Emmy Nominations = Our Summer Homework

I’ve been following the Emmys since I can remember and writing about them for almost as long. But I have to say this is the first year I, a Canadian who is not a Television Academy voter, have felt like there’s really some impact we can have on the results.

Am I delusional? Is this just copium*? I feel as though in previous years, I might have been shouting into the wind about how certain nominations meant you should care about the show, but those shouts would be drowned out by fully deserved love for Abbott Elementary or Hacks or The Bear or The Pitt…

However – it is a brand new day around here. Not that those shows aren’t still great, because they are (stand by for further The Bear analysis in a second), and not that there aren’t still going to be some devastating categories, like Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy, where there are five actresses from Hacks against Jamie Lee Curtis and Betty Gilpin (from Widow’s Bay); but evvvveryone knows about them, and everyone has seen them. Nobody needs to study up, which means the shows you love or the actors you care about have a chance to break through the noise.

So. While we celebrate Hacks and its record-breaking 24 nominations, including Meg Stalter and (per above) Cherry Jones and Leslie Bibb and Laurie Metcalf, and while we will devour The Pitt when it returns, while also wondering whether it wouldn’t be smarter to bump up Katherine LaNasa to Lead Actress  so the other nominees have a chance to get a look in (also, how do we think HBO is feeling about Brittany Allen’s nomination after she self-submitted?), this is not a conversation about those enormous and powerful shows and all their deserved nominations.

This is a conversation about everyone else. So without further ado, and as more of us have fallen off the FIFA bandwagon (sobs for Egypt), here’s what you need to study up on so you can be a loud and enthusiastic fan and maybe even move the needle for some outside choices if your social media happens to be filled with Emmy voters:

Widow’s Bay – 19 nominations and this may seem obvious, but show trailers are an imperfect science and I think a lot of people may have skipped over this one thinking it was a straight-up horror. Not only is it much funnier and more ridiculous than it lets on, due to incredibly skillful writing, it’s also guaranteeing us another Emmys carpet of Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell being low-key cute AF on the carpets and interviews, not to mention their projects aren’t even competing! Which leads me directly to:

The Diplomat –  6 nominations, 4 for performances, plus writing and Best Dramatic Series, and it may also initially appear as a bit of a gimme, but I get the impression it’s still flying way under the radar. While I think supporting performers Ali Ahn, David Gyasi, and especially Rory Kinnear are underappreciated and probably robbed of nominations, Rufus Sewell continues to amuse and impress, and beyond him and the consistently underestimated Keri Russell, the show found the only viable scene partner for Allison Janney’s Grace Penn: Guest Actor nominee Bradley Whitford. You’re welcome.

The Comeback – If you take only one instruction from this piece, it is to please, please watch The Comeback, not simply to make me happy (unless you are an aforementioned Emmy voter) but because, if we’re not going to award this show, which it richly deserves, we at least need to witness what it’s pulling off:

The short story is as follows. This is the show’s third, probably final (but never say never) season, over the last TWENTY years. Lisa Kudrow stars in and wrote, with Michael Patrick King, what is easily, easily the deepest, most nuanced comedy performance of the year, but that’s partly because it’s building on seasons from 10 and 20 years ago. You really should watch them all to get the full effect. Also, if you are an aforementioned Emmy voter, this is one of the ones you won’t get a chance to vote for again next year. Yeah, yeah, “same is true for Hacks”, I know. But I promise this watch is the most rewarding one you’ll do this summer.

Also rewarding, if fleeting? Constance Zimmer’s nod for Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette. Both Zimmer and lead actress Sarah Pidgeon were operating far, far above the show as a whole, but there is a very strong case to be made for mainlining this miniseries only through the eyes of her character, (Carolyn & Lauren Bessette’s mother) Ann Messina. Her monologue in the final episode is just about peerless, this year or any other.

Chase Infiniti in The Testaments – this one is one of those nominations that might be exactly right for the wrong reasons, you know? By which I mean, I can see a world where people still have (entirely correct) warm feelings about Chase Infiniti from the One Battle After Another run this winter, and so are happy about this nomination, even though the prevailing sentiment I’ve heard about The Testaments is either “ugh, I can’t with more Handmaids” or “This show is too light and bright, it’s not dark enough to be a companion to Handmaids”.  

But this is one of those situations where sometimes good is just good, for good reasons. I think the show, which is doing Y.A. coming-of-age in a dystopia extremely well, is great in its own space and tone, and Chase Infiniti is incredibly magnetic in it, making the show better and the nomination deserved. It’s also nice to see her here in a year of nominations that once again will correctly elicit calls of #EmmysSoWhite.

It’s one of the reasons I was so happy to see Yahya Abdul-Mateen II nominated for Wonder Man. This one is homework for me too because, quite honestly, there were too many shows this winter dealing with the brutal reality of life in the entertainment business in 2026 (yes I know, boo hoo, there’s people that are dying, Kim) and I had to tap out of this one for being way too real. But I’m ready to give it another chance, and if you were anti-Marvel shows or anti-Hollywood stories, I invite you to come on board.

Speaking of way too real – Connor Storrie is nominated for hosting SNL, ensuring some Heated Rivalry presence at the Emmys where, as we all know, the show itself is ineligible for nominations. If I were a gambler, and I am, I would bet on Storrie presenting an award, and an appearance from at least one, if not more, of his castmates, both to capitalize on the hype of soon-to-be Heated Rivalry season two, and because the smart, if sober, money says that the Guest Actor in a Comedy series will go to Rob Reiner, giving the show a chance to celebrate him posthumously once more.

There are some categories that are too close or too stacked to call – Lead Actress In A Limited Series is absolutely ridiculous: Claire Danes, Sally Field, Carey Mulligan, Sarah Pidgeon, and Sarah Snook – and Laurie Metcalf, Matthew Rhys, and Nick Offerman are each nominated for performances in two different projects. I cannot predict how any of those may go, but I do want to point out that on the very straightforward-and-serious Emmy site, Nick Offerman’s photo looks like this:

I have no notes. I do have homework, though, and so do you. Let me know what else you’ll be studying until September!

*Copium = This is tween-speak: ‘Coping’ + ‘Opium’, as in, you’re trying so hard to cope you’re on drugs. Forgive me, school’s out and I’m more immersed than usual in this English-adjacent language…