After the Creative Arts Emmys were awarded at the beginning of January, the supreme discipline, also known as the Primetime Emmys, followed on Monday (January 15th). Early in the award ceremony, three big winners of the evening emerged – and as a result, some long faces among the competition.
The HBO drama series “Succession” made an expected breakthrough. Against strong challengers, including “Better Call Saul,” “The Last of Us” and “The Crown,” she nabbed the Emmy in the “Best Drama Series” category. A member of the Roy family also triumphed among the main actors: The festive season for Kieran Culkin (41), who had already been awarded a Golden Globe a week earlier, continued seamlessly at the Emmys: He not only impressed Bob Odenkirk (61, “Better Call Saul”), veteran star Jeff Bridges (74, “The Old Man”) and Pedro Pascal (48, “The Last of Us”), but also against his TV family Brian Cox (77) and Jeremy Strong (45) through.
Sarah Snook (36) had no fear of internal “Succession” competition among the leading actresses. Regardless, she also emerged victorious and was able to defeat Sharon Horgan (53, “Bad Sisters”), Melanie Lynskey (46, “Yellowjackets”), Elisabeth Moss (41, “The Handmaid’s Tale”), Bella Ramsey (20, “The Last of Us”) and Keri Russell (47, “The Diplomat”). Snook also followed up her Golden Globe with an Emmy.
There was also a winner from the “Succession” family among the supporting actors – Matthew Macfadyen (49) picked up the award, completing the triple of Emmy and Globe triumphs. “Succession” only lost out when it came to supporting actresses in a drama series: Instead of J. Smith-Cameron (66), Jennifer Coolidge (62) was able to break the winning streak thanks to “The White Lotus”.
The HBO production won two more Emmys for “Best Director” (Mark Mylod, 59) and “Best Screenplay” (Jesse Armstrong, 53), which made a total of six awards.
No other series collected more Emmys than “Succession” that evening, but “The Bear” impressively drew equal in the “Comedy” category. “The Bear” was named “Best Comedy Series” and Jeremy Allen White (32) was named “Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series” – he beat out Jason Sudeikis (48) aka “Ted Lasso,” among others. Both supporting actress categories also went to “The Bear” – Ayo Edebiri (28) won the supporting actress category, Ebon Moss-Bachrach (46) won the supporting actress category. Among the leading actresses, among whom there were no actresses from “The Bear”, Quinta Brunson (34) received the Emmy for “Abbott Elementary”. Like “Succession”, “The Bear” took home the fifth and sixth Emmys for directing and that Screenplay (both Christopher Storer, 43).
The third winner of the evening: The miniseries “Beef”, which held its own against “Dahmer”, among others. Ali Wong (41) and Steven Yeun (40) also won the two leading actor awards for a miniseries, and there were two further awards for directing and screenplay (Lee Sung Jin each).
With three such clear winners of the evening, there were of course also clear losers. For example, the dark apocalyptic series “The Last of Us” with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey (20), which won eight awards at the Creative Arts Emmys, went away empty-handed on Monday. The same applies to the comedy series “Ted Lasso”.
Perhaps the biggest snub on several Emmy nights: The drama series “Better Call Saul”, which ended after six seasons, was nominated for 53 Emmys over the course of its broadcast – not a single one of which it was able to convert into a win.
