For every good moment at the 64th Annual Emmys last night, like Louis C.K. winning two awards, two or three bad things happened, like Louis C.K. losing to Jon Cryer in an acting category, because clearly, voters have never seen the “Louis C.K. Pain Chart.” In that sense, it was the same this year as it is ever year: a few people we like won and/or did something amusing (Aaron Paul and Amy Poehler), a lot of people we don’t like also won (again, Cryer), Ricky Gervais mentioned how he’s an atheist, and there was the continued triumph of the blockbuster known as Modern Family, more on which we’ll get to later, not to mention the mixed emotions that occurred when Homeland was named Outstanding Drama Series over Breaking Bad.
It was a best of times, blurst of times kind of night, so let’s breakdown the yays and nays. List of winners here.
BEST: Aaron Paul winning Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (even if it probably should have been Giancarlo Esposito).
BLURST: The wrong member of the Modern Family cast taking home the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (it was Eric Stonestreet; should have been Ty Burrell), which is doubly upsetting because the correct choice, Nick Offerman, wasn’t even nominated.
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BEST: Louis C.K. winning pretty much everything (except the one he should have won the most, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series — more on that later) while wearing a suit, only a few days after an episode of Louie in which he complained about having to wear a suit.
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BLURST: Jon F*ckin’ Cryer. In the same way that KSK has named their weekly “Least” award after Jeff George, I think any and all “worst” categories should be referred to as the Cryers from now on. To anyone who voted for him over Louis C.K. or Alec Baldwin or Larry David:
BEST: This.
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BLURST: WHY DOESN’T THIS EXIST?
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BEST: Dickie Bennett’s hair.
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BLURST: Mad Men going 0 for the 2012 Emmys, and 0 for 25 in acting categories overall.
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BEST: The inevitable shipping of these two.
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BLURST: We didn’t get to hear Stringer’s British accent, which is always a shame.
And in that same category, that Sherlock didn’t win anything:
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BEST: Va-va-voom.
BLURST: The prerecorded Big Bang Theory skit, which not only featured a soulless laugh track but also product placement, which to be fair, is a perfect representation of The Big Bang Theory.
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BEST: Tom Hanks taping his Emmy to his car.
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BLURST: Someone eating cake on top of a toilet wasn’t even the worst part of the pre-taped intro; it was basing it around a stale Botox joke. A bit about hanging chads would have felt just as topical.
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BEST: George R.R. Martin thronebombing Tom Bergeron.
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BLURST: This weirds me out and I am NOT OK with that.
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BEST: I was torn between Veep‘s Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Parks and Recreation‘s Amy Poehler for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, so I was happy that despite JLD winning, the former-Mrs. Arnett was still somehow involved.
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BLURST: The fact that Jon Hamm and Tina Fey aren’t doing everything together.
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BEST: Here’s a GIF and picture dump of other good things:
The f*ck was he talking about?
Their bit, and the fact that Jane Levy is a redhead Britta.
BLURST: Modern Family is a perfectly decent sitcom that you watch for 22 minutes every week, and don’t think about again until the next new 22 minutes. In no way is it “bad.” In no way is it great, either, let alone deserving of Outstanding Comedy Series over the likes of Community, Parks and Rec, Louie, Archer, etc. The reason people hate the show as much as they do is because it wins EVERYTHING (I believe the cast and crew took home 943 Emmys last night, and then Ed O’Neill won $2 from a scratch-off lottery ticket), which isn’t so much Modern‘s fault as it is the people who vote for it; they’re afraid of drifting away from the safe pick, and Modern is the definition of safe…and wealthy (i.e. the people who would buy the Audi from the commercial that aired every commercial break LOVE it). It’s the rare case of winning doing more harm than good.
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BEST/BLURST: Homeland and Damian Lewis winning Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, respectively. Homeland is a fantastic series, which got an amazing performance from Lewis in its freshman season, and congratulations to Showtime for winning their first big boy Emmy (they now have as many as National Educational Television!). But well, as great as it might be, it’s not Breaking Bad, nor is Lewis Bryan Cranston. In nearly any year, I would have been elated for a show like Homeland winning — but, again, Breaking Bad, to say nothing of Mad Men and Game of Thrones. Homeland is far superior to Modern Family, insomuch as you can compare a drama to a sitcom, but I don’t want it to the suffer the same fate as ABC’s moneymaker: that there’s a backlash because award ceremonies like the Emmys shower it with praise, and only give shows like Justified and Mad Men the scraps. At least Dexter didn’t win…?
