The Emmys offered few surprises but plenty of truncated speeches on Monday evening, in an awards-packed telecast that mostly handed out repeat trophies to established favorites with a few spoilers mixed in.
During the three-hour telecast held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, the Emmys once again crowned Succession, the 2020 best drama winner and most nominated series of the evening with 25, as best drama, and Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso as best comedy series. HBO’s limited series The White Lotus, tied with Ted Lasso for second with 20 nominations apiece, swept all the awards for which it was nominated (the ensemble series about privilege and perversion at Hawaiian resort submitted all its performers to the supporting categories).
The bit-packed show, hosted by Saturday Night Live veteran Kenan Thompson, included several back-to-back wins – Hacks’s Jean Smart for comedy actress, Ted Lasso’s Jason Sudeikis for comedy actor and co-star Brett Goldstein as supporting – as well as repeat nods from previous years. Julia Garner tripled up on lead drama actress for the final season of Netflix’s Ozark after wins in 2019 and 2020, while Zendaya, already the youngest best drama actress winner, became the youngest two-time acting winner in history for the second season of Euphoria.
Noting that her “greatest wish for Euphoria was that it could help heal people”, the 26-year-old Dune star acknowledged those who shared stories related to her character, Rue, who struggles with addiction in the prestige HBO teen soap. “To anyone who has loved a Rue, or feels like a Rue, I want you to know that I’m so grateful for your stories, and I carry them with me, and I carry them with her,” she said.
For the seventh year in a row, HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver won best variety talk series as well as the genre’s writing award.
The night’s spoilers to the clear favorites also offered the few rejoinders to the Emmys’ lingering issues with diversity, a year after a broadcast which handed no acting awards to people of color. Squid Game, the first non-English language series ever nominated for best drama, kept Succession from taking a full sweep with wins for director Hwang Dong-hyuk and star Lee Jung-jae, the first person to win an acting award for a non-English language performance.
Pop singer Lizzo, who created the Amazon series Watch Out for The Big Grrrls, won for best competition series and underscored the importance of representation in an emotional speech. “When I was a little girl, all I wanted to see was someone like me in the media,” she said through tears. “Someone fat like me, Black like me, beautiful like me. If I could go back and tell little Lizzo something, I would be like, ‘You’re going to see that person … but, bitch, it’s going to have to be you.’”
Newcomer and sole broadcast representative Abbott Elementary also prevented Ted Lasso from sweeping the comedy awards, with a writing nod to creator and star Quinta Brunson – only the second Black woman to do so – and best supporting actress to Sheryl Lee Ralph.
Ralph, a 40-plus year veteran of the screen and first-time winner, took advantage of the Emmys’ pre-submitted thank yous that ticked on-screen below acceptance speeches and provided arguably the emotional highlight of the evening with a rendition of Endangered Species by Dianne Reeves. “I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim’s song, I am a woman, I am an artist and I know where my voice belongs” she sang to a standing ovation, then added: “to anyone who has ever, ever had a dream and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come true, I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. This is what striving looks like. And don’t ever, ever give up on you.”
Another first-time winner and veteran performer, Jennifer Coolidge, provided a comedic counterpoint. Revealing she “took a lavender bath tonight, and um, right before the show, and it made me swell up inside my dress, and I’m having a hard time speaking”, the White Lotus star danced all the way through the play-off music for best supporting actress in a limited series.
As with last year, the Emmys packed in over 25 awards around occasional bits from Thompson (as well as announcer Sam Jay), and a special Governor’s Award to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which has worked to increase representation for women in front of an behind the camera. “Tonight’s about honoring the best of television,” said Davis, who founded the institute in 2004, “and as you know, as Lizzo knows, television can often directly impact how people see themselves and judge their value in the world.”
