Half Man begins with a punch to the face. Richard Gadd’s character hits Jamie Bell twice until he’s coughing up blood, and you don’t find out why until six hour-long episodes later. Is it worth the watch? Well, even when you finally find out why, the Baby Reindeer creator’s sophomore series about masculinity, sexuality, and the prisons we impose on ourselves rarely amounts to anything more than one guy beating up another guy. Unlike Bell’s poor, bloodied face, it’s not the strong blow that Gadd thinks it is.
The HBO series follows Niall Kennedy (Bell), a writer on his wedding day who receives a surprise visit (and a sock to the face) from his aggressive, sort-of stepbrother Ruben Pallister (Gadd). The story then flashes back to the ’80s to show how the two men first met in their teens. The bullied, closeted Niall leans on the hypermasculine Ruben to solve his problems for him, and he quickly learns the violent answer to what happens when you befriend the devil. Bad choices turn into even worse consequences. By the third episode, you’re already asking yourself when enough is enough.
In the beginning, Niall and Ruben’s arrangement reminded me of one of the most toxic relationships in TV history: the dynamic between mob boss Tony Soprano and his therapist, Dr. Melfi. There’s a controversial episode in The Sopranos season 3 titled “Employee of the Month”—which might also be one of its best—when Melfi considers a similar devil’s bargain. The therapist is raped in a parking lot, and she later sees a path toward revenge through Tony’s violent impulses. “I’ve been charmed by a sociopath,” she says. But when the moment comes and she contemplates telling Tony about the attack, she stops herself. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back.
Half Man is a bit like what would have happened if Dr. Melfi unleashed Tony Soprano on her enemy. But where Melfi had the foresight to show restraint, Jamie Bell’s character is lost inside his relationship with a sociopath. As Niall represses, Ruben retaliates.
So throughout his continued involvement with his stepbrother, Niall steps on one mousetrap after another and never learns to move with a bit more caution the next time he lifts his toes. If you’re picturing that Simpsons bit in which Sideshow Bob steps on rake after rake despite each one lurching up to hit him in the face, then you’re dead on. Niall’s entire life is pathetic, and his downfall reaches a point by the end where it’s only half Ruben’s fault. “This is all your shit, son,” he eventually tells Niall. He’s kind of right when he says it, too. Niall’s worst action in the series is entirely his own, and by the time it happens you can’t even really feel bad for him anymore.
The saddest part is that Gadd wrote a decent allegory buried underneath Half Man’s melodrama. Ruben is basically Niall’s shadow self—feeding off his anger like Venom from Spider-Man—until we reach a rather inevitable conclusion about literally wrestling with your demons. And yes, Gadd is trying to land some grand statement about masculinity in turn-of-the-century Scotland and what its regressive attitudes did to young men struggling with their sexual identity. But when you’re watching Niall receive blow after blow from Ruben, it’s hard to think about anything else.
I wish I could appreciate what Gadd was clearly working toward. But after six hours—and two separate curb stompings—it feels less like Half Man is following real people and more like it was simply using them to work backward from Gadd’s provocative ending. Cut these half men down to size and there’s simply nothing left standing.
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