Emmys 2017: All of the news from TV’s biggest awards night

Hollywood’s weaknesses involving diversity and representation have come under fire in recent years, and no single flashpoint exemplified these issues like the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. In 2015, activist April Reign called out the Academy Awards on Twitter when all 20 acting nominees were white. Her hashtag went viral, and essentially defined the way many view the entertainment industry’s awards ceremonies: as bellwethers for its larger, institutional issues when it comes to race and gender.

So it should be considered good news that the 69th Emmy Awards ceremony this past Sunday was, in many ways, an example of diversity in action. Lena Waithe became the first black woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, while The Handmaid’s Tale’s Reed Morano became the first woman to win the award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series in 22 years. Donald Glover became the first black director to pick up the Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series award, and Riz Ahmed was the first South Asian man to ever win an Emmy acting award.

Going into the 69th Emmy awards Sunday night, online streaming services were poised to make a statement. Original programming from Netflix, Amazon Studios, and Hulu earned more than 125 nominations this year. Netflix earned 92 of them on its own, buoyed by huge showings for Stranger Things and The Crown. With Game of Thrones out of the running due to its release dates falling outside the Emmy window, the door was open for Netflix to finally take home the biggest prize of the evening: Outstanding Drama Series.

Instead, a very different dynamic unfolded over the course of the ceremony. Stranger Things was shut out completely, as was HBO’s Westworld, the most-nominated show of the Emmys. House of Cards was ignored, and Netflix’s wins were in smaller categories: John Lithgow’s supporting turn in The Crown, or Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe’s comedy-series writing award for Master of None.

The Handmaid’s Tale won the Emmy award for Outstanding Drama Series Sunday, capping off an award-laden run that also saw the show take home prizes for Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Directing, Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, and Outstanding Writing. It was an impressive showing for the series, and an even more important statement from Hulu, which has been trying to establish its original-content bona fides in the face of critical successes from Netflix and Amazon.

The show was up against a field of impressive television shows in a category dominated this year by streaming services. Netflix’s The Crown, House of Cards, and Stranger Things were all nominated for Outstanding Drama Series. On the cable side, HBO’s Westworld and AMC’s Better Call Saul were also up for the award, as was NBC’s family drama This Is Us. Stranger Things and Westworld were two of the most-nominated shows this year, with Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s science-fiction drama earning 22 nominations, and 18 nominations going to the Duffer brothers’ ode to Stephen King and Steven Spielberg. In the end, however, both Westworld and Stranger Things were shut out on Sunday evening.

Elisabeth Moss won her first-ever Emmy Sunday night for her performance as Offred in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Moss took home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series after five nominations but no wins in that category, dating from her time starring in Mad Men. Moss, who watched her director, writer, and supporting costar win Emmys this year, got to walk to the stage herself just before The Handmaid’s Tale won Best Drama.

Moss started off her speech by saying, “Um, so crazy! Okay, I probably don’t have much time. I’m going to go with — who do I go with?” She decided to go with Hulu, MGM, and then a whole slew of cast and crew names. In particular, she thanked Reed Morano, who just won an Emmy for directing The Handmaid’s Tale, saying, “Thank you Reed especially, for teaching me what it means to be balls to the wall.” She also thanked her mom for teaching her how to be kind.

Donald Glover won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his acting in Atlanta, his second Emmy win of the night. 2017 marked his first Emmy nomination. He was also nominated for outstanding writing, and won a second trophy for Outstanding Directing in a Comedy Series for his work on “B.A.N.,” an experimental episode of Atlanta, presented as a broadcast from an alternate universe’s version of Black Entertainment Television. Glover is the first black director to win an Emmy for work on a comedy series, and the first black man since 1985 to win an Emmy for lead acting in a comedy series. In Atlanta, Glover plays Earnest “Earn” Marks, a dad and a college dropout whose cousin becomes a famous rapper.

Glover started his acceptance speech, “Yo.” He continued with, “I’m so happy. Wow. Thank you guys so much. This is nuts. I really want to thank the academy again, all of you guys in here.”

Reed Morano just won the Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for her work on the pilot of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This is Morano’s first Emmy win. The filmmaker, who started her career as a cinematographer, made her directing debut with the 2015 feature film Meadowland, before moving to television with shows like Billions and Halt and Catch Fire.

In her acceptance speech, Morano thanked Margaret Atwood, show creator Bruce Miller, and the rest of the Handmaid’s Tale cast, singling out Elisabeth Moss for her performance as Offred. “Lizzie is my ultimate inspiration, and this is as much her as it is me,” Morano said.

Netflix’s Black Mirror won its first Primetime Emmy award tonight, with Charlie Brooker taking home the award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for the season three episode "San Junipero.” The 61-minute episode won Outstanding Television Movie earlier in the week at the Creative Arts portion of the awards.

“San Junipero,” which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, is a love story between an awkward beach town tourist (Mackenzie Davis) and a local party aficionado (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). The episode was critically acclaimed and received a GLAAD Award in April.

Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series Sunday night for “Thanksgiving,” an episode from the second season of Netflix’s Master of None.

The episode was one of the most talked-about pieces of comedy this year. Praised for its empathy and attention to detail, the episode followed Waithe’s character Denise and Ansari’s character Dev over a decade of Thanksgiving dinners with Denise’s mother (Angela Bassett). The holiday was used to mark major milestones in a relationship strained by Denise’s identification as gay and her mother’s regressive attitudes.

Ann Dowd took home an Emmy Sunday night for her supporting role as Aunt Lydia in Hulu’s original series The Handmaid’s Tale. It was the first Emmy win for the actress, and just her second nomination.

The Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series category was a diverse group this year. Dowd beat out her co-star from The Handmaid’s Tale, Samira Wiley, and other actresses including Uzo Aduba from Orange is the New Black, and Millie Bobby Brown, who played “Eleven” in Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Hulu took home the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series tonight, won by Bruce Miller for “Offred,” the pilot of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The streaming service made a poor showing at last year’s awards, netting just two nominations and no wins. This year it received 18 nominations, 13 of which were for the critically acclaimed adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic 1985 dystopian thriller.

Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue at tonight’s Emmy Awards was packed with jokes about the president, whom he referred to as the biggest TV personality of the year, citing as his influences House of Cards, the new American Horror Story, and all of late night television.

Colbert also detailed Trump’s history of accusing the Emmys of being rigged against him — which he tweeted before his presidential run and discussed in one of last fall’s presidential debates — and of mocking 2014 host Seth Meyers for having “marbles in his mouth.” The camera cut to Meyers, who spit out a bunch of marbles. That was probably the high point of the bit, which then turned to a special guest: former White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

John Lithgow won an Emmy Sunday night for his performance as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown. Lithgow has now won a total of six Emmys, including several for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in the late 1990s in 3rd Rock from the Sun, and another Emmy in 2010 for a role in Dexter. The win gives Netflix, which earned 92 Emmy nominations this year, a quick start to the evening.

Lithgow beat out other nominees, including Jeffrey Wright in Westworld and Michael Kelly in House of Cards, but acknowledged the actors in his acceptance speech. “I feel so lucky to have won this in the company of my fellow nominees. Some of you are my friends and former cast-mates,” Lithgow said, adding that “The Crown just keeps on giving, and this is just the last of its gifts.”

The 69th Emmy awards have come and gone, and the night ended up being a very big deal for streaming services — well, one streaming service in particular, at least. In total, online platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu racked up more than 120 Emmy nominations this year, with Netflix’s Stranger Things coming in as one of the most-nominated shows of the year. (It earned 18 different Emmy nominations, second only to Saturday Night Live and HBO’s Westworld, each of which tied at 22 nominations.)

But as it turned out, it was actually a very quiet night for both Stranger Things and Westworld, with each show getting shut out over the course of the ceremony. Netflix still had a decent showing, with The Crown and Master of None picking up some awards, but the real winner was The Handmaid’s Tale. Hulu’s series won a number of big awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. The other big winner was HBO’s Big Little Lies, which ended up winning five awards in total over the course of the evening, including Outstanding Limited Series.

The 69th annual Emmy Awards take place tonight at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California. Stephen Colbert is hosting for the first time ever, but there’s a lot more to know than just the venue and the host (this isn’t a dinner party, and you don’t need to bring a dish).

Read on for everything you need to know before tuning in tonight.

This year’s Emmy nominations are out, and one thing is abundantly clear: Netflix is now an entertainment powerhouse, close on the heels of HBO. The company nabbed a record 93 nominations for its original streaming content, nearly double what it earned last year, and just 17 shy of HBO’s eye-popping 110. While House of Cards has arguably overstayed its welcome on the awards show circuit, Netflix has nonetheless used that program and many others — including The Crown, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Master of None — to climb the nomination ranks.

Back in 2016, Netflix came in third in overall nominations behind FX, which earned its recognition largely on the strength of Fargo. The year before, Netflix hung out at the bottom of the nominee list, behind Fox, FX, NBC, CBS, and ABC.