Week-to-Week: Handicapping the Most Competitive Emmys Category
Seyfried vs. Qualley headlines another heated Leading Actress in a Limited Series showdown
If nothing else, starting this Substack has created a greater sense of accountability. A week after putting in writing that Hulu’s The Dropout would be the next thing I watched when I could accommodate a new show in my schedule, I worked my way through the eight episode limited series in the midst of bringing the spring semester to a close.
There’s a lot I could say about the show itself, but I acknowledge I’m a full month late to this particular party. But with the Emmy deadline looming—which is why Every Show That Ever Existed is debuting in April and May—my primary reference point in assessing the (very good) show was in thinking about how Amanda Seyfried fits within what is quickly becoming the most competitive category of them all.
The Dropout is undoubtedly Seyfried’s show: this is a tightly focused character study, and even when the story expands out it’s always into groups of people who are either consumed by or devoted to Elizabeth Holmes and her vision. But more importantly, the lengthy time frame covered by the series—which has Seyfried playing Holmes from high school through to her 2018 downfall—means that we get to see her build each part of the Theranos CEO’s public persona, like watching a villain’s origin story.
As a result, for me The Dropout resonated so strongly because of particular moments that are really just Seyfried and the camera, aided on occasion by a well-placed needle drop. Is it on the nose for her to debut her all-black aesthetic set to Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black?” Yes, but it’s an evocative moment, one of numerous such instances across the series. There’s the unnerving scene where she’s trying out her affected deep voice in a mirror in her closet, as well as the direct-to-camera address from the filming of the ads directed by Errol Morris; there’s also the final scene, which despite featuring Holmes putting in Airpods notably skips a needle drop to simply let Seyfried’s performance tell the story. Throughout the finale, I was struck by how intimately I felt like I understood someone whose very identity was tied to the absence of such intimacy, which is an immense credit to Seyfried and the writing/direction across the series.
It also strikes me as the polar opposite of the approach of Netflix’s Maid, which joins The Dropout, fellow Hulu entry Dopesick, and HBO’s The White Lotus in the race for Best Limited Series at this year’s Emmys. At this point, the Lead Actress race feels like a showdown between Seyfried’s forensic performance as Holmes and Margaret Qualley’s vulnerable depiction of Alex, the struggling young mother in the series based on Stephanie Land’s memoir. While Seyfried’s performance is about these moments of revelation and transformation, Maid is a holistic emotional journey, watching as a victim of abuse fights against the people and systems that have failed her. And while it has admittedly been over six months since the series’ debut, I don’t find myself recalling particular moments in Qualley’s performance as easily: it was just so holistically heartbreaking, an anchor for a harrowing journey into the realities of Alex’s circumstances. To fully grasp the performance, you kind of have to be fully embedded in it, which is what the binge structure of Netflix allows for.
There’s a number of points of contrast between the two performances, although neither makes a case for being the obvious frontrunner given the category’s history. Michelle Williams’ performance as Gwen Verdon was the last biographical role to win in this category, but there’s a long history of wins for such roles, going back through Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin, and Claire Danes as Temple Grandin—Seyfried fits comfortably into this trajectory. But Qualley’s performance has echoes of Kate Winslet’s exploration of grief and trauma in Mare of Easttown, which just last year overcame a forensic performance from Anya Taylor-Joy in The Queen’s Gambit. But the recency bias benefits Seyfried here, and the episodic release of The Dropout meant that people were potentially talking about Seyfried’s performance for longer, although it should be noted that Maid had unusual longevity for a Netflix series, spending a full 13 weeks in the global English-language Top 10.
I don’t know that I have a strong preference between the two performances, both of which are excellent and absolutely vital for the success of the shows as a whole, but I do think that the combination of capturing the voice and mannerisms of Holmes and the vulnerable moments around that artifice give Seyfried a slight advantage. And since there’s no meaningful precursors—with the Critics Choice shifting to January, and SAG/Award Show That Must Not Be Named both going to Winslet—we’ll be mostly reading tea leaves about how the voters responded to the series as a whole to get a gauge on what feels like a legitimate toss-up where an Oscar-winning actress—Anne Hathaway in Apple TV+’s WeCrashed—feels like a third wheel.
Episodic Observations
The best indicator of how this showdown might play out will be in the nominees in the Supporting Actor category: if both William H. Macy and Naveen Andrews (who is so good in this show) get in, it suggests The Dropout has momentum, but if Nick Robinson also makes it in for Maid that indicates it was widely watched (Andie McDowell is getting into Supporting Actress for Maid either way).
As for the Limited Series award itself, this is an interesting showdown: The Underground Railroad beat out both Dopesick and Maid for the Award That Must Not Be Named, and while Maid won an Adapted Long Form award from the WGA, it wasn’t even nominated at PGA, nor did Dopesick make the cut with the WGA. This means that The Dropout enters the race with the least baggage, but there might be some sense of “justice” for the 2021 releases that haven’t gotten their due outside of Michael Keaton sleepwalking through every precursor and to an Emmy.
Switching gears to shows rushing out in order to be eligible for Emmy nominations as part of the ongoing arms race between HBO/HBO Max and Netflix, only putting out one episode of The Flight Attendant last week was extremely rude. Once I watched it, it sort of made sense: it’s a heavier episode, and a bit longer than the ones that preceded it, so having it stand on its own wasn’t crazy. But it just goes to the pure chaos of their release patterns that I noted in a previous newsletter that we can’t even predict how many episodes a show will release in a given week.
With The Dropout out of the way, this does technically mean that I’m in the market for the next show I intend to catch up on. Researching this reminds me that Dopesick—which I was content to bypass—has a Kaitlyn Dever performance likely to earn her her first Emmy nomination (I’m still pissed she got snubbed for Unbelievable), but I have been meaning to get to Pachinko as well, and that’ll have a second season to watch sometime next year.
Paid subscribers got to discuss what summer shows they were interested in seeing covered here at Episodic Medium that we’re not planning to cover currently, but one that didn’t come up at all was what was once the definitive episodic coverage show: Westworld, which will debut its fourth season on June 26 per HBO. Did we just all collectively bail on this show sometime during Seasons 2 and 3 (the former for me)?
"I acknowledge I’m a full month late to this particular party."
No shade intended, since I know watching TV and writing about it is something you do for work, not just fun, and I also know that to get the most engagement with an audience it pays to be timely, but this sort of thought is something I have been struggling to get away from. As an unscientific poll of one person, I would be happy to read articles here about shows that are months or even years old. The feeling of having to keep up with everything while it's happening or else it's essentially expired has given me anxiety for years.
Anyway, I just finished The Dropout on Sunday. Good stuff! And what a cast! It was always nice to see people I really like but wasn't expecting like Michaela Watkins and Stephen Fry and Bashir Salahuddin (if you haven't seen his show South Side, please watch South Side). I wasn't totally sure I understood the whole thing, which is why I wouldn't be sad to see some analysis and discussion about it, but in the end I think it was interesting how much sympathy it had for Holmes, without actually forgiving her.
P.S. I don't really follow awards, but you're telling me Dever wasn't recognized for Unbelievable? What an amazing show that was.
P.P.S. I bailed on Westworld after three episodes, but it lives on for me as a running gag on one of my favorite podcasts, The Weekly Planet, and which has now by far supplanted the actual show in my mind.
I stuck with Westworld, I'll be watching it in June. (This is the first I've heard about a new season.)