It's likely Zendaya will be
present for the third – and thankfully, final – season of Euphoria. But
considering just how unpopular that season was across the board with critics
the odds of her winning her third Emmy in this category, which were low before
the final season began, are next to non-existent.
It's like for the fifth
consecutive year in this decade we will have a new winner in this category, if
for no other reason that last year's winner Britt Lower is ineligible. Even
with only five nominees this is arguably the strongest acting category in all
of drama with great reasons for all five of my choices to emerge victorious
even with two very clear favorites. So here we go.
Kathy
Bates, Matlock
Going into last year's Emmys Kathy
Bates was the odds-on favorite to win for her superb performance in the title
role of this incredible reinvention of Matlock. That she didn't win had
less to do with the quality of her work and more due to the fact she was the
only nominee for her show. Going into
the second season all the reasons to vote for her this year are just as present
and then some.
In Season 2 Maddy had to deal with
a whole new set of chickens coming home to roost. Her identity had been outed,
first to Olivia, who she spent the first half of the season rebuilding her
friendship, then to Julian who finally learned the truth about Madeline right
at the time his father had a stroke. Maddy also learned about the existence of
Alvy's father, watched how he tried to rebuild his life after being addicted,
saw him struggle then relapse and then learn he'd known about his grandson's
existence for years but had never shown up. This caused Maddy to go into
another spiral in which she spent several weeks talking to an AI version of her
daughter in a different form of addiction.
All this time Maddy spent her
career in her mission statement of bringing down Jacobson Moore and while she
was doing she found something more important – her real self. A happier
version, a good friend, a good family member, the kind of attorney and woman
she was before her daughter overdosed, the best version of herself. The great
joy of Season 2 wasn't watching Maddy triumph over Jacobson Moore but realize
that she was a better person now and to see her build bonds as a septuagenarian
was one of the great accomplishment in Bates's career.
I don't know what the odds are of
Bates winning this year but I'd still love to see her up there. The category is
just as formidable as last year but she's still everything I love about her.
Christine
Baranski, The Gilded Age
I understand why Baranski chose to
go from Supporting Actress to Lead for Season 3 of The Gilded Age –
Agnes is as much a co-lead in the series as Carrie Coon's Russell. Personally I
think Baranski would have had better odds had she stayed the course – she was
nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Season 2 and indeed she was nominated
in this category by the Astras last month.
And its not as though her
performance was any less brilliant then it had been in the previous two
seasons. As I've sent throughout my raves of the show every line out of
Baranski's mouth is a gem, a pointed barb that always makes you laugh and
always makes her the highlight of the action. And this season Agnes showed more
growth then she had in the previous two: first when it came to her compassion
for her secretary and making it clear how she didn't realize the difference
between the worlds of white and colored women in society to her parents. She
continued to adjust to her new station in life, no longer as the mistress of
her own household and finding her own way forward. She showed how much she
could find depths for those below her station and how it paid unexpected
rewards. And we saw how much she cared for women's suffrage for all races and
finding a place in New York society. Her journey was a contrast with Bertha
Russell's and it showed her at a very better place in her life than across the
street.
Baranski, if anything, is owed
more recognition from the Emmys then the more likely nominee from this show
Carrie Coon: she has been at the center of two brilliant dramas before The
Gilded Age and received no Emmys for The Good Wife and no
nominations for The Good Fight. I'm
not convinced Baranski can prevail in what is still going to be a formidable
field of leads: there are both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon from The
Morning Show ahead of her and Ella Purnell could move in ahead even before
we count the Zendaya of it all. But she deserves a seat at the table even, as
we found out at the end of the season, if she's not at the head of it.
Carrie
Coon, The Gilded Age
There was a time – not that long
ago – when it seemed that Carrie Coon couldn't get an Emmy nomination if her
life depended on it. Now she's likely to return to the Emmys as a nominee for
the third consecutive year and for the second time for her second iconic role
for an HBO classic.
In Season 3 we watched as Bertha
Russell's rise in New York society for the first time clashed with her
relationship with everyone she loved. She forced her daughter into a marriage
with a duke for her own status, against the will of her husband and her children.
This put a wall between her and George that she was never able to overcome and
at the end of the season she had lost her husband. In addition her son Larry
has turned against her and while her daughter might have power in her marriage
now, it's unclear if she'll ever forgive her.
For the first time with Bertha we
find ourselves asking the question: "For what shall it profit a woman if
she gains the world and loses her entire soul?" Bertha has been doing this
since the series began but with each season as she has climbed the ladder she
has become less sympathetic. The main reason we've rooted for her is because
she's a woman in a man's world but it doesn't change the fact that her actions
are just as bad as those we've seen any man do any drama, particularly moving
people as chess pieces to achieve her ends. Coon has been constantly watchable
during this period but with each season our sympathy for her has been more
tested and it has been one of the great performances in her already superb
career.
Coon has already been nominated
for the Critics Choice Award and the Astras and given the Emmys propensity for
'once you're in, you're in" she's certain to get her third consecutive
nomination. Her odds of winning against this field are still remote – but she
was the favorite to win for The White Lotus last year and she was upset.
They do owe her.
Keri
Russell, The Diplomat
It was a surprise – albeit a
delightful one – when Keri Russell managed to win in this category at this
years Actor's. For someone whose been a
fan of Russell for nearly thirty years across three classic dramas it's an
award that she's long overdue.
Every decade it seems that Keri
Russell manages to create an iconic character for the new decade: Felicity at
the turn of the millennium, Elizabeth Jennings in the 2010s, and now Kate Wyler
for the 2020s. If there's a common thread between these incredible characters
it is how each time there's an incredible thorough professional determined to
move forward no matter the cost to her as a woman and a personal life. And
that's particularly true with Kate Wyler as she has come to realize that there
is an international conspiracy at the highest levels of government, involving
the Prime Minister, the now President of the United States and her husband,
who's just become the Vice President a job she spent the first two seasons
being groomed for even though she never wanted it. Now more frightened for her
country then ever and increasingly being pulled between the Western alliances
darker initiatives Russell keeps trying to get to the truth in a world that not
only doesn't want it discovered but in fact might not survive if it came out,
something Kate herself knows better than anyone. She spent Season 3
increasingly walking the corridors of power leading to a conspiracy that might
bring down the Republic in ways Shonda Rhimes can only dream of. No one knows
what will happen next, not even Kate herself.
Like her husband Matthew Rhys
Russell has spent her career being ludicrously underrecognized for her work in
extraordinary TV. It seems like the rest of the world has caught up with how
good her husband is this year (see Best Limited Series). The question is
whether Russell can get an Emmy herself.
The SAG Award showed its possible. Can it happen in a crowded field?
Rhea
Seehorn, Plur1bus
It wasn't quite as big a travesty
as to her colleagues in Better Call Saul but the fact that Rhea Seehorn
only got two Emmy nominations and no awards for her work as Kim Wexler is
worthy of a class action suit. In the leadup to the Emmys for this year it
really seems like the world is trying to make up for it. It helps that Plur1bus
looks like its just as much a masterpiece and that Seehorn is absolutely
blowing everybody away.
Carol Sturka is nobody's idea of a
heroine, least of all herself. She hates even the people who read her romance
novels on a regular basis, she doesn't like anyone else and the only person she
tolerates is her lover – who its clearly could barely stand her. Now aliens
have invaded Earth and she is one of only twelve people so far who seems to
have free will. This is bad enough, what's worse is that all of the hive mind
seems only determined to make the world a better happier place – and that
bothers her even more. Now she finds
that she has to be the savior of humanity – and she knows she's the worst
person to do it.
Plur1bus is centered on Seehorn in a way
that no series today – perhaps no drama in decades – has been centered
around a single individual. She's the only familiar face in the first four
episodes and there's only one other regular who shows up in as many episodes
(we'll get to them). Seehorn has to play Carol not just as the only person who
can figure out what the hell the hive mind is doing but she has to do it
playing someone that even under the most horrible and horrendous of
circumstances, the viewer still has trouble liking because she clearly can't
even like herself that much. That Seehorn somehow manages to make you root for
her every step of the way is a triumph to both her as an actress and to
Gilligan and his writers for creating her.
Seehorn has won practically every
acting award in sight leading up to the Emmys: the Golden Globes, the Critics
Choice Awards and even genre awards like the Saturn. At the moment she ranks as the favorite to
finally win her first Emmy for her work in Plur1bus. Those of you who've
read my columns know just how badly I want her to win. And I hope like hell it
happens.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Kaitlin Olson, High Potential
It's taken long enough but the
rest of the world is catching up with Kaitlin Olson. She's currently the
frontrunner for Guest Actress in a Comedy for her astonishing work as DJ in Hacks
for which she's been nominated three times before and where two other
actresses have won previously. So I think it would be more than fitting if
Olson was given a chance to double dip for his exceptional work in High
Potential not just a great showcase for Olson but the biggest hit ABC and
network TV have had in years.
Like such comic talents as Bob
Odenkirk and Niecy Nash before here Olson has tweaked her comic persona just
enough to make Morgan the cleaning woman whose intelligence has given her a
gift that makes her the LAPD's greatest hidden asset. And in Season 2 Olson did
more to make Morgan another in a long and thankfully growing list of positive
female leads at the center of so many great network dramas, including Kathy
Bates for Matlock. Morgan continues to do everything they ask of her and
more, solve impossible crimes, try to be a good mother to her children, a good
friend to so many of her colleagues, a good co-parent with her ex-husband and
try to solve the mystery of what happened to her first husband who disappeared
fifteen years ago and now seems to be at the center of a dark and frightening
conspiracy that she is both drawn to and repelled by. There's never a moment
watching Morgan that you never don't relate to her or don't like her,
and in an era where intelligence and expertise are being undercut at every
level there's something wonderful about a heroine who's way of thinking is an
asset that is celebrated.
Olson was nominated for the second
consecutive year for the Astras for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama along
with every frontrunner I've listed above. There are other actresses who are
more showy in splashier successes and others more likely to get the nomination.
But I keep turning to Olson's work as Morgan as the kind of character TV needs
right now. If ever there were such a thing as a lovable longshot its Olson and
this show.
Tomorrow I deal with Outstanding
Supporting Actor in a Drama. This one's going to be a tough one and I don't
just mean based on how many nominees from The Pitt show up.
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