3) Alison Hendrix
Actor: Tatiana Maslany
Show: Orphan Black
The first name I jotted down when the idea for this list came to me was Tatiana Maslany. I didn’t know where she’d rank or what I’d say, it was just a guttural, obvious addition to anything to do with women on TV in 2015. The second I sat down to write, though, I realized with a shock that I’d have to actually choose which Tatiana Maslany to represent her brilliance: street punk? Scientist? Bob-rocking boss? Scorpion?! I’d forgotten, like I do every year, every episode nearly, that she is her show’s own supporting cast.
None beat Alison Hendrix in my book. Orphan Black‘s resident desperate housewife takes the world of clones and Neolutionism and crazy religious cults in stride and gives the show its weekly dose of richly dark humor (she kills a woman with a scarf and a garbage disposal at one point and somehow turns it into a comedic set-piece). As Alison, Maslany revels in the tightly wound soccer mom’s antics, perfectly playing off Sara’s brashness and Cosima’s optimistic viewpoints (which, again, is the same actor playing off herself). This year, Alison got into a political race for school trustee, hatched a drug-and-bath-salts side business, and generated one of the show’s most vertiginous nesting-doll-of-personalities sequences. Clone Club, meet your VIP.