‘Kevin Can F*** Himself’ Proves ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Was Only the Beginning for Annie Murphy

“Ew, David.“ “A Little Bit Alexis.” Increasingly ludicrous stories that involve everyone from Somali pirates to Gwyneth Paltrow and the FBI. These are just some of the bits that made the Schitt’s Creek character Alexis Rose utterly iconic. For six seasons, actress Annie Murphy played the socialite stuck in small town Canada on the hit sitcom, and for six years, that’s who we’ve known Murphy as. Annie Murphy’s performance was so great that she finally took home the Emmy for playing Alexis Rose for the show’s final season in 2020.

However, in AMC’s new series Kevin Can F*** Himself, Annie Murphy leaves Alexis Rose far behind. As Allison, a Worcester housewife caught in a hellacious marriage, Murphy has to juggle an inferno of repressed rage and classic sitcom chutzpah. It’s a show that flits between realities, exchanging one genre for another the way Alexis Rose might have pulled off costume changes. Through it all, Murphy keeps it together. It is her performance that glues Kevin Can F*** Himself together. And Kevin Can F*** Himself proves Annie Murphy is a force in and of herself to be reckoned with.

Kevin Can F*** Himself is a reality-bending new series that deconstructs picture perfect sitcom couple life. If the recent Disney+ hit WandaVision lionized the romance of classic domestic comedies like I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Bewitched, Kevin Can F*** Himself smashes their contemporary decedents to pieces. Murphy plays Allison, the long-suffering wife of a happy-go-lucky working class dude named Kevin (Eric Petersen). Twisted into the cliche of a nagging harpy in Kevin’s multi-cam sitcom world (complete with laugh-track and supportive sidekick friends), Allison’s rage boils over when she walks “off-set.” Out of Kevin’s presence, the sitcom spell breaks completely. In this dark and gritty single-cam world — evocative of AMC’s typical programming — Allison confronts her ice cold fury.

The trippy series, created by Valerie Armstrong and produced by Rashida Jones and Will McCormick, zips between the sexist world of sitcom cliches that Kevin rules over and the cruel, absurdist world that Allison embraces. Kevin Can F*** Himself sets itself up for a tricky balancing act and Annie Murphy is the star that nails its death-defying routine.

As Alexis Rose, Annie Murphy showed a unique range as a comic performer. She imbued a seemingly vapid character with heart. We had sympathy for Alexis Rose despite her privilege and soon grew to love her for her own naiveté. But Schitt’s Creek is a modern family sitcom, buoyed by contemporary attitudes and innovations in the genre. The sitcom world of Kevin Can F*** Himself is a wholly different beast. Closer to theater or commedia dell’arte, this world asks Murphy to play a sitcom cliché: the annoying wife. She does so, hitting marks and punchlines, while also imbuing the Allison of this world with a self-aware streak of sorrow. It’s this pain that helps us slip between the two main worlds of Kevin Can F*** Himself.

But it is in the second, darker realm of Kevin Can F*** Himself that Murphy really shows her power as a performer. It would be easy to interpret this latter world as a place where Allison can embrace her own power in a “#girlboss” way. However Allison’s journey to self-actualization doesn’t feel worthy of congratulations. In fact, it’s terrifying. Free of Kevin’s worldview, Allison veers into violent, self-destructive, and criminal behavior. Taken together, the two sides of Kevin Can F*** Himself add up to a horror show.

If you walked away from Schitt’s Creek thinking that Annie Murphy was a perfect ambassador of all things sweet, sunny, and silly, you’d be right. But what Kevin Can F*** Himself proves is that that Annie Murphy is so much more than just Alexis Rose. She is Annie Fucking Murphy, and her reign as one of TV’s finest actresses is just starting.

Kevin Can F*** Himself premieres on AMC+ on June 13 and on AMC on June 20.

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