Eileen Hayward

Eileen Hayward is Donna's mother, confined to a wheelchair in the Hayward home, married to the kindly Doc Will Hayward. She speaks in a hushed, faraway voice, moving through the house like someone half-asleep. Fragile and watchful, she seems to exist at a slight remove from the ordinary business of the family around her.

Mary Jo Deschanel plays her at a strange, unhurried register that never quite matches the scene she's in, and that mismatch is the whole point in a show built on domestic surfaces hiding something underneath. She barely has to raise her voice to feel unsettling, which is exactly the register Twin Peaks runs on.