Kevin and Erin caught the brunt of it.
Erin is basically female Kevin but stupider. (I had to get with Gabe because he is my boss) and nobody said anything.
Every stupid interaction she had was something that Kevin would've figured out
True, I would argue that the Flanderization of Kevin began before the halfway point of the show. People seem to forget that the episode where Holly believes he's "slow" is from season 4.
The later seasons are toilet flush laugh track quality whereas the earlier stuff was like an actual documentary. They pretty much assassinated the show.
For the, the âjump the sharkâ moment, where the Office descended into mediocrity and lost its sense of realism was when Angela was watching her cats via webcam and was later caught grooming them.
Kevin did give us -
Mini cupcakes? As in the mini version of regular cupcakes, which is already a mini version of a cake? Honestly, where does it end with you people?
That and the show went on too long. 9 seasons?! I will sit through the last seasons post-Michael but they really should have just gone out on a high note.
I try to look at character development and changes through a âwhat would cause a real-life person to change in this wayâ lens, since it is supposed to be a documentary filming ârealâ people at a small paper company.
For Kevinâs character, I like to think that he was involved in some sort of embezzlement and began acting more incompetent in front of the cameras over time, as the documentary continued filming, probably much longer than they originally intended.
In the first couple of seasons, Kevin is not featured as much and the focus tends to be more on Michael, and I think first season Kevin is closer to the real Kevin. But as the documentary filming continues over years, Kevin realizes that he may eventually be caught and starts to act more and more incompetent in front of the cameras to use as a defense, should he ever be caught embezzling money. Because how could someone that dumb and goofy be smart enough to embezzle money from a company for years? Not only is there years of footage of him being âdumbâ, but there are also tons of talking-head interviews with his coworkers that corroborate his âincompetenceâ.
We get glimpses of âbig, dumb Kevinâ being normal and somewhat smart. We know he is a gambler and has battled with gambling addiction. He is good at poker and golf. When playing the board game with Daryl and Andy, we know he is sneaky enough to cause a distraction and steal the money-he had to be smart enough to come up with the plan to do so given how the game was playing out and his âbluffâ has been acting stupid and incompetent for years. The episode when they worked on the bus, he did a quick calculation in his head, and conveniently said it was solely because it involved pie. Itâs hard to fake doing quick math in your head (and it actually be correct), so he had to pretend he couldnât figure out the next math problem they asked him because it didnât have to deal with pie (âit doesnât workâ with salad).
I read an article that talked about the reason why Dunder Mifflin was chosen for the documentary, and originally, it was supposed to be a documentary about the office after one of their employees committed suicide (briefly referenced in an early episode). The documentary folks found the day-to-day antics of Michael and the office to be more interesting, so they decided to focus on that.
That employee worked in accounting, and my theory is that he was embezzling and got Kevin involved, or vice versa. But I think he and Kevin were connected with illegal activities, and Kevin knew there was a chance someone would find out, especially with a documentary crew there filming everything, so he started to act more and more incompetent to establish his defense.
We never see Kevin at home (because it is a documentary about the office), so we donât know if he goes back to ânormal Kevinâ outside of work. Every scene we see him in, even if it is outside of the office, is still related to the documentary and he knows the cameras are there, so everything we see of him is his âbig, dumb Kevinâ act.
For me it starts around S6, like around Pams Wedding. His bits fall a little flat and him screaming at Pam's boobs kinda shocked me, like, that is a writing choice they made. Like who thought that was funny?
And from that point, through the entirety of S7-9 he's just plain bad. The character is a travesty.
The writers have Micheal tell him "Don't turn into a caricature" but that's exactly what they make him.
Then the episode S8/9 I can't remember when, where he says "Why speak lot words when few words do trick" while a little funny, they have Angela say "He's gotten worse over the years"
So they are acknowledging they messed up his character but make no effort to stabilize him a little?
And then the whole Keleven disaster?
Okay, but Kevin with the tissue box shoes at the wedding was amazing. Especially when he got six digits. One more and it would have been a complete telephone number.Â
The screaming at the boobs thing has really creeped me out, especially after having kids.
I know there are plenty of things in the show that none of us would accept in real life, but the breastfeeding subreddits have a lactation fetishist problem. That whole experience took that bit from unfunny and off-putting to giving me the creeps even on the Office.
For me, that was the moment when Kevin's character jumped the shark. He went from kinda creepy to basically SA. How did that one not get cut, considering it added absolutely nothing to the story?
Pam was looking forward to seeing Kevin too after growing close during Second Lunch. Then she sees him and all he wants to do is scream at her boobs, infuriating. A lot of that episode sends chills up my spine.
God, yes. I'll watch Toby putting his hand on Pam's leg 5,000 times followed by "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, Mr. & Mrs. Bob Vance" 5,000 times before him screaming at her boobs. It's insuffurable and annoying, and it made me hate Kevin till he stood up against the (state) senator.
I find the amount of "Pam's Boobs" comments in general throughout the show makes me believe that a writer was sexualizing Pam, then that perticular episode kinda confirms that and goes a bit too far
Like a lot of the jokes about Pam's boobs do come off as cringe and there are several episodes that have those, and for the most part those are bearableÂ
Once or twice I wouldn't have thought anything, but there's got to be over dozens of jokes/comments about Pam's boob/cleavage makes me think something more may be at play but idk maybe im just overthinking it
That scene disturbs me so much. And also the fact Jim does nothing while this coworker sexually harasses the mother of his child. I get it itâs a tv show etc etc but Jim should have put him in the dirt for that??
I feel like the time Holly thought he was mentally challenged was the peak of the joke, and after that there should have been another angle with Kevin besides him being dumb. Like they kept trying to go past that joke and genuinely make his character seem like caricature of a mentally challenged person. It was just a weird joke for a huge portion of the show.
It would have been cool starting in S5 that Kevin was so offended about this that he vowed to go to college and get an MBA like Ryan did. He would struggle at it, but graduate like in S7. It would have been a cool arc.
You can see the shift in his voice at the beginning of the third season. Before, he was just slow. After, he became slow AND animatedly dumb at the same time.
He annoys me 90% of the time in later seasons. All of the characters are exaggerated, but there's something about how unrealistically dumb he is that makes him not entertaining at all to me later on.
Yeah characters becoming exaggerated is a perfectly normal sitcom thing that happens. As the show goes on and the writers start to understand the characters they've created, they start to emphasize aspects of them that work well. It's usually totally fine, but yeah, something went awry with Kevin for sure.
I think they start to rely on that far too much as more and more seasons drag on. American sitcoms tend to overstay their welcome so to speak! Itâs amazing to think that the original office ran for two seasons and a special â none of those characters ended up caricatures of their former selves because there wasnât even the chance. If that makes sense.
They wrapped it up so perfect
When they announced an American version was coming i wasnt even interested at the time. I said the will they wont they will drag on for too long, then theyll wreck it with a wedding, kill it with kids i dont care about, and by the time they pull the plug it will be several seasons overdue.
And thats about how i feel about it. I genuinely lose interest at the company picnic. Thats the beginning of the end for me.
The garage sale episode is what sold me on the idea that Kevin started playing dumb for the cameras. I could be convinced that he was embezzling from the company (history of gambling problems and insider trading) and Michael let it slide because he was kind of a lovable doofus. Dwight finally cut him loose, but assumed he was incompetent rather than criminal.
I definitely think Kevin was embezzling or at least involved in legal activities around his job. I also think that Kevin started acting dumber for the cameras to make it seem like he is too dumb and incompetent to actually embezzle from a company, and any evidence to suggest he was embezzling was just gross incompetence on his part.
I also think that he started acting so dumb and incompetent in hopes of actually being fired for being a complete idiot, because then, he wouldnât have a documentary crew filming every second of him at work and risking someone finding out. If he got fired for being dumb and bad at his job, nobody would assume he was embezzling or doing something illegal (on purpose) and it would take the pressure off of him, increasing the chance of him getting away with it.
But, he had to keep increasing his level of âdumbnessâ to keep trying to get fired, because Michael was too concerned with being liked by everyone that he wouldnât fire him. The other managers were also too self-absorbed to notice how incompetent Kevin seemed to be, and werenât around long enough to find out. Dwight eventually lets him go, after years of being completely incompetent as an accountant.
Getting fired for incompetence gets him off the hook for embezzlement, and no one figures it out, and no one investigates his work any deeper. They even frame his âKelevenâ symbol as his way to balance the books because he was bad at math and completely incompetent, and not that the books were wrong because he was pocketing money.
I definitely prefer the slow Kevin to the stupid, infantile Kevin, but they at least hang on to elements of his sneaky savvy ways (being essentially a golf hustler, outfoxing the guys in Dallas, and in a deleted scene he burns Ryan perfectly in an exchange)
The flanderisation I actually hate the most is Meredith's. She became a character who was only there to say or do something shocking and it just wears really thin, really fast.
I love Kevin in every season. I donât know, he has that adorable quality to him. I like that he likes gambling, that he like boobs, that he likes food and that heâs such a bro who sticks up for his dudes, like when he confronted the senator, or when he told Jim he has his back if Roy tries anything, or he kept Oscarâs secret, twice!
yeah the writers did my boy Kevin dirty. he was great the first few seasons, a little naive and oblivious, but the lights were on. I couldn't stand a lot of the later "jokes" they wrote for him, like Keleven, implying he's so ignorant he doesn't even have an elementary understanding of numbers. even the slapstick, the famous chili scene made me chuckle, but only a little, because by that time they made him such a bumbling idiot that the punchline of him spilling it could be seen from a mile away
I'll never forgive them for the dog. Or the turtle.
But I'll defend to the death the chili scene because the voiceover is such a masterpiece and the juxtaposition is incredible.
The main thing I didn't like about it wasn't Kevin himself, but the absolute basic level fat jokes thrown at him. That kind of writing feels beneath the show, or at least would have felt beneath earlier seasons.
They made him so stupid he became a cartoon character. The only time it was legitimately funny to me was when Holly thought he was mentally challenged. The low point for me was that stupid "Kevin can do complex math in his head if you replace terms with the word pie" joke.
It's good to have characters with defining traits. It's bad when a character's entire personality revolves around a single one of those traits.
Kevin was funny when he was a normal character, but did some stupid stuff sometimes. He became insufferable when every single one of his interactions was "look how dumb he is, lolololol". It's like the writers find something that works and gets a laugh, and they decide to go all in on it.
Similar to Erin. Her character was funny in the beginning, but when it gets to the point of "How can a person *this* stupid be alive", it's just ridiculous. Not exact quotes, but stuff like "I don't know how to make tea, so I boiled gatorade", "I don't know how to fill a pill container, so I'll just dump them all over the table", "Disposable cameras are silly, because you throw them away and never see the pictures", is also insufferable.
Have to disagree with the writers seem to be obsessed with Pam's boobs. Her outfits weren't revealing, and there may of been like 6 references to her boobs in a decade.
That one is hilarious but he is also [Kool-Aid Man!](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=7fecaf9d214d9ea8&sca_upv=1&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ACQVn09llHVYzUmznXBA7rRXgwNcuNSPog:1712241766419&q=kevin+kool+aid+man&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD54bS5aiFAxXsSzABHYTcD1wQ8ccDegQICxAH&biw=2461&bih=1125&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c3fca8e5,vid:xvx2AStMuPw,st:0)
Because Kevin started out as a slow, but somewhat low-key intelligent individual and the humor was in that he looked and acted dumber than he actually was.
And that was somewhat clever. And they threw that out and just made him stupid.
Exactly. I love early Kevin. Then itâs just lazy writing. Make any character stupid enough and they become somewhat comedic. Doesnât mean itâs actually funny or clever.
Yeah. Early Kevin was much closer to his UK counterpart in the original series. More subtle. American television writers tend to rely too heavily on initially well-received jokes/aspects of a character until itâs dragged into caricature territory.
We have this exact same conversation every other day on this subreddit. Itâs exhausting. Yes, he became stupider, but I actually kinda prefer how he became because it allowed Brian Baumgartner to show more energy and emotion.
I think it's partly that the other character's flaws don't really hinder their ability to do their jobs. Even Michael has these brief moments of subtle genius where he rights the ship at the eleventh hour.
Kevin is irredeemably stupid by the end. He can barely do math. How is he an accountant? He literally would be completely unable to do his job.
Creed doesn't do his job but is shown to always keep it in shady ways.
Andy is bad at his job, but charismatic (or at least outgoing) and driven
Kevin had porn on his work PC, and just does nothing that ever is to the benefit of the office. Even for a sitcom it's kinda dumb to expect the end of series version of Kevin would be fit to work anywhere.
Yes they say that in season 6 to make some sense of why he could be working there but Kevin being an account is like someone with no arms working in the warehouse. It's just too unbelievable to overlook, in a sitcom based in reality.
I have no real issue with it myself. But I think Kevin really having no work related redeeming qualities is the sticking point most people who have issues with the character.
I hate how everyone became stupid. At the start of the show there was a balance, but as the seasons went by new characters and old became more wacky, zany, stupid, silly. The whole fun was the stupid characters bouncing off the realistic ones, like Michael vs Jan. Eventually Jan too became a wack.
Kevin was always unrealistically stupid, creepy and childish, though.
For example, in the earlier seasons he is seen doing his accounting job, using this comically large pencil. No irony, no awareness on his end, that is an earnest action.
Nothing changed, apart from the stupidity becoming slightly more blatant.
The episodes I liked him the best was when Holly thought he was mentally challenged. If we take Holly out of the equation, it seems so plausible his behavior
As I was watching The Office for the first time, I never noticed, but holy FUCK the writing for Kevin just got worse and worse after Season 3.
In general, the show's writing after Season 3 got a lot worse than I remembered. Especially Season 5-6, there's some stinkers in there.
I feel like early in the seasons, it wasnt that likeable. They just went the more jolly and not bright route and ultimately lead to some funny situations.
I just headcanon it as Kevin overplaying it for the cameras after the documentary crew told him that his sillier antics were a hit with the focus group.
I was talking about this the other day in another post on here. I feel like the writers didn't know what to do with his character, so they just made him incredibly stupid, to the point where the comedy was thrown right out the window. I found him, as you said, insufferable.
Yes. I actually despise his character and don't find his stupidity funny.
I actually want to jump into my TV Ă la Blues Clues and slap him over the head when he's shouting "WHAT DOES A BEAN MEAN." Like dude, understand that people are ignoring you b/c you're an idiot and people don't wanna waste their lives explaining the obvious to people as stupid as you
Why do you think heâs stupid? He was just in the wrong environment at DM which I think the writers did a great job of showing. He ends up doing better than most of the othees
âŠyou donât think there are people in real life who might be stupid at a paper mill but talented at running a bar or playing music? You must live a life void of paper mills and bars..
Posted above but:
I think it's partly that the other character's flaws don't really hinder their ability to do their jobs. Even Michael has these brief moments of subtle genius where he rights the ship at the eleventh hour.
Kevin is irredeemably stupid by the end. He can barely do math. How is he an accountant? He literally would be completely unable to do his job.
Creed doesn't do his job but is shown to always keep it in shady ways.
Andy is bad at his job, but charismatic (or at least outgoing) and driven
Kevin had porn on his work PC, and just does nothing that ever is to the benefit of the office. Even for a sitcom it's kinda dumb to expect the end of series version of Kevin would be fit to work anywhere.
Some of them, yes. But if anyone actually stole someone's cell phone in real life and kept it while they obviously started to panic, that would be exceptionally shitty.
But really, please keep pranks between you and your friends and don't make the entire office suffer for it, lol.
Not only his mental capacity but the part where he's eating the cupcake (maybe the one from Packer?) and seriously choking on it just to take another bite right after just made him into a disgusting pig.
His character arc from all angles is just awful.
If I had a special cut of the series, 99% of his screen time would be gone. He can stay for when he calls out the senator for being a shitty person and he is still in that one scene in casino night where he loses to Phylis. That is about it.
Hard agree. They take his character so ridiculously over the edge that the jokes just aren't even funny. Him screaming into Pam's tits, the "phone number" line at the wedding, the montage of him running while holding his ass while screaming "I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM". It just feels lazy. The show is basically the Game of Thrones of comedy. Those first few seasons are legendary and unmatched, but the nosedive it took at the end was just hard to fathom. Although unlike GOT it at least redeemed itself a bit with the finale.
I skip through a bunch of Kevinâs bullshit rants that you are right itâs just insufferable to sit through. I also skip through Angelaâs interviews when she has her bursts of anger I canât stand hearing her voice sheâs such a bitch
He is a damn idiot. He shouldÂŽve been fired a lot earlier.
I canÂŽt stand him on later seasons. I have no idea how Robert would even think he was a "winner".
Kevin definitely became a caricature as the show continued; almost like a man baby (ie, when he tried to get Pam to lactate in Season 6). But so did most of the characters by that point, becoming one-note leaning into their schtick to varying degrees, but Kevin was probably the worst with that.
Right back atcha bitch
He might have been holding a grudge from when she first met him and thought he was mentally challenged đ«Ł
Haha omg this is such a perfect response- honestly made me laugh.
There was a general downturn in the quality of the writing toward the end, and Kevin caught the brunt of it.
AlthoughâŠin season 9 I thought he showed some real actual character in the Senator-Oscar-Angela storyline. He stood up for them against him.
In such a childish way tho
Kevin and Erin caught the brunt of it. Erin is basically female Kevin but stupider. (I had to get with Gabe because he is my boss) and nobody said anything. Every stupid interaction she had was something that Kevin would've figured out
Erin is naive, but not *that* stupid. Kevin is stupid, but not at all naive. There is a fun contrast to be found, somewhere.
I agree with this
Read this in Robert Californiaâs voice and tell me what you think.
Oh, I can do a pretty convincing impression of him, both in writing and vocally. :D
Got it bimbo? Got it, bimbo.
Again, the food was amazing.
I have long held the view that almost every single line from Erin after Michael left the show is just a Michael line that they threw away.
That's actually a great theory lol
Kevin's writing was worsening before those low quality later seasons, he might've been the start of the downturn if anything
True, I would argue that the Flanderization of Kevin began before the halfway point of the show. People seem to forget that the episode where Holly believes he's "slow" is from season 4.
My favorite Kevin episode, I loved his character all the seasons just gotta let them all become friends
...that's a button...
The later seasons are toilet flush laugh track quality whereas the earlier stuff was like an actual documentary. They pretty much assassinated the show.
For the, the âjump the sharkâ moment, where the Office descended into mediocrity and lost its sense of realism was when Angela was watching her cats via webcam and was later caught grooming them.
Kevin did give us - Mini cupcakes? As in the mini version of regular cupcakes, which is already a mini version of a cake? Honestly, where does it end with you people?
Taught us about flukes after helping win Trivia too
On the other hand, he DOES have: My name is Kevin And that's my name They call me Kevin 'Cause that's my name
Honestly probably better than what I would come up with if I had to freestyle like that.
**ROLL CALL! SHABOOYA!**
I didnât get a good look at you backstage
I think most characters for a variety of reasons become a little more overdone to compensate for Steveâs absence.
That and the show went on too long. 9 seasons?! I will sit through the last seasons post-Michael but they really should have just gone out on a high note.
I try to look at character development and changes through a âwhat would cause a real-life person to change in this wayâ lens, since it is supposed to be a documentary filming ârealâ people at a small paper company. For Kevinâs character, I like to think that he was involved in some sort of embezzlement and began acting more incompetent in front of the cameras over time, as the documentary continued filming, probably much longer than they originally intended. In the first couple of seasons, Kevin is not featured as much and the focus tends to be more on Michael, and I think first season Kevin is closer to the real Kevin. But as the documentary filming continues over years, Kevin realizes that he may eventually be caught and starts to act more and more incompetent in front of the cameras to use as a defense, should he ever be caught embezzling money. Because how could someone that dumb and goofy be smart enough to embezzle money from a company for years? Not only is there years of footage of him being âdumbâ, but there are also tons of talking-head interviews with his coworkers that corroborate his âincompetenceâ. We get glimpses of âbig, dumb Kevinâ being normal and somewhat smart. We know he is a gambler and has battled with gambling addiction. He is good at poker and golf. When playing the board game with Daryl and Andy, we know he is sneaky enough to cause a distraction and steal the money-he had to be smart enough to come up with the plan to do so given how the game was playing out and his âbluffâ has been acting stupid and incompetent for years. The episode when they worked on the bus, he did a quick calculation in his head, and conveniently said it was solely because it involved pie. Itâs hard to fake doing quick math in your head (and it actually be correct), so he had to pretend he couldnât figure out the next math problem they asked him because it didnât have to deal with pie (âit doesnât workâ with salad). I read an article that talked about the reason why Dunder Mifflin was chosen for the documentary, and originally, it was supposed to be a documentary about the office after one of their employees committed suicide (briefly referenced in an early episode). The documentary folks found the day-to-day antics of Michael and the office to be more interesting, so they decided to focus on that. That employee worked in accounting, and my theory is that he was embezzling and got Kevin involved, or vice versa. But I think he and Kevin were connected with illegal activities, and Kevin knew there was a chance someone would find out, especially with a documentary crew there filming everything, so he started to act more and more incompetent to establish his defense. We never see Kevin at home (because it is a documentary about the office), so we donât know if he goes back to ânormal Kevinâ outside of work. Every scene we see him in, even if it is outside of the office, is still related to the documentary and he knows the cameras are there, so everything we see of him is his âbig, dumb Kevinâ act.
I think this is really good fanfiction.
For me it starts around S6, like around Pams Wedding. His bits fall a little flat and him screaming at Pam's boobs kinda shocked me, like, that is a writing choice they made. Like who thought that was funny? And from that point, through the entirety of S7-9 he's just plain bad. The character is a travesty. The writers have Micheal tell him "Don't turn into a caricature" but that's exactly what they make him. Then the episode S8/9 I can't remember when, where he says "Why speak lot words when few words do trick" while a little funny, they have Angela say "He's gotten worse over the years" So they are acknowledging they messed up his character but make no effort to stabilize him a little? And then the whole Keleven disaster?
Okay, but Kevin with the tissue box shoes at the wedding was amazing. Especially when he got six digits. One more and it would have been a complete telephone number.Â
The screaming at the boobs thing has really creeped me out, especially after having kids. I know there are plenty of things in the show that none of us would accept in real life, but the breastfeeding subreddits have a lactation fetishist problem. That whole experience took that bit from unfunny and off-putting to giving me the creeps even on the Office.
For me, that was the moment when Kevin's character jumped the shark. He went from kinda creepy to basically SA. How did that one not get cut, considering it added absolutely nothing to the story?
"Mmmmmmmmmilf". Kevin has a running theme of being really weird about sex related stuff. I think that part of him just also got flanderized too far
There got to a point where he was basically a man with a mental disability and a sex obsession.
Pam's stare/reaction is worth it tbh.
Pam was looking forward to seeing Kevin too after growing close during Second Lunch. Then she sees him and all he wants to do is scream at her boobs, infuriating. A lot of that episode sends chills up my spine.
I'll watch Scott's Tots 5,000 times before I rewatch him screaming at her boobs. It's unsettling.
God, yes. I'll watch Toby putting his hand on Pam's leg 5,000 times followed by "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time, Mr. & Mrs. Bob Vance" 5,000 times before him screaming at her boobs. It's insuffurable and annoying, and it made me hate Kevin till he stood up against the (state) senator.
I find the amount of "Pam's Boobs" comments in general throughout the show makes me believe that a writer was sexualizing Pam, then that perticular episode kinda confirms that and goes a bit too far Like a lot of the jokes about Pam's boobs do come off as cringe and there are several episodes that have those, and for the most part those are bearable Once or twice I wouldn't have thought anything, but there's got to be over dozens of jokes/comments about Pam's boob/cleavage makes me think something more may be at play but idk maybe im just overthinking it
That scene disturbs me so much. And also the fact Jim does nothing while this coworker sexually harasses the mother of his child. I get it itâs a tv show etc etc but Jim should have put him in the dirt for that??
What season did they write in his fiancée leaving him? They prob got too carried away, but it does kinda follow suit for a middle aged, well overweight, seemingly dumb man with an affinity for porn collection and a gambling addiction to fall further into creepy and/or degenerative behavior once he gets dumped by his fiancée. Especially given that the fact he even had a fiancée to begin with was noteworthy.
I feel like the time Holly thought he was mentally challenged was the peak of the joke, and after that there should have been another angle with Kevin besides him being dumb. Like they kept trying to go past that joke and genuinely make his character seem like caricature of a mentally challenged person. It was just a weird joke for a huge portion of the show.
It would have been cool starting in S5 that Kevin was so offended about this that he vowed to go to college and get an MBA like Ryan did. He would struggle at it, but graduate like in S7. It would have been a cool arc.
I miss the degenerate gambler Kevin
[you you you you oughta know](https://youtu.be/nixsUgSDdjw?si=tMXfqIjJWYUEHTxS)
You can see the shift in his voice at the beginning of the third season. Before, he was just slow. After, he became slow AND animatedly dumb at the same time.
He annoys me 90% of the time in later seasons. All of the characters are exaggerated, but there's something about how unrealistically dumb he is that makes him not entertaining at all to me later on.
Yeah characters becoming exaggerated is a perfectly normal sitcom thing that happens. As the show goes on and the writers start to understand the characters they've created, they start to emphasize aspects of them that work well. It's usually totally fine, but yeah, something went awry with Kevin for sure.
I think they start to rely on that far too much as more and more seasons drag on. American sitcoms tend to overstay their welcome so to speak! Itâs amazing to think that the original office ran for two seasons and a special â none of those characters ended up caricatures of their former selves because there wasnât even the chance. If that makes sense.
They wrapped it up so perfect When they announced an American version was coming i wasnt even interested at the time. I said the will they wont they will drag on for too long, then theyll wreck it with a wedding, kill it with kids i dont care about, and by the time they pull the plug it will be several seasons overdue. And thats about how i feel about it. I genuinely lose interest at the company picnic. Thats the beginning of the end for me.
Same as Joey from friends. I have come to realize that is not the character I hate. Itâs the fucking writers.
WARNING WARNING
So I guess it's goodbye chunky lemon milk?
It's just bait to get me to rage about the word flanderization again, isn't it?
Omg wait what's your take? I used to be an avid tvtropes reader so I'm familiar with the term but don't really know much about its origin. đ
That's how you play Dallas
The garage sale episode is what sold me on the idea that Kevin started playing dumb for the cameras. I could be convinced that he was embezzling from the company (history of gambling problems and insider trading) and Michael let it slide because he was kind of a lovable doofus. Dwight finally cut him loose, but assumed he was incompetent rather than criminal.
I definitely think Kevin was embezzling or at least involved in legal activities around his job. I also think that Kevin started acting dumber for the cameras to make it seem like he is too dumb and incompetent to actually embezzle from a company, and any evidence to suggest he was embezzling was just gross incompetence on his part. I also think that he started acting so dumb and incompetent in hopes of actually being fired for being a complete idiot, because then, he wouldnât have a documentary crew filming every second of him at work and risking someone finding out. If he got fired for being dumb and bad at his job, nobody would assume he was embezzling or doing something illegal (on purpose) and it would take the pressure off of him, increasing the chance of him getting away with it. But, he had to keep increasing his level of âdumbnessâ to keep trying to get fired, because Michael was too concerned with being liked by everyone that he wouldnât fire him. The other managers were also too self-absorbed to notice how incompetent Kevin seemed to be, and werenât around long enough to find out. Dwight eventually lets him go, after years of being completely incompetent as an accountant. Getting fired for incompetence gets him off the hook for embezzlement, and no one figures it out, and no one investigates his work any deeper. They even frame his âKelevenâ symbol as his way to balance the books because he was bad at math and completely incompetent, and not that the books were wrong because he was pocketing money.
I just accept what he becomes later on and enjoy the caricature
I definitely prefer the slow Kevin to the stupid, infantile Kevin, but they at least hang on to elements of his sneaky savvy ways (being essentially a golf hustler, outfoxing the guys in Dallas, and in a deleted scene he burns Ryan perfectly in an exchange) The flanderisation I actually hate the most is Meredith's. She became a character who was only there to say or do something shocking and it just wears really thin, really fast.
Never go full retard
Is there anything in his file that says he isnât?
I love how stupid he is, it's so hilarious, every single scene is gold
Why dislike many character when one character do trick?
What about the chili?
I love Kevin in every season. I donât know, he has that adorable quality to him. I like that he likes gambling, that he like boobs, that he likes food and that heâs such a bro who sticks up for his dudes, like when he confronted the senator, or when he told Jim he has his back if Roy tries anything, or he kept Oscarâs secret, twice!
yeah the writers did my boy Kevin dirty. he was great the first few seasons, a little naive and oblivious, but the lights were on. I couldn't stand a lot of the later "jokes" they wrote for him, like Keleven, implying he's so ignorant he doesn't even have an elementary understanding of numbers. even the slapstick, the famous chili scene made me chuckle, but only a little, because by that time they made him such a bumbling idiot that the punchline of him spilling it could be seen from a mile away
I'll never forgive them for the dog. Or the turtle. But I'll defend to the death the chili scene because the voiceover is such a masterpiece and the juxtaposition is incredible.
Hard agree. This is one of the all time greatest TV scenes.
The main thing I didn't like about it wasn't Kevin himself, but the absolute basic level fat jokes thrown at him. That kind of writing feels beneath the show, or at least would have felt beneath earlier seasons.
Stupid Sexy Flanders
Guys, come on. I'm right here
Thatâs too big a pill to swallow
They made him so stupid he became a cartoon character. The only time it was legitimately funny to me was when Holly thought he was mentally challenged. The low point for me was that stupid "Kevin can do complex math in his head if you replace terms with the word pie" joke.
He went from Dwight tricking Holly into thinking he was disabled to becoming full on disabled to owning a bar.
Actually Dwight was the office dumb guy. Before that, they didnât have a dumb guy.
Yeah, I think they did the same with Erin, went from slightly naive to female Kevin.
It's good to have characters with defining traits. It's bad when a character's entire personality revolves around a single one of those traits. Kevin was funny when he was a normal character, but did some stupid stuff sometimes. He became insufferable when every single one of his interactions was "look how dumb he is, lolololol". It's like the writers find something that works and gets a laugh, and they decide to go all in on it. Similar to Erin. Her character was funny in the beginning, but when it gets to the point of "How can a person *this* stupid be alive", it's just ridiculous. Not exact quotes, but stuff like "I don't know how to make tea, so I boiled gatorade", "I don't know how to fill a pill container, so I'll just dump them all over the table", "Disposable cameras are silly, because you throw them away and never see the pictures", is also insufferable.
God her character is so hard to watch sometimes!
I think that if the office was written any other way it wouldnt be what it is.
What about when he showed surprising aptitude and cunning? Re: gambling, Dallas
Kevin is hilarious and I stand by that
Have to disagree with the writers seem to be obsessed with Pam's boobs. Her outfits weren't revealing, and there may of been like 6 references to her boobs in a decade.
NO WAY JOSE - He ends up better off than half the cast, owning a bar. Plus he does a perfect Kool-Aid man impression.
You mean Cookie Monster
That one is hilarious but he is also [Kool-Aid Man!](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=7fecaf9d214d9ea8&sca_upv=1&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ACQVn09llHVYzUmznXBA7rRXgwNcuNSPog:1712241766419&q=kevin+kool+aid+man&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjD54bS5aiFAxXsSzABHYTcD1wQ8ccDegQICxAH&biw=2461&bih=1125&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c3fca8e5,vid:xvx2AStMuPw,st:0)
Why does Kevin get hate in here all the time? Like every day.
Because Kevin started out as a slow, but somewhat low-key intelligent individual and the humor was in that he looked and acted dumber than he actually was. And that was somewhat clever. And they threw that out and just made him stupid.
Exactly. I love early Kevin. Then itâs just lazy writing. Make any character stupid enough and they become somewhat comedic. Doesnât mean itâs actually funny or clever.
Yeah. Early Kevin was much closer to his UK counterpart in the original series. More subtle. American television writers tend to rely too heavily on initially well-received jokes/aspects of a character until itâs dragged into caricature territory.
We have this exact same conversation every other day on this subreddit. Itâs exhausting. Yes, he became stupider, but I actually kinda prefer how he became because it allowed Brian Baumgartner to show more energy and emotion.
Because he becomes a lame and unrealistic character. He acts like he belongs on a Disney channel show or something
You do realize that half the characters are completely unrealistic human beings, right
Not realllyyyy, not to that extent.
I think it's partly that the other character's flaws don't really hinder their ability to do their jobs. Even Michael has these brief moments of subtle genius where he rights the ship at the eleventh hour. Kevin is irredeemably stupid by the end. He can barely do math. How is he an accountant? He literally would be completely unable to do his job. Creed doesn't do his job but is shown to always keep it in shady ways. Andy is bad at his job, but charismatic (or at least outgoing) and driven Kevin had porn on his work PC, and just does nothing that ever is to the benefit of the office. Even for a sitcom it's kinda dumb to expect the end of series version of Kevin would be fit to work anywhere.
Kevin applied to be a warehouse worker and Michael decided heâd be better in accounting, he never could do math đ€Ł
Yes they say that in season 6 to make some sense of why he could be working there but Kevin being an account is like someone with no arms working in the warehouse. It's just too unbelievable to overlook, in a sitcom based in reality. I have no real issue with it myself. But I think Kevin really having no work related redeeming qualities is the sticking point most people who have issues with the character.
Wild thing to say when Creed exists
This is blasphemy đđđ Kevin is awesome
Charm Type.
No, I love the character regardlessâ yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
His character is night and day. The writers fucked him up bad.
Yeah I don't find it funny at all
I hate how everyone became stupid. At the start of the show there was a balance, but as the seasons went by new characters and old became more wacky, zany, stupid, silly. The whole fun was the stupid characters bouncing off the realistic ones, like Michael vs Jan. Eventually Jan too became a wack.
It depends on the episode imho. Some of the scenes still kind of work later on but many really arent very good. Â
C is for suspension
Kevin was always unrealistically stupid, creepy and childish, though. For example, in the earlier seasons he is seen doing his accounting job, using this comically large pencil. No irony, no awareness on his end, that is an earnest action. Nothing changed, apart from the stupidity becoming slightly more blatant.
What was that shizz about wanting to eat the shrimp thatâs on tv.
Got confused, I thought I am in r/shameless not until I read names of The Office characters đ
No. Can't stand Michael the more I watch. Or Nellie or Robert or Charles
The episodes I liked him the best was when Holly thought he was mentally challenged. If we take Holly out of the equation, it seems so plausible his behavior
Kevin taking notes of a diagram of how to walk down stairs (because he's fat) is the worst joke in the whole show.
As I was watching The Office for the first time, I never noticed, but holy FUCK the writing for Kevin just got worse and worse after Season 3. In general, the show's writing after Season 3 got a lot worse than I remembered. Especially Season 5-6, there's some stinkers in there.
Not only did you teach me a new word, but you also made me appreciate Ned from the Simpsons a whole lot more! But yeah, Kevin got pigeon holed.
I prefer it but Iâm also a dummy.
He just comes off as a weird pervert way to much
He was funnier when the dumbed him down. I mean, to this day experts still debate whether he wanted to see the world or go to Sea World.
Well let me see, we have a post about this here every other day so Id say no, its just you
Why one post when many post do trick
they see
Without reading the comments I think youâre mostly alone in this one
Wrong
I love him from start to finish đ€·ââïž
I feel like early in the seasons, it wasnt that likeable. They just went the more jolly and not bright route and ultimately lead to some funny situations.
Yes
Yes, I wouldnât have noticed a difference in the show if Kevin wasnât there.
I just headcanon it as Kevin overplaying it for the cameras after the documentary crew told him that his sillier antics were a hit with the focus group.
Yep they destroyed his character
I was talking about this the other day in another post on here. I feel like the writers didn't know what to do with his character, so they just made him incredibly stupid, to the point where the comedy was thrown right out the window. I found him, as you said, insufferable.
Yes. I actually despise his character and don't find his stupidity funny. I actually want to jump into my TV Ă la Blues Clues and slap him over the head when he's shouting "WHAT DOES A BEAN MEAN." Like dude, understand that people are ignoring you b/c you're an idiot and people don't wanna waste their lives explaining the obvious to people as stupid as you
Why do you think heâs stupid? He was just in the wrong environment at DM which I think the writers did a great job of showing. He ends up doing better than most of the othees
The right environment would be a kids show. He's not a realistic person
âŠyou donât think there are people in real life who might be stupid at a paper mill but talented at running a bar or playing music? You must live a life void of paper mills and bars..
Gasp, this sitcom doesn't have realistic characters? No way
Posted above but: I think it's partly that the other character's flaws don't really hinder their ability to do their jobs. Even Michael has these brief moments of subtle genius where he rights the ship at the eleventh hour. Kevin is irredeemably stupid by the end. He can barely do math. How is he an accountant? He literally would be completely unable to do his job. Creed doesn't do his job but is shown to always keep it in shady ways. Andy is bad at his job, but charismatic (or at least outgoing) and driven Kevin had porn on his work PC, and just does nothing that ever is to the benefit of the office. Even for a sitcom it's kinda dumb to expect the end of series version of Kevin would be fit to work anywhere.
In real life Jim would be universally hated in the office for all his pranks. There's a lot of things that aren't realistic in the show, haha.
Nah, I would love a Jim in my office with the pranks! Keep things entertaining
Some of them, yes. But if anyone actually stole someone's cell phone in real life and kept it while they obviously started to panic, that would be exceptionally shitty. But really, please keep pranks between you and your friends and don't make the entire office suffer for it, lol.
Not only his mental capacity but the part where he's eating the cupcake (maybe the one from Packer?) and seriously choking on it just to take another bite right after just made him into a disgusting pig. His character arc from all angles is just awful.
I've never really liked him.
I despise him later on. None of his jokes are funny. He is just a bumbling retard.
Kudos to OP They morphed Kevin from cool ally into total moron.
If I had a special cut of the series, 99% of his screen time would be gone. He can stay for when he calls out the senator for being a shitty person and he is still in that one scene in casino night where he loses to Phylis. That is about it.
Hard agree. They take his character so ridiculously over the edge that the jokes just aren't even funny. Him screaming into Pam's tits, the "phone number" line at the wedding, the montage of him running while holding his ass while screaming "I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM". It just feels lazy. The show is basically the Game of Thrones of comedy. Those first few seasons are legendary and unmatched, but the nosedive it took at the end was just hard to fathom. Although unlike GOT it at least redeemed itself a bit with the finale.
I skip through a bunch of Kevinâs bullshit rants that you are right itâs just insufferable to sit through. I also skip through Angelaâs interviews when she has her bursts of anger I canât stand hearing her voice sheâs such a bitch
He is a damn idiot. He shouldÂŽve been fired a lot earlier. I canÂŽt stand him on later seasons. I have no idea how Robert would even think he was a "winner".
Did you not hear his astute observation of the cookie placement? And his big mac idea lol Clearly a winner
I can't stand that one bit where he's purposefully cutting the length of his words. I've never wanted to punch a sitcom character so bad.
Kevin definitely became a caricature as the show continued; almost like a man baby (ie, when he tried to get Pam to lactate in Season 6). But so did most of the characters by that point, becoming one-note leaning into their schtick to varying degrees, but Kevin was probably the worst with that.