Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
Although David Lynch’s name almost always gets brought up first in conversations about his classic cult TV show Twin Peaks, it’s worth remembering that the series was always a collaboration between Lynch and a lot of people—most notably his co-creator and co-writer, Mark Frost. Frost (who co-wrote every episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, and was responsible for what’s technically been the final word in Twin Peaks worldbuilding, 2017 novel The Final Dossier) owned the rights to the series along with Lynch, who died in January of 2025. So there was always a potential universe where Frost could try to keep the show going, building on ideas he’d bandied about with Lynch for a potential fourth season. (He’s said, in the past, that he and Lynch had had “a little bit of a recipe forming” for a possible continuation.)
But said universe is not this universe, as Frost has now basically confirmed that Peaks died with Lynch. “We had talked a little bit about where a fourth season might go,” Frost revealed in a conversation with Empire Magazine this month. “But with David having left us, it’s hard to imagine doing anything beyond this. It certainly feels like it closed the circle.”
Frost went on to talk about some initial disagreements the duo had had about what will now almost certainly be the final moments of Twin Peaks, from The Return‘s deliberately dark and confusing finale. “Initially, David and I were in two minds about how to end The Return,” Frost said in the interview, specifying that the two disagreed about what should happen after the audacious moment when Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper goes back in time to try to prevent Laura Palmer’s series-inciting death. “I felt that Cooper going back and rescuing Laura, then having the mystery of her death disappear, might be an extraordinary way to bring us back to ground zero. But David said, ‘He has to pay a price for what he’s tried to do.’” Hence the more overtly horrific vibe of the final episode, with Cooper apparently stuck (with a woman, played by Sheryl Lee, who certainly looks like an adult Laura Palmer) in a hostile-feeling reality. “Sheryl Lee was incredible,” Frost continues. “This is the moment when the full horror comes back to this poor soul; it’s the price Laura Palmer pays for Cooper’s attempted good deed.” Seemingly satisfied, Frost concludes by noting, “That was the end of this story.” Fair enough.
[via ComicBook.com]
