Twin Peaks: The Return – I once thought it did my favorite character dirty, but now I see it differently

When Twin Peaks: The Return first aired in 2017, I literally could not stop thinking about Audrey Horne. To add to the appeal of the series, I watched it religiously, hoping, or spoiling myself with the ‘luxury’ of emotional closure.

But instead of my hyper-fantasized expectation, I was met with a disorienting, binge-worthy, transcendental thrill of alternate timelines that centered around doppelgängers, haunting silence, existential dread, and so much more. Sure, it was intriguing, but Twin Peaks threw my understanding off balance.

Like many fans, Audrey was at the center of theories, ships, and melted hopes. Twin Peaks 's queen bee, her fate after the season two explosion was bound to be told either through clarity or redemption.

However, in The Return, she was hardly present. I felt Lynch and Frost had betrayed her from the scant scenes we got to see. All I could think was that they were trapped in a passionless marriage, spiraling out of control, dancing in a white void. It felt like they ignored the Audrey that we cherished—or completely rewrote her into a version we didn’t recognize.

For an extended period, I bore that disappointment. I grieved for the Audrey that could have existed. Still, there was something about those scenes that would not allow me to rest. They were haunting me, not with fury any longer, but with a sense of wonder. An understanding, which I couldn't achieve at that time, began to take different shifts as Audrey returned and explained things to me.

Audrey's prison in Twin Peaks: A mirror, not a demise

Fans were outraged by the limited screen time given to Audrey in The Return. However, upon rewatch, her scenes are less an example of negligence and more a masterful portrayal of psychic imprisonment. It’s not that she is simply absent from the larger narrative—she is absent from herself.

The environment she inhabits is synthetic, her husband an empty vessel, and her violent passions appear to surface from some alienated, fragmented core. It would be easy to say they “did her dirty,” but it is far more likely that they were attempting something far more courageous: presenting us with an Audrey who is not just older but also deeply hurt.

Unpacking it this way makes Audrey’s arc much more impactful as a reflection of trauma and the search for self. She has lost the playful teenage flirt she was in season one—how could she be after everything she likely endured off-screen? Her scenes feel like a repetitive cycle of a dream or limbo. We—the viewers—are rooting for her liberation. But perhaps this is the intention: Audrey desires the same but is helpless to make it happen. That desperate feeling is Twin Peaks at its most Lynchian.

The dreamer who dreams of Audrey

The last time we see Audrey, terrified while staring at her reflection, may tell us everything. In a franchise fixated on duality and dream logic, Audrey’s fate reflects The Return’s most buried inquiry: Who is the dreamer? Is she fully awake now, or just coming to another slumber? Rather than a gratifying epilogue, Lynch offers us a fragment—a glimpse of a woman who might exist, grappling with a reality that relentlessly transforms.

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With time, I’ve come to appreciate this vagueness as, rather, a form of respite. The Return does not bestow a happy ending upon Audrey; rather, it subjects her to something far more uncommon: depth. No longer trapped within the boundaries of fan expectations and tidy conclusions, she is granted the liberty to embrace her haunted existence. In that incompletion, however, exists something deeply paradoxical: a truth. Life doesn’t neatly resolve itself—especially not in Lynch’s world.

So now, years on, I say I no longer feel let down by The Return. Instead, I feel challenged. Frustrating as it was, Audrey’s journey strikes me now as quietly revolutionary. She may not have escaped from her prison, but perhaps, just maybe, she unveiled the depth of its foundation.

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