Laura Palmer


Laura Palmer is a fictional character in the Twin Peaks franchise. She is portrayed by Sheryl Lee and was created by the series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost. She first appears in the ABC original series Twin Peaks. A high school student whose death is the catalyst for the events of the series, Palmer is the protagonist in Lynch's prequel film , which depicts the final week of her life leading up to her murder. Laura also appears in the novels, Twin Peaks: The Return, and a variety of merchandise based on the series.

Appearances

In television

Laura, was well known and loved in Twin Peaks; she volunteered at Meals on Wheels, was her school's Homecoming Queen, and was the darling of her parents, Sarah and Leland. However, the series gradually revealed that Laura led a double life: she was a cocaine addict, a victim of child sexual abuse, a fetish model and, briefly, a sex worker at One Eyed Jacks, a casino/brothel just north of the Canada–US border. Officially involved with Bobby Briggs, the high school football team captain, she was also engaged in a secret relationship with James Hurley. She also had sexual encounters with other Twin Peaks citizens, such as businessman Ben Horne and trucker/drug dealer Leo Johnson.
The discovery of Laura's body in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks brings Special Agent Dale Cooper to investigate her death. Her murder and its effect on those around her propel the first season and the first eight episodes of the second season. Laura remains a prominent character afterward, as her death exposes many secrets related to her, and also, in some cases, unrelated, such as the Packard mill conspiracy. Laura also appears in Cooper's dreams, offering cryptic clues as to the identity of her killer.
Laura's first diary is uncovered in the first episode, but her 2nd secret diary is not recovered until later. The secret diary contains passages suggesting that she had been sexually abused by a malevolent entity named BOB since she was a child. In her diary she referred to BOB as a friend of her father's.
In the prequel/sequel Fire Walk With Me, Laura's spirit makes the transition to the afterlife when an angel appears to her, showing that her nightmare was finally over.
During the second season, the identity of her murderer was revealed: her father, Leland, who had sexually abused her for years while being possessed by BOB. Before his death in police custody, Leland tells Cooper and the others that he hadn't been aware of his own actions during the times BOB possessed him. As Leland dies, Laura appears before him in a vision, and it is implied that she forgives him and welcomes him to the afterlife.
Laura appears inside the Black Lodge during the series finale, as both herself and an evil doppelgänger version.

''The Return''

Sheryl Lee reprised her role as Laura in . In "Part 2", Laura Palmer removes her face to reveal a mysterious white light emanating from within her body. She is shortly whisked away by an unseen force. In "Part 8", a glowing orb containing Laura's portrait is sent to Earth in 1945 by Senorita Dido, shortly after the creation of BOB during the testing of the first nuclear bomb.
In Part 17, Agent Cooper is sent back in time by Special Agent Phillip Jeffries and saves Laura on the night of her murder; the opening scenes of the first season are revisited thereafter, but Laura's iconic plastic-wrapped body is nowhere to be found. Laura herself disappears soon after, vanishing from Cooper's grasp as they stroll through the woods of Twin Peaks.
In the series finale, Cooper discovers that Carrie Page, a middle-aged woman who looks just like Laura Palmer, is living in an alternative reality Odessa, Texas. Though skeptical of Cooper's claims of her past life as Laura, Carrie is eager to flee town, as there is a dead man in her living room with a bullet hole in his head. She accompanies Cooper to Washington state. Once they arrive at the Palmer residence, Carrie does not seem to recognize her supposed former home, and Cooper is shocked to find the "Tremond" family living there, having purchased the home from the previous owners, the Chalfonts. As Cooper begins to question the current year, Sarah Palmer's voice calls out "Laura" from the Palmer residence, and Carrie finally seems to remember, subsequently screaming in horror.

In film

Laura is the protagonist of the prequel film . The film depicts the last week of the life of Laura and depicts the events leading up to her murder.
Laura is the high school homecoming queen and is best friends with Donna Hayward. Laura is addicted to cocaine and is cheating on her boyfriend, Bobby Briggs, with the biker James Hurley. After Laura realizes pages are missing from her secret diary, she gives the rest of the diary to Harold Smith, her agoraphobic friend.
She has a dream about entering the Black Lodge. Cooper and the Man from Another Place appear in her dream. The Man from Another Place tells Cooper that he is "the arm" and offers Teresa's ring to Laura, but Cooper tells her not to take it. Laura finds Annie Blackburn next to her in bed, covered in blood. Annie tells Laura to write in her diary that "the good Dale" is trapped in the Lodge and can't leave. When she wakes up, Laura sees the ring in her hand.
The next evening, Laura goes to the Bang Bang Bar to meet her drug connections and have sex with strangers. Unexpectedly, the normally chaste Donna shows up. They all go to the Pink Room. When she sees a topless Donna making out with a stranger, a distraught Laura takes her home and begs Donna to not become like her. The next morning, Leland drives Laura home. On the way home, Philip Gerard/MIKE, the one-armed man who is also possessed by a demon, pulls up alongside Leland's car and shouts at Leland that "the thread will be torn". He shows Teresa's ring to Laura, but she and Leland become frightened and drive away.
The next night, BOB comes through Laura's window and begins having sex with her only to transform into Leland. The next morning she warns him to stay away from her. Upset, Laura uses more cocaine and has trouble concentrating at school. When Bobby realizes Laura was only using him to score cocaine, he breaks off their relationship. Subsequently, Laura breaks up with James, then goes to a cabin in the woods to have an orgy with Leo, One-Eyed Jack's dealer Jacques Renault, and prostitute Ronette Pulaski. Leland has followed her there and, after attacking Jacques and Leo, takes Laura and Ronette to an abandoned train car. Laura asks Leland if he is going to kill her, but BOB appears and tells Laura he intends to possess her. MIKE has tracked Leland/BOB to the train, but when Ronette tries to let him in, Leland beats her unconscious. MIKE manages to throw in Teresa's ring. Laura puts it on, which prevents BOB from possessing her. Enraged, Leland/BOB stabs Laura to death. Leland/BOB places Laura's body in the lake. As her corpse drifts away, Leland/BOB enters the Red Room, where he encounters MIKE and the Man from Another Place, who announce they want their share of "garmonbozia".
As Laura's body is found by the Sheriff's department, Agent Cooper comforts her spirit in the Black Lodge. Laura is the protagonist of the 2014 film, Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces, which features deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me, pieced together to make a feature-length film.

In literature

''The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer''

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, written by Jennifer Lynch, was published in 1990. Lynch paints a haunting portrait of an abused teen's double life, falling into a world of prostitution and cocaine abuse, while maintaining the status quo as homecoming queen and high school student. Published during the summer between the original broadcasts of the first and second seasons, the book provided fans with much-sought-after information regarding Laura's veiled personal life, including her knowledge of and/or relationship with the enigmatic character of "Killer Bob." For the most part, Lynch's book is faithful to the Lynch/Frost collaboration as it existed at the time of its publication. However, discrepancies exist, as when Laura describes a slumber party with friend Donna and cousin Maddy, contradicting a scene in Season One in which they are introduced for the first time after her death. Season Two strays from the Secret Diary by referring to diary entries that do not appear in Lynch's work and by setting the date of her death, and thus her birth a year earlier than in the diary. This can be resolved by simply mentally adjusting all dates in the diary to one year earlier than the date printed, since the TV show and film definitively fix the events of the series in 1989.

Other appearances

In merchandise

has released POP! Vinyl and Reaction Figures of Laura wrapped in plastic and a POP! Vinyl of Laura's Black Lodge counterpart.

In popular culture

was cast as Laura

Conception

Laura's murder was possibly inspired by the unsolved death of Hazel Irene Drew, who was found dead in Teal's Pond in Sand Lake, New York and the story of which Mark Frost was told by his grandmother Betty Calhoun.

Casting

Due to budget constraints, Lynch intended to cast a local girl from Seattle, reportedly "just to play a dead girl". The local girl ended up being Sheryl Lee. Lynch stated "But no one—not Mark, me, anyone—had any idea that she could act, or that she was going to be so powerful just being dead." And then, while Lynch shot the home movie that James takes of Donna and Laura, he realized that Lee had something special. "She did do another scene—the video with Donna on the picnic—and it was that scene that did it." As a result, Sheryl Lee became a semi-regular addition to the cast, appearing in flashbacks as Laura, as well as Laura's cousin, Maddy Ferguson.