However, the winningest nominee is Billy Crudup of The Morning Show. He’s been nominated for each season he’s played Cory Ellison, initially a TV executive who’s sunk down to beleaguered movie producer by the show’s fourth season; in his previous three nominations, he’s won twice. Meanwhile, The Morning Show itself has seen its fortunes fluctuate wildly: after a third season that was showered with 16 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, the one and only nomination the fourth season earned was for Crudup. Giving him the award would really underline that he’s the only good thing about an increasingly bad show.
Outstanding Writing For A Comedy Series
HBO Max/Everett Collection
Hacks, which aired its fifth and final season this spring, is nominated in seven categories and likely to steamroll the competition in many of them, including Outstanding Lead Actress In A Comedy Series: Jean Smart, who leads the show as standup comic Deborah Vance, has been nominated for each of the show’s seasons and has, to date, never lost. If The Comeback could have waited a year to return for its third season, Lisa Kudrow might have a shot in this category, but probably not as long as Smart is in the mix.
Outstanding Comedy Series is one of the categories for which Hacks has been nominated throughout its existence; it’s only won that one once, but with nothing else in the category taking its final bow this year, this seems like the time for it to repeat. (Yes, The Bear is nominated, and yes, it did end this summer, but this nomination is for season four; its farewell tour will take place at next year’s Emmys.)
Widow’s Bay did receive an Outstanding Comedy Series nomination for its début season—it’s one of its 19, putting it just ahead of the 18 Hacks racked up. But since it will have at least one and probably many more chances to take it, my prediction is that this will be where the Television Academy awards Widow’s Bay creator Katie Dippold, for writing the series premiere teleplay. Sure, both the Widow’s Bay series premiere and the Hacks series finale (for which creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky are nominated) revolve around fragile humans facing their mortality, but only one of them even gestures toward cannibalism: that’s the one that deserves the win.
