CBS/Trae Patton(LOS ANGELES) — At Sunday night’s Primetime Emmy Awards, history was made, and the current political climate was not only mentioned numerous times, but also led directly to a bunch of wins for one particular show.
That show was Saturday Night Live, which took home four trophies, including one for Alec Baldwin, whose portrayal of President Donald Trump has been a highlight of the show’s most recent season. Also taking home an Emmy was cast member Kate McKinnon, who portrayed Hillary Clinton during the past season.
Accepting her trophy, McKinnon thanked Clinton for her “grace and grit,” while Baldwin told his fellow entertainment professionals, “What we do is important…don’t stop doing what you’re doing. The audience is counting on you.” At the podium, he also joked, “I suppose I should say, ‘At long last, Mr. President, here is your Emmy.”
That came in response to host Stephen Colbert, who’d spent a chunk of the evening’s monologue discussing President Trump’s disappointment at never winning an Emmy for The Apprentice. Colbert, who called the president “the biggest TV star of the past year,” opined that if Trump had won an Emmy, he probably never would have run for president — “this is your fault,” he told the audience. But unlike the presidency, Colbert noted, the “Emmys go to the winner of the popular vote.”
In a moment that got big laughs, Colbert also brought former White House press secretary Sean Spicer on to announce that Sunday night’s viewership would be “the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period, both in person and around the world.”
BIG WINNERS
The two biggest winners of the night were HBO’s Big Little Lies and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, each of which took home five trophies. The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss finally won her first Emmy after nine previous nods, so it’s no wonder she dropped the F-bomb twice during her speech — the audio was dropped out for viewers at home.
Big Little Lies also brought Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman her first Emmy. During her impassioned speech, she praised the show for giving women great roles and shining the spotlight on domestic abuse. She also said she wanted to put her Emmy on a shelf so her two daughters could see it, and know that it was the reason she wasn’t there to put them to bed very often.
EMMY HISTORY
History was made five times Sunday night. First, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has now won the most Emmys ever — six — for playing a single character on the same series: Selina Meyer on HBO’s Veep. Second, This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown became the first black man to win Lead Actor in a Drama since Andre Braugher won for Homicide: Life on the Street. In his speech, Brown said he was honored to follow in Braugher’s footsteps.
Third, Donald Glover became the first African-American to win for directing a comedy series, for his show Atlanta. He also won Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and in his acceptance speech, he thanked President Trump for “making black people number one on the most oppressed list,” adding, “He’s the reason I’m probably up here!”
Lena Waithe became the first African-American woman to win for comedy writing. She won for co-writing an episode of Master of None with the show’s star, Aziz Ansari.
Finally, British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed became the first man of Asian descent to win an acting Emmy, taking home the Emmy for acting in a limited series or his work on HBO’s The Night Of.
SNUBS AND SURPRISES
Despite plenty of nominations, there were no major wins for Stranger Things, Westworld, Fargo and Feud: Bette and Joan. The Voice won Best Reality Competition Show over the one many had predicted would be the winner: RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Stephen Colbert did fine job hosting the show, but Emmy had no love for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: it lost the Variety Talk Series category to HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. At one point, Colbert and fellow loser Jimmy Kimmel were shown drinking a “Last Week Tonight” cocktail, which Colbert joked was “so high quality, they can only make one a week.”
Ahmed surprisingly beat out Wizard of Lies star Robert De Niro for Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie. And Black Mirror: San Junipero, the only episode of Black Mirror with a (sort of) happy ending, won Best TV Movie over HBO’s The Wizard of Lies and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
EMMY POLITICS
The president, unsurprisingly, remained a popular punching bag throughout the night. The stars of the 1980 feminist-themed movie 9 to 5 — Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton — reunited to present an award, and Fonda said, “Back in 1980, in that movie, we refused to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.” Tomlin then added, “And in 2017, we still refuse to be controlled by a sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”
Talking about the upcoming final season of Veep, Julia Louis-Dreyfus said, “We did have a whole story line about an impeachment, but we abandoned it because we were worried that someone else might get to it first.” Also, during Colbert’s opening musical number, Louis-Dreyfus, as Veep’s Selina Meyer, sang, ” Imagine if your president was not beloved by Nazis!”
During that musical number, Grammy-winner Chance the Rapper appeared and rapped an interlude that referred to the president’s ban on transgender people in the military, and the growing list of police officers accused of killing African-Americans. “I get it, them finales, they got you focused,” he concluded. “Just record the show and try to show up at the protest, ya heard?”
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