So one thing that i;ve always wondered about is if Audrey got blown up at the bank and if Ben died from his head first landing into the glass fireguard? Thoughts?

xx 

'Your former partner flew the coop, Coop'

I always imagined that neither died, IMO Pete and Andrew probably died as well as Dell Mibbler (the old bank guy), but Audrey was maybe saved as she was chained to a door, might have protected her from the blast....who knows.

 As for Ben, dont think he died either, Doc Hayward doesnt strike me as the type of guy with a lot of power in his punches lol, probably ended up with a VERY sore head stitches and a 2 day stay in TP Hospital

"Ive got good news....that gum you like is going to come back in style!"

"I'm a WHOLE DAMN TOWN!"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the vault door was open when the bomb exploded, that means that Audrey was facing it, right? In my opinion it all looked like she didn't make it... However, before the Audrey fans slit my throat I must say that considering that MD apparently was first thought to be about Audrey then that means that according to David she survived... So...

Ben probably survived too and the reason I'm thinking is the most popular one: the fact that he's in Coop's room with Harry instead of being arrested.

Jordan .

ben was fine, audrey is dead dead. A deliberate culling to show distaste for plot holes, i reckon. Hmm, bog standard 'parentage' plot? End it with Doc Hayward acting out of character, BAM, Ben loses his chance for redemption.

Audrey had become a simpering sap, BOOM, get outta here!

Heh.

Anyways, i think the point isn't whether they survived or not, they neither lived nor died, instead left hanging in the suspense of the eternal, perpetual cliffhanger. They are recognized as pawns of narrative, and exploited in such a way. The makers all knew that TP was dead, so it seems like they perform several narrative tricks in the last episode....By referring to events from the Pilot, taking the 'backwards talking dream fad' and placing it on a literal level, and deliberately placing characters in insoluble situations, leaving them to languish on the threshold between episode 29 and the viewers imagination, a cruel fate indeed, but once more, in a final act, TP subverts television's norms, leaving the viewer as the major players are: In a half empty, half between space. The double level of this 'pawning' of the characters also makes them(conversely) like real life people...we do not exist within a beginning, middle, end narrative -storytelling has imposed this- so they are both trapped within narrative hell, yet at the same time freed from restrictions of 'enduring dramatic narrative.'  All in the Black Lodge, all in the White. One and the same.

Ben:  "We've laid in a gala reception for your fair-haired boys tonight.  All of Twin Peaks' best and brightest."

Jerry: "We're holding it in a phone booth?"

'Your former partner flew the coop, Coop'

Cooped has a point... It was the last episode and they all knew it and more important, David knew it, so they decided to leave the characters in an eternal cliffhanger limbo and that's the way we have to accept it. We don't know if Ben, Audrey or Leo survived, Ed and Norma are finally happy and Nadine recovers, we don't know what is going to happen to the two Coops (though FWWM gives us some hints), we don't know who is the father of Lucy's child, etc.

And by the way, nobody cares about the "It's a boy!" guard? He just finds out he's been a father and the bank is blown to pieces...

And Doc was at Cooper's bedside in the last scene and not in jail, so... I supposed the paramedics came and got him and Sylvia didn't press charges?

You mean Doc Hayward was at Cooper's bedside, not Ben.  But the point is made -either just sloppy writing or Doc was not pressed with any charges.

Okay, no hiding I'm an Audrey fan, but still objectively speaking- Audrey and Ben survived, or more apt, would have survived.  To me, this was always a no-brainer.  Frost was just stacking the deck to give as many life threatening cliffhangers like in the first season in hopes of the series being picked up again. 

And also the tone is off if they were to be killed.  They were major characters and if they were to be killed, their deaths would be in a more pronounced, drawn out way -like Josie or Maddy.  it was simply a cliffhanger in the same manor Leo, Nadine, Shelly, Cathereine and Cooper faced in the first season's finale.

And doubtful they would kill off Audrey, she was still the fan favorite no matter how mangled her character had become.  The fact that they devoted so much screen time to the inane Wheeler plot indicates they were still keeping the screen time balanced with what they thought were drawing viewers to the show.  Nor would they have axed her if they A) pondered a spin-off (which was talked about as early as the beginning of 1991) and B) she was asked to be in FWWM. 

Ben was probably going to revert back to old Ben (to thankfully give him back his sneaky, scheming edge) through a head injury. 

Billy Zane spoke in an interview that he heard talk that he would come back to Peaks to find Audrey pregnant (lame).

And Fenn, never one to hide her thoughts, said Audrey was intended to survive in an AOL interview.

Nobody cares if Pete got his truck back?

Pete: Hi, Harry!

Harry: Pete! You're alive! Weren't you in the bank when...?

Pete: Well, yes, long story, but forget that... Did you guys recover my truck? Where is it goddamn it?

Harry: We're too busy right now looking for evil Coop, man... The bastard stabbed Doc Hayward and stole my Bronco. Besides, I'm not going anywhere near that Glastonberry Grove place again, it creeps me out...

Of course Fenn would say that Audrey lives in interviews. Easy to placate someone with what they want to hear than discuss the sticky politics of TV making at the time. Fenn AND Boyle declined FWWM, Machlachlan declined a starring role, and were all involved in off-set drama together.

The Audrey spin-off was never in stone, and it was probably little more than pillow talk circa first season in the end.

It was far more the actors that had difficulties hanging in there, and only as last resorts the creators having difficulties with the characters or how well-liked they were by audiences. That old adage don't shit where you eat rings especially true there.

NO ONE was intended to survive the blast. This fact was verified with Robert Engels, I am almost certain--- but I will double check with the person who got it from the horse's mouth tomorrow. No one means Audrey, too, and Beymer absolutely said the cast was informed in advance that Audrey would be killed in the finale.

I understand the placating in interviews. 

But I've never heard of anything of Engles stating they were killing off Pete and Audrey if there were to be a third season.  I'm interested in the info.  Sincerely.

But from a production standpoint, I'd highly doubt that Peaks would want to lose two of the biggest staples on the show (a show hanging on by the skin of its teeth) in Audrey and Pete.  I know Fenn was being difficult with production, but clearly they were still working with her in an A storyline taking up the same amount of Cooper's A storyline instead of B storylines.  Unless Fenn talked about pulling a James Marshall and leave the show.

And my point of FWWM, was it was being developed as early as summer 1991 when the series definitely had been cancelled with no hope of renew- with Fenn, Boyle and MacLachlan still in Lynch's and Frost's minds (Frost wanted a continuation/Lynch wanted to go back in time).

If in a perfect world, where Frost got his wish in stacking the deck with cliffhangers, and Peaks was picked up for a third season, I still highly doubt Frost and production would have killed off Audrey and Pete.  It would only be at the hands of Fenn and/or Nance wanting out of their contracts.

'Your former partner flew the coop, Coop'

Well, if the shoe fits, to the former. Engels was interrogated on this, and this was information that did not make it on the Gold Box, either because the producers didn't think we cared or because they were to dense to include it, or because of PR intervention. You can believe me or not, but I promise I am not trying to burst anyone's bubble in mean spirits. This is just the way things played out.

Pete, we have no idea why he would be killed off. In the original script, Pete isn't at the bank vault. Catherine runs in at the last minute, however (which is intriguing.)

But to have anyone in there for an explosion that blows Mibbler's glasses across the street strains credibility to the absolute breaking point. Impossible to argue with that point. And don't tell me they all escaped off screen. It would have to be supernatural intervention that saved them.

And FWWM is a prequel, which makes Audrey's death or survival irrelevant.

of course the bank explosion pushes believability to the breaking point, I have no idea how feeble the outcome explaination would have been. 

If you have information, great.  I've just never heard anything about it before.

I'm just going off of Fenn's interview, and the knowledge that she was asked to be in FWWM, as was Nance.  The only way they would kill off Audrey was if Fenn had become too difficult and a headache/thorn in their side to deal with.  She was still considered their star. ratings draw along with MacLachlan.

Wasn't the guy who was going to do the comic for the gold box briefed by Engels or Peyton about some of the ideas kicking around if a third season came to fruition in Frost's rough drafts- and in the summary, Audrey had survived the bank explosion.

My point was the Audrey character was still the second most popular charaacter to the general audience next to Cooper (arguably), and they would still keep exploiting that unless Fenn (who was not happy) wanted out.  FWWM being a prequel is irrelevent since life happens linear- therefore if Fenn was out, they probably wouldn't even approach her for the next part. 

And I would say this even if I hated the character.  I'm not cheerleading. 

But I am interested in hearing more about the Beymer comment that the cast was briefed that they were killing off Audrey. 

*PS, I always like debating with you.  You're aces.

Well, in Smallville if a season ends with an explosion and we don't know the characters' fates, then in the first scene of the following season Clark saves Lana, Chloe, his mom, his dog or all of them moments before the explosion... In Lost they just need to move back or forward in time just a nanosecond before the explosion (probably what they'll do in season 6).

But this is Twin Peaks and Lodge intervention sounds like a cheap plot device to me so who knows... In the last episode of Carnivale a character shoots another one and we never find out if he died or not because, well, the series was cancelled! However, the creator himself claimed later that he survived... My point is that until Lynch or Frost give us a definitive answer (something that will never happen) the fact is that we don't know what happened to Audrey, Pete, etc. and we could debate this for years... In fact we do... That's what's so entertaining about it, isn't it?

If anyone was indeed alive in the first place!

"We live inside a dream".