Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/AMC
Kevin Can F**k Himself’s Kevin McRoberts (Eric Petersen) is a cable guy who lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. He loves beer, junk food, his dumb doting best friend Neil (Alex Bonifer), his always-around dad Pete (Brian Howe), and being the center of attention. Dim, goofy, arrogant and more than a bit chauvinistic, he’s a buffoon who’s always ready with a quip and a pratfall, and never in any real danger; at every turn, Kevin can be relied upon to come out on top.
Thanks to sitcoms like The King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond, he’s the sort of fun-loving domestic neanderthal we’ve been conditioned to think is funny. Except for the fact that he’s the absolute worst, and the TV character I most relish hating.
There’s stiff competition for that dubious title, ranging from Logan Roy on Succession and Homelander on The Boys, to Danny Stevens on For All Mankind, and everyone on The Offer and Winning Time. Yet none of those individuals are as entertainingly abhorrent as Petersen’s Kevin, a portly moron whose every utterance is a smarty-pants one-liner and whose every gesture is zanily cartoonish.