Mr. Inbetween: Australia's Hidden Masterpiece

so this video is going to be an interesting one especially considering the current circumstances there's a certain massive show that's stealing all the Limelight that I have very strong feelings about mainly in it being overrated and not a very good adaptation of a certain video game but I'm saving that for later for now I want to recommend you guys a show that I just recently fell in love with it's an unconventional one but I hope to get more people talking about this because I won't lie I think this show is downright a masterpiece made by our good friends down under so prepare for funny accents um right how many uh how many people if you had to guess how many people would you say that you've assaulted [Music] [Music] pipes that's right Mr in between now this is a show that has some very interesting history behind it you see Mr in between is the crime drama dark comedy series created by in starring Scott Ryan it follows the daily life of a professional Hitman living in Australia Ray shoe Smith he tries to balance his daily life as a violent criminal with his responsibilities as a father a boyfriend and keeping true to a sort of code of honor that he believes in which becomes difficult as he runs into all kinds of different people in situations some directly challenging his worldviews and principles now some of you guys might assume that this is going to be a show kind of like Barry which is another dark comedy series about a Hitman but this is actually a completely different Beast you see Barry focuses on how his life spirals out of control and has building tension throughout each season there's a lot of cause and effect and each episode builds up to something larger Mr in between is really more the opposite I'll explain more towards the end but a better comparison for the series would be Louis funny enough a show following a fictionalized account of Louis CK's life and Surah to pick how he gets ideas for his stand-up routines it's a slice of Lifestyle formula with only a few elements really being plot points Mr in between is essentially if you took that Louis formula but applied it to a Hitman it sounds weird but that's the thing it works it works really well in fact I'll just outright to say it Mr in between is a fantastic series downright a masterpiece I'd say with one of the most fascinating and likable protagonists that I've seen in a show so let's dig in and talk about why I love this so much I mentioned before that this series is more of a slice of life where you really get small scale stories in each episode and these can vary from Rey performing a job to just trying to figure out why his daughter doesn't want him to drive her to school anymore this is actually something that was carried over from the source material since yes this is actually an adaptation of something or I guess it'd be more accurate to say to spin-off back in 2005 there was a small indie film made in Australia called the magician it was a crime drama comedy found footage movie about an indie filmmaker following a Hitman to document his daily life it was a series series of moments and Misadventures that weren't really tied together too much I mean it had a hostage situation where Rey is conflicted on whether or not he wants to kill somebody Max the filmmaker interviewing Rey and trying to find out more about his life and philosophy and just assorted scenes of Ray going around being the [ __ ] out of people it wasn't really a structured story and it was intentionally like that it was really meant to be like a cheap documentary thrown together by an amateur filmmaker hoping for a quick Buck they even outright stated in the film well the movie itself started off as a 30 minute short basically just a proof of concept Scott Ryan the lead actor edited the short together with the intention of pitching it to film festivals well at one of them the brother to Joel eggerton Nash Edgerton happened to watch it he loved it so much that he rallied to get the film funded through government grants and even became the director to every episode of Mr in between and you can definitely feel a lot of the DNA from the movie in the show from the emphasis on naturalistic dialogue to violence that focuses more on reality than spectacle to just how Scott Ryan plays right I highly recommend the magician especially if you're a fan of the show it's a different experience but it's good to see sort of the first draft of what Mr in between eventually became and it kind of shows what he can accomplish but not a lot of money Lewis Doug regardless the magician was later adapted into Mr in between back in 2018 and it lasted for three seasons now you might think that sounds low especially compared to how shows like Game of Thrones or Walking Dead went on but this wasn't canceled if that's what you're worried about the creators all agreed to end the show at three seasons which actually makes this a pretty fast series to get through if you want to sit down and binge it hell the first season alone is only like six episodes yeah it's not a lot and each episode's only about half an hour long this is sort of a result of the slice of lifestyle that I talked about each episode is meant to be a self-contained story with the plot being resolved by the end it's almost like a sitcom but one that has violent murder in it now of course you'll appreciate some of the later episodes way more if you watched since the beginning especially towards the end when certain character arcs come to a head and it's time to cash in on the emotional weight the finale of season two in particular hit pretty [ __ ] hard but this is actually something I really like with Mr in between while you could watch each episode independently and Skip around I'd argue you get a lot more out of the show watching an order not because it has some secret plot you need to decipher no it's nothing like that more that each episode serves to show you more about who Rey is as a person the show does a great job at giving its characters layers from Rey's perverted best friend Gary who's introduced is basically just a dumb [ __ ] Rey has to do favors for and get him out of trouble but he's eventually revealed to actually be a pretty legit criminal himself even helping Rey out on jobs and being able to hold his own weight I mean the guy is dumb but he's not [ __ ] stupid you also have Rey's brother who is one of the most sympathetic characters in the entire show since he's just a good guy trying to look out for his brother and his niece while suffering with worsening mnd which is a major neurological disorder each episode gives you more hints to who they are as individuals and how they view life Gary just seems to enjoy the little things Sports guns porn stuff like that Bruce Rey's brother sees the good in life even with his situation he wants to be there as a form of stability for Rey and Brittany his niece Freddy the Crime Boss that Gary and Ray work with has trouble separating family from business and this causes issues when the Two Worlds conflict putting him in more than a few no win situations you get the point these are just a handful of the characters in the series but the real standout is Rey himself this is a very complicated guy you might think he's just a cold-blooded murderer a sociopath taking his anger out on the world and [ __ ] his life up one step at a time well that's actually wrong well he does screw his life up in more than a few occasions Rey himself is actually a lot more level-headed than you might expect especially compared to other protagonists in crime dramas and something like Barry or Breaking Bad you see a real lack of control in their their protagonists or some major flaw that you can point to as something that makes them directly evil Barry has anger issues that cause him to lash out sometimes in downright homicidal fashion which creates a Snowball Effect he can't handle Walter White is motivated by Pride he makes short-sighted and downright stupid decisions all too ironically feel like the smartest guy in the room Tony Soprano is a hypocrite going on about loyalty and protecting the family all while screwing people over and only really caring about himself even outright killing the ones that looked up to him and were loyal meanwhile Rey is almost a mirror to these guys when the show starts off Rey is clearly meant to be a villain protagonist he hurts people for money he's a Hitman first episode has him threatened to murugai's family because of a debt he refuses to pay well someone joke to collect money it's his job what's your job I want to have somebody sorry you didn't pay when you had the chance but as the show goes on you actually become more sympathetic to Rey you'll learn more about his circumstances his family life and most importantly the unspoken code that he seems to stick to I wouldn't necessarily say that Rey is glorified he has more than a few occasions where he just flat out screws up or is the bad guy it's more that you understand he's not a two-dimensional villain the character feels inspired by Mark Chopper Reed a notorious pop culture figure in Australia who became a weird folk hero style character due to his apparent code of honor that he would stick to essentially promising that he would only be violent towards criminals and people trying to provoke conflict first despite basically just being a thug who went in and out of prison he gained a cult following and even appeared in Australian media he got a dedicated movie comedians would reference him from time to time and there was even a domestic violence awareness commercial that aired that was literally just him threatening to beat the [ __ ] out of wife beaters if you come to jack a fashion a woman will ripen a woman you will get dealt with you will stop we will break your neck you load yeah sweet mice not gonna lie kind of Beast Rey definitely has flashes of a similar idea a criminal with rules but it's nothing that's explicitly laid out or talked about you just sort of pick up on it as The Show Goes On Rey is willing to do a lot of different kinds of work from drug deals to raids to Simply kidnapping a guy and killing him in the woods all you have to do is be honest and straightforward with him why do you want this guy dead hell he's even willing to kill people he knew for years you just gotta make sure to pay him what you [ __ ] owe as long as you don't try to [ __ ] the guy or screw him over Ray is your man he's a professional but if you do think it's a good idea to try to give him the run around you find out the hard way that was a mistake and if you happen to screw over somebody he liked there isn't really much you can do he'll come at you like the wrath of God himself this is an element to the character I especially find interesting the way Rey views violence and hurting people most every show that handles criminal violence tends to show the psychological damage a life like this can have on a person the guilt over killing the straw rest of always looking behind your shoulder not being able to balance being in the day with normal people with the nightlife of being a criminal stuff like that Mr in between doesn't really do this at least with the major characters none of the protagonists have any qualms with killing in fact the times where they are acting out of anger are the exceptions to the point that you are legitimately afraid of what they're capable of if they really meant it but instead you get insights to exactly how Rey views Life as a Hitman it's a job he views it in the exact same way he views his cover job as a bouncer it's just something he does for money he's very good at killing people so why not use that skill set to make a living the raid there isn't really anything to feel about it it's work he's just semi-skilled labor contracted out to take care of something it's to the point that he even extends this to some characters who outright try to kill him he knows it's just the rules of the game everyone has their time to shoot at somebody or get shot at sorry about that there's nothing personal of course this doesn't mean that he'll just forgive and forget if you take a shot at him in fact that would be an extremely bad idea the guy is a very talented assassin capable of making people disappear off the face of the Earth by the way the action in this series is fantastic there's an intention to detail to the gunfights everything from how the actors move to the sound design really grounds it all in reality one of the best shootouts in the show is when Rey ambushes a van with an SMG I stand to be exact you can hear the bullets punching through the doors and the windows there's actual differences between what an impacts from metal punching through metal to how it sounds when it breaks through class even goes so far to show how quick Rey Burns through ammo only getting a few seconds to spray bullets before having to reload the friend who recommended the show to me said that it's some of the most accurate gunfights he's seen on TV I'm not sure about that I can't really be the judge there but they were certainly fun and sell to watch even if they don't happen every episode but some of my favorite moments of the show are just when people really challenge Rey ask why he hurt somebody or try to decipher how he views life mainly because it's these moments that you see how little they actually understand the guy the anger management class in particular really shows the Divide between how most would perceive Rey and how he actually thinks the guy is genuinely insulted at being put in the same group as people who beat their wives or their kids I don't know if fans but I don't really want to sit here with a bunch of [ __ ] wife bashes and job buddies you know and yeah he's got a point he doesn't do that in fact he's a pretty good father to his daughter even has a decent relationship with his ex-wife it's not the best but they're divorced so you know just the fact that aren't trying to kill each other is more than enough but Rey views himself as different from low end scumbags in fact he specifically believes that he's got a role in society to set these guys straight when someone accosts him on the street he'll break their jaw so that next time if they ever get the same idea again they'll think twice about it they'll remember the beating Ray gave them that's not to say that Rey is a vigilante or Punisher style character not at all the guy is absolutely a criminal this is just how he justifies beating the ever-loving [ __ ] out of a guy that knocked his daughter's ice cream out of her hand which yeah is reasonable all you had to do was apologize man it didn't have to be this way and really this sort of describes Rey's philosophy to a T he views violence as just a means to an end and obstacle to overcome to get to a result we all knew was inevitable anyway hell there are times where you the viewer asking yourself why a guy put himself into a position to get ass beating we all know you're gonna pay the money why cause more pain for yourself or in other situations why are you being such a dick you are literally asking to get the [ __ ] [ __ ] kicked out of you why did you need to take the Unicorn now the humor in Mr in between is something that I've neglected to talk about just know that it's a pretty damn funny show this is one of those cases where it's able to balance a harrowing drama with being legitimately hilarious you can go from a scene of Rey torturing somebody to him having to take the fall for his buddy's porn collection as a favor there's also a lot of scenes where characters are just sitting around having [ __ ] conversations talking about aliens the existence of God what gender they'd want their first kid to be and every single one sounds extremely authentic to how people speak there's a good flow to the dialogue and there is a lot of Aussie slang mixed in you'll learn to understand what Demis are and the timing for the jokes is on point it's not as absurd as how Barry can get instead it's a lot more dry it's more grounded in how people really would talk and just the Absurd situations of normal life of course there are moments where the humor can get downright over the top but never in a way that I'd say breaks the reality of the series simply a completely insane situation that relies on 1 million chances which is the entire joke nobody could have ever predicted that coming another thing I will say is that this is one of those rare cases in a series where it's able to have great humor and great drama without ever feeling the need to dumb anything down for the audience there was never a point where it felt like the script cheated or had to invent a reason for something to happen it's very tight with each episode and its only really small detail stuff that can get left by the wayside like for one if you spray a whole canister of gasoline inside of a small building then the minute you ignite it the whole building will [ __ ] explode because the gas will evaporate and become Vapor like instantly but we can excuse it and say it was an accelerant that had a higher boiling point it's not really the point of the scene also there's a scene where Ray's daughter fires a gun inside the house and it's one of those weird cases where nobody else in the neighborhood heard it and Brittany herself isn't clutching her head in pain because a gunshot in a small room like that would have her ears [ __ ] ringing guns are very very loud but as stated this is small detail stuff that doesn't impact the show at large and frankly there are far worse sins out there these are just weird quirks that you can easily forget about for the larger picture and the times it does know how to make violence grounded are downright glorious plus they happen way more often like there's a gunfight where Rey and his friends Ambush some guys who tried to stiff him on a deal well when Rey knows is that a guy is wearing a bulletproof vest Rey aims for his shoulder sense that it is exposed and this is probably one of the few shows that actually does address that if you get hit in the shoulder you're gonna bleed out pretty [ __ ] fast since that does happen to characters it's like the only time I've ever actually seen anyone address that there are arteries in your shoulder if you get hit in the shoulder you will [ __ ] bleed and you'll die so you know good on Mr in between for actually doing that but you get my point he's able to make Split Second decisions In the Heat of the Moment and these small little shifts help you understand that Rave was basically born to be a Hitman the guy found his purpose in life and he is damn good at it now the actual end of the series can feel a tad rush to some it covers territory that some might argue needs two episodes instead of just one the final gunfight is great it's one of the best in the show but the wrap up for the episode sort of rushes through some serious character development I didn't hate it it's just one of those cases where just one more episode would have made it stick to Landing perfect the finale doesn't suck not at all but you can be left feeling a little disappointed like that's it it's a for good though I'd argue that the show is more about the experience of watching it than the destination it's like arguing that Seinfeld's finale sucked you're kind of missing the point [Applause] you're not wrong but you're not really watching to get to the finale it's how each episode makes you feel and the journey at large still I absolutely loved Mr in between it's outright one of the best cronchos I've seen in a long time it's definitely different from something like Better Call Saul but I'll argue it does more than enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the greats I'm actually kind of sad that it took this long for me to pick up the show but it was sort of buried it did air in America it's not like it was stuck in Australia it's just that it never picked up a substantial enough following to really be talked about hell it's only just recently that I'm seeing discussion pop up for the show and I hope that this video managed to convince you guys to sit down and give it a watch it's fantastic with some episodes that will stick with you for a long time my personal favorites are on behalf of society monsters see you in your dreams socks are important and they're rust and let me die these episodes are downright greatest of all time level stuff not even saying the other episodes are bad just that these are the ones that stuck with me the most you might have your own list of favorite episodes regardless I hope you guys check out the series watch the movie too the magician it's a lot of fun even if it's a different experience than the show still it's time to wrap things up here you can find this series on Hulu or your pirate side of choice and I hope you guys give it some love until next time please remember to like comment and subscribe see you guys [Music] hey loser do you want a shirt do you want a t-shirt I have shirts now look at look in the description for a link to a t-shirt you can buy if you don't buy the T-shirt I'll kill your family if you don't buy the T-shirt I'll poison your dog if you don't buy the T-shirt you're gonna be the only person in town that does not have a t-shirt everyone's going to look at you funny there's gonna be social consequences to not having one of these t-shirts I'm now making Express threats of violence against you if you do not buy my t-shirt I will call the police tell them how they're not you know you're not buying my shirt they're gonna plant crack in your house and we're gonna arrest you and then beat you up in a jail cell buy my shirt

Channel: TheAlmightyLoli

Views: 698,384

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Id: s7uy2FGFATg

Length: 19min 26sec (1166 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 13 2023