Emmys 2026: The Best, Worst, and Most WTF Moments

A lot of questions lingered in the air before the 2026 Emmys: Would Vince Gilligan go-to Rhea Seehorn finally take home an Emmy? Would producers find a way to shoehorn variety-special nominee Taylor Swift into the broadcast? Was Widow’s Bay going to clean up after entering the awards with 19 nominations? Should the writers have questioned their judgment if they decided to open up the show with an extended “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” parody featuring dancers with TV sets on their heads? The answers to those questions are yes, yes, yes, and yes.

The Widow’s Bay team did indeed take home a boatload (no pun intended) of Emmys: six on the night, which, added to the eight they’d already won at the earlier Creative Arts Emmys ceremony, brought their total to 14 — one more than the record for a comedy series set by The Studio last year. There were deserved honors for Jean Smart, Noah Wyle, and Stephen Colbert, and a moving speech by Michael J. Fox, who took home the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for his advocacy for those living with Parkinson’s disease. But as with most awards shows, there were plenty of downs to go with those ups. Here, our list of the night’s highs, lows, and huh?s.

• Best: Kate O’Flynn Gives Patricia Some Heavy Metal to Bring to Sunset Cocktails

  The only thing Kate O’Flynn is missing now is an antler crown. The Widow’s Bay actress and English-born “Lancashire lass” (as she called herself from the microphone) took home the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Patricia Moyer, the neurotic and socially awkward assistant to Matthew Rhys’ mayor Tom Loftis in the Apple TV comedy-horror hybrid. Flynn’s performance was praised by critics and audiences alike for its unhinged take on the outcast queen, which made her win a perfect start to the Emmys night. “I want to thank our mayor and all the residents of Widow’s Bay,” O’Flynn said onstage. “This is for all the Patricias out there.” —CT Jones

• Worst: The Opening Number Set the Tone, and the Tone Was Awkward

  The Emmys took a rather unorthodox approach this year by having Law & Order star and non-comedian Mariska Hargitay host. She’s a tremendous talent, but the writers did her an enormous disservice by having her kick things off with a parody of the Arrows’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” entitled “I Love TV Screens.” It was painfully short on laughs despite cameos from Jalen Brunson and Jennifer Coolidge (sample lyric: “I got six hours so I should probably snooze/Memorize this script or read the news”), and featured dancers with TV screens on their heads. It felt like some weird fever dream of an award-show opener, but it was all too real. To be clear: We love Mariska Hargitay, the Arrows, Joan Jett, and many of the shows and stars nominated this year. They all deserved better. —Andy Greene

• WTF: This Isn’t the ‘Buffy’ Reunion We Were Hoping For

  In a just world, the inaugural season of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel series would have begun this year, and maybe even been nominated for an Emmy down the line. In this horrid, fallen world, Hulu pulled the plug on the new Buffy series after the pilot filmed. And we didn’t even get to see that. Instead, starved fans had to settle for the sight of former co-stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz presenting the award for Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. “I always thought Buffy and Angel would end up together,” said Boreanaz, setting Gellar up with a killer retort: “I guess we’ll never find out.” If any Hulu executives were in the audience, we hope they felt shame. Deep, deep shame. —A.G.

• Best: Rhea Seehorn Finally Gets Recognized

  The Emmys screwed up over and over by not giving Rhea Seehorn a single award for her work over six seasons of Better Call Saul. (She was nominated for supporting actress twice.) Thankfully, Saul creator Vince Gilligan gave her another opportunity by casting her as the lead in his brilliant Apple TV show Pluribus. As Carol, one of the only people on the planet not infected with a mysterious alien mind virus, Seehorn was rageful, sarcastic, tender, bitter, funny, desperate, and everything in between. She had stiff competition for Lead Actress in a Drama Series from Zendaya, Kerri Russell, Chase Infiniti, and Carrie Coon, but it was finally Seehorn’s moment. “This is me on a beta blocker,” she said at the podium, appearing genuinely shocked. “Thank you, Vince Gilligan, for giving me not only the role of a lifetime, but creating space where we all get to collaborate and where we get to take risks as artists.” Let’s hope this inspires Gilligan to get Season Two of Pluribus onto the air. We’re tired of waiting. And Seehorn needs a second Emmy. —A.G.

• Best: John Mulaney Turns a Presenting Spot Into a Mini Comedy Special

  Yes, it’s practically a legal requirement for awards shows to feature a bunch of cheesy jokes, so we can forgive all who are forced to deliver them during these televised ceremonies. But watching John Mulaney turn two minutes of presenter prattle for Lead Actor in a Drama Series into a laugh-a-second rant about how the night was finally recognizing men really drove home just how much skill it takes to make awards-show work look easy. Only a world-class comedian could manage to fit an excoriation of billion-dollar streamers, an excerpt from the Frank Vincent self-help book A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man, and an immediately censored joke about DJ Khaled’s strong belief on the power of going down on your wife into one completely smooth speech. Television Academy: That feels like a successful job audition to us. John Mulaney for Emmys 2027 host? —CTJ

• Best: Tom Pelphrey Masters the ‘Task’

  Tom Pelphrey’s career has had a bit of a journeyman quality. He’s been kicking around Hollywood for 20 years now, turning in solid work in series like Iron Fist and Ozark. Still, there was little indication he had a performance in him like the one he delivered in Season One of Task. As the doomed Delco trash man Robbie, who wanted to do right by his family but chose the wrong path to get there, he was vulnerable and haunted, reckless and scared, desperate and hopeful all at the same time. Yes, he may have been in a category where three Pitt actors drove a vote-split, but Pelphrey didn’t steal that Supporting Actor in a Drama statue — he more than earned it. —Maria Fontoura

• WTF: Taylor Does TV

  The Emmys had a tricky Taylor Swift problem this year: Her concert special, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour: The Final Show, was nominated for five awards, but none of those categories were part of the primetime broadcast. The Emmys also happened to coincide with a Kansas City Chiefs game, and the newlywed was obviously going to support her NFL-star husband. So it wasn’t really plausible for Swift to attend the ceremony — even though she’s such a huge Mariska Hargitay fan that she named her cat Olivia Benson. The solution: Have Swift cameo in a pre-taped bit where the Law & Order: SVU detectives try to figure out whether Taylor Swift would actually appear at the Emmys. Swift emerged midway through the segment as one of the officers, at one point cuddling Olivia Benson the cat in her arms. She even rattled off a code (“saccharide, Aries, from the vineyard, north or south”) that Swifties are surely working hard to decipher right now. —A.G.

• Best: All Matthew Rhys Does Is Win

  Matthew Rhys isn’t just celebrating two Emmys win tonight — he’s also celebrating making history. The Widow’s Bay and The Beast in Me star took home the trophies for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, making him the first actor to win two lead-acting spots in the same ceremony, and the first male actor to nab all three lead acting spots overall. (Rhys won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2018 for his work on The Americans.) Not only that, when Widow’s Bay took home the night’s final award, Outstanding Comedy Series, Rhys racked up another statue as executive producer. If it had to be any male actor to bring home all that hardware, thank god it’s the delightful Welshman behind such memorable characters as Widow’s Bay mayor Tom Loftis, murderous real-estate magnate Nile Jarvis, and Soviet KGB sleeper agent Philip Jennings. Makes sense that his first words onstage were as strong as his filmography. “If you try to play me off, I’ll stab you in the eyes with this,” Rhys joked to the orchestra, holding his spiky-winged statue high. —CTJ

• Best: Noah Kahan Gets the Tears Flowing

  We got pretty misty watching Macaulay Culkin, Dan Levy, and Annie Murphy pay tribute to the great Catherine O’Hara. Then Noah Kahan stepped up to the mic to sing Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for the In Memoriam segment, backed by a string section, and all bets were off. It’s a difficult song to deliver, with some fairly high notes, but Kahan nailed every one as images of Hayden Panettiere, Robert Carradine, Robert Duvall, Robert Carradine, Vincent Pastore, Gene Shalit, Sam Neill, Tim Curry, James Burrows, and even Bob Mackie — who died just hours before the broadcast — flashed onscreen. By the time Jamie Lee Curtis stepped onstage to honor Rob Reiner, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. —A.G.