Green light! 'Squid Game' makes Emmys history while HBO reclaims its Emmy crown with 'Succession'

Media dynasty drama Succession and feel-good comedy Ted Lasso took the top trophies at the Emmy awards on Monday, while Squid Game made history by becoming the first foreign-language television show to win top honours.

Lee Jung-jae who plays player 456 won the award for Best Actor, Hwang Dong-hyuk bagged the Best Director award making both the first Asians and native Koreans to win in the category. The Netflix show — in which misfits and criminals compete for cash in barbaric and deadly versions of schoolyard games — aimed to emulate the success of Oscar-winning South Korean movie Parasite with a triumph at TV’s top prize gala.

Jung-jae, the newcomer to break through for his role in the South Korean thriller, thanked the team behind Squid Game for "making realistic problems we all have to face come to life so creatively on the screen."

Succession at Emmys

Succession was named best drama series, an award the HBO show had won in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted its production schedule. The show, which secured four trophies overall, tells the story of the wealthy and back-stabbing Roy family as members jockey for power. The show earned the most nominations overall at 25.

“It’s pretty hard to go against that HBO juggernaut,” said Pete Hammond, awards columnist for Hollywood publication Deadline. Experts polled by awards prediction site Gold Derby had tipped Succession as their favorite.

Apple TV+ (AAPL.O) series Ted Lasso also was a repeat winner, claiming best comedy for the second straight year for its tale of an American football coach leading a British soccer team. Its stars Jason Sudeikis and Brett Goldstein were second-time winners of best comedy actor and supporting actor. The Best comedy series looked like an open goal for season two of Apple TV+’s fish-out-of-water soccer coach Ted Lasso. In the best actor category, star Sudeikis went up against Bill Hader, whose dark hitman comedy Barry returned from a three-year absence.

Other shows contending for the night’s top drama prizes included Apple TV+ dystopian workplace series Severance, starring Adam Scott, and the final season of Netflix’s much-lauded crime saga Ozark.

Euphoric moments

Voters honoured Zendaya as the best drama actress and Jean Smart of Hacks as best comedy actress -- a second win for each in those categories. Zendaya, who became the youngest-ever best actress winner two years ago for HBO’s hard-hitting teen drama Euphoria, was tipped to repeat. While Jean Smart was also heavily tipped to repeat as best comedy actress for Hacks, in which she plays an ageing Las Vegas diva forced to reinvent her dated stand-up routine.

The most-lauded show of the night was HBO's The White Lotus. It won 10 awards including best limited series and acting trophies for Jennifer Coolidge and Murray Bartlett. Those wins helped HBO and streaming service HBO Max lead all other networks with 38 honours overall.

Host and Saturday Night Live star Kenan Thompson kept a celebratory tone throughout the show, saying it was a time to appreciate one of the world's favourite pastimes. "What would we do without television, read books?" he joked, before joining dance numbers to theme songs ranging from classic sitcom Friends to current sci-fi hit Stranger Things.

Winners largely steered clear of politics or world events. One exception was Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, who joked that it was a big week for "successions," referring to King Charles taking over the British throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth. "I’m not saying we’re more legitimate in our position than he is. We’ll leave that to other people," Armstrong said.

British Lasso actor Goldstein, who plays foul-mouthed but soft-hearted soccer legend Roy Kent, said he was going to try not to swear after his profanity-laced remarks were cut off in Britain when he won last year, preventing his family from hearing them. Then he added: "Mum, Dad ... I f****** love you."

Singer Lizzo earned an Emmy award for competition series for Watch Out for the Big Grrrls. The musician said that as a little girl she had always wanted television to feature "someone fat like me, black like me, beautiful like me."

"I'm going to go back and tell a little Lizzo something ... you're going to be that person," she said. Among other winners, Michael Keaton was named lead actor in limited series for playing a small-town doctor who becomes addicted to painkillers in Dopesick.

'The slap'

The event, hosted by Saturday Night Live stalwart Kenan Thompson, marked the first major Hollywood awards ceremony since this year’s extraordinary Oscars. Back in March, Will Smith stunned viewers by slapping Chris Rock live on stage for cracking a joke about his wife.

Emmy organisers say they don’t expect a repeat. “We have smart security. We have people around that make quick decisions,” Television Academy head Frank Scherma told Deadline. “I can’t imagine that lightning will strike twice.”

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