Kevin Can F**k Himself Review: Fixed (Season 1 Episode 8)

Kevin Can F**k Himself is a killer concept for a tv show. One that gives the sitcom wife a voice to fight back against harmful tropes within an ambitious satire setting. Throw in one of the strongest leading actresses in the industry and you have a home run.

But as Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 1 Episode 8, “Fixed,” unfortunately proves, this series has never been capable of following through on the swing.

This season finale could be a turning point for this growing series. Instead, it’s another missed opportunity to say anything meaningful about the show it is meant to be satirizing — and the trapped woman at its helm.

One of the coolest concepts to come out of Kevin Can F**K Himself is the clashing of the sitcom and drama genres. The juggling of drastically different camera angles and lighting has been a fun spectacle to watch.

However, it’s hardly been a successful marriage. Their inability to co-exist is immensely frustrating as this show substitutes out one cliche for another. The result is a product that tells half stories and ends up with half a show in the process.

The finale insists on keeping storylines confined to Allison and Kevin’s separate worlds, only to push any overlapping threads aside for reactionary storytelling focused solely on the crime of the week.

This is the problem with a show that is more intrigued with a wife wanting to kill her husband. In a world brimming with so many fascinating genre tools, this plot couldn’t care less about using them.

All Kevin Can F**k Himself seems to want to be is a gender-swapped Breaking Bad, rather than promising commentary on the male-dominated sitcom genre.

Plenty of television has taken the killer wife trope to new heights. If this show had committed to fleshing out a domestic thriller and dropped the sitcom aspect altogether it could have been something groundbreaking.

That devotion to the most mediocre aspect of this premise is strange as meek power dynamics, planted drugs, and foolish break-ins consume the final minutes of this first season, rather than elevating the rest of this multifaceted story.

There are elements of “Fixed” that explore what happens when a woman decides to live her life as loud and as unapologetic as her egotistical husband does, and is ultimately punished for that behaviour. Yet, as fascinating as that point is it’s once again abandoned in Alison’s manic mission to destroy her husband.

It’s suggested that to execute this concept, Allison has to kill her husband. When in fact murder overshadows the original goal of the show at every turn.

The sitcom moments of this finale are entertaining as Allison commands the laugh track’s attention and shoots retorts back at Kevin with scorching precision.

Even so, her small moments of rebellion within the comedy lens always seem to lead nowhere.

The sitcom’s lack of impact on the greater story is truly insulting. It’s as if Kevin Can F**k Himself believes going through the motions of a sitcom and acknowledging how terrible the wife is mistreated is enough to tie itself to more progressive female-driven comedies like One Day at a Time.

It’s as if existing is enough to generate important commentary on a topic that is never discussed.

The comedy aspect of this show is meant to celebrate Allison and the sitcom wife persona. Yet it has only ever existed to coddle Kevin’s ego, and one has to wonder why that was ever considered okay.

Much of what is wrong with this season becomes the foundation for the finale and that’s frustrating because this season as a whole isn’t weak.

Allison is our lead and yet, she’s still pushed aside in her defining hour for Patty’s romantic endeavours and Nick’s fleeting life. Worst of all, Allison is so manic and stunted in growth at times, she becomes a hallowed plot tool.

And she’s not the only character that undergoes drastic personality shifts. 

This finale crawls forward at an unbearable pace with a climax that relies entirely on Neil confronting Allison. Witnessing a man we know nothing about, who isn’t prone to violence, choke Allison under the harmless lens of comedy is a WTF moment for all the wrong reasons.

Kevin Can F**k Himself is so devoted to following the rules of the sitcom that Neil is cartoonishly joyous about finding out his best friend was almost murdered, yet he’s capable of viciously assaulting Allison seconds later.

The season finale is not all bad. Despite the plot being incapable of elevating its women properly, the actresses at the helm of this project are more than capable.

Murphy makes her mark with a no-holds-bar monologue. She is all passion as Allison channels her hatred for the rigged system at Sam in the kind of outburst this premise has begged for. It’s an award-worthy performance with a delivery that brings her calibre into sharp focus.

Patty and Allison’s dynamic continues to be Kevin Can F**k Himself‘s greatest achievement.

These women are complicated and messy human beings in each other’s presence. They challenge the power dynamics and representation of female characters in ways this show has not. It’s heartbreaking to see Patty choose Allison over Tammy, but her pain speaks volumes for this finale.

Murphy and Hollis Inboden should have better material to work with, but they do incredible things with what they have. That powerful last shot of them holding hands in solidarity says it all.

Kevin Can F**k Himself is one of television’s greatest miss opportunities. It set out to tell the story of a sitcom wife and by not allowing that concept to fully be explored, squandered its own potential for greatness.

It’s difficult to love a finale when it feels like a bad punchline.

This season has stringed viewers along for eight episodes, only resolve nothing. Open-ended finales are becoming an irritating commodity, but it’s bold for this show to go all-in on a cliff-hanger when much of its appeal is still up in the air.

If this dark comedy returns to tell new material, one has to hope it has more to say than this.

What did you think of the season finale of Kevin Can F**k Himself? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The first season of Kevin Can F**k Himself is available to stream on AMC Plus.

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