Special Agent Dale Cooper

An FBI agent arrives in a small logging town to investigate the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer, and turns out to be nothing like the procedural hero the premise promises. He dictates memos to an unseen Diane, praises the coffee and pie with total sincerity, and treats intuition, dreams, and Tibetan method as legitimate investigative tools.

MacLachlan plays sincerity as a radical act: Cooper's boyish delight in small pleasures sits right beside his exposure to real horror, and neither cancels the other out. The writing lets a genius detective also be an open-hearted oddball, and the performance never winks at the audience about it, which is exactly why it works.