{"id":829243,"date":"2026-05-29T03:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T03:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/829243\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T03:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T03:56:14","slug":"half-man-creator-richard-gadd-on-the-shows-final-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/829243\/","title":{"rendered":"Half Man creator Richard Gadd on the show\u2019s final twist."},"content":{"rendered":"

Welp. It turns out there were two bodies in the barn. Thursday night\u2019s series finale of Half Man<\/a>, the HBO show from Baby Reindeer<\/a> creator and star Richard Gadd, ended with a staggering scene of brutality and a twist: We knew from an earlier episode that Ruben (Gadd) would die, having seen his body get wheeled out on a stretcher, but before he perished, he managed to kill Niall (Jamie Bell) at his wedding in one final act of revenge.<\/p>\n

Across the show\u2019s six episodes, the two \u201cbrothers\u201d\u2014Niall and Ruben aren\u2019t biologically related, but their mothers were in a romantic relationship for decades\u2014orbited each other, occasionally crashing into one another in moments of bloodshed and anger. Their relationship was doomed, lethal, but also evidently the most important one in either of their lives.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the finale, we watched Niall continue to spiral, despite the professional success he was finally enjoying as a writer with a book based on Ruben. He\u2019s addicted to drugs and visiting gay bathhouses for risky, unprotected sex. He even vomits on Ruben\u2019s mother Moira (Marianne McIvor) as she\u2019s dying, then shows up late and high to her funeral, having been arrested for crashing his car while under the influence. It\u2019s only when he reconnects with Alby (Charlie De Melo), his former university love interest whom Ruben assaulted and disfigured, that his life begins to change. Alby not only offers Niall the promise of forgiveness, but the encouragement he needs to finally\u2014finally\u2014be honest with Ruben about his sexuality.<\/p>\n

When Niall does finally open up to Ruben through the prison glass, he\u2019s forced to question who was holding him back his whole life: Ruben or himself? But as the two men bond and share their secret true selves with one another\u2014Ruben reveals that his father sexually abused him when he was a child, causing him a lifetime of pain and confusion\u2014Niall accidentally reveals that he is the true father of the baby Ruben had thought he fathered. The admission sends Ruben into a primal rage that he holds on to for years, until he finally confronts Niall at his wedding, locks them in the barn, and they fight to the death.<\/p>\n

I spoke with Gadd from his home in London via Zoom, where we talked about the dark side of masculinity, addictive relationships, how he became comfortable exploring his true self through art, and the one thing people keep asking him about the finale\u2014but which he won\u2019t reveal. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

David Mack: Let\u2019s start by talking about the final scene and that shocking twist. Was it evident to you from the start that both these guys were going to die at each other\u2019s hands?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Gadd:<\/strong> It felt kind of inevitable, really, as I was writing it. It felt like two people who needed the other to feel whole almost couldn\u2019t live without the other. It felt only natural that if they couldn\u2019t live together, they kind of had to die together. Poetic justice. The more I was writing it, the more I thought that this is where it has to go.<\/p>\n

In the last shot, you make this sound, and it\u2019s sort of animalistic. I viewed it as half contentment, half regret\u2014as if, in that moment, your life\u2019s work was suddenly over. But I\u2019m curious how you saw it when writing it and playing it. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, I think I get the most questions about this. About half of all people who\u2019ve seen all six episodes want to ask about what that final grunt means or what happens after the grunt. I never really answer them because I think people interpret things in different ways, and I think that\u2019s really important. I never want to spell out things for them, because sometimes I\u2019ll watch a film or a show and I\u2019ll be like, That show was about this, then I\u2019ll Google it and they\u2019ll say, \u201cWhen I wrote that scene, it was about this,\u201d and I\u2019m like, Oh. I know how he dies and how he gets to the stretcher, but I don\u2019t want to rob people of their own interpretations.<\/p>\n

Very diplomatic. You hinted at this before when you talked about them not being able to live without each other, but I\u2019m curious what words you would use to describe their relationship. Toxic, surely, but codependent? Parasitic? Symbiotic?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contorted is one that springs to mind, but if I said loving, would you think I was insane?<\/p>\n

No. It\u2019s a toxic love, but it\u2019s love. It\u2019s what they were denied in their childhoods, and this is the only other person who gave it to them, I suppose. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly. There\u2019s a contorted love to it. Their relationship is everything from euphoric camaraderie and connection to almost subliminal undercurrents of desire. It\u2019s a spectrum of deep human complication.<\/p>\n

I think sometimes if we look back in our lives and you think of the most defining relationships that you\u2019ve had, not all of them are really good and clear relationships. They\u2019re ones that are loving and deep and meaningful, but they can carry a lot of pain and confusion. Sometimes a love for someone can be almost hard to express. Like, love is a word that is almost used to express an unexpressible feeling towards someone. There\u2019s certainly feelings that I\u2019ve had for people that I almost think escape definition. I think that\u2019s what Niall and Ruben feel towards each other, and I think part of the reason they are so dysfunctional is because they have a love for each other they can\u2019t describe, and it leads to frustration and a lack of communication and destruction.<\/p>\n

In this episode, Niall likens it to a drug addiction, a chemical dependency, which felt very apt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

People can get addicted to each other. I think there is a dopamine thing that goes on around certain people when they connect.<\/p>\n

There is an unspoken yearning between them\u2014at least in one direction, from Niall to Ruben. Their relationship wasn\u2019t homosexual, but it was definitely homosocial. Yet a lot of the show is about how queerness gets used as a weapon between men in \u201cstraight\u201d culture. Where does that come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

With Niall, he is going through a sexuality struggle, but really it goes beyond that to an identity struggle. I think he\u2019s a man who just has a desire to fit into a box that he can understand and that society can understand. It\u2019s why, at the very end of the scene, he says, \u201cI\u2019m gay. No, hold a minute, I\u2019m bi. No, actually, I\u2019m gay. It\u2019s cleaner.\u201d He has this whole thing where he\u2019s never sat down with the one person he fears the most, whose judgment he cares about the most, and said these two words, and then even when he says it, it doesn\u2019t sit right with him. It doesn\u2019t feel right. What Niall really wants is a sense of belonging, of blending in, of almost being invisible. I think he displaces a lot of things into sexuality. It\u2019s why Ruben says to him, \u201cYou\u2019ve spent your whole life dancing to other people\u2019s tunes, but you\u2019ve never had the rhythm.\u201d What he\u2019s saying is, \u201cYou\u2019ve always been different. You\u2019ve always been an individual, and you should have embraced that rather than trying to force yourself into all these other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the show is about male violence, male difficulty of expression, and male repression. These guys soak up these prejudices and learn behaviors that are wrong, but it does alter their brain chemistry to the point where they feel like they have to not be their true selves.<\/p>\n

That scene that you\u2019ve just referenced\u2014when Ruben tells Niall, \u201cIt\u2019s your own homophobia that\u2019s kept you in this prison, not mine\u201d\u2014I\u2019m curious what you make of that, given your own journey of sexuality in your life. To what extent do you feel that the closet was something that you were building for yourself versus it having been built for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hmm, that\u2019s a good question. To speak about Niall and then speak personally, to separate things out a bit, I think what Ruben says is true. I spent ages working with the composers on that one bit of score that\u2019s in the background when Ruben says that, because I wanted the sense of this dawning realization that it is Niall. I think instead of facing the difficulty of freedom and self-acceptance, Niall displaced it everywhere. He finds any reason to keep himself in a stasis he can\u2019t get out of.<\/p>\n

For me, personally, it\u2019s a tough question to answer. In terms of masculinity, we grow up in society, don\u2019t we? I always remember at school there were the fables where the prince climbs up the beanstalk to rescue the princess. Men have to be brave, and all that. On top of that, you have a culture where things are very casually thrown out, and that does impact people\u2019s development. Obviously, society is progressing, but I think it can make somebody repress themselves in a closet that\u2019s created by society.<\/p>\n

I started to say that I\u2019m bisexual because I think it\u2019s the easiest way of having people interpret me. But I feel like bisexuality is movable and changeable, and still confusing. I still just feel generally quite confused around it as a person, but accepting that confusion has offered me a bit of freedom. There were times in my life where I would be like, I\u2019m saying I\u2019m this or I\u2019m that. But part of the problem was that I was trying to put myself in a box in order to break free of the prison that I created for myself. I realized that quite a lot of people spend their life being confused and going one way and another way. I think once I realized that actually some people\u2014sexually, spiritually, even from an identity point of view\u2014live in a state of sort of flux and movement, that to me was peace enough.<\/p>\n

In a piece I wrote the other week, I called this show <\/strong>\u201c<\/strong><\/a>Heated Rivalry <\/strong><\/a>for sickos.\u201d<\/strong><\/a> And indeed, there has been a big, thirsty reaction online to this deadly, damaging love affair. Before we got on the call today, I saw HBO <\/strong>tweet<\/strong><\/a> that there were more <\/strong>than 120 pieces of fan fiction<\/strong><\/a> about Half Man on one site alone. What do you make of all that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I haven\u2019t seen Heated Rivalry yet. I\u2019ve heard amazing things and need to get around to it, but when I do a TV show, I don\u2019t watch other shows, because I need to stay in my own understanding of my world and my characters. But fan-fiction-wise? That\u2019s news to me! I\u2019ve long ago learned that the worst thing you can do is read about yourself online \u2026 so I actually didn\u2019t know that. You\u2019ve piqued my interest! I\u2019m going to ask about it. People have done some amazing art and pictures and cartoons. I love that stuff.<\/p>\n

When I wrote that piece, I also used the word ogreish to describe Ruben, but in this finale, Ruben\u2019s partner Mona (Amy Manson) uses it to describe Niall. She calls him \u201ca nasty little ogre of a man.\u201d I\u2019m wondering to what extent you see them both as monstrous creatures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My intention as a writer was to actually ask which version of the men was more destructive. I really wanted, by the end, for the question to be, like, \u201cWho is more insidious as a character? Who does more damage?\u201d I don\u2019t know how people are going to respond to it. They might be 50-50. I anticipate a very mixed reaction. I see comments where people say they can\u2019t stand Ruben or he\u2019s evil or makes them nervous. But other people kind of like him or think he\u2019s cool. And then with Niall, even in the earlier episodes where he\u2019s the purest version of himself, some people sensed there was something wrong about him or they didn\u2019t like his dishonesty or they felt sorry for him.<\/p>\n

I never wanted to paint them as ogres. I wanted for people to question which one was the worst by the end, but I still see the humanity in them. A lot of their behavior comes from an immense amount of pain. It doesn\u2019t excuse it or justify it, but it does explain it. Even with all the awful things they\u2019ve done to each other and to other people, when they have this conversation at the end, you feel the human suffering underneath everything.<\/p>\n

Between this show and Baby Reindeer, you\u2019re obviously very interested, as an artist, in work about masculinity, abuse, addiction, and obsession. These are all things you\u2019ve been through in your own life and experienced one way or another. I\u2019m curious, in a kind of chicken-and-egg scenario, did you get clarity on these things before you started making these works, or did the act of making art help you understand them better?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Without doubt, art has been the most powerful way of understanding things. It all started in 2016 when I did a show about being sexually abused, and that was called Monkey See Monkey Do. I suddenly started to talk about my life and my experiences, and not only did it kind of minimize the secrecy and the pain and all this stuff that I was carrying with me 24\/7, I felt artistically that I was freed up a bit, that I was finally writing about something that I understood and I knew and I could speak to. It has been a phenomenal freedom. It\u2019s so funny when I think about the person who was very sexually confused and had been through all that stuff, and I didn\u2019t want anyone to know because I didn\u2019t want anyone to judge me, then to go into a global platform like Netflix and HBO and put it at the forefront! It feels crazy to me when I think of just how much I would go from A to Z, keeping my life zipped up. It feels like progress, but I do owe a lot of that to art.<\/p>\n

I want to talk about the women in Half Man, because they all have different relationships to this tortured masculinity around them. Some of them are making excuses for it, others are drawn to it, but it eventually poisons them all. I\u2019m curious how you saw these women. Victims? Enablers? Both?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I suppose you would take each case individually. I think they\u2019re all victims. They are growing up with the destructive behavior as well. They are managing it. But there are more clear-cut cases where they enable it, like the mothers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n David Mack
\n HBO\u2019s Violent New Show Is Like Heated Rivalry for Sickos
\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In Moira, I wanted to explore that version of a parent that can see no wrong in their kid. I know them only too well. I\u2019m sure everyone does. The kid\u2019s out of control, but they can\u2019t see anything wrong. It\u2019s a parenting failure.<\/p>\n

I think, in a lot of TV shows, that home life is always the anchor point for the characters to go, somewhere functional where they can express themselves. But in a lot of families I know, it\u2019s a very dysfunctional place. With Niall and [his mother] Lori, they love each other, but they don\u2019t always necessarily do right by each other. Sometimes, she gives Niall tough love that he needs to hear and sometimes she does it wrong and doesn\u2019t protect him enough. Her blindness for Moira means she does let an uncertain presence into Niall\u2019s life at an early age.<\/p>\n

So much of our culture today is focused on having to pay attention to terrible men, whether through our own choices or because they\u2019ve grabbed the microphone and are yelling at us in politics or the manosphere or whatever. We\u2019re about the same age. Do you think men have gotten worse in our lifetime? Or are we just paying more attention to this?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    I\u2019m not sure. Even the word manosphere only came into my consciousness about five months ago. I know there\u2019s a lot of conversations happening around it, and it\u2019s very thorny. Ultimately, I think debate around something is always good, whether it\u2019s difficult or not. Exploring it is always good.<\/p>\n

    Last question\u2014and I can see the irony, given the scene in this episode where Niall gets asked about Ruben at the press conference\u2014but have you known any real Rubens in your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not based on anyone or drawn from anyone at all. But I certainly know what it\u2019s like to fear someone in my life. I think if you ask anyone if they\u2019ve known a Ruben, usually someone will say, \u201cOh my god, it\u2019s like this guy at school that would terrify me.\u201d But even if they don\u2019t have one at school or have one in the family, or if they never dated one, I think most people have passed someone in the street and felt a primal sense of fear for a man that is carrying themselves in a way that is scary, dominant, slightly unhinged. I think most people recognize a Ruben.<\/p>\n

    Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welp. It turns out there were two bodies in the barn. Thursday night\u2019s series finale of Half Man,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":829244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,256273,5560,5603,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-829243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-exit-interview","tag-hbo","tag-lgbtq","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116655856157185332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}