After last week's dramatic diversion, "Inside Number Nine" returns to more familiar themes of Murder and Magic, ideas close to Reece Shearsmith's heart.
Neville Griffin (Reece Shearsmith) is an aspiring magician. An older magician, Willy Wondo (Steve Pemberton) shows him an inspired trick involving a levitating chair that could be a career maker. When Willy refuses to sell the trick to him, Neville kills Wondo and copies his notes. Nine years later, Griffin is an acclaimed magician, married and happy. That is until one evening when he interviewed by Gabriel (Fionn Whitehead) an aspiring magician himself, inspired by his grandfather, who mysteriously disappeared almost a decade earlier.
Whilst this episode is perhaps not as funny as some of the others in the run, it's one of the most intricately plotted. It's also works hard to acknowledge where we, as the audience are, in relation to the plot, so it rules out a few potential twists and turns as it goes along. That said, I felt slightly disappointed at the conclusion that there wasn't one more twist at the end, one final surprise that would take it over the top. I'd also say that it could perhaps have done with a story beat to remove sympathy from Griffin's wife, played by Jill Halfpenny. The price she pays isn't really justified as she likely doesn't even know her husband's guilty secret.
If Steve Pemberton got to show what he could do in the last episode, this one is Shearsmiths time to shine. Pemberton is barely in this one, following his cameo at the beginning - in fact it was interesting that he wasn't directing this episode - rather than next weeks - as you would have thought it would have given him more of an opportunity to do so (perhaps it allowed him more prep time for it). Fionn Whitehead, from Black Mirror's "Bandersnatch" episode is excellent too.
I like "Inside Number 9" the most when it takes its darker turns and this episode is no exception. (Still looking forward to another proper horror episode though).
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