When Jean Smart took the Emmys stage last night to accept the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, the six-time Emmy winner followed the lead of Deborah Vance, the veteran comedian she plays Tricks. Almost immediately, Smart joked: “It’s very humbling, really. And I appreciate it, because I just don’t get enough attention.”

It was Smart’s third time winning the award for her portrayal of the exciting septuagenarian, but the 76th Emmy ceremony marked a new milestone for the Max series. Later that night, Tricks was named Outstanding Comedy Series, beating out the expected winner. A show that challenges the very meaning of the category. The Beara tense, claustrophobic FX/Hulu series about the staff of a Chicago-area restaurant, broke its own record by winning 11 of the 23 nominated categories. But two of the night’s biggest prizes went to Tricksa comedy about comedians. Last night’s broadcast may be the first sign that the Television Academy is paying attention to industry discussions and online chatter about a long-running debate: Is The Bear really a comedy?

During the strike-delayed 75th Emmy Awards in January, The Bear claimed Outstanding Comedy Series among its six trophies in the major comedy categories. After the ceremony, when asked if he would consider the show a comedy, executive producer Josh Senior said, “I think the show is realistic. Sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s real.” That’s true, and the show isn’t the first dark, brooding production to be up for comedy awards in recent years. But The Bear doesn’t exactly have a high laugh-to-cry ratio, making it sit uncomfortably next to more traditional comedies like Abbott Elementary School And Only murders in the buildingSenior also suggested that The Bear qualifies as a comedy because of its half-hour running time, but that reasoning is outdated: The Academy stopped using running time to distinguish entries in the drama and comedy categories in 2021, and there is precedent for shows being moved from one category to the other. In June, before last night’s Emmy nominations were announced, Variety reported that “networks and strategists have tried to get a TV Academy rating of The Bear to move it into the drama series race, where it will compete against its network sibling, Shogun.”

That change never came, but last night’s awards brought the underlying question to the surface. Early in the evening, father-and-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy, whose own sitcom, Schitt’s Creekwon the award for best comedy series in 2020 – responded directly to the issue: “I know some of you might be expecting us to make a joke about whether The Bear is really a comedy,” said Eugene. “But in the true spirit of The BearWe will not make jokes.” (The good-natured quip was one of many about Hollywood’s idiosyncrasies: Dan also celebrated the Emmys as “the biggest night in broadcast television to honor movie stars on streaming services.”) In doing so, the Levys laid a comedic foundation for the surprise Outstanding Comedy Series win, using humor to convey the confusion—and in some cases, disappointment—viewers feel when they watch the series. The Bear win so many comedy awards, while sitcoms like It’s always sunny in Philadelphia And The other two are rarely recognized.

Part of the public’s bewilderment about The Bear‘s take on comedy stems from the show’s rapid release cycle and the awkward timing of the previous Emmy awards ceremony. The Bear is one of the rare prestige series that doesn’t take several years to release a new season. So by the time season 1 of The Bear won the comedy categories in January, its (softer, less breakneck) second season had already aired. And by last night’s awards, which were for Season 2, the show had already released its third season—an unfortunate overlap, since, as my colleague Sophie Gilbert wrote of the new episodes, “the meaning and implications of trauma have become the sole subject The Bear wants to explore.” Carmy’s flashbacks and intrusive thoughts were especially difficult to watch, making it harder to remember the moments when pointed comedy had broken the tension of previous seasons.

Read: It’s easy to get lost in The Bear

The Bear The cast’s earnestness throughout the night helped to reinforce the sense that the show is a serious work tackling weighty themes. Liza Colón-Zayas gave a heartfelt acceptance of her historic win for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, and a sincere Ebon Moss-Bachrach accepted his second consecutive win for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Their speeches, and the cast’s red carpet interviews, tended to deviate from the jovial energy of other comedy ensembles—such as the cast of Only murderswho exchanged loving jabs as they announced Moss-Bachrach’s victory. And in addition to Eugene and Dan Levy’s hosting duties throughout the night, viewers were treated to a cheery Schitt’s Creek a mini-reunion in which the cast invited Catherine O’Hara to present the award for Best Comedy Series.

Throughout the show the Tricks The acceptance speeches seemed to reflect the audience’s hunger for humor: When co-creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky accepted the award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, the trio discussed the importance of comedy. “We’re making a show about comedy because it made us feel like three weird, lonely kids connected to other people,” Downs said, before Statsky whispered something unintelligible in his ear. He continued, “Okay, Jen says she was popular, but two weird, lonely ki—” and revised his opinion again after a whisper from Aniello, “Okay, so Lucia wasn’t Anpopular, but it made a lonely weirdo and two semi-popular girls feel connected to other people.”

Any form of art can do that, but the Tricks creators argued that comedy is a uniquely effective tool for building bridges. Humor isn’t an afterthought to these stories, or a bonus for viewers gritting their teeth through terrifying material; it’s what makes them so powerful. As Aniello put it in another talk, “When you laugh with someone, you have something in common with them.” Finding humor in trauma can be healing — and some of the most astute scenes in The Bear clearly convey. But a series that takes its laughs very seriously—like Tricks clearly does – is more than just a frivolous pleasure.