Julia Louis-Dreyfus was tearful and shaking when she accepted her fifth Emmy in a row, this time for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for “Veep“.
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Like Maslany, Rami Malek wasn’t exactly a dark horse (Mr. Robot did win Best Drama at the Golden Globes, after all), but he was the new guy in the room with Kyle Chandler and Kevin Spacey. “I play a young man who is, like so many of us, profoundly alienated”, he added, capping the theme for the night. Reading from paper, she said, “I would also like to take this opportunity to personally apologize for the current political climate”.
Briton Maggie Smith was again the victor of the Best Supporting Actress award for her part in “Downton Abbey”.
Host Jimmy Kimmel opened the show with a string of jokes about Republican presidential contender and former “Celebrity Apprentice” host Donald Trump, and former football star O.J. Simpson, whose 1995 double murder trial and acquittal was dramatized in “The People v. O.J. Simpson”, which is expected to be a big victor.
You expect mean from Jimmy Kimmel.
“Silicon Valley”, which was the most nominated comedy series with 11 nods, did not win a single Emmy on the primetime telecast.
McKinnon, a tearful victor of a supporting actress award in comedy for her work on “Saturday Night Live”, thanked Clinton upon accepting.
The top victor in the streaming space was Netflix, which came in third with a total of nine awards, three of which were awarded during the “68th Primetime Emmys Awards” telecast on Sunday night – Ben Mendelsohn for Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for “Bloodline“, Writing in a Comedy series for “Master of None” and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special for “Patton Oswalt: Talking For Clapping”.
And there were many winning quips, such as when Courtney B. Vance left the stage after collecting his Emmy for lead actor in a limited series for “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” as the late Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran. I’m not sure how anyone is supposed to compare work in a sketch show to a sitcom or, in Transparent’s case, a show that is closer to a drama than a comedy.
Louis-Dreyfus used her victory for her HBO show to take a dig at GOP contender Donald Trump in a ceremony loaded with election-year asides. Damon asked. “No, we didn’t win, all right?” said a ticked-off Kimmel.
“Since you’re good at keeping things safe”, she said, “I have a job for you: my Twitter account. I want to honor the Eliotts because there’s a little bit of Eliiot in all of us, isn’t there?” In 2012, when Jimmy Kimmel also hosted, he cracked jokes about both Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.
In the tightest race of the night, lead actress in a drama, Tatiana Maslany won for cult sci-fi favorite “Orphan Black“, besting favorite Robin Wright (“House of Cards“) and last year’s victor Viola Davis (“How to Get Away with Murder“). “You know you can make $12 an hour driving for Uber?”
John Oliver of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” won the Emmy for top variety talk series. The host, for example, blamed Mark Burnett, the executive producer of “The Apprentice”, for elevating Donald Trump to a presidential candidate.
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But more than that, the awards were among the most diverse in the history of TV and movie award ceremonies – something the Oscars didn’t manage to muster up the courage to do this past year.
