A Cry for Compassion: Twin Peaks, Season Three

Analysis by David Johnson

“The Good Dale is in the Lodge, and He Can’t Leave”

In 2006, near Washington, D.C., I went to a reading and discussion David Lynch was giving around his first book, “Catching the Big Fish.” The reading itself was extremely, comically short—just one or two brief sentences. But the Q and A session was lengthy, and Lynch was generous with answers.

Even though Twin Peaks was–in Lynch’s own words–“dead as a doornail” at the time, I had one question burning in my mind. It was a question that had stayed with me ever since the Season Two finale aired in June of ’91, and the series ended with one of the most shocking television cliffhangers of all time. It lingered through the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and haunted me for years:

“Does Coop ever make it out of the Black…