Will Jon Hamm Finally Win An Emmy?

With Emmy nominations around the corner, it's time to start speculating. Will Jon Hamm will receive an Emmy for his final performance as Don Draper/Dick Whitman on AMC's Mad Men, the singular, iconic period drama that ended earlier this year and is the best show EVER? UM YES, but that's just one writer's personal opinion. 2015 the year that Jon Hamm should finally go home with an Emmy in his Hamm hands, because he deserves the statue, that's for sure. However, if we can learn anything from the past, it's likely that Don Draper won't win the award this year.

Not that he didn't earn it. But Jon Hamm is one of the most notoriously snubbed actors in Hollywood when it comes to the Emmy Awards; he's been nominated SEVEN times for Best Leading Actor In A Drama for playing Don Draper, but hasn't won a single one. Zip. Zilch. Nada. In fact, he and Amy Poehler have bonded over their infamy of being ignored — Poehler has been nominated herself for five awards for playing fearless feminist warrior Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, and just like Hamm, hasn't taken home any of the statues. It is literally preposterous. Preposterous!

But, being the good sports they are, Hamm and Poehler made lemonade from some very bitter lemons in 2013 when they decided to host an Emmy Losers Party, with free admittance for anyone who was snubbed, while winners had to pay an entry fee of $1000 that was donated to World Wide Orphans. Hamm told E! in 2013 that he thought everyone deserved a party: "We figured that the winners get celebrated enough so we thought it was about time that the losers get celebrated. And Poehler and I are friends from a long time ago and every year when we would lose the Emmy we would kind of wink at each other and call each other loser for the rest of the night."

But, even though he's got a good sense of humor about it, I think Hamm is probably feeling pretty blue about his career-long snubbery. Dare I say he's the Leonardo DiCaprio of television, consistently overlooked even though he consistently delivers fine performances? Hamm ended his tenure this year with the end of an era. Mad Men ended after seven phenomenal seasons with one if its strongest showings yet.

Season 7, Part 2 was absolutely the most transformative for Don Draper, who, against all odds, did not die. And wasn't that his goal all along? Mad Men is my favorite show, and the combination of its rich writing, impeccable attention to detail and compelling characters that make you Feel Things, it's Emmy bait perfection. But the show itself has not won an Emmy award since 2011, and not a single member of the cast, Hamm or otherwise, has ever won an Emmy award for their performances on the show.

This is such an injustice, when you think of all the poignant, powerful moments that actors like Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway-Harris, Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olsen and Vincent Kartheiser as the slimy, complex Peter Campbell have given us through Mad Men's tenure. Matthew Weiner, the show's creator, lamented the fact that his talented cast had been snubbed for so long: "One of my great frustrations is that they haven’t been recognized more. None of these actors has ever won an Emmy and they are the gold standard. I still feel like their contribution has been unrecognized." AGREED.

There's a marked difference in this year's award ceremony for Jon Hamm, though; he won't have to compete alongside Bryan Cranston in the category for best Lead Actor, now that Breaking Bad is no longer in the running (still mourn the loss of Breaking Bad, by the way). It would be a fitting win for him, long-awaited and well-earned, and it would probably make him just as happy as Don Draper looked in that final shot of Mad Men, meditating in the sunshine, smiling. I'm gunning for you, Hamm!

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