The building blocks of this one were fairly good. As ever, the character writing was engaging – I particularly enjoyed the anti-PC Bill (with ‘he’s Muslim, but we have a laugh about it’ being both a fun joke and a neat summation of his character) and spot-on YouTube vlogger Angel. The concept of the seven disparately filmed monologues was another unique Inside No 9 take on the subject, with a whole host of clues and teases made apparent by a second watch.

But, for me, it clunked. Like parts of last week’s Misdirection, there was a distinctly amateurish tone to this one – from Pemberton’s hokey Louisiana accent to his possibly glued-on beard to the obviously plastic knives to the oddly-staged murder scene. Writing that out, it seems much of the amateurishness derives from Pemberton’s Galen, and that sounds about right. I didn’t find his character or performance convincing. Normally both Pemberton and Shearsmith slip into their characters with aplomb, but this was a step too far.

As ever with Inside No 9, we spend much of the episode waiting for the rug to be pulled on us. We know that these disparate characters will be drawn together in a likely grim and horrific manner, so we’re waiting for a clever twist or a shock reveal. What I found disappointing, then, was the ease and lack of creativity with which the reveal was delivered. We are essentially just told the twist – the Therapist character explaining to us, at what is essentially a random point in the narrative, that each of the characters are in fact parts of Nadia’s subconscious, and that when younger Nadia had witnessed her father beat her mother in a drunken rage. This is utterly, utterly dissatisfying – the best twists are those that we comprehend to have changed the narrative without having to have it explained to us. Going back through the Inside No 9 back catalogue, we might look to the first episode, Sardines. At the climax of that episode, we learn that the Ian we know is not Ian at all, with all the horror that implies – and we see that horror dawn on the characters’ faces. As ‘Ian’ begins to douse the wardrobe in gasoline, and the characters discover they’re locked in, he sings the song that pertains to Pip, the abused boy: Sardines. It is clear, without explanation or narration, that Ian is Pip. This is much, much more satisfying that the audience simply being told what the twist is. This is a similar problem to The Timeless Children – but at least this episode has the good grace to actually have the twist mean something.