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2 hours ago
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To tell the story of how Hacks performed at last night’s Emmys, you have to acknowledge both its incredible success and its terrible failure. The first is undeniable. Last night, Jean Smart won lead actress in a comedy series yet again. This meant that every time Hacks brought out a new season, Smart won the same award for it. This makes her the first woman to ever win an Emmy for every season of a programme’s run. It’s a history-making achievement, and thoroughly well earned.
The flipside of that, however, is that this is all Hacks won last night. One Emmy is better than many shows can even hope to dream of, but the reality is that Hacks swaggered into the Emmys with a record 24 nominations – the most ever for a comedy in a single year – and had the momentum of a huge farewell narrative behind it. But it only ended up winning one for Jean Smart and a Creative Arts Emmy for picture editing. In other words, last night Hacks lost 22 Emmys.
This isn’t a complete surprise. My long-held theory about Hacks is that while lots of people enjoyed it, it was always a bit of a protest vote. The show’s big year – 2024, when it finally won outstanding comedy series – came when the industry was tying itself in knots trying to decide whether The Bear should qualify as a comedy or not. Hacks was the biggest immediately identifiable comedy in a weak field at the time, so that’s where the votes went. In other words, it primarily won because nobody wanted The Bear to win.
Since then, shows that are easier to love came along. Seth Rogen’s The Studio – same subject matter but more pointed, more technically ambitious and funnier – swept the board last year, and this time around it was the turn of Widow’s Bay. Did Hacks deserve better? Perhaps. In its final season, Hannah Einbinder was allowed to play more notes than she did in the year that she won. Either way, all involved have to be fairly disappointed this morning.
Then again, who’d stand in the way of a juggernaut like Widow’s Bay? A genuinely funny, genuinely scary comedy-horror, Widow’s Bay won a grand total of 14 Emmys this year. There are seven comedy awards presented during the televised ceremony, and Widow’s Bay won six of them; outstanding comedy series, lead actor in a comedy, supporting actor in a comedy, supporting actress in a comedy, writing for a comedy and directing for a comedy. Obviously Jean Smart won the seventh for Hacks, but it’s worth pointing out that Widow’s Bay didn’t field a nominee in that category.
None of this will come as a surprise if you’ve actually seen the show. However, one surprise might come in the form of Matthew Rhys. His win for Widow’s Bay was never in question – in one episode he pulled a face of surprise that probably could have won an Emmy by itself – but the interesting thing is that he also won lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie for The Beast in Me.
That was a much harder fought category, and the frontrunner was always thought to be Oscar Isaac for the second season of Beef. One working theory here is that his work on Widow’s Bay was so extraordinary that the affection for him spilled over into an entirely different show. Either way, Rhys has now become the first actor to win lead actor Emmys in comedy, drama and limited series.
Elsewhere there were plenty of smaller upsets. Allison Janney winning best supporting actress in a drama for The Diplomat certainly came as a shock, especially since The Pitt’s Katherine LaNasa had such a powerhouse year. Same for Sally Field, who won an award for Remarkably Bright Creatures ahead of Carey Mulligan, who was tremendous in Beef. Stephen Root’s win for Widow’s Bay meant that Harrison Ford remains Emmyless, which is extraordinary given both Ford’s age and the Emmy predilection for handing awards to the most famous people who turn up on the night.
But let’s end with one happy surprise. Rhea Seehorn, a woman who for years has been the textbook Emmy snubee, finally won something for Pluribus. Should she have won in previous years for her work on Better Call Saul? Yes, several times over. But her work on Pluribus was undeniable; scared and angry and for much of the season the only identifiable human on screen. It was a truly well deserved win, and let’s hope it is repeated when Pluribus comes back, even if the speed at which Vince Gilligan works at means we might all be too old to appreciate it by then.
