain entrance to the Black Lodge is fear—usually an act of brutal murder. This is in contrast to the key to the White Lodge, which is love. Another requirement to enter the Black Lodge through the entrance in Glastonbury Grove is that it may only be entered "...whenJupiter andSaturn meet..." When the above requirements are met and one approaches the pool in Glastonbury Grove, red curtains appear, which the person walks between before the curtains vanish once again.
There is little furniture in the Red Room aside from a few armchairs, a wheeled table and a couple of floor lamps. There is also a replica of theVenus de Medici (often mistaken for theVenus de Milo; theVenus de Milo can be seen in the hallway). There are no doors to speak of; movement from room to room is accomplished by crossing through another set of red curtains that lead to a narrow hallway. The floor is a chevron pattern of brown and white,[10] and all sides of any room and all walls of any hallway encountered are covered by identical red curtains. In the final episode, a second room in the Lodge is seen, identical to the first. Between the two rooms is a narrow corridor which has the same floor and "walls" as the other two rooms.
Although the Lodge inhabitants speak English, their voices are warped and strangely clipped and their movements are unnatural (this effect is accomplished by the actors speaking in reverse and the footage is then played backwards). Residents often speak in riddles andnon-sequiturs. The main inhabitants of the Lodge areThe Man from Another Place,The Giant andKiller Bob.
In the final episode ofTwin Peaks, Cooper meets The Man from Another Place, who refers to the Red Room as the "waiting room". This echoes Hawk's claim that every spirit must pass through the Black Lodge on the way to perfection and that the Red Room leads to the White Lodge as well.[citation needed]
The red curtains, zig-zag floors and bright spotlights of the White and Black Lodges have also appeared in several ofDavid Lynch's other films, suggesting that Lynch may view their influences as ongoing in his narrative worlds.[11][self-published source?] As theMasonic historian archeologistDavid Harrison notes in his article onTwin Peaks, the floor resembles a zig-zag version of theMosaic Pavement in aMasonic lodge, hence the namesBlack Lodge andWhite Lodge, which consists of squares in the middle, but of triangles at the borders. As the focus of the series is on how to pass through from one surreal realm into the other, or how to transcend from one level of fear of this metaphysical realm to the one associated with love and that both are a way to come to a cumulative, final interpretation on the matter ofreality itself, reachable fromboth sides of the medal, the condensation and reduction of the symbolism to a zig-zag floor makes sense in context of the series' themes.[12]
The Black Lodge and White Lodge are home to many spirits and people alike, including Bob,Mike, theMan from Another Place, theGiant,Laura Palmer, and Dale Cooper.
The spirits can possess humans if they are let in: Bob possessesLeland Palmer but not Laura, who refuses to let him in. Later, Bob possesses Dale Cooper'sdoppelganger (not Cooper himself); The Giant and an elderly waiter from the Great Northern Hotel were "one and the same". Mike and The Man From Another Place (Mike's arm) possess Phillip Gerard.[citation needed]
In the two-partSimpsons episode, "Who Shot Mr. Burns?",Chief Clancy Wiggum has trouble solving the case and falls into a dream sequence in which he sits in the Red Room withLisa Simpson, who speaks backwards. She gives him clues in reverse-speak, but Wiggum is unable to understand her until she gives up in frustration and speaks normally.[13] As withTwin Peaks, while recording Lisa's lines for the segment,Yeardley Smith recorded the part backwards and it was reversed.[14][15] Several other parts in the segment are direct references toTwin Peaks, including a moving shadow on the curtain, and Wiggum's hair standing straight up after waking.[16]
In the manga seriesSoul Eater, the Red Room is used as a motif whenSoul Eater andMaka Albarn are infected with Black Blood. A demon who dances backward (similar toThe Man from Another Place) to a skipping jazz record attempts to convince them to give in to the Black Blood's madness.[17]
The Red Room is also parodied as "The Sitting Room" in multiple episodes ofScooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, first accessed by Scooby-Doo in a dream and later accessed by all of Mystery, Inc. under mass hypnosis. A helper figure similar to The Man from Another Place appears there, and, like the original Man, is played byMichael J. Anderson. The Sitting Room appears to be a spirit realm where both helpful and malicious entities can dwell, as well as pieces of the souls of those tainted by the Treasure of Crystal Cove.[18]
A parody of the Red Room is featured as "The Club" inGravity Falls, Season 1, Episode 4 "The Hand That Rocks the Mabel".
In an interview,Atlus co-founderKazuma Kaneko confirmed that the Black Lodge was the main source of inspiration for the Velvet Room's design in thePersona video game series, though the color of the room was altered to blue in reference toDavid Lynch's filmBlue Velvet.[19]
The cult classic video gameDeadly Premonition, that was heavily influenced by Twin Peaks, also has a Red Room of sorts that the protagonist Agent York Morgan visits on his dreams.[20]
The video gameThe Evil Within 2 frequently uses the Red Room motif, in association with one of the primary antagonists, Stefano Valentini.[21]
On an episode ofThe Late Late Show with James Corden in September 2017, the opening segment featured actorKyle MacLachlan having turned his dressing room into the Red Room, including speaking in the warped backwards manner.[22]
It is also referenced inAll Hail King Julien in the third episode of season three "Dance, Dance, Resolution" in which Mort speaks backwards to King Julien in the black lodge, you can see the mythical pineapple shadow on the red curtains and King Julien's parents there, to which King Julian asks "Mort why are you talking backwards!?", Mort then does a strange forward walk that also seems somewhat backwards to which King Julien's parents clap, King Julien then tries to please his parents which then turns into Maurice, then King Julien awakes.[23]
Twin Peaks' score conductorAngelo Badalamenti helped write the song "Black Lodge" on the 1993Sound of White Noise album byAnthrax.[24] The song was released as the album's third single on August 19, 1993.
The sound of the song differs greatly from the band's earlierthrash metal tracks, withAllMusic's Dave Connolly describing it as "cooled-down".[25]
A music video was created for the song, being directed by past filmmakerMark Pellington.[26]
The video centers on a man and his wife, with the latter appearing to be aparaplegic. The man bathes, feeds, and dresses his wife, puts her in the backseat of a car and drives downHollywood Boulevard. The man picks up a woman off of the street, Daphne (played byJenna Elfman[27]), with his assistant drugging her and taking her to an empty building. The assistant dresses Daphne up to look like the wife then straps her into a chair and places electrodes on her, while the wife sits across from her in a similar chair. The man tries to stimulate Daphne by rubbing her legs and having a puppy lick her face while the wife seems to feel what the woman does. The wife quickly returns to a catatonic state, while the assistant carries Daphne off and takes her picture in front of a backdrop that resembles the Red Room. As the video ends, the camera cuts to a shot of a board with several dozen pictures of other women who went through the same ordeal that Daphne did.
The band members briefly appear in the video, showing up in quick shots in the Red Room.
All tracks are written by John Bush, Scott Ian, Frank Bello, Charlie Benante, and Angelo Badalamenti, except where noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Black Lodge" (Black Strings Mix) | 5:21 | |
| 2. | "Black Lodge" (Tremelo Mix) | 5:23 | |
| 3. | "Black Lodge" (Mellow to Mad Mix) | 5:20 | |
| 4. | "Love Her All I Can" (Kiss cover; featuringGene Simmons andPaul Stanley) | Stanley | 2:32 |
| 5. | "Cowboy Song" (Thin Lizzy cover) | Phil Lynott,Brian Downey | 5:03 |
| Chart (1993) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Finnish Singles (The Official Finnish Charts)[28] | 19 |
| UK Singles (OCC)[29] | 53 |
| USMainstream Rock (Billboard)[30] | 38 |
Lynch and Frost started theirlocation scouting in Snoqualmie on the recommendation of a friend of Frost. In the area, they found all of the locations that they had written into thepilot episode.[31]
Recurring locations within the series filmed in the Snoqualmie area include various characters' homes, the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department, the Double R Diner, the Great Northern Hotel, Big Ed's Gas Farm, and Twin Peaks High School.[citation needed]
In the pilot, the Mar-T Cafe (North Bend, Washington) served as the location for the Double R Diner. The producers then built a Hollywood soundstage set modeled on the Mar-T Cafe for the remaining interior scenes in seasons one and two.
After the series was cancelled, the cafe was sold to Kyle Twede, who renamed it Twede's Cafe. In 2000, arsonists set a fire that gutted the cafe. Twede's Cafe reopened in 2001 with a new interior that discarded many features of the original Double R Diner. In advance of season three (which was filmed on location), the producers paid to restore the cafe to its original appearance.[32][33]
The exterior of The Great Northern Hotel is the Salish Lodge inSnoqualmie, WA.[3][34] The hotel was originally inspired by the Kiana Lodge inPoulsbo, Washington.[6] The Kiana Lodge was built in the late 1920s and is furnished withalderbentwood pieces dating from that era.[6]
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