Every Inside No. 9 Twist Ranked
8. Lip Service - It's All An Elaborate Government Assassination
Plot: A man (Pemberton) hires a professional lip reader (Sian Clifford) to spy on his wife from a hotel room in order to work out if his wife is cheating on him.
The second half of this brilliant episode is basically a twist-a-thon; there's a twist every few minutes, but it saves the most shocking one for the end.
In the last few minutes, the episode has turned into a seriously touching romance between Iris the lip reader and Felix. When they get together, it's really sweet and you'll be desperately hoping that it isn't just Iris manipulating him.
Unfortunately, it is.
She tricks Felix into standing by the hotel window with a hairdryer (which, from a distance, looks like a gun) and he is then shot by armed police on her orders.
The government have just assassinated an anti-government lawyer who was working with Felix's wife (who he is now separated from, as the episode reveals in its mid-story twist) and they've framed Felix as the shooter.
It's an ingeniously put-together ending that is both absolutely shocking yet also incredibly entertaining at the same time, making it easily one of the show's most masterful endings.