Seyfried's New Show Inspired 'Veronica Mars'

In a world where Full House has a sequel sitcom and everything from The X-Files to Gilmore Girls is getting revived for a modern audience, it was only a matter of time before a certain cult series made its grand return to our television sets. The Twin Peaks revival was announced in 2014, and though the series was pushed back way later than fans of the original David Lynch series were comfortable with, the new Twin Peaks is now closer than ever. On Monday Deadline announced the official cast list for the Twin Peaks revival, and in addition to returning cast members like Kyle MacLachlan (a.k.a. Agent Cooper) the series will incorporate a whole slew of new characters played by familiar faces, including Amanda Seyfried. Though Seyfried's role is still unknown, in many ways, the actress already owes quite a lot to Lynch's surreal series — without Twin Peaks, Seyfried's first major TV role on Veronica Mars may never existed.

Seyfried's most iconic role may be the pretty-but-dim Karen from Mean Girls, but Veronica Mars fans know her better as Lilly Kane, the charming, beautiful, and complicated high schooler whose murder plagues her best friend. It isn't long before the titular Veronica realizes that Lilly has been keeping dangerous secrets, and that they could have very well led to her untimely death. In untangling the mystery that is Lilly's murder, Veronica also untangles Lilly herself — something that Agent Cooper and the people of Twin Peaks did with fellow murdered teen Laura Palmer years before Veronica was sleuthing around Neptune.

Twin Peaks was one of the original "dead girl shows," a term coined by Alice Bolin's essay in the LA Review Of Books. Bolin stated that these shows, characterized by a plot involving the murder of a young, often beautiful woman, often feature two contradicting messages: that these young women are too "wild" with their sexuality and therefore in need of protection but also that men will try to control this sexuality in a way that can be met with violence. (Spoilers for Veronica Mars and Twin Peaks ahead.) Trust no father figure, says Bolin of dead girl shows: in Twin Peaks, Laura's own father is her murderer, albeit under the influence of a demonic, sadistic force. It's a twist that Veronica Mars seemingly adapts in its own way: though Lilly's murderer is her boyfriend's father (and her own secret lover) Aaron, he has his own version of a demon — his deeply hidden, highly destructive, and extremely masculine anger issues.

It's obvious that both shows make a point about male aggression towards women, and how destructive misogyny can be when it's looming just underneath the service. But while that's certainly the thread that connects these shows, it's not the only thing that makes Veronica Mars a spiritual successor to Lynch's cult series. Twin Peaks gave Veronica Mars an example of a young, female murder victim that is as complex as any of the living characters on the show. Both Lilly and Laura weren't simply symbols of crushed innocence, they were complicated women that even the characters closest to them struggled to understand. The show thrived because of these complex, fascinating women, who had just as much darkness within them as they did light. For Seyfried to join the cast of Twin Peaks feels appropriately full circle.

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