Twin Peaks

Series plot summary

The body of Laura Palmer, homecoming queen and the town's most popular girl, is discovered wrapped in plastic by Pete Martell. The news is relayed to the town's residents, who react in various ways. Meanwhile, across the state line a second girl, Ronette Pulaski, is found walking in a catatonic state along the railroad tracks. Since, apparently a crime was committed that crossed state lines, the FBI is alerted and Special Agent Dale Cooper arrives to investigate. Cooper's initial examination of Laura's body reveals the typed letter 'R' inserted under her fingernail. He recognises this as the "calling card" of a killer who took the life of Teresa Banks a year earlier in the nearby town of Deer Meadow.

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Cooper quickly establishes that Laura's character and relationships are not as they first appear, and that she's far from the wholesome homecoming queen that the town knew her as. Laura had been two-timing her boyfriend Bobby Briggs with the biker James Hurley, a situation known to Laura's best friend Donna Hayward. Cooper also finds traces of cocaine in Laura's diary, a habit she shared with Bobby.

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Cooper is staying at the hotel owned by the Horne family. Audrey Horne develops a crush on Cooper and when he traces Laura's cocaine usage to a club called 'One-Eyed Jacks' she infiltrates it for him. It is revealed that Laura had also been working as a prostitute sometimes based at the club. Cooper has a dream in which he visits the Red Room, where he meets the Man from Another Place as well as the trapped spirit of Laura Palmer, who whispers into his ear the name of her killer. However, when he awakes, Cooper is unable to remember the name.

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The information that Cooper has gained from psychic and observed means leads him to a number of suspects, but he knows that finding Laura's secret diary holds the key. This diary is held by Harold Smith, who was one of Laura's confidants. The secret diary reveals that from a very early age Laura was abused by a character called Bob, and that her use of drugs and sex are the means she has utilized to escape from Bob.

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Maddie Ferguson, who is Laura's cousin and her spitting image, arrives to stay with Laura's parents. Both of them at times confuse Maddie with Laura. Maddie also becomes obsessed with finding Laura's killer and discovers that it is none other than Leland Palmer, Laura's father. Leland kills Maddie, but is apprehended by Dale Cooper, who realises that Leland has been possessed by the malevolent spirit of Bob. Leland smashes his own head against the wall of his cell and in his dying moment his soul is restored.

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Cooper stays in Twin Peaks for a while longer. Before long he is playing a deadly game of chess with his old mentor Windom Earle; Earle has gone mad and wants to play with Cooper's mind, not least because Cooper had an affair with his wife. Cooper gets involved in a drug bust gone wrong (with David Duchovny as a transvestite DEA agent) and temporarily is suspended from the FBI. He continues to try to track down the origins of Bob and the mysteries of the woods surrounding Twin Peaks. And he falls in love with a new girl in town, Annie Blackburn.

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When Annie wins the Miss Twin Peaks contest, Windom Earle kidnaps her and takes her to the Black Lodge, a mystical other-dimension in the woods of which the Red Room is a part. Cooper follows, and has a series of bizarre encounters. As the series closes, it seems Cooper, unknown to those around him, has also become possessed by Bob.

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