Almost three decades after Vince Gilligan landed his first individual Emmy nomination for writing the “Memento Mori” episode of Fox’s The X-Files in 1997, he is finally getting a statuette with his name on it.
Gilligan on Monday won the Outstanding Writing For a Drama Series Emmy for the opening episode of his latest series. Apple TV’s Pluribus, “We Is Us.”
“It’s so weird — a world in which everybody gets along,” he said on stage, referring to the premise of his post-apocalyptic drama series. “It’s so sci-fi, but think about it: there’s nothing weirder than our current reality, these past 10 years, you can’t write this stuff. I submit to you that a real world in which people get along is just as believable as what we’ve got now, and achievable. We will never agree on everything, but we can show respect to one another, maybe even kindness, and we can stop listening to a relative few who tell us that that is for suckers and who get their power from dividing us.”
This was about the close anyone came to evoking politics at the 2026 Emmys.
In addition to The X-Files, Gilligan received writing and directing nominations for his acclaimed AMC drama series Breaking Bad and its prequel Better Call Saul but did not win. As an executive producer, he shared in Breaking Bad‘s two Outstanding Drama Series Emmys.
The wins for Pluribus end a draught for Gilligan as Better Call Saul, which he co-created with Peter Gould, famously went 0 for 53 at the Emmys with no wins after 53 nominations and his Breaking Bad movie El Camino also failed to convert its four Emmy noms. (Gilligan won two Emmys in the short-form comedy or drama category for Better Call Saul‘s companion Employee Training series.)
In his speech, Gilligan gave a shout out to the “magnificent” Pluribus star Rhea Seehorn, also an Emmy winner tonight, and to fellow Writing For a Drama Series nominee, The Pitt‘s Valerie Chu, a former assistant on AMC’s Better Call Saul.
Vince Gilligan wins at the #Emmys in Writing for a Drama Series category for #Pluribus: "There's nothing weirder than our current reality. These past 10 years, you can't write this stuff." pic.twitter.com/ksuo5sQSbn
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