Richard Gadd’s long-awaited follow-up to Baby Reindeer has, on the surface, nothing in common with his Netflix mega-hit. All of the formal experimentation and ricocheting wit has gone, making Half Man hard to immediately love in the same manner. While the series opens with Niall (Jamie Bell) being confronted threateningly by his stepbrother Ruben (a shirtless and beefed up Gadd), the story is then told in flashbacks.
In episode one we return to 1980s Glasgow to meet the teenage Niall, a bullied and bookish boy who’s situation changes when the troubled son of his mum’s girlfriend is released from a young offenders unit for, frets Niall, “biting off someone’s nose!” Ruben is a terrifyingly tough older boy who is moved into Niall’s room at home and immediately dominates the smaller boy, physically and psychologically. He’s just another bully it seems, but as the trust builds between them, Ruben takes a Stanley knife to Niall’s bullies and his life seems to be transformed into new popularity at school.
And yet, this teen trope is rendered here in deeply troubling psychological form — this is less High School Musical, more Scum. Ruben’s darkly toxic masculinity is petrifying, and while Niall is both hurt and controlled by him, he also feels protected — and quite turned on. He watches Ruben dance shirtless alone in his room. He falls asleep in Ruben’s arms after he has been almost strangled to death. Most disturbingly, Ruben arranges for a girl to come into their room and forces Niall to have sex with her. It’s a deeply uncomfortable watch.
Ruben’s nickname for Niall is Bambi, a nod back to Baby Reindeer, and actually there are parallels. No doubt as the series progresses, the show will also delve further into trauma, obsession, the sexual and psychological fallout from different forms of assault, and how friendship can curdle into obsession. It’s brave work from Gadd, there is little trace of the nerdy stand-up we all loved in his previous show, and there’s a sense of him trying to do something genuinely new and unexpected. Will people stick with it for long enough to discover what’s in store though?
