Kevin's Parents (David Daker and Shelia Fearn)

Character Analysis

There are so many ways to be a bad parent. Kevin's parents have definitely found a few.

We'd be hard pressed to find shallower or more materialistic people. They sit in their suburban home with plastic covers on the furniture, fretting about their digital toaster and kitchen gadgets with the kind of resigned depression of the truly doomed. Here's their kid, all energy and enthusiasm and Greek warriors killing each other with their bare hands, and they still need an alarm on their digital watches to remind themselves when he has to go to bed.

Their materialism is something they have in common with Evil, who has a thing for technological gadgets and who wants to remake the world in his image. As far as Kevin's parents are concerned, it's already happened, and while they don't seem all that happy about it—seriously, that's a pair of truly miserable people, that is—they clearly don't have the motivation to seek anything better, even for their kid.

Naturally, since they're down with Evil's plan, by temperament if not by active consent, we're bound to see signs of them in Evil's fortress—such as the illusion of them as co-hosts of the insipid game show they keep watching. When, at the very end, a piece of Evil shows up in their toaster and quickly blasts them into tiny globules of smoking ash, it's no less than they deserve. While Kevin is understandably shocked at the sight, we're pretty sure he'll be better off without them.