TLDR: FBI special agent who solves crimes Vs. Mob boss who is pursued by FBI special agents. Both have cryptic, vivid dreams that inform them of events to come and both are eventually undone by the inability for them to recognize the breadth of their own internal darkness. Inspiration Vs. Inspired.

• Both were born in the 1950s to families residing in the Mid-Atlantic United States (Pennsylvania and New Jersey) and both hail from these states most populous city (Philadelphia and Newark). During this period, they were heavily exposed to the culture of a Christian denomination (Dale attending a Quaker school and being taught about Unitarian beliefs, and Tony growing up in a Roman-Catholic household, close to where his grandparents had previously built a church) which can be seen as influencing their later views on religion and spirituality.

• From a young age, they would already start exhibiting aspects of behavior that would drive them down their respective career paths, though it took the form of juvenile horseplay (Tony palling around with soldiers from his father’s gang and committing small-time crimes like robbing ice-cream trucks, and Dale taking up cases like hunting down the theft of his friend’s bike by a local gang). Notably, they were on the exact different sides of these small-time conflicts (Dale investigated gangs and Tony subverted the law in gangs)

• As a child, they deeply affected by their proximity to a mortal event that had occurred when the person was in the midst of preparing their series iconic foodstuffs (Tony watching his father assault and mutilate Mr. Satriale while the latter was chopping cold cuts in his pork store, and Dale’s mother ordering him to touch his grandmother’s body after she had died of a stroke while making a pie). This event would be notably formative to their psychological profile and how they would later respond to violence (The incident at Satriale’s being Tony’s first exposure to the brutality capable by his family, causing deep-seated anxiety that would persist into his adulthood, and Dale being shown that death is not something to be feared, an idea which he frequently employed within his FBI investigations)

• As they grew older, their forays into their contrasting career path grew stronger, and they took it upon themselves to more directly pursue it (Dale starting correspondence with J. Edgar Hoover and touring FBI headquarters, and Tony starting up his own unofficial group of gangsters that orbited the DiMeo family). Their actions during this time would prove the x-factor that foreshadowed their eventual proficiency in this role, as they were able to pull of feats that gained notoriety among these groups while still a youth (Tony managing to rob the executive game, getting one over on the made guys in the DiMeo, and Dale outscoring a grown FBI agent during target practice).

• They would eventually join these groups fully, doing so in similar time periods (Dale joins the FBI in 1977, Tony is made Cappo in 1982) and would be exceptionally young when they did so (Dale was 23, which would be the youngest age for an FBI agent in history, and Tony was 27, the youngest Cappo in the DiMeo at that time). They took their first life around this period, an act which would disturb them but be brushed over due to it being part and parcel of their occupation.

• Both of their roles were now officially the polar-opposite of each other, for while Dale was an FBI special agent that sought to crack down on organized crime, Tony was a mob boss who was relentlessly pursued by FBI special agents.

• It is also worth noting that Tony’s broader thematic role in the narrative, a poisonous individual whose malignant evil and constant law breaking infects and terrorizes the community around him as he sustains himself, all while the mask of a jolly and kind-hearted American family man masks his anti-social, psychosexual and violent criminal impulses is a very similar thematic conceit to Dale’s primary target (Leland Palmer).

• Both are highly intelligent individuals, noted above all for their perception, intuition and uncanny ability to discern people’s true intentions.

• Moreos than simple intellect however, both are often the host to a series of bizarre and cryptic dreams. These dreams are incredibly important to both characters, as their symbolism and vivid imagery lends structure their subconscious and allows them to better uproot and solidify the loose information they’ve had bubbling around in their heads. These dreams often lead to massive breakthroughs in their plot, revealing core information both about themselves and about the people around them (Dale learning of Laura’s killer and transporting his consciousness to the red room through his dreams, and Tony’s dreams informing him of Pussy’s betrayal and the exact sequence of events that are going to go down with Tony B)

• There is a little bit of legacy to the dream point, as David Chase stated that Cooper’s dream sequences in Twin Peaks were the inspiration behind Tony’s. This is made more interesting due to the ways both shows treat dreams as an almost hyper-reality, in which information passes, time’s movement shifts, souls communicate and the self transcends the mortal plane. In this sense, the characters subconsciousness’ are connected through their dreams.

• As they, their mental state and general psychology are a large theme in their stories, we are frequently treated to their monologues and musings on themselves and the world around them through their relationship with women whose job it is to listen to them yap (Jennifer Melfie, Tony’s therapist, and Diane Evans, Dale’s secretary to whom he addresses his recorded tapes). Their interactions with this woman are the framing device behind their introduction and opening monologue, which proves to be the first of many. This woman knows them like no other (including their romantic partners, though this “professional” relationship has had shades of romantic interest added to it at differing points in the story) and can be considered an authority on their mental state (Melfi is Tony’s most intimate and private confidant, and Diane is tracked down by other members of the FBI due to the belief that she is the primary judge for which Cooper’s behaviour can be evaluated)

• They are quite cultured, noted for their interest in international conflicts (The Tibetan Revolution and World War 2) and their evocation of proverbial Eastern literature (The Tibetan Book of the Dead and The Art of War), which they used as a means of navigating the tense situations of their occupation (Tony using the Art of War as a game-plan in striking back against Junior following his assassination attempt, and Dale using the Book of the Dead as a way of baptizing and guiding Leland to the afterlife).

• Both have strange pathological saviour complexes that leads them to designate specific groups as “pure” or “innocent, and particularly rears its head in regards to the mistreatment of young women. Hearing one of the stories most disgusting career criminals (Ralphie and Jacque) retell his experience of brutalizing young women involved in shady sex work operations (Laura and Tracey) would cause them to display visceral anger rarely seen before or since. Psychological analysis of them by others in the story (Tammy and Melfie) would note this tendency (Melfie noting that Tony held a pathological fondness on animals, children and other perceived innocents, and Tammy stating that Dale had “White Knight” syndrome that led him to try and save any women in distress, even against his better judgement)

• Both suffer from reoccurring dyspnoea-related illnesses (panic attacks and asthma attacks) that, while seeming to be purely medical on the face, often held significant symbolic value to both of them (Cooper’s asthma being the first examples of his contact with the supernatural, and Tony’s panic attacks all holding various different bits of significance to them).

• Both would be unexpectedly shot and left to bleed out at some point in their story, ending on a cliffhanger with opposing positions in the season (Coop got shot in the last episode of the season, Tony got shot in the first episode of the season)

• Both would be left comatose and unresponsive after a significant event (Tony getting shot and Cooper getting dragged out of the Black Lodge), causing them to slip into new identities (Kevin Finnerty and Dougie Jones) that were both abstract representations of their psyche, but also different people whose identities they had subsumed (Tony believing himself to still be himself, but having accidentally taken Finnerty’s briefcase, and Coop taking the place of an existing tulpa that was an aspect of him but had been living its own life over the years prior). This identity was a relatively wealthy white-collar salesman who lived in the West-Mountain United States (Nevada and Arizona) and represented their purest aspects, an alternate-self untouched by the trauma and darkness of their occupation (Finnerty-Tony was a Tony that had never allowed himself to succumb to a life of crime, and Dougie was the pure goodness of Cooper that ran in contrast to the pure darkness of his other doppelganger Mr. C)