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The Morning Show represents Emmy nominations that are a wall of female rage

  • "Game of Thrones may be absent from the Emmy nominations list, but its themes of female power and rage linger on," says Mary McNamara. "Certainly the drama series nominations form, with a few exceptions, a veritable wall of female rage, albeit some more obviously — The Handmaid’s Tale and Killing Eve — than others — The Crown (the repressed rage of queen and princess) and Stranger Things (Eleven’s powers are certainly a metaphor for something); even the multiply nominated seasons of Ozark and Succession leaned heavily on the struggles of their female characters. The limited-series category, meanwhile, is exclusively — and for the first time — filled with female-led shows, all of which chronicle various battlefields of oppression: the personal (Little Fires Everywhere), the religious (Unorthodox), the criminal (Unbelievable, Watchmen) and the political (Mrs. America). All of them are amazing — in the age of 'too much TV' there are no 'seat fillers' on Emmy nomination lists — and several, including Watchmen and Mrs. America, speak with eerie prescience to the police brutality and racist culture fueling the current Black Lives Matter protests. But none is better at capturing the messy, repressed and non-repressed, flailing, faltering, courageous, complicit, white-hot and absolutely non-metaphorical rage felt by women during these years of #MeToo than The Morning Show, which received eight nominations. These did not include best drama and, ironically enough, all but one of the acting nominations went to men — Steve Carell for lead actor; Mark Duplass, Billy Crudup for supporting — with lead actress Jennifer Aniston the sole female representative on a list that should have included costars Reese Witherspoon and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. That said, eight nominations for The Morning Show is kind of a miracle. After all, a century or so ago in 2019, when things like the debut of multiple new streaming services could still be reasonably seen as upending the world as we know it (backward, turn backward, oh time, in your flight), The Morning Show received mixed to negative reviews."

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    • Orthodox's Shira Haas filmed her Emmy nomination reaction alongside TV husband Amit Rahav, who happens to be her neighbor: "We talked a few days ago on the phone, and we were talking about the Emmys," she says. "And we were like, this is such a rare moment that’s happening in life and we need to be together, first of all. And then we were like, why not film it? Even if we aren’t nominated, we’ll have this amazing memory. It was amazing to do it with Amit because he’s such a good friend of mine and we’re also neighbors. So it made sense."
    • Emmys snubbed Ozark's Tom Pelphrey after he gave the performance of the year: "He gave a haunting, heartbreaking performance as a man struggling in the throes of mental illness," says Ryan Phillips. "He stole scenes left and right and, despite playing a supporting role, the season truly belonged to him. That's saying something when an actor is sharing the screen with the likes of Jason Bateman, Julia Garner and Linney. Pelphrey was tasked with playing a man suffering with bipolar disorder. When Ben is on his medication he's goofy, kind and loving with a big personality."
    • Broadway veteran Jeremy Pope on earning an Emmy nomination with his TV debut in Netflix's Hollywood: "While I have ambitious dreams and goals, this one felt kind of far," he said, adding: "It’s like feeling seen from a new group of people. I have my tribe of friends and family, but to receive that love from the Television Academy, for everyone that voted, it’s really special.

    TOPICS: The Morning Show, Apple TV+, 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, Hollywood, Ozark, Unorthodox, Jeremy Pope, Shira Haas, Tom Pelphrey, Emmys, Women and TV