Thomas Eckhardt

Thomas Eckhardt is a fictional character in the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series "Twin Peaks", played by the acclaimed English actor, David Warner. He is the former business partner of Andrew Packard, and is obsessively in love with Josie Packard. He has an assistant "Jones", played by Brenda Strong. He has strong connections to East Asia, particularly to Hong Kong, however he is South African.

The name "Thomas Eckhardt" is probably derived from Meister Eckhart, a medieval German mystic, who was a follower of Thomism, a doctrine based on the teachings of St Thomas Aquinas.

Eckhardt controls Josie Packard, and made her assassinate Andrew Packard, her husband, in a boating "accident".

He himself is shot by Josie, and after he is shot, Josie apparently dies almost instantly in mysterious circumstances, accompanied by the appearance of "BOB", who says "Coop, what happened to Josie? What happened to Josie?".

Before he dies, Eckhardt leaves a mysterious puzzle to Andrew Packard and Catherine Martell. It is a box, with an astrological code on it (paralleling the Black Lodge/Windom Earle theme), which contains several other boxes within it, Russian doll fashion, and which is finally discovered to contain a safe deposit key for the local bank. When the box is opened by Andrew, a bomb is triggered, but as it's the final episode ever made, we don't know what damage was done.