Kevin Can F*** Himself

[Kaos]

I really want to like this show and I haven't given up yet.  It took me a little while to get the concept.  It's basically two shows:  I Hate Lucy and Raymond alternating with Breaking Mildly Annoying. 

Concept: The girl from Schitt's Creek, called Allison here, is married to Kevin, a typical situation comedy schlump, complete with the stereotypical schlump friends. He's so self-involved and idiotic that she longs for escape.  And decides to figure out a way to kill him. 

The show divides into separate components primarily by lighting. The "situation comedy" aspects are brightly lit and smothered by a laugh track that overcompensates for the absolute lack of comedy.  As soon as Allison (the girl from Schitt's) leaves the presence of her moronic husband and his pals, the lighting turns dark and washed out.  The tone of each is also completely different.

What I've noticed is that Kevin, his moronic friend and his idiot dad never appear outside the brightly lit comedic setting. Allison transitions back and forth as does Patty, about the only person who remotely resembles a friend to the beaten-down-by-life Allison. 

It's an interesting concept.  The Allison girl is pretty good. She wears the oversized jacket of a shit husband and an unfulfilling life with no hope of escape like it really fits.  She's jaded, disillusioned, broken and desperate for something real and exciting.  Despite all that despair she maintains that small nugget of hope that things could someday, somehow be better.  That can't happen as long as fuckwad remains in the picture.  For what it's worth?  She's the kind of unhappy housewife I would have wanted to fuck (and probably could have) back in my day. I'd fuck her now.

But there are a couple of major problems. 

1) Kevin.  They hired a Broadway veteran for this role and he is simply out of place.  There's nothing to suggest that the grounded, moderately attractive, reasonably intelligent Allison would have found this toad looking shit burger remotely attractive.  He's probably the most miscast person in the history of television.  I get what they were trying to do, but they needed a Kevin James -- not a fucking toad-faced Nathan Lane sound-alike who treats every scene like he's playing to the last seat on the last row of some shitty theater. He's the absolute worst.  I understand that this is the very idea, but he's just SO fucking bad it destroys everything else around him.  If he were just lazy and ineffectual, or if he were anything but a Broadway ham double hamming it up?  He's fucktarded. And it's not funny.
2) The tonality.  Kevin fucking RUINS the comedic scenes with his ridiculous overacting. The darker Breaking Bad aspects need to dial up the grit by a degree or two.  So basically tone the situation comedy down two notches and turn the darkness up by the same.  It just needs a stronger hint of danger on the dark side.  Allison needs to stretch her hate. She needs to truly break bad for me to completely buy in.  Maybe they'll get there. 

I'm going to keep giving it a chance because I want to see it get where it needs to be.  Four episodes in and I think -- think, think, think -- I'm beginning to see her turn and I need that. 

[GH2001]

His name is Kevin. Not sure if I would ever trust him.  

[WiregrassTiger]

His name is Kevin. Not sure if I would ever trust him. 

No sense in holding his having a gay name against him. He may not be that gay. And just had a gay name.

You never know.

[Kaos]

I sort of like the dark side of this split-personality show.  

But I absolutely loathe the light side.  The guy playing Kevin is worse than I ever imagined.  He's so bad it's making it almost impossible for me to watch the show.  

I don't think anybody else is watching but me.  

[WiregrassTiger]

Fuck Kevin up the pooper.

Kevin is a FAGGOT.

[Kaos]

I know, based on the ratings, that almost noone has ever heard of or watched this show.  Since I started it I figure I might as well finish. 

I know it's making fun of idiotic shows like King of Queens.  I think the concept was really good; contrasting the sitcom bullshit from the pain of real life by changing the look and feel of the scene, but it wore quickly thin.  Other than the girl playing Allison, the rest of the cast is so so terrible that it's almost impossible to enjoy. 

The one playing Tammy - supposedly a hotshot detective - and her forced lesbian angle (with zero chemistry) with Patty is shockingly bad.  The moron who plays the titular Kevin is gratingly, astonishingly, unimaginably awful. There's no chance whatsoever anyone would find him funny, endearing, attractive or interesting. 

My level of investment in the show is so low I have to watch it streaming because I can never remember when it's on live.  The finale aired yesterday.

Since nobody will ever watch this show, here's a recap of the finale.

> After a botched attempt to murder her husband (Kevin) and some other shenanigans, Allison fakes her own death and disappears. 

> Kevin feigns remorse only to get sympathy but has already moved on to a new girlfriend. He alienates his best friend and dad both of whom walk away from his petty selfishness and ignorance.

> Patty is sad and misses her and their stupid escapades.  She figures herself out over the course of the finale and takes charge of her own life. 

> Tammy the cop locates her and asks questions, in the process closing the door on any possible repercussions from the attempt on Kevin's life or the other bad things she did and opening the door to Allison coming back from the dead. Then Tammy quits the force. Patty ditches her in one of the least emotional, fraudulent-feeling scenes between two actors who have no chemistry together ever.

> After six months on the run, Allison returns to the shithole she wanted to break free from for her entire life, realizing I guess that she can't escape what she is and just drags it along with her. She goes back to confront her own demons and for the first time in the entire show's run, she puts Kevin into the dark side of the show and you get to see who he really is -- a crass, alcoholic, potentially violent, destructive bully who's driven everyone who ever cared about him away. As much as I liked the creative choice of making him "sitcom guy", the fleeting few minutes he was out of that box were his best.

Then it just ended.  Nobody was better off, nothing was learned.  They're all in varying stages of self-destructive rot.  Everybody is essentially alone, broken and abandoned. 

Only two seasons.  Never reached the promise of its concept.  It's over and will be forgotten five minutes from now. 
I think