19 Praiseworthy Performances from 2015

Bellamy Young as Mellie Grant on Scandal Season 5 Episode 9. Mellie has always been one of Scandal's most interesting characters, but she's been particularly strong this season In "Baby It's Cold Outside," she stood up for what she believed – literally – for one of her most powerful performances.

Her epic filibuster had nothing to do with Fitz or Olivia or anything like that; it was all about protecting the rights of women. It didn't matter that it was Christmas Eve, that she was wearing heels, or that she really had to pee. She did what she had to do, and it worked. It was inspiring and incredibly well done.

Elizabeth Henstridge easily pulled in her best performance of the series on Agents of Shield Season 3 Episode 5. Almost the entire episode focused on her character Jemma Simmons stranded on a planet and forced to find a way to survive. Henstridge did an excellent job showing Simmons' loneliness and utter despair along with her desperation to survive and find a way back home.

Watching her hold onto her optimism and hope for so long and then seeing the realization hit her when she loses it was absolutely heartbreaking. Henstridge's performance was so captivating that it was easy to forget the rest of the regular characters weren't around.

Joelle Carter - (Ava Crowder - Justified) If the final season of Justified had one true star, it was Joelle Carter as Ava Crowder. Finally out of prison, Ava was caught between her fiance Boyd Crowder and being Raylan Gibbons criminal informant. If Boyd caught on, she could end up dead, and if she failed as a C.I., she’d be thrown back in prison and most likely killed.

But leave it to Ava to play both sides and ditch both men in favor of her own future. It was a high wire balancing act leading up to Justified Season 6 Episode 13, “The Promise” that left us guessing until the very end. Through it all, Carter showed us Ava’s combined determination and vulnerability in an amazing performance that won’t soon be forgotten.

John Noble as Morland Holmes in Elementary. Sherlock repeatedly refers to his father as evil, making deals with the devil, performing black magic, and other colorful descriptions, but John Noble's performance makes it all too easy to set such things aside as poetic exaggerations.

That is, up until the end of Elementary Season 4 Episode 6, when Morland cold-bloodedly threatens the life of a would-be blackmailer, and suddenly it's all to easy to see why people are just so scared of this man. Noble is absolutely brilliant in the role, and he absolutely elevates every scene in which he appears.

Peter Capaldi as the Doctor in Doctor Who. No list of brilliant performances this season would be complete without mentioning Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who Season 9 Episode 11, "Heaven Sent." The entire episode depended on his acting ability, since there were only three other actors in the entire episode, and only one spoken line not delivered by him!

His character spent almost the entire story trapped and alone (aside from the monster set to kill him), and we got to see him at some of his highest and lowest points as he spent four and a half billion years punching his way through a wall with only his fists and an iron determination.

Aya Cash as Gretchen Cutler in You're the Worst. Aya Cash blew it out of the park on more than one occasion but she really ran the gamut of human emotions in You're the Worst Season 2 Episode 9, "LCD Soundsystem." Gretchen's clinical depression had been building and manifesting itself slowly but surely all season, culminating in her breakdown and blow-up at her friends several episodes prior. But her performance in episode 9, a few weeks after the depression reveal, was remarkable.

Watching Gretchen invest all of her hope and put all of her emotional distress onto the neighborhood couple that seemed to be perfect was obviously ill-advised. And when that realization came crashing down on her, Cash's performance in the closing scene, as she broke down and began sobbing after realizing that this perfect couple was not so perfect after all, was absolutely astounding.