Line #7 Recap/InsideNo9S8E1MothersRuin


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mothers_ruin.png]]
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3	Edward and Harry's mother, Annie Blackwood, was a terrible person, and the LadyMacbeth to her gangster husband. A year after her death, Edward and Harry plan to find out where Annie hid her missing millions.
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6	!!Tropes:
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8	* AccidentalMisnaming: The not-so-smart Reggie gets the "s" wrong when mentioning Sherlock Holme and Miss Marples.
9	* AmbiguousEnding: Did Annie come back as a parrot? The two men certainly believe this to be the case, but we never hear the parrot answer the question of where she hid the money, and its only lines were those which it had said earlier on in the episode.
10	* AnArmAndALeg: Edward getting his right foot cut off with an electric knife is played for drama.
11	* AsYouKnow: Edward tells Harry that he didn't get on with their mother which is something Harry knew but not the audience.
12	* CelestialDeadline: Apparently, Necromancy only works up to a year after the person's death.
13	* ChekhovsGunman: A non-human variant. Annie's parrot flies away in the opening scene, and then returns at the end - potentially as a conduit for her having been summoned for real.
14	* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Frances supposedly has seen so much gore and violence as the crime boss' wife that she calmly walks away after killing her husband to catch up on her favorite show.
15	* CrazyPrepared: Frances and Reggie have an electric knife and plastic sheeting ready to murder someone at a moment's notice.
16	* DisposingOfABody: Discussed. Reggie talks about cutting up Edward and Harry into pieces and burying the bits in a nearby forest.
17	* FailedAttemptAtDrama: Harry interrupts his brother's dramatic SummoningRitual by pointing out that baking powder and vinegar would be a good remedy for red wine stains on the wooden floor.
18	* HawaiianShirtedTourist: Reggie wears a Hawaii shirt to indicate his status as a returned tourist.
19	* HeelFaceTurn: A few minutes after trying to kill Harry himself, Edward tries to save him from Frances and Reggie, asking them to [[TakeMeInstead kill him instead.]]
20	* HermeticMagic: For the occult ritual to work, Edward has to draw the Seal of Solomon on the floor.
21	* HomeEarlySurprise: Frances and Reggie return from their holiday a day earlier than expected due to Reggie having got sick. It completely messed with Edward's plans.
22	* InternalHomage: Edward's clumsy break-in using a StockingMask recalls the similarly inept burglars from season one's second episode "[[Recap/InsideNo9S1E2AQuietNightIn A Quiet Night In]]".
23	* LondonGangster: The elder Harry Blackwood was one, as is Reggie, and both were in a gang together.
24	* LoveForgivesAllButLust: Frances is extremely calm about the (presumably ''a lot'' of) torture and murder committed by her husband Reggie. On the other hand, she's enraged when she finds out about his long-running affair with Annie, and stabs him to death as a result.
25	* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Edward is strongly suggested to be Reggie's son, not Harry's.
26	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Annie Blackwood's spirit ''might'' have returned in the body of a parrot, or it might have just been repeating lines it heard earlier.
27	* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Frances killing Reggie not only saves Edward and Harry's lives, but it also enables them to complete the ritual for real, since Annie actually loved Reggie.
28	* OutGambitted: Reggie schemed to kill Annie and then buy her house, expecting to find either the money or something that would lead him to it. He got as far as buying the house - but her initial plan to hide the money was so good that he never found it.
29	* ProphecyTwist:
30	** Frances wants to go through with the ritual because a tarot reader told her that something would happen to change her life. It does, when she subsequently kills Reggie.
31	** Earlier in the episode, Reggie references the time when a psychic predicted Frances would be attacked by a tiger. It came true - when a box of Frosties (Frosted Flakes) fell on her in the supermarket.
32	* ProphetEyes: While pretending to be possessed by his mother's spirit, Edward pulls his eyes back to invoke this trope.
33	* RealMenHateAffection: Edward doesn't like to be hugged by his brother.
34	* SayMyName: Characters constantly address each other by their first name for the sake of the audience.
35	* SecretlyWealthy: Annie lived on welfare, and Harry didn't know about her stolen millions until after her death.
36	* ShoutOut: Famous detectives Literature/SherlockHolmes, Literature/MissMarple and Literature/FatherBrown are mentioned.
37	* SiblingMurder: Attempted by Edward but Harry gets saved by the returning home owners.
38	* StupidSacrifice: Edward is determined to save Harry and offers up himself. Frances and Reggie cut off his foot, but it's pointless; Annie doesn't care enough about him to come back from the dead.
39	* SummoningRitual: Edward tries to get a secret out of his late mother trying to summon her spirit by occult means.
40	* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: It's implied that Reggie killed Annie by slipping something into her drink.
41	* TrashyTrueCrime: Gangster's wife Frances is used to helping him out with torture and murder, and is obsessed with true crime, especially ''Women Who Kill'', which inspires her to kill Reggie after she learns he cheated on her.
42	* TheUnfavorite: Edward was very much this for Annie.
43	* TheUnreveal: So where did Annie hide her money? We'll never know, as it cuts to credits just as her sons have posed the question to her apparent conduit.
44	* WithCatlikeTread: In the opening scene, Edward enters the house through the kitchen window with a lot of noise.
45	* WomanScorned: Frances stabs Reggie to death upon finding out that he had an affair with Annie for many years and is probably Edward's real father.
46	* WomenAreWiser: Frances is more practical and less rash than Reggie. Also applies to Annie, who managed to keep her stolen fortune hidden for the rest of her life, while her husband was swiftly caught, tortured, and murdered.

Context Recap / InsideNo9S8E1MothersRuin