THE INTERPRETER | Emma d’Arcy
THE SHOW | Dragon House
THE EPISODE | “The Dark Queen” (October 23, 2022)
PERFORMANCE | God be good, D’Arcy was on fire in the Season 1 finale of the HBO drama. Count the paths.
First up: that horrible birth scene. (In case you’re keeping score at home, that was the second such a venture of the season for D’Arcy, who uses the pronouns.) As Rhaenyra simultaneously processed the heartbreaking news of her father’s death and began labor, D’Arcy clutched their bellies as if the princess were physically absorbing the bad news. In the scene that followed, we weren’t sure exactly how they had gone through so many emotions – the fear that the child would come too soon, the uncertainty about the kingdom’s future, and Rhaenyra’s claim to the throne – if beautifully while enduring the physically cloudy evisceration of a stillborn baby.
Then, Later: So many of D’Arcy’s cast choices in The Room of the Painted Table made a deep impression. The way D’Arcy waited, letting the silence speak, between Daemon’s outburst and the newly crowned queen’s order that everyone clear the room. The lucidity, even in the midst of emotional conflict, they kept as a touchstone while Rhaenyra avoided demands to go to war. The confusion and pain they filled the eyes of the new queen with as Daemon grabbed her by the throat and expressed her own feelings of inadequacy. Everything D’Arcy did was weaving a tapestry of a young woman finally reaching a position she knew was coming…and she wasn’t quite sure how to process that fact.
Finally, the end of the episode: We didn’t get to see D’Arcy’s face at the exact moment Rhaenyra learned that her son had been killed, but we didn’t need to. They bowed, crushed by the news of Lucerys’ death, their heads drooping in grief. Then just as quickly, D’Arcy filled their character with an aura of vengeful resolve. That face when they turned to the camera at the end of the episode? Like so much of D’Arcy in the season finale: Chills.
HONORABLE MENTION | It’s not easy to play a serial killer without turning him into a soulless monster, but Domhnall Gleeson has done a great job all season on Hulu’s The patient, showing us the little shreds of humanity buried in killer Sam’s tortured psyche. Sam was confronting his father about the severe abuse he suffered as a child. His eyes grew mournful when Alan told him it was time for their therapy to end, and he burst into murderous rage when he exploded on Alan as the therapist held his mother hostage: “You said that I was better. I believed you.” Sam ended up taking Alan’s life, but his actions also revealed that Alan’s therapy had a lasting effect on him – and Gleeson’s painstakingly detailed performance, with his tiny tics and inflections , allowed us to see the conflicted man behind the monster.
HONORABLE MENTION | Look, the last thing we wanna do is feel sympathy for someone commonly called The Handmaid’s Taleis the architect of Gilead. So damn you, Bradley Whitford, for doing such a good job of making us care about Commander Lawrence’s eternally conflicted feelings. In this week’s episode, something about how desperately Whitford made sure his character didn’t fight anything when June approached him was new, pathetic, and surprisingly moving. Whitford grew tearful as Joseph feebly tried to explain that everything he had done was for the purpose of saving mankind; his reading of “It escaped me” was both tense (he’s a struggling guy!) but insufficient (he’s not there yet!). Whitford is as good at dry humor as he is at deep pathos – it’s nice to see him get a chance to do the latter every once in a while.
HONORABLE MENTION | Even though we knew what was coming in Netflix’s limited series from zero — the trailer pretty much revealed the end of Amy and Lino’s romantic-turned-tragic love story — we were still unprepared for the power of star Zoe Saldaña’s poignant performance. In the finale, the actress practically radiated Amy’s grief over the death of her beloved husband from cancer, leaving us grieving over his loss. Saldaña’s sobs were heartbreaking as Amy begged her sister Zora not to force her out of bed and bring Lino’s ashes back to her Sicilian hometown. When Amy finally said goodbye to Lino in Sicily, we were touched not only by the love the couple shared, but also by the soul and devastating emotion that Saldaña brought to her role.
Which performance(s) hit your socks this week? Tell us in the comments!