WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Kevin Can F**K Himself Season 1, Episode 1, "Living The Dream," and Episode 2, "New Tricks," now available on AMC.
AMC's Kevin Can F**k Himself seems to be a tale of a toxic marriage with Allison (Annie Murphy) hating the neglect she's endured from Kevin (Eric Petersen). She can't stand how he lacks ambition, preferring to drink beer and talk about baseball with the guys rather than upgrade their simple Worcester lifestyle. However, her biggest regret isn't being married to Kevin -- it's the lack of control she had over her own life.
Allison decides to take revenge on Kevin after he secretly blew their savings, ruining her plans to move out. But her disillusionment came way before. For example, she hates her liquor store job. Allison knows she should be doing more than cashiering, which is why she fantasizes about a white picket fence life.
When she meets her ex, Sam, he brings a lot into perspective. They talk about their past and current lives. As they reminisce, Sam admits Allison's blaming other people when she's the one who made mistakes. She left Sam, dropped out of school to be with deadbeat Kevin and never encouraged him to climb the ladder in his cable installation job.
Sam, on the other hand, while not as happy with his love life, has opened a fancy diner. Allison's conversation with Sam leads to self-realization: she hates herself more than Kevin. She let Kevin bully her, but she also settled by staying in her comfort zone and being lazy. It's why she's unkempt at work, sloppy when grabbing donuts and has a glaze on her face when trying to spice things up with lipstick for her anniversary.
She lets life walk all over her, and the fact she never thought of taking the reins back infuriates her. It sparks her rebellion, which includes sneaking out, doing coke, getting into a fight and trying to trash the town. Allison simply never got to do these things and gave her agency to Kevin. He never forced her into doing it, so the person she despises most is the one staring back in the mirror. After all, if she had kept track of the bank account, she would've known Kevin was losing their nest egg in bad investments.
Thus, Allison decides the first step is to kill Kevin, not just for pleasure, but so she won't be bogged down and unnecessarily burdened anymore. He represents all she hates in life and the bad traits she embodies. Once this pet project is done, she'll have her hopes and dreams back to become the best her. This is her twisted path to self-improvement. As such, she's already imagined a liberated version of herself sipping cocktails near a fancy lakeside restaurant.
Created by Valerie Armstrong, Kevin Can F**K Himself stars Annie Murphy, Mary Hollis Inboden and Eric Petersen. The series airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on AMC.