Team Contending gathers around the Water Cooler to recap the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Plus, we create the 2026 Emmy Time Capsule. In our annual tradition, Team Contending gathers around the Water Cooler to share their thoughts on the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. We chat about the ceremony and how the host, Nate Bargatze, constructed an ongoing routine that ultimately shut down moments of spontaneity. We share the winners we loved and our inevitable disappointments. Plus, there’s the whole The Pitt versus Severance showdown. In a break from tradition, we close with the Emmy Time Capsule. That includes a look back at what we thought would happen this year and what we’re predicting for the 2026 Emmys. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!   Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/    

The Contending’s Megan McLachlan is joined by Tarcia of Grits & Gab to discuss the twisted Netflix documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.  Everyone has been bullied in high school at some point. (And if you haven’t, you’re probably the bully!) But Netflix’s new documentary Unknown Number: The High School Catfish takes harassment to a whole new level. Back in 2020, Michigan junior high golden couple Owen and Lauryn start receiving threatening text messages to break up and that one is cheating. And then the messages abruptly stop. Then months later, they start up again, and don’t let up for over a year, but this time, they’re even more personal, ranging from body shaming to encouraging self-harm. And you’ll never guess who the bully is… We’re excited to have Tarcia from Grits & Gab return to The Contending at The Water Cooler podcast to discuss Skye Borgman’s explosive new documentary and why people can’t stop talking about it. Spoilers ahead! Listen to the Special Unknown Number Documentary Podcast We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.   Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/

Jalal Haddad joins the Water Cooler for our 2025 Emmy predictions podcast! Who do we think will take home the top prizes on Sunday night? Sunday night, the Television Academy will unveil the winners for the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards, so naturally, it’s time for our 2025 Emmy predictions podcast! Our own Jalal Haddad joins us to predict the winners in categories covering Reality / Talk / Variety, Limited Series, Comedy, and Drama. We incorporate some of the winners of last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys (Night One and Night Two). Will The Studio, Severance, and Adolescence widely dominate as expected? Or will the Television Academy throw us some much-needed curveball awards? Find out what we think on this week’s 2025 Emmy predictions podcast! We close, as usual, with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click here to listen! Our video podcast follows below!   Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/  

We proudly present the 9th Annual Fantasy Oscar Pool, another one of our favorite podcasts of the year! It’s a short podcast this week, but it’s one of our favorites and one where we really earn the Explicit rating (thanks largely to Joey). It’s our Fantasy Oscar Pool: the 9th Annual Edition (except for the year where we kind of forgot to do it)! We make our first round draft picks for the Fantasy Oscar race. Then, we’ll follow our selected performances and films throughout the 2026 Oscar season. We regroup for our second round drops and swaps shortly before the critics groups weigh in after Thanksgiving. We’ll be tabulating results on the website across the season! We traditionally close with the Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week, but honestly, it’s just Telluride. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click the widget below or here to listen! Our video podcast follows below! [powerpress] Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/  

Emmy nominee Carrie Coon talks to The Contending about the politics of art and the beauty of Mike White’s writing in The White Lotus. If you follow her on social media, then you know that acclaimed actress Carrie Coon does not shy away from a political conversation. Coon regularly debates conservative points of view, points out hypocrisy where she sees it, and shouts the dangers of global warming. Online, she is a firebrand, one who passionately cries out for justice and sanity in a world that seems to have none. That political passion often seeps into her projects. On the surface, neither The White Lotus nor The Gilded Age scream political works, but look closer. The Gilded Age often examines modern socio-political inequity through the lens of one of America’s greatest periods of social change. And The White Lotus infamously examines what happens when three long-time friends regroup and find their differences, political leanings included, are far more significant than they imagined. “It struck more of a chord because of the election, because nobody necessarily anticipated when [Mike White] wrote it, what the outcome of the election would be and just how timely that conversation would prove,” Coon revealed. “I want my art to have an impact in the world. Otherwise, I don’t know what we’re doing it for.” Coon’s work in White’s The White Lotus netted her a third Emmy nomination. As Laurie, Coon is the unsettled segment of the friendship triangle. Laurie isn’t the gorgeous and pampered Hollywood actress that is Michelle Monaghan’s Jaclyn. She’s also not the very centered, very religious, and very conservative Kate, played by Leslie Bibb. Instead, she’s kind of a beautiful mess, a divorced single mother who dedicates her life to an unfulfilling job while struggling to connect with her daughter. She comes to Thailand to reconnect with her best friends but is plagued by loneliness and sadness. While on vacation, she throws herself into a handful of very ill-advised situations. To Coon, that’s just Laurie trying to fill the loneliness gap. “All of that recapturing of a misspent youth is a form of escapism, which is just as empty as the acquisitive lifestyles we’re living. One of the reasons I think that monologue resonates so much is because people feel that. They feel in this late stage capitalism that this acquisitive mindset — if I can just acquire X, then I will feel Y — doesn’t add up,” Coon posited. “In fact, we are lonelier than we’ve ever been. We wake up suddenly at some age and have to start reflecting back because we’re three quarters of the way or halfway through our lives.” “That monologue” Coon referenced is her shining moment — her “Emmy moment,” if you will — gifted to her by Mike White. In it, Laurie acknowledges she lacks the advantages and enviable attributes that her friends have. Given the trajectory of Laurie’s character throughout the season, you expect her to unleash a barrage of harsh truths on her two friends, potentially severing their relationship irreparably. Yet, Coon’s Laurie reveals something of a spiritual awakening via an expression of gratitude. Here’s the full text: “Thats funny ’cause if I’m being honest, all week I’ve been so sad. I just feel like my expectations were too high, or… I just feel like as you get older, you have to justify your life, you know? And your choices. And… when I’m with you guys, it’s just so, like… like, transparent what my choices were, and my mistakes. I have no belief system. And I… Well, I mean I’ve had a lot of them, but… I mean, work was my religion for forever, but I defiantly lost my belief there.

This one’s for the YouTubers. It’s our 2025 Emmy Charades contest between Megan and Joey! Yeah, podcast listeners won’t get much out of this one. Sorry folks. This is for the YouTube fans! To celebrate the start of the 2025 Emmy Phase 2 voting window, Joey and Megan face off in our first Charades: Emmy Edition! Yup, it’s charades as you know it, but the clues are all Emmy-nominated television shows. Check it out because this may be the last time we do this! For our podcast friends, here are the timestamps so you can skip Emmy charades: * 2:23 – 8:49 — The Pitt * 8:49 – 11:05 — Are You My First? and Predators * 11:05 – 15:37 — Twinless, the Marty Supreme trailer, and HollyShorts * 15:37 – 21:52 — Emmy Catch-Up * 21:52 – 1:01:47 — Emmy Charades!!! * 1:01:47 – End — Flash Forward We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click the widget below or here to listen! Our video podcast follows below! [powerpress] Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/  

We’re exploring this year’s Emmy-nominated Main Title Themes this week. Plus, we look at recent major horror films including Weapons. Two weeks ago, Joey, Megan, and Clarence chatted about the Emmy nominated Main Title Designs. This week, we return to the Emmy discussion by looking at another favorite Emmy category: Main Title Themes. Typically, this category boasts some of the most diverse work within the Emmy nominated series, and this year is no exception. From the 70s soul influenced Lazarus to the Thai-influenced The White Lotus, composers continue to stretch the boundaries of opening themes in fun and memorable ways. We review each Emmy-nominated Main Title Theme and give our predictions on what wins and what could spoil. But first, 2025 boasted a bumper crop of horror films so far. With Zach Cregger’s Weapons blowing up the box office and online discourse, we look at that phenomenon plus a few other recent horror titles in film and on television. It’s a great year to get scared… and to think about serious things. We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click the widget below or here to listen! Our video podcast follows below! [powerpress] Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/  

This week, two special guests join the Water Cooler to give Megan and Joey a crash course on the Telluride Film Festival. Within film circles, Labor Day weekend brings the highly influential Telluride Film Festival. Nestled in the lovely Rocky Mountains, Telluride offers a sequestered community, an intriguing mixture of high art and great food definitely off the beaten path. That provides a perfect setting for the Telluride Film Festival. The festival, largely programmed by Executive Director Julie Huntsinger, historically launched multiple Best Picture nominees and winners including La La Land, Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave, Conclave, and more. This year, The Contending will be represented by Clarence Moye and first-time Telluride attendees Joey Moser and Megan McLachlan. With just three weeks until the festival begins, Clarence is joined by The Contending contributor Mark Johnson and frequent award site contributor Jorge Tenreiro to give Joey and Megan a crash course on what to expect at the festival. Plus, we enter into a little title speculation since the festival famously doesn’t reveal their schedule until the day before it begins. We close our podcast with a Flash Forward to the media we’re most anticipating in the upcoming week. We’re deeply appreciative for your shares, likes, and positive ratings on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Click the widget below or here to listen! Our video podcast is included below! [powerpress] Podcast Music: Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com Track: Here We Go! by cinematic alex https://tunetank.com/track/802-here-we-go/  

“One Wonderful Day” marks the end of Desperate Housewives’ first season and of our look back at the Emmy-winning series’ first season. Desperate Housewives ended its first season with episode 23, “One Wonderful Day.” The episode learned from the mistakes of Twin Peaks and other series before it by giving the audience what they wanted most: answers. However, Mark Cherry and his writing team left enough loose plot threads to answer across season two. The episode provides answers to the central question: why did Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) commit suicide? It leaves Mike, Susan, and Zach Young on a cliffhanger. Additionally, it establishes new chapters in Bree, Lynette, and Gabby’s tumultuous lives. In doing so, it offers Marcia Cross’s finest moment across season one, and one of the very best scenes across the entire series. Join Joey and Clarence on one last podcast as they recap the finale in a super-sized podcast episode. As promised, they’re joined by a very special desperate housewife. You’ll have to listen to find out who it is. If you’ve waited to catch up on Desperate Housewives, then now’s the time as you have our complete look back at season one. As a reminder, the Emmy-winning series streams on Hulu / Disney+. Catch up with our podcasts here! Thank you for joining us on this Revisited journey, 20 years in the making. Until next time… Click here to listen or use the widget below! [powerpress]   Podcast Music: Abbreviated Version of Desperate Housewives Theme by Danny Elfman

Tony winner Harriet Sansom Harris shares what it was like playing the devilish housewife-adjacent Felicia Tilman. Desperate Housewives saw many guest stars across its entire run, but few had the seismic impact of Harriet Sansom Harris. As Martha Huber’s estranged sister Felicia Tilman, Harris was the very desperate housewife who cut through all of the bullshit. Who told it exactly as she saw it. Who said the things people were thinking but never actually said. Harris played the role with an infectious glee and inspired mania. Shockingly, she never received attention from the Television Academy despite being an integral part of the Paul / Mary Alice Young plot line of season one. Their loss. Here, in a special edition of Desperate Housewives Revisited, Joey and Clarence sit down with Harriet Sansom Harris to talk about her experience on the dramedy. She talks about working often in isolation despite the ensemble cast. She shares how she approached the character and developed that cheshire cat smile and physicality. Harris also reveals her experience filming Felicia Tilman’s death scene later in the series and confesses that she can’t believe Tilman is actually dead. With only ONE episode left, we’re winding down Desperate Housewives Revisited. If you’ve never seen Desperate Housewives, then you need to start before we close things out with the finale. The Emmy-winning series streams on Hulu / Disney+. Catch up with our podcasts here! On Monday, we look at episode twenty-three, “One Wonderful Day,” the first season finale. We also welcome another housewife as a special guest. Click here to listen or use the widget below! [powerpress]   Podcast Music: Abbreviated Version of Desperate Housewives Theme by Danny Elfman