There is an out-and-out frontrunner in this
category and for all intents and purposes there has been since January at
least. That said there is a remote possibility the ground is shifting in recent
weeks. In either case this is for the fourth consecutive year going to have the
most formidable group of nominees for some of the best comedies on the air. I
think there's a decent chance there will be a tie, so I'm going for six names
in this list – though one of them may not be who you think.
Here we go.
Kristen Bell, Nobody Wants This
I said in my original review of Nobody Wants
This is that the best joke on the series is that no one seems to want good
things to happen to Kristen Bell. This is the opposite feeling that anybody whose
grown up watching Bell (as she has in fact grown up on television) knows that
she has been the biggest delight on TV in the 21st century. From her
breakout role as Veronica Mars to her voiceover work on Gossip Girl to four
masterful seasons on The Good Place to her hosting the SAG Awards this year
there is nothing Bell can't do on TV – except win an Emmy.
Bell, like the show she is a part of, dominated
the end of year award nominations for her wonderful work as Joanne, the co-host
of a podcast about sex who falls in love with a hot rabbi and finds herself
question everything about relationships and her faith. We watch her in a sex
shop, we see her going to a Hebrew camp, we see her uncomfortable with her
family, trying to win over Noah's family, doing everything in her power to be
loved and as always being hysterical and adorable – and as has been the case
for the last decade, filthy mouthed. (Of course on this show, her obscenities aren't
adjusted.)
I would happily watch Bell read the phone book
because I know she could make it fun. I would like her to win an Emmy someday
but I'll settle for her being nominated.
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Quinta Brunson has nothing left to prove. She's
already made history as the first African-American to win an Emmy for both for
writing and acting as well as well as the first woman. She has a shelf full of
other awards for her wok on Abbott, whether they are Golden Globes, SAG
Awards, WGA Awards or Image Awards. She doesn't need any more Emmy nominations
but she's going to pick up another three this year anyone because she's the
writer, director and star of one of the best shows on television. I don't need
to say anything else in her favor… but I will.
We spent much of Season 4 watching Janine in the
world of her love with Gregory which had almost no hiccups at all this year
after the start of the season. We saw her try to deal with lice, illnesses, the
district's nonsense, bribes, Ava being fired, trying to help Ava get her job
back, being pushed off, then watching as Ava got her job back with not that
much help. And of course we saw her win over the hardest case of all, Gregory's
supposedly humorless father, in the season finale.
We're going to be seeing Brunson at these shows
for the foreseeable future, including the inevitable day when Abbott Elementary
finally wins for Best Comedy Series at the Emmys. You know why she's here;
you love her, you know she's doesn't need to prove anything.
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear
As The Bear goes, so does Ayo Edebiri. In
2023 she was the breakout star managing to win Outstanding Supporting Actress
in a Comedy at the January 2024 Emmys. During the end of year awards Edebiri
managed to win every Best Lead Actress in a Comedy in sight. Then the following
September every acting category The Bear had a nominee in ending up
winning at the Emmys – except Edebiri. When Jean Smart won Outstanding Actress
in a Comedy, it signaled the shift that meant Hacks was going to win
that year and The Bear wasn't.
It was actually going downhill ever since. The
Bear's third season was the poorest received so far in its run and while
some cast members managed to keep having great moments Sydney was not one of
them. By this point so much of her relationship with Carmy on the show was
increasingly becoming stale and the show was doing better with its other two
major female characters – Tina and Sugar – then it did for her.
The dominoes have been falling ever since: for
the first time she was not nominated by the Critics' Choice Awards for her
performance and she lost at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. There is
little doubt she will be nominated in this category – and just as likely for
directing as well - but her chances of
winning in any form have dropped tremendously. Edebiri's moment is far from
over but there's a decent chance she may not win another award for her work on The
Bear again. She'll win other awards to be sure but not this.
Bridget Everett, Somebody Somewhere
This is my longshot. It would be so easy for me
to put Selena Gomez here and she will very likely be here instead of her. But unlikely
all the other nominees on this list, Somebody Somewhere has aired its
final season and like the show, this is Everett's last chance.
Everett has been nominated by other awards shows
over the years – the Critics Choice Awards, the Astras, even the TCA's but
she's never gotten an Emmy nomination. At a fundamental level I understand why:
her work has never been as laugh out loud hysterical as so many of the
performers who do get nominated, nor as dark or probing as some of the other
shows. It's quiet and wistful, a story of a Kansan trying to find her way in a
town with misfits, trying to adjust after the death of a sister and the often
tricky relationship she has with the living one, trying to find out if she's
worthy of friendship or love. These are not life or death struggles the way
every other character in comedies seems to deal with and while there are some
times farcical moments, they are gentle like the show itself. But Sam, like
Everett, is a force of nature who has an inferiority complex. Life is one step
forward, one step back, the triumphs small in the grand scheme of things.
I'm not naïve enough to think Everett, even if she
were nominated, has a snowball 's chance in hell of winning. But after watching
her for three wonderful, sweet seasons, I know she's earned the chance to be there.
I really want it for Sam. I want it for Everett.
Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face
The first real
crack in the inevitability of Jean Smart's fourth Emmy came two weeks
ago at the Astras when Natasha Lyonne managed to defeat her for the second
season of Poker Face. It shocked me because I didn't think anyone could
be smart, not because Lyonne doesn't deserve to win.
To be clear Lyonne has already made history in
2023 when she joined such pillars as Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Allison Janney and
Jean Smart herself when she was nominated for an Emmy for three series. Lyonne was also nominated in the comedy
category each time, though none of the series she's starred in – and in two
cases, been a major creative force behind – have ever fit easily in the comedy
category. Orange Is The New Black eventually shifting into the drama
category, Russian Doll is an exercise in sci-fi as much as comedy and Poker
Face is essentially a mystery anthology with Lyonne as the constant. There's also an argument as to how much
acting Lyonne is doing in each character she plays: Charlie Cale is just
another Natasha Lyonne archetype. But no one cares about that because it's so
much fun watching Lyonne, I mean Charlie, travel across the country ending up
involved in murder mysteries with the guest star of the week, know that they're
lying, gets them arrested and then leaves town.
You could argue that Charlie is as much an
instrument of chaos and the cause of her own misfortune as we saw in the first
season and again in the second. You could argue she's more drawn these kinds of
criminals and that she should learn from her mistakes. But again, who cares
because it's so much fun watching her speed through society, stumbling
into bloody messes.
Lyonne, honestly, deserves to win the Emmy more
than some of the other nominees including Smart herself: she has nothing to
show for work. I think the odds are high that she'll come up empty this time
around but I know, like Charlie, she'll come out on top eventually.
Jean Smart, Hacks
You would think having won three Emmys in three
tries Smart would be incapable of topping herself. You'd think after winning
every major award for acting at the end of the year – for the second time – we'd
stop underestimating the ability Smart has with Deb Vance. Smart keeps finding
ways to prove us wrong.
Finally having gotten her dreams at the end of
Season 3, Deb is now on the biggest stage of all and under a bigger microscope
than she's been under her entire career. And as is frequently the case Deb far
too often undercuts herself. Her feud with Ava lands her the wrong kind of
attention with the network. Her behavior towards her writers leads her the
complaints of HR. She manages to succeed above her wildest dreams – and then
when faced with a decision to make a sacrifice, choosing to give up her dream and
may very well be back at the bottom again. Is it any wonder what might have
happened in Asia?
Smart has been the favorite in this category even
before Season 4 debuted and I think it will be very difficult for her to not
repeat this year. The competition keeps getting more formidable for Smart with
each year and as I've just illustrated, this is going to be her toughest field yet.
But I've given up underestimating Smart's capacity to win against formidable
competition. One does so at their own peril.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Kathryn Hahn, Agatha All Along
Let's not kid ourselves. If the geniuses at
Disney Plus would have submitted Agatha for Best Limited Series I
wouldn't have to write this because she'd be a lock to get a nomination there.
Instead for whatever absurdity they put it in the comedy category. Hahn was
able to get some nominations from the Golden Globes and the Spirit Awards and
indeed quite a few other groups. But this is an incredibly crowded field of
incredible talent and the odds are she'll be squeezed out, so I have to pitch
for her.
And I shouldn't have too. Playing the role that
won her so many awards while playing this character on Wandavision her
work as she tried to make her way through a world just as bizarre as the one of
that series had that same great shows mix of genres, including comedy and
profundity. It's the kind of series that yet again proves that limited series
is a better field for comic books than films can be. In a perfect world Hahn
should be fighting it out with Cristin Milioti for Best Actress in a Limited
Series.
But she's not. Instead she's in the same place
that Hahn has been in so many times over the years in her work in television:
always brilliant and nearly certain to be overlooked for a nomination. It might
happen anyway – the last few years the Emmys have started to recognize Hahn's
worth – and there's a good chance she'll be nominated in a different category.
(See Outstanding Supporting Actress) But this was another notch in Hahn's
formidable belt and it deserves recognition.
Tomorrow I move on to Outstanding Supporting
Actor in a Comedy. There's going to be a good mix of the old and the new this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment