After Life Is a Comedy Masterpiece That’s Not a Lot of Fun to Experience
After Life is simultaneously a masterpiece of dark comedy and an incredibly difficult show to recommend. In a time where Ricky Gervais’s stand-up persona has increasingly become defined by contrarian edgelord humor, this soulful and reflective show comes as a surprise. This is easily the writer/actor’s best work in years, a tragic piece of comedy that scraps dark edges of the soul peppered with fleeting moments of whimsy.
Gervais plays Tony, a reporter for a small free weekly newspaper whose wife Lisa has just died of breast cancer. All he has left of her is memories and a series of videos from their marriage. Lost in his mourning, Tony flails through his day job covering absurd local news stories and being unpleasant to his friends.
Pop culture often deifies assholes, giving them a heart of gold underneath it all. But Tony isn’t a fun asshole. He’s a being of pure rage, slowly losing control over his impulses and ability to temper his words. No one laughs at his jokes anymore. They’re simply cruel. Tony doesn’t know how to keep being Tony after his wife died, even though she tried to warn him this would happen.
After Life could chosen to leave Lisa off screen, but through their videos, she becomes one of its most important characters. Her face is the first we see, and her message to Tony ends up being the plot of the series. “You were never very good at hearing how lovely you are. But you are. You’re lovely,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “but you’re absolutely fucking useless. So I thought I’d leave you with a little guide to life without me.”
Through the six episode season Tony fights against healing. Along with his life, he’s lost the will to live. Only his responsibilities to his dog and his Alzheimer’s ravaged father keep him from taking his own life. Instead, he floats through existence doing the bare minimum and waiting until he’s free to leave.
In many ways, the show is a series of vignettes about desolation. Tony’s every interaction explores a different aspect of how humans cope with suffering and loss. Some turn to drugs, others talk to graves, while one old man finds the face of Kenneth Branagh in a water spot. The sheer weight of these interactions makes the show’s frequent jokes feel like gasps of air.
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