Summary
After Life Episode 3 deals with Tony’s self-entitlement idea that people should care about him, as the series delves further into the character’s thought process.
This recap of After Life Episode 3 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
As we reach the halfway point of Netflix’s After Life, you can tell it was written about a character who is going through a process, and we are witnessing each stage of that process with each mini-episode. After Life Episode 3 navigates to Tony’s (Ricky Gervais) issue with other people; the “why does no-one care about my problems” ideology that seems to be burning through his brain at various points. He also confesses to his useless therapist that he does not want to feel sad anymore.
The funniest part of Episode 3 is when Tony confronts the drug addict who stole money off him while high. We learn that this addict, who is also the paper-boy for the paper company lives in a rundown garage, and his partner also died – which is why he spiraled into drugs. We learn this story from the sex-worker nearby who is asking Tony to show some sympathy for those who become addicts.
Tony pays the sex-worker to do some house chores for £50, rather than paying her for sexual pleasure. Here we learn of Tony’s attitude to addicts, that he does not play the “it’s a disease” blame game, and that everyone is entitled to make their own decisions. So we are primarily dealing with a character that refuses to accept other people’s problems but wants others to care for him.
The most awkward moment of the series is in After Life Episode 3 – Matt (Tom Basden) decides to pay for everyone to go to a comedy club night to grow morale in the team. At the club, a comedian makes a suicide joke and then asks Tony what his story is. Tony morbidly explains that his wife dies and, there is no point in him living anymore and that he thinks about suicide every day. This scene was tragic, awkward and funny at the same time.
Tony gets a taste of his own medicine when he visits his dad in the nursing home. After berating him again for not remembering that his wife his dead, the nurse tries to politely explain that going along with it may make him happy. Tony being his usual miserable self tries to lay his miserableness into her, but she ends up calling him a cunt, which I felt amused him slightly.
As After Life Episode 3 ends, Tony gets his half of the drugs from the addict who stole his money – and as he smokes a little hash mixed with heroin, he realizes that they are both very similar. They are both numbing emotional pain.
You can check out our recap of the fourth episode by clicking these words.
