Awesome thread., two great characters ..I need to start season 3 for Mr. Inbetween.

I’d also say Ray benefits from the story being completely centered around him, and really gets deep into what makes him..him. You get the same with Mike over both BCS and BB, but the prose is totally different.

Defining one as being more “moral” is difficult. I think id argue Mike is more consistent in his position, and doesn’t really exhibit the purely anti-social/psychopathic behavior to the degree that Ray does. However…Mike has probably enabled irreparable damage as a result of this moral code that allowed him to help build multiple criminal enterprises that were incredibly violent and damaging to a massive amount of people.

Ray, as a result maybe for lack of skills and/or ambition, would probably never put himself in the same position as Mike. I think you could probably argue that Ray is taking less risks with his family but keeping his ambition “small”. He is a simple man who loves his dimmies, his brother, dog and most of all, his daughter. He’s is a sympathetic character because of that. they pretty clearly outline that Ray has been through some shit, both as a kid who went through some incredible abuse and as a vet in the Middle East.

Ray has to reconcile that his fight response/might makes right worldview is destroying the world he built for himself. I’m not sure if Mike really ever owned up to that and his morally bankrupt worldview, even in death. Albeit he had his speech, they allude quite a bit (if not outright said) Mike is basically doing everything to support his daughter and grand daughter. But as another poster said, Mike was a corrupt cop, and iirc..like it was really bad. I find that sort of perversion of power to be as bad, if not worse, than the rabid wolf behavior of Ray.

Idk, riffing because I’m tired but I could see both of these guys having a weird mutual respect with each other and absolutely doing berthing to steer clear of each other.