After a lengthy layoff, the nation’s favorite TV show is coming back, and with it, the return of intense fan scrutiny, wild theorizing, and mass pandemonium.
Kevin Can Wait, CBS’s hit sitcom about a dad who’s just searching for some dang peace and quiet in his house, makes its long awaited return in September. Several of meticulous, thorough fan theories were not proven correct, but fans have a lot to look forward to in Season 2.
Warning: Spoilers from the first season of Kevin Can Wait to follow.
Kevin Can Wait Will Also Be Revealed To Be Part Of The King Of Queens Cinematic Universe
As astute readers will recall, Kevin Can Wait has already hinted that it takes place after the events of Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Blart, scarred by his recent divorce and time as a mall cop, joins the Long Island PD and changes his identity to Kevin Gable. This hasn’t yet been confirmed as canon, but most fans accept it as such.
However, the fact that co-star Erinn Hayes is leaving the show after one season is rather intriguing. True Kevin heads will remember the tumultuous Season 1 finale, where Hayes’s Donna lost her job while Kevin was pulled back to the force to try and capture an art forger. True Kevin Can Wait Wikipedia readers will also note that the two-part finale was called “Sting Of Queens.” Even if Kevin James is in fact younger in The King of Queens, his sudden forced employment at the conclusion of Kevin Can Wait Season 1 hints at a bleak future.
Untethered from his wife’s steady income as a public servant, Kevin flails. His work at the department starts to slip. With money tight, he’s forced to take a job as a deliveryman and, after he remarries, live with his wife’s eccentric father. Much like his daughter Taylor lived with him in Kevin, he too is forced to live with a parent (in-law, but close enough).
And Kevin’s new wife? None other than Leah Remini, who played his wife on Queens and just so happened to join the regular cast of Kevin this season as a detective who works with Gable. The through lines are clear and obvious. Kevin is a Queens prequel.
Season 2 Is An Extended Allegory For Remini’s Escape From Scientology
Remini’s move to the main cast of Kevin Can Wait means she will take on her highest profile role since the airing of her A&E Scientology tell-all series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. Now that Remini is unburdened and free of the church and its celebrity devotees, several fans are theorizing that the show will use its reach to tell the hidden story of her escape.
After Season 1 ends, Kevin rejoins the force alongside Remini. It’s clear that he’ll quickly become a package deliveryman and set in motion the events of Queens soon enough, but before that, it’s not hard to see the newly reunited duo of Gable and Remini’s Vanessa Cellucci work the art dealer case all the way to the top. Where is the top? One fan theory, which definitely exists, posits that it’s a shady businessman who tightly controls access to Mets fantasy camp tickets and only doles them out to people who go attend curiously secretive seminars by center-right radio personalities. Gable or Cellucci may be forced to go undercover and eventually escape his grasp to reveal his practices for all the world to see.
Kevin’s Loser Son-In-Law Is A Ghost Too
As last season (maybe) proved, Kevin’s daughter is a malevolent spirit who’s in his life to remind him of the daughter he abandoned after the events of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. The presence of his new “daughter’s” alleged British husband Chale—yes, Chale—is a sign that Kevin is still slowly being driven insane by the stress of running away from his life as a mall cop and all those he wronged while on the job. Notice that in Season 1, no other characters (probably) interact with Chale besides Kevin’s new daughter (I think) and Kevin. Since Kevin is haunted by evil from the Spirit Realm, it serves to reason that Chale is a ghost too.