Ricky Gervais has made a career of portraying unlikable characters. From The Office to Extras, and now to After Life (Netflix), he’s carved out a successful career playing a variation of his unbearable self — and it’s a character that’s proven to be an acquired taste. Some people find his humor very funny (I do, at times), and some find him cynical and insufferable. In his current series (After Life), Gervais plays…well Ricky Gervais, but goes by the name Tony Johnson. Tony lives in a mid-sized English town that’s quaint, has some oddball characters, and is generally a place where average people live, work and die. Tony works for the local paper The Tambury Gazette where he writes stories about local residents who always have some kind of strange tale to tell. Almost all the people Tony profiles display something extraordinary they have experienced. People claiming to have been sodomized by the ghost of Liberace, or being able to play two recorders through the nostrils, or a guy who put his mail in a dog poop bin. They all want to feel like their life is special when they are surrounded by mediocrity. The only person that Tony really likes is the 100-year-old woman who hates everyone and can’t wait to die.
Did I mention that Tony is suicidal? Yes, he’s grieving the love of his life (his wife) who he lost to cancer. He tortures himself by drinking himself into a stupor while watching family videos of the happy times — and reliving those moments of happiness makes him more miserable. Indeed, he tries to kill himself a few times but is always saved by his dog — who senses that he intends to harm himself and either barks or gets in his face to dissuade him. Tony also has a dad who lives in an assisted living facility whom he visits regularly. His dad suffers from dementia and doesn’t know who Tony is, but seems to tolerate the company. His care nurse is Emma, who Tony grows attracted to in short order. Over the course of two seasons, the two of them grow fond of one another, but Tony can’t let go of his dead wife. His grief manifests itself in an angry and cynical view of the world where he feels he can say whatever he wants to whomever he wants (and he does). Because this is a Ricky Gervais show, the cringing and withering comments he makes are supposed to be funny, but they often just plain cruel. In all that anger, grief, and cynicism, we are supposed to be touched by messages of why life is worth living — delivered by Gervais/Tony in little aphorisms peppered conservatively throughout the series.
After Life is clearly a dark comedy, but watching a man whose misery is amplified when he sees moments of joy, love, and laughter from his past can be too much to take at times. He doesn’t want anyone’s support or pity, but he’s clearly a man in deep pain — which, to Gervais’s credit, he portrays quite convincingly — but his grief drags on over the course of two seasons to such a degree that sometimes I was wishing that he’d be successful in ending it all. All is not lost, however. After Life has many characters whose humanity, humor, and humility come through, and it’s that contrast that saves the show from being a total downer.
