2022 is a mega-mammoth year for the Emmys. As the pandemic continued to take its toll on in-person film attendance, television became our one-stop shopping for entertainment.
Face it, we've never binged so much TV in our lives. We've probably seen more than the 24,000 members of the TV Academy.
That's just one of the reasons we're so fired up to see who wins and loses at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted this year by Kenan Thompson, on Monday, Sept. 12.
"Succession" leads the list of nominations with 25 nods, followed by "Ted Lasso" and "The White Lotus" with 20 apiece.
MORE: 2022 Emmy Awards nominations: See the full listStill, numbers are only part of the story. Passion is what drives us as viewers. Would you go to war over "Succession" vs. "Squid Game" or seeing "Better Call Saul" finally win something for its final season? At least for supporting actress Rhea Seehorn? You bet you would.
That's the fun of making predictions. So here are my picks in the major categories for what will win and what should win. Let the games begin.
SHOULD WIN: "Abbott Elementary" -- Since the Emmys have been kicking network shows to the curb for years now in favor of streamers, it's a kick to see ABC's funny and fierce freshman sitcom make the cut. Created by and starring Quinta Brunson, best known for HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show," this mockumentary is set in a predominantly Black school in Philadelphia where teachers, such as Brunson's Janine, must cope with a clueless principal (a priceless Janelle James) and a student body way ahead of them in the hip department.
WILL WIN: "Ted Lasso" -- Lazy Emmy voters have a habit of re-rewarding previous winners, so expect last year's champion sitcom about an American football coach (Jason Sudeikis) coaching a soccer team in England to win this category. With its fish out of water hitting the mark, "Ted Lasso" is primed to score again simply by offering niceness as an antidote to cynicism of the wicked variety doled out with such mischievous glee by Jean Smart and company on "Hacks."
SHOULD WIN: Bill Hader -- Though he already has two Emmys for playing "Barry" Berkman, a hitman who finds his true calling at an acting class, Hader brought new layers of feeling to season 3 in which he tinged the dark comedy with a harsh gravity that dug deep enough to make you think he could switch gears and win as outstanding lead actor in a drama series.
WILL WIN: Jason Sudeikis -- Though he continued dishing out the affable charm we all loved in the first season of "Ted Lasso," he didn't raise the bar the way Hader did on a character still capable of shocking surprise. My guess is that Emmy will opt again for comfort food over challenge.
SHOULD WIN: Jean Smart -- Like Bill Hader in "Barry," Smart raised the bar in season 2 by finding the secret heart of Deborah Vance, the prickly Vegas stand-up who makes life hell for her entourage. By finding fissures in Vance's hard surface, Smart improves on perfection.
WILL WIN: Jean Smart -- Sometimes it's that simple. She's the best.
SHOULD WIN: Henry Winkler -- "The Fonz" won a first-season Emmy for playing Gene Cousineau, the acting teacher who saw something in "Barry" until the realization came that the hitman had murdered Gene's girlfriend, Janice. In season 3, Winkler revealed Gene had faults way beyond his ego, having lied to the police to protect "Barry" and further his own career. Playing the dark side, Winkler brought out the devil in Gene and made us believe it every step of the way.
WILL WIN: Brett Goldstein -- As fan-favorite Roy Kent, the angry, foul-mouthed footballer from season 1 who has to map out his transition to coach and family man in season 2, Goldstein -- who also writes for "Ted Lasso" -- manages the transition with enough finesse to score him a bookend to the Emmy he won last time. No arguments here. I'd be afraid to say different.
SHOULD WIN: Kate McKinnon -- This year she wrapped her 10th and final season on "Saturday Night Live," for which she's already won two Emmys. Should she have a third? Are you kidding me?! This indisputable goddess of comedy should have eight more. Attention must be paid.
WILL WIN: Hannah Einbinder -- Previous winner Hannah Waddington of "Ted Lasso" is expected to win again. But I'm rooting for that other Hannah who came into her own on season 2 of "Hacks" by proving she could stand toe-to-toe with "The Great" Jean Smart and show sides of her character, comedy writer Ava Daniels, that were barely hinted at in season 1. She's revelatory.
SHOULD WIN: "Better Call Saul," which has ceased production without a win. Or "Severance," a new series of startling originality. Or "Squid Game," the South Korean survival drama that took the world by storm.
WILL WIN: None of the above. "Succession" hit its swaggering stride in season 3 and showed that when acting, writing, direction and all-around production excellence are in perfect sync, the combination is unbeatable. It's a new TV peak as the Roy family betrayals rival the Borgias.
SHOULD WIN: Brian Cox -- As Logan Roy, the media tycoon who rips his family apart in the name of ambition and greed, Cox gives a performance of Shakespearean magnitude and magnificence. He's already lost the Emmy once to co-star Jeremy Strong. This must end.
WILL WIN: Lee Jung-jae -- If Cox and Strong cancel each other out in a "Succession" duel, look for this South Korean actor to nab the Emmy for his role as a desperate gambler recruited to play a series of deadly childhood games for a cash prize. Best known at home for his roles as a charismatic hero, Lee Jung-jae revitalized his career by changing pace with a brilliant portrayal of human weakness.
SHOULD WIN: Melanie Lynskey -- From her sensational film debut opposite Kate Winslet in 1994's "Heavenly Creatures" to her scene-stealing role as Leonardo DiCaprio's neglected wife in "Don't Look Up," this New Zealand-born actress is always a standout. Still, Lynskey finds the role of her career as Shauna in "Yellowjackets," discovering the internalized rage of Shauna, a suburban housewife and mother who's been harboring dark secrets about a plane crash 25 years ago that nearly killed her and her soccer teammates.
WILL WIN: Melanie Lynskey -- Though betting odds suggest Zendaya will grab her second best actress Emmy for the sex and drugs fantasia that is "Euphoria," Lynskey is an actress whose time has come. Don't know about you, but I'm getting ready to stand up and cheer.
SHOULD WIN: Kieran Culkin -- With three other "Succession" actors likely to split the vote, the odds are against Culkin taking the prize for his wildcard brilliance as Roman Roy. The middle child of tycoon Logan Roy's second marriage possesses the rare ability to drive his father and siblings crazy with his unpredictable behavior. Culkin makes him impossible not to love.
WILL WIN: John Turturro -- Much of the power of Ben Stiller's freshman series "Severance" comes from the banked fire that the reliably excellent Turturro brings to the role of Irving Bailiff, who's a stickler for a company policy that surgically creates a strict separation in the work and personal lives of its severed employees. Turturro's eyes alone tell a wrenching story.
SHOULD WIN: Rhea Seehorn -- Too long forgotten by Emmy voters (not a single acting nomination), Seehorn proved herself indispensable in the last seasons of "Better Call Saul" as Kim Wexler, the confidante, lover, wife and fellow scammer to Bob Odenkirk's title character. Seehorn's final scene, joining Saul in his prison cell for a smoke in which her face expresses all that was and never will be between them, is acting at its finest.
WILL WIN: Rhea Seehorn -- So that justice will finally be done.
SHOULD WIN: "The White Lotus" -- For starters, there was nothing like it on the tube this year. Originality is a specialty for creator Mike White, as he follows the guests and employees at a exclusive Hawaiian resort called the White Lotus as they bring out the best and worst in each other in ways that evoke laughs that pull you up into tragedy in just moments.
WILL WIN: "Dopesick" -- Danny Strong devised this series about the opioid crisis in America. The seriousness of that subject will most likely carry "Dopesick" to Emmy victory over the far more intimate and involving "The White Lotus." The Television Academy likes nothing as much as congratulating itself on the gravitas of its intentions. Here's the way to do it.
SHOULD WIN: Andrew Garfield -- On a career roll ("tick, tick...BOOM!," "Spider Man: No Way Home," a Tony for "Angels in America"), the mega-talented Garfield pours his heart, soul and struggling spirit into the role of a Mormon detective investigating the 1984 Utah murder of a mother and her 15-month-old daughter that involves a secret fundamentalist sect within the church. Playing the character like a gathering storm, Garfield forges quiet miracles.
WILL WIN: Michael Keaton -- If the intent of "Dopesick" is to put a human face on OxyContin abuse, Keaton is just the exceptional actor to do it. As Samuel Finnix, a Virginia doctor who prescribes the drug to relieve pain and winds up becoming addicted himself, Keaton is a powerhouse whose sense of commitment and purpose anchors a sometimes unsteady series.
SHOULD WIN: Sarah Paulson -- This consummate actress says she regrets wearing a fat suit to play Linda Tripp, who took as much media heat for her appearance as she did for betraying her friend Monica Lewinsky in order to incite impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. Tripp is easy to mock as long as you don't look inside and try to understand as Paulson does. Is Paulson wrong to use every tool in her arsenal to bring Tripp to three-dimensional life? No way. Paulson should be praised for refusing to let political correctness stand in the way of her duty as an actor.
WILL WIN: Amanda Seyfried -- In case you haven't noticed, Seyfried -- an Oscar nominee for "Mank" -- keeps raising her game as an actress. She's totally deserving of an Emmy for playing Theranos founder and fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in "The Dropout." Seyfried wants us to see our worst impulses in Holmes' craving for a shortcut to success. The raw and riveting Seyfried makes this cautionary tale more than compulsively watchable, she makes it sting.
SHOULD WIN: Murray Bartlett -- After 35 years of acting, this Aussie performer became an overnight sensation as Armand, the hotel manager at the White Lotus who hides a range of turbulent feelings, from lust to lethal revenge, behind the fixed smile of an employee trained to preach the gospel that the customer's always right. His breakdown scene alone should trigger a Bartlett renaissance that's been a long time coming. Lucky us.
WILL WIN: Murray Bartlett -- Like I just said, his time is now!
SHOULD WIN: Jennifer Coolidge -- If I had to pick my favorite performance this year in, well, anything, I'd pick Coolidge. Long a showstopper, from Stifler's mom in "American Pie" to a series of great Christopher Guest mockumentaries, Coolidge nabs her first Emmy nomination ever (can you believe it?) as Tanya McQuoid, a nutso socialite who goes to Hawaii to scatter her mother's ashes, find a new man and remain oblivious to the feelings of others. That Coolidge makes something funny, touching and vital of the role is just part of her comic and dramatic artistry.
WILL WIN: Jennifer Coolidge -- It ought to tell you something that she's the only cast member invited back for "The White Lotus" season 2. The series can't do without her. Neither can we.