Sandra Oh Needs to Win an Emmy for ‘Killing Eve’ or the Whole Night Will Be Ruined!

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Award shows are prone to hyperbole as it is, and I hesitate to add to the drama of it all (oh wait, no I don’t), but I will only say this: there is one category that matters on Emmy night this year, and that category is Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama, and if Sandra Oh does not triumph in that category for her superior performance in Killing Eve, there will be HELL to pay!

This is an emotional plea, yes, but also a rational one. But let’s get the emotional stuff out of the way first: I love Sandra Oh. Who wouldn’t? As one of the last few remaining Grey’s Anatomy loyalists in media, Sandra Oh’s Cristina Yang is in my blood, and these last few years without that character on the show have been wanting in some fundamental way. I love Sandra Oh for her film performances and her interviews and the incredible clarity with which she’s been able to speak about being a woman of Korean-Canadian heritage in this industry. I love her for Sideways and Under the Tuscan Sun and, you know what, sure, Arli$$. I love her for this anecdote about a 20-something (gay? let’s assume) kid stopping her on the street in Chicago and reciting her Princess Diaries scene back to her.

When Grey’s Anatomy was still the sensational new show on the block, Sandra Oh was the featured performer who broke into that first round of awards shows. She won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting TV Actress in 2006, and then subsequently the SAG award that same year, and it seemed like we were destined to be seeing her dominate the Emmys for a while. But it never happened. She got aced out of the Emmy in her first two nominations by back-to-back wins for Blythe Danner in the Showtime series Huff, and a more puzzling piece of Emmys trivia you are not likely to find.

After that, Oh lost subsequent Emmys to — in order — her co-star Katherine Heigl (which even me, a Heigl apologist of the highest order, can’t understand; this was for the season where Cristina gets left at the altar!!), Dianne Wiest for In Treatment, and Cherry Jones for 24. And while I will never complain about a world in which Blythe Danner, Katherine Heigl, Dianne Wiest, and Cherry Jones are winning awards, it is unconscionable that Sandra Oh went through her entire Grey’s run without an Emmy. Let this be a lesson to Emmy voters: do not put off to next year who you could reward right now. You may just run out of chances.

Anyway, it is now 2018, and Emmy voters have a chance to right the wrongs of the past. That opportunity doesn’t come around all that often! And it especially doesn’t happen all that often that a make-up award is also the most deserving winner in the category. The competition in Lead Actress in a Drama is nothing to sniff at …

• Claire Foy in The Crown
• Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black
• Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale
• Keri Russell in The Americans
• Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld

…but Oh’s performance stands tall above all of them. It’s a fallacy to think that Emmy voters won’t vote for somebody just because they’ve won before, but it’s worth noting that Moss and Maslany have recently won in this category, and for better seasons of their shows. Claire Foy and Keri Russell are each getting their last chance to win for their respective shows, but Claire Foy has her burgeoning movie career to fall back on (she just showed up in the trailer for the Ryan Gosling awards-season drama First Man), while Russell … might actually be a more sentimental favorite than even Sandra Oh is, for the final season of The Americans. That could be a problem. Put a pin in that.

Oh’s performance as Eve Polastri on Killing Eve was not only phenomenal in and of itself — Oh played Eve creeping closer and closer to the edges of her own personality without leaning on any kind of crazed/obsessive tics; Eve remained a grounded personality even as she inched closer and closer to identifying with Villanelle — but it was also a welcome return to TV for an actress I genuinely love. And in a role befitting her talents.

Keri Russell winning would be a great capper for fans of The Americans, and lord knows Elisabeth Moss went through a lot making season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, but let’s get our priorities straight! No single Emmy win this year will be more celebratory, moving, or just than Sandra Oh taking home an Emmy at long last, finally getting the industry award that shows she’s valued for the work she’s put in and the success she’s fought for. And no loss will leave me more devastated. Don’t do this to me, Emmys!

Where to stream Killing Eve