Of course, like every year, the awards were for the most memorable and outstanding performances for drama, talk show, short films and limited series on television and streaming platforms. For acting and scripting, producing and technological flourish, for directing and driving stories that keep us addictively glued wherever we may be in the world.

However, the Penultimate Emmy, the Big Pandemmy as Kimmel might like to call it went to the Television Academy, actors and nominees for taking the narrative of inclusivity, race and gender equality and dissent against white supremacy, that began a few years back at American awards functions, a few steps further. By bringing in real moments and sentimental slivers from the lives of those seldom applauded—a UPS delivery man, a postal services executive, a history teacher, doctors and nurses—men and women from essential services sectors who have unflinchingly played their valorous part in the pandemic—the Emmys applauded ordinariness in an extraordinary way.

The awards ceremony had unexpected but enjoyable walk-ins to Kimmel’s stage. The inimitable Jennifer Aniston of the forever sitcom Friends, arrived in a dazzling necklace and a figure hugging black dress to douse a fire lit to sanitise an awards envelope, giving Kimmel firefighting company. This, after she and some of her Friends co-stars had waved from their screens at home. Aniston in a dressing gown while at home, belted and unbelted for effect, looked like she had put on four and half years in the last two and half decades of Friends! Actor with the gift of the gab Sterling K Brown, nominated for best actor for This is Us, came in a black suit and BLM (Black Lives Matter) T-shirt. Glittering in a ruffled gold Alexandre Vauthier gown was star Tracee Ellis Ross nominated for Black-ish while actor Jason Sudeikis took a COVID test on stage. There was no red carpet. Whoa.

Especially when this Episode One, Season One of Freaking Weird, where stars sat guffawing in their living rooms, poise and point of view in place, brought $2.8 million to No Kid Hungry, an American group working to help children left hungry in the pandemic. Each winning film (23 awards were given out) brought a donation of $100,000 and the Television Academy committed $500,000 adding to the figure.

So when Jesse Armstrong, the creator of HBO’s Succession sent a series of “Un-Thank Yous” (to US President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to quasi-nationalists and the COVID-19 pandemic), you had to thank the Pandemmys for saying it all, saying it well.