“I just did everything I could to communicate that feeling,” director Alexandra Brodski tells EW.

Half Man director on filming that Alby shocker: ‘When I read the script, I gasped’

"I just did everything I could to communicate that feeling," director Alexandra Brodski tells EW.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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April 30, 2026 10:05 p.m. ET

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Niall (Mitchell Robertson) and Alby (Bilal Hasna) on 'Half Man'. Credit:

Anne Binckebanck/HBO

- *Half Man* director Alexandra Brodski talks shooting that big Alby shocker in the episode 2 ending.

- "When I read the script, I gasped," the filmmaker tells EW.

- Brodski explains how the wedding sequences were shot in about five different locations.

**Warning: This article contains spoilers for *Half Man* episode 2.**

*Half Man* director Alexandra Brodski, who helmed the first three of the six-episode limited series from *Baby Reindeer* Emmy-sweeper Richard Gadd, shares her reaction to the big Alby reveal at the end of episode 2.

"When I read the script, I gasped," the London-based German-Russian filmmaker tells **. "To be honest, I just did everything I could to communicate that feeling because I think it is so shocking."

Episode 2 chronicles young Niall's (Mitchell Robertson) move to university and the havoc Ruben (Stuart Campbell) wreaks on his life. With a gentle hand from his new classmate and potential boyfriend, Alby (Bilal Hasna), Niall begins to come to terms with his sexuality. Then Ruben, in a fit of rage, brutally bludgeons Alby in the common room until the boy is unrecognizable.

And just as viewers are left reeling from this violent moment, a time jump back to the wedding of the present shows Niall (Jamie Bell) is in fact marrying adult Alby (Charlie de Melo), who still bears the lingering facial scars from that same beating years prior. It's what makes Ruben's (Gadd) surprise appearance at the ceremony all the more frightening.

Jamie Bell as adult Niall on 'Half Man'.

Anne Binckebanck/HBO

The wedding shoot was "quite complicated," Brodski notes, because what looks like one location is really about five. "They're all quite spread," the director explains. "We'd be looking for this kind of stone and so many places would have one building like that and everything around it would be modern. We basically combined, like, five different locations."

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The Alby reveal in the chapel was filmed at the end of the schedule, as a result.

"Some of the things we already knew when we were shooting and some of the things just developed later on," the director says, one of them being the song "Only You" by Yaz, which they inserted over the chapel scene in the editing phase. "It was a good combination of keeping it planned, but also keeping it organic...What we want to do is to really shock the audience, but also intrigue them to obviously keep watching and figure out the story of how this came about."

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New episodes of *Half Man* continue to premiere on HBO and HBO Max Thursday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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