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The previous few years have been completely mind-blowing for Richard Gadd. 2024 noticed the discharge of the hit Netflix collection Child Reindeer, catapulting Gadd to world stardom nearly in a single day.
What adopted was record-breaking success and a tumultuous authorized case involving the alleged inspiration for Martha (Jessica Gunning), Fiona Harvey. Two years later, he returns to TV with Half Man, his first absolutely fictional collection launching on HBO Max and BBC iPlayer.
Half Man is a brutal evisceration of the worst type of poisonous masculinity
Half Man | Official Trailer | HBO Max – YouTube
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Earlier than we get to the negatives, let’s discover how Gadd has made vomit-churning evil into exceptional tv. Half Man is a no-holds-barred have a look at the results of excused poisonous masculinity, with an absence of repercussions pivotal to understanding how actuality is mirrored in what we’re seeing.
Whereas meek Niall is our focus throughout the six episodes, brutish Ruben is the one the story actually sits with. We first meet him as a troubled teen within the Eighties, freshly out of juvenile detention and residential to a mom who chalks his violent outbursts right down to him being “unwell.”
He rapidly controls Niall with probably the most disturbing psychological thoughts video games I’ve ever seen portrayed on tv, indoctrinating each a part of his sexual, platonic, college and household life. This continues to worsen as Niall attends college, earlier than their grownup lives disperse and convene again collectively like crashing waves out at sea.
For a lady or weak particular person, Ruben is a really actual, dwelling nightmare thrust into the faces of those that refuse to acknowledge the abominable behaviour of not all males, however some.
He is the one we worry whereas we’re strolling down the road, exercising on the fitness center or attempting to get pleasure from an evening out with our associates. It is virtually no surprise why I do not need to see Half Man once more — to an extent, many people dwell it.
The extra extreme finish of the violence scale is dealt with extremely nicely, and I hope it’s going to immediate some Adolescence-style dialogue and alter. Gadd has such a shrewd knack for taking the dregs of worldwide society and turning them into grotesquely actual tv, even when it is not all the time palatable.
It is Gadd’s dedication to warts-and-all storytelling that can undoubtedly make Half Man one of many standout TV reveals of 2026. It doesn’t matter what he represents to us, it doesn’t matter what we already assume we all know, we’re metaphorically punched within the intestine till we are able to now not bear to look.
So why is Child Reindeer the “higher” present then?
Jamie Bell as Niall and Richard Gadd as Ruben. (Picture credit score: HBO)
Let me begin by saying that Child Reindeer and Half Man are two completely completely different ideas, nevertheless it’s the comparability that viewers are sure to make (and admittedly, already are).
If we’re actually nitpicking, I feel there’s room for enchancment within the construction of the story — and my finest guess is that that is largely right down to confidence. With Child Reindeer, Gadd was utilizing occasions from his precise life to craft one thing that he’d lived, starting, center, and finish. Half Man has no bearing on actuality, and thus is a storytelling shot in the dead of night.
This naturally leaves a higher room for error, which I feel is displayed in what we’re not seeing. The inventive option to time leap between episodes is, for probably the most half, extremely efficient, nevertheless it signifies that loads of element is unaccounted for. Considered one of Niall’s most important romantic relationships is solely left to the creativeness, as are lots of the household unit’s most important milestones.
On high of this, Gadd is the weakest hyperlink within the present’s in any other case robust ensemble efficiency. I understand I’ve spent the whole first half of this evaluate relaying the significance of Ruben as a personality, however we actually take up these results of this by means of Niall.
Younger Ruben (Stuart Campbell) is pumped up on machismo and Lynx, spouting absolute misogynistic and homophobic nonsense by means of a thick Scottish brogue. Gadd’s model makes use of his regular voice, which is jarring even whether it is an intentional plot level. Reasonably than feeling like two halves of an entire, our Rubens are related by a string too faint to make out.
Campbell and Mitchell Robertson (who performs Younger Niall) are our standout stars in Half Man. Their model of the fraught brotherhood hits the toughest, is probably the most emotionally specific, and is probably the most exploitative in its manipulation. Emmys and BAFTAs all spherical, if I had my means.
My evaluate comes with a phrase of warning: stream Half Man with warning. It in all probability ticks each set off warning in existence, together with an alarmingly liberal use of the C phrase that US viewers will doubtless be irritated by. However consumed appropriately, Half Man may simply be 2026’s TV second of change.
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