James Hurley

James is the earnest, brooding biker who loved Laura Palmer before her death sets the story in motion. Quiet and soulful, he carries a guitar and a wounded heart, drawn into secrets he doesn't fully understand as he tries to make sense of the girl he thought he knew.

Marshall plays him with an open, unguarded sincerity that stands out against the show's ironic surfaces—James means every anguished word, and Lynch never quite lets us decide if that's touching or slightly absurd. He's the show's straight face, and Twin Peaks uses that straightness as its own strange joke and its own real ache.