NO EMMY FOR MOTHER?

Mother died. Father stayed dead. Sister got a divorce. Actor Brother left acting. Councilman Brother is going to be president. Mother’s Special Friend died also. The blind baby ran away. And all for what?

To be disrespected?

By the Television Academy?

Heinous behavior!

In its four thousand miserable years on television, This Is Us racked up 39 Emmy nominations and four Emmy wins. The wins went to: Councilman Brother (2017); Councilman Brother’s estranged poet father (2018); Councilman Brother’s estranged poet father again (2020); and, for some reason, the doctor who delivered Mother’s triplets (2017).

Naturally, viewers who willingly submitted to the emotional torture of the show’s endless final season, which tracked Mother’s life from dementia, to severe dementia, to near-death, to closer-to-near-death, to the front of death’s train, and finally to death’s caboose, wanted a little reward for their effort. A small token of appreciation from the Television Academy, something that said, “I’m sorry you watched that torturously sad highlight reel of life’s worst moments; moments which you will no doubt experience for yourself someday if you have not yet already. At least we can tell you that it was ‘good.’”

But This Is Us viewers today got a horrible surprise, which, yes, does happen to be their favorite kind of surprise. Despite Councilman Brother’s campaign for Mother to finally receive an Emmy for her death season, she did not receive even a nomination — nor did any other This Is Us cast member.

Unfair?

On behalf of the This Is Us community, I formally request a recount for Mother. If that does not work, I formally request a revote. And upon revoting I would like to give the Television Academy a few simple questions to consider:

• Do you not care about Mother’s pain?
• Do you not care that Actor Brother moved to Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania — in order to take care of Mother as she slipped deeper into the shadow of her former self?
• Do you not recall when Mother fell? And do you not recall the additional hardship this placed on Mother’s Special Friend, whose own health was ailing at the time? And do you not recall the death of Mother’s Special Friend, no doubt hastened by the stress he put himself under as Mother’s nurse?
• Sister … does that name ring a bell for you?
• And what feelings arise when I say: Sister’s Husband’s far-away job? Are they feelings of snub? Or feelings of award?
• And do you recall Councilman Brother’s Eldest Daughter’s Young Father Harvard Boyfriend? I’m just wondering, as it seems so far that you do not.
• Councilman Brother’s Wife … she deserves nothing, to you?
• Even after having to close her ballet school due to COVID-19?
• Do you not remember Mother’s speech about her children not making their lives smaller because of her illness, and how this allowed for Councilman Brother to rise to the level of Senator Brother and be the subject of a profile in the New Yorker?
• Mother traveling on the train. I’m asking you a final time. Do you not remember her?
• Do you not remember the vesper given to Mother on the train by the, for some reason, Emmy-award-winning OB-GYN from earlier seasons?
• Do you not remember Mother finally reaching death’s caboose and finding Undead Father in bed? Do you not remember the final squeeze of her hand?
• Do you not remember the nerd who Actor Brother’s Baby Mother marries?
• Do you not recall … your own humanity?

Television Academy — it’s not too late to make this right. Give Mother her award. Give it to her now, before Father haunts you. Give it to her now, before the ghost of Mother’s Special Friend takes up residence in your home and gently annoys you until you also die.

Give it to her now, before This Is Us decides to come back for another miserable season.

Please. The This Is Us community is begging you.

HONOR MOTHER!