Summary
Half Man excels itself in Episode 4, delivering one of the finest stretches of acting and writing anywhere this year, and raising the stakes of the overarching plot even further.
Every time I think I have Half Man figured out, it surprises me. Every time I feel some problems might be manifesting, it acknowledges those problems itself, and reveals they’re part of some cleverer underlying point I didn’t realise was being made. Every time I think we’ve seen the most horrific outcomes, the most serious consequences, and the most startling moments of acting and writing, it turns out we’ve barely scratched the surface. Episode 4, the first of the season in which Jamie Bell and Richard Gadd have exclusively played Niall and Ruben, is this sense of surprise in a nutshell, a gradually escalating hour of drama — and sometimes, albeit rarely, comedy — that becomes impossible to look away from.
This is also the most that things have changed between episodes. Fourteen years have elapsed since Niall told the truth in court, leading to Ruben going to prison for battering Alby into a coma. Since then, Niall’s life has only worsened. He dropped out of Oxford, had a mental breakdown, and is eking out an existence in a cramped bedsit while trying to pen a second novel after his first turned out to be an abject failure. His only solace is an endless parade of men, met through a small dogging community and a local library that doubles as a popular cottaging hotspot, with whom he has uncomplicated but irresponsible casual sex as a coping mechanism.
Niall is still closeted, technically, which only compounds his self-loathing. His mother, Lori, knows about his sexuality, since her brother caught him in a toilet with another man, but she’s not exactly supportive of what she frames as a deviant lifestyle. At one point, Niall recognises his old school bully, Gus, at one of the dogging get-togethers, and they go for a brief drink together, during which Niall claims that it’s only gay to fall in love with a man — having sex with one is neither here nor there. His denial runs so deep that when his weary publisher tells him to write about what he knows, he angrily types “bums bums bums cocks cocks cocks” and slams the laptop closed.
Gus also shares something important — Ruben is out of prison. Not only that, but he’s doing rather well for himself, having secured a job as an oil rig slinger for a hefty salary. This sends Niall spiralling around a drain of paranoia and terror. He rushes to Lori, who confirms that not only did she know Ruben was free, but she has been in semi-regular contact with him for two years. Even more worried by the news that Ruben apparently smiles with his mouth but not his eyes whenever Niall’s name is mentioned, Niall races home in a full-on panic and purges his bedsit of all the DVDs and magazines that would give away to an unexpected visitor that he was gay. Then he goes to Joanna, now married with three children, who reveals that she, too, knew Ruben was out. She was the final stop on his apology tour, part of the process of making amends with the people he had wronged.
Joanna gets to the heart of Niall’s issue. He’s less bothered by Ruben having apparently changed than he is by the knowledge that he, Niall, hasn’t. He has nothing to show for the decision he made to sell Ruben out; he never capitalised on being free of him, as he convinced himself he would. This leads Niall to obsess over Ruben’s current circumstances, using details gleaned from a business card Gus gave him. He researches Ruben’s salary, parks outside his swanky house, and watches him park his swanky car in the drive and head inside with his now-wife, Mona, the girl who essentially raped Niall in Episode 1. When he looks through Mona’s social media page, he discovers pictures of Ruben pushing a very ill-looking Maura around in a wheelchair. Later, Lori reveals that she attempted suicide, but the rope snapped after a minute or so, leaving her almost brain-dead. She tells Niall not to blame himself, which is more advice that he ignores.
Richard Gadd in Half Man | Image via WarnerMedia
Since Niall has no other outlets, he turns to more casual public sex. This time, though, he gets caught by the angry librarian, Nigel, who has been filming his various dalliances in the library toilets for a while, and is now using the footage to blackmail him for £2000 (Niall has also been stealing books and selling them online). Niall doesn’t have the money, Joanna won’t lend it to him, since helping to solve all his problems clearly isn’t helping him turn his life around, and Lori can’t afford another loan after funding Niall’s previous breakdown. There’s only one person who can — Ruben.
The subsequent argument between Niall and Lori, who, it turns out, has been borrowing money from Ruben to keep Niall afloat ever since he came out of prison, is the first truly great scene of Half Man Episode 4. His bedsit, his car, his therapy — everything was paid for by Ruben, which sends Niall into even more of a psychological tailspin, smashing up items in his room that have been bankrolled by his psychotic brother. The only survivor is a signed Harrison Ford poster, which makes for a funny joke but stands out as the only real weak spot of this episode, since the gag doesn’t totally fit in with the emotional severity of the scene. But ultimately it’s a fine bit of writing and acting, with Lori dispensing the home truths that Niall needs to hear, even if, predictably, he doesn’t pay any attention to them.
And thus, Niall returns to Ruben. Initially, he’s just trying to steal his car’s Mercedes badge and flee, but the alarm goes off, and after a brief chase, Ruben spots Niall driving away. Niall promptly crashes the car and awakens to find Ruben at his bedside, and both of them have a lot to get off their chests. This is a remarkable scene, truly, especially in how it continues to one-up itself in terms of intensity and vitriol as both brothers exchange deeply personal barbs among bouts of threats, violence, and violation. The old Ruben is in there, for sure, but he speaks through the voice of a new, more well-read version, while the old, meek Niall is hidden in a shell so defeated that he no longer fears any potential repercussions of speaking out. It goes on for ages and keeps getting better throughout, until Niall and Ruben, both spent, eventually exchange apologies and hugs.
But this simply can’t be the whole story. As usual, the episode is bookended by present-day scenes at Niall and Alby’s wedding. In the first, we see chaos erupting at the wedding, with people trying to break down the barn door as the police arrive. Then we wheel back a bit to see the beginning of Ruben’s speech. At the end, we return to see the tail end of the toast, and then the outcome of the police breaking down the barn door and wheeling out a body on a stretcher, hidden beneath a white sheet.
A part of me thought that Half Man would keep the victim mysterious, but it doesn’t. It’s Ruben, wide-eyed but very dead, under the sheet. And that means that either Niall killed him, or he killed himself. Or perhaps something else entirely? We only have two more episodes to go to find out.
