Richard Gadd

I think Ruben reacts to the world in violence.

It's all he understands is his safety net against the kind of terrors of life.

And I think he knows fine well, due to his nature, that there might be a world where he's not always there.

And so he wants to toughen Niall up and...

you know, make sure he's there.

I mean, family means everything to Ruben, you know, as the story unfolds, we'll understand why.

But family means everything to him.

So, you know, they're in this kind of very hybrid household, this kind of weirdly dysfunctional kind of way of coming together.

And he wants Niall to not only learn to fend for himself, because I think at this point he's genuinely...

really fond of Niall and loves him and sees him as family.

But he also wants there to be a masculine presence within the family household when he goes.

And so I think in a weird way, it is Ruben's love language, giving him a pair of boxing gloves.

Niall and Ruben, they form a kind of really close bond, like a really, you know, layered and complicated bond.

They just can't shake.

And no matter what happens in their life, no matter all the good and bad experiences they go through, they seem unable to shake having each other in their lives.

I think as they move through lives and as they change and the characters go through all kinds of different changes throughout the series, one thing that they cannot escape is that feeling they had for each other when they were in their youth, which is this very confusing, very complicated love that they seem incapable of expressing.

And the series kind of mutates through that and takes you through that feeling of can't live with someone, can't live without them, that forms the very basis of their relationship.

Mistake number one, wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

I mean, I was practically asking for it.

Am I right, ladies?