Mr Inbetween

Score: 9/10 A Lean, Mean, Unforgettable Australian Masterpiece

Some shows grab you by the throat. Mr Inbetween grabs you by the throat, makes you laugh, breaks your heart, and then quietly hands you a dim sim while you process what just happened. This is not hyperbole. This is what it feels like to watch Scott Ryan's landmark Australian crime drama a show so effortlessly brilliant that it has drawn inevitable, and not entirely unreasonable, comparisons to Breaking Bad.

Created by and starring Scott Ryan, Mr Inbetween follows Ray Shoesmith, a Sydney hitman and "fixer" who operates in the grey spaces between being a devoted father, a caring brother, and a cold blooded killer. Across three taut seasons of 20 to 30 minute episodes, it manages to do what few shows achieve: it earns every moment, wastes nothing, and ends exactly when it should.

What Makes It Brilliant

The Character of Ray Shoesmith: Ray is a revelation. Ryan's performance is understated to the point of deadpan a man who approaches the tasks of cutting up a corpse and ordering lunch with the same level of equanimity. He has a "sharklike smile" that signals imminent danger, yet he's also the guy who reads bedtime stories and patiently cares for his brother Bruce, who has motor neurone disease. This dichotomy isn't played for cheap irony; it's the entire point of the show. Ray genuinely loves his daughter. Ray genuinely loves his brother. Ray also genuinely does not lose sleep over the people he kills. The show trusts you to sit with that contradiction.

The Writing and Tone: The series balances an impossible tightrope act. One moment you're laughing at Ray's bone dry responses in a court mandated anger management class; the next, you're watching a scene of such quiet devastation that it lingers for days. It is, as many have noted, "wickedly funny" and "brutally dark" in equal measure. The humour is deeply Australian unpretentious, self deprecating, and often delivered...