Why David Lynch was forced into revealing Laura Palmer’s killer in ‘Twin Peaks’
Following the success of Blue Velvet, David Lynch teamed up with Mark Forst to create a series that would become one of the most acclaimed and influential pieces of television ever made—Twin Peaks. First airing in 1990, the show took us to the bizarre titular world, a seemingly pleasant suburban town where a waterfall runs, diners serve cherry pie, and the high schoolers wear 1950s-inspired outfits.
Yet, beneath its charming exterior is crime and cruelty, with the unusual cast of characters all harnessing ties – in some way or another – to the mysterious homecoming queen Laura Palmer, who is found dead, wrapped in plastic, in the pilot episode. FBI Agent Dale Cooper is called to the small town to investigate her murder, which raises plenty of questions. Why has she been ditched by the water in plastic? Why does she have small pieces of paper with letters on them under her nails? Why was she killed? And most importantly, who killed her?
Laura’s presence lingers throughout the whole show, even though she appears only in flashbacks, photos, and through people’s descriptions of her. She’s a complex character, a troubled young girl whom we discover had an affinity for drugs and worked as an underage prostitute before she was killed.
While she was alive, she lived with her parents, Sarah and Leland, had a boyfriend named Bobby, and engaged in relationships with several other men, such as James. Viewed as one of Twin Peaks High School’s most popular students and an all-American girl, Lynch subverts her character archetype and reveals the corruption that surrounds her, leaving her a victim of much abuse and tragedy.
It turns out that Leland, her father, raped and murdered her while he was possessed by the evil spirit known as BOB. For years, Leland had been sexually abusing his daughter, claiming that BOB had possessed him since he was a kid. In the big reveal scene, Leland, dying, tells Cooper, “I was just a boy. I saw him in my dreams; he said he wanted to play. He opened me, and I invited him, and he came inside me. When he was inside, I didn’t know, and when he was gone, I couldn’t remember. He made me do things, terrible things. He said he wanted lives, he wanted others to use like they used me… Oh god, they had me kill that girl, Theresa. They made me kill Laura.”
We don’t discover that Leland was responsible for Laura’s death until season two, episode seven – which is a long time for fans to be kept waiting. However, Lynch originally planned for the killer to remain a secret, never giving the audience the satisfaction they wanted so badly. For the filmmaker, this seemed like the perfect way to keep people hooked, with fans never knowing if the episode they were about to watch would solve the mystery. Yet, ABC knew that this was a flawed idea, and the reveal would have to come sooner or later – or Lynch’s show would risk getting cancelled.
Thus, we get the reveal in the middle of season two, which feels like an odd place to share such vital information. It’s a highly moving episode, though, with Leland dying in Cooper’s arms after confessing. However, with the murder mystery now wrapped up, the rest of the season got considerably worse. Maybe the reveal would’ve been better at the end of the season, or maybe even at the end of season one, but sometimes the television network simply gets the final say.
