The Cutprice Guignol

If I had to pick a single episode of Inside No. 9 that I would land with the dubious honour of “Most Disturbing”, it’s probably this one.

Not that there aren’t plenty of contenders for that crown, of course – Hurry Up and Wait, The Harrowing, even sodding La Couchette for the farts alone. But this one, To Have and To Hold, honestly chills me to my bones in a really specific way, and for that reason, I was both looking forward to and dreading re-watching it for this review.

To Have and To Hold follows the decaying marriage of Harriet (Nicola Walker) and Adrian (Steve Pemberton), as they prepare to renew their vows after twenty years together. However, a dark secret lurks in the bowels of their home, and when it’s exposed, everything changes.

And, you know, that dark secret isn’t the only reason I find this episode so hard to watch. Because there’s plenty of squirm-inducing stuff, that would, were it not for the twist, probably land this episode squarely amongst The Worst Thing You Can Imagine Happening in a Suburban Semi-Detached. Harriet’s attempts to rescue her marriage to Adrian, when we see it play out from just her perspective, are so uncomfortable to watch, and deliberately so – the dead air that fills the room as she tries to seduce him in a sexy nurse roleplay, the teeth-grindingly awkward interactions with a pair of his wedding photography clients (including Shearsmith, styled like Poochie from The Simpsons to try and convince us that he’s under forty), the weight of a previous affair hanging over every interaction. It’s not an easy episode to watch even before the big reveal hits, and that’s a credit to Nicola Walker that she makes To Have and To Hold so compelling as it stands.

But the moment this episode comes together – the moment all the pieces fall into place, and it earns its place in my heart (hate?) as the one that I find most disturbing – is a simple one. Adrian heads down to his darkroom, and starts what seems to be a familiar routine: as he begins to make a Pot Noodle, he pulls open a drawer, feels around inside for a key, lifts a board from the wall, and unlocks a door. Stepping inside, a hand reaches out for him, a chain clinking, and he undoes his trousers while he warns the prisoner not to spill their food.

There were so many ways to deliver this episode’s twist – so many systems of delivery that could have been gorier, more explicit, more violent, more shocking. But the pure simplicity of this moment, the way it’s shot, the calmness of the way Pemberton plays it, almost matter-of-fact – it’s clear that this is something he’s done hundreds of times before, something utterly unremarkable, downright banal. And the thought of the imprisonment and assault of a woman being so routine, so done-to-death as to become banal – it takes the horror to a whole new level. It’s a scene that really turns my stomach, even to this day, and it’s a credit to Pemberton and Shearsmith that their restraint serves the story as well as it does.

And what comes next is an appropriately satisfying ending to his story: after faking an accident, Adrian’s secret is exposed, and Harriet discovers that he’s not only been keeping their one-time cleaner Agnes trapped for the better part of a decade, but that she’s had his son, too. It’s a horrible twist on top of a horrible twist, and I appreciate the way the episode allows these women justice on their own terms – by keeping Adrian in the same basement he’d trapped Agnes in for so long. It’s an interesting ending, too, with regards to Harriet – she explains her decision to take revenge this way as opposed to a more traditional judicial route because he’s her husband. While, on the surface, it might seem as though she’s using this as an excuse to keep him close and protect him from the authorities, it’s hard not to see it, in the context of the episode, as revenge for the prison she feels he’s kept her in over the course of their marriage, too.

Quite frankly, I’m glad to get To Have and To Hold out of the way – it’s such an effectively chilling episode, and one that I find genuinely hard to watch. What do you make of it? Is it up there with the episodes you find most disturbing, or does it fall flat for you? Let me know in the comments!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Inside No. 9 reviews. I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

(header image via The Telegraph)