ORDINARY ANGELS (AFTERLIFE, SEASON THREE)
Walking up to a security man, he reveals what appears to be dynamite strapped to him.
"What kind of a clown are you?," the guard asks.
"The crying on the inside kind, I guess," Grimm drolly replies.
In all three series of 'After Life,' the crying of Ricky Gervais has been very much on the outside.
A drama masquerading as a sitcom, the English comedian and actor's show has revelled in the tears of its clown.
There's no doubt the show has built a loyal fanbase among some people on Netflix.
Its focus on the grief of a man who has lost his wife to cancer has struck a chord with those who have gone through similar pain.
'After Life,' however, is a hard watch.
It indulges some of the worst aspects of Gervais' comic persona.
There's a cruel streak to his treatment of some characters.
The show also often oversteps the bounds of crudity and its mix of self pity and shock tactics can be really jarring.
Sometimes, it seems Gervais doesn't know when to stop.
Or more likely, there's no one around him on the production brave enough to tell him when to rein it in.
Written and directed by Gervais, series three of 'After Life' continues in this vein.
The third series finds Gervais' journalist Tony Johnson still struggling with the loss of his wife, Kerry Godliman's Lisa to cancer.
(SPOILER ALERT!!)
Tony also buries his father Ray, played by David Bradley, who passed away after succumbing to dementia.
As he wallows in his grief, his relationship with Ashley Jensen's care home worker Emma goes nowhere, failing to graduate beyond the platonic.
Tony also continues to lash out at some of those around him.
In series three, his brother in law and boss at the Tambury Gazette, Tom Basden's Matt bears the brunt of his resentment at efforts to try and fix him.
He also occasionally tosses cruel quips at the expense of Diane Morgan's lonely advertising colleague Kath who undergoes a series of disastrous dates.
Alongside Tony Way's photographer Lenny, he despairs at the parade of lonely and sometimes eccentric people they meet while covering stories or he rails against the cruelty of society.
Meanwhile Joe Wilkinson's postman Pat bends his ear about his troubled romantic relationship with Roxy, a prostitute Tony set him up with on a date in the previous series.
David Earl's cuckolded hoarder and aspiring comedian Brian develops a friendship with Ethan Lawrence's wannabe entertainer James who is increasingly frustrated by his camp am dram mentor and agent, Colin Hoult's Ken Ottley.
Brian's foul autobiographical jokes also continue to fall flat, especially when he road tests them on Michelle Greenidge's receptionist at the Tambury Gazette, Valerie.
Lenny is getting ready to marry Jo Hartley's June who is James' mum and is planning to make her own wedding dress.
A new member of staff, Kath Hughes' Colleen has started at the Gazette as a reporter and is struggling to find a decent, affordable apartment to live in.
Apart from when he is with his dog, Tony is at his sweetest when he is sitting on a cemetery bench alongside Penelope Wilton's widow Anne who he shares observations about grief.
However as the third series wears on, it is clear Anne, who is concerned for him, is moving on with her life and has developed a companionship with Peter Egan's kind Tambury Gazette owner Paul, who Tony introduced her to in the previous series.
As Tony continues to obsess over archive video of Lisa, the third series focuses on whether he can reach a point of acceptance about her death and learn to live again.
'After Life,' though, remains a deeply frustrating watch.
The dramatic elements often sit uneasily with the toe curlingly crude comedy.
The spite that Tony shows doesn't always fit comfortably alongside Gervais' desperation to show his character is really a decent guy.
The unexplained absence of Mandeep Dhillon's reporter Sandy also leaves a hole in the third series, while the treatment of Roisin Conaty's absent prostitute character Roxy is deeply dissatisfying.
Having built Roxy up over two series to buck the perception of sex workers and show she has a good heart, we are suddenly told she doesn't come around to check on Tony anymore and seems more interested in being a prostitute.
In her absence, she is reduced to crude references about her performing sex acts on locals.
It's hard to escape the fact that Lawrence's James also continues to feel like a particularly cruel pop at James Corden - although Gervais does try to build some sympathy for him in the latter episodes.
A sequence at a fair in the final episode featuring all the characters plus Tony's former date Tracy Ann Oberman's Rebecca and Steve Speirs' Dog Shit Man appears to be a frantic attempt to tie all loose ends neatly.
But it also feels gauche like the climax of Shakespeare's weakest comedies.
Wilton, Way, Basden, Lawrence, Jensen, Godliman, Bradley, Hartley, Wilkinson, Hughes, Earl, Egan, Oberman, Speirs and Hoult soldier through a series that is glum and laboured.
Diane Morgan emerges, though, with considerable credit as Kath, engaging our sympathies as she develops her character's sense of loneliness.
Tim Key makes an inspired comic appearance too as an obnoxious, bossy school teacher she dates.
But these are rare highlights in a comedy drama whose third and final series just feels like a morose chore.
It's time not just for Gervais' character Tony to move on.
Gervais needs to move on from his shtick of making quips that often overstep the bounds while desperately tugging at our heart strings to prove he's a good guy.
It was a tired tactic in series one of 'After Life'.
In series three it's so worn out, he has rubbed a massive hole in it.
Here's hoping in his next venture he recovers his comedy mojo.
But if he is to do that, he needs to dial down the crudity and leave his crying on the inside.
Unfortunately that may be a force of habit that's just too hard to reverse.
(Series three of 'After Life' was released for streaming on Netflix on January 14, 2022)
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