Timing is everything — with cooking, as with Emmys.
When it debuted in 2022, The Bear quickly became an Emmy darling, initially sweeping awards because of its high-caliber craftsmanship, of course — but it was also buoyed by the savvy strategy of airing its subsequent seasons in June, during the height of the Emmy campaign. The launch of Season 2 effectively served as an Emmy turbo boost for Season 1, which had just earned 13 nominations and would go on to win 10. Over the course of its run so far, the show has won 21 trophies from 49 nominations — an enviable record, indeed.
But that Emmy magic wore off in later seasons, when the is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-comedy backlash began, with many crying foul at the increasingly gloomy series competing alongside lighter-hearted fare. At the 2024 ceremony, the series lost the Best Comedy trophy to Hacks — and Hacks EP Lucia Aniello said the quiet part out loud from the stage: “Support comedy! Support your local comedian!”
With critics now more than satiated with Season 5, can the June swoon return? It depends if voters gave the shows and its stars the benefit of the doubt. Emmy ballots were due on June 22 — three days before reviews broke for the FX series. We’ll have to wait until Emmy nominations are announced on July 8 to find out if the stars made the cut. If they did, then we could see a (cough, cough) comedy shakeup come September.
Here’s a season-by-season look at how the show has served up each course:
Season 1: 13 nominations, 10 wins
(show aired in 2022, competed in 2023)
For all those who complain that the TV Academy rewards the same shows over and over, remember that there’s always a first time; and the 2023 Emmy Awards was that anointment for The Bear, which at that point set a record for the most wins in a single year for a comedy series (no one was complaining back then about the category). The series — which has a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score for that first outing — had a near-perfect performance at that year’s Emmy ceremonies, taking home 10 out of a possible 13 trophies, including Best Comedy Series, Best Actor Jeremy Allen White, Best Supporting Actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Best Supporting Actress Ayo Edebiri, and writing and directing honors for showrunner Christopher Storer. And as voters were casting their ballots that August, they were watching Season 2, which delivered on the promise of Season 1.
Season 2: 23 nominations, 11 wins
(show aired in 2023, competed in 2024)
Another year, another record. But this time The Bear eclipsed that of 30 Rock, which held the prior milestone of 22 nominations for a comedy series, set back in 2009. White and Moss-Bachrach repeated their wins — but it was the famous “Fishes” episodes that drove the Emmy love, bringing home trophies for guest stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Jon Bernthal, along with Storer, for directing the installment. Most surprisingly, Liza Colón-Zayas won Best Supporting Actress — likely boosted for her performance in Season 3, the “Napkins” episode which was then streaming during the voting window.
Season 3: 13 nominations, 0 wins
(show aired in 2024, competed in 2025)
Everything spoiled for the show in Season 3. The formula that always worked backfired spectacularly. After two record-setting runs at the Emmys, The Bear failed to convert any of its 13 nominations into even a single win. The “comedy” backlash had fully set in, heightened by critical dismissal of the third season, which widely panned.
Season 4: Waiting for July 8
(show aired in 2025, will compete in 2026)
The fourth season debuted June 25, 2025, and critics were somewhat appeased by the course-correcting of the Season 3 misfire, ultimately giving the series an 84% score on Rotten Tomatoes and 72 on Metacritic. The actors all got a chance to shine again — and in Episode 7, titled “Bears,” longtime frenemies finally made peace with each other.
But wait, there’s more: With series stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal sharing a stage on Broadway in Dog Day Afternoon, they dropped a surprise flashback episode “Gary” in May 2026, shedding some light on their characters’ backstory — and giving them each another chance to boost their Emmy odds, along with guest star Marin Ireland.
Then came the reviews for Season 5: A resounding “Yes, chef!” from critics, with another perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 100%. As mentioned above, TV Academy voters had to turn in their ballots three days before Season 5 debuted, but if the usual suspects do make the cut for nominations — White, Edebiri, Moss-Bachrach — thanks to an emotional, unpretentious and yes, dramatic series finale, The Bear‘s patented sleight of hand of “which season am I voting for?” may well pull off an Emmy comeback.
