Best Performances Of 2016

"The Glanders" (March 16, 2016)

Just one anguished look from Philip's "wife" Martha illuminated the dark underbelly of the Jennings' Cold War spy game. As her husband confessed that he set up Gene to take the fall as the FBI's mole, Wright's face registered pure shock as she realized that the man with whom she shares a bed had killed her colleague. Then the horror set in when it became clear that she was, at least in part, responsible for Gene's unjust death. "I didn't agree to this! I didn't want this!" a distressed Martha cried out. Wright brought so much raw, relatable emotion to the intense confrontation that we almost found ourselves wishing Martha would save herself and walk away from her sham of a marriage. We said almost.

"Chapter 49" (March 4, 2016)

Wright's steely first lady stole the show early on in Season 4 as Claire went toe-to-toe with husband Francis. While that battle raged, Claire was fighting on another front — with her cancer-stricken mom. The pair's painful history yielded one blockbuster scene after another, and allowed Wright to show us Claire at her most vulnerable, particularly in "Chapter 49," which found her in the position of having to end the life of the woman she alternately loathed and loved.

" The Day the World Went Away" (May 31, 2016)

Samantha Groves aka Root went out with a bang, thanks to a stellar swan song by Acker. Who else could sell us on the absurdity of discussing Schrödinger amid a barrage of bullets? But Acker's finest moment came when during a spectacular car chase she urged Harold to allow The Machine to be all that She needs to be in this final clash with Samaritan. "I walked in darkness for a very long time before you guided me to light. And I wouldn't change any of it," Root told The Machine's maker. Acker brought great passion to that moment as Her No. 1 cheerleader, in what would be Root's final hurrah.

"The Adversary" (Nov. 6, 2016)

Newton's superior skills got a virtuosic workout in Episode 6, when Maeve finally learned exactly what she was — a lifelike android — and played out all the stages of grief for her assumed personhood. She wondered at and raged against her programming, mourned the "dead" bodies piled up in a room, and nearly came undone upon finding movie footage of her daughter from a previous build. By the time Newton (who, it needs to be noted, acted most of the season in oblivious undress) held Sylvester captive with a scalpel, we were #TeamMaeve, all the way.

" Pilgrim Rick" (Nov. 22, 2016)

For This Is Us's Thanksgiving episode, Brown gave us the full cornucopia of emotions. He made Randall's boyish enthusiasm for Turkey Day infectious, as he bounced on his brother Kevin's bed and boogied to Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al." But when Randall discovered that his mom Rebecca kept him from his birth father William for years, the heartbreak and hurt on Brown's face cut deep. Brown might want to save room on his mantel for a second Emmy.

"Where Is Josh's Friend" (Oct. 21, 2016)

She already took home the Golden Globe, but as the Season 2 premiere of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend proved, Bloom is just getting warmed up. This week's musical centerpiece, "Love Kernels," showed off her range — both vocally and comedically — as Rebecca sang that she only needs tiny bits of reassurance from Josh to maintain her devotion. She dressed up as a "sexy fashion cactus," she writhed around in the desert, she served popcorn as a movie usher... basically, she did it all.

" The White Whale" (May 11, 2016)

She could have had it all... and yet she wanted none of it. And in the end, she wound up with even less than that. As Underground's freshman run came to a close, Vann made evident that house slave Ernestine would not fall for the illusion of a grand life at her master/baby daddy Tom Macon's side. And later, as the episode ended, Vann uttered not a single syllable to convey 'Stine's reaction to Savanna's revelation of her new fate, but instead used her silence, deep breaths and a clenched jaw, to underscore the character's strength against the latest adversity.

"Klick" (April 18, 2016)

He even fooled us. McKean's masterful portrayal of a weakened, vulnerable Chuck McGill was so convincing in the Season 2 finale, we didn't suspect he was setting up his brother Jimmy to confess to forging documents in the Mesa Verde case. (Jimmy didn't suspect it, either.) Plus, in a key flashback, McKean revealed the painful memory that led to Chuck and Jimmy's family feud. He's known as a comedian, but "Klick" proved that McKean's one hell of a dramatic actor, too.

" Goodnight, Mother" (March 14, 2016)

If Highmore hadn't already broken your heart with his sympathetic portrayal of Bates Motel's "psycho," he had to have shattered it with his stunning work in "Goodnight, Mother." First, he imbued his disturbed counterpart with a rarely seen confidence, as Norman, unaware that he "became" his mother during his blackouts, began watching the real Norma like a hawk. Later, more quietly but no less powerfully, Highmore revealed Norman's resolve to end his and Norma's dysfunction for good. And, through it all, the actor remained as committed as his character finally was.

"Family Portrait" (March 24, 2016)

The casting of male comic Anderson as Zach Galifianakis' mother has been far more than a gimmick for FX's freshman comedy. It's been an inarguable revelation. In the Season 1 finale, as Christine returned home from a hospital stay after falling into a diabetic coma, Anderson played both the absurdity and pathos of his character's welcome-home speech to her family. Later, as Christine howled in pain over a finger-prick from her granddaughter, we howled, too, with laughter.

"Episode Seven" (Feb. 17, 2016)

Although most of the hour focused on Jessup's Taylor, the actor didn't actually say much during the harrowing events that occurred — and that's why we were particularly gobsmacked by his performance. As Taylor debated how and on whom to use his handgun, Jessup quietly showed us all the ways in which Taylor was unraveling. When he eventually shot Wes, the glimpse of his bloody torso was hardly necessary; the look in Jessup's eyes told us all we needed to know.

(Jan. 31, 2016)

Headlining a live TV musical is a lofty challenge, but Hudgens' wickedly funny and deeply sympathetic performance as bad girl Rizzo borders on miraculous when you remember that she lost her father to cancer the night before the telecast. "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee" allowed her to show off her comic chops. However, it was "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" where she brought Grease: Live! to its emotional peak — and stole the show.

"Kimmy Drives a Car" (April 16, 2016)

Burgess' fearless performance throughout Kimmy's second season suggests that he now understands Titus even better than Titus understands himself. But we're going to focus on his oh-so-controversial one-man show, Kimono You Didn't!: Murasaki's Journey. Not only is his facial work — excuse me, "face journey" — during that library scene the stuff of genius, but Burgess somehow inspires us to care about Titus' past lives as a dejected geisha, an openly gay slave and a doe-eyed pug.

"Parts 3 and 4" (June 1 and 2, 2016)

Page didn't merely nail the flamboyant showmanship that allowed Chicken George to charm white crowds before his masters' gamecocks had entered the ring. He also shone in subtler, more sincere moments, which afforded us keen insights into both his character's deep devotion to wife Matilda and his conflicted feelings for Tom Lea, the white father in whom he was naïve to believe. Page didn't just make an excellent first impression, he made a lasting one.

" It Sounded Nicer in My Head" (June 17, 2016)

Lolly's struggle to distinguish between fact and fiction came to head in Episode 7 when Healy found her in a "time machine" she had built out of cardboard and scrap metal. Petty tore at our heartstrings as she held a tight grasp on a potato she thought would help her return to a better time, and made clear her desire to undo whatever birth defect caused her to be haunted by the voices in her head.

"A Dark Crate" (July 24, 2016)

"He's barely a lawyer." "He's no one — a precinct crawler." Those are just a couple of the dismissive descriptions we heard about Turturro's kind-hearted but out-of-his-depth Jack Stone during this episode. Turturro's powerfully subtle work brought into stark relief how a lifetime of such put-downs had made his eczema-plagued, small-time attorney so desperate for the big-break murder case that had fallen into his lap, but also how they'd steeled his sense of pride and tenacity.

" Chapter Eight: The Upside Down " (July 16, 2016)

Though critics — including us — have quite rightly raved about Winona Ryder's star turn in Netflix's retro drama, c'mon. The show was really all about those awesome kids. And, in the final Season 1 episode, Brown totally stole that show. Thanks to the talented youngster (and her baby-faced castmates), we finally understand why actors say never to work with children: There's a good chance they'll outshine you!

"P-i-lot" (Sept. 21, 2016)

It's appropriate that Speechless premiered right at the peak of hurricane season. After all, Driver's performance as family matriarch Maya Dimeo proved to be such a force of nature, the World Meteorological Organization really ought to honor the actress by naming the next big tropical depression after her. The brilliance of her performance, though, is that while she makes Maya a righteous mother figure, she's not afraid to let the audience laugh at her character's hair-trigger defensiveness, either.

"Fall" (Nov. 25, 2016)

Nearly a decade after Gilmore Girls The Series ended, Graham picked up right where she left off in Netflix's revival. And in "Fall," she dug deep to tap into a rarely seen reservoir of emotion inside her character. Lorelai has always buried uncomfortable feelings under a layer of jokey sarcasm. But here, Graham got to fully explore not just the pain of losing her father, but also of never really connecting with her mother. And she knocked it out of the park.

"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" (March 8, 2016)

As Marcia fought battles on multiple fronts, Paulson revealed incremental cracks in the legal eagle's facade. Then came the knock-out blows — first when F. Lee Bailey laid the foundation for Mark Fuhrman's downfall, then when Marcia learned that her first husband had leaked nude photos to a tabloid. With that devastating series of events passed, our verdict came in: Paulson, a four-time Emmy nominee, more than earned the Emmy she took home in September.