The Emmys air Monday, and every good show is either ending or getting a spinoff

The Emmys are Monday and everything good is dying

The 78th Emmys air Monday on NBC, hosted by Mariska Hargitay, which means Olivia Benson is going to spend three hours handing gold statues to the people who make the shows she's too busy solving fictional crimes to watch. The Pitt led everything with 25 nominations, a show about people bleeding out in a Pittsburgh ER, and honestly, good for it. The tell of the whole night is Hacks, which pulled a record 24 nominations for its fifth and final season. That's the business now. A show becomes undeniable, sweeps the ballot, and then it's over — the only thing Hollywood loves more than a great show is the tax certainty of one that's finished. Slow Horses is up for Best Drama the same week its sixth season drops, so Apple gets to nominate itself, applaud itself, and charge you for the privilege, all on one Wednesday. Vertically integrated self-esteem.

Slow Horses, Season 6 (Apple TV+)

Gary Oldman is back as Jackson Lamb, the flatulent genius running the office where MI5 dumps the spies it can't legally fire. Six episodes, one a week through October 21, adapted from Mick Herron's Joe Country and Slough House, and this time Diana Taverner's maneuvering finally comes for the whole building. Best spy show on television and it isn't close. Oldman plays Lamb like a man who gave up on everything except being right, and the writers trust you to keep up instead of stopping to explain the plot to a focus group. If Apple ever cancels this to fund another drama about a quiet sad man in a nice sweater, I'm walking into the ocean.

🏆 DROP EVERYTHING

Neagley (Prime Video)

Prime looked at Reacher — a man who punches small towns into compliance — and decided the real franchise was his friend. Maria Sten gets her own show as Frances Neagley, the ex-110th investigator, now a private eye in Chicago hunting whoever killed someone she loved. All eight episodes land at once on the 16th, Alan Ritchson stops by to remind you whose universe you're in, and unlike the mothership there's no Lee Child novel underneath — they invented this one. Might be great. Might be phase one of the Reacher Cinematic Universe.

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Stranger Things: Tales From '85, Season 2 (Netflix)

The animated one. Eight episodes on the 17th, set around Valentine's Day in Hawkins somewhere between seasons two and three of the real thing, which is Netflix keeping the machine warm while the final live-action season takes its sweet, expensive time. Season one got a shrug from critics. There are ghostly apparitions, another swarm of creatures, a voice cast you've mostly never heard of, and it exists because Netflix physically cannot let a decade pass without wringing this town for one more dollar. Fine for a Saturday morning if there's a nine-year-old in the house.

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Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story (Netflix)

Ryan Murphy's fourth Monster, and the first one about a woman, which is a strange thing to dress up as progress. Ella Beatty swings the axe as Lizzie Borden, with Vicky Krieps, Rebecca Hall, Charlie Hunnam as poor doomed Andrew Borden, and Sarah Paulson, because it's a Ryan Murphy production and there are laws. We've already filed this anthology under war crime twice, for Dahmer and the Menendez brothers, and there's no reason a lavishly lit reenactment of a 134-year-old double murder in Fall River breaks the streak. Beautifully shot exploitation is still exploitation. Eight episodes, all at once, so you can feel bad about it efficiently.

☠️ WAR CRIME

The Howard Stern Show (HBO Max)

HBO Max, the streamer that sells you Succession and White Lotus, is now in the business of pointing cameras at Howard Stern's radio show. SiriusXM cut him from two shows a week to one; three days after Monday's live broadcast the filmed version hits HBO Max on Thursday the 17th, then every Thursday after, so the platform David Zaslav keeps renaming can answer the question nobody asked — what if the King of All Media, but you could also watch Robin react to him. No idea who this is for. I do know it's happening.

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Pick of the Week

Slow Horses. It's the pick every time it's on and I won't apologize for it. A spy show that's actually about failure, run by a man who smells like an ashtray and is sharper than everyone stationed above him. Start at season one if you're new; you'll be caught up by the weekend. If you press play on one thing this week, make it the one the Emmys and I actually agree on.

The closer

Monday night Mariska Hargitay reads Hacks off a card as it wins for the last time, the room stands, and by Tuesday morning some Warner executive is pitching a spinoff about the writers' assistant. The Pitt takes Best Drama because it's the rare show that remembers television can be about something other than intellectual property with a release calendar. And Slow Horses loses to whatever has more subscribers, gets renewed anyway because British crews are cheap, and quietly keeps being the best thing Apple makes. That's the whole ecosystem in one night. See you next week.