Claire Danes in Homeland and Julie Bowen in Modern Family: Big Emmy Awards Winners 2012

The Primetime Emmy Awards this year was a string of anti-climatic surprises, if there even is such a thing. What I mean is that everyone was expecting Mad Men to bring home the big haul and break records for the most consecutive awards won for a drama series, but Homeland ended up playing the part of combo-breaker, and certainly ended up on the receiving end of several insincere congratulations from John Hamm.

No worries, Mad Men, there’s still the next five years; you just have to last another six seasons. And, you know, still be good by the end of it.

The awards for Outstanding Drama Series, Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Lead Actress in a Drama series all went to Homeland and its main actors, Damian Lewis and Claire Danes.

Ron Paul got Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work in Breaking Bad, perhaps a consolation prize from the republic — Wait, I mean Aaron Paul. He was the one who won the award.

After that, Maggie Smith was awarded Outstanding Support Actress in a Drama Series, but she wasn’t there so Hayden Panetierre surreptitiously swiped the statue, her casual attitude toward that thieving act throwing off the eventual pursuers from her trail.

Moving on to the comedy realms, John Cryer took home “Outstanding Work in Diligently Rescuing a Show From a Huge P.R. Disaster and Ashton Kutcher in Succession,” but Modern Family swept most of the other awards, bringing home Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Comedy Series.

Apart from that, Claire Danes and Zooey Deschanel both got the honorary award for “Not Being My Girlfriend” in the special ceremony occurring only inside my head, and Jimmy Kimmel did an OK job at emceeing the event.

Well, that’s it. Not much of an event, really…