they really didn't manage to connect the dots well this season. Things got disjointed (starting from the "assassin of the week" series that wasted several characters of good potential), the dead pool+benefactor was a bag ultimately full of nothing that dragged for 9 episodes, and they didn't manage to make the two…

but the difference is that we the audience know that Daniel Sherman, Isaac's actor, was on his way to The Originals, so its absence is not surprising (and anyway it was explained at the end of last series with him going with papa Argent to Europe - one can infer he stayed there without too much trauma).

just because Danny is quite a popular character with the fandom (and the authors know it) and they had hinted at a bigger role for him in this season.

They are really trolling us with that Danny's disappearance (the exchange between Liam and his friend, "because by statistics there must be someone like me in the Lacrosse team!")

I have the feeling they tried to condense two episodes' worth of stuff
in one, so they had to use ridiculous shortcuts. Like the sudden
revelation of the tea, or the jar of mushrooms being the only object
glowing with Scott's view.

It's a ok-towards-good show, but that's beside the point. The point is that there are more than 5 series that were better this year.

The second season of the Americans is one of the most solid seasons overall of the whole drama series pack this year.

It is -kind- of the female lead in that huge cast (at least the female upstairs lead) and she had quite an amount of screen time between the mourning, her difficulty of overcoming her protective father and the various suitors. So definitely not supporting.
But it's true that compared to other leads she had less screen…

I think the comment of Alan Sepinwall on HitFix sums up perfectly what I think of these nominations. Summing up: 'Yet even factoring in the enormous degree of difficulty, the 2014 Emmy nominations list is remarkably frustrating."

Scandal is a high-level soap-opera that is not ashamed of its soap-operaness. Which is fine. And it's an audience hit, which always impresses the awards.
All actors (or almost all) do their job, Washington included. She has an over-the-top character and she uses it well. She's flashy, she's very fine in what she does,…

I guess just category pressure. The drama acting categories are packed by great performances and I suppose Boardwalk Empire was always just a bit below the threshold.

I'm very disappointed by the drama lead actress category: of those names I'd save just Margulies and Chaplan. They are all good actresses, but no award material.

Scandal is a good series, does its work.
But Washington's performance is definitely not at award level.

it's embarrassing that with all the huge names in the drama lead actor they had to pick him, like for Washington in the lead actress category.
Fine performances with some peaks, but surely no emmy material.

Downton is probably the biggest global miscalculation: 1 lead actress, 2 supporting actresses, 1 supporting actor and 1 guest actor are really too much.
Individually, I'd say it's Maslany (and my heart says Rossum as well) the biggest individual miscalculation.

As usual, the Emmys favor big names and old favourites (see for example Jeff Daniels for Newsroom and, probably, the choice of Macy over Rossum for the heavy Shameless acting nom).
Quite disappointing nominations (I love Downton Abbey but it is still significantly overrepresented! not to mention Tatiana's absence. Or…

I don't really believe Stiles is really bi, it's just a tease from the authors.

on the other side, it would be irritating to have a gay main character just to fill the "gay quota" (because this is how it would be perceived, by the way).

that's nothing to do with robownage's post. He was feeling that they were withdrawing all the "gay" stuff and my answer regarded that.
Besides, I do not see Malia's lead role coming necessarily at a detriment of the gay stuff, they are unrelated things!

I'm sorry, are you complaining that they show a caring world where everyone is totally unjudgemental about everyone's sexual inclination?!