Emmy nods out Tuesday – here’s what to look for
Emmy nominations arrive Tuesday, roughly nine weeks ahead of the September show and a year out from Meryl Streep unfurling another acceptance speech — this time for her supporting turn on the second season of “Big Little Lies.” (The chilling look of self-satisfaction that ends this Sunday’s episode all but sealed the deal.)
Here are five things to look for in Tuesday morning’s nominations.
Emmy voters will love the final season of “Game of Thrones” more than you probably did.
“Game of Thrones” has earned a record 128 Emmy nominations over its first seven seasons, winning 47, also the high mark for a prime-time series. The departing HBO drama figures to add to those numbers, even for an anticlimactic final season that could be described, charitably, as a disappointment.
That the rushed storytelling in the last batch of supersized episodes stumbled won’t matter to Emmy voters, who will again bend the knee because, for six weeks, “Game of Thrones” ruled pop culture in a way that will be difficult for any TV series to duplicate. Each episode was an event to be debated, dissected and quickly turned into glorious memes, which often were more entertaining than the show itself.
“Fleabag” breaks through. (It’d better.)
Nearly everyone who watched the second season of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s brilliant British comedy came away enthralled. The BBC series, available in the U.S. on Amazon Prime, should earn Waller-Bridge a clutch of Emmy nominations, both for her pitch-perfect comic acting and her genius writing, which deconstructed the show’s fourthwall-breaking conceit in ways both thrilling and crushing.
Will Trevor Noah’s “Daily Show” campaign backfire?
Trevor Noah and his “Daily Show” writers devised the year’s most contentious Emmy campaign merely by invoking the 2019 Academy Award winner. “Don’t ‘Green Book’ this one, guys” read the tagline of billboards and posters featuring an image of the late-night host plastered all over Los Angeles and New York.
Noah says he wanted to poke a little fun at awards show controversies, but some people didn’t appreciate the joke.
“He does know ‘Green Book’ won the Oscar, right?” asked one voter, who, citing television academy protocol, asked not to be identified. “‘Don’t “Green Book” this?’ You got it. I’ll vote for Bill Maher.”
Will Emmy voters get emotional over departing shows?
Seven TV series — “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Upstairs, Downstairs,” “Barney Miller,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad” — have won series Emmys for their farewell seasons. “Game of Thrones” and “Veep” could both join that select list, and it’s pretty much a lock that Julia Louis-Dreyfus will have to make a bit more room in her trophy cabinet for her brutally brilliant turn as Selina Meyer on “Veep.”
But other past Emmy favorites are saying goodbye too. Once upon a time, Jim Parsons won two Emmys for “The Big Bang Theory,” and the series itself was nominated four times, most recently in 2014. “House of Cards” isn’t a popular pick anymore, but Robin Wright and Michael Kelly aren’t to blame for that. “Broad City,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Crazy ExGirlfriend” and “Catastrophe” have all been woefully overlooked over the years. It’s never too late to make amends.
Jharrel Jerome delivered the goods in “When They See Us.” Will voters respond?
Name recognition plays a big part in Emmy voting, and the contest for lead actor in a limited series or movie sports the likes of Anthony Hopkins (“King Lear”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“Brexit”), Benicio Del Toro (“Escape at Dannemora”), Hugh Grant (“A Very English Scandal”) and two recent Oscar winners, Mahershala Ali (“True Detective”) and Sam Rockwell (“Fosse/Verdon”). And the brilliant Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”) will be familiar to Emmy voters who rewarded “Mad Men” over the years.
So Jerome, largely unknown outside a notable supporting turn in “Moonlight,” faces an uphill battle. But he may be the best in the category. Jerome is the one actor in “When They See Us” to play his character (Korey Wise) as both a teen and an adult, and he gives a tour-de-force turn in the series’ fourth and final episode, which focuses on the young man’s harrowing incarceration. Did enough voters see the series through? We’ll find out Tuesday.