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The mystery $253.55 in Netflix's Inside Man explained

inside man $25355
The $253.55 mystery in Inside Man explained BBC

Inside Man recently dropped on Netflix in full, after it premiered on BBC back in September 2022. If you didn't manage to catch it the first time round, it's safe to say you'll be obsessed with the show starring David Tenant, Stanley Tucci and It's A Sin's Lydia West.

The four part drama brings together four unlikely characters; a vicar played by David Tenant, his son's maths tutor played by Dolly Wells, a reporter played by Lydia West, and a prisoner on death row in the US played Stanley Tucci, who are all about to be part of a dilemma that leads to a murder.

While people online are already getting confused over the plot of the show, with one puzzle baffling everyone - what is the meaning of the $253.55 mentioned in the first 10 minutes of Inside Man?

This is everything you need to know about the mysterious amount of money:

Contains spoilers for Inside Man episode one

What is the $253.55 mystery in Inside Man?

The $253.55 mystery is presented during the first scene of Inside Man that features Stanley Tucci.

Stanley plays death row inmate Jefferson Grieff who is pretty unusual as prisoners go, as he believes his punishment is fitting for his crime (killing his wife), and as a former criminology professor, he gets to still take on cases during prison (the only catch is they must be of moral worth.)

inside man $25355
BBC

The first case viewers see him solve involves Senator Claude Kreiner who comes to meet Jefferson and his fellow inmate Dillan, who has a near perfect photographic memory and therefore acts as Jefferson's human tape recorder.

Jefferson opens their meeting by talking about the three women Kreiner has been accused of sexually assaulting 30 years ago. Kreiner denies any crime and says one of the women, Celina, works at his office.

Kreiner goes onto explain why he came to see Jefferson. Every time he sleeps with his wife, a sum of $253.55 is deposited into his bank account from an anonymous account.

The money usually comes into his account a few days after he sleeps with his wife.

After explaining the mystery, Jefferson laughs and dismisses the case as he believes it not to be of moral worth, but does not explain to Dillan immediately the reason behind his dismissal.

So what is the significance of the $253.55?

Later in the episode Dillan goes onto say he still doesn't understand the mystery and as Jefferson is explaining it the warden comes by and interrupts their conversation, but he does explain it very briefly.

Jefferson theorises that Kreiner's wife talks to Celina, when she starts working at Kreiner's office three months prior (the same time the money started going in his account) and discovers her own husband is in fact a rapist.

After she learns this, every time she has sex with her husband she is repulsed with the situation. Whilst she is not ready to talk to her husband about it, she can talk about it with a therapist.

inside man $253 meaning explained
BBC

Later in the episode Jefferson explains to Dillan rather than pay for the sessions out of their joint account (to avoid arousing suspicion from her husband), she asks Celina to pay the therapist from a different account as she is the only one who knows about her husband.

However, because of Celina's age and eyesight Jefferson theorises she misreads Mrs Kreiner's message and pays the "rapist" instead of "therapist".

Inside Man is now streaming on full on Netflix, if you didn't manage to catch it on BBC the first time around.

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