Ray Shoesmith. Father. Friend. Boyfriend. Hitman. General all round crime handyman. The star of Mr Inbetween. The best TV show I've seen in years.
You know a show is good when you watch 3 episodes in a row. You know it's brilliant when you watch all 26 episodes in a week. Even at just under 30 minutes an episode that's good going.
It's a hard show to quantify. A comedy/drama/thriller blend. An Australian soap opera about a killer that delves in the minutiae of the everyday life of a man who'll kill you if the price is right but also a man who lives by a very strict code of conduct. No women, no kids, no one who isn't a criminal. He's ruthless and flat out terrifying in work mode but with his friend Gaz he's an amiable guy who loves a conversation about Sci-fi or who's the best Bond. With his daughter Brittany he's a loving father who has an open and honest relationship with the most important person in his life, answering questions about Santa, the Easter Bunny, sex and drugs in a way that never feels condescending. He's as far from a one dimensional criminal as you'll ever get and Scott Ryan just fucking nails the performance, switching from lovable to petrifying in the blink of an eye. You'll care about him even when you see him clearing up the aftermath of a murder by feeding a body to pigs or eviscerating a room full of scumbags with a shovel.
Like Ray the show flips between pain and pleasure with ease. One minute you'll be laughing along at Gaz's latest adventure and then the next you'll be appalled at the sight of someone being waterboarded for information or having their brains blown out by a blast of double aught buckshot. These flips happen in the blink or an eye and you never get to relax because you literally never know whats coming next. It's like Ryan (who also writes every episode) knows what you're expecting and so goes the other way every-time and the odd time you do guess what's coming, it's so extreme that you'll end up gasping at the screen. It makes it all so exciting and short episode lengths mean no filler, all killer. Literally.
Ray's painted as a likable guy but never as one you would want to spend time with. The show is clever about him. He's a crowd-pleasing antihero but as it moves forward you get to see the toll his life is taking on him, his friends, his family. No one is left unscathed, most of the scars are psychological but all are gaping. We also get a sense of why he is the way he is. Just a sense but it's not over egged and it's never used as an excuse. Crucially director Nash Edgerton (brother of Joel) leaves big things to your imagination, especially when Ray is dealing with the worst of the worst. He doesn't give us the chance to enjoy revenge vicariously and it's a great decision because you really don't want to find yourself cheering on the bloody exploits of a killer, no matter who he's killing. Shows like The Sopranos sometimes had a slapstick element to it's violence to help keep up the illusion that it's characters were just big lovable goofs but here when people get hurt, they get HURT.
Quality pervades the show. Every scene has meaning, every moment adds something, every line and every character feels genuine. It's as rewarding as TV gets and I wholeheartedly recommend it to the 3 people who'll read this. It's finished now so there's no waiting around for new episodes and no excuse not to start at the very beginning. Do it. You will no regret it.
Run.
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