Beattie (Jenna Coleman) and Sam (Kadiff Kirwan) are a young couple who move into a new flat at a bargain price. Beattie, however, comes to fear that the new flat is haunted by the ghost of a serial killer who dismembered a body in the bath.
This episode contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: Psychoville ended with the implication that David kept his mother's corpse because he planned to resurrect her with the technology used to bring Dr. Ehrlichmann back from the dead. This episode reveals that he never went through with that.
- Advertised Extra: The story is advertised as being about Sam and Beattie. Beattie mostly just listens to David tell his story, while Sam appears for three very short scenes.
- Ambiguous Situation: How much is Beattie aware of what she's doing when she kills David and then Sam?
- Birds of a Feather: David and Emily.
- Compartment Shot: Three.
- A shot from inside a microwave as David tries to heat a potato.
- A shot from inside a garbage bag as Emily disposes of the tennis balls.
- A shot from inside Emily's purse where she finds Maureen's brooch.
- Crossover: Between Psychoville and Inside No. 9.
- Decoy Protagonist: Beattie. The first five minutes set the episode up to be her story and then David arrives to take up the narrative.
- Disposing of a Body: David chopped up his mother's body and turned the pieces in for recycling.
- Dork in a Sweater: Emily.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: By the standards of Inside No. 9, even considering that it's a series where the hook is that there are no rules. This is the first episode that actually brought back characters, but from Psychoville rather than from other episodes of the series.
- Fully Absorbed Finale: Effectively this to Psychoville.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The story starts off being about a flat haunted by an amputee. Then David Sowerbutts appears.
- Happy Ending Override: While Psychoville didn't exactly have a happy ending, David was one of the few characters to emerge alive, and while his mother was dead there was an implication that his life at least had a chance to improve through his newfound relationship with Emily. Almost a decade later, this episode reveals that his life did improve for a while... until his mother's ghost shows up and proceeds to destroy it so they can be Together in Death.
- Haunted Technology: The blender turns on by itself and the Bontempi plays even when unplugged.
- Home-Early Surprise: Invoked by Maureen who tells David to come home early to discover Emily's secret.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Although Maureen is a completely remorseless murderer and David appears to be taken over by her, he hesitates just long enough before dropping John into the boiling water for Emily to come home and save him.
- Instant Death Stab: David dies instantly from a knife in the back.
- In the Back: David gets it in the back.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode is named after the poem "Death Be Not Proud" by John Donne.
- Monochrome Apparition: The ghost of David's mother appears in a bluish tint.
- Monster Clown: David and Emily hire Mr Jelly to celebrate the birth of their child. He turns out to be quite creepy, although Psychoville fans will know that he isn't actually a bad guy.
- Parental Incest: Implied with the "close" relationship David had with his mother.
- Red Is Violent: Beattie's red jacket after she kills Sam.
- Running Gag: We learn Mr Jelly was hired for John's birthday party because Emily confused him with another clown. This continues the recurring gag from Psychoville where he would be confused for another clown named Mr Jolly.
- Shout-Out: Keeping the skeleton of your mother around.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Beattie goes from wearing dowdy florals to wearing a red jacket and black trousers after killing Sam.
- Staggered Zoom: The shot on the skeleton in the bathtub.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: While Maureen was a murderer in Psychoville, she was generally pleasant about it and only killed people because she genuinely thought they were a threat to David. Dying and going to Hell seems to have made her a lot crueler, as she casually tries to force David into murdering his own innocent son.
- Villainous Mother-Son Duo: Played with, as befitting an episode that plays a lot of homage to Psycho.
- Villain of Another Story: Or perhaps hero or Tragic Villain. Beattie kills Sam at the end, but she is acting under Maureen's influence, so it's not actually clear what she knows she's doing.
- Wham Line: "I wasn't talking to you."
- Wham Shot: The whole episode changes totally with the shot of David Sowerbutts in Sam and Beattie's doorway.
- Would Hurt a Child: Maureen Sowerbutts is completely nonchalant about ordering her own baby grandson boiled alive.
