After host four nights of the 2020 Creative Arts Emmy Awards on emmys.com, Nicole Byer was primed for, well, primetime. The fifth and final night of ceremonies was moved over to FXX, for a two-hour broadcast.
When opening the show, Byer commented directly on her long-running stint, noting, “I am getting really good at this! I’ve not only been crushing it, I’ve been making history.”
Byer, of course, was referring to (and specifically called out) the fact that she is the first Black woman to be nominated in the reality host category. (RuPaul, from VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” won that statue again — for the now fifth consecutive time. But Byer also was “proud to say” she was the first host to play a slide whistle, throw a ball and solve a Rubik’s cube in record time.
“So many firsts for this Black woman. Isn’t that exciting?” she said.
Byer skipped delivering a traditional monologue during her hosting duties. Instead, the final night broadcast repeated a package that had previously run during the streaming ceremonies earlier in the week, in which Byer gave out fake awards for outstanding COVID compliance. The first nominee was Fox’s “The Masked Singer” — the why of which she said “you should know.”
“They’re wearing masks. We should all be wearing masks!” she said.
The second nominee was TruTV’s “At Home With Amy Sedaris,” and again, the reason for the nomination, she pointed out, was “in the title of the show: ‘At Home with Amy.’ Amy’s following quarantine. She’s at home!”
The third nominee was a little less obvious: HBO’s “Big Little Lies.” Using a clip of Laura Dern talking to her on-screen husband (played by Jeffrey Nordling) while he was in prison, Byer acknowledged that being in such a location is bad, but the “use of plexiglass as PPE is good.”
In the end, she ended up giving the award to her own show, Netflix’s “Nailed It,” though, because these were her awards and she could use her power that way.
The final night of 2020 Emmy Awards festivities will hand out trophies in acting, writing, directing and series categories across comedy, drama, limited series/TV movie and reality competition live on Sunday beginning at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on ABC.
