r/HalfManTV

​

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?

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.

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?

​

The scene of Niall having sex in a car with a guy who is apparently quite younger than him and looks like him, asking him to call him "daddy".

Seriously, that scene within the context of the series felt very disturbing and disgusting to me, and I must say I was surprised to see Niall being the dominant one. I don't know if it was his way of being in control, of imitating Ruben, or if he really was the top.

I mean, Ruben being abused by his father, Ruben always calling Niall by the nickname "bambi", and on a few occasions "son"—never stopping to see him as a child—and sexually assaulting him. Ava pregnant, saying goodbye to Niall and calling him "daddy".

There are certainly visually very violent and disturbing scenes, but this one takes the prize.