Pop Culture Happy Hour - 2025 Emmys Recap

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

This year’s Emmy Awards saw big wins for Adolescence, The Studio, and The Pitt. The telecast was also packed with a couple of surprise wins, a show of undeniable goodwill toward Stephen Colbert, and a tedious recurring bit led by host Nate Bargatze.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

So hey, before we start the show, if pop culture happy hour has ever helped you explain Barbenheimer, survive a Marvel phase, or helped you make sense of the Emmy winners and losers, do us a favor and leave a five-star review. Channel your inner culture critic and let us know why you love the show. Thanks so much. Last night was a lovely night for the folks who worked on the studio, the pit, and adolescents. These series won big at the Primetime Emmy Awards. It was also an evening packed with a couple of surprise wins, a show of undeniable good

will towards Stephen Colbert and a tedious recurring bit led by host Nate Bergetzi. I'm A.S. Harris. It's 1240 a.m. And don't worry, the Boys and Girls Club definitely won't be penalized if we run on too long, recapping the Emmys here on Pop Culture Happy Hour. Joining me are my fellow co-host, Linda Holmes. Hello, Linda. Hello, Ayesha. Hello. And Glenn Weldon. Hey, Glenn. Hey, Glenn. Hey, pal. Well, this was a busy night, so let's get right to it. First off, we have One of our favorites, I think, we've talked about this on the show, The Pit. This is the HBO Max Hospital show that followed Noah Wiley and other doctors and nurses over the course of one long shift in a Pittsburgh emergency room. This show won Outstanding Drama Series, lead actor in a drama series for Noah Wiley, and supporting actress for Catherine La Nassaf.

She plays the charge nurse, Dana Evans. Linda, I know this is one of your favorite shows of the year. How do we feel about some of these wins? Oh, I was delighted. You know, I think there are multiple good shows in that category. You know, obviously, Severance have been nominated, which is a show I admire a lot. The Last of Us have been nominated, which the show I think has a lot going for it. There were a lot of good shows in there.

But this was my favorite. You know, this was my favorite of the year. It was one that moved me the most. I also think it's interesting that it's a little bit of a throwback, both because Noah Wiley is such a familiar TV doctor and because it has more episodes. You know, there's been an assumption that, you know, a streaming. drama or a prestige drama should have somewhere between eight and 12 episodes. The pit had 15, which I thought they made work really well. They also ran it weekly as opposed to binge drop. So in some ways, it really was a throwback. I was delighted to see it when I love, especially love

Catherine Lanasa, delighted for her, just all good feelings about that one. Yeah, and I don't watch this show, but I saw this coming because the buzz around the show has just been so tremendous. And I'm happy for Noah Wiley. It's his first Emmy after, you know, putting in so much work over the years. To anybody who's going on shift tonight or coming off shift tonight, thank you for being in that job. This is for you. And it, you know, it wasn't a surprise. None of the major categories in terms of who won, like, Best Drama, Best, Comedy, Best Limited Series or Anthology series, they were all the favorites. They were all the favorites, but I just kind of rolled over them and let this happen.

Yeah, yeah. As soon as I saw The Pit was kind of dominating the night for its categories, I was like, oh, man, network team. TV is back, baby. Yeah, kind of true. Obviously, it's not network TV, but as Linda said, it feels like a throwback to the days of CBS and ABC kind of dominating this award ceremony. So I was very happy to see this. I was late to the pit, but once I locked into it, it's so good. I agree with you, Linda, so much. And it's just a really nice, weirdly comforting watch, despite it being also very, very stressful.

Well, they're very competent. Competent people are reassuring and fun to watch. Exactly, exactly. Well, let's move on to the comedy category and the big winner of many of those categories for comedy was The Studio. This was, of course, Apple TV Plus's funny satire starring Seth Rogen as a Hollywood studio head, desperately trying to do a job he's afraid of failing act. This one, outstanding comedy series, lead actor in a comedy series for Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen also won in directing and writing along with his partner, Evan Goldberg, and the entire writing team. This is, again, one of my favorite, this is a rare year, I feel like,

when the Emmys got a lot of the things that I was happy to see. But I'm curious how you guys felt about the studio kind of taking home a lot of wins tonight. Yeah, I mean, I was happy with us, too. You know, people will say, it's a show about Hollywood. Hollywood love shows about Hollywood.

I don't think that's quite fair. This is actually a really good show. I think what was surprising was lead actor in a comedy series for Seth Rogen. I don't think he saw that coming. I don't think a lot of people saw that coming. But, you know, he's got an Emmy. Good for him.

Yeah. Yeah. This is also one that I really like. It's one that really made me laugh. I'm delighted to see, I mean, it's nothing against the bear. I'm admirer of the bear. But seeing, you know, a genuine comedy series dominating in these categories gave me a lot of pleasure, especially since it's, you know, accompanied by hacks and so forth. This made me happy. I think the studio, like the episodes are a little bit up and down, but a lot of them are genuinely awesome. Yeah, one of the best episodes of the season was, of course, the Golden Globes one. And I felt like there's a lot of, like, Golden Globes energy. Yeah. Kind of percolating. We'll get to that, yeah.

Yeah, we'll get to that. It is notable that the bear didn't get any love at all this year. I know. Nope. Yeah. One of the things that I wonder about is it is now such a standard hackney joke that the bear competes as a comedy and isn't a comedy. I've seen it in so many places.

Right. I wonder if people have actually gotten to the play. point where they're like, okay, this is enough of this. Maybe, or it's just that half of Hollywood was in the studio. Yeah. Again, I love the studio, but you can't discount the fact that, like, that show is also stacked with cameos and cameos who I imagine are voting for Emmys this year. No, that's fair.

That's fair. It's interesting that in both drama and comedy, the show that won was a new show, not a returning show, both those shows won for their first season. We all remember when there was a juggernauts. There was Succession, Mad Men, Game. of Thrones, Modern Family Veepe year after year after year. But then last year, Shogun took home drama. That was the first season of that anyway.

And, you know, I think it's interesting. It's kind of what you would expect to see just as a purely numbers game. You know, there's more streaming services. There's more shows. You know, everybody talks about the era of too much TV. But we all know that it's not the whole story. Because, of course, a lot of us are looking to see how the industry will or will not roll with things like the pandemic and the strikes and a lot of mergers and cost

cutting. You hear that nothing's getting greenlit. You know, the studios are pulling back. So given those kind of headwinds, I think it's nice that new shows, the few new shows that do manage to actually make it into the world have a chance to get recognized like this. I think that's cool. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think that's a great point. As far as other wins specifically in the drama category, you had Severance, which is the Apple TV Plus series about employees of a sinister corporation called Lumen who have undergone a process that separates their work life from their home life.

From that show, we had a Brit Lauer winning for lead actress. She plays Helly. And then, oh, I was so happy to see this. Tremel Tillman, who won for a supporting actor. He plays, of course, Mr. Milchick. I was happy about this. So how did we feel about this? Yeah, I was happy about this, too.

You know, this season of Severance, I didn't click into as much as the first one. But I admire these performances tremendously, especially as you referenced Aisha Tremel Tillman, who, you know, also was in the Mission Impossible movie this summer. he's just having a really good run and he's so enchanting to watch and he did such interesting things

and they asked him to do such interesting things I love that this performance came through for him I wish Jason Bateman who announced him as the winner had known how to pronounce his name that bugs the heck out of me especially since he was the frontrunner in a lot of people's minds but it's a great for listen I'm happy about these

I'm happy about these and good for Britt Lauer that's a hard part Agree. It's a hard part. But speaking of frontrunners, I mean, in that category, Kathy Bates for lead actress in a drama, was up for Matt Locke. She was considered the frontrunner. She's one of two white-haired movie stars who didn't get their first Emmy this time.

But we'll talk about it. Yeah, yeah. I will say Tremel Tillman as Milchick, he might be the least inscrutable character on that show, which he's the only part of that season of season two that I really understood what was happening. And I still don't know what's happening in seven season two. Totally scruitable. Yeah. Agreed.

There's also quite a surprise, I think a pleasant surprise. And actually, Glenn, you've already alluded to this. But in the supporting actor category for comedy, you had Jeff Hiller winning for somebody somewhere. This is the HBO series where Bridget Everett returns to her hometown in Kansas and rediscovers herself and her love of singing. And Hiller plays her friend, Joel. This is so delightful. I'm not sure how many people had him pegged because Harrison Ford was also in this category for shrinking. Harrison Ford is the other white-haired.

Movie star. I know it would have been really nice to see Harrison Ford win this. He is, you know, in the veteran Lifetime Achievement Award era of his career, and it would have been nice to see him. And he's so good in shrinking. But also Jeff Hiller for a series that I think has been slept on so much. And we talked about it a lot. It was really nice to see him there. It's great to be able to say the Emmy winning somebody somewhere.

And so great to be able to say the Emmy winning Jeff Hiller. I mean, like, this is one of the few, like, holy F fist pumping moments I had during this broadcast. Listen, I love Harrison Ford and Shrinking. And I love shrinking in general. I think it's a little bit of an underrewarded show maybe. And I love everybody in that cast, including, I mean, Justice for Ted McGinley, man. But there's no way to be sad that it was Jeff Hiller. I mean, he's so good.

If you haven't listened to his interview with our friend Sam Sanders, you've got to go seek that out. So even though Harrison Ford, like Kathy Bates, did not pull down the victory, I'm incredibly excited for Jeff Hiller. I agree. Well, as far as other wins go for the big awards and comedy, you had hacks, which follows the relationship of a legendary stand-up comic and the young writer she hires to freshen up her act.

They're played by Gene Smart and Hannah Eindbine. That one airs on HBO Max, and they both picked up acting awards in the comedy categories tonight. Gene Smart for lead actress and Hannah Einbinder for supporting. I was a little meh on this most recent season. I think you were as well, Linda. But, yeah, I mean, this also didn't seem like that much of a surprise. Yeah, I mean, to it, listen, my thing with this show is they really have repeated themselves a number of times now. I think they need to find a new direction or it's time.

to sort of come in for a landing. And they did, Hannah Eindler did refer to wrapping up the show after next season on the red carpet tonight. Yeah. But my only real beef with this one is this is another case of profound category fraud. These are co-leads. They both belong in the lead category.

Hannah Eindinder being put in supporting so that they don't have to compete with each other is exactly the kind of thing that I dislike the most because there are actual supporting actors like Catherine Hahn in the studio or Janelle James in Abbott Elementary, people like that, who are working with less screen time.

And their task is different. It's one of the reasons why those two categories exist. That's the only real beef I have with that. She does not belong in this category. If anything, she's perhaps a bit more of a lead than Jane Smart. That's the only thing I don't like about it. Like I said, the show is repeating itself, but it's also been a really great show. So I don't begrudge them this, you know.

Yeah, and it's, you know, it's been a nice night for queer nominees. Tremel Tillman, supporting actor in a drama for severance, Jeff Hiller for a supporting actor in a comedy for somebody somewhere. And this, Hannah Einbinder, supporting actress in a comedy for hacks. Also, just before we leave, Alan Cumming accepted for the reality competition, Traders. He also won reality host last week. Last year, when Traders won, it wasn't a glitch. Clearly the reign of Rupal's drag race is over. The Queen is dead.

Long live the Queen. Mm-hmm. Yes. Long live the Queen. Well, a couple of other wins that happened. We have Dan Gilroy winning for writing for a drama series for Andor. Glenn, your beloved Andor, any thoughts about that? That was my second fist pump moment of the evening.

That was a big surprise. And the fact that it kind of squeaked in there, I'm very happy for it. It deserves more Emmys. It deserves more love. But I'll take this. And also Slow Horses won for directing for a drama series. I have not watched Slow Horses. I hear it's good.

Good for them. It's a very, very well-regarded show that I've not personally kept up with that much. But I'm happy for all of my slow horses loving friends. It's good for everything not to be won by one show. So all of these that spread the wealth even a little bit are a good thing. And then one of the sort of more heartwarming moments of the night went to Stephen Colbert. His talk show, the late show with Stephen Colbert, won Outstanding Talk Series. And this is, you know, of course, coming on the heels of the announcement in July that CBS is canceling, the late show was Stephen Colbert.

And as soon as he was announced, you could hear the crowd just like, even before he was announced, you could hear the crowd like roaring and very excited as if it was like predestined. And it kind of was because Emmy voting closed weeks after that announcement was made. So this feels like maybe the most in the bag when that could have happened tonight, perhaps. No, I agree. Yeah, I mean, except for the fact that he's been nominated a bunch of times and never won. So that is the one way in which perhaps at some point you do become not a favorite to win. But I think in these circumstances, it was not surprising at all. And his speech was very, you know, it was what you would expect from him.

It had a sense of sadness, but also it was heartening and it was joyful and he was grateful. And it's sort of exactly what you expect to hear from that guy. kind of every time he gets up and talks about how he goes about life. I realize that in some ways we were doing a late-night comedy show about loss. And that's related to love because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it. And 10 years later in September of 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately.

God bless America. Stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, crazy and punch a higher floor. Yeah, it was one of the few nights of the moment that sort of at least alluded to everything that's happening outside of the Emmys. And I thought that was a very profound way to end his speech and clearly shows just how much he is beloved if not by other outside forces. Yeah.

I think he'll find a job. Yeah. I think, yes, I think he'll be fine. Well, we're going to take a short break on when we come back, we're going to talk about wins for adolescence and our issues with the telecasts. We had some. So don't go away. All right. Welcome back.

Let's kick this off with adolescence, which is the Netflix series that tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who is accused of murdering a teenage girl at his school. Owen Cooper plays the boy and Stephen Graham plays his father. This won quite a few awards, including Outlimited or Anthology series, supporting a lot of actor for Owen Cooper. He actually became the youngest winner in this category. Lead actor for Stephen Graham, supporting actress for Aaron Doherty, and directing for a limited anthology series or movie, as well as writing for a limited anthology series or movie. This is one of those shows where I've read the log line and despite everyone saying how much they loved it, I was like, I need to protect my piece. I don't have to watch it for the show, so I'm not going to. But Glenn, you've

watched it, correct. Yeah. And I was out here in these streets saying the penguin is the best limited series around and it's going to a show set in Gotham City is going to win an Emmy. And then adolescence dropped it. I was like, oh, it's over. Because this is so powerful and wrenching and sincere and harrowing that a show like the penguin, which people think is a superhero show, it's not, it is a genre show, it's a crime show. It's just not going to compete with something like this. This rips out your heart and stomps on it.

So, yeah, I am glad to see. We'll talk about it later. that there's some penguin representation, but I think this is incredibly deserved. I was not surprised to see it absolutely clean up at the Emmys. This is where Netflix lives now is in this category. You know, they won in this category for beef. They won in this category for baby reindeer.

They won in this category for the Queen's Gambit. This is where Netflix is hanging out now, more than in drama series. So, you know, this was not, this is not a surprise. Well, speaking of the penguin, as we've already mentioned, we must, of course, mention that Kristen Miliani won for the penguin. She played Sophia Falcone, the daughter of a Gotham mob boss with some scores to settle in the Batman spin-off series. As you said, Glenn, this is not a superhero show. It is a genre exercise, which is why I loved it because it wasn't a superhero show. And I was very happy to see Kristen Miliotti win for this.

You know, when we talked about this months ago, I was like, oh, Colin Farrell's shoeing. Sadly, all that makeup. Sorry, Colin. But Kristen, yay. I mean, this was almost as big a swing for her. I mean, she was chewing through the scenery, but, man, she was having such fun. And I remember seeing her back in the day on Broadway and once thinking this person is going to be big. And I was right.

Yeah. You know, you guys are both penguin people. I'm not a penguin person. I'm a penguin person, I guess. Yes. But I am a Kristen Miliani person. And for me, the scope of characters that she's already managed to bring to life, not just this and not just sort of how I met your mother, which is what I think a lot of people saw her if they hadn't seen her on Broadway. Oh, God, I always forget about that.

But, you know, she was in Palm Springs. She's been wonderful in a couple episodes of Black Mirror. She was in a really great weird show called Made for Love. I actually interviewed her once for the show Bullseye. And one of the things we talked about is she has a kind of. a fondness for these kind of like emotionally grubby women in a great way. It's hard to kind of put your finger on. But she's such an interesting actor. And I am so happy for her to be, you know, in this. And I just want to see her in lots and lots of things. And so glad she

wanted to know me. Yeah. And she's one of the better speeches of the night, right? I mean, she was bringing theater kid energy. She was saying, I love acting. And like, I love watching her act. So it works. Yeah. Well, that was. was a high, and then there was the rest of the telecast. So let's talk a little bit about how the show itself played out. We had Nate Bargettzi, who is the comedian as the host, and I've seen Nate Bargettzi's stand up. I think he's quite funny. He's kind of a middle, as middle of the road as you can get for a comedian in these times. And I don't mean that as like a slight or a dig.

I just think he's very kind of like straight shooter, not too lewd, whatever. Family man guy, that sort of guy. And so he has this bit that he does. And he starts it off at the beginning of the show or into the early moments of the show. After doing a very weird, Linda, I think you wondered what year was the sketch written? It was a sketch where he's playing. It was a little sketch where he played Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television. And it just was full of jokes about TV that, to me, were at least 10 years old.

I dreamed that one day. There would be a channel for every interest. The Travel Channel for Travel. The Food Network for Food and the History Channel for History. No aliens. Terrible skit. Terrible skit. Well, who knew it could only go downhill from there?

Because after that, he kind of opens the show proper with a. running gag about the Boys and Girls Club where he says, I'm going to donate 100K to this charity, but if y'all winners go over a certain allotted time of your speeches, you're going to deduct the money. And if you go under, then it'll add back to the pot. Oh, boy. And then it just kept going and going. They had to acknowledge that they might be going over or that they were going under. And it was just a very big distraction.

You know, sometimes when you watch professional sports, somebody will point out, Nobody is at the game to watch the ref or the umpire. And a good thing to remember is that you may be the host. You're absolutely supposed to be charming and lovely and everything or funny and you're supposed to make jokes. But it's not actually supposed to bring the focus back to you all the time, especially when people are in the middle of being acknowledged for their work. I thought this idea, I'm going to try to kind of keep my anger from getting the best of

but I actually thought this was quite a mean little nasty little exercise. And I think when you look at an actor like Catherine Lanasa, who has been acting for a long, long, long time, and here's her big moment. And she doesn't go over by very much. But at some point, they stick the little ticker that shows the money going down as she's finishing. And as she's beaming and sort of waving.

And it's such a joyful moment. They just kind of put a dig in it. And it's like, why would you do this? And I also think people who think these shows are too long want you to cut the boring presenter bits and the boring host bits, not the people being honored for their work. The other thing kind of hovering over this is everyone knew it was a bit. Everyone knew that the kids were going to get the money. And then at the end of the night, they did get more money. It's $350,000 they got.

That's great. But that's not even the problem. The problem is that that choice locked the money. the entire ceremony into one joke without variation all night long. It gave him one and only one thing to do, and he did it over and over again. And every time we came back to him, we knew what he was going to do. And then we also remembered that it was just a bit. So it was just a waste of everyone's time.

And that's to comment about people going on too long and wasting time by being yourself, an enormous time suck is just really frustrating. I don't think necessarily that the problem was. Him, because some people are going to be saying, oh, you need a high energy cheerleader for an award show. That's never been true. Kimmel, DeGeneres, Steve Martin, Letterman, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler. Droll, dry, can do it. Droll, dry, can sell it.

The problem was this bit, which was just bad joke economy. The other thing I will add is that it just felt like tasteless, given how many, like, organizations and institutions are being gutted and having their fundings drift away. and to have this bit where you're dangling, quote unquote, dangling a carrot in front of the Boys and Girls Club as like a joke. Like, hey, we're rich people. We're going to take your money away or we're going to give it to you. Like, it just felt very icky. I mean, I don't want to end on a sour note. So I just want to say again that I'm very happy that, you know, we saw some surprise wins, some fun wins.

We saw some despite all of the chaos with this recurring bit, we did get some really nice speeches. And so absolutely. Overall, it was a show. If it's going to be only a few shows shoveling all of the awards into their bags, at least their new shows, at least it's not everything going, as we referred to earlier, at least it's not everything going to the same stuff that's been winning for years. I love Succession, but I'm glad that period's over. I loved Veep.

I'm glad that period's over. If you're going to get a lot of wins and it's going to be a show where you see the same people on stage, at least have it be people that you haven't seen a thousand times before. Here, here. Well, we want to know what you think about this year's Emmy Awards. Find us at Facebook.com slash PCH. That brings us to the end of our show. Linda Holmes, Glenn Weldon, thanks so much for being here. I know it's very late, but it's always a pleasure doing this with you all. Of course. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and Mike Katz have been edited by our showrunner,

Jessica Reedy. It's also very late for them. Thank you so much. you all. And hello, come in provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.