Inside No. 9 (TV Series) Lip Service (2021) User Reviews

Love is mad. Wow!!!

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 28 May 2021]

Felix is convinced his wife is having an affair, he hires someone to give him some professional help.

First off, I watched this episode twice, as I knew it was right up my Street, easily the best of this series, and perhaps moves into the show's top ten episodes.

It's good old fashioned storytelling at its best, it's not trying to be overly clever, or too smart, it's just an engaging character driven story.

The writing is spot on, but the acting here was first rate, how brilliant was Sian Clifford here, she never fails to impress.

Best of all, the ending, that was an absolute masterpiece in writing, a twist that I am quite literally blown away by, Shearsmith and Pemberton show once again that they are the best in the business.

Wow, 9/10.

wow, what a twist

[garybulmer-32925 · 9/10 · 25 May 2021]

Amazing episode, strong acting, writing, a really great twist. The only thing I found jarring was Reece's character, but I won't spoil anything.

Definitely one of those no.9's worthy of multiple rewatches.

It is not what it seems

[tripathi-abbhey · 9/10 · 30 May 2021]

I am too new to this kind of anthology series and this episode particularly as I am not so well in english. But this episode I must say has several sudden striking moments that keeps viewers wonder all the time.

Iris DeMent-ed?

[southdavid · 8/10 · 25 May 2021]

I love the episodes like this. A funny, occasionally quite sweet story that exposes a dark reveal at the last moment.

Felix (Steve Pemberton) arrives at a low rent London hotel that he has booked specifically to spy on his wife, who he believes is cheating on him and is at the hotel opposite with Dmitri, her boss. He books the services of Iris (Sian Clifford) who is a professional lip reader. As the pair spy on the hotel opposite, the manager Eric (Reece Shearsmith) continues to come to the room to check on Felix and responds to occasional noise complaints from fellow guests.

The show is mostly a two hander, for Pemberton and Clifford to show off their acting ability. Both characters have different shades to them that is revealed across the run, but the moments when it's heading towards them becoming romantically involved work as well as any of the rest. Clifford is quite the chameleonic actress and really gets to show it here. Shearsmith is pure comic relief, with a German accent as broad as his Italian one in the first episode. Believing that Felix is the sort of person to bring a sex worker back to his room, he is checking cupboards and using his Skeleton key to access the bathrooms.

The first shift in the power dynamic might have been enough for most shows, but, of course, "Inside No. 9" has another twist in its tail, one which your unlikely to have predicted, but one in which looking back the clues are all there. Perhaps not as funny as other shows they've done, but definitely has some good lines, observations about life in second rate hotels and a particularly strong scene with Iris transcribing half of a phone conversation between Felix and his wife.

The excellent sixth season continues.

Lip Service

[Prismark10 · 9/10 · 1 June 2021]

Lip Service is a very simple story that masks a lot of layers.

Set in a seedy hotel room. Felix (Steve Pemberton) relationship is hitting the rocks and he suspects that his wife is having an affair.

Iris (Sian Clifford) is the mousy lip reader Felix has hired. She will spy on his wife as she is due to have a meeting in the adjacent building. Felix suspects that she will meet her lover there and wants to know what they say to each other.

All the while Felix gets interrupted by the officious German hotel manager Eric (Reece Shearsmith) who runs the hotel like a prisoner of war camp commandant.

As the story progresses, it transpires that Felix's partner is a public relations assistant to a high powered human rights lawyer. Also she and Felix split up some month ago and has even taken out a restraining order against him. They were not even married.

As Iris talks about her lonely life it seems a relationship might blossom between the pair. However Felix has been targeted through an online chat service for sad dad's.

The twist here is shocking and out of the blue. It works very well in the context of the story and when you think back on it, Felix was done up like a kipper.

A great performance from Sian Clifford who hides her motives and covers her tracks really well.

Another great episode

[jackbryant-00743 · 8/10 · 31 May 2021]

Great performances from all 3. The plot was amazing too.

gripping episode

[henryjmonro · 8/10 · 24 May 2021]

Another great episode of season 6, in my opinion. The plot was interesting throughout with the emotional beats hitting hard and the twist ending the episode with a thrilling bang. Iris was a standout character with Steve being a character you feel sorry for. However, shear smith's character was quite irritating at times, lacking any depth or likeability. Setting was mediocre. Concept was fun. Comedy was top notch. To conclude, the episode was a fun and entertaining. Not as good as last episode, but definitely better than the first one. Go and watch it!

Echoes of The Conversation

[garysjeffery · 8/10 · 28 May 2021]

Like all episodes, it is difficult to rate on the basis of one viewing. Not all the nuances are obvious as one concentrates on plot.

Listen to the piano score that accompanies this play which I found reminiscent of the soundtrack from The Conversation from which, I'm sure, this episode drew some inspiration.

Another cracking episode

[fingazmc · 8/10 · 24 May 2021]

SPOILERS IN THE MIDDLE

Great episode and great twist(s).

I really thought I had it worked out a few times..

*SLIGHT SPOILERS* I even thought there was going to be a happy ending, although the actress really did a good job at acting like a bad liar (the body language etc, when she said she was interested in him) so I was dubious of that anyway.

*END OF SPOILERS*

I prefer last weeks, but as the lads usually say on the commentaries they do, (if you haven't heard they are defo worth finding) a dud usually comes after an amazing episode but this definitely wasn't a dud!

Fingaz MC.

Lip Service

[bobcobb301 · 7/10 · 14 July 2021]

I feel like the twist was a little bit too ridiculous here, but a solid episode that did have you guessing from start to finish.

Twist in a twist

[safenoe · 8/10 · 23 December 2022]

I'm finally catching up with season 6 episodes which I recorded 18 months ago and yep, time flies. But with 2022 coming to a close it's time to catch up, and Lip Service was quite the twist and then some.

All credit to Sian Clifford for her double role who has the nuance to carry this episode. The sinister moment at the end was quite realistic in many ways, and kind of reminded me of Chris Mullin's A Very British Coup.

Also all credit to the production designers for their depiction of the hotel room which really portrayed the dreariness of hotels that one can relate to when one has stayed in a dreary hotel.

Disappointing

[hesperus59 · 5/10 · 4 April 2024]

A ridiculous twist. One of the cases that if you look a little beyond the glossy surprise ending, you soon realize how contrived it is. There is no way what happened at the end could have been so easily covered up, or pulled off of in the first place. This is not to mention the morally dubious implications. I know it's not a morality tale, but Inside No 9 has usually maintained its own version of a dark, but meaningful moral universe. Here it is all justified with one of the most tired stereotypes of conspiracy theory: The government did it, because it's what governments do. This show has had its share of recycling common tropes (shades of The Conversation here), but it's usually done with inventive and panache, sometimes better than their influences (e.g. The 12 Days of Christine, Once Removed). Unfortunately, not the case here.