The Nine Gallery in London hosts a private preview of "Fragments": the final exhibition by Elliot Quinn, an artist who died three years ago. Before the exhibition, an attendant called Neil is killed when he is forced into a spiked chair that impales him in the back. Guests Carrie (a former reality TV contestant), Maurice (an accademic art critic), Kenneth (a health and safety inspector), Jean (an elderly Irish woman) and Patricia (a pornographic novelist) arrive. Patricia is partially sighted and because the attendant who was supposed to help her is not there, the receptionist Bea comes to her aid. Once all six are gathered in the downstairs basement, a hologram of Elliot Quinn displays. He says that he set about creating this installation before his death; he personally selected the guests, and by the end of the evening, they will know why.
Carrie and Maurice find Neil's corpse. Kenneth tries to go upstairs to get a signal for his phone but realises the door to the lift upstairs is blocked. Kenneth and Jean force the door open but find Bea's corpse inside. Kenneth and Jean go to look for a fire exit, and run into Maurice. Carrie dies after drinking what she thinks is wine but is apparently acid; Patricia finds her corpse. Patricia hides in a toilet, and Jean, revealed as the killer, finds her inside. Meanwhile, Kenneth and Maurice are trying to open the fire exit, which is sealed shut. Jean screams and the two rush into the toilet, where they find Patricia dead; she has had her eyes stabbed out. Kenneth and Maurice realise that they both had organ transplants in the last three years. They work out that this must be the connection between the guests. Kenneth knocks out Maurice, who has the same medication that Kenneth saw Carrie taking. He tells Jean that Maurice must be the killer, but she asphyxiates Kenneth with a plastic bag over his head.
Maurice awakens in the main exhibit room. Jean reveals that she is Elliot's mother. When he found out he was dying, he asked to donate his organs to others, and wanted his mother to gather the recipients together as a tribute to the gift of life he had given them. However, Jean feels that none of them deserve the second chance they were given. All continued the behaviour that had led them to need a transplant (Kenneth's smoking, Carrie's drinking, Neil's failure to control his diabetes) or had lifestyles that Jean disapproves of (Patricia writing pornography, Bea getting tattoos over her skin graft.) Jean decides that Maurice, who received Elliot's heart, was "heartless" in his criticism of others' art. She advances on him with a syringe and announces her intention to take his heart back.
Some time later, the Nine Gallery hosts a new exhibition, consisting only of a heart and other body parts on display. It has won the Turner Prize (the most prestigious art award in the UK.) A reporter interviews the artist, revealed to be Maurice. When she says that he must have "put (his) heart into the exhibition", Maurice hesitates and says "Not quite ..."
This episode contains examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Subverted with the casting of Peter Kay as Neil, whose casting deliberately wasn't announced in advance of the episode.
- Camping a Crapper: Subverted. Patricia's only hiding in a toilet, not trying to use it.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Throughout most of the episode Jean comes across as a dotty, cheerfully eccentric woman, making her seem harmless. However, she’s really the killer and responsible for all the events. Her eccentric behaviour proves to be completely genuine though.
- Caustic Critic: Played With: Maurice technically isn’t one, due to being an academic, however, he still behaves like one when critiquing the art pieces. Jean likewise uses this as a justification for her to kill him at the end, which he points out is pretty weak even by her logic.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Jean, with her inappropriately cheerful behaviour and habit of lapsing into random jokes and anecdotes that only bear a tangible relationship to the situation. Takes a much darker tone following the reveal she’s the killer, with her twisted logic and increasingly flimsy justifications for murdering six innocent people because of her belief they wasted the gifts her son gave them.
- Conspicuous Gloves: The victim in the opening scene gets killed by a person of whom we only see the black gloves. In hindsight, it becomes clear they were mainly used to conceal the murderer's gender.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Most of them, honestly. But Neil's death at the beginning is probably the worst.
- Deadpan Snarker: Bea.
- Dumb Blonde: Carrie.
- Final Girl: Gender-flipped by Maurice, who survives Jean's attack at the end.
- Follow the Leader: In-Universe, this is what Patricia claims she had to do in order to keep selling books after the success of Fifty Shades of Grey.
- Guilt by Association Gag: Maurice is the only victim who actually changed his behavior to stay healthy and took good care of Elliot's heart, but is targeted by Jean nonetheless for being a "heartless critic". He points out that this is a pretty weak justification for lumping him in with the rest (especially as he’s an academic and a lecturer rather than a professional critic) and murdering him, which she doesn't really have an answer for.
- Hand of Death: The opening murder scene doesn't show the killer besides their Conspicuous Gloves.
- Homage: To Theatre of Blood, And Then There Were None, and giallo films.
- Karmic Death: Jean considers this to be the fate of each of her victims, who are generally killed in "fitting" ways. At the end, it looks like Maurice managed to give her a karmic death of her own.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The members separate into smaller groups which makes it easier for the killer to pick them off unnoticed. Lampshaded by Patricia who talks about one of her novels where this happens as well.
- Named Like My Name: Kenneth Williams shares his name with a celebrity of the same name which becomes a Running Gag.
- Never Mess with Granny: Despite being slight and elderly, Jean is strong enough to overpower and kill all but one of the other guests.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Just before the screen cuts to black Maurice is shown working his hand loose of his bindings. It's implied he overpowered Jean and killed her, using her heart to make his own art installation.
- Pain to the Ass: How Neil is killed.
- Posthumous Character: We never see Elliot Quinn, but he is probably the closest thing to a main character.
- Skewed Priorities: When Neil's body is found, Carrie's first concern is that she will miss a perfume launch she was invited to later that evening.
- Neil himself when he's shoved onto the bladed chair, mumbling about his spilt crackers before he dies.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Carrie, who considers herself a celebrity despite the fact her only "work" is as a minor Big Brother contestant.
- Sole Survivor: The only major character to survive to the end is Maurice.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Carrie dies by drinking acid placed in a bottle of champagne.
- Tears of Blood: Patricia when found dead.
- Ten Little Murder Victims: A group of strangers trapped in an art gallery after closing time realise that they have been lured there. They instantly suspect this trope and try to work out who's responsible before one of them gets killed.
- The Voice: We hear Elliott Quinn's voice at the beginning, but never see him onscreen.
