Show is on a mission, and it just might work
The show: Kevin (Probably) Saves the World, Season 1, Episode 1 The moment: The BMW
Kevin (Jason Ritter), a depressed finance dude who just moved in with his recently widowed sister and her flinty teenage daughter, saw a meteor crash into a field, touched it and unleashed Yvette (Kimberly Hébert Gregory), a “warrior for God” whom only he can see. She claims he’s a righteous soul, tasked to find 35 others, to protect humanity from self-destructing.
“Haven’t you always felt that you had a higher purpose?” she asks him. “No,” he replies. Gradually, though, he starts to change. “I think everything is beautiful and I don’t like it,” he complains.
Eventually, Yvette gets Kevin to park his BMW by a field and tells him, “You’ve spent your life focused on things that don’t matter . . . Once you let go of superficial trappings you’ll feel peace.” A combine harvester roars out of the field, crushing his car.
If a life coach and a wellness retreat had a baby, it would be this show. It’s religious, but in a “folkmusic service led by a minister who’s trying hard to be hip” sort of way. Yvette skirts dangerously close to being a “Magical Negro,” a Black character who exists to help the white lead find his true calling.
And yet, Ritter is so likeable in his bewilderment and sadness; and the show is so directed in its mission — “You’re too ironic on the surface to acknowledge this, but you wish your life felt less empty, so come on, admit that you’re really a softie, and let yourself feel love and beauty unabashedly” — that it might just work. Kevin (Probably) Saves the World airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on CTV and ABC. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.