For all of my predictions of how awful this year’s hostless Oscars would be, I actually didn’t mind it… for the most part. It wasn’t a total catastrophe, the awards had an okay pace in the first few hours, and the biggest miss was how they opened the show, with the Queen tribute. I’ve actually come around to the idea that maybe going hostless is…fine?? Here we are, I never thought I’d admit that. One thing I’ll give this year’s Oscars: they weren’t BORING. The shocks at the end of the night were like a jolt of g–damn adrenaline. Here are some highlights and lowlights, in no particular order:

The Queen Opening. Adam Lambert sang with the original members of Queen. They performed “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.” I mean, it worked in the room and people seemed to enjoy it live. But holy lord, that was a terrible way to open the OSCARS. Then they followed it up with a dumb montage.

The Weird Presenters. I mean, it was something new. I wasn’t expecting to see Tom Morello present the clip for Vice. I knew Serena Williams was going to present the clips for A Star Is Born, but it still left me wondering how and why that happened, because the connection is not… obvious. Some presenters were more traditional, like Chris Evans & Jennifer Lopez. I was not happy that John Lewis, one of the last living Civil Rights icons, was called in to present the Best Picture clip for Green Book. A harbinger of things to come.

Ruth E. Carter’s historic win. Carter won Best Costume Design for creating an entire world of African royalty through costume in Black Panther. She is the first African-American woman to win in this category in the history of the Oscars. She was prepared, and she gave an excellent shout-out to Spike Lee too.

Jennifer Hudson’s screams into the abyss. Why did she scream-sing that song from RBG? And why did Emilia Clarke present it? I asked this on Twitter: did someone confuse Emilia with Felicity Jones, who played RBG?

Bohemian Rhapsody’s wins. I was completely over it. All of those sound awards could have gone during the commercial breaks as far as I’m concerned. Best Film Editing? Nope. Best Actor? Gross.

Glenn Close lost. My God, that was one of the biggest shocks I’ve ever seen at the Oscars. Olivia Colman looked like she had been jolted out of the blue. People thought Glenn was a sure thing. Glenn thought she was sure thing. I saw The Favourite and loved it, but I didn’t think Olivia had a snowball’s chance. Turns out, she did. And her speech was utterly charming.

The “Shallow” performance. We’ll talk about this more in the Gaga-fashion post, but I thought the performance was one of the best parts of the Oscars. It was thoughtful, artsy, interesting and well-produced. Gaga and Bradley Cooper had more chemistry in that live performance than they had in the entire movie though. I’m not even joking. And hey, now Lady Gaga is an Oscar winner for Best Song!

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper perform Shallow at the #Oscars pic.twitter.com/smGbGzVKDO

— Lady Gaga Now ? (@LadyGagaNowNet) February 25, 2019

Chris Evans helping Regina King. She won so early, and I don’t think she had situated her dress situation yet, so Chris Evans – who was seated one seat over from Regina – jumped up to help her up the steps. So chivalrous!!

Reminder: We are not worthy of @ChrisEvans. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/G1AQ3sdUzC

— Page Six (@PageSix) February 25, 2019

Keegan Michael Key’s entrance. It was perfect!

Floating into work after a long lunch break like https://t.co/PjIRQbnhxp #Oscars pic.twitter.com/aFV2dzdYyq

— Variety (@Variety) February 25, 2019

A little Wayne’s World for the Gen Xers. They introduced the Bohemian Rhapsody clips.

Wayne and Garth make a cameo on the #oscars stage to introduce #BohemianRhapsody https://t.co/ufMFarwc3p pic.twitter.com/cxCIslR6OB

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 25, 2019

Barbra Streisand was amazing. I loved that she presented the BlacKkKlansman clip.

Lady Gaga is finally an Oscar winner. Okay, so we can stop worrying about that.

Spike Lee won for Best Adapted Screenplay. This is his first Oscar for screenplay!! He previously got an honorary Oscar and one for documentary.

My final thought: I truly didn’t believe Green Book had a chance of winning Best Picture. They refused to nominate Peter Farrelly for director, and I just believed people had actually seen the g–damn movie at this point and realized that it was some terrible, poorly written white savior bullsh-t. They gave it Best Picture. It was like the Academy voters couldn’t help but show their asses once again: Green Book was the out of touch choice for white people. It was the film where a racist clown got to be the hero. They chose that over Spike Lee’s best film in a decade. They chose it over Roma, they chose it over the brilliant weirdness that is The Favourite. I can’t.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.