2015 Emmys: Will Tatiana Maslany, Taraji P. Henson, Claire Danes win Drama Actress?

It’s Emmy season, and that means many things: Making winner pools at your local workplace, thousands of baseless fashion-speculation pieces, and then analysis articles like this one! We’re going through every category daily until the show airs on Fox September 21, and today, that means that we take a little bit of a closer look at the Actress in a Drama Series category.

While we said on Tuesday that we feel like the Actor race is really Jon Hamm’s to lose, we envision the competition here being a little more open-ended. It’s a little more competitive, as well; this is one of the best years for leading ladies that we can think of, especially since there are a good five or six people off the top of our head who we could add to this list, and we’d still feel like there were snubs.

The nominees

Claire Danes (Homeland)

Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)

Robin Wright (House of Cards)

Taraji P. Henson (Empire)

Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black)

Viola Davis (How to Get Away with Murder)

Who should win – She is probably somewhat of the underdog to win given that she was somehow not even nominated the past two years, but we just think that what Maslany does is so extraordinary. She plays different accents, different emotions, and does all of it convincingly. Every one of her characters feels real, and even with all of her accolades, she still feels underrated.

Who will win – Like we said, Maslany will probably not win. The Emmys do love Claire Danes and “Homeland” had a comeback season last year, but we do think that Taraji has a slight advantage over the back. Cookie is amazing and we won’t fault the Emmys for giving her the trophy if that is what they decide; some may vote for her because they are upset over the snub for the show, and it also has the populism going for it given that it was such a commercial smash.