Image: Game of Thrones/HBO
Lena Headey: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series — “Mother’s Mercy”
This is where the Emmy voters should have given Lena Headey her award, and I’ll always be a little baffled that she didn’t get it. These days, Cersei’s Walk of Shame is an iconic scene largely because of Headey. Cersei is a monster, but here, we feel her pain and humiliation, and actually come over to her side, if just for the moment. The editors step back and let the sequence continue for a very long time, letting Headey take center stage. She makes the most of it, finding wells of vulnerability in Cersei we didn’t know she had. Yes, she’s a horrible person, but does anyone deserve THAT?
Headey was a force to be reckoned with throughout the show’s run, as commanding with a monologue as she was with a simple purse of the lips or arch of the brow. There are several spots that deserved reward, but this is the most glaringly obvious omission.