The TV Cave Performer of the Week: Sabrina Impacciatore Is Completely Unhinged in The Paper

There are performers who know exactly how far they can push a character before everything falls apart, and then there is Sabrina Impacciatore, who seems determined to find that line every time Esmeralda Grand walks into a room on The Paper. For our second TV Cave Performer of the Week, Impacciatore takes the honor for her gloriously committed performance in the Season 2 finale.

Esmeralda has never exactly been the quiet member of the Toledo Truth Teller staff. She is loud, dramatic, shamelessly self-involved and capable of turning practically any situation into an Esmeralda situation. That kind of character can become exhausting very quickly if the performer doesn't know exactly what they're doing, but Impacciatore has figured out how to make Esmeralda feel ridiculous without making her feel completely detached from the rest of the show.

The finale takes that balancing act and runs with it. After learning that her son Matteo received a C on an exam, Esmeralda decides the only logical response is to investigate the situation herself. Naturally, that eventually means disguising herself as a teenage boy and infiltrating his classroom, because apparently having a normal conversation with a teacher would be asking far too much of Esmeralda Grand.

It is absurd material, but Impacciatore never plays it like she knows she is delivering a punchline. That is the secret weapon of her performance. Esmeralda genuinely believes in whatever bizarre mission she has assigned herself, and Impacciatore commits to that belief with every facial expression, physical movement and dramatically oversized reaction. The harder Esmeralda tries to maintain control over a situation, the funnier it becomes watching that control completely slip away.

That commitment has become one of The Paper's greatest comedic weapons. Impacciatore can do the huge reactions and physical comedy, but there is also precision underneath all of it. Esmeralda could easily feel like she was dropped in from a completely different sitcom, especially when everyone around her is working in a more grounded mockumentary style. Somehow, Impacciatore uses that contrast to her advantage. One recent review went as far as arguing that the show essentially belongs to Esmeralda, praising how Impacciatore makes material that probably should not work somehow land anyway.

The disguises in the finale also underline something important about the performance: Impacciatore isn't afraid to look ridiculous. She talked about how physically uncomfortable and even startling some of Esmeralda's transformations were, particularly seeing herself disguised as an older man, but that willingness to completely disappear into the bit is exactly why these sequences work.

There is also a strange humanity underneath all that ridiculousness. Esmeralda's methods may be outrageous, but her desperation to matter, at work, to her family and practically everywhere else, keeps popping through. Impacciatore understands that vulnerability even when the script is asking her to dress like somebody's teenage son and sneak into a classroom.

That's what seals it for me. Plenty of actors can play broad comedy. The harder job is making a character this big feel like an actual person instead of a collection of punchlines. Impacciatore pulls that off, and by the end of Season 2, I don't want Esmeralda toned down. I want to see what completely inappropriate thing she decides is a perfectly reasonable idea next.

For fearlessly throwing herself into Esmeralda's biggest swings and somehow making every ridiculous choice feel completely sincere, Sabrina Impacciatore is The TV Cave's Performer of the Week.

Honorable Mentions

Garret Dillahunt — Lanterns After Aaron Pierre took our honor last week, Lanterns nearly made it two in a row. Dillahunt turned William Macon's bizarre confrontation with Hal and John into one of Episode 4's most memorable sequences, stripping down during what he described as a power move and somehow making the entire exchange funny, threatening and deeply weird at the same time.

Phil Dunster — Ted Lasso Jamie Tartt's surprise return could easily have been nothing more than fan service, but Dunster immediately reminded us why the character became such an important part of the series. His chemistry with Brett Goldstein remains ridiculously easy, particularly during the New Year's Eve sequence that sees Jamie and Roy dancing before the night takes a painful turn for Roy.

The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Ensemble — “Orders of Magnitude” Rather than forcing one performer out of an episode built around an ensemble confrontation, the entire Strange New Worlds cast deserves a nod for turning “Orders of Magnitude” into one of Season 4's strongest hours. The episode places the Enterprise crew inside a command conflict involving Admiral Reeger, Kirk and a potentially catastrophic order, leaning into the kind of moral tension Star Trek handles especially well.