This Ranking of 84 'Twin Peaks' Characters Will Make You Extremely Mad

I was born the year Twin Peaks debuted, which is embarrassing but not my fault, so it's not like I experienced it the first time, but as the names of unfamiliar but apparently wildly popular new television series swirl around me, I can't help but feel a little sad about the revival. It was nice to enjoy the specific benefits of good television—investment over time, connection with characters, anticipation of what will happen—separate from the flurry of tweets and thinkpieces and takes that is invested in turning every mediocre drama into a longevity-possessing representation of "what it means to be human." But anyway, what can you do? To drive a nail in the coffin, I ranked all or almost all of the Twin Peaks characters, from worst to best, based mostly on my whims but also on a loose and inconsistent feminist morality. If some of the names seem weird, it's because I fact-checked many of them against the Twin Peaks wiki, which is for nerds. For additional commentary, I devised an asterisk system:

*Seems like a person you might actually meet in real life
**A person of color
******Looks like Drake

The worst character

He is very bad, but he is not of this world, so he's not as bad as Hank.

More like the Bad-House Boys

While I acknowledge that straight men need structures of camaraderie and pathways to friendship, the Bookhouse Boys concept is very cheesy.

Emory Bad-is! He's a sex trafficker.

The worst of the French Canadians, a true villain

A buffoon

Many of the female characters in Twin Peaks demonstrate a lack of resolve that could be interpreted as moral turmoil, an attempt to do what's best in a given situation, but Nancy's motivations are largely self-interested without the follow-through of an actual villain. In general, even when the female characters do succeed in hatching their schemes, they are later foiled in some way, or otherwise proven short-sighted.

Cars aren't cool.

Where Hank maintains a sociopathic capacity for deceit, Leo is obviously simply stupid, violent, and easily manipulated. In another life he might have become a Trump voter sympathetically portrayed by East Coast media elites. What's more, men with ponytails are funny.

Lara Flynn Boyle was replaced by some nerdier actress for the prequel, and she was just intolerable.

I like secret lovers, but he doesn't really have anything to offer, except run-of-the-mill scheming.

I never really understood what was going on with this guy.

She attempts to strangle Sheriff Truman so her boss can get Josie back. It doesn't work. The girls' schemes never work in this show.

How did this dork who seems like he would listen to John Mayer date two hot girls and conduct a dangerous affair with an older married woman? Was he really worth the turmoil? Motorcycles are bad.

A classic bad sports guy, less charming than Bobby

A true villain

A show-off goody-two-shoes with a weird name, Gersten is a prime candidate for a goth phase.

A vicious deceiver

A hapless hairstyle in way too over his head.

A fun-spoiler who doubts Agent Cooper

He tries his best to keep Bobby in line, but parenting is not his true passion, which is his top-secret search for aliens or whatever. I like that he brings Bobby down a notch, but I find his military demeanor off-putting.

It's Kiefer Sutherland.

It's David Bowie.

It's Chris Isaak, who is extremely hot.

It's Molly Shannon.

This is what Donald Trump would be like if he were kind of hot and lived in the woods.

Hysterical lunatic

He's bad.

She's bad, but also victimized/dead.

She's under a lot of pressure.

He didn't know what was going on. According to the New York Times, the Giant is possibly incarnated in him? I didn't get that. Reliable news sources are more important than ever.

I like that she writes her poems in bed. Though Harriet did reveal to her father that Donna had snuck out past the town curfew, she did it with aplomb and cannot really be faulted, since Donna was really going to get murdered.

A true villain and schemer

Victimized/dead

She maintains admirable restraint concerning the sexual drama of her past.

She is confused about her priorities and it leads her to make bad decisions, which, if you're a woman, leads you to end up spoonfeeding your vegetative abusive ex-husband in a shack while your swoopy-haired boyfriend gallivants around botching crimes and cover-ups. If she were less beautiful she would probably make better decisions.

Bit obvious

Many people let Lucy's funny sweaters, wacky 90s hairstyle, and squeaky voice distract them from the fact that Lucy is a bad character. She totally mishandles her child's paternity situation out of nerves and apparent youthful angst, dragging poor Andy along as he tries to support her.

He is annoyingly wholesome and chauvinistically overprotective of the duplicitous Josie, and I like that he gets bamboozled by her.

Good outfits, good hairstyle, good makeup. Unfortunately her inability to commit to villainy or to wrench herself free from the clutches of evil into the arms of a willing and wide-eyed lover is again representative of the women on this show. Her soul's confinement to a wooden knob on a bedside table is often called out as particularly odd, but I think it fits.

Poor Norma.

A classic cad and a real scamp

Another cad and scamp

Hysterical lunatic, but creative

A schemer

A schemer who also managed to successfully fake his own death to bamboozle Josie, which I appreciate

The backwards talking has a pleasantly ambiguous tone.

A rascal who, by being a brat, counteracts Dick Tremayne and Deputy Andy's attempts to use him as a way to test their fitness as fathers

It's David Lynch's son.

Who knows what's going on here!

Intriguing without being over the top, Maddy effectively demonstrates Lynch's recurring concern of DUALITY in her resemblance to her tragically murdered cousin, Laura Palmer, and this gives her an attractive endangered quality that is refreshingly unrelated to her being a woman. You can tell she's smart because she wears glasses. Nevertheless, she lacks that wacky quality we want from characters on Twin Peaks.

She has seen some things and lived and learned. She is slightly more with it than Maddy. I'm fine with her and her relationship with Agent Cooper is sweet.

A classic schemer

There should have been more animals on this show.

Poor Harold!

One of the most fantastical aspects of this show is its portrayal of all law-enforcement officials as fundamentally good. Nevertheless, Albert Rosenfield, a no-nonsense city slicker who upends the sluggishly thoughtful pace of Cooper's small-town operation, reveals himself as an asshole who is also good at contemplation. He also sees through Truman's small-town nice-guy exterior to the dope he really is.

A good guy but not obnoxious about it like Harry

He should dump Nadine.

I think she's real.

He tries to help.

Such a good choice for Audrey's virginity!

It's David Duchovny.

She sacrifices her daughter's business venture for her art, which I appreciate.

Donna tries very hard to get to the bottom of Laura's murder, but again because she is a woman her investigation is always two steps behind or very off base. She is also the only one of these high-school girls who seems emotionally capable of having a relationship with an older man, yet she is stuck with James.

I think he gets worse as his number of love interests increases, which is true of all men. Sometimes he is a little daddish. Still, very good.

Everyone knows.

I think it is very much in keeping with David Lynch's ethos to give himself the best character without seeming to do so. I would give myself the best character as well.