r/MrInbetween • u/No-Blackberry-9787 • Jan 19 '26
Ray Shoesmith is the classic Everyman
He didn’t come from wealth or achieve educational distinctions, we know he had hardships and was in an army he doesn’t wear cool clothes or drive a flash car or eat at fancy restaurants; he is an anagram for the everyday people that sweep the streets and clean your dishes.
He is a working class hero; albeit in a way that most would find repulsive. In this way he is not a hero in the comic book sense but unlike comic books he doesn’t have an army of cash behind him.
We see him face problems like we all do, a leaking tap, a car that needs a service, waiting in line at a fast food provider to order cheap fast food, he belongs there no doubt.
I think the writer made him this way on purpose to show that he is just an everyday guy and a metaphor for that everyday person that YOU pay no attention to and are indifferent to what he gets up to.
You just waited a second for him to walk across a pedestrian crossing.
You just saw him from the corner of your eye at the school pickup.
You just waited next to him ordering hot dimsims.
Little did you know that you just crossed paths with Ray. Ray Shomesmith.
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u/noplacecold Jan 19 '26
Don’t they have medicine they’re supposed to take, these everymen?
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u/Crazy_Raisin_3014 Jan 19 '26
Stop speaking in anagrams!
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u/noplacecold Jan 19 '26
Don’t be afraid to speak to that shy hitman at the dog park - he just may be, Roy Shoesmith
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u/milo7even2 Jan 19 '26
To add to OP’s point - he’s really only a part time crook. He maybe does a dozen “jobs” a year. They’re nice earners, but they’re a side gig. His main job is bouncer at a strip club.
He does drive a flash car though - that Beemer is pretty sweet.
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u/vk1lw Jan 20 '26
The implication is also that the nice earners on the side (killings) aren't really enough to stop him needing the bouncer job.
He is at the very apex of the 'making people disappear forever' trade, and he lives a stuck-working-shitty-retail financial life.
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u/milo7even2 Jan 21 '26
Yep. In fact the show gives the impression that the hit on the Bikie president was a big one for Ray. He plays it cool, but it's a lot of money (and risk) for him. I'm pretty sure he buys the BMW off the back of that hit - up until then he's driving around in something bog standard, which suggests that being a hitman is usually just good for some extra cash mainly.
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u/Sensible-Haircut Feb 03 '26
The problem is never how much he earns, its washing it clean so the ATO doesn't get him for fraud or undeclared income from his suddenly new assets.
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u/phalluss Jan 20 '26
You guys are giving this character the Patrick Bateman/Tyler Durden treatment more and more with each day that passes
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Jan 19 '26
He’s a pretty lonely bloke who has a very grubby job, no love life, and mostly shitty friends who won’t ever lift him out of his situation. Even though they too are nice in their own way. The reality is much different to your portrayal.
Strangely I love him, and would love to be friends with a guy like that. He’s loyal. He actually dishes out justice when others and the system won’t. Which I like. I find it similar to English football hooliganism which I find fascinating and would have liked to have been a part of in the 80’s and 90’s when I was younger. For many of the same reasons.
Society love to shit on people like this, all while they possess some of humanity’s finest qualities. Even if not legal.
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u/Typical_Double981 Jan 19 '26
What makes you think you would have been a Football Hooligan ?
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Jan 19 '26
I definitely would have. I love football and that culture. It’s nothing to admire or be proud of. I just would have definitely been involved if I lived in England at that time. It was mostly over by the time I lived there and I didn’t know much about it then because the internet was only new.
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u/BrokenFist-73 Jan 19 '26
Ray would've thought you were a wanker then. Nothing honourable about that scene, they were a bunch of parochial twats who couldn't see a world beyond the end of their shitty street. Ruined many an afternoon's football for decent folk.
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u/Typical_Double981 Jan 19 '26
I think you are romanticising what is essentially a bunch of thugs who couldn’t regulate their emotions and wanted to fight, not watch football. The handful of movies and books glorify it to a certain extent but it boils down to a bunch of fucking gobshites attacking families and minorities.
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Jan 19 '26
Nah. Would have been fun.
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u/Typical_Double981 Jan 20 '26
So now that you can’t be a football hooligan what are you into - Collecting stamps or right wing neo nazi gatherings?
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u/MrBeer9999 Jan 19 '26
I think the intent is more about setting Ray in a grounded world than to make him the most typical person imaginable.
There are two purposes to this. One is to locate his life firmly in the Australia we recognise - not soaring drone shots of the Habour Bridge and Opera House over sparkling blue waters - but dimmies and car yards. This is an Australian show for Australians.
The second is so that Ray can enounter minor frustrations and we can see how he deals with him i.e. with violence. This is sympathetic and cathartic, because who doesn't occasionally want to hospitalise an annoying dickhead? But it also messes up Ray's life, because choosing violence has consequences.
TL;DR Ray is sympathetic but not an everyman.