The second season of Apple TV+ series Severance was nominated for a whopping 27 Emmy Awards on Tuesday. It is a tremendous total and the most of any show, but still not an all-time record for a drama series: Game of Thrones was nominated for 32 Emmys in 2019. You just can’t compete with dragons.

Specifically, Severance season two received nominations for — deep breath — best drama, writing, production design, casting, choreography, cinematography, directing (twice: Ben Stiller and Jessica Lee Gagné), picture editing (three times), title design, music composition, music supervision, lead actor (Adam Scott), lead actress (Britt Lower), supporting actor (three nominations: Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman and John Turturro), supporting actress (Patricia Arquette), guest actress (three nominations: Jane Alexander, Gwendoline Christie and Merritt Wever), sound editing, sound mixing, special effects, and stunt performance. And here’s a cool feat: Gagné is the first woman to be nominated for both best cinematography and best directing for a drama series.

Best of luck to all — especially those competing with one another. If Tillman (and sure, Cherry’s good too) doesn’t split votes, Turturro should win their category. Ironically, Turturro could and probably should win simply for the way he uttered Mr. Milchick’s (Tillman) first name all of one time: “Do it, Seth.” I’m not going to make a very strong case here for Wever over Christie — goats are biters.

The 27 nominations nearly doubles what Severance got for season one. In 2022, the freshman series was nominated for 14 Emmys and won just two: best music composition and best supporting actress in a drama series for Arquette.

It’s an honor to be nominated, sure, but it is much more of an honor to win. And in this not-so-humble TV Editor’s opinion, Severance season one really should have won several more trophies, including best drama series. (Also, Tillman who wasn’t even nominated probably should have won supporting actor.)

Critics have graded both Succession seasons within the same ballpark of each other, but audience members are in clear agreement with me. It is both the lure and the lore of Lumen that has made Severance arguably the top series for fan engagement and theories since Lost. (The early days, before message boards probably caused J.J. Abrams and Carlton Cuse to drastically change course in their story, leading it to a very unsatisfying end.)

Don’t get me wrong, Severance season two was excellent and is a deserving pack leader here — but season one was a revelation. Unfortunately that revelation ran into the buzzsaw that was the final season of HBO’s Succession. In (almost) any other year against (almost) any other shows, the Succession season four win would have come with zero controversy. But 2022 was the year of Severance — or at least it should have been — a totally fresh, totally inventive (and totally bonkers) new series from Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller. But voters were more charmed by Jesse Armstrong sticking the landing on that other great drama of the past seven years — or perhaps it’s just our nature to award the greats on their way out instead of in. Don’t believe me? The only year Succession did not win the best drama Emmy Award was its own first season — it lost to fellow HBO program Game of Thrones in that show’s final season. The eighth and final season of Game of Thrones was…not among its best.

So this morning’s 27 Severance nominations sit somewhere between earned-acknowledgment for a strong second season and a mea culpa for the Television Academy nearly ignoring season one. Expect the kissing and making up to continue on September 14 when trophies are handed out — and if the one-TV-season-and-three-calendar-years-too-late-celebration hurts your brain like it will hurt mine, just turn off the half that causes you pain and exist for a few hours in blissful ignorance.