Fallout season 2 picks up nine Emmy nominations but gets shut out of acting categories

Amazon's Fallout season 2 has landed nine Emmy nominations for the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards — down from the 16 nominations season one earned in 2024, but still a solid technical haul. No acting nominations made the cut, which has frustrated fans who felt the cast — particularly Walton Goggins as Cooper Howard and The Ghoul — deserved recognition.

All nine nominations are in craft and technical categories. The episode The Strip leads the way with nods for Outstanding Sound Editing, Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes, Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Makeup (Non-Prosthetic), Outstanding Period Or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling, and Outstanding Sound Mixing. The Profligate earned an Outstanding Stunt Performance nomination, and the show also picked up Outstanding Stunt Coordination For Drama Programming, Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for The Demon in the Snow, and Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Period Or Fantasy Program for The Wrangler. (Note: Gamespot listed a tenth nomination — Outstanding Emerging Media Program for The World Of Fallout — which Eurogamer and PC Gamer did not include in their tallies.)

Season one won two Emmys from its 16 nominations: Outstanding Music Supervision and Outstanding Emerging Media Program. Season 2 was a more divisive watch — viewership data showed a ratings dip early on, though Amazon later claimed it became Prime Video's sixth biggest season of all time and its second biggest returning series ever, behind only Reacher season 2. The show competes in a stacked field this year: The Pitt leads all nominees with 25 nominations, Widow's Bay has 19, and Pluribus has 18. Goggins was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for season one in 2024, losing to Hiroyuki Sanada for Shōgun.

Goggins' snub is the loudest talking point in the community — PC Gamer called him a near-certain nominee given his season two performance, especially the pre-war Cooper Howard flashback sequences. Season 3 is already in production, with Goggins recently posting a photo of himself back in character as The Ghoul. The Emmy ceremony will determine whether Fallout's technical nominations translate into wins, or whether the show repeats its season one pattern of nominations without trophies.