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Hargitay is coming off of her own pair of Emmy wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony, where she was recognized for her documentary My Mom Jayne. After her wins, the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star revealed backstage that she was working with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert writing team on her hosting material and added, “I just can’t believe at this place in my life — the third act is starting and it’s pretty awesome.” 

At the carpet rollout, Collins confirmed that former Colbert head writer Ariel Dumas was leading the writing team and the writers have “been working with Mariska for the last couple months.” Harmon added, “They set up shop actually at the SVU offices so that she can pop in and out,” and had been collaborating with the writers during downtime on her show.

“It’s pretty weird to see Captain Benson come up with the gun and the badge and be like, ‘Welcome to the Emmys, everybody! Here we go!’ and like telling jokes,” Collins added, “But that’s what it was like” during their prep in New York.

Asked if Christopher Meloni or any of her other SVU cast mates may make an appearance, Harmon said coyly, “she has a lot of friends.” As for Hargitay herself, she’s “not giving spoilers” for what famous friends may show up and isn’t looking too closely at past hosts for inspiration.

“I think one of the most important things is that I, to quote Frank Sinatra, I gotta do it my way,” Hargitay told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m a very different, sort of unconventional host and I love that because I’m not a comedian, so that’s not necessarily what we’re doing. But you’ve gotta be me, right, you’ve gotta show up as your best self, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Hargitay hosts the 78th Emmy Awards live from Los Angeles on Monday, airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock. %!s()

Having been shot well before the current U.S.-Iran conflict commenced lends “The Fix” a somewhat anachronistic air, albeit one that sits comfortably enough between its other fuzzy points of political messaging. This U.S. production from Israeli writer-director Guy Moshe sets a group of former CIA Special Ops agents, led by Zachary Levi, on a dangerous undercover mission in Tehran. With dissident activists, hidden pre-Islamic Republic wealth, much gunplay and multiple double-crosses all involved, this polished, somewhat ungainly thriller emerges an entertaining yet less-than-fully satisfying mix of macho action heroics and convoluted espionage intrigue. In the long run it falls short of its own tangled ambitions. But Moshe and co. do make these nearly two-and-a-half hours pass in diverting if not terrifically suspenseful fashion.

A half-hour first act takes place during the 2021 evacuation of Kabul, as Tucker (Levi) and his men are tasked by handler Larry (Liam Neeson) with rescuing a key local ally before he’s captured by the Taliban. Tucker is forced to make emergency decisions that go against direct orders, which saves lives but gets his entire squad summarily dismissed from the Agency afterward. 

This action-packed prelude leaves them back in the U.S., where some time later the half-dozen men are all re-adjusting poorly to civilian life — including Tucker, who avoids much contact with his ex-wife and son because he considers himself damaged goods. None are quite sure what to do with themselves. But reason to reassemble the team arises when Larry, whose prior migraines have somehow escalated into full-blown early-onset dementia, begins babbling out top-secret intel. That includes the news that he and another operative had somehow hidden millions in Tehran during the 1979 fall of the Shah’s regime. 

Posing as a journalist, Tucker goes to interview the older man’s former paramour in Paris. She’s willing to point him towards that long-buried fortune — if he rescues her daughter Maryam (Lara Wolf), currently hiding in Iran from authorities for activism against the oppressive regime. Tucker reassembles what’s left of his crew for that purpose, each of them adopting a false front to infiltrate a hostile nation. He himself poses as a New Zealander seeking to export rugs, accompanied by his newlywed wife. That role gets played by Zara (Elnaaz Norouzi), a Farsi-fluent university student he drafted in the U.S., without telling her the real purpose of their trip. 

Due to her reckless behavior, among other factors, this mission too eventually goes south. Eventually Tucker and mates must kidnap a high official (Navid Negahban) to gain access to the building, now a military facility, where the moolah allegedly lay out of sight for decades. But the Yanks (whose ranks also feature Quincy Isaiah as a late replacement for a previously fallen comrade) face duplicity at every turn, with seemingly half the cast turning out to be two-faced in what becomes an excessive pileup of such plot revelations. 

Despite adequate performances, the character writing here isn’t complex enough to make so many contrived twists credible, or lend “The Fix’s” whole the intricacy of a first-rate espionage tale. Nor does Moshe appear a natural action director, as the setpieces here are just competently staged rather than harrowing, and overall tension goes slack on occasion. Nonetheless, the film is best when most physical, peaking around the two-thirds mark before losing some momentum again. Larry Smith’s widescreen cinematography is a significant plus, making the most of locations — even if Georgia (the country, not the state) must substitute for Iran, and the Mississippi-shot Stateside scenes feature homes that seem a bit more upscale than the onscreen personnel could likely afford. Some iffy digital FX are the only major minuses in an otherwise decent technical and design assembly.

Starting with an onscreen Biblical quote, the screenplay often feels on the brink of conservative jingoism that never quite becomes explicit. Still, indictments of the Iranian theocracy lean towards stereotype, and criticisms of U.S. policy only name-check Democrat POTUSes (Carter, Biden) when pointing an accusatory finger. There’s some hackneyed dialogue, much of it borne by Neeson, who despite his prominence in advertising gets sidelined for most of the running time. 

But “The Fix” goes down easily enough, even as it fails to find the epic narrative scope or cogent takeaway it vaguely reaches for. (The actual fadeout underlines that muddled air by conflating the heartwarming and the hawkish: It sees a young boy, reunited with his father, asking the latter if he can “teach me how to shoot.”) Moshe’s unpredictable path to date suggests he still hasn’t found his metier: Twenty years ago he debuted with “Holly,” a powerfully low-key expat drama set in Cambodia, then veered into stylish but hollow stabs at comic-book action (“Bunraku”) and thinky sci-fi (“LX 2048”). If this latest misses the bullseye, it’s at least again a watchable departure. 

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“LOOKS LIKE I HAVEN’T YEE’D MY LAST HAW,” she wrote in all-caps in a message posted to her Instagram Stories. “THANK YOU CMA!!!! See you there Nov. 18.” The message was followed by an emoticon of a smiling face wearing a cowboy hat, in keeping with the Jessie-the-cowgirl theme of the hit song that closes the “Toy Story 5” movie.

It will mark the first time Swift has attended the CMA Awards in 10 years; it was in 2016 when she last made an appearance, showing up as a surprise presenter to hand Garth Brooks his entertainer of the year award.

Is it possible Swift might go the extra mile and perform on the telecast? That’s one thing she probably will leave fans in suspense about. The last time she performed on the CMAs show was in 2013, right in the midst of her crossover from country to pop, when she sang an acoustic version of “Red” backed by Vince Gill. (Swift is pictured above holding the trophies she picked up in 2013.)

(The last time she performed on any country awards show at all was in 2020, when she went on the ACM Awards telecast to sing “Betty,” a country-flavored song from “Folklore,” during the pandemic.)

Whatever form her participation ultimately takes — as mere attendee, performer, or something in-between — Swift’s appearance at the CMAs will come amid what looks to be a possibly robust awards season for the superstar. “I Knew It, I Knew You” is expected to also be in contention for the Oscars and the Grammys in the weeks and months following the Country Music Association‘s big annual blowout.

(Variety took a look earlier this week at which of her three No. 1 hits from the past year the singer might submit in which Grammy categories, ultimately concluding that she is most likely to submit “I Knew It, I Knew you” for song of the year while going instead with “The Fate of Ophelia” as her best bet for record of the year. Read that assessment here.)

The other big lingering question heading toward the CMAs: Is it possible she’ll be putting out another country release between now and Nov. 18, and thus have even more to celebrate at the awards shows? Even in the absence of very many clues, Swifties have remained convinced that she is going to issue a “Taylor’s Version” edition of her debut album this fall, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the original version. Swift did say, when she announced that she had purchased her master recordings, that she had completed a re-recording of the debut, and would put it out someday. But if there is indeed a plan to have that come out in time to mark the anniversary, that remains a closely held secret.

The single of the year nomination for the CMAs puts a cap — for now — on Swift’s rapprochement with country music as a genre. It was just three days ago that Billboard and Luminate announced that “I Knew It, I Knew You” had finally risen to No. 1 on the country airplay chart.

This is not quite a case of the prodigal daughter returning home, though it may come close to feeling that way, since Swift has always maintained an enduring affection for country, and left a lot of good will behind her in the country industry, even after she announced she was officially picking pop as her lane when the “1989” album came out in 2015. Swift had been the kind of artist who remembered the names of DJs and programmers over the years, and those country stalwarts typically spoke of her with praise well after she stopped issuing singles to their format.

“I Knew It, I Knew You” is not the first country-flavored number Swift has released since making her transition from country to pop official 11 years ago (a transition that was really well in evidence going further back at least to the “Speak Now” album). As mentioned earlier, “Betty” marked a sort of genre return, as heard on the ACMs in 2020, followed by “No Body, No Crime” on the “Evermore” album. And she has consistently revisited her country core in the “vault” tracks that were freshly recorded for her “Taylor’s Version” series of albums.

Her only previous CMAs nomination this decade was for the “vault” track “I Bet You Think About Me,” which she recorded as a duet with country star Chris Stapleton for the “Taylor’s Version” re-do of “Red.”. It was nominated for video of the year in 2022, but she did not attend or win that year. %!s()