10 Deleted Scenes Which Totally Change Classic Films
4. Diane From Twin Peaks Is A Real Person
Before JJ Abrams was even born, David Lynch was the true proponent of the mystery box. Where the guiding light of Lost and Cloverfield has made a career out of films and TV shows built around slightly flimsy secrets that eventually get revealed - whether or not the explanation is satisfying doesn't really matter - whilst Lynch has made a even longer and more over-analysed career out of making films that have people trying to untangle them decades after the fact. Audiences are still trying to figure out what the heck went on in his debut Eraserhead, a nightmarish vision of life and parenthood in industrial Philadelphia, and that thing came out in 1977!
Perhaps the biggest mystery people have obsessed over in Lynch's career, though, is what's the deal with Twin Peaks? Early on in his career the, ahem, eccentric director teamed with Mark Frost to put together a crime drama-cum-soap opera-cum-supernatural horror that somehow became a ratings success on prime time ABC, despite the amount of metaphysical weirdness, ghosts and one-armed murderers that turned up. It's since become a cult classic, years after its cancellation, as fans pick apart the myriad mysteries that remained unexplained after its untimely demise.
Besides all the weirdness, one mystery has never been explained: who the heck is Diane? Kyle Maclachlan's charismatic FBI agent and Twin Peaks protagonist Dale Cooper is frequently seen recording messages on a portable tape player which he address to somebody called Diane. Is that the name of the tape player? His imaginary friend? His wife? Well, one of the biggest mysteries in Twin Peaks just got cleared up by a deleted scene on the recent Blu-Ray boxset. The brief exchange that originally appeared in the big-screen prequel to the show, Fire Walk With Me, saw Cooper leaning on a door frame in an FBI office and speaking to "Diane" in the room - we don't get to see or hear her but, presumably, she is a real person.