The highs and lows of the 2021 Golden Globes

To put it lightly, this year’s Golden Globes were a chaotic mess.

Granted, the Globes are always a little bit messy since Hollywood’s best get to mingle around tables and booze it up with each other, but since we’re still living in a global pandemic, this year’s first awards show was still socially distanced -- so that meant lots and lots of acceptance speeches from the comfort of one’s home.

While hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did their best to host a virtual awards show, it definitely wasn’t the same. There were some fun and bizarre moments, but overall, it just made us miss live awards show so much.

So let’s go through the highs and lows of yet another virtual awards show.

HIGH: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: How can you not love when Tina and Amy host an awards show? It was their fourth time hosting together, and they did their absolute best to roll with the punches and be as funny as possible.

LOW: They were on opposite coasts: Tina was in New York and Amy was in LA. They made it work, but the magic of two of them being in the same room was missing.

LOW: The technical difficulties: Look, we’ve been Zooming for practically a year now. It should not be this hard to have working audio -- not to mention, the picture problems.

HIGH: Daniel Kaluuya and John Boyega with early wins: How great was it to see Kaluuya and Boyega take home the first two awards of the season? Especially since the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was getting heat all night for their total lack of Black journalists in the voting association.

HIGH: Bill Murray vibing out: Murray enjoying the Globes outside with a cocktail is my pandemic mood forever.

HIGH: Catherine O’Hara winning Best Actress in a Comedy and doing a bit: O’Hara took home the Golden Globe for her iconic performance of Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek,” and while she was giving her speech, her husband played her off with music, giving us a little funny bit.

LOW: HFPA addressing the lack of diversity: While I appreciate that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association acknowledged its lack of diversity, the three members who came out to address it during the show basically said nothing. They barely acknowledged the elephant in the room, and gave us zero steps in how they’d fix the issue in the future.

HIGH: Maya Rudolph and Kenan Thompson: The two “SNL” vets played some truly wild characters and accepted a fake award for “Least Original Song in a Relefilm, Dramedy or Comma” and it was perfect. I could watch Rudolph read a phone book and I would giggle, so this was gold to me.

HIGH: Poehler’s choker: I’ll forever be thinking about Poehler wearing a choker.

HIGH: Norman Lear: Can we just talk about how adorable 98-year-old Lear is? He won the Carol Burnett honorary award and it was great to see just how influential he was on sitcoms.

HIGH: Jeff Daniels trapped in a room full of doors: Can someone check on Daniels? Why did the room he was in have so many doors? I have so many questions.

LOW: The banter between nominees before commercial breaks: There was this weird thing where the nominees were forced to chit chat with each other before commercial breaks started and it was just awkward. It was like being on a Zoom call with co-workers you don’t like before your boss gets on to start the meeting.

HIGH: Jason Sudeikis winning for “Ted Lasso”: First of all, watch “Ted Lasso.” Secondly, what was going on in Sudeikis’ acceptance speech? It was a whole mood, complete with a great mustache, a tie-dye hoodie, a rambling speech and questionable sobriety.

LOW: The bit with doctors and nurses: I love a good bit, but this pre-filmed one in which celebrities asked doctors and nurses about their fake pop culture symptoms tried to be cute but wasn’t. Don’t doctors and nurses have enough to deal with during a pandemic, and now they have to pretend to laugh at a corny joke?

HIGH: Tracy Morgan: Morgan mispronounced the movie “Soul” as “Sal” and it was the most Tracy Morgan thing to ever happen.

HIGH: Jane Fonda: The iconic actress won the honorary Cecil B. DeMille award, and we were reminded of just how much of a legend she is.

HIGH: Happy Birthday, Tommy Tune: Ending her speech, Fonda wished the legendary actor and director a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Tommy Tune!

HIGH: Barb and Star: Oh my god, it’s Barb and Star! Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumolo showed up to present an award dressed as the characters from “Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar” and it was wonderful. Can we get Barb and Star to host the show next year?

HIGH: Chadwick Boseman’s wife, Taylor Simone Ledward: Ledward accepted the award that Boseman won on his behalf, and if you were watching, you were probably crying, too. It hasn’t been that long since Boseman died of cancer, so it must have been incredibly hard for Ledward to accept the award and speak about her late husband. It was so touching.

HIGH: Surprise wins: There were so many great surprise wins at the end of the night. Jodie Foster! Andra Day! “Nomadland!” It was all great, and it’s so much better when award shows have fun and exciting wins. Foster was wearing pajamas and could not believe she won, and Day was the most shocked by her win, which was so fun to watch.

HIGH: Chloé Zhao: Zhao, who directed “Nomadland,” took home the award for Best Director, and she was nominated alongside two other women -- something we don’t see too often.

LOW: Chloé Zhao: It’s also a low because Zhao is the first woman to win the Best Director award since Barbara Streisand did for “Yentil” in 1983, and became only the second woman to win the award ever.

LOW: Andra Day: Just like Zhao, Day became the first Black woman to win Best Actress in a drama movie since Whoopi Goldberg did for “The Color Purple” in 1987, and she became the second Black woman to win the award. I am so happy for Day and Zhao, but shame on the HFPA for not picking minorities to win more awards. What gives?

HIGH: It ended: Like we said, this year’s Globes were chaotic, and while there were some standout funny moments that could only happen because these celebrities were Zooming in from home, I cannot wait for normal awards shows to come back. I missed the fashion, the pre-show interviews on the red carpet, and everything else we love about awards shows. Come back soon, please!