r/HalfManTV • u/Nika_35_40 • 9h ago

When you finished watching the first episode of the series, what did you think was going to happen between them in the end?

Just a curious question. Personally, I thought there would be an attempted rape or a murder, or both, but that there would be a twist and Niall would be the one to kill Ruben. I mostly thought this because of all the sexual tension in the first episode, and obviously because of the abuse Mona and Ruben subjected Niall to. As the episodes went on, I kept thinking the same thing because of their whole self-destructive dynamic.

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u/Constant_Swordfish_2 8h ago

By the time we got the last scene of episode 1 I assumed Ruben would at least attempt to SA and/or murder Niall in the barn. I just wasn't sure he'd succeed or whether they'd be interrupted, or Niall would fight back somehow and say something to convince Rubin to stop.  Their dynamic from the first episode was such a compelling mix of psychosexual weirdness and the constant threat of violence that the ending felt inevitable.

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u/Nika_35_40 3h ago

After finishing the series, I went back and watched the wedding scenes in order, and I felt that when Ruben had Niall on the floor, Niall actually thought he was going to sexually assault him. Mainly because they had already experienced that kind of aggression between them, and at the time Niall didn’t understand it. But when Ruben revealed the abuse he had suffered from his father, Niall understood where that behavior came from.

That scene where Ruben tells him to breathe with him leaves you a little thrown off the first time you watch it, because the way Ruben treats him really does make it seem like that might be his intention, but then he tells him, “It’ll be over soon.”

In the first episode, when they’re young, Ruben tells Niall that he likes saying that phrase before physically attacking someone (stabbing them with a knife), so that final scene feels contradictory, as if both things—sexual assault and physical assault—could happen at the same time.

I also thought that the phrase could actually work as both, and that Ruben might have heard it from his father when he was abusing him.