Emmy Predictions: Who Will Win vs. Who Should Win

Emmy Predictions: Who Will Win vs. Who Should Win

WILL WINSeverance

There’s a lot of love for HBO Max’s rookie The Pitt, but it garnered just 13 total nominations (two other nominees from its own network have more, The White Lotus with 23 and The Last of Us with 16), whereas Apple TV+’s sophomore series Severance has 27, more than any other show this year. (The most nominated drama last lost this award in 2017.) — Scott Feinberg

SHOULD WINAndor

Tony Gilroy’s Rogue One prequel, Andor, capped a triumphant two-season run as an ambitious examination of encroaching fascism and the tiny, human seeds from which great rebellions grow. Diego Luna continued to anchor the underrated ensemble that helped Gilroy take viewers to new planets and the brink of cinema’s most beloved franchise without ever pandering. — Daniel Feinberg  

WILL WIN Noah Wyle

All five contenders hail from a best drama series nominee. Sterling K. Brown, who won this award for This Is Us in 2017, is back with Hulu’s Paradise. But this is probably between two well-liked vets who’ve never won: Severance’s Adam Scott, previously nominated for his show’s prior season, and The Pitt’s Noah Wyle, last nominated 26 years ago for ER. Flip a coin. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Noah Wyle

There’s a lot to be said for confident expertise, which is both what Wyle’s Dr. Robby brings to the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center ER and what could have been a distractingly sprawling cast. Everything about Wyle’s performance feels cumulative, in the affection viewers bring for the ER star and the weight of an impossibly hard day’s work on his character. — D.F.

WILL WIN Kathy Bates

CBS’ rookie series Matlock is a giant hit, and everyone loves Kathy Bates — already a two-time Emmy winner and now this category’s oldest nominee ever. Bates, however, is the sole drama acting nominee from a network show, and hers received no other noms, which gives me pause. If an upset occurs, it would probably be at the hands of Severance’s Britt Lower. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Keri Russell

There’s no wrong answer in this category, though Bad Sisters really should be treated as a comedy and Severance had too many other shiny objects to focus on, making Lower too frequently a supporting player. Russell’s the pick based on the season’s homestretch, when she goes head-to-head with Emmy royalty Allison Janney and more than holds her own. — D.F.

WILL WINThe Studio 

HBO Max’s Hacks and FX on Hulu’s The Bear, both past winners, cannot be counted out. But the shiny new toy, Apple TV+’s The Studio, landed the most noms by far, 23 — besting Ted Lasso’s record for a rookie comedy — nine more than next-best Hacks, another series about showbiz, which is the only other nominee that’s also nominated for both directing and writing. — S.F.

SHOULD WINShrinking

After a solid first season, Apple TV+’s Shrinking made a big leap in its second, toning down the “damaged and unconventional shrink does weird things with patients” aspect of the plot in favor of a more ensemble approach focused on heartwarming and very funny cycles of characters screwing up, apologizing, hugging and then screwing up again. Kinda like life. — D.F.

WILL WIN Seth Rogen

For each of the two prior seasons of The Bear, Jeremy Allen White won this award, and he certainly could three-peat. But based on this year’s nomination totals, it seems like voters have significantly cooled on his show (13, down from 23 last year) while fully embracing The Studio and its leading man, Seth Rogen, who’s also nominated for producing, writing and directing. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Jason Segel

Jason Segel’s performance was more refined in season two of Shrinking, without losing the veins of rage and misery that make him so complicated. Concentrating on his role, more “first among equals” than a pure lead, should have viewers noticing Harrison Ford’s career-best work and hopefully acknowledge the error in not nominating Lukita Maxwell and Brett Goldstein. — D.F.

WILL WIN Jean Smart

Jean Smart won for all three prior seasons of Hacks, vanquishing two of this year’s other nominees — Quinta Brunson of ABC’s Abbott Elementary and Ayo Edebiri of The Bear — along the way. This year’s other two nominees are fan favorites from Netflix shows — The Residence’s Uzo Aduba and Nobody Wants This’ Kristen Bell — but it’s doubtful either can stop Smart. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Uzo Aduba

Uzo Aduba towers over the tremendous ensemble of The Residence. Aduba’s bird-watching, stare down-loving investigative savant could have come across as a schtick-y collection of eccentricities. Instead, it’s a physically adept, intellectually adroit performance that carries this otherwise exhausting (sometimes in a fun way) one-and-done series. — D.F.

WILL WIN Adolescence

HBO Max’s The Penguin has the most total nominations by far — 24 — 11 more than next-best Adolescence. But whereas The Penguin impressively brings to life Gotham City, Adolescence centers on real-world social issues that had everyone talking. It would be Netflix’s third consecutive winner in this category after the similarly zeitgeist-capturing Beef and Baby Reindeer. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Adolescence

Last year — Baby Reindeer, Fargo, Ripley, True Detective: Night Country — this was the Emmys’ marquee category. This year? Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne and director Philip Barantini’s one-shot exploration of toxic masculinity might as well be all alone. The ambitious mixture of filmmaking pyrotechnics, impeccable casting and buzzy topicality is unmatched. — D.F.

WILL WIN Colin Farrell

Any of the nominees — from Stephen Graham for his heartbreaking turn in Adolescence to Cooper Koch for his star-making showcase in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story — would be a worthy winner. But given Colin Farrell already won the Critics Choice, Golden Globe and SAG awards for his performance in The Penguin, he’s the favorite. — S.F.

SHOULD WIN Brian Tyree Henry

Stephen Graham will be a completely deserving winner, but he’s a lead actor who appears in barely over two hours of TV, while Henry carries all eight episodes of Apple TV+’s Dope Thief, the first few in likable buddy-comedy fashion with Wagner Moura, the second half in increasingly harrowing and dramatic fashion as the world falls apart around his in-over-his-head criminal. — D.F.

WILL WIN Cristin Milioti

Cristin Milioti of The Penguin isn’t the nominee with the biggest “name” — see: Cate Blanchett, a past nominee for this award, for Apple TV+’s Disclaimer, and Michelle Williams, a past winner of it, for FX’s Dying for Sex — but none of her competitors’ shows come within 15 nominations of her show’s 24, and she already has a Critics Choice Award
to show for it.

SHOULD WIN Cristin Milioti

Even though The Penguin boasts Colin Farrell buried in a metric ton of latex and sporting a James Gandolfini accent, it’s Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Gigante who instantly comes to dominate the series as both its fiercest and most sympathetic figure. Excellence is business-as-usual for the Fargo/How I Met Your Mother star, but this is the first time Emmy voters have noticed.

This story appeared in the Aug. 20 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.