Fourth Annual Tommen Awards (TV Edition - WINNERS)

Drama
Better Call Saul season 5
The Boys season 2
Bridgerton
The Crown season 4
Killing Eve season 3
Outlander season 5
The Outsider*
Ozark season 3
Perry Mason
P-Valley

*HBO submitted this to the Emmys in the drama series section and despite them passing up on a second season, a second season was being shopped around w/ other networks so my understanding was that at least back in spring 2020 the idea was that this would be a recurring program and not just a single limited series.

Comedy
Avenue 5
Better Things season 4
Bojack Horseman season 6 part II
Feel Good
The Flight Attendant
The Great
Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet
Ramy season 2
Schitt's Creek season 6
Sex Education season 2
Space Force
Ted Lasso
What We Do in the Shadows season 2
Work in Progress

Limited Series
Defending Jacob
Fargo season 4
The Haunting of Bly Manor
I Know This Much Is True
I May Destroy You
Mrs. America
Normal People
The Plot Against America
The Queen's Gambit
The Undoing
Unorthodox
Your Honor
ZeroZeroZero

Blindspots: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, Brockmire, High Maintenance, Little Fires Everywhere, The Wilds, Westworld, The Good Fight, The Good Lord Bird, etc.
(some of these I'll definitely watch at some point)

"END GAME" - written and directed by Scott Frank
"Let's play."

"HAPPY ENDING" - written by Dan Levy; directed by Jordan Canning
Thanks for the memories, Schitt's Creek. What a strange, fabulous, and beautiful journey it was.

"NEVER MY LOVE" - written by Matthew B. Roberts & Toni Graphia; directed by Jamie Payne
Contains some of the most viscerally disturbing content since the Wentworth Prison scenes from season 1. Making clever use of a surreal recurring dream sequence, the episode is a powerful examination of trauma and the ways our psyches cope with it.

GIUSEPPE DE DOMENICO as Stefano La Piana in ZeroZeroZero
An overlooked gem right here. This limited series dropped on Prime early in 2020 and I remember shouting it out back in the summer. De Domenico takes no prisoners as the ruthless grandson of an even more ruthless Italian mob boss. The character's overreaching puts him in eminent danger and De Domenico navigates the rise and fall brilliantly, carrying himself as if the whole world owes him.

DAN LEVY as David Rose in Schitt's Creek
He made us laugh, he made us cry. EW, David.

JONATHAN BANKS as Mike Ehrmantraut in Better Call Saul
(no speech, dead-eyed stare)

MARK RUFFALO as Dominick and Thomas Birdsey in I Know This Much Is True
The hype is real. This is the best thing Ruffalo has ever done, and I say that as someone who understands the hate he sometimes gets. This dual performance is more akin to You Can Count on Me than anything else in his canon but it goes a lot deeper than that. Channeling some major Affleck in Manchester by the Sea vibes, Ruffalo plays a beaten down man haunted by past demons and desperate but unable to atone for deep-seated guilt. Incapable of forgiving himself or anyone else, he's angry and miserable, and everything he does is a struggle. A compelling and compassionate portrait of self-loathing and reckoning with the sins of one's father.

ASA BUTTERFIELD as Otis Milburn in Sex Education
That's right, if anything had a chance at breaking the Schitt's Creek streak, you knew it had to be Asa Butterfield's O-Face in that premier. I was incredibly impressed by Butterfield's dead-on comic timing in season 1 and he was even better in season 2. Hilarious performance.

JOSH O'CONNOR as Grumpy Prince Charles in The Crown
I've already said how much I was obsessed with this performance. He was one of the best things about season 3 and he had even more time to shine in season . It's remarkably technical. Meticulously mannered, postured and accented. It's some of the most rigorous acting on the show this side of Foy. The perfect picture of toxic emotional repression. Even the way he smiles is gross and stiff, but then it's not like he chose to be born into a family of unsmiling assholes.

MRS. AMERICA (FX) - Created by Dahvi Waller
A remarkable glimpse at a time and place in American politics at a cross-roads between feminist progress and reactionary conservativism in the ashes of the Hippie Movement and gearing up for the right revolution of the Reagan Era. This is top notch political drama but also a wonderful evocation of a past America in whose shadow we still live. Stylistically, politically, dramatically, this was a slam dunk for FX and TV-lovers everywhere.

SCHITT'S CREEK (Pop TV) - Created by Eugene & Dan Levy
This is one I watched for the first time this past year and initially I had issues with it, but by season 4 I was totally in love with these characters and invested in their stories, and season 5 was even better, and season 6 was the best of all. That this show was able to win me over so utterly is credit to its enduring warmth and a set of characters whose journeys are difficult, complicated, but full of love, hope and promise. You can't help loving Schitt's Creek.

OUTLANDER (Starz) - Developed by Ronald D. Moore
AKA, that show Mother's Milk was watching in The Boys season 2.

I watched the first season of this show in early 2020 and wasn't expecting it to become one of my biggest obsessions but here we are. It's often messy and sometimes flawed but it compensates with unabashed romanticism, strong characters, and phenomenal acting from its often naked leads. For those still contemplating jumping into this thing, I can confirm that it's still really good five seasons later. This past season finds Jamie and Claire still eking out an unsure existence in the new world with anticolonialist tension brewing among the locals. Sooner or later, they have to make a dangerous choice. Overall I'd rank this a slight step down from Season 4 but the stunning final two episodes made my choice easy here. When Outlander is good, it's really good. I can't wait for season 6.