Theory about Judy

Well now. I'm not gonna talk about Judy. in fact, we're not gonna talk about Judy at all! We're gonna keep her out of it!

A couple of points -

*I do remember MIKE saying that he saw "the face of god", which caused him to turn against BOB. Whatever caused him to see that "face" is totally unknown.

*Jeffries' not wanting to talk about Judy seemed more motivated by fear or simple incomprehension rather than the "pointlessness" of such a topic - I mean, real or not as a spirit, it certainly would be of interest!

*I like your idea, but let's do remember we have really NOTHING else to do on. And I seriously doubt anything related to Twin Peaks will be published / canonized / filmed again. So, we have to just float ideas out there for fun. There is no evidence at all as to what caused MIKE to see the "face of god" and turn away from BOB, so anything else after that is pure speculation.

It's still fun after all these years to read what people might see in the film. FWWM is so richly layered.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

This theory works for me, with the stipulation that I don't think Lynch and Engels had ANY idea where Judy would lead. Like the Red Room or Killer Bob, I think the inspiration came first, without knowing the meaning. That's how Lynch works, and (to me at least) it's completely valid and in a way more effective than schematically starting with a "meaning" and trying to impose the spooky/uncanny vibe afterwards. Because the Twin Peaks universe ended with Fire Walk With Me, we'll never get to know what Lynch would have discovered Judy to be, and neither will he. That said, taking the film on its own terms, the notion of Judy as the perpetual victim works quite well and is consistent with Lynch's larger themes.

The trick with all the Black Lodge lore is to view it in a way that recognizes it on two levels: the obviously supernatural realm within which it operates, and an allegorical realm in which it amplifies rather than trivializes the real-world situation. We know that the Lodge figures are neither purely "out there" fantasy characters nor "just-in-their-heads" psychological metaphors, based on the evidence we see in the film, the presentation of people like Leland and even Cooper in a way as "responsible" for the possession, and Lynch's own statements (for someone usually withdrawn about interpreting his own work, he's made several rather revealing remarks about Bob, the Lodge, and the Laura/Leland relationship).

Well, a few days after stating that I don't think Lynch & Engels knew where they'd be taking Judy in future films, a new idea occurs to me. Warning: it contains spoilers for Vertigo as well as Twin Peaks.

What if Judy was, as the OP states, a victim of Bob - but what if she was to be the NEXT victim? And what if she was to be played by Sheryl Lee yet again, allowing her to complete the triptych of blonde/brunette/redhead that Lynch had promised her before the show was cancelled?

The idea occurred to me when I was thinking about Maddy - how apparently her name was explicitly selected to evoke Madeleine from Vertigo, the Hitchcock character possessed by a dead relative (and, as it turns out, one half of a dual identity). Of course, Laura's name itself evokes the 1944 film Laura, in which everyone rhapsodizes over a dead girl before it turns out she's not really dead.

But, I wondered, what happened to the other half of Madeleine's identity - the character Kim Novak plays in the second half of the film? Why didn't they ever name a character after her? Though Vertigo is one of my favorite films, I had trouble remembering the other character's name until, suddenly, like a monkey whispering in my ear, it occurred to me: "...Judy!"

Now, I'm not one to attribute master plans or over-analytical theories to Lynch; I believe his claims that he usually makes things up as he goes along (for example Bob and the Red Room), taking inspiration from his subconscious before weaving it into a larger thread. I still think the most likely explanation is that he and Engels liked the sound of this mysterious "Judy" and figured they'd expand on it at leisure in future films.

That said, there are also times when Lynch has elements planned beforehand (think, by most accounts, Leland being the murderer) and we know that Twin Peaks is rife with very self-conscious film references despite Lynch not proclaiming much interest in cinephilia - Waldo the bird (property of Dr. Lydecker) is a also a Laura reference, and Gordon Cole is from Sunset Boulevard.

Furthermore, we know how much Lynch loved working with Sheryl Lee and how he kept inventing reasons to bring her back. Thinking of Judy as Bob's next victim, someone who would be falling under the Black Lodge's spell in the intended follow-up film makes a lot of sense out of the numerous non sequiturs Judy references in the film. First of all, "We're not gonna talk about Judy" since the Black Lodge exists outside of time and space - so Bowie knows about her, but the people outside aren't ready or able to hear about it yet. Secondly, of course, the monkey whispering at the end which always seemed, while coolly enigmatic, a bit of a distraction from the tragedy and catharsis of the Laura ending, becomes a preface for the next film in which Judy will be the focus and signifies a kind of passage of victimhood from Laura to Judy (although I guess if we're being strictly chronological, the monkey should say, "Maddy!").

I feel slightly embarrassed typing all this, like one of those Shining acolytes claiming Kubrick was making a film about his role in faking the moon landing, but I'll admit I really like this idea. Not only does it tie into the idea of a larger Twin Peaks universe, but it means Lee would have continued to play a role in that universe, just as Novak played both Maddy and Judy as different aspects of the same character. I wonder if a Judy Fire Walk With Me would have been like Mulholland Drive in a way, watching a character go from light to dark.

While Lynch and Engels may have (and probably didn't) intend any of this, I wonder if as they'd explored Judy in future films their thinking would have gone in this direction. I'm not one to hope for alternate realities especially when I like what we've got (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire are great movies I wouldn't want to lose) but contemplating this one is poignant.

Then again, it's not too late now for a Lee-Lynch-Judy project. Lynch said in 2000 that Twin Peaks was dead as a doornail. But then, so was Laura Palmer...

I think there's something tangible about Judy that may have precipitated the decision to involve the FBI with the Teresa Banks murder. Because Banks was the first of the Leland/BOB murders, there's nothing really notable about it other than a possible similarity that it may have had to a previous crime which I suspect may have been carried out by MIKE. Jeffries seemed to have seen what some of the Lodge was about but didn't have the mental stability to fully understand or describe it and was transformed into an electrical surge that disappeared and reappeared at different places around the world.

When I write this out, it seems to both make sense and no sense at the same time.

The woods.
-- Forest communities, snags, pits, mounds, etc.
-- Birnham Wood
-- Boise (Le bois! Le bois!) and people named Boyce, Bois, or Boethius
-- Pennsylvania impressionist painter Walter Emerson Baum (Often used a touch of red in a landscape, as The Red Sleigh http://www.encore-editions.com/walter-emerson-baum-the-red-sleigh)
-- L. Frank Baum
Etc.

The twin peaks -- [mis]use of people, [mis]use of the woods, or of nature? Gordon Cole spends a lot of time in Bend; when Cooper went looking for Chet Desmond's trail we see him at Wind River, apparently where Teresa's body was found. There is a major forest observatory along that river. Bringing the themes together?

So we might indeed reflect upon that real case of Judy from Bend. And all those railroad references in the whole saga might equally point to the history of the Northwest, and to the frequency with which the horror of victims like Judy is compounded by the railroading of stigmatized but possibly innocent substitutes for the truly guilty ones, who sometimes then go free to prey on others.


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I grew up in the woods. I understand many things because of the woods.
—Margaret Lanterman, Twin Peaks.

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