Every Inside No. 9 Twist Ranked
14. Sardines - Ian Is Pip
Plot: Some guests at an engagement party play a claustrophobic game of Sardines, in which many terrible secrets and hidden truths are unearthed.
In this cracking pilot episode, we got the first ever Inside No. 9 twist and it's still one of the best all these years later.
Throughout the episode, it becomes apparent that the family patriarch (Timothy West) has a history as a paedophile and several of the characters in the episode seem to be victims. One victim named Pip is continuously mentioned and at the end, it's revealed that a very dull party guest named Ian is actually Pip in disguise, come to take revenge.
The episode ends on an absolutely chilling note as he locks all of the guests inside the wardrobe and prepares to burn all of them alive. Even now, that's one of the most disturbing Inside No. 9 moments.
Pip was leaving a lot to chance - he was posing as a work colleague of the groom-to-be and he was lucky not to be found out earlier - and the twist isn't built up to enough during the episode but nonetheless, this is a great first twist for the show.
It feels logical, it's genuinely shocking and it forwards the story in a fascinating, unpredictable way, so it's a twist done exactly right.