How Twin Peaks Brought Viewers Existential Mobsters and Advertising Doppelgängers

DONALD MCCARTHY

Since its initial airing in 1990, Twin Peaks has been called an influence for dozens of shows, ranging from Northern Exposure (1990–95) to The X-Files (1993–2002) to The Killing (2011–14). However, its influence is most successful when that influence does not come from the show’s quirkiness, the most common element mimicked, but rather from its technique of using dreams and the surreal to give the audience information on plot, setting, theme, and character.

Television, despite being a visual medium, relies to a large extent on dialogue as a way to deliver information on plot and character. Most television dramas are procedural and the dialogue exists as a way to push the plot forward. Procedural shows such as Criminal Minds (2005–present), CSI (2000–15), House M.D. (2004–12), The Practice (1997–2004), and NCIS (2003–present) have mostly expository dialogue, with a little given toward establishing characterization. This has the tendency to result in one character explaining to another a procedure or backstory that should be known to both of them.

Outside of a few exceptions, such as The Twilight Zone (1959–64), television dramas have relied on very reserved direction. Twin Peaks broke free from this trend by embracing a visual style of storytelling. Since its co-creator, David Lynch, came from film, it is not surprising that the visual began to take precedence. In the current era of television, when directors such as Martin Scorsese and Stephen Soderbergh are producing television, it is easy to forget that just 20 years ago film and television had very little crossover.

This is not to say that Twin Peaks never relies on dialogue; on the contrary, Twin Peaks’ dialogue is often amusing and thought-provoking. However, the visual will often take precedence, elevating Twin Peaks above its contemporary dramas.

One of Twin Peaks’ first examples of visual storytelling occurs in the second episode, wherein Agent Dale Cooper has either a dream or a vision that occurs in the Red Room. Cooper appears in the vision much older than he is in his waking life. He looks around with confusion as if he is out of place (one can only imagine how baffled the audience was when this first aired). Whether this Cooper is meant to be an older version who is confused as to how he ended up in the Red Room or if he is meant to be the current Cooper is not stated, but the evidence tends to point to the latter. Firstly, the events in the dream focus around current challenges in Cooper’s life, namely the investigation into Laura Palmer’s death. Secondly, Cooper actually asks the woman in the dream if she is Laura Palmer. This makes sense because Cooper is still learning about Palmer and her background. Were it to occur when he was older he would already know about her life and about her existence in the Red Room.

This raises the question as to why Cooper is older. It is worth considering that Cooper is at a loss in the Palmer case in this episode and is in a community that is starkly different from most other areas. Cooper likely feels as out of place, as an elderly person would when thrust into a strange situation for which he or she has no previous frame of reference.

Furthermore, Cooper’s movements are slower too, showing the audience that he is a few steps behind what is occurring. He turns to watch the Man from Another Place dance, but he turns late, almost as if his body is struggling to catch up with his thoughts.

The appearance of Laura Palmer is also disarming. She wears a black dress that is at once sensuous and demure, alluding to the duality in her life: there are two versions of Laura, one that is the perfect student and one that is deeply, tragically troubled. At one point, in a voice that is almost out of phase, she states, “sometimes my arms bend back” while her face briefly displays agony, likely a reference to the rape and abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, Leland Palmer.

When Cooper awakens from his dream, he calls Sheriff Truman and tells him he knows who killed Laura Palmer thanks to his vision. This last moment is key, even though it takes place outside the dream. Lynch, through Cooper, is telling us the surreal scenes in Twin Peaks are vital to understanding the drama as a whole. Letting the viewer in on how the visuals inform the story is a necessary act, as many television viewers may not be accustomed to this style of storytelling.

This is not to say Twin Peaks is willing to hold the audience’s hand when it comes to visual cues. There are a number of recurring motifs, one of which is of tree boughs blowing in the wind. The shot of boughs blowing upward is never explained nor does it tend to occur in a specific context, such as before a certain character is revealed. Instead, the shot exists to cause a sense of unease in the viewer. In a similar manner, the camera often likes to pan across the woods near the town of Twin Peaks, woods that are dead, the leaves dried up and most of the branches barren. Again, there is no explanation for this in terms of plot; it exists only to further the sense of unease in the viewer. There is also the image of a traffic light swaying in the wind, as if the natural world is encroaching on the more “civilized” world.

David Lynch spoke to Chris Rodley about some of these recurring motifs in Lynch on Lynch. “And these traffic lights became kind of important. They were used again when Cooper said, ‘All those murders took place at night.’ So when you see this red light or a light turning red, and it’s moving, it gives you a feeling. And then it becomes like the fan in the hall outside Laura’s room. It makes you wonder. And it gives you the willies!” (Lynch 170).

Twin Peaks was not afraid of moving slowly. While the horror elements present in the Red Room have become famous, these elements do not crop up in every episode. By indulging in visual motifs, Lynch and his other directors were able to keep the tension present even when the supernatural beings are not directly in the story. The example of the fan outside of Laura’s bedroom serves as a reminder that an awful act occurred in the house and, as we learn more about the nature of the Red Room and its inhabitants, we know that electricity is an integral part of the power of BOB and the Man from Another Place. Suddenly, the hum and movement of the fan contain yet another layer of dread, acting as a reminder of the demonic creatures that linger just off the screen.

By the time Twin Peaks reached the end of its second season, ratings had been steadily declining since the beginning of the year, and David Lynch returned to the director’s chair to take command of the final episode. Lynch embraced the visual in a way that put even the most surreal episodes so far to shame. He set 20 minutes of the second season finale in the Red Room. Lynch follows Cooper’s journey through the Red Room, yet Cooper rarely speaks during the scenes. The other characters in the Red Room do not speak often, either, and when they do it is in a stilted, out of phase fashion that requires subtitles. The only other voice is from Jimmy Scott who sings the Lynch-penned song “Sycamore Trees.”

The scene in which Scott sings is worthy of a breakdown because of how it establishes the visual rules of the Red Room, rules that stay consistent during Cooper’s, and the viewer’s, time there. It is the first significant scene in the Red Room since the second episode. There are allusions to the Red Room throughout the show, such as the red curtains at One Eyed Jacks, and the audience catches a brief glimpse of it when BOB crawls out of a pond in episode 28. In order to ground the audience, Lynch once again introduces the Man from Another Place. He comes out from behind a curtain, dancing to “Sycamore Trees.” The room is at first well-lit as the Man from Another Place makes his way to his chair, passing by Jimmy Scott. Cooper stands on the opposite side of the room, watching, unblinking. There is a constant flashing of light, but, at first, it does not result in the audience’s vision being disrupted. Once the Man from Another Place takes a seat, there’s a flashing light; Jimmy Scott is no longer lit up by overhead lights, but instead by a spotlight. The source of the spotlight is never revealed, in keeping with the mysterious nature of the Red Room.

Lynch then gives the audience the perspective of Cooper. From this vantage point the audience sees the Man from Another Place sitting in his chair watching Scott sing. The image of Scott singing stays constant, yet a strobe light effect results in everything else in the room vanishing for a second before dimly returning and then blinking away once more. As this happens, the Man from Another Place turns to look at Cooper and, effectively, the audience. Because of the strobe light effect, the Man from Another Place’s movements are never seen; all that is seen of him are essentially snapshots, each shot depicting his movement in staccato fashion. When the song ends, Jimmy Scott does not vanish back behind the curtains; he fades away.

This scene shows Cooper and the audience how time and perception work differently in the Red Room, how it is simultaneously methodical and chaotic. Cooper is helpless, capable only of watching, never able to interfere. He is as active an agent as the audience. The audience therefore experiences what Cooper is experiencing; Lynch has placed them within the action itself. There’s no need to be informed via dialogue as to what is happening because the audience is experiencing the events as they unfold.

The scenes in the Red Room remain singular television achievements, but they, along with Twin Peaks overall, have influenced television dramas since. The surreal nature of the Red Room specifically influenced the HBO drama The Sopranos (1999–2007) created by David Chase. At the end of the second season, in the episode “Funhouse” (4.9.00), Chase took The Sopranos in a surreal, slightly terrifying direction. “Funhouse” revolves around a dream Tony Soprano has when he is recovering from food poisoning. His dream involves Sal “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, a fellow mafia member. In the dream, Tony sees a stand of fish for sale on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. One of the fish begins talking to him in the voice of Bonpensiero, alluding to the mafia phrase “sleeping with the fishes.” In the waking world, Tony begins to come to terms with the fact that Bonpensiero is working with the FBI and will need to be killed if Tony is to continue his lifestyle.

The fever dream’s strange atmosphere only grows from there. Tony, still on the boardwalk, tells his friends that he has terminal cancer and he wants to die on his own terms instead of dying from the cancer. His solution? To set himself on fire. The exact meaning of this solution is open to viewer interpretation, but the emotional feeling behind the scene is one of dread. Tony, and the audience, knows that he will have to take action against Bonpensiero. While Chase could have decided to go with a scene where Tony tells one of his fellow Mafiosi about his concerns, this would be out of character for him since Tony is hesitant to show any weakness in front of his peers. By using a dream, Chase allows the information about Tony’s psyche to come across in a more natural way, one that allows us to know his thought process in a fashion that does not violate his characterization.

Chase includes unique touches in the dream, such as there being snow in the late spring in New Jersey and the appearance of a character who died 13 episodes before (a hole in his head where he was shot included). Also in the dream is the sound of a creaking boat, foreshadowing Tony bringing Bonpensiero out on his boat and shooting him in the hold. The creaking is heard then, too, calling back to Tony’s dream.

“Like Lynch,” writes Lynch expert Martha P. Nochimson, “Chase invited the audience to enter television through the broad, thrilling gate of the imagination.” Mixing the ordinary with the surreal was a hallmark of Twin Peaks. Lynch would often cut back and forth between the realistic and the fantastical. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, this device is used to great effect when Laura Palmer sees her father one moment and BOB the next. The Sopranos continued this approach, especially in the wake of “Funhouse.” Bonpensiero’s death hangs over the rest of the show even though he is seldom talked about in dialogue. In the episode “Proshai, Livushka” (3.4.01), Tony opens a cabinet with a mirror on it. As the cabinet opens we see Bonpensiero in the reflection. Upon closing the cabinet, Tony briefly looks in the direction of where Bonpensiero would have to have been standing. This is one of a number of hints that Tony is aware of the surreal nature of the world of The Sopranos in a way that the rest of the characters are not.

Tony’s awareness mimics Cooper’s in Twin Peaks. Cooper is much more accepting of the fantastical world that is beneath the town of Twin Peaks than most of the other inhabitants. In the second episode of the first season, Cooper is willing to embrace the dream he has of Laura Palmer in the Red Room as a significant breakthrough in the case in a way that the law enforcement in Twin Peaks is not. In The Sopranos, Tony often brings his dreams into therapy. He will complain at first, giving his psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi, a somewhat offensive one-liner that she will proceed to ignore, knowing she needs to investigate what is really irking Tony. Yet, in the end, Tony does examine his dreams with her, hoping to find meaning in them. At the start of the season four episode “Calling All Cars” (11.24.02), Tony has a dream in which he is in the back of a car, the identity of the driver and passengers changing, from his wife to his ex-mistress to those long dead. While discussing this dream in therapy he grows frustrated at not knowing what it means. He demands that Melfi tell him what it means and refuses to accept her answer that he has to explore it and decide for himself. She can help, but she cannot offer all the answers. She might as well have been speaking to the audience on Chase’s behalf.

At the end of the episode, Tony is in a hotel in Miami. He has a dream once more, similar to the one from the episode’s start, but it takes Tony and the viewer much further. Quick cuts at the beginning disorient the viewers, providing the scenes with a dreamlike quality because the cuts leave the viewers unmoored, uncertain of where events are going in a way they wouldn’t be if the scene took place in Tony’s waking life. Tony starts in the car but steps out, following a dead associate, Ralph Cifaretto, up to an old house. During his walk up, Tony’s appearance changes and a quick cut presents us with the image of him in a yard worker’s outfit. The change is not commented upon by Tony, but Chase and episode director Tim Van Patten trust that the audience will understand it is part of the dream logic.

The dream continues with Tony knocking on the door to the old house. The door swings open, its hinges squeaking. The inside of the house is lit only by what little sunlight creeps in. A figure walks down the stairs and appears to be a woman. It is impossible to discern her facial features because the woman is shadowed. The audience is never shown who the woman is, but what little can be seen of her tells a lot: her hair is in a bun, her pose is defensive, and her clothes are old-fashioned. The viewers can piece together that the woman is supposed to be Tony’s deceased, hateful, and perhaps even murderous mother. At no point does Chase have any of the characters verbalize this; he relies solely on the visuals to communicate this fact.

Chase uses this visual style again in the episode “Mayham” (3.26.06), in which Tony has an experience while in a coma, an experience that appears to set him in an alternate world. In this alternate world, Tony is not part of the mafia and is instead a business man who has lost his briefcase. He accidentally picked up the briefcase of a man named Kevin Finnerty and is desperately trying to find Finnerty so they can exchange briefcases. Tony eventually ends up at an inn that is hosting the Finnerty family reunion. Outside the inn is a man played by Steve Buscemi. In the previous season, Buscemi played Tony’s cousin. In this coma reality it is unclear what character Buscemi is playing because the alternate Tony does not recognize him.

Buscemi’s appearance only adds to the overall mystery of the inn itself. The windows of the inn have closed curtains, yet bright lights from inside allow for silhouettes of the inhabitants inside to be seen. This effect recalls the curtained Red Room in Twin Peaks where the danger behind the curtain, be it BOB or a doppelgänger or another unseen entity, is always present. Buscemi’s character, listed in the end credits only as “Man,” is friendly, but insists on taking the briefcase Tony is holding, telling him that business is not allowed inside, and when Tony tries to explain the mix up with Kevin Finnerty, Buscemi’s characters says, “We don’t talk like that in here.” He then informs him that family is waiting inside and that Tony is “going home.” Whether the family is the Finnerty’s family or Tony’s family is unclear; however, a familiar presence in the doorway leads the viewer to believe it’s the latter. In the doorway stands a woman wearing a dress with her hair in a bun; she turns around before the audience can see her face, but the visuals suggest it is Tony’s mother. After catching a glimpse of her, Tony is suddenly reluctant to part with the briefcase and go inside despite the Man encouraging him.

Chase’s inclusion of Tony’s mother in the dream in “Calling All Cars” acts as a great set up for this pivotal scene. The audience has already been shown a metaphysical representation of Tony’s mother in the past and this time can pick up on her right away. With just the outline of Tony’s mother, or a ghost or alternate representation of her, the tone of the scene shifts. She holds such an immense amount of weight in the show’s mythology that her presence causes the story to enter a much darker, scarier phase. By relying on the visual, Chase, along with episode writer Matthew Weiner and director Jack Bender (who would go on to use reliance on visuals in the science-fiction drama Lost [2003–10]), creates a more effective spine tingling moment than if Tony announced that it was his mother or if his mother spoke to him. Because no one directly states what the appearance of his mother signifies, the scene retains an air of mystery. The audience is therefore allowed to interpret what her presence means in regards to Tony’s fate in this alternate universe, but since the viewers know Tony’s mother is a corrupting figure, it appears to foreshadow a very negative future.

Soon after, Tony comes out of his coma. He does not talk much about his experiences in his coma, and the audience is left in the dark as to how much he remembers. One of the few times Tony discusses his experience is in the episode “Kaisha,” when rival mob boss Phil Leotardo has a heart attack. Tony visits him in the hospital and refers to a shared experience they have likely had when they were close to death. Tony says, “I went someplace… but I know I never want to go back there.” The audience immediately knows why: because of the presence of Tony’s mother in whatever world or reality Tony’s consciousness went to when he was in his coma.

Throughout the rest of the final season there are visual callbacks to his coma experience. For instance, before arriving at the Finnerty family reunion, Tony continuously saw a bright flashing light coming from the direction of the inn. The light comes back into play in his actual life. In the episode “Kennedy and Heidi,” while high on acid, Tony fixates on a bathroom light that changes in intensity. Chase, along with episode co-writer Matthew Weiner, gives no dialogue that refers to Tony’s coma reality. Chase trusts the audience will understand what experience Tony is harkening back to. At the end of the episode, there is yet another reference to the beacon of light when Tony, just recovering from his acid trip, stares at the sun, its intensity wavering, just like the beacon in his coma.

One of the most interesting callbacks to Tony’s coma occurs in the series finale of The Sopranos, “Made in America” (6.10.07), written and directed by David Chase. Discussion about the controversial last scene tends to break down to questions of whether or not Tony died, but there is a lot more going on. In the diner where Tony arrives, there is a mural on the back wall that features an inn which bears a startling resemblance to the one Tony went to in his alternate reality, where the Finnerty reunion was being held. That the inn makes a visual appearance during the final scene in The Sopranos shows just how linked the surreal parts of The Sopranos are to the more realistic scenes. Whether on a conscious or a subconscious level, the presence of the mural alerts the viewer to the possibility of some sort of change or decision that needs to be made.

The first shots of Tony and the mural hearken back to the doppelgängers in Twin Peaks. The initial shot is of Tony walking into the diner. The camera then cuts to his perspective, and this is when the audience first sees the mural on the far wall. Chase then cuts back to Tony, who is standing still and looking straight forward. His face is expressionless, and if James Gandolfini’s history in performing Tony Soprano is any clue, this means Tony is mulling an idea over in his head. The camera then cuts back to the viewpoint of the mural and the diner as a whole, but this time Tony is sitting in one of the booths, creating the initial misunderstanding that Tony is in fact watching himself or an alternate version of himself. As Todd Van Der Werff notes, “Every shot there is chosen carefully to at once orient you within the reality of that diner and to subtly disorient you at once. The editing does the same (think, for instance, of that much-discussed cut between Tony seeing the place he’s going to sit and Tony actually sitting there, which seems to suggest he, for a brief moment, sees himself).”

The reoccurrence of the speculative motifs from Tony’s coma experience go right to the themes of The Sopranos. Much of the show revolved around whether or not Tony could change, and with his experience in his coma he was told he could because he was presented with a doppelgänger of himself, one that was living a life sans crime and with a family that loved him. The challenge for Tony was if he could make the life changes in his waking reality. From his coma experience to the end of the show, Chase and his writers had Tony grapple with this, sometimes succeeding in making changes, but more often than not failing and falling back into old habits because he was not willing to make the effort to evolve. The last scene of the final episode brings these issues to the forefront once more with the mural and the sense that Tony is, briefly, seeing a doppelgänger of himself. It is up to the audience to decide if Tony still has it in him to make a difference or if the cut to black marks the end of his emotional journey.

Doppelgängers played a key part in Twin Peaks, which is what makes Chase’s allusions to them of special note. Twin Peaks often played with doppelgängers as a way to present alternate versions of characters or, at least, to present parts of a character that do not usually appear. In the second season finale of Twin Peaks, the doppelgänger of Leland Palmer claims, in a very strained voice, that he did not kill his daughter. From a certain perspective, this is true, yes, as he was being influenced by BOB, yet Leland’s own lust also played a part, and he is therefore not innocent in regards to the death of Laura Palmer. Through his doppelgänger, the audience is able to see how Leland has been grappling with his reality.

The most striking doppelgänger is Cooper’s. Similar to Tony’s in the coma reality, Cooper’s doppelgänger at first appears to be the complete opposite. He is cruel and sadistic whereas the usual Cooper is kind and patient. But it would be a mistake to assume Cooper’s doppelgänger is completely dissimilar to him. Throughout Twin Peaks, Cooper often has an element of barely suppressed rage, especially when it comes to some of the darker elements of the Laura Palmer investigation. Cooper’s doppelgänger is not his opposite so much as a manifestation of a side of Cooper that he doesn’t normally let out. Cooper’s doppelgänger shows a dark life in contrast to Tony’s showing a life influenced by beneficial choices.

While The Sopranos aired and in its aftermath, Chase spoke about Lynch as an influence. For instance, he has said, “But the only model I really had from television was, to a certain slight extent, Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks was a show I really admired.” He then added, “it transcended dialogue” (Lloyd). In a discussion with critic Matt Zoller Seitz, Chase was asked if some of Twin Peaks’ imagery reappeared in The Sopranos. Chase said, “I’d be very apt to say [a shot of tree boughs blowing] was probably influenced by Twin Peaks, because I really did like that image” (Seitz).

Other writers who have studied Lynch picked up on its influences on The Sopranos. For instance, Greg Olson observes, “Indeed, Lynch and Frost’s series directly inspired Chase’s mob-family/family drama: [Chase] thought of The Sopranos as ‘Twin Peaks in the New Jersey Meadowlands’” (301). Chase did not set out to make his drama quite as surreal as Twin Peaks, but he included a number of scenes that were inspired by Lynch. “These Lynchian touches are used sparingly,” writes critic Gary R. Edgerton, “but they serve as an effective counterpoint to the mostly realistic representations that epitomize most of the series” (43).

The Sopranos’ adaptation of Twin Peaks’ visual and thematic style went on to influence another critically acclaimed drama: Mad Men. Mad Men was created by Matthew Weiner, who was one of the head writers of The Sopranos during its last season, so it is not a surprise that Weiner brought many of Chase’s, and by extension Lynch’s, visual approaches to his own drama.

When setting the tone for Mad Men, Weiner had the crew watch Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Weiner later gave a list to the Museum of the Moving Image of the ten films that inspired him while making Mad Men and it included that very film. Weiner said of Blue Velvet, “With stylistic richness and psychological complexity, [Blue Velvet] celebrates the horror of the mundane and is filled with reference to a kitschy and ironic ’50s’ milieu. This incredible observation informed much of the 1980s and became an inspiration for the series and its attempt to equally revise our mythical perception of the period” (Chitwood).

Blue Velvet has much in common with Twin Peaks, especially when addressing the difference between the veneer of America and the reality. Mad Men concerns Don Draper, an advertising executive who is in a permanent state of existential angst. He was born as Dick Whitman and was raised in a brothel, before stealing the identity of a dead man named Don Draper. Matthew Weiner’s Don Draper, along with the rest of Mad Men, acts as a critique of the American Dream, exploring its ultimate hollowness and how people destroy themselves (literally, in the case of Dick Whitman) to achieve the dream only to find themselves still searching for meaning.

Weiner’s dialogue deals with this theme and deals with it well, but like The Sopranos and Twin Peaks, Mad Men uses visuals to communicate meaning. Surreal waking moments, hallucinations, dream sequences, and doppelgängers all haunt Mad Men, bringing it in line with Lynch’s revolutionary drama from almost 20 years before Mad Men’s debut. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Weiner pointed out that Twin Peaks was one of his first inspirations when it came to television: “I was already out of college when Twin Peaks came on, and that was where I became [aware] of what was possible on television” (O’Connell). In an episode of PBS’ America in Primetime, “The Misfits,” Weiner was interviewed and spoke at length concerning how Twin Peaks showed what was behind the “Norman Rockwell painting.” In this respect, Mad Men and Twin Peaks had a similar mission.

The season five finale, “The Phantom” (5.13.2012), is a perfect episode to examine for Lynchian touches. Still reeling from the suicide by hanging of an associate of his, Don begins to spot his dead brother, Adam Whitman, in his work place; his brother also died via hanging; hence this is why he is on Don’s mind. Don first spots him going onto an elevator and calls his name. Adam, or some version of him, looks at him but says nothing as the elevator doors close. Don spots him again the next day, this time working in one of the offices. Don says nothing, a look of grief passing over his face, as if he’s coming to terms with the fact that this ghost will now be haunting him.

Don’s relationship with the deceased Adam takes a darker turn halfway through the episode when Don goes to the dentist thanks to an intense toothache. He is given gas in order to relax as his tooth is pulled out. The camera settles on Don while the dentist steps out and Don breathes in the gas. It is possible that he begins to pass out because his eyes briefly close, but this only happens for a second or two, making the surprise appearance of Adam all the more startling. Adam appears in front of Don and tells him, “You’re in bad shape, Dick.” The use of Don’s real name brings to mind the alternate, or perhaps even “real,” version of our main character if the audience assumes that “Don Draper” is a front for an insecure Dick Whitman. When Adam speaks, he turns his head to the side and reveals a long bruise from where the rope tightened around him when he hanged himself. He informs Don he’s going to pull out the bad tooth before adding, “But it’s not your tooth that’s rotten” (“The Phantom” 5.13.2012).

This more aggressive Adam is not the same as the one presented in the two previous episodes in which he appeared in season one, where he wanted to reconnect with his long lost brother. This version is the one Don thinks he deserves, the one that has barely hidden disdain for Don and how Don abandoned him. Weiner leaves vague how much is hallucination, ghost, or drug induced, but it is clear that Adam’s doppelgänger is a darker version of Don’s brother. When alive, Adam had a boyish eagerness to him, not unlike Cooper in Twin Peaks, and the darkness inside of his doppelgänger is only a slightly tamer version in comparison to Cooper’s doppelgänger in the Red Room.

In the ending moments of “The Phantom,” Weiner uses Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice” during a montage wherein Don Draper considers what version of himself he wants to be. The montage ends with Don being asked by a woman if he’s alone. The audience does not hear his answer, but a sudden change in his demeanor, a sly smile crossing his face, tells the viewer what his answer will be. This is a very sudden shift from what he was only minutes before: a proud husband to his wife who had just secured a part on a daytime soap opera.

“The Phantom” presents the duality in Mad Men, and this was followed up on in the next season. Before the season six premiere, a poster was commissioned by Brian Sanders, one that was heavily vetted by Weiner. The poster displays Don Draper walking down a street, his head to the side as he realizes he’s passing another version of himself, this one in a slightly different colored suit but otherwise identical. The episodes of the sixth season then took the previous season finale’s implications and the hints in the poster to heart, crafting a season that had near constant references to alternate versions of characters. More than seasons past, season six relies on extensive flashbacks to Don Draper’s childhood in a brothel. Weiner has scenes intercut from the well-dressed Don Draper in his late thirties to the poor raggedy kid known as Dick Whitman.

Midway through season six there is a particularly potent episode titled “A Tale of Two Cities” (6.2.2013), which features Don at a party in California. Already a little drunk, he accepts a woman’s invitation to smoke some hashish with her. Two scenes later, Weiner and episode director John Slattery catch the audience back up with Don who is now kissing the woman who offered him hashish. She refers to him as “Don” and he replies, “I told you that’s not my name.” There is no explanation, but it is fair to assume he told her he’s Dick Whitman at one point and Don Draper at another.

The scene only becomes more Lynchian from there on. Megan Draper, Don’s wife, appears next to him even though the audience is aware she is back in New York. Like Adam, Megan is not truly Megan, but an alternate version of her that Don is seeing during what turns out to be a near death experience, recalling Tony’s coma trip and Cooper’s visit to the Red Room. In reality, Don fell in the pool at the party after drinking and smoking, but he sees a vision of himself in which he is fine and with his wife, who encourages him to experiment with other women. Because Don has been suffering from guilt over his affairs, this version of Megan is a blessing since she is giving him permission to do what he wants. She takes his hand and leads him into another room. The direction of this scene heavily recalls Lynch’s because it is seen through the perspective of Don. The camera moves forward, locked on Megan, as if the audience was seeing through Don’s eyes; he never appears in the shot. This point of view technique is one Lynch has used many times, including at the beginning of Eraserhead, during Jeffrey Beaumont’s nighttime walk in Blue Velvet, and during Laura Palmer’s entrance into her bedroom where BOB waits for her in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

When Megan stops walking she tells Don, “Everybody’s looking for you.” Who “everybody” is remains unstated, but since Don is having a near death experience, it becomes safe to assume that some alternate world is beckoning to him. This is further expounded upon when Megan is replaced by a man in a military outfit: PFC Dinkins, a man Don met when he was on vacation in the season premiere. Dinkins informs Don, “My wife thinks I’m MIA; but I’m actually dead.” When Don questions him on his healthy appearance, Dinkins replies, “Dying doesn’t make you whole; you should see what you look like.” (“A Tale of Two Cities,” 6.10.2013).

Director John Slattery then cuts to Don standing over the pool, watching himself drown. This is an image not too dissimilar from Cooper seeing himself, and alternate versions of others, in the Red Room, some in states of rather extreme despair. Characters facing themselves, or a version of themselves, and deciding what to do with what they’ve just seen, is a recurring motif in both Twin Peaks and Mad Men. For much of Mad Men Don Draper attempts to change, but ends up not following through, while Cooper allows the experiences he has to change him, at least to some extent, which is why he is always the most open-minded person on the show. He is, after all, the man who believes that throwing rocks at soda bottles will help him find the next clue to Laura Palmer’s murderer, and it does.

However, after a number of false starts, Don Draper does grow over the course of Mad Men, especially toward the end of its run. In the seventh season episode “Waterloo” (5.25.2014), Draper sees his now dead boss, Bert Cooper, sing “The Best Things in Life Are Free” in the middle of the offices of Sterling Cooper and Partners. The moment is surreal, to put it lightly, as the deceased Cooper dances with secretaries, secretaries who have never before been seen in Mad Men. The scene is not literal, but rather symbolic of Don’s emotional progress.

Despite coming from signing a deal worth millions, Don is still at a loss and, after seasons of existential crises, he realizes his job in advertising is not going to be the answer to his problems. In order to communicate this to the audience, Weiner inserts the surreal dance number with Bert Cooper. Weiner could have had Don tell someone about his new revelation, but the impact on the audience is greater thanks to both the surprise appearance of Bert Cooper and the surreal musical number. By throwing aside the normal approach to television communication, dialogue, Weiner creates a more memorable and impactful revelation than would have otherwise been possible.

The surrealism, dreams, and doppelgängers that permeate Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, and Mad Men show that the dramas are in conversation with one another. With The Sopranos and Mad Men being referred to as prestige television, Twin Peaks only looks more and more influential, considering how much of its DNA is found in the way the two recent dramas tell their visual stories.

Twin Peaks’ legacy continues with other shows. True Detective (2014–present) uses the idea of there being a thin barrier between the real and the unreal in its first season, allowing the audience to wonder if the supernatural played into the events that unfolded. Boardwalk Empire (2010–14) uses dreams to explain the mindset of its lead character, Nucky Thompson. There will be no shortage of Lynchian touches on television screens. So long as there is great television, hints of Twin Peaks will always be found.

WORKS CITED

Chitwood, Adam. “Matthew Weiner Reveals the 10 Films That Influenced Mad Men.” Collider. 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. http://collider.com/mad-men-movie-influences-matthew-weiner/.

Edgerton, Gary R. The Sopranos. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013. Print.

Lloyd, Robert. “David Chase on The Sopranos, the Small Screen, and Rock & Roll.” House of Here. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. http://www.houseofhere.com/Weekly/davidchase01.html.

Lynch, David. Lynch on Lynch. Ed. Chris Rodley. London: Faber, 2005. Print.

Nochimson, Martha P. “Don’t Call ‘Twin Peaks’ a ‘Cult Classic.’” Salon. 13 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Feb. 2015. http://www.salon.com/2014/10/13/dont_call_twin_peaks_a_cult_classic/.

O’Connell, Michael. “Showrunners 2012: ‘Mad Men’s’ Matthew Weiner.” The Hollywood Reporter. 3 Oct. 2012. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.

Olson, Greg. David Lynch: Beautiful Dark. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2011. Print.

Seitz, Matt Zoller. “David Chase on the Legacy of Twin Peaks.” Vulture. 7 May 2015. Web. 21 May 2015. http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/david-chase-twin-peaks-legacy.html.

VanDerWerff, Todd. “Made in America.” The A.V. Club. 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2015. http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/the-sopranos-made-in-america-89671.