I don´t know has there been allready threads about this but is Evelyn Marsh some kind of reincarnation (spelling?) of Laura. Is she Laura´s doppleganger who wants to hurt anyone who loves her. Even beyond the grave. Just like in season 1. when Donna wore Laura´s sunglasses and started to act really cruel and odd. Has Evelyn Marsh been posessed by Laura´s dark influenses?

The character was very stock, sort of a distraction with no real anchor.  I can't really blame the actress.  The role is so cliche-- the Scarlet Woman who melts for a good man-- that it seemed terribly out of place, likes something that strayed in from any nighttime soap.

Marsh is what I believe many audience members suspected Laura really was in the early episodes--- a noirish vixen who came to her own tragic end.  Thankfully Lynch invested a great deal more in his complex conception of Laura as a compliment to Agent Cooper.

Other than the writing, another part of the problem was just the danger of introducing a dramatic side-plot that had nothing at all to do with anything else on the show. It wasn't even in Twin Peaks! James Marshall had some very good acting moments in the show, but his character was nowhere near developed enough to hold that part of the story on his own -- which was needed if an audience was going to care what was going on.

As far as Evelyn having some kind of conceptual connection to Laura, I'd be surprised if it was anything more than "people who watch our show like dangerous blondes, so let's throw another one in"...  Unless there was some background plot afoot to spin-off James Hurley as some sort of wandering sourpuss.

Yeah! How about a spin-off series: "James Hurley: The Motorcycle Diaries", in which our (anti)hero travels south through Washington to California, including San Francisco, LA (possible Mulholland Drive connection here?), and eventually Mexcio... It could have kind of a '50s feel to it.

possible Mulholland Drive connection here

Well, of course... James is the beggar behind Winkies! After four consecutives love/sex disasters he decides to give up, move to some LA alley and distribute little blue boxes with old people inside to scare women and making them shot themselves... Mr. Hurley's revenge against all them b*tches...

And about Evelyn, the connection with Laura... Well...as that guy from Hap's would say: "Evelyn is her name and her subplot sucks. Don't go any further with it, there's nothing good about it".

Ok. Thanks for replies. Some guy said it in one messageboard and I just wanted to check is that true.

possible Mulholland Drive connection here

Well, of course... James is the beggar behind Winkies! After four consecutives love/sex disasters he decides to give up, move to some LA alley and distribute little blue boxes with old people inside to scare women and making them shot themselves... Mr. Hurley's revenge against all them b*tches...

And about Evelyn, the connection with Laura... Well...as that guy from Hap's would say: "Evelyn is her name and her subplot sucks. Don't go any further with it, there's nothing good about it".

 I don't think that her subplot was the worst, it's still way better than Little Nicky and Dick Tremont (I don't know if I got his surname right)

As much as I hate Evelyn, it's kind of nice to see a thread about her that wasn't created just to bash the character. BTW someone said that the problem with the subplot was that it seemed like something out of a nighttime soap... well so did the whole mill storyline, Laura's identical cousin, even the central murder mystery itself... Twin Peaks really kind of was a nighttime soap, only bizarre and superbly made. The soapy storylines in season 1 are highly enjoyable, and very well crafted. The Evelyn storyline was just bad, although the climax was enjoyable to me in a trashy way...

Believe this was mainly an opportunity to have Donna save James.  No real Laura connection...

The difference between the Marsh plot line and other conventions taken from nighttime soaps is that there was no perverse or ingenious spin put on it.  The mill conflict had an interesting East vs. West feel to it with the tug-of-war between Josie and Catherine (we never could be sure if Josie was an innocent or a greater adversary than even Catherine), Maddy's introduction was brilliant because you couldn't tell for a while that she actually wasn't Laura, and Laura's death was as much about learning about the victim as it was apprehending her killer.  The series had a way of making cliches seem new and exciting by virtue of the weird idiosyncracies the writing introduced.  The James/Evelyn angle had no real ironic inspiration to it.  It feels as if it was lifted wholesale from a film noir movie or a more typical tv drama like Knot's Landing.  Marsh has none of the depth that the other female characters did because her character arc was telegraphed from the moment she enters.

Cypher's post above is really great and is worth quoting indeed:

The difference between the Marsh plot line and other conventions taken from nighttime soaps is that there was no perverse or ingenious spin put on it.  The mill conflict had an interesting East vs. West feel to it with the tug-of-war between Josie and Catherine (we never could be sure if Josie was an innocent or a greater adversary than even Catherine), Maddy's introduction was brilliant because you couldn't tell for a while that she actually wasn't Laura, and Laura's death was as much about learning about the victim as it was apprehending her killer.  The series had a way of making cliches seem new and exciting by virtue of the weird idiosyncracies the writing introduced.  The James/Evelyn angle had no real ironic inspiration to it.  It feels as if it was lifted wholesale from a film noir movie or a more typical tv drama like Knot's Landing.  Marsh has none of the depth that the other female characters did because her character arc was telegraphed from the moment she enters.

This said, I also am glad that such a topic exists, which is not dedicated to eating Evelyn Marsh alive. Only this board could have made me a world-famous supporter of Evelyn Marsh and her stockings - but for the overdone dashing in every second thread I would never have realised how much in fact I enjoyed those Evelyn-James scenes ;-)
 

I can't say the actress gives a bad performance and I don't really want to blame the writers either. It may've been a storyline that resulted moreso from necesssity than any real interest from the creative team.  Peaks really wanted to do what Lost was allowed to all these years later:  tell a glacially obsessive storyline in micro-increments and have mysteries act like kaleidoscopes that only give way to more questions.  It's the network executives and a certain casually viewing segment of the public who wanted closure.  Most who truly got the series weren't in a hurry because it was the intense need to want to know that was the thrill of the program.  The writers were left to scramble when that door was closed.  Sadly, the TV brass who apparently didn't like the series and viewers who weren't really interested in the long run were given the deciding vote.  Watchers who embraced the strangeness and weren't craving an immediate end to the Palmer case were and continue to be the loyal and lasting audience.

Amen, BOB1. 

In a way, she's a totally unique character.  She's certainly a welcome departure from the hyper-emotional teenagers and the discontent older women of the town of Twin Peaks.  And unlike Josie, she didn't take the path of evil because of circumstances and a will to survive.  Evelyn is wealthy, well put together, has a healthy sex drive and no morals. Laura would've been drawn to her, I think. 

Referring to what Cypher said above - I remember that when I was watching Peaks originally, and I had no idea yet how and even when it's going to end, the Marsh plot didn't seem so pointless to me. It didn't seem very pointful either ;-) , but the thing is, I didn't KNOW how it was going to be used.

It's now, from a perspective, that I can say: the worst problem with Evelyn is that she is in no way related to the rest of the story, it's a subplot artificially added to fill the screen time.

Perhaps if Twin Peaks had remained open , the Marsh storyline would keep our interest better?

unlike Josie, she didn't take the path of evil because of circumstances and a will to survive

Why do you think she did it then? :-)

The part of Evelyn would have made more sense if the actress playing her had been more of the classic hollywood "blonde bombshell."  Imagine someone who looked like Marilynn Monroe saying her lines, and however "badly" they might seem to have been written makes more sense in a flirtatious kinda way.

I'm thinking specifically about some of her first lines in the show about how "all men are okay, right up until they pull the trigger.  then all the neighbors parade out and tell the news cameras, 'he was such a quiet guy'"  [or something similar].  The "bombshell" archetype has these undertones of mixing sexual desire and the threat of danger (and even death).  I don't think the actress they picked looked the part, and I dont think her line delivery was up to task.

As the subplot moved on, however, the writing could pretty easily be blamed for horridness.  Especially Malcom's lines.  Those were pretty bad.

With Lynch's love of physical and/or mental oddness, I imagine that if he'd handled the plotline he'd have put his own stamp on it, like maybe making Evelyn only one of a pair of conjoined twins, one the scarlet woman and the other the blonde angel.  I'm thinking of something along the lines of Twin Falls Idaho with its two-men-in-one morseo than Sisters.  Eliminate the antagonistc Malcolm character and divide Evelyn.  He's often been accused by critics of bisecting his female characters into light and dark (though I'd argue he does it as much with male characters), so literally doing it would be clever and ironic. 

unlike Josie, she didn't take the path of evil because of circumstances and a will to survive

Why do you think she did it then? :-)

Her life with Jeffrey was a cake walk and she obviously wasn't all that scared of Malcolm.  She even said she did it because she wanted to.  She's not exactly psychologically complex... you can speculate, if you like to believe everyone is good until they're pushed into a desperate situation but that would make her boring and I'd  have to rethink my opinion  of her.

really they just needed someone for James to do...