Emmys for Kit & Clarke, like really? Give it to Drogon, please

Woke up to annoying cacophony around Emmys’ love for Game of Thrones and tried to cut off the “oh no, not again” pounding in my head by trying to brainwash myself with an online diversion in Plant vs Zombies quest. You guessed as much. The therapy didn’t work for long. 

Peeps had gone berserk on my social media handles crying out in ecstasy over the two most fancied and surprisingly kaput actors of our times – Kit Harington (Oh boy, hasn’t he been amply rewarded by getting hitched to the beautiful and talented Rose Leslie) and, of course, Emilia Clarke who multitasks as his aunt-cum-lover-cum-queen in the HBO series – getting nominated for, well, best actors.  

The extravagant spread of nominations on which the HBO gets to picnic amplifies the robbing of better and deserving actors in the run up to season’s most celebrated awards for the entertainment industry.  That’s an inconsolable and bitchy nag tugging at my heart and clutching at my will, to be earnest, if not a hero. (Scroll below for the Have Nots)

Emilia totters painfully close to the edge of a stand-up comic performance, literally. The most intense of all moments – her coming to grasps with Jon Snow’s misreading of her love and unleashing of the painfully ambitious designs, or her walking up to the moment where the Stark-bred Targaryen finally comes of age, and Hamletian dilemma, to do what needs to be done – is rendered futile by her merry disenchantment with anything remotely acting. 

Her walk in measured reprise of a queen in King’s Landing is egregiously wooden. For all the memes around her constricted performance in the film’s penultimate episode in final season, give me Cersei any day and I shall savour Lena Headey’s vintage emoting every single time. Even in her standing at the window sill with a wine-filled glass ruminating on her end as the queen, she looks menacingly wicked and beautiful. 

Emilia’s deadpan look aggravated by the stoned eyes is like the elephant in the room trying hard to not let the tail come to plain sight. As I have discovered to my own satisfaction, the CGI team did a better job with her ride, the Drogon, whose tearing grimace in moments of intense revelations bored through me than an all-conquering beautiful Khaleesi. 

With Kit, there was no Kat. In essence, he remains a package that’s not whole. He was know-nothing Jon and he chose to drop anchor in celebration of a knight in brooding than set sail and explore the unchartered territory of his potential, which made an impromptu cameo every now and then. Richard Madden, who played the Stark brother (Robb) to Kit’s Jon Snow was out in the cold in spite of his critically-acclaimed role in the Bodyguard (Netflix) which had won him the Golden Globe. 

Am, however, rooting for Peter Dinklage, who has made a legend out of Tyrion Lannister and elevated the character to the league of extraordinary supporting roles of Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Red (Morgan Freeman), Judi Dench as M, and the one and only Joker (Heath Ledger). With her nomination alongside Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Gwendoline Christie truly gets knighted for her exceptional portrayal of Brienne of Tarth.

Thirty two nominations, of them 9 for outstanding acting, for a single television series is mind-boggling. It is, at the same time, tiring when the encore loops in our lives, year after year, and burns out the halo around a prestige that we all so badly covet. It’s like hearing Meryl Streep’s name again, and again, and again on the Academy awards stage. The fatigue wasn’t lost on the goddess of Hollywood (she has a record 21 nominations) who in her third Oscar win in 2012 began with how she had this feeling when they called her name that half of America is going “Oh no. Come on, why her? Again! And then paused to accept the honour with a single utterance, “Whatever.”

That’s how the Emmys must have seen it coming. Whatever! 

The silver lining 

The window did open to the rainbow side of the Emmys. With Fleabag, Amazon which co-produced it with BBC landed a comedy series nomination. Among those who picked up nominations is creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge (for acting and for writing). She is also the only woman ever involved in writing for cinematic adaptation of a James Bond thriller other than Johanna Harwood who helped scripting the British spy’s debut film Dr No. 

The scheming Robin Wright Penn in the House of Cards which fell after Kevin Spacey’s departure gets her due as a powerhouse of an actor. On a personal level, I must admit I’m deliriously happy with the nomination of Natasha Lyonne, who won me over with her devilish comic timing as Nadia in the Netflix series Russian Doll. 

HBO’s Chernobyl deserves to be up there among the nominees. The limited series, for those amnesiac about anything outside the GOTs universe, has better rating than the epic series that came to an end this year. 

Why not them? 

Richard Madden for Netflix’s Bodyguard

Julia Roberts for Homecoming on Amazon

Pamela Adlon for Better Things on FX 

Seth Meyers for ‘late night show’ on NBC 

Rhea Seahorn for Better Call Saul onAMC