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marjanefan · 4 months

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Mazey Day and The Stakeout...

Exploring the different audience reactions to Black Mirror episode Mazey Day and Inside No.9 The Stakeout.

Spoilers ahead for both Mazey day and The Stakeout.

As a fan of both Black Mirror and Inside No.9 it has been interesting to see the reaction within the Black Mirror fan community to series 6 of the series. Charlie Brooker has brought new elements into the series, which to say the least have caused debate. In particular the episode Mazey Day has come in for particular criticism. But some fans also say that Series 6 of Black Mirror can be compared to Inside no.9 , particularly for it use of horror. So I am going to look at Mazey Day and an Inside No.9 episode it has been compared to ‘The Stakeout’.

Please note this is not me pitting one series against another! They are both excellent shows with their own merits. I am just looking at how each episode treats it's supernatural subject matter and how this impacts the audience reaction.

Mazey Day has a rating of just 5.3 on IMDb based on 24k viewer ratings (the lowest for any Black Mirror episode) whereas The Stakeout has a rating of 7.7 based on 1.1k viewer ratings with 8 out of 9 user reviews being highly positive. This audience reaction is borne out by the discussions of these two episodes on the Black Mirror and Inside No.9 Subreddits and Youtube reviews. In some fan reviews (particularly on the Black Mirror subreddit), Mazey Day is compared to Inside No.9 and The Stakeout in particular because of its use of a supernatural creature.

Mazey Day is ostensibly about the paparazzi pursuing a troubled young starlet in 2000’s Los Angeles. It is revealed this starlet is a werewolf. The Stakeout appears to be a police procedural for most of its run time only in the last five minutes to be revealed to be about a vampire.

The two episodes were compared in this thread on the Inside no.9 subreddit so thank you to Siielle Siielle for inspiring this post!

‘Mazey Day’ versus ‘The Stakeout’ : insideno9 (reddit.com)

Here are some fan reviews from Youtube which I refer to and which discuss Mazey Day

Harry’s Moving Castle

Black Mirror Analysis | Mazey Day (youtube.com)

BrainPilot

Why MAZEY DAY Is The Worst Episode Of BLACK MIRROR (youtube.com)

Unleash the Ghouls

BLACK MIRROR | Mazey Day (2023) Season 6 Episode 4 Recap & Honest Review (youtube.com)

There are also several reviews on Youtube asking ‘what was that? (quite literally using these words!) about the episode.

Why such different reactions to the two episodes? (For example Unleash the Ghouls loves The Stakeout – 19 minutes in)

youtube

Please forgive my simplification of both Black Mirror and Inside No.9 but wanted to put the two episodes in the context of the shows and their histories.

The context

Both Black Mirror and Inside No.9 are modern anthology shows which began in the UK in the 2010’s. The creator and show runner of Black Mirror Charlie Brooker and writers of Inside no.9 Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have spoken of how they were inspired by earlier anthology shows like the Twilight Zone, Tales of the Unexpected and Hammer House of Horror which all three men would have watched on UK TV growing up in the 1970s/early 1980s. Both shows have similar inspirations and have run for similar lengths of time.

Black Mirror began in 2011 on Channel 4 in the UK. After two series and a wonderfully dark Christmas special it was taken up by Netflix with series three being released in late 2016. Series 4 followed in late 2017 with special episode Bandersnatch being released in late 2018 and series 5 being released in early 2019. After being taken up by Netflix Black Mirror became one of its flagship shows internationally.

Black Mirror is know for being an anthology show which explores the impact of new technologies on modern life (including personal relationships, politics , mortality, notions of justice, how we interact with others) on a day to day basis). It has won acclaim and a large fan base for how it has done this. This has been led it being known jokingly as the ‘technology bad’ show. Such is the impact of the show that the phrase ‘just like a Black Mirror episode’ has entered public parlance.

But with a large fan base comes greater expectations and more fans to critique.

Mazey Day is the fourth episode of the sixth series of Black Mirror which was released on Netflix in Summer 2023. It is written by Charlie Brooker himself. There had been four years between series 5 and 6 of the show for a variety of reasons. Brooker has spoken in recent interviews that he wanted to move beyond Black Mirror as being about the flaws in technology and to explore the flaws in humanity more generally.

Four of the Five episodes of series Six are set in the past or relate to the past. ‘ Loch Henry’ while set in the present day concerns our current obsession with true crime content on platforms like erm Netflix! (a terrible secret is also revealed via analogue material that is being digitized showing that human nature has always found a way to record its worse side). ‘Beyond the Sea’ is set in 1969 and while it does concern a specific form of technology which exists only within the show (the droids) it references the space race of the late 1960s (particularly the moon landings), late 1960s films such as ‘2001: a space odyssey’ and ‘Solaris’ (and their explorations of the human condition) and the Manson murders. The final episode ‘Denon79’ (set in the year of a key election in UK politics which we are still dealing with the implications of) is a straight up horror episode and called a Red Mirror episode, setting it apart from the rest of the episodes of the series.

‘Mazey Day’ is not the first horror themed episode of ‘Black Mirror’. The series 3 episode ‘Playtest’ used the haunted house trope to explore the life and psychology of the central character. However this was still framed through the device of a computer game and gaming technology. But the audience would not have been expecting a straight up horror episode which seemingly did not involve a specific form of technology along the lines of ‘Mazey Day’

It is worth point out Brooker had written the excellent series ‘Dead Set’ (broadcast 2009) before Black Mirror which used a Zombie apocalypse and Zombie tropes to explore the impact of reality TV contest shows (specifically Big Brother) on society. Like ‘Mazey Day’ ‘Dead Set’ had a young female central character. So it was not unprecedented for Brooker to use Horror tropes for social commentary.

Inside No.9 began broadcasting on BBC Two in early 2014. It has remained with the BBC and the ninth and final series is currently being filmed. It has built up a loyal fanbase both in the UK and internationally. Each series consists of six half hour episodes set in a specific location and usually with a small cast. Every episode is written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, both of whom have appeared in almost every episode. Thay are known for mixing horror and comedy in The League of Gentlemen (co written with Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson)and and Psychoville the two previous shows they have written and starred in. The series is known for using different narrative devices (such as telling the story backwards, as an audio commentary, via CCTV, via split screen ) to tell the story. It is also known for having clever twists which completely recontextualise what the audience has just seen and the true nature of story that they have watched.

‘The Stakeout’ was the sixth and final episode of Series Five of Inside no.9. It was broadcast in March 2020. The series had established across the first four series that the final episode of the series is horror themed and usually involves some sort of supernatural entity. So while surprising, the audience would not have found it out of place that Varney turned out to be a vampire.

It is worth noting every episode of Inside No.9 is around 30 minutes in length because ofits broadcast slot. Pemberton and Shearsmith therefore know they have a certain amount of time to tell the narrative and have honed their writing skills to be able to do this effectively. The Netflix episodes of Black Mirror have no set length.

Charlie Brooker has spoken in at least two interviews of his love for Inside No.9 and his respect for Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Reece Shearsmith tweeted how much he enjoyed series 6 of Black Mirror and in a recent interview with the Scarred for Life podcast revealed he and Charlie Brooker met for lunch where they discussed the issues of writing an anthology shows (Shearsmith joked it was like a support group).

So lets compare the two episodes

The opening

The opening of Mazey Day begins in 2006 with Bo (Zazie Beetz), a young woman who works as a Paparazzi photographer in Los Angeles taking photos of actor Justin Camley leaving a motel with another man after a tryst. The publication of these photos lead to his suicide. Bo then witnesses her Paparazzi colleagues hound and throw misogynistic abuse at Sydney Alberti (a figure based on female celebrities like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan) as she arrives at an event. These two incidents lead Bo to give up her profession as a paparazzi. The whole sequence is six minutes long and establishes us in the world Bo and Mazzy Day exist in. However it is hard for the viewer to feel any emotional investment in Bo and what may happen to her from this opening. She may walk away from her colleagues after they hound Sydney Alberti but we get no real sense of an inner struggle.

In The Stakeout we open with a continuous shot that ends showing us the character of SPC Varney (apparently) dead on the back seat of a police car narrating from beyond the grave. The audience want to know the back story of how he ended up in this situation. This opening creates a sense of foreboding in the audience as they watch events upfold. It grabs the audience’s attention and invests us in the fate of the characters in a way the opening of Mazey Day does not.

The Set Up

Mazey Day and The Stakeout both revolve around characters trying to solve a mystery.

In Mazey Day , we see the titular Mazey filming on set in the Czech republic. One night she takes magic mushrooms and hits what she thinks is an animal while driving under the influence. She later discovers she actually hit a man with her car and we are given news reports of her on set behaviour deteriorating to the point she is fired and send back to Los Angeles. She promptly disappears from public view. At the same time, we see Bo struggle financially in a low paid Barista job to the point she is behind with the rent and is having to steal her flatmates food. When her colleague Hector informs her there is a $30,000 reward for a photo of Mazey Day she cannot resist the challenge of getting this photo. So the set up for ‘Mazey Day’ is that Bo wants to discover where Mazey Day is and hopefully get a photo and discover why Mazey went into hiding.

In The Stakeout, the story is split over three nights. On the first night we meet PC Thompson and his new partner SPC Varney. We discover Thompson found his previous partner Dobson brutally murdered a month before. It is revealed on the second night he is apparently intent on discovering the truth about Dobson’s death and he is staking out the graveyard Dobson is buried in. The audience wants to find out what happened to Dobson, if the truth about his death will come out and where Varney’s apparent death fits into this. On the third night the truth is revealed. So The Stakeput is carefully structured to allow for character and story development.

As an amusing aside both Mazey Day and The Stakeout feature characters who get upset by the smell of garlic but for different reasons! But where in one episode it is a moment of humour which shows the situation of the central character, in The Stakeout it is a hint of what is actually going on.

The characters and Dialogue

Both BrainPilot and Unleash the Ghouls both note that Mazey Day is one of the shortest ever Black Mirror episodes and could have done with being longer. This would have allowed more exploration of the characters and the world they inhabit and built up tension in the plot.

They also both comment on Bo’s character arc being contradictory. She goes back on her initial decision to turn on back on her profession as a paparazzi just as soon as her friend Hector reveals there is a big financial reward for anyone who gets Mazzy’s photo. We have a couple of comic scenes where Bo has to deal with her annoying flatmate and his request for rent. We see her work as a Barista, a job with even less dignity than a Paparazzi. But beyond this we do not get much more of an explanation of her decision to try and get a photo of Mazey.

We don’t find out anything really about Mazzy other than she has issues with drug use, likes the band Muse and the noodles from a particular restaurant. We have occasional scenes over the episode which show her struggle with what has happened to her but we don’t get any real insight into her as a person.

Perhaps the issue is that this is an episode about the voyeurism and dehumanisation of what the paparazzi do and of the public’s appetite for their stolen images. In effect Bo has no other role than to be an observer/Voyeur and Mazzy no other role than to be observed. Both try to escape these roles before finally falling back into them.

Brooker made an interesting choice to make the central paparazzi a young woman and have her played by an African American actress. Bo works in a highly competitive and aggressive male profession. She has had to become tough herself to do the job (she shows tenacity and resourcefulness in tracking down and getting photos and can haggle to try and get a good price for them) But It is telling Bo chooses to leave her life a as paparazzi after seeing the hounding of Syndey Alberti and the misogynistic abuse her colleagues use to provoke her.

There are a couple of tantalising moments where Bo and Mazey interact. When Mazey is finally found, Bo reacts with horror at seeing Mazey chained up and urges her colleagues to unchain her. She is the only character who shows Mazey any compassion. In the final exchange between Bo and Mazey , they are two sides of the same coin and there is a moment a possible moment of connection (I will come back to this). It would have been good if this had been developed. One thing that is interesting to note is that while Bo is reduced to stealing food from her flatmate due to her financial situation, Mazey has her weekly treat of noodles from a particular restaurant paid for by the producer whose house she is sheltering in (although to be fair she tries to pay for them herself). Does the resentment of the lifestyle that Mazey and others enjoy feed into people’s desire for unflattering gossip and images of them?

Zazie Beetz gives a strong performance as Bo and Clara Rugaard does a good job conveying Mazey’s struggle as she deals with the fallout from the hit and run.

The Stakeout centres on the relationship between Thompson and Varney and how it develops over three nights. We get to see the extent that Thompson has been traumatised by Dobson’s death and how he is unable to process his feelings beyond a desire to uncover the truth about his killing. We see Varney attempt to bond with him and get him to open up (of course this is for nefarious reasons!). We see them play word games and an amusing scene where Thompson starts eating a curry much to Varney’s disgus . This indicates an important plot point and we later see Varney get rid of the curry the following night behind Thompson’s back This shows the attention to detail Pemberton and Shearsmith pay to their scripts and how seemingly small details are important and how they follow through on the clues they seed.

We get invested in both Thompson and Varney. We enjoy their banter. We come to see how traumatised Thompson is and feel for him. We fear for them when they are in danger on the second night.

The audience is led to see Thompson as the character whose motivations are ambiguous and possibly treacherous. Why does he lie to Varney? What is he actually up to? The audience is skillfully misdirected away from Varney being the actual villain.

The episode in part archives this through being dialogue heavy. The episode was written by Pemberton and Shearsmith as a replacement for one that was deemed too expensive to film. Therefore they knew that dialogue would have to carry the story. There is necessary exposition but also playful banter which helps us as an audience relate to both Thompson and Varney. The dialogue between them feels authentic.

The full script of the episode was published along with the scripts for all episodes of Series 4-6 of Inside No.9 in 2022. The original script is considerably longer. But the episode lost nothing by not including this dialogue. If anything it kept the focus on the plot and characters more focused.

It also helps that Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith are both highly gifted actors and good friends in real life. Their natural chemistry as friends helps inform the relationship between Thompson and Varney.

The Chase….

In ‘Mazey Day. Bo manages to track down Mazey to a film producers house (through bribing the woman who delivered her noodle take out). When Mazey gets taken to a retreat, Bo follows her in her car until Mazey’s bodyguards trick her into pulling in at a dinner and puncturing her tires. Now stranded Bo has to call Hector (who has a motorbike) for assistance. They find the retreat but have been followed by Whitty and Duke who had been tracking Hector. They eventually find a way into the retreat. While we see Bo’s frustration at these events she doesn’t give up on trying to get a photo. But it is hard to feel invested in this quest as none of the characters are likable and their end goal is ethically beyond questionable.

After establishing Thompson and Varney as characters and showing the dynamic between then on the first night of the story, we find out on night two that Thompson is staking out the cemetery as Dobson is buried there (his grave has also been vandalised) when he was supposed to be keeping a drug dealer under surveillance. Why did he hide this from Varney? Thompson and Varney are then told to intercept and monitor the drug dealer leading to a frantic car run. This injects action into a dialogue heavy episode, . Having arrived at the location of the drug deal, Thompson heads off to apprehend those involved. He and Varney continue to discuss Dobson’s death via police radio and we eventually hear shots. Varney heads off to save Thompson. We leave night two on a cliffhanger where we do not know if either character has survived. This helps create tension within the episode and keep the audience interest.

Seeding the Reveal

There are clues in the dialogue of both episodes as to the direction they are going in.

In Mazey Day we see the Paparazzi characters compared to and behave like dogs on a number of occasions. Bo is called an animal by Justin Camley and later calls Hector a ‘dog’ when he turns up at the coffee shop she works in. We see the paparazzi members behave like a wolf pack when they photograph Sydney Alberti and Whitty and Duke dig under the fence around the retreat Mazey is receiving treatment at like a pair of dogs.

We see Mazey in a trashed room in the house she is staying in (which she must have trashed in her wolf form) Dr Babich tells Mazey that she needs to concentrate on getting through this night, and the next’ The characters discuss the fact Dr Babic is known for his unconventional practices and interest in the supernatural at several points..

I quite like Mazey’s trippy flashbacks to the hit and run which hint something even more darker was afoot.

However Varney’s vampirism is better seeded in The Stakeout. Over three nights Varney talks about eating meat once a month, being ‘dead to the world’ during day light hours and being ‘Too long in the tooth ‘ to be a proper Police Constable amongst other things. He is repulsed by the garlic heavy Chicken Tikka Masala Thompson offers him, doesn’t want to cross a river and always knocks before entering the police car. Varney refers to these clues to his true nature at the end of the episode, Even the name Varney is a clue as it is inspired by character from Victorian fiction who was a vampire. The title of the episode itself is a clue.

Both episodes soundtracks include a clue at to where the story is heading, In Mazey Day we hear the track ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ over Mazey’s mushroom trip , when she has her hit and run accident and later when she has flashbacks to the accident and receiving the injury that turned her into a werewolf. This song was used in the Twilight Saga films which were popular in the late 2000s. These films of course featured werewolves (it may also be a nod to the fact that Mazey Day owes something to Kirsten Stewart who was the female lead in these films). The Stakeout features a haunting and atmospheric string score from Christian Henson. Henson who has composed the score for every Inside No.9 episode revealed that the score was deliberately created to sound Eastern European to give a clue as to the vampire storyline

The Reveal- The Horror!

In Mazey Day the reveal happens around 30 minutes into a 42 minute episode – ie the last quarter

In Mazey Day Bo, Hector, Whitty and Duke break into the retreat centre Mazey is staying in and find her chained to a bed. Horrified Bo urges the others to help free her but they just photograph Mazey. Mazey pleads to be left alone (get the xxxx away from me”) which as it turns out is not a demand for privacy but to warn them they are in danger. Bo successfully frees Mazey to Mazey’s horror. Mazey then transforms into a werewolf. We see ‘Mazey’ kill Whitty. Bo, Hector and Duke escape. Hector steals Dukes camera while he tries to escape the compound rather than helping him, leaving him to be killed by ‘Mazey.’ He does this because of the value of the photographs Duke has taken. I have to say having watched again this makes it very hard to feel anything when Hector meets his fate a few minutes later. Bo and Hector run for their lives to the dinner which Bo had visited earlier in the episode. They try to persuade Clay (a police officer) and the others in the dinner and try to create a barricade but are not taken seriously. Clay merely asks Bo to calm down and when Bo tries to grab his gun in order to deal with ‘Mazey’ he physically subdues her. As noted before Bo is African American- is this a nod to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter movement about police treatment of African Americans? ‘Mazey’ however breaks in and kills everyone in the dinner bar Bo who has wisely taken cover. When Clay is killed Bo isable to get his gun and shoot ‘Mazey’ turning her back into a human. Mazey has been seriously injured but not dead.

For me the final sequence happens so fast and is so frantically shot I find it hard to engage with. I note that at least one reviewer said the sequence delivers carnage but little else. It is hard to feel either sympathy or a sense of just desserts at the fate of the characters as events go so quickly or we don’t know the characters.

The reveal that Varney is a vampire comes around 26 minutes in (bear in mind the episode is 30 minutes long so is late in the episode.

It is the third and final night of the story. Having revealed that both Thompson and Varney had survived the previous nights drug bust we see them discuss the events of previous night. Varney has finally won Thompson’s respect. Varney confronts Thompson about his investigation into Dobson’s death which leads to an argument. After Varney persuades Thompson he is on his side, they share a joke before the mood is broken by a loud noise outside. Varney goes to investigate. A traumatised Thompson thinks he sees Dobson. Varney then gets in the back seat of the car.

Having set up earlier that Thompson and Varney enjoy discussing ‘Top Five Tropes of’, Varney gives five tropes of vampires which he has shown over the previous three nights (can’t enter without being invited in, repulsed by garlic, unable to cross running water, sleep during the day, have no reflection) showing how the revelation that he is a vampire has been carefully foreshadowed throughout the episode, giving the viewer a satisfying payoff or at least letting them know the clues were there all along as to Varney’s true nature. They have also given an excuse for him to give exposition which does not feel forced or clunky.

Varney then attacks Thompson and feeds on him. We see this reflected in the car mirror where we see Thompson and a pulsating wound on his neck but not Varney. Reece Shearsmith complimented Gulliem Morales for this shot. We then see Varney feed on Thompson for 17 seconds, an unusually long time. In Mark Salisbury’s book about the making of the series Steve Pemberton explained that ‘Because you withheld all your vampirism, you want to make the most of it when it comes’. So the vampire reveal bring something original to the portrayal of vampirism.

It is no accident that Gulliem Morales who directed ‘The Stakeout’ shares Pemberton and Shearsmith’s love of the horror genre. He uses cinematography (the episode looks beautiful) and Christian Henson’s score to create an atmosphere of mystery and creeping dread.

The Ending

Mazey asks Bo to ‘shoot me’. Bo hands Mazey the gun and takes the camera from Hector’s dead body and points her camera at Mazey. Fans have commended the double meaning of Mazey’s request to ‘shoot me’ (with the gun or camera?) and Bo’s reaction. Does Bo hand Mazey the gun to allow her the agency of taking her fate into her own hands or to avoid the responsibility for her death? Does she get the camera as an act of revenge for Hector’s death, to enable her to get a payday that will free her from this job or even as an act of witness to Mazey’s fate? Or were they both fulfilling the roles assigned to them to their conclusions? I like that we do not see the final moment of Mazey’s life. Finally the voyeurism ends.

Bo fulfils some of the horror trope of being ‘The final girl’ or only survivor (usually a young woman)- the last character left alive at the end of the story who confronts the killer. She at least shows some compassion and questions the profession she is in. But what path will she take going forward? She will still probably profit from Mazey’s pain

In The Stakeout we see the pain and resignation in the dying Thompson’s face when he sees the now Vampire Dobson approach him to feed on him. We also see Varney assume the position on the backseat we first saw him in at the episodes beginning. We hear his opening monologue again but this time the meaning has been completely transformed. This gives the audience a rewarding payoff of understanding what Varney was actually telling us at the beginning.

The end of The Stakeout leaves the viewer with the necessary sense of Catharsis (Fear and Pity) that good horror should.

The Real Horror and final thoughts

Mazey becoming a werewolf can be said to be a metaphor for her guilt over killing someone in a hit and run and her struggle with drugs. But it is also a metaphor for how she is ‘monstered ‘ by the press and paparazzi. She is literally dehumanised and othered.

Sarah Ditum’s excellent recent book ‘Toxic’ looks at the culture of the 2000s and specifically the treatment of young female stars such as Britney Spears, Paris Hilton (Sydney Alberti is basically Paris Hilton in all but name), Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan. She illustrates how the treatment of these young female stars helped create modern online culture such as Youtube (which was created in direct response to ‘nipplegate), influencers and gossip sites.

So Brooker really says quite pertinent and perceptive in covering the topic of the treatment of young female celebrities in the 2000s in a series which explores how modern technology is impacting society. This helped create the world he is commenting on. It was canny in a series of this show which looks backward to ask how we got here. Mazey Day turning out to be a werewolf is supposed to be a commentary on online celebrity culture and how it treats young women.

But why does it not land better? We see the paparazzi figures as the predators throughout the episode. We did not expect Mazey to turn out to be an even greater predator. Perhaps this means the point of the episode gets muddled.

One scene I want to note is early in the episode. We see Bo listening to music via an mp3 player which were relatively new at the time (she comments on its smallness and calls it a toy). However, she is listening to it while preparing food, rather than listening to music on a radio or stereo system which would have been more usual. It creates an image of new technology cutting someone off from others rather than connecting them. Bo probably uses an mp3 player so not to annoy her hilariously passive aggressive flatmate and possibly cut herself off from the reality of having to deal with him (during this scene he complains about the smell of her cooking).

I certainly think there are things to recommend in Mazey Day. As some fans have said it would have been interesting to see how it would have been received if it had been put under the ‘Red Mirror’ banner like Demon 79 was.

Perhaps it is a good question to ask if Mazey day works both as a werewolf story and as a story about the culture of the 2000s. Does it bring anything new to the werewolf genre? It is an enjoyable and novel entry in the genre at least.

But it is commendable that Brooker is willing to try something new with Black Mirror and try and tell different stories.

I wrote a previous blog on The Stakeout and argued it explored issues in modern masculinity, male mental health, and how men relate (or fail to relate) each other. Varney on one level symbolises Thompsons deep need for connection with other men. He also represents his fear of getting older and feelings of irrelevancy. But he also represents his undealt with trauma and grief over Dobson’s death. This blog is available here.

But in the end The Stakeout works well as a vampire story in its own right and uses the tropes associated with vampires in a new and interesting way. But It also works well as a stand alone story and a character study. It remains one of my most rewatched episodes not just of Inside no.9 but any TV show.

#steve pemberton #reece shearsmith #inside no.9 #black mirror #Charlie Brooker #Youtube

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marjanefan · 8 months

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Inside No.9 Scene Analysis- Anger- The Last Weekend

NB spoilers below for the Inside No 9 Episode The Last Weekend, It includes a few thoughts I have had on the episode

This post is just in response to what I have seen online about the Inside No.9 Episode ‘The Last Weekend’. In particular it addresses the claim the episode does not properly seed the eventual ending. I hope to illustrate that the second scene of the episode manages to skilfully indicate what Joe’s actual motivations are and the flaws in Chas’s character that lead to his fate.

Here is a link to the RTS Q and A about The Last Weekend with Steve Pemberton and Reece Shaersmith I refer to during this essay

(1) Inside No 9 Exclusive Preview | RTS North West - YouTube

The scene opens with a shot of a bottle of wine with the word Anger on it. This fits on with the episode portraying Kuber Ross’s five stages of grief.. The particular stage appears on an item in the opening of the scene which deal with the stage of the grief. The choice of object for each stage is telling. The stage ‘denial’ is on the shopping bags with the groceries Joe and Chaz have brought for the weekend, illustrating them going about their lives without confronting the reality of Joe’s apparent illness. The stage ‘Bargaining ‘ appears on a game box. The stage ‘Depression’ appears on a jar of honey. Joshua Williams in his excellent review of the episode discusses how honey may symbolise comfort eating to deal with depression. The final stage ‘Acceptance’ is symbolised by the Xanax Joe has used to drug Chas, symbolising the successful conclusion of his plot. Wine symbolising anger works well on a couple of levels. Alcohol consumption is acknowledged as a contributory factor in arguments and aggression and is a known depressant. Red wine could also be seen to represent blood.

Here is Joshua Williams review

(1) WHIMS Inside no 9 series 8 episode 6 The Last Weekend Review - YouTube

The scene begins with Joe and Chas chatting at the end of an evening meal. They discuss Chas’ conversation with their elderly housekeeper Mollie. They have a laugh about her accent and love of cheese. When Joe answers Chas’s complaints about Mollie by saying ‘I like her’, Chas responds by saying ‘Next year I’ m gonna get some sturdy Polish lady’ because ‘they’re half the price and twice as thorough’. When Joe remonstrates Chas says that Mollie may be dead next year (she is 82) which makes Joe wince. We see that Chas is capable of being incredibly cruel and insensitive towards others, as he was to Joe’s daughter Olivia. Chas sees Joe wince and apologizes as he realises that what he said was an insensitive thing to say to someone who is terminally ill and says ‘I didn’t think’ so he has some self-awareness about his behaviour. But Joe probably winces because Chas’s attitude toward Mollie reminds him of his behaviour towards Olivia. Chas did not think of the impact of his words on others in the past. Chas tries to show concern for Joe noting he hasn’t eaten much of the moussaka he has cooked for him. As with ‘The Stakeout’, food is used in ‘The Last Weekend’ as a symbol of connection and misconnection in a relationship. Joe’s failure to eat the Moussaka (I’m not hungry) is symbolic of his underlying rejection of Chas and the love he offers. The quiche Joe later prepares for Chas will be used to kill him. Like Joe’s revenge it will be served cold. Rather than a symbol of love and nourishment it will symbolic of Joe’s hatred. Chas tries to lighten the mood by joking that Joe will have the Moussaka for lunch every day until he finishes it. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith pointed out at the RTS screening of the episode this is a foreshadowing of how Joe will eventually force feed Chas to death .

At this point Chas has moved into the kitchen and offers him desert ‘made by my own fair hand’ reciting the Milk, milk lemonade, round the corner, chocolate’s made’ rhyme pointing to various points of his body. It could be said this is possibly Chas offering Joe sexual intimacy (offering Joe these various body parts). However we see Joe at the table out of Chas’s view, obviously deep in thought. He responds by saying ‘Its chocolate cake any way’ and tells him ‘You always get it wrong’. They then start arguing over their versions of this rhyme (as an amusing aside at the RTS screening of the episode, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith revealed they actually hold the opposite views on this rhyme to their characters and this was the most difficult thing to act!). This leads Chas to joke ‘You’re trying to gaslight me!’ which is exactly what Joe has been doing their entire relationship. Chas offers Joe a herbal tea and discusses the water pump while Joe moves into the living room.

Again Chas cannot see Joe and that his face has become clouded with anger. Joe explains to Chas that ‘In my version they’re all different food stuffs’ and ‘there’s a logic to it like you’re creating a banquet with your body’. His hand movements illustrating the rhyme are more noticeably aggressive than Chas’s playful ones. As Steve Pemberton pointed out at the RTS event this again foreshadows what Joe will do to Chas by indeed turning his body into a feast for the local wildlife.

Chas moves into the living room area and tells Joe to ‘leave it' clearly annoyed Joe continuing the argument and they continue to bicker over the rhyme until Chas aggressively asks Alexa to settle the discussion. Joe retorts with ‘Don’t do that Chas, you know it winds me up’. So it becomes apparent that there are tensions in the relationship and that Chas takes things too far on occasions. Chas doesn’t stop and when the Alexa does not understand his question (he says ‘You and me both’ )and asks Joe ‘Why are you picking a fight with me?’ So he realises Joe is annoyed about something. Joe then responses ‘I’m not, I’m just pointing out sometimes It might be possible you are wrong’. Chas tries to point out that he accepts there are different versions and asks why Joe is desperate to win to which he responds ‘I’m not desperate I’m just pissed off’ (indicating his underlying anger with Chas). Chas asks him why he felt the need to pick a fight and ‘What’s go into you?’. Joe then mimics Chas’s complaints about Mollie and says ‘Is that the extent of things you have to worry about?’ (Joe may subconsciously be indicating that as Chas has not actually got a terminally ill partner he hasn’t actually got anything to be angry about). Chas calmly responds with ‘I have a right to be angry’ (which is obviously a reference to his anger at Joe’s apparent terminal illness) to which Joe angrily responds ‘You don’t know what anger is Chas, true xxxxing anger that drives you insane’. This clearly refers to his anger towards Chas for his role in Olivia’s death, although Chas would assume it is anger over his cancer. It is evident from the extend of Joe’s rage at this moment just how angry he is with Chas. Chas retorts ‘ Do you not think I’m angry at the life I’ve missed out on the past nine years’ giving examples of things he gave up for Joe (I dropped everything, I’ve ground my whole life into this tiny space’) . Joe retorts with ‘ I didn’t ask you to throw your whole life away looking after me, You wanted to’ Chas finally breaks the argument by saying ‘And I still want to. And if you think I’m gonna walk away and leave you now, just cos you’re having a go at me, then you’re wrong Joe I’m here to the bitter end’. Ironically he will be but it will be his bitter end not Joes and he has just sealed his fate. He hugs Joe and they share a tender moment and Chas tells him he is angry with his ‘Chocolate cake’ (cancer) not him. We see Joe smile apparently relieved at being reconciled but most probably because he knows he has Chas exactly where he wants him. Seemingly reconciled Chas tells Joe to go to bed and rest and he will clear u. He shows he is capable of thinking of other’s needs and affirms ‘I love you’. This is the second time in the episode that Chas tells Joe he loves him. On first viewing these declarations of love are deeply moving but as Joe himself points out later Joe never responds in kind, making them both tragic and chilling.

The scene ends with Chas finding Joe’s phone with another message from the mysterious ‘Mick’

This overview of the scene illustrates how Steve and Reece seed the eventual conclusion of the episode. They seed the form of Joe’s revenge, his actual feelings towards Chas and that Chas has made sacrifices and loves Joe in vain.

On first viewing the viewer is lead to believe that the argument between Joe and Chas is caused by the tension of dealing with Joe apparently being terminally ill. It is a realistic portrayal of how in such a situation a trivial disagreement can blow up. The smallest incident can be a trigger to such an argument due to the stress of such a situation. But in spite of these tensions their relationship apparently remains strong. You can read the scene this way and appreciate it as such.

It is worth discussing why Joe chooses to pick an argument. On one level it could be seen as a form of him dealing with having to be intimate with a person he hates. He can use such an argument a safe way of letting off his actual feelings of anger. But he also possibly gets triggered by Chas’ attitude towards Mollie reminding him of his behaviour towards Olivia, This is shown by his body language. But there could be another reason. Joe may have been testing Chas’s commitment to him in order to ensure his plan would work. He gets the confirmation he needs. Ironically sometimes arguments can prove conducive and bonding for couples as it allows resolution to issues and possibly Joe starts the argument to strengthen Chas’s resolve to stay in the relationship.

The scene shows that Chas has a petulant and cruel side to his nature that fails to show understanding to others (even when he tells Joe of the sacrifices he has made he does so like he is throwing these sacrifices in his face). This casual cruelty will come back to haunt him. But Chas also shows that he is capable of being loving and caring. It also shows that Joe has a lot of underlying anger which can explode unpredictably. But he is also calculating and cold. Ultimately the episode asks some fascinating questions about the nature of love, what we will do for the people we love and if we can ever really know the people we love

#reece shearsmith #steve pemberton #inside no.9

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