, who co-created
Twin Peaks.|alt=A man in a tuxedo smiles at the camera. "Episode 14" was written by series co-creator
Mark Frost, who had written six previous episodes and directed the first-season finale, "
Episode 7". This episode was directed by Lynch, the fifth such episode of
Twin Peaks; he later directed "Episode 29" and all the installments of the limited series. Lynch has later said he feels he was able to show more on screen in the episode than he expected the network's standards and practices office to allow. He credits this to the unusual imagery used, adding "if it's not quite standard it sneaks through, but it could be that the 'not quite standard' things make it even more terrifying and disturbing." The cast of
Twin Peaks did not know who would be revealed as Palmer's killer for some time. Wise had hoped his character Leland would not be the eventual murderer; as the parent of a young girl he was disturbed by the idea of portraying a man who had murdered his daughter. Wise was called to a meeting with Lynch, Frost, Sheryl Lee and Richard Beymer, during which Lynch told those assembled that Leland Palmer was the killer: while addressing Wise, Lynch said "Ray, it was you, it was always you." Before this meeting, the only people to know the killer's identity were Frost, Lynch, and Lynch's daughter
Jennifer, who had been given the information so she could author the 1990 tie-in novel
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Lynch has mentioned that he tried to avoid thinking about the morality of the narrative, or how it would be received by censors or critics, feeling that if he allowed that worry to affect him it would ultimately drive him to create something that made him uncomfortable, preferring instead to simply produce the episode he wanted to and be prepared to defend it if necessary. He has also compared the search for Laura's killer to the central narrative of the 1960s television series
The Fugitive, which featured an ongoing search for a one-armed man. Contrasting the two, Lynch stated "each week, you know, they [the writers for
The Fugitive] hardly ever dealt with that. And that's the beautiful thing. You keep wondering, 'When will he find this guy and set everything straight?' But then you knew it would be the end."
Cinematography The climactic murder of Madeline Ferguson in the episode features extensive use of
jump cuts to portray Leland Palmer's
spirit possession, switching rapidly between actors Ray Wise and Frank Silva. The scene is unusually long for a murder on television, lasting over four minutes. Some of its elements, including the insertion of a paper letter under Ferguson's fingernail and the use of jump cuts to events in the Roadhouse bar, are intended to echo similar aspects of "
Pilot". Erica Sheen and Annette Davison, in their book
The Cinema of David Lynch: American Dreams, Nightmare Visions, have drawn attention to the use of
mise en scène early in the episode. A scene featuring Ferguson, Leland and Sarah Palmer sitting in the Palmers' living room pans across the family's
bric-a-brac. This technique draws attention to the painting with which Ferguson will be assaulted, and it highlights the similarity between Ferguson and Palmer by focusing on "the famous homecoming queen shot" of Palmer while Ferguson's face is visible. Sheen and Davison argued that the scene highlights the "emotional claustrophobia" felt by Ferguson, and that the set surrounding her was deliberately assembled to create this feeling. ==Themes==