With WGA Win, ‘The Penguin’ Is Shaping Up to Be an Emmys Superpower
Aside from the peculiar appearance of a certain flightless waterfowl, Saturday night’s WGA Awards were a familiar affair.
“Hacks” won its second trophy in four years for Best Comedy Series, as well as its second trophy in the same span for Best Episodic Comedy, continuing a victory parade that began at the 2024 Emmys when it upset “The Bear” for the top prize. That hot streak has continued into 2025 with wins at the Casting Society of America, Costume Designers Guild Awards, Directors Guild Awards, Producers Guild Awards, and AFI Awards, among others. With Season 4 having wrapped production in January, creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky’s Max original should enter the 2025 Emmy season as the presumptive favorite.
The season’s dominant drama, “Shōgun,” won’t be back in time to compete in 2025 — the writers’ room is still plugging away at Season 2 — but its Season 1 winning streak also kept rolling at the WGA Awards, where Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo took home Best Drama Series, Best Episodic Drama, and Best New Series. Add those trophies to a mantle straining to support recognition from the Art Directors Guild (which were also awarded on Saturday), CSA, CDG, DGA, PGA, and AFI Awards — not to mention those 18 Emmys and potential further wins at the SAG Awards and Independent Spirit Awards (“Shōgun” has five nominations at each) — and odds are high awards voters will remember the sweeping epic whenever it returns.
Additional winners included “Bob’s Burgers,” which took home the Animation honor for the episode “Saving Favorite Drive-in,” written by Katie Crown; “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” for Comedy/Variety Series – Talk or Sketch; and “Nikki Glaser: Someday You’ll Die,” for Comedy/Variety Special. “Bob’s Burgers” has been nominated 16 times across 11 seasons, and now has two wins. “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” has eight wins in 10 years. Both are expected to earn more Emmy love in 2025, having been highly successful throughout their respective runs.
All in all, there weren’t many opportunities for new Emmy contenders to flex their might. There were zero new series nominated for Best Comedy Series, and of the new shows nominated for Best Drama — “Fallout,” “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” and “Shōgun” — none are expected to compete this year. Even the New Series category was sparse, with “English Teacher” and “Nobody Wants This” unable to crack the Best Comedy Series race, let alone topple “Shōgun” in their shared category. (New Series doesn’t discriminate between comedies and dramas.)
But then there’s that peculiar “Penguin.” A hybrid of legacy HBO dramas and Warner Bros. Discovery I.P., Lauren LaFranc’s fall favorite bumped off the presumed frontrunner Saturday night, beating “Ripley” for Best Limited Series. That it didn’t have to compete with “Baby Reindeer,” which won last year’s Emmy but wasn’t eligible at the WGA Awards, may have helped keep the category from looking as repetitious as all the others, but “The Penguin” besting “Ripley,” FX’s “Say Nothing,” HBO’s own “True Detective: Night Country,” and the Apple TV+ summer sensation “Presumed Innocent” is still plenty impressive.
Still, the win isn’t completely out of left field. As IndieWire pointed out when “The Penguin” landed three SAG nominations in January, the “Batman” spinoff is shaping up to be an Emmy heavyweight. It pulled in three DGA nominations (before losing to “Ripley”) and a PGA nomination (where it lost to “Baby Reindeer”), but now “The Penguin” is earning wins. In addition to its WGA Award, the series took home an AFI Award, triumphed in two of its four Critics Choice categories, and won Best Limited Series at the Art Directors Guild Awards and the Special Make-Up Effects honor from the Make-Up and Hair Stylists Guild — the latter two both happening Saturday night.
And “The Penguin” may not be done — this winter, or this year. Colin Farrell is the current favorite to win a SAG Award, and Cristin Milioti has a decent shot at winning the Indie Spirit Award, too. As for the Emmys, all bets are off. With widespread appeal across every branch of TV Academy and HBO’s exemplary awards team running the campaign, “The Penguin” should have a significant presence on TV’s big night. As always, we’ll have to wait and see how the spring releases perform — Netflix has “Zero Day” and “Adolescence,” Peacock has “Long Bright River,” Hulu has “Dying for Sex,” and HBO will also be running “Task” — but “The Penguin” is certainly mirroring its title character’s steady emergence as the new boss.
