As this episode of Grantchester begins, Grace Hughes (Lauren Douglin) meets with Natalie (Alais Lawson) and the other women as they head to the church. Will Davenport (Tom Brittney) tells everyone that he has been reminded by the Parish Missionary Circle to inform everyone they’re having a charity auction tomorrow. Outside, Eleanor Ingram (Louiza Patikas) tells Will they have an unmitigated disaster because Sylvia promised a dozen cakes for the auction, but she hasn’t delivered. Jack (Nick Brimble) describes the situation with Sylvia as fubar. Kathleen Wilson (Sophie Fletcher) complains about the cakes as well.

Jim Baker (Tom Glenister) tells Will he was wonderful and he was moved by it. Grace says Eleanor has become fascistic about the event. Kathleen claims Eleanor’s husband is quite deaf. They reveal Eleanor claims the entire thing is driving her to drink. Daniel Marlowe (Oliver Dimsdale) wonders what doesn’t drive her to drink though. Jim would like to pick Will’s brains about following in his footsteps while Jack asks him to speak to Sylvia. Will says absolutely to all that and to getting 12 cakes for Eleanor. As he tries to escape, Neil Hughes (Tom Lorcan) tells him he doesn’t know how he puts up with those women blathering on. He jokes that they moon around Dansy the Pansy.

Will asks if it took him hours to come up with that. Grace asks Will if he’ll say a blessing at the auction. He quickly agrees. When Bonnie Evans (Charlotte Ritchie) arrives, they say she is pretty and ask whether she is single. Will insists they’re only friends, but they shouldn’t let the truth get in the way of good gossip. Will asks Bonnie what she knows about cakes before they successfully cook one that is partially burned. Will complains about Sylvia not cleaning or cooking once this week. Will asks for the brandy as he begins cutting the burned bits from the cake. Bonnie reveals she came because she is worried about Cathy who is really sad and mopey.

She asks about Geordie (Robson Green) as he enters, says good morning, and eats a piece of the burnt cake. Once Geordie goes back to bed, Bonnie suggests they need a plan to get Cath and Geordie back together. She claims they love each other but need to be reminded that love is a very splendid thing. They joke about the song. Will removes flour from her face before Dickens begins barking because another cake is burning in the oven. A bit later, Leonard Finch (Al Weaver) greets Will and Jim as they enter the Cherry Orchard. Will tells Leonard that Jim is interested in being a curate and he thought he could shed some light on that.

Leonard explains that it is about serving God as Sylvia comes out. Will asks what she is doing there. He asks whether she is trying to annoy him or remembers that she works for him. Sylvia responds by saying she is taking a hiatus. Leonard suggests it’d be helpful if she told Will why she is taking a hiatus. Sylvia says she is no longer a believer. Leonard follows up by explaining she and God had a falling out and God lost. Will argues she could’ve lost her faith after she baked 12 cakes. Sylvia calls him selfish before saying God deserts everyone in the end. Will asks Leonard if he has a dozen cakes lying around. Leonard doesn’t, but it seems he might have another solution.

Will takes baba ghanoush to Grace and Kathleen. Eleanor complains about the way Natalie has hung the bunting and makes her change it. She says she can’t hold her tongue about that girl anymore. She pulls Will aside to walk him through his moves. When Natalie pulls the curtain, everyone is surprised to see Neil lying in a pool of blood. As Geordie arrives outside, he sees an electrical services van in front of him. He goes inside where Will tells him that Neil Hughes was a local electrician. They approach his wife, Grace, and offer to take her home, but she’d prefer to stay busy. She last saw her husband here last night fixing the lights when she left with the girls from the missionary circle.

That was around seven. When she awoke alone, she didn’t think anything of it because he often sleeps in the van when he works late. Geordie orders Larry Peters (Bradley Hall) to round up the charity ladies for questioning. They say he’d fix anything for a price and let Natalie lodge at his house for two shillings per week. The women go on and on about heart attacks so Geordie quickly thanks them and tries to get away. Larry says there is no sign of forced entry and nothing was stolen. Will wonders if he slipped and fell, but Geordie believes he was hit by something sharp. He is almost certain it is murder so he orders Larry to get everything checked for blood and fingerprints.

Then, Geordie asks Will what he thought of the victim. Will admits he always thought he was a bit arrogant and pompous. When Geordie finds his keys, he says they should check his van. As they walk outside, Will admits he knows them more than he’d like to sometimes and he calls Grace nice and happily married. It looks like someone has tried to pry the van door open. Will finds a small hammer under the van leading him to believe someone tried to break in. Will says Eleanor Ingram is a rich woman who likes to gossip. Natalie Benoit is a French undergraduate who is quiet and studious. Will describes Kathleen as an uptight, pious widow.

Geordie finds a provocative photo of Kathleen that suggests otherwise. At the police station, Kathleen admits Neil developed the photos. He claimed no one would ever see the photos except for him and her. Will never thought she was the type to have an affair. Kathleen thought the same, but Neil made her feel noticed. After a few conjugal visits, Neil claimed he was falling in love with her, but he stopped contacting her after he got the photos. She admits she was desperate enough to try to break into his van to get the photos back. Kathleen denies attacking him while insisting she left with the other girls. She went back to talk to Neil in hopes of getting him to destroy the pictures, but he was already dead. Kathleen believes he had fallen from his ladder and dropped his hammer.

She took the hammer to try to break into his van, but she couldn’t. Since she lives alone, no one will be able to verify her movies. She claims she left Neil there. It hurts that she was only a joke to him. After the interview, Geordie argues the affair would give the wife motive to kill her husband. Will just can’t see her killing anyone. They catch up with Larry who reveals the murder weapon is the toolbox which had blood and hair on the edge. Miss Scott (Melissa Johns) gives them information about Neil while saying he was arrested for larceny three months ago. A wallet went missing at the cricket club where Neil was an umpire. Although all charges were dropped, it caused quite a stir at the club.

Will and Geordie head to the cricket club as Geordie says they have a wife with no alibi and a mistress with no alibi. They find Natalie working there because she needs to pay for the university. She reveals she is the one who reported Neil. Natalie explains that the team was playing against Chesterton. The wallet was left on the side and Neil was the only alone in there. When the wallet turned up later, Natalie felt terrible about it. After being questioned by Will, she confirms she stayed with Neil and Grace for two years. She moved out after the misunderstanding with the wallet. She leaves after showing them which locker belonged to Neil. Geordie questions whether she could’ve deliberately gotten him into trouble.

Will says it doesn’t make sense because she lost her home over it and he doesn’t think Neil was a thief either. As Geordie checks the locker, he finds an envelope full of jewelry. Although he suspects it was stolen, Will doesn’t think so since the envelope has Neil’s name on it. They go back and question Grace who doesn’t recognize the jewelry. Adam Ingram (Simon Balcon) warns him that his better half is gunning for him. Eleanor walks over to complain about Will missing her speech. When she asks about Kathleen’s photos, Will asks her not to gossip. As she walks away, Geordie says he is starting to warm to her.

Eleanor addresses the crowd to thank Grace for insisting they carry on today in memory of her husband. Then, they begin taking bids on the items to support the refugees. Daniel says hello. Will asks for the photos. Jack arrives at the charity event with Sylvia who isn’t happy to be there. Will is surprised that Sylvia has his coffee marker and intends to donate it. Jack asks what is wrong with that bloody woman. Will shows the photos to Daniel who says the composition is shoddy and they’re out of focus. He says it is cheap paper too before saying Kathleen and the others have always been sweet to him. He isn’t too fond of Neil. Daniel reveals an average roll will have 24 so Neil likely has more stashed somewhere.

Later, Geordie looks at the bids to see if the handwriting matches the writing on the envelope. Geordie says the wife is too calm for his liking. Will steals one of the bids on the coffee machine while arguing it is his. Geordie finds a match to the writing that belongs to Eleanor. They approach her to ask why she is giving jewelry to Neil. She explains that her husband got into a financial issue. He was gambling on horses and dogs. Neil paid off the debt for them. They had to give Neil jewelry to pay him back because her husband doesn’t know how to quit when he is ahead. She might’ve been angry at her husband, but not Neil. Geordie asks where she was on the night Neil did.

She insists she was at home and Adam was out before he interrupts to check on her. Geordie decides to take both of them down to the station. Before Eleanor goes, she promises Grace that she didn’t do it. At the station, Geordie asks why they didn’t use the jewelry to pay off the debt in the first place. Eleanor reveals they belonged to her mother. Adam claims he is capable of managing his finances, but Eleanor isn’t sure. She says this is another problem they don’t talk about. He reminds her that he works and provides for her although she says he loses it all at the bookies. Geordie asks them to stop bickering and tell him what happened last night. Later, he tells Will that they’re unforthcoming so he put them in the cells to loosen them up.

They talk about how the couple was neither happy nor rich. Before they leave for the pub, Will asks Geordie to change for him. Will slaps some cologne on him too. On the way to the pub, Geordie says it was odd that Grace didn’t bat an eye when her husband didn’t come home. He suspects Neil did that regularly. Soon, Geordie finds out that they’re not going to the Eagle. They sit down in an Italian restaurant and order wine. Bonnie and Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth) enter a short time later. They pretend this wasn’t arranged. They push the tables together before Cathy and Geordie ask the waiter to keep the wine coming. Frank finishes speaking at The Cherry Orchard. Sylvia bashes Frank’s poem by calling it awful.

Leonard pulls her aside to say she has gone too far this time because she hasn’t told Jack about the cancer. He encourages her to tell Jack and Will. He promises they’ll find the words together. Meanwhile, Geordie and Cathy bicker about their first few dates and wedding. Bonnie and Will feed one another. Will reminds Geordie that he had something for Cathy and it isn’t money for the weekly shop. He gives her a necklace as Bonnie says he remembered that opal was her favorite. Cathy doesn’t want to take it because she thinks it is transactional meaning he wants something in return. She suspects he wants sex since his record proves he can’t just do a nice thing. Geordie tells her to take it and he doesn’t want to have sex with her.

She gives it back and says the same before leaving. Will tells Geordie they thought it would help, but he says they thought wrong. Bonnie and Will decide to finish off the bottle of wine. Back at the office, Geordie looks at the necklace and thinks about something. He questions Eleanor and Adam. Eleanor admits Neil asked for money before they gave him the jewelry. Geordie asks whether there was something in return like sex. Adam says Neil was a good man who didn’t call his deafness a handicap. Eleanor confesses he offered to wipe off the debt if they slept together for one night. Although Adam can’t believe it, Eleanor admits she slept with him and he forced her to turn it into a regular thing.

She couldn’t do it again so she tried to pay him off with jewelry. Adam curses his wife. Eleanor argues she was cleaning up his mess and did it for them. Will and Bonnie agree that they had a good plan with good intentions. They kiss. Bonnie recommends going to his jazz club before saying they should just go back to his place. Will stops the kissing and wonders whether she really wants to do this since she is still grieving. She doesn’t understand him since he wasn’t like this with Maya, but he says that was only about sex. Bonnie asks why this can’t just be about sex. He says it is because she is her. He again suggests she will regret it. Bonnie believes she is “vicaring” her. He says she is amazing and kind, but that only makes matters worse.

She leaves alone after thanking him for not having great sex with her. When Will gets up in the morning, he finds everyone gathered downstairs because Sylvia has something to say. She tells them she has a cancer tumor in her womb. She is seeking a doctor, getting treatment, and she is going to get better. Jack gets upset that she told Leonard and never told her. Later, Will admits he can’t believe he didn’t see it. He assumed she was being her usual annoying self, but he always makes assumptions. Leonard doesn’t want him to make this his fault although he can’t say whether she’ll be okay. Sylvia tells Jack she didn’t know how to tell him because his heart means more to her than her own.

She just couldn’t break it. Jack wishes it was him who had cancer. When Will and Geordie get back to the station, they find Grace waiting for them because she wants to confess to killing her husband. She says they were married for a year before she found out he was having an affair. Although he said all the right things, he did it again after a few months. She found it was less painful to turn a blind eye. The last straw was when she saw the photographs. He showed the photos to his friends and laugh about it. When Grace went to confront him, he was on the ladder trying to fix the light. She was furious and humiliated so she hit him, but she can’t remember what she used. She felt something close to happiness that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

They go back to the crime scene to see if Grace’s statement checks out. Since Will can barely reach the light from the ladder, they doubt Neil could’ve. They agree he wasn’t on the ladder. Geordie suspects there are more women with stories to tell about Neil. As Will looks through the pictures, he sees the bunting and remembers Natalie putting it up. He says there were 10 photos of Kathleen. What happened to the rest? They have searched everywhere but can’t find them. They begin searching for the pictures again. While searching through the toolbox, they find pictures of Natalie. In an interview room, she says she had never been with a man or kissed before. He forced himself on her.

When he finished, she cried while he laughed. Neil told her she’d get used to it and might even enjoy it, but she cried every time. Grace is asked whether she saw the photos of Kathleen or Natalie. They question whether she let Natalie lodge with them because she thought Natalie would be safe there with her. She says Natalie had nowhere else to go and she watched him like a hawk. When she realized what was going on, she found Natalie somewhere else to live. He left her alone until that night. In a flashback, Neil touches Natalie’s leg as she hangs the bunting on a ladder.

Geordie says she accused him of stealing the wallet to get rid of him, but that didn’t work. She admits she couldn’t stand it anymore. She hits him with the toolbox. They believe Grace confesses out of guilt. She believes she is guilty in a way. She asks whether a judge will look kindly on her after what Neil did. Although Will says Neil is to blame for all of this, Grace thinks it would’ve been different if she had done something. Later, she joins Eleanor and Kathleen for church where Will wonders how well they know those closest to them. He talks about assuming they know what others want and are feeling. Will encourages them to learn to listen and stop assuming before reminding them his door is always open. Back at home, he hugs Sylvia after she enters the room.

 

Grantchester Review

Although the episode was a bit messy in the beginning, it improved significantly midway through and got even better near the end. The storylines are beginning to play out rapidly while the relationships are becoming deeper. The scenes with Sylvia coming clean about her health were very emotional and well done. The relationship between Will and Bonnie is developing nicely so it’ll be interesting to see how far that goes.

I liked the circumstances surrounding Neil’s death since they were realistic and a bit sad. While it didn’t match last week’s episode, it was still mostly enjoyable and set the path for the story leading into the next two episodes. It scores a 7 out of 10. Recaps of Grantchester can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support Reel Mockery here.