The 8 Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2026 Emmys
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Some years, the 2026 Emmy Award winners feel like total shoo-ins. Noah Wyle for The Pitt? Easy choice. Jean Smart for Hacks. She wins every year. (And she should!) We even saw both of those award recipients repeat again this year. But every now and then, the Emmy voters surprise you. Nobody predicted Jeff Hiller winning Outstanding Supporting Actor for Somebody Somewhere last year over Harrison Ford and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, nor did Emmy pundits have DTF. St. Louis near-sweeping 2026’s Limited Series category.
But where last year’s lovefest for shows like The Studio and Adolescence was a no-brainer, this year’s Emmy Awards featured much stronger competition. The Drama category was split between anointing The Pitt as the new king of TV and celebrating Vince Gilligan’s return with Pluribus. The same goes for the Comedy field, where newcomer Widow’s Bay was up against the final season of Hacks—which set the record for the most nominations in a single year. So, between the shock of Jalen Brunson opening the show and Meg Stalter dressing as a giant Emmy statuette, we marked down where the 2026 Emmy Awards surprised us the most this year.
SURPRISE: Widow’s Bay Sweeps
Sure, I predicted the Widow’s Bay sweep in our Emmys predictions last week, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still surprised to see it! Widow’s Bay was one of our favorite shows of the year, and it’s amazing to see the wacky comedy-horror series recognized with so many awards. Widow’s Bay took home Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor (Matthew Rhys), Supporting Actress (Kate O’Flynn), Supporting Actor (Stephen Root), and Writing for a Comedy Series.
SNUB: The Women of The Pitt
Katherine LaNasa, Taylor Dearden, Sepideh Moafi, and Fiona Dourif were all nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. So, you’d expect one of the four supporting stars to win, right? Well, they all lost to Allison Janney for The Diplomat. No shade to the Netflix political drama, but if the series is good enough to nominate over half of the category... I’ll just leave it at that. At least Noah Wyle won!
SURPRISE: Tom Pelphrey
I could say the same thing about the supporting men of The Pitt, but there was no one I wanted to see win more tonight than Tom Pelphrey. The Task actor had one of the best performances of the year as the conflicted garbage collector who turned to a life of crime just to support his family. And with the way The Pitt stars were nominated, I thought Task would end up as the most overlooked series of the night. Thankfully, the crime drama picked up some recognition with a win for Pelphrey. “To my favorite actor in this room, my love, my best friend, my partner, the very pregnant Kaley [Cuoco],” he said. “I love you more than anything, and our family is the crown jewel of my life.”
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Matthew Rhys won two Emmys on Monday night / photo: Kevin Mazur//Getty Images
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SURPRISE: Megan Stalter IS an Emmy
The Hacks actress may have lost her category after being nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy, but she isn’t going home without an award. Stalter painted her entire body gold and wore angel wings to become an Emmys statuette herself on the red carpet. She even lifted up a giant atom (like the statue), as her costar Paul W. Downs posed as if he had “won” her. Fun fact: It was also Stalter’s birthday at midnight.
SURPRISE: Taylor Swift Said a Bunch of Random Words Right at the Camera
In a cute Law & Order: SVU skit poking fun at articles titled “Why Taylor Swift Isn’t Attending the 2026 Emmy Awards,” the pop star showed up to join in on the fun and say a bunch of random words right into the camera. “Saccharine. Aries. From the Vineyard. North or South,” she said. Was that part of the joke? What does it mean?
SNUB: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
It was a tough year at the Emmy Awards for a Game of Thrones comedy spinoff to win—especially after HBO decided to compete in the Drama category—but it’s a shame that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms went mostly unrecognized this year. The series was nominated for eight awards and only won for Outstanding Stunt Performance. But for a show that was the first to film jousting at night, I’d say it’s well deserved.
SNUB: Late-Night Shows Still on the Air
Stephen Colbert had an amazing run on The Late Show. It’s a shame he was chased off the air by CBS, and I don’t have a doubt in my mind that the Trump administration’s crusade against late night is behind his exit. But it’s a bit strange to keep giving him awards when he isn’t even on TV anymore. As Colbert said on Instagram before the show, “I think we can all agree that Jimmy Kimmel deserves an Emmy.”
SURPRISE: John Mulaney Is Still the Best At This
Quoting from Goodfellas star Frank Vincent’s autobiography, A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man, Mulaney proved that he was still the king of a good celebrity zinger. He presented Noah Wyle with the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama and joked: "I believe it was DJ Khaled who said 'real men don't go down on their wives,' but these nominees know that that is B.S. They know there's often less pressure on them if they do that first." Maybe Mulaney should host every year.
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John Mulaney / photo by: Rich Polk//Getty Images
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What did you make of the Emmys this year? Let me know what you thought by sending me a note at josh.rosenberg@hearst.com.
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The Continuing Adventures of the Esquire Entertainment Desk
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Diablo V, the next installment in Blizzard’s popular role-playing video game series, will arrive in 2029. Senior game director Joe Shely and narrative designer Jennifer Hepler told Eric Francisco all about how Diablo V plans to take the franchise to another level. “We wanted to make a world that’s darker than ever but give you a reason to fight for it,” they said. Read the exclusive first look here.
Na Hong-jin’s Hope is a South Korean monster thriller that is hoping to become the next Avatar. Yet, the movie—out now in theaters—polarized audiences when it premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival earlier this summer. Check out our review of the film here.
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Noah Wyle won for The Pitt two years in a row / photo: Kevin Winter//Getty Images
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The Cliff-Hanger's Winners and Losers of the Week
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Winner: Monday Night Football
The TV Academy choosing to air the Emmys on a Monday night was a very nice decision for the entertainment journalists (like us!) who work during the show. But by competing with the audiences for Monday Night Football, I sadly don’t predict high ratings for this year’s awards show. Still, if Taylor Swift can figure out how to appear in two places at once, maybe audiences did too!
Loser: #OscarsSoWhite
It’s been over a decade since #OscarsSoWhite first trended on social media. How have things changed since? Not much, apparently. Despite a night of celebratory wins for much-beloved actors and TV shows, the 2026 Emmy Awards didn’t award a single major honor to a person of color. Ernest Harden Jr., who won Outstanding Guest Acting in a Drama for his role as “Louie” on The Pitt, earned his award earlier in the week alongside most of the craft awards not shown during the NBC broadcast on Monday night.
Winner: Law & Order: SVU
Mariska Hargitay might have been an unconventional choice to host the Emmys, but it made a bit more sense once NBC started plastering promotional material for Law & Order over the entire broadcast. Did you know that season 28 is starting soon? Or that Hargitay’s Olivia Benson is the longest-running character on primetime TV? Well, I’m sure you do now.
Loser: Women Not Named “Jean Smart”
The seventy-five-year-old actress took home the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy five years in a row, with her potential reign over the category ending last night as she accepted the award once again for the final season of Hacks. “You’re in your Spanx, and your corset, and your tape, and your shoes that are cutting your toes off, and you’re going ‘Oh my god, she’s not that good. We just stood up because she’s old.’” Smart joked onstage. I’d love to see her immediately start a new show and take the record to six years. Don’t stop now!
Winner: Star Wars Becoming a Reality
While everyone was having a great time watching the Emmy Awards, Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink revealed during a press conference at the Pentagon that “the United States has on-orbit space control weapons” now. He didn’t elaborate any further, but… are we building a Death Star? Con: The slim chance of being vaporized by space weapons just increased. Pro: Real lightsabers soon, maybe.
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