Another year, another awards season. After being delayed due to the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the Emmy Awards are finally back on Jan. 15, to celebrate the best of television that aired between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023.
The Emmys are welcoming a good mix of veterans in the line-up, and new shows that more than earned their place. We’re saying goodbye to several shows like “Succession”, “Ted Lasso”, and “Better Call Saul”, who aired their final seasons during this time, and are up for multiple awards.
Let’s get into who will win, and who should win in the lead actors and best series categories, as well as some honorable mentions that made our TVs shine a little brighter in the 2022-2023 season.
BEST DRAMA SERIES
WILL WIN: SUCCESSION
SHOULD WIN: SUCCESSION
What started out as a “Game of Thrones” successor has turned into a cultural moment all on its own. “Succession” is the best television show to debut in the past decade, and it’s not even close. The series’ fourth season aired some of their best episodes yet, like “Connor’s Wedding,” “Church and State,” and “With Open Eyes”. It’s a tour-de-force of broken families, twisted politics, and corruption, yet there’s a beating heart at the center of it all. It’ll lift you up and break you down in a matter of minutes, as each sibling tries to escape their own fate at the hands of their father. Jesse Armstrong created the perfect series that deserves every bit of praise and hype it gets. In the wise words of my favorite rapper/manslaughter-er/wannabe CEO Kendall Roy, everyone involved in bringing “Succession” to life was “playin’ like a pro.”
BEST COMEDY SERIES:
WILL WIN: ABBOTT ELEMENTARY
SHOULD WIN: THE BEAR
Network TV is back, baby. “Abbott Elementary” revived the cable sitcom, breathing new life into the mockumentary format with hilarious and heartwarming stories of teachers at a Philadelphia public school. The laughs are genuine and the stories are touching. It’s a wonderful show that’s as sharp as it is uplifting. Nobody can get enough of the dynamics between the teachers, students, and of course, principal Ava Coleman (Janelle James).
But don’t count out “The Bear”, which is as much of a drama as it is a comedy. Telling the story of chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) who moves back home to Chicago to take over his dead brother’s restaurant, “The Bear” walks the fine line between grief, anxiety, adrenaline, kitchen dynamics, and laughs. It operates on a higher cinematic form than any of its competitors, and it’s all anchored by White’s performance. This might not be the year for “The Bear”, but the rapturous season two will surely be nominated again come summer 2024.
BEST LEAD ACTOR, DRAMA
WILL WIN: KIERAN CULKIN, SUCCESSION
SHOULD WIN: JEREMY STRONG, SUCCESSION
Sorry, Bob Odenkirk. No one was touching the Roy brothers in terms of performances this year. Culkin has never won an Emmy for his work on the show, and his commitment to Roman Roy’s tumultuous character arc has never been stronger in any season of “Succession”. Culkin portrays Roman’s… well, Roman-ness to absolute perfection, especially in the penultimate episode, “Church and State”.
However, Strong’s always been consistent in the series, always emulating “Kenergy” (in the Kendall Roy sense, not the “Ken” doll sense) in every frame he’s in. It’s the culmination of a five year long odyssey of Kendall, in all his delusions, eccentricities, freakouts, relapses, accidental manslaughters and suicide attempts near a body of water. Strong deserves one more Emmy for the performance of a generation.
BEST LEAD ACTRESS, DRAMA
WILL WIN: SARAH SNOOK, SUCCESSION
SHOULD WIN: SARAH SNOOK, SUCCESSION
If you have ever been a woman in a workplace or family function, chances are, you relate to Shiv Roy. In the fourth season, one woman’s heartbreak, failure, and unease was never portrayed quite like Snook played Shiv. Shiv has watched everything in her life fall to pieces at the hands of her father or herself, and no matter how badly she tries to escape her mother’s fate, she ultimately falls to it. We could sit here and dissect every Roy sibling under a microscope to determine what exactly makes them act the way they do, but Shiv’s faults come down to the fact that at the end of the day, she’s her father’s daughter, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t be his son.
BEST LEAD ACTOR, COMEDY
WILL WIN: JEREMY ALLEN WHITE, THE BEAR,
SHOULD WIN: JEREMY ALLEN WHITE, THE BEAR
“The Bear” first gained traction on X (then Twitter) when the first promo pic of White dropped, to which he was quickly deemed “the working woman’s Timothee Chalamet”. White’s charisma and appeal are in the backseat in his performance of Carmy Berzatto though, focusing on Carmy’s ambition, grief, trials and triumphs in the kitchen and beyond. It’s only amplified by his relationship with Sydney (the equally stellar Ayo Edeberi), and the two come together in a way that’s more awkward than romantic love, but something much more than platonic. It’s Carmy’s earnest and stubborn attempts to keep his brother’s dream alive that eventually lead him to something greater, and White hits every note with perfection.
BEST LEAD ACTRESS, COMEDY
WILL WIN: QUINTA BRUNSON, ABBOTT ELEMENTARY
SHOULD WIN: QUINTA BRUNSON, ABBOTT ELEMENTARY
In a year with a particularly weak Best Lead Actress field, Quinta Brunson would still win in a packed category. That’s how good she is in “Abbott Elementary”, as the hopelessly optimistic Janine Teagues.
Season Two of the hit ABC sitcom didn’t always treat Janine kindly, with financial and family troubles, and still reeling from her break up with Tariq (Zach Fox). But nevertheless, and to the chagrin of everyone else, Janine persisted in typical Janine fashion. Brunson plays Janine earnestly, as a good teacher with a heart of gold, no matter how cringe she comes across or how many awkward situations she gets herself into. Even when everyone knows how over-the-top cringy Janine is, Brunson never shies away from leaning into all of Janine’s eccentricities, which makes the emotional beats and heartwarming moments shine even brighter. Brunson is a shining light in the otherwise dark age of cable television.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
They might not be winners this year, but in my eyes, they are. Here are some shows that in a perfect world, would be getting some awards season love.
TED LASSO
This goes out to all the Americans who had to google if AFC Richmond was a real Premier League team in 2020. The third season of Apple TV+’s hit comedy “Ted Lasso” was not nearly as good as the first two that absolutely swept the Emmys in 2021 and 2022 (respectively), but stand-out performances from Brett Goldstein and Phil Dunster (as Roy Kent and Jamie Tartt) are very much worthy of the comedy Supporting Actor award. It’s so hard to choose between the two because they went hand in hand this season. Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) would agree.
THE HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
After winning Best Drama Series at the Golden Globes (“Succession” wasn’t eligible), it’s highly unlikely “Dragon” will repeat that success here. However, the series is poised to succeed where its predecessor (Emmy darling “Game of Thrones”) failed, meaning that George R.R. Martin has written the end to its story already.
It’s also anchored by four incredible lead performances of Emma D’Arcy and Milly Alcock (who play older and younger Rhaenyra Targaryen respectively), as well as Olivia Cooke and Emily Carey (older and younger Alicent Hightower), creating two beautifully complex female characters that are reminiscent of the powerhouse women on “Thrones”. It’s more than delivered as a worthy successor to the greatest fantasy show of all time, but is facing stiff competition from the Roys.
JURY DUTY
One of the more absurd entries, “Jury Duty” reads like a “30 Rock” cutaway but delivers an astonishing amount of laughs. The creative premise as well as James Marsden’s performance deserves its share of flowers too.
YELLOWJACKETS
Believe it or not, Showtime’s best show in years is about a group of cannibalistic high school girls. The Drama categories are just too stacked with HBO heavyweights (“The Last of Us” and “White Lotus” included), but “Yellowjackets” is jarring, emotional and enthralling. It’s hard to look away (given the disturbing subject matter) but the beautiful and bloody visuals match the tone of the story perfectly. It’s not what we would normally think of when we think of the “girlhood” media that encapsulated 2023, but seeing the characters (in the wilderness in the ‘90s and also the present day) balance their deep bonds with the need to survive creates perfect television, with the right amount of heart and horror.
Long story short, it’s the year of “Succession”, and rightfully so. And it’s almost time for television to return after the strikes, with “Abbott” returning Feb. 7. What a time to be a television viewer!
