Many of the shows we expected to do well at the Emmys did very well — The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won Best Comedy Series and a slew of others, plus big wins for The Assassination of Gianni Versace and Godless and Barry, as we all predicted. But one thing few of us Emmy prognosticators saw coming was the complete shutout for both Atlanta and The Handmaid’s Tale. Both shows headed into Sunday night with three Creative Arts wins the previous weekend and eight nominations on the main show. They were both predicted to win at least one — Atlanta for Best Comedy Directing and The Handmaid’s Tale for Elisabeth Moss or Yvonne Strahovski and even Best Drama Series. But both walked away without a trophy in sight, prompting many Emmy bloggers to wonder why.
The Emmys are known for loving repeat winners, which is why so many were betting on both Atlanta and The Handmaid’s Tale to do extremely well. At the 2017 ceremony, The Handmaid’s Tale completely swept the drama categories, picking up five wins in total, while Atlanta was able to nab two for Donald Glover in Best Comedy Actor and Directing. Both also greatly increased their nomination totals for their respective second seasons — Atlanta from 6 to 16 and The Handmaid’s Tale from 13 to 20. This clearly gave us a false sense of confidence in how much they truly loved these series, as we shockingly watched them lose category after category. By the time we got to the Series categories at the end of the ceremony, there was virtually no shot of either show winning, and the Emmys confirmed our suspicions.
So what exactly went wrong for Atlanta and The Handmaid’s Tale? Let’s take them one by one.
Atlanta
Atlanta debuted to major critic raves, with the FX series praised for its blending of comedy and drama, of the reality and the surreal, and its artistic ambition. From the start, the series embraced an unconventional storytelling style, with series star Donald Glover sometimes not appearing in episodes, seemingly random divergences in its plot, and comedic moments that transition abruptly into tragedy, not unlike real life. Despite massive critical acclaim, I couldn’t have imagined such a daring series could appeal to the often middlebrow taste of the Television Academy.
And yet, it did. While not exactly huge, Atlanta did manage six Emmy nominations for its first season, including Best Comedy Series, Comedy Actor, Comedy Directing and Comedy Writing all for Glover, an additional writing nomination for Stephen Glover, and Best Comedy Casting. The series won two on Emmy night, for Actor and Directing, a major welcoming hug to Glover and what felt like a potential sign of things to come the following year. For Emmy voters to embrace a show as weird and avant garde as Atlanta was encouraging, especially with the show being so centralized on the black experience, of which the Emmys haven’t always been exactly warm.
Season 2 of Atlanta was just as weird as Season 1, with Glover and company no doubt bolstered by the show’s wide acceptance. The season’s masterpiece was “Teddy Perkins,” a Lynchian nightmare of an episode that featured Glover in whiteface as the titular haunted brother of a music legend. The season told a series of mini-stories all centered around the concept of “robbin’ season,” widening its expanse and deepening its cast of characters. The Emmys fell even further for the show in Season 2, earning all the same nominations as Season 1 plus Brian Tyree Henry, Zazie Beetz, guest star Katt Williams and multiple craft nominations. Williams won his award at the Creative Arts Emmys, with the show picking up two more on top of it, tying with its main Comedy Series competition, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with three in total.
But Sunday night’s Emmys was jarring, even as an admitted fan of Mrs. Maisel myself. While I was thrilled to see it sweep, it was also disappointing to not see Hiro Murai win Comedy Directing for “Teddy Perkins,” on top of Glover losing Comedy Actor to the, again, great, Bill Hader for Barry. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel does have its relevance, in telling the story of a woman trying to break into a predominantly male industry, but Atlanta has its own relevant story to tell. It is about trying to make it as a black man or black woman in America and the various obstacles that stand in their way, from white bosses to their own friends to abusive parents. And that’s not even taking into account the show’s exemplary technical craftwork, from the cinematography to the production design to the musical needle drops.
So why exactly did it fail to win over the Emmys? Simply put — it’s too alienating for a by and large old and white Television Academy. That may seem brash, but when you consider that Donald Glover became the first black actor to win Best Comedy Actor since Robert Guillaume for Benson in 1985, you begin to see a troubling pattern that not only reflects poorly on the Emmys but of television at large. Atlanta features exactly zero prominent roles for white actors and is often critical and mocking of white, upper class culture, while also centering on mid-to-lower class characters the average Emmy voter probably doesn’t interact with all that much in their daily life. That doesn’t mean that some voters can’t appreciate what Atlanta is doing artistically, of course. But most voters when they go to mark their ballot will naturally gravitate towards the series they love in their heart rather than respect in their mind.
And this is where The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel comes in. Not only is the series about a white, upper-middle class, Jewish housewife in the ’50s looking to make it in standup comedy, it’s also way more traditional in its storytelling. With a winning star like Rachel Brosnahan at its center, a dynamic ensemble surrounding her, and a sharp, female-centric story that resonates today, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Emmy voters would fall head over heels. All of its genius is right there for you to see on the surface. You contrast that with Atlanta, and voters have to work a little harder to catch onto its brilliance, but once it clicks, you begins to appreciate its carefully laid out tapestry populated by characters and experiences we’ve barely seen on television before. Perhaps someday in the future when Atlanta‘s influence on television inevitably reveals itself, Emmy voters may finally understand its true impact and artistic value.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Perhaps the biggest shock of Emmy night was just how significantly they abandoned The Handmaid’s Tale after only one season. Adapted from Margaret Atwood’s book about a dystopian future in which the few remaining fertile women are forced to have sex with religious dictators to provide children for them and their barren wives, broke through the consciousness in 2017, offering a chillingly realistic vision of the future if power got into the wrong hands. It made a huge splash at last year’s Emmys, where it won five awards, including Best Drama Series, Drama Actress for Elisabeth Moss, Drama Supporting Actress for Ann Dowd, Drama Directing and Drama Writing.
The series was officially off-book starting with Season 2, with no more material to draw on from Atwood’s novel. The results were a mixed bag for many. While some still appreciated its brutal realism and jawdroppingly committed performances, others began to lose interest and compared it to torture porn. Season 2 also ended in a frustrating manner for many, but along the way, critics took note of Yvonne Strahovski’s evolving performance as Serena Joy and commended the show for being unafraid of treading into bleak territory.
The Emmys went all-in with The Handmaid’s Tale at the nomination stage, giving it a whopping eight acting nominations, including three in Supporting Actress and three in Guest Actress. Up until yesterday I assumed based on its nomination haul that it was unstoppable, especially considering the competition seemed weaker and even its biggest competitor, Game of Thrones, had an okay season. Certainly not enough to overcome the Handmaid’s Tale juggernaut.
I was wrong. We all were wrong. The Handmaid’s Tale was completely rejected, losing to The Crown in Drama Actress and Drama Directing, The Americans in Drama Writing, Westworld in Drama Supporting Actress, and Game of Thrones in Drama Series and Drama Supporting Actor. Outside of Stranger Things and This Is Us, The Handmaid’s Tale lost to every other Drama Series nominee.
How did this happen? Back in Season 1, we were still in the infancy of the Trump administration and The Handmaid’s Tale was the Important Show in the drama categories. It was a scary yet very real look at what might be to come if things go too far. It featured a defiant lead performance from Elisabeth Moss, who was also richly overdue after years of losses for Mad Men, and a frightening supporting role for everyone’s favorite veteran actress Ann Dowd, with the undeniably brilliant writing of Margaret Atwood to draw upon.
But that can only sustain itself for so long. I was suspicious of The Handmaid’s Tale coming back for a second season considering how past departures from the book haven’t always been successful (True Blood) even while others have flourished (The Leftovers). While I remained impressed by The Handmaid’s Tale in Season 2, even I have to admit it paled in comparison to Season 1, with its central conceit making it difficult to have any sort of forward momentum. The tight structure of Season 1 contrasted starkly with the flabbier Season 2, the latter of which failed to provide the same level of standout moments.
So here The Handmaid’s Tale stands in a similar situation as Homeland after its breakout first season. Homeland surprised many in 2012 by winning Drama Series, Drama Actor for Damian Lewis, Drama Actress for Claire Danes and Drama Writing, then returned for Season 2 in 2013 with a whole bunch of momentum and an uptick in nominations. But much like The Handmaid’s Tale, the reviews and overall reception of Homeland‘s second season weren’t anywhere near the universal acclaim of Season 1, and while the show still won Drama Actress and Drama Writing again for Season 2, it failed to repeat the lovefest of Season 1 again. Homeland has since dipped further and further in nominations and has not won an Emmy since that second season.
It’s hard to imagine a show like The Handmaid’s Tale capturing lightning in a bottle again. The series may need to make a radical change to win back some of that Season 1 acclaim, rather than double down on the misery of its first two seasons. It’s also possible that the Emmys never truly loved the show and were in the headspace in 2017 of merely respecting its importance. Emmy history is riddled with shows having big splashy debuts, earning major nominations and even turning those into wins, followed by the inevitable sophomore slump.
There is an interesting duality to Atlanta and The Handmaid’s Tale in their respective trajectories. One spins forward, gradually weaving its series of interconnected stories in such a way that further explores new terrain both within the show and in the context of television as we know it. The other has begun to spin backward, trying desperately to recapture the winning alchemy of its first season and polarizing viewers in the process. Whether the Emmys will take a liking to either show again when their third seasons roll around remains a mystery, but their mark on the TV landscape will remain, whatever may come.