Kevin Can F**K Himself Review: Annie Murphy Kills As A Disillusioned Sitcom Wife Subverting TV Gender Roles. Love That Journey For Her!
I’ve always maintained that it is okay to love something while also have an objective view and criticism about it. And yesteryear sitcoms definitely do fall in that category. We loved them back then, because it was a different world, and we were different people. And now, we can objectively critique the regressive tropes they’ve employed, satirise them and put our own spin on them. Recently, we’ve seen Marvel Studios’ Wanda Vision put its own spin on them. And now, there’s AMC’s Kevin Can F**K Himself. The eight-episode series, headlined by Emmy Award winner Annie Murphy, aka Alexis Rose of Schitt’s Creek, is the story of a perfect sitcom wife who realises how shit (pun intended) her life and her husband are, and decides to do something about it. The series, created by Valerie Armstrong, and directed by Oz Rodriguez and Anna Dokoza, also stars Mary Hollis Inboden, Eric Petersen, Alex Bonifer, Brian Howe, and Raymond Lee. Armstrong also is an executive producer, and so are Will McCormack and actor Rashida Jones under their Le Train Train banner, and Craig DiGregorio.
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Ever since I saw the Kevin Can F**K Himself trailer, I’ve been excited to watch it. The biggest reason being Annie Murphy, of course, and to see what she’s been cooking post the heartwarming and spectacular success of Schitt’s Creek and her Emmy win. But there was also the sheer deliciousness of the show’s premise that opened up possibilities of things going diabolical AF in the pursuit of smashing the patriarchy.
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Sitcom Wife, Interrupted
Kevin Can F**K Himself seamlessly flits between a multi-camera sitcom world, drenched in warm-toned hues, where cliché gender roles we’ve seen on TV are rampant and shrugged off with a laugh track, and the earthy, green-toned single-camera realism that gives us a peek into the secret life of the sitcom wife when she’s not smiling and playing the perfect wife. She’s angry and has deadly revenge on her mind.
In the regressive patriarchal sitcom world that Allison (Annie Murphy) inhabits, everyone, particularly her husband Kevin (Eric Petersen), treat her with the nonchalance and humour of your average sitcom. There are ‘nagging wife’ jokes, ‘PMS mood swings’ jibes, and a husband with a “Honey, make me a sandwich” attitude, who claims he loves his wife but is probably more intimate with his next-door-neighbour and BFF, Neil. Kevin is a man-child, rarely pays attention to anything Allison needs, and believes the whole world revolves around him, his needs and his comfort. In fact, he even thinks Allison, who works at a liquor store, has a much easier job than him (laying cables), ignoring the fact that she probably lugs heavy boxes around all day, and then does all the housework too. But of course, since all of this is said and done jokingly, and to a laugh track, it actually sounds like most of the old sitcoms we’ve known and loved.
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Misogyny is rarely a one-man job. It takes a village, including some women too. And in this case, Kevin’s man-child behaviour is enabled by his father, Pete, who lives with them, Kevin’s BFF and neighbour Neil, and Neal’s sister, Patty, who instead of saying “Eww Kevin!” to the sexist jokes, appears to be ‘one of the boys’.
Every time this world threatens to break her tolerance threshold, Allison regains control by escaping into her fantasy of a perfect suburban life that she and Kevin could soon make real, by using their savings to escape this town and buy her dream home. However, when this dream is shattered into pieces, so is Allison’s tolerance. She’s lost, and confused, and full of rage that could explode into that perfect sitcom life and destroy it any minute. That is, until she finds a new fantasy to live for, one where Kevin is no longer a problem. And that gives her a new sense of purpose to channel her rage, putting into motion a plan that’s going to shake things right up, and bring Allison some surprising new allies.
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Misogyny, amirite? *cue in laugh track*
There are just so many ways that men have invented to undermine women. They could mock a woman’s appearance, belittle her problems, tell her she’s not good enough to do something so she won’t touch it and men can exert their supremacy in it, or tell her she’s really good at something and make her do it every time so they don’t have to. If she nags too much, she’s ‘Mom’. If she isn’t onboard with your plan, she’s a bitch, throwing attitude, or PMSing. If she complains or cries, she’s ‘hysterical’. And my all-time favourite is when a woman tries to bring up something that’s about her and men find it a way to manipulate the discussion and make it about themselves!
One of the key edicts of our society-mandated gender roles is to enforce said gender roles, a job that sitcoms have been doing so well for the past many years. Every single action I mentioned above has been employed, often for laughs. The whole thing is rather cyclical in nature—real inspires reel, and when reel makes it look funny and the person doing it ‘cool’, it inspires that behaviour to be normalised and laughed off in real life too.
Kevin Can F**K Himself, in just its first episode, gives us a taste of almost all the ways in which the perfect sitcom wife has been mocked, belittled, disrespected, objectified, manipulated, and taken advantage of. Only, we didn’t take it seriously then, thanks to the accompanying laugh track that told us “Haha, this ‘wife’ joke is so funny!” And because once the moment passes, and the wife’s done getting mock angry, she dutifully goes back to being the perfect wife… around only for her looks and to do the chores.
The show intersperses this sitcom version with a sort of behind-the-scenes, or a parallel reality, that shows us what the sitcom wife is actually going through, having being thus treated, picking up the pieces of her shattered self-esteem, and having to walk back into that room to put through that wringer again. More importantly, what happens when she finally realises what’s being done to her and decides to do something about it.
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Kevin Can F**K Himself brilliantly uses the sitcom to beat the sitcom
What I instantly loved about this show, (second to Annie!) is the idea of using the multi-camera and single camera POVs to shift between the worlds. The whole ‘breaking the fourth wall’ trick has been used a couple of times to offer commentary on gender roles, the most successful one being Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag. So what this show does, depicting a sort of AU or BTS (behind the scenes) that can be accessed via opening and shutting of doors, feels fresh, simple, and an effective way to cue in the audience that we are changing territory.
It’s also a pretty in-your-face reminder that sitcoms see the world with rose-tinted glasses, while the real world is actually much more stark and devoid of that warmth, and shit can hurt in there. But here’s where it gets brilliant. The show continuous to employ the sitcom tropes, with each episode dealing with a new situation while the main conflict remains constant. But still manages to undercut those very tropes, even as Allison’s real world track plays out.
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There are several moments where Allison ventures into risky territory and you almost expect things to take a dark turn. But instead, she gets out of the sticky situation as easily as a sitcom character would. She’ll sweet talk the cops, or convince the shady guy to not hurt her. However, the writers find a way to spin that into a lead in for another one of Allison’s diabolical plans or some character discovery and development.
The sexist sitcom humour is organic and not forced. And no, sexist jokes are not funny, but you can easily reconcile them with past sitcoms or standup comedy you would’ve watched or ‘Uncle’ WhatsApp forwards you would’ve read and found funny ‘at that time’. Now that you know better, and Allison knows better, her sarcasm and reactions to the misogyny is something that fuels the actual humour and recruits us to her cause. It makes for some very delicious television, because the sweet release that Allison gets in the real world makes you wish you too could have that outlet for your rage against the patriarchy. But then again, not all her ventures are successful, just as women are still losing on many fronts in this war against patriarchy. And that frustration is easily felt through our screens.
On the surface, it’s easy to believe that the sitcom is clinically separate from the reality. But the face that Allison’s ‘awakening’ and her renewed sense of purpose is precariously perched on yet another fantasy lays out an interesting ‘will she-won’t she’ question for future episodes (the review is based on the first four episodes only).
The writing isn’t the only thing that makes this transition from happy sitcom to bleak realism effective. Major props to the production team for creating subtle differences in the way these two worlds look and function. Even in terms of camera angles, the sitcom is always zoomed out, and about the bigger picture, the family, the surroundings, where Allison feels tinier, blending into the background. Whereas the real world goes in closer, with tighter shots that actually track the expressions on the actors’ faces, and make Allison look like the big player in control.
Even the way the characters are dressed speaks volumes about who they are and how they see themselves. In the first episode, we see a tear in Allison’s sweater, as if a glitch in the matrix or a tear in the fabric of her sitcom world that forces her to see the reality. Kevin and Neil, both man-child variants, dress much younger than men their age would and even wear their hair in styles that suggest an effort to look underplay their age.
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Another fantastic character for Annie Murphy which she does complete justice to!
You’d think, with just how much we loved Annie Murphy as Alexis Rose in Schitt’s Creek, it would take some time to get used to her as Allison. But I am very happy to inform you, that Alexis Rose is forgotten, in a good way! Annie Murphy slips into the character of Allison so comfortably and effortlessly, that there’s not even a little bit Alexis in there. Gone is the polished accent and the Gen Z ‘rich Instagram influencer’ mannerisms. Sitcom Allison is her own version of sweet, more mature, and more worn down. Allison is still unpredictable and there’s plenty crazy in there too, I’m sure. When Annie Murphy switches that sweet wife persona off, she plays the woman with a plan well, without losing any of the endearing qualities that make you like her in the first place. There’s this impish twinkle in her eye as she fantasizes about her freedom, that I think is classic Annie Murphy!
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A huge shoutout to the rest of the cast as well, for making this sitcom world so convincing, particularly Eric Petersen, who plays Allison’s husband Kevin. He manages to make Kevin successfully toe the line between ‘barely likeable’ and ‘hated’, though you never fully hate him. He’s the typical guy who you’re surprised got so lucky to land a woman who is way out of his league, and mostly you just want to take him by the shoulders and shake the man-child out of him. Mary Hollis Inboden as Patty, with her constant expression of ennui and disinterest and her pretence of not caring but actually caring a lot makes for an interesting character. I’m eager to see what’s next for her.
Verdict
It’s kind of become a trend to do woke rewrites of your favourite yesteryear films and shows, or ask the ‘does this still hold up?’ to invite debates. These mostly serve the purpose of eliciting laughs, and eventually becoming a hotbed of trolls and unnecessary hate when they should’ve actually been educational. Fortunately, Kevin Can F**K Himself has found a way to do the exact same thing, but with a much more effective outcome. Why? Because even though it employs some of that slapstick comedy, the grievousness of how damaging gender roles can be is not undermined. It exists in a parallel reality which is much closer to our real world. What’s more, it manages to add a deliciously dark and diabolical tinge in the mix, to make the otherwise harmless sitcom wife a powerful avenger. Sitcom Black Widow? Yeah, why not!
Watch this show if you’re an Annie Murphy fan. She’s brilliant as she successfully steps out of Schitt’s Creek and into the shoes of another equally interesting sitcom character to smash patriarchy on TV like it was glass. To quote Alexis Rose, “Love this journey for her!”
Kevin Can F**K Himself premieres on AMC on June 13, and will also have its world premiere at the ongoing Tribeca Film Festival on June 18, 2021.
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