David Lynch’s Twin Peaks is a staple of transgressive television. A bizarre and genre-bending mystery that first aired in 1990, Twin Peaks follows Agent Dale Cooper (played by the ever-iconic Kyle MacLachlan) as he investigates the mysterious murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Premiering prior to the release of The X-Files, Twin Peaks seemed to be an early catalyst for the moody, supernatural vibe of 90s television, likely causing viewers to crave unadulterated weirdness in primetime television.
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While Twin Peaks left many of its strangest questions unanswered, there are some moments throughout the show’s three seasons and feature film that have left fans scratching their heads since the moment they saw them.
1) Josie Becomes a Doorknob
Possibly the weirdest moment ever on television (and that’s saying a lot when talking about Twin Peaks), Josie Packard’s fate in Episode 16 of Season 2 is so random that some fans may have thought they were being pranked when they initially viewed the controversial scene. In this sequence, Josie abruptly dies unexplainably after shooting Thomas Eckhardt and then pulling the gun on Cooper.
After her death, Josie’s distressed face is seen inside of a knob on a drawer inside Cooper’s bedroom. Josie is barely heard from again after this scene. While the visuals of this sequence left many baffled, it could be interpreted to mean that Josie’s ghost is haunting the people of Twin Peaks.
2) The First Black Lodge Scene
While the black lodge is one of the most iconic aspects of the world of Twin Peaks, the first scene featuring the Man From Another Place confused many early fans of the series. This sequence, which occurred only in the third episode of the show’s very first season, depicts Agent Dale Cooper entering a strange world through a dream.
This dream world consists of a room with red curtains and an oddly patterned floor. In this dream, Laura Palmer and the Man From Another Place speak to Cooper backwards, and the man dances. This jarring scene helped set viewers up for the non-linear nature of the show in subsequent episodes.
3) Got a Light?
Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return, the long-awaited third season of the show which aired on Showtime in 2017, is an all-around freak-out. The episode breaks the mold of the revival’s structure that was established previously, featuring abstract vignettes involving an atomic bomb, a large beetle-like creature, and murderous, cigarette-loving ghouls.
A scene towards the end of the episode involving the ghoulish woodsmen is maybe the most shocking. In it, one of the disheveled ghouls wanders into a radio station and asks a desk worker for a light for his cigarette, before brutally killing her. These creepy men are never given a clean-cut backstory, which makes their appearance even more confusing.
[RELATED: 7 Twin Peaks Questions That Are Still Unanswered]
4) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’s Prologue
In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the 1992 prequel film, the first 25 minutes or so feature Special Agents Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) and Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) investigating the murder of Theresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow, which occurred before the death of Laura Palmer.
In this lengthy prologue, there is a brief, unexplainable sequence where Desmond and Stanley are eating at a diner and an unknown man sitting with his wife interrupts the agents’ conversation to exclaim, “Are you talking about that little girl who got murdered?” The man then repeats himself but says nothing more, leaving both the audience and the agents bewildered.
5) The Norwegians Are Leaving!
One of the pilot episode’s most memorable scenes features a group of Norwegian businessmen who were going to work with Benjamin Horne before his daughter Audrey Horne makes them aware of Laura Palmer’s death.
When the businessmen begin to leave a meeting, the overreaction from Horne’s employees is weirdly humorous. One receptionist screams “The Norwegians are leaving” repeatedly while slamming on a bell, further cementing this scene as hilariously bizarre.
6) Mother’s Sister’s Girl
Another unexplainable sequence, which is also in the prologue of Fire Walk With Me, features Agents Desmond and Stanley meeting with Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch) when the latter presents Desmond with what he calls “a surprise.”
The surprise consists of a seemingly mute woman wearing a sour face and dressed in all bright red (even her hair), running from behind a plane and miming different motions. Cole refers to the woman as “Lil, my mother’s sister’s girl.” Even though Desmond explains what Lil’s movements likely meant to Stanley in the next scene, Lil’s appearance is a head-scratcher.
7) Creamed Corn
Throughout the show and the film, creamed corn is consistently shown or discussed. The term “Garmonbozia” is brought up a lot, which means pain and suffering, and for some odd reason, Garmonbozia is represented by a liquid substance that looks an awful lot like creamed corn. At the end of Fire Walk With Me, the Man from Another Place is shown eating creamed corn in a close-up, which is one of the most uncanny shots of the entire franchise.
Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return are available to stream on Paramount+, while Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me can be streamed on Max.
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