The Emmys giveth and the Emmys taketh away. This year’s just-announced nominations have managed to correct a historic wrong while simultaneously creating one of the greatest injustices in living memory. Usually the optimist in me would want to start with the good news, but then again this is a “snubs and surprises” reaction piece, so let’s start with the tragedy.
Sarah Goldberg has not been nominated for an Emmy. This is unthinkable. Exemplary throughout her time on HBO’s Barry, Goldberg managed to push herself to extraordinary new heights during this year’s final season. She played Sally Reed, cowed by the failure of her career in the present day. She played Sally Reed in the future, drunk and neglectful and living under an assumed identity. And then she played Sally Reed even further in the future, stumbling haltingly towards some level of peace. Forget comedy or drama, or lead or supporting for that matter. In terms of sheer heft, of pure undiluted range, no working actor could touch Sarah Goldberg this year. That she’d be snubbed this year is no surprise – aside from one nomination early in Barry’s run, she has been consistently blanked – but the fact that she’ll never again earn a nomination for this incredible role is heartbreaking.
My initial gut instinct was that Goldberg missed her nomination because Barry skirts too close to drama to qualify her for a comedy award. But that doesn’t fly, because one of the other big snubs this year is FX’s What We Do in the Shadows. The show – perhaps one of the best examples of pure, silly comedy on television at the moment – received four nominations, but none of them were for the actual comedy. No writing, no performances. Yes, I’m sure the nominated sound design team are incredibly good at their jobs, but for the show to be passed over in all the major categories is absolutely baffling.
There are other snubs, of course, as there always are. Rachel Weisz played twins in Dead Ringers to devastating effect and, while the series itself wasn’t for me, it’s hard to deny the power (and traditionally nomination-baiting) nature of her two roles. And Steve Carell was genuinely wonderful in The Patient, playing a thoughtful hostage. A nomination for his role could have brought more eyeballs to what is a criminally underwatched show, but sadly that isn’t to be. While it’s great that Natasha Lyonne was nominated for Poker Face, it seems like a silly oversight not to give the show itself something.
Elsewhere, it was a surprise to see the Emmys (usually so keen to fling silverware at slumming movie stars) to ignore Helen Mirren, and the whole extended Yellowstone universe, for that matter. Equally, Bad Sisters seems like a weird omission (bar a nod for Sharon Horgan). And, as nice as it must be for Martin Short to win a nomination for Only Murders in the Building, you can only imagine how Steve Martin – who pulled a classic-era comedy set piece out of the bag in the season two finale – must be feeling at the moment.
In terms of surprise additions, the biggest has to be Obi-Wan Kenobi’s best limited series nomination. Because, seriously, I defy anyone to remember even the broadest detail of that show. What a forgettable, drab mess it was. It was the sort of show that felt like it was forced into existence by the Disney intellectual property department. In a true and just world, we would all simply agree never to talk about it again. Still, let’s balance that out with a small cheer that the Emmys seem to dislike Amazon’s execrable Lord of the Rings as much as the rest of us.
And, if you’ll excuse the ugly segue, Giancarlo Esposito was nowhere to be seen for his final outing as Gus Fring on Better Call Saul. That he was able to take a role so iconic as to risk tripping into self-parody, and breathe brand new colours into it – as he especially did in his last scene, humanising a monster with moments of true regret – was staggering. He deserved more. I’m mentioning this, of course, because the Emmys has finally seemed to work out how great Better Call Saul was this year.
The show received nine nominations today, among them best drama, best editing and best writing (Twice! In the same category!). But the headlines are the two acting nominations. Bob Odenkirk very correctly earned a nod for the show’s final season – most probably for the final episode, where he played three different versions of himself coalescing into each other – and Rhea Seehorn received her second consecutive nomination for her all-time great performance as Kim Wexler. This has the potential to be Better Call Saul’s year. Or at least it would be if Succession didn’t exist, because that show is clearly going to smash all its competitors into dust. Still, it must be nice to be nominated.
