Thanks to the nature of television, the Emmys have a tendency to award the same people year after year—but this Sunday’s show still holds some tantalizing potential to break records and reach uncharted heights, depending on who goes home with the gold.
ForeignEditorial
From a groundbreaking writing win to a Julia Louis-Dreyfus hot streak, this year’s awards might be one for the books.
Thanks to the nature of television, the Emmys have a tendency to award the same people year after year—but this Sunday’s show still holds some tantalizing potential to break records and reach uncharted heights, depending on who goes home with the gold.
Let’s start, for example, with Lena Waithe. The Master of None star won tons of praise for teaming with series star Aziz Ansari to write the episode “Thanksgiving,” which painted a frank, heartwarming portrait of a young lesbian navigating her home life before and after coming out to her family. Both Waithe and Ansari were nominated this year for best writing for a comedy series, making Waithe the first black woman to ever receive a nod in this category. Which in itself is historic—and she’ll break even more ground if she wins, plus bonus cred for beating out stiff competition including Donald Glover of Atlanta and David Mandel of Veep.
Speaking of Veep: Julia Louis-Dreyfus is poised to break a record of her own. The actress, who stars on that show as the venomous Selina Meyer, has won the best actress in a comedy category for the last five years consecutively. If she wins again on Sunday, it would mark the first time an actress swept this category six years in a row, and secure J.L.D.’s hard-won spot as television’s most decorated actress. She certainly has strong competition, including Emmys juggernaut Allison Janney - a seven-time Emmy winner who has already won twice for her role on Mom, though she will compete in the leading-actress category for the first time this year—but generally, Louis-Dreyfus seems unstoppable.
NBC could also pull off something extraordinary this Sunday, thanks to the staggering success of its waterworks drama This Is Us. It’s looking more and more likely that the series will win the best-drama category, marking the first time in a decade that a network show has taken home this prize. (Good thing there isn’t a Game of Thrones-sized obstacle in its way this time.) If Anglophilic voters can avert their eyes from The Crown—a series that’s pure Emmys catnip, then NBC is bringing this statuette home.
And if it does, it’s likely that Sterling K. Brown will also reap the benefits. He’s nominated for best-leading actor in a drama series; if he wins, he’ll be the first black performer to achieve that feat in nearly 20 years. What’s more, his win will come just a year after getting a supporting statuette for The People v. O.J. Simpson.
Over in the reality-show realm, RuPaul’s Drag Race could be one of the only shows to pull apart the vise grip that The Amazing Race and The Voice have had on the reality-competition award since the category’s inception in 2003. Top Chef was able to snag the award in 2010, but since then it’s been a Race-Voice tango. But Drag Race, which recently picked up three Creative Arts Emmys, is finally getting through to voters, who have somehow missed out on all the drag-queen brilliance for the last eight years.
This year’s ceremony could also bode great things for its own host, Stephen Colbert. Though emceeing the night is often a thankless gig, the comedian could walk away with several trophies, as the Late Show is nominated for a whopping six awards. Colbert is already a nine-time Emmy winner, a favorite among favorites—but this year, he could become the first Emmys host to win several awards in the same night. Past hosts—like Mary Tyler Moore and Jimmy Fallon—have each managed to scoop up a trophy in between monologues, but none have won more than once at the ceremony they hosted. Colbert seems poised to break this chain, potentially rounding out a night of Emmys firsts.
Courtesy: VanityFair.com
