Phoebe Waller-Bridge can’t stop, won’t stop rising in our Emmy odds for ‘Fleabag”s sublime Season 2

fleabag best comedy series emmy winners
Amazon

Our predicted Best Comedy Actress Emmy nominees have been the same six faces for months: Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep”), Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Allison Janney (“Mom”), Natasha Lyonne (“Russian Doll”), Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) and Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”). But someone looks poised to crash the party soon: Phoebe Waller-Bridge for the second season of “Fleabag.”

Waller-Bridge, who was nominated last year in drama writing for “Killing Eve,” had been chilling in the lower teens of our predictions, mostly because the second season of “Fleabag” hadn’t premiered on Amazon Prime in the U.S. yet. She was in 14th place just three weeks ago on May 6. The expected “Fleabag” nominee this whole time was Olivia Colman, who’s still in sixth place in supporting, because she’s Olivia Colman and had just won an Oscar, along with a possible writing nomination for Waller-Bridge.

SEE Phoebe Waller-Bridge: Top 5 reasons we should watch out for her at the Emmys

But since “Fleabag” dropped on May 17, Waller-Bridge has slowly but surely climbed up our comedy actress rankings. She was in 11th place last week and this week she’s jumped up to ninth. It seems to be a matter of time before she breaks into the top six, given the absolutely rapturous reception to Season 2 — a season Waller-Bridge never thought or planned to make and one that, arguably, was unnecessary if you asked anyone in 2016.

Now that the second season does exist, it’s hard to imagine life or the Emmys without it. Following Fleabag (Waller-Bridge) as she falls for a Hot Priest (Andrew Scott), who changes her view on the world, Season 2 is once again impeccably written by Waller-Bridge in her singular voice and ends on an achingly bittersweet but hopeful note (there are no plans for a third season). It has a 96 on Metacritic and a perfect 100 on Rotten Tomatoes, along with a 97 percent audience score, which is not just everyone thirsting after Hot Priest.

SEE Olivia Colman will score the 1 and only Emmy nomination she can now get, readers predict

But more than that, the industry and Waller-Bridge’s peers — aka potential Emmy voters — are completely obsessed with “Fleabag.” A sampling of the effusive praise:

Its biggest stan by far is Kumail Nanjiani, who literally can’t stop tweeting about it.

SEE ‘Fleabag’ will end with Season 2 and a ‘perfect finale,’ so this is its last shot to get some Emmy love

Will all this Twitter love translate into Emmy love? It’s easy to live in a social media vacuum and not realize that’s not how the majority of people in the real world or industry feels (see: “Green Book”). But it’s difficult to recall the last time a show stoked this much passion in so many people, let alone so many big stars, and at precisely the perfect time before Emmy voting commences.

And if Waller-Bridge could make it in last year for “Killing Eve,” a show that was still slowly breaking out at the time, then surely she could do it for her own show on which she made her name and is vastly better received.

PREDICT the Emmys now; change them until July 16

Be sure to make your Emmy predictions today so that Hollywood insiders can see how their TV shows and performers are faring in our odds. You can keep changing your predictions as often as you like until just before nominations are announced on July 16. And join in the fun debate over the 2019 Emmy taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our television forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.

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