Twin Peaks

Leland Palmer is a fictional character played by Ray Wise on the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks, and in the prequel feature filmTwin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Leland and his family (wife Sarah and daughter Laura) have always been well-known figures in the town of Twin Peaks; they seem to be the perfect family. When Laura is murdered, Leland’s psychological foundations begin to crumble. After her arrival, Madeleine Ferguson, Laura’s cousin (and spitting image), is of great help to him in learning how to deal with his daughter’s death.

It is eventually revealed that, as a boy, Leland met a strange neighbour who turned out to be a demonic entity named BOB, who would possess him throughout his life. As an adult, he molests and rapes Laura throughout her teens, all the while controlled by BOB. As time wears on, the strain of his dual personality starts to have a noticeable effect on his appearance; Leland's hair turns completely white.

Leland is eventually exposed as the murderer of both his daughter and his niece, and arrested by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry Truman. He dies in custody following his bizarre interrogation on the night of his arrest. BOB takes control of Leland and forces him to ram his own head into the wall. At the moment of his death, Leland remembers the crimes he committed under BOB's control. He sees a vision of his daughter Laura as he dies. As Cooper explains to the widowed Sarah in the following episode, it was probably Laura forgiving him and welcoming him into the afterlife.

In the final episode of the series, Cooper encounters a grinning doppelganger of Leland in the Black Lodge, who says “I did not kill anybody.” At the episode's conclusion, it is implied that in an ironic twist, Cooper himself has now become a new host for BOB.