Multiple choice! Which of the following took place during last night’s Emmy broadcast?
The answer, obviously, is all of the above—and much more. I should preface by saying that the only shows I watch are set before Sofia Vergara was born, so I spent most of the telecast pondering questions like, “Why does Lord Grantham have stubble?” and “Why is Peggy Olson a bottle blonde?”
Let’s start with the red carpet, where, we were told, it was very, very hot. “I just want you to know it is fifteen degrees cooler in Khartoum,” one celebrity reporter joked, to which Khartoum replied, “Don’t you people eat?”
Inside the Nokia, Jimmy Kimmel kicked off with a few limp jokes, the best of which was about how “Downton Abbey” “really gives you a sense of what it must have been like growing up in Mitt Romney’s house.” That was mostly it for politics, thankfully, but not nearly it for “comedy.” Eric Stonestreet and Julie Bowen both won, for “Modern Family,” and Louis C.K. won for writing. Tracy Morgan did something wacky involving nunchakus. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus provided the first honest laugh, with her and Amy Poehler’s “whoops, wrong speech” routine.
In the drama categories—and, yes, “Smash” is a drama—awards went to Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”), Claire Danes and Damian Lewis (“Homeland”), and Maggie Smith (“Downton Abbey”), who was somewhere far away sipping brandy and tutting, “What is an Emmy?”
The nominees for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special included the Oscars and the Tonys, which raised some existential questions: Isn’t it weird to give an award to an award show? Were the Emmys ineligible, or did they just not make the cut? Two of the nominees, the Oscars and the Kennedy Center Honors, gave awards to Meryl Streep, so: If Meryl Streep winning an award can win an award, can Glenn Close losing an award lose an award? (Never mind: Louis C.K. won this one, too.)
“Game Change” dominated the movie and miniseries categories. “I feel so validated, because Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down,” Julianne Moore said, in the best speech of the night. Plus, she looked stunning in her mustard-yellow dress. Let’s face it: Julianne Moore belongs at a better award show.
Nevertheless, she came back to present “Homeland” with the award for best drama. Finally, accepting for best comedy series, Steven Levitan, the co-creator of “Modern Family,” thanked Fox and ABC and concluded, “Most especially, thank you to all of our—”
And then his mic cut out. As with Emily’s tweets, the world may never know.
Photograph by Kevin Winter/Getty.
