Now in it's seventh season, "Inside Number 9" has a tendency to start it's runs with some of the better episodes and "Merrily, Merrily" continues that trend, playing with audience expectations and some meta casting for a bleak, but also oddly romantic start.
Three University friends, Lawrence (Reece Shearsmith), Darren (Steve Pemberton) and Callum (Mark Gatiss) reunite decades after leaving, at the request of Lawrence. Having misread the invitation, Darren has brought his girlfriend Donna (Diane Morgan) along, much to the chagrin of Lawrence, who clearly has a plan for the get together. The group head out on a pedalo boat, into a quiet lake only for Lawrence to get increasingly aggravated as they become trapped on some weeds.
40 odd episodes in now, and the writing pair know that they have an established reputation for horror aspects to the show, which for the most part "Merrily, Merrily" looks like it might be headed towards. Lawrence has isolated his friends and is unhappy that Donna is a variable he hasn't accounted for. There's also a mysterious figure watching them from the side-lines. Without giving away too much of the resolution of the episode, the story unfolds in quite a different and more emotional way.
Diane Morgan is a pretty peerless comedic performer and here manages to make what might have been quite a broad caricature with another actress into a character that just about keeps the right side of likable. Steve Pemberton's Darren starts as a typical role we've seen him play before, the brash loudmouth with his smarter, better educated friends but later you learn something about him that reappraises everything he's told you from his past and is another strand of melancholy humour to the episode. It's the reuniting with fellow League-r and genuine old University friend Mark Gatiss that is perhaps the biggest draw of the episode though. Callum is perhaps a less showy role than you might have expected but has a few of the driest deliveries that lead to some of the biggest laughs of the episode.
It's not the first episode of "Inside Number 9" that you could consider as profound or moving but I suspect it's another one that might start to appear on best of lists, in the years to come.