Freshman year of college is often a huge reset for some kids—a chance to meet new people, explore new interests, and maybe try out a new personality. All of that is on the table for Niall when he arrives at Glasgow West University at the start of Half Man’s second episode. In fact, his mom practically begs him to take advantage of this opportunity when she drops him off. Be bold. Have fun. And please—please—get away from Ruben.
But who does Niall want to be? That’s the question that stymies him. On his first day at uni, he meets his two female flatmates—the sexually voracious Celeste (Philippine Velge) and the peppy Joanna (Julie Cullen)—who both pick on him for being shy, comparing him to their other flatmate, Alby (Bilal Hasna), who is obviously gay. As soon as Niall hears that being introverted reads as “homosexual,” he turns on a dime into a party animal, drinking and flirting with both ladies.
And yet! When Niall meets Alby, their connection is so immediate that it’s undeniable, even for the skittish Niall. He tries to pretend otherwise, telling Alby that he picked Glasgow for college for “the music, the nightlife, the women.” But Alby can tell. He describes Niall as “a performer” who should be majoring in theater. Then when Niall gets so drunk that he pees his pants, it’s Alby who gets him home and cleans him up.
The whole experience rattles Niall so much that he calls Ruben and asks him to visit. (“I just don’t feel like myself here,” he sobs.) And it’s here—for the first time in Half Man—that I said to myself, “I don’t buy it.” There’s a lot to recommend about this episode; don’t get me wrong. But while Richard Gadd makes some plotting choices that pay off well by the end of the hour, he makes one big decision that leaves a yawning gap in the story.
I’m speaking here of the way Half Man leaps ahead a few years in its extended flashback. The time jump means we miss out on a lot of Niall/Ruben bonding. Seeing them become closer might’ve helped explain why Niall invites such a destructive force back into his life after only a couple of days in Glasgow. We do hear Lori describe their relationship, lamenting how her son seemed in thrall to Ruben back home. (“You strut around town like you’ll never pay taxes,” she says. That’s a good line.) But outside of that strange erotic encounter between the two boys and Mona in Half Man‘s premiere, we’ve really only ever seen the Niall/Ruben dynamic in one mode: Ruben acting scary, and Niall feeling scared.
That’s more or less how things play out after Niall asks Ruben to come to Glasgow. At first, it seems like Ruben might do what Niall apparently hoped he’d do: make Niall look cooler. They do a little boxing practice while Celeste and Joanna watch, and then the ladies dress their wounds. Celeste is hot for Niall and Joanna is excited about Ruben, so when all four of them play spin the bottle together, it looks like they’re about to have a sweet, sexy time together.
But it all goes sour. First, Ruben makes the game extra uncomfortable by smooching Celeste at length while Joanna fumes and then by demanding a reluctant Alby join the game—and kiss Niall. Later, they all go to a students-only pub/disco, where Ruben does cocaine with Celeste and sneaks in through the roof, causing a scene. (“How did we get from hunter-gatherers to student unions?” he sneers.) At the club he spits in Joanna’s face before heading off to have sex with Celeste. Later, Niall comes home from class to find Ruben and Celeste on acid, surrounded by broken dishes. When Niall invites him to lunch for what Ruben derisively calls “one of his wee chats,” Ruben defiantly declares he’s not leaving Glasgow any time soon. (“We share everything,” he hisses. “Why should you get all this for free?”)
Aside from the way it ends—which I’ll get to shortly—there’s an obviousness to the way the Ruben story plays out. Of course his visit brings chaos. We only spent around 20 minutes with him in the first Half Man, but that was enough to see what kind of troublemaker he is. Surely Niall must’ve known how this was all going to go?
Maybe that’s what he wanted. Maybe Niall’s more comfortable in chaos. Honestly, we haven’t seen enough of him to make that determination. We do hear him explain to Alby that he needs Ruben around because “we’re practically the same person.” (“You’re not remotely,” a stunned Alby replies.) So maybe Ruben represents how Niall would like to see himself…that is, if he didn’t already know, deep down, that he’s gay.
The other major mark against this episode is how it handles the conversation Niall has with Alby about homosexuality. He talks about his feelings—and about having a gay mom—with a bluntness that feels like Gadd transcribing his notes on Niall’s character directly into the script. “It’s different with men; it’s more shameful,” Niall admits to Alby, before awkwardly adding, “By society’s standards, I mean.”
Aside from that exchange, though, the scenes with Niall and Alby are among Half Man’s best, introducing some much-needed levity and human connection to a series that can be awfully bleak. This is the first time we’ve really seen Niall just be chill around another person, cracking jokes and expressing himself. He does a charming Freddie Mercury impression for Alby and has a playful argument about whether The Great Escape or E.T. is a more perfect film. Niall is even refreshingly clear about his boundaries when it comes to physical affection, confessing that he’s still not sure he’s ready to kiss a man—no matter how much he really, really wants to.
All of this makes the final minutes of the episode more shocking. After he catches Niall lying to him about coming out, Alby starts to tell Ruben the truth. When Niall physically tries to restrain him, Alby’s instinctive violent reaction sets Ruben off. He punches and stomps Alby’s head repeatedly, in a scene horrifying to behold. (Stuart Campbell, playing Young Ruben, conveys uncontrollable rage very convincingly here.)
That’s not where the episode ends, though. As with the series premiere, this week’s chapter features framing scenes from Niall’s wedding—both of them set shortly before what we saw in episode one. We open with Niall and his mother talking about how hard relationships can be, as Niall frets about getting married. Then Lori warns that the uninvited Ruben is coming to the wedding. He arrives minutes later, clad in black and riding a black motorcycle—a visually striking harbinger of doom.
We close the episode with the wedding itself, which delivers two surprises. The first: Niall, so ashamed of his sexuality as a teen, is getting married to a man. The second: That man is Albert Franklin Safadi. In other words: It’s Alby (played by Charlie De Melo as an adult), still bearing scars from Ruben’s stomping.
Clearly, a lot has changed over the decades—except for one thing. Before Niall says “I do,” he waits for Ruben to give him the nod of approval. It’s not easy to make sense of Ruben’s dark hold on Niall. But the hold is clearly real. And Gadd still has four more episodes left to explain why.
Stray observations
- • Joanna is so openly excited about the possibility of Celeste and Niall having sex that Celeste mocks her, saying she’s “like having subtext around.” That’s pretty ironic, given how often the subtext becomes the text in this episode.
- • Speaking of Joanna, once again I must note that the credits call her “Young Joanna.” We’ll see her again.
- • Celeste, who is French, is quite keen to have sex with a Scotsman, because her idea of Scottish men has been formed by the burly cartoon mascot on a box of porridge. She even calls Niall “porridge man”—which takes on added layer of meaning later when she gropes his crotch and he remains flaccid.
- • Lori’s “first day of college” gift for Niall is a mug that says “STUDENT.” She explains that it doesn’t say “NUMBER ONE STUDENT” because the engraving cost 20 pence a letter. Also, Niall still has a lot to prove. (That the mug later gets smashed during Ruben’s acid-fueled tirade justifies his mother’s caution.)
- • Our Half Man Scottish signifier of the week is Irn-Bru, the non-alcoholic beverage that the teetotaling Alby drinks at the student union, earning some gentle mockery from Niall.
- • Our Half Man song of the week is The Boomtown Rats’ epic, Springsteenesque “Rat Trap,” easily my favorite song of theirs. (Alby, though, is not a fan. “Geldof’s a wanker,” he says.)
Noel Murray is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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