The main takeaway from Twin Peaks is trauma doesn’t die. Trauma is passed along. Trauma is forever present.

Regardless of our best intentions, whether we’re locked in a room for 25 years attempting to figure out a way to prevent the past or figuring out what year this is, trauma is always there.

Did Twin Peaks’ Donna bring trauma via Stacy to Wayne’s World?

Donna Hayward was portrayed by Lara Flynn Boyle in seasons 1 and 2 of Twin Peaks, which aired from 1990 to 1991. Donna Hayward was portrayed by Moira Kelly in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was released in theaters in 1992. Boyle was not available for FWWM because she was otherwise engaged in another role. Stacy was portrayed by Lara Flynn Boyle in Wayne’s World, which was released in theaters in 1992. The timelines match up. Do the universes?

Donna was the best friend of the late Laura Palmer. The most important person ever to be wrapped in plastic on prime time television led multiple lives. Laura was a seemingly model citizen, well liked in school and a pillar of the community. Laura was also tortured at home. Laura took that torture to The Roadhouse and abused herself emotionally and physically. Donna didn’t learn of the full extent of Laura’s multiple lives until Laura’s last night on a specific plain.

Stacy was the girlfriend of Wayne Campbell. We know this because Wayne tells us. Before we hear from Stacy, Wayne’s best friend Garth refers to her as a, “psycho hose beast.” The first exchange between Wayne and Stacy is comedic in 1992, borderline inappropriate in 2022 and completely understandable from both perspectives if Stacy and Donna are the same person.

Stacy: Happy anniversary, Wayne!

Wayne: Stacy we broke up two months ago.

Stacy: Well that doesn’t mean we can’t still go out.

Wayne: Well, it does actually. That’s what breaking up is.

Stacy: Well…are you going to go to the Gasworks tonight?

Wayne: No.

Wayne’s Friends: No.

Stacy: Don’t you want to open your present?

Wayne: If it’s a severed head I’m going to be very upset.

Stacy: Open it…

Wayne: O.K.

[Wayne stands. Opens the gift. It’s a gun rack.]

Wayne: What is it?

Stacy: It’s a gun rack.

Wayne: A gun rack… a gun rack. I don’t even own a gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do with a gun rack?

Stacy: You don’t like it? Fine.

You know Wayne, if you’re not careful, you’re going to lose me.

Wayne: I lost you two months ago. Are you mental? We broke up. Get the net!

Stacy appears unstable. But if Stacy is Donna, Stacy is sane.

If we maintain our timeline, Stacy/Donna has recently witnessed her friend being passed around at The Bang Bang Bar (typically referred to as The Roadhouse). She’s had an FBI agent pretty much attending her high school. Her high school fling was considered a suspect in her best friend’s death. Coming from a small town in the Pacific Northwest to the suburbs of Chicago, Stacy/Donna might assume most everyone has multiple guns to necessitate the need for an entire gun rack.

In the aforementioned Wayne’s World scene, Stacy/Donna is wearing a prom dress. She’s attempting to reclaim her recently lost innocence. She’s also wearing a necklace that spells WAYNE. She’s attempting to anchor herself to someone in an unstable universe. She asks about the Gasworks, the Aurora equivalent of The Bang Bang Bar. Stacy/Donna is trying to hold on any way she can.

Later in Wayne’s World we visit Gasworks. Wayne instantly falls for Cassandra, the lead singer of Crucial Taunt. Cassandra is actually singing a rendition of “Fire” by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Wayne hears “Dreamweaver.”

In less than two minutes, Wayne’s World explores the musical themes of all of Twin Peaks. While not as beautiful or heart wrenching as Julee Cruise’s “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart” in season 1, “The World Spins” in seasons 2 and 3 and “Questions In A World Of Blue” in Fire Walk With Me, we find the same musical universe. It’s about fire and dreams. It’s about passion and hope. It’s about desire.

Twin Peaks did a fine job exploring alternative realities years before Marvel’s Multiverse.

Just because someone appears to be someone, they might be someone else.

Just because someone leaves one plain doesn’t mean they can’t exist in another.

Just because someone is a psychohose beast doesn’t prevent them from being a

Over three seasons of Twin Peaks and one movie, we learn there are three Coopers.

In the last act of Wayne’s World we’re introduced to the potential of different endings (Sad, Scooby-Doo and Happy).

If there can be three Coopers, there can be three Waynes. So why can’t there one Stacy/Donna?

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