Series / Murder in Mind

Murder in Mind is a 23-episode (2001-2003) BBC crime anthology series, with each episode telling the story of a murder from the killer's point of view. Each episode boasts an All-Star Cast.

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Tropes found in Murder in Mind include:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: Some episodes appear to be set in the mid-late 1990s rather than the time period they aired. For example, in "Sleeper", none of the characters have mobile phones (which had become common by 2001) - plot-relevant, since Deborah is unable to contact James and thinks she's killed him.
• All for Nothing:
  • "Passion" focuses on Jane, a lonely call centre worker who has no friends (other than her cat) and harbours a deep crush on Stephen, her married boss to the point that she believes that if his wife wasn't in the picture he would return her feelings. When she believes that he is cheating on her wife with Kerry, a fellow worker, she orchestrates a plan to murder Kerry and frame Stephen's wife for the crime thereby taking both of her love rivals out of the picture in one fell swoop. After much meticulous planning Jane manages to accomplish both of these, leaving Kerry dead and Stephen's wife in prison while Jane gets away with everything. However it is all for naught as Stephen plans to move abroad (unable to live with the guilt of what his wife supposedly did) and Jane then learns that he wasn't having a affair with Kerry but another fellow worker (who makes the mistake of telling Jane this while on the roof, causing Jane to push her off to her death).
  • In "Landlord", Alan Willis is an unscrupulous landlord who rents an apartment to a young student, but finds her dead from carbon monoxide poisoning because he was too cheap to get the boiler serviced. He goes to lengths to fake her suicide (putting her in what he thinks is her car, with the engine running) and then kills her boyfriend who's looking for her. When he is finally caught by police, they tell him she wasn't dead when he found her - just unconscious because of the fumes. If he'd called an ambulance when he found her, he wouldn't have been charged with anyone's death, just fined over the faulty boiler. His actions finished her off and made him liable for her murder.
  • "Motive" involves a couple murdering their babysitter so they can cash in her winning lottery ticket. When the husband develops a conscience and wants to go to police, his wife kills him too. Both murders amount to nothing because she is caught before she can claim the money.
  • In "Vigilante", a group of men torture a local paedophile they believe is responsible for a child's disappearance. They accidentally kill him, but figure he deserved it, since he molested children. Only he wasn't a paedophile - they got the wrong person and killed a completely innocent man. Then the missing child turns up alive and safe; the real paedophile had nothing to do with it.
• Ambiguous Ending: "Flame." Is Jim Napeworth a real person who murders cheating wives and frames their husbands? Or is he a representation of one's homicidal instincts - initially Joe's, later Dave's?
• Anachronic Order:The episode "Flashback" begins with a barrister being shot to death on the courtroom steps as he leaves a murder case having failed to defend his client from a murder charge. The story is then told in reverse order, detailing how he himself had murdered the woman, a prostitute, after she attempted to blackmail him (her girlfriend being the one to later kill him) and set up his client after getting him off a drug possession charge on a technicality.
  • "Passion" opens with Lisa plummeting to her death from the roof of the building, then goes back to Stephen's wife being convicted of Kerry's murder, before finally back to the start.
• Asian Babymama: "Rage" has Samantha discovering after her husband's death that he had a secret Asian girlfriend and had a child with her.
• Asshole Victim: A good third of the victims qualify.
  • Alan (and later Debra) Squires in "Neighbours" (1x06), to the point where theirs are the only deaths that the show seems to root for, as their killer is never caught or faces a comeuppance.
• Awful Wedded Life:
  • In "Flame", Sandra is emotionally abusive towards Joe and openly cheats on him. She only stays in the marriage because she wants money, while he doesn't dare leave.
  • In "Mercy", Collins and Margaret had an unhappy Sexless Marriage. Collins felt trapped because their house and money were in Margaret's name, while she was resentful of him ogling any pretty woman he encountered.
  • In "Cornershop", Meera is very domineering and controlling towards Sanjay. When he accidentally kills someone, he panics because it's difficult for him to do anything without his wife finding out, much less hide a body.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • "Regrets" opens with Ken in a prison, narrating the story to a friend of what happened up to this point. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Ken got away with everything and is just visiting his friend, who's in jail for driving drunk.
  • Happens twice within a few minutes in "Stalkers." First, the viewer is led to believe that Stephen (who's repeatedly made threatening calls to Hat) is at her door; it's actually a courier. Then Stephen starts following Hat's neighbour Kelly, seemingly intending to harm her. In the next scene they are in a coffee shop having a friendly conversation.
• Basement-Dweller:
  • Ed in "Rage" is a downplayed version of the trope (he has a successful career), but is well into middle age and still lives with his mother, who is so controlling that he doesn't have a girlfriend or any kind of social life.
  • Stephen in "Stalkers" is a social misfit who lives with his grandmother. He claims this is because she is senile and needs help at home, although she doesn't show any signs of it.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In "Justice", Tom ultimately gets what he wanted (to get his wife Helen back), but he has to live with the fact he killed Alex, who was trying to protect him the whole time.
• Black Comedy: "Neighbours", "Disposal", "Regrets", and "Cornershop" are this, while the rest of the show is more serious and dramatic.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: In "Cornershop", Sanjay accidentally kills a gang leader who's been harassing him. He ultimately deals with the problem by having the body served as food in a restaurant.
• Black Dude Dies First: In "Contract", when Terry starts murdering the three men who hired him, he goes after Anthony (who's Asian) first.
• British Accents: Notable in some episodes, e.g. "Flame" uses East London accents, "Disposal" Birmingham accents, "Rage" Norfolk accents, and "Cornershop" northern English accents.
• Blatant Lies: In "Landlord", Willis repeatedly denies killing Ben even when the police have forensic evidence and it's fairly obvious no one else could have done it.
• Broken Bird: Hat in "Stalkers" becomes ruthlessly determined to kill Stephen after he stalks and terrorises her. It's suggested that she was already in a fragile mental state due to a past abusive relationship.
• Catapult Nightmare: Frequently happens to Stuart in "Memories."
• The Cavalry: In "Stalkers", Stephen breaks into Hat's house and tries to kill her for calling the police on him. But unknown to him, Grace, the mother of one of his previous victims, is following him. At the last second she shows up and pepper-sprays Stephen in the face, allowing Hat to escape.
• The Chanteuse: The protagonist of "Swansong" is Tara, a sexy Femme Fatale lounge singer.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Tara in "Swansong", who schemes with her boyfriend Mark to kill her husband ... only to betray him and frame him for murder with the help of Dirty Cop Garrett, whom she's also sleeping with.
• Citizenship Marriage: In "Cornershop", Sanjay's daughter has had a marriage arranged with her wealthy uncle's business associate so that the groom can eventually get a British passport.
• Comforting the Widow: "Rage" involves Ed deciding to do this after seeing a news interview with the beautiful widow of the man he killed.
• Comically Missing the Point: In "Disposal", Barry is mugged by a robber who orders him to hand over his credit cards. Barry asks why he even wants them when it should be obvious that the bank will just cancel the cards anyway.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • In "Vigilante", Liam and his friends accidentally kill a man they think is a paedophile. It turns out to be the wrong person - the victim and the real paedophile have very similar names and both moved to the neighbourhood at the same time from the same town, causing a mix-up by the local newspaper.
  • In "Sleeper", after Deborah and James break up, James immediately goes away for a week and doesn't tell anyone where he is - leaving Deborah unable to contact him and thinking she killed him while sleepwalking. Then he shows up to see Corrie at the exact same moment Deborah does, causing her to remember that she actually killed Corrie.
  • In "Flashback", Angela demands Chadwick pay her £100,000 not to expose him in the press; saying she wants the money to move to France and buy a house. He has the money, but then can't give it to her because his wife suddenly decides to buy a house in France.
• Cranky Landlord: Willis in "Landlord" hates his tenants and blames them for anything that goes wrong in his badly maintained properties - often using it as an excuse to charge them extra.
• Crooked Contractor: In "Neighbours", Steve is a builder who overcharges his clients for very shoddy work. Nigel is even more disgusted with him than with Alan, since at least Alan ran an honest business.
• Cut-and-Paste Note: Jane uses one of these in "Passion" as part of her plan to frame Stephen's wife for Kerry's murder (making it look like the wife had received an anonymous warning about them having an affair.)
• Deadly Gas:
  • Edward Palmer in "Teacher" ultimately commits suicide via car exhaust.
  • In "Landlord", the victim of the week dies accidentally from carbon monoxide poisoning, but the protagonist spends the episode covering it up. He realizes what's happened when he notices that the flame in the boiler is orange (it should be blue) and that he didn't get the boiler checked when it was supposed to be.
• Death of a Child:
  • The death of Timothy Hampton is a major plot point in "Memories", although he was killed by another child.
  • Jill's son in "Suicide", leading her to get revenge by staging her own suicide to look like a murder.
• Destructive Romance: Deborah and James in "Sleeper." James cheats on Deborah with her supposed best friend, lies and gaslights her about it, but then gets jealous and possessive about her speaking to another man. This causes Deborah's sanity to slowly break down, and is probably making her sleepwalking worse.
• Dirty Cop: Det Chief Superintendent Garrett in "Swansong" is a racist, misogynistic Neo-Nazi who has Mark murdered, abuses Tara, and falsifies evidence. His police partner doesn't know about all of this, but she is happy to go along with fudging details of the investigation just to get an arrest.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • In "Landlord", Willis is very rude to Tim; refusing to fix his broken shower, replace his broken fridge, or carry out other essential repairs. Eventually, Tim gets his own back by refusing to move out when Willis is desperate to sell the flat; preventing Willis from moving away to avoid suspicion.
  • In "Cornershop", after being extorted for months by racist thug Ronnie Brown, Sanjay finally lashes back - and ends up accidentally killing him.
• Downer Ending: Almost all the episodes end like this, which is what you would expect for a series focusing on murderers.
  • An exception to this is "Neighbours" which ends with Nigel successfully murdering the neighbours that had made his life a misery and getting away with it.
  • Also "Regrets", where Ken got away with killing the president of the bank, and seemingly now plans to kill the corrupt boss of a train company.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • "Teacher" and "Favours" both end with the protagonist committing suicide rather than be caught for murder.
  • Jill Craig in "Suicide", although she planned it very carefully to look like a murder masquerading as suicide. She did this to get revenge on someone who drove her son to suicide decades ago.
  • In "Stalkers", one of Stephen's previous victims ended her own life because he wouldn't leave her alone.
• Driving Question:
  • "Motive": Why did Mike and Barbara kill Dana?
  • "Mercy": Is Collins an evil man who murdered his wife, or a loving husband who enacted a Mercy Kill?
  • "Sleeper": Who did Deborah kill while sleepwalking?
  • "Suicide": Was Jill's death suicide or murder?
• Dull Surprise: In "Stalkers", Stephen comes home and announces he's fallen in love (with Hat.) His grandmother gives a bored, emotionless response - indicating Hat isn't the first woman he's been obsessed with.
• Electrified Bathtub: A variant in "Neighbours", where Nigel electrocutes Alan in his hot tub.
• Emasculated Cuckold:
  • In "Flame", everyone at Joe's place of work treats him this way because they all know his wife is having an affair with Angus and there's nothing Joe can do about it.
  • "Disposal": Barry fears becoming this if anyone finds out his wife has been cheating on him.
  • "Echoes": Eloise is murdered because Richard Morton was humiliated at the prospect of anyone finding out that she is an ex-prostitute and was already married to someone else.
• English Rose: Hat in "Stalkers" is older than most examples (30s), but visually fits the trope and is ladylike, prim, and gentle.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • In "Disposal", after Barry is mugged, he realises he could get rid of Alex by making his murder look like a street robbery.
  • In "Stalkers", Hat is watching TV when a public information film comes on, showing a woman getting run over. This gives Hat the idea of dealing with Stephen by staging a hit and run. It doesn't work (her plan to steal a car fails) but the moment still makes her realize that she'll have to kill him to get rid of him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In "Contract", Terry brings his young granddaughter with him to meet someone to discuss a contract killing.
• Evil Old Folks:
  • Collins in "Mercy" is an elderly doctor suspected of murdering his wife, although he insists it was assisted suicide. Not only did he murder her but set up a cruel and sadistic scheme involving drugging and gaslighting her.
  • Richard Morton in "Echoes" had his wife brutally murdered to save himself from public humiliation when he discovered she was already legally married to someone else.
  • Terry in "Contract" is an elderly man still working as a hired killer, who constantly moves the goalposts of his expected contract just to be able to kill the people who hired him.
• Faking and Entering:
  • "Flame": Jim was supposed to make Sandra and Angus's murders look like a burglary, but he doesn't - leaving Joe scrambling to stage the scene before police arrive.
  • "Motive": Mike tries to make it look like Dana was killed by a burglar, only to make obvious mistakes (such as no sign of forced entry) that make it clear the "burglary" is just a cover for her murder.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: "Justice" has Tom refuse to accept that Helen has left him and wants a divorce. He insists it's a "trial separation" and believes she will come back to him if he can prove her boyfriend Alex is up to no good.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • "Echoes" is the only episode involving any supernatural elements.
  • "Disposal" is the only episode to switch between the POV of two different characters.
• Get into Jail Free: At the end of "Contract", Simon goes to jail for corporate fraud, but he's happy with that since it means he's safe from Terry. Until Terry invokes the trope by getting sent to jail as well.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: At the end of "Stalkers", Hat finishes off the titular stalker with a bottle after struggling with him.
• Groin Attack: Occurs in "Stalkers" when Hat kicks Stephen in the crotch to incapacitate him after he breaks into her house.
• Has a Type: In "Stalkers", Hat discovers that she looks very similar to Stephen's previous victim Karen.
• Henpecked Husband: Sanjay in "Cornershop" doesn't dare say no to his wife, despite her incessant demands on him. Even she calls him out on this.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • In "Neighbours", Nigel kills Alan - only for Debra to move in her boyfriend Steve, who annoys Nigel even more (he goes so far as to say that he'd rather still be living next door to Alan.) Nigel deals with this by blowing up Debra and Steve's conservatory with them in it.
  • "Regrets" ends with the implication that Ken will now go after the boss of a train company.
• Honey Trap:
  • In "Stalkers", Hat lures her stalker into thinking she's finally fallen in love with him so that she can get him alone long enough to kill him. This backfires horribly and leads to him trying to kidnap her.
  • In "Teacher", Catrin's already having an affair with one of the doctors in the hospital; but charms him into leaving her alone in his office so she can steal lethal drugs to kill Jack Seddon.
  • In "Echoes", Eloise Duval posed as a nurse to find a wealthy man to blackmail, and succeeded with Richard Morton.
• Hope Spot: There is one of these at the end of "Rage." Ed serves four years of a prison sentence for manslaughter. Samantha comes to pick him up and make a life with him; it's mentioned that his mother has died whilst he was in prison. Ed and Samantha kiss - but it turns out to be an illusion. In reality, he goes back to his old life with his mother while the real Samantha has presumably long since moved on.
• How We Got Here: "Regrets" opens with Ken making a prison visit, narrating to a friend the story of what happened up to this point.
• I Ate WHAT?!: In "Cornershop", Duggan panics when he realizes that Ronnie Brown's corpse has been served as food and that he may have eaten it. He's wrong - it was actually served as curry at Archie's brother's restaurant, not at the wedding.
• Identical Grandson: In "Echoes", Daniel is identical to his ancestor Sir Richard Morton, leading Eloise to take revenge on him from beyond the grave.
• Improbable Infant Survival:
  • In "Vigilante", the missing girl hasn't been murdered or even abused. She got trapped in a neighbour's shed whilst they were away, and wasn't found until they got back a few days later.
  • In "Neighbours", after Alan dies, his children go to live with other family rather than stay with their stepmother, so the kids are not around when Nigel subsequently blows up the conservatory, killing her and Steve.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: In "Swansong", Tara makes police suspicious by mentioning that a security camera had been disabled with spray paint - something they hadn't told her. Garrett is in on the whole thing, but his partner isn't, so Tara still had an act to keep up.
• It's All About Me:
  • Catrin in "Teacher" is prepared to kill because she'd be humiliated if her father (the headmaster of an exclusive school) were exposed in the press for hiring, and accidentally killing, a sex worker.
  • Willis in "Landlord." When his negligence leads to a tenant's death from carbon monoxide poisoning, his sole concern is keeping himself out of jail. He doesn't even bother to check on the other tenants' homes to prevent it from happening again.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Part of the conflict between Nigel and Alan in "Neighbours" is that Alan is having a conservatory installed. Nigel and his wife insist this is infringing on their property but, as Alan points out, he legally doesn't need planning permission and the local council is satisfied and the conservatory is well within the boundaries of his own home.
• Just Between You and Me:
  • Terry does this in "Contract" before killing Anthony.
  • In "Victim", Emily lays out her entire plan to Colin before she kills him and Lucy - since it's (partly) revenge for him kidnapping and trying to kill her years earlier.
• Just Eat Gilligan: In "Neighbours", Alan outright tells Nigel that he'd kill Debra if he found out she was cheating on him. Nigel knows she is cheating, and has video evidence. Rather than go to the trouble of killing the Squires himself, he could just have shown Alan the video and let him kill Debra and be arrestead.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Nigel in "Neighbours" gets away with murdering three people and suffers no repercussions.
  • Sanjay in "Cornershop" gets away with murder; the police now know what he did, but can't prove it.
  • Jane in "Passion" gets away with two murders and framing Stephen's wife for one of them. Possibly a subversion - someone saw her looking over the edge of the roof after pushing Lisa, so she may be caught in the future.
  • Stuart in "Memories" gets away with a murder he committed as a child. His mother falsely confessed (knowing Stuart was preparing to go to the police) so that he could stay out of jail for the sake of his children and career.
  • Ken in "Regrets" gets away with accidentally killing the chairman of the bank. Since no body has been found, there's no evidence linking Ken to his "disappearance."
  • Tom in "Justice" is never caught or punished for killing two people because he successfully made it look like an accident, although he does feel guilty upon discovering that Alex was an undercover cop trying to protect him.
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • Palmer in "Teacher". He gets away with killing Martin, and his daughter kills Jack Seddon, making it look like Seddon was Martin's killer - so Palmer is off the hook. But when he realizes how evil his daughter is, and that she may be caught for the murder, he is Driven to Suicide.
  • Liam Taylor in "Vigilante" manages to escape suspicion for the vigilante killing of a man he thought he was a paedophile. But after trying to dispose of his accomplice Dave by dumping the guy in a river, a passer-by saves Dave's life. At the end of the episode, Dave has just woken up in hospital and will most likely implicate Liam for trying to kill him.
  • In "Flashback", Chadwick manages to get someone convicted and jailed for a murder he himself committed; only to be murdered by the victim's girlfriend, who knows the truth.
• The Killer in Me:
  • "Sleeper" ends with Deborah realizing she really did kill Corrie - for having an affair with Deborah's boyfriend.
  • In "Memories", Stuart discovers that his "dreams" are actually repressed memories of him killing Timothy Hampton as a child.
• Lady Macbeth:
  • Catrin in "Teacher" is a nurse who eagerly helps her father cover up a death and then kills someone else to help him get away with it. She's clearly wanted to murder someone for a long time and has just been looking for an excuse.
  • Barbara Davis in "Motive" is initially an unwilling accomplice when her husband kills their babysitter so he can claim her winning lottery ticket. As Barbara becomes more desperate for the money, she falls into this trope, helping him cover up the death and trying to keep him quiet when he develops a conscience. She ultimately kills him as well because he was going to turn himself in to police.
  • In "Neighbours", Nigel's wife initially doesn't mind the Squires too much, and encourages him to just be polite and put up with them. By the end of the episode even she has lost her patience and supports him in killing Debra and Steve.
• Lemony Narrator: Barry narrates "Disposal" in this style, later replaced by Angela.
• Loners Are Freaks: In "Passion", Jane is a very lonely woman who is obsessed with her boss and kills a co-worker she believes to be having an affair with him. Her total lack of friends is an apparent sign of her instability.
• Lower-Class Lout: Alan and Debra in "Neighbours" fit this trope, much to the annoyance of the snobbish Nigel.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: A common trope throughout the series, although special mention goes to Terry in "Contract", who can make almost any murder look like an accident or natural causes.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: In "Echoes", Sir Richard Morton finds out that not only is his new wife Eloise already married to someone else (thus his marriage to her is invalidated) but is already expecting her legal husband's baby, which she presumably would have tried to pass off as Sir Richard's.
• Man on Fire:
  • In "Teacher", after Edward prevents Catrin from giving Jack Seddon a lethal injection, she returns and burns Seddon alive - making it look like some kind of gang killing over drugs.
  • In "Contract", Terry burns Anthony alive after not getting his money.
• Marriage Before Romance: Sanjay and his daughter have a conversation about this in "Cornershop." Sanjay's generation believes love comes after marriage, while his daughter is not sure she agrees, although she ends up going through with her arranged marriage.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Angela in "Flashback" is a very feminine, beautiful, seductive call girl with a more masculine and punky-looking girlfriend.
• Matchmaker Failure: In "Justice", Ali repeatedly tries to set Tom up with her friend Viv to help him move on from his wife Helen. Tom does find Viv attractive, but it doesn't work out because he's still hung up on Helen, much to Ali's frustration.
• May–December Romance: Richard (50s) and Eloise (early 20s) in "Echoes". Justified due to the time period when such a relationship was considered normal and even expected for the upper class.
• Mercy Kill: "Mercy" centres on a doctor who ostensibly did this for his dying wife - although not everyone believes him.
• Mixed Metaphor: In "Regrets", Ken loses his job, house, and marriage due to a bank error. He wants revenge and initially plans to shoot the bank manager, but decides she is only "a small cog in a big pond" and someone else is to blame.
• Moving the Goalposts: Terry continually does this throughout "Contract", leading him to hunt down and kill all three guys who hired him, for not fulfilling their end of the ever-changing bargain as he sees it.
• Murder by Mistake: In "Vigilante", a group of men torture paedophile Edward Henderson, assuming that he's behind the disappearance of a missing child. It's only after accidentally killing him that they find out he was completely innocent. The paedophile is actually called Howard Anderson, but the local newspaper mixed up the two.
• Murder-Suicide: At the end of "Victim", Emily stages Lucy and Colin's deaths to look like this - framing him for all her murders and letting everyone know he really did kill her sister.
• Murderer P.O.V.: The premise of the show: all episodes are narrated from the point of view of the killer.
• My Beloved Smother: In "Rage", Ed lives with his controlling, demanding mother. She takes up so much of his time and attention that, despite being well into middle-age, he has no friends (much less a girlfriend) or private life of his own.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • "Justice": This is Tom's reaction when he learns that Alex was trying to protect him the whole time.
  • "Landlord": Willis' expression after finding out that Clare was alive at the time he found her; his actions in fact killed her.
• My Greatest Failure: Ed in "Rage" has spent his whole life living with the guilt of accidentally causing a car accident that killed his father and brother.
• Never Found the Body:
  • In "Victim", Emily was one of twin girls supposedly both murdered by Colin. Her body was never found - because she wasn't dead.
  • The missing Timothy Hampton's body was never found in "Memories." It's ultimately discovered that Stuart's mother had buried him in her back garden.
  • In "Regrets", the bank chairman's body isn't found, so no one will ever know Ken had anything to do with his disappearance.
• Never Suicide: Several episodes use this trope, including the aptly-named "Suicide." It also comes into play in "Mercy", "Motive", and "Landlord."
• Never Win the Lottery: Comes up in "Motive." Dana wins the lottery when she is babysitting for the Davises. Mike agrees to check her numbers for her whilst she is upstairs with the baby. When he sees that she's won millions of pounds, he impulsively kills her so he can claim the money for himself and his wife.
• No Ending: "Disposal" ends abruptly with Angela lifting a heavy rock and seemingly about to kill Barry - not showing the audience whether she succeeded.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • "Motive" opens in media res with the murder of Dana. Later, the same scene is replayed, but this time showing why Mike did it - so he could steal her winning lottery ticket.
  • In "Sleeper", Deborah goes over to see her friend Corrie late at night and talk about her suspicion that her boyfriend James is cheating on her. When Deborah finally realises James was cheating on her with Corrie, the scene replays, this time showing that Deborah saw James at Corrie's house - so she returned later that night while sleepwalking and killed Corrie.
  • "Rage" involves salesman Ed killing a man in a road rage incident. While Ed was frustrated and had a terrible day at work, he finally snaps because the victim was rude, aggressive, and physically threatened him. Later, the scene replays, showing that that's not what really happened; Ed was the aggressor and attacked the victim, then killed him. Ed just chose to remember it differently, but he's forced to confront the truth as he gets closer to Samantha.
• One-Word Title: Every episode has a title consisting of just one word, usually related to the narrative in some way. E.g. "Mercy" focuses on a death that is seemingly a Mercy Kill, "Flashback" is told in reverse order, "Teacher" is about a respected headmaster covering up a death, etc.
• Only Sane Man: Nigel initially appears to be one in "Neighbours", as he seems to be the only one who notices the amount of noise and mess that Alan has brought to the neighbourhood (with other neighbours, friends, and even his wife seemingly unable to appreciate how much his life is being disrupted). It soon becomes clear, however, that instead he is allowing Alan to drive him further and further over the edge as he becomes increasingly manic and later murderous.
• Out-Gambitted:
  • "Mercy": Collins planned to drug his wife and convince her that she was terminally ill and should end her own life. He is careful not to tell anyone what illness she supposedly had. But unknown to him, she had written a letter of confession to her priest; saying she'd been diagnosed with encephalitis (which the autopsy shows she didn't have), by a certain doctor (who doesn't exist), and that Collins assisted in her suicide. This leads to him being caught for her murder. The officer in charge of the case thinks Margaret knew something was wrong and planned for it.
  • "Disposal": Barry kills his brother-in-law, with whom his wife Angela was having an affair, and evades suspicion. He then smugly tells Angela that she's trapped and can either stay with him and do as he says, or tell the police the truth - which will ruin her sister's life and make Angela the prime suspect, since she's already lied to police to protect him. He is confident that she'll be too intimidated to do anything, only for her to lure him out onto a cliff and kill him. As Angela herself says, he never saw it coming because he is too self-centered to consider how others might think.
  • "Cornershop": Duggan knows Sanjay killed Brown but can't prove it, repeatedly trying to find where Sanjay stashed the corpse. He realizes too late that Sanjay did one thing Duggan would never have thought of: having the body served as food in a restaurant.
• Out of the Frying Pan: In "Swansong", Tara gets away with killing her unpleasant and abusive husband, but she's now in another abusive relationship with Garrett, who won't let her perform as a singer - just about the only thing that made her happy.
• Paparazzi: Referenced in "Teacher." Palmer's wife died in a road accident, but intrusive press ran with the story and claimed it was her fault for supposedly driving under the influence - because she'd taken medicine for her hayfever.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: "Mercy" has Collins plot to kill Margaret by having his mistress Alice dress up as a doctor and pretend to diagnose Margaret with a terminal illness. Alice was wearing a wig and a white coat, but she's someone Margaret knew and who lived in the same small village. This disguise probably only worked because Margaret was already drugged and very confused.
• Pedo Hunt: "Vigilante" is about a police officer who accidentally kills a suspected paedophile that he and his neighbours tortured for information about a missing child.
• The Perfect Crime:
  • In "Mercy", Dr William Collins comes up with "the perfect murder": poison his wife and convince her that she is terminally ill, and it would be better to end her own life and die with dignity. Subverted when he does get caught, but he still sees it as a perfect plan.
  • Referenced in "Flashback" where the dying Chadwick says that he thought he'd committed the perfect murder, but now doesn't believe such a thing exists.
• Perp Sweating: Occurs in most episodes
• Phoney Call: In "Passion", Jane fakes taking a call (from a landline that isn't plugged in) when she's completely alone at home with no one listening - just to be able to pretend she has friends who would listen to her talk about her worries.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: "Cornershop" involves an Indian man who is subject to relentless racial abuse by a white gang and ultimately snaps and kills the leader.
• Posthumous Narration: Chadwick gives one in "Flashback."
• Professional Killer:
  • Jim Napeworth in "Flame" is ostensibly this, although he doesn't always take the money. He seems to just be using it as a way to indulge his enjoyment of killing, while getting away with it by framing the victims' husbands.
  • In "Contract", three men take out a hit on their boss, but when he dies suddenly before the planned murder, they try to tell the killer his services are no longer needed. However, he won't go away without his money.
  • "Favours" centres on a former crook who is offered a large sum of money to carry out a hit for an old acquaintance.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The formula for each episode, in which a protagonist is thrust into murder, sometimes by circumstance, then spends the rest of the episode trying to cover it up.
  • Played with in "Stalkers." Hat's a generally normal person who attempts to kill Stephen out of sheer desperation because he won't stop stalking her; but it fails. Even when she does kill him, it's in self-defence after he kidnaps and attacks her.
  • Played with in the first series' episode "Motive". Initially, Susannah Harker's character is a very reluctant accomplice in her husband's murder of the babysitter over a winning lottery ticket, but becomes more colder and more homicidal then the husband, who becomes wracked with guilt as the episode continues. The wife pulls a Heel–Face Door-Slam on the husband by killing him before he can approach the investigators.
• Protection Racket: A plot point of "Cornershop", where Ronnie Brown does this with all the local businesses - leading to him being accidentally killed when Sanjay snaps and tries to fight back.
• Pulling the Thread: In "Landlord", Ben comes over looking for Clare, and Willis suggests that she left in her car. Ben knows that's not true - it's his car and she couldn't drive. He keeps asking questions and tripping up Willis, leading Willis to kill him to prevent him from calling police.
• Red Herring:
  • "Motive" repeatedly tries to suggest that Dana's murder has something to do with the fact of her father and Mike working together. It doesn't, and was actually because Mike knew she'd won the National Lottery, and wanted to steal her winning ticket for himself.
  • In "Victim", Colin insists that Emily and Lucy must not go near his room or use the upstairs floor at certain times - ostensibly because he's busy writing. This leads Lucy (and the viewer) to suspect he's the serial killer preying on local women. Emily is the killer, and Colin really was writing.
• Ripped from the Headlines: "Landlord" was inspired by multiple recent news cases of students dying from carbon monoxide poisoning in inadequately maintained properties. Referenced by Willis, who wants to cover up Clare McGregor's death because all the cases he's heard about led to the landlord being fined or jailed.
• Safety in Muggles: Subverted in "Landlord." Willis initially thinks no one knew Clare had moved into the apartment, and he's safe. But forgets he told Tim; who comes over to introduce himself to Clare. Then a pizza delivery guy shows up wanting payment for food he delivered to her. Willis resigns himself to the fact that he can't kill anyone else, so he'll just have to think of a way out of it. Only to kill Ben in a panic to prevent him from calling the police.
• Serial Killer: Many examples, but the most prolific include Napeworth in "Flame" (who's clearly killed a large number of people) and Emily in "Victim", who by the end of the episode has at least a dozen known victims.
• Settle for Sibling: It is suggested in "Cornershop" that Sanjay's wife would have preferred his ambitious, successful brother Manji; but had to settle for Sanjay because Manji was already married.
• Sinister Shiv: Garrett has Mark murdered in jail with one of these in "Swansong."
• Sinister Surveillance: In "Stalkers", Stephen steals Hat's spare key and breaks into her house to install hidden cameras everywhere so that he can watch her at any moment without her knowledge or consent.
• Sleepwalking: Deborah in "Sleeper" regularly sleepwalks, causing her to be exhausted during the day. It only gets worse when she comes to believe she killed someone when she was sleepwalking.
• Slipping a Mickey:
  • In "Victim", Emily drugs Colin and Lucy's wine so she can incapacitate them before killing them.
  • In "Contract", Terry drugged Anthony's drinks, rendering him immobile and unable to fight back, and making him look drunker to everyone else than he actually was - setting up his death to look like an accidental fire.
  • In "Stalkers", Hat tries to drug Stephen with sleeping pills in a glass of champagne, intending to render him unconscious and then kill him. It doesn't work since he can taste it, and spits it out.
• Smash to Black: Done at the end of "Disposal" before Angela seemingly kills Barry.
• The Sociopath:
  • Jim in "Flame" would fit the trope if he's in fact a real person.
  • In "Disposal", Angela describes Barry as this; saying that in her view it's like a disability.
• Spanner in the Works: In "Flashback", Chadwick's plan to kill Angela and frame Stuart Jackson should have gone without a hitch - but he didn't know about her unstable, overprotective girlfriend, who kills him outside the courthouse.
• Split Personality: A possible interpretation of "Flame" is that Jim is an alter ego of Joe.
• Stalker Shrine: In the aptly named "Stalkers", Stephen has such a shrine to Hat.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Stephen in "Stalkers", who obsessively stalks a woman he believes he's in love with, until she becomes so desperate she tries to kill him because the police won't do anything.
  • Jane in "Passion" is obsessed with her boss, stalks him, kills a co-worker he seemingly had an affair with, and frames his wife for the murder - all so she can have him for herself.
  • Ed is effectively this in "Rage." After seeing Samantha on TV (in a news interview about her husband, whom he himself killed in a road rage incident) he becomes fixated with her, goes to her husband's funeral to meet her, and repeatedly lies to her in an attempt to get closer to her.
• Starving Artist: Colin in "Victim", who makes next to no money as a playwright and has to resort to renting out rooms in his house just to pay the bills.
• Switching P.O.V.: At the end of "Disposal", the story switches from Barry's perspective to Angela's.
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Most of the killers look like perfectly normal people. A notable example is "Victim". Emily, an attractive and physically slight young woman, is a serial killer with at least a dozen victims. Meanwhile Colin, who seems like a normal guy, abducted two little girls and killed one of them.
• Undercover Cop Reveal:
  • In "Favours", Jed turns out to have been an undercover cop. He tried to tell Jamie, who didn't listen and just shot him.
  • At the end of "Justice", Tom discovers that the man who threatened him at Mickey Heath's house is an undercover cop and was working with Alex to pose as a gang member and set up a drug sting. Subverted with Alex who tried to tell Tom that he was a cop, but Tom didn't listen.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In "Flame", the murders of Sandra and Angus come about because posters on an internet message board warned Joe that he'd lose everything in the event of a divorce - leading him to accept Jim's offer to deal with the problem for him.
  • In "Vigilante", a simple mistake by someone at the local newspaper (mixing up similar names of two different people) leads to Henderson being tortured and killed by vigilantes that think he's a child molester.
• Vigilante Man: Appropriately, "Vigilante" involves the protagonist becoming this trope.
• With Friends Like These...:
  • "Vigilante": Liam kills two friends in order to keep himself out of jail. Only to find out one of them survived and will almost certainly report him.
  • "Sleeper": Deborah's boyfriend is having an affair with her supposed best friend Corrie. Corrie repeatedly lies to her about it and even comforts her when Deborah begins to suspect he's cheating. Deborah's two housemates claim to be her friends but do not tell her about the affair. In fact, David uses it to try to groom Deborah into a relationship with him instead.
  • "Victim": Emily grooms Lucy into a friendship over a period of months, all with the goal of murdering her and framing Colin for it.
  • "Stalkers": Hat's friend Kelly knows about Stephen's obsessive behaviour, and Hat even had to call Kelly to help her when Stephen wouldn't leave. But Kelly still tells Stephen a huge amount of personal, very sensitive information about Hat such as her having an abortion and being abused by an ex. Even if he were harmless, it's hardly appropriate to disclose this to someone that Hat doesn't know well.
  • In "Justice", protagonist Tom is the bad friend. When his friend Giorgios gives him a job to replace the one he lost, Tom frequently misses work or is late (including on the day of an important inspection) because of his drinking and obsession with his ex-wife's boyfriend.
• You Didn't Ask:
  • In "Mercy", police ask Collins what illness he said his wife had when she died. He says he never specified her condition because they didn't ask.
  • In "Swansong", when Mark mentions that he's been to jail before, Tara is shocked and says he didn't tell her about that. He points out that she never asked.

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