Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Kevin Can F**k Himself

Welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You. Suggestions to rename the blog "Dave-El Can Fuck Himself" are NOT appreciated.

The blog is still in a less than daily posting mode. 

I'm okay.  Mostly. I am a bit wobbly mentally hence the less frequent posting. 

Still muddling through. 

Which brings us to today's... Tuesday TV Touchbase.


My daughter Randie and I finished up the first season of the AMC series Kevin Can F**k Himself.

The series follows Allison McRoberts, a woman trapped in a marriage with an ignorant, selfish buffoon of a sitcom husband and Allison has decided that her course of action is clear: she is going to murder Kevin.

The series is presented in two formats: one is a multiple-camera setup typical of sitcoms completed with bright lighting and canned laughter; the other part of the series is filmed in the single-camera setup more common to modern TV shows where everything looks darker, grimmer and less colorful. 

The rule of the two formats is that whenever Kevin is on screen, the show looks and sounds like a stereotypical sit com with Kevin pursuing some outlandish scheme with his best friend Neil and his father Peter to further his own egocentric wants.  When Allison is not around Kevin, the show moves to the single camera format. 

In episode 7, we saw a twist in that rule when we have a sitcom scene with Neil but not Kevin. That twist in the rule will become important in episode 8.

Episode 8 finds Kevin not being killed by Allison's plot to kill him, an arrangement with Nick, a drug user/dealer who has agreed to shoot Kevin as part of a break in/robbery.  The plan does not go according to Allison's plan when Nick moves up the timetable and Kevin gets the drop on him and shoots Nick. 

After being in shock for awhile from this turn of events, Kevin once more finds himself falling upwards, turning his brush with crime into a political career. Kevin is running for city council. 

While hosting a campaign event at a local diner, Neil expresses to Kevin that he doesn't like this. This whole political thing is taking Kevin away from their usual fun stuff they like to do. Kevin agrees to play ultimate hide and seek with Neil and suggests Neil starts.  Neil tells Kevin to start counting to 3,000 and runs away. 

Later at the McRoberts house, Allison is having an argument with Patti. Patti had started as a part of Kevin's entourage but over the course of the series has become Allison's friend.

And her partner in planning Kevin's murder. 

In single camera mode in the dimly lit McRoberts' living room, the two women have a fight and Patti storms out.

Then Allison heads into the kitchen alone. But the kitchen is in sitcom mode. OK, that's weird. 

There's a closet by the kitchen's back door and I tell Randie, "Neil's hiding in the closet."  Sure 'nuff, Neil barges out of the closet in a rage. He heard EVERYTHING! 

Neil is strangling Allison over a kitchen counter which is weird because we're still in sitcom mode and then...

CRASH! 

Patti smashes a wine bottle over Neil's head and..

SNAP! 

We're in drama mode in the dimly lit kitchen as Neil lies twitching on the floor covered in blood while Allison and Patti look on in horror and...

Fade out.

Let me just say Kevin Can F**k Himself can, well, fuck itself! 

AMC has not yet made any announcement if Kevin Can F**k Himself will be renewed for a 2nd season. 

Well it better! We need answers! 

What exactly did Neil hear? He was in a closed closet on the far side of the kitchen while Allison and Patti were having their argument in a whole other room with a closed door between the kitchen and the living room.  Yes, flying into a rage and almost strangling Allison seems to suggest he heard them plotting to kill Kevin but Neil is not very bright and exceedingly devoted to being in Kevin's life. 

What if Neil heard them plotting to chill Kevin?

No! Kevin can't be chilled! Kevin is a party monster!  

Or...

When he was attacking Allison, Neil screams something about playing ultimate hide and seek but not being sure Kevin was actually even looking for him. What if Neil feels betrayed and unappreciated by Kevin? What if Neil actually becomes part of the conspiracy to kill Kevin?

Or...

Maybe I should stop thinking about all of that.

I do need a 2nd season to resolve that clift hanger and to see what happens with Allison and her on again/off again affair with Sam and Patti's relationship with Tammy, the police detective.

Beyond that, I'm not really sure how much more of Kevin Can F**k Himself do we need. We get the premise: Kevin is a prototypical lout of a sitcom husband, a totally selfish asshole who quite frankly deserves to die. But how many times can we watch Kevin be an asshole, not suffer any consequences for his actions but actually benefit from them while Allison repeatedly fails to kill him.  

Kevin Can F**k Himself is a daring and unique concept and was a very entertaining show over 8 episodes. But if this show plays out too long, it becomes Gilligan's Island with a miserable Allison perpetually unable to escape the hellhole island of Kevin McRoberts.

I would like to see at least a 2nd season that actually has the guts to write "finis" to the series with Allison putting a bullet in Kevin's thick oversized head as the canned laughter sputters to a murmur, as the garish light and color of his sitcom world fades into dull muted hues and he realizes at last just how much Allison hates his guts. 

Kevin's spirit rises from his body and ascends to heaven where St. Peter checks his book and decides, "Hey, Kevin can just fuck himself." 

That I want to see. 

_____________________________

No new post tomorrow but we're back in two days with the long awaited Doctor Who post. 

And the Tuesday TV Touchbase will return next week and the focus will be on Jeopardy. The great guest host experiment is over.  How did that go? Who's the new regular host? And some comments on phenomenon of contestant Max Amodio.

And that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.  Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   








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