Half-Man Is Baby Reindeer Meets Animal Kingdom

1 day ago 23

Published Apr 27, 2026, 2:45 PM EDT

Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer.

Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.

When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.

HBO has a new unsettling drama that combines the themes of Netflix’s Baby Reindeer and the hit crime drama, Animal Kingdom. On paper, mixing these types of stories shouldn’t work. However, against all odds, Richard Gadd’s recent HBO TV show succeeds in creating a story that represents the best of both worlds.

Blending the psychological intensity of Baby Reindeer with the toxic masculinity of Animal Kingdom, HBO’s Half Man tells the disturbing tale of two stepbrothers, Niall (Jamie Bell) and Ruben (Richard Gadd), whose bond across three decades is destructive, yet inescapable.

Despite delving into the lives of broken people and themes of trauma that Half Man shares with his hit Netflix show, Gadd’s new series lacks the dark sense of humor that is intertwined with the critically acclaimed Baby Reindeer. Where Animal Kingdom dances around the toxic masculinity of the Cody brothers, Half Man fully explores it, resulting in a brutal and emotionally intense television experience.

Half Man Is Richard Gadd's Official Follow-Up To Baby Reindeer

Following the many awards and critical acclaim that Baby Reindeer received, expectations for Richard Gadd’s next project were high. The kind of success that Gadd’s successful Netflix miniseries achieved can be a deterrent in some ways, because no matter what the writer-actor works on, it will, for better or worse, be compared to Baby Reindeer.

Thankfully, HBO’s Half Man, which Gadd wrote and also stars in, serves as the perfect follow-up to Baby Reindeer. Half Man expands the ideas that Baby Reindeer tentatively touched on into a more explosive narrative. The series allows Gadd to fully explore toxic masculinity and repression in a way that he couldn’t in Baby Reindeer.

Gadd’s signature style of delving into deeply uncomfortable topics is all over Half Man. The new HBO series, despite sharing some of Baby Reindeer’s DNA, has more stakes. It asks the question of what would happen when two people with traumatic pasts collide. In that sense, Half Man is the kind of show that is a perfect follow-up to Baby Reindeer. It's intimate and unflinchingly honest in a way that stays with audiences.

What Reviews Have Said About HBO's Half Man

Richard Gadd as Ruben, seen walking down the street, and looking angry in Half Man

Anything that has Gadd’s name attached to it is expected to garner rave reviews. However, that hasn’t been the case for Half Man, as it's far from universally beloved. Currently, the HBO series has a 76% critics' score and a 72% Popcornmeter from audiences. The numbers are obviously not bad, but they could certainly be better. So far, critics’ thoughts about Half Man have been divided.

Half Man Rotten Tomatoes Scores

Tomatometer (Critics)	76%
Popcornmeter (Audiences)	72%

There is, however, one thing that most critics agree on: Half Man is an incredibly difficult show to watch. In TV Insider's review of the series, Matt Roush writes, “If Reindeer made you cringe, Half Man will make you squirm.” Dexerto's Chris Tilly agrees with this assessment of Gadd’s new show, calling it a “Tough watch.” Some pundits took issue with Half Man's pacing, calling it uneven at times.

The reviews for Half Man are not all terrible. The series, as noted by critics, has many positive attributes. Roger Ebert’s Nalini Bouldini, who gave Half Man a four-star rating, praised the actors in the series, saying, “Gadd and Bell are doing career-best work here.” Lucy Mangan from The Guardian called Half Man a “Bleak and brilliant thing.”

In defense of Gadd’s HBO series, Half Man is not meant to be an easy show to watch, as the description makes clear. The themes are supposed to make audiences uncomfortable, but they also invite viewers to think about toxic masculinity and the complexity of family relationships.

On that note, Half Man is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. If the first episode was that harrowing, the rest of the show is certain to get darker. Despite this, Half Man should still be appreciated for what it is: an unsettling series with brilliant writing and excellent acting.