Kevin Can F*** Himself in the Media

[Meredith Quill]

Your Media Topic!

[methodwriter85]

So CBS isn't suing them for copyright infringement? Damn, they're lucky Disney doesn't own CBS.

[Just Here]

The TCA Winter Press Tour event for this show was held today (February 18th).    We now have an official trailer (embedded below) and some fresh news articles about the series.

Official Trailer

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This is a story about a woman who keeps playing a perfect housewife. Then, one day she realizes what she wants: to kill her husband. Emmy winner Annie Murphy (Schitt's Creek) stars in KEVIN CAN F**K HIMSELF, coming to AMC Summer 2021.'

Official Twitter Feed is twitter.com/KevCanFHimself (launched this month).

 

Vanity Fair:  "Exclusive interview" article with Annie Murphy (short, not a back-and-forth transcript)

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One of the things that infuriated Murphy in real life was Kevin Can Wait, which unceremoniously ejected actor Erinn Hayes—who played Kevin’s wife of 20 years—because it was “literally just running out of ideas,” according to star Kevin James.

When I asked Murphy if she watched that sitcom in order to satirize it, she sighed. “I did watch an episode here and there of Kevin Can Wait, but it just gets to a point where you’re like, FUCK this. Like, getting angry as opposed to getting any source of entertainment out of it. I got the gist of it pretty quickly.”

 

Entertainment Weekly's write-up (with a few "exclusive" photos):

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Over the past four years, the reason the striking title Kevin Can F**k Himself has persisted "is not because it was a reaction to some now-defunct sitcom," series creator Valerie Armstrong says. "It's still the title because it's actually, in my head, a very good encapsulation of the format of the show itself. It starts out sounding very familiar, and then the rug gets pulled out from under you."

In 2017, amid serious global discussions about gender politics and how entertainment fails women both on screen and off (like on Kevin Can Wait, the now-canceled CBS series the show's title plays off), Armstrong heard two actresses on a podcast explain how the sitcom roles they'd go out for ended up being wives that only served as "setup machines." The vision of Kevin Can F**k Himself came to her all at once, with her thinking, "The job of the show is making that wife, that beautiful, put-upon, supposedly naggy wife, a real person. How did that woman actually get stuck in this situation? And how does she get out?"

A general meeting at AMC became a pitch meeting once the network read the script, and all of the sudden Armstrong got the green light to make her first TV series, a show "about a woman who we all grew up thinking that we knew, the sitcom wife, and she is surrounded by these people who prop up her husband. She is the butt of most of the jokes and seemingly fine with it… But on our show, we follow her out of that sitcom world where there is no laugh track. Her dramatic life is full of grit and emotion that she's not afforded in that sitcom."

"It's not a show within a show," Armstrong stresses. "She's not an actor. It's just the way this world is presented. It's like a lens. It's a metaphor for the benefit of the doubt we've given men like Kevin forever. Men who get to like walk through life with a sitcom audience cheering them on all the time."

 

Here's one journalist's brief live-tweeting of the event, with quotes from Murphy and the creator, Valerie Armstrong.  (The below tweets are from later in the thread.)

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Just Here
formatting

[DanaK]

That is way weirder than I thought it would be

[helenamonster]

I've been excited for this show since it was announced, and the trailer looks fantastic. So happy for Annie Murphy that this is the kind of work she's pulling post-Schitt's Creek, really looking forward to seeing what she does with this.

[DanaK]

The series will premiere with the first 2 episodes on Sunday, June 20 at 9pm on AMC. The episodes will debut on AMC+ a week earlier on June 13 and each subsequent episode will debut on AMC+ a week ahead of the linear debut on AMC on Sundays at 9pm http://thefutoncritic.com/news/2021/04/22/annie-murphy-returns-to-television-in-the-groundbreaking-new-series-kevin-can-fk-himself-sunday-june-13-on-amcplus-and-sunday-june-20-on-amc-29010/20210422amc01/

[Chaos Theory]

I just saw the previews for this.  I’ve seen tons of people complain about sitcom pairs where some schlub guy is married to a hot babe and the whole premise is how lucky the wife is or how the world revolves around the husband’s feelings and the wife is just and afterthought or someone to bounce the occasional joke off of.   This looks like an answer to those complaints.  The wife wakes up to a much darker world tired of being the butt of the joke.   

Looks like fun.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Chaos Theory

[Harvey]

Really good introductory video

 

[dbklmt]

Good article about Kevin Can F**k Himself star Mary Hollis Inboden on falling in love with Annie Murphy onscreen and off.

https://ew.com/tv/kevin-can-fk-himself-mary-hollis-inboden-annie-murphy/?did=658981-20210803&utm_campaign=ewk-tv_newsletter&utm_source=ew.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=080321&cid=658981&mid=63714483616

[Ms Lark]

Interesting take from Variety:

https://variety.com/2021/tv/columns/kevin-can-f-himself-annie-murphy-missed-opportunity-1235027655/

[Harvey]

From the Variety article:
 

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As it’s gone on, though, “Kevin Can F*** Himself” has shaped up into one of the great missed opportunities of recent TV history. It’s a show that has surprisingly little to say about anything other than the particulars of its situation — one that ends up looking as loopily implausible as the set-up for a Kevin James sitcom.

Allison is such a radically different person when the mood shifts that it can be hard to remember the show is intended as a takedown of family sitcoms and not a gender-swapped crime story, full stop.

More and more, it feels apparent that “Kevin Can F*** Himself” is a satire intended for an audience with only a broad general idea of what’s being satirized.

 

Well, they didn't lie. The show started out strong but ultimately lost it's way and ended in a very weak way.

[qtpye]

Some good points.

[DanaK]

Renewed for a 2nd season https://tvline.com/2021/08/27/kevin-can-f-himself-renewed-season-2-amc-annie-murphy-returning/

Let's hope it can work out the kinks because I'm not sure it's sure what kind of show it should be

[pennben]

Agreed!  It did have some kinks but I’m very glad they get a second season because I feel like there’s a good show this can build into.  We got glimpses here & there in 1st season. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by pennben

[helenamonster]

I think I projected too much of what I though this show was going to be onto it and that influenced my disappointment with the finale, but a lot of those expectations were based on this being a limited series. There's a lot I like about it though, and I'm hoping a second season can give us a better idea of the bigger picture.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ways they were able to keep using the format switch to their advantage, and am definitely looking forward to see what else they can do with that.

[chocolatine]

I'll keep watching just for the chemistry between Annie Murphy and Mary Hollis Inboden. It would be nice if the writers could do a better job fleshing out the characters and their motivations, but the friendship between Allison and Patty is what really makes the show for me.

[Avabelle]

The show will end with season two.

[Harvey]

Probably for the best.

[arc]

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Oh, absolutely. I mean, [hints at abuse and misogyny] started with The Honeymooners, but it by no means ended with that show. Watching King of Queens, it still makes me laugh – but those jokes are really rough if you think about them for more than the allotted last time. I never thought about them. I watched a ton of sitcoms growing up and loved them. It was in writing the show that I thought about it. Even when the wife of those shows has a voice and pushes back and expresses her discontent, it’s met with laughter. It’s always inherently from the guy’s perspective. I think that’s a function of having rooms be so predominantly male for so long. Guys would come in and talk about their weekends, and it would be the plot of that week’s episode.

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That [Allison-Patty] relationship is what made the show. To me, it is not a show about a toxic marriage; it is a show about two women. Those are stories I want to tell forever. I thought it was very interesting that these two women shared space for 10-15 years and never thought about the other one as an ally. They always thought of them as an adversary. Like she’s that kind of woman. There’s only space for one of us here to do well or to be comfortable or to be accepted. The truth is, they were each other saviors – they were across the room from each other the whole time. And that’s heartbreaking to me. I find such satisfaction as a viewer and watching women realize they like each other and become friends. It is one of my favorite genres of content.

https://substreammagazine.com/2021/11/creator-valerie-armstrong-speaks-on-kevin-can-fk-himself-and-how-the-show-tackles-themes-hidden-in-the-laugh-track/

[DanaK]

3 hours ago, Avabelle said:

The show will end with season two.

Not really a surprise. The same day ratings were about 300k on average, which is pretty low; I don’t know what the 7 day numbers were. It supposedly did well on the AMC+ streaming service, but those aren’t likely very big numbers compared to linear TV. Plus the concept didn’t seem to lend itself to a long life

[cleo]

I'm glad they at least know and can close it out in season 2. I have to say I'm kind of curious where they'll take the plot with no limits- like they don't have to hold anything back for a season 3. Although these days you never know if cancelled really means cancelled.

I would be ok with the two women  taking off together. They don't have to kill Kevin and the other dude they can just take all their money and start a new life lol. 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by cleo

[BetterButter]

Erinn Hayes agrees Kevin Can F**K Himself, joins AMC dramedy's second season

[DanaK]

Season 2 premieres with 2 episodes on Monday, August 22 on both AMC and streaming service AMC+. Subsequent releases on AMC+ will be 1 week ahead of AMC (like last season I think) http://thefutoncritic.com/news/2022/07/15/summer-streaming-sizzles-with-the-debut-of-tales-of-the-walking-dead-season-finale-of-amcplus-original-series-moonhaven-return-of-critically-acclaimed-kevin-can-fk-himself-and-the-series-finale-of-the-celebrated-better-call-saul-226215/20220715amc01/

[BetterButter]

[Spartan Girl]

So now she’s going to fake her own death, a wink to the wife getting killed on Kevin Can Wait. Nice.

Can Kevin still die though? A piano can fall on him like Two and a Half Men, lol.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[DanaK]

It appears I misunderstood the 2 episode season premiere article; that was only for AMC+ and just the first episode of the season was on AMC

ETA; The rest moved to the Season 2 premiere

Edited August 24, 2022 by DanaK

[Cranberry]

‘Kevin Can F**k Himself’ Has the Most Lovably Hateable Character on TV

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Petersen’s performance is masterful and magnetic, with Kevin’s oh-so-crazy escapades inspiring groans and expletives in equal measure. Embodying Kevin as a rowdy, drunken, me-first lout whose horrors know no depths, Petersen taps into the boorish essence of characters of this ilk without ever resorting to cheap winks or nods. As a result, he makes Kevin the veritable monster of Massachusetts, a boozy and blustery black hole of empathy and restraint, and the enemy of all that is good and holy.

[qtpye]

11 hours ago, Cranberry said:

‘Kevin Can F**k Himself’ Has the Most Lovably Hateable Character on TV

Lord, even on a show that subverts the tropes of dumb lunkhead husband and shrew wife, everyone still loves the husband.

[Cranberry]

I believe the point of the article is that the author detests the husband, haha. 

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Thanks to sitcoms like The King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond, he’s the sort of fun-loving domestic neanderthal we’ve been conditioned to think is funny. Except for the fact that he’s the absolute worst, and the TV character I most relish hating.

The praise is for Eric Petersen, who plays this guy so well that we can hate him this much even though we only actually see him doing the usual "sitcom husband" nonsense.

[qtpye]

5 hours ago, Cranberry said:

I believe the point of the article is that the author detests the husband, haha. 

The praise is for Eric Petersen, who plays this guy so well that we can hate him this much even though we only actually see him doing the usual "sitcom husband" nonsense.

I know that is the point of the article but I think there will still be some people who just like "Kevins" and dislike "Allisons".

Maybe it's because stupid guys like Kevin make some people feel better about themselves while Allisons are just symbols of people we have disappointed in our lives? Or if you are a woman, how you have disappointed yourself in life decisions?

I still do not see why she has to go to such extremes to get away from the Kevin we see on screen. He is goofy/stupid but seems like someone who would agree to divorce because he also does not seem happy in his marriage. 

Unless we see the sitcom conceit is a fantasy world and Kevin is actually quite violent/scary.