Throughout its first three seasons, Mad Men employed a very clever strategy of submitting actresses Elisabeth Moss and January Jones into separate Emmy categories to avoid any confrontation, a move that paid off with Moss landing a Lead Actress nomination in the second season then switching to Supporting Actress for the third, thereby giving Jones a chance to get her own nod for Lead Actress last year. But for the first time ever, both are being submitted this year to compete in the Lead Actress category, with Moss going up against Jones—and possibly splitting the vote—in what could turn out to be the most prim, gracious rumble of all time.
Of course, this is likely to backfire solely for Jones: Her character was so completely marginalized and her screen time so reduced in the last season, she would have been lucky to score even a supporting nomination this time around. Whereas Moss’ character was undeniably integral to this season’s storyline—and “The Suitcase” alone makes her a shoo-in. However, with both of them out of the supporting actress race, that clears the way for Christina Hendricks to pick up another nomination and maybe even win one this time. (Unless Randee Heller gets nominated for Miss Blankenship, because we’d definitely vote for her.)