‘Kevin Can F**k Himself’ Experiments With the Dark Side of Sitcom Life

Alci Rengifo

The sitcom is one of pop culture’s most cherished forms of TV distraction. You can laugh at the light humor and take to heart the quick, simple life lessons featured in the pep talk dialogue. But deep down inside we know that the world depicted in even the most beloved sitcom titles can’t possibly have any connection to real life. AMC’s new show “Kevin Can F**k Himself” is an experiment which tries to bridge sitcom fantasy with stark reality. It attempts, in a rather unbalanced but intriguing way, to strip down the daydreams we are fed by television. The driving premise is to imagine the laughing track stopping and ideas of murder beginning to bloom in its wake.

Trapped in a sitcom marriage is Allison McRoberts (Annie Murphy), who lives with husband Kevin (Eric Petersen). When we see them together the world is indeed lit and shot like a sitcom, with bright colors and a house that’s an obvious stage set. The humor is meant to make us chuckle along with the laugh track. Eric is the definition of a deadbeat husband. He spends most of his time with his drinking buddies, obsesses over sports when not at work, and is prone to spending their savings on sports memorabilia. Allison is the dutiful wife who cooks, cleans and is more of a mom to Eric than a life partner. But then the tone of an episode will change when we are alone with Allison, and now the world is captured in grayer tones and more somber music. She is lonely and frustrated. Allison would love to buy a house but can’t get Eric to focus on the idea. She works at a liquor store where life just seems to idle by. Before long, Allison begins to fantasize about how grand life would be if she could just kill Eric. 

“Kevin Can F**k Himself” is the latest in a current reckoning with the kind of sitcom format that truly reached its peak in the ‘90s. Like “BoJack Horseman” it wants to peek at the dark reality masked by the feel-good homes and neighborhoods of “Full House,” “Blossom” or “Family Matters.” Even in the great classics like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” life’s darkest moments always seemed to find a resolution in a hug. Even more relevant to what this series is trying to comment on, the wives or girlfriends in those shows were always pillars of support through thick and thin. This was because Tim Allen in “Home Improvement” or Uncle Phil in “Fresh Prince” were themselves shining examples of the mature, well-rounded dad and loyal husband. “Kevin Can F**k Himself” is almost a work of cultural criticism. We are presented first with the usual sitcom scenarios. Kevin comes home, makes grand and dorky announcements, while his buddy Neil (Alex Bonifer) pops in to go along with his antics. They are prone to planning events where they hire lookalikes of famous football players or getting a banker who might approve a home loan drunk (“I’ve always wanted to be one of the guys!”). But when we cut to Allison’s solo scenes where she’s not just laughing along to the gags, the contrast becomes so clear. Kevin is not just a TV idiot, but a careless and rather subtly cruel husband. He never notices or cares how Allison is feeling, to the point of nonchalantly expecting dinner after dropping some horrible news (such as giving away her dog). 

It is in the starker material where the show is both intriguing but also a bit lacking. Allison begins to fantasize about how to kill Kevin, including by simply inducing an overdose. Her best options are a local mechanic with a shady side business, and who has an obvious interest in Allison, or old neighborhood friend Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden). Some of these scenes have a real cruelty to them, like Allison walking into a makeup shop seeking advice and getting brutal treatment from the workers for no reason. And later Patty will make a hurtful revelation about Kevin and admit that she hates Allison for her daydreaming ways, as if it’s bad she wants to leave a dumpster marriage in a small town with few real friends. If creator Valerie Armstrong really wants to subvert and shred the idea of the sitcom as a slice of American fantasy, she should design it to go all the way. Why reduce the plot to a mere obsession with poisoning Kevin? And why is Patty so down on Allison? We also never see in the first few episodes of this season the starker version of Kevin. It is a brilliant idea to put an emphasis on what sitcom lifestyles really imply for the wife, but to get the idea across we should see Kevin in his non-sitcom zone. As written, he’s an idiot to the point of being pitiful. One doesn’t get the impression he is dangerous enough to warrant murder. Allison is not trapped in a Victorian marriage. He’s so stupid she could probably walk out the door and he wouldn’t notice for a few days, or until the fridge runs out of food. Another side character is Sam (Raymond Lee), an old acquaintance of Allison’s from their teen years who returns to open a restaurant and bar. He is meant to provide a real world alternative to the useless Kevin, because he’s nice, fit and owns a bar. If the show wants to smash old sitcom stereotypes, does it really need to put another one in Allison’s path on her way to emancipation?

Yet “Kevin Can F**k Himself” still contains a lot of engaging, even unnerving material. By flowing in and out of a sitcom format to a dreary psychological drama, it does make a strong commentary on the power of pop culture as a dream factory. We like escapism precisely because it means getting away from the crude truths of life itself. This show wants to say that the stereotypes we used to consider harmless TV fun contain a damaging idea at their core. The dutiful sitcom wife presents an ideal of domestic life, while rarely touching on patriarchal abuses and a woman’s right to set the course of her life. The plot involving Allison trying to figure out how to kill Kevin might have some absurd flourishes, but they also capture the real frustration of being entrapped in a personal hell. Real life comes with scars and few laughing tracks.

“Kevin Can F**k Himself” season one begins streaming June 13 on AMC+ and airs with a two-hour season premiere June 20 on AMC.