‘Atlanta’ Shut Out Completely on Emmys Night as ‘Maisel’ and ‘Barry’ Steal the Post-‘Veep’ Spotlight
Monday’s Emmys broadcast began with the satirical song and dance number, “We Solved It,” referring to solving the diversity problem on TV. Of course, the joke was that the problem hadn’t been fixed, and the comedy category sadly proved that. Both “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Barry” took home Emmys in the major categories, leaving “Atlanta” shut out.
Donald Glover’s FX comedy was considered a frontrunner when it earned 16 nominations for its stellar second season. After having won two Emmys last year, it seemed that it was a shoo-in for awards dominance this year, especially on the heels of Glover’s ubiquity on the big screen, on “Saturday Night Live,” and in music. But after taking home three Creative Arts Emmys — for sound editing, cinematography, and guest actor Katt Williams — that was the end of the “Atlanta” Emmys run for the year.
The Emmys telecast began with the comedy categories, and one after another went to either Amazon’s breakout hit “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” or HBO’s assassin comedy “Barry.” The Supporting and Lead Actor categories went to Henry Winkler and Bill Hader for “Barry.”
While Hader’s turn as a hitman-turned-actor was award-worthy, even he didn’t expect to take home the trophy and therefore didn’t even write a speech. “I planned nothing,” he told reporters backstage. “I was waiting for Ted Danson or Donald Glover [to win]. I legit don’t know what I said.”
The rest of the comedy category wins went to “Maisel” first-time winner Rachel Brosnahan, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, supporting actress Alex Borstein, and the show overall.
Brosnahan tried to summarize why “Maisel” connected so well with its audience and the Academy voters, calling it “equal parts fantasy and reality” that’s aspirational because it’s about a “woman reinventing herself after completing the dream she had set out for herself. It’s never too late to do that. It’s funny and filled with joy at its core. It’s what we need more of in the world right now.”
The one consolation for fans of “Atlanta” was that someone — not Donald Glover, since he was reportedly seen in the audience — cosplayed as the series’ breakout creepy character Teddy Perkins during the Emmys. The character figured in the season’s eponymous, most buzzed-about episode. While DP Christian Sprenger rightly won the Emmy for that episode’s cinematography, Glover’s portrayal of the frightening Teddy Perkins — under elaborate prosthetics — was robbed of recognition, not to mention Lakeith Stanfield’s performance opposite him.
