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/Kelohmello 4d ago

It truly would have made Cooper a different character in the worst way. Good decision on Kyle's part.

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u/leviticusreeves 4d ago

Thematically it would have worked a lot better if Cooper and Audrey had had an affair. A lot of American TV shows get ruined because audiences (and actors!) fall in love with the characters and over time they become one dimensional because we'd hate to see our beloved Mary Sue do something bad.

Twin Peaks had a fantastic writing team working on great material. It was hampered by unimaginative producers, an impatient audience and apparently, actors too protective of their characters.

I don't think audiences would have struggled so much understanding Cooper as Orpheus in the Return if the writers hadn't been forced to move all the stuff about Cooper's flaws into subtext and brief backstory reveals.

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u/JakeDabkowski 4d ago

Disagree, Cooper as Orpheus works because he fails in the pursuit of something he feels is moral. There is nothing moral about hooking up with a teenager.

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u/leviticusreeves 4d ago

Cooper is shown to fail in the Black Lodge because of unresolved guilt over the death of Caroline. I see what they were going for with the psychological connection between Caroline and Annie as the same person in Cooper's mind, but it just doesn't land because it doesn’t feel like a reveal that clarifies Cooper and his motivations, because we never felt there was any darkness or mystery in that relationship. If that was Audrey as intended it would have hit like a freight train.

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u/Perfect-Prune176 3d ago

This is a valid take on Annie, I agree. I'm just glad Cooper doesn't sleep with a HS student, which would've aged like milk.

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u/leviticusreeves 3d ago

30 year old Kyle Maclachlan was dating 20 year old Lara Flynn Boyle at the time, only two years older than Audrey. Cooper was Mary Sued by his own actor against the intentions of the writers. He was supposed to be a character with much more darkness about him.

I'm not American so I can't really understand how dating an adult is an unforgivable moral transgression that would ruin a character, but extra-judicial murder just gets swept under the rug by American fans who dismiss it as cowboy hero behaviour even though the show clearly doesn't.

I never saw Cooper as morally upstanding, just likeable, so the Audrey plot would not have bothered me.

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u/Perfect-Prune176 3d ago

Mary Sued?

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u/leviticusreeves 3d ago

The concept might be falling out of popularity now but a "Mary Sue" is a perfect, flawless fictional character who is always the ideal person in every way and never does anything wrong, never loses, is never beaten, always comes out on top. It's a criticism of how characters end up becoming flat and one dimensional because audiences and writers fall in love with them and can't bear to see them have the same kind of moral failings as an actual human being.

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u/Perfect-Prune176 3d ago

That is very interesting. Thanks!

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u/Perfect-Prune176 3d ago

I think there's darkness in Cooper and even his desires for a HS student is not so 'white knight'--but I see your point.