I think in a Deutritium-Tritium fusion reaction a lot the energy is in the neutron. And since neutrons are neutral you can't really directly convert that into electrical energy.

Yep, for D-T 80% of the energy is in neutrons. Helion is using D-D/D-He3, and for that it's about 5% in neutrons, and most of the rest in fast-moving charged particles.

So they have a simple way to extract electricity directly. They squeeze the plasma with a magnetic field from a copper coil, then there's an explosion of charged particles, which pushes back against the magnetic field and causes electricity to flow in the coil.

D-D (which they are going for right now) is still 50% neutrons. D-He3 is the only aneutronic reaction, but it has tons of other issues.

As I said, the combined reaction generates 5% of its energy as neutron radiation. The reason it's only 5% is that D-He3 is a much more energetic reaction.

The main issue with D-He3 is that it's more difficult.

That's what I said. But all things equal, D-D is definitely not the best path for direct energy production because of the vast amount of neutrons.

I think the concepts are the same but the execution (heat up water with plasma) is still a work in progress.

That's the "thermal middleman" part they're trying to cut out.

By analogy, compare Concentrated Solar Power versus Photovoltaics.