Doris Side

Doris Side (Julia Ormond) is Billy Side's wife. She is the latest incarnation of the "Who is She?" woman.

Things That Happened
Doris is first seen in a police interrogation room, dressed the same as the night she tries to kill Sue later in the film. She has apparently turned herself in because she has been "hypnotized or somethin'," and is going to kill someone with a screwdriver. She says she doesn't know who she is going to kill. She saw "him " looking at her once, when she was looking around a bar. He moved his hands and said she’d know who it was. She then pulls up her shirt to reveal her stomach is bandaged, and under the bandages is a bloody wound with a screwdriver sticking out of it.

Some other time, perhaps earlier chronologically, Doris is home in her and Billy's house. Their son is sick, and a doctor is visiting their home. In the middle of the consultation, Sue enters. Doris knows her, and is confused why she is there. Sue yells for Billy, who walks in. Sue repeatedly professes her love for Billy, and Doris slaps her every time she does so. As Doris becomes increasingly infuriated, her face is intercut with footage of her in the interrogation room, with the corpse of the "Who Is She" woman, and with footage of the Phantom hypnotizing her in a bar. Seemingly, in that moment, she realizes that she is to kill Sue.

Later, when Sue is living as a prostitute on the streets of Los Angeles, Doris comes to kill her. She stalks Sue along Hollywood Boulevard, finally grabbing Sue's screwdriver and fatally stabbing her with it. Doris seems horrified as soon as she commits the act, and runs away.

More Things That Happened (Deleted Scenes)
Doris walks barefoot down a quiet LA street, on her way toward Hollywood Boulevard.

Analysis

 * Doris is presumably a character in On High in Blue Tomorrows, played by an actress. However, in INLAND EMPIRE, Doris is only seen or referenced "in character" in Sue's universe.
 * Although Doris exists in Sue's reality, her first appearance occurs at a strange point in the film's structure. The first third of INLAND EMPIRE is the most linear portion, and for a long stretch takes place entirely in Nikki's reality. Doris's first scene, in the interrogation room, inexplicably appears in the middle of the "Nikki" sequence, perhaps as a flashforward/forewarning of things to come. Notably, it appears right after Nikki first learns of the curse.