Twin Peaks: 10 Supporting Characters Who Deserved More Screen Time
Half-murder mystery and half-soap opera, Twin Peaks' original run proudly featured a dense ensemble that kept adding more to the mix as the series powered forward.
Fans of the cult '90s hit and its acclaimed 2017 revival have so many characters to choose from when ranking their favorites that they may let less featured players fall by the wayside. Here are the Twin Peaks residents, visitors, and alternatively interconnected figures who deserved more screen time, with an honorable mention paid to Bob and The Man From Another Place, as the duo became de facto mascots for the show's lasting legacy.
10 John Justice Wheeler
While Audrey's love for her "Special Agent" ultimately went unrequited in the original series, the strength circumstances forced her to harness prepared her to handle the passion overwhelm that is falling for a young Billy Zane.
As a one-time protégé of Ben Horne who then transformed into a businessman extraordinaire/experienced airman, John Justice Wheeler (Zane) made for one Casablancian addition to the series that has more connections to the actor's biggest film than one may initially realize.
9 Constance Talbot
With many original cast members returning for the third season, the aptly-titled Twin Peaks: The Return also introduced its fair share of memorable newcomers. This included Buckhorn coroner Constance Talbot, played by Jane Adams.
In her brief turn, the actress channeled such deadpan line-delivery that her implication she moonlights as a standup comedian can be half-believed.
8 Heavy Metal Youth
Played by Ted Raimi, brother of filmmaker Sam Raimi, the drifting rocker en route to a gig named Rusty Tomasky (but hilariously credited as "Heavy Metal Youth") was killed by Windom Earle before fans could even prepare to say goodbye.
Lured to a cabin with the promise of beer, Raimi's Twin Peaks demise reminded close-viewers to navigate life with as much freedom - but to never let their guard down enough to burn out before the candle does.
7 Denise Bryson
The well-ahead-of-its-time transgender DEA Agent's taunting colleagues were once famously told by Gordon Cole (David Lynch) to "fix their hearts or die."
Played by David Duchovny, who would soon find TV fame as another misunderstood federal agent that gains respect through second-to-none productivity, Agent Denise Bryson was a fan favorite oft-cited as one of the original run's most underused scene-stealers.
6 Heidi
For some unexplained, but likely-not-coincidental reason, the giggle-prone German Double-R waitress only appeared in the pilot, the finale, and the criminally-misinterpreted prequel/sequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992).
Of course, until she appeared in a few episodes of The Return - with still no indication as to her significance if she had any at all. Leave it to David Lynch to remain ambiguous on the matter.
5 Phillip Jeffries
The late David Bowie's enigmatic, Louisianan-accented Fire Walk With Me contribution was shaved considerably - though restored via the feature-length deleted scenes compilation Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014).
Bowie plays the long-missing FBI agent Phillip Jeffries in the movie. While cooly-dressed and notably perplexed, Jeffries all but walks through walls and breaks the very fabric of time to deliver important "Judy"-involved messages to Director Cole and the gang.
4 Windom Earle
Too often associated with the polarizing backend of season 2, Earle was actually an effectively unsettling Lynchian villain with infinite staying power who never got his due from fans still sour about the show's unanticipated cancellation shortly after Lynch's departure.
The former partner of–and mentor to–Agent Cooper was introduced and exclusively depicted as a jealousy-driven murderer on a warpath. A chess-obsessed human tornado who deserves credit for being the pawn sacrifice to King Bob's bishop.
3 High School Nadine
Another casualty of the Season 2 second-leg rejectors, this adrenaline-fuelled version of Nadine was unfairly criticized. Her wholly unforeseen hiatus from silent drape-running was spent in search of Wrestling Accolades and the perfect "necking" partner.
While regularly assumed to be a product of the Lynch-less writer's room, it's to be noted that the sadly short-lived, regressed-to-teenage form Nadine, and her unlikely rise among the student body, shared many parallels with Lynch's unmade screwy half-sci-fi mystery/ half-high school movie Ronnie Rocket.
2 William Hastings
An instantly-celebrated side character conveyed as wielding ultra-importance from the onset, Principal "Bill" Hastings–played by Matthew Lillard–found himself paralyzed thanks to his discovery of "The Zone."
While Hastings' arc ran its natural course, viewers felt denied the chance to see all of what he struggled to describe past a sea of tears. Yet they were nevertheless rattled, as Hastings' trauma left to fans' imaginations becomes a daunting sight to fathom in itself.
1 Judge Clinton Sternwood
Lost among the calm-before-the-storm that would become the "Laura Palmer killer reveal" arc: the foreshadowing was laid in the form of a speedy crime-of-passion murder trial for Leland, who was later revealed later to have been unknowingly inhabited by the parasitic embodiment of "the evil that men do."
The exceptionally compassionate judge (Royal Dano) who let him off with a warning for the grief-inspired murder of Roadhouse bartender Jaques Renault was absolute dynamite, delivering a standout monologue just prior to Leland's proceedings.