But it didn't help that the first two award-winners of the night were probably the most energetic ones to hit the stage for quite a while. Henry Winkler, honored for his supporting work in Barry and receiving the first Primetime Emmy Award of his long career, was just as charming as you'd hope, and just as excited, saying he only had 37 seconds for a speech he'd been holding for 43 years. And Alex Borstein, who won in the supporting category for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, started by announcing she wasn't wearing a bra and asking other women not to pee on the seats of public toilets. It might not have been a traditional awards speech, but it had a certain verve.

Others were just fine: Rachel Brosnahan won for her leading performance in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and encouraged everyone to vote in the midterms, and Bill Hader won for his leading performance in Barry and seemed genuinely shocked. Actor Darren Criss and director Ryan Murphy both won for The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, part of the ACS anthology series that picked up a bunch of awards for its previous season about the O.J. Simpson trial. Peter Dinklage won in the supporting category for Game of Thrones, as he has twice before. Things rolled along.

But on an awards ceremony that started off trying to do edgy humor about the limits of progress toward diversity, it was hard not to notice that it took quite a while to get to the first nonwhite winner in an acting category: Regina King for the Netflix limited series Seven Seconds, which will not return for a second season (as many "limited" series, in fact, do). Thandie Newton also won in the supporting actress in a drama series category for Westworld, but some of the actors of color for whom hopes were highest — Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, for instance — they didn't come to pass.

One of the hosts' few successful bits was Che's "Reparations Emmys," where he handed out Emmy statuettes he said he'd stolen from Bill Cosby to beloved black actors who hadn't won in the past: Marla Gibbs from The Jeffersons and 227, Jimmie Walker from Good Times, Kadeem Hardison from A Different World, Tichina Arnold from Martin, comedy journeyman John Witherspoon, and even Jaleel White — that's right, Che gave an honorary award to Urkel.

One reason why the awards looked as white as they did was that the shows that really cleaned up were ... really white shows. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Barry cornered all of the comedy awards, and it was a decent showing for the last season of The Americans on FX, which won in the writing category for drama and was recognized for Matthew Rhys' lead performance. Keri Russell, on the other hand, lost out to The Crown's Claire Foy — as did Sandra Oh. Atlanta, which has an embarrassment of riches in its cast, including some of the most sought-after young actors in Hollywood at the moment, was shut out of the major awards entirely. The excellent shows Vida, One Day At A Time and Jane The Virgin weren't even in the running, and there are plenty of other examples. When you miss out on whole shows, you miss out on nominees, and you miss out on winners. There's an inevitability to it.

The most viral-ready moment of the evening came from Glenn Weiss, who won for directing the Oscars (yes, you can win at an awards show for directing another awards show). He proposed to his girlfriend on stage, and she accepted. That is a man who knows how to produce a moment.

In the end, none of the winners at the show level were surprises: RuPaul's Drag Race, Last Week Tonight, and Saturday Night Live won in reality and variety categories. American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace won in the limited series category. After seeing The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel rack up four of the six available comedy awards at the beginning of the broadcast, it was no surprise to see it take outstanding comedy series near the end of it. And Game of Thrones won its third Emmy for outstanding drama series — a win for a season that didn't garner as much praise as some past cycles have.

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