‘Succession’ gets late send-off at Emmys, joined by ‘The Bear’ and ‘Beef’

CNN
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After a four-month delay due to the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strike, the 75th annual Emmy Awards finally arrived for a nostalgia-filled night, with “Succession,” “The Bear” and “Beef” each dominating. Categories.

“Succession” and “The Bear” each took home six awards on Monday, while “Beef” each took home five awards. The HBO drama took home its third Emmy in four seasons in its swan song year, having been denied a win only in the final season of another HBO heavyweight, Game of Thrones.

Succession filled out its tally with victories for Kieran Culkin and Sarah Snook – each of whom moved up to the lead bracket this year after previously introducing themselves as supporting players. They gave tearful acceptance speeches (Culkin after a kiss from fellow nominee Brian Cox), and were joined by two-time winner Matthew Macfadyen, with additional nods for writing and directing.

Meanwhile, “The Bear” ranked as the most honored program of the year with 10 awards, including four previous wins at the Creative Arts Emmys, reserved primarily for technical areas, such as cinematography and sound.

One contender by this measure was another first-year series that went home empty-handed on Monday: “The Last of Us,” which took home eight creative arts Emmys, including nods for guest stars Nick Offerman and Storm Reid.

With “Succession” and “The Last of Us” as anchors, HBO easily led the battle for bragging rights among individual programming services — a feat the network has achieved all but once for more than 20 years, and then held off by Netflix’s 44 Emmy Awards. in 2021. (The two also tied in 2018.)

Overall, HBO Max collected 31 statuettes this awards cycle, followed by Netflix with 22, and FX with 16. They are followed by streaming services Apple TV+ and Disney+ in 10th and 9th places, respectively. (CNN and HBO are both part of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

However, the evening stood out in several aspects, including its diversity, with a number of Black and Asian winners, the latter thanks to the Netflix limited series “Beef,” which was honored with five awards on Monday, including stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, who wrote and directed . With its triple technical wins at previous Emmys, the show has won eight awards in total.

“This is like MLK Day and Juneteenth rolled into one!” host Anthony Anderson quipped just over midnight.

The producers also came up with a new trick of having Anderson’s mother inform the recipients that their acceptance speeches should end, instead of the usual qualifying music. However, as the show got under way, and the race raced through the categories, the necessity of speeding up the celebrations seemed to fade away.

Emmy producers sought to capitalize on the nostalgia associated with its 75th anniversary, presenting mini-reunion shows in the form of pairings of presenters and nods to the medium’s history throughout the telecast. The show got off to an emotional start, with standing ovations for Christina Applegate (who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis) and TV legend Carol Burnett, and moving acceptance speeches by Quinta Brunson and Ayo Edebiri for “Abbott Elementary” — a rare radio series. Still able to compete for awards attention – and “bear” respectively.

Bronson became the first black woman to be recognized as a major comedic actress in more than four decades, since The Jeffersons’ Isabel Sanford.

And Jeremy Allen White and Ebon Moss-Bachrach were soon to join Edberry in The Bear, the FX show that made its way through this month’s awards ceremonies, while both supporting drama nods went to repeat winners: Jennifer Coolidge won another Emmy for ” “White Lotus” competes this time as a drama series, and Macfadyen begins tonight with “Caliphate.”

Niecy Nash-Bates also brought a strong political tone to the event, accepting her award for “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” on behalf of Black women who have been “unheard of and over-policed,” and listing several high-profile examples of the latter.

Despite switching categories after seven straight wins in the late-night variety competition, “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” continued its winning ways in the category opposite “Saturday Night Live,” also taking home its eighth straight writing award. The shift has opened the door for a new late-night king, “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” in Noah’s final season as host of the Comedy Central series, nearly 13 months after his farewell show.

Another repeat winner, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” won its fifth Emmy for the reality competition.

In a history-making moment, Elton John also joined the elite ranks of EGOTs — those who have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards — for his farewell Disney+ concert.

Because of the postponement, the Emmys somewhat awkwardly followed the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards in quick succession. Airing on Fox this year, the awards also go up against the NFL playoffs — the most popular programming on linear television — as opposed to a regular-season football game, which could further drag down ratings.

The Emmy Awards were last postponed in 2001, after the September 11 attacks. The Television Academy was still announcing nominees in July and held voting ahead of the originally scheduled broadcast date in September.

Many of the introductions made sure to acknowledge the importance of writing, and the “Last Week Tonight” team thanked others in Hollywood for rallying around the Writers Guild of America during the strike.

The Academy presented its Governor’s Award to GLAAD, the advocacy group on behalf of LGBTQ portrayals in the media, with its president Sarah Kate Ellis citing the influence of television, calling such storytelling an “antidote” to the bigotry and vileness of that community.

In his two acceptance speeches, “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong also name-checked the News Corp mogul. Rupert Murdoch as a recurring inspiration for the show — on Fox, a network owned by the company — and joked that the series addressed America’s partisan divide. .

“This is a show about family, but it’s also a show about when partisan politics gets intertwined, and when partisan news coverage gets intertwined with divisive right-wing politics, and after four seasons of cynicism, as I understand it, that’s a problem we’ve fixed now,” he said. “So we can now leave the stage.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong day for the Emmy Awards. They were granted on Monday.