Catherine and the Mill

Catherine Martell is the latest generation of Packards to lay claim to the Packard Mill. She is usurped in ownership by her brother Andrew's widow, Josie. (TP) Catherine Harrington is the latest generation of Peytons to lay claim to the Peyton Mill. When she dies, her widow Leslie is usurped of his management by David Schuster. (PP) Both Catherines are entangled in dramas involving infidelities. In Dark Shadows, fellow matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard is the owner of the Collins Fishing Fleet, has been involved in an adulterous relationship, and like Catherine Harrington there is the question as whether she has been involved in murder. Elizabeth's position is threatened by Jason Macguire and Burke Devlin on different occasions.

In terms of the Passion Play of Twin Peaks, the theme of the sawmill in Peyton Place and Twin Peaks recalls the wood of the crucifix in the myth of the Passion of Christ, while the Collins Fishing Fleet of Dark Shadows is echoed by the fly fishing and Rainbow Trout (Rainbows recall the rainbow after the Biblical Flood and the rainbow about the throne of God in Revelations; there are twelve rainbow trout in the back of Pete Martell's truck which Windom Earle uses to kidnap Annie Blackburn away to the Black Lodge, one for each of Christ's Apostles) scenarios in Twin Peaks which recalls the myth of Christ feeding the masses and his making Peter and Simon "fishers of men".

Catherine stems from the Greek Ekaterini, which means to purge or to cleanse. When taken in the context of the Sawmills of the Catherines from Twin Peaks and Peyton Place and their equivalent Elizabeth Collins Stoddard owner of the Collins Fishing Fleet, the baptismal water which carries the wood of the crucifix on which the sins of man were cleansed by Christ in the Passion fits perfectly into the theme of the Twin Peaks Passion Play.