TV Review - Kevin Can F*** Himself

As someone who stayed in a bad marriage long past its expiration date, a scene from the second episode of AMC’s recently-concluded first season of Kevin Can F*** Himself hit hard. Allison McRoberts, a liquor store clerk whose dream of moving out of a rundown part of her blue color hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts and into a planned community of granite counter tops and manicured lawns was snuffed out when she learned her husband Kevin had drained their joint savings account, gives a thinly veiled explanation of her plot to kill Kevin to a barely-paying-attention librarian. As Allison finishes describing her protagonist moving on to a life of morning outings to the local café for scones and coffee while reading a book, the librarian looks up and asks simply “why doesn’t she just leave him?” 

It is a question anyone in a failed marriage contemplates, but Kevin is, albeit in an unconventional way, more than a story about a shitty marriage, it is about the abuse one partner heaps on another when societal norms deem it acceptable to do so. Kevin (the show) and Kevin (the husband) are modeled on familiar sitcom tropes like Everybody Loves Raymond and The King of Queens. Kevin is a stereotypical “Masshole” – a 35-year-old man/boy who worships at the altar of New England sports (a Wade Boggs photo by the front door, Tom Brady look-alikes at his birthday party, vanquishing a former New York Ranger in an eating contest to defend the honor of the Boston Bruins, etc.) has never met a chicken wing he did not want to eat, or a responsibility he could not avoid.

When the show focuses on his point of view, it is punctuated in bright colors and laugh tracks, with his equally dim best friend (and next door neighbor) Neil and gruff, always-in-a-barca-lounger dad Pete, acting as a sort of greek chorus of white male privilege affirming every outrageous thing that comes out of Kevin’s mouth. Allison is of course the wet blanket, a nagging mother figure cum wife who is the butt of every joke and the voice of reason constantly shot down by the men and Neil’s sister Patty, a sort of “guy’s girl” who joins in the pile on.

As viewers who have seen versions of this type of man portrayed on television over and over, Kevin conditions us to see the humor in Kevin’s behavior but it is only when the camera shifts to Allison’s drab, single camera, no-laugh-track point of view that the emotional cost of his conduct is fully realized. There, Kevin is not the hero of every story, but rather, the villain, a narcissist whose ego leaves no room for his put-upon wife whose treatment borders on emotional abuse, no matter how firmly she tries to eye roll it all away. 

When Patty tells Allison that Kevin has squandered the savings she so diligently squirreled away, thereby crushing Allison’s dream of a better future, she has her “breaking bad” moment and decides that Kevin must die. But as the season goes on, we realize that Kevin never suffers any consequences for his actions while Allison is always getting hit with the shrapnel. To take one example, as Kevin and Neil are preparing their “famous” chili, Allison messes with them, artificially creating a fight that leaves the two men competing instead of collaborating. But instead of chalking up a small win, she simply creates a new problem for herself. Not only does Kevin need a new partner (her) but he must now one-up his competitor by slow roasting a whole pig. When Allison can no longer deal with Kevin and gets the two to reconcile, Kevin marches off, leaving her to deal with the dead animal’s now charred remains. In another episode, Allison uses Kevin’s car for a road trip, but when she does not answer his constant texts and phone calls, he reports the car stolen, leaving Allison to deal with the cops who pull her over.

In sitcom world, Kevin’s behavior might be laughed off as an unenlightened man’s perverse way of showing love, but in her world, it is effectively a death sentence – a needy, controlling man who will never let her out of his grasp and she, with less than $200 to her name and limited job options, will never escape. It is a grim tableau effectively painted in the show’s first few episodes, but having established the human stakes involved, it felt as through the writers lost the thread. When I watch TV, I am usually on the lookout for fat that could be trimmed, storylines that could be tightened, and general padding that if shorn away would make the show better, but with Kevin I had the opposite reaction. It felt as though too much was being packed into its eight episodes for the various story lines to be given the room they needed to develop.

For example, Patty, as it turns out, is not so different than Allison. She stews over Kevin and Neil’s unearned position within their social circle, but she responds to it not by plotting their murders, but into a down-low hustle as the local area pain pill dealer thanks to a hook up at the pharmacy. And as Allison and Patty start appreciating the similar situations they find themselves in (Patty’s romantic life, such that it is, is an antiseptic relationship with a boyfriend whose idea of a good time is sitting on the couch nibbling on salad while watching shows saved on his TiVo) they go from frenemies to besties.

While their evolving friendship is nicely framed, it is in service to the rest of a story that feels rushed, mostly by taking the one thing out of Allison’s hands that should have been valued the most – her agency. Instead of going through with her plan to make Kevin’s death look like an accidental overdose by slipping Oxycontin into his food, a series of events (which again, happen rapidly) force her to rely on Nick, a local criminal who is leaning on Patty to keep sourcing him drugs even though her connection is in jail, to do the deed for her. In the meantime, Patty dumps her limp boyfriend and becomes involved with Tammy, the police detective investigating the local drug scene, while Allison reconnects with Sam, a former flame who has moved back to the area with his wife.

If your head is spinning that is understandable. It is A LOT to pack into what are effectively only five episodes and it shows. Crucially, Allison trades reliance on one man for two even though the show wants to lean into female allyship. She will forever be beholden to Nick as his co-conspirator in her husband’s murder and becomes dependent on Sam for emotional and financial support by starting an affair with him and also taking a job at the diner he owns. A ten, or twelve episode order might have provided more opportunity to flesh out these story lines; instead, they felt more like plot device than character development.

Finally, the show lost sight of the more important (and I would argue, compelling) elements it established in the first place: of male privilege, the emotional burdens women carry and how those things are perceived depending on whose story is being told. Ultimately, it landed right where it began. When Nick strikes out on his own and decides to fulfill the hit earlier than Allison expected, Kevin shoots him dead with a gun Allison had stolen when she and Patty traveled out of state earlier in the season and then hid in the backyard. Kevin is hailed as a hero and turns his newfound minor celebrity into a run for Mayor with a grim-faced Allison as his reluctant partner. Instead of being a cri de couer for female empowerment, Kevin reinforced the status quo.