Half Man Games

Half Man is Richard Gadd's much-anticipated return to television after Baby Reindeer, a six-part HBO/BBC co-production that arrived on HBO Max on April 23, 2026 and concluded its run on May 28. Created by and starring Gadd alongside Jamie Bell, the series traces Ruben Pallister and Niall from the moment their mothers fall in love in 1980s Scotland through three decades of enmity, friendship, codependency, and mutual destruction. Each episode jumps to a different year in their shared history while bookending in the present, where a freshly-released-from-prison Ruben turns up uninvited at Niall's wedding to Alby. What begins as an unwelcome appearance escalates into something far more violent, and the structure forces viewers to watch the brothers' bond reassemble itself in real time while we already know exactly where it ends. Critically, Half Man has been received the way Baby Reindeer was: as singular, uncomfortable, formally daring television that some viewers find devastating and others find punishing. It holds a 77% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the finale has split viewers along the same fault lines as the brothers themselves.