Fear's twist ending is the most unintentionally funny TV moment of the year so far

I was given two episodes in advance, and made my way through them. Although they were filled with clunky dialogue and some strange narrative choices, I found myself relatively compelled, not least because I simply didn't have a clue where it was all heading.

I thought to myself, "OK, it's built up over the first two episodes, now let's see where it goes over the rest of the season" - completely unaware at the time that the rest of the series was just one episode.

Once I got my hands on the third and final episode, my perceptions quickly shifted - suddenly what seemed like a slow-burn thriller that was legitimately unknowable became an inexplicably structured mess, with a story which went almost nowhere beyond its top-line premise.

I say almost, because the ending to Fear is quite something, and really has to be seen to be believed.

For context, Fear, which is available in its entirety now on Prime Video, follows Martyn (Compston) and Rebecca (Mohindra), parents to two young children who move their family from London to Glasgow to live in their dream home.

They soon meet their downstairs neighbour Jan (Solly McLeod), who rents the basement flat and who at first seems warm and welcoming, if a little odd.

However, things soon take a dark turn when Jan makes inappropriate, leering comments about Rebecca, and we come to learn that he has (somehow) discreetly hacked into every single one of the smart devices in their home.

Soon after, they get a letter through their door which is from Jan but addressed the police, informing them that he believes Martyn and Rebecca are abusing their children.

Through numerous twists and turns, some of them fairly baffling (Martyn unwittingly reports the accusations to social services himself), it gets to the point that Rebecca feels the need to leave the house with the kids in order to keep them safe.

An enraged Martyn turns to his somewhat estranged, gun-loving father Allan (it's established in episode 1 that he loves guns and you just kind of have to go with it) for advice. He turns up at the house with - you guessed it - a gun, and tells Martyn that Jan's involvement in their lives needs to stop now.

Convincing him that he needs to protect his family, Allan tells Martyn to go downstairs and shoot Jan dead, assuring him that he would take the blame for the crime and go to prison. He tells Martyn that if he doesn't do it, he will have to step in and shoot Jan himself. Either way, Jan would be dead within two minutes and Allan would be going to jail.

I feel like we need to pause there - already this situation has gone from zero to a hundred, with only the thinnest of character motivations for Allan to be so desperate not only to kill a man he's never met, but also to spend the rest of his life in jail.

Yes, Jan's intrusions into their life have been frightening and disruptive. Martyn having his own dark thoughts about whether to kill him, while extreme, might be on some level understandable. But Allan's only very recently been made aware of this situation and is suddenly all in on murder as the only recourse. It's frankly psychotic.

So far, so bonkers. Allan tries to convince Martyn that he may not be able to live with himself if he doesn't murder a man in cold blood (yes, that conversation does happen), but it's to no avail - Martyn can't bring himself to do it.

Allan takes matters into his own hands, and Martyn does nothing to stop him. The father goes downstairs, tricks his way into Jan's flat, tells him that's he's made his son's life "a misery" and shoots him dead. It's all over incredibly quickly.

Over the next few scenes, we see Allan being arrested, Martyn being taken in for questioning, and he and Rebecca subsequently reconciling. Queue a montage of scenes with Martyn looking sad, including one where he's inexplicably clutching hold of a satsuma as the camera zooms in on his mopey face.

The investigation into the claims Jan made against Martyn and Rebecca is brought to a close and the couple are exonerated, before attending Allan's trial.

During the trial, it is revealed that Jan had suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse throughout his childhood, explaining his later distress and his jumps to conclusions. We're told that he had previously admitted himself to a respite clinic to address his compulsion to make wrongful accusations.

Allan is sentenced to 18 years in prison, and is told he will only be eligible for release after those years have passed. The assumption is he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Then, we come to it. The real kicker, the twist we've all been waiting for.

In a flashback, it is revealed that we didn't see everything from Allan and Jan's encounter in the basement. It turns out that mere moments before Allan pulled the trigger, Martyn walked in behind him, grabbed the gun from his hand and committed the murder himself.

He then went upstairs, and played out Allan's original plan, with the father taking the rap for the son's crime.

You see, that's why Martyn's been down in the dumps - not because he conspired with his father to murder a man and did nothing as the crime took place, that would be silly.

No, it's because he pulled the trigger himself at the last moment and is therefore wracked with guilt, both for his father 'innocently' rotting in prison, and for taking the life of an evidently disturbed individual.

From the slow-mo staging of the murder to Jan's reaction and visible shock at Martyn's direct involvement, it's all abjectly hilarious.

Why did we need a twist? Whether Martyn himself pulled the trigger or not, what he did was still heinous. As he struggles to adjust back to normal life with his family, we never question why he's glum, there's already a lot for him to be glum about.

Watching the 'reveal' genuinely made me guffaw at how ridiculous it is on every level, which itself then left something of a bad taste in my mouth.

The thing is, Fear is dealing with some really dark, serious and sensitive subject matter, and it should really have been given its due. That's not to say you can't marry those subject matters with genre thrills and twists and turns. It just means that any missteps feel more seismic.

Given Jan's tragic backstory, we should feel queasy about Martyn's actions, and the death scene should be a sombre moment. Instead, it's all so quick, unnecessary and strangely staged as to be comical.

Now, I know what you're thinking - we're only in February, to say that something is the anything 'of the year' at this point is both premature and redundant.

That may be true, but for my own part I can't remember the last time I found a scene so unintentionally funny, and it's fair to say that the show's final minutes don't in any way justify the decision-making behind it.

All that happens is that Martyn confesses the truth to Rebecca and she tells him she already knew. He tells her he wishes he hadn't done it, which is nice, and the pair walk off together, uncertain whether their relationship can survive the fact that one of them murdered a man.

What are we meant to take away from it all? On one level, this is a story about how easily false accusations can ruin your life, while also addressing the danger of jumping to conclusions.

But by upping the stakes so much in the show's final half-hour, the waters get so muddied as to be completely opaque.

If the lesson here is "don't let your unhinged, gun-loving dad convince you to shoot your downstairs neighbour", I'd like to think the makers of Fear would be speaking to a very niche audience for whom that would ever be a consideration.

Whatever the thinking behind it, the ending to Fear is one I'll be left thinking about for some time to come - for all the wrong reasons.

Fear premieres on Prime Video on Tuesday 4th March - you can sign up now for a free 30-day Prime Video trial.

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