**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 with a straight face that makes it land even harder.
**The Authenticity:** Unlike many Australian productions that either chase Hollywood gloss or lean too hard into caricature, *Mr Inbetween* gets the balance exactly right. The locations feel real. The minor characters feel like people you've actually met. The dialogue sounds like how Australians actually speak. This grounding makes the violence when it comes genuinely shocking rather than cartoonish.
**The Supporting Cast:** Nicholas Cassim as Ray's brother Bruce delivers some of the most heartbreaking acting you will ever see. His portrayal of a man trapped in a failing body, facing his own mortality with dark humour and quiet dignity, is award worthy. Chika Yasumura as Ray's daughter Brittany is a revelation a natural, unaffected presence who becomes the show's moral anchor without ever feeling like a prop. Damon Herriman as Ray's boss Freddy and Justin Rosniak as his mate Gary round out a flawless ensemble.
**The Evolution Across Seasons**
Season One establishes the world with confidence, though some critics felt it occasionally sat on the fence between celebrating and condemning Ray's behaviour. Season Two is where the show transforms. The episodes "Monsters" and "Socks Are Important" in particular delve into the corrosive effects of Ray's work. We see his relationship with Ally (Brooke Satchwell) implode after his violence spills into her family's holiday gathering. We see the emotional toll on Brittany. The show stops asking whether Ray is good or bad and starts asking something more interesting: what does a life like this *cost*?
The final season brings the series to a close with a euthanasia scene that ranks among the most devastating in modern television and an ending that is, remarkably, both sad and perfectly right.
**Why Not a 10/10?**
The only reservation and it's a small one is that the first few episodes take a moment to find their rhythm. The six episode first season is excellent, but it's the 11 episode second season where the show truly becomes essential.
**The Verdict**
*Mr Inbetween* is a hidden gem of the highest order. It is a show that has attracted fierce loyalty from those who have found it and for good reason. It is lean, mean, funny, tragic, and deeply human. It respects its audience's intelligence, refuses to spoon feed its themes, and ends on a note of such quiet, devastating perfection that you will sit in silence when the credits roll. It is, quite simply, one of the best things to come out of Australian television and one of the finest crime dramas of the last decade.
**Watch if:** You love character driven crime dramas, dark comedy, or simply want to discover a masterpiece that somehow flew under the radar.
**Skip if:** You need clear moral lines, happy endings, or cannot stomach violence against genuinely bad people and the collateral damage that comes with it. This show will challenge you. That's the point.
