Where to stream the 2021 Emmy nominees

Looking back, season five managed to cover an impressive amount of storytelling ground. It introduced a trio of new babies, wove Uncle Nicky firmly into the family fold, and delivered a bunch of reckonings around Randall’s identity. At the very least, season five will forever be a time capsule of this incredibly strange year and a half—with one truly great to show for it. []

Kenya Barris’ Black-ish survived —which saw the end of Black-ish spin-off Mixed-ish, among others—but only by a nose. , the series has been renewed for an eighth season, but that’ll be it for the award-winning show and Black-ish will end for good after that eighth season. Barris has , noting that it’s “rare” these days for the team behind a show to get the chance to decide when and how to end it, so he’s grateful to ABC for this opportunity. []

A series of flashbacks run throughout season three of Cobra Kai. Only, they don’t belong to Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), adrift after his dojo was stolen from him and his best student Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) trapped in a coma following the brawl that ended season two. And they also don’t belong to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), struggling to keep his family and business together in the wake of his daughter’s suspension and the negative fallout from being the public face of a dojo whose students were deemed responsible for a school-wide riot. No, these flashbacks follow John Kreese (Martin Kove), Johnny’s former sensei and the show’s cigar-chomping villain, following him as an idealistic young man going to Vietnam in 1968, presumably so the audience can get a deep insight into his character and learn why he turned out so cruel and monomaniacal. But is there really anything to learn that would make us change our minds about such a sneering sociopath? As Daniel’s daughter Sam (Mary Mouser) says early on, voicing the show’s overarching theme: “Everybody’s got a sob story. Doesn’t give you the right to be a bully.”But that’s the Cobra Kai way: a long walk to confirm what you already knew. Luckily, there’s a lot of humor and good-natured theatrics accompanying the story this time around. After season two got and lost much of the series’ initial acidic insight, it looked as though Cobra Kai might have fallen victim to the very macho posturing it used to lampoon. And while that tension is very much still present this year—episodes can turn from comic to portentously cartoonish faster than a crane kick—the creative team seems to have remembered that what makes all the teenage chop-socky-infused drama palatable is a healthy sense of sardonic perspective on the proceedings. Taking all the soapy emoting at face value quickly gets tiresome, as last season demonstrated; now, the show is once more aware that something like a news announcer grimly reporting on the aftereffects of a high school’s “all-out karate riot” is pretty ridiculous. []

Lily Collins stars as Emily, a Chicago marketing wunderkind who suddenly gets sent to Paris when her company buys a smaller French firm. Her boss (a woefully underused Kate Walsh) was supposed to go, but she got pregnant, and in the Emily In Paris world, women can’t fly even in the first trimester. Emily arrives at the Parisian marketing firm to offer a fresh, American perspective on apparently alien things like social media, to the consternation of her constantly sneering, smoking new colleagues. Despite her humble Midwestern roots and mere handful of trunks, Emily looks like she just walked out of Teen Vogue, never repeating an outfit, Carrie Bradshaw-style (trust us when we say that no one in all of Chicago dresses like she does). A bland Windy City boyfriend shows up so briefly we wonder why he’s there at all. []

Fraught and funny, Hacks is the kind of show that understands how rich women’s lives are at any age. Deborah Vance is the role of a lifetime, and yet Jean Smart makes this feel like it’s just the beginning. It can’t be easy to square off against such a consummate pro, but Hannah Einbinder holds her own. Hacks tests Deborah and Ava’s ability to “hack it”—to endure, to roll with the punches—in a culture where few people, let alone women, thrive. But instead of merely being an exploration of survival, the show helps them find a way to rise above. []

The Flight Attendant lands on HBO Max this week with a look and feel that fairly screams Hitchcock homage—initially, at least. Chris Bohjalian’s novel of the same name might be the source material for Steve Yockey’s adaptation, but it’s far from the only inspiration. Strangers meet on a train, er, plane, a beautiful blond slowly loses her grip on reality, and there’s an unreliable narrator at the center of a possible international conspiracy. But as this lively pastiche unfolds, it recalls a different type of thriller altogether, the kind of blue sky series that made USA Network the (ultimately temporary) home of the breezy watch. []

Sitcom impresario Chuck Lorre continues to draw Oscar-winning talent for his recent Netflix experiments; hot off the cancellation of Kathy Bates’ Disjointed, Lorre has roped in Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin for his single-camera shot at the “old guys saying funny, cranky stuff to each other” crown. Douglas plays a veteran acting coach who spends most of his time sleeping with young women, while Arkin is his agent and buddy, dealing with the recent death of his wife. Lorre looks to be going for somewhat realer emotions here than he usually taps into, while cast additions like Nancy Travis, Sarah Baker, and Lisa Edelstein do their best to help the Method feel like more than just “, but for dudes.” []

Hulu’s sublime  manages to turn the most awkward kind of humor into riveting and relatable comedy. Created by , Anna Konkle, and Sam Zvibleman, the half-hour series stars Erskine and Konkle, who play their 13-year-old middle school selves. Their performance is unnervingly accurate, adding to the heightened cringe factor of the show. In its second season, Pen15 waded into the emotional trenches of Maya and Anna’s coming-of-age, including pursuing crushes, discovering the pros and cons of working on the school play, and briefly believing they’re both witches in episode three, “Vendy Wiccany.” []

Before it premiered, Ted Lasso was a punchline of Peak TV: Had the race for content gone so far that Apple would green-light an adaptation of an (entertaining) Jason Sudeikis NBC Sports commercial? But when it premiered in August, well into the COVID-19 pandemic, Ted Lasso was rightly hailed as the perfect show for a difficult moment. Transformed into a deep ensemble with the help of Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, the series combined the wit and wordplay of Sudeikis’ ad with the thrill and camaraderie of a sports drama, and redefined Coach Lasso as a beacon of positivity and belief. And yet, it’s important to recognize that Ted Lasso’s hype is not solely the result of “pandemic goggles.” It stands as one of the year’s finest comedies regardless, as each character is allowed to grow and show vulnerability without ever losing their ability to be funny. With a concept that could be played for satire, Ted Lasso took the riskier path of grounding itself in the belief that good people doing good things can drive a comedy series. And while that choice undoubtedly struck a nerve, Ted Lasso will resonate just as well when we catch up with AFC Richmond again under (hopefully) better circumstances. []

The limited series, which has offered some of the buzziest shows in recent years, reached new heights with Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of The Underground Railroad. Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel, this 10-part historical fantasy drama is equal parts gripping and meditative; an operatic tale () limned by truth and sunlight. The radiant Thuso Mbedu leads the show as Cora, whose arduous trek from the antebellum South to the only slightly less foreboding North serves as the backbone to the story. The eponymous novel, along with centuries of U.S. history, provides the foundation for this engrossing story. But Jenkins’ lens remains inquisitive, seeking out the heroes, villains, and witnesses, the camera resting on their open or shuttered expressions in his signature style. By eliminating the distance between the viewer and the characters, The Underground Railroad effectively bridges the gap between the past and the present, leaving no room for denial or myth-building. []

Mare Of Easttown kicks off with a murder mystery, but that question mark quickly fades, overshadowed by Kate Winslet’s monumental performance. Sure, the series nails the gloomy Pennsylvania town, DelCo accents, and the regional snacks. But Winslet commands all the attention as Mare Sheehan, a detective, town hero, and grieving mother. She’s surrounded by a solid supporting cast: Evan Peters as Mare’s earnest young partner, Guy Pearce (Winslet’s Mildred Pierce co-star) as a flirtatious, enigmatic writer, and best of all, Jean Smart as Mare’s no-nonsense ma. The detective uncovers one unsavory truth after another as she inches closer to solving the crime, but the real revelations involve Mare herself, as she finally comes to terms with the thorny path her life has taken. Watching an actor as well-known as Winslet disappear into her character is nothing less than astonishing, and will likely pay off during awards season. []

The Queen’s Gambit is a biographical portrait so detailed, it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t about an actual person. But Anya Taylor-Joy’s portrayal of chess champion Beth Harmon is both completely fictional (based on Walter Tevis’ novel of the same name) and entirely believable. Beth is a taciturn young orphan with addiction issues who also happens to be a chess wunderkind, and these two elements of her life vie for control throughout the series, as writer/director Scott Frank and editor Michelle Tesoro skillfully make the chess matches riveting even for viewers who wouldn’t know a King’s Gambit from a Sicilian Defense. Beth’s brave and often lonesome climb is gripping to witness, aided by meticulously detailed mid-century décor, from her modest Kentucky home to period-perfect opulent hotel rooms in Las Vegas, Mexico City, and Russia. Her ensembles also get more glamorous the higher she rises in the chess ranks, often in stunning black-and-white outfits that echo the game that rules her life. Though surrounded by compelling supporting performances from Marielle Heller, Moses Ingram, and Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Taylor-Joy commands every single scene as Beth, so that we can’t help but cheer her on as she learns to control her demons as well as the chess board. []

Where some series add, Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You hosts a singular conversation on sexual violence and the path to healing. The HBO series is a deeply personal work for the multi-hyphenate, which lends it a great deal of power, but Coel isn’t interested in monologuing. In its important and nuanced discussion on victimhood (imperfect and otherwise), trauma, and recovery, I May Destroy You makes room for all manner of survivors, including male victims who are too often stigmatized. Even more impressively, the series gives interiority and vibrancy to all of its characters, refusing to define them solely by what happened to them. And Coel establishes herself as one of the most consummate storytellers out there, building the series from the inside out—she gives a bravura performances as Arabella, moving effortlessly from impishnness to devastation to rage, taking from a scene just as much as she brings to it. I May Destroy You even provides its own compelling look at Black British life, from navigating adolescence in predominantly white schools to the house parties that can break out into colonizer discourse. Despite the tacit promise of its title, I May Destroy You is one of the most life-affirming series of the year. []