Diane, 6:02 pm, January 13th, San Francisco. I’ve just been to the best damn Twin Peaks panel at SF Sketchfest.
On Saturday afternoon in the Castro Theatre, Julee Cruise’s “Falling” played as a familiar title screen appeared behind a row of chairs. The music soon faded to garbled introductions that would sound accidental to anyone but this crowd: Twin Peaks fans.
At the SF Sketchfest Twin Peaks Tribute, the crowd was packed and brimming with questions about fan theories. However, the biggest fanboy of all was right there on stage alongside key cast members like Dana Ashbrook, Ray Wise and Mädchen Amick: James Roday.
Roday, who starred, acted, directed and wrote on the USA Network show Pysch, is one of the biggest Twin Peaks fans out there. He actually wrote a Twin Peaks tribute episode for Psych that featured Ashbrook, Wise and Sherilyn Fenn as citizens of a strange town called Dual Spires that was suspiciously like Twin Peaks, down to the diner with the damn good pie.
Roday was a fantastic moderator. He asked perfect questions that only a fan could ask, called someone out if they hadn’t gotten much of a chance to speak yet and made sure everyone got to share their experiences and did his best to make sure as many fans as possible were able to ask questions.
The full panel included cast members from both the original series and the new season on Showtime: Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Chrysta Bell, Amy Shiels, Josh Fadem, Sherilyn Fenn, Harry Goaz, Michael Horse, James Marshall, Kimmy Robertson and Ray Wise.
If you were stuck in the Red Room and couldn’t make it out for the panel, here’s what you missed:
1.Ray Wise has a fabulous David Lynch impersonation. He did it a few times throughout the night, and if you closed your eyes, you might have thought Lynch himself was in the room.
2. Some people had a gut feeling the show would come back. Ray Wise admitted he might have actually been ground zero for some of the revival rumors. He mentioned a few years ago that they might do the show again at a tribute to David Lynch at an art museum and that made the rounds on social media. Little did he know that Lynch and Mark Frost actually were working on a script at the time.
Kimmy Robertson was at a dry spot in her career and was depressed. She told a friend that she had a feeling that she would get an acting job soon, but from someone she knew. That friend was Jennifer Lynch, David Lynch’s daughter. When Robertson told Lynch about her feeling, writing for the new season was underway, but Lynch didn’t tell her.
Mädchen Amick, on the other hand, thought there was no way in hell that Twin Peaks would return, and she said so at a convention in the UK, only for David Lynch to make a formal announcement a few weeks later. She called him up and told him that she had told a convention crowd that the show was “lightning in a bottle” and couldn’t be reproduced. Lynch’s response? He laughed and said “I know.”
Sherilyn Fenn was also caught off guard, but at the chiropractor. She saw Mark Frost’s name on the sign-in sheet but wasn’t sure if it was the same Mark Frost, until her chiropractor said, “I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anyone, but Mark Frost was just in here and he said that they’re doing Twin Peaks again!”
3. Lynch doesn’t tell anyone in the cast anything until the absolute last second, which isn’t a shocker. During the Q&A, a fan asked if Lynch had sat everyone down and told them how the new season on Showtime last year would end, and Dana Ashbrook had a good laugh before telling us that half of the cast didn’t even know until they saw it on TV with everyone else.
4. Amick and Ashbrook are just as bummed about Bobby and Shelly’s fate as a couple as the rest of us. Amick said she was “heartbroken” when she found out and kept begging Lynch to change his mind, but he refused. She was able to sneak in a little easter egg — Shelly wore her wedding ring on a necklace.
Ashbrook was not a fan of Shelly having a new boyfriend in the return. He and Amick actually joked that Bobby lost his allure to Shelly once he was a cop and no longer a bad boy.
Despite how sad it was, Amick did admit that she understands why everything wasn’t tied up in a perfect bow. She saw it as a commentary of the cycle of life that continues. Which yes, makes sense, but come on! Bobby and Shelly 5ever. I’ll ship it til I die.
5. At the request of a fan, James Marshall sang “Just You” and Ray Wise sang “Mairzy Doats” — simultaneously. Roday prompted them to sing at the same time when Marshall seemed hesitant at the idea of singing “Just You.” I couldn’t make out either song, but it was a fun moment nonetheless.
6. Harry Goaz was afraid to do his character, Andy Brennan, again because so much time had passed and he didn’t know where Andy would be or how fans would react. In my opinion, he did a great job and Andy was just as much of a goofy delight in the new season as he was years ago.
7. The new roles for the return were cast under a fake show name, which, after much back and forth on stage, the cast decided they shouldn’t reveal.
8. Michael Horse felt a strong spiritual presence in the mountains in Washington where the show was filmed. He also painted the elk skin map from the return himself. You can read more about that and a cool fan theory on the map here.
9. James Roday told Sherilyn Fenn that Audrey’s story in the return was the most heartbreaking to him. Sherilyn was sad about Audrey too, but she said the arc for Audrey showed that “…there is truth in how we all get lost in our sad. Audrey was in a prison of her own mind.” Fenn also didn’t read most of the scripts when they were filming, so she didn’t know about Audrey’s rape or horrible son until she watched the show live.
10. Fenn wanted an Audrey and Cooper reunion as much as the fans did. She said the one thing she wished that didn’t happen was Audrey and Cooper having one scene together, even a tiny one.
11. The Log Lady’s goodbye was especially meaningful to Michael Horse. He had been friends with Catherine Coulson, who played Margaret Lanterman ( a.k.a. The Log Lady) since before the show started, and being able to say goodbye to her as Hawk meant a great deal to him.
12. According to Chrysta Bell, David Lynch’s nickname for Laura Dern is “peanut.” For everyone else, he calls them by their character names, sometimes even outside of set.
13. Ray Wise really, really, really did not want Leland Palmer to be Laura’s killer. His first reaction to the news was, “Oh shit.” The cast spent a long time wondering who the killer was and Wise was “praying to God” it wasn’t him. Wise’s daughter was a toddler at the time and the idea of Leland killing his daughter was so difficult for him, he didn’t even want to delve into it as an actor. His pick for the killer was Ben Horne. But Wise said when they shot the scene and he saw that Laura forgave Leland, he felt at peace. The forgiveness was all that really mattered and he felt redeemed.
14. Everyone tried to speculate exactly what went down in episode 8 of the return and Dana Ashbrook pretended like he totally understood Lynch’s mysterious, masterful art episode.
What are your favorite Twin Peaks theories? Are you hoping for season 4?
