The Cutprice Guignol

Inside No. 9 always ends the season on a horror-centric note – from Private View to The Harrowing, the most outrightly spooky episode of the series usually closes things out. Which might make The Stakeout seem, at first, like it’s a little out-of-place.

The Stakeout follows two cops, PC Thompson (Pemberton) and PC Varney (Shearsmith), who have been stationed together on a night shift following the brutal attack on Thompson’s previous partner.

What The Stakeout does so well, and what serves it so brilliantly on a re-watch, is how it uses the tropes of one genre to Trojan Horse in the tropes of another right under your nose. It begins with the title – emphasis on the stake – and opens with that shot of Shearsmith in the car, covered in blood, an apparent victim of some gory attack, straight out of the pre-credits sequence of some gritty crime drama. And, for the episode’s entire run, you could just about believe that’s exactly what The Stakeout is meant to be. Shearsmith and Pemberton are masters at bending the tropes to their will, and, for the first twenty minutes or so, it seems like a relatively earnest take on the street-level cop drama. And a pretty good one at that – I’ll never get tired of watching these two together, and their chemistry here is really fantastic as they navigate a noirish nighttime mystery.

And then, with that final twist, it makes complete sense as to why it’s in the slot usually reserved for IN9 horror stories. Because it’s actually a vampire story disguised as a crime thriller – the opening shot of Shearsmith the result of a recent good scoff (not dissimilar to how I look after getting into the Biscoff first thing on a Sunday morning), and the episode has been sneaking vampire tropes under our noses this entire time. From the inability to cross running water to the blackout setting of the story, as writers, they’ve smuggled in a vampire story in the same way that Shearsmith’s vampire snuck into Pemberton’s night-shift.

A tale of Draculaw Enforcement (look, I tried, alright), The Stakeout features one of my all-time favourite twists in the show’s run – it’s such an inventive collision of the two genres, and one that works as a solid example of both individually and a brilliant take on the two combined.

And that brings me to the end of my Inside No. 9 recaps! Which might seem like a strange thing to say five seasons in out of nine, but it was at this point that I started reviewing the show as it came out – you can start on those with Wuthering Heist right here. There’s not an episode of the show that I haven’t put under my questionable nose as of today, which is…an achievement of sorts, I suppose.

Much as I would love to end this series, in the spirit of Inside No. 9, with a twist (and who’s to say that the noise you heard in your kitchen wasn’t me helping myself to your multipack crisps), I would like to instead end it with a little thank you. I’ll definitely miss watching and writing about the show, it’s been a genuinely lovely experience working on this retrospective, thanks to the IN9 fandom and community at large – your thoughtful comments and insights have been a highlight for me in the few years I’ve been covering the show. I really hope you enjoyed going on this wander through Inside No. 9 with me, and do feel free to check out some of my other recapping projects if you’d like to read more of my writing on TV and pop culture in general.

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 BBC)