Another Series of Inside No. 9 Just Ended…So I’m Back

Series 7 of Inside No. 9 aired its series finale on Wednesday of this week, which means I have an excuse to write more about my favourite show. I’ve noticed a lot of mixed opinions on some of the episodes, but as someone who is pretty content to just trust the writing I think that usually lets me be pretty satisfied by the end of each episode. I never try and build expectations ahead of time, so I have yet to be thoroughly disappointed by the BAFTA winning anthology series.

Without further ado, let’s get into this. Fair warning: there will be spoilers.

1. Merrily, Merrily

My favourite episode of series 7 is easily this one. It is quintessential Inside No. 9 with a wonderful emotional core so stunningly portrayed by Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and guest star/long-time friend Mark Gatiss. It’s a story about people who have gone their separate ways, reuniting on a pedalo. Not a sentence I expected to write. With both Pemberton and other guest Diane Morgan providing a lot of the comic relief, the whole episode has the comedy and the drama that is advertised. There is a beautiful exploration of grief and nostalgia that, by the end of the episode, made me feel completely at peace. That feeling will not last for the rest of the series.

2. Mr. King

It took a long time for me to understand what was happening in this episode. This is the masterful writing we come to expect from the Shearsmith and Pemberton team, as they do such a wonderful job of burying the lede. When I realised that this was a Wicker Man thing, I was delighted. I know that’s a favourite horror film of both of the writers, and it’s one of mine too. Admittedly, it’s also one of the most disturbing episode of the series, and it’s probably not one I’ll be rewatching any time soon, but I have a fondness for it in the same way I have a fondness of The Riddle of the Sphinx. It’s wild, I love it.

3. Nine Lives Kat

This is an episode for the writers in the room. The revisiting of drafts, the battling with clichés, and the genuine guilt some people have when they leave a character behind. With Pemberton as the omnipresent writer, whose place in the story is difficult to really figure out until about halfway through the episode, it’s a sort of trippy experience with a kind of horror/thriller vibe to it. One thing I noticed about the whole series was that there was a theme of playing around with the format of storytelling, layering of elements that are not always messed around with in a lot of TV shows. It makes me happy to see the risks taken in this series, which we will get further into in the series finale…

4. Kid/Nap

It’s time to talk about my passion: directing. I love the parallels made through split-screens across the course of the episode. There is, once again, the brilliant marrying of the manipulation of perspectives in both the writing and the directing of this episode, which I think is epitomised here. So many twists and turns appear in this one, giving the impression of your classic crime drama with the trademark silly humour that we saw in Wuthering Heist in series 6. Also Jason Isaacs is there, and if Lucius Malfoy can’t convince you this episode is excellent, then I don’t really know what can.

5. A Random Act of Kindness

This episode reminded me that I never trust Steve Pemberton’s characters. There’s almost always something going on in the background with them. Stylistically, I loved A Random Act of Kindness, there was this cheesiness to the way that the future and the present were set against each other. To me, it read as a love letter to all of the depictions of the future in other time-travel based media, with clean modernism and lasers being all over the place in the denouement. Jessica Hynes and Noah Valentine have wonderful on-screen chemistry too, as the mother and son central to the plot, and it’s clear from the writing that both Pemberton and Shearsmith are fathers of teenagers. Admittedly, this one took me a while to understand but when I worked it out, I really appreciated the construction of the narrative.

6. Wise Owl

Before I watched this episode, my friend (who caught it before me) offered me a content warning. I said no, but having watched it I can see why they offered. The mix of the childlike animation that can be seen in Public Service Announcements aimed at young audiences and the live action elements we usually see were so wonderfully unsettling. Also present were elements that made me think someone had recently watched Donnie Darko and a hell of a lot of taxidermy, making for an overall vibe that had me on the edge of my seat. Reece Shearsmith does most of the heavy lifting in the acting for this episode and is, as always, incredibly compelling to watch, as I found myself rooting for his character to stab his father once I understood the narrative. The ending was incredibly satisfying, and I was so pleased as the character of Ronnie walked away. It was haunting.

That is a wrap for me on this series. My top two episodes for series 7 are absolutely Merrily, Merrily and Wise Owl, both of which had new directors to the series at the helm with Al Campbell and Louise Hooper. While I would love to see Guillem Morales return to direct other episode in the two new series that have been commissioned(!!!) it’s nice to see some new faces. It really gives each episode that self-contained flavour. On the whole, I think Inside No. 9 is going from strength to strength and I will be eagerly anticipating series 8.

~Caelum