Alex Bonifer Talks Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 2 and Redefining Sitcoms [Interview]

Please note this interview contains spoilers for Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 2 Episode 1.

Alex Bonifer is no stranger to comedy. He’s first and foremost a comedian, known for his improv work with the LA comedy theater, The Groundlings. But when it comes to playing Neil on the AMC series Kevin Can F**k Himself, Bonifer appreciates the added dramatic layers mixed into his complicated character.

Kevin Can F**k Himself isn’t your ordinary sitcom. The title alludes to the CBS comedy, Kevin Can Wait, following similar characters that fit the typical mold of multi-cam set players.

The dark undertones of the comedy work to dismantle the sitcom tropes, adding complicated character dynamics that go beyond the tradition of the TV shows that actors such as Bonifer grew up watching. 

I spoke to Bonifer about his character in Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 2, which premiered on Monday, August 22nd. We also discussed the show’s ending and what makes the sitcom unique.

In Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 1, Neil is the quintessential sitcom BFF/sidekick, used as comedic fodder to Kevin in the show’s multi-cam scenes. 

“Going back to when I was cast for the role, [the role of Neil] was purely sort of a multi-cam sitcom sidekick. So I approached it as such, focusing strictly on the comedy,” Bonifer explained. 

There are two distinct sides to the show: the multi-cam scenes where ignorance appears blissful for the seemingly leading man, Kevin, and the single-cam scenes featuring the show’s true protagonist, Allison, and her marital struggles with Kevin. However, even in the multi-cam scenes, there’s a dark undertone to the blissful slapstick humor.

“What I knew about Neil going in was that he cared very deeply and very passionately about Kevin — which in all of the silly antics that he and Kevin would concoct in the multi-cam side of the show, and when combined with that sort of level of emotion and level of seriousness with something silly and stupid, it lends itself to comedy,” Bonifer said. 

Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 2 Episode 1, “Mrs. McRoberts Is Dead,” opens right where the first season left off, featuring Neil as he starts questioning his world.

“What we see in the second season is [Neil] really starts to peel back his relationship and for the first time, looks at it and realizes that it is an abusive one too. Just like Allison has an abusive relationship with Kevin, so does Neil. He starts to question everything, his world,” Bonifer explained. 

About Neil’s character development in the second season, Bonifer loved where the show was going when he first read the script for the first episode. In the first season, he didn’t really get any one-on-one scenes with Allison, played by Schitt’s Creek‘s Annie Murphy or Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden).

“It was exciting because, in the first season, it was mostly spent with Kevin and Pete, the boys in the living room,” he said.

“Neil was going to have a big part to tell in this story, a bigger chunk of the thing that was going to pose a problem for Allison and Patty. Neil’s a part of this.”

Neil leaves the living room, the multi-cam space of laughter and comedy. He becomes a part of the bigger and darker picture of the show, the plot surrounding Kevin’s abusive narcissistic tendencies and how he treats the people in his life.

The opening scenes of the first episode cement this with the shots of Neil tied up in the basement. 

While Neil might be a more serious character in Kevin Can F**k Himself Season 2, Bonifer’s comedic training helped him hone in on his character’s emotions. Bonifer calls his 5-year intensive training at The Groundlings Theater “Comedic Grad School,” a space where he could really find his comedic voice and portray characters to his best ability.

“With Neil in the first season, I brought that same level of emotion. Now, obviously, the play is a little bit different. It’s a little bit bigger,” he said. “It’s multi-cam. They’re roasting a pig, or they are preparing for a chili cook-off, or they’re at a Tricky-Ricky’s arcade, but Neil cares so much.”

His approach to his work, where he puts in the same emotional effort toward serious scenes and comedic scenes, echoes the harmony and contrast between the multi-cam and single-cam scenes in the show. It makes the series unique and groundbreaking as a sitcom, exposing a real and rawer side to the familiar character tropes.

On this show, Allison is the protagonist, not Kevin.

“Our cast is fantastic. Everyone is so talented. For the first time, our show focused on a traditionally marginalized character throughout history: the sitcom housewife. If you go back and watch old episodes of Kevin Can Wait or King Of Queens or, even worse, Married With Children, you’ll see that character who’s just sort of used and abused for fodder for the male lead to bounce off of or put down.”

“The female lead has the strength, and while it’s difficult and it’s hard for her, and she’s still trying to figure it out, I think that’s the human element of the show,” he continued.

“Things don’t go according to plan, so when we’re getting to watch Allison and Patty navigate through all of that while still having to deal with Kevin, it makes for really good television, it makes for a really good watch.”

Bonifer summed up Kevin Can F**K Himself altogether by noting how powerful the message of it is.

“You’re getting to watch two seasons, 16 episodes of the story of a woman who wants to get out of an abusive relationship that we’ve all been told for all of time that it’s normal and it’s fine, and it’s just boys being boys. But our show focuses on the fact that ‘boys being boys’ can be extremely hurtful, abusive, dangerous,” Bonifer said.

“It’s powerful, and it just hits on a lot of different planes. There’s nostalgia in it if you did grow up watching sitcoms. There’s obviously excitement, there’s obviously drama.”

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Kevin Can F**K Himself airs Mondays at 9/8c on AMC. Available to stream on AMC+.

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