David Lynch’s 22 Strangest ‘Otherworld’ Characters
5. MIKE/The Man From Another Place: Twin Peaks/Fire Walk With Me
That gum you like is going to come back in style. No list of Lynchs otherworldly characters could be complete without including perhaps his most well known: MIKE from Twin Peaks (Michael J. Anderson). Also referred to as The Dream Man and The Man From Another Place, MIKE is an inhabiting spirit from The Black Lodge that possesses the one-armed Phillip Gerard (Al Strobel). His Black Lodge form is that of a dwarf dressed in red who dances to Angelo Badalamentis infamous soundtrack while speaking backwards (with his voice then reversed by Lynch in post-production). His first appearance is in Twin Peaks oft-cited third episode, when Cooper dreams about a red room and a dwarf that provides cryptic clues about Laura Palmers death. At that point in the story he seems like a mere dream figure, but his significance grows as the series unfolds. The clues he offers, such as that gum you like is going to come back in style and shes filled with secrets, are among the shows most quotable but much like those of The Giant, they are unclear enough to raise questions about MIKEs motives. MIKE returns late in season two, prominently figuring in Coopers descent into The Black Lodge and in Lauras dreams in Fire Walk With Me. He is revealed to have a passion for killing matched only by his partner BOB (discussed later in the list), which leads to the ultimate question: can this dancing, backwards-speaking otherworldly dwarfs clues be trusted? Or are his motivations far darker than he is letting on?
