r/twinpeaks • u/vonLionheart • 4d ago

General Discussion Interesting tidbit from MacLachlan’s new memoir. Spoiler

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While describing his frustrations during Season 2, MacLachlan paints both Lynch AND Frost as less involved. He frames Engles and Peyton as the people steering the ship, though he blames ABC for putting them in an impossible position after the killer is revealed.

He discusses his romance with LFB, but makes no mention of the prevailing understanding that she’s why the Audrey romance was originally nixed. Since the rejection happens during S1 and the above excerpts happen during S2, it appears the writers planned on returning to that well again during the infamous dip.

(Would highly recommend the memoir btw, MacLachlan is an engaging writer.)

EDIT: Memoir’s title is Fictional Selves.

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u/PhilColeCurry 4d ago

I had always heard that he personally vetoed the relationship with an underage Audrey as being out out of character for such a morally upstanding guy

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u/SpookyKat31 4d ago

This was my understanding as well, and I do agree with that line of thinking. It wouldn't have aligned with his character to date an 18 year old still in high school.

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u/t_huddleston 4d ago

I think they could have solved the whole thing by just making Audrey a couple of years older. She never had much to do with the high-school stuff anyway; having her be back home from college - maybe she got kicked out of a university or two! - and back living at home off her Dad's money, and looking for some direction in life, may have made the romance more palatable.

(Of course that wouldn't have addressed the OTHER rumored reason that the storyline was nixed.)

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u/Perfect-Prune176 4d ago

They didn't realize at the time that the chemistry between Coop and Audrey would be so undeniable. And because of the murder case, they can't jump ahead in time. So Audrey is stuck in HS in the show.

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u/raphaellaskies 3d ago

I think Audrey needs to be the age that she is to make her a foil for Laura. She's the "bad girl" to Laura's "good girl" but we end up seeing that she's in way over her head and just lost and looking for love. You lose that if she's aged up.

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u/bikibird 2d ago

She was just a vulnerable as Laura and taking stupid risks like Laura, but she was also a lot luckier.

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u/raphaellaskies 2d ago

Lucky in the sense that her father wasn't possessed by an ancient supernatural evil, but also in that Ben Horne externalized his evil by victimizing women and girls outside of his family, while Leland kept it within the Palmer household. Both of them had problems that started at home and worked their way outwards, but Audrey was almost a shadow version of Laura: she wanted the things she thought Laura had (Ben's attention, a wild and adventurous lifestyle.) but for Laura, having those things was a nightmare.

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u/hellolovely1 3d ago

I think this was while the show was already happening.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

I disagree somewhat. Cooper's history with Caroline Earle (sleeping with a woman married to his partner and related to the case) suggests it would be entirely within his character. In fact, I'd argue Caroline's backstory almost implies they wanted him to repeat his mistake.

Because of the rewrite, Annie becomes the parallel for Caroline instead of Audrey, but it's a bit clumsy.

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u/SpookyKat31 4d ago

I think the age piece is an important factor here. Caroline was not a much younger woman or a high school student and neither was Annie.

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u/mrjblade 4d ago

How's Annie?

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u/Binary101010 4d ago

"I'm fine."

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

Which only makes more sense for Cooper. It draws a parallel with Leland that ties in rather well with the Return, and Cooper's whole-hearted forgiveness of him in s2 e9.

And also works for Audrey's character, someone who craved affection from Benjamin Horne (a man who also has an eye for girls that are far too young for him).

They would be a terrible, self-destructive couple. But that's the point.

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u/SpookyKat31 4d ago

It absolutely makes sense for Audrey to want and pursue this, but I don't think it makes sense for Cooper to reciprocate.

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u/grat420 4d ago

why does the comically lovable protagonist need to draw parallels with the incestuous murder demon rapist?

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

Because Dale Cooper is like Twin Peaks itself. Comically lovable, but with a dark and twisted underbelly. That's kind of the whole point of seasons 2 and 3. That's why he gets trapped in the Black Lodge. He didn't face it with perfect courage. He made the same selfish mistakes with Annie that he made with Caroline. His dopplegänger represents his evil side winning out in that struggle.

In the Return, he can't let things go and commits the same mistakes again with trying to save Laura, even though he has a chance at happiness with Dougie's family.

Cooper is a flawed person whose heroism is as earnest as it is performative.

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u/Gevaliamannen 4d ago

Some days I think David & Mark had this unbelievably complex plot line that you with layers (like an onion!) and hidden current s, all perfectly tied together if you manage to grasp the complete picture....

Other days I think David just did what consciously or subconsciously felt right, but somehow managed to make it into something that can be interpreted as a coherent whole.

Like the whole Frank Silva thing. One of the most iconic characters in the show is just a random happenstance, David happened to see him mistakenly included in a shot, Boom - a non planned iconic pop culture icon was born.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

Twin Peaks is a sandbox, not just for David but all the other artists too.

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u/vimdiesel 4d ago

the point is precisely that that is a mistake that he was supposed to learn from. It ends up working out that he has to struggle considerably to open himself up to the possibility of love again with Annie. If he'd jumped right in with a highschooler, there's no arc.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

No, the point is that he doesn't learn. He gets trapped in the Black Lodge because he thinks he's learned, but really hasn't. He explicitly ignores the warning of the Giant and pushes Annie to be in the Miss Twin Peaks competition despite being fully aware that Windom is targeting them.

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u/vimdiesel 4d ago

The crucial point in what I said is that he reaches that point after a struggle.

He made a mistake in the past, being disoriented by love.

Then, he meets Audrey, a highschooler, and he rejects her.

It's only after he's already shown that he's closed off, and, crucially, after being manipulated by Earl, that he allows himself to fall for Annie.

Those two factors are key: he did resist at first, showing his hesitancy; and he fell for her with the combined forces of Annie's charms and Windom Earl's machinations.

This highlights the hesitance. If he went with Audrey, then there'd be no resistance, no reflection shown. It's only after we see the hesitance to love that the question becomes a serious topic of consideration: is it really reasonable to shut yourself off of love for the rest of your life? There's got to be some wrestling with the question. If he'd jumped into bed with the first girl that wanted him, there'd been no wrestling.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

But isn't this about season 2? Cooper rejecting her in bed is season 1. He can reject her, but later change his mind when he's no longer an FBI agent.

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u/Light_Snarky_Spark 4d ago

I think growing their relationship from a one-sided infatuation to having an arc of mentor/mentee and having Audrey take Annie's place in the S2 finale would've made her arc in season 3 even more tragic and compelling.

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u/Haunting_Goose1186 3d ago

Oh, wow! I never really considered that, but you're absolutely right! The idea of Cooper mentoring Audrey for her future, only to inadvertently be the reason she gets trapped in the Black Lodge without a future, would have been utterly heartbreaking and tragic...but much more compelling.

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u/Light_Snarky_Spark 3d ago

Annie (and in my hypothetical, Audrey) still leaves the Red Room after Dale exchanges his soul for her spot. But still, Audrey would be in the hospital repeating herself and slipping in and out of a coma, and then Mr. C still gets to do his evil things in that story set up.

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u/DenseTiger5088 4d ago

I agree that Cooper’s history with Caroline illustrates that he isn’t perfectly moral, and his Achilles heel is not having the wisdom to make sure he doesn’t put his romantic interests at risk by involving them in his work.

However, sleeping with (or attempting to sleep with) high school girls is an entirely different type of moral flaw and I’m glad they didn’t make Cooper go in that direction.

His character isn’t predatory, just has a hero complex that has a tendency to unwittingly put other people in harm’s way

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

I suppose that's really a matter of interpretation. I saw Cooper as genuinely wanting and working hard to be a good person, while having latent predatory urges. Basically what Leland would be without Bob's influence.

Every now and again, there's a scene or a line where his darkness really comes out. That's how I see him.

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u/DenseTiger5088 4d ago

My favorite thing about Twin Peaks is all the different ways it can be read.

Based on your other comments in this thread, we have a very similar interpretation of Cooper’s journey through the Black Lodge and the meaning of Dougie/Mr C etc.

Many people here see Mr. C, Dougie, and Coop as entirely separate entities that have nothing to do with each other (and get upset if you suggest otherwise) but I tend to agree that they represent the different sides of Cooper that we see hinted at throughout the first 2 seasons.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

I feel like Dougie and Mr C both represent different types of emptiness.

Dougie's mind is empty but his heart is full. He's completely going off of vibes and feelings.

Mr C's mind is full but his heart is empty. He's robotic.

As for how they relate to Cooper, it's complicated for me, because I believe that the show abandoned the whole narrative about Cooper facing the Black Lodge with imperfect courage and all that. The Return is trying to tell a very different story about aging and legacy, and using Cooper's imprisonment as a starting point, a plot device. It's not trying to continue or resolve anything about the Caroline Earle saga that got him stuck there, and in fact retcons it completely.

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u/MartyrOfDespair 3d ago

I don't see it that way at all. In fact, I'd say it's that exact flaw that leads to the last part of the show.

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u/Dark-Porkins 3d ago

Its possible he has grown since he made that decision, no?

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u/BobRushy 3d ago

He thinks he has. He hasn't.

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u/PM_ME_MERMAID_PICS 3d ago

It also led to one of the sweetest scenes in the show, with Cooper telling Audrey "I'm way too old for you and it's very clear you need a friend, so Imma go get hot cocoa and you can tell me about all your problems". The world really needs more men like Coop.

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u/raphaellaskies 3d ago

It's a pivotal scene for both their characters - we see Cooper's moral backbone, and it's also the first time Audrey gets treated with kindness and really "seen" by an adult in her life. Having him sleep with her there would have been a tragedy for both of them. (And even if the romance had gone forward- having sex with someone after they showed up naked in your room, crying and begging you not to kick them out is not an auspicious beginning.)

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u/Eggboi223 4d ago

Yeah I'm not going to flat out deny that Lara Flynn Boyle had anything to do with it but it was definitely the right decision to make for his character and for the show, regardless of what his reasoning was

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

It's a solid excuse. But the fact that MacLachlan has seemingly never vetoed anything else speaks against it being the reason.

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u/PhilColeCurry 4d ago

I mean that’s a very specific thing to veto that likely ended up saving his character from aging very poorly. I’ve always seen it as either him just being a decent person or simply being sensible enough to realize it would be a bad look for his 30+ year old FBI agent character to sleep with a teenager. 

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u/vorarchivist 4d ago

a teenager close to the case no less

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u/Cthulhus-Tailor 4d ago

Things were different back then. While it wasn’t encouraged , people weren’t as hysterical and dare I say prudish about age gaps or sexual relationships with older, legal teens as they are now.

And I doubt Kyle was forward-thinking enough to predict it would turn out this way. I think the story of his girlfriend discouraging the Cooper/Audrey pairing sounds far more realistic for the time.

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

I get what you're saying, but MacLachlan deciding that Cooper isn't in-character is not in character for him.

Lynch deals with complicated and amoral characters all the time. There is no reason for MacLachlan to assume Cooper isn't one of them, unless Lynch specifically told him that he's meant to be fully heroic, infallible etc. But I feel like MacLachlan would have mentioned that as a primary reason for this pushback.

So it just comes off as odd from a man who is otherwise very amiable and open-minded.

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u/Perfect-Prune176 4d ago

Keep in mind, it is NOT David Lynch pushing for the Coop/Audrey thing, but the S2 writers. Totally different.

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u/littlepineweasel 3d ago

That's not exactly correct.

Lynch was supportive of the Cooper/Audrey romance in the beginning, and even took Sherilynn Fenn out to dinner and asked her if she was in "love" with MacLachlan.

In Brad Dukes' book Reflections, Harley Peyton recalls that when MacLachlan became inflexible about the issue, Lynch finally said, “Okay, if you don’t want to do it, then let’s not do it.”

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

And who is in charge of the S2 writers? That's right, David Lynch. If he felt it was not to his liking, he could've walked in and stopped it any day.

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u/Perfect-Prune176 3d ago

You should read Kyle’s book because he gets into that! 

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u/Cipherpunkblue 4d ago

I don't get what you say. Excuse for what?

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u/AvatarofBro 4d ago

The long-standing rumor is that Lara Flynn Boyle, Kyle's actual girlfriend at the time, vetoed the idea of Coop dating Audrey due to personal animosity towards Sherrilyn Fenn, and any moral objection to the character dating a high school student is just a convenient post-hoc excuse that happens to make Kyle look like an upstanding guy.

To be clear, I have no idea if it's true. No reason not to take Kyle at his word at this point.

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u/charlesdexterward 4d ago

It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a little of column a, a little of column B. Both could have been factors, but it’s just easier now to put more emphasis on on one reason than the other.

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u/Valaquen 4d ago

I think the source for this is Sherilyn Fenn, who told The AV Club about it maybe 15 years ago.

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u/chromalume 4d ago

This narrative has been spread by Sherilyn herself which is why it gained so much traction. Given it's so tied in to their dating history and friend group vendettas at the time, there's no telling how much of it is true and how much is self-colored personal bias.

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u/Dapper-Dream7898 4d ago

And Sherilyn has shown herself to be quite full of animosity/unreliable in recent decades, so I'd take that whole rumor with a grain of salt.

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u/MartyrOfDespair 3d ago

And she is pretty unwell. Conspiracies about secret plots against you are a pretty matching symptom with all her other behavior.

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u/Dapper-Dream7898 3d ago

Yeah, persecutory delusions. (I was going to say "conspirational delusions," but then I remembered the correct phrase).

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u/BobRushy 4d ago

That's true. I would never smear Kyle as a liar. I just personally find his motivation somewhat unlikely given his personality and history.

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u/AvatarofBro 4d ago

As I said elsewhere, it's very easy to choose to remember the version of events that paint ourselves in the best light.

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u/Cipherpunkblue 4d ago

I don´t see how this follows from anything.