Myths And Reality of Peak TV Emmys Edition: The Explosion of Diversity in The Past Decade (2100th Post)

 

When Glenn Close accepted her second consecutive Emmy for Damages in 2009 she expressed how humble she was to be among such brilliant actresses. This was not false humility; just the year before it had become increasingly apparently to critics and audiences just how rewarding TV drama could be to actresses of a certain age.

In the fall of 2008 Entertainment Weekly had paid tribute to Close and three of her fellow nominees as a symbol of the great roles for actresses TV was providing. In addition to Close included were Sally Field for her work as Nora Walker on Brothers & Sisters, Kyra Sedgwick for playing Brenda Johnson on The Closer and Holly Hunter for her searing portrayal of the hard drinking, very sexual Grace Hanadarko on Saving Grace. All but Hunter would win Emmys for their work over their tenure on the show and they represented an alternative to the kinds of White Male Antagonists that were even then dominated the genre.

Never nominated for Emmys but just as impressive were Mary McConnell as President Laura Roslin on the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, Anna Paquin for her work as Sookie on True Blood and Jeanne Tripplehorn and Chloe Sevigny as two very different sister wives on Big Love. (Paquin and Sevigny did win Golden Globes.) Nor were these kinds of roles only available for drama. Ever since Mary Louise Parker had won a Golden Globes for Weeds in 2005, a new kind of series – the dramedy – had become prominent on pay cable and the vast majority of them were female-centric. Showtime was the most prominent purveyor of them and in the years following Weeds Toni Collette and Laura Linney would win Golden Globes and Emmys for their exceptional work on United States of Tara and The Big C. HBO visited the genre too, most significantly with Mike White’s Enlightened featuring Laura Dern at the start of what has been an exceptional career in television.

Less noticed while this was occurring was the slow migration of prominent African-American actress to television in series roles. Regina King, whose career in the movies had sputter during the 2000s had migrated to television, first in a small role in Day 6 of 24 and then to immense critical acclaim in the TNT cop drama Southland. King received multiple award nominations, including her first two Critics Choice nods. Taraji P. Henson, whose career in films had featured work in such exceptional movies as Talk to Me, Hustle & Flow and an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actress for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, had worked on an off in TV for much of the 2000s in cable dramas like The Division and one season on Boston Legal. In 2011 she returned to television as Joss Carter on Person of Interest, the NYPD detective who chases down ‘the man in the suit’ and battles a corrupt organization within the NYPD. The year after Viola Davis received her first Oscar nomination for Doubt her next major role was as a comic book designer on United States of Tara.

But all of this would likely have been unnoticed had it not been for the debut of Scandal in 2012. And here I have to do something I wouldn’t do under normal circumstances but nevertheless must: praise Shonda Rhimes.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think that her shows are absolute drivel, pure soap opera with no nutritional value. That doesn’t change the impact she’s made on the industry. Because by the end of the 2000s, it was becoming clear to everyone who white TV was. I remember an Entertainment Weekly article in 2009 with a picture of Cleveland from Family Guy with the headline: “Why is this the only person of color starring in a network show this fall?” And yes, in the opening paragraph they did remind us that he was voiced by Seth McFarlane. It wasn’t just the Emmys where it was clear how white the TV industry was.

Shonda Rhimes was the only woman of color who was a success in television during the 2000s. Even that strikes me as remarkable considering just how hard it was for white women to be able to run shows by the 2000s. I only know of three during that decade: Jenji Kohan for Weeds, Amy Sherman-Palladino for Gilmore Girls and Tina Fey for 30 Rock.

By the start of the 2010s, there was a clamor for diversity throughout the industry from minority voices that the power structure had made it very clear they had no intention of listening to. It’s possible, even likely, Rhimes wanted to do a series similar to Scandal from the start of her career but she had to know how precarious her place in the industry was. (I have a feeling that whenever Rowan Pope lectures his daughter on how: “We have to work twice as hard to get half as much” he was putting into words something Rhimes had to have been told her whole life. (Although both Popes seemed perfectly fine using their power to uphold the white power structure in America…I’m sorry this is about praising Rhimes, not bashing her shows.)

And Rhimes had to play the long game. First Grey’s Anatomy became a smash, then she developed the spinoff Private Practice. Then she did executive produced a series called Off The Map  which was canceled after five seasons. It was only in 2012 her eighth year working with ABC that she had enough power and clout in the industry to get Scandal greenlit.

And to be clear, it could have died very quickly. The first season was not warmly received by critics or watched with anywhere near the fervor of either of her successes, even though it followed Grey’s Anatomy. The show was on the bubble in May of 2012 and I think it’s only because the network had more confidence in Rhimes then the series that they renewed it. Then the show took off and Olivia Pope saying ‘it’s handled’ became a household word.

Kerry Washington was slightly younger then most of the actress I mentioned above. Her career in films had been a mixed bag: there had been Oscar nominated films like Ray and Django Unchained and utter disasters like Little Man, A Thousand Words and She Hate Me. So when she became the first African-American woman to be the lead of a network series in nearly twenty years, the pressure must been incredible. When Washington became the first African-American actress to receive an Emmy nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Drama since Cicely Tyson in 1995 it was a earth shaking moment. But because the entire world was focused on the final seasons of Breaking Bad (which played out during both years Washington was nominated in this category) because the world of television had been upended by Netflix’s arrival with House of Cards in 2013 and Orange is the New Black in 2014 and more directly, because network television was increasingly being considered passe when it came to providing quality TV, no one recognized the significance of Washington’s nominations.

What mattered was that the ceiling had been cracked and that the networks now knew that there could be rewards for taking these risks. By 2014 network television would provide its last great gift to the revolution by helping shatter the diversity barrier in the Emmys for good.

In the 2014-2015 season, three different network television shows would provide groundbreaking roles for the three African-American women I mentioned above. Davis was the first. Shondaland would cast Davis to play Annalyse Keating in How To Get Away With Murder and regardless of my feelings for the show and all things Shondaland, it’s hard to complain about what it did for Davis’s career. Davis had been working in both Broadway and films for more than two decades and a fair amount of TV as well. She’d had a regular role on the 2000 series City of Angels had a recurring role in Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone movies and had a regular role in ABC’s Traveler before her work in United States of Tara. She won multiple Tonys and had received two Oscar nominations for Doubt and The Help. Even the immense success of the latter did nothing to improve the kind of roles she got.

How To Get Away With Murder allowed her to play a different kind of character. She had spent much of her career playing carers and mothers. Annalyse was ruthless in a way even Olivia Pope wasn’t. This role gave Davis to tap a layer of darkness she’d never been allowed to in her entire career and it worked for her.

Taraji P. Henson, meanwhile, had died shockingly on Person of Interest (it’s still one of the most shocking character deaths in TV history) but she wasn’t out of work long. Within months she was cast as Cookie Lyon the ex-wife of a record label baron who has just been released from prison after nineteen years and inserts herself whole-heartedly into the battle over control of it in the Fox series Empire. This show was over the top in the way not even Shondaland series could be but Henson tore into the role with a complete lack of restraint that audiences immediately embraced.

And after How To Get Away With Murder ended its first season an entirely different kind of series took its slow on Thursday nights at 10. John Ridley’s American Crime was one of the most brilliant accomplishments of  television in the last ten years, with perhaps the most brutal and brilliant look at the way our society doesn’t function on our most prominent issues – race, sexual harassment, immigration – through the lens of a single crime and the ripples that run through an entire community as a result. The series would employ a handful of extremely gifted film and TV actors to play different roles throughout the series and most of them had been among the greatest successes in TV during the period: Timothy Hutton, Felicity Huffman, Benito Martinez and Lili Taylor worked in every season but the highpoint of that series was Regina King’s work in three very different roles.

In 2015 for the first time in history, the Emmys nominated two African-American actresses for Best Lead Actress in a drama: Davis and Hanson. When Davis won Hanson embraced her as she walked down the aisle. (Both would receive Golden Globes for their work.) King would win the first of two consecutive Emmys for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series. Combined with Uzo Aduba win for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for Orange is the New Black (she had won the previous year for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy) the 2015 Emmys had made history when it came to recognizing women of color in acting.

Just as significant was the presence of African-Americans in the comedy category. In addition to Don Cheadle being nominated for his work in House of Lies, Anthony Anderson had been nominated for Best Actor in a Comedy for black-ish. Andre Braugher and Tituss Burgess had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor playing two very different African-American gay men and Niecy Nash had been nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Getting On, the HBO black comedy set in a hospice.

And though no one yet knew what the significance would be in the era of Limited Series Richard Cabral had been nominated for his work in American Crime along with King and Angela Bassett (another prominent African-American actress who had also shifted from film to TV) was nominated for her work in American Horror Story: Freak Show. (Four other actors of color were nominated in the Limited Series acting categories but all of them were for films and therefore I don’t quantify under the same rubric I will later on. Still it is significant such prominent television actors as Michael K. Williams and a former Oscar winner Mo’Nique were nominated.)

The dam holding back actors of color at the Emmys had cracked. By the end of the decade it was completely gone.

In 2016 for the first time since Roots had dominated the 1977 Emmys three of the four winners in Acting in a Limited Series were African-American. But significantly only two of the winners – Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown – were for the same limited series the groundbreaking The People Vs. O.J. Simpson. Regina King won her second consecutive Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series for the second season of American Crime.

Henson and Davis repeated their nominations in Best Actress in a Drama (they were defeated by Tatiana Maslany in a long overdue win for Orphan Black) and all the previous nominees of color from 2015 in drama and comedy duplicated their appearances from the previous year with the notable addition of Tracee Ellis Ross for black-ish. Just as significant was the presence of Aziz Ansari an Indian born actor who had been the star and creative force behind the brilliant Netflix series Master of None. That year he and Alan Yang became the first people Asian descent to win an Emmy for Best Writing in comedy – or indeed any Emmy category,  defeating the winner for Best Comedy Veep in this category.

In the Best Actor in a Limited Series category, three of the nominees were African-American: Vance, his co-star Cuba Gooding Jr and Idris Elba for the latest season of Luther. Kerry Washington had been ignored for Scandal but was nominated for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Limited Series for playing Anita Hill in Confirmation. The noted character actor Bokeem Woodbine had received his first Emmy nomination for his work in Fargo.

The next year actors of color took over the drama category as never before. Sterling K. Brown took the Emmy for Best Actor for his work as Randall in This is Us. Not only was he the first African-American to win consecutive Emmys in completely different categories, he was the first African-American Actor to win in this category since Andre Braugher had in 1998 – a fact he name-checked when he took his win. Ron Cephas Jones was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and while he didn’t win, he would later win two Guest Actor Emmys for his role in This Is Us. Westworld allowed Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton to entire the ranks – Newton was another actress who had turned to television after her film career had been struggling. Newton was nominated along with Uzo Aduba and Samira Wiley for The Handmaid’s Tale the big winner of Emmy night 2017.

In comedy Donald Glover became the first African-American in more than thirty years to win Best Actor in a Comedy for his groundbreaking series Atlanta. Leslie Jones would be nominated for her work on Saturday Night Live (she would lose to her co-star Kate McKinnon.) Significantly Ansari would repeat his win for in Writing in a Comedy with his co-writer being Lena Waithe, the first woman of color to ever win an Emmy for writing. While the Limited Series category was deservedly dominated by Big Little Lies that year Riz Ahmed became the first performer of Muslim descent to win an Emmy for his work in The Night Of.

2018 by comparison was a step down in its groundbreaking wins but that didn’t mean that their weren’t significant ones. Issa Rae received her first acting and writing nominations for the brilliant HBO series Insecure and Donald Glover was nominated for multiple awards for the incredible ‘Teddy Perkins’ episode of Atlanta. His co-stars Bryan Tyree Henry and Zazie Beetz received nominations as well. Brown and Wright were both nominated for Best Actor in a Drama – the first time two African-Americans had ever been nominated as leads in this category – though both lost to Matthew Rhys for The Americans. (No argument on my part.) Sandra Oh became the first Korean-American nominated for Best Actress in a Drama for Killing Eve. And Thandiwe Newton prevailed over the many women in The Handmaid’s Tale to take Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for Westworld. The previous winner Aduba had been three years earlier. Prior to that, there hadn’t been  ab African-American winner in this category for more than twenty two years when Mary Alice had won for I’ll Fly Away.

Regina King won her third Emmy in four years in the Limited Series category, this time for Best Actress in Seven Seconds. But perhaps the most significant win of the night were the wins for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which took eight Emmys including three for Amy Sherman-Palladino for writing, directing and producing. While many women had won Emmys in multiple categories in recent years including Tina Fey for 30 Rock, Sherman-Palladino was the first woman to do so in all three categories in Emmy history.

The next year Phoebe Waller-Bridge joined her on that list when Fleabag became the biggest winner in comedy. Waller-Bridge took every prize she was nominated for: Actress, writing and Best Comedy. Nor was she the only hyphenate in the comedy category: Natasha Lyonne was nominated for acting and show-running Netflix’s Russian Doll. Combined with Sherman-Palladino’s presence for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, women had taken charge in the creative forces in comedy Emmys in a way that they never had before.

Also in 2019 Ava Duvernay became the first African-American woman When They See Us became the first limited series to receive multiple nominations for writing, directing and producing a limited series. As a result seven performers of color – six from When They See Us alone – were nominated in the Limited Series acting categories with Jharrel Jerome triumphing for Best Actor in a Limited Series.

But more significant by far was Billy Porter’s win for Pose. Throughout the 21^st century, many gay and lesbian performers had been nominated and won multiple awards, including Kate McKinnon, Jane Lynch and Jim Parsons but not since Sean Hayes for Will & Grace had any of them been playing a gay or lesbian character. Porter was the first African-American gay man to win for the groundbreaking Pose a series that featured entirely members of the LGBTQ+ African-American community, a genre that to this point in Peak TV had been basically ignored.

This could not have been achieved without the diligence of Ryan Murphy. Ever since the debut of Glee in 2010, Murphy’s work had become the greatest source of work for actors in the LGBTQ+ community. He had dealt with the subject multiple times in both his American Horror Story franchise and more critically in The Assassination of Gianni Versace. The latter series had seen nomination for Ricky Martin, playing the title characters longtime companion. He had been a great source for nominees of color for Horror Story  over the decade. Pose was the last official series he did before moving to Netflix where in such series as Hollywood and last year’s Dahmer he would continue to provide groundbreaking roles for African-American members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Because the world was not only in lockdown but in crisis, few noted the immense amount of diversity on display at the 2020 Emmys. Three of the nominees for Best Comedy Series were written and produced by women and the biggest winner Schitt’s Creek which managed the first clean sweep of every major category on Emmy night, was the work of Dan Levy. Dan Levy was the first gay man to win for both acting and writing in Emmy history on what was a triumph for his family. Issa Rae was nominated for three Emmys that night for Insecure. Ramy Youseff, an American born Muslim was nominated for writing and acting in his Hulu comedy series Ramy. The comedy categories alone had  nine African-American acting nominees. It was a different world from just six years earlier. That year Zendaya became the first bi-racial actress to win an Emmy for Best Actress in a Drama for her work in Euphoria.

Of the twenty two acting nominees in the Best limited Series category seven were African-American. On Emmy night for second time in five years, three of the winners were African-American. Regina King took her fourth Emmy in six years, Uzo Aduba won her third Supporting Actress for her work as Shirley Chisholm in Mrs. America becoming the first African-American to win an Emmy in Comedy, Drama and Limited Series/TV Movie. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II took the Supporting Actor Emmy for Watchmen by far the biggest winner of Emmy night 2020. Cord Jefferson won for Writing, three years before he won an Academy Award for American Fiction.

By this point the Emmys had become so diverse that when in 2021 no African-American actor won an Emmy for acting in 2021 the hashtag #EmmysSoWhite immediately circulated. Considering how much progress there had been at the Emmys over the past six years compared to the previous fifteen it seemed like it wasn’t the Emmy voters who had short memories.

Still there’s a certain logic to it. Considering that two of the biggest nominees at the Emmys were Lovecraft Country and Pose and both went home empty handed that night on acting, it’s hard to blame them. When four of the six nominees for Best Actor in a Drama are man of color and the Emmy went to Josh O’Connor for The Crown, despite the fact O’Connor had won every award leading up to it, it’s hard not to see their frustration. And I won’t lie Michael K. Williams absolutely should have won for Lovecraft Country before he tragically passed away weeks before the Emmys: that it went to Tobias Menzies is not forgivable.

And while I do agree that Ted Lasso absolutely deserved the Emmys it got for acting the fact that Brett Goldstein took the prize when four different series represented three different ethnic minorities – among them Hunt’s co-stars Nick Mohammed – I see the logic.

But the Emmys wasn’t entirely white. Michaela Coel  won for writing the incredible limited series I May Destroy You and if we are to have diversity in awards the fact that a performer of African-Caribbean heritage of British citizenry winning was significant and certainly stook in contrast to the wins for The Crown. And for the third time in four years a woman won for directing and writing in comedy: Lucia Aniello, one of the major creative forces behind the incredible Hacks. Not to mention that three of the four winners for Guest Acting in drama or comedy were African-Americans – Maya Rudolph and Dave Chapelle for their work on SNL, Courtney B. Vance for his guest stint on Lovecraft Country.

Still in a sense it was a step back. For one year. When the lockdowns for Covid ended, so many of the great series came back as well as a host of new ones. And by far the most significant was Squid Game. The first foreign language drama of any kind to be nominated for Emmys, it was one of 2022’S biggest winners. Lee Jung-Jee became the first Korean to win an Emmy in any acting category for his lead role and Hwang Dong-Hyuk won for direction His co-star Lee You-Mi took Best Guest Actress in a Drama. Altogethe five Korean actors were nominated in the drama category and Dong-Hyuk was nominated for writing; Zendaya’s second win for Best Actress seemed almost tame by comparison.

But in comparison the wins in comedy were highpoints in Emmy history, both in significance and power. Sheryl Lee Ralph was the unexpected winner for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her work in Abbott Elementary only the second in Emmy history. Her arrival stage and her acceptance speech went viral. It had been thirty five years since Jackee Harry had won the first Emmy for 227. There would be a much briefer wait for the next winner of color in this category.

But even bigger was Quinta Brunson’s win for writing the Pilot of Abbott Elementary. In less than a year Brunson had gone from a virtual unknown to the face of and the genius behind the biggest sensation in network comedy in nearly five years. Brunson’s triumph was one of the great moments in my career of watching the Emmys.

The big winner on Emmy night was the first season of Mike White’s The White Lotus. The breakout sensation of the all-star cast was Murray Bartlett,  a gay actor from Australia. Bartlett had worked in many series to this point, including HBO’s gay themed comedy-drama looking but this was his most significant role in nearly thirty years. Bartlett was nominated for two more Emmys, playing Nick De Nola in Welcome to Chippendales and Frank in the already iconic ‘Long, Long Time’ episode of The Last of Us.

What’s the most surprising thing about the 2023 Emmys being the most diverse Emmys in their history was that they essentially started with one hand tied behind their backs. In large part because of the domination of Succession and The White Lotus in the supporting acting categories for the first time in the 21^st century there wasn’t a single African-American acting nominee in the Drama category. Only the presence of Pedro Pascal for The Last of Us and Aubrey Plaza for The White Lotus gave us any diversity at all in the lead drama category at all. Now it was made up for because there were three African-American nominees in the Guest Actor and Actress category, all from The Last of Us and Storm Reid ended up winning in the latter. But it wasn’t a good look that so many lead acting nominees from diverse backgrounds, from Andor and Better Call Saul as well as Yellowjackets really made the Emmys look like they were going backwards.

Fortunately the other two categories more than made up for it. Abbott Elementary alone put four African-American actors in the race and Quinta Brunson made history – for the second straight year – by becoming the first African-American woman in since Isabel Sanford in 1981 – to win Best Actress in a Comedy. She is now the first African-American woman in history to win an Emmy for acting and writing. Ayo Edebiri became the third African-American woman to win Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for The Bear; that year for the first time in history the majority of the nominees were African-American (Edebiri, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Janelle James for Abbott Elementary and Jessica Williams for Shrinking. This year she will attempt to become the first actress since Alison Janney to win Actress and Supporting Actress for playing the same role. Sam Richardson took an Emmy for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy for his role on Ted Lasso.

But of course the most historic wins were in the Best Limited Series category. In another year Niecy Nash-Betts first win after four nominations in multiple categories – along with her incredible acceptance speech for Dahmer – would have been the emotional highpoint of the Emmy Night. But not only was it only one of them, it wasn’t even close to the most significant for diversity in that category. The big winner in that category was the first season of Beef. A master class story on the how an incident of road rage affects the lives of two Korean-Americans and everyone in their orbit the series won five of the seven Emmys in play, all of them for Asian Americans. Lee Sung Jin made history with three Emmys win for producing, directing and writing the series. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong took Best Actor and Best Actress in a Limited Series respectively. Both had been veterans of the acting scene for more than fifteen years; Yeun most famously for The Walking Dead, Wong in countless series. Both shared in Emmys for producing the series as well. Combined with the wins for RuPaul for Reality TV and Trevor Noah for his final year hosting The Daily Show, it was a historic night for television in any way one measured it.

At the start of the first article in this series I argued that Peak TV was more a creation of critics then it had to do with the reality of viewer patterns.  I also argued and will continue to do so that we are witnessing a shift in television and it remains to be seen the full extent before we argue the era truly dead.

But if the critics are looking at this period and mourning it, the question truly needs to be asking what is being mourned. And if we use, as I did in the first article in the series, the Emmy nominations as our context before  and during the era we get a very distinct picture of the series that critics considered the best of television of the period – one that features White Male Antiheroes and was run by essentially white men.

As I said before I don’t deny the quality of the series of that era – I won’t lie and say The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men et al were not some of the best shows in history. They also represented the most monochromatic era in Emmy history as well. Few would  argue that the series in the decade that followed I’ve mentioned –  which also include dramas such as This is Us, The Americans and Better Call Saul  in drama; The Good Place, Transparent and Reservation Dogs in comedy; Fargo and True Detective in anthology, among countless others – are among the best series in TV history. When you include the fact that during this decade, there was an infinitely greater caliber of great roles for minorities of all types that simply didn’t exist during most of the era of Peak TV, one truly has to question what so many of the admirers of the first part of this are truly mourning the departure of.

It's possible that television will not be of the same caliber it was in the first decade of the 2000s; I don’t hold with that but we can’t see the future. But given all of what I have described in this article and the continued representation of all minorities in this year’s Emmy nominations then there is unquestionably a greater variety of the kinds of roles and recognition than there ever has been in the history of television. That is to be celebrated and something to give all viewers hope for the future.

Lost Rewatch on VHS: Across the Sea

 

The Trauma Plot has become such an overused trope in television and really all forms of art in the last decade that it’s striking, in retrospect, to look back at so much of the first period of the Golden Age and find how little it was a part of so many of the greatest shows. We’d gotten used during the 1990s to having trauma shape so many of the characters in the decade previous  - the abduction of Samantha Mulder, the death of Carter’s brother leading him to a career in medicine in ER,  Andy Sipowicz’s career before – and during – NYPD Blue – that perhaps the most shocking thing about these series was that so many of the male antiheroes and other characters during the first decade of the 21^st century didn’t have the ready made excuses of traumatic backstories to justify their monstrous actions.

There was no trauma affecting the slingers and cops that made their lives so horrible in The Wire. The Fishers had a pretty happy live at least until Six Feet Under began properly. Tony Soprano’s mommy issues were more of a justification for his actions than anything else over time. Al Swearengen overcame his horrible upbringing to become a powerful force in Deadwood and all the women in the series underwent far worse experience well before they arrived in the camp. OZ didn’t use the traumas of the characters lives as a reason for their being here (in one sequence Harold Perrineau’s character mocked the idea as nonsense to the audience). The traumas of everyone on Sunnydale helped bond them to fight the forces of darkness and Angel and Spike would acknowledge their traumas were not excuses for the monsters they became. There were no real demons driving Vic Mackey and Jack Bauer’s family issues weren’t part of the worst days of his life. (Unless you count Day 6 and most of us try not to.)

By the second half of the decade trauma was starting to become more prominent in many of the lives of critical characters but in many cases it was a way to reinvent themselves. Don Draper took the trauma of being Dick Whitman and used it to (literally) become a new man. We didn’t learn of the real reason Walter White hid his diagnosis of cancer until well into his descent into evil and by that point, it was a threadbare justification even to himself. Even Dexter Morgan would eventually acknowledge his ‘Dark Passenger’ was just an excuse for the monster inside him all along. There were successful shows that dwelt with trauma as part of the characters’ lives but Shonda Rhimes wrote most of them and by the time of the past decade, it was practically a baked in excuse for so many women’s bad behavior.

I remember watching Across the Sea the night it came out – I was late getting home and I’d recorded the episode. I didn’t get to watching it until nearly 1 in the morning. I remember being in awe of so much of it, thinking that it finally answered so many of the questions we had about the series. I didn’t know until after reading Alan Sepinwall’s book The Revolution Was Televised that it was one of the most hated episodes in the entire canon. I’m still not sure why from a creative perspective but certain things are clear to me now that weren’t more than a decade ago.

Part of it is the timing: as viewers we are still reeling from the most traumatic event watching Lost today as three of the most beloved characters in the series died in less than five minutes. Now rather than immediately get back to the action we travel back in time thousands of years and finally seem to get the backstory of Jacob and The Man In Black.

‘Seem’ is the operative word. I’m reminded of the two part episode we got in Season 6 of The X-Files that promised us ‘Full Disclosure’ about everything we wanted to know about the alien conspiracy. And what we got was very few actual revelations and what amounted to waiting for most of the Syndicate to be killed – but all of the critical regulars escaping and no real resolution. It’s the same in Across the Sea. Here we meet another person who claims to have all the answers and may actually have them – this time it’s Alison Janney – and she spends the entire episode not only telling us anything but actually seeming to give voice the loyal fans when her character tells a desperate woman: “Every question will only lead to another question.” It might be naïve for even the devoted fan to expect that all our questions would be answered with only two episodes to go in the series but it’s hard not to look at so much of Janney’s behavior – and Jacob and The Man In Black’s reactions – as something very close to a stick in the eye.

By far the larger problem comes to the idea of the Trauma Plot. The Man In Black has referred to all of the characters as ‘irrevocably broken’ and while the modifier is a bit extreme, we can’t deny the broken part. Every single character we’ve met since the series began has been traumatized almost from the moment they were born, by bad parents, bad friends, trusting the wrong people, not trusting the right ones. One of the reasons I initially had such a bad reaction to the series finale was not so much the explanation but because I had liked the idea of the flash-sideways so much. Having watched all of the episodes, the greatest difference has been that, with the exception of Sayid and Kate, every one of them has shown people far less broken, not just those focused on in the flashes. In some cases the traumas are still there – James Ford’s parents were still killed; Locke is still in a wheelchair – but they seem much more capable of dealing with it then they ever were in the real world. They’re not necessarily at peace but they don’t need a plane crash to make them whole.

So the real issue with this episode isn’t that it seems everything that we’ve been dealing with seems to come down what amounts to a glowing hot tub. It’s because it really seems that every single thing that every character has been dealing with the entire series – and hundreds, if not thousands more over the millennia – is essentially due to the fact a crazy woman killed a pregnant lady after they gave birth, adopted the children as her own, lied to them all their childhoods and essentially put impossible burdens on both of them because she loved one brother more than the other. And because of her crazy irrational behavior,  these two men have been fighting for thousands of years, have killed each other – and their battle still isn’t over. It’s hard not to feel cheated by that revelation and honestly that’s more of a let down then whatever we think about ‘the Heart of the island’.

In the context of the final season a large part of the reason Across the Sea suffers is in comparison to the other epic flashback episode Ab Aeterno. When it comes to revealing secrets of the island it does as good a job and in many ways surpasses it. We finally learn the truth about ‘Adam and Eve’ and how they ended up in the caves. We learn the origin of the Frozen Donkey Wheel, how they tie into the wells that we saw mentioned last season and who helped dig them in the first place. We get the backstory of the ancient dagger that The Man In Black gave to Richard to try and kill Jacob and that in turn Dogen gave to Sayid. (In typical Lost fashion we’ve learned its backstory in reverse chronology. ) We see how the smoke monster was created, even if we don’t truly understand how it links to the Man in Black.

And for all the often ridiculous nature of it how we do get the backstory of Jacob and The Man in Black and there is a truly Biblical nature to it. Before they were mortal enemies they were brothers who truly loved each other very much. Jacob was a quiet child desperate for his mother’s love, and a silent follower. The Man in Black was, in a sense, more like all the other characters we’ve met on the show: he had questions about everything and the woman he thought was his  mother, despite clearly favoring him, refused to give him any answers. When he learned the truth about his parentage he considered it a betrayal and chose to venture out on his own to find it. He clearly wanted Jacob to come with him and he makes multiple offers as a child and a adult. But Jacob seems determined to want the love of this woman who isn’t his mother and despite what she tells him, clearly loved the Man in Black even after he chose to abandon her.

The argument put forth at the conclusion of Stafford’s books is that we never had a clear idea who the good people and the bad people were on the island. She compares the Man in Black and Jacob to the Devil and an Old Testament God, respectively, and her comparison makes sense: there’s a valid argument that so much of what we have seen on the island has been a reenactment of the Book of Job. The Man in Black takes the devil’s role, believing that if you test man enough it is in their nature to sin. Jacob has been essentially testing everybody over the millennia, always stepping aside when he brings them there, never feeling fit to explain himself. His last words before Ben stabs him are Lost’s version of “Where were you when I made the world?” and now that we know the truth about how he got here, it makes him look even more deserving of Ben’s knife than before.

But I disagree as to whether there is a source of evil on the island because in this episode we do. However lacking Alison Janney’s performance can be at times (and sadly, this ranks as one of the weakest performances in more than a quarter of a century on television) it’s very clear just how disturbed ‘Mother’ is. We didn’t think UnLocke could be trusted when he told us back in Recon “his mother was crazy” but it turns out he was telling the truth. His mother is disturbed, detached from reality in a way that goes beyond clearly having deity like powers and a psychotic approach towards humanity.

If you consider ‘Mother’ as the baseline for everything we’ve seen, there’s a sick sense to it: she believes the island is the most important thing in the world; she goes out of her way to emphasize in her ‘children’ youth that’s there nothing else in it. She has a hatred of humanity that she passes down to her son which is never explained but may just be the kind of detachment that comes from being immortal. We’ve spent all this time wondering why no one can leave the island and it’s a sick joke that the reason seems to be because she doesn’t want the son she favors to leave the island. Jacob, as we’ve seen, has been able to travel the globe with no restrictions but he seems to have passed that down as a mandate going forward. And while she may say  she loves her sons in different ways that love clearly involves taking away both her children’s free will. One son is trapped on the island forever; the other is a prisoner to spending the rest of his life protecting the island, a job he doesn’t want but is told he doesn’t have a choice to take.

And perhaps this answers one of the deepest underlying questions we’ve had for a long time: if everyone’s lives were so miserable before they got on the plane and the island offered a chance for salvation, why was everybody so desperate to leave? Across the Sea gives a subtle answer: the island has sometimes seemed to be self-aware and perhaps the sense of the two men who have been locked in mortal (and undying) combat for 2000 years because of their being trapped here has seeped down much like the light that represents the source. This island is capable of granting miracles but if those miracles come at so great a cost, how can it be magical?

The acting of both Mark Pellegrino and Titus Welliver more than make up for the often flat work of Janney in large part because they are truly human in this work. Pellegrino has seemed so benevolent and placid as Jacob in his previous appearances, save for his violent streak meeting Richard, and he has always seem all-knowing and all-wise. So to see this Jacob behave child-like both in his often weak behavior towards mother and his demands to literally have the cup taken from his lips is shocking and well done.

Welliver likewise is given more dimensions than he’s been allowed to see before. We’ve seen him angry occasionally but now we see his anger has a root – and frankly understandable cause. All he’s ever wanted to do is leave the island and have his questions answered (haven’t we all?). And he’s clearly one of the few characters we’ve met in the entire series who didn’t just accept what was happening on the island. Mother may have wanted him to guard the island and its possible he would have been a good candidate to do it (as a child looking at the light he seems fascinated by it while Jacob is clearly afraid) but its also clear he would have been horrible at it because of his nature. The island has always demanded blind loyalty and its clear the Man In Black has never been anything resembling a follower. And considering that the one thing he’s always wanted to do – leave the island – would have something he would never have been allowed to do under those circumstances, he would never have signed up even if Mother had offered it to him.

And yet despite all of these revelations, the brilliant technical aspects and the great work by the two leads Across the Sea is still lacking in comparison to Ab Aeterno. The main reason that episode was a masterpiece and this one is considered disappointing honestly may come down to heart.

When we learned how Richard came to the island, we never got the sense of boxes being checked off even though it was the most revelatory episode to date. And that’s because there was also a deep human story at the center of Ab Aeterno that honestly went against so many of the themes we’d seen on the show over six seasons. It argued that both science and faith, the twin themes of Lost since Season 1, both failed Richard when it came to his fate. It argued that his great love that led to him coming to the island and that he had spent 140 years mourning had been weighing on him to that point. It revealed his devotion to the island came at a time of his emotionally lowest point. And most importantly, it gave a link between the present and his backstory  and gave him a chance to finally lift his burden. The characters may not know why he does what he does but Richard does and he has been moving forward.

Aside from the fact that none of the characters get to witness what happens in Across the Sea – a flaw that Darlton later admitted was critical – the problem is that for all the mysteries revealed, there just isn’t the same heart as before. Part of it is because we only met Jacob and The Man in Black in person in The Incident and we’ve only seen them in a handful of episodes this season. Learning the truth about them, however revealing, doesn’t have the emotional oomph of learning the story of a character who’d been on Lost since Season 3 and who seemed to for a long time be the key to the show.

It's also important that Richard, despite being apart from the Others, was still a vital part of the island and spent a lot of time interacting with all the characters well before Nestor Carbonell became a series regular. Jacob was talked about for nearly as long but we’d never seen him until The Incident and we didn’t know about the Man in Black until we officially met Jacob. And honestly considering that UnLocke just arranged things so that three of our favorite characters died, its very hard to feel sympathy for him no matter how tragic his backstory is. (Again this is an issue with the timing of the episode).

And at its core the conflicts we see in Across the Sea are, sadly, retreads of the ones we’ve seen play out so many times with almost every other character, particularly the bad parenting issue. Is it refreshing that all of this is the fault of a bad mother rather than a horrible father? Sort of. But it doesn’t change the fact that Jacob is essentially messed up for the same reason that Jack and Locke have been all this time. The fact that both of them are siblings is interesting – all of the characters we’ve met over the series have mostly been only children -  but it doesn’t change the fact that Jacob and The Man in Black are both victims of the same dysfunctional parenting we’ve seen.

They’ve also been stolen and raised  by a different mother at birth, which covers the ground that we saw with Rousseau and Claire, but both of them went mad because their children were taken from them: Mother was crazy when she took Jacob and the Boy in Black. Not much nuance there either.

And look the boy in black can see dead people. Nice but it explains nothing, certainly not what Claudia represents or why so many people, like Hurley, can see the dead. And as a result the Man in Black goes to live among a group of ‘Others’ who he doesn’t trust or like, much like Alex did near the end of her tenure.

And why does the smoke monster exist? The Man In Black killed his mother, just when Jacob was starting to feel like she loved him. It’s clear that Mother knew what was going to happen to her when she sent Jacob away, much the same way Jacob knew what was coming when Ben stabbed him and she clearly seemed to welcome it the way Jacob very well might have. Of course Jacob found out, didn’t listen to his brother and decided to kill him – sort of.

At the end of the day I think the real reason so many people were upset at the end of Across the Sea wasn’t because it didn’t reveal many mysteries but because so much of it seemed lacking in the emotional core that made Ab Aeterno – and indeed Lost as a whole – so magnificent. Watching the final minutes, I don’t feel much sympathy for the Man In Black. Yes, his free will was taken from him but his reaction was to commit a form of matricide out of rage. Nor do I feel sympathy for Jacob, who also acted out of anger and selfishness because he spent his entire life trying to please his mother and only got something like it when she was about to die.

No the sympathy I feel comes for the one nod to the previous group of characters. At the end the writers flashback to House of the Rising Sun when Jack, Locke and Kate discover the caves, find the skeletons and Locke named them “our very own Adam and Eve.”  All of these characters think surviving a plane crash is the worst thing that happened to them. They have no idea that the skeletons they found are, however indirectly, the cause of all the pain and suffering they’ve lived through  They don’t know that the man who is laying his family to rest is about to create his own game and has already made all of them follow his rules without knowing they were playing in the first place. They don’t know that they’re going to endure even more death, suffering and loss in the 100 days and far worse over the next three years. They don’t know that the island they’re going to spend so much time trying to leave has trapped them there before they were even born.

And they don’t know that all of this is because of someone else’s trauma.

 

My Predictions For the 2024 Astra TV Awards Conclusion: Limited Series et Al.

 Before we begin a reminder. Unlike the last two years where the Astras divided these awards, like Comedy and Drama, into Broadcast/Cable and Streaming, for reasons unknown they have returned to the format they did in their first year and are giving all Limited Series and TV movies awards in the same categories. However as an acknowledgement of that reality, there are ten nominees in every category.

I’m unsure of the reason – it may have something to do with the work stoppage last year – but I’ll try to modify my predictions accordingly by going into greater detail as to why I’m predicting the winners and what I think will win.

 

BEST LIMITED SERIES

I will admit I would like to see the Astras recognize one of the series the Emmys ignored for Best Limited Series: Fellow Travelers or Apples Never Fall. Both series were exceptional and more than deserved to be nominated. However I believe it will go to one of the five series that were nominated for Best Limited Series.

As I’ve mentioned before I can’t in good conscience vote for True Detective: Night Country considering I refused to acknowledge it for Best Limited Series as an Emmy nominee. I would like to see Fargo win for its triumphant fifth season return but since it wasn’t able to win for Season 4 (credit to the Astras for being the only organization to nominate it in this category) I can’t see it winning. Lessons in Chemistry looms as a dark horse but I think it will come down to one of two Netflix series: Baby Reindeer and Ripley.

I acknowledge that both were works of art, and both series are almost certainly going to be on my ten best of 2024. Both were extremely different variations on the format: Baby Reindeer was a variation of dark comedy mixed with stark drama; Ripley in my opinion reinvented what a crime drama could be capable of. Both featured extraordinary performances by their leading men. Both dealt with sexuality in their own way. Baby Reindeer has a slight edge because it was acknowledged by the TCA earlier this year – but since it won nothing from the Dorians its momentum might be starting to flag. I think it still has enough of an edge to win, but don’t rule out either Ripley or Fellow Travelers pulling out an upset.

 

Should Win: Ripley/Fellow Travelers.

Will Win: Baby Reindeer.

 

I will skip TV movie because I saw none of the nominees.

 

BEST ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

I would be thrilled if Ewan McGregor was able to take home the prize for his exceptional work in A Gentleman in Moscow. However I think it more likely it will go to one of the four actors in this category with a corresponding Emmy nomination. (For reasons I can’t comprehend the Astras ignored Capote Vs. The Swans in favor of shows such as Fall of the House of Usher. Nobody’s perfect.)

Much as I’d like to see Jon Hamm prevail in this category for his superb work on Fargo I think this will come down to one of his three colleagues. Richard Gadd for Baby Reindeer, Matt Bomer for Fellow Travelers and Andrew Scott for Ripley. If you read my article on the Dorians you might know that all three of these men competed in Best Lead in a Drama – and Bomer prevailed. Does that give him an edge? I’m unsure but I will admit he is one of my preferences.

My favorites in this category come down to either Bomer or Scott. It is a tough call but in this case I think Andrew Scott will prevail. He has been gaining momentum in the Emmy odds in Gold Derby (we’ll be covering that soon readers), he’s already given a brilliant movie performance last year in All of Us Strangers that many critics thought deserved an Oscar nomination and I think we’re all still irked that he didn’t even get an Emmy nomination for Fleabag. When you add that his work in Ripley was among the most restrained performances of his long career, I think he’s earned it.

Should Win: Bomer/McGregor.

Will Win: Scott.

 

BEST ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES

Again I’d like to see Annette Bening win for her incredible work in Apples Never Fall, a performance the Emmys ignored. But again, it will likely go to one of the Emmy nominees in this category – and this time there are only three with corresponding nominations: Jodie Foster for True Detective, Brie Larson for Lessons in Chemistry and Juno Temple for Fargo.

There are strong cases to be made for all three. Temple was the only performer in Ted Lasso not to walk away with an Emmy (it seems) and she has been one of the great talents in television for the last few years: her work as the diminutive housewife equivalent of a tiger shows her versatility. Foster was brilliant in her first major role in television in nearly half a century and even if you didn’t like True Detective I acknowledge it was a master class. Larson has received multiple nominations leading up to the Emmys and were it not for the presence of Ali Wong for Beef she would likely have won at least once.

I will acknowledge a preference for Larson because her work in Lessons reminded us of what a great actress we lost when she took on the mantle of the MCU. But I’ll give Foster a slight edge and acknowledge she’s worthy.

Should Win: Bening/Larson.

Will Win: Foster.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

Here we have some contrasts as there are nominees for two anthologies that weren’t given nominations from the Emmys though they should have. Joe Keery more than deserved recognition for Fargo and both Christopher Eccleston and Finn Bennett were superb in Night Country. And with the absence of Treat Williams (for John Cena? Really?) we have a narrow construct.

Tom Goodman-Hill’s performance in Baby Reindeer was good but not as commanding as the major leads. Lewis Pullman was superb in Lessons but he ended up gone too soon. In my opinion this comes down to two actors: Jonathan Bailey for Fellow Travelers and Robert Downey Jr for The Sympathizer.

Downey’s work was by far the most demanding and worthy but considering that there has not been a lot of corresponding love for it (this is the sole nomination it received) I think Bailey wins this in a walk. And honestly he deserves too. His performance as the innocent who is first led into the web of Hawk’s predatory relation and yet become the person he always wanted to be was a powerful piece of acting. He has already won a prize from the Critics Choice Awards and the Dorians. I think he is headed for an Emmy and I hope this is the shape of things to come.

SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Bailey.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE

Much as I’d like to see either Alison Brie or Mary Elizabeth Winstead win, this will probably go to one of the Emmy nominees. And this time it will take some work because six of the seven nominated performers are here.

Lily Gladstone has little chance given the lack of recognition for Under the Bridge. Dakota Fanning’s work in Ripley may have been too subtle for some to recognize. Kali Reis is a strong contender for her work in True Detective and Aja Naomi King was superb in Lessons in Chemistry – she’s already won some awards. And there is much to recommend both of the performers in Baby Reindeer: Jessica Gunning for her incredible work as the broken Martha and Nava Mau as the transgender woman who becomes involved with Gadd’s character but can’t deal with his problems.

My personal preference would be for King, I thought her work in Lessons was a revelation compared to what I’d seen here do in How To Get Away With Murder. But I’m giving the barest of edges to Gunning, whose currently the frontrunner for the Emmys.

SHOULD WIN: Basically Any of Them.

Will Win: Gunning.

 

BEST DIRECTING IN A LIMITED SERIES

This should go to either Steven Zallian for Ripley or Issa Lopes for True Detective. My personal preference would be Zaillian because I’ve never been so amazed by the magnificence of direction in a very long time. As for writing it will probably go to Issa Lopez for True Detective or Richard Gadd for Baby Reindeer, though I would prefer Fellow Travelers take the prize there.

 

Now I’ll deal with some of the other nominations that I want to weigh in. That means ignoring animation and anime, though in the latter I wouldn’t mind if Scott Pilgrim Takes Off won.

For Best Documentary my preference would be either Albert Brooks: Defending My Life or In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. For Game Show, well I think we all know by now. For standup or comedy, I would like to see either Jenny Slate or Tig Notaro win instead of one of the favorites either Dave Chappelle or Ricky Gervais. For Talk Series,  I’d like to see Stephen Colbert win but it might very well go to John Mulaney considering that won at the TCA but wasn’t recognized with a corresponding Emmy nod. For Variety Series or Special,  I’d like to see either Dick Van Dyke or the SAG awards win, if only because it would add variety to the possibility of Saturday Night Live or Last Week Tonight – they’re going to win at the Emmys anyway, let them have this. And when it comes to the Best Saturday Night Live Host – it’s a tough call among the six nominated but I’d like to see Maya Rudolph win over Ryan Gosling.

The Astras will be airing on their YouTube channel Sunday night. I’ll give you the results Monday before I move on to the next step, trying to predict t

My Attempts To Predict The 2024 Astras, Part 2: Comedy Is Easy Compared to Picking The Winners for Comedy

 

 

One of the things I’ve learned from the first three years of the Astras is that they can chart their own path in comedy, particularly in broadcast and cable. In their first year the biggest winner in Comedy was Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist but they gave Best Network Comedy to Superstore. In their second year they gave two of the male acting awards in comedy to Barry but gave Best Cable Comedy to What We Do In The Shadows. And last year with such powers as Barry and Shadows in cable they gave the grand prize to Party Down. So I acknowledge there’s more room for surprises here.

I’ll start with Broadcast and Cable.

 

BEST NETWORK COMEDY

Well, much as I’d like to see this go to either Not Dead Yet or Young Sheldon I think the winner is obvious to all of us. Abbott Elementary has won in this category the past two years and there’s nothing I can see will stop it for a third.

Should Win/Will Win: Abbott Elementary.

 

BEST CABLE COMEDY

Here’s where it gets interesting. Resident Alien, which won in this category the first year of the Astras’ existence is nominated again. What We Do In The Shadows, which was the second year winner is up as well. Both series are represented well in acting and writing.

The overwhelming favorite would seem to be Curb Your Enthusiasm the only nominee in this category up for an Emmy as well. Still part of me does think there’s at least a chance it will go to one or the other. I’m going to go with Shadows more because I like it more than Curb.

Should Win: What We Do In The Shadows.

Will Win: Curb Your Enthusiasm (probably)

 

BEST ACTOR IN A BROADCAST NETWORK OR CABLE COMEDY

This category is fairly open. Larry David and Matt Berry, who were both nominated for Emmys, are the major contenders. However Utkarsh Ambudkar, the surprising winner last year for Ghosts is up again. And I have two sentimental favorites in this category Iain Armitage for Young Sheldon and Dule Hill for The Wonder Years.

Personally I’d like to Hill prevail, not just for his superb work in the cancelled Wonder Years but because he’s acted for more than two decades in so many great shows and never won a thing. But I’m going to give a slight edge to David who (much as he’d hate to acknowledge it) is both the leading contender and sentimental favorite in this category.

Should Win: Hill.

Will Win: David.

 

BEST ACTRESS IN A BROADCAST OR CABLE COMEDY

Oh this hurts. I really would like to see Gina Rodriguez or Marcia Gay Harden win in this category for their cancelled too soon series Not Dead Yet and So Help Me Todd, respectively. My personal preference would be Harden because she’s been part of TV longer.

But I suspect – and really don’t mind – that Quinta Brunson will likely net her third consecutive prize is this category for Abbott Elementary. She might be embarrassed by now at the amount of awards she’s won for Abbott but by now, it’s hard to say she hasn’t earned any of them.

Should Win: Harden.

Will Win: Brunson.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A NETWORK OR CABLE COMEDY

I suspect Tyler James Williams will repeat in this category for his incredible work on Abbott Elementary. I won’t rule out the possibility I could be proven wrong. Chris Perfetti honestly deserves to win more than Williams whose gotten an overwhelming amount of recognition (though not an Emmy) and an argument could be made for Bowen Yang. Still I’ll go with Williams.

Should Win: Williams/Perfetti.

Will Win: Williams.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A NETWORK COMEDY

We might see a surprise here. Last year Sheryl Lee Ralph, the heavy favorite was upset by Danielle Pinnock for Ghosts. And there’s an argument that all three of the women from Abbott more than deserve to win. I’m also of the opinion Annie Potts deserves a trophy for her time on Young Sheldon.

My personal preference this time out is Lisa Ann Walter as she is the only cast member who has yet to get a nomination from the Emmys. I think it’ll probably go to one of her co-stars and I’m leaning towards James.

Should Win: Walter.

Will Win: James/Ralph.

 

BEST WRITING  AND DIRECTING IN A  BROADCAST OR CABLE COMEDY

I’d personally like To see So Help Me Todd win for its writing but I suspect it will go either to Brunson for Abbott Elementary or ‘Funeral’ for Young Sheldon. Similarly for direction I’d like to see Wonder Years win but I suspect it will go either to Abbott or the series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

 

Now I head on to streaming which I suspect will have fewer surprises.

 

BEST STREAMING COMEDY

You can’t exactly rule out the possibility of an upset here. It’s possible that Hacks, which has dominated these awards the first two years it was on the air will win the grand prize. It could also go to Reservation Dogs which more than deserves to go out on a high note. But I think that, even with the mixed attitude towards season 3, The Bear will continue its winning streak.

Should Win: Reservation Dogs.

Will Win: The Bear

 

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

Jeremy Allen White will almost certainly repeat – but in 2022, I was certain that Jason Sudeikis would win his second consecutive award in this category. And he lost to Martin Short for Only Murders in the Building. Then again, White beat Short last year in every award in the book. So let’s assume White continues his march to the Emmy.

Should Win/Will Win: White.

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

This one will be very interesting. Ayo Edebiri has already won every award in the book up to 2022. Then Season 3 of Hacks dropped and Jean Smart took momentum. On the other hand, the last time Smart was up in this category she lost to Selena Gomez for Only Murders In The Building. Look who’s back. And Rachel Brosnahan, last year’s winner in this category, isn’t in it.

This is going to be a tough pick. Five of the nominees in this category are up for Emmys and with the exception of Rudolph, all have a good chance. There’s also a strong argument for Devery Jacobs who many (myself including) thought was robbed of an Emmy nomination for Reservation Dogs. My personal preference would be Jacobs or Jean Smart. I’m going to give the edge to Smart.

Should Win: Jacobs/Smart.

Will Win: Smart.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A STREAMING COMEDY

Ebon Moss-Bachrach has been breezed to the Best Supporting Actor for the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards. However, in both those awards he had the advantage of not competing against two of his co-stars from The Bear. Considering Oliver Platt or Matty Matheson were both ignored by the Emmys, the Astras might be willing to share the love.

My personal preference is Paul W. Downs, whose work as Jimmy on Hacks is one of the most delightful performances on a show of superb performers. I’d also like to see Ricky Martin win for his fine work in Palm Royale. I still think Moss-Bachrach will have enough momentum to prevail in this category – but I’m not sure.

Should Win: Downs.

Will Win: Moss-Bachrach – but they’re all good choices.

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

This category has only three corresponding Emmy nominees and having seen all but one of the nominated performers I can make a compelling argument for all of them. Allison Janney and Laura Dern were both wonderful in Palm Royale and since both were ignored by the Emmys they more than deserve to. Abby Elliott was funny and heartbreaking in The Bear and in my personal opinion deserved an Emmy nomination more than Lisa Colon-Zayas. And Meg Stalter should have been nominated. No question.

But ultimately this one’s a no-brainer. Hannah Einbinder tied with Hannah Waddingham in this category in its first year of existence. In its second she won uncontested.  Having seen Season 3, she absolutely deserves to make it three in a row. I hope it will be the springboard to an Emmy this fall.

Should Win: Any Of Them Really.

Will Win: Einbinder.

 

BEST DIRECTING AND WRITING

The Bear wins this hands down for the Fishes episode in writing and very likely directing. I’ll be honest. I’d prefer that Reservation Dogs take at least one award for its series finale and Palm Royale win for Directing. Who knows? Maybe it’ll even happen.

 

BEST GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY

This is a tough one as I’m not convinced Jon Bernthal will lock it up immediately. Personally I’d prefer if Bob Odenkirk took the prize and I’d actually like to see Christopher McDonald win for his glowing work on Hacks.  I’ll give Bernthal a slight edge though.

Should Win: McDonald.

Will Win: Bernthal.

 

BEST GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Having seen the work of Christina Hendricks and Kaitlin Olson in Hacks I’m on their side immediately. Tatyana Ali was superb in Abbott Elementary. Da’Vine Hoy Randolph could use her Oscar as a boost for glory. But we all know who this will go to in the end: Jamie Lee Curtis as the mother of all mothers in The Bear.

Should Win: Hendricks.

Will Win: Curtis.

 

Tomorrow I cover all things Limited Series as well as all extraneous awards.

 

Myths And Realities of Peak TV: Comparing OZ to the Sopranos On Morality

 

 

I’ve written countless articles over the past several years slamming both David Chase, the showrunner of The Sopranos and the series itself in regard to its role in the Golden Age of TV. One of the arguments I keep coming back to is how OZ, which came before The Sopranos was groundbreaking and revolutionary in ways that the latter show just wasn’t. I’ve made that argument in both terms of race, where I doubt I’ll be refuted as well as how it dealt with more controversial issues including homosexual relationship and consent. But one of the ways I haven’t focused on is a more telling one: the critical difference between OZ and The Sopranos when it came to presentation of female characters.

And the clearest way you can tell the difference is through Edie Falco who starred on both shows. In the fall of 1998 she was cast in The Sopranos while she was still playing Diane Wittelsey on OZ. After the first season of The Sopranos was shot Falco appeared on the third season of Oz no doubt wanting job security in case The Sopranos didn’t work out. (This was nothing new; Lauren Velez who was cast as Gloria Nathan on Oz was starring on New York Undercover at the time and divided her time between the two series until Undercover was cancelled at the end of the 1997-1998 fall season.) When The Sopranos became a smash hit and Falco won her first Emmy showrunner Tom Fontana graciously was willing to release Falco from what was a supporting role to a lead role and wrote Wittelsey out of the series.

(While he did so clumsily – her character went on vacation to London and never came back – it is a measure of the respect Fontana had for Falco that he didn’t decide to kill her character off, which was basically the only way almost every major left OZ.)

I should mention the first time I became aware of Falco’s skill as an actress was during the second season of OZ. I’d been aware of her talent for a while – she had recurring roles on Law & Order and Homicide and she’d demonstrating occasional brilliance in Season 1. But the first moment I was aware of her brilliance as a performer came in the second season premiere.

On OZ, Wittlesey’s character was a corrections officer who had a difficult backstory. She had a young daughter from a former marriage whose husband had been both a biker and had abused her. She’d given birth in her teens, had drunk and used drugs and had survived an ugly divorce. Her mother had cancer and was in and out of chemo (she died during the third season). She’d been having an affair with Tim McManus, the head of Em City when a friend of her ex Scott Ross ended up in the unit on a life sentence. In order to supplement her income when her overtime was cut, she’d entered an arrangement to sell bootleg cigarettes with Ross. McManus found out about it and ordered her to stop but Ross told her that was not going to happen and said she had more to lose from exposure than him. Immediately afterwards the riot took place in Em City and Wittelsey was one of the civilians taken hostage.

In the aftermath of the riot Alvah Case (Charles S. Dutton) leader of the commission charged with the investigation determined that Ross, who was one eight people found dead when the governor gave the order for the National Guard to storm the prison, had actually been murdered. Eventually he suspected Wittelsey and at the end of the episode confronted her. Rather than answer his question directly she responds: “Have you ever been a riot?”

“The idea of being a hostage, the mob mentality. You get carried away; you stop being human. You become part of something else. I have made every mistake there is. I have fallen in love with the wrong me, I had a baby out of wedlock, I drank too much, I snorted too much. I have done things to make money – including this job – which makes me dread getting out of bed. But each time, I made the choice. I chose to drink. I chose to stop. When my husband got abusive, I chose to walk. I refuse to be anybody’s victim. These mistakes I’ve made, they are a part of me. They are like my skin…and I do not regret what I’ve done. Do you hear me? No regrets, no remorse. I just keep going.”

It was one of the most powerful monologues I’d heard to that point in my years of viewing TV. Falco deserved an Emmy just for that show. (OZ was never nominated for any major Emmys.) Her bravado hides terror and it is only because of persuasion by her boss to Case that she is not charged. Furthermore, she spends much of the season trying to cover her lie which Schillinger (J.K. Simmons) knows is one because he saw her kill him. She will later engage it what may be entrapment in order to get Schillinger in pawn and will convince McManus to perjure himself in court to protect her. McManus responds by telling her that while he were cover for her, he demands she transfer out of Em City permanently. Their promising romance sputters out for good.

Diane Wittelsey throughout her three seasons remains sympathetic and true to the monologue she delivers above. Now compare her to Carmela Soprano. In Season 3 Carmela begins to see a therapist to deal with her own concerns about her husband and his behavior. This therapist is nothing like Dr. Melfi (I’ll get back to her). On her second visit, he tells her in no uncertain terms how dangerous it is for both her and her family if she remains married to him. He tells her very clearly that the only course of action she has is to leave him.

Tony Soprano is not physically abusive to Carmela in the way he is to his ‘other’ family but he regularly cheats on her with multiple women and has been very rough emotionally to A.J. (and it will only get worse). She has been at best willfully blind to how her husband makes a living, which must have been very difficult after he was nearly killed at the end of Season 1. She’s beginning to notice the ‘friends’ who keep disappearing. And she has far more resources available to her than Diane ever did.

She never sees the therapist again. At the end of Season 4 when her husband’s jilted mistress tells her of the affair she’s been having with Tony, she throws him out of the house, more likely because this is a bridge even she can’t pretend to ignore. As we all know during Season 5 her husband bullies her into refusing to get a proper divorce and does everything to isolate her. At the end of Season 5 she takes him back after he gives some perfunctory talk about having changed which not even she can believe. In that same episode Adriana is murdered (I’ll get back to this too) and despite seeing her ghost in Paris, she never even asks about what happened to her nephew’s fiancée.

I’m not going to pretend that Falco didn’t deserve all the Emmys and other awards she got for playing Carmela Soprano – it was a powerful performance on many levels and Falco could show power in numerous scenes. What I am saying is that Carmela is the kind of woman that Diane would have no patience for if they met on the street. Jackie Peyton, the next character she played after The Sopranos might have more – she was unfaithful to her husband and an addict – but like Diane and unlike Carmela, she had a demanding job and was working barely above the poverty-line. If Carmela had come to All Saints Jackie would have tried to force her to leave her husband -  hut wouldn’t be shocked when she didn’t.

And to be very clear Carmela Soprano was the most active female cast member of The Sopranos. All of the other major female characters of The Sopranos clan seemed more content to be adjacent to their significant others. Livia Soprano was happy to make people miserable from a distance. Janice’s biggest ambition was to be a mob wive rather than a powerful woman. And while I acknowledge every bit of the sadness of Adriana’s storyline, you can’t escape the fact that this essentially the same arc and fate we see Pussy Bompansaro (Vincent Pastore) undergo during Season 2. I will grant Adriana was more innocent than the other rats on the series but it all led to the same place. (And I’m not sure what it says about David Chase that the only way he could realize Drea Da Matteo’s potential as an actress was to reuse a storyline he’d given to a white middle aged man a couple seasons previous.)

But what about Dr. Melfi, you ask? Viewers of OZ  will well remember that this show to had a female psychologist: Sister Pete, exquisitely played by Rita Moreno. Sister Pete could be equal parts compassionate and combative with both staff and indeed some of the deeply disturbed prisoners she treated. She was more sympathetic to the criminals she treated than Jennifer Melfi would become to Tony Soprano but she had a clear sense of when she was being manipulated: her sessions with Chris Keller (Christopher Meloni) in Season 3 and throughout the series showed that she would have no time for her patients facilitating.

So if she had ever been Tony’s therapist (and boy, I would have paid double my subscription rates for that crossover!) I think she would have known very clearly the kind of man Tony was, probably by the end of their first session. And even though she was compassionate to monster far worse than him in OZ she would not have brooked his behavior to a certain limit. Put simply, had Tony reacted the way he had to Sister Pete if she’s raised the issues about Livia at the end of Season1 (he seemed about to punch Melfi) she would have gotten to her feet, told him to leave and would have terminated services with him immediately – if she didn’t decide to call the cops.

And if she had been Melfi’s psychiatrist instead of Peter Bogdanovich, she wouldn’t have messed around with Melfi’s back and forth after she chose to go back to him in Season 2. I suspect her reaction would have been as blunt to Melfi as Carmela’s therapist had been to her in Season 3: this man is dangerous; he’s using you and you’re just giving him what he wants. (She also speaks from experience.)

This is for the record the attitude keeping with two other therapists who played complicated psychiatrists on both versions of HBO’s In Treatment. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) had to deal with similar personalities to Tony and his protégé Brooke Taylor (Uzo Aduba in 2021) actually did deal with a patient like him: a white collar criminal with narcissistic tendencies who she realized quickly was manipulated her.

I’ve talked mostly about how OZ was superior when it came to female characters then The Sopranos was and there were better variations even in smaller roles; Claire Howell, a sexual predatory prison guard who was more brutal than some of the male; Suzanne Fitzgerald (Betty Buckley) Ryan O’Reilly’s birth mother who abandoned him with an abusive father and came back to take responsibility for her sins, criminal and family wise and Stella Adler (Patti LuPone) the prison librarian who tried to find ways to reach the younger prisoners and deal with her own illness.  Many of these characters were in the love interest/family type but none of them were defined by it, unlike the women on The Sopranos who were almost entirely adjacent to the men.

But perhaps the biggest difference may be a thematic one and it is best summed up in a line said by Kareem Said in the first season finale. I’ve quoted it before in a difference article but it’s worth repeating:

While the tension is unfolding during the riot McManus tries to persuade Said (Eamonn Walker) to try and resolve things peacefully. Said says it’s not to him. McManus replies: “Yes it is. And Said shouts out:

“The best prison wouldn’t be good enough. I’m going to try to explain this to you one last time. I’m not saying the men in this prison are innocent. I’m saying they are here not because of the crimes they committed but  the color of their skin! Their lack of education! The fact that they are poor!”

None of these qualifiers remotely applies to Tony Soprano or any of the members of his crew. You might argue the second is a factor but we all know the first and third mean are far greater an influence. I’ve already pointed out how utterly white The Sopranos is and how racially diverse OZ is.

David Chase’s argument for the thesis of The Sopranos was that given the choices people will always made decisions that will effectively disturb their way of life the least. It is taken to an extreme in the mob but he argues it applies to everybody everywhere. But because he centers The Sopranos exclusively around white people, both in crime and in the suburbs, then a subtle implication is that only white people have this same kind of freedom. The prisoners in OZ certainly don’t, and the slingers in The Wire definitely don’t. And considering how unenlightened both Tony Sopranos and almost everybody in his circle were on almost everything that didn’t regard the mob, it’s harder to argue that’s it out of a certain intellectual choices either.

The larger implication of The Sopranos is just as toxic. Carmela Soprano would be the first of a long line of female characters in the next decade who would be burned in effigy by the Internet because they committed the cardinal sin of being an obstacle to their husbands being allowed to at best cheat on them and engage in toxic behavior at the workplace and at worse beat and kill other people. And Edie Falco got off light in comparison to Betty Draper on Mad Men, Skyler White on Breaking Bad and – though she wasn’t his wife – Debra Morgan on Dexter. Apparently for the crime of being on the side of morality, they were judged whiners and far worse. So in a way at least Carmela and so many of the women around her got off lucky: at least they were allowed to make bad choices as long as they didn’t get in the way of the men’s monstrous ones or you know point them out.

(This was a sin, I should mention, that was pretty much exclusive only to The Sopranos among HBO dramas. In a later article I’ll go into detail about how the three successive series after The Sopranos were far more willing to give female characters lives of their own and expand beyond the tropes they were given.)

That’s the biggest problem I have with The Sopranos even twenty-five years later. I don’t deny the brilliance of its acting, writing and directing. I don’t deny it was a pioneer in many ways (though perhaps not as much as its defenders insist when they ignore OZ) I don’t deny that it was revolutionary and that many of the greatest shows on TV couldn’t have existed without it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fundamentally flawed in a way I just can’t see in The Wire or Deadwood or in later shows like Mad Men or Breaking Bad. The problem is that, unlike all those other series, The Sopranos is emotionally hollow at the center. It has no deeper meaning; it walks away from even the idea there is one. And it has a darker view of human nature that is based solely on both its racial and sexual perspective that just don’t correlate with what we see in any of the other major series that came out of HBO.

The message of The Sopranos is simple. White people, mostly male, mostly high middle-class and not well educated, are violent, abusive, will make choices based more out of self-interest rather than altruistic ones and while people around them might pay for their decisions as a result, many of them can at the end of the day just have a nice dinner with their family. We knew this before The Sopranos debuted, we sure as hell know it now. In that sense, it doesn’t matter what happens after the screen cuts to black in the series finale even if he does get shot.

Here's the eulogy for Tony Soprano and the show he represented if he was killed. Tony Soprano was a prick then, and he’s a prick now. The only difference is now he’s a dead prick. He was responsible for the deaths of a lot of other pricks and he is survived by a family of pricks, male and female. He is currently residing in Hell along with many of people who died for him, including his own nephew who knew this was where he was going because of it but still went on serving him, sacrificing his fiancée. He only had a negative effect on the lives of those around him, abusing others, emotionally and physically. He hurt many people and killed many more, usually for no good reason. His legacy was a series of other TV characters who did the same behavior and worse to other innocents and were cheered on by millions. Those people who spent so much time doing so should do what he never did and take a good look in the mirror. He should not be missed but people do anyway. Go figure.