A Glow Just Like the Stars

 

The following represents my interpretation of the scene. It is not shared to force my views on others. 

The angels will return, and when you see the one that's meant to help you, you will weep with joy.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer details the years Laura survived abuse. In the series, she is a girl who allowed her death because it was her chance for freedom. 

Viewing her story from the standpoint that BOB is an outside force that has the ability to invade her mind and persuade her to act against her will, death seems the only escape. The entity is outside the knowledge of man. Even Laura, who sees him often, has difficulty believing BOB is real at times. In moments of clarity, she refuses to believe she could create something as evil as BOB. In Fire Walk With Me, in order to prove his existence she "allows the feeling of BOB to come over her." Laura faces the burden of this truth alone, writing, "No one in the real world would believe me." 

Laura constantly endures BOB's presence shadowing her every action and thought. Similar to her diary, her mind is an open book whose pages can be read and removed whenever BOB chooses. She cannot hide. No one in reality can protect her. Laura often writes of BOB while grasping a memory, they are so fleeting. He takes them with him as he leaves. 

Like a merciless God condemning and belittling her, he searches her mind for any matter he can turn into guilt, regret, or deem a fault. He recognizes her every weakness. Love, she thinks, is among them. 

Laura has two lives that cannot merge. Every night, she expects a man at her window who will force her to follow him to the woods where she will be cut, humiliated, and raped. She was at the point of breaking, oppressed and exhausted. She knew she couldn't continue when she began to physically harm people and a part of her enjoyed the pain she inflicted. She wrote, "I can't hurt or be hurt enough lately."

In the film, after she strikes him, James says, "You always hurt the ones you love."  Laura is cruel to James, replying, "You mean the ones you pity." A few seconds later, she admits she loves James. As she breaks from their kiss, she speaks her worries aloud, saying James may be killed if he finds out. Meaning BOB in my mind. In the diary after letting her pony Troy free, she writes, "I'm so afraid that anything I touch runs the risk of contact with BOB." Laura, under BOB's influence, does eventually hurt many she cares for, including emotionally wounding Bobby and James and physically hurting Harold and Donna. 

She accepts her end and almost longs for it. "Death will be like sleeping. I'm almost happy. And best of all ... I'm free."

After her life is taken, Laura finds herself in another realm she cannot escape, the Red Room. As we see her at the end of the film, it almost seems as if she's been there for years. She's visibly changed and encompassed by sadness and despair. 

In The Secret Diary, after dreaming of the man Bobby shot, Laura wonders if death is saving her a seat in hell and if BOB is holding that seat. BOB later writes, "A SEAT IS BEING SAVED FOR YOU . . . LAURA PALMER." Her chair in the Red Room evokes the image conjured by her dream. 

Cooper stands by her side. She looks up at him, desolate. He smiles. He is shown in a separate shot and seems distant, almost as if looking down on a different Laura than the one we see. 

She turns away from him, staring ahead. She seems without hope, lost and utterly shattered. 

A blue light colors her face and she stirs in shock. Laura watches in disbelief as an angel appears. Cooper, in turn, observes Laura, who begins to cry. Relief washes over her face, and she laughs, tears falling down her cheeks. The angel's presence tells her she is not who she feared she'd become. For all she believes she is guilty of, she is forgiven. She is — and has always been — worthy.

The angels have come to take her away. Forever out of BOB's reach, she will finally be at peace. 

She transcends death, untethered by the restraints of the horror of her past, her body, and BOB. 

She didn't let him take full possession. She was victorious.

She never has to worry again. The greatest gift that could be given to Laura.