One of my favorite storytelling tropes is The Curse Of The Burdensome Friend. Or sometimes it’s the Burdensome Brother—or Sister or Cousin. What I’m talking about are characters that our heroes just can’t shake, no matter how much they need to, because they’ve been close to these highly problematic people for years. The Burdensome types tend to drag the protagonists into trouble. They’re cocky, careless, and very good at applying peer pressure. That’s because, to the incorrigible, the good guys are too good—too prim, too skittish. They need to lighten the hell up.
Baby Reindeer writer-star Richard Gadd’s new miniseries Half Man first introduces Ruben Pallister—a man about as Burdensome as they come—at the wedding of his old friend Niall Kennedy. In the few minutes we spend with Niall (Jamie Bell) in this first episode, he comes across as meek to a fault. But maybe that’s because when we first meet him, he’s just been pulled away from the festivities against his will by Ruben (Gadd), who promptly gropes at Niall’s crotch and then punches the crap out of him.
We again see this older, animalistic Ruben—grunting and snorting, with a predatory stare—at the end of the episode, still at the wedding. There, he gives Niall a sip of whiskey, wipes the blood from his old friend’s lips, and lies down next to him on the ground. He then ominously says, “It’ll be over soon,” as he places his hand over Niall’s face.
Those are the bookends for Half Man’s first episode, most of which is devoted to a long flashback to Ruben and Niall’s teenage years. Young Niall (Mitchell Robertson) is leading a hellish life before the arrival of Young Ruben (Stuart Campbell). He’s being bullied mercilessly by his classmates, and he doesn’t have much that brings him joy outside of nerd culture favorites like Doctor Who and Indiana Jones. Then Ruben—the juvenile delinquent son of an old family friend—transfers to Niall’s school, where he begins tormenting Niall’s tormentors. He starts by going after Gus (Piers Ewart), the worst of the worst, who in an infuriating scene early in the episode takes Niall’s collection of Indiana Jones stickers, wipes Niall’s favorite one against his genitals, then stuffs it in Niall’s mouth.
The plot of this first episode is largely concerned with the two boys bonding by swapping favors. After Ruben absolutely obliterates Gus—partly to help out Niall and partly because Ruben is violently ornery by nature—Niall makes Ruben’s life easier at school in the only way he really can, by helping Ruben cheat on a test. There’s a big placement exam coming; and if Ruben fails, it could scuttle his future. So, during the practice exam—which can, if needed, count as the real exam—Niall sneakily fills in Ruben’s booklet after Ruben causes a disturbance and gets kicked out.
Gadd’s script—imbued with a quiet intensity by director Alexandra Brodski—doesn’t immediately explain in full why Ruben is suddenly part of Niall’s life. We’re told that they knew each other before Ruben was institutionalized; and we’re told that Niall is terrified of Ruben. But Ruben’s mother, Maura (Marianne McIvor), is living with Niall’s mother, Lori (Neve McIntosh), and so Ruben becomes Niall’s roommate, whether he likes it or not. By the end of the episode, we’ll find out what’s going on with Lori and Maura. It turns out they’re lovers—which is one of the reasons Niall gets picked on at school.
As for Niall’s own sexuality…well, that too remains a tantalizing mystery throughout this episode. When he comes home from school one day to find Ruben redecorating their bedroom with posters of punks and jocks, it’s hard not to notice how Niall’s eyes are drawn to the muscular young boxers in one picture. As the two boys settle into a daily routine, Niall often sneaks peeks at his new roommate whenever Ruben doffs his shirt or dances. And then one night—after Ruben’s drunken father shows up outside the house, screaming—Ruben physically prevents Niall from leaving their bedroom, holding him tight until morning. Niall wakes up to find his own ejaculate staining his shorts.
Here’s the thing about Ruben: From what we’ve seen of him so far, he appears to be legitimately unhinged. Sometimes troubled adolescents in stories like these are merely misunderstood; and it’s certainly likely that the same is true of Ruben. (He does seem to be quite intelligent, in his own way.) But my goodness is he ever angry—scarily so. He won’t do anything he doesn’t want to, no matter how much of a hard-ass any authority figure tries to be. If Niall is painfully sensitive, Ruben is the opposite: aggressively indifferent.
There’s a little bit of an over-familiarity problem with this first Half Man. It plays a little like My Bodyguard and a lot like the hundreds of novels/plays/movies/songs about the Darwinian hell that is a U.K. boys’ school (a Scottish one, in this case). What sets the episode apart are its present-day framing device—suggesting that this story will move beyond teen angst—and several scenes of Gadd doing what Gadd does best.
It may seem strange to credit Gadd with having a particular touch, given that his only notable TV work thus far is Baby Reindeer, the Emmy-winning drama/thriller which became a surprise obsession for Netflix subscribers in 2024. But Baby Reindeer’s dark appeal is pretty distinctive. Its story of a casual acquaintance who becomes a dreadful nuisance is incredibly compelling, filled with twists and escalations. And threaded through Baby Reindeer is a frank depiction of unconventional sexual desire, rooted in gender fluidity, masochism, shame, and the erotic appeal of the transgressive.
There are two scenes in particular in the Half Man premiere that push those same kinds of buttons. In the first, after Lori and Maura ask Niall to help with Ruben’s exam, Maura tries to soften Niall up by tickling him. It’s clearly something she used to do when he was younger, but now that he’s a teenager—and as he becomes increasingly aware that his mom’s “friend” is something more—the physical contact feels uncomfortably intimate. He reflexively responds by kicking Maura.
The second scene is this episode’s most bravura. After Niall cheats on the test, Ruben comes home in a celebratory mood with Mona (Charlotte Blackwood), a girl he’s picked up. Niall peeks at the two of them fooling around, and when they catch him, Ruben has Mona mount Niall, who is initially too anxious to respond physically to the buxom nude lady writhing on top of him. Mona tries speaking in different sexy voices and urging Niall to “focus on how things feel,” but he still struggles to maintain an erection. Then Ruben gets right in Niall’s face—so close that they could kiss—and holds on to Niall’s penis. Nature takes its course.
The moment is both sensual and discomfiting—exciting and abusive. It’s tough to say how Half Man is going to connect up what happens in that room that night to what happens at Niall’s wedding decades later. But once again, as with Baby Reindeer, Gadd has delivered something so explosively charged that it’s hard to look away.
Stray observations
- • My Half Man song of the week is Ian Dury’s “Clever Trever,” from the provocatively titled (and excellent) 1977 album New Boots And Panties!!
- • It’s worth noting that the last words of this episode—“it’ll be over soon”—echo what Ruben says to Gus before breaking the bully’s spirit.
- • I haven’t watched any of this miniseries beyond this episode, but I couldn’t help but notice that in the closing credits Gus and Mona are listed as “Young Gus” and “Young Mona.” We probably haven’t seen the last of those characters.
- • Even though Gadd first came to prominence as a comedian, I wouldn’t call Baby Reindeer or Half Man “comedies.” That said, I did laugh at the moment in this episode when the teacher walks into the classroom—right as Niall is pinned against the wall and being forced to taste a sticker smeared with Gus’s crotch-sweat—and without even looking at what’s happening, says, “Okay degenerates, settle down.”
- • The Half Man production-design team does a fine job of externalizing the sexual tension and confusion hanging in the air at Niall’s home, like when he walks into the bathroom after being snuggled by Ruben all night and we see Lori and Maura’s bras and stockings drying in the shower.
- • Ruben may be a brute, but he can be pretty astute. While Niall stresses out about his mom’s lesbian lifestyle, Ruben quite rightly shrugs it off, saying, “10 years time, you’ll be at a party somewhere and realize it makes you more interesting.”
Noel Murray is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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