Around halfway through the Twin Peaks pilot — which aired 35 years ago over a two-hour time slot on ABC — Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) is lent over a mortuary slab, prying something from underneath the fingernail of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the 17-year-old prom queen whose body just washed up on a riverbank in small Washington town Twin Peaks. Cooper has been called in after a second young woman was found alive with similar wounds nearby; he believes both crimes have something to do with an ongoing case. There is a piece of paper under Laura’s fingernail, a square too small for anything but the letter “R” on it. Cooper is delighted — his inappropriate grin is lit up by a flickering fluorescent light above the table, giving the intimate scene the feeling of Frankenstein’s lab. For local sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), sat on Laura’s other side, his investigation just took a detour into eerier, confounding territory.
