S01.E04: Live Free or Die

[helenamonster]

Quote

Allison and Patty go on a road trip; Kevin comes up with a new moneymaking scheme in the basement.

AMC+ airdate: 6/27/21

AMC cable airdate: 7/4/21

[Harvey]

Very exciting episode with lots of tense moments.  I like that Patty and Allison are slowly bonding for real.

And we finally have confirmation that Kevin really does abuse Allison, it is just framed differently (played for jokes). He sabotaged her job and separated her from her friends so she doesn't have a support system. It's no surprise that she doesn't see a way out other than murder.

Edited June 28, 2021 by Harvey

[Aileen]

Great episode. I legit gasped when Allison let Patty in on her plan. 

[red12]

2 hours ago, Aileen said:

Great episode. I legit gasped when Allison let Patty in on her plan. 

Me too. I understand Allison is eager to bond but, I don't trust Patty yet. The part where Allison was asking Patty why she didn't previously care about Kevin's bad acts was a good example of how internalized misogyny can work. Reminded me of older women I've seen use "did he hit you?" as the barometer of whether another woman is allowed to express dissatisfaction or expect change in her marriage.

[AllyB]

I think the question of whether or not Kevin is abusive has been fully answered in this episode. The constant calling, him calling the cops to report the car missing to punish her for not answering and the backstory about how he utterly sabotaged her attempt to have a decent career in an especially humiliating way really are more than enough to conclude what their marriage is like.

[arc]

Halfway through this episode I was thinking that Allison's plan to kill Kevin with pills sourced from Patty might not be an airtight plan as far as operational security goes, so it was good to see Allison just tell Patty what her real plan was.

That said, Allison sure seems fixated on this one method. There must be other ways to sneakily murder a colossally ignorant asshole.

Man, I hated that escape room sitcom plot. It really did feel like the kind of sweaty hijinks a second-tier CBS sitcom might pull though.

[Schweedie]

18 hours ago, Harvey said:

And we finally have confirmation that Kevin really does abuse Allison, it is just framed differently (played for jokes). He sabotaged her job and separated her from her friends so she doesn't have a support system.

I really liked them having the story where he put sugar in her boss' car's gas tank leading to her getting fired - I feel like that's something that could happen in one of those awful sitcoms it's referencing and we would be expected to find it funny. (Although maybe they wouldn't have gone as far as having the wife get fired for it, this show does turn things up to eleven.) Just like him setting his neighbour's lawn on fire earlier it's classic sitcom world stuff, but set in the REAL world, it's just f-ing messed up.

Loved seeing Allison and Patty bond. I feel like Patty might actually be on her side now after seeing what he does to Allison first hand, and being made to confront that stuff she thought was harmless actually wasn't.

I think I figured out what show it reminds me the most of - According to Jim. The set layout is similar to that, too. (And boy, did I hate it whenever I saw it.) ETA, I just looked it up and realised that show ran for eight years. How?!

Edited June 29, 2021 by Schweedie

[Spartan Girl]

Kevin must die.

I still think Allison should have and could have dumped his ass back when he got her fired, and that she’s her own problem in a lot of ways, but him nearly getting them arrested with his idiocy cinched it for me. 

[Zonk]

11 hours ago, arc said:

That said, Allison sure seems fixated on this one method. There must be other ways to sneakily murder a colossally ignorant asshole.

You could probably put the idea in his head that alligator wrestling would be a great thing to do. Then again, he does seem to have sitcom character luck, so he'd probably get out of it with only his clothes ripped.

 

[red12]

On 6/28/2021 at 6:12 PM, AllyB said:

I think the question of whether or not Kevin is abusive has been fully answered in this episode. The constant calling, him calling the cops to report the car missing to punish her for not answering and the backstory about how he utterly sabotaged her attempt to have a decent career in an especially humiliating way really are more than enough to conclude what their marriage is like.

I still don't think Allison will want me on her jury if the OD plot works though.

[arc]

It’s not “schlubby husband with underappreciated wife”, but I just realized Kevin reminds me of Saved By The Bell’s Zack Morris. The classic YouTube series “Zack Morris is Trash” goes in hard on how sociopathic Zack is by any normal human standards. Kevin is an awful human being himself but arguably he’s not worse than Zack. Sitcoms are deeply weird.

[AllyB]

16 hours ago, red12 said:

I still don't think Allison will want me on her jury if the OD plot works though.

Sure. My ex husband was outright abusive in every way, to the point that I learned to literally play dead so he'd stop his attack. And I'm obviously not going to murder him for a variety of reasons. Even though I hope very much that he dies before our son gets old enough to be manipulated by him.

But I'm not sure if woman leaves awful husband and gets surprisingly good at new hobby would make for great television.

[red12]

2 hours ago, AllyB said:

Sure. My ex husband was outright abusive in every way, to the point that I learned to literally play dead so he'd stop his attack. And I'm obviously not going to murder him for a variety of reasons. Even though I hope very much that he dies before our son gets old enough to be manipulated by him.

But I'm not sure if woman leaves awful husband and gets surprisingly good at new hobby would make for great television.

Now wait. I do have a line. The writer's just haven't gotten me there yet. 

I am so sorry about your experiences. I hope you are having an amazing life after escaping that type of situation.

[arc]

I guess it's exaggerated for the sitcom -- though the ringtone is only seen on the single cam side -- but hoo boy Kevin loves Boston. A lot. A lot a lot.

[helenamonster]

Wow wow wow. I was waiting for a moment/tipping point that would really illustrate the kind of guy Kevin is and Allison's story of him getting her fired was it. He also totally embarrassed her by convincing people she was having an affair--who's to say people in her life don't still believe it?

This show is reminding me a lot of the Elisabeth Moss Invisible Man movie from last year. Both use well-worn conventions from other genres as metaphors for pretty horrific spousal abuse, most of which isn't physical. The way both men isolate their wives from their family and friends (or convince their loved ones that they're terrible people) and interfere with their ability to get a job and have some semblance of financial independence is striking.

It was also compelling to watch Patty a) come to care for Allison and b) finally put the pieces together of what her relationship with Kevin is like. She was ready to kill that trucker when she thought he was Jason Voorhees (lol--I hope we can see them continue to bond over slashers!), and I get why Allison would trust her with the truth after something like that. And it's clear Patty feels bad about how ignorant she was of Kevin's treatment of Allison for a decade. She was truly dumbstruck by the phone nonsense.

What's especially funny about the phone bit is that Kevin did have a legitimate problem he needed help with (even if it was entirely of his own making). Being locked in the basement with a running oven upstairs can be life or death. But from Allison and Patty's perspective, he called her phone 32 times and reported their car stolen to get the police involved over...Crisco and a Bruin's hat.

I definitely predict we're in for a "mask off" moment for Kevin, probably in the finale. But I wonder if they'll start to pull other characters out into the real world too. We still haven't seen Neil or Pete outside of the sitcom.

On 6/29/2021 at 3:09 AM, arc said:

That said, Allison sure seems fixated on this one method. There must be other ways to sneakily murder a colossally ignorant asshole.

Based on how eager he was to get rid of the key this episode, I feel like Patty could convince Neil to convince Kevin to try and eat something un-swallowable. He'd be dead in 3 minutes and we could all just move on.

[arc]

1 hour ago, helenamonster said:

Being locked in the basement with a running oven upstairs can be life or death.

I mean, Neil was still upstairs and coulda turned the oven off.

[helenamonster]

8 hours ago, arc said:

I mean, Neil was still upstairs and coulda turned the oven off.

True, but from everything we know about Neil, I feel like he'd be more likely to turn the oven up even hotter. And maybe crank on all the stove burners for good measure.

I also just realized that even if Kevin wasn't able to reach Allison, he was able to (and did) call 911--but to report the car stolen, not to get the fire department over to the house. He truly can't help himself.

[Spartan Girl]

4 hours ago, helenamonster said:

I also just realized that even if Kevin wasn't able to reach Allison, he was able to (and did) call 911--but to report the car stolen, not to get the fire department over to the house. He truly can't help himself.

[DrNowsWeightScale]

I don't like Kevin, and I hate to admit it...

and I'm only about 35 minutes into this episode...

But I am so far more interested in the asinine "hide a key" plot with Kevin in the basement than I am in the road trip between Allison and Patty - the Allison part has been a little dull so far. 

Maybe the show picks up from here? (I hope.)

Edit.

Okay, I just finished watching the entire show, and it did pick up a little bit once we get to the part where Patty hits the truck driver guy over the head. But overall, I felt it was a rather slow episode - not totally bad, just very slow. I wish more had happened. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by DrNowsWeightScale

[Chaos Theory]

Well I’m surprised Allison let Patty in on her plan to kill Kevin so early in the season.  Then again in will make for some interesting us vs them stories.    It really shouldn’t be this hard to buy drugs just to kill your husband with.

And yeah Allison finally losing her temper and bringing all the past misdeeds that Kevin did to Allison that everyone including Patty let slide.    You can see it coming in the beginning when Kevin is just outright ignoring Allison which is a sitcom staple but then needs her later but can’t reach her.  Most sitcoms would have the husband either be forced to figure it out on his own or fall on his face (both at least temporarily acknowledging the wife’s worth).   This show had him calling in his car stolen which is a Dick move no matter how you look at it.  Add that to the past misdeeds of thinking his wife is cheating on him because she has a job she doesn’t hate and having a boss she doesn’t resent.     
 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Chaos Theory

[Quilt Fairy]

1 hour ago, Chaos Theory said:

Add that to the past misdeeds of thinking his wife is cheating on hiAm because she has a job she doesn’t hate going to and s boss she doesn’t resent.    

I didn't get the impression that Kevin actually thought she was having an affair, just that he told people she was to ruin her reputation. 

[arc]

3 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

 It really shouldn’t be this hard to buy drugs just to kill your husband with.

Maybe drugs that look like he ODed and not killed by his wife might make it a bit harder? I've never seriously looked into how to commit a perfect murder, 

[Lady Calypso]

Hearing about how Kevin purposefully got Allison fired from her job as a paralegal definitely added to the reasons why Kevin is the worst. Seeing him call her probably more than two dozen times is also abusive behaviour, so I think this does cement that Kevin is an emotionally and mentally abusive husband (unsure about physically; in theory, Allison could be masking the physical abuse through the sitcom filter but he could also not be physically abusive at all).

It's good that Patty is finally in on the plan. I think Allison needs someone with a more clear mind, someone who can help her out in other ways but also be aware of her plan. But the last scene was good, where Patty was realizing that Kevin wasn't just some bumbling idiot husband. Not that she should have seen him as that ever since she knew about him spending the couple's entire life savings (that's more than just being a bumbling idiot) but at least she finally sees it.

Seriously, Kevin reporting his car stolen just because his wife wasn't reachable for eight hours is so, so bad. Instead of trusting that she was fine and just was busy, he kept calling her until she shut off her phone. And no, I don't buy for a second that he was worried for her well being. Someone who calls his wife several times in a short amount of time isn't genuinely concerned about her well-being. He was just upset that she didn't answer his phone when he called the first time. 

Kevin's "sitcom" plot was dumb and I was getting frustrated, but I will note that this was the first episode where Allison wasn't involved in those sitcom scenes. Usually, she's around and at least pops in for a bit. This time, Kevin was completely on his own with his buddy and dad, though we had side characters pop in. I did enjoy their presence because it showed how little Kevin actually means to people. Him thinking he'd turn out to be some bigshot, only to have none of them actually need him, was a good way of displaying Kevin's behaviour around other people, just in a light-hearted way. 

If you stripped down that plot and got rid of the sitcom filter, you'd see a bunch of people pissed off that some idiot ate the key that locked them in his basement and didn't tell them about the real way out through the window, not to mention him getting visibly upset that they weren't following him as their leader for the dumb escape room (dumb, misogynistic escape room, I might add). But it shows how controlling Kevin is if they stripped down the filter and showed Kevin in his entirety.

Which is why I've been thinking about this show's endgame. How they're going to show Kevin without the sitcom filter and when they'll do that. Because I bet he has a temper that we just aren't seeing because the sitcom filter is on.

[TV Anonymous]

I know that the Kevin part of the show is played as a sitcom, but what about all those guests in the escape room? They are legitimately entitled to their $10 000 prize money. Now that they found that Kevin scammed them by swallowing the key, and that Kevin was part of the organizers, lawsuits should be coming to them.

[seacliffsal]

I was one who earlier in the season wasn't quite sure if Kevin was evil, or Allison was evil but justifying it somehow.  So, I admit that this episode finally set me straight as to how bad Kevin is.  And, like some similar situations in real life, Patty didn't really realize the actual story/events as she just accepted the superficiality of Kevin and thought he was dumb but harmless.  His facade was working and led Patty to think that Allison was just dull while the rest of them were "fun."  Unfortunately, unless we really take the time and effort to get to know other peoples' real stories, we may also just see them superficially.

Although I found the first half of this episode a bit slow, wow did the drama and story ramp up in the second half.

Hopefully Allison will take out some life insurance on Kevin before she enacts her plan...

[Chaos Theory]

All these sitcom plots (including the jealous husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him with her sexy new boss) are sitcom staples of male dominated shows.   I think even the escalating war with the new neighbor plot has happened once or twice and we laughed when the husband sets fire to the neighbors front lawn.  
 

But take a step back and why are we laughing?      Is it really funny when a husband gets so jealous that his wife loses a job she enjoys doing?    Is it funny that he reported their car stolen because she didn’t pick up the phone  when he called?      This is all things on a Kevin focused sitcom we would have laughed at and called Allison a boring shrew because we have in the past.  We’ve done it with comedies.  Heck we’ve done it with dramas. 

And on the flip side…,If Alison really wants to kill Kevin all she has to do is go radio silent for a couple of days.  Even money says Kevin will die on his own by misadventure.  

Edited July 5, 2021 by Chaos Theory

[theredhead77]

I really hope Allison didn't shoot herself in the foot by sharing her plan with Patty. I like their slow bonding and Allison unloading the years of abuse she's endured onto Patty. It does seem it sank in, when Patty was saying that it was just his usual immature antics (I forget the exact wording) she didn't really sound like she believed herself, then Allison reminded her Kevin drained their life savings and the blinders appear to have been removed. I'm really curious to see how Patty interacts with the guys with her new information.

[Quilt Fairy]

7 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

Hopefully Allison will take out some life insurance on Kevin before she enacts her plan...

Only if she wants to get caught.  It's such a red flag. 

[methodwriter85]

19 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

Which is why I've been thinking about this show's endgame. How they're going to show Kevin without the sitcom filter and when they'll do that. Because I bet he has a temper that we just aren't seeing because the sitcom filter is on.

I feel like this show is trying to keep it a mystery as to whether Kevin physically abuses Allison or not. If he is, it's being smoothed out by the sitcom filter.

It should be noted that we never see Alison's body. Even in the tub or wearing her nice dress in the chili episode her body is pretty well-covered up. Of course the show seems to be set during the late fall or winter, but you never know- could Allison be hiding bruises or scars from Kevin?

Allison's paralegal job was a nice reference to the King of Queens. Carrie was a paralegal. No clue if Doug ever accused her of cheating, though.

Edited July 6, 2021 by methodwriter85

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I like how the show is slowly peeling away the layers.  Patty's realization that she was refusing to see the negative impact of Kevin's actions on Alison was so well done.  She dealt with the constant calls.  Then got to hear the reason he was calling her all day (although the need for Crisco was new).  Piecing this together with the how he both got Alison fired and told people she was cheating on him, thereby making her the bad person in the scenario, she could see his manipulation and lies clearly. 

We now have two very clear incidents of Kevin engaging in criminal behavior that harmed others.  He put sugar in Alison's boss's gas tank and he lit the neighbors lawn on fire.  A poster made a comment about how we are usually presented these types of actions in sitcoms as if they are silly or harmless.  There is real harm here.  Pile on the things he has done to Alison, and Kevin really can go fuck himself.  He is truly terrible. 

[theredhead77]

52 minutes ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

We now have two very clear incidents of Kevin engaging in criminal behavior that harmed others.  He put sugar in Alison's boss's gas tank and he lit the neighbors lawn on fire. 

We may have a third: the escape room scam. I won't be upset if it is a non-issue but it is another criminal activity that harmed others by scamming them out of money, offering a prize that was never available and locking them in the basement.

[chocolatine]

The more I think about how Kevin got Allison fired from her paralegal job, the angrier it makes me. He made sure that she not only lost that job but also wouldn't get hired by another law firm or professional office in the area, leaving only menial, minimum-wage jobs she could take. I can't even imagine the psychological toll of not being able to use my hard-earned professional qualifications at a well-paid job that I enjoy because the person who's supposed to love me and be my life partner felt threatened and decided to destroy my reputation.

Edited July 6, 2021 by chocolatine

[arc]

4 hours ago, chocolatine said:

the person who's supposed to love me and be my life partner

Like Patty said about Allison’s marriage in the first episode, “there’s no ‘we’ in there.”

[thuganomics85]

Definitely surprised that Allison told Patty about what her plan is.  This should be an interesting development.  I don't see Patty running to the cops or Kevin anytime soon, but I do think she's going to be questioning a lot of this (and to be fair, Allison clearly hasn't thought a lot of this through), and wonder if this is going to be the right way to do things.

Then again, while murder usually isn't the way to do things, I think this episode pretty much established that Kevin really is a horrible human being.  Even if it is still up in the air if he physically abused her, we now have proof that he emotionally abuses her, and has done everything from calling the cops because she dared not answer the phone for eight hours to actually sabotaging her career years ago because he thought she was having "an affair", although I wonder if he just didn't want her to succeed without him.  Yep, he's definitely a controlling asshole, and while murder might be wrong.... well, lets just say I don't blame Allison for having these thoughts and plans.

The sitcom stuff was once again annoying, but impressive with out they truly capture the style of some of those types of shows.  I did find it interesting that this was the first time we saw it with Allison away for the majority of it.  I wonder if this is how Kevin sees everything and thinks all of his horrible actions and attitude is just silly fun and not abusive.

Kind of a throwaway bit, but I wonder if Patty's line about how it was Neil that found their father's dead body is setting something up for him and how he's become who he is now.

While I'm glad Allison and Patty are bonding, I did like Allison calling Patty out for how she did witness a lot of what Kevin did to Allison, but not only didn't try and stop it, but went along with it on some levels.  I do think Patty truly realizes that was wrong, but I have to imagine it will be something that will stick with this relationship.  Once again, Annie Murphy and Mary Hollis Inboden are doing some great work here.

[seacliffsal]

In thinking about this episode a bit more-it is really tough to be in Patty's position related to Allison and Kevin's marriage.  Allison put blame on Patty about laughing at Kevin's antics and not thinking about the effect on Allison.  However, there are instances (in real life) when friends do try to intervene and say something, and the people whom they are trying to help resent the interference and get made because "you don't know anything about our relationship."  If Allison doesn't rebuke Kevin (and just accepts what he does), why should Patty?  

Sigh.  Relationships are hard...

[Cheyanne11]

I'm just waiting for somewhere down the line--maybe the last episode of the season--for non-sitcom Kevin to be shown and we'll see what a true abusive asshole he really is. 

[qtpye]

On 6/29/2021 at 5:22 AM, Schweedie said:

I really liked them having the story where he put sugar in her boss' car's gas tank leading to her getting fired - I feel like that's something that could happen in one of those awful sitcoms it's referencing and we would be expected to find it funny. (Although maybe they wouldn't have gone as far as having the wife get fired for it, this show does turn things up to eleven.) Just like him setting his neighbour's lawn on fire earlier it's classic sitcom world stuff, but set in the REAL world, it's just f-ing messed up.

Loved seeing Allison and Patty bond. I feel like Patty might actually be on her side now after seeing what he does to Allison first hand, and being made to confront that stuff she thought was harmless actually wasn't.

I think I figured out what show it reminds me the most of - According to Jim. The set layout is similar to that, too. (And boy, did I hate it whenever I saw it.) ETA, I just looked it up and realised that show ran for eight years. How?!

 

On 7/5/2021 at 2:41 PM, Chaos Theory said:

All these sitcom plots (including the jealous husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him with her sexy new boss) are sitcom staples of male dominated shows.   I think even the escalating war with the new neighbor plot has happened once or twice and we laughed when the husband sets fire to the neighbors front lawn.  
 

But take a step back and why are we laughing?      Is it really funny when a husband gets so jealous that his wife loses a job she enjoys doing?    Is it funny that he reported their car stolen because she didn’t pick up the phone  when he called?      This is all things on a Kevin focused sitcom we would have laughed at and called Allison a boring shrew because we have in the past.  We’ve done it with comedies.  Heck we’ve done it with dramas. 

And on the flip side…,If Alison really wants to kill Kevin all she has to do is go radio silent for a couple of days.  Even money says Kevin will die on his own by misadventure.  

One of the things that are a staple of those types of sitcoms and this show is that the wife wants to better herself and the husband is against it.

In the male-dominated sitcoms, we were always meant to sympathize with the husband and think the wife was a snotty delusional idiot for thinking that she could "fit in" with a higher class of people. I imagine that is what Patty thought of Allison until very recently.

I saw this in an article and it made me think of this show:

"While men can run the gamut from “nuclear scientist” to “person who spends all day stoned and watching videos about how aliens secretly built the Suez Canal,” women come only in one flavor: painfully responsible."

These types of sitcoms loved to think that women enjoyed being responsible and cleaning up everyone's mess.

There was a scene in a Simpson's episode where Homer made a giant mess and then called for Marge to clean it up and she literally says, "Now, it's Marge's turn to shine".

I know they were being satirical but it is why men get to have prolonged childhoods well into middle age and women are expected "to grow up" quickly and be mature.

 

[txhorns79]

52 minutes ago, seacliffsal said:

Allison put blame on Patty about laughing at Kevin's antics and not thinking about the effect on Allison.  However, there are instances (in real life) when friends do try to intervene and say something, and the people whom they are trying to help resent the interference and get made because "you don't know anything about our relationship."  If Allison doesn't rebuke Kevin (and just accepts what he does), why should Patty?  

Right, but Patty wasn't Allison's friend who had concerns, but said nothing.  She was someone who didn't care enough about Allison to even give thought to how Kevin's behavior might effect her.  

 

4 minutes ago, qtpye said:

There was a scene in a Simpson's episode where Homer made a giant mess and then called for Marge to clean it up and she literally says, "Now, it's Marge's turn to shine".

This one. 

[DanaK]

Something I’m wondering that could be stupid and possibly controversial: should we be automatically believing everything Allison says about Kevin? This show is making us look beneath the surface of sitcom Kevin to see him as a not so great guy, plus skewer male-dominated sitcoms, but what if they are doing the same with Allison? What if she’s shading the truth and Kevin isn’t quite the monster she makes him out to be? I could be overthinking it and maybe the show is completely on Allison’s side, but with how strange this show is, it does make me wonder

[Harvey]

2 hours ago, DanaK said:

Something I’m wondering that could be stupid and possibly controversial: should we be automatically believing everything Allison says about Kevin? This show is making us look beneath the surface of sitcom Kevin to see him as a not so great guy, plus skewer male-dominated sitcoms, but what if they are doing the same with Allison? What if she’s shading the truth and Kevin isn’t quite the monster she makes him out to be? I could be overthinking it and maybe the show is completely on Allison’s side, but with how strange this show is, it does make me wonder

The show creator said in interviews that her entire purpose with this show (which she waited years & years to be able to make) was to explore the character of the put upon sitcom wife and what she really goes through when we don't see her. So I don't think the show is not on her side, it would not make much sense.

[chocolatine]

2 hours ago, DanaK said:

Something I’m wondering that could be stupid and possibly controversial: should we be automatically believing everything Allison says about Kevin?

That's a valid point. We know that Allison makes bad decisions and I wouldn't put it past her to lie about some things, but I also think the Kevin that we've seen in the sitcom context is totally capable of sabotaging her career because he doesn't like that she has a job that allows her to interact with smarter and more accomplished people than him. And we know for a fact that he reported the car stolen because she didn't take his calls, so his tendency to be controlling and quickly escalate situations is not in question.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

To me, the fact that Alison became a paralegal belies the idea that she doesn't finish things. Kevin tells her she doesn't finish things so he spent her college loan on something else.  How was she going to go to college without the money to do so? To become a paralegal, she needed training.  So she did pursue a career and get the training needed.  He then sabotaged it.  (The story of what happened was confirmed by Patty who has been Kevin's friend). Yes, Alison has made bad decisions, not the least of which is marrying and then staying with Kevin.  But she has also been subjected to at least 10 years of gaslighting and belittlement, making her doubt herself in almost every way.  She doesn't strike me as a liar.  I would say she is more someone for whom the blinders are coming off and she is more clearly seeing the situation she has allowed herself to be in. 

[Cheyanne11]

On 7/5/2021 at 5:36 AM, Lady Calypso said:

Seriously, Kevin reporting his car stolen just because his wife wasn't reachable for eight hours is so, so bad. Instead of trusting that she was fine and just was busy, he kept calling her until she shut off her phone. And no, I don't buy for a second that he was worried for her well being.

That was 100% to punish and/or humiliate her, which he seems to enjoy (typical abuser behavior).  Not to mention the gaslighting, shown in sitcom form, of him telling her she never told him she needed the car for the day and then her basically having to promise to reward him with something so she could get it.  

[theredhead77]

I've been thinking about this and I hope they don't make Kevin physically abusive. Emotional and financial abuse is abuse but is so much harder for victims and their friends and family to wrap their heads around when there is no physical mark. I think this storyline, without adding physical abuse could open up the eyes of viewers to situations IRL.

[Lamima]

On 6/29/2021 at 5:22 AM, Schweedie said:

I really liked them having the story where he put sugar in her boss' car's gas tank leading to her getting fired - I feel like that's something that could happen in one of those awful sitcoms it's referencing and we would be expected to find it funny. (Although maybe they wouldn't have gone as far as having the wife get fired for it, this show does turn things up to eleven.) Just like him setting his neighbour's lawn on fire earlier it's classic sitcom world stuff, but set in the REAL world, it's just f-ing messed up.

Loved seeing Allison and Patty bond. I feel like Patty might actually be on her side now after seeing what he does to Allison first hand, and being made to confront that stuff she thought was harmless actually wasn't.

I think I figured out what show it reminds me the most of - According to Jim. The set layout is similar to that, too. (And boy, did I hate it whenever I saw it.) ETA, I just looked it up and realised that show ran for eight years. How?!

Reminds me of Everybody Loves Raymond. But I did like that show. So it makes me sad they seem to be trying to draw from that sitcom.

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Part of Patty's attitude shift too was who was driving.  Patty insisted on driving at the start.  Kevin has been spreading the idea that Alison is a terrible driver.  You know, the one who has never been in an accident or gotten a ticket (given his general recklessness, I would suspect he has both).  While Alison needed to drive after the trucker incident, to me it was another moment when Patty started to realize that Alison isn't the problem; Kevin is. 

[qtpye]

2 hours ago, Lamima said:

Reminds me of Everybody Loves Raymond. But I did like that show. So it makes me sad they seem to be trying to draw from that sitcom.

I liked that show too and Ray Romano has turned out to be a really good actor.

However, Raymond was a total jerk on that show though much better than Kevin.

I remembered when he admitted that he did things badly on purpose (like folding the laundry) so his wife would have to do everything.

He used to sabotage Debra and sometimes made her look like a fool in public (he told people were saying nasty things about her in the PTA when they were not).

[meep.meep]

These days doesn't everyone send a text if someone won't take a phone call?

I loved the kid who got them to drive him around.  Another Kevin in the making.

[Lamima]

43 minutes ago, qtpye said:

I liked that show too and Ray Romano has turned out to be a really good actor.

However, Raymond was a total jerk on that show though much better than Kevin.

I remembered when he admitted that he did things badly on purpose (like folding the laundry) so his wife would have to do everything.

He used to sabotage Debra and sometimes made her look like a fool in public (he told people were saying nasty things about her in the PTA when they were not).

And their house was a carbon copy of this show's house. Family (best friends in this case) living nearby and busting in all the time. Making a joke out of the wife together. 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Lamima

[arc]

2 hours ago, Lamima said:

And their house was a carbon copy of this show's house.

Multicam family sitcoms have had the same basic house layout since the 1970s, maybe earlier: the living room goes to a kitchen with a swinging door. The main difference tends to be whether the kitchen is left or right of the living room.

The choice to put the stove in the middle of the kitchen so whoever’s cooking can still face the cameras was a good one though. (And distinctly different from ELR, or really most sitcom kitchens)