#kevin can f himself

[susiemyersonislifegoals]

[officialempressofhell]

Tammy getting so angry at Neil comparing him to their father is resonating with me. She is every woman who is realizing that her male relatives are the same danger to women as the strangers who have been harassing her all her life

[emo-clarence]

what am i supposed to do now. How am I ever supposed to be normal again.

[eto-bee]

One thing about Kevin can fuck himself is that this show is SO throughly thought out.

I’m thinking specifically of the episode with the blackout in season 2. Kevin was being Kevin here- Shenangians, jokes, bullshit, etc. and while there was still a laugh track & the normal “plot” of the sitcom world, the lack of lighting in these scenes made a difference to how the characters reacted to him. They were much quicker to call him out- and not in the jokey sitcom world “stingers” that usually happen when the lighting is on. characters (especially Sam) were just done with his behavior. This even escalates right until the moment the power comes back on and the sitcom world (with its sitcom lighting) is violently re-established. Suddenly they find the generator, and though the characters are still grumbling, it is in a much milder, pacified way. Kevin is the star again.

Wondering if the drop of the lighting is supposed to highlight how much more powerful the *framing* of Kevin’s behavior is than the laughter. (The lighting representing the framing). People are dicks all the time & laugh at shitty behavior, but it’s the subtle bending of reality that really alters our culture

Brb going to write a 10 page essay on this show

[sazwritesstuff]

so i've been watching Kevin Can Fuck Himself and i know a lot of people have mentioned/talked about how light, saturation, camera angle, Alison's roots growing out, her arm in a sling/not a sling, etc changes in Kevin's POV vs reality but one thing i've noticed that i've not seen anyone talk about is how Alison's voice/accent changes

Alison's accent becomes thicker, as does Paddy's, and exaggerated when we're in the sitcom world and i just think it's an interesting little detail and also plays on how sitcoms so often exaggerate how characters talk like some of the lines that they say in the sitcom world you would never catch yourself actually saying in day-to-day life

the change in how Alison speaks really helps to emphasize how fake that would is because it sounds unnatural and forced just like a lot of sitcoms where it is a caricature of reality and it just shows how Kevin distorts the reality that we see and hear when we are pulled into his world

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about how Pete used to be a priest and Kevin's (unnamed) mom was a nun. The fact that Pete was clearly stripped of his title. And we don't hear anything about Kevin's mother beyond the fact that she's dead. Thinking about how Diane says that she thinks of Pete as her "creepy uncle" and hates him. Thinking about how Kevin being born was likely a huge scandal for Pete and his mother and led to him being kicked out of the church. Thinking about how Pete doesn't seem to have any remorse at all for the potential abuse of power that occurred which led to Kevin's conception. Thinking about how Pete was the one most likely to make jokes objectifying women with Kevin. Thinking about how Kevin was likely raised believing he was some sort of miracle or chosen one, destined for great things solely because acknowledgment of the shame surrounding the circumstances of his birth would require Pete admitting fault. Thinking about how normalized it must have been in his childhood to see women being talked down to, objectified, sexualized and made into nothing more than plot devices to powerful men. Thinking about the sense of entitlement he must have had baked into him, and the deep fear hiding underneath all of it that one day everyone is going to realize he's his father's biggest skeleton in the closet. Thinking about this show having one of the most nuanced and complex portrayals of the cycle of abuse and patriarchal violence that I've ever seen!!!

[carrymelikeimcute]

I was watching Kevin Gan Fuck Himself with my Dad and he kept getting annoyed and saying Kevin was 'so stupid' or 'what a fucking moron' or words to that effect. And when we got to Kevin reporting the car stolen I actually snapped and said 'he's not STUPID he's doing this on purpose'.

My Dad saw a man call his wife 60 odd times while she was on a girls trip and then report the car stolen to cause issues for her/prevent her from getting away from him and saw that as him being 'an idiot' instead of as the calculated act of abuse it was.

And I realised that as a woman I was watching a drama with occasional sitcom-ified scenes. And my Dad, as a man was watching a sitcom that sometimes went grey.

[crowzenyogurt]

yall hear about that new animated sitcom?

[leepontocom]

Never a better feeling than when a show you already like turns out to have queer characters

[the-real-hank-green]

The most unrealistic part of Kevin can fuck himself is a man from Worcester having that much whimsy for life

[susiemyersonislifegoals]

I love the detail of Tammy trying to make Patty like vodka, how it's there at the beginning of their relationship and doesn't go away.

And of course this is one way the show tells us that in the end Allison knows Patty better and loves her for who she is - real food, menthols, staying in the home she's always known, and no vodka.

But what I really love about it is that Tammy can be controlling sometimes without being Kevin.

Sam, too, pulls occasional power plays on Allison and (unintentionally, for the most part) gaslights her about Kevin. They both have their shitty moments (as do Allison and Patty), but occasional shitty moments or even an ongoing not-so-subtle wish for a partner to be different than who they really are does not make someone an abuser.

Allison and Tammy both ignore Patty's instruction to not go look for Neil, and we see this as care for her on both their parts. (Even though we know it's also got a selfish motivation for Allison, btw.)

Even though at some point or another everyone uses one or more of Kevin's tactics, they don't do it in the all-encompassing, self-serving, total control of the narrative way that Kevin does. There's no sitcom world where Tammy's the lovable if bossy cop (Brooklyn Nine Nine, Barney Miller, the Naked Gun franchise, so many copaganda examples) or Sam is the good-hearted hapless recovering alcoholic boss in a relationship with his employee (Cheers). And yes, because of aspects of their identities relative to a Kevin, it is harder for them to control the narrative in that totalizing way (Sam says as much early in the series), but also they are simply not trying to. They are just flawed people who fuck up sometimes.

I love that I bristled at what I saw as Tammy's red flags early on but came to see her genuine care for Patty. And when she broke up with Patty for virtually the same reason Kurt did, I didn't hate her the way I hated him. Tammy deserves to be with someone who considers Tammy their favorite person.

[officialempressofhell]

I need a video of the actor who plays Kevin. Because Kevin is such a shithead, i grew an aversion to his face which speaks to his acting ability.

[anniemunchkins]

I WOULD DIE FOR THEM

[lesbiantism]

Let’s die alone together

[alexjcrowley]

I am on episode 2 of season 2 of Kevin Can Fuck Himself and there is something I have to say because it's breaking my heart. And it's about Allison. Look, I know- we all know- she's far from perfect: she is messy, impulsive, she can be manipulative, controlling, she often lies, puts others in danger in order to save herself without thinking twice; you could say she emotionally blackmails Patty into looking into Tammy's notebook, the first thing she does after hitting Neil with a boiler is making sure she can pretend she was making tea with that rather being like "Oh shit I may have killed my friend's brother". I know about all of this, we all know.

But I still can't in my heart root against her or understand people who root against her because in this show there's not one fucking person who actually tries to help her escape her abusive marriage. It doesn't matter if they see Allison's and Kevin's marriage from the outside, or if they're present during acts of abuse or if they hear Allison scream in their face she needs to get out, they don't care about her.

Patty is the first important character to know about the abuse first-hand and because Allison explains it to her that she is being abused, that Kevin is trapping her, stripping her of possessions, of ways to leave him, of her life. And Patty does help Allison, a lot, because they're sort of trapped together in the same mess, but there hasn't been a moment yet in which Patty goes "Yeah we are going to help you leave your husband". You would think, in a perfect worldn after Patty actually takes into consideration the abuse she has seen Allison go through she would be like "Okay, my first priority may be sorting my own shit with Oxy, but after that we're getting you out of that house." No. If Allison didn't push to get out, in ways that may be questionable and exploitative of others, for sure, Patty wouldn't be the one to say "let's get you out of there".

Allison speaks to Sam. What does Sam says? That Kevin's an idiot. He doesn't want to get Allison out of town because he recognises that leaving the city, putting physical distance between her and her husband, may be the only way for her to escape abuse. He wants to live some sort of love dream, that seemed to me as much - if not more- about leaving his wife's overbearing family as it was about being with Allison. And when she doesn't want to run away with him, he is not interested in helping with her situation anymore. He refuses to give her a job, which strips her away for the little economic autonomy she could have had, and it's not like he says something like "but I'll look out if there are other places that are hiring...". And yes, I do understand that she often acted unfairly towards him, that she always had the emotional upper hand on their relationship, dictating its terms every time. But that doesn't cancel out the constant and apparently inescapable abuse she is submitted to in her daily life. She still needs help for that.

What about when she confronts Neil? Neil who knows what's going on. Neil who has often taken part in that abuse, who has fawned the flame at every given opportunity and knows what kind of guy Kevin really is? He berates her for always whining. But yeah, what can you expect from the guy who was going to kill her.

And Diane seems to function as this idea of what Allison may become if she doesn't do anything a put her marriage, she is the wife who is more or less totally submitted to her husband and doesn't even rebel anymore, doesn't even think she has a right to rebel. So of course someone who has grown so accostumed to abuse to believe it is the norm is not going to help Allison get out of her abusive relationship.

And really everybody until the point I have watched (ep2 s2)- every random side characters who has witnessed Allison's abusive relationship, has heard about it from her or has had a hint that there was something off about that relationship: the police officer who stopped Allison and Patty, Nick, the PI- didn't give a single fuck about it. None of them thought "maybe I should help her, maybe I should do something." Not even a little thing, not even, fuck, spare her from one of Kevin's insults just once.

When Allison says she tried to kill herself (which is understandable, given her situation, given that death might be the only way out), Patty tells her "You're playing the victim." No shit, she is the victim. Yeah, even if she acts shitty towards people, even if she often acts selfishly (in self-preservation, may I add, since nobody else seems interested in preserving her otherwise), she is still the fucking victim. And nobody wants to recognise it and, even when they do, nobody wants do anything about it.

Everybody would be more than fine if she kept bearing the abuse in silence.

"Well, if she didn't act so shitty all of the time and if she settled for a less questionable solution than killing her husband, maybe people would sympathize more with her and want to help her-" It doesn't fucking matter. It's not a victim's duty to look palatable or innocent enough so that they may deserve help. Her husband's compromised most of her jobs, forced her to move in with him, and he's more than ready to call the cops on her when she tugs on her leash just enough for him to get a sense she may be sipping away and there are people debating that if she only were nicer about her life being taken away from her own hands maybe someone would feel like doing something.

It breaks my fucking heart that the abuse she suffers from her husband is the core of the show, going by the title alone, and nobody does a thing to help her. Nobody. Nobody gives a fuck if she lives or die or she isn't seen anymore or if Kevin buries her in the backyard or he keeps her chained at home or nobody hears from her anymore. And I know- as Sam said in one of the first episodes, I believe, and as it was explained in Ted Lasso- that a victim may still be held accountable for the relationships they pulled out from; that it doesn't matter the reason, if you disappear from your friends's life all of a sudden you're going to hurt them, so let's say Allison alienated all of her former friends, because they all thought she was a bitch and it was 100% a conscious choice of her to abandon them.

There are still so many people in the show that overlook what she is going through. It reminds me of that scene from "Why Women Kill", when April goes on her "I Hate People Who Look The Other Way" monologue, about her mother being abused, and everybody in the family knowing it, and nobody doing anything.

I feel that's what everybody does in this show. They look the other way. They don't care. Only if Allison shouts and goes crazy and tries to kill herself or her husband they deign her of a minimum of attention, and even after that Allison being in very real danger is always the least important matter. Everybody in that show has their own interest to look after, but that's not an excuse. There, I said it, that's not an excuse. That's not enough.

Fuck do I know that you can't take care of everything, that you can't solve every world issues, but if in front of you you see someone who needs help, who is begging for help, you can see them and you turn in a blind eye then what. What are we doing as people. Everybody saw Allison being abused, everybody knows and fucking nobody does anything. Helping eachothers out is all that we were put on earth to do. And none of them, none of them decides to mind his own business because they don't know how to help, they believe they could make things worse- they just don't want to. They don't want to help and they don't care. I don't know who would be sad if Allison died by Kevin's hands, what I do know is that none of them would certainly be sad enough to move a finger for her.

You think Allison is self-serving? Show me a selfless character in this show. The closest we get to this seems to be Patty- who I like, she's probably my favourite character, and she does a lot for Allison, but if Allison didn't one day decided Kevin deserved his life to be taken away more than hers she would not have done a thing.

Allison's not perfect, I very much know. She often acts in bad ways, she takes bad decisions. But I don't think any of the other characters have a right to judge what she does while they were busy looking the other way.

[biblicalhorror]

Okayyyyy yeah also let's talk about Tammy. I didn't know how I felt about her for awhile because she did very much feel like the Disposable Black Girlfriend, but I'm seeing people saying she's an "abuser" or God forbid "just as bad as Kevin" and that's just. Not at all true.

Yes, Tammy is controlling. She doesn't seem to really like Patty for who she is, and kind of seems to want to change her into someone else instead. HOWEVER, I think we need to look at the whole character to understand WHY she's like that. I don't think she's controlling Patty for personal gain or for the sake of manipulating her. I think she's lonely and desperate for companionship, which leads to her ignoring/pushing past the obvious incompatibility in her relationship with Patty.

Here's what we know about Tammy:

1. She seems to be the only black person in the Worcester social circle. She also mentions frequently how she's surrounded entirely by white men at work.

2. She is also the only openly lgbt person in the area, other than Patty, who is still not exactly out and proud.

3. She describes her entire job as "making excuses for" and "cleaning up after" the men at her job, particularly her partner (whose name I am unfortunately forgetting, does anyone remember?), who even had her plant evidence for him on at least one occasion.

4. Despite being very competent and good at her job, the white men around her keep failing upwards (she mentions a few times that people beneath her keep getting promoted) while she remains stagnant in her career. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this other than the fact that she is a black lesbian in an extremely white, conservative community.

Basically, Tammy seems like someone who has been taught (like many black women) that she will have to work much harder than everyone else to get ahead in any capacity. She is also likely very, very lonely. She doesn't seem to have any friends outside of work, which isn't surprising given the above. It seems like she doesn't exactly have a ton of prospects, dating-wise, other than Patty. In my opinion, it's really no wonder that she clung to Patty so desperately and immediately and tried to forcibly mold her into someone who could be compatible. She's tough, smart, organized, direct, manipulative, no-nonsense and controlling because, well, she had to be. And she ends up trying to "rein in" Patty because, in her mind, what's the other option? She ends up alone, surrounded by men who force her to cover for their antics and don't care if she lives or dies.

I'm not saying her behavior is healthy. But it comes from an entirely different place than Kevin's abuse, or Chuck's, or even Neil's. And it's also not uncommon. In real life, I know many queer women (specifically small-town lesbians) who end up in relationship dynamics just like that over and over again because they start dating someone who doesn't quite fit, and they compensate for it by trying to force a connection instead of accepting loneliness and isolation. I have a lot of sympathy for Tammy. And I wish the show had taken more care to establish the abuse she faced from her coworkers off-camera.