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We are well into Emmy Awards campaign season, and with it the question of the episodes submitted by the nominated actors. The performers nominated in lead and supporting categories in comedy and drama are each called upon to submit just one episode from their eligible seasons to present to Emmy voters. In the past, shrewdly chosen episodes have certainly helped performers on their way to the podium. These days, with the entire academy voting for winners in each category, the suspicion is that episode selection doesn’t matter as much as it once did. But the politics and vagaries of Emmy voting have always been something of a mystery, with the episode submissions a rare tangible piece of evidence. Did an actor pick an episode that put their best foot forward? Does that mean big emotional moments? Likeable character triumphs? A format-breaking spotlight-grabber?
Claire Danes
Show: Homeland
Submitted Episode: “Super Powers”
Synopsis: After discovering she was the target of an assassination attempt, Carrie must piece together her past to discover who wants her dead, going off her meds to do so.
You might have guessed that Danes’ submitted episode would be an hour where Carrie goes off her meds. It’s an easy hook for Emmy voters who are impressed by the high-wire act that Danes takes on when Carrie goes cuckoo crazy. That said, the fact that the episode begins with Carrie on her meds and ends with her off her rocker shows a range to Danes’ performance that could certainly earn voters’ devotion. She’s done it before.
Viola Davis
Show: How to Get Away with Murder
Submitted Episode: “There’s My Baby”
Synopsis: After surviving an attack, Annalise Keating sees that her entire series of coverups is about to fall apart, so she starts drinking. Amid flashbacks to how she lost her unborn child in a car accident, Annalise tells Wes the truth about his parentage.
Davis won a history Emmy last year and gave the night’s most memorable speech. She’s probably the favorite to repeat her victory, and based purely on the episode submissions, she has a great shot at it. It’s an incredibly traditional awards-bait episode, with a lot of the old bells and whistles you’d expect from such an hour: problem drinking, emotional confessions, fraught breakdowns. Annalise losing her baby is a powerhouse moment, and Davis nails all of this, of course, and like many HTGAWM episodes, the whole enterprise would crumble without her. Here’s the bottom line: while it still feels just a bit cheap for an actress as great as Davis is to submit an episode this tricked out, it’s still a privilege to watch this woman do what she does.
Stream How to Get Away with Murder‘s “There’s My Baby” on Netflix.
Taraji P. Henson
Show: Empire
Submitted Episode: “Rise By Sin”
Synopsis: As the Lyon clan preps for the ASA awards, Cookie becomes suspicious of Tariq, a man from her past with police ties now wanting to date her sister Carol. She must kick her sister out of her life, while protecting her family and dealing with her son getting shot on the red carpet.
Empire forced the world to notice exactly how fantastic Taraji P. Henson can be any time she struts on screen. This episode showcases many of the things she does best as Cookie: the rapport she has with Lucious (Terence Howard) that no other cast member does, the fierce mama bear side to Cookie that comes out when she’s protecting her family by warning Tariq (who she knows is building a case against the Lyon clan) to stay away, and the way she knows she must separate from her loose-cannon sister Carol (Tasha Smith), but not without a few choice words and a hair pull, kicking her out of her conference room, her apartment, and overall, her life.
Taraji is best when Cookie gets to play, but when it comes to best drama performance, well, she gives one of her finest in this episode. It’s rare to see Cookie ever shaken up, but she gives two examples of it here: when she must admit to her son Jamal (Jussie Smollett) that she snitched on Freda’s (Bre-z) dad, and when she sees that Freda has shot Jamal on a red carpet. From the flashbacks to the early days of her relationship with Lusicous, to waiting in the hospital for news on her son, Taraji gives one of her hardest performances of the entire season all in the second half of this episode. Taraji’s chances at taking the statue for her work on Empire are as fierce as Cookie herself.
Tatiana Maslany
Show: Orphan Black
Submitted Episode: “The Antisocialism of Sex”
Synopsis: Sarah and Cosima must both deal with the emotional fallout of failing to find a cure, while Alison struggles to stay normal while her husband is arrested and life spirals out of control.
For the past three years or so, TV critics have been practically banging pots and starting booster clubs to get Emmy voters to notice the otherworldly performance of Tatiana Mislay on Orphan Black. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Maslany doesn’t just deliver a great performance — she delivers over a half dozen, often opposite herself. In this episode, Maslany has to play the tightly wound Alison as her world crumbles apart. She has to deal with Cosima’s choice to experiment on herself with a cure — risking death — and with Cosima dealing with the revelation that her lover, Delphine is a alive. And — and!!! — Maslany has to show Sarah spiraling out of control, contemplating suicide, and returning to the place where all this madness began. It’s insanity! But is it enough to get Emmy voters to take a ground-breaking performance in a scrappy little science fiction show seriously?
Where to Stream Orphan Black‘s “The Antisocialism of Sex” on Prime Video.
Keri Russell
Show: The Americans
Submitted Episode: “The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears”
Synopsis: Elizabeth watches her husband Phillip mourn the loss of Martha, so she attends one of his EST meetings to find out what it’s all about. She believes he is being manipulated and says as much, but it’s nowhere near the argument she has with her daughter, Paige, about keeping her feelings hidden when it comes to her relationship with Pastor Tim and his wife.
It is nothing short of ridiculous that in four seasons, this is the first nomination Keri has earned for the role of Elizabeth Jennings in FX’s The Americans. She shows as many dimensions to her character with each new wig she wears. And it’s a lot. This season we saw a brand new side to Elizabeth: feelings. She made a friend, one whom she painfully and masterfully had to betray, and the steely spy mom actually started to let herself examine her feelings, for pretty much the first time we’ve ever witnessed on the show.
Russell spent this season hiding her real life pregnancy behind groceries on the kitchen island and stylish trench coats, but there was no hiding her emotions. This includes her spat with Phillip over the manipulation of EST, to cracking a glass bottle over a woman’s head, to the real shining moment of the episode: the angriest, scariest, most forehead vein popping scream lecture that she delivers to her daughter Paige. Russell delivered this monologue with more outright emotion than we’ve seen over the entire four seasons from her. At first, it seemed a bit surprising that she didn’t submit the episode where she tricks her friend’s husband into thinking they had sex, but then this scene popped up and it all made sense.
It will be a tough race against fellow first-time nominee Tatiana Maslany, so maybe let’s just give them both shiny statues for the A++ work they’ve contributed this year, k?
Robin Wright
Show: House of Cards
Submitted Episode: “Chapter 49”
Synopsis: Frank is dealing with yet another threat to his presidency, but Claire has doubts about his plan. Meanwhile, Claire makes the decision to end her dying mother’s life.
If you count up all of Claire’s small, quiet, but ever-impactful moments, this has been Robin Wright’s strongest year on House of Cards. Wright spent most of the season on the silent sidelines, but she makes good use of her elongated silences as Claire has always been her most manipulative and deadly when she’s given room. Killing her mother was by far Wright’s heaviest storyline of the season, but what took the performance from good to great was Wright’s strategic performance. It’s never clear whether Claire killed her mother because that’s what her mother wanted or because it would help them politically. Wright sells the dark drama of this episode and series with her own distinct flourish, making her a strong contender for the statue.
