Thursday, December 29, 2022

The Best TV of 2022, Concluded: Performers Who Showed Us Over and Over How Good TV Was This Year

 

I’m going to wrap up my best of the list with a group of performers who proved themselves in multiple formats and once again demonstrated just how incredible they were. I look forward to seeing what they do in the weeks to come. I may bend the format some more, but who really cares?

 

Naveen Andrews: Demonstrating Menace in Every Way Possible

Andrews was one of my favorite actors on Lost throughout its run, taking the role of a member of the Republican Guard, who spent the length of the series trying to find a way for the part of him capable of horror to be overcome by the good man he was. Our heart broke for him because he never seemed able to succeed. After small roles on cult series over the 2010s, Andrews made an impact in two small screen series in a big way.

On The Dropout Andrews memorably played Sunny Balwani, Elizabeth Holmes conspirator and lover in Theranos who served as comforter and mentor in her business’ early stages and slowly but surely became a partner-in-crime who did as much as she did to perpetrate the massive fraud the company became. Some (Holmes herself) would argue that this series doesn’t go far enough to show just how culpable Sunny truly was. But in every episode of the series you see a man who slowly works to create an image of company and, like everyone else, is too late to realize just how big the monster is he’s helped created. Andrews was robbed of an Emmy nomination this year for his work.

Then a few months ago, he took on the role of Kadmar, the crime lord at the center of the second season of the fascinating new Fox Drama The Cleaning Lady. As Thony got deeper into the criminal enterprise that she had been trying to stay abreast of since the series began, Andrews was exceptional getting to play a proper villain, oozing charm at one point, capable of murder in the next. I compared him at one point to Gus Fring, and there was a similar resemblance – right up to his death at the end of the season. Andrews has renewed his career with his work in 2022, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

 

Niecy Nash-Betts: Finally Getting Her Due

At the beginning of 2022, Niecy Nash-Betts’ intriguing crime drama Claws ended after four interesting seasons on TNT. I wondered how long it would take her to come back to the small screen she has dominated in almost every genre for the last fifteen years. I didn’t think she’d come back this quickly.

In the fall of 2022, she took on the lead role in the new spinoff drama: The Rookie: Feds. In the unlikely role of a forty-ish former guidance counselor whose now a probationary agent at the FBI, it would have been easy for her to lean in to the over-the-top nature she’s done in quite a few roles. Instead, she’s done that far less often and has become more fascinating with each new episode, demonstrating that studying the lives of children for nearly twenty years has given her the kind of inside this new unit needs. The spin-off is a fascinating show in its own right, with a superb and interesting supporting cast. But Nash-Betts is the star that shines the brightest and I’m glad to see her make it work for her. And while I’m far less inclined to give any credit at all to anything connected with the Netflix limited series on Jeffrey Dahmer, I won’t lie and say that I’m not thrilled that Nash-Betts has been getting her share of award recognition the past month, earning a Supporting Actress nomination from both the Critics Choice and the Golden Globes for her work as Glenda Cleveland. She’s getting her due this year, and I’m thrilled for it.

 

Laurie Metcalf: Is There Anything She Can’t Play?

There was a point in the summer of 2022 when it seemed like Laurie Metcalf could receive an Emmy nomination for three different series. And while she only received one, it’s a testament to such a talent that the Academy would not have been out of place giving her as many.

In addition to recreating her iconic role as Jackie on the fourth season of The Conners, a series that continues to have relevance and humor well after the departure of Roseanne, Metcalf had the role of Weed, the roadie who is initially in charge of Deb’s RV across America. It’s not easy to steal scenes from Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart, even when you’re literally stuck in the same space in them, but Metcalf managed to do it as the roadie utterly devoted to the itinerary – so much so Deb had to order her to stop after Weed through Ava’s fathers ashes out of the car at a rest stop  - and someone who did not seem to think even Deb was the boss of her, right up until the point Deb fired her. That Metcalf deserved the Emmy more than the three other actresses nominated for Guest Actress in a Comedy is a subject for debate; that her performance was the most hysterical of the four is not.

And it was complete change of pace from her work on The Dropout as Phyllis Gardner, the tech CEO who has Elizabeth Holmes’ number from the moment Holmes’ sets foot in her office at Stanford, who knows from the start that Holmes is a fraud (and utterly resent that she has to work with the slovenly William H. Macy character to prove it) and whose confrontation with Holmes is both devastating for her and for all the women in tech that she knows will suffer as a result.

I’ve long since stopped being amazed at what Metcalf has been capable of (and given how good her daughter Zoe Perry is at playing a younger version of character she made legendary on The Big Bang Theory shows that ability has not skipped a generation). She found time from her work on The Conners to take part in two completely different kind of series; I hope she finds time to do more this year.

Aaron Paul and James Marsden: More Than Sending In the Clones

I made it clear in my Overrated Series earlier this year that I thought Westworld was one of the most overblown shows in the history of television, not knowing that in a sense, it would serve as an obituary for the show. But all my problems with the series never extended to the exceptional cast connected with it.  And two actors in particular continued to prove that there range was far greater than just being part of this mess of a series – as if there was any doubt to that before.

Aaron Paul’s work in the final season of Westworld was some of the best the series ever did. Watching the host version of him trying to find a way to save himself – climbing over dead versions of himself the entire way – all so that he could find a way to deliver a message to his daughter across time and space – was one of the best episodes of 2022, and that’s coming from someone who didn’t like Westworld at all. Of course, while this was airing we were watching him recreate his iconic role of Jesse Pinkman in the final season of Better Call Saul. But while Bryan Cranston’s appearance seemed more of a fan shout out, Paul’s appearance in the penultimate episode where he had his one interaction with Kim Wexler was, in hindsight to the entire Breaking Bad-verse, perhaps the most important interaction in the show’s history as Jesse, who had doubts about letting Saul in the world, was convinced by Kim that he might be worth their time.

James Marsden who, in typical Westworld fashion, was killed off in Season 2 but came back in Season 4, had the critical role of helping Dolores (or Christina ) realize just how important she was in the grand scheme of things, setting up the never to be realized final season. Then a few weeks later, he returned to a much-lighter role (sort of) as Ben, the alcoholic, vitally conflicted identical twin brother of Sam who ended up having an affair with Jen after revealing that he’d hit her with a car. (Makes sense on this show, trust me!) Marsden received a Critics Choice nomination for Supporting Actor in a Comedy for this role, and I hope that down the line the Emmys are just as rewarding.

 

The Cast of The Old Man: Don’t You Dare Call Them Seniors

For reasons that are irrelevant, I did not include FX’s remarkable new series on my Top Ten List this year. (It was a close question until December.) So let’s take this opportunity to pay tribute to the incredible veteran cast that demonstrates yet again how brilliant they are.

Jeff Bridges may be the greatest actor in history that Hollywood never took seriously. But even after watching him play the grizzled old man to perfection in True Grit and Hell or High Water, I never thought for a moment he could take on the role of an action hero and beleaguered sixtyish former spy. Yet here he is, having survived cancer and Covid, tearing through much younger attackers, playing multiple versions of personality, heading on a rendezvous with an Afghan Warlord he is certain he will never come back from. I long ago thought Bridges could never surprise me. I was wrong.

I’ve never stopped being impressed by John Lithgow. His television work alone has won him six Emmys in four different categories over the decades. Still knowing what little I did about this series; I was expecting his retired FBI director Harold Harper to be the heavy in this category. Wrong again. Recovering from the loss of his son, he is trying to rebuild his life when a case he never wanted reopened comes to the forefront. He tries to find a way to get Bridges’ character out of the fire, and then finds that he’s even deeper in to what is happening than he ever imagined and has been betrayed by two of the people he trusted the most in the world. It’s one of the most human portrayal Lithgow’s been able to play in a very long time and he clearly relishes it.

Bridges and Lithgow have already received nominations from both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice for their performances. But let’s not forget the wonderful of two other industry veterans doing some of their best work in decades. Amy Brenneman finally realizes the potential she had when she shot to stardom in NYPD Blue as Zoe, the frail divorcee that Chase takes on out of sympathy who reveals herself to have steel in her backbone. And Joel Grey is magnificent in what turns out to be the title role, the man who was responsible for both Harper and Chase’s life in the industry, had no problem betraying them both at separate times, and has even less trouble doing so even if it costs them their lives. Perhaps both will receive recognition later this year.

I don’t know where The Old Man will take us in the second season its been renewed for. But in the hands of so many capable actors I have little doubt that there’s far greater place to go and greater depths to be plumbed.

 

And as One Last Bonus:

Who is Amy Schneider?

Perhaps it is asking too much to give credit to Jeopardy again. But consider Amy Schneider was on television more often this year than, say, the Kardashians (and is far more photogenic and interesting to watch, in my opinion) it’s hard not to give credit to the Jeopardy contestants whose streak of 40 games is now second all-time to Ken Jennings, who has won more money in her original run than all but three other players (including Jennings) and whose triumph in this year’s thrill-a-minute Tournament of Champions officially ranks her as the fourth highest money winner in Jeopardy history. Throw in the fact that she made appearances at the White House and has become an idol for the transgender community across the country and perhaps the world, it’s hard to argue that Schneider has earned her place in history. I look forward to seeing her do so on the Jeopardy stage for years to come.

 

That’s it for the best of 2022, folks! See you next year.

 

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment