When watching a David Lynch film one often has to let go and accept the strangeness that will unfold. Why was there a creepy elderly woman and young boy popping up from time to time in the Twin Peaks universe? In the series they appear one time. The grandmother and grandson are identified as the Tremonds. They live next door to Harold Smith - a man who Laura Palmer shared dark secrets with. The Tremonds advised Donna Hayward to speak with him, and then mysteriously disappeared as if they were a hallucination.
In Fire Walk With Me, the so called Tremonds are seen again in the Black Lodge. Now it is certain that these characters are agents or prisoners of BOB, The Man From Another Place, and other beings of the Black Lodge. The pair are other-worldly spirits.
Maybe I originally assumed that the Grandmother and child were a Lynchian archetype from his short film The Grandmother. Both young boys wear suits, which represent adult burdens on children. The suit could also imply death in that a young boy would wear such a formal outfit at a funeral or in a casket.
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| Still from The Grandmother. |
A video I saw by selphiealmasy8 opened my eyes to another possibility in the role of the "Tremonds". They are Leland Palmer's childhood self and his grandmother.
Leland Palmer explains in Episode 2.10 that he knew BOB as a neighbor at his grandfather's lake house, though he referred him as Mr. Robertson. Leland is one of the few characters who speaks of himself as a child. Benjamin and Jerry Horne discuss their childhood, but their likenesses are seen in a flashback, we never actually see photo or flashback of Leland; all the more likely we can identify Leland as the child. Sometimes it's what isn't said, or isn't shown that reveals the truth.
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| "He used to shoot matches at me. He'd say, 'Do you want to play with fire, little boy?'" |
The video explains the fact that Leland only mentions his grandfather, and does not mention a grandmother or says, "my grandparent's lake house," which proves that his grandmother was dead at the time. It also points out that Lynch has a history of conveying a familial relationship through omitting and replacing certain pronouns in FWWM: "My mother's sister's girl." Lynch may be sending a message by not mentioning the grandmother, implying that she is gone, though she had to have existed.
I don't completely agree with the video's explanation that the boy represents a side of Leland that is aware of BOB's possession of him, and the Grandmother represents death to Leland. It doesn't completely explain how they exist. I just can't believe that these two beings inhabit the Black Lodge because Leland is somehow conjuring them up.
The grandmother was likely a victim of BOB as well. It's quite probable that she lived at the lake house with the grandfather and Leland at one point, and was aware of BOB. Maybe BOB has been collecting members of this family for years. If she is Leland's grandmother, she could have become part of the Black Lodge as a wondering spirit protecting the soul of her grandson. She could have also died a more natural death, and her spirit works to protect Leland's childhood soul in the beyond.
It is clear that the last names given to the Grandmother and Grandson characters are that of the homes they invade, and not an undisclosed family name of the Palmer's. We learn that the Tremond household Donna visits in Episode 2.2 of Twin Peaks is owned by a Mrs. Tremond. However, she is not the same woman when Donna goes back to show Agent Cooper.
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| Fake Tremond |
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| Real Tremond |
The name of the grandson is left ambiguous. I was pretty sure of this until I read the Twin Peaks Wiki entry that refers to him as Pierre. Then I began to question myself. How do we know that this boy is named Pierre? We don't. He isn't.
He is listed as "Mrs. Tremond's Grandson" on the IMDB page of FWWM and "Little Boy"in the Twin Peaks IMDB. Only the Twin Peaks Wiki calls him as such, and they apparently got it from a set of Twin Peaks trading cards produced by Star Pics.
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| If he looks like a mini David Lynch that's because he's played by Austin Jack Lynch in the series. |
Pierre's card has some pretty bogus facts on it. A commenter named geoffr11 warns in The Black Lodge Encyclopedia, of an article about The Jumping Man, that the Star Pics cards were not cannon to the Twin Peaks universe. It's clear the people who made this card didn't really get what The Little Boy was, and chose to portray him as a real boy who they imagined went to Twin Peaks Elementary and likes magic tricks. It states he was born in 1983, but I think we can all agree he is immortal. And they named him Pierre - out of their butts. So now that we know for sure that the Grandson's name is unknown, his identity as Leland's childhood soul is still viable.
Maybe Little Boy was affectionately named Pierre because in Episode 2.9 he said a phrase in French, which translates to “I am a lonely soul”. Oooh Frenchy knows French, what's this kid's name - Pierre? “I am a lonely soul" is the same message that would later be found written on Harold Smith's suicide note. This shows that the Grandmother and Grandson know facts about the deaths they hover around. It can also imply that they reside in a space (the Black Lodge) that transcends time, so from their perspective everything in the future is clear. The phrase could also be self reflective of the little boy. If he is Leland's sole - the sole that Leland gave up to BOB when he was "just a little boy," - then this character would be a lost soul indeed.
As characters the Grandmother and Grandson are neutral in almost every way. The Twin Peaks Wiki states that Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont "has an unclear link to the Lodges and her intentions are unclear." They have interactions with people, but are not antagonizing. One might argue that if the Grandmother is Laura Palmer's great grandmother, wouldn't she be a bit more loving in her presence, or try harder to keep Laura away from harm? Instead she and her grandson treat Laura as a stranger they have to relay cryptic messages to. I don't have a concrete answer to this, but it could be that since the Grandmother was not alive when Laura was born, she has no emotional attachment to her as a spirit. The little boy wouldn't know Laura as his daughter either, since he embodies only that of Leland's past self. While they seem to be wherever death is, it may be that the Tremonds prepare BOB's victims for the inevitable.
Nothing they do explicitly helps anyone, or harms anyone directly. When Laura sees the couple outside the diner in FWWM, the Grandmother hands Laura a framed picture of a room. The picture later leads Laura through a dream that makes her aware of the green ring and the Black Lodge. The Grandson whispers about BOB/Leland taking Laura's diary:
"The man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out. He is going towards the hiding place."
He doesn't use any names, and doesn't imply any urgency. The Grandson just makes the statement, and Laura takes it as she will. Laura is disturbed by this knowledge and it causes her to go home and see that the "man behind the mask" is BOB, and Leland is his mask. The Tremond's information is informative, but Laura still is set on a path towards destruction.
The mask warn by the Grandson in this scene represents Leland's ignorance to his own possession. It also acts as a disguise from Leland himself and Laura. In the Black Lodge Encyclopedia of The Twin peaks Gazette user Sourdust says of the mask, "Significantly then, his true face is never seen by any of the Palmers, who would otherwise be able to identify him."
The Grandson is unmasked in front of Donna, but she wouldn't recognize him as Leland anyway. In the other scenes where he appears outside the Black Lodge in FWWM, the boy is masked in front of Laura, who would recognize him from photos and just generally being familiar with her own father. When Leland is walking away from the motel where Laura is waiting with Teresa and Ronnette for their John (well, Leland actually), he catches a glimpse of the Grandson jumping in the parking lot. Leland may have recognized himself if the mask weren't there.
The only other instance we see the Tremonds interacting with someone in the real world is in Twin Peaks during the scene where Donna Hayward makes her Meals on Wheels delivery. Mrs. Tremond emphatically says that she does not like creamed corn. We learn in FWWM that creamed corn is the physical embodiment of "garmonbozia" which means pain and sorrow. The Man From Another Place and BOB horde garmonbozia, so if anyone says they don't like it, then they must be one of the good guys.
The Grandmother and Grandson's only suspicion comes from being close to death and destruction. In FWWM we don't actually see them at the Fat Trout Trailer Park where Teresa Banks lived. This is the only time they are referred to as the Chalfonts. The land lord of the trailer park tells Agent Cooper that the empty space used to have a trailer in it owned by the Chalfonts, who were an old woman and her grandson.
This explains their other last name. They could have simply possessed the Chalfont residence for a time, as they did with Mrs. Tremond's home. However in this case, the real Chalfonts never return once the Grandma and Grandson disappear. The trailer is gone and the landlord doesn't know where they went. It can only be assumed that this is the same grandmother/grandson pair that we know of, and they split town once Teresa was done for - or after Agent Chester Desmond picks up the green ring under their trailer and inexplicably disappears himself.
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| Somehow Lynch can always make empty lit rooms seem sinister. |
Did they lay the bait, or did BOB?
