TVLine's Performer Of The Week (Tie): Paul Giamatti And Zahn McClarnon

THE PERFORMER | Paul Giamatti

THE SHOW | Black Mirror

THE EPISODE | "Eulogy" (Apr. 10, 2025)

THE PERFORMANCE | Season 7 of Netflix's chilling sci-fi anthology was its best in years, and the highlight was "Eulogy," a delicately bittersweet tale of love and loss powered by an absolutely heart-wrenching performance from Paul Giamatti. He's given us some astounding work over the years, from Sideways to The Holdovers, so it's saying something that his soulful, layered work here ranks right up there with the greatest of his career.

Like a lot of the best Black Mirror episodes, "Eulogy" was daringly sincere and heartfelt, with Giamatti playing a man named Phillip, who learned that an old girlfriend of his named Carol had died. To help with Carol's memorial, a tech company asked Phillip for any old photos he might have of her, allowing him to step inside the photos virtually to relive his memories. At first, Phillip was reluctant to participate — he and Carol had an ugly breakup, and he had scribbled her face out of every photo — and Giamatti showed us how Phillip had built up a wall of anger and resentment to protect his wounded psyche. But as Phillip started to remember more about his time with Carol, we saw his eyes light up, as Giamatti infused a hint of youthful vigor into a man who'd long since said goodbye to anything like that. We also learned that it wasn't entirely Carol's fault that they split up, and Giamatti deftly let us see Phillip's hardened resolve start to crumble and give way to an avalanche of regret over the years he wasted being angry.

Near the episode's end, an older and wiser Phillip watched a young Carol play the cello, with Giamatti's eyes filling with tears of wistful longing — and it's one of the most beautiful images Black Mirror has ever given us. It's easy for this show to get cold and cerebral, but Giamatti's towering work here reminded us that there's a beating human heart inside all of it.   

THE PERFORMER | Zahn McClarnon

THE SHOW | Dark Winds

THE EPISODE | "Abidoo'niidee (What We Had Been Told)" (Apr. 13, 2025)

THE PERFORMANCE | Joe Leaphorn this week embarked on a long, very strange journey, and the always-excellent Zahn McClarnon had us rapt with the police lieutenant's every step, his every epiphany.

Dosed and dazed by a poison dart shot into his neck by the "Ye'iitsoh," Joe woke to find himself in what Margaret the blind Listening Woman described as the Yellow World. Joe was rightly confused by his whereabouts, and McClarnon's face reflected the discomfiting aimlessness Joe felt. This dreamscape then began to reveal its inhabitants and its purpose, and we like Joe intently absorbed every upsetting detail.

This hour-long odyssey's mission was multi-layered. For one, it was very much about Joe remembering that, when he was a child, his father Henry as the local lawman exacted his own form of Indian Justice on a priest who'd sexually abused Joe's young cousin. McClarnon broke your heart as the clergyman's spectre suggested to Joe that he could have acted faster, in alerting his father. Was Henry's own bout of vengeance why, even subliminally, Joe felt justified in leaving B.J. Vines to die? Joe argued as much, and McClarnon imbued his words with great nobility, when confronted in this dreamscape by FBI Agent Washington. But a dance sequence that followed got Joe all turned around again, as Washington argued that priests and businessman are "good guys," and Leaphorn really should be better at his job by now.

This dreamscape — in a sequence where Emma chastised her husband for being lax in building a fence around their garden — also urged Joe to realize how time and again he prioritizes work over family. Especially when deciding to invite death into their home by effectively killing Vines without so much as alerting his wife. Joe loves Emma so deeply, and McClarnon made clear the character's sadness as disappointing her so.

Scroll down to see who got Honorable Mention shout-outs this week...

Saying goodbye to a beloved character is always difficult, but it's infinitely harder when that character is played by a dynamo like Krause. Bobby's death sequence in this week's episode of 9-1-1 was like a sample platter, offering up a taste of everything we've come to love about this firefighting father figure over the past eight seasons. In his farewell to to Buck, Krause gave us the strong, parental version of Bobby. Every word was direct and deliberate. That "I love you, kid" hit me like a tsunami. Or a beenado. Or any number of ridiculous scenarios Bobby has survived over the years. Then came Bobby's final moments with Athena, for which Krause opened up the emotional floodgates. The agony on his face, the despair in his eyes. How anyone could watch that desperate exchange without falling to pieces is beyond me. It's exactly this kind of heartbreaking, unexpected performance that makes Krause such an incredible loss to fans of the show. Is it too late to call this a belated April Fool's joke? — Andy Swift

"Come on. Get in." If only you could hear our hearts beat when Karen showed up in the Daredevil: Born Again finale, to escort Matt and Frank to safety (and some TLC) after their four-story free fall onto a car roof. Working opposite Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal, Deborah Ann Woll — last seen in this Disney+ revival's premiere — instantly brought great weight to the scenes that followed, due to Karen's distinct pasts with each of these men. With Frank, Karen's banter has a hint of heat that speaks to their unresolved dynamic in Marvel's Daredevil Season 2, and in Woll's voice, you feel Karen still wanting to heal this bad boy. With Matt, Karen is decidedly warmer; she in not only a voice of reason he regards, but she in some ways represents the elusive "light" Daredevil's alter ego spoke of in their final scene. — M.W.M.

Which performance(s) knocked your socks off this week? Tell us in the comments!