Awards season hit a high note this weekend as multiple guilds and groups gave awards leading up to the grand finale, the Oscars, which happen this coming Sunday. One of the biggest to do so was the Writers Guild of America — and apparently one specific category literally saved the world, at least according to a certain animated talking clock from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
While the excellent Coda and divisive Don’t Look Up took the screenplay awards in the movie categories, the universe-saving news happened over in television. HBO Max’s hilarious Hacks won for Best Writing in a Comedy Series and the popular Succession won Best Writing in a Drama Series. Which, if you follow the awards circuit even a tiny bit, makes a whole lot of sense. Those two have kind of won everything.
But what if they didn’t? In the Drama category, Succession was up against The Handmaid’s Tale, The Morning Show, Yellowjackets, and Marvel’s Loki. And it’s that last one we’re going to concentrate on. Showrunner and head writer Michael Waldron revealed on Twitter that, had Loki won, this is the acceptance speech the writers submitted to air.
Congrats to Succession and Hacks on their WGA awards! Here’s the speech we submitted in case we won. #Loki pic.twitter.com/pK3VDbs5y5
— Michael Waldron (@michaelwaldron) March 21, 2022
So, according to Miss Minutes, Succession was supposed to win. Which it did. If Loki had won, the Time Variance Authority would have been alerted to a divergent timeline and pruned us all. Which means the universe has been saved! The Roy family has finally done something good!
Now, we have no way of knowing how close the voting is for these things, and, let’s face it, Succession is just a much more standard example of “good writing,” however you define it. But Loki’s nomination here was more than warranted and, for my money, it probably should have at least been the runner-up here. Granted, I haven’t watched The Handmaid’s Tale in years, but I do watch Succession, The Morning Show, and Yellowjackets. The Morning Show is just pure cheese, and Yellowjackets is excellent but hasn’t quite lived up to its full potential with that first season. Loki however, somehow balanced the scope of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also broadening it, while also being a fascinating character dissection in addition to adding a ton of new characters.
That’s certainly good writing, no matter what. Even if rewarding it with a WGA award it would have brought our demise. Loki season one is now on Disney+. Season two is currently in development. Read about all of this year’s WGA Award winners at this link.