No, I think he killed Miggs right after the point where his partner, who was the real hallucination, told him that Miggs wasn't real and to get him out of his life.
So therefore he would have no qualms whatsoever killing somebody if he didn't believe them to be real.

But it wasn't.

I like many others was wrongfooted. As I imagine that we all thought that we had worked out what the twist was going to be.
That is good writing if it can lead people off into the wrong direction and put them off the scent.

However as I mentioned in a post above I think it was guilty of terrible writing in the scene where Miggs hid from Tom's 'hallucinated' partner in the bathroom.
That was a serious oversight which I'm surprised that they didn't notice when they were planning the story out.

People have different definitions of what they believe 'dark' to be.
But as far as I'm concerned this was seriously dark.

A man suffering from a nervous breakdown after the death of his wife and accidentally committing murder.
That to me is what 'dark' is all about, and you don't get much darker than that.
I don't understand how some can't see that as such.

There are some people however who think 'dark' is about style. Perhaps filmed in dimly lit noirish settings, or lots of blood and gore, or a slasher killer on the loose?

As far as I'm concerned 'dark' is about those horrific personal human experiences which are more about what resides within us and which we are sometimes unfortunate enough to experience in our lives.
Episodes 1 and 3 especially certainly delivered in that respect.

That's a really interesting take on it.
You could well be right there. That he used his hallucination of Gerri as an excuse to do something terrible. On a subconscious level of course.
I'm not sure if it that was the intention but it could certainly be read that way and it would fit perfectly.

I just read it in a straight way. That he killed Miggs because he simply believed him to be not real after a hallucinated Gerri told him so and told him to get Miggs out of his life.

Something is usually good to me if it can be read in different ways.

I agree that the ending certainly put a chill down my spine. More so than the previous two episodes. Although the end of episode 1 was quite chilling.
When it dawned on me that Tom was a man having a nervous breakdown after the death of his wife, that really moved me. That what we saw was a man suffering from mental illness who had accidentally killed somebody. Horrible tragic stuff.

Migg knew Tom was having a breakdown and had obviously heard Tom having conversations with imaginary Geri before. He wanted to ensure Tom's breakdown continued so he could continue to take advantage of him, so when he heard the conversation about Migg himself being imaginary, he hid behind the door to further push Tom even further into his breakdown. It was just an extension of what he had been doing by hiding his post, etc.

Of course this backfired when Tom killed him.


However for this to be true you have to take Miggs character at face value of what was presented, which isn't necessarily the case.

I am absolutely loving this series. It's everything I was expecting from their previous work although I have seen darker comedy from them.

The first episode was a bit ropey but episodes 2 and 3 were a delight. I thought the compete lack of dialogue in ep2 with it's comedy moments made this a very clever episode and had me gripped the whole way through.

I don't know why people keep trying to equate this to Tales Of The Unexpected. This is a black comedy. Tales wasn't funny. They were a collection of short stories with a dark twist at the end but they were actually quite serious. If I was going to compare this to anything I'd say it was more along the lines of Murder Most Horrid.

With regards to last night's episode, I got the impression at the end that Migg was his social worker/care worker who he'd somehow imagined as this tramp but actually turned out to be a normal bloke who his imaginary dead wife had told him to get rid of.

This episode was really weirdly good. I enjoyed the first two eps immensely, episode 1 more then two as I prefer comedy along with dramas. I'm a massive suckers for sl twists so I really got into this series.

The episode is meant to have a bit of ambiguity and darkness to it.
I think a very simple explanation is that Tom was so affected by Gerri's death that he mentally couldn't differ what was reality and what was imaginary. However we know Migg is a real person but if he was genuinely a tramp who took advantage or a councillor type person I don't know.
I have to say this episode was amazing. Great stuff and I cannot wait till next week episode.

8 1/2-10

I loved it - brilliant stuff.

In response to the BIB, I assumed ( I know we are all having a different take on this, which is the sign of a good show, in my eyes) that Migg had heard Tom taking to himself and heard that he was trying to prove that Migg was real, and Migg, trying to push Tom further into his depression, deliberately hid.

I assuming that Migg knew all along that Tom was hallucinating Gerri and was pushing him further into his depression at each stage. The hiding, knowing that Tom was hallucinating Gerri, was just one in a long line of actions designed to push him closer to the edge.

It was a Peugeot advert and don't think it was the thought of animal cruelty that caused so much offense but the advert displayed people throwing their heads back in carefree laughter as they didn't care what happened to the cat as everything else was all covered almost as if to say, well who cares it's only a cat so long as our car is all covered why should we worry about someones else's problems. The advert came over as extremely selfish. They could just as well have shown someone lying cold and starving in the streets then cut to a scene of them laughing and joking saying well I'm alright so why worry about anyone else? I'm no animal lover but found the advert in poor taste.

I think as well involving himself in the conversation between Tom and the imaginary Gerri would have been fatal for Migg's plans. He couldn't possibly maintain the fiction that Gerri was really there so he would probably be forced to tell Tom that Gerri was a figment of his imagination. Tom would believe Gerri over Migg and would probably therefore become hostile to Migg. Makes more sense for Migg to lie low until the episode was over and then reassert control.

It's also possible that Migg wasn't hiding, that him being behind the door was simply part of the hallucination.

Correct - Roald Dahl never wrote them all (even in the early days). He did present all the early ones though (even those he hadn't written). I believe he did write the dreadful bee one though. I was terribly disappointed in it when I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago - I'd heard it was good, but it was just stupid. Another one he wrote which was very poor was the one with the little boy running (or rather swimming) off with a giant turtle. I love Dahl's books and he had a wicked imagination, but some of his TOTUs really did show exhibit cartoony ideas which would have been better suited to fantasy children's books.

That sounds more plausible than Migg simply being a support worker for Tom actually.

well that was really good and a clever double twist .

but - can anyone remember where they've 'borrowed' this plot from , it was very familiar , I can remember a very similar story where a guy meets a tramp and slowly the tramp takes over his life and takes his place and the guy ends up a tramp , but I can't recall specifically where I saw it , maybe an Amicus film or a tales of the unexpected ... ?

When I was watching I half recalled a plot with someone's life being taken over until the last shot is of them having become a tramp! Is it Down and Out in Beverly Hills?

Yes excellent point - although I don't think the last bit is the case, or at least I hope not. For it to work ( for me, anyway) Migg always needs to be real.

Beverly Hills made me think of Beverly hIlls Cop which made me thing of Eddie Murphy which made me think of Trading Places which has the tramp thing going on.

Great episode of an enthralling series, as many have said.

having just rewatched it I notice that the mirrors in the apartment may be subtle indicators of who's presence is real and who's is imagined:

- in the opening scene of the episode Gerri is standing infront of a mirror holding up dresses and walks past it several times without appearing.

- Gerri's reflection also doesn't appear in the bathroom cabinet mirror towards the end of the episode while Tom's does.

- Migg's reflection appears in the mirror above the living room cabinet while lighting candles towards the end of the episode.

I agree, otherwise it all gets a bit messy and tenuous.
What's more Gerri (A hallucination) opened the bathroom door, went in, looked around, before Tom entered the bathroom. Which seems to preclude Miggs hiding from being from Tom's perspective.

Like you say I think if Miggs was real, which he was, they have to be consistent.

I have to say that I completely missed those moments. I'll have to watch it again. That's a brilliant touch which I didn't even notice if this was intentional on their part.

Not sure about that. Apart from hair and teeth they tend to look the same. They also have very noticable voices. Shearsmith in particular.

Ricky Gervais made up the concept of giving a tramp money?

For what it's worth I think the tramp was his imagination the same as Gerri. It was only the professional Migg who was real, but him behind the bathroom door was also imaginary.



I said this earlier but there was a series on not too long back called Crackanory which also tackled dark & quirky stories.

I think ep1 and ep3 of No.9 could have been 15-20 minutes instead of a full half hour.

I still think ep2 was great though and I do like the limited cast they are using - only 4 or so characters.

Like many here I felt it was very well written material.

Loved Conleth Hill's turn as Stevie. Hilarious.

Full marks for the English accent. When he first came on the intercom I thought there is no way that's Conleth!

Roll on the next episode. Well done to Shearsmith and Pemberton. Always watchable.

He's in Suits season 3 and plays a posh English man - nicknamed Downton in one episode. He plays a gay man but not camp.

To Ricky Gervais fans Ricky Gervais made up everything.