One of my favorite storytelling tropes is The Curse Of The Burdensome Friend. Or sometimes it\u2019s the Burdensome Brother\u2014or Sister or Cousin. What I\u2019m talking about are characters that our heroes just can\u2019t shake, no matter how much they need to, because they\u2019ve been close to these highly problematic people for years. The Burdensome types tend to drag the protagonists into trouble. They\u2019re cocky, careless, and very good at applying peer pressure. That\u2019s because, to the incorrigible, the good guys are too good\u2014too prim, too skittish. They need to lighten the hell up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Baby Reindeer<\/a> writer-star Richard Gadd\u2019s new miniseries Half Man first introduces Ruben Pallister\u2014a man about as Burdensome as they come\u2014at 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\u2019s because when we first meet him, he\u2019s just been pulled away from the festivities against his will by Ruben (Gadd), who promptly gropes at Niall\u2019s crotch and then punches the crap out of him.<\/p>\n We again see this older, animalistic Ruben\u2014grunting and snorting, with a predatory stare\u2014at the end of the episode, still at the wedding. There, he gives Niall a sip of whiskey, wipes the blood from his old friend\u2019s lips, and lies down next to him on the ground. He then ominously says, \u201cIt\u2019ll be over soon,\u201d as he places his hand over Niall\u2019s face.<\/p>\n Those are the bookends for Half Man\u2019s first episode, most of which is devoted to a long flashback to Ruben and Niall\u2019s teenage years. Young Niall (Mitchell Robertson) is leading a hellish life before the arrival of Young Ruben (Stuart Campbell). He\u2019s being bullied mercilessly by his classmates, and he doesn\u2019t have much that brings him joy outside of nerd culture favorites like Doctor Who and Indiana Jones. Then Ruben\u2014the juvenile delinquent son of an old family friend\u2014transfers to Niall\u2019s school, where he begins tormenting Niall\u2019s 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\u2019s collection of Indiana Jones stickers, wipes Niall\u2019s favorite one against his genitals, then stuffs it in Niall\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n The plot of this first episode is largely concerned with the two boys bonding by swapping favors. After Ruben absolutely obliterates Gus\u2014partly to help out Niall and partly because Ruben is violently ornery by nature\u2014Niall makes Ruben\u2019s life easier at school in the only way he really can, by helping Ruben cheat on a test. There\u2019s a big placement exam coming; and if Ruben fails, it could scuttle his future. So, during the practice exam\u2014which can, if needed, count as the real exam\u2014Niall sneakily fills in Ruben\u2019s booklet after Ruben causes a disturbance and gets kicked out.<\/p>\n Gadd\u2019s script\u2014imbued with a quiet intensity by director Alexandra Brodski\u2014doesn\u2019t immediately explain in full why Ruben is suddenly part of Niall\u2019s life. We\u2019re told that they knew each other before Ruben was institutionalized; and we\u2019re told that Niall is terrified of Ruben. But Ruben\u2019s mother, Maura (Marianne McIvor), is living with Niall\u2019s mother, Lori (Neve McIntosh), and so Ruben becomes Niall\u2019s roommate, whether he likes it or not. By the end of the episode, we\u2019ll find out what\u2019s going on with Lori and Maura. It turns out they\u2019re lovers\u2014which is one of the reasons Niall gets picked on at school.<\/p>\n As for Niall\u2019s own sexuality\u2026well, 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\u2019s hard not to notice how Niall\u2019s 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\u2014after Ruben\u2019s drunken father shows up outside the house, screaming\u2014Ruben physically prevents Niall from leaving their bedroom, holding him tight until morning. Niall wakes up to find his own ejaculate staining his shorts.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing about Ruben: From what we\u2019ve seen of him so far, he appears to be legitimately unhinged. Sometimes troubled adolescents in stories like these are merely misunderstood; and it\u2019s 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\u2014scarily so. He won\u2019t do anything he doesn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a little bit of an over-familiarity problem with this first Half Man. It plays a little like My Bodyguard<\/a> and a lot like the hundreds of novels\/plays\/movies\/songs about the Darwinian hell that is a U.K. boys\u2019 school (a Scottish one, in this case). What sets the episode apart are its present-day framing device\u2014suggesting that this story will move beyond teen angst\u2014and several scenes of Gadd doing what Gadd does best.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s exam, Maura tries to soften Niall up by tickling him. It\u2019s clearly something she used to do when he was younger, but now that he\u2019s a teenager\u2014and as he becomes increasingly aware that his mom\u2019s \u201cfriend\u201d is something more\u2014the physical contact feels uncomfortably intimate. He reflexively responds by kicking Maura.<\/p>\n The second scene is this episode\u2019s most bravura. After Niall cheats on the test, Ruben comes home in a celebratory mood with Mona (Charlotte Blackwood), a girl he\u2019s 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 \u201cfocus on how things feel,\u201d but he still struggles to maintain an erection. Then Ruben gets right in Niall\u2019s face\u2014so close that they could kiss\u2014and holds on to Niall\u2019s penis. Nature takes its course.<\/p>\n The moment is both sensual and discomfiting\u2014exciting and abusive. It\u2019s tough to say how Half Man is going to connect up what happens in that room that night to what happens at Niall\u2019s wedding decades later. But once again, as with Baby Reindeer, Gadd has delivered something so explosively charged that it\u2019s hard to look away.<\/p>\n Stray observations<\/p>\n \u2022 My Half Man song of the week is Ian Dury<\/a>\u2019s \u201cClever Trever<\/a>,\u201d from the provocatively titled (and excellent) 1977 album New Boots And Panties!! Noel Murray is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of my favorite storytelling tropes is The Curse Of The Burdensome Friend. Or sometimes it\u2019s the Burdensome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-414618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u2022 It\u2019s worth noting that the last words of this episode\u2014\u201cit\u2019ll be over soon\u201d\u2014echo what Ruben says to Gus before breaking the bully\u2019s spirit.
\n\u2022 I haven\u2019t watched any of this miniseries beyond this episode, but I couldn\u2019t help but notice that in the closing credits Gus and Mona are listed as \u201cYoung Gus\u201d and \u201cYoung Mona.\u201d We probably haven\u2019t seen the last of those characters.
\n\u2022 Even though Gadd first came to prominence as a comedian, I wouldn\u2019t call Baby Reindeer or Half Man \u201ccomedies.\u201d That said, I did laugh at the moment in this episode when the teacher walks into the classroom\u2014right as Niall is pinned against the wall and being forced to taste a sticker smeared with Gus\u2019s crotch-sweat\u2014and without even looking at what\u2019s happening, says, \u201cOkay degenerates, settle down.\u201d
\n\u2022 The Half Man production-design team does a fine job of externalizing the sexual tension and confusion hanging in the air at Niall\u2019s home, like when he walks into the bathroom after being snuggled by Ruben all night and we see Lori and Maura\u2019s bras and stockings drying in the shower.
\n\u2022 Ruben may be a brute, but he can be pretty astute. While Niall stresses out about his mom\u2019s lesbian lifestyle, Ruben quite rightly shrugs it off, saying, \u201c10 years time, you\u2019ll be at a party somewhere and realize it makes you more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n