Primetime Emmy Awards: The best, worst, and weirdest moments
The 75th Emmy Awards were shockingly good, thanks to heartfelt speeches, Christina Applegate, and comforting TV reunions
TV Features Primetime Emmy Awards
Clockwise from bottom left: Christina Applegate; Carol Burnett and Quinta Brunson; Kieran Culkin; The cast of Martin Photo: Getty Images
There’s a lot to appreciate about how the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards went down. While the ceremony—which was originally supposed to take place in September but was pushed to January because of the Hollywood strikes—had plenty of predictable winners, it also included a lot of surprising moments. Sprinkled between big wins for Succession and The Bear there was a surprise appearance by Christina Applegate, a teary acceptance speech from Quinta Brunson, and heartwarming TV reunions with the casts of The Sopranos, Grey’s Anatomy, and more. Read on for The A.V. Club’s look back at the most unforgettable moments. And if you need more, be sure to check out our rundown of all the winners from TV’s biggest night.
89 Comments
Nothing topped my man Paul Walter Hauser dropping a whole bunch of pro wrestling references in his speech that likely went over most peoples heads. Loved it.
Pro wrestling goes under heads not over.
SO COOOOOOL, MAN!!!!
He was so good in Black Bird… just absolutely vile and disgusting. I was really glad he won.
Worst of the Worst: Rhea Seehorn and BCS shut out again.
Yup 100%. Heck even Bob Odenkirk should’ve got something but I guess it wasn’t showy or meme-y enough like Succession.
This scene alone should have secured her a win
Yes, after that episode aired, I wrote that they ought to just engrave Seehorn’s name on the Emmy and be done with it.
Agreed
Just proves no one watched it, because I don’t know how that wouldn’t get a vote on the spot. Or the lit cigarette scene with Jimmy in prison.
Agreed
Watching one of the best shows in recent memory get The Wire treatment but worse is infuriating.
You want to know something that’s even crazier.
Since Breaking Bad and Mad Men went off the air (in 2013 and 2015, respectively), no other show from AMC has won an Emmy. Either BB and MM were so dominant during their respective and coinciding runs that Emmy voters felt that AMC needed a break from the domination (for example, aside from Peter Dinklage in season 1, Game of Thrones didn’t win another Emmy until 2015, the final year of Mad Men), or higher-ups at AMC really did something behind-the-scenes to piss them off, because from Better Call Saul alone to go 0-53 at the Emmys is absurd.
Remember that time Dinklage won over Jonathan Banks for 5 0? I don’t remember if it was Golden Globes or Emmys, but even Dinkage was a bit surprised.
That’s really bizarre. How many wins did Breaking Bad garner? Not even one for Michael McKean in the earlier seasons? That’s just wrong.
Losing to Jennifer Coolidge is just wrong. The White Lotus is on the other side of the line between comedy and drama. And Jennifer Coolidge is comic relief as well, playing an over the top caricature.
Incomprehensible, really.
“Ellen DeGeneres coming out of the closet on her show, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, scenes from The Simpsons and Breaking Bad, Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, the closing moments of The Sopranos series finale, and, even 9/11″This hurt to read.
I assure you it was even weirder in person. No sense of rhyme or reason, just started with I Love Lucy then the Simosons then Ellen then Breaking Bad then MLK Armstrong 9/11 then back to the Sopranos. What the fucking fuck fuck.
Sounds like a video montage version of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Fall Out Boy’s rendition).
Yeah it came across like that but far less entertaining or memorable.
It hurt to watch too
Considering that they made much of it being 75 years of the Emmy awards, you would think they could have done a chronological montage, starting with something goofy in 1948. Uncle Milty? Westerns? The Beatles on Ed Sullivan?
The Bear is not a comedy! Just a bizarre choice, especially when they’ve got The Gang from Always Sunny right under their roof. They should be accepting the award, not presenting!
This seems to be the argument of the day. I sympathize with your point even if I disagree. A show where the mass drugging of a kid’s birthday party is played for laughs is inherently comedic. Hell, any show with Oliver Platt is already 50% comedy gold. That said, I wouldn’t put it past the Always Sunny gang to do an episode titled “The Gang Gets Dramatic.”
Yes, it is.
The Bear is a comedy, and The White Lotus is not. I don’t get it.
It’s like saying Uncut Gems or Barry’s last season is a “comedy.”
You laugh through the tears on The Bear. I love that show.
I realized not long ago that there is always conflict in a story; without conflict there’s no drama. And no matter how hilarious we the viewers may find the situation, it’s never funny to the characters, even if it’s just trying to find where you parked your car, or keeping the surprise party a secret.
Best: If they would’ve had a livefeed as a harried producer screamed into their headset: “We were wrong. It’s not funny. Someone hurry up and take away her microphone before people hate Anthony Anderson’s mom even more than they already do.”
As a black man, sure, I’m happy to see black artists win awards but the fact you have to point it out is cringy as fuck. Especially when Trevor Noah, who basically killed the Daily Show as a vital show and has no business winning anything, is included there.
TDS plummeted in relevance after Trevor took over. The guy has tremendous charisma but was a weak af political satirist. I think I tuned out around the 3rd time he did some tone deaf variation of “Trump is gangsta!”This bizarro hostless period has occasionally shown glimmers of the old fire: Roy Wood Jr. is consistently, gruffly brilliant, Sarah Silverman kills so thoroughly it seems like a no-brainer, and Hasan Minhaj, I think, could be the second coming of Stewart. Pick a leader, then start making the most of a bullpen that includes Klepper, Lydic, et al. Because that bullpen is enviable. The hostless thing is so counter-productive to the show’s rebuild. If it worked (“hey, we are fluid af to mirror our constituency”) I’d be all for it. But it doesn’t.
Exactly.
Hard to say whether Noah “killed” the Daily Show, or if Stewart was always going to be too tough of an act to follow.
John Oliver is doing a slightly different version of Stewart’s Daily Show.Difficult, but not impossible act to follow.Noah made a choice to make the show more social media/TMZ-y.
Nah, he was just weak and soft as fuck. He killed it. Being diverse doesn’t = good.
As an oldster, I was let down that except for I Love Lucy, “television history” began with the Seventies.
The point of crap like that isn’t to actually tell history. It’s to create nostalgia fuzzies. How many people over 60 do you think are watching these awards?
We’re a lonely bunch. Still, the Academy Awards are able to maintain a sense of film history.
Beef needs to never be spoken of again.It was utter garbage.
I think I am the only person on the internet that didn’t like that show.
im with ya, sister.it was atrocious.
I didn’t like it one bit, but I assumed it was because I’m stupid.
Emmy voters have historically been absolute shit at being familiar with the nominees. They vote for what they do watch, or they vote for their friends. There have been countless instances of headscratching winners and nominees. For the 2006 Emmys, Ellen Burstyn was famously nominated in spite of having 14 seconds of total screen time. West Wing won best drama after having one of its worst years. We should celebrate when they get something right, but never forget how incompetent they are compared to Critics Choice and Peabody. Screw them, we don’t need them.
Emmys, like the Oscars, are awards for career work. Much like figure skating, the judges look at the body of work as much as they do the performance in front of them.
Odenkirk was the best actor on television for nearly 2 decades and walked away with nothing. Better Call Saul was better than Breaking Bad and got shut out for its run. It just invalidates the entire concept of the Emmys
And don’t forget that Mr. Show lost to Dennis Miller Live in 1998.
I could’ve sworn there were more categories for this awards show.
Call me biased, but Last of Us should’ve at least won something. Because that adaptation from a video game source was amazing.
They won some awards in the Creative Arts Primetime Emmys last weekend, including for Guest Actor and Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
Ah, maybe those were the awards I thinking of. Thank you, I guess they were cramming everything so tightly to make everyone forget the strikes that were going on since last month.
Anthony Anderson’s mother appears/is a co-host on We Are Family, airing on Fox now, which likely explains why she’s appearing here.Unless she’s already an established actress/personality? I never heard about her before hearing a recap of WAF and her bizarre outbursts there.
Yeah, I thought it was a cute bit until the WAF promos started up and then it felt like over promotion. Gross.
She was also in his version of To Tell the Truth. It must be written into his contract that she appears in these types of things.
She was Anthony’s co-host on a game show literally no one asked to be revived, To Tell the Truth. I’m not sure what credentials got her on that show, though, other than being Anthony Anderson’s mother.
She’s also been on To Tell The Truth with him a lot, and there were soup commercials as well.They’re almost a package deal at this point.
If a show is exceptional, it deserves to sweep, but this year, it was like, “We’ve already given a bunch of trophies to ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Barry.’ This year, let’s give’em all to ‘The Bear.’” (I started watching the pilot a few months ago, expecting a comedy, and it was a bunch of people yelling and stressful situtations. Does it get funnier?)
It’s never hilarious. More like, laughing because otherwise you’d cry. The characters are amusing, and relatable, in their brokenness.
It was a bit of a turn-off that Niecy Nash-Betts dedicated her win to people who have not been heard. You mean like the friends and relatives of Dahmer’s victims who begged for your show not to be made?
Ooof.
I think it was Polly Klaas’ sister wrote an absolutely searing OpEd on this recently. Apparently it must not have appeared in Nash-Betts’ feed.
“In 2022, for instance, the release of “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” on Netflix caused profound distress among many family members of Dahmer’s victims, who felt that the show was profiting from their pain, misrepresenting actual events and retraumatizing those who had lived through the horror of Dahmer’s crimes.”https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/opinion/movies-books-true-crime.html
Thanks, knew it was recent.
Really feels like a lot of people got left out from the In Memorium. I mean Ray Stevenson was on Rome and Black Sails for many years, nada.
And was just on Ahsoka.
And he did a season of Dexter. But the less we say about those seasons the better.
Hopefully the Oscars will have him in theirs, but their In Memoriams are also typically lacking. Oscars should do a “In Memoriam: Addendum” and include key names they’ve FORGOTTEN to include over the years. But they likely won’t invite that kind of scrutiny on themselves.
TCM didn’t forget, they are always the best at this.Also I am still waiting on Abe Vigoda to be at the Oscars Memorium.
Where’s the love for Barry and Better Call Saul?I believe the concept is “It’s an honor to be nominated”.
Film nerds,Barry is not that good. We get that you love all the references and the ‘member-berries make you feel smart and/or cultured. But it’s really not that good.
100%.
Honestly, I’ve not seen either series. But genuinely, getting nominated means you’re at the top of the pack. That ain’t chopped liver.
My God, that is a POWERFUL obsession you have with race there.
How is The Bear a comedy?
Only another eight months to the next Emmy ceremony! I’m guessing that The Bear season two will dominate the comedy field again, but the drama category will be wide open next year. Due to the strikes and a few shows ending, The Crown will be the only returning nominated show eligible for the upcoming awards. Also due to the strikes, not a lot of shows have premiered since September. I could see the new seasons of Fargo and True Detective getting nominated for best drama, but I haven’t seen too much other stuff scheduled for release before the end of May that screams prestige drama. It’s possible that one of the streamers releases something that gets a lot of buzz.
The first episode of True Detective was SO GOOD
Fargo & True Detective will likely be in Limited/Anthology unless they tie in hard to previous seasons with the same actors/characters – they have been limited in the past (TD season 1 is the exception). I think some of the things that could potentially get buzz are: Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Donald Glover often does well with the voters)
Masters of the Air (Splashy WWII series meant to be a companion to Band of Brothers – likely to do well in the limited categories)Expats (could be limited, not sure what their plan is overall)The New Look (Christian Dior WWII drama – 2 seasons already commissioned)Shogun (Limited, FX is very well liked by the academy)The Regime (Probably limited)Manhunt (Period drama about John Wilkes Booth – Limited)3 Body Problem (People may be skeptical of Benioff/Weiss – the academy probably isn’t) And this is honestly ignoring any surprises and focusing just on stuff that says “prestige.” It’s still more limited than drama, which could be interesting.
I found “Better Call Saul” was funnier than “The Bear”
I don’t especially like Anthony Anderson and the schtick with his mom is weird, but compared to the Golden Globes and the Critic’s Choice Awards, it was a mostly seamless show with no real bite, but some pleasant nostalgia. Maybe that’s enough. I also think that thinking his mother was saying time’s up as a secret code is highly unlikely – given that org doesn’t even exist anymore and she was literally talking about his time being up.
No one who had half a brain or more watches this drivel bull crap.
Also, no one with half a brain uses ‘drivel’ unironically.
Huh. I didn’t even know they were on.
Anderson seems to constantly be shoehorning his mother into his shows, and I don’t know why, because she seems so unpleasant.
I know I’m in the minority, but yes, Coolidge absolutely needs to be stopped.
At any point, will Anthony Anderson’s history of sexual assault catch up with him? Pretty disgusted he keeps getting a pass.
I’m honestly shocked that It’s Always Sunny doesn’t even have a best comedy nomination. Not even one? Maybe they were too early on the 10-episode short season format.
I did not watch succession and I don’t watch The Bear. So I’m glad I didn’t watch the Emmy’s since those where apparently the only two shows that existed for the voters. That Better Call Saul… fuck the Emmys.
Harsh take, but Jennifer Coolidge should not have on for White Lotus. She was one of the worst characters in the first season, on a show full of terrible people. When she showed up in the second season, I also didn’t watch it, and her super dumb shtick got old real fast.
A nice sly Demi Adejuyigbe reference you slid in there, nice.