The results are in and, with a whopping 13,109 votes, it can be confirmed that the 4th annual AP2HYC TV Awards was the biggest yet! With fifteen categories, dozens of nominees, and two weeks to vote, fandoms from across the board came together to show some love for their favorite shows and characters. Many of the categories were neck-and-neck throughout the duration of the voting process, and we’d like to give a shoutout to all of the passionate fans who came out day-after-day to spread the word!

And a special shoutout goes to the show with the, “small but active fanbase.” Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans once again dominated the polls this year, proving that Marvel’s first live-action show remains a favorite in the television spectrum.

So, without further ado… here are the winners of the 2018 AP2HYC TV Awards!

(Black Lightning)

While she might still be in her dad’s shadow on the show, Thunder was a standout this season due to her killer costume. Beating out fellow CW heroes and villains (including Black Lightning himself) Anissa Pierce walked away from the competition looking fabulous as the winner of the year’s Best Costume.

Where Black Lightning’s costume is dark and foreboding, Thunder’s is bright and well-accented. The detailing that is lost on BL’s suit as a result of the dark colors comes out in full force with Anissa Pierce’s crime-fighting getup. The costume, designed by Laura Jean Shannon, is a sleek suit that allows Thunder to really stand out in a world as dark and gritty as Black Lightning’s. The yellow accents give the allusion of body armor while the flexible material gives Thunder room to be her badass self.

Best VFX: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

With an impressive 87% of the total votes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. beat out CGI dragons, gorillas, angels, and demons to nab the title of Best VFX.

In a show that has our favorite agents in space, fighting aliens, dealing with powered Inhumans, and handling general mayhem, it’s necessary for all accompanying visual effects to be of the highest quality. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has always done a stellar job at bringing reality to wholly unreal situations, due in large part to the amazing visual effects helmed and supervised by Mark Kolpack. The visuals on S.H.I.E.L.D. match (and often surpass) those of Marvel’s big-budget blockbusters and continue to blow other superhero shows out of the water. Such companies including CoSA and FuseFX have never failed to create stunning visuals that look real despite the absurd circumstances of the series and deserve major kudos for their work.

Best Fight Sequence: Sinara vs. Quake (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=qrunMnV4oUo

Agents of SHIELD’s Sinara and Quake fought off more than just each other! They fought off the competition for Best Fight Sequence and ended with a whopping 72% of the total votes.

Best Makeup: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Dragons, White Walkers, and regular Walkers weren’t enough to bring down the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fandom when it came to Best Makeup! The show nabbed the title for the second year in a row!

The first half of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D’s fifth season took place in space… in the future… meaning there were a ton of Kree and other aliens running around. Somehow, the S.H.I.E.L.D. makeup team managed to create distinct looks for each and every one of the Kree that appeared onscreen, playing with different shades of blue to best accentuate certain features. What was especially impressive about this season’s makeup work was the fact that the meticulous attention to detail wasn’t reserved for the bigger players. Each person/alien who appeared on screen, be it for a lengthy monologue or quick walk-by, was made to look their best and, more importantly, made to look entirely believable. Considering how dark Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is (underground bunkers and outer space don’t get much light) it’s even more impressive that the makeup team managed to make their characters stand out. Check out an awesome look at the makeup application process for the Kasius and Kasius’ slave looks!

The Supernatural fandom came out once again to support their favorite angel. Despite some stiff competition, Castiel eked out a victory with 37% of the year’s votes!

To think, this season of Supernatural started off with Castiel being dead! Granted… most seasons start off with at least one of the core three in some predicament or another. Still, fans were pleased when our favorite trench-wearing sidekick returned to help get those Winchester brothers out of even more sticky situations. Cas has been the loyal sidekick to Sam and Dean for years now, arguably no longer a sidekick at all, and has dealt with his fair share of highs and lows. Despite all of the shenanigans that he’s forced to deal with, Cas has managed to stay in the game and provide support however he can, as any truly successful sidekick would.

(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

With 8,599 votes, Ship of the Year brought in over half of the awards’ total votes, and was without question the most popular category of the season. With more social media attention than we could keep track of, the category proved once more how passionate and vocal fandom shippers can be. While the Olicity fandom started off strong and had a lead early on, the FitzSimmons fandom came together in the final stretch and nabbed 52% of the total votes and a win for Ship of the Year.

Jemma Simmons said it best: “We joined this team for adventures and got more than we had hoped. But I can’t wait for our next adventure. Building a family together. My love for you grows deeper and always will, no matter where the universe takes us next.” Despite being separated every, single, season, FitzSimmons have proven once again that they can endure anything that comes their way. While our favorite scientists have experienced their fair share of trauma and rough patches (the Framework, Maveth, and THE POD just to name a few) they have proven time and time again that even the cosmos can’t keep them apart. This season brought with it some of the brightest FitzSimmons moments to date as the duo made their portmanteau official and finally got the well-lit wedding that they so deserved. Add that to the confirmation that they’ll live long enough to raise a daughter (and “have a Deke for a grandson”) and it’s clear that the FitzSimmons ship will ride every wave that tries to sink them. After all, not even death can stop these two.

Deke Shaw (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

With an impressive 78% of the total votes, newcomer Deke Shaw nabbed a victory and the title of Favorite Breakout Character.

At the start of the fifth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Deke Shaw was likely the last person anyone would call “favorite.” He sold Daisy into slavery, never wanted to help the team, and always found something to complain about. It wasn’t until he opted to sacrifice himself to get the team back to their own timeline that things started to turn around. Once he was no longer stuck in the future Lighthouse, Deke became a character who quickly grew on viewers. His humorous interactions with the team and Earth, coupled with him being revealed as the grandson of FitzSimmons, turned Deke from a shady jerk to an entertaining bit of comic relief in a very dark season.

Best Team-Up: Crisis on Earth X (Arrowverse)

If you’re going to bring together every superhero show on the network for a four-night crossover event, you should expect to win the year’s Best Team-Up! Unsurprisingly, the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Earth X event won in a landslide victory, with 52% of the votes!

Even those who have given up on one or more of the CWDC shows will make a point to tune in during the annual crossover event. This year’s Crisis on Earth X brought together more characters than any CW Xover before, uniting the Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Arrow, and the Flash teams in an insane four-part event. The characters we’ve grown to love over the years joined forces in order to take out the few people who could actually pose a threat: their own doppelgängers. Taking out their Nazi counterparts took a solid four episodes for the CW heroes to accomplish but it was a fun ride from start to finish that provided a few memorably heartfelt moments along the way.

Biggest Plot-Twist: Fitz’s Psychic Split (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

The fans have spoken and, despite a year of jaw-dropping moments, no plot-twist was more shocking than the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. reveal involving Fitz and the psychic split that had him channeling his inner Doctor.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a series known for its OMG moments, but none this year were quite as jaw-dropping as the Fitz reveal in, “The Devil Complex.” With a Fear Dimension open on the base, the agents were forced to confront physical manifestations of their deepest nightmares. For Fitz, this came in the form of his alter ego: the Doctor. Straight out of the Framework, the Doctor kidnapped and tortured Daisy in order to return her powers. It was a shocking sequence made moreso by the reveal that the Doctor wasn’t from the fear dimension, and in fact wasn’t there at all. In actuality, Fitz’s old brain injury was triggered by the stress of the situation and the Doctor was a hallucination. It was Fitz who kidnapped Daisy, Fitz who performed surgery on her, and Fitz who gave her powers back despite her pleas not to.

Most Kickass Female: The Women of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

With 83% of the total votes, the women of S.H.I.E.L.D. crushed the polls this year and easily banded together to jointly win the title of Most Kickass Female.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a show whose female characters are all so kick-ass in their own right that it was impossible to nominate just one for this category. Daisy Johnson, Melinda May, Jemma Simmons, and Elena Rodriguez, though drastically different from one another, share one commonality: each is completely and utterly kick-ass in every sense of the word. Season 5 in particular gave each woman shining moments that demonstrated just how physically, mentally, and emotionally kick-ass they all are. Daisy beat up more Kree than I could count and became the de facto leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. during Coulson’s time away; May protected her team despite her own physical and emotional injuries; Simmons took down the Kree who enslaved her, defied the cosmos in the most insane game of Russian roulette, all while squeezing in a wedding and dealing with some major personal issues; and Elena overcame losing both of her arms while never failing to do what she believed was the right thing to do. As individuals, each of the women of S.H.I.E.L.D. are intelligent, powerful, and kick-ass leaders… together they are quadruply so. It’s no question that, without these women, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have had far fewer victories… and the world would have been destroyed by now (literally).

Leo Fitz (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

With an incredible 82% of the category’s total votes, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s favorite Scot decimated the competition and walked away with the title of Biggest Damn Male hero for the second year in a row!

Leo Fitz was a contentious character this year on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, due almost exclusively to the questionable choices he made (and actions he took) that placed the greater good over his friends’ personal desires. Having said that, it’d be impossible to ignore all of the sacrifices Fitz was willing to make in order to save his friends and the world. After 6 months in solitary confinement, Fitz broke his way out of jail and didn’t hesitate to put himself in a cryogenic chamber for 74 years to meet his team in the future. Fitz then helped bring the rest of the team back to the present, worked out how to contain a deadly fear dimension, and ultimately sacrificed his own life in order to save his friends and Earth itself. While the decisions he made over the course of the season weren’t always morally sound, Fitz was willing to take the heat and the blame in order to do what needed to be done. Fitz has always been self-sacrifcial and this season he took it to a new level, sacrificing friendships, his own sanity, and ultimately his life in order to protect as many people as possible. What’s more heroic than that?

(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

He might not have won in his showdown against Team S.H.I.E.L.D., but Glenn Talbot AKA Graviton did manage a victory in this year’s TV Awards. With 67% of the total votes, Graviton finally surpassed his competition and nabbed the title of the year’s Biggest Bad.

In a season that gave us evil dictator Kasius, preppy assassin Ruby Hale, and Hydra (again), you might be wondering why Graviton was chosen as the biggest bad of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. In short, Glenn Talbot was a friend turned foe whose own desire for power caused the near-destruction of downtown Chicago as well as one of the most significant deaths to have afflicted Team S.H.I.E.L.D. since the show first aired. Talbot, so blinded by his personal wishes and greed, was prepared to literally destroy the world in exchange for a bit more gravitonium and power. While he claimed to be doing so in order to save the world, Talbot’s refusal to listen to Coulson and the rest of the team led to catastrophe on a large scale.

Leo Fitz (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)

With 92% of the total votes, Leo Fitz easily cinched the title for the year’s Most Heartbreaking Death. And we can understand why!

To date, no Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. death has left viewers feeling like they were stabbed in the heart quite as much as Leo Fitz’s. The first core team member to die (Ward was a bad guy when he was killed and Lincoln never quite made it to the A team) Fitz’s death came after a season of turmoil and bad breaks. Despite months spent in solitary, years spent in cryo, and a lifetime spent dealing with his inner demons, Leo Fitz still persevered and did his utmost to help as many people as he could. It’s no surprise that Fitz died a hero, saving both Polly and Mack from their fated deaths, or that he spent his last breaths worrying about people other than himself. Fitz’s death was made all the more difficult to watch considering who was and wasn’t present for his final moments. The tension between Fitz and Mack throughout Season 5 dissipated in an instant as Mack comforted his friend as best he could. Of course, it’d be impossible to discuss Fitz’s death without mentioning his other half. FitzSimmons have been the emotional lynchpin of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for quite some time now, making Fitz’s death pack an even stronger punch when thinking of it in the context of the newlyweds. Over the course of ten seconds we see Jemma Simmons slowly realize that her best friend and husband has died and that she is now a widow. Fitz’s death really hurt in this moment because with just a look, we understand that the team managed to save the world while Jemma Simmons lost hers.

Best New Series: Black Lightning

The CW’s newest superhero addition barreled its way through the competition to land the title of Best New Series!

A breakout hit for the CW, the first season of Black Lightning brought a level of depth that was previously lacking on the network. With fresh characters, genuine stakes, and heroes that viewers actually want to root for, Black Lightning is a series that somehow manages to standout in a sea of superhero content. The show is able to put a heightened, comic-book, spin on real-world issues through compelling characters that are reflective of the best and worst of humanity. A major draw of the show are the female heroes that are put in the forefront. They’re not just side-kicks or love interests, which makes the series feel even more in touch with the reality of the world we live in.

Best Season: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

There’s no stopping the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fandom. Just shy of 50% of the total votes, Marvel’s first live-action series stepped it up once again to nab the title of Best Season for the third consecutive year.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a show that legitimately gets better and better each year. Season 5 was no different as it pushed our favorite characters through space and time while simultaneously going darker than it ever has before. With heavy loss, seemingly endless trauma, and a few of the brightest moments in the series to date, Season 5 was Grade A from start to finish.

Thanks again to all of the incredible fandoms who came out and voted in droves! We’ll see you again next year! Check out the latest episode of Podcapers for a full discussion of this year’s awards!

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