My Predictions For the 2024 Emmys Week 2 Concluded: Outstanding Supporting Actress in A Drama

 

An editorial first. I think we seriously need to consider putting quotas on the number of nominees from any given show who can be allowed for a single category. Some might say that’s unfair. But this is the fifth time in six years that the majority of nominees in this category have come from a single show. For whatever reason the Emmys can be excessive in this category, and on the rare occasions I agree with it (The White Lotus) it does seem like the Academy’s chosen to nominate everyone in the series. I couldn’t comprehend the logic behind previous dominated categories (Game of Thrones in 2019, The Handmaid’s Tale in 2021) and this year it’s just as bad. I acknowledge there can be multiple talented performers among a supporting cast but there does come a point of diminishing returns not to mention being unfair to every other drama that has the misfortune to air against them. The Emmys is going to have to visit this at some point.

And honestly just like all the previous years the controversy may be rendered moot because the frontrunner in the category is not a nominee from the series that has the glut of the nominations. But don’t think I’ve forgotten that The Morning Show has essentially robbed such premiere actresses as Kristen Scott Thomas, Sonja Sohn and Cynthia Nixon. I’ve got a list and I’m going to keep reminding you of it.

Anyone enough ranting.

Christine Baranski, The Gilded Age. Odds: 6-1. For Playing: Agnes Von Rijn, a society matron trying to deal with the changing times of  1880s New York. Pro: Few actresses have been more outstanding in the age of Peak TV and fewer still have gotten less recognition from the Emmys. Baranski went 0 for six for her incredible work as Diane Lockhart on The Good Wife, was never so much as nominated during her remarkable work as the same character on The Good Fight and was denied a win for her work on The Big Bang Theory. Now as Agnes Baranski is clearly having more fun that she’s had in her decades long career on TV. Every character on this show has incredible dialogue but every line out of Agnes’s mouth is somehow hysterical. As much as she seems determined to ignore the flow of progress (at least in her own home) she remains sometimes more ahead of the times that even she would admit. And she was given the ability for great emotion to go with it: dealing with the whirlwind romance and marriage of her younger sister, the suspense of whether or not she would come to the wedding, her being a rock when her new brother-in-law became mortally ill, and the stunning reversal of fortunes at the end of the season when at first it seemed she would be left with nothing only to be saved in a way that will change her role in the household forever. Baranski deserves to win. She deserves to win for this show. Of all the nominees in this category I’m pulling for her the most. Con: It has always been Baranski’s fate to be overshadowed in this category and in fact she lost to Maggie Smith, who played her equivalent in Downton Abbey. I think it’s going to happen here too.

Nicole Beharie, The Morning Show. Odds: 13-2. For Playing: Christina Hunter. (Note: Not having seen The Morning Show I’m going to try and speak from my perspective on the performers not their work.) Pro: Beharie has a performer I’ve had great admiration for during the last decade: she got an unfair deal from Sleepy hollow (as we have recently learned) and made a memorable impression on me in what amounted to cameos in Little Fires Everywhere and Scenes From A Marriage. She’s received more than her share of recognition for this role, being nominated by both the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Image Awards this past and joining a cast with this many talented performers – and in such a critical role to the third season – shows how well she does when thrown in the deep end. Con: It really does seem that every female supporting performer was nominated in this category with little regard for why. As is often the case, none have a real chance of winning.

Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown. Odds: 9-2. For Playing: Princess Diana, finding love after her divorce before tragedy ensues. Pro: Debicki is one of the few nominees in any of this year’s Emmys who has been dominant in the previous year’s Awards. She has already won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award in this category and was the surprise winner for Outstanding Lead Actress at the SAG awards. How much of this is due to the fact that many thought she should have won last year will never be known but anyone who watched her (all too brief) appearance in the final season of The Crown knows it was just as masterful as before. In what were the final months of her life we saw that even after having left the royal family Diana could not escape either being manipulated by forces beyond her control or the press that deluged her. Whatever happiness she thought she might feel with Dodi (the series makes it clear this was a blooming romance, not the great affair some feel it was) is always under a shadow of society. From the moment she met Charles Diana was always trapped and she died under that same shadow. Debicki showed the gift of revealing that Diana was not a saint, but just as flawed and damaged as all the other characters on The Crown. In a series with countless great supporting performances, hers was one of the greatest. Con: Morgan’s decision to put Diana in the final season of The Crown was a last minute one and it shows in some ways. Debicki’s role was far more diminished than all the other performers in this category and considering the controversy of Debicki’s last episode, it may not work for her.

Greta Lee, The Morning Show. Odds: 6-1. For Playing: Stella Bak. Pro: Given her nomination for this category and her brilliant work in Past Lives it would seem Lee is having a moment. In truth the rest of the world has caught up with her. Where there is a female run TV series Lee has been there, whether to bad effect(as in Girls) or great effect (Inside Amy Schumer, Russian Doll) , She’s known for superb voice work often in undervalued series (HouseBroken) or blockbuster films (Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse). She can do drama as well as comedy and she is incredibly versatile. It’s actually kind of astonishing she hasn’t been nominated before in any other series. Con: She hasn’t been nominated by either the Gold3en Globes or Critics Choice while so many others have. This one seems very arbitrary.

Lesley Manville, The Crown. Odds: 11-2. For Playing: Princess Margaret, the sister of Elizabeth coming close to the end of her life. Pro: I don’t think there’ll be much argument among fans of The Crown that by far the most tragic character during it is Margaret, a woman who was denied the love of her life because of the system in the first season and has been essentially never recovered from it. It has been heartbreaking watching the character decline, from Vanessa Kirby’s brightness and vigor to Helena Bonham-Carter’s slowly being eroded by drink and debauchery to Manville’s portrayal of a woman who has given her life to a system she never wanted to be a part of. As the final season progressed any historian knew that Margaret’s death was going to occur during it but that didn’t make it any less heartbreaking or shattering when it happened. More than any character Margaret has represented the human cost of being part of the system and it is the kind of role that Manville, one of the great character actresses in Britain, played to moving dignity even to the end. Con: Much like in real life, the actresses who have played Margaret have lost to brighter suns over the course of the series. Kirby lost to Thandiwe Newton the only year she was nominated; Carter lost to her co-star Gillian Anderson in 2021 and Julia Garner the previous year. Manville has been rising in the odds but we all know which royal princess is likely to win.

Karen Pittman, The Morning Show. Odds: 7-1. For Playing: Mia Jordan. Pro: Pittman has been extremely busy the last two years: she’s been playing supporting roles both in The Morning Show and in And Just Like That. Then apparently she went to work in a TV series The Long Long Night with her co-star Mark Duplass. Pittman was nominated for a Critics Choice Award in this category and has been one of the steady forces and utility players in a very versatile cast. Con: See previous entries.

Holland Taylor, The Morning Show. Odds: 13-2. For Playing: Cybil Richards, an executive being targeted by an investigative journalist. Pro: Of all the nominees in this category Taylor is the only one who isn’t a regular. This doesn’t shock me because Taylor has been down this road before. I well remember how she made such an impression in what was meant to be a one-episode role in The Practice that showrunner David E. Kelley expanding the role and she received two Best Supporting Actress Emmy nominations and a win in 1999 that shocked everybody including her. Taylor had been prominent in TV before (she had been the lead in the brilliant one season masterpiece The Powers That B and the intriguing The Naked Truth) but as she got older she embrace not only her seductiveness (memorably in 2 and a Half Men0 and her sexuality (The L Word) She’s worked constantly on undervalued series (Hollywood,  The Chair) and she had a brilliant role in the final season of Billions. Taylor told us her final scene on The Morning Show was this year. It’s been 25 years since she won her last Emmy. Time for a bookend. Con: See the previous nominees. But at least she can come this year with her significant other as arm candy for her nomination at the Emmys, not the other way around as it usually is. (See below if you don’t already know who that actress is.

Pro: Sorry Agnes. Sorry Margaret. Debicki wins this in a walk.

 

Now the remaining major awards.

For directing, given the scope and magnificence of the episode I think the Crimson Sky episode of Shogun wins this in a walk. I’m not as sure that it will win in writing because it’s competing against the pilot of the series. Look for the possibility of Slow Horses to take an upset.

As for Guest Actor in a Drama, I think this will come down to either Jonathan Pryce for Slow Horses or Nestor Carbonell for Shogun. Guest Actress in a Drama is definitely going to be won by one of the guest performers in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I think it will likely go to Sarah Paulson for her work as the marriage counselor who doesn’t know the clients she’s getting. (Holland Taylor will be there to support her.)

Next week I deal with Limited Series. These are the categories I’m far the most prepped for and I will have more detailed explanations for all of them.