The Big Bad Wolf

Warning: This post contains spoilers and disturbing subject matter. This is posted out of a wish to share information, not due to a lack of sensitivity. Contains spoilers.

The following came to me as I was viewing Twin Peaks and reading its scripts in tandem. Usually, my viewing of the series is at a leisurely pace due to time restraints - only a few minutes a day or every other day. However, in preparation for meeting Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise, I began to watch episodes in quick succession. By doing so, I was able to piece together dialogue that had previously eluded me.

The scenes in question take place at One-Eyed Jack's during Audrey's investigation.

In the script to episode nine, a portion of Audrey's dialogue with Emory Battis is as below:

AUDREY 
Once upon a time there was this innocent little girl named Red. That's me. And she met a horrible wolf. That's you. And the wolf took her to a secret place and did terrible things to her against her will. But the little girl was tougher than she looked. She kicked the crap out of the big bad wolf, and told her father all about it. After that she told the police. And the bad old wolf went to prison for a thousand years. 

The televised version:
Audrey: Once upon a time, there was a sweet, innocent little girl named Red. That's me. And she met a bad old wolf. That's you. She kicked the crap out of that wolf, and she told her daddy all about it. Then she told the police. And the bad old wolf went to jail for a million years.

The scene containing this dialogue occurs during Audrey's first encounter with Emory Battis after going undercover at One-Eyed Jack's.

The following exchange takes place between Audrey (posing as Prudence) and Ben Horne as he pays a visit to 'the new girl' in the script to episode eight.

AUDREY
(changing her voice)
Who's there? 

BEN 
The big bad wolf. 

It seems more than a coincidence that Ben should call himself 'The Big Bad Wolf' when Audrey later uses the same name for her abuser. Many have brought to attention the suggestion of incest in the scene at One-Eyed Jack's, how it almost acts as a precursor to what is discovered about Laura and her father. Both girls wear masks, both symbolically and physically. They have an odd connection and similarities.

The story Audrey tells Battis of herself reminds me of Laura, with the wolf being BOB/Leland and Red Laura: Once upon a time, there was this sweet, innocent little girl named Red. And she met a bad old wolf. And the wolf took her to a secret place and did terrible things to her against her will. But the little girl was tougher than she looked. She kicked the crap out of the bad old wolf.

BOB is on many occasions tied to animals; owls, dogs, wildcats, and wolves, among others. He often throws back his head and emits a cry or a barking howl evoking the image of a wolf. In the script to episode sixteen, his howl is described as such,

The moment Ben {Leland} realizes he is locked in, he begins to howl like a caged wolf. 

Though she and Laura already had a lot in common, Audrey ultimately gets to know Laura in ways she could not have foreseen. She works at the perfume counter, takes on the role of a 52 Pick-Up, is placed in a horrific scenario with her father, and experiences the effect of drugs. According to a post on the Dugpa forum, Audrey even told Blackie her first name was Laura in the first draft of episode seven.

Battis even mentions a similarity Audrey shares with Laura.

BATTIS
Laura always got what she wanted. Just like you. Understand?

The repetition chills her.

The text below is from the script for episode eight. The words tinted red were deleted from the televised version. All dialogue within brackets is copied from the televised episode with actions described as seen. Asterisks indicate personal observations.

INT. ONE-EYED JACK'S BEDROOM  NIGHT

CLOSE on AUDREY'S eye, peering out from between the curtains, draped around the fourposter in her room. Audrey stands on the bed. There are two masks on the wall above the headboard. {The scene begins with Ben entering the room and knocking on the wall. Audrey had been sitting by the bed, waiting. Hearing him, she hurriedly moves onto the four-poster bed.}

BEN HORNE enters the room, sees movement behind the curtains. {*He knocks before noticing.}

BEN
Knock, knock. (pause) Knock. Knock. {Ben notices the movement behind the curtains. BEN: Come on, let's have a look at the new girl [*dubbed]}

AUDREY
(changing her voice)
Who's there?

BEN
The big bad wolf.

AUDREY
Go away.

BEN
Interesting. (Takes a moment) Come on, let's have a look at you.

AUDREY
I'm shy.

BEN
Didn't you know? Everybody's shy. Here at One-Eyed Jack's it's a transitory condition. And an occupational handicap.

He tries to pry the curtain apart for a look, she snaps it shut. He takes out a cigar; having been through this before, he falls back on technique.

BEN (CONTINUED)
But, consider; your first night in a new place, new surroundings, new people.

AUDREY
New wardrobe.

BEN 
(warming to the task)
- naturally you are full of questions, anxieties. You're wondering "What's expected of me? how will I be received? will they ... like me?" I'm right, aren't I?

AUDREY
Yes.

Ben patrols the perimeter, toying with the curtains, as she moves with him, defending her translucent barrier, trying to anticipate his angle of attack.

BEN
Let's examine these feelings, shall we? What are they if not the natural emotional processes of any living, breathing person who finds herself thrust ... into new circumstances?

AUDREY
(pause)
Could you repeat the question?

(CONTINUED)
6.
4. CONTINUED:(2)

BEN
You're nervous, you're shy, you're frightened: of course you are... (another thought) How exactly new to all this are you?

AUDREY
You might say ... brand new.

BEN
(the thought cheers him)
Really.

AUDREY
For instance, if I was a bar of soap, I'd still be wrapped in my package.

BEN
(enthusiasm swells)
Alright' fine, now I have to see you ...

He puts his cigar in his mouth, tries to open the curtain again; she thwarts him. He thrusts a hand inside. She slaps it away. {*Notice that when Ben is shown again, he has a cigar in his mouth when seconds earlier he was empty-handed. It would have been physically impossible for him to place a cigar in his mouth and light it while trying to pry open the curtains. I underlined an earlier scene where Ben tried to open the curtains. I think what we see is the result of clever editing and the combination of the two scenes.}

BEN (CONTINUED)
(happy)
A vixen! What's your name? {The scene abruptly cuts to Jerry and Blackie}

AUDREY
Queen of Diamonds.

BEN 
No, no, no, your real name.

AUDREY 
I'm not supposed to tell.

BEN 
Did they tell you who I was?

AUDREY
The owner?

BEN
That's right. Tell me your name.

AUDREY
You wouldn't believe me.

(CONTINUED)
7.
4. CONTINUED:(3)

BEN
I'm a liberal thinker.

AUDREY
Prudence.

BEN
Prudence!
{The scene returns from Jerry and Blackie}

AUDREY
I think you should go {now.}

BEN
Do you, Prudence?

AUDREY
Yes I do. I really do.

BEN
(pause)
All right. {If you insist}

She listens cautiously. Ben walks to the door, opens and closes it, tiptoes back into the room, towards the bed. {Audrey reaches for a mask.} He triumphantly throws the curtains open.

BEN (CONTINUED)
'Got you!

She's hiding under the covers, a conspicuous lump. Ben advances.

BEN
(CONTINUED)
I'll huff ... and I'll puff ... and I'll blow your house down!

He yanks the covers away. She's revealed: a mask covers her features.

BEN
(CONTINUED)
Aren't you ... something?

He advances further. She retreats. He reaches for her, she slaps his hands away, grabs a pillow and whacks him across the head. He laughs. She's backed against the wall. He reaches for her mask.

BEN
(CONTINUED)
Please ... I have to ... {I've got to see you. I must} see you ...

{Audrey: Go away. I'm shy.}

{Ben: Didn't they tell you who I was?}

{Audrey: The owner?}

{Ben: That's right.} {*Look at Ben's mouth as he is supposedly saying this. There is a cigar held tightly between his lips. His jaw does not move. This dialogue is from earlier deleted dialogue.)

His hand reaches the mask. An urgent knock at the door. Ben hesitates. Another knock.

JERRY HORNE'S VOICE
Ben, it's Jer! Brother Ben, we've got a situation!

BEN
So have I.

JERRY HORNE'S VOICE
{Brother} Ben, it's the M-I-L-L! And we got a big S-N-A-G! Ring a bell?

BEN (to Audrey)
Alas, I do have a situation. {*All the dialogue since my last note appears added. Ben's mouth doesn't always seem to move as he speaks. Jerry's voice sounds as though it was recorded at a later date in the studio.}

AUDREY
Gee, that's too bad.

{Jerry:
Come on Ben.}

{Ben: Coming, Jer.)

BEN (all business, rising, putting on coat) I like you. You know how to interest a man. That's half the battle. You've got quite a future in front of you.

AUDREY
That's what everyone keeps telling me.

JERRY'S VOICE
Ben, I'm gonna count to three 

BEN
Coming, Jer! (straightens his tie, checks the mirror) Prudence, I'm leaving now, but I'm going to get myself back up here to see you right away. And next time we'll play a different game. I'll make the rules. A fun game. You'll like it. {A fun game.} Everybody wins.

He drops some money the table, blows her a kiss and blows out of the room.

Audrey lowers the mask. She's laughing silently, tears running down her face, close to the edge.

Note that in the televised episode, Ben says, "I'll huff ... and I'll puff ... and I'll blow your house down!" continuing with the theme of the big bad wolf, as though in the previous dialogue where he referred to himself as such was recorded. Also of interest is dialogue that, at first glance, appears unscripted due to its placement. I believe it is from an earlier deleted scene when Ben tells "Prudence" he is the owner. I have underlined both areas in the scripted dialogue. As stated, the dialogue in brackets is what is in the finished episode. I urge viewers to listen to the scene with headphones. The changes in their voices are obvious.

Audrey's mask and Ben's often obscured face gave the editor(s) freedom to add and delete dialogue. In some cases, as throughout the series, a shot that cuts and moves to another person is an indicator of deleted dialogue or action. Note that the last scene cuts from Audrey and Ben to focus on Audrey alone (though we can't read her face due to the mask), closing in after Ben leaves the bed. He may or may have not left money on the bedside table. There must have been something they desired to crop from view, thus giving us a closeup of Audrey.

Later in the script, Audrey is brought to Blackie's office due to a complaint from the owner. Audrey concocts an excuse for the previous night. She says she was trying to give him the thrill of conquest. Then, after being questioned, she says he was attractive but not her type.

Blackie rises and insinuates her way right up to Audrey. She touches Audrey's cheek.

BLACKIE
And who would you say is your type, exactly?

AUDREY
Not you. No offense.

Blackie slaps her hard. Audrey raises her hand to slap back. Blackie catches her wrist.

BLACKIE
Let's get one thing straight between us, princess ...

AUDREY (not flinching)
Okay.

Audrey hears the snick of a lock engaging. [She looks down.] Blackie's put a handcuff on her wrist.

BLACKIE (CONTINUED)
When you work for me, everybody's your type. Whether you like it or not.

They look at each other.

The next time Audrey appears is when she lies in bed saying her prayer, hoping that Agent Cooper will rescue her. 

INT. ONE-EYED JACK'S BEDROOM NIGHT
A frightened and bewildered, and slightly bruised, Audrey lies on her bed.

In the televised episode, a security guard apprehends Audrey in Blackie's office. There are no handcuffs. Audrey doesn't appear to be bruised as she prays. Her bruised state mentioned in the script seems to imply abuse through the agency of Blackie O'Reilly.

It is important to know that after officially becoming a member of the 52 Pick-Ups, Audrey was kept locked in the "Little Flower Room" without food. In a deleted scene between Audrey and Nancy, Audrey complains of being hungry and asks when she will be fed. Nancy replies that the kitchen is open 24/7.

AUDREY
Yeah? My door isn't. There's no doorknob on my side.

PICK-UP 
That's for security.

AUDREY
Whose security?

PICK-UP
All the new girls get this room at first.

AUDREY
(this is interesting)
All of them?

PICK-UP
Until they trust you.

After her talk with Blackie, during which she is handcuffed in the script, she is next seen in bed reciting a prayer. We know from both the script and the televised episode that Audrey was locked in her room. But by episode nine, she is, without explanation, free to roam the building.

Audrey's first scene in the script for episode nine is in the "Get Acquainted Room" where she is having breakfast with the other girls. How did she suddenly gain their trust other than by having met some requirement? Blackie's threat and her use of handcuffs serve as a guideline in theory as to what may have happened in an early idea.

In The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer, Laura has an encounter with Blackie that slightly reminds me of the scripted scene with Audrey.

Blackie interrupted me with a slap across the face. She looked me in the eye and said, "I'm going to teach you a thing or two about fucking right now."   

Blackie may have hurt Audrey, or she may have selected someone to be the girl's first client. This is all in theory, working from ideas that may have never materialized in the form of a script.

Reading the available scripts in detail has given me cause to believe that some early ideas were planned far in advance. Though, when changes were made, they were not always later amended in the best fashion.

The most obvious theory other than those previously mentioned is that Audrey's Big Bad Wolf story is only a threat. A similar accusation of molestation as in episode five (1.005, Cooper's Dreams).

From the script:

AUDREY
Emory, here's what we're going to do. You're going to tell my father I'm busy as a bee wrapping boxes down with the drones and then you're going to put me to work behind the perfume counter this afternoon -- (before he can speak) because if you don't I'm going to rip my sweater in half and scream at the top of my lungs and tell my father you made a pass at me. Does that help clear things up for you? Emory? 

She grabs her sweater, ready to rip and scream. 

Audrey would then literally become the girl who cried wolf, something that is said of Donna later in the series.

Moreover, at one point during the initial shaping of ideas, Emory or another character may have sexually abused Audrey. I do not think all storylines were set in granite. As I can recall from interviews, second season scripts were being written as episodes aired. Kimmy Robertson and Mädchen Amick have spoken about scenes sometimes filmed in various ways during the second season. The Entire Mystery Blu-Ray has proof of two alternative scenes. If such means were employed, how are we to know what may have once passed through the writers' minds? Logically, there were other ways Audrey could have conducted her investigation. She need never have set foot in One-Eyed Jacks. She could have discovered all she eventually gleaned while remaining at the perfume counter at Horne's Department Store. Emory Battis was the sole provider of information as the series plays out. Audrey being undercover at Horne's would have made an interesting plot for two or three episodes. In the scripts, Nancy shared some information with Audrey at One-Eyed Jack's, but those scenes were ultimately cut. In other words, scenes that involved the true reason for Audrey being at One-Eyed Jack's, her investigation, were seen as insignificant. As a female viewer, the real reason for Audrey going undercover in a brothel is fairly apparent. 

DescriptionMädchen 

Audrey seems weak, mentally and physically exhausted, when she calls Agent Cooper, telling him he looked like a movie star in his tuxedo. She's different, as though she's suffered in some way other than discovering her father is the owner of One-Eyed Jack's.

Later in the series, Battis's poor behavior toward Audrey is brought up by Jean Renault. Heavily drugged, all Audrey can manage to say is that Emory hit her. The man is shot by Renault for his transgressions. Is all she can manage merely the surface of his cruelty? Was he once guilty of far worse?

RENAULT
Audrey, have you been mistreated?

Battis reacts. What the hell is this? Audrey pauses, then looks hard at Battis.

AUDREY
(the best she can manage)
He hit me.

BATTIS
I did not hit her. If that's what you're thinking. I didn't.

In episode fifteen, Audrey and Cooper have the following exchange:

AUDREY
(needs forgiveness from somewhere) 
Agent Cooper, when I was at One Eyed Jacks, I never ... I never let anyone ...

COOPER
You don't have to say anything.

AUDREY
{But I want you to know}

COOPER
(strong)
I know.

Was the purpose of this scene also meant to reaffirm to the viewer that Audrey had not slept with anyone?

Of additional interest is something director Caleb Deschanel said in the Twin Peaks bonus feature Into The Night: Creating Season Two (found on the Definitive Gold Box Edition, The Entire Mystery, etc.) Deschanel gave brief examples of how he believed the second season could have been improved, one of which involved Audrey becoming pregnant. Which, in my opinion, always seemed odd and unconnected to the story as we know it.

In Brad Duke's Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks, Sherilyn Fenn is quoted as saying this of Audrey: "She was a virgin. That was a big thing. I remember David said, "Audrey's still a virgin. People might think these things because she's strong and you look a certain way, but she's a virgin and this is her first love." In a 1990 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, the following is written, "The secret Audrey has never told: Her virtue is intact. ”Absolutely and completely,” declares Sherilyn. ”It’s like big talk. She absolutely hasn’t been with anybody. She acts like she has. She wants to. That is her secret.”

Audrey's virginity is brought up in the series as well.

Pairing this information with Caleb Deschanel's comment, whose focus was the improvement of the latter part of the second season, i.e. before John Justice Wheeler, Cooper would be the only candidate as the father of her child - unless something happened at One-Eyed Jack's.

This is a mystery that, like so many others in Twin Peaks, will likely remain unsolved.