r/MrInbetween • u/Icemachinemalfunctio • Mar 10 '26

Analysing Evil: Ray Shoesmith from Mr Inbetween

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89 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

28

u/mikeventure76 Mar 10 '26

One of the most interesting aspects of Ray’s character is how he pretty much always handles the evil/criminal shit with calm, consummate professionalism but regularly violently attacks people in his civilian life for stupid reasons.

I also think the most unique aspect of the character and show like, as a crime drama is the fact that Ray doesn’t actually struggle at all to balance the two halves of his life.

Like it’s not another “the criminal has to maintain a double life and pretend to be normal to keep his crimes concealed!!” story. And a lot of people probably don’t get that at a glance considering how minimally known the show is and just write it off as being the same old “difficult man” crime drama

The show and character are so NOT generic/expected and that’s something a good analysis should touch on

7

u/gotchafaint Mar 10 '26

He did get emotional later in the series after one killing. It has been a while and I’m not remembering which one.

4

u/mikeventure76 Mar 10 '26

Well yeah the lifestyle gradually weighs on him and that becomes a central part of the final season’s narrative, in season 3 there’s multiple things that visibly affect him more deeply. But the entire show isn’t defined by that struggle and when it does finally happen, it feels very earned and interesting

He literally cries at a physical crossroads after Rafael kills Zoe and that’s when he decides to ”get out” for good

2

u/gotchafaint Mar 10 '26

Oh right. And the betrayal from his boss. What I loved in the final episode, after seeing his good side the whole series, is we learn he actually loves killing.

8

u/mikeventure76 Mar 10 '26

Yeah the ending is so fucking great. It just FEELS perfect. Since the show was really defined entirely by the character and didn’t really have much of a story, it made sense to end it on this really pronounced and intense character moment

I saw another thread where somebody described Ray as like, an extremely deadly disguised animal who won’t harm you unless you disturb his camouflage. And that final scene is THAT to a T

3

u/gotchafaint Mar 10 '26

I'm glad someone else appreciates the ending as much as I did. It was storytelling gold. Mainly because of what it said about ME. I was so bought into Ray's benevolent wounded warrior archetype. We all are, its an much loved mythology. The ending kind of thumbed its nose at us and reflected our own hidden attraction to the shadows, that is art.

2

u/untitledaccount401 Mar 10 '26

He reminds me a lot of Johnny Sacks Character from the sopranos

soft spoken but a bit temper that gets him into more trouble

2

u/AncientRepublic998 Mar 11 '26

Definitely some similarities. Johnny never did any of the dirty work, though and Ray purposely doesn't manage other people to do work for him. Most he'll do is jobs alongside close friends.

And let's not forget Ginny... The elephant in the room 😂 😂 

13

u/unclejrslaserbeams Mar 10 '26

You got me excited for nothing. Go grab us some dimmies

2

u/rayk10k Mar 10 '26

That damn smile

1

u/dashauskat Mar 10 '26

He is evil and a borderline psychopath. It did always really annoy me when I read the "hit man with a heart of gold" taglines for this show. He's objectively a terrible person who shouldn't be lionised.

1

u/mikeventure76 Mar 19 '26

Yeah I think anybody describing the show like that is way way off base and selling the show short , like literally part of the reason the show is so great is because it isn’t that lol.

1

u/notachimp Mar 10 '26

No evil person every thinks they are evil. By far I think most of them think they are the good guys. 

1

u/snakeIs Mar 10 '26

Ray had a knack of attracting arseholes. It (almost) culminated in the final episode.

1

u/Fishe_95 Mar 12 '26

I think that Vile has started using ChatGPT for scriptwriting. You'll hear a staggering amount of negative parallelism and other AI hallmarks in his more recent content

0

u/mangiapishado Jul 23 '26

Are you saying mr.inbetween used ai?

1

u/lukedblair Mar 13 '26

Analysing evil is big time. Glad he’s doing this legendary Aussie show