She is the first face we ever see in the Twin Peaks pilot. Before the body on the beach, before the coffee, before Agent Cooper’s tape recorder, there is Josie Packard. She’s sitting at her vanity, humming, applying makeup with a precision that feels like armor.
Honestly, it’s one of the most haunting introductions in TV history. It tells us everything we need to know: this is a woman who lives behind a mask. But as the show spiraled into its chaotic second season, her story became one of the most divisive, confusing, and—let's be real—downright weird arcs in the entire franchise.
People still argue about her. Was she a victim? A sociopath? A literal piece of furniture? Basically, if you think you understand Josie, you probably haven't looked at the wood grain closely enough.
The Mystery of Josie Packard and the Hong Kong Connection
When the show starts, Josie is the "vulnerable outsider." She’s the widow of Andrew Packard, the man who supposedly died in a boating accident. She’s running the Packard Sawmill, but she’s being bullied by her sister-in-law, Catherine Martell. At least, that’s the version of the story she wants Sheriff Harry S. Truman to believe.
You’ve gotta hand it to her; she played Harry like a fiddle.
But the truth is much darker. Mark Frost’s book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, and the later episodes of Season 2 reveal that Josie—real name Li Chun Fung—wasn't just some lost soul. She was a high-ranking member of a Triad organization in Hong Kong. She was trained in seduction, blackmail, and drug trafficking.
She didn't just stumble into Twin Peaks. She was "bought" and brought there by Thomas Eckhardt, a truly terrifying man who obsessed over her like a possession. Her marriage to Andrew Packard? That was a hit. She was sent to kill him and take the mill.
Why Did Josie Shoot Dale Cooper?
This is the question that drove fans crazy for years. At the end of Season 1, someone shoots Cooper in his hotel room. In Season 2, we find out it was Josie.
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Why? It feels almost random. Cooper hadn't even investigated the mill yet.
But if you look at it from Josie’s perspective, she was terrified. Cooper was an outsider with a supernatural ability to sniff out secrets. She knew her past was catching up to her—Eckhardt was coming, and the authorities were circling. Shooting Cooper wasn't personal; it was a panicked attempt to stop a man who saw through everything. She feared he would find the "darkness" she brought with her from Hong Kong.
The Most Bizarre Death in TV History
We have to talk about the doorknob. There’s no getting around it.
In Season 2, Episode 16 (directed by Duwayne Dunham, but the "knob" idea was famously a David Lynch special), Josie dies in a hotel room after killing Thomas Eckhardt. She doesn't die from a bullet. She doesn't die from a heart attack.
She dies of pure fear.
As she collapses, BOB—the demonic entity—appears on the bed, taunting Cooper. Then, the camera pans to a wooden bedside table. Josie’s face, screaming in agony, is seen trapped inside the wooden drawer knob.
It’s jarring. It’s campy. It’s terrifying.
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What did the doorknob actually mean?
Lynch has never given a straight answer, but the lore suggests that wood in the Twin Peaks universe acts as a conduit or a prison for spirits. Think about the Log Lady. She says her log "saw" things; it’s widely believed her husband’s soul is trapped inside it.
Josie was so consumed by fear and manipulation that she was literally "absorbed" into the architecture of the Great Northern Hotel. She became part of the wood. In a deleted scene from the Season 2 finale, her spirit is actually seen again within the hotel's walls. She didn't go to the White Lodge or the Black Lodge. She just... stayed.
Joan Chen and the Production Chaos
Behind the scenes, the story of Josie Packard is just as messy. Joan Chen was a massive star—she had just come off The Last Emperor. Casting her was a huge get for Lynch and Frost.
Originally, the role was written for Isabella Rossellini (Lynch’s partner at the time), and the character was going to be an Italian countess named Giovanna Pasqualini Packard. When Rossellini couldn't do it, they pivoted to Chen and changed the backstory.
However, as the network (ABC) pressured the show to solve Laura Palmer's murder, the writers started losing the thread. Joan Chen eventually asked to be written out so she could film a movie called Turtle Beach. She later called this one of the "stupidest mistakes" of her career.
She wanted back in for The Return (2017). She even wrote a letter to David Lynch in character as Josie, pleading to be released from the wood.
"I write to you from the wooden drawer knob in which I have been trapped for the past two decades..."
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Lynch didn't bring her back in person, though she appears in archival footage. According to some theories, the humming and vibrating sounds Ben Horne hears in his office during the new season are actually the sounds of Josie’s trapped spirit still mourning.
Was Josie Actually a "Bad" Person?
It’s easy to label her a villain. She betrayed Harry, she killed (or tried to kill) her husband, and she shot the hero of the show.
But Twin Peaks is never that simple.
Josie was a survivor of extreme trauma. She was a woman "in trouble," a classic Lynchian trope. She was sold, used as a tool by powerful men like Eckhardt and Andrew Packard, and forced to use her sexuality as her only weapon. Even her relationship with Harry—as much as she lied to him—felt like her only genuine attempt at a real life.
She was a "shadow" of Laura Palmer. Both were beautiful, both were leading double lives, and both were ultimately destroyed by the men who claimed to love them.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Rewatchers
If you’re heading back into a rewatch or diving into the lore for the first time, keep these points in mind to catch the subtle stuff:
- Watch the Mirror Scenes: Josie is almost always shown looking at herself in a mirror. This isn't just vanity; it represents her fractured identity and the "mask" she wears.
- Listen to the Walls: In The Return, pay close attention to the scenes in Ben Horne's office. The "humming" is officially unexplained, but the connection to Josie is the most popular (and heartbreaking) theory.
- Read the Books: If you want the gritty details of her Triad past, The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost is essential. It fills in the gaps that the TV show just didn't have time for.
- The "Judy" Connection: In Fire Walk With Me, Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) mentions a woman named "Judy." While The Return redefines Judy as an ancient evil entity, original scripts and Robert Engels (co-writer) suggested Judy was actually Josie’s sister. It's a fascinating "what if" for the series.
Josie Packard remains a haunting figure because she represents the part of Twin Peaks we don't like to talk about—the way people get used, chewed up, and eventually forgotten, left to scream in the wood grain while the rest of the world moves on.
To truly understand her, look for the official "The Secret History of Twin Peaks" to see the documents regarding her life in Hong Kong before she arrived at the mill.