2024 Emmys Live Blog: Instant Analysis, Stats, Fun Facts and Reporting From Inside the Ceremony

Scott Feinberg
·12 min read

8:04pm PT To close out the night, Catherine O’Hara comes out to present best comedy. After ripping up a fake envelope, she opens the real one and announces an absolute jawdropper of a result: Max’s Hacks, for its third season, has pulled off a massive upset over the second season of FX’s The Bear, the most-nominated comedy of the year and, this year, already the comedy with the most wins in a single season. It’s hard not to see this as a statement from TV Academy members that, as great as The Bear is — and it is truly great — this award is intended for shows that actually make people laugh, which season 2 of The Bear did not do much of, and which season 3, which was rolling out during voting for season 2, really did not do much of.

7:59pm PT It’s so nice to see the stars of The West Wing (1999-2006) reunite to present best drama. It’s so sad to think how far reality has drifted from the dream of The West Wing. Meanwhile, a worthy heir, Shogun, is announced as this year’s best drama for its rookie season, which was originally intended to be its only season. Shogun, the first largely non-English-language show to ever win best drama, finishes its Emmys run with a new-record 18 Primetime Emmy wins, 14 at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys and four more tonight.

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7:52pm PT The performer of the year across all categories, in my book, Anna Sawai, makes history, becoming the first actress of Asian descent to win the best drama actress Emmy for her role in Shogun. She couldn’t have been better and will undoubtedly go on to even greater things.

7:48pm PT Steven Yeun, the second actor of Asian descent to ever win the best limited/anthology series Emmy (after The Night Of’s Riz Ahmed), presents best drama actor to Shogun’s Hiroyuki Sanada, who becomes the second actor of Asian descent (after Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae) and the first Japanese performer to win the best drama actor Emmy.

7:41pm PT Jean Smart returns to the stage to present best limited/anthology series, which goes to — you guessed it — Baby Reindeer! Big win for a one-of-a-kind show, for Netflix (which also had in contention the eminently worthy Ripley) and — for the third time tonight — Richard Gadd. Urges networks and streamers to take more chances on “good storytelling that speaks to our times.”

7:38pm PT Best limited/anthology series or TV movie actress goes to Jodie Foster for True Detective: Night Country, her first Emmy win, resulting in a massive standing ovation (and Foster accidentally calling the show “True Detective: North Country“). Meanwhile, THR co-editor-in-chief Maer Roshan messages from inside the ceremony: “As someone who watched Jodie repeatedly and reluctantly get ‘outed’ by activists in the nineties and early aughts, watching her kiss and thank her wife on national television seems like a huge deal to me.”

7:34 pm PT Three celebrated TV cops — Jimmy Smits, Don Johnson and Niecy Nash-Betts — present best limited/anthology series or TV movie actor, a tremendously competitive category, to Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd. It is becoming clear that — as was the case at the last Emmys ceremony, and as was largely expected heading into tonight’s ceremony, despite us living in the era of “Peak TV” — one show is largely dominating each genre: Shogun for dramas, The Bear for comedies and Baby Reindeer for limited/anthology series.

7:21 pm PT Jelly Roll sings “I Am Not Okay” — a bit of a strange choice of song — over the In Memoriam montage. Among those featured in it: Piper Laurie, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Louis Gossett Jr., Gena Rowlands and James Earl Jones. Then, somewhat surprisingly — apparently even for the telecast’s producers, who didn’t have the stage microphone turned on — Jimmy Kimmel takes the stage and says, “And the Emmy for deceased individual we will miss most goes to…” After a pause of laughter, he pays special tribute to Bob Newhart.

7:17 pm PT The drama directing award goes — via several Olympic athletes — to Frederick E. O. Toye for Shogun, which — finally — extends its record for most wins by a show in a single year, going from 14 (all won at the Creative Awards Emmys ceremonies) to 15 (with a few more possibly still to come).

7:04 pm PT Joshua Jackson and Matt Bomer introduce this year’s recipient of the TV Academy’s board of governors’ Governors Award, the unbelievably prolific TV producer Greg Berlanti, who gives a lovely speech.

6:56 pm PT A lot of cutaways from John Leguizamo’s comments about “excluded groups” to The Bear‘s Liza Colón-Zayas, who earlier tonight became the first Latina to ever win best comedy supporting actress. He then introduces TV Academy chair Cris Abrego, the first Latino to ever occupy that position.

6:49 pm PT The comedy directing prize goes, for the second year in a row, to The Bear’s Christopher Storer. This year he is being recognized for the off-the-wall “Fishes” episode of Storer’s show. The Bear, with its 11th win of the year, has just broken its own record for most wins in a single season for a comedy.

6:48 pm PT Can we not get a standing ovation even for Ron Howard and Henry Winkler reuniting for the 50th anniversary of Happy Days? Jesus Christ.

6:45 pm PT For his deeply personal and somewhat controversial semiautobiographical program Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd is now an Emmy winner, in the category of best limited/anthology series writing. We’ll see if he can add a prize for acting in a few minutes!

6:44 pm PT Pretty awkward product placement, for Johnnie Walker, featuring Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Taylor Zakhar Perez. What the hell?

6:36 pm PT In a shocker, best drama writing goes to Will Smith (not that one) for Slow Horses, a wonderful show, but one that I feared wasn’t seen by enough voters to take on the likes of Shōgun and The Crown. If only one episode of Shōgun had been submitted and nominated, we might have had a different outcome — but Slow Horses is a worthy winner that will hopefully benefit from having a moment in the spotlight like this one.

6:31 pm PT Best limited/anthology series supporting actor, in a big surprise, goes to Lamorne Morris for Fargo, continuing a tremendous showing for the FX network and all associated with it. Robert Downey Jr., so wonderful as five different characters in The Sympathizer, comes up short in his quest to become the first actor to ever win an Oscar, Daytime Emmy and Primetime Emmy in the same year — but I think he’ll be okay!

6:24 pm PT After a very long windup, Billy Crystal announces that Comedy Central’s The Daily Show — with Jon Stewart, but no longer with Jon Stewart — has won best talk series. Stewart, in his return to the show, has been great on Mondays, but his fellow hosts — Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic — have been terrific the rest of the week, and it’s nice to see them collectively recognized. (The Daily Show also won last year, for Trevor Noah’s last season of eligibility, but prior to that the show had not been recognized since 2015, the last time it was eligible during the original Stewart era.)

6:17 pm PT Best comedy writing, a truly stacked category, goes to the wonderful team behind Hacks, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, for their season three finale “Bulletproof,” besting, among other nominees, the acclaimed “Fishes” episode of The Bear. (I’m sure some people associated with The Bear are second-guessing the decision to enter more than one episode in this category, given that Hacks undoubtedly benefited from The Bear’s support splitting between its two nominated episodes, “Fishes” and “Honeydew.”) Aniello previously won in this category back in 2021 for the series’ pilot.

6:12 pm PT Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, in Spanish, introduce the nominees for best limited/anthology series or TV movie directing, and announce that veteran Steven Zaillian won for Ripley. This is a good sign for Ripley in its battle with, among others, its fellow Netflix limited series Baby Reindeer.

6:03 pm PT Saturday Night Live veterans Kristen Wiig, Bowen Yang, Seth Meyers and Maya Rudolph take the stage, in front of a fake Studio 8H, in commemoration of SNL’s upcoming 50th season. After waxing poetic about Lorne Michaels, they present best writing for a variety special to Alex Edelman for Max’s Alex Edelman: Just for Us, a televised version of Edelman’s one-man-show, which he performed on Broadway and in Los Angeles last year.

Fun fact: Mike Birbiglia was involved with a majority of the nominees in this category. He was personally nominated for writing Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man; and he produced both Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees and Edelman’s special.

6:00 pm PT In the scripted variety series category, Last Week Tonight beats Saturday Night Live. Both are wonderful shows — that are virtually nothing alike and do not belong in the same category, as I recently wrote.

5:52 pm PT Baby Reindeer and Netflix are on the board with the best limited/anthology supporting actress win for Jessica Gunning, the show’s unforgettable “Martha.” No comment yet from the woman who inspired her character!

5:47 pm PT In a huge moment for Peacock, The Traitors, a rookie show, wins best reality competition program, putting an end to the dominance of RuPaul’s Drag Race in the category (it won in five of the last six years) and bringing the streamer its highest-profile win to date. (Cumming won best reality host during last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys.)

5:37 pm PT Candice Bergen opens with a J.D. Vance joke, culminating in “Meow,” before presenting best comedy actress to “the amazing Jean Smart” for Hacks, who receives a well-deserved standing ovation. Smart won this award two years ago, when she was last eligible, topping Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson. Brunson won it last year, when Hacks was ineligible and The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri competed in and won the comedy supporting actress award. This was the first time all three competed against each other, and the veteran prevailed.

5:35 pm PT Best drama supporting actress goes to The Crown’s Princess Diana, Elizabeth Debicki, completing an awards season sweep — she previously won the Golden Globe, SAG and Critics Choice awards.

5:27 pm PT And we have our first surprise of the night: Liza Colón-Zayas, who plays Tina on The Bear, has won best drama supporting actress in an upset over Meryl Streep (Only Murders in the Building), Hannah Einbinder (Hacks), Carol Burnett (Palm Royale), among others. She becomes the first Latina to ever win in the category. I’m told by my colleague Beatrice Verhoeven that the energy in the room is “electric” as she accepts. The Bear has now tied its record for most wins by a comedy in a single year.

5:25 pm PT This is the second year in a row that the Emmys are throwing a bone to the many people who love the long-running It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is nice to see — but for them, not as nice as an Emmy nomination!

5:23 pm PT The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White repeats in the drama actor category, and rightly so. The Bear is now two wins from breaking its own record for most wins by a comedy in a single year. White’s speech was briefly muted on TV, presumably because he let out a curse word, as his character has been known to do.

5:14 pm PT Drama supporting actor goes, for the second time (the first being in 2020), to Billy Crudup for The Morning Show. This year, he held off, among others, two stars of Shōgun, Tadanobu Asano and Takehiro Hira, and two of his own costars, Mark Duplass and Jon Hamm, no easy feat.

5:12 pm PT Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Cousin Richie on The Bear, has won the comedy supporting actor award for the second consecutive year. The Bear had already won seven Emmys this year. This brings it to eight. It’s up for several more. And it needs to win three more to break its own record for most Emmys won by a comedy series in a single year — it bagged 10 last year.

5:09 pm PT It’s a coup for ABC to get Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin — the stars of their Disney relative Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building — to be the first presenters of the night. These guys appeal to every demographic. The network would love to convince them to come back and host the Oscars in a few months.

5:00 pm PT Father-son hosts Dan Levy and Eugene Levy emerge — on time — to kick off the 76th Emmys telecast. It was a mere four years ago that their show Schitt’s Creek, for its final season, dominated this awards show.

4:58 pm PT We’re hearing reports of Gaza-related protests outside of the Peacock Theater that may be delaying the arrivals of some Emmys attendees. Similar protests caused the Oscars telecast to start a few minutes late earlier this year. We’ll see if these protests have any impact on the start of tonight’s Emmys telecast.

4:45 pm PT Hi everyone! This is Scott Feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter’s executive editor of awards coverage. I will be live-blogging the 2024 Emmys ceremony (which will begin airing on ABC in 15 minutes), passing along instant analysis, stats and fun facts, as well as reporting from my colleagues who are in and around the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A.

Be sure to refresh this page for frequent updates. They will be time-stamped, with newer posts pushing down older ones. For now, though, check out my predictions of what/who will win (alongside THR chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s picks of what/who should win); my Awards Chatter podcast episodes with 62 of this year’s nominees; and our team’s complete coverage of television’s biggest night!

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