8 questions I want answered in Twin Peaks season 3

The owls are not what they seem

Oh, Twin Peaks you keep breaking our hearts.

We were devastated when the show was cancelled back in 1991, so the news that David Lynch and Mark Frost were working on a new season of the surreal murder mystery was one of the delights of 2014. Alas it was announced a couple of weeks back that Lynch has departed the production because of budgetary disputes. Whether that will hold remains to be seen Showtime are keen to tempt him back but right now we're very, very sad.

Still, it's known that the scripts (all penned by Frost and Lynch) exist and it seems likely that a third run will happen, with or without the Man With The Hair From Another Place. And if it does, there are some questions that we'd like answered... Spoilers for the show and Fire Walk With Me from here on in.

1. We're worried about Coop

This is our main concern. The TV series ended on the mother of all cliffhangers, with plucky FBI agent Dale Cooper trapped in the Black Lodge and his doppelgnger actually the demonic Killer BOB running loose in the real world.

Now, Fire Walk With Me obliquely suggests a way that Cooper might be released (My name is Annie. I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary.) and you can bet that Harry would cotton on that something was wrong with his BFF, but it's all very vague. We need to know that our very special agent escaped somehow. And we want to know what BOB's been up to while wearing his face...

2. Who will play BOB?

Related to that last point, we can assume that Killer BOB will be back in some shape or form. He's the show's primary nemesis a force of evil who moves from host to host. So while it's sad that we won't see former set dresser Frank Silva again (he passed away in 1995), the character can still appear by wearing the face of one of the people he has possessed. The question is, which one?

Coop is obviously a possibility, though we hope they don't go down that route for too long. It's perhaps more likely that we'll see BOB in the form of Leland Palmer. As the person who murdered Laura, it would make sense. Plus, we know that Ray Wise is likely involved in the new series, and also that he's very good at playing bad.

3. Did Audrey and Ben Horne survive?

A bomb went off in Beyond Life And Death, apparently killing Andrew Packard, Pete Martell and Audrey Horne. But did any of them make it out alive?

Jack Nance (Pete) and Dan O' Herlihy (Andrew) have both passed away, so that kinda rules out their return. But Audrey presumably survived she was one of the show's most popular characters, after all. She has to come back.

The same goes for her dad, Ben (played by Richard Beymer). Last time we saw him, his head had been split open by Doc Hayward. It'd be a damn shame if that was the end of Twin Peak's most venal businessman.

But that raises another question. Assuming that Ben did live, which version will we see in season three? The selfish manipulator, or the carrot-munching environmentalist he later became.

4. What role will Laura Palmer play?

Twin Peaks without Laura Palmer is inconceivable just look at how the show floundered after her killer had been revealed in season two. The character is the key to the entire series: an apparent innocent with some dark secrets. Tellingly, when Lynch returned to this world with Fire Walk With Me, he made sure the film was all about her.

Sheryl Lee has indicated an interest in returning to the role, but the question is how? Not only is Laura dead, but so is her identical cousin Maddy. Now the obvious answer is that we'll probably see her in the Red Room again, which makes sense. Perhaps she's been keeping Coop company all this time. That said, the fact that her spirit will have aged probably needs to be addressed...

5. What's the deal with Teresa's ring?

This is one of the most hotly debated areas in Peaks lore, and one of the most intriguing loose ends.

In Fire Walk With Me, Laura obtains a ring bearing the mark of the Owl Cave, which has some connection to the Lodge Spirits. The ring passes from Teresa Banks (dead) to Laura (dead) and then to Annie (still alive just). In The Missing Pieces (the deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me) we see that it was taken from her by a nurse. So what happened to the ring, and what was its purpose? Who made it? Does it protect its wearer from possession by BOB, or make them more of a target? Hopefully we'll find out more about this next year...

6. Where's David Bowie?

It seems unlikely that we'll see ever rock's greatest chameleon reprise his role as FBI agent Phillip Jeffries. But then again, stranger things have happened not least the likely return of Twin Peaks

Whatever, his brief scenes in Fire Walk With Me are tantalisingly weird, adding time travel to Peaks' already stacked roster of strange occurrences. It was intended that Jeffries would be a central part of future films or episodes, but the commercial failure of Fire Walk With Me scuppered that. Perhaps now he can be and we'll finally find out more about Judy...

7. Is love in the air?

Assuming that both Coop and Audrey are in the show, and not possessed by an evil spirit or, y'know, dead, then will we see them rekindle (or even just kindle) their budding relationship? It was called to a halt in the TV series because Kyle MacLachlan felt it would have been inappropriate for an FBI agent like Coop to start dating a high schooler. A fair point, though Sherilyn Fenn disagreed with the decision back in 1992, saying I think Kyle blew it, because Dale and Audrey were so great together.

Well, that wouldn't be a problem any more. Perhaps it's time for the two to give things a shot. That said, things were going pretty well with Annie (Heather Graham) before the last couple of episodes, so maybe he's all settled down with her. Assuming, of course, she survived and that BOB hasn't murdered her in the intervening years.

8. More loose ends...

Twin Peaks is full of strange subplots and odd ideas that were probably never intended for the sort of deep analysis they've received over the last 25 years. Aside from all the big plot stuff, here are a few more of the things we'd like answers to:

How's Annie? Will Donna Hayward be played by Lara Flynn Boyle or Moira Kelly? Did Lucy and Andy ever sort their tangled love-life out, or is Dick Tremayne still being a nuisance? Was Josie ever released from the door knob? Is Chester Desmond still in the Lodge? Is Invitation To Love still on the air? Who, exactly, put the fish in the percolator? Did Little Nicky grow up to be the Antichrist? What has the Pine Weasel been up to for the last two-and-a-half decades?