It was an impenetrable, awe-inspiring performance. Rust Cohle's fleeting existence in our lives deserved all of our attention. We forgot about Cranston, now months in the rearview mirror, whom we already had years of experience appreciating anyway. Now this? Going full Brando and creating a 450-page backstory explaining Rustin Cohle's tortured psyche so that he could then inhabit said psyche and blow all of our own minds? The flat circle? The smell of sulfur and ash? The Big Hug Mug? What happened to "all right, all right, all right"? The fun-loving Texas native known for shirtless jogging had transformed himself into one of the darkest, most pessimistic fictional characters in recent memory. The former Wooderson's performance in Dallas Buyers Club was hard enough to believe. But then Matthew McConaughey grew a ponytail and started chain smoking. After being given three years off from having to write an acceptance speech - Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights, Damian Lewis of Homeland, and Jeff Daniels of The Newsroom happily filling in for him - this was the year that the statuette was to go back to its rightful owner, in Breaking Bad's triumphant final season. His five-season run as chemistry teacher-turned-meth kingpin was arguably the greatest small-screen acting performance we'd ever seen, and this was his best season. As Walter White collapsed on the red clay of the New Mexico desert, the side of his head falling to the ground, his mouth a black hole of despair, his mind trying to process how he had just gotten his brother-in-law shot in the head by a neo-Nazi, you would have had to be fking crazy to suggest that anyone other than Bryan Cranston would take home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for that year in television, which will be presented this coming Monday night.
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