AFTER LIFE
Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET
SEASON PREMIERE: The arrival of Season 2 of Ricky Gervais’ Netflix comedy, in which he plays a newspaper reporter grieving from the recent death of his wife, would seem to be ill-timed. At a time when all of us are feeling isolated and raw, why watch something with such a sad, depressing premise? I mean, really: These days, who can bear to watch a show about a poor soul who still works for a newspaper? Yet almost instantly, Gervais and After Life deliver the solid, unexpected laughs that felt almost like steam escaping from a pressure valve. You wouldn’t think it from the story line description: As the new season begins, Gervais’ Tony still is mired in his own grief, but accepts an assignment from his paper to go interview the oldest person in the tiny Worchestershire town of Tenbury, a woman who just turned 100 and got a congratulatory telegram from the Queen. Tony, hoping to write a simple, cheery feature story, and cure his own depression in the process, asks her a series of standard puff questions – but each and every answer of hers is pithy and bitter, and utterly hilarious. I’ll share tastes of three, then let you decide if After Life is for you at the moment. Q: “How did you feel when you got the telegram from the Queen?” A: “Same as I feel every other day. Dreadful. In pain. Wishing I hadn’t lived through the night.” Q: What advice would you give to someone to have a long life like yours?” A: “Don’t.” Q: “You must have seen a lot, though – 100 years!” A: “I was born in Tenbury. I will die in Tenbury – very soon, I hope. I’ve seen f***-all. I may as well have been a tree!”