THE INTERPRETER | Sarah Goldberg
THE SHOW | barry
THE EPISODE | “delicate legacies” (May 7, 2023)
PERFORMANCE | Goldberg has been wowing us for four seasons now with her work as the ruthlessly ambitious actress Sally in HBO’s hit black comedy. But this week she outdid herself by essentially creating a performance within a performance as Sally took on a new identity and completely transformed into a frustrated mother drinking herself into oblivion.
Barry and Sally escaped their disastrous fate in Los Angeles by moving to the middle of nowhere and reinventing themselves as “Clark” and “Emily.” Sally saw this as an opportunity to put her acting skills to work, donning a brown wig and adopting a Southern accent to play the role of Emily. Goldberg was almost unrecognizable at first as Emily, but she let Sally’s quivering despair shine through as Emily threw a coffee as a waitress at a local diner and drank vodka straight from the bottle to numb the pain . Goldberg burst out laughing as a drunken Sally uttered the words during a family dinner with Barry and their young son John, but her desperation was no laughing matter. Emily even flirted with a sleazy cook just to feel something, but she ended up wrapping her hands around his neck and nearly choking him, and Goldberg was downright terrifying as Sally’s deeply suppressed anger almost got him. forced to choke a man to death. (A sleazy man, but still.)
Goldberg also made it clear that Sally was not cut out to be a mother, with Emily squirming uncomfortably in bed when John tried to snuggle up next to her. Sally traded her freedom for safety, but she already regrets that decision — and Goldberg has done a fantastic job of showing us how much she regrets it.
Scroll down to see who scored honorable mentions this week…
-
HONORABLE MENTION: Matthew Macfadyen
Image credit: Courtesy of HBO
Shiv and Tom’s wedding Succession has always been on shaky ground, but the ground beneath them completely disappeared this week as they tore each other apart in a brutally savage war of words, and Matthew Macfadyen was sensational as Tom wavered between cruelty and grief. (We’d also honor Sarah Snook here, but we already honored her a few weeks ago.) These two know just what to say to hurt each other the most, and Tom went straight for the jugular, attacking Shiv’s relationship. with his father Logan and even his ability to be a mother – which was very painful since he didn’t know that Shiv was pregnant. Macfadyen’s tear-filled eyes and strained voice, however, told us that Tom really loved Shiv, regardless. It was a tough scene to watch, but seeing Macfadyen dig into the depths of Tom’s battered soul was worth it.
-
HONORABLE MENTION: Johnathan Nieves
Image credit: Paramount + screenshot
But of course Johnathan Nieves would deliver a knockout of a performance in Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies‘ ‘Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’.’ At the start of the episode, he slipped from highlighting Richie’s grief by blowing it off with his almost-girlfriend Jane to masking that same pain with swaggering swagger. But as the T-Birds’ day of festivities turned seriously south, all thanks to Richie, the actor quickly sobered up his character to provoke his pals to “Hit Me Again” in a musical number that amounted to a hit. fist. After finally admitting, in tears, that he loved Jane, Nieves shifted gears once again, allowing Richie to put everything on the line for his future squeeze in a way that ensured we knew. Exactly how much shine he brings to Paramount+’s underrated gem of a series.
-
HONORABLE MENTION: Chris O’Donnell
Image credit: Paramount + screenshot
With its penultimate episode, NCIS: Los Angeles ended Callen’s arc and his long-unanswered questions about Hetty and Drona. And while said resolution felt rushed – remember, Jere Burns’ Pembrook had was positioned as quite the bogeyman of Grisha’s past – Chris O’Donnell’s performance sold us on how these revelations recontextualized Callen’s youth. When Pembrook first resurfaced, O’Donnell put on a steely face that communicated disgust, distrust. But when Pembrook revealed that Hetty pulled Grisha out of Drona the instant she learned what the sinister shrink was up to, we felt how that bomb hit Callen. Later, Callen tried to argue that Hetty’s guilt doesn’t make up for what she did to him. But as Pembrook explained how Henrietta only wanted Grisha to fulfill her potential, as the son she never had, O’Donnell made us want to give G. the hug Hetty isn’t here for. to offer.
Which performance(s) hit your socks this week? Tell us in the comments!
