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Here. The wiki covers pretty much everything from the first two seasons of the original show, My Life, My Tapes, and Fire Walk With Me, all of which I'll be drawing from as I play Coop.
At a glance, Dale Cooper looks like he’d fit the cliché image of a stone-faced, unapproachable FBI agent pretty snugly with his immaculate black suit, trench coat, and perpetually slicked-back hair, all of which give him a very classical sort of appearance that screams authority. Fortunately for those who take longer than five seconds to get to know him, Cooper is anything but your typical agent. He has a deep love of coffee and pie among other varieties of horribly unhealthy food and will gladly go off on overly descriptive tangents about the quality of last kind he ate if you let him. He practices Tibetan Buddhism and incorporates much of its wisdom into his investigative techniques, creates mixtapes of nature sounds for meditative purposes on top of it just being fun, and has a habit of openly dictating his actions and feelings into his microcassette recorder which he carries on him at all times. And that’s just scratching the surface. Cooper is a lot of things, but the one word that would probably immediately come to mind to most people who meet him for the first time is that he’s strange.
While this quirkiness is for sure outwardly noticeable, it’s by no means Cooper’s defining trait nor does it mean that he’s incapable of doing his job or performing the way a special agent should — far from it. Insightful, intuitive and analytical with a grasp on the world and people that can only be described as brilliant, Cooper is highly perceptive and detail-oriented, the sort of person who takes stock of his environment down to the very last speck and analyzes everything, all of it processed and described with an easy sort of eloquence that borders on poetic. His people-reading skills are phenomenal and he’s usually able to get a very accurate impression of someone just based on what he can gleam from their emotional responses, tics and anything else he can pick up. As far as he’s concerned, nothing is insignificant and every fragment is a piece of a greater picture waiting to be reassembled.
In a roundabout way, his stream of consciousness tangents on food and coffee are extensions of this attitude and the enthusiasm with which he shares them belie just how deeply in touch Cooper really is with the world around him. Despite all the horrors he’s witnessed in his line of work and all the tragedies that have marred his personal and professional life, he’s never stopped viewing life through a lens of curiosity that, at times, borders on wonderstruck and even childlike. He’s easily enchanted by the things he considers new or charming, especially nature and wildlife. Being from the city, sights like rabbits and tall trees and even gazeboes never fail to pull excitement from him to the point where he’ll take a moment to appreciate them even if the timing is a little inappropriate.
His friendliness and almost perpetually cheery nature doesn’t begin and end with these things either. At heart, Cooper isn’t just a nice guy; he’s a genuinely good person through and through who truly does believe in upholding the law to protect and help others, being unquestionably moral and living his life by a personal code of ethics on top of the one the FBI requires. Whenever he recognizes injustice, he'll confront it head-on with little to no concern for his own safety, and although he’s practically a boy scout when it comes to the rules and police protocol, he'll easily break them without a second thought if lives are on the line. Even if he's caught and faces punishment, he'll unhesitatingly accept the consequences of his actions gracefully and without complaint.
Cooper’s compassion also reaches into his personal and working relationships with others. Being so honest and forthright with his thoughts means that any compliments he gives a person, no matter how bold, are always sincere. Generally polite and respectful even towards people he doesn’t necessarily agree with, he’s able to put himself in another person's shoes without much effort and often uses this new perspective as a way of connecting with others and understanding their problems, taking a sincere interest in their well-being. If someone needs help, he’ll readily offer it even on good faith alone, and he’s always willing to hear someone out before jumping to conclusions. Although he takes the opportunity to point out to Truman and the rest of the Twin Peaks sheriff’s department that he’ll be the one heading Laura Palmer’s murder investigation, it’s strictly business and not a matter of arrogance. Agent Cooper doesn’t consider himself any more special than Truman and his men, nor does he treat them as anything less than equals and friends right off the bat.
His spirituality makes him especially stable in this regard, and while you may be forgiven for initially believing that his Zen-like observations are closer to ramblings and pseudo-babble, Cooper is the type to practice what he preaches. He has a great respect for Eastern religions and cultures — Tibet’s in particular — and applies many of their philosophies and teachings to his own personal and professional life, especially that of mindfulness, peace and ultimately forgiveness, even against great evil and those who’ve committed it. Still, some of his beliefs can be a little too esoteric and, at times, veer into occultism. As a child, he and his mother before him were prone to experiencing vivid nightmares filled with mysterious, prophetic visions, an ability he still has as an adult that's left him a firm believer of the innate power of dreams. Because of this, Cooper sees nothing odd about following them to heart even during the crime-solving process. He’s open-minded almost to a fault. Give him a reason to believe in magic and he will.
With all that said, as loving as he can be, Cooper is by no means a sweet cinnamon roll without any flaws, and his love doesn’t come completely 100% without consequence. In the past, people have been hurt because of Cooper falling in love with them and each experience has left him more damaged than the last with the most recent one being so profound — and dysfunctional, being the product of adultery, and not the first occurrence of it either on his end — that the guilt has led him to become closed off and guarded to the idea of relationships. Even though he’s able to make friends as easily as breathing just by being himself, he still counts himself as a loner and feels that loneliness very deeply, carefully keeping others at just the right length so that they never get too close to him. His way of addressing all of his memos and notations to his secretary Diane is as much of a coping mechanism as it is a quirk; privately, he admits that he enjoys pretending to talk to her even in the tapes she never receives because it makes him feel less alone. Cooper’s worries about his emotions being his downfall aren’t entirely unfounded either because, well… that’s exactly what’s happened before, and it keeps happening again and again. In the end, it doesn’t take much to make Cooper stray from his self-appointed path, and when he falls in love, he falls hard to the point where it clouds his better judgment and all that unflappable, steely logic goes right out the window, causing him to behave erratically and make poor choices.
Also, he does have a serious side and the divide between it and his gentler one isn’t as steep as you might think. Cooper’s nice but he isn’t naïve, and he’s not a blind optimist when it comes to giving untrustworthy people the benefit of the doubt. It can be a struggle to maintain his good faith against overwhelming evil, and he’s seen too much of it to fool himself into thinking that things will get better before they get worse. His honesty comes blunted and he’s not afraid to speak his mind or throw his authority around when he feels it’s necessary, thus giving him the occasional impression of being cold and unfeeling. To this end, he flatly accuses Bobby of never loving Laura to begin with during the teen’s interrogation, even after concluding that he isn’t her killer, and in one instance sides against his friend and fellow agent Albert after he’s punched in the face by Truman following a heated altercation regarding the forensic analysis on Laura’s body, even going so far as to threaten to report him. Despite being largely positive, Cooper’s emotions do have the potential to skew his wisdom, and his good intentions coupled with his stubborn determination to do the right thing no matter what repercussions it might lead to has a horrible tendency to cause more problems than solutions. Simply put, as long as someone is suffering, he doesn't feel like his job is done, and he refuses to leave well enough alone.
Protecting others and self-sacrifice come as effortlessly to Cooper as waxing poetic about doughnuts and ducks, and if he can do it with a warm smile and a kind word, he will. At the end of things, he’s willing to forfeit his very life and soul for the sake of saving another’s without complaint or hesitation, and although his story seemingly (and temporarily) closes on a tragic note, his appearance at the end of Fire Walk With Me shows that his fate isn’t one that’s entirely without hope. Even while trapped with little possibility of escape or salvation in a realm that thrives on suffering and despair, Cooper does not abandon his ideals and remains, as always, a force of goodness reaching out through the darkness to offer comfort, acceptance and love to those who need it.
While this quirkiness is for sure outwardly noticeable, it’s by no means Cooper’s defining trait nor does it mean that he’s incapable of doing his job or performing the way a special agent should — far from it. Insightful, intuitive and analytical with a grasp on the world and people that can only be described as brilliant, Cooper is highly perceptive and detail-oriented, the sort of person who takes stock of his environment down to the very last speck and analyzes everything, all of it processed and described with an easy sort of eloquence that borders on poetic. His people-reading skills are phenomenal and he’s usually able to get a very accurate impression of someone just based on what he can gleam from their emotional responses, tics and anything else he can pick up. As far as he’s concerned, nothing is insignificant and every fragment is a piece of a greater picture waiting to be reassembled.
In a roundabout way, his stream of consciousness tangents on food and coffee are extensions of this attitude and the enthusiasm with which he shares them belie just how deeply in touch Cooper really is with the world around him. Despite all the horrors he’s witnessed in his line of work and all the tragedies that have marred his personal and professional life, he’s never stopped viewing life through a lens of curiosity that, at times, borders on wonderstruck and even childlike. He’s easily enchanted by the things he considers new or charming, especially nature and wildlife. Being from the city, sights like rabbits and tall trees and even gazeboes never fail to pull excitement from him to the point where he’ll take a moment to appreciate them even if the timing is a little inappropriate.
His friendliness and almost perpetually cheery nature doesn’t begin and end with these things either. At heart, Cooper isn’t just a nice guy; he’s a genuinely good person through and through who truly does believe in upholding the law to protect and help others, being unquestionably moral and living his life by a personal code of ethics on top of the one the FBI requires. Whenever he recognizes injustice, he'll confront it head-on with little to no concern for his own safety, and although he’s practically a boy scout when it comes to the rules and police protocol, he'll easily break them without a second thought if lives are on the line. Even if he's caught and faces punishment, he'll unhesitatingly accept the consequences of his actions gracefully and without complaint.
Cooper’s compassion also reaches into his personal and working relationships with others. Being so honest and forthright with his thoughts means that any compliments he gives a person, no matter how bold, are always sincere. Generally polite and respectful even towards people he doesn’t necessarily agree with, he’s able to put himself in another person's shoes without much effort and often uses this new perspective as a way of connecting with others and understanding their problems, taking a sincere interest in their well-being. If someone needs help, he’ll readily offer it even on good faith alone, and he’s always willing to hear someone out before jumping to conclusions. Although he takes the opportunity to point out to Truman and the rest of the Twin Peaks sheriff’s department that he’ll be the one heading Laura Palmer’s murder investigation, it’s strictly business and not a matter of arrogance. Agent Cooper doesn’t consider himself any more special than Truman and his men, nor does he treat them as anything less than equals and friends right off the bat.
His spirituality makes him especially stable in this regard, and while you may be forgiven for initially believing that his Zen-like observations are closer to ramblings and pseudo-babble, Cooper is the type to practice what he preaches. He has a great respect for Eastern religions and cultures — Tibet’s in particular — and applies many of their philosophies and teachings to his own personal and professional life, especially that of mindfulness, peace and ultimately forgiveness, even against great evil and those who’ve committed it. Still, some of his beliefs can be a little too esoteric and, at times, veer into occultism. As a child, he and his mother before him were prone to experiencing vivid nightmares filled with mysterious, prophetic visions, an ability he still has as an adult that's left him a firm believer of the innate power of dreams. Because of this, Cooper sees nothing odd about following them to heart even during the crime-solving process. He’s open-minded almost to a fault. Give him a reason to believe in magic and he will.
With all that said, as loving as he can be, Cooper is by no means a sweet cinnamon roll without any flaws, and his love doesn’t come completely 100% without consequence. In the past, people have been hurt because of Cooper falling in love with them and each experience has left him more damaged than the last with the most recent one being so profound — and dysfunctional, being the product of adultery, and not the first occurrence of it either on his end — that the guilt has led him to become closed off and guarded to the idea of relationships. Even though he’s able to make friends as easily as breathing just by being himself, he still counts himself as a loner and feels that loneliness very deeply, carefully keeping others at just the right length so that they never get too close to him. His way of addressing all of his memos and notations to his secretary Diane is as much of a coping mechanism as it is a quirk; privately, he admits that he enjoys pretending to talk to her even in the tapes she never receives because it makes him feel less alone. Cooper’s worries about his emotions being his downfall aren’t entirely unfounded either because, well… that’s exactly what’s happened before, and it keeps happening again and again. In the end, it doesn’t take much to make Cooper stray from his self-appointed path, and when he falls in love, he falls hard to the point where it clouds his better judgment and all that unflappable, steely logic goes right out the window, causing him to behave erratically and make poor choices.
Also, he does have a serious side and the divide between it and his gentler one isn’t as steep as you might think. Cooper’s nice but he isn’t naïve, and he’s not a blind optimist when it comes to giving untrustworthy people the benefit of the doubt. It can be a struggle to maintain his good faith against overwhelming evil, and he’s seen too much of it to fool himself into thinking that things will get better before they get worse. His honesty comes blunted and he’s not afraid to speak his mind or throw his authority around when he feels it’s necessary, thus giving him the occasional impression of being cold and unfeeling. To this end, he flatly accuses Bobby of never loving Laura to begin with during the teen’s interrogation, even after concluding that he isn’t her killer, and in one instance sides against his friend and fellow agent Albert after he’s punched in the face by Truman following a heated altercation regarding the forensic analysis on Laura’s body, even going so far as to threaten to report him. Despite being largely positive, Cooper’s emotions do have the potential to skew his wisdom, and his good intentions coupled with his stubborn determination to do the right thing no matter what repercussions it might lead to has a horrible tendency to cause more problems than solutions. Simply put, as long as someone is suffering, he doesn't feel like his job is done, and he refuses to leave well enough alone.
Protecting others and self-sacrifice come as effortlessly to Cooper as waxing poetic about doughnuts and ducks, and if he can do it with a warm smile and a kind word, he will. At the end of things, he’s willing to forfeit his very life and soul for the sake of saving another’s without complaint or hesitation, and although his story seemingly (and temporarily) closes on a tragic note, his appearance at the end of Fire Walk With Me shows that his fate isn’t one that’s entirely without hope. Even while trapped with little possibility of escape or salvation in a realm that thrives on suffering and despair, Cooper does not abandon his ideals and remains, as always, a force of goodness reaching out through the darkness to offer comfort, acceptance and love to those who need it.
MARKSMANSHIP – As a special agent of the FBI, Cooper is well-versed with a wide variety of firearms and can use them at an expert level. His aim is noted several times be particularly precise; hitting targets as small as nostrils and eyes is of little issue to him.
OTHER TRAINING — In addition to all the standard FBI training, Cooper has seen considerable action in the Bureau's counterintelligence, criminal investigative, and drug interdiction divisions, but his area of expertise seems to be violent crimes. From this, he has experience in criminal profiling, interrogation and crime scene investigation to go along with his more physical skills like hand-to-hand combat and disarming. In the few instances where we've seen him fight, he's shown to have excellent reflexes and an equally fast response time.
DETECTIVE WORK — Springing off from the above, Cooper's a fantastic investigator. As mentioned, he's very detail-oriented and is able to pick out and recall the smallest ones if he feels that they're pertinent to the greater picture. While he employs many traditional and logic-based methods to his work, he's not above using unconventional ones either. For example, he turns a rock throwing game into a mind-body cohesion exercise designed to help him narrow down a list of suspects, believing that it will help pull the answer from his subconscious.
DREAMS AND BEYOND — Cooper is VERY attuned to the spirit world. Although the show and expanded universe material never explicitly use the word psychic, it's heavily implied that's exactly what he is. He's able to receive premonitions of the future through his dreams and seems to possess a degree of ESP and empath-based abilities that heighten his intuition and give him the power to form psychic bonds with others, even people he hasn't even met yet as well as the dead. For example, at one point when a major character dies, he's able to feel her passing very acutely, he has knowledge of who Laura Palmer is before ever learning about her, and he has multiple visions of his dead mother and a childhood friend in My Life, My Tapes. Lastly, he also appears to have a heightened sensitivity to supernatural forces, particularly the Black Lodge.
ASSORTED WEIRDNESS — Other skills Cooper apparently possess according to his autobiographical tapes: juggling, rice planting, chanting, breath control (?), sitting in dark rooms (????), walking (????????), fire building, bread baking, and...knife throwing. And he can whittle blocks of wood into functional duck whistles. What a renaissance man.
OTHER TRAINING — In addition to all the standard FBI training, Cooper has seen considerable action in the Bureau's counterintelligence, criminal investigative, and drug interdiction divisions, but his area of expertise seems to be violent crimes. From this, he has experience in criminal profiling, interrogation and crime scene investigation to go along with his more physical skills like hand-to-hand combat and disarming. In the few instances where we've seen him fight, he's shown to have excellent reflexes and an equally fast response time.
DETECTIVE WORK — Springing off from the above, Cooper's a fantastic investigator. As mentioned, he's very detail-oriented and is able to pick out and recall the smallest ones if he feels that they're pertinent to the greater picture. While he employs many traditional and logic-based methods to his work, he's not above using unconventional ones either. For example, he turns a rock throwing game into a mind-body cohesion exercise designed to help him narrow down a list of suspects, believing that it will help pull the answer from his subconscious.
DREAMS AND BEYOND — Cooper is VERY attuned to the spirit world. Although the show and expanded universe material never explicitly use the word psychic, it's heavily implied that's exactly what he is. He's able to receive premonitions of the future through his dreams and seems to possess a degree of ESP and empath-based abilities that heighten his intuition and give him the power to form psychic bonds with others, even people he hasn't even met yet as well as the dead. For example, at one point when a major character dies, he's able to feel her passing very acutely, he has knowledge of who Laura Palmer is before ever learning about her, and he has multiple visions of his dead mother and a childhood friend in My Life, My Tapes. Lastly, he also appears to have a heightened sensitivity to supernatural forces, particularly the Black Lodge.
ASSORTED WEIRDNESS — Other skills Cooper apparently possess according to his autobiographical tapes: juggling, rice planting, chanting, breath control (?), sitting in dark rooms (????), walking (????????), fire building, bread baking, and...knife throwing. And he can whittle blocks of wood into functional duck whistles. What a renaissance man.
David Lynch made an actual Disney prince and sent his ass straight to meme hell and then to actual hell and it's incredible.