And so it begins, my journey into Twin Peaks! At this point in time I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to tackle this – I don’t intend to do a full play-by-play episode breakdown, more just talking about my thoughts as we go, and making any predictions based on what I’ve seen. These posts will not be spoiler free, but I’ll only be covering spoilers up to the episode I’m discussing, as I won’t have seen anything beyond it! As such, please refrain from any future spoilers in your comments, thanks!

So full disclosure, I have seen this episode once before, however I wasn’t really paying attention to it and literally all I remembered was that a girl was found dead. As for what I know about future episodes (based mainly on interactions with the French Toast Sunday crew who are mostly massive Twin Peaks fans, even having been to a special Twin Peaks-themed event when they visited London 10 years ago), I was aware of Kyle MacLachlan showing up as a detective of some kind and having an affinity for pie and coffee, and that there would be a lady carrying a log, for reasons that I assume will never be explained (I believe Lindsay from FTS dressed up as this so-called Log Lady for a party one year). I was thrilled to meet said Log Lady in the first episode, and I look forward to future bizarre interactions with her.

Here are my thoughts on Twin Peaks Season 1, Episode 1:

I’d forgotten Ray Wise was in this! Love Ray Wise, and his name in the opening credits is displayed over a waterfall, so doubly good! I’d visit that waterfall every day if I lived there, it’s a good’un.

Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) might be my early pick for favourite character, I love how overly descriptive she is when detailing which phone she’s transferring a call to.

A detective who has to take photos of corpses but consistently cant because he cries too much is just funny. I approve.

My early prediction is that Laura Palmer’s father Leland (Ray Wise) killed her, because he’s played by Ray Wise, and he jumps to the conclusion that Laura is dead without being explicitly told, and his grief seems quite performative. Although to be fair, there’s a lot of jumping to conclusions that Laura has been killed, given that some of her classmates break down into tears just based on Laura’s chair being vacant and a police officer arriving at school.

Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) is another contender for favourite character, ruining her father’s land deal with the Norwegians seemingly just to have a room full of men stare at her for a while.

Prime suspects seem to be Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), Laura’s boyfriend, with her the night before and skipped American football practice that morning, plus he’s secretly dating someone else; and James (James Marshall), possibly Laura’s secret boyfriend, who has the other half of her necklace, rides a motorcycle (so he’s a bad boy) and keeps being shot like he’s auditioning to play a serial killer.

Troy Evans from ER is the school principal, hurrah! Everett McGill works at the petrol station!

I currently do not care about the drama of who owns the sawmill.

It takes over half an hour for Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) to show up, but as soon as he does he owns this whole episode, I love him immediately. He’s obsessed over the trees, good for him. I assume that we’ll never see Diane, the person he is speaking to in the dictaphone, and that perhaps she is either dead or possibly never existed, or maybe Diane is just the name of his dictaphone.

Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) has a truly awful tie.

I love how Cooper just pops open Laura’s diary instead of trying to pick the lock or find the key. The cops are either incompetent or perhaps they are involved in the crime and don’t want to solve it.

Laura’s diary includes the phrase “Nervous about meeting J tonight.” Clearly we’re supposed to assume this is her secret boyfriend James, but it could also be her psychiatrist, Jacoby, or sawmill owner Jocelyn, and Wikipedia tells me there’s a character called Leo Johnson (Eric Da Re). My theory though is that J means Johnny (Robert Davenport), who we find out Laura has been visiting to help as he has learning difficulties.

There’s a scrap of paper that says “Fire walk with me”. I know that’s the name of the film, so clearly this doesn’t get resolved anytime soon.

Everyone in this town is having a secret relationship with someone else. You’ve got Laura and James, Bobby and Shelly, Big Ed (Everett McGill) and the deputy sheriff’s wife (I didn’t catch her name, sorry, and I’m trying not to delve too deeply into research in order to avoid spoilers), and Sheriff Truman (Michael Ontkean) and Jocelyn Packard (Joan Chen). How many more are there going to be?!

“Who’s the lady with the log?” / “We call her the Log Lady.” Perfect, no notes.

Favourite character Lucy needs to know when she has bought enough doughnuts.

Summary of main predictions:
Ray Wise did it, whatever it turns out to be.
Diane is dear or never existed.
Bobby, Mike and James are innocent of the main crime(s), but probably guilty of something else we don’t know about yet.