HBO Max’s 24-hours-in-the-life-of-an-emergency-room series created by R. Scott Gemmill has now won for each of its first two seasons.
The series has sought to merge elements of network television from its 1990s peak with streaming-era prestige, and it has paid off with critical acclaim, cultural relevance, and awards such the biggest prize on TV’s biggest night.
It won its first best drama Emmy as a rookie upstart and takes its second as a revered favourite, beating fellow nominees including “Pluribus”, “Paradise” and “The Diplomat”.
“Widow’s Bay” stormed the night, taking best actor for star Matthew Rhys and broke the record for a comedy with 14 awards, including best series and three acting wins.
Jean Smart won her fifth best actress award for the fifth and final season of “Hacks”.
The Apple TV horror comedy “Widow’s Bay” rode into the night on a wave of buzz.
It had already won eight Emmys at an earlier ceremony and added four more, including supporting actress for breakout star Kate O’Flynn and supporting actor for Stephen Root.
Rhys also won best actor in a limited series for “The Beast in Me”, becoming the first man to win two leading actor categories in the same year.
Widow’s Bay also won for directing for Hiro Murai and for writing for its creator Dippold, a first-time Emmy winner and first-time nominee who was previously best known for an old viral tweet showing her dressed as “The Babadook”.
Smart’s fifth win was an unprecedented sweep.
No actor had won an Emmy every year for a series that lasted more than three seasons until she did it Monday.
The 75-year-old Smart has won eight Emmys overall in a career that was already more than respectable when she landed her defining role of Deborah Vance, a brash stand-up comic pushing back against age, obscurity and sexism in the HBO Max series.
Rhea Seehorn won best actress in a drama for playing the lone central character on Apple TV’s “Pluribus”.
It was the first Emmy for both O’Flynn and Root.
O’Flynn, a 40-year-old British actor whose previous acclaim came mostly for her work in theatre, plays Patricia Moyer, a city worker and social outcast dealing with a demonic darkness on “Widow’s Bay”.
Sally Field, 79, became the oldest woman to win best actress in a limited or anthology series or TV movie for “Remarkably Bright Creatures”. (AP)
