1) Camille Braverman
Actor: Bonnie Bedelia
Show: Parenthood
Listen, everyone on Parenthood rocked, the women especially: Lauren Graham’s plate-spinning Sarah, Monica Potter’s devastating Kristina, Mae Whitman’s lovable punk Amber. There’s a reason the show felt like a real family for six seasons, and it’s the fact that everyone on screen wasn’t afraid to not only be endearing, but scream-into-a-pillow frustrating. However, when considering the show’s final run of episodes earlier in the year, I have to give top honors to Bonnie Bedelia’s matriarch Camille.
She and husband Zeek (Craig T. Nelson) finally got some center stage spotlight in the final season thanks to their search for a fulfilling “third act,” paving emotional speedbumps into a season beset with terminal dread from the get-go. But it was Bedelia’s honest and stern acting captain of the wily clan that made anything she did, said, or tearily preached turn from a sappy motivational pillow and into a shotgun of televised devastation, heartbreaking reaction to the finale’s big set-piece reveal very much included.