Emmys Recap: Did Your Favorite TV Shows Win?
More stories from Ibrahima Diallo
It was a busy evening this past Sunday in Hollywood with the Emmy Awards taking place. HBO ruled the night among all television networks as Game of Thrones, Veep, Olive Kitteridge, and Bessie won Best Drama Series, Best Comedy Series, Best Miniseries, and Best Television Movie, respectively.
Game of Thrones broke the record for most awards won in a single year, with 12 Emmys. Its wins also included Best Directing, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actor for Peter Dinklage, for his role as Tyrion Lannister.
Jon Hamm finally won his first Emmy after 15 previous nominations when he took home the trophy for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Don Draper on AMC’s Mad Men. Viola Davis also made history when she became the first African American to win the Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama for her role as Professor Annalise Keating on ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder. Uzo Aduba became the first actress to win an Emmy in the both the comedy and drama categories for the same character for her role as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren on Netflix’s Orange is the New Black. Last year, she won for Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series and this year she won for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.
That wasn’t the only Netflix acting win, as Reg E. Cathey was also a winner in the Guest Actor in a Drama category for his role as Freddy Hayes on House of Cards. Guest Actress in a Drama Series went to Margo Martindale for her role as Claudia on FX’s The Americans.
Over on the comedy side, Jeffrey Tambor won for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy for his role as transgender Maura Pfefferman on Amazon’s Transparent. Transparent also won for Best Directing in a Comedy for its pilot episode and Best Guest Actor for Bradley Whitford for his role as Marcy. Best Guest Actress went to Joan Cusack of Showtime’s Shameless for her role as Sheila Jackson.
Veep won for Best Writing in a Comedy for its episode “Election Night” and picked up two acting wins for Lead Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus for her role as President Selina Meyer and Supporting Actor Tony Hale for his role as Gary Walsh, while Allison Janney won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her role as Bonnie Plunkett on CBS’s Mom.
Olive Kitteridge almost had a clean sweep in the miniseries categories, as it won Best Directing for a Miniseries, Best Writing for a Miniseries, and won three of the four acting awards for Lead Actress Frances McDormand [Olive Kitteridge], Lead Actor Richard Jenkins [Henry Kitteridge], and Supporting Actor Bill Murray [Jack Kennison], while Regina King [Aliyah Shadeed] of American Crime won the Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Miniseries.
The Emmys gave The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a farewell hug, as the show won for Best Variety Talk Series, Best Variety Writing, and Best Variety Directing, while Inside Amy Schumer took home the award for Best Variety Sketch Series. The reality categories included The Voice winning for Best Reality-Competition Program, Deadliest Catch for Best Unstructured Reality Program, and Shark Tank for Best Structured Reality Program, while Best Animated Series awards went to Cartoon Network’s Over the Garden Wall and Adventure Time.
Highlights of the show included an emotional speech from Viola Davis, a standing ovation for Jon Hamm [who crawled onto the stage], Emmy host Andy Samberg giving out his HBO NOW account [Email: [email protected] & password: password1], Jimmy Kimmel eating the envelope that had the name of the Best Actor in a Comedy Series, and Tracy Morgan’s first award show appearance since he was severely injured in a fatal car accident last year.