Turn that smile upside down

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This article was published 24/07/2021 (1724 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s never the wife who gets to break bad, is it?

In this edition of Don’t Sleep on This — a semi-regular series where the Free Press Arts & Life team offers up (spoiler-free) recommendations of the shows you should be watching — we take a look at two ink-black comedies that flip the script on the TV Wife trope, and find two women standing in their power.

Kevin Can F**k Himself

New episodes air Sunday nights on AMC, streaming on AMC+
No. of seasons: 1

This deliciously dark AMC series from creator Valerie Armstrong is like nothing else on television, precisely because it sends up everything else on television.

Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek) stars as Allison McRoberts, a hot, stereotypical sitcom wife — that nagging, long-suffering, put-upon punchline — living with her schlubby, stereotypical sitcom husband, Kevin (Eric Petersen) in Worcester, Mass. Kevin is, objectively, the worst. He’s obnoxious, oblivious, with few ambitions outside hosting ragers on their wedding anniversary. He doesn’t know what his wife likes or wants or needs, or even who she really is.

And so, Allison starts thinking about killing him.

It’s a conceptual show that alternates between brightly lit, multi-camera sitcom — complete with a laugh track — in the vein of King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond and, of course, Kevin Can Wait and gritty single-camera realism. The sitcom space is where Kevin lives, delivering zingers to canned laughs and generally starring in his own life. When Allison leaves the room, the colour drains from the screen, and we follow her on her lonely, depressing days working in a liquor store and generally being invisible. When Allison finally befriends her formerly just-one-of-the-guys neighbour Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden), she begins to colour outside the strict lines of her life.

This is a career-solidifying role for Murphy, who charmed her way to an Emmy as spoiled socialite Alexis Rose in Schitt’s Creek. Allison could not be more different from Alexis and, while Murphy has proven skills as a comedic actor, it’s a thrill to see her in a darker turn.

Taken together, the multi-cam parts could make for the kind of generic, Tuesday-night sitcom that would, sadly, probably do decently well in the ratings. The satire comes from that crushing juxtaposition that shows what happens when the sitcom wife disappears through that swinging kitchen door. Kevin Can F**k Himself offers an incisive, original exploration into what — and who — gets the laughs.

 

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Physical

Now streaming on Apple TV+, new episodes out Fridays
No. of seasons: 1

Rose Byrne absolutely shines as a bored housewife-turned-aerobics instructor in this dramedy set in a pastel-hued 1980s California.

Physical, an Apple TV+ series from creator Annie Weisman, will fill the GLOW-shaped hole in your heart (this writer is still upset Netflix’s 1980s women’s wrestling show was cancelled) but it’s not just about aerobics in its neon spandex heyday. It’s also a pretty heartbreaking look at disordered eating and the negative tapes that play on a loop in many women’s minds. (To that end, content warning for those in recovery from an eating disorder.)

Byrne is Sheila Rubin, a mom, housewife and, as we learn early on, longtime binge eater. Her binges, which take place in a seedy motel room, briefly silence her inner critic — who is sometimes so vicious it’s hard to watch — and every time she pledges it will be the last time. When she learns she has blown most of their savings on binges — just in time for her oblivious, recently unemployed husband Danny (Rory Scovel) to decide he wants to run for office and needs to shore up campaign funds.

An aerobics class at the mall is where Sheila finds herself — and an opportunity to make her own money. But aerobics also silences the voice that berates her; it allows her to feel focused and powerful — but it also has the potential to be another thing to abuse.

As mentioned, it’s not always an easy watch, and Sheila is not always a likable character. And yet, you find yourself cheering for her anyway.

 

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti