[hallmarkspit]

fighting to the death but it’s just an intricate metaphor for sex because of the way violence has shaped our entire outlook on life and our relationship and it’s also kept us apart for so long the only way we can feel closer is by dying together in a secluded room far apart from the rest of the world

[sunbreeds]

sometimes death is the best orgasm of your life

[buttholy]

this will be rambly and disjointed

I did enjoy the episode. some amazing, surprising, very touching scenes. the writing and the acting did a lot with very little time. I dislike the way the episode was structured, though. I can see that gadd wanted some things to happen (niall and alby to meet, niall to have a reason to go ahead and come out) and then wrote their reasons into being, but the sauna plot felt like a filler. I don't think we had the time to spare for it

phenomenal acting by rgadd. everybody was great, but the way he taps into pain is mesmerizing. it would be easy to be swallowed by bell, but gadd gave him no ground. they both deserve all the awards they'll certainly be winning

I don't actually believe ruben when he says that niall's sexuality has nothing to do with him, or that he wouldn't have cared. I wrote a little bit about it here

I also couldn't shake the suspicion that ruben was digging - the way he kept repeating "now you. now you. now you." until niall did eventually spill the beans

that's not to say I didn't think he was being honest, but ruben isn't just a brute: he's a bit of an ambush hunter. gadd said so himself in interviews. and it's just like him to expose a raw bleeding wound and then leverage it to his advantage, because that's also just like niall. niall mimics ruben's rage and intimidation tactics and ruben mimics niall's cold cunning

I think that what frustrated me about this episode, and also episode 5 to an extent, is the wonky pacing. it sticks out like a sore thumb to me here because it's the finale, and every scene that wasn't tight just made me think "we could be watching niall and ruben instead of this"

but I do keep in mind that while this isn't exactly gadd's debut, it's his first time writing something that's both entirely fictional and also original. netflix's baby reindeer had the privilege of being based on a real story he could draw from, and lean on two already existing shows (its namesake and monkey see monkey do)

I did like the ending. the murder scene is very much also a rape scene. ironically, it felt like one of their most tender moments. there's this split second, after ruben is done, where he looks down at the length of niall's body with his kilt tucked up, and for a moment you can see "did you come, baby?" written all over his face

[workingclassvillian-2]

Hand in hand. Heart to heart. Forever and forever. Amen.

[loo-nuh-tik]

#foreshadowing

Half Man (2026)

[f-slur]

ive read so many vague reviews from critics who have already seen the finale and so many cryptic interviews from gadd and co that i have a million different things swimming in my head and have no idea what to make of them like first off, gadd said that by the time the wedding happens ruben is so completely broken as a person that gadd wanted to play him "like deconstructed person almost" because all ruben has left at that point are "flesh and blood" and "animalistic urges" and thats why he grunts and huffs so much, and in another interview gadd said that the barn was a grueling shoot because there was screaming and shouting and flying and rolling in the mud and tears and snot and spitting (???) and jamie bell even talked about vomit (???) and they had to get "very physically comfortable with each other" for the whole thing, and then there was that one review that called the ending "depraved" but also highly original, and another less positive review said it felt like gadd just "pulls the rug out" from under the audience while another praised it as "emotionally shattering" and said its perhaps the first honest conversation (‼️‼️‼️) the brothers have ever had, but now the variety article is saying that the desire between them is "never explicitly addressed" and that the ending is potentially polarizing because of all the questions that are left unanswered so like what the fuck could they possibly do in that barn that is at once so depraved shattering and honest and yet leaves so much unspoken

[scarymask78]

this probably isn’t relevant to anything but the only other time ruben is referred to as “rube” is by his father when he was yelling at him outside their bedroom window

[sunbreeds]

i think it’s definitely relevant. ruben feels utterly emasculated in this moment, and it directly ties into what he does and why he does what he does next. he sexually assaults niall, this being previously established by ruben as the ultimate attack on one’s manhood. he perceives his own infertility as something similarly degrading, so he retaliates/lashes out in the form of re-enacting the abuse he suffered, perpetuating that feeling of powerlessness, maybe even as form of literally “passing it on.” calling himself what his father used to call him here is self-flagellation, mocking his own perceived and experienced effeminacy. he’s literally trying to make niall feel as humiliated as he feels in the only other way he knows how.

[sunbreeds]

so we all agree there is a generational and genius and compelling romeo and juliet re-contextualized type thing going down here, right? and just mulling all that over made me think: why wouldn’t the ending perfectly reflect that as well?

we see niall receive the sgian-dubh from lori and the scene pretty much sets the stage for niall to use it later on, killing ruben. this being all but confirmed, i’ve still been left wondering how exactly they were planning on fully realising the shakespearean vision here and the answer was literally right there the whole time. we see ruben giving niall a drink from his flask. its contents obviously aren’t disclosed and naturally, one would just assume it’s alcohol (also a kind of poison in itself) but have we considered it just literally being poison?

ever seen romeo poison juliet while she stabs him to death? tune in on thursday...

[sunbreeds]

what it essentially boils down to

[crimsonsoulpower]

Finishing Half Man is not enough, I need to die at Richard Gadd's feet.

[thrushcrossed]

held close all the time, knowing i'm half of you (nettles)

[bambicest]

— margaret atwood, speeches for doctor frankenstein

[intwestines]

they are just as fucked up as one another and i love them for it actually. I support gay rights and wrongs

[autotomic]

true detective season 1 save me. save me true detective season 1

[adamshallperish]

rust cohle is like that because she's a trans woman btw

[dotheunstuck]

I've become enamored of the idea that Rust Cohle just becomes a menace on the cold case/true crime forums in 2012 while recovering from Carcosa. He's up at 4 AM writing savagely toxic posts about someone's analysis of the Golden State Killer's MO, full of typos because he is both high on pain meds and shitty at typing . Marty's wondering why three boxes of photocopied files from some small town in Ohio were just delivered. He's banned from calling at least ten different sheriff's offices across the country. He's been a guest star on a dozen cold case podcasts and has listened to none of them, he just likes arguing with the hosts.

[partynausea]