Laura Palmer

Twin Peaks opens with her already gone: prom queen, Meals on Wheels volunteer, everybody's golden girl, found dead on a riverbank wrapped in plastic. The town mourns an image of sweetness and grief-stricken perfection, while the show immediately begins asking what lay underneath the surface she showed people.

She's a ghost the whole series is built around, and yet Sheryl Lee makes her unforgettable in fragments — photographs, home videos, hushed reminiscences — each one slightly at odds with the last. The mystery isn't just who killed her, but who she actually was, and that tension never lets up.