Welcome to Emmy Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Emmy race — via Slack, of course. This week, we tackle comedy and what is probably the closest series race.
Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! We’re back to get our laughs on with the Emmys comedy races. It feels like we’re going to spend the next six weeks or so trying to figure out what the academy thinks about “The Bear’s” demerits that have emerged this summer — the third season that received negative responses from the chattering class, the vocal online pushback about its comedy bona fides. At the moment, I think we’re both, well, bullish on “The Bear” in Best Comedy Series. Despite some less-than-stellar headlines and underperformance in its acting nominations, the show remains the top dog at the Emmys and should find little trouble in matching several of its 2023 Emmys wins from earlier this year: series, comedy actor and supporting actor for Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, respectively, and directing. But I think “The Bear” will show some fatigue in the categories where voters have a clear alternative. Best Comedy Supporting Actress is a great place to start, where Hannah Einbinder feels like the Kieran Culkin of this year’s cycle, an undeniable performance that not even Meryl Streep, past winner Sheryl Lee Ralph, or “The Bear” favorite Liza Colón-Zayas can take down. Even if Ayo Edebiri were here for “The Bear” again, I think Einbinder would have the juice to go all the way. And while I’ve certainly toyed with the potential that “The Bear” sweeps Colón-Zayas to a win or Meryl gets a name-check victory for her great performance, Emmy voters have historically paid attention to the shows they love and awarded the right people when warranted. I also think this logic will apply in the writing category, where “The Bear” remains the odds-on favorite for “Fishes” but we both have the “Hacks” Season 3 finale “Bulletproof” taking the win. Of all the dissent against “The Bear,” the loudest seems to be coming from the comedy writers’ wing of the discourse and it feels like “Hacks” should be able to pull off an upset for an episode that — while also dramatic — was a lot funnier than “The Bear” family dinner nightmare. So I guess we can start here: If “Hacks” wins the actress categories — Jean Smart feels as undeniable as ever and Edebiri probably didn’t have enough material in Season 2 or Season 3 to pull off an upset — and “The Bear” wins the acting categories and the shows split writing and directing, is “Hacks” really primed for an upset win after all?
joyceeng: It’s primed, but will it do it? Probably not. I’ll just reiterate what I said two weeks ago: “The Bear” will probably mimic “Ted Lasso’s” Season 2 above-the-line haul, which, obviously, includes series. The difference is that “Ted” didn’t have an obvious and very formidable rival then as “The Bear” does now in “Hacks.” I think “Hacks” was probably runner-up then, though I’m sure the “Abbott Elementary” army would argue that the ABC sitcom was No. 2 after its wins for casting, writing and Ralph, but it was snubbed in directing and editing, and now, two years later, we can see how much trouble “Abbott” has had expanding its nomination total. Nevertheless, we can all agree that “Hacks” Season 3 is way stronger than “Hacks” Season 2, so it should offer a lot more resistance to “The Bear.” Like we discussed this week, if “Hacks” somehow wins casting and Kaitlin Olson takes guest actress, along with a Creative Arts underperformance by “The Bear,” then we can really consider a “Hacks” victory. But right now, that feels more like a noisy concept. Speaking of guest actress, we also floated the idea of a Maya Rudolph win in the wake of #news — not unlike her 2020 triumph — before this week’s announcement, two weeks before voting starts, that she will play Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live” through the election. Will we get a repeat of 2020? Granted, that race didn’t have a clear-cut frontrunner like this one does in Jamie Lee Curtis.
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Christopher Rosen: Rudolph’s “SNL” return news also coincided with a nontroversy about JLC throwing the Marvel Cinematic Universe under the bus and then vowing to “do better” in the future when it comes to discussing other creative properties and projects. Do I think this really matters in terms of her potential Emmy win? No, not really. But I also bet it didn’t really help. What if Curtis is this year’s Jon Bernthal? The expected guest acting winner who doesn’t meet those expectations? Bernthal could also be this year’s Bernthal, since he’s widely predicted to win in the guest acting category, but we both have Christopher Lloyd emerging victorious for “Hacks.” So let’s play that out: What if “The Bear” loses both guest acting categories and writing but wins casting? Or what if it loses all three of those? This is silly coming from reactionary me, and I’m sure my mind could change in September, but … I’d probably still have “The Bear” winning Best Comedy Series. It just feels like the consensus choice for the voters, even if its parts aren’t as strong as we thought in comparison to the sum. You mentioned “Abbott” and I’ll also use this moment to throw “Only Murders in the Building” into the chat. This is the comedy-mystery’s best showing yet at the Emmys, and it feels like it could be on the cusp of a few wins. Music seems like the bet, but do you think “Only Murders” could surprise elsewhere?
joyceeng: “Only Murders'” wins will probably all come below the line once again. It’ll likely take production design for the third time and “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” ought to complete the EGOT for Pasek and Paul. It’s never won score and deserves to before it’s over, but the competition is stiff and I fear Siddhartha Khosla might go the way of our dear Nicholas Britell. It is, unfortunately, hard to see it winning above the line since it’s not starting on the front foot in any category. It missed both writing and directing for the first time, but it wouldn’t have been the frontrunner had it gotten into either category. I suppose some may still believe in a Streep triumph — she’s second in the odds — but I’ve been feeling a win for Einbinder, whom I’ve always had in the top spot, since I first watched “Bulletproof” in early April and I will go down with that ship. It sounds like you’ve cooled off of LCZ after getting jump-scared by Abby Elliott‘s snub.
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Christopher Rosen: I have, but I think LCZ is our runner-up and not Streep. But I’ve been off Streep for months so why change now? I’ll let you have the last word and if it’s more about Britell the GOAT, I wouldn’t be mad.
joyceeng: Would he win this year if “Succession” were still around? No, because we can’t have nice things. If we were ever to get vote totals, I would want them for the comedy categories this year because some of these races will be blowouts, but some — series? — could be very close.
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