Unsurprisingly, there were way more questions than answers when Twin Peaks: The Return ended its epic 18-episode run last week. How were Agent Cooper and Richard connected? What year was this? Why did David Bowie’s Phillip Jeffries character take the form of a steampunk tea kettle, of all items? Well, we can now check one minor question about The Return off our checklist, thanks to the show’s executive producer Sabrina Sutherland. While we already got a few indications that Bowie would make an appearance as the Southern-tongued FBI agent in The Return before his untimely death last year (Harry Goatz, a.k.a. Deputy Andy, confirmed Bowie was “set to returnâ€), during a Reddit AMA session on Sunday evening, Sutherland responded to a question asking if Bowie knew “how his character was going to be tackled.†While Sutherland wouldn’t confirm if David Lynch relayed to Bowie that his character would be turned into a giant kitchen appliance, she revealed the singer-songwriter gave the creative team his stamp of approval for his Fire Walk With Me flashback sequences: “Bowie did give us permission to use his clips in this season.†And good thing he did. The flashbacks in question, especially regarding the entity of “Judy,†proved to be an integral part of understanding The Return’s final mythology.
Sutherland also gave a non-answer for another key question on viewers’ minds: Who provided the voice of “The Arm†evolution of the Man From Another Place, since, according to her, Michael J. Anderson “declined†to reprise his role? (Was it a Bill Hader and Ben Schwartz situation à la BB-8 in Star Wars?) We’ll never know, so start solidifying your well-informed guesses now. “Unfortunately, I think this question should remain a mystery and not be answered,†Sutherland simply explained. Vulture would like to formally guess Angelo Badalamenti.