Half Man is such a loaded title, isn’t it? It’s so provocative, raising confrontational questions. What constitutes a full man? Does Niall measure up? Does Ruben? If you put them together, do they become one functioning male person?
With all six episodes of this miniseries now out into the world, I think we can definitively answer that final question with, “No, absolutely not.” Put Niall and Ruben in the same place at the same time and they only exacerbate each other’s worst traits. Ruben gets angrier. Niall gets needier. And yet—for a number of reasons, both sensible and twisted—they can’t stay apart. So what choice do they have? To destroy their demons, they must kill each other. The final scene in the Half Man finale sees Niall stab Ruben at the wedding and then Ruben beat and choke Niall until he dies. Presumably, given that we saw his corpse at the end of episode four, Ruben either perishes from own knife-wounds or finishes himself off.
To me, this ending is a cop-out. It’s too easy… too cheaply dramatic. It’s also inevitable, given Richard Gadd’s general approach to this story. Half Man is rarely subtle. A more nuanced drama wouldn’t contain a conversation like the one at the start of this finale, which has Ruben in the barn with Niall at the wedding, demanding that his “brother from another lover” express exactly how he feels, with no caveats. Does Niall love Ruben? And exactly where in his body does that love manifest? Niall tries to dance around the question, but finally he just bluntly says what everybody already knows: Being with Ruben is the best, the worst, and the only thing that makes Niall feel truly alive.
That opening scene sets the tone for an episode that features some genuinely gripping moments, threaded between a lot of frustratingly belated and obvious explanations for exactly how these two half-men ended up at each other’s throats.
Obvious explanation #1: Yes, Niall got famous for writing a book about Ruben. It’s called The Rising Sun, and though he insists it’s a work of fiction, reporters are all too aware of Ruben and his crimes—including his stomping of Benji in last week’s episode, which landed him back in prison. To Niall’s persistent consternation, the press is more interested in hearing Niall talk about Ruben than they are in him talking about himself. (One twist to this development: Ruben actually likes being an infamous public figure who inspired acclaimed literature. “I’m the main character in this relationship,” he gloats.)
Obvious explanation #2: Ruben was sexually molested by his father. I by no means want to downplay the character’s pain here (or the pain of anyone who has had similar experiences, goodness knows). But while I appreciate how Gadd is willing to make the audience squirm throughout Ruben’s story—especially when he describes his physical reactions to being assaulted, and the “intimacy” he felt—the critic in me can’t help but note that “a troubled character has a dark trauma in his/her/their past that won’t be revealed until the final act” is a storytelling cliché, common to hackneyed indie films.
Obvious explanation #3: Niall fathered a son with Ruben’s wife, Mona. This was bound to happen after they slept together, given that so much of last week’s episode concerned Ruben’s infertility. This turns out to be the real spark for Ruben’s raging ire at the wedding. The “miracle child”—who stirred such pride in his manhood—is not his.
Although Mona’s motherhood is unsurprising, her scenes in this episode are some of the best. She’s a ticking bomb strapped to Niall’s chest, bound to explode and take him out. Early on, he warns her to stop drinking and stop visiting Ruben in prison, lest she get sloppy and spill their secret. Instead, she spends even more time with Ruben to spite Niall, whom she’s come to despise. Sure enough, when Ruben gets a temporary release from jail to go to his mother’s funeral, he walks in on Niall and Mona in heated conversation and he gets violently jealous at what he presumes is an ongoing romantic relationship. Mona realizes immediately that she’s pushed things too far.
This episode’s other big highlights involve the return of Alby to Niall’s life—finally connecting the flashbacks to the wedding. They meet again under embarrassing circumstances. Alby has become a nurse, and works at a clinic Niall visits when his habit of taking drugs and having unprotected sex gives him syphilis and chlamydia.
I’m on record as finding Niall’s hesitancy about his sexuality unconvincing, when nearly everyone he cares about already knows. But his weird hangup does lead to some sweet scenes with Alby, who is amused to see that Niall puts down on his intake form that he sleeps with ladies. (“I’m bi,” Niall insists. “Have you told yourself?” Alby asks.) The chemistry between these two is every bit as strong as when they were college kids, which is nice, given that Niall is rarely so likable as when he’s bantering with a man he clearly loves.
Alas, Niall’s baser nature always wins out. Even though he promises Alby that he’s done with dope and dalliances, he soon finds himself back at a bathhouse, where he gets arrested after tweaking out and crashing his car into a lamppost. The whole spectacle is witnessed by a journalist, who threatens to out Niall—forcing him, at last, to come out to Ruben.
This big moment—something the whole miniseries has been building to—is initially handled well, as have most of the one-on-one scenes between Gadd and Jamie Bell. Ruben, of course, has long-suspected the truth about Niall, and berates him for taking so long to admit it. Niall tries to blame Ruben for his spending so long in the closet, noting all the times he tossed anti-gay slurs around. They’re “just words,” Ruben shrugs, adding, “This is all your shit, son. Got nothing to do with me.”
The conversation then takes a turn, with Ruben telling the story about his dad and Niall confessing that he impregnated Mona. It’s during this scene that Ruben drops the series’ title, saying that being taken advantage of sexually “makes you a half-man.” As an actor, Gadd admirably commits to every difficult second of this conversation. But as a writer, he’s doing way too much underlining. He also could’ve done without the overt sexual overtones of the show’s ending, in which Ruben’s grunting and gasping while wrestling with Niall and a knife makes it sound like he’s ejaculating. It’s all too much.
And it’s disappointing, because at times this show was capable of being more slyly ambiguous. Niall’s addiction to dangerous anonymous sex, even after coupling up with Alby, makes one wonder whether their marriage would’ve been a happy one. Ruben gives a speech at Maura’s funeral about how he should’ve worked harder on their mother-son bond, and for a moment he seems unusually aware of the responsibility he bears for his wasted life. Killing off these characters at the end of Half Man, rather than leaving them to stew in who they are and why… Well, like I said, it’s cheap. I’d even go so far as to call it corny.
At its most exciting, Half Man wasn’t making broad, heavy-handed observations about masculinity per se. The show was more about these two men specifically, and what each provided to the other that they lacked on their own. For Niall, Ruben was his muscle and his bank. Ruben, meanwhile, needed Niall to get him through school and to father his son. One man couldn’t tamp down his violent rage. The other couldn’t escape his habitual lying and sexual compulsions. No, they didn’t make one functioning human together. But they did combine into one complicated man. That’s the person the Half Man ending betrays.
Stray observations
- • Gadd’s roots are in comedy—of the conceptual, confrontational, Edinburgh Fringe Festival variety—and there are moments in the Half Man finale that suggest a different, funnier version of the show. One of my favorites: After a sickly, doped up Niall spews all over Maura’s dying body and ends up going to the hospital alongside her, Lori sardonically commends him for sharing an ambulance and helping out “a stretched NHS.”
- • Here’s another good joke: After Maura dies, Niall delivers the news to Ruben, and when Ruben asks if his mother passed quickly, Niall reminds him, “She was diagnosed 20 years ago,” adding, “Factor in the last few years of considerable decline….”
- • Another good joke: After Niall’s arrest, the cops give him a blood test and tell him they found evidence he used meth and crack cocaine, to which an astonished Niall replies, “Didn’t know about the second one.”
- • One last joke: At a press conference for Niall’s novel, he waves off questions about his inspirations, saying, “A good writer never reveals his sources,” to which some wag in the back of the room shouts, “Reveal your sources then!”
- • That’s a wrap on Half Man, a miniseries that showed some early promise, and which featured some outstanding performances and memorable moments. It was also overlong, repetitive, predictable and too self-serious. But Richard Gadd remains a writer and actor worth following, and I’ll be interested in whatever he does next. An actual comedy, maybe?
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