Ronan Farrow Jabs ‘Game of Thrones’ Final Season At Peabody Awards
Ronan Farrow took a swipe at the controversial last season of HBO’s Game of Thrones as he hosted the Peabody Awards, an annual celebration of electronic media’s deep dives into weighty topics from race and gender inequality, to mental illness, plastic pollution and ISIS.
“Why did Daenerys go so crazy?” Farrow griped to attendees at Cipriani Wall Street while opening the Peabodys ceremony Saturday night in New York.
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Praising The Americans on FX, he very pointedly applauded the deftness of the series’ satisfying sixth and final season that aired last year.
He joked that the Peabodies would normally have unspooled on Sunday — hinting of a conflict with Game of Thrones. The truth is, the awards have been held on both weekend nights over the past five years since the event went red carpet. But frustration with GoT’s long-awaited final episodes is so widespread that it’s fair game to make it a running joke anywhere.
GoT actually won a Peabody itself for its first season in 2011 for going “far beyond typical fantasy fare, provoking questions about the essence of both power and powerlessness, the drive to rule, and the very act of ruling.”
To be fair, Farrow, the investigative journalist, whose expose’ in The New Yorker took down Harvey Weinstein and launched the #MeToo movement, also slung barbs at Katie Couric, who presented the Institutional Award to Sesame Street; presidential hopeful Joe Biden; and Bill de Blasio. The mayor of New York, who just announced a presidential bid, “was going to be here tonight, but he lost his mind,” Farrow said.
Winners, who were announced last month, stepped up to received their statuettes, including teams from Barry, Killing Eve, Pose and The Americans.
Barry’s Anthony Carrigan (Noho Hank) and Stephen Root (Monroe Fuches) accepted the Peabody on behalf of star Bill Hader and Alec Berg. The co-creators were sorry they couldn’t be there, read Root from a note. He continued reading: “We don’t like confrontation… So we’d like to let Stephen Root know that he and everyone onstage will not be needed for season three.”
Hasan Minhaj thanked Netflix “for letting us piss on autocrats around the world’ in his Peabody-winning series Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj.
And Rita Morena accepted a lifetime achievement award, becoming a rare third ‘PEGOT’ after Barbra Streisand and Mike Nichols — all in possession of a Peabody, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
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