Award season has officially begun with the 2019 Emmy awards and I’m here to tell you about all the big moments everyone is talking about.
The 2019 Emmy awards were last night and there is so much to talk discuss about what went down. Let’s start right at the beginning of it all. The Emmys took points from the Oscars and went without a host this year. There was a bit at the start with a cartoon Homer Simpson and Anthony Anderson did some comedy and Bryan Cranston brought the serious energy and talked about this years biggest television hits followed by TV’s biggest moments this year, during which everyone watching who has not seen the finale season of Game of Thrones collectively said “excuse me what?”
I found the 2019 Emmy awards to be funnier than in the recent past. Tom Lennon acting as the commentator was easily my favorite part of the night. Every one of his jokes hit the mark for me and I loved his comments while the winners were on their way to the stage to accept their awards. His joke about Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman had me floored. I also loved the one about a limited series just being a show that got canceled. The presenters were also funnier. I wasn’t dreading the “witty” banter that usually comes before each award.
Comedy
Let us now get to the winners, who I was very surprised by for the most part. The supporting actors for Mrs. Maisel had a big night with both Tony Shalhoub and Alex Borstein taking home an Emmy. The show however did not have much luck and neither did its lead actress Rachel Brosnahan. In a surprise twist, Phoebe Waller Bridge won for best actress in a leading role for comedy, beating out both Brosnahan and Julia Louis Dreyfus. This really bummed me out, only because it was Dreyfus’ last chance to win an Emmy for her work on Veep, and had she won, she would have broken the record for winning the most acting Emmys with nine awards. She has won for portraying Selena every year, and I think it sucks she couldn’t win on her last year.
Drama
The drama category this year was very dramatic. Peter Dinklage won over his Game of Thrones co-stars Alfie Allen and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in the supporting category. I low key wanted Allen to win just so he could rub HBO’s nose in it, but that’s just me. None of the women nominated from the show won, with them crossing each other out and Julia Garner taking home the award for Ozark. In a very surprising twist, Jodie Comer took home to award for best actress in a leading role, drama for Killing Eve. She beat out a bunch of heavy hitters including her own co-star Sandra Oh who made history for her win in this category last year. Billy Porter also took home a statue for his work on Pose, becoming the first openly gay black man to win an Emmy in this category.
Speeches
For the most part, the speeches were just a list of people to thank and the winners acting, or being genuinely shocked. Tony Shalhoub made a funny quip about the Sherman Pallidino two person team behind Maisel, which I loved. Alex Borstein told a touching story about her grandmother in the Holocaust, encouraging women and girls everywhere to step out of line, because it saved her grandmother’s life and it can change ours. Michelle Williams gave a very poignant speech about the importance of equal pay. She touched on the fact that if a woman feels valued and heard, she will succeed.
And so the next time a woman and especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to their white male counterpart, tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her, believe her, because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment, and not in spite of it.
Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams won for her work as Gwen Verdon in the miniseries Fosse/Verdon. People are also praising Billy Porter for his speech in which he quoted James Baldwin and encouraged everyone to be their truest self.
It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as if I had a right to be here.
“I have the right,” Porter said. “You have the right. We all have the right.”
Shows
I was very surprised by some of the shows that took home the night’s top honor. Game of Thrones won in the outstanding drama series category. I would not have been surprised by this had it been season two or three of the show, but not the season eight that I just watched. I could no way classify the last season as the best. One could only assume the award was given to Game of Thrones, due to its body of work and what it did for TV, not for the horrendous ending it gave to its fans. Another shocker from the 2019 Emmy Awards was that Fleabag won for outstanding comedy. It beat out Veep and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which usually dominate that category. I have got to start watching Fleabag.
One noteworthy win that I forgot to mention was Jharrel Jerome for When They See Us. He dedicated his win to the Exonerated Five in a really special moment.
Anyways, for the full list of winners head on over to Vox, and make sure to check out my predictions post to see what I was right or wrong about.