Alan (Reece Shearsmith) becomes the new teacher at a school in rural Wales, but grows increasingly curious about his class's previous teacher, the popular Mr King.
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: The absent-minded headmaster keeps calling Alan as Adam even after being corrected.
- And I Must Scream: Alan is trapped in the chair with his lips glued tight.
- Bilingual Bonus: The children and Mr Edwards speak unsubtitled Welsh in the opening scene.
- Character Shilling: The departed Mr King is being praised by the headmaster and loved by the children. Then again, he never existed in the first place.
- Collective Identity: "Mr King" is revealed to be this, becoming the title of every murdered Class 9 teacher.
- Continuity Nod: The "Wise Owl" road safety poster seen in the classroom is taken from another Series 7 episode.
- Empathy Doll Shot: A variant. When Alan is comforting Ceri (with the - false - implication that he may be molesting her), the camera pans away to a shot of a painting, where the paint runs on a crying face.
- Expy: From The Wicker Man (1973):
- Alan for Howie.
- Ceri for Rowan Morrison.
- Mr Edwards for Lord Summerisle.
- Winnie for Willow.
- False Rape Accusation: Against Alan so the headmaster could get a good look at his genitals.
- Folk Horror: The school community sacrifices humans in folkloric rituals.
- Foreshadowing: Mr Edwards saying that Mr King is now living "down under", and he will ask his secretary to "dig up" Mr King's email address. "Mr King" is the collective name for the class teacher who is murdered every year.
- Hope Spot: Midway through the assembly, Mr. Edwards enters the classroom and expresses shock at what the children are doing. For a moment, it looks like he might be able to save Alan... before it's revealed that he has no intention of doing so, and he happily joins in with the assembly.
- Human Sacrifice: The school have been sacrificing teachers for the harvest festival to ensure their harvest grows.
- I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: The headmaster unintentionally (or not) reveals to Alan that the student who accused him of molestation was Ceri.
- Karma Houdini: Somehow the school gets away with serial killings of their teachers.
- Literal-Minded: When Alan asks Ceri if she has "anything going on at home" (meaning any kind of trouble), she takes this literally and replies that her parents are having an extension built.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The children sing an upbeat folk song about mutilating and killing people for a Human Sacrifice.
- Malaproper:
- Gwen keeps mixing up "beings" with "beans." Subverted when it turns out that "human beans" is actually code for "people who've been killed and buried in the field to ensure a good harvest".
- Ceri is worried about the climate change protestors' "Stinkin' Rebellion" (Extinction Rebellion.)
- Not the First Victim: "Mr King" is actually Mr Hardy, who, it's implied, was also accused of being a pedophile before being brutally murdered.
- Not What It Looks Like: The scene of Alan posing naked in front of the headmaster when the cleaning lady enters. She is unfazed by the sight though.
- Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Ceri doesn't know who Michael Jackson is.
- School Play: The assembly, culminating in a Human Sacrifice.
- Shackle Seat Trap: A variant with superglue in place of shackles, which also doubles as an unusually serious Sticky Situation.
- Shout-Out: Alan gets his lips glued shut by the murderous children, as does the mother in Goodnight Mommy.
- Slow-Loading Internet Image: Alan asks if Ceri's disturbing behaviour could be something she learned from the internet. Mr Edwards points out that this is very unlikely since the local broadband connection is so slow.
- Tough Room: The class doesn't find Alan's opening joke funny.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour:
- Ceri when she boils tadpoles and serves them to Alan in his tea.
- All the kids in the last scene when they capture Alan.
- Tuckerization:
- Mr Edwards is likely named for Edward Woodward, who played Howie in The Wicker Man (1973).
- The first teacher's name is revealed to be Mr Hardy, a reference to director Robin Hardy.
- Alan might be named after author Alan Garner, who is best known for writing retellings of British folklore and children's fantasy novels. His surname might come from Nigel Kneale's pseudonym or from Adam Curtis, a filmmaker known for his documentaries that are skeptical about the process of British society in the 2000s and 2010s.
- Uncertain Doom: We don't see what happens to Alan but judging by the children's drawings, he will face a violent end.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mr. Edwards could be one: he claims that the sacrificial murder of teachers is to "do our bit for the environment" by making sure the plants grow well, but it's unclear if this should be taken literally.
- Wham Shot: While watching his class' assembly on the environment, Alan objects to some of the material and tries to get up from his seat, at which point it's revealed that he's been superglued to it. Cue the assembly becoming increasingly disturbing as the children reveal their true colours.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Wicker Man (1973). See Expy for more.
