The Man and the Monster
Leland Palmer doesn't remember exactly when BOB arrived.
He was a child. Playing in the woods near Pearl Lakes. A man appeared—gray hair, wild eyes, a smile that didn't reach anywhere human.
"You invited me in," BOB would whisper later. "You opened the door."
What happened next, Leland buried so deep he convinced himself it never happened. The blackouts. The lost time. The moments when he'd wake somewhere he didn't remember going, doing things he couldn't remember doing.
He built a life anyway. Law school. Marriage to Sarah. A beautiful daughter named Laura.
And BOB was there for all of it. Wearing Leland's face. Using Leland's hands.
The first time Laura saw BOB—really saw him—she was twelve years old. She thought it was a nightmare. Then she realized the nightmare came from her father's bedroom. That her father's face became BOB's face in the dark.
Laura kept his secret. Kept her father's secret. Until the night she couldn't anymore.
That night, BOB killed her. And Leland... Leland watched from inside his own body, screaming in a voice no one could hear.
Or at least, that's one way to understand it. David Lynch never lets us know for certain where Leland ends and BOB begins.
And that ambiguity is the true horror of Twin Peaks.