Posted by Kim, Sage, and Shannon
Hello, friends and fans!
We apologize for the wait, but we are finally here to reveal the winners of our annual television awards, the Feelies! Three weeks ago, we presented you with our nominations and opened the polls. From there, the choice was entirely yours. We watched in suspense and delight as your faves battled it out, with some categories remaining up for grabs right up to the wire. So, without further ado (and with an assist from our This Is Us recapper Shannon), here’s what ruled TV this past year — according to you. —Sage
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Best Comedy: Ted Lasso
It’s been said many times over the past year that Ted Lasso arrived in our lives right on schedule. But truly, it would have been welcome — and necessary — any time.
I get frustrated when people who haven’t seen the show (or don’t get it) believe that it’s a show about niceness or nice people. There are elements of Ted Lasso that are pure fantasy and wishful thinking, but by no means are its characters as flat as that description would suggest. Our Richmond friends can be cruel, single-minded, oblivious to the point of accidentally doing harm, and we see them struggle with their worst attributes. (With the exception, perhaps, of Keeley and Sam, who are perfect angels I won’t hear a bad word about.) What’s profoundly rare is that we also see them deal with their shortcomings with receptiveness and a willingness to change. The apologies on this show are things of beauty — genuine and meaningful, with real intent behind them.
I think what I love the most about Ted Lasso, other than Roy Kent’s passion for Disney musicals, is that it’s about people who are simultaneously learning what’s special and unique about themselves and learning how those special and unique selves can contribute even more to a nurturing community. The characters are so fully realized; the world is specific enough that I was still uncovering details I hadn’t noticed in my third rewatch. It does all of this while being joyous, soulful, silly, and romantic. And it’s your comedy of the year, so I guess there’s nothing left to say, but…
Richmond on twelve. —Sage
Best Drama: Prodigal Son
It was love at first sight for us with Prodigal Son when it premiered in 2019; it had us from the moment Malcolm Bright gleefully chopped off a man’s hand with an axe. In 2020, it felt like a safe haven where, for 43 minutes every week, we could block out the fact that it felt like the world was burning down around us. In 2021, when the world was still burning, it felt like a lifeline of escapism, the second season somehow managing to feel even more extra than the first.
So naturally, Fox canceled our beloved murder show. But at least we can send it to that great TV network in the sky with the Feelie for Best Drama.
I think what I will miss the most about Prodigal Son is how it didn’t take itself too seriously. It was just fun, an element that can be sorely lacking in today’s TV drama landscape. Everything about Prodigal Son is over-the-top, from the storylines to the performances themselves, but the show works because the cast commits to it with their whole asses. And if they had to go out, at least they went out in style from their Catherine Zeta-Jones led homage to Misery to giving the Brightwell shippers one good kiss because YOLO to that final, devastating scene with Martin and Malcolm on the mountain top. Our time with Prodigal Son may have been short, but I’ll always treasure it because of the joy it gave me in some of the darkest moments of my life.
Always in my heart, Murder Show. Yours Sincerely, Kim
Best Actress in a Drama: Elizabeth Olsen, WandaVision
The Marvel Hive came out strong for Elizabeth Olsen and it’s easy to understand why. As I said in our nominee post, her work in WandaVision is nothing short of a tour-de-force performance. She handled everything the show threw at her with ease, from her pitch-perfect Laura Petrie to the obvious Full House shout-out to her sisters to her harried Modern Family impression.
When Disney first announced its slate of Marvel TV shows, my initial response to Wanda and Vision getting a spin-off was basically “Who actually cares about Wanda and Vision?” Well, it turns out a lot of you do. And that’s all down to how brilliant Elizabeth is in this role and how much room the show gives her to just PLAY, especially in the early episodes. They could have done many many more episodes of just Elizabeth and Paul Bettany riffing their way through television history and I would have been satisfied with it. —Kim
Best Actress in a Comedy: Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso
It’s not easy being Rebecca Welton, and I have a feeling that it’s harder than it looks to play her, too.
Enter Hannah Waddingham, who gives us every facet of this fierce, wounded, boss-ass bitch, while still hinting that there’s so much more to her than what we’ve seen.
What an arc Rebecca has in the first season of the show. We’re introduced to her, basically, as the villain. But it doesn’t take long for that facade to crack and for the goodness of Ted, Keeley, and the team to begin to remind her who she was before she allowed Rupert to eclipse her. So much of what she does in the first half of the season is motivated by how small and unworthy he made her feel. Rebecca comes alive (and Hannah’s performance explodes) when she remembers that her sense of self shouldn’t be defined by him in any way — even by his unhappiness.
Hannah works everything she has going for her in this role — the height, the voice, the poise. She’s a real dame, and the definition of a woman who takes up space in the world. That she plays the vulnerability of a woman like that so beautifully too is what clinched her the Feelie. —Sage
Best Actor in a Drama: Ben Barnes, Shadow and Bone
Every year we do the Feelies, there’s one category that feels WILD, where the nominees stay bunched up together the whole time, the lead seesawing every time we refresh the results. This year, it was Best Actor in a Drama, with almost every nominee taking the lead at some point. But if there’s one thing you guys love, it’s a sexy villain, and when Ben Barnes finally took the lead, he never let it go.
I don’t know if I can recall a more perfect marriage of book character and actor in recent memory than Ben Barnes and The Darkling. (I know he’s General Kirigan in the show, but sorry, he’s The Darkling, Aleksander if you’re nasty.) A fan favorite for the role almost since Shadow and Bone published in 2012, Ben clearly knew the expectations that came with his casting and my God, did he deliver on them or what? The whole appeal of The Darkling is the way he exudes power, charisma, and sex. He is a LOT for a YA series, guys, and he’s even MORE in the hands of Ben Barnes. He commands the screen from the moment we see him from behind, that sex cape billowing in the wind. (We don’t even see his face in the first episode!) Ben makes The Darkling even more seductive by showing us the cracks in the facade and letting us in on his moments of vulnerability, from the genuine awe Alina Starkov inspires in him to the way he is perpetually on the verge of tears. It’s big “my love will save him” energy, and while that’s trash in real life, it’s good shit on my TV screen. Is The Darkling a garbage man? Yes, of course he is. Is he a garbage man you secretly root for?
Yes, of course he is. —Kim
Best Actor in a Comedy: Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
He’s friendly, he’s folksy, he’s a lot craftier than he seems, and he’s the performance of Jason Sudeikis’ career.
The key to the character of Ted Lasso is how often people misjudge and underestimate him, and in Season One, the audience is set up to do just that. We know what to expect from naive characters, from fish-out-of-water characters, from characters who seem so much sweeter and more generous than most of the people around them. The show, and Jason, flip those expectations on their head, giving us a man who wakes up every day making a conscious decision to be open and kind. Being Ted takes effort, and it’s effort all of us could be matching.
The reason why Ted is so lovable, and why what could be schtick in anyone else’s hands never gets old, is that Jason is constantly giving us evidence that he’s a human person, not a Missouri Care Bear. Whether it’s with a slow blink, shoving his hands into his pockets, or a full-blown panic attack, we’re reminded that we’re on Ted’s journey too, and that being in Richmond and knowing these people is also going to change him. In the grand tradition of great pop culture coaches (hey, Eric Taylor), Ted learns as much from his players and colleagues as they do from him. We couldn’t ask for a better gaffer. —Sage
Best Supporting Actress in a Drama: Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision
I almost feel like a Kathryn Hahn hipster, you guys. She’s been delivering top-notch performances for years, from her supporting turns in movies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton to her indelible turn as Jennifer Barkley on Parks and Recreation. She was one of the selling points for me when WandaVision was announced, and it’s so rewarding to see everyone losing their minds over this performance. Sorry to all the other ladies in this category, all of them Feelie-worthy, but they never even had a chance next to Kathryn.
Kathryn is perfect for Agatha BECAUSE she’s spent her entire career as a character actress, blending in most of the time, but stealing the scene when that’s what’s required of her. She’s able to seamlessly disappear into every single TV best friend trope thrown at her, from Ethel all the way to Kimmy Gibbler, and she does it all with her signature acerbic wit. I could watch her for hours and it feels BANANAS that she’s a part of the MCU now. I can only hope we can find some way to bring her back, but if they can’t, at least we were blessed with this. —Kim
Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy: Juno Temple, Ted Lasso
Juno Temple’s Keeley Jones is the kind of friend that all of us need and few of us deserve.
Imagine what it would be like to have Keeley in your corner! She’d hype you up (slash lightly hit on you) all the time. She’d give you a friendly ear and a fluffy pillow whenever you felt down. She’d teach you how to achieve your full hotness on a red carpet and then steal enough alcohol from the bar for the both of you. Best of all, she’d truly get to know you and always, always want you to be happy and fulfilled.
Juno tackles this character with all the sparkle and glitter she can muster, making Keeley the most aspirational of girly-girls. She’s the perfect balance of ambition and harmless hedonism. Keeley can whip the team’s marketing department into shape but can’t resist sticking her tongue directly into a chocolate fountain. She also takes joy wherever she can find it and has been a grounding force not only for Roy, but also for Jamie, who she’s been forgiving enough to counsel and befriend after their breakup. Characters like this, frankly, don’t exist in many other spaces, and the way that Juno has embraced our Instagram-model-turned-branding-professional reveals how much fun it must be to be her. —Sage
Best Supporting Actor in a Drama: Michael Sheen, Prodigal Son
Michael Sheen doubles down on his gleefully psychotic performance as Dr. Martin Whitly in the second season of Prodigal Son, and you’ll see no higher praise from me.
As ever, Martin delights in orchestrating as much as he can from the perch of his life sentence, and Season Two sees him achieve even more freedom. It also puts him toe-to-toe with guest star Catherine Zeta-Jones as an obsessed fan. (Despite being the two most internationally famous Welsh actors we have, they’d never worked together before!) From their positively twisted flirtation to the Misery homage that was the penultimate episode of the season, it was an embarrassing amount of fun to watch two performers with no chill go at each other like that.
On top of it all, no one can deliver this show’s consciously absurd dialogue like Michael can (“I’m just saying, if he’s fine with murder cover-ups, I could have done with a little of that energy back in ’98.”), and he retains what’s oddly lovable about Martin, who is, by definition, a monster. Remaining the devil on Malcolm’s shoulder, Martin epitomizes not Malcolm’s true nature, but the seductive release of just letting go. And we’ll miss our Murder Show’s patriarch tremendously. —Sage
Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy: Bowen Yang, Saturday Night Live
SNL is always a product of its times, and in a year where this 45+ year old sketch show was the only live entertainment many of us could get our hands on, that was even more true than usual. It was a strange and rocky season, with lots of cast members who probably would have quit by now hanging on to see the show — and the city — through a volatile time. But through all those ups and downs, Bowen Yang rose in his second season to become a beacon of hilarious, playful, smart-as-hell light.
It’s not that Bowen can do it all, although he can do a hell of a lot. It’s that, like all the best SNL performers who have come before him, no one else can do what he does. Ever since joining the show as a writer back in 2018, Bowen has brought a subtle but distinctly rebellious vibe to Studio 8H — and during this year in particular, Bowen got to show us who he really is. From impersonating Fran Lebowitz to getting smacked around by Regina King AND Dua Lipa, all of Bowen’s lead sketches were as campy as the House of Gucci trailer and as dry as a killer martini. He sang, he danced, he jumped in as a bit player and never pulled focus when it wasn’t his time. He recognized precisely when he could, and should, steal sketch after sketch — and episode after episode. He became a comedy sensation, a respected queer AAPI voice, and an Emmy nominated household name as a FEATURED PLAYER and I’m so proud of him on the regular that I could cry.
Bowen didn’t earn this Feelie because of Las Culturistas, the pop culture podcast he co-hosts with Matt Rogers, but as a long-time listener I am contractually obligated to bring it up — and I swear, it’s with good reason. A few months back on Las Cultch, Matt and Bow were talking about the final episode of Conan O’Brien’s TBS show and Bowen spoke about how Conan’s brand of comedy — the self-described intersection between smart and stupid — was all he’d ever wanted to achieve himself. So I ask you. Has anything — ANYTHING! — ever been as perfectly smart and spectacularly stupid as the Iceberg that Sank the Titanic? Only Bowen Yang could have pulled that off. Only Bowen Yang can be that serious and that dumb, that endearing and that disdainful, simultaneously. Whether he’s finally brought up to be a full-time cast member next season or he keeps it moving, Bowen Yang is a force for comedic good and we’re lucky to have him around. —Shannon
Best Shipper Moment: The war room scene, Shadow and Bone
The Shadow and Bone series did wonders with Book Mal, but — and I’m not sorry about this — there’s nothing anyone can do to stop me from rooting for the dark and sexy villain who wants to rule the world with our heroine by his side. (As Kim said in our nominees post, maybe rethink casting Feelies winner Ben Barnes as the Darkling if you want to attempt to save me from myself.) In addition to fixing what’s toxic about Mal, the show also brings the mutual attraction between Aleksander and Alina to sizzling life, making their whole dynamic feel much more adult in the process.
Case in point: the war room scene. Alina knows what she’s instigating. She’s an active participant in their affair and puts the Darkling back on his heels more than once. They match each other’s energies, which doesn’t only sharpen the fuzzy consent that’s on the page — it also turns up the heat considerably. Because the books are first-person, we only see the Darkling through Alina’s eyes, and his intentions with her remain up for debate. But in this scene more than any other, we see how genuinely wrecked by her he is, to the point where you can almost imagine him relinquishing his power. And that, my friends, is the good stuff. —Sage
Best Warm Fuzzy: Cool Uncle Bucky, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Shout-out to our Patreon sponsor Kortnea for nominating your warmest Warm Fuzzy of 2021! I have a lot of mixed feelings about the execution of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (did the finale really have to be 60% action sequence?) but one thing I’m NOT mixed on is the resolution it gives Bucky Barnes. So much of Bucky’s existence has been defined by his isolation and dehumanization and it is truly rewarding to see him find community (and possibly love!!) in Louisiana with Sam’s family. My heart grows three sizes every time I see a gif set of Bucky at that barbecue, showing up with a cake and letting all the kids dangle from his vibranium arm. If there’s anyone who has earned this chance at peace and a mundane existence, it’s Bucky Barnes, and I’m so grateful that TFATWS gives it to him. —Kim
Best Right in the Feels Moment: Wanda says goodbye to her family, WandaVision
WandaVision gets a little messy after the Agatha reveal, losing much of the nuance that made it so compelling in the first place and opting for broader strokes as Wanda takes on Agatha and truly becomes The Scarlet Witch. They find their footing in the end though, bringing it back to the whole reason we’re here in the first place: Wanda’s traumatic grief and the world she created in order to protect herself from it. We know it’s coming from the moment Wanda takes her kids’ hands and walks home with them after her final battle. We know that she’s finally realized that this can’t continue, and yet we still HOPE that Wanda can find a way to keep the life she’s built for herself. But she can’t. Westview is collapsing around her, and instead of fighting it, she accepts it, choosing to spend her last moments with her boys and with Vision, making sure they all know how much she loves them. “Thanks for choosing me to be your mom,” she tells her boys, tears in her eyes. It’s fucking devastating, and if you aren’t blubbering by the time Vision fades away, with the hope that maybe somehow he and Wanda can find each other again, then I don’t know what to do with you. —Kim
Best YAS QUEEN! Moment: “Agatha All Along,” WandaVision
Week over week, WandaVision was clearly building to some big reveals. And I still can’t get over that they decided to make one of them in song.
It’s so obvious, yet so brilliant. Hiding a character’s identity means that more exposition will eventually be necessary. Why not get us all up to speed with a jazzy little villain tune that reminds us of The Munsters? Kristen and Bobby Lopez (of Frozen fame) deliver lyrically and musically, and Feelies winner Kathryn Hahn gives “Agatha All Along” all the witchy sass it needs, and then some. It’s a throwback that fits perfectly within the tone of the sitcom-obsessed show while also being wildly original within the MCU. And, most importantly, it lets us know that if you fuck around with Agatha Harkness, you will most certainly find out.
In conclusion, please sign my petition to Kevin Feige to henceforth give every Marvel villain an introductory musical number. With Thanos, especially, we were robbed. —Sage
Best WTF?! Moment: It’s Kate’s Wedding, This Is Us
The fact that This Is Us handily won this category makes me feel a little less alone in not seeing this coming. We should all know better, fam!!! It’s not a This Is Us finale without a twist. I think what makes the reveal work so well is the fact that we’ve spent the entire season being invested in Kevin and Madison, plus everything we’ve seen in the future has implied that Kevin is married with twins. When there’s only one season left, why would we ever think that the story isn’t going that way? It’s such a good twist because of how Madison’s choice feels REAL, like the way Jerry Maguire would have ended had it been real life and not a movie. And on the other hand, we have Kate and Toby, who have already been through so much together that you think nothing can break them. But something does. What gets them to that breaking point? And how exactly does Kate end up falling in love with her cranky boss Philip? I can’t wait to find out. —Kim
Thank you so much for being part of yet another year of Feelies voting! Let us know how you feel about the winners (and if you want to recommend anything we have to watch for next year) in the comments.
[…] waxed poetic on the brilliance of Ben’s performance in our posts for the Feelies, so let’s leave all of that aside and talk about what really counts […]