A day before Monday’s 78th Primetime Emmys, giddy headlines proclaimed that reigning king of basketball Jalen Brunson would be joining host Mariska Hargitay for a pre-taped intro bit. Well, it happened. We got a few seconds of the real-life pals steaming work outfits together, of all things. Then, suddenly, Hargitay was leading an “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” production number that had her singing about Guy Fieri on an airplane and cuddling up with Jean Smart in a hotel bed, in what felt uncomfortably like an ad for Marriott and United Airlines, whose logos were prominently placed. And then she was onstage at LA’s Peacock Theater, delivering a notably brief monologue. Spanning just eight minutes, the opening segment proved to be an accurate preview of a mediocre NBC and Peacock telecast that was by turns hasty, random, heavily reliant on big-name cameos, and not much of a showcase for Hargitay at all.
It was a shame, not least because Hargitay was touted as the Emmys’ first female host since Jane Lynch in 2011. For many years after the Gleestandout’s stint, the awards relied on a rotating cast of SNLand talk-show guys. Recently, however, with late night in decline, they’ve cast a wider net, and results have been all over the map. Following Anthony Anderson’s forgettable performance, we got an effortlessly charming turn from Eugene and Dan Levy—and then last year’s tedious, gimmick-freighted telecast, led by standup superstar Nate Bargatze.
It wasn’t just gender that set Hargitay apart from those predecessors, though. She was also the Emmys’ first emcee not known primarily for her comedy work since 2008, when the five first-ever nominees in a new reality-TV-hosting category, including Ryan Seacrest and Heidi Klum, delivered what criticsagreed was one of the worst ceremonies in history. Hargitay is, of course, synonymous with Olivia Benson, the heroic sex-crimes investigator she has portrayed in NBC’s Law & Order: SVUsince its 1999 premiere. What casual fans might not have known is that she trained with legendary improv troupe the Groundlings and appeared in sitcoms like Seinfeld; “all I wanted to be was you,” she told Amy Poehler on the latter’s podcast, Good Hang. Hargitay also went into the gig with lots of goodwill from audiences inside the Peacock Theater and at home. Not only is she an advocate for survivors of sexual violence, on screen and off; she’s also in the midst of a pop-culture renaissance, having won two Emmys for the documentary she directed about her famous mom, Jayne Mansfield, conquered the one-woman play Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway, and endeared herself to Knicks fans as a stalwart supporter on the sidelines of this year’s NBA Finals. In light of all this, Varietydubbed her “a national best friend.”
Maybe that explains why Hargitay was just kinda there with usthroughout the ceremony, more an affable companion than a genuine ringmaster. In a monologue that was practically over before it started, she quipped about how many of the stars in the room she’d “arrested” in their guest appearances as SVU’s twisted perp of the week. There was a sendup of Nicole Kidman’s five-year-old viral AMC Theatres commercial, featuring an interjection (“That’s myline”) from Kidman herself. It wasn’t the only joke of the night that felt stale (see: Hargitay griping that the Game of Thronesfurs she donned to introduce two of the franchise’s stars were “hot as balls”). Minutes after Hargitay joked that male hosts had dominated the Emmys for so long because “for 15 straight years, Amy and Tina said no,” Poehler presented an award with a joke about the night’s losers outnumbering its winners that surpassed anything in the monologue.
She was only the first scene stealer in a program full of them—and I’m not even talking about the many deserving winners, to whom the Emmys do rightly belong. (It does seem worth noting that Writing for a Drama Series winner Vince Gilligan made the strongest political statement of a telecast whose scripted portions steered conspicuously clear of controversy, urging Americans to show each other respect and “stop listening to a relative few who tell us that that is for suckers and who get their power from dividing us.”) Presenting the award for Lead Actor in a Drama Series, frequent awards-show MVP John Mulaney eclipsed the monologue in both humor and stage time with a tongue-in-cheek celebration of men that ultimately had him reading from A Guy’s Guide to Being a Man’s Man by Frank Vincent. Andrew Rannells swooped in with a burst of musical theater energy to save Hargitay’s shaky song about canceled series. The host didn’t even get to own the obligatory pre-taped SVUparody, whose mock-investigation into whether Taylor Swift would attend the Emmys landed as a flimsy excuse to get the most famous entertainer on Earth (who is also famously an SVUsuperfan and Hargitay pal) on screen.
All told, it was neither an excruciating Emmys nor a great one. There were certainly some lovely moments. The Catherine O’Hara tribute from her on-screen children Macaulay Culkin, Annie Murphy, and Dan Levy stood out as moving in its genuine warmth and specificity. More often, opportunities to honor a beloved person or show were squandered; was Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz presenting an award together really the exciting 30th anniversary Buffy the Vampire Slayerreunion fans were anticipating? Similarly, Hargitay didn’t embarrass herself. Many of the flaws in her performance should be blamed on lackluster writing, from a non sequitur segue after her self-deprecating Ghouliesflashback to that unforgivable “Hannah Mammogramma” pun. She may have failed to match the Levys’ energy or belatedly prove herself as a great comic talent, but at least she avoided a Bargatze- or Seacrest-level disaster and came out with her likability intact. Regardless of whether she gets invited back, here’s to the Emmys giving women more chances to be wonderful, awful, and even just-OK Emmys hosts.
