Did Leland Once Consider Suicide In The Original Series?

In season one, episode three (Rest in Pain, #1.003), Leland Palmer views the soap opera Invitation to Love as he is administered a sedative by a nurse. As the scene progresses, reality and fiction appear to parallel.

It is well known that events in Invitation to Love often mirror or parody the lives of Twin Peaks residents. Considering the connection of both worlds, the context of the scene Leland watches might suggest he had suicidal thoughts.

Jade and Maddy, Leland and Jared

The scene Leland views appears to be instantaneously recreated by himself and his niece without their knowledge.

From the script:

8. INT. PALMER HOUSE LIVING ROOM - DAY

ANOTHER ANGLE reveals a television in the Palmer house. A NURSE turns her eyes from the screen, withdraws a syringe from Leland Palmer's arm. She discards the empty, carefully draws medication into a second syringe, and places it on a tray. Just then: the doorbell RINGS.

STAY WITH Leland as the nurse walks to the front door. Leland watches television.

INTERCUT:

9. "INVITATION TO LOVE"

JARED, distinguished in smoking jacket and ascot, weeps, finishes a suicide note addressed to Emerald and Jade. He takes a gun into his hands, lifts it slowly. Suddenly: someone knocks at the door, calls to him.

JADE'S VOICE
Daddy! Open up! Daddy it's jade!

Jared pauses, looks at the door, the gun. Music swells.

DURING ABOVE, we HEAR the Palmer's front door open, some muted exchange, two sets of footsteps returning to the living room. Finally:

MADELEINE'S VOICE
Uncle Leland?

Leland looks up, sees the Nurse and MADELEINE FERGUSON standing before him.

Madeleine is twenty, quite beautiful, She wear glasses, has jet black hair worn long. She sets down a suitcase. A closer angle REVEALS that she looks very much like Laura Palmer.

Leland stares at Madeleine for a long beat. As if he didn't recognize her. Then, with great difficulty:

LELAND
Madelaine? (rises, steps closer, takes her by the hands) Maddy?

MADELEINE
Uncle Leland, I'm so sorry, I ...

Madeleine pauses, a sob catches in her throat. She begins to cry. Leland carefully wipes a tear from her deep blue eyes. Madeleine looks up at him, whispers:

MADELEINE
Oh Uncle Leland ...

Leland takes her into a healing embrace. He's crying too. HOLD ON them for a beat.

CUT TO:

10. "INVITATION TO LOVE" - "NIGHT"

Jared holds the gun in his hands, listens to his daughter's tearful pleading.

JADE
Daddy! Daddy please!

Finally, Jared sets the gun on his desk, steps to the door. He opens it. And JADE, his beautiful, compassionate, perfect daughter leaps into his arms. She is Emerald's twin.

JADE
Oh Daddy. I was so afraid. I love you Daddy.

The scene as it unfolds in the televised episode:

Leland sits beside a nurse who administers an injection. Both appear absorbed in the events on the television. The doorbell rings, and the nurse departs. Leland continues to stare at the TV, his eyes filled with tears.

When the television screen is shown, we see a man as he writes a message. We hear his narration. "My darling daughter Jade - and Emerald - because of my financial difficulties, I have decided to end it all tonight. I hope you can find the strength to go on without me. Your loving father, Jared."

"Uncle Leland?" A woman speaks before we hear the TV with its knock at a door and another woman's voice say, "Daddy, it's Jade!"

"Uncle Leland?" Leland's niece repeats, trying to get his attention as Jade, the woman on TV, continues. "Daddy, please. I know you're in there!"

"Madeleine?" Leland breaks from the spell created by the TV series and looks to his niece in disbelief. He rises from the sofa and steps toward her. Jared can be heard speaking, "Jade, what a surprise." The TV is then mysteriously silent.

"Maddy? Is it you?" Leland asks.

"Uncle Leland, I am so sorry."

Maddy and Leland embrace. We see her face as she begins to cry.

Notice how Jade's words are heard within seconds of Maddy. Jade knocks at the door moments before Maddy rings the doorbell. As she is admitted to the Palmer residence, Jared soon lets Jade in, and they embrace, just as Leland and Maddy embrace. The shot from the soap opera is closely recreated in the series.

The image of Jade and Jared is from Twin Peaks Archive's Invitation to Love video. 

Twin Peaks Archive uploaded a sixteen-minute video of Invitation to Love footage. In this video we see the entire scene Leland watched of Jared and Jade.

My transcript of the Invitation to Love scene is as follows:

Jared places his message in an envelope. He examines his will as we hear him read it in his mind. "I, Jared Lancaster, have decided to leave the Towers, a complex owned by me, solely to my daughter, Jade." He hides the will under a blotter on his desk. A closeup of his fireplace suggests the passage of time. When we next see Jared, he has hold of a gun. His hand trembles as he cries. Someone knocks at the door, tearing him from his thoughts.

Jade:
"Daddy, open the door. Daddy, it's jade."

Jared hides his gun in a desk drawer.

Jade:
"Daddy, please. I know you're in there."

Jared presses a buzzer, letting her in. He leans against his desk, acting as though nothing is wrong. Jade approaches him.

Jared:
"Jade, what a surprise, I wasn't expecting- "

Jade:
"Oh Daddy, don't pretend. Not with me. Not anymore."

Jared:
"Jade, I -

Jade:
"I know the pain you've been going through. And Chet, Chet's told me about your financial difficulties. Daddy, listen to me. You mustn't give up. You have so much to live for."

Jared:
"Jade, the awful truth is I - I have nothing."

Jade:
"Oh, Daddy, that's not true. You have me. And you have my love and devotion."

Jared:
"Jade." They embrace each other. "My beautiful Jade. What a foolish, old selfish idiot I've been. How could I have ever doubted that?"

If Jade symbolizes Maddy in this scene, does that mean there may have originally been a plan for Maddy to play a role in healing Leland? There is no immediate change in Mr. Palmer with Maddy's appearance. His 'rebirth' occurs with the murder of Jacques Renault. The sight of his white hair ushers in a man who continues to dance but no longer begs for accompaniment. When he does seek partners, it is in a death ritual.

At the very beginning of Twin Peaks, Leland and Sarah seem equal in their grief. The scripts depict their loss in greater detail than the series. In episode three (#1.003, Rest in Pain), Leland is seen being given what we can assume is a sedative, something most commonly associated with Leland/BOB's abuse of Sarah in Fire Walk With Me. We don't think of him also being medicated. He is more than likely given the medication as a precaution; Laura's funeral will take place the same day. In the script for episode one (#1.001 Traces to Nowhere), Ben Horne and Leland's secretary witness his mental and emotional collapse as he attempts to make arrangements for Laura's funeral. Ben instructs him to see Dr. Jacoby. In another deleted scene, this time from episode two (#1.002, Zen or the Skill to Catch a Killer), Leland gives Sarah one of her pills then takes one himself as she leaves the room.

His behavior speaks to me of desperation, a need to dull the senses. Not due to lack of care but the extreme opposite. The pain is too much to endure. Speaking from personal experience, there is an intense urge to silence and escape the pain of losing someone. It renders your heart. The greater desire is for your own death. I didn't seek solace in medication but sleep. The closest and easiest form of death.

Suicide, passive suicide or attempted suicide occurs throughout the series and its tie-in novels. The possibility of Leland contemplating ending his life doesn't seem implausible. His grief appears to be all-consuming at this point in the series. *

Though there is no answer, there is also no denying the similarities between the actions of the four characters.

Of Additional Interest:

• The script is slightly different from what we see in the televised episode in that Maddy and Jade seem to have similar dialog that is omitted:

         Jade and Jared:

Finally, Jared sets the gun on his desk, steps to the door. He opens it. And JADE, his beautiful, compassionate, perfect daughter leaps into his arms. She is Emerald's twin.

JADE
Oh Daddy. I was so afraid. I love you Daddy.

HOLD on father and daughter for a beat.

Maddy and Leland:

LELAND
Madelaine?

MADELEINE
Oh Uncle Leland ...

Leland takes her into a healing embrace. He's crying too. 

HOLD ON them for a beat.

• According to this article on the 25yearslater site, Jade was originally named Melanie, slightly similar to Madeleine.

• Jared refers to his daughters as though they are one in his suicide note: My darling daughter Jade and Emerald. 

• One idea could be that Leland, like Sarah, was able to see through a veil after taking a sedative. He may have been dreaming or having a vision of Maddy and himself reenacting the series. He may have seen her as Laura. Or he may have thought he wasn't really seeing Maddy as she stood before him.
  

• From the script: Madeleine is twenty, quite beautiful, She wears glasses, has jet black hair worn long.

Maddy is described as having jet-black hair which seems the opposite of Laura's white-blonde hair. Though in the television series, Maddy's hair is brunette.

• From the script: She sets down a suitcase. A closer angle REVEALS that she looks very much like Laura Palmer.

"She's my cousin, but doesn't she look almost exactly like Laura Palmer?"

• Leland stares at Madeleine for a long beat. As if he didn't recognize her. Why doesn't Leland recognize her? Has she undergone some great change? Maddy says in the script for episode four (The One-Armed Man, #1.004) that she and Laura used to pretend they were sisters. Did Maddy used to wear Laura's clothes in the past as well? Was he unused to her style and glasses? Or had time greatly changed her?

*  My opinion is shaped by the belief that the creators did not know the identity of Laura's killer until later in the series.