Team Experience continues to share their individual dream picks for Emmy nominations. Here's abstew on TFE favorite Melanie Lynskey...
With this year's rule-change that half hour shows will be automatically placed in the comedy categories and hour-long ones in drama, we worry about the shows that don't necessarily fit so easily into either category, regardless of their running times. But then again, Melanie Lynskey currently giving one of the year's best comedic and dramatic performances in HBO's Togetherness, has always been an actress undefined by categorization. Equally at home in traditional sitcoms (playing kooky neighbor Rose on Two and a Half Men) as she is in dramatic film work (her film debut in Heavenly Creatures is still a haunting revelation), Lynskey utilizes her skills from both (along with a sure hand at improv, recently seen in Happy Christmas) to play Michelle, the unhappily married wife and mother on the Duplass Brother's relationship dramedy. [More...]
While most of this season's tension focused on the "will they or won't they" drama between Michelle's sister (Amanada Peet) and family friend Alex (played by the show's co-creator Steve Zissis), the beating heart of the show was Lynskey's Michelle and her struggle to awaken from suburban malaise and discover herself again. Drifting apart from her husband Brett (Mark Duplass), she tries her best to reach out to him. Organizing beach trips and kickball games, she's desperate to reconnect. She even tries spicing up their sex life, which involves a leather dominatrix dress, handcuffs, and spanking in an awkwardly hilarious scene that's almost too uncomfortable to watch. But Michelle finds that perhaps it's not necessarily with Brett that her happiness lies as her connection with an idealistic man (John Ortiz) allows her to feel appreciated and proud of her accomplishments outside of her domestic roles.
Lynskey, without being a wife or mother herself in real life, brings a lived-in quality to her character, building realistic relationships with Peet and Duplass that somehow feel as if these characters have an actual history together. Her Michelle is an authentic, breathing creation that could be any woman living today. And Lynskey finds the humor in the truth of every situation, making the comedic scenes funnier with knowing recognition and the dramatic moments more poignant because of her ability to make you sympathize. In a category known for large, showy performances (last year's winner Allison Janney in Mom couldn't be more different in tone) it would be a shame if Lynskey's quietly affecting work on the show went unrecognized. But until the Emmys create a dramedy category, perhaps they just need to nominate this fine actress in both Supporting Actress categories to fully appreciate her amazing work.