Twin Peaks ending explained: Is it the future or past?

Over the course of over 48 episodes and one feature film, Twin Peaks' complex story is simply a saga of two heroes. FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is sent to Twin Peaks, Washington, to investigate the murder of high school student Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose body is discovered wrapped in plastic on the beach.

As Cooper continues to investigate, he begins to have visions of a one-armed man, Mike, who tells him of an evil force called Bob. This leads Cooper on a surreal odyssey through unworldly dimensions like the White and Black Lodges, where he encounters multiple doppelgangers, one of whom serves as a vessel for Bob.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers. Reader discretion is advised.

The series ends on a haunting, unresolved note, with Cooper and a woman resembling Laura trapped in a reality where time, identity, and truth seem to collapse, leaving viewers with more questions than answers.

The mystery and tragedy of Laura Palmer

The other main character is Laura Palmer herself. She is established as having died at the beginning of the series, but a large part of the show is spent learning about her troubled past, most specifically, what kind of ab*se she endured at the hands of her father (Ray Wise), who was possessed by the force Bob.

In the next world, Laura meets Agent Cooper in the Black Lodge and informs him they will meet again in 25 years. She also has an evil doppelganger like Cooper. In the second-to-last episode of the show, Cooper goes back in time and prevents Laura's murder, thereby rewriting the original timeline of the series.

Twin Peaks features many vivid characters, but its core is the relationship between Cooper and Laura.

Having journeyed with Diane (Laura Dern) into a dimension via an electric field, about the woman to whom he has been sending videotaped messages throughout his inquiry, Cooper and Diane spend a night together and seem a whole new couple, re-emerging as Richard and Linda.

Left in Texas by Diane/Linda, Cooper discovers there is a waitress named Carrie Page identical to Laura Palmer (played once more by Sheryl Lee). When he finally catches up with her, she agrees to go with him to Twin Peaks. They reach Laura's childhood home but find it is owned by a stranger, played, in a meta twist, by the real-life homeowner.

Cooper and Laura are trapped in an endless loop in the Twin Peaks finale

As she leaves the house, Cooper, clearly flustered and agitated, reminds Carrie what year it is. She then suddenly hears Laura’s mother screaming for her daughter, just like in the original pilot.

Carrie lets out a primal, frightened scream. The house lights shut off, and the screen fades to black. A final image lingers: Laura whispering in Cooper's ear in the Red Room, echoing the start of the episode.

The Twin Peaks series conclusion is meant to contrast sharply with the second-to-last episode. While Cooper seems to find closure by preventing Laura’s murder, the finale reveals a more disturbing truth: even if one version of Laura is saved, the deeper cycle of evil remains unbroken. Darkness persists in every realm and timeline.

Wherever Cooper and Laura go, whatever names they adopt, there will always be victims and someone trying to deliver justice. But even that justice-seeker harbors darkness. Cooper and Laura are locked in a loop, destined to relive their roles across realities.

The show has long explored the origins of evil. The acclaimed eighth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, often called one of TV’s most experimental hours, suggests true evil began with the atomic bomb’s creation. Once unleashed, it cannot be contained. The characters moving between dimensions only reinforces the idea that this darkness seeps through every layer of existence.

Also read: Where was Twin Peaks filmed? All filming locations explored

Is it the future or past?

By going back in time and preventing Laura Palmer’s murder, Agent Cooper alters the original timeline, removing Laura from the sequence of events that once defined her story.

In bringing her to the White Lodge, he effectively erases her from that reality. She is no longer a murder victim, but a missing person. Bob is thwarted, unable to complete his final act of evil.

Yet this act of intervention has consequences far beyond one altered event. Cooper’s meddling ripples outward, destabilizing the interconnected timelines and realities across the Twin Peaks multiverse.

Laura survives but her presence, or absence, begins to unravel the very fabric of the worlds tied to her. As the series concludes, her parallel universes appear to be collapsing. Even in the alternate reality where she lives as Carrie Page, evil finds its way to her, regardless of whether she remembers being Laura Palmer.

This breakdown of time and space raises the haunting final question: Is this the future or the past? Cooper asks it, but receives no clear answer. The boundaries of time no longer seem linear or reliable.

In the world of Twin Peaks, time folds in on itself, identities blur, and the same emotional traumas recur again and again in different forms.

Another possible explanation of Twin Peaks

There are more speculations regarding what the finale means than can be counted, ranging from purgatory to dream, reset to infinite loop. Meanwhile, the show wraps up in a string of unresolved plot points: Leland Palmer is still possessed by Bob, Diane leaves Cooper, and Audrey Horne's reality remains ambiguous.

Twin Peaks never set out to give tidy conclusions. Its surrealistic, dreamlike narratives value emotion over plot, and the conclusion remains faithful to that end.

Rather than closure, it ends on Laura screaming at night outside her former house, the lights going out, and an incomplete feeling of fear, a suggestive imagery to be left to interpretation and not conclusion.

The show debuted on ABC on April 8, 1990, and aired for two seasons before being canceled in 1991. It was revived in 2017 for a third season on Showtime.

Edited by Moakala T Aier