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This year’s Emmy Awards, airing Sept. 14 on CBS, are set to shine a spotlight on 25 different categories in the main broadcast. This undertaking could take over three hours. But it would take much, much longer to honor every great scene, performance and quirky coincidence to appear on TV in the last year. There are so many shows and so many ways to be compelled (and sometimes repelled) by their content.<\/p>\n
And so, cue the trumpets! Here, The Envelope presents its own, deeply subjective awards honoring the greatest moments in television during the 2024-25 season \u2014 at least those that won\u2019t get their proper recognition at the big show. Welcome to the 2025 Envy Awards!<\/p>\n
A hidden in-joke in a movie or TV series is one thing; burying two <\/i>slickly executed Easter eggs from your stars’ previous hits takes things to another level. In the Emmy-nominated “The Gorge” (Apple TV+), Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller play assassins slowly getting to know each other remotely, and spend time sharing their hobbies in a montage that might spark some d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu in fans of the actors. First, they’re shown playing chess across an abyss \u2014 a clear shoutout to Taylor-Joy’s Emmy-winning 2020 limited series “The Queen’s Gambit.” Seconds later they’re banging makeshift drums at each other \u2014 an equally clear nod to Teller’s Oscar-winning 2014 film, “Whiplash.” Coincidence? We think not \u2014 this one was executed as smoothly as a hit man’s bullet fired into a mutant monster.<\/p>\nMost Thrilling Use of a Weapon in an Elevator: \u2018Squid Game\u2019<\/b><\/h2>\n
Who knew guns with hair triggers could be so shockingly lethal in elevators? OK, maybe everyone. But there was tough competition this year in this category. In Apple TV+’s Emmy-nominated “Severance,” Mark (Adam Scott) holds a gun on Mr. Drummond (\u00d3lafur Darri \u00d3lafsson) \u2014 and then whoops! it discharges when he shifts between outie and innie, killing the menacing supervisor. But in “Squid Game” (Netflix), No-eul (Park Gyu-young) draws out the tension while crawling toward an overlooked firearm left in an executive elevator \u2014 and her final shots save her life. That extended moment of suspense gives her the killing edge in this category.<\/p>\n
It can be hard to surprise TV audiences these days, but the Emmy-nominated “Dept. Q” (Netflix) shocked audiences twice<\/i> in its pilot through clever editing. In the opening moments, a shooter springs upon authorities surveying a crime scene with almost supernatural speed, catching not just the police but also the audience off guard. But the real surprise involves Merritt (Chloe Pirrie), a prickly prosecutor who seems primed to team up with the surly, wounded Det. Morck (Matthew Goode) to solve crimes. But \u2014 spoiler alert \u2014 Merritt’s scenes are actually flashbacks, and she’s the series’ victim, missing for four years. That’s not just a twist in the tale, that’s a twist in the whole genre.<\/p>\nBest Solution Featuring a Math Savant Spy: \u2018Shetland\u2019<\/b><\/h2>\n
Nerdy math types multiplied in this year’s lineup, though no character exactly fit the stereotypical image of a poindexter. Apple TV+’s “Prime Target” features Edward (Leo Woodall), a handsome university student who won’t look you in the eye but discovers that a head for figures can land you in an international conspiracy \u2014 and put your life in danger. Meanwhile, the overlooked-but-fantastic BritBox series “Shetland” also combined a math genius and an international spy ring with the murder of Annie Bett (Sarah MacGillivray). Both deserve credit for elevating the geek in us all, but “Shetland” takes the win by showing Bett passing on her numbers know-how to her son, calming him while they’re in the middle of a secret nighttime investigation.<\/p>\n
Blame “Game of Thrones” (HBO), which took the taboo of incest to highbrow, Emmy-winning TV a few years ago and opened the door to many more WTF moments around the dial. This year, not only did “Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” continue the theme with an episode where Daemon (Matthew Smith) dreams of having sex with his mom, but the Emmy-winning “The White Lotus” keeps things in the family as Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) discovers just how much of a people pleaser his younger bro, Lochlan (Sam Nivola), is. FX’s “American Horror Stories” went one icky step further, though, as David (Victor Garber) is turned on by his own clone<\/i>. The pair round the bases together and bring new meaning to “self-love.”<\/p>\n