After Life2019

I eked out the episodes because I didn't want it to end. It was brimming with humanity and deliciously "wrong" humour.

After Life is a wonderful series because it understands something very difficult: grief does not automatically turn anyone into a good person. Tony is destroyed by the death of his wife, but he is also full of anger, selfishness, cruelty and a dangerous freedom to say anything he wants. Ricky Gervais builds a character who can be a bastard, yes, but he never reduces him to that. Beneath every attack, every brutal line and every unpleasant gesture, there is the enormous emptiness of someone who no longer knows how to stay **** mix of drama and comedy works because Gervais does not fully separate one from the other. In After Life, you laugh at savage lines, uncomfortable situations, absurd people and characters who are pathetic and tender at the same time. But then the series turns slightly, a video of Lisa appears, or a conversation in the cemetery, or the dog looking at Tony, or a simple sentence, and it destroys you. That is its strength: it moves from cruelty to tears without asking permission.Ricky Gervais is enormous here. He is one of the great comedians working today, probably the sharpest when it comes to dismantling hypocrisy, fake sentimentality and social stupidity. But here he adds something else: real vulnerability. Tony uses sarcasm as a shield, as a weapon and as an excuse. He hurts people because he is broken, and although that does not justify him, it does help us understand him. The series does not try to turn him into a saint; it shows a broken man slowly learning not to destroy everything he still has **** best thing is that After Life talks about grief without turning it into a clean lesson. Grief here is repetitive, unfair, vulgar, ridiculous and cruel. One day it seems you can breathe, and the next day you are back in the hole. The series captures very well that absurd coexistence between the ordinary and the unbearable: going to work, talking to idiots, feeding the dog, visiting a grave, watching old videos and pretending the world has not ended when, for you, it **** is also true that the series has flaws. Sometimes it underlines its ideas too much, some supporting characters work more as moral mirrors for Tony than as complete characters, and certain lines feel written to be shared. But even that is part of its nature. After Life is not looking for perfect subtlety; it is trying to touch a very specific nerve. And it does. Many **** the end, what remains is not only Gervais’s sharpness or his brutal humor. What remains is love. Lost love, remembered love, love that still hurts because it has nowhere to go. After Life makes you laugh, makes you uncomfortable and ends up making you cry over everything: Lisa, Tony, the dog, lonely people, small gestures of kindness. A beautiful series about continuing to live when all you want is to stay still beside what you have lost.

Gervais mostly finds a balance between humor and deep darkness, though he sometimes falters (far too much time is spent on an obnoxious therapist). And, like many comic actors, he seamlessly transitions to drama; even better, he poignantly walks the tightrope between despair and laughter.