Notes for Season One, Episode One (#1.001)

This post contains notes made during my most recent viewing (September 2019) of Twin Peaks season one, episode one. Many scenes from the script are included.

Warning: Contains spoilers for later episodes.

Red text indicates deleted dialogue. 
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• Cooper: 
  Let's also run a top to bottom on Bobby's vehicle. Let's see what that brings us. We'll also check on the autopsy on Laura Palmer and see what that brings in. Oh, we'll also going to want to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Palmer (possible skip) but let's give them a few days to deal with their grief. 

No information was ever disclosed on the findings in Bobby's vehicle. 
 

• Laura's autopsy report has Doc Hayward's first name as John. Not to be confused with Joe Fielding who conducted the post-mortem while Hayward assisted.

• COOPER

        And you've examined Ronette Pulaski as  well.

                HAYWARD
            (composing himself)
  Yes. Wound patterns are consistent. In my mind, there's no question the same.   
 perpetrator attacked them both. ("in that train car" added in series)

              HAYWARD
 She suffered a severe head wound, it's still too early to tell, add to that the psychological impact of the fear, probably witnessing what happened to Laura before her ...

                COOPER
        The answer's in there somewhere.

The idea that 'the answer' is within Ronette is sadly never followed. 

• Why is 'Twin Peaks' one word on Leo's truck?
  
  
  
  
  
• She (Shelly) starts to tremble. She hears a car horn beep outside. She looks out the window, sees Norma's car pull in near the truck but she doesn't see Leo. She hears the screen door open and bang shut in the other room.
  
  The sounds are omitted in the televised episode but when Shelly is looking at the shirt, she looks up quickly as though she heard something. She does this twice, which indicates the sounds were not added for some reason.
  
  
• Leo's mouth moves though he is not heard speaking while pinching Shelly's cheek. There is an abrupt ending to the scene as if something was cut.
  
  
•   JAMES
    It was secret because that's the way she wanted it.
  
  COOPER
  Why? Was she afraid of Bobby?

       
            JAMES
            I think so.

Script version:

          COOPER
       Why do you suppose that was, James? Do you think it had something to do with Bobby?

                JAMES
        It had everything to do with Bobby.

                COOPER
        Why? Was she afraid of Bobby?

                JAMES
        I think so.

•  James:
  No. I tried to get her to stop. And she did for a while. 
  
  'And she did for a while' is very obviously added in the televised episode.

• Laura wrote 1988 in her diary in the entry above "DAY ONE".
  
  
• Something was erased from Laura's diary under "DAY ONE!"
  
  
  
  
  
  

• In the script, Cooper shows James the diary entry and then the necklace. In the series, it's the opposite.

• "Now my heart belongs to you," Laura said this to James in the flashback. This line is not in the script.

• 
  

          Deleted dialogue found in the script:

                BOBBY
        Yeah, Thursday.
   
                MIKE
    Wait a minute, that night we followed Laura back to her place after she left your house --
   
                BOBBY
        Check. We had a couple brewskis and I
        dropped you off.

                MIKE
        Check.
   
                BOBBY
            (lowering his voice further)
And then I went to see Leo, 'cause I had this money burning a ten thousand dollar hole in my pocket.
   
Bobby and Mike following Laura is never mentioned again.

• The holding area door opens. Hawk leads James back in and takes him back to his cell. Bobby jumps up from his cot and moves to the bars.

   
                BOBBY
        Oh, look at that. Here comes that accident waiting to happen.
   
                HAWK
        That could constitute a threat, Briggs.
   
                BOBBY
        Gee, I'm sorry.
   
James enters his cell.

This scene is from the pilot though it's listed in the script for episode one. It does not appear in the pilot script. 

• Interesting that in the script, after Doc Hayward says, "Who would do a thing like that?" (in relation to who would kill Laura) the next scene is Bobby and Mike in their holding cell, not Leo Johnson. Bobby is the figure most pointed to in the script.
  
  
• "Bite marks on shoulder and tongue. Probably self inflicted." How could Doc Hayward confuse wounds made by a bird for human bites? 
  
  
• The same perp attacked them in the train car, Doc Hayward says. Perp - singular - after saying she had sexual relations with three men.
  
  
• Cooper looks at Doc knowingly, interested as he details the post-mortem. He seems to be evaluating him. 
  
  
• Why does it seem to change from rape to 'sexual relations'? Ronette is said to have been raped in the pilot. Cooper believes it is by the same perpetrator. 
  
  
• According to the script, Mike and Donna have been dating for two years. In the Secret Diary, the first mention of Mike dating Donna was made on December 16, 1987.
  
  
• Sheriff Truman says he's been seeing Josie for six weeks. Her husband died a year and a half ago. In the pilot, Harry says Andrew died in a boating accident last year. 

• In the script, Eileen Hayward was doing needlepoint, which seems more like Betty Briggs. In the series, Eileen was watching TV while drawing a 'C' on a piece of construction paper. 
  
  
  
  
  
• Eileen was supposed to be listening to opera music in the script. Though we don't hear it, in the televised episode she has a remote on her notebook, perhaps indicating that music was playing. The audio we hear is a television broadcast of the news. (I heard the line "abandoned railway car") The remote is mentioned in the script as being used to lower the music. Perhaps the music that plays later when the Briggs are having dinner was originally meant to play during Donna's scene with Eileen.

• James and Laura had been seeing each other for the last two months, according to Donna. James' mention in the Secret Diary is undated.

• Laura died on a Thursday night. Agent Cooper told Albert, "They're going to put her in the ground on Monday. You can have the body all day tomorrow." Albert is late and misses half the day, but one would imagine he would try to amass as much information as possible in that time. It almost seems as though he left a large amount of work until the day of her funeral. 

• ED
  I'm pretty sure my beer was drugged. And you know who was tending bar last night.

In the televised version, Ed says Jacques was tending bar. He doesn't say that the incident occurred last night.

• Carrying a small tray of sandwiches, Norma is going into the hardware store down the block from the Double R Diner. She holds the door open for a woman who's exiting, obscured behind a big bag of hardware. It's NADINE HURLEY. Norma sees her first.

As it plays in the televised version, Nadine runs into Norma. Nadine is at the counter, holding her bag. It's as she turns around that she runs into Norma.

• Laura visited Josie twice a week.
  
  
• The way Josie smiles when she hears that Truman is visiting tells me that she is trying to hide her joy in seeing him. Pete isn't supposed to know about her relationship with Truman. There is no reason for her to put on an act. This is the truth. 
  
  
• All the time Josie is in the room with Harry she maintains an aura of happiness from seeing him. This is part of what Cooper picks up on. If Cooper perceived it, then how can it be fake?

•  "She said, "I think now I understand how you feel about your husband's death."
  What does this mean other than that Laura and Josie each had their version of BOB? Josie was finally free from Andrew after he died? Why would Josie say this if she was guilty of killing her husband?
  
  
• Fire Walk With Me should have had Laura's English lesson with Josie. It's such a shame since Joan Chen participated.

• "No, but I think of it now like an old song with a haunting melody that I can't stop hearing in my head."
  
  In the broadcast version:
  "No, but after what happened to her, I can't help hearing it in my head like some haunting melody."

• Catherine's Timber Falls Hotel table lamp is the same as the lamp on the table in Agent Cooper's room at The Great Northern. I believe the lamp can also be seen on a table in the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. It is in the corner of the small waiting area. 

• Catherine:
  I'm no peabrain chambermaid looking for a tumble in the broom closet.
  
  vs. script:
  
  CATHERINE
  Sing it to somebody else. I'm not one of your
  teenage peabrain chambermaids.

Also: 

CATHERINE

Don't sweetheart me, you old dog. I'm no schoolgirl either.

Catherine indicates that Ben is known to have an attraction to teenage girls other than Laura. 

• In the televised version: 

Ben is seen then heard. "What's the next step? Do we escalate?"

Catherine: "The rate we're going it's going to be years before the mill is bankrupt, I don't want to wait any longer. Besides, my knothead husband may peek in the ledger and sniff out the creative arithmetic."

Ben: "Maybe it's time to ... start a little fire."

Vs. script:

               CATHERINE
        You should have seen her, so proud and weepy over that little cheerleader's death, as if she was the only one in the world with feelings.
   
                BENJAMIN
        But the fact is those losses are going to look beautiful in the books.

           CATHERINE
        With the pace we've set it'll still be months before the mill's bankrupt. I don't know if I can wait that long. Besides, there's always a chance my knothead husband may decide to take a peek at those dusty old books.

           BENJAMIN
        Maybe it's time for a fire.

•  Laura used to see Johnny Horne Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, after school.

• In the script, it is a nurse who helps Sarah when Donna visits, not Leland. In the script, he is taken to Jacoby, unable to cope with the details of the funeral. 

• In the script, it's when Donna's hand touches Sarah's shoulder that Mrs. Palmer sees Donna as Laura. Though probably unnecessary to mention, Mike's tattoo was on his shoulder in the script. In the series, it's when Donna's hand touches hers that Sarah sees Laura and then sees BOB. In both, it is Donna's touch that leads to her vision. 

•  The area leading to the hospital morgue has blue-tinted light. There is the sound of an electrical charge before Hawk departs.

• 51.  SARAH'S VISION - INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHT

    Looking down a long corridor, a frightening looking MAN we haven't seen before comes racing towards us at full speed. We hear some monstrous sound. just as he's about to reach us we ...
   
Sarah saw BOB at the end of Laura's bed in the series, not a hospital corridor.

• Sarah was supposed to have a vision of BOB running down the hall of the hospital at the same time MIKE was seen going to the morgue.

• The ONE-ARMED MAN looking around the corner in his direction. As soon as
  the One-Armed Man sees Hawk and the Trooper he slowly recedes back around
  the corner.

   
            HAWK
        Excuse me ...
   
Hawk rises and quietly follows the One-Armed Man around the corner ...
   
                            CUT TO:
62.  THE ONE-ARMED MAN
   
As he ducks into a stairwell and waits. Hawk's footsteps pass by ... the One-
Armed Man quietly moves away, down the stairs.

                            CUT TO:
63.  HAWK
   
Stops in the corridor. Listens. Comes back. He opens the door to the stairway
... empty.

Interesting how Mike stops when he sees the police. When Hawk follows him to the stairs, he disappears. This seems very much like BOB's habit of disappearing. Was Hawk gifted in being able to see him? 

• Mrs. Pulaski thinks of her daughter and gets a little teary-eyed. Hawk looks up and sees ... the ONE-ARMED MAN looking around the corner in his direction. As soon as the One-Armed Man sees Hawk and the Trooper he slowly recedes back around the corner.
  
   Gerard was looking for Ronette? He got off the elevator right outside her room.
  
  
• Bobby's bruise remains after his father hit him, but it's now on the wrong side of his face.

• In the script, Dr. Jacoby can hear the sounds of Horne's department store as Laura speaks. Was the tape recorder he gave her originally meant to be a microcassette recorder, like Agent Cooper's? A full-sized radio-recorder seems too awkward to carry with her to work. Something else of interest is that in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, Laura makes a diary entry in Horne's Department Store. 

• "Hey, what's up, Doc. It's Laura Palmer, in case you haven't guessed. I'm making you another one of these tapes which as you already know I've mailed to you in one of the envelopes you gave me. It's Thursday, the 23rd, and I'm so bored. Actually, I'm in kind of a weird mood. God, James is sweet but he's so dumb. I should have met you a long time ago Dr. Jacoby because right now I can take so much of sweet. I just know I'm going to get lost in those woods again tonight. I just know it. Remember me telling you about that mystery man?"
  
  Is Dale the mystery man? In the script, Jacoby was supposed to hear Laura talking about her dream of the Black Lodge, the one she writes about in her diary. The same dream Dale had. 

• Shenanigans for Josie and Audrey.

"Do you realize the kind of money your performance cost this family" - Ben almost mirrors Catherine's words to Josie.

• Note that it is after Leland (or the nurse) gives Sarah her sedative that Sarah has a vision. Did the drug make things clearer for her, opening a door?
  
  
• Leland is talking to Sarah as she screams but he is muted.
  
  
• A strange sound as Eileen wheels into the kitchen saying she'll check on the roast. It almost sounds like a voice saying "Super." This is at 42:41.
  
  
• In this episode, we were supposed to see Donna's room, Sarah's room, and Audrey's room, but each scene was moved to either a living room or Ben's office
  
  
• Audrey is scratching her palm while Ben is talking to her in his office.