I watched about 5 episodes of Season 1 of the After Life Netflix “comedy” and it really troubled me. Ricky Gervais (Tony) has a life with his wife that is very narcissistic in nature.
He constantly creeps up on her sleeping, painting or doing other peaceful acitivites and blasts a stadium horn at her that most likely gave the neighbors a heart attack as well as made the dog pee not to mention jarring his wife from peace to hell. What does she do? She’s surprised and then she laughs. What? Are there no female writers on this show? She would not laugh, she’d be pissed off. There would be things flying off the shelf towards Ricky’s face and most likely she’d put spoilt milk in his coffee the next morning. With continued harrassment of his wife, Tonyy would be slowly dealt with rat poison added to his cream at some point.
Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.
[mayoclinic.org]
Why does harrassing women seem funny? I don’t get it.
And why only watch the 5 episodes of After Life? I was anticipating a flashback scene (all the scenes with his wife are flashbacks because she died) where he was kind and affectionate with his wife. When he flashes back (in attempts to showcase to us why he is feeling so sad) it appears that he misses being able to harass her where she didn’t mind being the brunt of the joke.
Only one flashback so far gives us a fun moment when he is on the floor trying to balance her and that was something they were doing together and laughing. But when you even think about that particular scene, the person with the most to lose – falling and hitting your head or breaking an arm as you lose your balane – is again, his wife. Ricky is steady on the floor and his exposure to a painful fall is zero.
No Love in After Life
I was really hoping for an episode which showed Ricky appreciating his wife. She was kind enough to leave a video explaining the alarm system deactivation codes and how and when to feed the dog. Wait, so about how much does Ricky (Tony) actually put into his relationship after all? Not much it seems like. And now he has to go back to tormenting people (at work and the postal worker) that don’t appreciate his “jokes” – real people who know it’s a cover for his narcissistic tendencies.
Please allow women writers and people different from yourselves to help you develop characters. When women, children and teenagers of all nationalities and backgrounds are real and have feelings and value (note the word VALUE here) these are the types of shows that literally become our favorites because they represent real people, not the dreams of narcissistic people bent on poking fun to feed their ego.
This After Life show is a terrible pretend comedy. I don’t find the harrassment of his wife funny and you shouldn’t either. If you do, your character is pretty darn flawed. Check the weight of the rat poison box if you like sugar in your coffee. Being an asshole doesn’t make anyone funny
Final recommendation: F for fucked up female harassment going unchecked and trying to make us think it is funny. After Life is not funny. Tony is not a character I feel one bit of sympathy for at all. Ricky, time to take a break and find out why you are such a hater.
Have you watched After Life on Netflix? Whats was your take and could you last longer than 5 episodes into Season 1? Hoping it got better but frankly I don’t care because it was too difficult to watch people laugh at bully shenanigans from a grown ass man. Not in the least bit entertaining for me. Maybe you liked it. What did you think I missed? Let me know if you feel like it. We all are watching more shows now that the Spring of 2020 has us under house arrest situations. Be well. Be inspired. And take time to write pithy blog posts on your thoughts. Let’s not let the harrassment of women go enchecked whether in-your-face Ricky Gervais style or subtle like reading passive aggressive comments on female Senator Twitter pages. Where’s my “rolling my eyes” emoji on Twitter? Tired of typing it out. Ok – tell me your take on After Life.