Lynch has been open about how Season 2 lost a step, so there literally is no one who will debate that it took a turn. And as anyone who's ever seen something not by David Lynch self-described as intentionally Lynchian, you know that's going to be troubled. And without the mystery to underpin it, things began to unravel what is intriguing as side-product doesn't quite work as the primary focus.Īt the same time, Lynch and Frost moved away from the show they had other creative commitments and so handed over the reigns to other writers and directors. You know, exactly what had started to turn viewers off and was hardly of interest to those brought back by the resolution. With the Palmer incest-murder resolved, Twin Peaks only continued in the narrative direction it had been going in previously - the darkness of the Black Lodge and evil designs of Dale Cooper's former partner Wyndham Earl. Quite what ABC was thinking is unclear, but if you believe that people are only watching for a mystery, you don't answer that mystery in a rush (something they learned from with Lost, although there delay led to eventual annoyance as well).

This led to a massive uptick in viewership for a few weeks, but then with no major narrative power behind it, it dropped again. This and the surrounding episodes are some of Twin Peaks' best, the perfect example of how Lynch was able to go full-pelt weird and deliver it to a mass audience.

So it was that in Season 2 Episode 7, less than halfway through the season, Twin Peaks answered its defining question Laura has been killed by her father, Leland, who had been abusing her for years under the influence of malevolent evil spirit BOB). But there's no avoiding that was the show's core appeal, and as the second season wore on the network grew increasingly angsty about this seeing an early Season 2 drop when the story began to diverge into more eccentric directions of tangential importance they demanded a resolution. Whether they knew who even did it when they began is up for debate.

How The Laura Palmer Reveal Killed Twin Peaksīy all accounts, David Lynch and Mark Frost had never planned to reveal who killed Laura Palmer.

Twin peaks season two