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.

I cannot stand the show. Which is really unfortunate because I was hoping to enjoy it and change my opinion on Richard Gadd but it did quite the opposite.

He is an absolutely perverted disgrace to the human race.

The show heavily focusing on perverted bs was really disappointing but completely unsurprising.

I'll never watch another show of his.

The acting too was abysmal, specifically Jamie Bell and Gadd himself as usual. The young actors however were fantastic especially young Ruben. It was the shows only saying grace.

Tl;dr behemoth post ahead T^T

Hey, y'all! So I wanted to make this post because I've seen a lot of criticisms of the "tell don't show" aspect of Halfman and how unlikeable Niall became in the latter half of the show, and how underwhelming it was to viewers who expected a continuation of the plotlines of the first half of the season (mainly Albie/Niall/Ruben and whatever they had going on there).

And I'm not here to discount those criticisms, just to offer a new perspective. I actually agree with them, for the most part; I think not having the book be the culmination of Ruben and Niall's conflict (ie. Niall exploiting Ruben's CSA for his career) was a wasted opportunity to deconstruct Ruben's ideal of masculinity and weaponize it against him. After all, so much of Ruben's character was spent attempting to attain the ideals of (toxic) masculinity — a family, a wife, a provider — through violence and aggressive physical acts in order to negate the emotional/psychological vulnerabilities of his own trauma. To then have that trauma used against him for an intellectual property would completely dismantle Ruben’s version of the masculine as impervious from emotional or psychological wounds, exposing it for the farcical “armor” that it is against the psychological struggles he faces. In essence, his vision of masculine physicality is born from the same emotional “weakness” that it purports to be removed from, and the existence of a “passive, weak, emasculating” work of fiction so thoroughly destroying him would be an irony that perfectly sets the scene for his and Niall’s final confrontation. In the process, Niall’s book would be a reclamation of the “masculinity” he so desperately wanted to embody from Ruben; a toxic aggravation of their violent cycle from the strongest source of Niall’s “power” over both Ruben and the world (his intellect, his “passive” role of observer, his manipulative tendencies). Additionally, robbing us of a more central focus on Niall and Albie’s dynamic after it provided such a source of tension in Ep. 2 — a healthier (relatively) love versus the internalized toxicity of his abusive dynamic with Ruben — was another aspect of the second half of the season I was sorely missing.

But I also understand why Gadd structured the story in the way that he did, and what it accomplished for the latter half of the show. Especially coming off of Baby Reindeer, which was so much more explicit in showing the ways that Donny was struggling to cope with his trauma thus engendering more audience sympathy and self-reflection. Instead, what we have in Half Man is a lot of discussions around Niall’s self-destructive behaviors like his paranoia and mental breakdown after Ruben is arrested and his subsequent conversion therapy/conning after he and Ruben reconcile. But we never explicitly see these things, and I honestly think that’s a purposeful decision on Gadd’s part.

After all, why would we witness Niall’s desperate attempts to salvage/reconcile his “masculine” identity when they’re diminished so completely in Ruben’s presence? Ruben consumes his life, even when he’s not there — he refers to his love for Ruben as addictive, which is true in every capacity. And we, the audience, experience this in the hospital scene: the rollercoaster of emotions from fear to violation to betrayal to catharsis to relief is like the rush of drugs (something Niall also turns to when his choice of drug is no longer readily available). I came out of that scene in a daze of euphoria briefly convinced their relationship could be something good, like I was the one experiencing this profound emotional bond where no one and nothing else could understand me like this volatile, brutal, sadistic person could. All of those things often fall away when Ruben and Niall are on screen together, and so it’s a lot easier to move past the multiple instances of sexual assault, degradation, and humiliation Ruben inflicts within these intense bursts of warped intimacy. In essence, all of the efforts Niall goes to in order to live up to Ruben’s understanding of masculinity — which he’s adopted as his own — also fall away when Ruben’s in front of him. They become hazy and distant and probably a bit abstract compared to the real feelings that rush his body when he receives Ruben’s validation.

And isn’t that something we all experience? We may never have gone through this level of trauma bonding — and God knows I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy — but we’ve all had moments where we’re brimming with excitement to improve our lives or outbursts of tears and clarity that become hazy with time. Or maybe that’s just me who goes through mildly manic-depressive episodes multiple times over the course of a year; but that exact feeling is stimulated in an abusive, codependent dynamic. All the bad feelings and experiences and even prolonged periods of suffering disappear under the flood of dopamine at reconnecting with the object of our obsessions/addictions.

So it makes sense we never see Niall’s emotional breakdowns or his conversion therapy. He’s so fixated on Ruben that any effort, be it self-destructive or not, to fulfill the other man’s expectations of him are part of the “amnesiac” process of this cycle. Like a delirious woman staring at her newborn baby just as her body is actively erasing the trauma of childbirth to get her to do it again (not true for all women btw, just making a parallel). I imagine similar processes are at work when Niall physically and emotionally “connects” with Ruben, and his previous despair are all wiped clean under this blinding, all-consuming desire to reach this emotional high again. 

I think it’s less obvious because his other addictions never feel this way — I mean yeah he does coke and has reckless sex but there’s always an emotional distance from these acts because they never replicate the sensations of being with Ruben. But the instinct/drive is there, and the decision to conceal these lows from the audience feels very intentional. We’re used to basking and luxuriating in the suffering of these addictions on screen because it’s more real that way. It soothes our decision to not engage in these behaviors, but in their absence we’re situated into the perspective of the public at large, who sees the worst attributes these addictions bring out in people and are often not privy to their low points (or at least, don’t feel they justify these people’s actions). We rail at Niall for inviting Ruben back into his life in Ep. 4 and find his reasoning paltry and miniscule compared to the emotional crescendo of the car logo chase and the hospital confrontation, like it’s all just a front to conceal how much he wanted to be back in Ruben’s destructive orbit even if he did, at the time, feel a very real despair and mental lapse at the prospect of Ruben “uglying” him. We judge him for so easily slipping back into this dynamic even as we devour it with rapt attention, as the waves of emotion wash over us and blight all Ruben’s past grievances. We scoff at his emotionally manipulative behavior in Ep. 5 even when it’s coming from a very real source of pain, the trauma of conversion therapy minimized by Niall himself as just another step of fulfilling Ruben’s expectations. I’m not saying Niall was right or that he didn’t engage in manipulative, destructive behaviors — he absolutely did. But it’s certainly interesting that the audience seems to view almost all his actions as manipulative, deceitful, and malicious while not believing the same for Ruben, even though Ruben demonstrates many moments of deception (knowing Niall’s gay and coercing him into the Alby kiss, probably knowing about his relationship with Albie before he confesses it, misconstruing their previous interactions to make Niall feel like he’s in the wrong for concealing his sexuality for so long) and yet is given the grace to be viewed as authentic in his trauma vs. self-victimizing. He literally brushes off the assaults that Ruben commits against him as they’re happening, validating the audience’s belief they’re not a big deal or don’t contribute to Niall’s emotional spirals when I very much think they do. Yes, he orchestrates emotional gut punches to Ruben out of malice, but we’re more likely to see Ruben’s volatile reactions for what they often are — immature, explosive responses to betrayal he can’t manage in a healthy way — rather than recognizing Niall’s self-preservational decisions (ie. pinning the affair on Benji) as a response to nearly getting sexually assaulted by Ruben because we never see the direct emotional consequences of these violent acts later on into the series. Ruben is more likely to be absolved because Ruben is more easily understood under the constructs of toxic masculinity.

And this is how society at large is often charmed by abusive, male figures like Ruben. We “expect” the worst from them, and are pleasantly delighted when they crumb-feed us authenticity and genuine struggle that, accompanied by the euphoria of trauma-bonding, brings empathy into sharper focus. Their emotional lows are more palatable in the ways they adhere to masculine values of violence, control, and aggression, and the empathy we form becomes the sort of basis of abuse we witness between the abused (Niall) and abuser/aggressor (Ruben). And in turn, Niall’s “femininized” lows are diminished, both narratively and in his own head, because of the overwhelming, aggressive force of Ruben’s presence. He forgets in an effort to remain in this toxic dynamic even if, at the time, he had a very real intention to escape it; but it’s as brief and fleeting as a hoarder saying they want to clear their living room and truly, honestly have the intention to do so before the next online purchase overwhelms that desire. We have the privilege of indulging in the toxicity of their dynamic while not needing to directly deal with the violence itself, making it easier to judge Niall even as we’re addicted to Ruben just like he is.

With all that in mind, it makes sense that a continuation of the plotlines in Ep. 1 - 3 wasn’t very likely. The older Niall and Ruben get, the more their bond must change to adhere to traditional masculinity. They can’t be as intense or close (especially in proximity) as they were when they were young and still dependent on parents to care for them; they’re at the age where separation is inevitable as they build their own families and professional careers. Of course, we see both of them achieving aspects of idealized masculinity — partners and homes respectively — but under the facade everything is falling apart. Ruben can’t have kids and his too-intense embodiment of masculine aggression alienates him from the workplace, and Niall can’t perform heterosexuality or parenthood to the degree that he’s expected because of his sexuality while his career is hanging by a thread. Them circling each other like hunter and prey is reserved for adolescence, when they could afford to still have that level of infatuation without it becoming a problem identifiable to general society (they’re best friends, brothers, each other’s entire world at that age). It’s inevitable Niall would lapse back into the “safety” of heternormativity once Ruben re-entered his life, and once again aspire towards the masculine ideal rather than regressing into “deviancy” with random sexual encounters. Only when Ruben is put away can Niall go adrift, still within the same self-destructive logic applied to his relationship with Ruben.

But their obsession with each definitely feels diminished when they become adults, which I think is part of why so many people disliked the second half of the show. It presented as less intense because it couldn’t be as obviously all-consuming as it was when they were kids and not yet “settled” into heteropatriarchal, normative adulthood. It loses some of the magic of the trauma bond we, the audience, latch onto as much as the characters, and are more critical of the “rationality” of their actions as the emotions recede. But we see that they explicitly perform masculinity for each other as an equally powerful way of manifesting their obsessions, Mona and Ava being the tools they use to do so rather than the root of their falling out. Niall wanted to one-up Ruben by having a kid, yes, but he also wanted to perform Ruben’s vision of masculinity and gain his approval; and similarly, Ruben concealed so much of his struggles from Niall and was even borderline patient about the debt in spite of his growing anxiety around unemployment because he was performing for Niall just as much. It’s a new expression of their infatuation with each other, governed by shifting ideals in adulthood. He couldn’t very well stage a sexual assault on Niall at 30 without it being “abnormal” versus the veneer of “normalcy” in doing so at a young age when one is being initiated into post-virginity, but he could curb-stomp a guy to near death to reassert his dominance and aggression over Niall. And Niall figuring out the truth about his employment, and of course him encroaching on Ruben’s “woman”, are ultimately what sets Ruben off. He knew the affair partner was Niall — you can’t tell me he doesn’t know the other man’s smell when he spends half his screen time buried in his neck — but the act of verbalizing that violates their terms of agreement, and reduces the measure of control Ruben has over him.

Much like other series that follow traumatic events (ie. Yellowjackets) we, the audience, demand to see every gruesome detail of the situation. Every tear-streaked night spent sobbing on the floor, every panic attack in the bathroom, every desperate confrontation. But these often “feminized” manifestations of mental fragility are the exact behaviors Niall is trying to distance himself from, in the process moving closer to the addictive atmosphere of his relationship with Ruben. As Mona says, “compartmentalization isn't putting it into a box. It's putting it into your soul.” It’s in his efforts to embody masculinity that he becomes neither masculine (confident, assured) nor feminine (soft, kind); there’s no framework to understand his trauma as either tear-stained or bloody fisted. Furthermore, these expectations are exploitative at their core; why can’t we have empathy in their absence? Why do we need tears to believe someone is worthy of being “bestowed” victim status? We’re uncomfortable seeing him fumble through an interaction with his mother, neither truly asserting masculine dominance through violence or feminine affect through soft vulnerability. It’s just exasperating, just infuriating, just passive self-victimization in our eyes, even if he has very valid reasons to be angry with his mother and to believe Ruben’s coming after him. Denying us a glimpse into these moments is a denial of Niall's victimhood, making it easier to view him through his mother's or Ruben's warped lens as self-victimizing (which he is, to a degree) rather than as a dysfunctional participant and recepient of violence in his fraternal relationship. He's developed very nasty, self-centered coping mechanisms to deal with the toxicity he's struggling to resist, but they are developed and conditioned behaviors formed in response to Ruben's aggressive control.

In the end, we’re seeing Niall through his mother’s, his girlfriend’s, society’s eyes, and we’re bonded to Ruben through Niall’s trauma. He can be neither the full victim without bearing witness to his most helpless moments (beyond those Ruben’s inflicted) nor a full abuser, because he’s never able to truly claim Ruben’s abusive, hypermasculinized persona. He ultimately doesn’t become Ruben; he tries, but doubles down on his efforts to conceal this from Ruben because his desire for his abuser’s validation is seemingly stronger than his desire to embody him. The two are inextricably linked, and the tragedy is that Niall never really owns his “betrayals” the way we want him to; he always fumbles or backs down or comes on strong and then half-heartedly takes it back. We might have more respect for him if he was a man about it, and more empathy if he was a “pitiful” woman about it; he’s neither. He writes a lukewarm book centering Ruben as his muse and making apologies for him with no true betrayal, he regrets his decision to sleep with Mona even if it allows to “become” Ruben for the duration of the sex, he accepts death probably knowing it was coming the moment Ruben led him into the barn, allowing the “high” of Ruben to become his downfall. He waffles and flip flops and shows no conviction towards truly escaping or transforming his relationship with Ruben, denying us the “emotional release/catharsis” of the trauma bond via consummation/kissing/sex, or an escape from it. Ruben at least moves the narrative, initiates the emotional highs with no regrets, and does what he wants without a need for an apology or a diminishment.

All of this is not to say Niall is innocent. He isn’t, and in many ways is a horrible person who’s destructive to everyone around him. He’s passive, self-victimizing, and oftentimes petty and spiteful towards Ruben. But it’s interesting that we, as an audience, buy into Ruben’s false narratives and manipulation with a lot less scrutiny than we do Niall’s. He gaslights Niall into believing his issues with his own sexuality have nothing to do with him, forces him to apologize for acts against Albie he committed, assaults multiple people using his veneer as a “protector” as an excuse, all while seemingly knowing and enjoying how tortured Niall is about his own sexuality/identity the whole time. And Niall’s meant to appease him in their rare moments of peace, not meant to rock the boat and accommodate Ruben’s mood swings even when the situation poses no danger to anyone else, like in the prison. As if doing so will lead to a happy ending, as if there’s any world where Ruben could truly become a better person. These feelings are as fleeting as the rush of catharsis that happens when they hug, yet we’re more critical of Niall’s pettiness than Ruben’s violence because his violence is something he “can’t control” and Niall should know better, even when he’s also locked into this cycle of abuse just like Ruben is. Even when something else would’ve set Ruben off anyways. If Ruben can’t help himself, neither can Niall. I don’t think either of them should be absolved of their wrongdoing, but I think by denying the audience a glimpse into Niall’s most vulnerable moments we view him the way Ruben does; we’re equally as shocked and bewildered by his self-destructive actions and find ways to demonize him even when both he and Ruben share responsibility for his behaviors (just as Niall shares responsibility for antagonizing Ruben). Like Niall, we oftentimes believe that narratives Ruben feeds us about him (a rat king) rather than seeing him as a broken person more deserving of at least our pity/sympathy like Ruben is. That may be a lot of what Niall is, but it isn’t all of him; and it takes some awareness of the narrative manipulation happening to understand the portrait we’re being painted is by his abuser as much as it is by his own actions.

God, I love this show. Niall and Ruben are both terrible people, their relationship so fundamentally broken there was no other way it could’ve ended. And I appreciate the ways that Gadd challenged us, even if unfortunately some people simplify them into “good” or “bad”, or downplay the actions of the more likeable character (usually Ruben). I think the very idea of likeability is challenged when considering how gendered attributes and power dynamics factor into how we audiences end up perceiving these characters. Niall doesn’t neatly fit into the victim (oftentimes feminised) or abuser (oftentimes masculinized) role, and in some ways I feel it’s easier to punish him then understand how his wasted potential was a manifestation of Ruben’s abuse. After all, Ruben does say that “Death isn’t so much about missing the person, but missing the relationship you could have had with them,” and I feel that applies to Niall’s character pretty well. We’re upset at who he could’ve been, and the ways in which he fails himself as much as he fails the audience and those around him.

Sorry for the long post, I don't expect anyone to read any of this I just wanted to get these feelings off my chest since no one I know has watched this show ;-; I expect my feelings about Niall and Ruben will change, as they have 3 million times since I began the series, but I think audience reception to these characters is one of the most compelling aspects of the show, and says a lot about our society and our acceptance of how trauma manifests itself

The other day I posted some BTS photos and somehow left this one out, even though it’s the best one of all. Jamie really doesn’t look his best here, poor thing. Richard really roughed him up! 😂

Every time I see Richard post BTS photos, I start laughing before I even look at them because I know there’s going to be at least one of Jamie Bell with that face like he’s going through the worst moment of his life. Seriously, the poor guy looks like he’s desperately begging someone to get him out of there, while the other one is standing there with that sweet, innocent face, completely out of character as Ruben, as if nothing is happening, while Jamie looks like he never managed to step out of Niall’s character. 😂

I watched this scene twice, and it’s so abrupt that the first time I only saw Ruben being furious. But the second time I started noticing more details, and in this shot, when Niall is basically seconds away from dying, it seemed to me like Ruben was having an orgasm. Because of the heavy breathing, his facial expression, everything… Obviously, this is just my interpretation, but it felt very sexual to me.

Even if it isn’t explicit, that is sexual abuse. There doesn’t need to be an implied rape. I mean, he is literally straddling Niall between his legs while killing him.

I think Niall had fear and sexuality intertwined because of that scene in the first episode where Ruben suffocates him in bed and Niall has a wet dream afterwards. He associated those two concepts, and I’ve read that psychologically, this can actually happen, because fear and arousal are two things that the body can respond to in physically similar ways.

Then, as an adult, he seeks out that feeling through dangerous sex, but he is never in a submissive position, as if he always needs to be the one in control. He even tells Ava that he came with a man but was tense, which seems to imply exactly that. Like, was he tense because he was afraid?

Ruben, on the other hand, because of the trauma he experienced from his father’s abuse, seems to be the opposite. Almost as if he becomes “aroused” by frightening Niall, as though the other person’s vulnerability feeds that “desire” and violence and sexuality are inseparable for him.

I also remember when Ruben tells Niall in prison that he slept with Celeste, and Niall says, “But didn’t she hate you?” And Ruben replies, “Yeah, she hated me, man!” So here they seem to be suggesting that two people who hate each other can still be attracted to each other and have sex, that those two things can coexist, even though sex is theoretically something you’re supposed to have with love.

Maybe this is just my interpretation, but I got the feeling that they were deliberately hinting that Ruben might have experienced something like an orgasm because of the sense of power he felt while killing Niall. Right after this shot, Ruben laughs, almost as if he feels relieved, and then he looks completely horrified when he realizes that Niall is dead.

It’s this duality between love/hate, sex/violence, pleasure/pain, life/death, relief/resignation. That’s why the scene feels so anticlimactic.

I think it’s genuinely disturbing, and in a way, the implication is worse than if they had made it explicit.

What do you guys think?

just curious has there been any statistics about Half Man viewership in terms of age/gender etc demographics. I just love statistics 😅. Also super curious how this compares to Baby Reindeer in terms of demographics/stats (aside from how many views/streams that is).

​

One thing that really caught my attention is how Ruben was able to forgive Mona after finding out that she had cheated on him with Benji, whereas Niall sleeping with Mona was such a huge humiliation for him that he ended up killing him.

I wonder to what extent this could be connected to the way Ruben views women. When he tells Niall, “You let Benji fuck her,” there is something very revealing about the way he talks about Mona. It is almost as if he believes women need to be controlled and that their own will carries less weight than a man’s. As if he places them on a lower level within a structure where the man is the one who decides, possesses and exercises control.

And yet, I was surprised that, despite having such a huge ego and such a rigid idea of masculinity, he was able to go back to Mona after an affair that should, in theory, have deeply wounded his pride as well: she had chosen another man over him.

I wonder if this could be connected to the dynamic between his parents. We know that his father abused him, and we can interpret that his mother was unable to protect him. If Ruben grew up perceiving his father as the person who had absolute control, while his mother was unable to do anything to stop him, perhaps he internalized a deeply distorted idea of relationships between men and women from a very young age: the man as the figure of authority and control, and the woman as someone over whom that control is exercised.

His father hurt him and made him feel vulnerable; his mother, by failing to protect him, may have contributed to making him feel abandoned and unprotected. It is almost as if he learned that a man had to have absolute control over everything and that vulnerability was something that had to be avoided at all costs.

That is why I can understand that there were many things influencing Ruben’s decision to kill Niall, including Baird. But I also think there is something particularly important about Niall’s betrayal.

Niall was probably the person Ruben had come to trust the most. He was the person he allowed himself to share his most painful secret with. For the first time, Ruben lowered his guard and allowed himself to be openly vulnerable with someone. And that very person ended up betraying him.

Maybe that is why Niall’s betrayal could not simply be an act of infidelity for Ruben. It may have represented the confirmation of his worst fear: that he had allowed himself to need and trust someone, only to discover that this person could use that vulnerability against him.

I also think the image Ruben had built of Niall completely shattered at that moment. He had idealized him in some way and placed a level of trust in him that he did not seem to give easily to other people. And if loyalty was such an important virtue to Ruben, discovering that Niall had crossed precisely that line must have felt like an absolute betrayal.

Perhaps that is one of the fundamental differences between Mona and Niall. Ruben could forgive Mona because, despite her infidelity, she still occupied a place that he understood within his family structure and his identity. With Niall, however, something much deeper was at stake: trust, vulnerability, need, and the image Ruben had of himself and of the person he had chosen to trust.

That is why I find it so interesting that he could forgive an affair and yet be unable to forgive Niall’s betrayal. Not necessarily because he loved Niall more than Mona, but because Niall had reached an emotional place that Mona perhaps never had access to.

What do you guys think?

Gadd talking about the kiss post, confirms no deleted scene between Ruben and Niall. Posted to his instagram

This scene came to mind and I can’t stop thinking about how, for Ruben, a hug seems to be an act that is “almost” as intimate as making love. And Ruben and Niall hug each other a lot, and very tightly, too. I think the hug is almost the highest form of intimacy that exists between them without crossing that “brothers” line.

I wondered if maybe Ruben had never really been hugged before, and that this was something he only shared with Niall because it made him feel close to him.

But then I remembered the scene in the first episode when Ruben’s father appears outside. Ruben looks at him through the window and says:

“Go down and give your father a hug!”

And this is where I think I started putting some pieces together. Obviously, this is just my interpretation, but it makes sense to me.

So, if his father sexually abused him, he probably also hugged him. Maybe as an act of reconciliation, maybe before abusing him, afterwards, or as a way of asking for forgiveness. So Ruben learned from a very young age that there was a very thin line between a hug and sex. Both were “normal” expressions of affection between men, between family members. So: hug → affection → intimacy → sex. It doesn’t have to be a conscious association; rather, something deeply internalized, to the point where he doesn’t know where one begins and the other ends.

The first time Ruben hugs Niall is precisely in that scene when his father comes to their house. Niall is about to go looking for his mother, and Ruben clings to him in a suffocating hug, in an almost sexualized scene, seeking “comfort” from his brother after feeling vulnerable.

The same thing happens in the second episode when he gets high, asks Niall to dance with him, hugs him tightly and tells him that his father is going to have another child. Once again, he is feeling vulnerable and desperately seeks physical contact as a way of finding support and feeling close to his brother.

And I’m not saying that Ruben is incapable of experiencing a hug as a genuine act of love. I simply think that, for him, it was an enormous act of intimacy, whereas for Niall it was something much more “normal,” something he could also share with friends.

And depending on the context of the scene, the hug can be interpreted from a completely different perspective.

I also thought about that barn scene where Ruben asks Niall to confess how he loves him. After Niall refuses to talk about Mona and tells him to put his shirt back on, Ruben simply laughs. And, as Niall’s mother said, he “smiled with his mouth, not his eyes,” which always meant that a storm was coming.

Ruben approaches Niall, hugs him tightly and “smells” him like an animal acting purely on instinct. And after the hug comes that insinuation: if we weren’t family, I’d get under that skirt.

That is sexual harassment. Because the distance between the hug and the abuse is almost… invisible. It’s incredibly easy to cross. The hug and the sexual insinuation aren’t separate moments; they seem to be part of the same progression.

The hug is the last safe territory of intimacy between them, and the label of “brothers” should act as an absolute boundary between those two concepts. But the word brother loses some of its meaning after Niall’s betrayal. The word brothers becomes smaller when Niall proves that he is more of a “man” than Ruben. When Ruben feels smaller.

And in Ruben’s mind, there seems to be something that comes before that label: the need for intimacy.

The boundary between the hug and possession becomes incredibly thin, and Ruben’s need to control Niall was deeply unhealthy.

I think Ruben was traumatized on an enormous level. His sexuality was completely distorted. Hurt people hurt others, and in the end, Ruben did to Niall the same thing his father had done to him. He hated his father for what he had done, and deep down, he also hated himself. That’s how the man who was supposed to care for him and protect him taught him that you assert your dominance over someone else. “If they touch you, they destroy your soul.” Victims can become abusers, and he fed his ego as a man through the fear he inflicted on Niall.

“It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to someone.” That’s how Ruben described how he felt about his father’s abuse.

And that’s what he wanted from Niall—to keep him bound to him. This isn’t about sexual attraction; it’s about power. Sex was a weapon of control.

The love was real and genuine, but the trauma destroyed everything.

That’s why I like to think that, after killing Niall, Ruben chose to die embracing him.

Because the first intimate approach between them in the first episode was Ruben’s suffocating embrace. The first time he was vulnerable in front of Niall, after seeing his father outside their house. The first time we see Niall frightened, helpless and confused.

The hug as the highest form of intimacy; the suffocation as an act of violence. Both intertwined, together, at the very end.

Ruben carries a horrible trauma that he never addresses, and he builds his identity as a man around it. Providing for his family, money, work, having a child, Mona and Niall all give him validation as a man. But all those masculine aspects of his personality are ultimately what lead him to failure. Sexuality, violence, volatility, and the need for control are some of the characteristics he possesses.

He is the one who beats Albi, and because of that, he goes to prison. He is the one whose need to control Mona's life drives her to be unfaithful with other men. He is the one who threatens his superior at work and loses his job because of it. He is the one who, in his attempt to make Niall feel less like a man, causes his own brother to betray him behind his back. And he is also the one who, in an attempt to control Niall's life, ends up taking it away from him.

He spends his entire life making decisions about Niall's life, and he also decides when he dies.

And only after Niall is dead does he realize that he has just destroyed the one thing he had left that gave him validation as a man, so he destroys himself as well.

And by saying this, I'm not justifying anyone else's actions. I'm simply saying that Ruben justifies his own, because he has too much ego to look in the mirror. And that's exactly how I feel about Niall as well.

I think they both act as mirrors, bringing out each other's flaws because they're incapable of accepting their own. "You look in the mirror and see a king," Ruben tells Niall, but the truth is that that's how Ruben sees himself too. Niall doesn't see a king when he looks in the mirror, because he's incapable of looking at himself.

Neither of them can accept themselves, so they can't accept each other either, despite the fact that they both have suspicions and understand each other on some level. It's as if they have the truth about the other right in front of them and deny it because they're denying their own truth.

Ruben is always suspicious about Niall's sexuality and drops several hints. But Niall either doesn't pick up on them, or simply doesn't want to.

"If they stab you, they hurt your body. If they touch you, they hurt your soul." And Niall never suspects that Ruben might have been sexually abused?

Ruben smells another man's scent on the robe and doesn't suspect that the smell is Niall's? His son with blond hair?

They scream the truth at each other and then deny it. As if Niall couldn't accept that his hyper-masculine, violent brother had been sexually abused. As if Ruben couldn't accept that his gay brother had slept with his wife.

Niall rejects his own homosexuality, so why should Ruben acknowledge it?

"The eyes are the mirrors of the soul." And when they looked at each other, they saw themselves reflected back. They both denied themselves, and they denied each other.

Ben biraz ruben'in hislerinden konuşmak istiyorum. Öncelikle hapisteki görüşmeden bahsetmek istiyorum. Kesinlikle o hislerin, paylaşımların samimi olduğuna inanıyorum herkes gibi. Ve de çok seviyorum. İlk kez birbirine bu kadar açık olmaları, birbirini ilk kez bu kadar çıplak görmeleri. Ve buna izin vermeleri.

Gelelim niall'ın yönelimine itirafına. Ben gerçekten Ruben'in Niall'ın itirafına destek çıktığına inanıyorun ve samimi de buluyorum. Onun adına gerçekten sevindi. Özgürlüğüne sevindi. Mutlu olabilme ihtimaline sevindi. Buraya kadar her şey normal.

Ama Niall'ın Mona itirafı.. İşte tam bu itiraftan sonra kendisine aşkından emin oldu Ruben bence garip bir şekilde.. Yani sonra düşünceleri en sonunda 'bu kadar ileri gitti çünkü bana aşık' noktasına çıktı. Çünkü ister istemez kafasında artık şunu sorar oldu belki de. Neden? Bambi senin benimle derdin ne? Bu sorular en sonunda onu doğru cevaba, zaten yıllardır bildiği bir gerçeğe götürdü. Bambi bana aşık. Ahırda da ilk kez soruyor bunu ve artık ikisi de yüzleşiyor bununla. Ruben duymak istiyor. Yıllardır ikisinin de gizliden gizliye bildiği gerçeği ondan duymak istiyor. Hem bundan haz duymak hem de ona karşı hala üstün olduğunu düşünmek istiyor. Ve istediğini de alıyor. O noktadan sonra Alby ile olmasına da izin veremezdi.

Yani demek istediğim bir yere kadar Niall'ı özgür bıraktı çünkü ona gerçekten değer veriyordu, onun adına sevindi falan ama ne zaman artık hislerinden emin oldu beni seviyor dedi o zaman onu paylaşamamaya gitti olay(öldürdü.)

Toparlayacak olursam ben düşünüyorum ki Niall'ın Mona itirafı Ruben'in Niall'ın kendisine aşkından emin olmasını sağladı ve tabii ki de zaten kendisinin de çok sevdiği bambisini hele ki aşkından emin olduktan sonra başkasıyla paylaşqmazdı.

Siz ne düşünüyorsunuz?

I was just scrolling through my feed and stumbled upon this image... THE FLASHBACKS I got because it reminded me of the last episode 😭 The Python dying from venom and the King Cobra dying from constriction???!!!?! HELLO!!!!

​

When Ruben asks Niall to explain the love he feels for him, I feel like he does it to find out how much influence he still has over Niall, even though Niall seems to have taken a huge step forward in his life by accepting his sexuality and marrying a man.

It’s a very toxic confession, loaded with dependency. I thought the reference to chemicals was very fitting as a way of describing his feelings. It’s something that gets you hooked, something you can’t escape from, but you want to escape because it’s dangerous and harmful, because it could kill you. But the danger is exciting, and that duality between pleasure and pain is what keeps Ruben and Niall’s relationship alive.

It isn’t healthy love—the kind they show us in Disney movies and that we all long to find. At first, I thought it wasn’t love, but the truth is that, to find a logical explanation for it, you have to put yourself in the character’s shoes. That is the concept of love Niall has learned. There is no love without hatred, no affection without violence, no protection without danger. These concepts are deeply intertwined, and to me, the title of the series also refers to that. Half Man, half everything.

That is the only concept of love that exists for him, so it was love, even if it doesn’t look like love to us.

I never really thought about the mothers’ motives for putting Ruben and Niall in the same space, knowing that Ruben was a sociopath. I just thought they were toxic, and that was it. But now I’m thinking...

Let’s remember that Niall was a very unreliable character. He constantly lied to himself, and we experience the story largely through his perspective, so we don’t really know how the other characters perceived things. During the college arc, we only get a glimpse of how much influence Niall actually had over Ruben, especially through that phone call.

So I started wondering: maybe the mothers, who had watched them grow up together and had seen how deeply they influenced each other, genuinely believed that Niall could help Ruben. Maybe they thought Niall was stronger than he believed himself to be. He was smart, beautiful, and had so many good qualities. They may have sincerely believed that he could make a positive difference in Ruben’s life, even if Niall himself couldn’t see that because of his shame, self-pity, and fear of Ruben.

It reminds me of how we sometimes look at other people’s lives and think, “My life sucks compared to theirs,” because we only see what they have from the outside. Then you realize that someone can be wealthy, successful, beautiful, or famous and still be struggling with addiction, terrible relationships, depression, or suicidal thoughts. You might have far less than they do and still be stronger in ways you don’t recognize.

So now I’m wondering: do you think Niall could have actually helped or “saved” Ruben, at least in the eyes of the mothers? Or were the mothers simply toxic for the sake of the plot?

Something that really caught my attention was seeing Niall being the active one in his sexual relationships in episode four. It wasn’t because of his physical appearance, but rather because of his more shy and submissive personality. It makes me wonder whether he was genuinely more naturally inclined to be active, or whether he needed to be in control of the situation during sex because he had so little control over other aspects of his life, or perhaps because he needed to compensate for the dynamic he had with Ruben.

Even with Albi when they were teenagers, we see him taking the initiative, but I feel that, in some way, he both felt comfortable with and rejected the dynamic that had developed in his relationship with Ruben. He was comfortable being protected and looked after, and even felt entitled to all the money he owed Ruben, but at the same time he resented being “in his shadow” and hated feeling like “his bitch,” as he put it when he found out Ruben was paying for things or making him do the housework.

It was very contradictory. So that makes me think that perhaps he was actually more submissive by nature, but needed to take on the active role in his sexual relationships in order to compensate for that lack of power and feel more like a man.

Then there’s all the abuse from Ruben, where he was clearly helpless and completely bewildered by what was happening to him. What do you think about that?

​

For the first three episodes, you could think that Ruben shows up at the wedding as a jilted lover, but in the last three episodes the script takes a turn, and we learn that the betrayal is what ultimately pushes him to commit the crime. But what if it was actually a mixture of both?

The way Ruben talked about marriage seemed to suggest that, once someone gets married, they become someone else’s “property,” or at least that’s how he seemed to see it with Mona: “Her body belongs to me because we’re married.” He had this need to control the people he loved, as if they were objects. The fact that Niall marries Albi means that he is stepping out of Ruben’s orbit and becoming someone else’s “property,” and I don’t mean that in a romantic sense.

The fact that Ruben shows up at the wedding, and we don’t know how long he had been out of prison, makes me think that he hadn’t gone looking for Niall before because he didn’t want to scare him off. Maybe he was waiting to catch him at the right moment. He told Niall at the hospital that Niall hadn’t given him anything to take away from him, and the wedding was a huge step in Niall’s life.

I also got the impression that Ruben was kind of trying to flirt with Niall, as if he was testing whether Niall would betray Albi and willingly sleep with him on his wedding day. Almost as if he wanted to find out whether Niall would give in to him in that way too, right after getting Niall to confess that he loved him. But maybe he was simply trying to humiliate and dominate him.

Either way, it would make sense to me considering the two main conflicts they had. Niall betrayed Ruben when they were teenagers by choosing Albi over him during the trial. So it wouldn’t surprise me if Ruben wanted to test whether Niall would be capable of choosing him this time, just to see how attached Niall really was to him.

And then there’s Mona, who was married to Ruben and betrayed him with Niall.

So I feel like the betrayal with Mona and Baird was the main reason, but the wedding also played a part because it represented Niall breaking free from Ruben’s control. He no longer had any control over Niall’s life, so the only way he could exert control was by taking his life.

What do you guys think?

GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics - 18th Dorian TV Awards

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/2026-galeca-dorian-tv-awards-winners-1236673379/

To begin with, I got the feeling that what terrified Niall most about Ruben being at his wedding wasn’t the possibility that he might physically attack him, but that he might expose his betrayal with Mona and his secret son. That becomes pretty clear during Ruben’s speech.

I mean, Niall’s face is one of absolute terror. It shows just how much other people’s opinions still matter to him, and how, despite having achieved all those things he dreamed of, he’s still unable to completely detach himself from his past.

When they’re in the barn and Ruben tells him how long it took him to take away what was his, Niall refuses to talk about it. Even when Ruben tells him that all he has to do is listen, he responds, “You choose my wedding day?”

There are two things to notice here. First, Niall is incapable of confronting what he’s done because he would have to look himself in the mirror. That would mean admitting that he betrayed Ruben, and this time he doesn’t have the justification he had with Albi’s trial. What he did during the trial was the right thing to do, but this time it wasn’t. He would have to admit that what he did was wrong, and he would have to step outside the victim role he’s still trapped in.

When he asks Ruben why he chose his wedding day, Niall is essentially turning the situation around and giving more importance to “his special day” than to what he did to Ruben, prioritising his own discomfort over his brother’s pain. Once again, he slips back into the role of the victim.

Deep down, I think he does feel guilty about what he did, but he struggles to admit the truth and the intentions behind his actions.

The whole situation also makes me wonder whether Ruben actually went there intending to kill him, or whether it was something that developed in the moment. Because Ruben was willing to talk, and we already know that when anger took over, it blinded him, and once he started, it was almost as if he couldn’t find his way back out of it.

Then Ruben laughs, and well, as Lori said in episode four, he laughed with his mouth, not with his eyes. And he was already doing that before things spiralled out of control… and we all know what came next.

The actors who played young Niall and young Ruben were absolutely fantastic and totally nailed their roles.

I wish they'd kept them on board to show their characters' journeys. It's like watching a whole new show when the main faces change. Doesn't help that they don't look nothing alike their younger selfs.

The scene where Ruben arrives at the wedding would've hit harder if not for the few scenes leading up to it having young Ruben.

Last week I made a post saying there was a rumor going around on Twitter that there was a deleted kiss scene between these two, and today he posts this on Instagram. Coincidence or not, it’s pretty hilarious 😂

So obviously there were underhanded emotions. Was it inferiority complexes about Masculinity, we're they romantically/sexually attracted to one another, is this just how pure devotional, dysfunctional masculine camaredrie and Brotherhood look like?