***Spoilers ahead for Twin Peaks S3E14 or earlier***
What's the deal with Sarah Palmer? It's a question that's been brewing since the first trailer for season 3 aired, showing her shopping the liquor aisle of a store. Viewers logically assumed this meant she's an alcoholic now. Who wouldn't be after what she's been through?
But after fourteen new episodes of Twin Peaks, we know for sure that Sarah isn't just an alcoholic who's gone off the deep end. We all saw her sit quietly and drink at home in one of Lynch's many drawn-out meditative scenes, and that seemed to reaffirm our idea that she had a drinking problem and now leads a sad, lonely life.
Then in S3E12 we finally see the full scene from which our sad alcoholic vision of Sarah was born from.
Then in S3E12 we finally see the full scene from which our sad alcoholic vision of Sarah was born from.
"Jerky freak-out" has become one of my favorite fan-made phrases to come out of the show.
We can tell that Sarah might have some kind of dementia mixed with a bit of paranoia and maybe ptsd. Or she's possessed and barely holding onto her sense of self. How did she become possessed?
In S3E13 she's doing the same drinking in front of the TV shtick.
I noticed that both times we see Sarah watching TV at home she is:
a) drinking
b) watching violence (first it was lions attacking a water buffalo, then it was an old-timey boxing match)
c) the movies are in black & white. The animal documentary was probably in night vision, not black & white film, but it still had no color either.
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| Twin Peaks S3E2 |
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| Twin Peaks S3E13 |
It's all very symbolic of her new self. We can see it come together in the now infamous scene from S3E14, where she takes off her face to reveal a black & white nightmare. Then she bites the throat out of a dude.
The vision of a hand in her face is symbolic of what Gordon Cole once said about "the spiritual mound." He identifies it as the ring finger. In this case that finger is decidedly black. She is rotten to the core. Sarah Palmer is a full-blown demon now. How did it come to this? Did we miss something? It could all be events that occurred off screen before Season 3 begins, but I believe there was proof of her direct link to the spirit world in the last episode of Season 2.
This is the last scene in the Twin Peaks universe timeline before we see Sarah Palmer in season 3:
(skip to 1:18)
Under the care of Dr. Jacoby, Sarah is lead to Major Briggs to give him a message. In a distorted and deepened voice she says "I'm in the black lodge with Dale Cooper." At this point in the episode there are a few people in the Black Lodge with Dale Cooper. BOB, Windom Earle, Annie Blackburn, The Arm, Mike, Leland, Laura Palmer - and all their doppelgangers! Who's to say which one was using Sarah as a mouthpiece?
Sarah's burden on Twin Peaks was that she could see BOB. It always seemed to happen right when she was about to get some peace for once, and then bam! Sarah was in a tizzy again. Since she had such an ability, Leland would drug her while he was under BOB's control so he could commit his horrid acts. Before each drugging kicked in she would see a white horse, which is a symbol that has come up numerous times.
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| from the original run of Twin Peaks |
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| from Fire Walk With Me |
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| from Twin Peaks: The Return |
In Season 3 one of the woodsmen says "the horse is the white of eyes." I haven't completely figured this one out, but it's all linked for sure.
The scene from the last episode of season 2 is of course after Leland's death. There is no one left to drug her. Because of this she might be more susceptible to spirits using her as a conduit, and it's gotten out of hand at this point. Even Phillip Gerard can use drugs to stave off his alter ego, Mike. As the Giant once said, "Without chemicals, he points."
Considering this is the absolute last scene with Sarah Palmer before Season 3, with no indication that Sarah went back to normal per se, we can assume that whatever was inside her in that moment didn't leave.
