Rob Reiner wins posthumous Emmy as 'Widow's Bay' dominates Creative Arts Awards

Rob Reiner won a posthumous Emmy Award on Sunday night, nearly nine months after his death, capping the second and final night of the Creative Arts Emmys at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles with one of the more emotional moments in recent television-awards history. Reiner took outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for his role as restaurant franchiser Albert Schnur on FX's "The Bear," his first Emmy win since 1978 and his third career trophy overall.

Reiner and his wife of four decades, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead at their Brentwood home by the couple's daughter in December, a loss that cast a shadow over "The Bear's" latest season even as it earned him the nomination. The 48-year gap between his 1978 supporting-actor win for "All in the Family" and Sunday's award is now the longest span between acting Emmy victories on record, according to Variety's tally. In the season's finale, castmate Edwin Lee Gibson's character tells Reiner's, "As you wish" — a nod to "The Princess Bride," the 1987 film Reiner directed.

Widow's Bay leads a crowded field

Apple TV+'s freshman horror-comedy "Widow's Bay," starring Matthew Rhys as the mayor of a cursed New England town, was the night's biggest winner with eight trophies spanning casting, cinematography, music composition, sound mixing and editing, and production design, plus a guest-actress win for Betty Gilpin. The haul makes it one of the rare first-season shows to dominate the craft categories before its Primetime Emmys eligibility has even been fully tested.

"DTF St. Louis" was close behind with six awards, including a sweep of the limited-series supporting acting categories by Linda Cardellini and David Harbour. HBO Max's "The Pitt," which led all shows with 25 nominations, converted four of them into wins, among them a guest drama-actor trophy for Ernest Harden Jr., while "Hacks" set a new single-season nomination record for a comedy series with 24 nods. The full winners list is maintained by the Television Academy, which oversees the Emmys.

Movies, animation and variety

"Remarkably Bright Creatures" took outstanding television movie, and "South Park" won outstanding animated program for the first time since 2013, a notable comeback for a series that has spent more than a decade in the shadow of newer competitors in the category. Shailene Woodley picked up guest drama actress honors for "Paradise." Bad Bunny's Super Bowl LX halftime show won outstanding variety special for a live production, and "The Muppet Show" took the pre-recorded variety trophy.

This year's early results offer the clearest signal yet of which shows and performers will dominate the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, scheduled for September 14 at the same Peacock Theater, with "The Pitt," "Hacks" and "Widow's Bay" now positioned as the shows to beat heading into the marquee night, and Reiner's win all but certain to be the ceremony's most-discussed moment regardless of what follows. The two-night Creative Arts ceremony traditionally hands out the bulk of the roughly 100 categories that do not appear on the main Emmys broadcast, and will itself be edited into a single special airing September 12 on FXX before streaming on Hulu.