“Succession” triumphed one last time.
HBO’s chronicle of a feuding media dynasty took best drama honors for its final season at the Emmys on Monday night, the third time the show has claimed television’s most prestigious prize. “Succession” swept nearly all the major acting awards for drama, with Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook and Matthew Macfadyen winning for their last-season performances. Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, won his fourth Emmy for best drama writing — one for each “Succession” season.
The show now joins the fabled ranks of dramas that were rewarded with top honors for their farewell seasons, a lineup that includes “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones.”
“It was a great sadness to end this show, but it was a great pleasure to do it,” Armstrong said, as he accepted his best writing Emmy.
Emmys voters were not as kind to other returning winners.
“The Bear,” the FX and Hulu series chronicling an oddball Chicago-based restaurant staff, took best comedy honors for its freshman season. “The Bear” bested “Ted Lasso,” the big-hearted Apple TV+ series that previously won best comedy two times in a row, which is widely believed to have wrapped its final season.
There were plenty of other new winners, too.
-
Jeremy Allen White, who portrays the high-strung lead chef in “The Bear,” won his first Emmy for best actor in a comedy.
-
Quinta Brunson, the creator of the ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary,” won for best actress in a comedy, making her the first Black woman to win the award since Isabel Sanford won it in 1981 for “The Jeffersons.”
-
In other major awards, Netflix’s “Beef” had a big night: It won for best limited series; Lee Sung Jin won for writing and direction; and Steven Yeun and Ali Wong won for acting.
-
The three biggest shows of the night all notched multiple awards: “Succession” and “The Bear” each won six Emmys and “Beef” won five.
-
“The Daily Show” won for best talk show, even though the host who was honored, Trevor Noah, left the Comedy Central late night program more than a year ago.
This was a deeply unusual Emmy Awards. Because of the monthslong screenwriter and actor strikes, the Emmys were moved from their usual September slot to mid-January, the first significant postponement of the award show since the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Several nominated series have been off the air since 2022, providing several head-scratching moments during the telecast.
The January ceremony date also put the Emmys directly in the middle of Hollywood’s busiest awards show stretch. “Succession, “The Bear” and “Beef” were already honored at the Golden Globes last week, and at the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday night.
The Emmys telecast, which was hosted by Anthony Anderson, was even relegated to second-fiddle status on Monday night. The ceremony went head-to-head against an N.F.L. playoff game, as well as live results from the Iowa caucuses. The 2022 Emmys ceremony drew just 5.9 million viewers, a new low, and executives are bracing for the possibility of an even smaller audience this year.
