Throughout these last 11 weeks, as I've obsessively watched Kevin Can Wait in an effort to find out how Kevin Gable's wife Donna died, the CBS series has slowly chipped away at my faith in humanity. What's seemingly a harmless sitcom about a family in Long Island, is actually a dark, subversive commentary on society's unsavory impulses disguised as a family comedy. This show has gone to some uncomfortable, immoral, and fucked-up places.
This week, Kevin takes a brief interest in his physical health, but it's what's happening under the surface that matters. Possibly no quote in this season sums up Kevin Can Wait better than this line, which he says to his son midway through Monday's episode:
"Let me tell you something, buddy. The world is a dark, dark place."
It's one of the rare times where I actually agree with something Kevin says. Because in this episode, as Kevin and King of Queens Star Leah Remini fight over the attention of the attractive trainer whose business has moved in downstairs, there's something else going on. Kevin is clearly a man who is struggling with his own masculinity. And when the opportunity arises for him to reclaim some of that by getting into shape, he becomes obsessed. It's an obsession he forces on his friends, his family, and every aspect of his life. It consumes him. But this trainer, who is in peak physical condition and unreasonably handsome, is simultaneously challenging Kevin's own perceptions of his alpha status. The soap opera star-looking trainer takes a professional interest in King of Queens Star Leah Remini, which Kevin somewhat subconsciously takes as an encroachment of his territory. As Kevin tends to do, he ruins everything for his own personal gain—loses the trainer business, threatens King of Queens Star Leah Remini's potential love interest—under the guise of harmless buffoonery.
Kevin might seem like a bumbling idiot, but there's a reason things always work out in his favor. He knows exactly what he's doing, how to manipulate people and situations, while maintaining the least suspicious demeanor. This is a man who could have had a hand in his wife's death, now playing it off as the lovable middle-class dad.
If anything's clear in Kevin Can Wait, it's that our titular character cannot be trusted. Neither him nor his sleazy brother, Kevin 2, who this episode convinced his daughter and Random British Man to bribe a health inspector. These are vile people, and Kevin's right: The world is a dark, dark place.