Emmy Experts Typing: Will ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ and ‘Barry’ get some farewell love?

Welcome to Emmy Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Emmy race — via Slack, of course. This week, we discuss the prospects of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Barry” as they kick off their final seasons.

Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! It’s Friday and we’re ready to party like it’s 2018? This weekend marks the beginning of the end for two former Emmy-winning favorites: your beloved “Barry,” which gave Bill Hader back-to-back Best Comedy Actor wins in 2018 and 2019, and my on-again, off-again, on-again fave “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the Best Comedy Series winner at the 2018 ceremony, where stars Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein also took home mid-sized gold trophies. Both shows, actual comedies with lolz, will end this season mostly distant from the glory of those early days. Last year, “Barry” grabbed 14 Emmy nominations and won three awards (but not Hader for Best Comedy Directing, which I know is your version of my Bradley Cooper should’ve won for “A Star Is Born”; never forget), while “Mrs. Maisel” had 12 Emmy nominations with no wins to show for the effort. This year, in both cases, what if things are different? I’ll let you take the lead on the “Barry” fandom, mostly so I can run around in circles while praising the final season of “Mrs. Maisel.” In short: It rules. To me, Season 5 is the most satisfying since Season 1, and the way Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino structure this season is pretty ingenious. It’s not a spoiler to note the final episodes play with time: The season premiere opens in the early ’80s with Midge’s now-grown daughter and the nine episodes bounce around in the fictional history of the show — back to the 1950s, ahead to the 1980s, 1990s and beyond. All that epilogue stuff is a thread between the most “Mad Men”-y version of “Maisel” yet, with Midge working on “The Gordon Ford Show,” a plot point that allows former “Veep” MVP and “Venom” scene-stealer Reid Scott an opportunity to feast. Yes, Tony Shalhoub and Luke Kirby as comedy guest actor, but my favorite supporting actor performance in the final season is Scott. If someone doesn’t cast him as George Clooney’s brother in a slick adult drama off of these episodes (paging Artists Equity), I have to question what we’re even doing here. As for the leads, both Brosnahan and Borstein are giving meaty material throughout the final season and when the curtain dropped on the finale (yes, screener brag, I finished the full season last night), I kind of thought Brosnahan could win Best Comedy Actress again. You’re fond of telling me that the academy doesn’t like to backtrack with its winners – the last time a former winner won in this category after losing was Candice Bergen — but I could make the argument Brosnahan got lost in the “Fleabag” mania in 2019 and then the “Schitt’s Creek” mania in 2020 and then ran into Jean Smart’s juggernaut in 2022. But Jean is gone and this is a category without a strong frontrunner. Brosnahan has the goods this season and the show is leaving on a high — and with a wave of buzzy press coverage, which you know I love. I’m not ready to move her into first, but I’m not not ready to do it either. This is typical me and screener recency bias, yes, but do you think she could win? And after you tell me no, why don’t you wax poetic about the final season of “Barry” before its return on Sunday night?

joyceeng: The joke’s on you because I don’t think Brosnahan is out of the question. It’s funny because she won in 2018 when six-time reigning champ Julia Louis-Dreyfus missed the cycle, and we’ve been saying since “Hacks” premiered in 2021 that Smart could dominate like JLD did and she’s been impenetrable for two years in a row. It’s true that there’s no JLD/Smart-esque stomper or a monster show poised to sweep (at this juncture anyway), so that’s good news for Brosnahan, who also showed she still has industry support by hanging onto a SAG nomination this year. No shade, but Quinta Brunson feels like a default frontrunner in Smart’s absence. I do think actors, or at least the acting branch in the TV academy, appreciate “Abbott Elementary” a lot, but the show itself may have to steamroll for her to prevail. Or maybe support between the six nominees will be so diffuse it won’t matter. Who knows? I only feel good about Brosnahan, Brunson and Christina Applegate as nominees right now. As for my beloved “Barry,” would you (again) be shocked to hear that I rewatched the screeners (again)? You know if I had my druthers, it would be sweeping. I was talking to my friend, who has also seen the episodes, about how this show is both brilliant and dumb. It takes the most spectacularly stupid elements and saturates them with unflinching pathos and introspection. It makes the surreal feel normal and lacerates showbiz as savagely as “Succession” lacerates media. Yes, yes, my dream is for Hader to win his long overdue directing Emmy. He helmed all eight episodes, and with the finale unseen at the moment, his work remains masterful, controlled and playful. There’s not quite a giant set piece a la “ronny/lily” and “710N” in the first seven, but I am partial to a hilarious scene in the second episode at a Dave & Buster’s, which Hader just so happened to talk about on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last night. That being said, I don’t think he’ll end up winning, sadly (he’s got that fourth DGA on lock though!). If I can’t have that, then I need Anthony Carrigan to win supporting actor. As I said last week, it pains me that NoHo Hank probably won’t be an Emmy-winning character. Carrigan should’ve won for the second season and he’s never been better in this final straightaway. The fourth episode would make a great submission for him, though he has options in the back half as well. I am emboldened by his individual SAG nomination this year, but I’m not foolish enough to think that’ll translate to an Emmy win. In 2019, he lost to Shalhoub. Where are you on the four-time Emmy winner in your “Maisel” mania? Or all you all in on the erstwhile Dan Egan at this point?

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Christopher Rosen: It would be foolish to bet against Shalhoub obviously — and no disrespect meant here at all — but I would place him third on my “Maisel” ballot this season behind both Scott and Michael Zegen, who just feels effortless in his performance in these final episodes. It would be great for Joel to get a matching nomination with Midge in the sendoff, not that I expect it to really happen. Besides, the core relationship of the show and the endgame is Midge and Susie, and Borstein is again given a lot of great material which she handles with maximum ownage. We’ve not really spoken about her as a possible upset winner in comedy supporting actress — not with Sheryl Lee Ralph and her “Abbott” co-stars and “Ted Lasso” duo Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple look looming as nominees, plus Sarah Goldberg — but they’ve loved Borstein in the past, obviously, and she really goes out strong. I guess it’s kind of impossible to figure out at this time, but if I can Charlie Day here for a minute: If Ralph, Janelle James and Lisa Ann Walter all have their fans, and Waddingham and Temple split the “Ted” vote, does that leave Borstein to win again in a very tight race? I don’t believe that will happen — I think Brosnahan has the easier path to a comeback victory — but maybe? Or will Ralph just steamroll there because she has no reason to not? This week’s “Abbott Elementary” was an Emmy reel for guest actress frontrunner Taraji P. Henson, but damn if Ralph didn’t just steal the episode again. It’s hard to pick against her at this point, but will you?

joyceeng: Like I said the other day, after practically every “Abbott” episode, I’m like, “Man, this is another killer tape for Sheryl Lee Ralph.” Henson delivered and all (even if Vanetta was a tad Cookie Lyon-lite), but I left the episode wanting to shop at (The) Ross with Barbara. I’ve had SLR in first this whole time and I don’t really see any reason right now to move off of her. Obviously, she can lose, but she’s been crushing it all season and this category has seen several back-to-back winners since 2010 under multiple voting systems. The exceptions have been Jane Lynch, Merritt Wever (and her iconic speech), Annie Murphy (who won for the last season of “Schitt’s Creek”) and Waddingham. Ralph already overcame a vote-split last year to beat Waddingham, so she can surely do it again, even if Walter gets in this time. Is she this category’s Brett Goldstein? Circling back to Henson, we haven’t done a deep dive into the guest categories yet, but everyone penciled her in for the win as soon as her casting was announced two weeks ago. Do you think she’s the one to beat? She could be taken down by either one of her “Abbott” daughters: Brunson for “Saturday Night Live” or Ayo Edebiri, who had a scintillating scene opposite Brunson last month.

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Christopher Rosen: I might have Henson in third behind her onscreen kids: Edebiri was great on “Abbott” (I just love her as a performer so much!) and Brunson hosted one of the better episodes of “SNL” this year. She fit right in as a sketch player. Henson reminds me of her fellow “Abbott” guest star Leslie Odom Jr. — a great performer and fun performance but without, perhaps, the oomph needed to win. Let’s close with comedy guest actor then: Nathan Lane has the dips and could easily repeat, but after watching “Maisel,” I think Luke Kirby could give him a real race. Kirby is jetted off to California early in the first episode — a scene both Brosnahan and Kirby played as a goodbye — but it is not necessarily the last we see of him as Lenny Bruce on the series. He’s won before, of course, so if the Emmys go hard for “Maisel,” maybe he does again?

joyceeng: Luke Kirby as Lenny Bruce is the one aspect of “Maisel” everyone can agree on (that agreement being he’s the best), so, sure, he’s in the running. Of note, though, he would be the first to win this category multiple times in non-consecutive years for the same performance on the same show. Four people have won this award more than once in non-consecutive years, but Tim Conway did it for two different shows (“Coach” and “30 Rock”) and other three were “SNL” hosts Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon and Dave Chappelle. Lane didn’t have as much to do in the second season of “Only Murders in the Building” as he did in the first, but he could very well defend his crown. I’ll close by bringing it back to “Barry,” which has rudely never received any guest acting nomination. There are some incredible cameos this season, and with how name-checky the guest categories can be, I wouldn’t be shocked if one makes it in.

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