'Grantchester' Recap: Season 10 Episode 1

Grantchester airs Sundays at 8:00 pm on WTTW is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes and other seasons. 
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Alphy has organized an Easter fair for Grantchester before his first family Easter mass, and everyone loves it – almost everyone. Reggie Wait objects to the festivity, saying that Easter shouldn’t be fun. Alphy tries to cheer Reg as he holds a sign reading “the end is nigh.” Reg does allow his fiancée Mavis to put an Easter bunny head on him, but refuses to attend Alphy’s mass even as she goes.

Plenty of other people have complaints for Alphy, despite the cheer. Mrs. C is upset that he didn’t choose her hat in the hat contest (every other contender was a child) and worries that she’s boring. Cathy laments that a computer now does payroll at her work, taking away part of her job. And Leonard worries about Daniel’s plan to go see his parents, who kicked him out years ago. Everyone wants Alphy to talk to someone for them, but he urges them to take on their own issues.

After the Easter mass, a gunshot rings out. Alphy and Geordie rush towards the sound and find Reg dead on the ground, bunny head covering his own, with a gun within reach. Given his gloomy moods, suicide is considered. But he only got engaged to Mavis a few months ago – and there are two bullet casings on the ground, even though only one gunshot was heard.

Mavis did always worry about suicide because of Reg’s depressions, and says an argument Geordie and Alphy noticed between her and him at the fair was over getting him to seek help.

Reg was wealthy, having built up a business, and his next of kin is his sister Eliza. When she comes to identify his body, she says that he always suffered from dark moods but was brave; he won a military cross. Alphy and Geordie struggle to square this image with the mild-mannered, birdwatching Reg, and Geordie is skeptical of Eliza’s story..

Reg’s impressive house contains a reminder to buy birdseed – not something you would expect of someone planning to end his or her life – and military medals on display, but no cross of honor.

Back at the station, Geordie keeps stumbling upon Larry and Miss Scott “canoodling.” They’re still keeping up with their work, but Geordie tells them that everyone knows about their relationship and asks them to restrain themselves and have a bit of respect.

Mrs. C believes Mavis didn’t have much restraint, calling her a “minx” who often plays billiards. Everyone found Mavis’ match with the dour Reg a bit surprising – and when Alphy and Geordie search her out at a billiards bar, they find her kissing another man. Watching footage Jack took of the Easter fair with a new camera, they spotted her hiding something in the graveyard. Looking for whatever it was, Geordie found a pocket knife labeled “S.J.” and Alphy noticed a bullet hole in a festive sign, and the bullet behind it.

Mavis insists that she loved Reg, and Alphy – but not Geordie – believes her. She says she took the knife off Reg because she was worried he’d use it on himself.

Records show that Reg did win a military cross, for carrying men away from enemy fire. Alphy and Geordie are shocked, so Alphy goes to the library to dig through records. He flirts with a librarian while there. Geordie and his other friends have teased him for always going on just one date: “lovin’ and leavin’ em.” When Alphy asks the librarian for her phone number, she refuses to give it to him – because she doesn’t think he would actually call.

Alphy has more success in the archives. He finds a newspaper story about Reg winning the military cross – but the accompanying photo isn’t of the man who just died. It’s the man that Mavis was kissing at the billiards bar.

Reg’s sister Eliza has already identified his body, but Geordie brings her back in to see the man from the billiards bar – and she begins yelling at him and hitting him. He is the real Reg Waits, her actual brother. After serving in the military, he met Silas Jennings. Both were unhappy with their lives, so they swapped identities. The dead man is Silas – hence the “S.J.” pocket knife. Eliza identified Silas’s corpse as Reg’s because their mother recently died and her will has been tied up by Reg’s absence – he leads an itinerant life. Saying Reg was dead made resolving the will easier.

Reg didn’t like his parents, which is part of why he took on a new identity. Leonard worries that Daniel’s parents will once again hurt him if he tries to reconcile with them, but Daniel assures Leonard that he will be fine. Then Leonard learns in a phone call that his own father has died of a stroke. The funeral already happened, but Leonard’s father didn’t want him there. Some of his effects are sent to Leonard, including a filled flask that Leonard finishes off. He goes back to Daniel and tells him to see his parents before he misses his chance, not explaining why he has changed his mind.

Miss Scott apologizes to Geordie for canoodling with Larry, then hands him the will of Reg Waits – actually Silas Jennings. Everything, including the expensive house and business, is to go to Mavis. Meanwhile, the real Reg has almost nothing to his name.

That’s why he schemed with Mavis to entrap Silas and get into his will. But she fell in love with Silas. So when the real Reg showed up at the Easter fest wearing a similar suit to Silas and donned the bunny head, she argued with him, asking him not to hurt Silas. To prevent him from doing so, she decided to kill him, shooting the bunny-headed suited man during the mass while church bells rang, so that no one heard the shot. But the bunny head had made its way back to Silas. Mavis accidentally killed the man she loved.

Reg appeared and told Mavis to go back to church, handing her Silas’ pocket knife to hide, so that she would have an alibi. He then shot the gun at the sign, drawing everyone over to what looked like a suicide.

Alphy has returned to the library to give the librarian his phone number, putting the onus on her to call him. But Margaret, as she introduces herself, leaves him waiting in vain by the phone. Instead, she finds him in person.