*Warning – contains full spoilers for Half Man episode 6.*
The final episode of Half Man is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer, bringing the epic story of Niall and Ruben’s brotherhood to an end.
The finale picks up four years after the brutal end of episode 5, with Ruben in prison and Mona having given birth to a child. While Ruben believes the child to be his and a miracle baby, Niall knows the truth – that he is the father, after he and a distressed Mona had sex.
But where did things go from there, what did we learn about Ruben and how did things play out at Niall’s wedding? Plus, Richard Gadd has explained those final moments of the episode, speaking exclusively with Radio Times.
Read on for everything you need to know about the ending of Half Man.
Half Man ending explained: Did Niall finally come out to Ruben?
While he was on release from prison to attend his mother Maura’s funeral, Ruben overheard Niall and Mona talking about a secret. They were actually talking about the fact that her son Ben was Niall’s child rather than Ruben’s, but he didn’t hear this.
Later, while visiting Ruben in prison, Niall realised he had to tell a furious Ruben something, to explain his and Mona’s behaviour.
After all these years, he finally told Ruben that he was gay.
Rather than reacting in horror or anger as Niall had feared, Ruben simply laughed, and said he was surprised that Niall finally admitted it. He said he had his suspicions for the entire time they had known each other.
Ruben said he didn’t care at all, to which Niall confronted him about his use of slurs. Ruben said they were just words, but Niall argued they do damage. Ruben said, “Only if you let them,” to which Niall angrily responded: “Well, I let them!”
Ruben told Niall that he has the real homophobe in his own life, and the only one who actually cared. He said he had wasted his whole life dancing to other people’s tunes, and that he would accept he was to blame for 10 to 15 per cent of the problems in Niall’s life – but no more than that.
Ruben reiterated that he wasn’t annoyed – he was proud.
What did we learn about Ruben’s past?
After Niall had come out to Ruben, he said he wanted to share something back. He revealed that his father had abused him, and when Niall asked whether “he hit you and stuff”, Ruben responded that “that was the best of it”. He broke down in tears and he finally acknowledged the trauma he suffered.
He said the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father “f***s you up” and makes you a “f***ing half man”. He had spent his life trying to prove that he wasn’t a half man, and filling himself “back up to the top”.
When Ruben asked Niall if he thought less of him after learning the truth, Niall said he was his hero, “more so now that I know where you get your armour from”.
Why did Ruben attack Niall at the wedding?
During their conversation in prison, we finally learned why Ruben attacked Niall at his wedding. After they had both made revelations to one another, the duo went on a run of exposing old secrets and long buried truths.
They laughed manically as they did so, and with all the joy emanating between them, Niall felt it was finally time to tell Ruben the truth.
As his final secret, Niall revealed that he had sex with Mona while Ruben as away, and that Ben was his child, not Ruben’s. Ruben’s laughter suddenly stopped and his face fell. His entire world fell apart in that moment and his and Niall’s date with destiny at the latter’s wedding was set.
Niall stole Ruben’s happily ever after – he would be making sure to return the favour.
What happened between Niall and Ruben at the wedding?
As had been built up to all season, Ruben had taken Niall aside at his wedding, locked him in a barn, and proceeded to unleash violence upon him.
Now, as he tried to smother him on the ground, Niall fought back, and managed to retrieve his sgian-dubh, a knife, from his sock. He plunged it into Ruben’s side, but Ruben still managed to regain control, and smothered Niall to death. As he did so, he screamed, “I f***ing love you brother, yeah? I f***ing love you!”.
After Niall was finally dead, Ruben collected himself and sat up, with his wound still bleeding. He then looked upon Niall’s body and gave a final grunt, as the screen went to black and the credits came in.
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It was already established at the end of episode 4 that Ruben died in the barn – however, how this happened is not made clear.
Did he bleed out from his wound? Did he take his own life? Viewers will have to decide from themselves how it came to be that both brothers ended up leaving that barn in body bags.
Speaking exclusively with Radio Times, Richard Gadd said that he likes ambiguous endings, but doesn’t necessarily set out to write them from the outset.
“It just felt like that was the right way of ending Baby Reindeer, and the right way of ending this,” he said. “And ultimately it’s a show about filling in the gaps between the episodes. I felt like, ultimately, you’re left to fill in the gaps at the end as well. That, to me, made quite a lot of sense.
“I remember wracking my brains for the ending in a lot of ways, and thinking of all different kinds of things, and everything clean felt very untrue to a messy story.
“And I sometimes think happy endings, or even just clear endings, they don’t speak to life. I think there’s this kind of illusion that you grew up with at the end of films, let’s say rom-coms, like, the two couple walks off into the sunset together, and the credits roll, that their relationship will be perfect for the rest of their lives.
“I think it’s sort of brainwashed people into always thinking, well I have to be with someone, and if it’s not perfect all the way through, then something must be wrong. And I think that life is a series of peaks and troughs, and life is complicated.
“So I’m always very confused by why TV shows, films, radio plays, plays always seek to end on a clear note, because life is an ongoing series of confusing idiosyncrasies that are very hard to grapple down into things that can be understood.
“And that’s always why I try to err on the side of, not just with endings, but in the whole show, confusing human behaviour, like knotty human behaviour, because, to me, this whole world we’re in is so hard to understand.”
Half Man is available to stream in full now on BBC iPlayer.
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