By Nina Starner
Copyright slashfilm
Obviously, a guy whose brand is “nice dude” like Nate Bargatze wasn’t going to refuse to give money to a children’s charity — nor was he going to, as he suggested towards the end of the telecast, take money from the Boys & Girls Clubs of America when the counter for his donation dipped into red, negative numbers. The fact that the counter existed in the first place, though, sucked. Honestly, it provided the only good “joke” from Bargatze all night (which was an accident) when Owen Cooper, an actual kid, became the youngest Emmy winner in history for his lead performance in the Netflix miniseries “Adolescence” and, on my CBS broadcast, the counter vanished, perhaps because Cooper is a child.
As other winners took the stage to celebrate their hard-won victories, the counter just felt infuriating. Early in the evening, veteran actress and cancer survivor Katherine LaNasa took home the Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series for her work on “The Pitt” and barely had time to express her incandescent joy before she seemed to worry about stealing metaphorical candy from babies (still, the counter dropped by $4,000 while LaNasa celebrated her first nomination and win). The night actually featured a lot of first-time winners, many of whom sped through their speeches, although “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder turned the tables on Bargatze. During her emotional speech for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy, Einbinder bluntly told Bargatze she’d cover the difference monetarily, taking the wind out of his sails briefly as she proclaimed, “go Birds, f*** ICE, and free Palestine.” (As a lifelong Philadelphian, I humbly offer a “go Birds” to Einbinder in return.) What did Bargatze do with this? Did he drop the bit? Nope! He mumbled that he’d confront Einbinder about the money backstage and seemed miffed that she cursed in a room full of adults (well, save for Cooper and those out-of-place Boys & Girls Club kids).
The absolute worst part of this whole thing, by the way, is that presenters were, for whatever reason, allowed to ramble for as long as they wanted. I’m always a fan of letting Jennifer Coolidge loose on an awards show stage to talk about nothing, but within this context, why wasn’t she “fined?” Everybody loves Ray Romano and Brad Garrett, but the fact that I learned Garrett owns a club in Las Vegas while the two of them were presenting should make it clear that they went way over what should have been their allotted time. The fact that presenters were allowed to be largely unfunny for as long as they liked while winners were unceremoniously cut off actually makes me feel insane. Thankfully, some winners managed to brighten the evening anyway.
