If your life is a hot mess and you’re barely getting a wink of sleep because of school this week, I doubt you tuned into what TV shows won an Emmy this year. The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards premiered last Saturday, Sept. 22, and here’s a quick rundown of what won, what lost and what made headlines.
Amazon Prime’s hit comedy “Fleabag” was deemed the winner of this year’s Emmys. The dark British comedy swept the categories of best director in a comedy, best actress in a comedy, best writing for a comedy series and best comedy series. This was a bombshell for a lot of fans who believed that “Veep” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” would be one of the winning leaders.
Surprisingly, Julia Louis-Dreyfus didn’t win any Emmys this year for “Veep”– which has been notorious for sweeping the Emmys. Dreyfus has won a total of six Emmys for her portrayal as Selina Meyer, and even gave Louis-Dreyfus record breaking titles. This was a shock, considering this would be the Emmys to send off “Veep” for its seventh and final season.
The loss for Amazon’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was also a big surprise considering its sweep last year at the 2018 Emmys. Despite this, the show still went home for best supporting actor in a comedy series (Tony Shalhoub) and best supporting actress in a comedy series (Alex Borstein).
Meanwhile, HBO’s hit show “Game of Thrones” took the Emmy for outstanding drama. Peter Dinklage, who portrays Tyrion Lannister, also won for best supporting actor in a drama series. Truly, I don’t know what they did to deserve this. The usually record-breaking show produced one of its worst seasons yet, but managed to shock viewers by snatching best drama. The show came out on top of shows like “Killing Eve” and “Pose”– which was also a surprise.
There were some great milestones from television’s biggest night. Billy Porter made history for becoming the first openly gay black man to win outstanding lead actor in a drama series (“Pose”). This also puts the actor one step closer to an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). Jharrel Jerome also became the first Latinx person to win an Emmy for best lead actor in a limited series or movie for his role in “When They See Us.” The 21-year-old is also one of the youngest actors in this category, beating noteble A-list actors such as Hugh Grant and Sam Rockwell.
Other winners from that night include Jodi Comer winning best lead actress in a drama series for “Killing Eve”, Bill Hader winning best comedy actor for “Barry”, RuPaul’s Drag Race winning outstanding competition series, Patricia Arguette taking home an Emmy for “The Act”, “Last Week Tonight with John Olivier” for outstanding variety talk series and “Chernobyl” winning outstanding limited series.
Overall, while the 71st Emmy winners were a bit of a surprise, they were also lacking luster. Despite the nice change of pace, especially with the dethroning of many long-standing shows, it still felt as if the Emmys didn’t pick all the right winners.
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