Mr Inbetween: Season One (Review)

Mr Inbetween
Season One
FX 2018
The Nicsperiment Score: 9/10

Ray Shoesmith walks around with a perpetual crocodile's grin. He gets sent to anger management for  beating up two guys who swore in front of his young daughter, but swears to the counselor that he isn't angry at all. The deal is, he just doesn't like to see people get away with being "assholes." If people get away with acting like "assholes," he reasons, "they'll just keep acting like assholes." That still doesn't explain the perpetual angry smile on his face, or why he chose his particular line of work. Ray is a fixer for criminals. Ray is a complicated guy.
The male antihero craze that began in the late 90's and early 00's with Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey ended in the mid 10's with Walter White and Don Draper. Since then, that kind of hyper-masculinity has been, if not frowned upon, somewhat drowned in modern television's protagonist pool.
I love a good antihero, though, especially if done right, like the ones in the previous paragraph. Those four, among others, explored something at the root of specifically, the male psyche, and more generally, in all of humankind's desire to do the wrong thing, and still consider themselves the good guy. Ray Shoesmith takes great care of his daughter during his custody time, shows much love and empathy for his terminally ill brother, and treats his girlfriend with respect. In one of the six-episode first season's funnier episodes, Ray even shows himself as perhaps too good of a friend, taking the fall for his buddy's embarrassing urinary porn fetish to save that friend's already shaky romantic relationship. What's Ray's deal?
That question, in regard to any protagonist, is the heart of any good antihero-focused show.
As Ray, Scott Ryan brings a tough guy charm not seen on the small screen in quite some time. Ryan balances the tightrope of likability and scorn. Mr Inbetween's writing, done completely by Ryan himself, is sharp and witty. While watching, I was often reminded of my favorite line from one of the greatest antihero programs of the antihero glory age: "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole." The nearly same-named character who said it had just as little self-awareness to realize he was the asshole as Ray does. And yet, Ray really seems to be tiring of the complications his line of work has brought down upon him.  What's Ray's deal? After six stylishly directed by Nash Edgerton half-hour episodes, the possible answers still seem tantalizing. You can't ask much more from a debut season of television than that.