Unique Format of "Kevin Can F Himself' Finally Melds in Series Finale

by Julian Spivey

Photo: AMC

The thing I’ll always appreciate the most about AMC’s “Kevin Can F**k Himself,” which wrapped its two-season, 16-episode run on Monday night (Oct. 10), was its unique, one-of-a-kind format in which it was part single-cam dark drama and part multi-cam, brightly lit sitcom.

The show itself was always solid, though never anything greater, but the format is something I’m always going to remember. Creator Valerie Armstrong took a major swing with this format and should be highly commended for doing so.

In the first season, which aired in 2021, housewife Allison McRoberts (played by Annie Murphy fresh off her Emmy win for “Schitt’s Creek) is fed up with her life of being mostly ignored and not much more than a maid for her schlub of a husband Kevin (played by Eric Petersen). Feeling there isn’t another way to escape her sad life she devises a plan to have her husband killed.

Anytime Kevin appears on the screen the show is in multi-cam sitcom mode. Anytime he’s not on the screen the show is in single-cam drama mode.

This was a choice inspired by the short-lived CBS sitcom “Kevin Can Wait,” starring Kevin James, which unceremoniously killed off his TV wife played by Erinn Hayes in between seasons one and two in hopes of changing the plot of the show and leading to added viewers (it didn’t work). But it did show how some sitcom wives can be so underdeveloped it doesn’t matter if they’re just written off. Hayes made a tongue-in-cheek guest appearance in the “Kevin Can F**k Himself” series finale on Monday night.

Allison’s plot to have her husband killed, for which she received help in the form of her friend and neighbor Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden), failed in season one. It failed rather big, in fact, and made her life more of a living hell by turning her husband into a local hero.

So, as season two began in late August, the plot had switched from Allison attempting to kill Kevin and rather trying to fake her own death. The first seven episodes of the season see Allison devising this plan, again with the help of Patty as their friendship continues to grow deeper. These episodes also show Kevin, albeit still in a sitcom parody, doing things to make the others closest to him in life like his father Pete (Brian Howe) and his best friend Neil (Alex Bonifer) fade away a bit. One of the highlights of season two was getting to see Bonifer as Neil do a bit more, as he was able to escape this sitcom parody aspect of the show when stumbling upon Allison and Patty’s plans.  

At the end of the penultimate episode of the season, Allison finally enacts her own plan. She’s assumed the identity of a recently deceased person and moved from the only place she’s ever known Worcester, Mass. to Maine. The finale begins six months later showing Allison to be incredibly bored with her new life, Patty’s incredibly bored in her old life without her best friend, and Kevin, of course, doesn’t seem to care that much. He’s now using his live-in dad as his housekeeper and has already found a new girlfriend.

Ultimately, Allison figured out she didn’t need to run away from her life in Worcester. She just needed to get away from Kevin. She returns to Worcester to confront him. Before their confrontation, which has been a long time coming, Pete and Neil, both finally stand up for themselves and rid themselves of their son and best friend, respectively. Kevin still doesn’t understand he’s the problem.

As soon as Allison surprises him at their old home, Kevin is ecstatic thinking his luck has turned and things can go back to how they once were. Allison asks for a divorce. At this point, we finally see Kevin in the single cam, darkly lit dramatic portion of the show for the first time. He’s always been a monster, but we haven’t really gotten the chance to see him in full monster glory until now. Kevin gaslights the hell out of Allison and says the divorce is not going to happen and he’ll ruin his wife. She leaves triumphantly.

She’s finally escaped her husband. In the end, Kevin officially fucks himself, something that was a long time coming. Allison and Patty reunite and promise to “die alone together,” which isn’t quite a storybook happy ending, but for these two friends, it also kind of is.