Twin Peaks Prop – Nadine Hurley’s Floral Bowl

Here at Twin Peaks Blog, we’ve learned the value of patience while attempting to identify the props we see onscreen. Sometimes a brand name is visible and a quick Google search is all it takes, but when a description like “vintage floral bowl” is all we have to work with, we know that we’re in for a fair amount of sifting. For this reason, it took me a few tries to identify Nadine Hurley’s bowl as seen in episode 1.007. Once I finally found a match, I learned that they’re actually quite common.

NADINE’S ALLEGRO HEARTHSIDE FLORAL BOWL

In one of the first season finale’s many cliffhangers, Nadine is shown emptying pill bottles into a white bowl with delicate floral strands and a blue stripe around the lip.

This was part of the Allegro Hearthside Stoneware line, produced in Indonesia.

We never see the Hurley family’s kitchen onscreen, but assuming they owned a dishwasher and a microwave, these bowls would’ve held up fine.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR HEARTHSIDE FLORAL BOWL

Though it was difficult to find much definitive information about the company’s history, I was able to find several newspaper advertisements for this design published in 1990, like this one from the September 30 issue of the Staten Island Advance.

This means that the floral Allegro bowls were in production while Twin Peaks was filming and could’ve been purchased from any number of retailers, as opposed to a vintage design that may have been difficult to find outside of a thrift store or prop house.

APPEARANCES IN TWIN PEAKS OF HEARTHSIDE FLORAL BOWL

In the Mark Frost-helmed finale of Twin Peaks’ first season, Nadine is overcome with grief after her silent drape runner is rejected by the patent office. She dons an extravagant pink gown and sits on the living room floor.

Her failed invention paired with marriage trouble that neither she nor Big Ed are equipped to address lead her to empty two pill bottles into her Allegro bowl.

It has always struck me as odd that Nadine pours the pills into a bowl. I wonder if ABC’s Standards and Practices department required that her suicide attempt be implicit without the scene actually showing her taking any pills.

When Ed returns from his undercover operation at One Eyed Jacks, he finds Nadine unconscious on the floor in a tableau with her empty bottles making it clear what has transpired. The Allegro bowl is briefly visible, though out of focus.

A WEALTH OF REPLICAS

Sad though this scene may be, I still couldn’t help but track down a replica. As it turns out, these bowls are quite common on second-hand sites like eBay and I quickly found a set of 12 bowls for a bargain.

This was 11 more than I needed, so now my cats get to eat from prop replicas of their own. I have to think Nadine would be proud of this creative solution.