Josie Packard
Jocelyn "Josie" Packard is a fictional character on the 1990-1991 primetime ABC series Twin Peaks, played by Joan Chen. She is from Hong Kong, and is ethnic Chinese. In the opening credits, she is listed as Jocelyn Packard.
On a show with many mysterious and unpredictable characters, few were more mysterious than Josie Packard. Josie's is the first face we see in the first moments of the pilot. She is seated at a vanity applying her makeup. When Pete Martell bids his wife Catherine Martell goodbye for the morning and is rebuffed, Josie turns around silently, her face pale like a mask, lips red as blood. She observes the sad scene without comment, but with an expression as artfully sad as a painting. Throughout the first season, Josie seems innocent, an easy mark and potential victim for her more savvy and cunning sister in law, Catherine, and Catherine's lover, Ben Horne. It is only later that we learn that Josie is not at all what she seems.
A Chinese native, Josie met Andrew Packard, owner of the Packard Mill, in Hongkong and accompanied him to Twin Peaks as his wife. After Andrew's death in a boating accident, Josie inherited the mill, which however is run by Andrew's sister Catherine Martell. Catherine hates Josie with a passion, resenting the fact that Andrew's death left the mill in non-expert hands and suspecting that that Josie was responsible for Andrew's demise. Catherine's husband, Pete Martell, a former woodcutter, however is good friends with Josie, seeing her fragile side and striving to protect her the entire time he knew her.
After her husband's death, Josie started dating the town sherriff Harry S. Truman. FBI Agent Dale Cooper, in town investigating the murder of Laura Palmer, had befriended Sherriff Truman, and quickly detected Truman's feelings for Josie, but did not himself trust her at all. He tries to warn Truman against trusting Josie too much, but to no avail. At the end of the first season, a mysterious caller shoots Cooper. He survives, thanks to a quick operation, but does not get a look at his assailant, who is later revealed to have been Josie.
Though Josie's English was quite good (despite problems with idioms and turns of phrase), she was taking English lessons from Laura Palmer, right up until the day of Laura's death. (In the non-canonical Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, it is revealed that Laura and Josie were sexual partners as well.) It's implied that Josie's malapropisms and thick accent when speaking with Pete or Harry early in the series are a put-on; when Josie is revealed to be more than meets the eye, she is shown speaking to Ben with perfect English and no trace of an accent.
At first, we see Catherine and Ben Horne conspiring to steal ownership of the mill away from Josie. Later, it was revealed that Josie herself was in fact working with Ben Horne to cut Catharine out of the picture, and that Josie employed Hank Jennings to kill Andrew with Ben's knowledge and complicity. Still later, it was revealed that all the while she was taking orders from Andrew's former business partner and rival, Thomas Eckhardt (David Warner).
In the show's second season, Josie was horrified when both of the men in her life returned. Andrew had not been killed in the boat accident, and now he returned to live with Catherine. The two of them treated Josie as a maid. Eckhardt then arrived in Twin Peaks and ordered Josie to come see him.
On the last night of her life, we see her as we first met her, sitting at a vanity, applying her makeup, and tragically sad and afraid. She considered Eckhardt a dangerous man, and feeling she was going to her death, took a gun with her. Cooper, who had been monitoring Josie discreetly, learns from coat hair fibers found at the scene that it was she who had shot him. He went to the Great Northern to arrest her, followed by Truman. However, they are too late to prevent Josie from killing Eckhardt.
However, Josie suddenly collapsed dead, just moments later, in front of Cooper and a shattered Truman. At the moment of her death, Cooper saw a vision of Bob and the Man from another place. At the autopsy, her body had a dramatic loss in weight. Deputy Hawk speculated that her soul was no longer in the body.
Indeed, it appeared that Josie's soul was trapped within the wood of the hotel. She was mentioned once more when Pete said - at the hotel - "Josie, I see your face."
Due to the show's cancellation, Josie's fate was never resolved.
Casting
According to an interview with Joan Chen in the documentary Secrets from Another Place, included with the 2007 "Gold Box Edition" DVD release of Twin Peaks, the charactor of Josie was originally conceived as an Italian woman named Giovanna (a reproduction of a script page shown on screen during this segment of the documentary indicates "Josie" was intended to be a nickname for Giovanna), and that David Lynch's domestic partner at the time, Isabella Rossellini, was to have played her.
