Inside No. 9 - Series 9 Review (2024)

The final series and the moment may have been prepared for as train journeys, escape rooms and real life partings make up some of the stories in this last run. All episodes are written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton and directed by George Kane, Al Campbell and Guillem Morales.

Episode 1: Boo To A Goose

Opening the ninth series, we take a trip on a train carriage with a slew of different folks. These included drag artist Wilma (Pemberton) and friend Cleo (Susan Wokoma), husband and wife duo Gerry (Shearsmith) and Edith (Siobhan Finneran), homeless man Mossy (Charlie Cooper), overzealous detective Raymond (Mark Bonnar), nurse Elena (Philippa Dunne), the paranoid Finn (Joel Fry), and the mysterious Harold (Matthew Kelly). Throughout the episode, it took little for this group of people to turn on each other with a biting commentary on compliance versus defiance leading to a trouble end for this one. 8/10

Episode 2: The Trolley Problem

Anyone hoping for a two hander between Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton in this final series just got their wish with this chilling episode. Pemberton takes on the role of therapist Blake, who thought he was doing a good deed by stopping Shearsmith's Drew from killing himself. However Blake realised that letting Drew into his home was a bad idea when the latter made it clear, he wanted revenge for his own daughter's death. Needless to say that Blake inadvertently played a role in Ellie's (Eleanor Kirby) death, so Drew returned the favour with Blake's son, Robbie (Ethan Joseph-Robert). The ending to this one was particularly dark. 9/10

Episode 3: Mulberry Close

Going a bit suburban, we got a couple named Damon (Shearsmith) and Val (Vinette Robinson) moving into the titular neighbourhood. It wasn't long before the couple stoked the attention of nosy neighbours Kenny (Pemberton), Sheila (Dorothy Atkins) and Larry (Adrian Scarborough) and throughout the viewpoint of a door cam, things descended into chaos. Damon's belligerent behaviour and Val's temporary disappearance had everyone else jump to the wrong conclusion. Add the accidental death of a dog named Popcorn and this episode definitely took a turn and proved the adage about not really knowing your neighbours. 8/10

Episode 4: CTRL/ALT/ESC

I'm actually surprised it took nine series to do an escape room episode but here we go. In this episode, you had Jason (Pemberton) along with his wife, Lynne (Katherine Kelly) and daughters, Millie (Kallie Tant) and Amy (Maddie Evans) in an escape room ran by Doug (Shearsmith). Family issues to one side, we had to see them working to get out of the room and avoid the clutches of Dr Death (Angus Wright). Now the twist of the episode was that the escape room was in Jason's mind and he was actually on life support, edging towards death. However the ending of this episode ended up being a surprisingly heartwarming one. 9/10

Episode 5: Curse Of The Ninth

If there had to be one weak episode in this final series, then it's a good thing it's one that's still very good. It's just not as good as every other episode this series. Anyways you've got a piano tuner named Jonah (Shearsmith) who found himself drawn to a curse in a country house ran by the recently widowed Lillian (Natalie Dormer). Her husband Nathaniel (Eddie Marsen) died before completing his 9th symphony in this Edwardian adventure. He was also buried with his incomplete work and an alliance between Jonah and scheming maid Devonshire (Hayley Shires) quickly exposed Jonah's ruthless side that both Lillian and her lawyer, Dickie (Pemberton) had no problem trying to exploit. However a certain curse (James Swanton) turned out to be true for everyone trying to complete that symphony. 7/10

Episode 6: Plodding On

Did nine series really lead to this? Being the longest running show that Shearsmith and Pemberton have done, the expectations were high for this final episode. At first it seemed like we were getting the real life version to Sardines with the returns of Katherine Parkinson and Anne Reid in the bathroom of a press screening for the final episode. Then we had a moment where it looked like Reece and Steve were actually going to do the On The Buses episode with Robin Askwith after all. Speaking of Reece and Steve, while the former wanted to do a detective series named Plodding On, the latter had signed up to do an Amazon fantasy series that seemingly every British actor auditioned for. While the two of them have a spat, quote their own show and go full tilt meta on each other, the rest of the episode roped in as many past guest actors as they could. The likes of Tim Key, Amanda Abbington, Mark Gatiss, Nick Mohammed, Sian Gibson and Jason Watkins to name but a few get some genuinely funny moments in this final episode. Yes, there's the hints of specials and we do have Inside No. 9: Stage/Fright to look forward to but for now, this was the perfect ending to this splendid series. 9/10.

All episodes of Inside No. 9 are available on BBC iPlayer and Amazon.