Getting Over Mr Inbetween
Disney+ is full of cute anthropomorphic animals, swashbuckling space knights and Pixar moms. But look a little closer, and it’s also home to someone quite different: as deadly as he is deadpan, and most likely completely psychopathic, there stands Ray Shoesmith, the antipodean hitman of Mr Inbetween.
Mr Inbetween ended in 2021, but is still garnering attention as a sleeper hit beyond its native shores (I was recently put on to it via TikTok). Scott Ryan plays the titular Mr, as well as writing and creating the show. The series plays out with a grounded realism and slice-of-life stlye similar to Refn’s admittedly more gritty Pusher film trilogy. The Inbetween of the title refers to the moral dilemma that the protagonist faces: as a criminal enforcer operating in the Sydney underworld, he takes on jobs, from drug trafficking and intimidation right up to murder and body disposal, as a way of earning a living. This lifestyle is contrasted with his view of himself as a ‘good guy’; his moral code about what kind of jobs he will and won’t do; and his other life as a father and role model to his young daughter. Much of the show’s conflict stems from Ray having to deal with the contradictions created by these parallel existences. It’s a great series and, along with The Bear, a more than good enough a reason to get Disney+, if just for a while.
NB: this piece is about the finale of Mr Inbetween, so this is your spoiler warning: go watch the show if you haven’t seen it yet!
One way in which Ray’s dilemma is resolved is through the idea of vigilantism. Sometimes, the show seems like a revenge wish-fulfilment: when the monsters out there threaten you or your family, it takes a laconic badass to start kicking down doors and cracking skulls. These fantasies are what superheroes like Batman run on, and are critiqued to great effect in Alan Moore’s Watchmen through murky anti-heroes like Rorschach. In one episode which exemplifies this vigilantism, Ray saves his daughter’s friend from a peadophile ring, and then dispatches the evildoers with a sharp object and great gusto. In smaller ways, it’s the same approach Ray takes when dealing with his dauhgter’s school bully or people who annoy him in daily life, leading Scot Ryan to characterise the show as:
Much of the enjoyment of watching does come from witnessing thrilling acts of violence which are usually directed towards other gangsters who are ‘in the game’ and often calmly accepting of their fate, or people who we feel deserve to squeal for their moral failings (whether that’s for a minor traffic violation, blackmail or sexual assault). Yes, Ray is violent, but he’s a good bloke and he’s only violent towards baddies who have it coming.
However, the show’s creators aren’t naive enough to simply present this benign view of violence uncritically, but instead force the viewer to question their enjoyment. As the series progresses, Ray’s balancing act is tested to the limits. An outburst causes him to lose his girlfriend. He’s tasked with disposing of the body of a presumably innocent young woman, and ultimately does the task because the price is right. His work also starts to seep into his family life: his 12-year-old daughter finds his gun and shoots a hole in the wall, and later tries MDMA. This acting out is indicative of the pain and confusion caused by her father: she knows he’s hiding something, and suspects that he must be doing bad things — why else would he be sent to prison? Part of Ray’s arc is becoming more open with his daughter, and ultimately distancing himself if that’s what’s best for her.
The show ran for three series and, like any TV of the prestige era, faces its own conundrum: how to end in a satisfying and meaningful manner? Mr Inbetween is largely episodic. Some threads do continue over multiple episodes, but quite often a plot line is introduced and resolved in the same 20-odd minute slot. This makes ending the series a challenge: there isn’t an overarching plot line which needs to be resolved. What the show can do is try to resolve that central moral dilemma: Can Ray Shoesmith keep getting away with it? Can he be a good person and father, and continue his hitman exploits? Or will it all catch up with him? The series finale – I’m Not Leaving – wrestles with these questions and, instead of finishing on a plot twist, makes an unexpected turn into intertextuality and meta-commentary, eschewing its usual kitchen-sink naturalism. It does this by drawing from two highly celebrated depictions of on-screen violence.
One of the main comparisons made with Mr Inbetween is another show about a violent criminal balancing his work life against his sense of self and family duties: The Sopranos. Both shows use an episodic structure and spend time showing us the ‘regularness of life’, whether that’s Tony and the crew doing Godfather impressions at the Bing, or Ray and his mate Gaz trading their best jokes from the sofa. The Sopranos is perhaps most famous for its controversial finale. After seemingly resolving a conflict with a rival gang, Tony is eating with his family at a diner, unknowingly being watched by a mysterious guy in the Members Only jacket. The guy goes to the restroom, Tony hears a bell, then looks up expecting to see his cherished daughter Meadow enter the restaurant and –
Cut to black. Many felt like the show’s creator David Chase was trolling the audience and denying them the satisfaction of a tidy ending. With time, however, the most common interpretation is that the ending is clear, given a little reading between the lines: Tony was whacked, and the blank screen represents his death.
The creative team behind Mr Inbetween seem to have been channeling Mr Chase when they made their finale. In the last episode, Ray appears to have finally reconciled himself, in a similar way to Tony at the start of season 6. Ray takes his daughter to visit his estranged father who is suffering from dementia (another Sopranos parallel with Uncle Junior’s fate). He moves to the outback, away from the criminality of the city and distancing the bad influence he carries around like a fog from his daughter. He works as a taxi driver, a job that involves ferrying people safely to their destinations, in contrast to his previous work and the death of an innocent character that weighs heavily on his soul.
What am I? Some kind of toxic person?
The very final scenes of both shows are filled with similarities. Both portray seemingly innocuous events with a mounting tension: Tony eating with his family, Ray driving two passengers to their destination. Both feature unknown characters: Members Only jacket, and Ray’s two dubious fares. Both protagonists play music: Tony chooses Don’t Stop Believing from the jukebox, while Ray has a silent contretemps with the front seat passenger over which radio station to play – more on this later. Mr Inbetween even ends with a sudden cut to black. But unlike The Sopranos, this ending is less ambiguous. To understand it fully, the influence of another filmmaker needs to be mentioned.
Aside from David Chase, the ending seems to draw from another renowned source: the esteemed Austrian director, Michael Haneke. Like Chase, Haneke’s work often deals with estrangement from modern life, and uses some postmodern techniques to make the audience uncomfortable. The finale of Mr Inbetween has parallels with Haneke’s notorious film, Funny Games. This movie immediately lets the audience knows that the director is playing with them. In the opening, a middle-class family drive an SUV to their holiday destination, listening to various classical music CDs. As the father tries to change the track, the mother asks him to ‘just listen’; suddenly the calm, diegetic music from the car stereo is interrupted by the director inserting a non-diegetic song over the scene: an extremely brash and screech-filled grindcore track. It’s an early statement of intent from the filmmaker: don’t trust what you’re being shown; don’t forget that this is a staged film; and don’t be surprised later when I decide to intervene in the action.
These interruptions become more apparent and jarring as the film goes on. The middle-class family arrive at their holiday home only to be captured and tortured by two young, unassuming men, Peter and Paul. At one point, the family make a successful escape, only for Paul to pick up a remote control and literally rewind the film they are characters in, allowing him to prevent their escape. Another remarkable and disturbing feature is how Paul frequently breaks the fourth wall: turning to the camera and smirking, and even directly addressing the audience, asking if the sadistic violence they are witnessing is ‘enough’.
You think they stand a chance? Well, you’re on their side, aren’t you?
The meta influence of Haneke is clear in the Mr Inbetween finale. Ray and the front seat passenger clash over who sets the radio station/soundtrack of the scene. Ray prefers calming sounds, but the other man keeps switching back to a more boisterous tune. After the passengers make their threats explicit, the series ends on a shocking note: Ray turns to the camera and gives his trademark, devilish grin. Like Paul in Funny Games, Ray breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly. It feels like a challenge: is this what you want? More violence? Even after everything I’ve done to change and distance myself from the criminal underworld? Or is it more nihilistic than that – Ray did everything right, but violence and confrontation is unavoidable.
In The Sopranos finale, the contrast between Journey’s upbeat song and the silence of blank screen point to Tony’s sudden demise. Chase normally ends his episodes with a song over the credits, making this lack of sound all the more ominous. Similarly, in the fight over the radio, Ray was battling over the direction of his soul. Like the brash music that opens Funny Games, the intense sound of RUN by AwolNation emphasises Ray’s return to violence. The abrasive tune is an auditory slap to the face: a harsh, electronic jackhammer of a beat. Its presence during the credits shows us which way Ray sided, and is even underscored by the episode’s title: I’m Not Leaving. Like in The Sopranos, we’ve become so conditioned to seeing scenes of violence that, even when the screen cuts to black, we can still picture the carnage that unfolds.
Mr Inbetween is a great show with a very fitting send off. In some ways it’s a modest affair, dealing with a small cast, low-level crime, and a handful of locations. It didn’t need a grand finale to bow out, or a tidy moral reckoning like Breaking Bad. The series had plenty poignant emotional moments between Ray and his girlfriend, father, brother and daughter, which I can’t help but feel were slightly undercut by the finale. The very last moment of the very last episode was a provocation to the audience: we could let Ray retire and be happy, but we know you don’t really want that.
Through the series, Ray reached almost Terminator levels of chilling invincibility and unstoppable wreaking of carnage. My only real disquiet was that at times, it all seemed a little to easy for him. No challenge was insurmountable as long as he grinned and kept his cool. In the final episode during a fight agaisnt three adversaries, he almost came across as something demonic, non-human. And despite all he did to get away from the violence, here are two lowlife, scumbags, making explicit threats, delivered on a platter in a stretch of empty jungle. It all ends with an almost literal nod and a wink to the audience: yes, we want character development and for Ray to turn a corner, but can we also please keep the gratuitous and satisfying violence? When it comes to vicariously enjoying Ray mete out pain to those we deem deserve it — even if we know innocents will inevitably get caught in the crossfire — can we really have our dimmy and eat it? Ray’s grin makes sure the audience know that we’re complicit in what we all know comes next.
