ABSTRACT
In the penultimate episode of Twin Peaks: The Return, David Lynch’s Gordon Cole delivers the only clear exposition on Judy, an entity whose existence and influence has been at the center of the dark mystery of the Twin Peaks universe. Having been referred to only in oblique terms until episode 17 and never rendered visible to the spectator, what is one to make of a character so apparently central to the story? If one considers Judy as an acousmêtre, I argue that, by the end of the series, the spectator already knows quite a lot about this mysterious being, for Judy’s actions, influence, and presence have been rendered perceptible through sound. By expanding the concept of the voix acousmatique to a non-verbalizing character and conducting a close analysis of the sound cues in The Return, one discovers that what initially appears to be ambient underscoring can actually be read as an abstract form of character development. Analyzing the correspondence of recurring sound cues through the lens of Judy’s narrative presence reveals new information about this elusive being and provides a new interpretive context for the aural dimension of Twin Peaks and Lynch’s other works.
