South Asian (she/hers), Largely media and music focused. Media analyst by trade. This blog is a mix of whatever my messy mind latches on to.

The first time we see her, she shows she has a very bold and even mean side with how she gets on top of Niall and makes him have sex with her. Yes, Ruben was the one who facilitated that but Mona was obviously more than happy to go along with it. Regardless of how Mona may have viewed it, we as the audience know that it was rape. And then she laughed at Niall when he was so clearly distressed. But she also clearly believed she was doing him a favour. And Niall mentioned he remembered seeing her dance which implies they saw each other (presumably in Ruben's presence) in the years between Niall leaving for uni and Ruben going to prison.

And then when we see her next, her and Ruben have apparently reconnected after he got out of prison. And it's clear that she does love him. Mona wouldn't have known the other extent of how Ruben's dad abused him but she clearly knew that his dad was abusive. And she did what so many women do in that situation where she felt she had to stay. She knew he was a wounded soul and she loved him and so she stayed. And she had all those posts emphasizing how great her and Ruben's relationship was for her social media. Not a particularly odd thing but itself but feels questionable when put into context of what her relationship with Ruben was actually like. And that scene when they're in the back garden with Niall and Ava and her and Ruben are all over each other in the way only a couple who feel like they have something to prove would be.

But she also had a defiant side to her. She fought to do her dance classes and she had an affair. And when her and Niall were there in the big, posh house that she shared with Ruben, she was the one who kissed Niall first. And she very willingly had sex with him. Obviously, Mona is the one who suffered the more immediate consequence of getting pregnant. And she, like so many women, didn't want to be a single mother.

She was lonely and the man she shacked up with while Ruben was in prison left her and she was lonely. But she was also a hypocrite. She wasn't wrong that Niall was thinking of himself rather than her in his insistence that she keep Baird's paternity a secret and that he was also operating with a bruised ego because she didn't view him the same as she viewed Ruben. She knew that Niall didn't really care about her at all. All it had been for both of them was a means of seeking control and revenge for how Ruben had treated them. Mona just didn't pretend otherwise. But Niall wasn't wrong that telling Ruben would have made things worse and she saw that for herself when Ruben interrupted her and Niall after Maura's funeral. She was also being selfish and spiteful because she outright says she partly wants to tell Ruben to fuck with Niall. But maybe her feelings were valid because she may well have figured out that Niall had spied on her for Ruben, manipulated her into getting drunk and revealed her affair. But she did choose to have an affair rather than leave Ruben. But maybe she was scared to leave him. But she also knew that her having an affair would hurt him. And maybe she even knew deep down that Niall was more important to Ruben than she was. And she hated him for that. But can you really blame her so much?

And when Ruben and Ava were making fun of Niall about his writing, she was the one sincerely interested. And she softly spoke to him again about his writing when she talked about Niall putting her in his book as a dancer.

I was very intrigued when I found out he was going to be in Half Man. I did not yet know the story behind it all and I find it endlessly amusing but also endlessly endearing that Richard is apparently at least as big a fan as I am. Probably bigger.

I've said this before but it really seems very fitting to me that Richard wrote this part with Jamie in mind. When I think of all the actors that I like who have a similar body of work that Jamie does, I honestly can't imagine anyone else as Niall Kennedy. But also, I have a hard time thinking of anyone who matches just how wide and varied Jamie's body of work is.

I knew I was in for a wild ride as soon as I knew Jamie was going to be starring and clearly I was right. I have always been in awe of how Jamie has managed to bring vulnerability to incredibly complicated characters who on paper are probably really unlikeable but the way he embodies Niall feels otherworldly. It never felt like I was watching THE Jamie Bell putting on an amazing performance. I just felt like I was watching a real person be abused, make terrible decisions constantly and felt equal parts angry and sad for him.

This doesn't mean that his heart isn't in the right place but that's precisely it. I've met so many of those types who genuinely are well-intentioned but don't yet have the life experience to understand what they actually stand for. Niall may well have been a "proletariat" in the sense of coming from a working class background but Alby and Celeste's use of the term makes no sense to anyone who has an above surface level understanding of these things. Same thing with the shaking hands thing. There is no real logic to why Alby would choose this to be the thing that he takes a moral stance against but that by itself makes sense because this is a young man who is freshly an adult and is looking for a reason to showcase how against the oppressive social norms he is despite not yet fully understanding what those norms actually are both because of age and the sheltered middle class life he's very clearly led. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if Richard Gadd, coming from a Scottish working class background and attending Oxford School of Drama (no relation to Oxford University btw), would have encountered exactly this type of classmate at least a few times.

And then later, we see a much kinder side of Alby where he recognizes the "performer" in Niall and offers his solidarity. But then he still can't understand why Niall is struggling to accept his own sexuality because Alby is thinking of the homophobic violence he experienced and how he didn't let that stop him. Alby has no knowledge of what Niall's relationship with Ruben is actually like and he simply assumes it's a very general homophobia on Ruben's part. And then he takes care of Niall when he's so drunk that he wets himself. He makes sure that Niall gets back to his dorm safely and even puts his jeans in the wash for him. And despite his frustrations with Niall's internalized homophobia, and you can even say that those frustrations were valid, he doesn't push Niall at the start. And actually, one could even extrapolate that Alby's experience with homophobic violence at his previous uni was his first encounter with a world that didn't want to accept him and of course it traumatized him. And of course, he felt frustrated when Niall still refused to come out because as far as Alby knows, he made himself vulnerable and Niall is behaving in the same way as the other guy that he hooked up with at his old uni did. Alby clearly has the rather rigid moral beliefs that young adults experiencing the world for the first time often do because those beliefs have not yet been properly challenged. And honestly that's a pretty universal thing that transcends any time period.

But he also shows that he has enough awareness to recognize that what Niall is describing about having sex with Mona because Ruben engineered it is "dark." That's a pretty big thing for a young man of that time period to be aware of but of course his understanding is still relatively limited despite that. Plus Niall immediately brushes it off.

And he tries the "not shaking hands" thing on Ruben and Ruben (because of his own experiences) sees it as Alby thinking he's superior to him. It's not until later after Ruben has destroyed the kitchen and deeply upset Joanna and thrown his weight around that Alby starts making jibes at him. Bearing in mind that Alby does not know why Ruben is the way he is. And it's undeniable that there is an element of superiority in Alby's interactions with Ruben. Alby does, on some level, see himself as better than Ruben which is what Ruben picks up on. And you could even argue that Alby is better than Ruben because he doesn't behave the way Ruben does. But that's not really relevant. It's not homophobia that makes Ruben snap and attack Alby. That defense came much later. In that moment, it was Ruben already in a state of extreme anger and distress needing a reason to be violent. And Alby gave him that reason first by pushing his self-righteous statements and then by shoving Niall. And the reasons he did shove Niall was because of his own trauma with being physically attacked for his sexuality and the frustration he felt (which again was valid even if his reaction to it wasn't) over Niall not being honest plus Ruben going out of his way to cause destruction that the others had to clean up. It's not surprising that he would react the way he did to having Niall jump on him and covering his mouth. I'd say that's actually a pretty natural reaction to have. Him shoving Niall as hard as he did was obviously an accident that he immediately regretted but at that point it was already too late and there was nothing stopping Ruben. And to be clear, obviously Alby didn't deserve what Ruben did and Ruben did deserve to go to prison. That is not even a debate.

I do understand why it may be frustrating for people that the next time we see Alby as an adult, it seems like he's not holding on to any anger towards Niall but I think it makes sense when you take the context of young Alby into consideration. As far as Alby knows, Niall got his own brother convicted because he refused to lie and throw Alby under the bus. That is what Alby saw. He also saw Ruben threatening Niall. And when we see him after that, we are shown that he has greatly healed both mentally and physically. It's not like what happened has been forgotten because Niall does bring it up. But we have to put this in the context of the characters rather than what we as the audience see or believe. It doesn't feel so far-fetched to me that Alby would be able to not only forgive but even feel fondness and compassion for Niall when he sees him again because his last memory of Niall is Niall essentially standing up for Alby to get justice. And you could even say that Alby got justice at the expense of Niall because while Alby was able to get both the mental and physical help that he needed, Niall was not. And actually, there is a point to be made here about class and money but I think that needs its own separate post.

So an adult Alby who has a lot more life experience but has retained that compassion sees this boy that he had once known when they were young uni students still struggling with himself. And he still doesn't know the depth of it all but he sees the struggle. And this time, he's a lot better in how he encourages Niall to come out. He knows now just what Ruben is capable of and he knows that Ruben is in prison so it would be safer for Niall to come out at that point than it would have been had Ruben been free. But he also knows that Niall does need to tell Ruben because that's the one person that matters the most even though he still doesn't understand why.

And I actually do think Niall had feelings for Alby. The way that question is worded feels very deliberate. "Have you ever opened yourself up to have feelings for another man?" Not "love" another man. Have "feelings." Because feelings could mean anything. And when we go back to a young Niall and Alby in uni, Niall does feel something. It's one of the things that pushes him to the point where he drinks so much he wets himself. And then he mentions Alby by name when he calls Ruben that night. But having feelings is not the same as loving someone. Certainly not the same as the all-consuming love that Niall feels for Ruben. But that doesn't mean that there aren't feelings there. And I don't think Alby necessarily loved Niall in that way either. If we go back to the Alby we met for the first time, he does have that trait of wanting to "fix" someone. I don't think it's accidental that he ended up becoming a medical professional where "fixing" people is pretty much in his job description. That, mixed in with Alby genuinely caring about Niall and seeing the struggle and knowing that Niall made a big sacrifice for him (even if he doesn't understand quite how big), means that it doesn't feel quite so surprising that he would be drawn to Niall when they meet again. Or that he would be as forgiving as he was. And it's very clear that he hasn't forgotten what Ruben has done because we see and hear the fear when he asks Niall why Ruben is at the wedding.

And then there is Alby, Mona and Ava. Sure, all three of them are better off without Ruben and Niall in their lives but all of them have been impacted by them in some way. And all three of them cared about Ruben and Niall in some capacity.

Mona still felt some type of love for Ruben despite how horrible their marriage was. And even if she only wanted to get back with him after getting pregnant with Niall's baby because she didn't want to be lonely, that feeling was still real.

Alby had only just married Niall and even if he suspected that Niall wasn't really in love with him (at least not in the way one should be in love with someone they plan to spend the rest of their lives with), he cared about Niall and they did spend years together. And he would likely question if he could have stopped it.

And then there is Ava. Her and Niall's relationship was a facade from the start but that doesn't mean that neither of them cared about each other. I do think Niall cared about Ava in some way even if he very obviously didn't love her. I could actually see how he and Ava may have become friends and later Niall would push for it to become a romantic relationship. And she also had his baby. She was a witness to Ruben's abuse of Niall even if she didn't understand what was happening or if she didn't say anything. But she was there at the wedding and that must mean something. After all, even if Niall had invited her, she could have declined if she truly hated him or didn't want to see him.

And then Joanna who we see at the wedding and we know she cut Niall off a long time before that. And we don't see her for a long time and she's entirely absent until the wedding. And so much happened during her absence from Niall's life. What if she hadn't cut him off? Of course, she had a life of her own and it was being negatively impacted by Niall and she was well within her rights to set boundaries. But she did cut him off and Niall did suffer. And who knows? Maybe things could have been different if she hadn't cut Niall off. Or maybe everything would have turned out exactly the same. It's a question that can never be answered.

Honestly, I want to make individual posts for the characters of Alby, Ava and Joanna because even though they are essentially side characters and we very intentionally see them through Niall's perspective, a closer look shows that they are by no means one dimensional. There is a lot of interiority to them if one pays attention. That is the beauty of the writing in this show as well as the acting that brought it to life.

This is a really interesting question! So I'll be honest, I personally am not a fan of RPF but I don't think people who are fans of it are wrong for it. I do think it's important to keep boundaries and remember that if you are into RPF, you are writing and reading about real people. I think what's happened in the past decade or so with social media is that the boundaries have become a lot more blurred and people forget that whoever they are writing about is a real person with a life of their own that isn't going to cater to what fanfiction one may dream up about them. I think as long as people are mindful about the fact that they are writing and reading about real people and respect boundaries, then me or anyone else not liking RPF is irrelevant.

I'm not sure if everything surrounding Baby Reindeer had anything to do with RPF directly but I do believe it really shines a light not only on how easy it is for people to forget that the people we see onscreen are real people but also how easy social media has made it to build a parasocial relationship with someone and/or treat real people like fictional characters that you have the right to make assumptions and theories about.