One of the most innovative and conceptual shows on television, a show with a multitude of worlds in the world and winking references to the classic fantasy series of the last decade, has finally become again this week. No, I’m not talk about Dragon’s House. I’m referring to something much more groundbreaking and ingenious: Annie Murphy-led sitcom skewers Kevin Can F**k Himself.
The second and final season of the sitcom/dramedy (sit-dram-com-edy? drama-com-sit-edy?) aired its first episode on Monday on AMC. Even though it’s to the point of seemingly zero, it still feels as fresh as ever. Even if you happened to miss Season 1, you might recognize the title as a parody of the short-lived CBS sitcom. Kevin can waitlikewise only ran for two seasons after it failed to get over the controversial and silly decision it made when it entered its second season.
A month before the second season due to the atmosphere, it was announced that series was frequented by Erin Hayes, who played Kevin James’s wife on Kevin can wait, will not return for a second season. Instead, her character will be killed off to make room for Leah Remini, who is joining the show as a series regular in an attempt to save it from cancellation, capitalizing on James’s success formula and Proven Remini with King of Queens. Hayes’ cause of death was never revealed on the show.
Born from that controversial decision, Kevin Can F**k Himself tells the private life of Allison (Murphy), the despised wife of a regular, awkward sitcom husband, named Kevin (Eric Peterson). When Allison interacts with Kevin, she’s part of his sitcom — a brightly lit, multi-camera world where everyone around laughs at his heinous stories. her, caught up in his ludicrous schemes and joined to deal with Allison’s expenses.
But the genius of Kevin Can F**k Himself is that whenever Allison leaves her husband’s toxic orbit, the style immediately turns into a single-camera act. The switch worked especially well in Season 1, allowing the audience to feel the burnout that was etched into Allison’s bones. Trapped in a deadlocked marriage without enough resources to continue with the divorce, Allison comes up with a plan to kill Kevin, but at the end of Season 1, it becomes clear that things will never be as simple as she hoped. wait. it is in.
It would be easy for a show like this to use this gimmick as a crutch. A performance can only last so long running on the smoke of its original novelty. But with a final season that delves deeper into Allison’s broken psyche and her attempts to navigate it with her best friend Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden), Kevin Can F**k Himself proved that its ambitious idea was the springboard for creating one of the most challenging and powerful stories on television.
Season 2 starts right where it first stopped, with Allison and Patty standing over Neil (Alex Bonifer), Kevin’s best friend and Patty’s brother. Just before that, Neil had his arm around Allison’s neck after overhearing her plan to kill Kevin, until a beer bottle hit him on the head, thanks to Patty’s permission. Faced with the fact that their plot has been discovered and they’ve just launched an attack, Allison and Patty must act quickly by coming up with a plan to keep Neil quiet when he regains consciousness.
The fact that Neil discovered their grand plan also meant it had to be retooled. Allison’s efforts to kill Kevin got her and Patty into much more trouble than they bargained for—that is, if you count the two assaults (one interstate), drug dealing and Murder plots are troublesome. With too many loose endings to maintain and Patty’s cop girlfriend, Tammy, sniffing the case, Allison must find another way out of her private hell before it’s too late.
Allison decided that taking Gillian Flynn Route may be her only front, determined to try to fake her own death. But it’s an effort almost as noble as killing someone and not getting caught. To solve the problem, she will need Patty’s help again. Figuring out your own fake death is hard, but doing it next to the person you love most in the world is almost impossible. Staying meant being tied to Kevin forever, but leaving meant never seeing Patty again – and Allison was dead, too. It’s a constant emotional pull, and all the inner difficulties that come with it, Kevin Can F**k Himself expertly pulled out.
Few programs can test how difficult it is to be an active participant in changing your life as well as this one. It’s not easy from a distance by any means, especially when, like Allison, you’ve spent over a decade unwittingly digging yourself deeper into the trail. Kevin Can F**k He himself skillfully depicts the consequences of being so weakened by the world that you are forced to give in.
“While I don’t dare say anything more, I will say that I was startled by how much the finale affected me.“
What is indisputably still true this season just as much as last season is that this show wouldn’t be working without Annie Murphy. She shines like a supernova that never stops shining. Even when sitcom scenes become similar, Murphy keeps them together by reminding us that it’s all by design. Her appearance on Kevin’s sitcom is intended to create a sense of bleakness; we had to want her out of there as soon as possible, back to her own life, and back to Patty, someone who really loved her.
After all, this is like a story about being trapped because it is being released. With Patty by her side, Allison learned to stop walking on eggshells. She discovered how to stand up on her own and how to put her feet down; how to laugh and how to slowly regain control of her own life, just by having a life that doesn’t revolve around Kevin. Allison and Patty gave each other that gift of freedom, but as long as Kevin was in the picture, Allison couldn’t last forever.
The biggest question with a program like this, one that requires big, creatively compelling changes, is whether it can hit the mark. At the end of its 16 episodes, maybe Kevin Can F**k Himself turn its clever concept into a practical point?
In its final installment, the show spins us back to complete the circle and look back at what we’ve seen as a whole. Kevin Can F**k Himself argues against those who might argue that the backlash to chauvinist jokes is now so widespread that it is no longer relevant, in turn reaffirming their relevance by tearing Quit jokes still exist a lot. I mean, Tim Allen’s Latest Sitcom just finished last year.
While I don’t dare say anything more, I will say that I was startled by how much the finale affected me.
Instead of just creating a series finale that somehow neatly solves all of Allison’s problems—which would betray the entire show’s presumption—it effectively brings everyone together. things into a new light, something that’s not so neat but so much more thoughtful. What the program tries to re-document in its last 20 minutes is unremarkable.
Although it is airing in a television landscape flooded with series considered “noble, prestigious television”, Kevin Can F**k Himself managed to maintain an air of modesty. It focuses on using a clever and completely original premise to amplify its storytelling
