Welcome to the first in a four-part newsletter series highlighting the ups and downs of the Emmy race and the latest predictions over at Prestige Junkie Pundits. Each Wednesday, Christopher Rosen and I will be sharing our predictions in various Emmy categories and, inevitably, arguing about who will actually be right come the Emmy Awards on Sept. 14.
To kick things off, we’re looking at the state of the drama series race, which seems to come down to one show: The Pitt.
Katey: Chris, I’ll start with a confession. I was recently talking to friends and trying to remember what is considered the second-place contender for the outstanding drama series award, and it took me many seconds to finally remember Apple’s Pluribus.
Granted, this conversation was happening at an FYC event for HBO, where a whopping 10 actors from The Pitt were gathered for a single panel — and that’s not even counting the guest actors, who were in an entirely different session! But I think the scale of the showing for The Pitt at various FYC events this past week really tells you what feels plain to me: The Pitt is still taking a victory lap from winning outstanding drama series last year, and it’s about to win it again.
It’s a fascinating contrast to the very competitive comedy race, which we’ll talk about more next week, where Apple’s quirky comedy newcomer Widow’s Bay feels competitive in a way Apple’s quirky drama newcomer Pluribus does not. But when you look at recent Emmy history, it’s a fact that drama winners repeat far more often than comedies do. Do you have any idea why, and do you agree with me that The Pitt is cruising to a round-two victory — at least in the top category?
Chris: I’d love nothing more than to sit here and suggest that The Pitt might lose and that Pluribus or Netflix’s hit The Diplomat have a chance to pull off the unlikely upset.
But even I can’t be that much of a contrarian.
On our Prestige Junkie Pundits page, every expert predicts The Pitt will repeat; prediction markets have it at 90 percent. If The Pitt were to lose, it would be one of the biggest Emmy upsets in history.
How did we get here? I chalk it up to a few things. For starters, if it feels like The Pitt has been holding FYC events for almost the entirety of 2026, that’s because it kind of has: Season two premiered in January, three days before the show’s first season won best drama at the Golden Globes. In March, when The Pitt ensemble won top honors at the SAG-AFTRA Actor Awards for season one, season two was just past its halfway mark. And by the time the series ended in April, Emmys phase one promotions were just kicking off. It’s been a relentless campaign schedule, and while a lesser show might have folded under such intense scrutiny, The Pitt has the benefit of being… really good.
So that’s one thing. Another is that there just isn’t a consensus No. 2. Pluribus makes sense on paper — it has 18 nominations, after all, and could win for actress Rhea Seehorn — but, anecdotally, it also didn’t break through like Apple’s other new show, Widow’s Bay. Plus, we know from last year that if it’s The Pitt vs. an Apple drama with sci-fi trappings, The Pitt is probably going to win.
Finally, as you noted, the Emmys are happy to bestow drama series with repeat victories. I think that has to do with the fluid nature of comedy — what’s funny one year might seem passé the next (looking at you, Ted Lasso and The Bear) — whereas dramas remain stable. If you liked The Pitt in season one, the chances are good that you liked it in season two, even if you were out there talking about how Dr. Robby is such a dick.
Speaking of: Where are you on the lead actor and actress races? Is it just Wyle again with Seehorn replacing last year’s Apple winner, Britt Lower, in best actress?
Katey: The short answer to your question is, yes, Noah Wyle is absolutely going to win his second Emmy in a row, for all the reasons you cited above about The Pitt’s staying power. But what’s interesting is that recent history doesn’t actually support this. The last person to win multiple lead actor in a drama series trophies for the same role was Bryan Cranston for Breaking Bad, and even he lost a few times to the likes of Damian Lewis and Jeff Daniels before swooping back in for Breaking Bad’s final season.
Wyle has strong competition, too — Sterling K. Brown, who won this category for This Is Us in 2017, is incredibly good on the sublimely silly Paradise, and Rufus Sewell has broken through for a reason on this latest season of The Diplomat. But there’s just no one with a strong enough narrative to push them to the top, and also no one who’s as obviously a leader of their show as Wyle. There’s a reason season two promos for The Pitt were just giant close-ups of Wyle’s face. As complex as Dr. Robby was in season 2, it’s still his show — so if you love The Pitt, you’re gonna love Wyle.
I think you’re probably right about Rhea Seehorn too, and the Britt Lower comp is smart — even if Pluribus doesn’t feel as competitive as Severance did. I can’t let go of the idea, though, that Zendaya is having a hell of a year, which could outweigh the Emmys’ general aversion to Euphoria’s third season. Remember when we all thought Melanie Lynskey might win for the super-buzzy first season of Yellowjackets, only for Zendaya to win the whole thing again? Euphoria is so weak now – and Zendaya seemingly so uninterested in being associated with it — that it might be a stretch, but it’s a twist I’ll be looking out for anyway.
But let’s go back to The Pitt to talk about the supporting categories here, which should be dominated by the staff of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center — if voters can figure out who to choose, at least. How are you feeling about the vote-splitting potential for all these Pitt nominees?
Chris: I’ll get to those supporting categories in a second, but as I was reading your thoughts on best actress, I had a vision of Keri Russell actually just winning for The Diplomat, just like she did at the Actor Awards in the winter, and getting a her-and-his Emmy moment with Matthew Rhys (who I’m sure we’ll talk a lot about next week).
Okay, sorry, back to The Pitt. Let me start with supporting actress, because I think no matter who wins, it’ll be a Pitt cast member. The smart money is on Katherine LaNasa, who won last year — and had plenty of good material this season, too. But just going off vibes, I can’t help but feel either Sepideh Moafi or Taylor Dearden might pull off the upset. I’d lean Moafi — she’s tied for third with Dearden among our experts — just because she had the most material this season opposite Wyle. But then again, every time I see an FYC event for The Pitt, Dearden is front and center, and campaigning is a big part of Emmy season.
In supporting actor, Patrick Ball, Gerran Howell and Shawn Hatosy are nominated, and there’s an idea that those guys might split their votes — allowing another contender to win (maybe Tom Pelphrey from Task). But I don’t think that’s really an issue: Ball clearly had the biggest arc in season two among those actors, and you could even argue he was the second biggest character after Wyle’s Robby. It kind of reminds me of Succession season three, when Matthew Macfadyen beat his costars Kieran Culkin and Nicholas Braun to win supporting actor; anyone who watched the season knew that was Macfadyen’s award to lose, even if casual viewers might have expected Culkin to prevail. We know Emmy voters watch The Pitt; I expect that familiarity with the show will push Ball over his costars and the rest of the category.
I’ll leave you with the last word here, Katey — what is going to surprise us in these drama categories?
Katey: As you know, I’ll be coasting for years off the shock of Jeff Hiller’s win for Somebody Somewhere last year, so I can’t help rooting for a similar upset in one of these supporting categories— if you can even decide who the upset would be. When I was watching our pal Joanna Robinson moderate a giant panel of Pitt stars at HBO’s FYC event on Monday, I did notice that LaNasa still feels like the den mother leader of the group, but also Moafi gave the most thoughtful answers that garnered huge audience response — so I think they’re solidly the front runners at least.
I do wonder if the smart money is on Hatosy as a repeat winner, having bumped up from guest actor to supporting this season, with Dr. Jack Abbot as the wise voice of reason in a season where Dr. Robby loses his grip a bit. But I’ll stick with you and proud North Carolina boy Patrick Ball — haven’t we all been rooting for a win for Langdon?
I know you think we’re done, but quickly first: What if Pluribus pulls off an upset in writing or directing? Could that be even more likely than a Rhea Seehorn win?
Chris: A buzzer beater! It’s funny, despite winning best drama last year, The Pitt actually lost both writing and directing. I’ll chalk that up to vote-splitting in both categories, and this year, at least in directing, there is only one nominee — and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s also Wyle. I expect him to win there, but I think Gilligan will take home his first-ever writing award for Pluribus — especially with The Pitt landing two nominees in that category.
