Pop Culture Happy Hour - 2026 Emmys recap

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

This year’s Emmys were a big night for shows we really love, including Widow’s Bay, The Pitt and Pluribus. Actors Jean Smart and Matthew Rhys picked up wins, and Rhys made some history. And we’ll explain why we love Mariska Hargitay, who proved to be a game yet corny host. Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.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

You're listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, the podcast that keeps you on top of the latest in pop culture, or it would if you followed the show. If you don't follow the show, we can't help you. You're out there on your own, wandering the wilderness, making references that are years had a date, and we don't want that for you. So follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on your favorite podcast app. They had her do a very bad opening number, which I kind of think was bad on purpose. To a degree, I think it was cheesy, corny, earnest on purpose. Like an aunt trying to be cool. And I see. say that as an aunt who is not cool. Exactly. It was a big night for some TV shows. We like a lot around here. The Pit and Pluribus got some love and Widows Bay really cleaned up and Matthew Reese made some history. There is plenty to talk about. I'm Glenn Weldon. It is 1208 in the AM and we are recapping the 2026 Emmy Awards. Joining me tonight is my fellow NPR pop culture happy hour host Linda Holmes. Hey Linda. Hello, Glenn. Hey, we got a lot of energy. Let's get right to it. We do. My energy is My energy is up and then it might fall off towards the end because there's some precedent.

Yes, exactly. Then I'm just going to stretch at the end of the show. Then we're all going to sit here and talk incessantly. Yeah. Let's start with a big one that we're all, I think we're both happy with, Widows Bay, one for Outstanding Comedy Series. Do you have thoughts about just this win? Because, I mean, I think folks had this as a two-show race between Hacks and Widows Bay.

Hacks was a returning favorite, taking its final bow. But Widows Bay was the moment. I mean, it's the first real word of my. mouth phenomenon we've had in a while. You happy? I think that's right. Yes, I'm very happy. I think this is a really interesting show. I think it's accurate when people point out that it was a big creative swing that kind of in retrospect now, it's easy to say like, oh, yeah, you know, this is like a mystery comedy. It makes sense that it was successful. But at the time, you can see how it was a large gamble for the people who got involved in it. But it has such a great cast,

and it's also like super weird in a way that I thought was satisfying. So yeah, I was, I was, was very happy to see this win Outstanding Comedy Series and then go on to win a bunch of other things, too. A bunch of other things like Matthew Reese won two awards tonight. He did win Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Widows Bay. He also won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology series or movie for The Beast and Me. He is the very first actor to ever win lead performance awards in two different categories in the same year. Thoughts about that? I mean, I'm a big fan of him. I think he is a super versatile guy. If you saw him, In The Beast in Me, you know that he has the ability to go a very, very big as a scary person in Widows Bay.

He kind of goes big as a kind of terrified person. And I do think those go in very different directions. And I admire the versatility. He also, you know, in I think 2018, he won lead actor in a drama series for the Americans. So he's kind of made his way through the major categories. He's a versatile dude. I'm happy for him. Yeah, I'm happy for him too.

I'm also happy for everybody else on this show because that really cleaned up, as we mentioned, Cato Flynn won. She plays Patricia. She went for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a comedy series. I love her. I love her. I love Stephen Root for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. I was pulling for him, but I didn't think it was a lock, and I was very happy that that happened. Yeah, I was a little bit, listen, I love Stephen Root.

Stephen Root can win anything. I'm never going to be not happy that he won. But this was also the category that Harrison Ford was nominated in for shrinking. I think he's wonderful and shrinking. It was particularly good in this season. It's also the category that Nick Offerman was nominated in for Margo's Got Money Troubles, and he was wonderful in that. If I was going to squeak one away from Widows Bay,

it might be this one simply because I was so attached to some of the other performances, but I can take nothing away from how good Stephen Root is in this, and I will never begrudged him anything, so that's fine. If you did try to squeak it away, I would squeak it right back. I know. But let's keep going with the Widows Bay Love. Katie Dippold, one for writing and hero Marai, one for directing. It's a really good night for a really good show that came out of nowhere.

Absolutely. That's what you want to see. Absolutely. And if the name Katie Dippold doesn't mean anything to you, you may have seen the famous tweet and she was dressed up as the Babaduke at a Halloween party that turned out nobody else was in costume. It's kind of, I think, the first time a lot of people found out who she was, even though she's worked on a bunch of great television and written great movies. And I'm delighted for her. And Hero Marai is an outstanding director who's worked on a bunch of different stuff, worked on Atlanta, worked on Mr. and Mrs. Smith and was a producer on the bear and has really gotten

around with a bunch of interesting projects and is kind of, to me, kind of a director of the moment and of the era. And so delighted to see him, you know, pick up something for Windows Bay. Yep. Yep. And with all these Widows Bay wins. I pretty much got my comedy wish lists, except for one category, and that's the one we're talking about now. And I'm not going to take it away from the great and good Gene Smart, who won an outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for hacks. She won that award for every year that she was eligible for. And I'll just say this. For gay men, this was a tough one, because our two mommies were fighting, right? Gene Smart and Lisa Kudrow, who was up for the comeback, of course.

Jean Smart is 5 for 5. As I say, she won for every season of that show. This is a feat. This is an achievement, and I'm not taken away for her. No, absolutely. And I think this was not my personal favorite performance in this category. I think, you know, you mentioned Lisa Kudra. There are some other ones I really loved.

Again, I really loved El Fanning and Margot's Got Money Troubles. There were a lot of performances I liked in that category. Gene Smart is great. Gene Smart is great. And she remains great. Okay. After the break, we'll talk about wins in the drama categories, plus how Mariska Hargatea fared as host, so do not go away.

Welcome back, and as I mentioned at the top, following pop culture happy hour is the best way to know you're standing up to date on everything, not just the Emmys, so hit that follow button on your preferred podcast app, then sit back and bask in your awesomeness. Okay, so let's go, The Pit, one for Outstanding Drama Series. It's second year that it won. I think people were kind of expecting this. Were you expecting this?

I was expecting this. You know, there were people who didn't like this season of the pit as much as the first season. I thought it was just as good but different. I think they actually made some more daring choices in this season than they made in the first season. I was delighted that it won again. And that's despite the fact that, again, look, there were a bunch of really good shows in this category. I also thought Pluribus was a terrific show. There's lots to like.

there's lots to be in favor of. I love the pit, man. The P has lots of fans for a reason, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. And it was, I think, a pit versus Plyrobus fight. Felt like it. Pluribus is a critical, darling. It's very buzzy, and lots of folks love it. But it is never going to be the water cooler phenomenon that the pit is. It just doesn't have that kind of reach. I think it's appeal as maybe a little, you know, all those long, silent shots. All that wordlessness can come off a little element.

esoteric. I mean, the pit is a, I don't want to say crowd pleaser because it can get pretty gnarly. No, but it's more digestible for sure, I think, than Pluribus. Pluribus is a weird show. It's a weird show. That kind of storytelling does not appeal to as many people necessarily as broadly as a hospital show. I think the pit is a really, really good hospital show. You know, not unlike many hospital shows that have been very popular. It's just executed differently. with some different values overlaid and some different choices of focus. But that kind of storytelling, patients come in and out. You meet the doctors and you know what's going on in their lives.

That stuff has always been popular, and they have found it is still popular, as opposed to very strange science fiction story that's kind of alienating based around this character who is not very likable and often will really get under people's skis. skin. I mean, when we talk about risk versus not risk, I think pluribus is a different kind of risk. Yeah. But the pit is led by Noah Wiley, who won once again lead actor in a drama.

And talk to me about this, because Noah Wiley is one of the most likable actors we have. Yeah. And he put his character through it this season and had, he took a very likable character and had that character make choices that could potentially turn viewers off of him and the character and the series, but he won, so tell me more. Yeah, I am not in any way saying that this is the entirety of people who liked the second season last, but there are people who liked the second season less whose main complaint was he's acting like such a jerk. I think having the courage to break or threaten the fondness that people have for your heroic character to the point where they're thinking, he's just not a good boss right now.

And he's sometimes not even a good doctor to people. I think that's a daring thing to do in the second season of a show with a very, very likable lead and a very, very likable lead actor, but also lead character who's kind of been your, this is what we wish every doctor was like. This is not coasting. This is pushing himself. I like this. So the outstanding lead actress in a drama series went finally to Ray Seahorn for Plyrobus. That sound you hear, listeners, is the nation's TV critics unclenching. Yep.

And finally saying, okay, we can relax because this thing that should have happened a long time ago has finally happened. Yep, absolutely. She was in Better Call Saul for a number of seasons without being nominated, and it was considered something of a travesty that she had never been nominated. Then she was nominated twice, but she didn't win. And so she came over to Pluribus. She got on this show, won the Emmy in her first season as the lead. of pluribus, which I think is delightful. She's excellent in it.

This show, as we've talked about, this show is weird. And if you can't kind of attach to her, it doesn't work at all. Right. She's basically, she's not the only person in the show, but she's kind of the only person in the show. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, she used the show in a sense that, you know, people say that about a lot of different shows. In this case, it's true. Vince Gilligan, also won for Outstanding Writing for a Drama.

for Pluribus. He's won Emmys before. This is the first one for this new show. That's great. Yeah, absolutely. Really like Vince Gilligan. Happy to see him having a new show that works well. Alison Jenny won in Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her work on The Diplomat. Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series went to Tom Pelfrey in Task. I didn't expect that, but I think you did because you might have seen this pit split coming. Talk to me about that. Yeah. So what happened is that both the supporting actress drama and the supporting actor drama, categories had seven nominees, right? Which is a lot. In the actress category four of the seven were from the pit.

In the act or category three of the seven were from the pit. And you can end up kind of splitting your vote. I mean, people will talk about splitting the vote when there's two. I don't necessarily think that it comes into play that much when there's two. I do think when there's three or four, all of whom are kind of well liked by different people for different reasons. I suspect there was some vote splitting that went on. But with that said, Alison Janney is Alison Janney. And in The Diplomat was highly praised for that performance and deserves to be.

And she's her, right? She's Allison Janie, right? And it's the same, I had heard a ton of praise for that Tom Pelfrey performance. On its own, there were people who thought he was going to win anyway, because TASC was a heavily promoted, you know, HBO product, likely. likely to win something. So I was not surprised by either of these all that much. She's very good on the diplomat.

Alison Janney is very scary on the diplomat. She's very scheming. Very scheming. Oh, interesting. Okay. Slow horses, one for directing in a drama series that went to Saul Metstein. And let's move on to talking now about outstanding limited or anthology series. You know, when these nominations came out,

one of your takeaways was very, very smart. You said there was a time when this category was the most exciting. It was featuring some of the most compelling and innovative storytelling and performances. You're talking about things like Marrived East Town and Wanda Vision and I May Destroy You and Underground Railroad. I don't get the sense that these shows are the ones

capturing the zeitgeist right now. Well, the Academy didn't think so because they put most of the awards for limited series or anthology over in the creative arts. Right. Ceremonies that happened before the ceremony tonight. So they don't think that they're the hottest ticket.

Now, in the end, DTF St. Louis, which won outstanding limited or anthology series, and also won some of the other awards in this realm, is a show that a lot of people really like. I personally didn't watch it. I will acknowledge. But it is a show people like, but I don't think we're in that place where there's a lot of kind of excitement about this category in the same way that, you know, the ones that you mentioned, which people were so intense. tends about and so attached to, I don't really get that. Yeah. Okay. So DTF St. Louis, as you mentioned, wins Outstanding Limited or Anthology series. Sally Field won for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology series or movie.

This was for her work in the Netflix movie, remarkably bright creatures. Yeah. Sally Field, Sally Field won an Emmy. This is a thing that you can kind of. Absolutely. You know, some actors have just been around a long time and it never hurts to see him win again. again, a movie I did not watch, but a movie that I know a lot of people really liked, based on a novel that a lot of people really liked, can't argue with Sally Field.

Outstanding reality competition went to the traders. Good show. And we pick a favorite reality competition and they kind of stick with it for years. So this is the third time in the row for the traders. We're probably going to get some more. Yep. I think so. They have, as you said, they're very loyal.

I think partly because a lot of people who vote in these awards don't necessarily. watch very many of these shows, so they vote for whatever one last year. With that said, the Traders, I think is a good show. And I think a lot of that award is for Alan Cumming. And Alan Cumming is an exceptionally good host. And he won for a reality host. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Okay. Outstanding Variety Series went to the late show with Stephen Colbert. That has an air of inevitability to it, didn't it? 1,000 percent, yes. Obviously, they went off the air this year and there were a certain number of, you know, there was a lot of mourning of the end of that show and also some joyful celebrating of what that show had been.

If you saw him performing with David Byrne and David Byrne's outfit, really fun, really celebratory, joyful. But yes, because of the circumstances, this felt inevitable, yes. Okay, and now let's pivot to the broadcast itself, hosted by Mariska Hargate. What'd you think? You know, she's not a professional comedian. She's not a traditional awards show host. She's an actor. And she's been in television, as they referred to over and over again.

She's been in television for a gazillion years. Been on SVU since, I think, 1999. And they referred repeatedly to the length of time that show's been on. I think she was incredibly game and kind of dorky and creative. and cringy, they had her do a very bad opening number, which I kind of think was bad on purpose. To a degree, I think it was cheesy, corny, earnest on purpose. Like an aunt trying to be cool,

and I say that as an aunt who is not cool. Exactly. Got fiatis's eating up on me. Yeah, me. We're all watching shows and smelling feet. Bear feed. I think that that's what they were sort of going four, and I think it did that. Over the course of the evening, did I think everything she did was

great? No, but she's incredibly game. She was very willing. They called upon a couple of things that people know about her. She went to one of the next games with Taylor Swift. So Taylor Swift showed up in a pre-taped skit with a bunch of the SVU regulars. So she participated. She was enthusiastic. She brought a lot of energy, and I think that's kind of what you need from a host, which I will always prefer to, you know, you'll remember last year at this time, we were watching Nate Bargetti, who did the whole thing with sort of an air of, I don't really care about or know about television. This is stupid. And that's a quite an, unfortunately, quite a common award show host attitude. I always greatly dislike it. So be a nerd who loves. Loves the thing, you know? Yeah, I mean, we're on the same page here because this is an award show. It can't be cool. Exactly.

By the very day, if you try to make it cool, you make it snide. Exactly. Dismissive. And so don't make it cool. I mean, and I am never going to turn my nose up at a production number where there's dancing television sets. You know, like, cheesy song parodies, corn, like, this is a stew. An award show is a stew, adding some corn starch. to a stew, I'm never going to turn my nose about that either,

because it makes it stick to the ribs. She's game, she commits to the bit, even when that bit is terrible. And I got to say, you know, over the years, there have been a lot of jokes about his name, which is so unfair because Dick Wolf isn't even his real name.

His real name is Richard Pinas. I think whoever wrote it just thought it would be funny to see or say it. I think that's probably as deep as it went. It was a mixed bag for her, for sure, but I thought she acquitted herself quite well. I mean, they obviously went, they made moves to revitalize the broadcast this year.

The Emmys did. A big one was reducing the number of awards handed out tonight by pretty early on in the night. This is what I'm saying. The structure was weird. All of the acting awards had been handed out. We did get a lot fewer clip packages, which always feel like padding. You know, there was that one year where we just had actors from old shows kind of come on stage and stand there on the set of their old show. We did not have that this year, and I was glad.

It was just there to acknowledge the fact that time has an effect on human skin. That's the only reason I could figure out why they were doing that. But by front-loading the actor categories, I don't know, actors are good TV. They're familiar faces. They're energetic. They're charismatic. They engender good feelings because you're personally invested in them in a way that you're maybe not as invested in directors, writers, producers. Consequently, the last half of the broadcast kind of went off a cliff in terms of pacing and the mood.

And it also got heavy because we hit a wall of in-memorium, which I think were very tasteful and well-executed. But we hit this wall of in-memoriums that really, I was missing the corn. I was missing the schick. I was missing Marischka. Yeah. You first had the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, which went to Michael J. Fox for his work trying to find a cure for Parkinson's, which I think that works very admirable. I think it was very good to kind of hear him talk about that work. you know, to recognize everything that he has done. I love that guy. And he was very funny when

he popped up on shrinking. I was very happy about that. So that was warm but heavy, right? And then, like you said, we went into, you know, there was a Dolly Parton in memoriam. There was a Catherine O'Hara in memoriam. There was the general in memoriam that showed kind of everybody ending on James Burroughs. And then Jamie Lee Curtis had a memoriam to Rob Reiner. I think, as you sort of alluded to, I think all of those were fine for what they were. And they were very deserved, right? I wouldn't have wanted them to skip. I don't know if Reba McIntyre singing a song on the Emmys to honor Dolly Parton is what I would have done, as opposed to maybe showing some stuff Dolly Parton did on TV.

But obviously deserved. Catherine O'Hara Memorial, obviously deserved. Part of this is just there were several people. I think they felt they needed to take. take an extra moment and acknowledge. But the cumulative effect was that in the back half of the show, you had not that many awards that felt competitive anymore because I was pretty sure when Widows Bay was going to win comedy series, particularly by this point.

And I was pretty sure the pit was going to win drama series. So kind of what are we waiting for that's going to be great television? And in the meantime, in the meantime, everything's very, very sad. But they messed up the pace. so that at the very, very end, they were asking Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey to vamp, which I think is the least, the most not optimal outcome you could possibly come up with

is putting those guys out there and being like, just talk for a while. You're so, yeah. First of all, you've already played people off the stage during their speeches a few times. That makes the, you know, the, well, we've got extra time to fill feel particularly bad. You've cut several awards from the show to leave extra time.

And now you find that you need these two dudes who I personally feel I have heard talk enough. You're just asking them to fill time. It can't help but feel like you're kind of stuck in a dorm room with them late at night. You know what I mean? For real. These are the guys who you don't need to tell the stretch because their whole life, their whole vibe is stretch. But yeah, but we always have something. to say about the broadcast itself. It's always, it's a, it's, it's always a, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a

mess. Yeah. But again, you just needed somebody like her to sell it. She did her best to sell it. She did. She did. And listen, at the end of an Emmy's night, I'm always looking back being like, how pleased am I about the people that they honored? And, and honestly, across the board, very pleased. Like, there really aren't any of these that I look at and I say, that's a travesty. There are people that I look at and I say, oh, I also would have loved to see that person win, right? I also would have loved to see something for shrinking. I would have loved to see something for Margot's Got Money Troubles in this ceremony, right? I've got that on my mind. But the things that actually won, I can't complain about that. All right. Well, it's the end of another Emmy's night that brings us to

the end of our show, Linda Holmes. Thank you so much for being here and go to bed. Oh, thank you, buddy. I appreciate that. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger's. Mike Katz have been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. A loquiment provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. And I know I sound like a broken record, but you're not already following the show. Do that right now. So you're not stuck making out-of-date references to things like broken records.

Ask your parents what a broken record is good. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.