I watched these in alphabetical order by show, then by last name: Darnell Williams, John McCook, Maurice Benard, Anthony Geary, Robert S. Woods.

Darnell Williams as Jesse Hubbard, All My Children

Airdate: March 30, 2011; Runtime: 12:01

Synopsis:

Jesse tries to calm a very pregnant Angie, who is experiencing contractions and pains.  Angie is convinced that the baby is coming, and they won’t have time to get to the hospital, so Jesse will have to deliver it.  Jesse calls for an ambulance, but it doesn’t seem one will arrive in time.  Jesse pulls double duty keeping Angie calm and preparing as best he can for a home delivery.  Angie passes out during birth, but Jesse successfully coaxes the baby from the birth canal.  He is struck with horror when he realizes that their littlie Ellie, as they’ve decided to name her, is not breathing.  He tries desperately to revive Ellie, to no avail, as Brot arrives to help.  Brot tends to Angie, but there’s nothing to be done for Ellie.  Jesse begins to accept this awful truth when he hears a baby’s cry coming from a box that Brot brought in, which had been left in his squad car, and Angie begins to regain consciousness.

Analysis:

The reel overall is pretty good, but even before watching any of the others, it’s hard to imagine this one can win.  Williams is strong in the first half of the episode, very natural, appropriately emotional, suppressing his concerns and determined that all will be okay.  But the material in the first half of the reel is fairly light.  It’s in the second half of the episode that things start to go very wrong, and we get crying, shouting, and emotional outbursts.  Unfortunately, Williams doesn’t accomplish these with the same natural ease that defines the earlier scenes.  He does a decent job, and produces everything he’s supposed to produce, but the heavy emotion doesn’t feel authentic.  The crying and some of the outbursts seem forced.  It also doesn’t help that the episode ends in a way that seems ludicrous, with a newborn baby Brot just happens to have.  Score: 6

John McCook as Eric Forrester, The Bold and the Beautiful

Airdates: October 13 and 14, 2011; Runtime: 14:31

Synopsis:

Eric has set up a romantic surprise to celebrate the news that Stephanie’s latest test results show no tumors, indicating that she’s getting better.  Stephanie goes along with the dinner Eric has prepared, even though she is reluctant to celebrate or believe that she is really cancer-free.  Eric gives Stephanie a gift, a piece from the “Intimates” collection that he’s designed.  Stephanie has no interest in wearing this sexy ensemble, which segues into a discussion of their relationship, and the role that sex and intimacy play in their lives.  Eric wonders if Stephanie is somehow repulsed by him, as his very presence seems to make her feel more sick than she is when isn’t around, and feels she uses her sickness as an excuse not to be intimate with him.  Stephanie admits that, yes, she does sometimes use her charity work, meddling, etc., as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length, physically.  Stephanie says that Eric’s desire for sex has ruined their relationship in the past, like when he married Donna and Brooke.  Eric admits that things haven’t always been great for them, but he stands firm that he won’t apologize for being a sexual person and shouldn’t have to feel badly about wanting to be intimate with her.  Stephanie says that he deserves to have his desires and needs understood, but so does she.  Eric says that just means that she gets what she wants, and he doesn’t.

Analysis:

When this reel began, I thought it would be really boring, but it turned out to be quite interesting and, much to my surprise, quite well-written.  It snuck up on me a bit how invested I found myself in the sophisticated exchange these two were having.  McCook delivers his material well enough, and is great at feeling his character’s motivations and desires.  But there is not much to do otherwise, so McCook doesn’t get to put on much of a show.  The scenes are also very short, so even some of the momentum that could have materialized is zapped.  Score: 5

Maurice Benard as Sonny Corinthos, General Hospital

Airdate: July 21, 2011; Runtime: 13:05

Synopsis:

Brenda interrupts a conversation that Sonny is having with Carly because she needs to talk to him.  Brenda is planning to leave Sonny after learning about something he did to Jax to help Carly get custody of their daughter Josslyn back from him.  Sonny doesn’t want Brenda to leave, and asks if she would stay with him if he agreed to move away from Port Charles with her, to live in a nice house in California and hand over his dangerous business to Jason and commute to Port Charles to see his kids.  Brenda says that would be perfect, but Sonny says it would be a lie.  He says Brenda loves a version of him that she invented, that she’s never accepted that the ruthless and dangerous man she is seeing now is the same man he’s always been.  He says that his power is more important to him than anything, and he couldn’t give it up.  Since Sonny can’t change, the two share a sorrowful farewell.  Carly returns, and seeing Sonny drinking alone on the balcony, tries to comfort him, to cheer him up.  Carly can’t understand how Brenda can have known Sonny for so long and not get him, but Sonny defends Brenda, saying that she changed when she found her son.  He says he can’t guarantee the safety of Brenda’s son Alec, so she did what  she had to do.  Later, he gets a call informing him that Brenda and Alec have left with Jax, and mobilizes his plane to leave also.

Analysis:

This is strong work from Benard, and the reel serves him pretty well.  The reel drew me in right away, and I got the sense immediately from Benard that something immensely important was on the line, even as he’d barely spoken two words to Brenda.  (Wow, I just realized Brenda is an anagram of Benard, which is kind of crazy.)  Benard’s performance is quite restrained – he doesn’t yell, threaten or throw things – but the emotion is certainly there throughout.  Even though his words are soft, there is a great roughness in the way he plays the scenes with Brenda, a quality that is not there when he’s talking about her to Carly later.  Benard strikes the balance of being a man who is sad that he’s losing this woman he loves, but also fully aware that he’s choosing a life that ultimately makes him happier.  Score: 7.5

Anthony Geary as Luke Spencer, General Hospital

Airdate: June 13, 2011; Runtime: 17:56

Synopsis:

Lucky finds Luke with a pretty young woman and asks to speak to his father alone.  Lucky apologizes for how he handled finding out that Luke was the driver who hit and killed his son Jake, and for how aggressive his efforts to force Luke to get treatment for being an alcoholic were.  Lucky tells Luke that he should come home, for the sake of his kids and his wife Tracy.  Luke counters that he was a lousy father and husband, and those people who love him want him to be a version of himself that doesn’t exist.  Luke tells Lucky that Lucky doesn’t even know who he is, and he has no intention of going back to try to fit into Lucky’s mold.  Luke says that he never wanted to be a father or a husband, that he grew up learning to be practical and really all he ever wanted was the freedom to drink and lie and cheat, and have sex with the prettiest woman he could afford.  Luke says that he’s sorry that he killed Jake, but that the silver lining was that he felt liberated, having become so irredeemable that he no longer felt the pressure to try to live up to anyone else’s expectations.  Lucky leaves, and when the woman returns, Luke tells her that he’d put his son in an impossible position by killing Jake, for Lucky to have to love, to forgive, the person who’d taken his son away.  Luke says he freed Lucky from that by making sure Lucky would hate him as much as he would always love Lucky.

Analysis:

This reel is a knockout.  For the first minute or two, I worried that Geary might be overshadowed by his scene partner Jonathan Jackson, who is also excellent here.  But once Luke begins to really engage with Lucky, Geary digs into the self-loathing and self-deprecation and just lays Luke bare.  The performance is smooth and natural, but intensely powerful.  The dialogue is excellent, and the scenes are luxuriously long, really giving Geary time to build the emotional momentum that carries this performance to the high level it reaches.  The slight twist at the end also works really well in that the character actually is redeemed to a degree.  If a viewer is turned off by how despicable Luke makes himself for Lucky, some of that is surely undone by the fact that his actions are, in large part, for Lucky’s benefit.  Geary performs each scene with deft purpose, and everything feels just right.   It’s interesting to note the similar themes between this reel and Benard’s.  Apparently Port Charles is filled with power-hungry men who know they are deeply flawed but prefer to keep loved ones away than try to change for their sake.  Score: 10

Robert S. Woods as Bo Buchanan, One Life to Live

Airdate: June 14, 2011; Runtime: 6:26

Synopsis:

Bo talks to Viki as he struggles to decide the best course of action regarding his comatose son and his ailing brother.  Matthew’s doctors are not optimistic about him ever waking up from his coma, and his heart is a match for Clint, who is in desperate need of a transplant.  Both Viki and Bo are still shocked by the terrible things Clint has done, but neither of them wants to lose him.  Bo doesn’t want to give up on Matthew, but can’t help feeling that if Matthew never recovers, he’s basically killed his brother.  Nora arrives and says that Matthew is looking better.  She says she confronted Clint about the situation, and he said he’d sooner die than have Matthew’s heart.  Nora says they’ll take him at his word, and Bo needn’t worry about it anymore.

Analysis:

Woods does a good job of being sad and conflicted, but there’s otherwise not very much happening in this reel.  It’s very short, and within that framework, the scenes themselves are very short.  It makes the reel choppy and abrupt, and there is no build to anything emotionally interesting or exciting.  During the scene where Nora enters, I get the definite impression that I’ve missed what must have been the most exciting part of the episode, when Nora confronted Clint.  Just her talking about it is about the most interesting thing on the reel.  That said, I can’t fault the work that Woods does here.  I was sympathetic, but there is nowhere near enough material here to be competitive.  Score: 5

Geary is head and shoulders above the competition, and this is coming from someone who is not his biggest fan.  Not only is his acting the best of the bunch, but he also has the longest reel, with the longest scenes, the best dialogue, and the strongest scene partner.  Add that to his history, and I can’t imagine anyone else has a chance of winning.

In the race for second, I think Williams would have the edge.  Benard’s performance and reel are stronger, but the similarities to Geary’s hurt him just by comparison.  Geary does everything Benard does and much more.  Williams’s reel and story are totally different, and in terms of big acting (shouting and crying), he has the most of it.  I also think that Williams would win a popularity contest between the two, and he’s got that “last chance” thing going because his show’s been cancelled.  After that, I think Woods edges McCook, who I like better based on performance alone, despite McCook’s reel being twice as long, on respect and sympathy for his show being cancelled and his character’s plight.  Eric wanting to get laid isn’t exactly something that tugs at the heart strings.

Performance:

Geary

Benard

Williams

McCook

Woods

Likelihood of Winning:

Geary

Williams

Benard

Woods

McCook

Quote by fes

Read my analysis here : 

http://eternalthoughtsofkevinsmind.blogspot.com/2012/05/daytime-emmy-award-analysis-outstanding.html 

Here is my ranking (Personal/Mostly Likely Winning)

Geary
Williams
Bernard
McCook
Woods