Emmy Episodes: Horace and Pete

It’s always my policy to watch every Emmy-nominated episode each year, which leads me to sample a handful of shows that I don’t tune in to on a regular basis. This year, I’m making a special effort to spotlight each of those installments to offer my perspective on shows that I don’t review each week.

Horace and Pete: Season 1, Episode 3 (B-)
Nominated for Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series (Laurie Metcalf)

I’ll be honest – I think we have our Emmy winner right here. I cited Metcalf’s record in my post reviewing her comedy guest actress nomination – three trophies for “Roseanne” and a total of ten nominations, including three separate bids this year. I think her chances here are best, and with this submission, she should garner plenty of votes. She just starts talking at the beginning and I checked how long she went without any interruption – a full nine minutes. After we saw Horace and he interjected for a moment, she just kept going. That’s the most prominent showcase I think I’ve ever seen for a guest performer, given the platform of an entire episode to tell one long story to the series star. As with the first two episodes of this show, much of what Metcalf’s Sarah talks about has to do with sex, and it’s quite explicit. I’m glad that I didn’t just watch this episode since I might have thought that every hour is like this, with no context as to who Alan Alda’s character was in the final frame and some confusion about the existence of a very absent second-generation Pete. As usual, the content is pretty disturbing, with Horace suggesting that he secretly hoped that he would die on September 11th rather than have his infidelity revealed. His sage advice of “That doesn’t make you a bad person, just don’t be married” was relatively decent, and that was about the most normal and absorbing part of the whole conversation. Metcalf can certainly talk, and there’s a refreshing rawness to her performance, but the content of this episode had me less engaged than either of the first two episodes and more than content not to revisit this show again. As an Emmy showcase, it’s a knockout, but that’s enough for me.