‘The Last Man on Earth’
B
Imagine being the last man on Earth and finding out the last woman is absolutely awful.
On Fox’s new show, “The Last Man on Earth,” “Saturday Night Live” veteran Will Forte plays Phil Miller, a man who traveled through all of North America trying to find out if there was a single living soul remaining on ?the planet.
After months of entertaining himself by forcing exploding car collisions and playing racquetball in his foyer, Phil pleads for God to send him a woman because he is just so lonely and needs someone to interact with.
He promised that he would appreciate her and enjoy her, but when Phil discovers a woman named Carol living in a tent in Tucson, Ariz., things take a quick turn.
He realizes he completely hates her.
Carol is the kind of woman who pronounces tomato “toe-mah-toe” and corrects people for ending sentences with a preposition.
Phil begged for anyone in the world to interact with but now tries to avoid seeing Carol, let alone repopulating the Earth with her.
At first I wondered where the show, written by Forte, would go. What would the plot be? I mean, sure, watching Forte talk to inanimate balls and credit the movie “Cast Away” for nailing loneliness is entertaining but not exactly sustainable. Then Kristen Schaal, who plays Carol, comes along.
Schaal and Forte are both known for their absurdist humor. Schaal once personified her vagina in a stand-up special and Forte stuck sticks of celery in his bare bottom in the movie “MacGruber.”
That humor is on full display in “The Last Man on Earth” as expected, but the two-episode premiere shows there is a tiny heart inside the show that includes Forte using fish tanks as bowling pins.
Keep in mind that Forte was second billing in the Oscar-nominated drama “Nebraska.” He is not all jokes and absurdity.
I think the show is a story about loneliness and how difficult it is for isolated people to allow others into their lives. Phil is lonely but wants his privacy and alone time back when Carol invades his life.
Carol’s goal is to break down the hard exterior of Phil to display a nice, caring man deep down.
Despite his attempts to avoid this, he shows effort and does a big favor for her. Carol sees that he is not so awful when he tries not to take credit for it, but the show reminds us of how funny it can be when Phil feels the need to make sure she actually knows he did it.
I am still skeptical of where this show will go. How many storylines can be manufactured by a show about the last two people on Earth? Regardless, I’m in for a little while. I want to see where Forte takes us.
